NORTH.
Claudius, the Uncle-king in Hamlet, is perhaps the most odious character in all Shakspeare. But he does no unnecessary murders. He has killed the Father, and will the Son, all in regular order. But Macbeth plunges himself, like a drunken man, into unnecessary and injurious cruelties. He throws like a reckless gamester. If I am to own the truth, I don't know why he is so cruel. I don't think that he takes any pleasure in mere cruelty, like Nero—
BULLER.
What do we know of Nero? Was he mad?
NORTH.
I don't think that he takes any pleasure in mere cruelty, like Nero; but he seems to be under some infatuation that drags or drives him along. To kill is, in every difficulty, the ready resource that occurs to him—as if to go on murdering were, by some law of the Universe, the penalty which you must pay for having once murdered.
SEWARD.
I think, Sir, that without contradicting anything we said before Lunch about his Lordship or his Kingship, we may conceive in the natural Macbeth considerable force of Moral Intuition.
NORTH.
We may.