Were I to wish, sir, for anything to happen now to the weather at all, it would be just ever so little toning down of that one constituent of the orchestral harmony of the Storm which men call--howling. The Thunder is perfect--but that one Wind Instrument is slightly out of tune--he is most anxious to do his best--his motive is unimpeachable; but he has no idea how much more impressive--how much more popular--would be a somewhat subdued style. There again--that's positive discord--does he mean to disconcert the Concert--or does he forget that he is not a Solo? BULLER. That must be a deluge of--hail. TALBOYS. So much the better. Hitherto we have had but rain. "Mysterious horrors! HAIL!" "'Twas a rough night. My young remembrance cannot parallel A fellow to it." NORTH. Suppose we resume yesterday's conversation? TALBOYS. By all manner of means. Let's sit close--and speak loud--else all will be dumb show. The whole world's one waterfall. NORTH. Take up Knight on Taste. Look at the dog-ear. TALBOYS. "The most perfect instance of this kind is the Tragedy of Macbeth, in which the character of an ungrateful traitor, murderer, usurper, and tyrant, is made in the highest degree interesting by the sublime flashes of generosity, magnanimity, courage, and tenderness, which continually burst forth in the manly but ineffective struggle of every exalted quality that can dignify and adorn the human mind, first against the allurements of ambition, and afterwards against the pangs of remorse and horrors of despair. Though his wife has been the cause of all his crimes and sufferings, neither the agony of his distress, nor the fury of his rage, ever draw from him an angry word, or upbraiding expression towards her; but even when, at her instigation, he is about to add the murder of his friend and late colleague to that of his sovereign, kinsman, and benefactor, he is chiefly anxious that she should not share the guilt of his blood:--'Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck! till thou applaud the deed.' How much more real grandeur and exaltation of character is displayed in one such simple expression from the heart, than in all the laboured pomp of rhetorical amplification." NORTH. What think you of that, Talboys? TALBOYS. Why, like much of the cant of criticism, it sounds at once queer and commonplace. I seem to have heard it before many thousand times, and yet never to have heard it at all till this moment. NORTH. Seward? SEWARD. Full of audacious assertions, that can be forgiven but in the belief that Payne Knight had never read the tragedy, even with the most ordinary attention. NORTH. Buller? BULLER. Cursed nonsense. Beg pardon, sir--sink cursed--mere nonsense--out and out nonsense--nonsense by itself nonsense. NORTH. How so? BULLER.