The fair sound has conveyed no foul sense to his perception, but, incited rather by the fear and bewilderment of his usually dauntless companion than by any misgiving of his own (which indeed his calm and measured adjuration shows him to be free from), he turns to these mysterious oracles, and, with that authority before which the devils of old trembled and dispossessed themselves of their prey, he questions, and they reply. Mark the power · higher than any, save that of God from which it directly emanates, of the intrepid utterance of an upright human soul "In the name of Truth, are ye fantastical? At that solemn appeal, does one not see hell's agents start and cower like the foul toad touched by the celestial spear? How pales the glitter of the hero of the battlefield before the steadfast shining of this honest man, when to his sacred summons the subject ministers of hell reply true oracles, though uttered by lying lips- sincere homage, such as was rendered on the fields of Palestine by the defeated powers of darkness, to the divine virtue that overthrew them-such as for ever unwilling evil pays to the good which predominates over it, the everlasting subjection of hell to heaven. "Hail, hail, hail! - lesser than Macbeth, but greater," &c. proves at once that he had hitherto attached no importance to the prophecy of the witches, and that, now that its partial fulfilment compelled him to do so, he unhesitatingly pronounces the agency through which their foreknowledge had reached them to be evil. Most significant indeed is the direct, rapid, unhesitating intuition by which the one mind instantly repels the ȧpproach of evil, pronouncing it at once to be so, compared with the troubled, perplexed, imperfect process, half mental, half moral, by which the other labours to strangle within himself the pleadings of his better angel : — "This supernatural soliciting cannot be ill- Why hath it given me earnest of success Cawdor." The devil's own logic; the inference of And now the confused and troubled work-right drawn from the successful issue, the ings of Macbeth's mind pour themselves forth in rapid questions, urging one upon another the evident obstacles which crowd, faster than his eager thought can beat them aside, between him and the bait held forth to his ambitious desires; but to his challenge, made, not in the name or spirit of truth, but at the suggestion of the grasping devil which is fast growing into entire possession of his heart, no answer is vouchsafed; the witches vanish, leaving the words of impotent and passionate command to fall upon seal whose stamp, whether false or genuine, still satisfies the world of the validity of every deed to which it is appended. Wiser than all the wisdom that ever was elaborated by human intellect, brighter than any light that ever yet was obtained by process of human thought, juster and more unerringly infallible than any scientific deduction ever produced by the acutest human logic, is the simple instinct of good and evil in the soul that loves the one and hates the other. Like those fine perceptions by which cer brave, sudden denial of any kindred between the devil and truth, and the subsequent admission of the awful mystery by which truth sometimes is permitted to be a two-edged weapon in the armory of hell — are eminently characteristic of the same mind. Obliged to confess that the devil does speak true sometimes, Banquo, nevertheless, can tain delicate and powerful organizations detect with amazing accuracy the hidden proximity of certain sympathetic or antipathetic existences, so the moral sensibility of the true soul recoils at once from the antagonistic principles which it detects with electric rapidity and certainty, leaving the intellect to toil after and discover, discriminate and describe, the cause of the unutter-only admit that he does so for an evil purable instantaneous revulsion. Banquo is called upon by Macbeth directly for some expression of his own opinion of these mysterious events, and the impression they have made on his mind. "Do you not hope your children shall be kings," &c. He answers with that solemn warning, almost approaching to a rebuke of the evil suggestion that he now for the first time perceives invading his companion's mind: "That, trusted home, Might yet enkindle you unto the crown," &c. It is not a little remarkable that, having in the first instance expressed so strongly his surprise at finding a truth among the progeny of the father of lies, and uttered that fine instinctive exclamation, "What! can the devil speak true?" Banquo, in the final deliberate expression of his opinion to Macbeth upon the subject of the witches' prophecy, warns him against the semblance of truth, that combined with his own treacherous infirmity, is strengthening the temptation by which his whole soul is being searched : pose, and this passage is one of innumerable proofs of the general coherence, in spite of apparent discrepancy, in Shakespeare's delineations of character. The same soul of the