The Ethics of "Macbeth" pathy some electric link of union which pervades all creation from its highest to its lowest forms--a sympithy similar to that which agitates ani nals before a thunder-storm, and that awful stillness which precedes the terrible tornado. It is impossible to define what this sympathy is or by what laws it acts, but it is dit uit to deny its existence when we reflect on how many occasions it has manifested itself and in such striking ways. Take a few instances. It is said that when the unfortunate Lady Jane Grey was led by her ambitious father-in-law, an unwilling queen, to be crowned at the Tower, the weather, though it had been previously fine, became overcast, thunder burst forth, and the rain fell in torrents; then, on landing at the Tower, a tremendous peal shook the welkin, as though heaven itself were angry at the unjust usurpation. We all know what a cruel fate befell herself and her father-in-law soon after. On the celebrated inauguration of the New Constitution during the French Revolution, which took place in the Champs de Mars in the presence of half a million of people, when all that was left of French pride and glory was there, the elements broke forth into thunder, lightning, and rain, and the motley groups were compelled to seek a speedy shelter; for the inauguration was the forerunner of bloodshed, sacrilege, anarchy, and scenes which laid the country desolate; so that nature herself seemed to utter her most powerful warnings in anticipation of the coming evil. And last, but most potent of all, when that tragedy of tragedies was enacted on Calvary, and the Son of Man sealed his testimony with His blood, are we not told that "there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour, and the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst;" as though nature stood aghast at human crime, and shuddered to her very centre as the death ery of Jesus rang through the air. These in-tances and they are only a few amongst many which might be enumerated scan to suggest that the world of man and the world of nature are strung together by some sensitive chord, and that when the being for whom all natu e was created is threatened by any [March, terrible calamity, nature manifests her mysterious sympathy, and utters her warning cry. There is, after all, nothing so very unreasonable in such an idea. Nature has always been subservient to man. Order came out of chaos--the waters separated themselves from the dry land - the firmament, studded with constellations and stars, spanned the whole vegetation appeared with all the exuberant foliage of the antediluvian Flora-the sun stalked forth in his majesty-the beautiful home was complete, and then man the viceroy of creation, for whom all was made, and to whom all was placed in subjection- appeared upon the scene. Is it, then, unreasonable to suppose that nature should be strangely agitated when he for whom nature lives totters on the brink of destruction The natural is bounded by the supernatural as by an atmosphere; all our researches into the causes of things terminate there. We set out upon an investigation: step by step we ascend from minor cause to minor cause, until at last we come to infinity, where we are lost a something upon which the whole depends; that is, the Great First Cause the supernatural. We look into ourselves and ask why we did such and such a thing-how we were led from its first conception to its final accomplishment; and we may go back step by step to the first gleam of light which streamed into the mind and lit us on our way-but there we pause, for how that gleam of light came we cannot tell, because it came from Him who has His finger upon the delicate tissues of the human mind, and our investigation again, after conducting us to the vestibule of the supernatural, leaves us in darkness. It surely cannot, then, be unreasonable to believe that He who has created all things in order and by a system a system which connects every ramification of created matter with each other and ad with Him should have connected the natural with the supernatural by some subtle link known only to Hauseif, by which He might operate in His own wisdom upon Lumin actions, and through which He might send, as through an electric current, the sunshine of His mercy, the glm of His displeasure, or the t : 11.s wrath. The next step in the tragedy reveals to us another phase in the philosophy of crime, and Shakespeare knew the human heart too well to omit it. The king removed by murder, Macbeth had accomplished his purpose and was crowned; but the position was not simply to be gained but fortified, which could be done only by the commission of new crimes. The witches who had predicted so favourably to Macbeth of his becoming king, had also told Banquo that his children should wear the crown. Macbeth, confirmed in his belief of their predictions by the fulfilment of his own fate, remembers this with anxiety, and believes the more firmly that Banquo will supplant him, since their prognostications have hitherto been so strangely and so strictly verified. From regarding him as the attached friend, he now begins to look upon him and his son, Fleance, as his most deadly enemies, and soon resolves upon their destruction. But notice he requires no spurring on now; the trembling, consciencestricken, vacillating Macbeth, who needed to be goaded on in his first crime by the taunts and entreaties of his ambitious partner, is changed, and appears now as the intrepid determined murderer. So far from requiring her assistance to encourage him, he does not even consult her on this new plot; nay more, when she ventures to suggest the possibility of its being necessary to get them out of the way, he, who has long ago conceived of the crime, resolved on its perpetration, and even arranged terms with the hired murderers to waylay them on their road and assassinate them, endeavours to conceal it from his wife, and, strange to say, counsels her to use the very same dissimulation which she had counselled him when about to receive Duncan as a guest. Compare the passages. Duncan is about to come to Macbeth's castle; Lady Macbeth has resolved on his murder, and thus addresses her husband: To beguile the time, Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue; look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under it." That murder perpetrated, Macbeth, who has steeped his hands in blood, VOL. LXV.