ich were to be the sign of 'the end of the world.' (I do not mean, of
course, that the 'prediction' of I. ii. 119 is the prediction to be
found in one of these passages.)]

[Footnote 192: Cf. _Hamlet_, III. i. 181:

This something-settled matter in his heart,
Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus
From fashion of himself.]

[Footnote 193: I believe the criticism of _King Lear_ which has
influenced me most is that in Prof. Dowden's _Shakspere, his Mind and
Art_ (though, when I wrote my lectures, I had not read that criticism
for many years); and I am glad that this acknowledgment gives me the
opportunity of repeating in print an opinion which I have often
expressed to students, that anyone entering on the study of Shakespeare,
and unable or unwilling to read much criticism, would do best to take
Prof. Dowden for his guide.]

LECTURE IX

MACBETH

_Macbeth_, it is probable, was the last-written of the four great
tragedies, and immediately preceded _Antony and Cleopatra_.[194] In that
play Shakespeare's final style appears for the first time completely
formed, and the transition to this style is much more decidedly visible
in _Macbeth_ than in _King Lear_. Yet in certain respects _Macbeth_
recalls _Hamlet_ rather than _Othello_ or _King Lear_. In the heroes of
both plays the passage from thought to a critical resolution and action
is difficult, and excites the keenest interest. In neither play, as in
_Othello_ and _King Lear_, is painful pathos one of the main effects.
Evil, again, though it shows in _Macbeth_ a prodigious energy, is not
the icy or stony inhumanity of Iago or Goneril; and, as in _Hamlet_, it
is pursued by remorse. Finally, Shakespeare no longer restricts the
action to purely human agencies, as in the two preceding tragedies;
portents once more fill the heavens, ghosts rise from their graves, an
unearthly light flickers about the head of the doomed man. The special
popularity of _Hamlet_ and _Macbeth_ is due in part to some of these
common characteristics, notably to the fascination of the supernatural,
the absence of the spectacle of extreme undeserved suffering, the
absence of characters which horrify and repel and yet are destitute of
grandeur. The reader who looks unwillingly at Iago gazes at Lady Macbeth
in awe, because though she is dreadful she is also sublime. The whole
tragedy is sublime.

In this, however, and in other respects, _Macbeth_ makes an impression