And let the angel whom thou still hast served
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womo
Untimely ripped!

Macb. Accursed be that tongue that tells me so!
For it hath cowed my better part of man!
And be these juggling fiends no more believed,
That palter with us in a double sense;

That keep the word of promise to our ear,

And break it to our hope!—I'll not fight with thee.
Macd. Then yield thee, coward,

And live to be the show and gaze o' the time!

We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,

Painted upon a pole, and underwrit,

"Here may you see the tyrant!"

To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet,
And to be baited with the rabble's curse.
Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane,
And thou opposed, being of no woman born,

Yet I will try the last! Before my body

I throw my warlike shield! lay on, Macduff;
And damned be he that first cries, "Hold! enough!"

[Exeunt, fighting.

My voice, etc. So Casca, in Julius Cæsar, says, "Speak, hands, for me!"-Intrenchant, that which cannot be trenched or cut. See trenched, p. 146.-Charmed life, a life protected by magic charms. In the age of chivalry, a champion in a tournament was obliged to swear that he used no charmed weapons.-Palter, act in an insincere or false manner; shift, dodge, trifle, haggle, Low Ger. palte, rag: Fries. palt; Sw. palta; Scot. paltrie, trash; Eng. paltry, mean, worthless.-Baited (A. S. bate, contention), provoked, harassed, worried, as a chained bear is annoyed by dogs.-Hold! enough! By the old codes of honor, the mode of separating combatants was to cry "Hold!"

Turn, hell-hound, etc. The first half of this dialogue is loud, bold, defiant.

Accursed be that tongue, etc. Imprecating; desponding; distrustful; feeble. Aspirated; small

volume.

Then yield thee, coward, etc. Scorn: ridicule. Loud; radical; circumflex: small volume. I'll not yield, etc. He rouses himself grandly, and dies with a heroic bravery that partially wins back our respect.

Retreat.

Flourish. Re-enter, with Drum and Colors, MALCOLM, old SIWARD,

ROSSE, LENOX, ANGUS, CATHNESS, MENTETH, and Soldiers.

Mal. I would the friends we miss were safe arrived.

Siw. Some must go off;* and yet, by these I see,

So great a day as this is cheaply bought.

Mal. Macduff is missing, and your noble son.

Rosse. Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt; He only lived but till he was a man:

The which no sooner had his prowess confirmed

In the unshrinking station where he fought,

But like a man he died.

They say, he parted well, and paid his score:

So, God be with him!-Here comes newer comfort.

Re-enter MACDUFF, with MACBETH'S Head on a Pole. Macd. Hail, King! for so thou art. Behold, where stands

The usurper's cursed head: the time is free.

I see thee compassed with thy kingdom's pearl,
That speak my salutation in their minds;
Whose voices I desire aloud with mine.-

Hail, King of Scotland!

Mal. We shall not spend a large expense of time,

Before we reckon with your several loves,

And make us even with you. My thanes and kinsmen,
Henceforth be Earls,-the first that ever Scotland

[Flourish.

* Some must go off, some must be slain.-Fairer death. This incident is related in Camden's Remaines.-Pearl. A collective noun, meaning a string of pearls. Spoken of the heroes that encircled Malcolm.-Henceforth be Earls. Holinshed gives the same explanation of this change of name.

I would, the friends we miss, etc. This dialogue is quite rapid.

Then he is dead? etc. The old Spartan must have spoken this with deep sorrow; from which, however, he instantly recovers. Note the pun on hairs, five lines later.

Hail, king, etc. Great joy. Very loud; quick; median.

We shall not spend, etc. Joy; gratitude; business. Rather loud; rather quick; median; rather large volume.

Which would be planted newly with the time,-
As calling home our exiled friends abroad,
That fled the snares of watchful tyranny;
Producing forth the cruel ministers

Of this dead butcher, and his fiendlike queen;
Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands
Took off her life;-this, and what needful else
That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace,
We will perform in measure, time, and place.
So thanks to all at once and to each one,
Whom we invite to see us crowned at Scone.*

*Scone. See note on Scone, Act II., sc. 2., p. 137.

What's more to do, etc. Business tone with something of joy. Radical; rather loud; moderate in time, pitch, and volume.

Write a sketch of the life of Shakespeare; an account of his writings. Write an essay upon his moral character; one upon his genius; one upon the theatre. Sketch the life of Macbeth as it appears in history; the character of Macbeth as it appears in this play; of Lady Macbeth; of Duncan; of each of the other prominent personages. Write your views of the propriety or impropriety for dramatic effect, of the sequence of scenes in this play. Relate the story as developed in each act. Write out the moral or lessons conveyed by this play, and give your reasons for your conclusions on that subject. Write an essay upon alliteration; one upon English heroic verse; one upon Shakespeare's vocabulary, and what is proved by its fullness and accuracy. Argue the rightfulness or wrongfulness of Shakespeare's course in ignoring the prac tical questions of his age. Explain the fact that the great men of Shakespeare's time did not appreciate him. Give your views of Shakespeare's sympathies, as regards Puritanism, democracy, progress. Is the world likely to see another Shakespeare? Why? The instructor should give out other themes, the investigation of which will throw light upon the literature of Shakespeare and of the Elizabethan age. No exercise will be found more profitable than brief compositions at regular intervals on topics suggested by the reading of the author. These should be read in the hearing of the class, and the teacher should comment upon them. [The student will do well to consult most carefully the admirable edition of Macbeth by William J. Rolfe, and the authorities there cited.]

