Nothing could more clearly prove the great genius of Mrs. Siddons, than that she has been able so to stamp upon the public mind this amazing misconception, that, despite all the careful study which of late years has been given to Shakespeare, this notion of the character of Lady Macbeth and Macbeth should still prevail. Yet so deeply is it rooted, and so universal, that whoever attempts to eradicate it will find his task most difficult. But, believing it to be an utter distortion of the characters as Shakespeare drew them, and so at variance with the interior thought, conduct, and development of the play as not only entirely to obscure its real meaning, but to obliterate all its finest and most delicate features, we venture to enter upon this difficult task. Macbeth and his wife, so far from being the characters above described, are their direct opposites. He is the villain, who can never satiate himself with crimes. She, having committed one crime, dies of remorse. She is essentially a woman—acts suddenly and violently, and then breaks down, and wastes her life and thoughts in bitter repentance. He is, on the contrary, essentially a man—who resolves slowly and with calculation, but once determined and entered upon a course of action, obstinately pursues it to the end, haunted by no remorse for his crimes, and agitated by no regrets and doubts, so long as his wicked plans do not miscarry. The spring of his nature is ambition;[28] and in working out his ends he is cruel, pitiless, and bloody. He is without a single good trait of character; and from the beginning to the end of the play, at every step, he develops deeper abysses of cruelty and inhumanity in his nature. When he is first presented to us, we, in common with Lady Macbeth, are completely unaware of his baseness. He is a thorough hypocrite, and deceives us, as he deceived her. We see that he has a grasping ambition, but we believe that he is amiable and weak of purpose, for so Lady Macbeth tells us; but as the play goes on, his character develops itself, and at last we find that he has neither heart nor tenderness for anybody or anything; that his will is unconquerable; that he is utterly without moral sense, is hopelessly selfish, and wickedly cruel. All he loves is power. His ambition is insatiable. It grows by what it feeds on. The more he has, the more he desires, and he is ready to commit every kind of horror for the sake of attaining his object. He is restrained by no scruples of honor, by no claims of friendship, by no sensitiveness of conscience. He murders his sovereign, from whom he has just received large gifts and honors in his own house; and then instantly compasses the death of his nearest friend and guest, Banquo. Not content with this, he then seeks the life of Macduff; and, enraged because he has fled, savagely and in cold blood puts the whole of his family to the sword. There is a steady growth of evil in his character from the beginning to the end, or