It frequently happens, no doubt, that men are withheld from the commission of a crime by the fear of being hanged. Not exactly of this nature are the apprehensions, although largely partaking of the same worldly calculation of results, which, according to the reviewer, restrain Macbeth from the instantaneous performance of his horrible design. Nevertheless, the language of the preceding passage furnishes us with no evidence to show that Macbeth was labouring under any such apprehensions as those of which the reviewer speaks. All that is conveyed by the preceding passage is, that crime cannot be committed even in this world with impunity,-that "we still have judgment here," that "bloody instructions, being taught, return to plague the inventor,”—that "this even-handed justice commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice to our own lips." From the tenor of the last-quoted observations we learn that Macbeth wavers in his purpose because he shrinks from the consequences of the crime he meditates; but in what the nature of those consequences consists, the language of the foregoing passage does not specify. Looking at that pas

sage apart from the rest of the soliloquy, we do not learn from it whether it is solely from a moral or from a purely worldly retribution that Macbeth recoils. In fact, neither the lines we have already quoted, nor those of any other portion of the soliloquy, can be truly represented as expressing upon Macbeth's part "a consciousness of the impossibility that he should find of masking his guilt from the public eye,-the odium which must consequently fall upon him in the opinions of men, -and the retribution which it would probably bring upon him ;" and, therefore, it can only be by implication that the reviewer imputes the murderer's hesitation to the operation of selfish considerations alone. Now the whole tenor of the soliloquy seems to us to justify a directly opposite conclusion.

He's here in double trust;

First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,

Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,

Who should against his murderer shut the door,

Not bear the knife myself."

These words display Macbeth's own consciousness of the enormity of the crime he medi

tates.

The magnitude of the guilt is alluded to in this sentence in the strongest terms, but there is not the remotest reference here made to "the impossibility of masking his guilt from the public eye, to the odium which must consequently fall upon him in the opinions of men,-and to the retribution which it would probably bring upon him." But, although Macbeth makes no allusion to the chances of detection, the reviewer might reply, it is, nevertheless, of that that he is thinking-of the odium and retribution which would be the consequence of failure,-when he refers to the damning nature of the act he contemplates. Do, then, the passages which follow, in a yet stronger point of view, evince the selfish apprehensions under which Macbeth is labouring ?

Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been

So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking off;
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,

Striding the blast, or Heaven's cherubim, horsed

Upon the sightless couriers of the air,

Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,

That tears shall drown the wind."

If Macbeth, while giving utterance to such reflections as these, which seem to proceed from the very depths of a conscience-stricken heart, be, all the while, merely apprehensive of the consequences of failure, he certainly has a most original method of expressing the inordinate apprehensions of which he is the slave. Had selfish considerations been as strong within him as the reviewer has represented, would not the idea of avenging demons rather than of angels pleading "trumpet-tongued against the deep damnation of his taking off" have occurred to the imagination of so pitiful a villain: and while fearing lest

"Heaven's cherubim

Might blow the horrid deed in every eye,"

would it be to tears only that the despicable ruffian would allude, while dreading the retribution that might follow the commission of the crime? Upon Lady Macbeth's entrance, at the conclusion

of his self-conference, Macbeth makes the following declaration

"We will proceed no further in this business :

He hath honoured me of late; and I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people,

Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
Not cast aside so soon."

In this passage we trace the frank expression at the moment of a generous mind, which regards in yet blacker colours the crime it meditates, on account of the base ingratitude which that crime involves.

"He hath honoured me of late."

Keenly sensitive, as a not utterly degraded mind must be, of the loss of his own self-respect, and of the esteem of all good men, he shrinks from the commission of a deed which would render him utterly unworthy of the "golden opinions" he has so lately won.

If, then, the soliloquy we have been considering, as well as Macbeth's frank declaration to his wife, "We will proceed no further in this business," show, as we have endeavoured to point out, that it is through conscientious scruples,