believe most readers would find, if they examined their impressions,
that to their minds _Julius Caesar_, _Hamlet_, _King Lear_ and _Macbeth_
have all a tendency to 'drag' in this section of the play, and that the
first and perhaps also the last of these four fail even in the
catastrophe to reach the height of the greatest scenes that have
preceded the Fourth Act. I will not ask how far these impressions are
justified. The difficulties in question will become clearer and will
gain in interest if we look rather at the means which have been employed
to meet them, and which certainly have in part, at least, overcome them.

(_a_) The first of these is always strikingly effective, sometimes
marvellously so. The crisis in which the ascending force reaches its
zenith is followed quickly, or even without the slightest pause, by a
reverse or counter-blow not less emphatic and in some cases even more
exciting. And the effect is to make us feel a sudden and tragic change
in the direction of the movement, which, after ascending more or less
gradually, now turns sharply downward. To the assassination of Caesar
(III. i.) succeeds the scene in the Forum (III. ii.), where Antony
carries the people away in a storm of sympathy with the dead man and of
fury against the conspirators. We have hardly realised their victory
before we are forced to anticipate their ultimate defeat and to take the
liveliest interest in their chief antagonist. In _Hamlet_ the thrilling
success of the play-scene (III. ii.) is met and undone at once by the
counter-stroke of Hamlet's failure to take vengeance (III. iii.) and his
misfortune in killing Polonius (III. iv.). Coriolanus has no sooner
gained the consulship than he is excited to frenzy by the tribunes and
driven into exile. On the marriage of Romeo follows immediately the
brawl which leads to Mercutio's death and the banishment of the hero
(II. vi. and III. i.). In all of these instances excepting that of
_Hamlet_ the scene of the counter-stroke is at least as exciting as that