We cannot dwell upon

The retribution which falls upon Lady Macbeth is precisely that which is fitted to her guilt. The powerful will is subjected to the domination of her own imperfect senses. her terrible punishment. There can be nothing beyond the agony of

"Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand."

The vengeance falls more gently on Macbeth; for he is in activity; he is still confident in prophetic securities. The contemplative melancholy which, however, occasionally comes over him in the last struggle is still true to the poetry of his character :

"Seyton!-I am sick at heart,
When I behold-Seyton, I say!-This push
Will cheer me ever, or dis-seat me now.
I have liv'd long enough: my way of life
Is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf:
And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but, in their stead,

Curses not loud, but deep, mouth-honour, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not."

This

passage,

and the subsequent one of

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death,"-

tell us of something higher and better in his character than the assassin and the usurper. He was the victim of "the equivocation of the fiend;" and he has paid a fearful penalty for his belief. The final avenging is a compassionate one, for he dies a warrior's death :

"I will not yield,

To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet,
And to be baited with the rabble's curse.
Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane,
And thou oppos'd, being of no woman born,
Yet I will try the last: Before my body
I throw my warlike shield."

The principle which we have thus so imperfectly attempted to exhibit, as the leading characteristic of this glorious tragedy, is, without doubt, that which constitutes the essential difference between a work of the highest genius and a work of mediocrity. Without power-by which we here especially mean the ability to produce strong excitement by the display of scenes of horrorno poet of the highest order was ever made; but this alone does not make such a poet. If he is called upon to present such scenes, they must, even in their most striking forms, be associated with the beautiful. The pre-eminence of his art in this particular can alone prevent them affecting the imagination beyond the limits of pleasurable emotion. To keep within these limits, and yet to preserve all the energy which results from the power of dealing with the terrible apart from the beautiful, belongs to few that the world has seen to Shakspere it belongs surpassingly.

"As

THE original quarto edition of Troilus and Cressida, printed in 1609, bears the following title :The famous Historie of Troylus and Cresseid. Excellently expressing the Beginning of their Loues, with the Conceited Wooing of Pandarus Prince of Licia. Written by William Shakespeare. London, Imprinted by G. Eld, for R. Bonian and H. Walley, and are to be sold at the Spred Eagle in Paules Churchyeard, ouer against the great North Doore, 1609.' In the same year a second edition was put forth by the same publishers, in the title-page of which appears, it was acted by the King's Majesty's Servants at the Globe." There was a preface to the first edition, which is omitted in the second, in which are these words:-" You have here a new play, never staled with the stage." We shall have occasion more fully to notice this preface. No other edition of the play was published until it appeared in the folio collection of 1623. Its position in this collection has given rise to a singular hypothesis. Steevens says, " Perhaps the drama before us was not entirely of his (Shakspere's) construction. It appears to have been unknown to his associates, Hemings and Condell, till after the first folio was almost printed off." If the play had been unknown to Hemings and Condell, the notion that, for this reason, it might not be entirely of Shakspere's construction, would be a most illogical inference. But how is it shown that the play was unknown to Shakspere's associates? Farmer tells us, "It was at first either unknown or forgotten. It does not, however, appear in the list of the plays, and is thrust in between the Histories and the Tragedies, without any enumeration of the pages; except, I think, on one leaf only." If these