exactly in the predicament which the dramatic poet Diphilus has described with such beautiful simplicity of expression— Όστις γαρ αύτος αὑτον οὐκ αἰσχύνεται, The wretch who knows his own vile deeds, and yet fears not himself, how should he fear another, who knows them not? It is manifest therefore that there is an essential difference in the developement of these characters, and that in favour of Macbeth. In his soul cruelty seems to dawn; it breaks out with faint glimmerings, like a winter-morning, and gathers strength by slow degrees. In Richard it flames forth at once, mounting like the sun between the tropics, and enters boldly on its career without a herald. As the character of Macbeth has a moral advantage in this distinction, so has the drama of that name a much more interesting and affecting cast. The struggles of a soul naturally virtuous, whilst it holds the guilty impulse of ambition at bay, affords the noblest theme for the drama, and puts the creative fancy of our poet upon a resource, in which he has been rivalled only by the great father of tragedy, Eschylus, in the prophetic effusjons of Cassandra, the incantations of the Persian magi for raising the ghost of Darius, and the imaginary terrific forms of his furies; with all which our countryman probably had no acquaintance, or at most a very obscure one." CUMBERLAND.a The latter part of this number, here omitted, and which includes a comparison between Eschylus and Shakspeare, will be found in the second part of our volume. a The Observer, No. 55. No. XIII. ON THE CHARACTERS OF MACBETH AND RICHARD CONTINUED. WE are now to attend Macbeth to the perpetration of the murder which puts him in possession of the crown of Scotland; and this introduces a new personage on the scene, his accomplice and wife she thus developes her own character Come, all you spirits, That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between You wait on nature's mischief: Come, thick night, Terrible invocation! Tragedy can speak no stronger language, nor could any genius less than Shakspeare's support a character of so lofty a pitch, so sublimely terrible at the very opening. The part which Lady Macbeth fills in the drama, has a relative as well as positive importance, and serves to place the repugnance of Macbeth in the strongest point of view; she is in fact the auxiliary of the witches, and the natural influence which so high and predominant a spirit asserts over the tamer qualities of her husband, makes those witches but secondary agents for bringing about the main action of the drama. This is well worth a remark; for if they, which are only artificial and fantastic instruments, had been made the sole or even principal movers of the great incident of the murder, nature would have been excluded from her share in the drama, and Macbeth would have become the mere machine of an uncontrollable necessity; and his character, being robbed of its free agency, would have left no moral behind. I must take leave therefore to anticipate a remark, which I shall hereafter repeat, that when Lady Macbeth is urging her lord to the murder, not a word is dropped by either, of the witches or their predictions. It is in these instances of his conduct that Shakspeare is so wonderful a study for the dramatic poet. But I proceed Lady Macbeth, in her first scene, from which I have already extracted a passage, prepares for an attempt upon the conscience of her husband, whose nature she thus describes -Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way. He arrives before she quits the scene, and she receives him with consummate address -Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor! Greater than both by the All-hail hereafter! These are the very gratulations of the wit she welcomes him with confirmed predic with the tempting salutations of ambition with the softening caresses of a wife MACB. Duncan comes here to-night. LADY. And when goes hence? The rapidity of her passion hurries her into i diate explanation, and he, consistently wit character she had described, evades her pitate solicitations with a short indecisive ans We will speak further His reflections upon this interview, and the d ful subject of it are soon after given in solil in which the poet has mixed the most tou strokes of compunction with his meditations. reasons against the villainy of the act, and h jointly with nature assails him with an argu of double force : He's here in double trust; First as I am his kinsman and his subject, Strong both against the deed; then as his host, This appeal to nature, hospitality, and allegi |