This is the sarcastic despiser of all that would impede her “from the golden round.” This is the bloody tigress who with a deep, low joy, triumphed over the unsuspecting visit of her royal guest, king, and victim: The raven himself is hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements. This is the cool, sagacious, strong-minded counsellor who urged on, advised, and superintended with a fatal firmness the dire and sacrilegious murder. This is she who, when her bad, weak husband shrank from the dangerous and horrible task imposed upon him, heaped him with contemptuous reproaches—scorching ridicule, and infidel remonstrances. This is the haughty insulter of heaven—the self-confident derider of things holy—(the scorner of God, the sneerer at virtue.) Where are now her high bearing—her bitter taunts—her bold conception, her daring courage—the strong nerve that neither earth nor heaven could shake? Where is the hand that drugged the “possets” of the “surfeited grooms”—that “laid the daggers ready”—that, scorning the childish fear of a dead face, took itself the bloody weapons back to their places? Where is the fearless tongue that hooted and laughed at the terrors of Macbeth; and that, on returning from placing back the daggers and from smearing the faces of the grooms, (triumphantly showing the hands dripping with gore) sternly said— My hands are of your colour; but I shame To wear a heart so white! There she stands—the same being, successful in her guilt—in the full possession of all for which the work was done—unpunished—undiscovered—unquestioned—disturbed by nothing but the eye of God. Behold guilt with all that earth can give of power and exemption—the terrified maid on one side—the watchful doctor on the other—herself confessing, under a torture more awful than that of the rack, the bloody secret of her soul, and the physician _taking notes_ of what falls from her lips! Behold guilt! in its castle—surrounded by its guards, with all the sources of earthly pleasure at its command. _Doct._ Hark! she speaks. I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly. _Lady._ Out, damned spot! out, I say!—One, two; why, then ’tis time to do’t. Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afraid? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him? _Doct._ Do you mark that?