rious epithets, _all_ of which, either directly or indirectly,
arise from feelings of admiration created by his courageous conduct
in the war in which he is supposed to have been engaged. "Brave" and
"Noble Macbeth," "Bellona's Bridegroom," "Valiant Cousin," and
"Worthy Gentleman," are the general titles by which he is here spoken
of; but none of them afford any positive clue whatever to his _moral_
character. Nor is any such clue supplied by the scenes in which he is
presently received by the messengers of Duncan, and afterwards
received and lauded by Duncan himself. Macbeth's moral character, up
to the development of his criminal hopes, remains strictly
_negative_. Hence it is difficult to fathom the meaning of those
critics, (A. Schlegel at their head), who have over and over again
made the ruin of Macbeth's "so many noble qualities"{10} the subject
of their comment.

{10} A. Schlegel's "Lectures on Dramatic Literature." Vol. II. p.
208.

In the third scene we have the meeting of the witches, the
announcement of whose intention to re-assemble upon the heath, _there
to meet with Macbeth_, forms the certainly most obvious, though not
perhaps, altogether the most important, aim of the short scene by
which the tragedy is opened. An enquiry of much interest here
suggests itself. Did Shakspere intend that in his tragedy of
"Macbeth" the witches should figure as originators of gratuitous
destruction, in direct opposition to the traditional, and even
proverbial, character of the _genus?_ By that character such
personages have been denied the possession of any influence whatever
over the untainted soul. Has Shakspere in this instance re tained, or
has he abolished, the chief of those characteristics which have been
universally attributed to the beings in question?

We think that he has retained it, and for the following reasons:
Whenever Shakspere has elsewhere embodied superstitions, he has
treated them as direct and unalterable _facts_ of human nature; and
this he has done because he was too profound a philosopher to be
capable of regarding genuine superstition as the product of random
spectra of the fancy, having absolute darkness for the prime
condition of their being, instead of eeing in it rather the zodiacal
light of truth, the concomitant of the uprising, and of the setting
of the truth, and a partaker in its essence. Again, Shakspere has in
this very play devoted a considerable space to the purpose of
suggesting