the firstlings of his hand; he became a fearful tyrant to his country; but he escaped madness. This change in him, how ever, effected a change in his relation to his wife, which in her had the opposite result. Up to this time, her action had been that of sustaining him ; but when he waded forward in the sea of blood, without desire of the tedious return, when
his thoughts were acted ere they were scanned, then his queen found her occupation gone. Her attention, heretofore directed to her husband and to outward occurrences, was forced in
wards upon that wreck of all-content which her meditation supplied. The sanitary mental influence of action is thus impressively shewn. Even the stings of conscience, if not blunted, can for a time be averted, by that busy march of affairs, which attracts all the attention outwardly, and throws the faculty of reflection into disuse. The rapid deterioration of Macbeth's moral nature de serves notice. The murder of the king, to which he had the greatest temptation, was effected in the midst of a storm of conscientious rebuke. The murder of Banquo was attended
with no expression of remorse, although it highly stimulated the imagination; for this also, he had temptation. But
shortly afterwards we find him committing a wholesale and motiveless deed of blood, in the assassination of the kindred of Macduff—far more atrocious and horrible, if there can be
degrees in the guilt of such deeds, than all he has done before. At first we find him “infirm of purpose” in guilt.
Referring
either to his want of sleep or to his hallucination, he says: “My strange and self-abuse Is the initiate fear, that wants hard use:—
We are yet but young in deeds.” Afterwards he becomes indeed “bloody, bold, and resolute;” and he orders the massacre of Macduff's kindred without hesi
tation or compunction.
