quite different from that of _Hamlet_. The dimensions of the principal
characters, the rate of movement in the action, the supernatural effect,
the style, the versification, are all changed; and they are all changed
in much the same manner. In many parts of _Macbeth_ there is in the
language a peculiar compression, pregnancy, energy, even violence; the
harmonious grace and even flow, often conspicuous in _Hamlet_, have
almost disappeared. The cruel characters, built on a scale at least as
large as that of _Othello_, seem to attain at times an almost superhuman
stature. The diction has in places a huge and rugged grandeur, which
degenerates here and there into tumidity. The solemn majesty of the
royal Ghost in _Hamlet_, appearing in armour and standing silent in the
moonlight, is exchanged for shapes of horror, dimly seen in the murky
air or revealed by the glare of the caldron fire in a dark cavern, or
for the ghastly face of Banquo badged with blood and staring with blank
eyes. The other three tragedies all open with conversations which lead
into the action: here the action bursts into wild life amidst the sounds
of a thunder-storm and the echoes of a distant battle. It hurries
through seven very brief scenes of mounting suspense to a terrible
crisis, which is reached, in the murder of Duncan, at the beginning of
the Second Act. Pausing a moment and changing its shape, it hastes again
with scarcely diminished speed to fresh horrors. And even when the speed
of the outward action is slackened, the same effect is continued in
another form: we are shown a soul tortured by an agony which admits not
a moment's repose, and rushing in frenzy towards its doom. _Macbeth_ is
very much shorter than the other three tragedies, but our experience in
traversing it is so crowded and intense that it leaves an impression not
of brevity but of speed. It is the most vehement, the most concentrated,
perhaps we may say the most tremendous, of the tragedies.

1

A Shakespearean tragedy, as a rule, has a special tone or atmosphere of
its own, quite perceptible, however difficult to describe. The effect of
this atmosphere is marked with unusual strength in _Macbeth_. It is due
to a variety of influences which combine with those just noticed, so
that, acting and reacting, they form a whole; and the desolation of the
blasted heath, the design of the Witches, the guilt in the hero's soul,
the darkness of the night, seem to emanate from one and