from his own heart, and for that reason is unaware of the mistake. The
drama I refer to is "Macbeth." No one, so far as I know, has yet thought
of showing that there is any likeness between the character of Hamlet
and that of Macbeth, much less identity; nevertheless, it seems to me
easy to prove that Macbeth, "the rugged Macbeth," as Hazlitt and Brandes
call him, is merely our gentle irresolute, humanist, philosopher Hamlet
masquerading in galligaskins as a Scottish thane.

Let us take the first appearance of Macbeth, and we are forced to remark
at once that he acts and speaks exactly as Hamlet in like circumstances
would act and speak. The honest but slow Banquo is amazed when Macbeth
starts and seems to fear the fair promises of the witches; he does not
see what the nimble Hamlet-intellect has seen in a flash--the dread
means by which alone the promises can be brought to fulfilment. As soon
as Macbeth is hailed "Thane of Cawdor" Banquo warns him, but Macbeth, in
spite of the presence of others, falls at once, as Hamlet surely would
have fallen, into a soliloquy: a thing, considering the circumstances,
most false to general human nature, for what he says must excite
Banquo's suspicion, and is only true to the Hamlet-mind, that in and out
of season loses itself in meditation. The soliloquy, too, is startlingly
characteristic of Hamlet. After giving expression to the merely natural
uplifting of his hope, Macbeth begins to weigh the for and against like
a student-thinker:

"This supernatural soliciting
Cannot be ill; cannot be good; if ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of success,
Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor:
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image ...