ll the big, burly, fleshly, handsome-looking Thane; here is
still the same face which in the earlier acts could be superficially
good-humoured and sometimes royally courteous. But now the atmosphere
of blood, which pervades the whole tragedy, has entered into the man and
subdued him to its own nature; and an indescribable degradation, a
slackness and puffiness, has overtaken his features. He has breathed the
air of carnage, and supped full of horrors. Lady Macbeth complains of
the smell of blood on her hand: Macbeth makes no complaint--he has
ceased to notice it now; but the same smell is in his nostrils. A
contained fury and disgust possesses him. He taunts the messenger and
the doctor as people would taunt their mortal enemies. And, indeed, as
he knows right well, every one is his enemy now, except his wife. About
her he questions the doctor with something like a last human anxiety;
and, in tones of grisly mystery, asks him if he can "minister to a mind
diseased." When the news of her death is brought him, he is staggered
and falls into a seat; but somehow it is not anything we can call grief
that he displays. There had been two of them against God and man; and
now, when there is only one, it makes perhaps less difference than he
had expected. And so her death is not only an affliction, but one more
disillusion; and he redoubles in bitterness. The speech that follows,
given with tragic cynicism in every word, is a dirge, not so much for
her as for himself. From that time forth there is nothing human left in
him, only "the fiend of Scotland," Macduff's "hell-hound," whom, with a
stern glee, we see baited like a bear and hunted down like a wolf. He is
inspired and set above fate by a demoniacal energy, a lust of wounds and
slaughter. Even after he meets Macduff his courage does not fail; but
when he hears the Thane was not born of woman, all virtue goes out of
him; and though he speaks sounding words of defiance, the last combat is
little better than a suicide.

The whole performance is, as I said, so full of gusto and a headlong
unity; the personality of Macbeth is so sharp and powerful; and within
these somewhat narrow limits there is so much play and saliency that, so
far as concerns Salvini himself, a third great success seems
indubitable. Unfortunately, however, a great actor cannot fill more than
a very small fraction of the boards; and though Banquo's ghost will
probably be more seasonable in his future apparition