fentation, excellent beyond comparifon. No other dramatic writer could ever pretend to fo deep and fo extenfive a knowledge of the human heart; and he had a genius to exprefs all that his penetration could difcover. The characters, therefore, which he has drawn, are masterly copies from nature; differing each from the other, and animated as the originals, though correct to a fcrupulous precision. The truth and force of the imitation

recommend it as a fubject worthy of criticism and though it admits not of fuch general rules as the conduct of the fable, yet every feveral character furnishing a variety of remarks, the mind, by attending to them, acquires a turn to fuch obfervations; than which nothing is more agreeable or more useful in forming the judgment, whether on real characters in life, or dramatic reprefentations of them."

"A

Mind fo framed and fo tortured as that of Macbeth, when the hour of extremity preffes upon him, can find no refuge but in despair; and the expreffion of that defpair by Shakespeare, is perhaps one of the finest pictures that ever was exhibited. It is wildness, inconfiftency, and diforder, to fuch a degree, and fo apparent, that "Some fay he's mad; others who leffer

hate him,

Do call it valiant fury: but for certain, He cannot buckle his diftempered caufe Within the belt of rule."

It is prefumption without hope, and confidence without courage that confidence refts upon his fuperftition; he buoys himself up with it against all the dangers that threaten him, and yet finks upon every fresh alarm :

"Bring me no more reports; let them fly all:

Till Birnam wood remove to Dunfinane, I cannot taint with fear, What's the boy Malcolm? Was he not born of woman? Spirits that know, All mortal confequences, have pronounced it,

Fear not, Macbeth! No man that's born

of woman

Shall e'er have power upon thee.-Fly falfe Thanes,

And mingle with the English Epicures! The mind I fway by, and the heart I bear,

Shall never fagg with doubt, nor shake with fear!"

His faith in these affurances is implicit; he really is perfuaded that he may defy the forces of his enemies, and the treachery of his friends: but immediately after, only on feeing a man who, not having the numbers approaching against the fame fupport, is frightened at them, he catches his apprehenfion;

tells him

When I behold-Seyton! I fay, this push

Will cheer me ever, or difeafe me now.

I have lived long enough; my way of

life

Is fall'n into the fear, the yellow leaf." By these reflexions, by those which follow on his uncomfortable profpect of old age, and by thofe which he afterwards makes on the vanity of life, when he hears that Lady Macbeth is no more, he appears to be preparing for his fate. But his feeming compofure is not refignation; it is paffion ftill; it is one of the irregularities of defpair, which fometimes overwhelms him, at other times starts into rage, and is at all times intemperate and extravagant. The refolution with which he bore up against the defertion of the Thanes, fails him, upon meeting the meffenger who comes to tell him the numbers of the enemy when he receives the confirmation of that news, his dejection turns into fury, and he declares,

"I'll fight, till from my bones my Aefh is hack'd"

He then impetuously gives his orders to

Send out more horfes; fkirr the country round;

Hang thofe that talk of fear."-He repeats them afterwards with impatience. Though the enemy is fill at a distance, he calls for his armour; notwithstanding Seyton's remonstrance that it is not needed yet, he perfifts in putting it on; he calls for it eagerly afterwards; he bids the perfon who is affitting him, difpatch; then the moment it is on, he pulls it off again, and directs his attendants to bring it after him. In the midst of all this violence and burry, the melancholy which preys upon him fhews itself, by the fympathy he expreffes fo feelingly, when the difcafed mind of Lady Macbeth is mentioned; and yet

neither the troubles of his confcience, nor his concern for her, can divert his attention from the diftrefs of his fituation. He tells her phylician that the Thanes fly from him; he could not want, and in whom and betrays to him, whofe affiftance he did not mean to place any particular confidence, his apprehenfions of the English forces. After he has forbid thofe about him to bring him any more reports, he anxioufvery danger which he fuppofes he ly enquires for news; he dreads efcorns; at least he recurs to his fuperftition, as to the only relief from

his

tated fcene, as he had begun it, agony; and concludes the agiwith declaring that he

"will not be afraid of death or bane, Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.”

At his next appearance he gives his orders, and confiders his fituation more calmly; but till there is no fpirit in him. If he is for a short time fedate, it is because

"-he has furfeited with horrors; Direnefs, familiar to his flaughterous thoughts,

Cannot now ftart him."

