se, &c.

I have given suck, and know how tender 'tis
To love the babe that milks me, &c.

And lastly, in the moment of extremest horror comes that unexpected
touch of feeling, so startling, yet so wonderfully true to nature--

Had he not resembled my father as he slept,
I had done it!

Thus in one of Weber's or Beethoven's grand symphonies, some unexpected
soft minor chord or passage will steal on the ear, heard amid the
magnificent crash of harmony, making the blood pause, and filling the
eye with unbidden tears.

It is particularly observable, that in Lady Macbeth's concentrated,
strong-nerved ambition, the ruling passion of her mind, there is yet a
touch of womanhood: she is ambitious less for herself than for her
husband. It is fair to think this, because we have no reason to draw
any other inference either from her words or actions. In her famous
soliloquy, after reading her husband's letter, she does not once refer
to herself. It is of him she thinks: she wishes to see her husband on
the throne, and to place the sceptre within _his_ grasp. The strength of
her affections adds strength to her ambition. Although in the old story
of Boethius we are told that the wife of Macbeth "burned with
unquenchable desire to bear the name of queen," yet in the aspect under
which Shakspeare has represented the character to us, the selfish part
of this ambition is kept out of sight. We must remark also, that in Lady
Macbeth's reflections on her husband's character, and on that milkiness
of nature, which she fears "may impede him from the golden round," there
is no indication of female scorn: there is exceeding pride, but no
egotism in the sentiment or the expression;--no want of wifely and
womanly respect and love for _him_, but on the contrary, a sort of
unconsciousness of her own mental superiority, which she betrays rather
than asserts, as interesting in itself as it is most admirably conceived
and delineated.

Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be
What thou art promised:--Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o' the milk of human kindness,
To catch the nearest way. Thou would'st be great,
Art not without ambition; but without
The illness should attend it. What thou would'st highly
That would'st thou holily; would'st not play false.
And yet would'st wrongly win: thou'dst have, great Glamis,
That which cries, _Thus thou must do, if thou have it;
And that whi