But there is nothing of this _spirituality_ in the character of Lady Macbeth. Her ambition is satisfied with the _name_ of queen, and she cares not whether the obedience of her followers is constrained or voluntary, whether their love is feigned or real. Remorse has no power over her except when she is asleep; and even old Shylock—whose whole character, as has been well said, is a _dead letter_—might, perhaps, betray similar emotions, if one could see him thus off his guard. If the reader of this play should ever be tempted to the commission of crime for the sake of ambition, let him remember the air-drawn dagger, and the ghost of Banquo; if in danger of being seduced by the specious appearance of vice, let him remember the equivocation of the fiends; if lured by the hope that success will gild o’er the offense and “trammel up the consequence,” let him think of Macbeth’s withered heart after he had won the crown and sceptre; and finally, if he imagine that he can so school his passions and harden his nature that remorse will have no power over him, let him contemplate Lady Macbeth walking in her sleep. Whereever he turns, he will find, in all the incidents of this play, the same great lesson, that “the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” * * * * * ODE. BY R. H. STODDARD. The days are growing chill, the Summer stands Drooping, like Niobe with clasped hands, Mute o’er the faded flowers, her children lost, Slain by the arrows of the early frost! The clouded Heaven above is pale and gray, The misty Earth below is wan and drear, And baying Winds chase all the leaves away, As cruel hounds pursue the trembling deer, And in the nipping morns, the ice around, Lieth like Autumn’s gage defiant on the ground! My heart is sick within me, I have toiled In iron poverty and hopeless tears, Tugging in fetters at the oar for years; And wrestling in the ring of Life have soiled My robes with dust, and strained my sinews sore; I have no strength to struggle any more! And what if I should perish?—none would miss So strange a dreamer in a world like this— Whate’er our beauty, worth, or loving powers, We live, we strive, we die, and are forgot; We are no more regarded than the flowers; And death and darkness is our destined lot! One bud from off the tree of Earth is naught, One crude fruit from the ripening bough of Thought, The hinds will ne’er lament, in harvest-time, The bud, the fruit that fell and wasted in its prime!