MACBETH and Lear, Othello and Hamlet, are usually reckoned
Shakespeare's four principal tragedies. Lear stands first for the
profound intensity of the passion; Macbeth for the wildness of the
imagination and the rapidity of the action; Othello for the
progressive interest and powerful alternations of feeling; Hamlet
for the refined development of thought and sentiment. If the force
of genius shown in each of these works is astonishing, their variety
is not less so. They are like different creations of the same mind,
not one of which has the slightest reference to the rest. This
distinctness and originality is indeed the necessary consequence of
truth and nature. Shakespeare's genius alone appeared to possess the
resources of nature. He is 'your only tragedy-maker'. His plays have
the force of things upon the mind. What he represents is brought
home to the bosom as a part of our experience, implanted in the
memory as if we had known the places, persons, and things of which
he treats. Macbeth is like a record of a preternatural and tragical
event. It has the rugged severity of an old chronicle with all that
the imagination of the poet can engraft upon traditional belief. The
castle of Macbeth, round which 'the air smells wooingly', and where
'the temple-haunting martlet builds', has a real subsistence in the
mind; the Weird Sisters meet us in person on 'the blasted heath';
the 'air-drawn dagger' moves slowly before our eyes; the 'gracious
Duncan', the 'blood-boltered Banquo' stand before us; all that
passed through the mind of Macbeth passes, without the loss of a
tittle, through ours. All that could actually take place, and all
that is only pos-sible to be conceived, what was said and what was
done, the workings of passion, the spells of magic, are brought
before us with the same absolute truth and vividness.-Shakespeare
excelled in the openings of his plays: that of Macbeth is the most
striking of any. The wildness of the scenery, the sudden shifting of