one man may, with no inconsistency but what is perfectly compatible with spiritual harmony, utter both the sentiments: the one on impulse, the other on reflection. Here, for the first time, Macbeth encounters the barrier of that uncompromising spirit, that sovereignty of nature, which as he afterwards himself acknowledges" would be feared," and which he does fear and hate accordingly, more and more savagely and bitterly, till detestation of him as his natural superior, terror of him as the possible avenfather of a line of kings, fill up the measure ger of blood, and envy of him as the future of his murderous ill-will, and thrust him upon the determination of Banquo's assassination; and, when in the midst of his royal banquethall, filled with hollow-hearted feasting and ominous revelry and splendour, his conscience conjures up the hideous image of the missing guest, whose health he invokes with lips white with terror, while he knows that his gashed and mangled corpse is lying stark under the midnight rain; surely it is again with this solemn warning, uttered in vain to stay his soul from the perdition yawning for it in the first hour of their joint temptation,Might yet enkindle you unto the crown," &c. that the dead lips appear to move, and the dead eyes are sadly fixed on him, and the heavy locks, dripping with gore, are shaken in silent intolerable rebuke. In the meeting with the kind-hearted old king, which immediately follows, the loyal professions of the two generals are, as might have been expected, precisely in inverse ratio to their sincere devotion to Duncan. Banquo answers in a few simple words the affectionate demonstration of his sovereign, while Macbeth, with his whole mind churning round and round like some black whirlpool the murderous but yet unformed designs which have taken possession of it, utters his hollow professions of attachment in terms of infinitely greater warmth and devotion. On the "That, trusted home, nomination of the king's eldest son to the | so similar in their general character, and so dignity of Prince of Cumberland, the bloody exquisitely different in their particular form. task which he had already proposed to him- This last quoted passage precedes lines self is in an instant doubled on his hands; which appear to me incomparable in harmony and instantly, without any of his late mis- of sound and in the perfect beauty of their givings, he deals in imagination with the imagery: lines on which the tongue dwells, second human life that intercepts his direct which linger on the ear with a charm enattainment of the crown. This short solil- hanced by the dark horror of the speaker's oquy of his ends with some lines which are purpose in uttering them, and which remind not more remarkable for the power with one of the fatal fascination of the Gorgon's which they exhibit the confused and dark beauty, as it lies in its frame of writhing heavings of his stormy thoughts than for reptiles, terrible and lovely at once to the being the first of three similar adjurations, beholder: of various expression, but almost equal poetic beauty: "That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry, Hold! hold!" &c. The third of these murderous adjurations to the powers of nature for their complicity is uttered by Macbeth in the scene preceding the banquet, when, having contrived the mode of Banquo's death, he apostrophizes the approaching night thus: "Come, sealing night! Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day," &c. (what an exquisite grace and beauty there is in this wonderful line!) "And with thy bloody and invisible hand Cancel, and tear to pieces, that great bond, Which keeps me pale! Who but Shakespeare would thus have multiplied expressions of the very same idea with such wonderful variety of power and beauty in each of them?-images at once "Light thickens, and the crow Makes wing to the rooky wood." We see the violet-coloured sky, we feel the soft intermitting wind of evening, we hear the solemn lullaby of the dark fir-forest; the homeward flight of the birds suggests the sweetest images of rest and peace; and, coupled and contrasting with the gradual falling of the dim veil of twilight over the placid face of nature, the remote horror" of the deed of fearful note" about to desecrate the solemn repose of the approaching night gives to these harmonious and lovely lines a wonderful effect of mingled beauty and terror. The combination of vowels in this line will not escape the ear of a nice observer of the melody of our language: the "rooky wood" is a specimen of a happiness of a sound not so frequent perhaps in Shakespeare as in Milof words. To return to Banquo: in the ton, who was a greater master of the melody scene where he and Macbeth are received with such overflowing demonstrations of gratitude by Duncan, we have already observed he speaks but little; only once indeed, when in answer to the king's exclamation, "Let me unfold thee, and hold thee to my heart," he simply replies, "There if I grow, the harvest