SUMMARY

OF RESULTS OF

ELOCUTIONARY

ANALYSIS.*

Among the elements of vocal expression revealed by the simplest analysis, are the following:

1. Force; the degree of loudness or softness.

2. Time; the movement, or rate of utterance, whether fast or slow. 3. Pitch; the key-note, or musical tone, whether low or high.

4. Slides; changes in pitch, during the utterance of a single vowel or syllable. The change may be very slight, passing through about a semi-tone, or it may sweep through a whole octave or more.

5. Stress; change in force, during the utterance of a single vowel or syllable.

6. Quality; purity or impurity in tone.

7. Volume; the size, so to speak, of the voice. Thus we hear of a "thin voice," and Shakespeare tells us of a "big, manly voice," which elocutionists call "orotund."

In the employment of these elements, as we have already to some extent seen, there is a principle of imitation and of analogy. "The sound should seem an echo to the sense," says Pope. This principle has a multitude of applications.

1. A loud utterance naturally characterizes descriptions of loud sounds. Thus:

The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep
With such a horrid clang as on Mount Sinai rang,

When the red fire and smouldering clouds ontbrake.-MILTON.

A soft voice belongs to descriptions of what is soft, gentle, or quiet. Thus:

Oft in the stilly night, ere Slumber's chain has bound me,
Fond Memory brings the light of other days around me;
The smiles, the tears, of boyhood's years;

The words of love then spoken;

The eyes that shone. now dimmed and gone;

The cheerful hearts now broken. -MOORE.

2. Slowness of motion should generally be expressed by slowness of speech. Thus:

* See the foot-notes to MACBETH, passim.

Thus, in reading the dialogue between Lady Macduff and her son, the voice may be modified in a slight degree to suit those characters.

There are two mechanical methods of securing slowness in speech. One is by long pauses between sounds, syllables, words, and sentences. The other is by prolonging the phonetic eleIn the slowest passages, the two methods are combined.

ments.

Rapid motion is expressed by quick utterance.

Thus:

Hurrah! the foes are moving! Hark to the mingled din
of fife and steed and trump and drum and roaring culverin!
The fiery duke is pricking fast across St. André's plain
With all the hireling chivalry of Guelders and Almayne.
Now, by the lips of those ye love, fair gentlemen of France,
Charge for the golden lilies! Upon them with the lance!-
A thousand spurs are striking deep, a thousand spears in rest,

A thousand knights are pressing fast behind the snow-white crest!

And in they burst, and on they rushed, while, like a guiding star,

Amidst the thickest carnage blazed the helmet of Navarre !-MACAULAY.

For ex

The impression of distance is given by prolonging the sound. ample, notice the effect of protracting the word far in the following line: * So secmed, far off, the flying fiend.-MILTON.

3. In pitch, the voice naturally glides into the low (not necessarily soft) notes in speaking of deep, grave tones. Thus:

Oh, it is monstrous, monstrous!

Methought the billows spoke and told me of it;

The winds did sing it to me; and the thunder,

That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounced

The name of Prosper: it did bass my trespass.-SHAKESPEARE.

But in describing the fine, high-pitched note of the musquito, we involuntarily change to a higher key, as, forgetting ourselves, we think of the penetrating musical sound. The voice of a child, as we saw in Macbeth, Act IV., Scene 2, is high (not necessarily loud) in pitch. Thus:

You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear;
To-morrow 'll be the happiest time of all the glad new year;
Of all the glad new year, mother, the maddest, merriest day!

For I'm to be queen of the May, mother, I'm to be queen of the May!-TENNYSON. 4. In respect to quality, we may observe that purity, sweetness, and smoothness in objects, require corresponding vocal qualities: i. e., there is no prominence of consonant sounds, and there is an absence of husky, hoarse, nasal, or guttural tones. Thus:

"Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,

Bridal of earth and sky,

The dew shall weep thy fall to-night;

For thou, alas, must die!

"Sweet rose, in air whose odors wave,

And color charms the eye,

Thy root is ever in its grave,
Thou too, alas, must die!

* Another case in which great slowness of speech is required, is where the thought is very much condensed, and the mind needs considerable time to appreciate the full meaning, as was remarked of the passage where Lady Macbeth enters reading the letter. Thus, "Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!"-Rom. xi. 12. On the contrary, where the writer does not plough deep, there the voice is nimble, and gets over the ground fast. Thus: "Certainly my conscience will serve me to run from the Jew, my master. The fiend is at mine elbow, and tempts me, saying to me, Gobbo, Launcelot Gobbo, good Launcelot, or good Gobbo, or good Launcelot Gobbo, use your legs, take the start, run away. My conscience says, 'No, take heed, honest Launcelot; take heed, honest Gobbo; or, as aforesaid, honest Launcelot Gobbo, do not run ; scorn running with thy heels, etc."-SHAKESPEARE.