Are to your throne and state, children and servants:
Which do but what they should by doing every thing
Safe toward your love and honor.
It is worthy of remark here, and is another instance of the exhaustless room there is in these plays for the observation of ages, that while Macbeth, who is ready crouched like a ferocious leopard to leap upon his prey, is warm and ardent in his expressions of loyalty and submission, Banquo, who is that somewhat rare character a really honest man, says but very few words to his sovereign.
I have always been accustomed to think that the murder scene of Macbeth involved one of those violations of probability so often found in works of fiction. It seemed that the murder, which is committed as soon as the guests in the castle are asleep, could not very well be interrupted by the knocking of Macduff entering in the morning to awake the king. This objection, like most of those advanced against the inspired bard, disappears upon a closer examination and the supposed fault turns out to be an exquisite beauty. Inverness is in a very northern latitude, and in the summer (the season in which the crime is perpetrated) the day dawns almost as soon as the night falls. I have never been more struck with the beauty of nature than while watching the coming on and passing away of one of these northern summer nights. The change is so brief and lovely—the sun sets so lingeringly and leaves behind him such a heaven of mild and scarcely fading glory, the stars come forth so sparklingly and in such small numbers, and the pale silver opening of day rises in the east so soon after the world has fallen under the shadowy silence of the night, that, to one who has only seen the nights of lower latitudes and who associates ten or twelve hours of darkness with every revolution of the globe, it appears almost the luminous change of some heavenlier planet.
That Macbeth’s deed is committed in this season, we learn from the scene already noticed of the previous day when the king enters the castle and remarks, for the last time, the soothing effect of the summer air upon his senses.
I do not feel sure that all these corresponding beauties and proprieties were intended by Shakspeare, and we have all often heard it questioned whether he himself would not be surprised to see the exquisite things discovered in his works. It is possible; but I do not think that alters his merit, since the beauties really exist. In his advances into the story he keeps everywhere nature and truth in view, and hence consequences and effects of that wonderful proportion and perfection may be visible to the reader not thought of in detail by the writer.
It is certain that, in the instance above alluded to, had the fatal incident occurred in the winter, and had the murderers thus been interrupted almost in the act by the incoming of Macduff and the commencement of the routine of the subsequent day, there would have been an inconsistency which does not now exist.