is your own." But while Macbeth is rapidly revolving in his mind the new difficulties thrown in the way of his ambition, and devising new crimes to overleap lest he fall down upon them, we are left to imagine Banquo as dilating upon his achievements to the king, and finding in his praise the eloquence that had failed him in the professions of his own honest loyalty; for no sooner had Macbeth departed to announce the king's approach to his wife, than Duncan answers to the words spoken aside to him by Ban- | Macbeth he expresses astonishment that he quo: 66 True, worthy Banquo, he is full so valiant, And in his praises I am fed." is not yet abed. How beautiful is the prayer Restrain in me the accursed thoughts that na ture Gives way to in repose." Further on the explanation of these lines is found in the brief conversation that follows between himself and Macbeth when he says, "I dreamed last night of the three weird sisters," and it is against a similar visitation of the powers of darkness during his helpless hours of slumber that he prays to be defended before surrendering himself to the heavy summons that "lies like lead upon him." It is remarkable that Banquo, though his temptation assails him from without in dreams of the infernal prophetesses, prays to be delivered not from them, but from the "accursed thoughts that nature gives way to in repose; " referring, and justly, his danger to the complicity with evil in his own nature that noble nature of which Macbeth speaks as sovereignly virtuous, but of which the moral infirmity is thus confessed by him who best knows its treacherous weakness. This slight indication of the generous disposition that usually lives in holy alliance with integrity and truth is a specimen of that infinite virtue which pervades all Shakespeare's works, the effect of which is felt in the moral harmony of the whole, even by those who overlook the wonderful details by which the general result is produced. Most fitting is it, too, that Banquo should speak the delicious lines by which the pleasant seat of Macbeth's castle is brought so vividly to our senses. The man of temperate passions and calm mind is the devout observer of nature; and thus it is that, in the grave soldier's mouth the notice of the habits of the guest of summer, "the temple-haunting martlet," is an appropriate beauty of profound significance. Here again are lines whose intrinsic exquisiteness is keenly enhanced by the impending doom which hovers over the kind old king. With a heart overflowing with joy for the success of his arms, and gratitude towards his victorious generals, Duncan stands, inhaling the serene summer air, receiving none but sensations of the most pleasurable exhilarations on the, threshold of his slaughter-house. The sunny breezy eminence, before the hospitable castle gate of his devoted kinsman and subject, betrays no glimpse to his delighted spirits of the glimmering midnight chamber, where, between his drunken grooms and his devildriven assassin, with none to hear his stifled cries for help but the female fiend who listens by the darkened door, his life-blood is to ooze away before the daylight again strikes at the portal by which he now stands rejoicing in the ruddy glow of its departure. Banquo next meets us, as the dark climax is just at hand; the heavens, obedient to the invocation of guilt, have shut their eyes, unwilling to behold the perpetration of the crime about to be committed. The good old king has retired to rest in unusual satisfaction, his host and hostess have made their last lying demonstrations, and are gone to the secret councils of the chamber where they lie in wait. Banquo- unwilling to yield himself to the sleep which treacherously presents to his mind, through the disturbed Banquo stands in the hall of Macbeth's agency of dreams, the temptation so sternly castle, in that sudden surprise of dreadful repelled by his waking thoughts is about circumstances alone master of his soul, alone to withdraw, supposing himself the last of able to appeal to the All-seeing Judge of all who wake in the castle; for on meeting | human events, alone able to advise the ac Banquo next appears in the midst of the hideous uproar consequent upon Duncan's murder, when the vaulted chambers of the castle ring with Macduff's cries to the dead man's sleeping sons-when every door bursts open as with the sweeping of a whirlwind, and half-naked forms, and faces white with sudden terror, lean from every gallery overlooking the great hall into which pour, like the in-rushing ridges of the tide, the scared and staring denizens of the upper chambers; while along remote corridors echoes the sound of hurrying feet, and inarticulate cries of terror are prolonged through dismal distant passages, and the flare of sudden torches flashes above and below, making the intermediate darkness blacker; and the great stone fortress seems to reel from base to settlement with the horror that has seized like a frenzy on all its inmates. From the midst of this appalling