waits to see her save him or
avenge him. The death of Lear will benefit her. It will be to her
something saved from the general wreck, something to the good, in the
losing bout. An impulse stirs him to speak, but he puts it by. He keeps
silent about Lear, till one comes saying that Goneril has killed
herself. Still he does not speak. The news pricks the vanity in him. He
strokes his plumes with a tender thought for the brightness of the life
that made two princesses die for love of him. When he speaks of Lear, it
is too late, the little, little instant which alters destiny has passed.
Cordelia is dead. No mist stains the stone. She will come no more--

"Never, never, never, never, never."

The heart-breaking scene at the end has been blamed as "too painful for
tragedy." Shakespeare's opinion of what is tragic is worth that of all
his critics together. He gave to every soul in this play an excessive
and terrible vitality. On the excessive terrible soul of Lear he poured
such misery that the cracking of the great heart is a thing of joy, a
relief so fierce that the audience should go out in exultation singing--

"O, our lives' sweetness!
That we the pain of death would hourly die
Rather than die at once!"

Tragedy is a looking at fate for a lesson in deportment on life's
scaffold. If we find the lesson painful, how shall we face the event?

_Macbeth._

_Written._ 1605-6 (?)

_Published_, in the first folio, 1623.

_Source of the Plot._ Raphael Holinshed tells the story of Macbeth
at length in his _Chronicle of Scottish History_. He indicates the
character of Lady Macbeth in one line.

When Shakespeare wrote the play, London was full of Scotchmen,
brought thither by the accession of James I. Little details of the
play may have been gathered in conversation.

_The Fable._ Macbeth, advised by witches that he is to be a king,
is persuaded by his wife to kill his sovereign (King Duncan) and
seize the crown. King Duncan, coming to Macbeth's castle for a
night, is there killed by Macbeth and his lady. Duncan's sons fly
to England. Macbeth causes himself to be proclaimed king.

Being king, he tries to assure himself of power by destroying the
house of Banquo, of whom the witches prophesied that he should be
the father of a line of kings. Banquo is killed; but his son
escapes.

The witches warn Macb