He appears compofed, only becaufe he is become almost indifferent to every thing: he is hardly affected by the death of the Queen, whom he tenderly loved: he checks himfelf for withing he had lived longwhich in his eftimation now er; for he is weary himfelt of life,

"Is but a walking fhadow; a poor player,

That ftruts and frets his hour upon the ftage,

And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an ideot, full of found and fury,

Signifying nothing."

Yet though he grows more careless about his fate, he cannot reconcile himfelf to it; he fill flatters himfelf that he fhall escape, even after

he

They've tied him to a flake; he cannot fly,

But, bear-like, he must fight the course,” he fummons all his fortitude; and, agreeably to the manliness of character to which he had always formed himself, behaves with more temper and fpirit during the battle than he had before. He is fo well recovered from the diforder he had been in, that the natural fenfibility of his difpofition finds even in the field an opportunity to work; where he declines to fight with Macduff, not from fear, but from a confcioufness of the wrongs he had done to him he therefore answers his provoking challenge, only by faying

"Of all men elfe I have avoided thee:
But get the back; my foul is too much
charg'd
With blood of thine already."

air

With thy keen fword imprefs, as make me bleed :

Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crefts; I bear a charmed life.".

But his reliance on this charm being taken away by the explanation given by Macduff, and every hope now failing him, though he wifhes not to fight, yet his fenfe of honour being touched by the threat, to be made the few and gaze of the time, and all his paffions being now loft in defpair, his habits recur to govern him; he difdains the thought of difgrace, and dies as becomes a foldier. His laft words are

"I will not yield,

To kifs the ground before young Malcolm's feet,

And to be baited by the rabble's curfe. Tho' Birnam wood be come to Duufi

nane,

And thou oppos'd being of no woman born,

Yet will I try the laft: before my body I throw my warlike fhield: lay on, Macduff!

And damn'd be he that first cries Hold, enough."

If this behaviour of Macbeth required, it would receive illuftration, by comparing it with that of Richard in circumftances not very different. When he is to fight for prehis crown and for his life, he pares for the crins with the most perfect evennefs of temper; and rifes as the danger thickens, into ardour, without once starting out into intemperance, or ever finking into dejection. Though he is fo far from being fupported, that he

is

And all my armour laid into my tent?" directing them to come about midnight to help to arm him. He is attentive to every circumftance preparatory to the battle; and preferves throughout a calmnefs and prefence of mind which denote his intrepidity. He does not lofe it upon being told, that the foe vaunts in the field; but recollecting the orders he had given over night, now calls for the execution of them, by directing Lord Stanley to be fent for, and his own horfe to be rifoned. He tells the Duke of Norfolk, who is next in command to himself, the difpofition he had formed; and every thing being in readinefs, he then makes a fpeech to encourage his foldiers: but on hearing the enemy's drum, he concludes with,

сара

of victory, he rushes on the enemy. It is not a formed fenfe of honour, nor a cold fear of difgrace, which impels him to fight; but a natural high fpirit, and bravery exulting in danger: and being fenfible that the competition is only perfonal between him and Richmond, he directs all his efforts to the deftruction of his rival; endeavours himfelt to fingle him out, and feeking him in the throat of death, he fets his own life upon the caft. Five times foiled in his aim, unhorfed, and furrounded with foes, he still perfifts to fland the hazard of the die; and having enacted more wonders than a man, lofes his life in an attempt fo worthy of himfelf.

Thus, from the beginning of their history to their last moments, are the characters of Macbeth and Richard preferved entire and dif tint: and though probably Shakefpeare, when he was drawing the one, had no attention to the other; yet, as he conceived them to be widely different, expreffed his conceptions exactly, and copied both from nature, they neceflarily became contrasts to each other; and, by feeing them together, that contraft is more apparent, especially where the comparison is not between oppofite qualities, but arifes from the different degrees, or from a particular difplay, or totel omiffion, of the fame quality. This laft must often happen, as the character of Macbeth is much more complicated than that of Richard; and, therefore, when they, are fet in oppofition, the judgment of the poet fhews itself as much in what he has left out of the latter, as in what he has inferted. The picture of Macbeth is alfo, for the fame reafon, much the more highly finished of the two; for it required a greater variety, and a greater

delicacy