-NO. CCCLXXXVII streams, And make our faces vizards to our hearts, Disguising what they are." Further, no sooner has he accomplished the murder of Banquo, his son, Fleance, having fortunately escaped, than hearing that Macduff had fled to England to seek assistance, he immediately resolves not on adopting measures to repel invasion, but on the cruel, purposeless, vindictive slaughter of Macduff's wife and children. This time he does not even mention the fact to his wife, but acts promptly on the instigations of his own cruel desires. To use his own words— . . . From this moment, The very firstlings of my heart shall be The firstlings of my hand. And even now ... Chute of er 150% was committevi far away into havu', when led astray by me trivas temptat n. he hrt 14d hands on another's property, and gave up his innowance to a love of How terrible must such a retr-pet be to trace the growth of that moral Upas tree from the time Whenua merris were sown in the ferthe soil of his heart, and in the spring time of his youth -to watch its first manifestation of lite to see it agun rear its head above the ground, agan put forth ita forked branches, again renew it leaves to watch once more ats slender stem wax into the strong gnaried bark to see its terrible form towering up high in the heavens, its thek follage growing thicker and thicker, its pois mous fruit mellowing into deadly maturity and he who first sowed the fatal seed, fostered the rising plant, now cowering under ats de ud y shadow, looking up in vain through its ma-sy foliage to catch one ray of heaven's sunshine, or gaze once more on the cheering light of day. It remains for us now to examine the Inst at v re of the drama - the retribution. We have traced the dark deed step by step from its first coneption all throuch the stages of its execution, we now arrive at its estastrothe. We have sect how Machih, after yielding to the siren votee of Agni pan becomes a clan, red man, but we must return to SLady Macbeth, wie bait tas been fust dee, 1, 12 m jer te v cai de rangement caused by lean rest and a perturted ш'ri, sas at list into a dreary sont i vatn lot, vid then dies. Nothing an be more effects tive than that sony of hers in her step-walking, when the mity n. nd ta soles of its own dark denik. What a warning through all time is that poor wretched woman, as sle stalks along in her sleep, unensciously revealing in distorted sentences the terrible tale of her own criminality. Macbeth, now left al ne in his guilt, without her sotiang voice or cheering aid, soon_be_ins to yield to the convicton of his own impending ruin. The sun of his gory was setting; he saw the dark frowning clouds gathering together in the horizon, watched them advaneing towards him, and trembled for the bursting of the temp-st with which they were charged. ger arrives with the if rmation that ali Birnam Wood seems to be in motion and advancing; he sees it, and remembers that the witches, in their accend incantation, told him tʊ— A messen Fear not till Birnam Wood Do come to Dur sinane.” For the first time he begins to feel that any terious supernatural power **t him feels the in 1 visible hand of an avenging Providence, and with a heart oppressed by a despairing presentiment of evil, resolves on meeting his fate. “Arm, arm, and out! If this which he avouches does appear, There is no flying hence, nor tarrying here. I'gin to be aweary of the sun, And wish the estate o' the world were now undone. Ring the alarum bell. Blow wind! come wrack! At least we'll die with harness on our back." The tidings of the messenger prove correct. Young Siward advances with Macduff and Malcolm at the head of an army; they challenge the castle which soon falls into their hands, and Macbeth, after slaying Siward, is met by Macduff who engages him in that well-known combat, and, after a fierce struggle, plunging his sword into the side of his enemy, avenges at one stroke the murder of Duncan, the assassination of Banquo, the cruel massacre of his own wife and children--the tragedy is ended. Scotland is rid of a tyrant, justice has asserted her rights, Malcolm receives his crown, and the curtain falls upon the avenger, the avenged, and the victim. In conclusion, this glorious drama should be read not only as an intellectual treat, with a critic's eye and a scholar's pencil, but as a great moral lesson, with an endeavour to eliminate from its poetic embellishments and dramatic contingencies, the fundamental truth which it contains. The want of Macbeth and, in fact, the general want of humanity is, power to resist evil. Our way through life lies through an enemy's country-we are beset with dangers on all sides, now in the shape of bands of strong armed men, who press sorely upon us when weak and weary, and now in the form of fair sirens who allure us with their seductive invitations to the very brink of destruction; at every moment and in every quarter there is evil to be watched for, boldly met, and bravely resisted. Not only is this a necessary, but a wise arrangement. The sceptic looks upon the world as an anomalous admixture of good and evil, continually warring against each other, and the whole presided over by a Providence whose only wisdom seems to be to continually strive to harmonize this eternal discord by visiting the evil with punishment, the good with reward, and having quelled the disturbance in one quarter to turn again to some new outbreak; but the existence of evil in a moral constitution may not only be consistent with the revealed character of the Deity, but admitting the truth of a future state, it becomes absolutely necessary to the fitting of beings morally imperfect for a state of perfection, that both good and evil should surround them and form the elements of their discipline, the one attracting by the present and future happiness it confers, the other increasing their vigilance by augmenting their danger. Then, instead of being an anomaly it is a wise arrangement and a symmetrical balance, that in this world there should not be so much good as to make us negligent about striving against evil, nor so much evil as to cause us to despair of possessing the good. 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