"
I have now considered nearly every word used by Macbeth in this first
act: I have neither picked passages nor omitted anything that might make
against my argument; yet every impartial reader must acknowledge that
Hamlet is far more clearly sketched in this first act of "Macbeth" than
in the first act of "Hamlet." Macbeth appears in it as an irresolute
dreamer, courteous, and gentle-hearted, of perfect intellectual fairness
and bookish phrase; and in especial his love of thought and dislike of
action are insisted upon again and again.
In spite of the fact that the second act is one chiefly of incident,
filled indeed with the murder and its discovery, Shakespeare uses
Macbeth as the mouthpiece of his marvellous lyrical faculty as freely as
he uses Hamlet. A greater singer even than Romeo, Hamlet is a poet by
nature, and turns every possible occasion to account, charming the ear
with subtle harmonies. With a father's murder to avenge, he postpones
action and sings to himself of life and death and the undiscovered
country in words of such magical spirit-beauty that they can be compared
to nothing in the world's literature save perhaps to the last chapter of
Ecclesiastes.
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