The witches warn Macbeth to beware of Macduff. Macduff escapes to England, but his wife and children are killed by Macbeth's order. Macduff persuades Duncan's son, Malcolm, to attempt the recovery of the Scottish crown. Malcolm and Macduff make the attempt. They attack Macbeth and kill him. Macbeth is one of the seven supreme Shakespearean plays. In the order of composition it is either the fourth or the fifth of the seven. In point of merit it is neither greater nor less than the other six. It is different from them, in that it belongs more wholly to the kingdom of vision. Like most Shakespearean tragedy, Macbeth is the tragedy of a man betrayed by an obsession. Caesar is betrayed by an obsession of the desire of glory, Antony by passion, Tarquin by lust, Wolsey by worldly greed, Coriolanus and Timon by their nobleness, Angelo by his righteousness, Hamlet by his wisdom. All fail through having some hunger or quality in excess. Macbeth fails because he interprets with his worldly mind things spiritually suggested to him. God sends on many men "strong delusion, that they shall believe a lie." Othello is one such. Many things betray men. One strong means of delusion is the half-true, half-wise, half-spiritual thing, so much harder to kill than the lie direct. The sentimental treacherous things, like women who betray by arousing pity, are the dangerous things because their attack is made in the guise of great things. Tears look like grief, sentiment looks like love; love feels like nobility; spiritualism seems like revelation. Among these things few are stronger than the words spoken in unworldly states, in trance, in ecstasy, by oracles and diviners, by soothsayers, by the wholly excited people who are also half sane, by whoever obtains a half knowledge of the spirit by destruction of intellectual process. "to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles, to betray's In deepest consequence."