has pierced his soul. There are few passages in Shakspeare more affecting than this, or in which the “ground-idea” is more steadily kept in view. O, I could play the woman with mine eyes, And braggart with my tongue, exclaims Macduff; but he refrains from all _show_ of grief, and all _profession_ of courage, and prays Heaven only to bring the fiend of Scotland and himself “front to front.” ACT V. In the first scene of this act the _apparent_ and the _real_ are inexplicably mingled together. Lady Macbeth “receives, at once, the benefit of sleep, and does the effects of watching,” which the doctor pronounces “a great perturbation in nature.” Her eyes are open, but their _sense_ is shut; and she _seems_ to wash her hands. Though she is now under the dominion of an awakened conscience, the _formality_ of her nature still displays itself. “Fie, my lord, fie!” she exclaims, “a soldier, and afeard? _What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?_” The Doctor, however, is cautious about drawing conclusions even from _such_ appearances, and remarks that he has known those which have walked in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds. The reader will readily perceive other illustrations of the theme in this scene, in which for the first time Lady Macbeth appears stripped of the mask of ceremony. We are permitted to see the workings of her mind, and the beating of her heart, when her conscience is emancipated from the control of her formal habits and her stern will. The next scene, which is a very short one, contains several allusions to the _unsubstantial_ nature of Macbeth’s power. Those he commands move only in command, Nothing in love, etc. In the 3d Scene Macbeth still relies on the promises of the weird sisters. He interprets the _look_ of the “cream-faced loon” as indicative of alarming news; and then falls into that memorable train of reflection on his “way of life,” and the _emptiness_ of all his honors—which everybody knows by heart and can at once apply to the theme. In his answer to the Doctor, who tells him of Lady Macbeth’s “thick-coming fancies,” the remedies he proposes, are, it will be observed, adapted to the _unsubstantial_ character of the disease; the troubles of the brain are to be “razed out,” and the stuffed bosom cleansed with “some sweet oblivious antidote.” On the other hand, when he asks the Doctor to “scour the English hence,” he suggests the use of rhubarb, or senna, which, indeed, at first sight, strikes one as very _appropriate_ remedies. In the 4th Scene, the soldiers are made to hew down boughs in Birnam wood, in order to conceal their numbers; thus giving a _literal_ construction to the language of the weird sisters.