Shakspeare does not paint here a grand and desperate struggle between good and evil thoughts in Macbeth's mind--but a mock fight; had there been any deep sincerity in the feeling expressed in the bombast--had there been any true feeling at all--it would have revived and deepened--not faded and died almost--at the picture drawn by Lady Macbeth of their victim-- "When Duncan is asleep, Whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey Soundly invite him," the words that had just left his own lips-- "His virtues Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against The deep damnation of his taking-off," would have re-rung in his ears; and a strange medley--words and music--would they have made--with his wife's "When in swinish sleep Their drenched natures lie, as in a death, What cannot you and I perform upon The unguarded Duncan?" That is my idea of the Soliloquy. Think on it. TALBOYS. The best critics tell us that Shakspeare's Lady Macbeth has a commanding Intellect. Certes she has a commanding Will. I do not see what a commanding Intellect has to do in a Tragedy of this kind--or what opportunity she has of showing it. Do you, sir? NORTH. I do not. TALBOYS. Her Intellect seems pretty much on a par with Macbeth's in the planning of the murder. NORTH. I defy any human Intellect to devise well an atrocious Murder. Pray, how would you have murdered Duncan? TALBOYS. Ask me rather how I would--this night--murder Christopher North. NORTH. No more of that--no dallying in that direction. You make me shudder. Shakspeare knew that a circumspect murder is an impossibility--that a murder of a King in the murderer's own house, with expectation of non-discovery, is the irrationality of infatuation. The poor Idiot chuckles at the poor Fury's device as at once original and plausible--and, next hour, what single soul in the Castle does not know who did the deed? SEWARD. High Intellect indeed! TALBOYS. The original murder is bad to the uttermost. I mean badly contrived. What colour was there in colouring the two Grooms? No two men kill their master, and then go to bed again in his room with bloody faces and poignards. BULLER. If this was really a very bad plot altogether, it is her Ladyship's as much--far more than his Lordship's. Against whom, then, do we conclude? Her? I think not--but the Poet. _He_ is the badly-contriving assassin. He does not intend lowering your esteem for her Ladyship's talents. Am I, sir, to think that William himself, after the same game, would have hunted no better? I believe he would; but he thinks that this will carry the Plot through for the Stage well enough. The House, seeing and hearing, will not stay to criticise. The Horror persuades Belief. He knew the whole mystery of murder. NORTH. My dear Buller, wheel nearer me. I would not lose a word you say. BULLER.