tumult rises the calm voice of the man who remembers that he "stands in the great hand of God," and thence confronts the furious elements of human passion surging and swaying before him. tions and guide the counsels of the passion- this up by joining Russia and Austria in an shaken men around him-a wonderful" identical note " to the same effect. Furthimage of steadfastness in that tremendous er, he is even said to have sanctioned the chaos of universal dismay and doubt and terror. This is the last individual and characteristic manifestation of the man. The inevitable conviction of Macbeth's crime, and equally inevitable conviction of the probable truth of the promised royalty of his own children, are the only two important utterances of his that succeed, and these are followed so immediately by his own death that the regretful condemnation of the guilty man once the object of his affectionate adiniration cannot assume the bitterer character of personal detestation, or the reluctant admission of the truth of the infernal prophecy beguile him into dangerous speculations as to the manner of its fulfilment. The noble integrity of the character is unimpaired to the last. From The Spectator, 27 April. LORD STANLEY AND THE COMING WAR. proposal of certain alternatives, such as the "neutralization" of Luxemburg, or its transfer to Belgium, or its exchange for a Belgian district to be given to France, all of which have been more or less summarily rejected. The honourable path of retreat is therefore cut off, and Napoleon, assured by all Europe that he is quite in the right, must either go forward, or admit publicly that he abandons a claim, adjudged by disinterested parties to be valid, out of fear. That is not the result our diplomacy was expected to achieve, and it is the worse because there was no necessity for intervening. The question at issue is not one of importance to us. If the Treaties of 1839 are in existence, as Prussia contends, her right to garrison Luxemburg is as clear as ours to garrison Malta. If they are not, as France contends and Lord Stanley appears to have argued, what, beyond acknowledging_that fact, have we to do with the matter? Lord Stanley will probably plead that peace is of the highest importance to our individual interests, which is true, if by peace we It would seem to be almost impossible for mean a genuine peace, and not merely an England to adhere to the policy of non-in-armed truce, but how does intervention tervention. If ever there was a Foreign Secretary who might be trusted not to intervene unnecessarily in Continental quarrels it is Lord Stanley. If ever there was a quarrel in which intervention was inexpedient, it is the one between France and Germany about the evacuation of Luxemburg. Yet unless all Europe is deceived, Lord Stanley has not only intervened in that affair, but intervened in such a manner that it will be harder than ever to maintain peace. The situation, stripped of diplomatic reticences, is this. The Emperor of the French demands the evacuation of Luxemburg as a right- the King of Holland being sole proprietor of the State and as a concession necessary to his honour, and threatens that if his demand is rejected he will enforce it by arms. The King of Prussia rejects the demand, first, as unfounded he having treaty rights in the fortress; and secondly, as one with which his honour will not permit him to comply. The issue being joined, the best hope of peace is that Napoleon, aware as he is of the magnitude of the risks involved in war, should be furnished with some honourable excuse for retreat. Thereupon, Lord Stanley, according to report, intervenes with a dispatch in which England gives her opinion that France is in the right, and follows help to maintain it? It might, no doubt, if we were prepared to threaten an alliance with France unless Prussia made some concession, but we are not prepared. We are not about, and we know that we are not about, to land an army at Memel, or blockade Hamburg, or do anything whatsoever contrary to the interests of Germany. If France wins we may have to fight for Belgium to maintain our pledges, and if Germany wins we might interfere to protect Holland as a free and allied State, but until one of those two countries is threatened we most assuredly shall not fight. Count von Bismarck knows that as well as we do, and the dispatch therefore reads to him as a mere declaration that England likes peace on the Continent better than war. So does he, only he dislikes the price he would just now have to pay for it. But there are moral forces which we have to consider. The "moral force" of England was very strongly exerted on behalf both of Denmark and Poland, and saved neither of them one single exaction. The Prussian Government does not care one straw whether we think it in the right or not, and as for peace, it may reply, and doubtless will reply, that peace is very dear to it, and that Napoleon has only to recede to make peace certain, while we are directly advising him |