in the moment of his royal exultation, and the astonishment and alarm of
the courtiers--is one of the most thrilling and tumultuous. Yet Siddons,
sitting at the extremity of the royal hall, not having a syllable to
utter, and simply occupied with courtesies to her guests, made her
silence so expressive, that she more than divided the interest with the
powerful action going on in front. And when at last, indignant at
Macbeth's terrors, stung by conscience, and alarmed at the result of an
up-breaking of the banquet with such rumours in their lips, she rushed
towards her unhappy husband, and burst out with the words, still though
but whispered, yet intensely poured into his passive ear--

"Are you a _man_?
This is the very painting of your fear!
This is the air-drawn dagger, which, you said,
Led you to Duncan!--
Why do you make such faces? When all's done,
_You look but on a stool_!"

In those accents all else was forgotten.

But her sleep-walking scene! When shall we see its "second or its
similar?" Nothing so solemn, nothing so awful, was ever seen upon the
stage. Yet it had one fault--it was too awful. She more resembled a
majestic shade rising from the tomb than a living woman, however
disturbed by wild fear and lofty passion. It is a remarkable instance of
the genius of Shakspeare, that he here found the means of giving a human
interest to a being whom he had almost exalted to the "bad eminence" of
a magnificent fiend. In this famous soliloquy, the thoughts which once
filled and fired her have totally vanished. Ambition has died; remorse
lives in its place. The diadem has disappeared; she thinks only of the