Whom we, to gain our place, have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie

In restless ecstasy.* Duncan is in his grave;
After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further.

Macbeth's Terror at the Ghost of Banquo.

What man dare, I dare:

Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger,
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble; or, be alive again,
And dare me to the desert with thy sword;
If trembling I inhibit thee,† protest me
The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow !
Unreal mockery, hence!

ACT IV.

Malcolm's Description of the Character of Macbeth. I grant him bloody,

Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,

Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin

That has a name.

The Qualities which become a King.

The king-becoming graces,

As justice, verity, temperance, stableness,
Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,

*Mental torture.

+ Inhibit means to forbid; the original reading is inhabit then.

Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude,

I have no relish of them.

A Distracted Kingdom.

Alas, poor country :

Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot

Be call'd our mother, but our grave: where nothing,
But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;
Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rend the air,
Are made, not mark'd: where violent sorrow seems
A modern ecstasy: the dead man's knell

Is there scarce ask'd, for who; and good men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps,
Dying, or ere they sicken.

ACT V.

Lady Macbeth in the Sleep-walking Scene.

GENTLEWOMAN. Lo you, here she comes! This is

her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep.

her stand close.

DOCTOR. HOW came she by that light?

Observe

GENTLEWOMAN. Why, it stood by her she has light by her continually; 'tis her command.

DOCTOR. You see, her eyes are open.

Gentlewoman. Ay, but their sense is shut.

DOCTOR. What is it she does now? Look, how she

rubs her hands.

GENTLEWOMAN. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands; I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.

LADY MACBETH. Yet here's a spot.

DOCTOR. Hark! she speaks: I will set down what

comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.

LADY MACBETH. Out, damned spot! out, I say !— One; two; why, then, 'tis time to do't:- -Hell is murky !- Fie, my lord; fie! a soldier and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?-Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?

DOCTOR. Do you mark that?

LADY MACBETH. The thane of Fife had a wife; where is she now?What, will these hands neʼer be clean ?—No more o' that, my lord, no more o' that: you mar all with this starting.

DOCTOR. Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.

GENTLEWOMAN. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that: heaven knows what she has known. LADY MACBETH. Here's the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh oh oh!

DOCTOR. What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.

GENTLEWOMAN. I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body. DOCTOR. Well, well, well,

GENTLEWOMAN. 'Pray God it be, sir.

DOCTOR. This disease is beyond my practice: yet 1 have known those which have walked in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds.

LADY MACBETH. Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale:-I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he cannot come out of his grave.

DOCTOR. Even so.

LADY MACBETH. To bed, to bed; there's knocking

at the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand; what's done, cannot be undone: to bed, to bed, to bed.

Despised Old Age.

I have liv'd long enough: my way of life Is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf; And that which should accompany old age, As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have; but in their stead, Curses, not loud, but deep, mouth-honour, breath, Which the poor heart would fain deny, but dare not. Diseases of the Mind Incurable.

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd;
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
Raze out the written troubles of the brain ;
And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?

Macbeth's Defiance of the Hostile Army.
Hang out our banners on the outward walls;
The cry
is still, They come: Our castle's strength
Will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie.

Till famine and the ague eat them up:

Were they not forc'd with those that should be ours, We might have met them dareful, beard to beard, And beat them backward home.

Reflections on Life.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour

upon the stage, And then is heard no more; it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

-000

TIMON OF ATHENS.

Timon, a noble Athenian, lavishes his wealth on a host of flatterers whose worthlessness he discovers when misfortunes overtake him. Convinced of the heartlessness of his professed friends, he revenges himself on them by inviting them to a banquet, at which the dishes contain nothing but hot water, which he flings in the faces of his guests, and himself retires to the woods and becomes a confirmed misanthrope. In the meantime Alcibiades, an Athenian general, has been banished from Athens by the Senate for too vehemently interceding on behalf of a friend under sentence of death. The banished general levies an army and besieges Athens, the gates of which are opened to him, and the play concludes with the death of Timon and the resolve of Alcibiades to punish his own and Timon's enemies. Apemantus, a churlish philosopher, and Flavius, Timon's steward, are, in addition to those named, somewhat prominent characters in the drama. Dr. Johnson speaks of this play as "a domestic tragedy which strongly fastens on the attention of the reader; in the plan there is not much art, but the incidents are natural, and the characters various and exact."

Аст І.

Friendship in Adversity.

I AM not of that feather, to shake off
My friend when he must need me.

I do know him