_ Hold, take my sword. There's husbandry in heav'n,
Their candles are all out.--
A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,
And yet I would not sleep: Merciful Powers,
Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
Gives way to in repose."

In like manner, a fine idea is given of the gloomy coming on of evening,
just as Banquo is going to be assassinated.

"Light thickens and the crow
Makes wing to the rooky wood."

* * * *

"Now spurs the lated traveller apace
To gain the timely inn."

MACBETH (generally speaking) is done upon a stronger and more systematic
principle of contrast than any other of Shakspeare's plays. It moves upon
the verge of an abyss, and is a constant struggle between life and death.
The action is desperate and the reaction is dreadful. It is a huddling
together of fierce extremes, a war of opposite natures which of them shall
destroy the other. There is nothing but what has a violent end or violent
beginnings. The lights and shades are laid on with a determined hand; the
transitions from triumph to despair, from the height of terror to the
repose of death, are sudden and startling; every passion brings in its
fellow-contrary, and the thoughts pitch and jostle against each other as
in the dark. The whole play is an unruly chaos of strange and forbidden
things, where the ground rocks under our feet. Shakspeare's genius here
took its full swing, and trod upon the farthest bounds of nature and
passion. This circumstance will account for the abruptness and violent
antitheses of the style, the throes and labour which run through the
expression, and from defects will turn them into beauties. "So fair and
foul a day I have not seen," etc. "Such welcome and unwelcome news
together." "Men's lives are like the flowers in their caps, dying or ere
they sicken." "Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under
it." The scene before the castle-gate follows the appearance of the
Witches on the heath, and is followed by a midnight murder. Duncan is cut
off betimes by treason leagued with witchcraft, and Macduff is ripped
untimely from his mother's womb to avenge his death. Macbeth, after the
death of Banquo, wishes for his presence in extravagant terms, "To him and
all we thirst," and when his ghost appears, cries out, "Avaunt and quit my
sight," and being gone, he is "himself again." Macbeth resolves to get rid
of Macduff, that "he may sleep in spite of thunde