—­What are these
     So wither’d and so wild in their attire,
     That look not like the inhabitants of th’ earth
     And yet are on’t?

the mind is prepared for all that follows.

This tragedy is alike distinguished for the lofty imagination it displays, and for the tumultuous vehemence of the action; and the one is made the moving principle of the other.  The overwhelming pressure of preternatural agency urges on the tide of human passion with redoubled force.  Macbeth himself appears driven along by the violence of his fate like a vessel drifting before a storm:  he reels to and fro like a drunken man; he staggers under the weight of his own purposes and the suggestions of others; he stands at bay with his situation; and from the superstitious awe and breathless suspense into which the communications of the Weird Sisters throw him, is hurried on with daring impatience to verify their predictions, and with impious and bloody hand to tear aside the veil which hides the uncertainty of the future.  He is not equal to the struggle with fate and conscience.  He now ’bends up each corporal instrument to the terrible feat’; at other times his heart misgives him, and he is cowed and abashed by his success.  ’The deed, no less than the attempt, confounds him.’  His mind is assailed by the stings of remorse, and full of ‘preternatural solicitings’.  His speeches and soliloquies are dark riddles on human life, baffling solution, and entangling him in their labyrinths.  In thought he is absent and perplexed, sudden and desperate in act, from a distrust of his own resolution.  His energy springs from the anxiety and agitation of his mind.  His blindly rushing forward on the objects of his ambition and revenge, or his recoiling from them, equally betrays the harassed state of his feelings.—­This part of his character is admirably set off by being brought in connexion with that of Lady Macbeth, whose obdurate strength of will and masculine firmness give her the ascendancy over her husband’s faltering virtue.  She at once seizes on the opportunity that offers for the accomplishment of all their wished-for greatness, and never flinches from her object till all is over.  The magnitude of her resolution almost covers the magnitude of her guilt.  She is a great bad woman, whom we hate, but whom we fear more than we hate.  She does not excite our loathing and abhorrence like Regan and Goneril.  She is only wicked to gain a great end; and is perhaps more distinguished by her commanding presence of mind and inexorable self-will, which do not suffer her to be diverted from a bad purpose, when once formed, by weak and womanly regrets, than by the hardness of her heart or want of natural affections.  The impression which her lofty determination of character makes on the mind of Macbeth is well described where he exclaims: 

           —­Bring forth men children only;
     For thy undaunted mettle should compose
     Nothing but males!