30 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
Philistine turned against Philistine. They come tumbling like a torrent 
on the field, and the Hebrews fly upon them and drive them tumultu- 
ously forth with great slaughter. 
Saul, by divine command, exterminates the Amalekites, but having 
accomplished the terrible deed, having destroyed all, even white-haired 
men, gentle women and innocent children, his heart rebels against the 
slaughter. Even this wholesale destruction is not enough. Saul 
has not made an end of everything. He has saved the king of the 
Amalekites, and also the choicest of the cattle for a burnt-offering, and 
in this has once more provoked the anger of God. Jehovah will cast 
him off from being King of Israel. Samuel is at length persuaded to 
intercede for him. The prophet himself slays the Amalekitish king, and 
offers sacrifice on the altar on Saul’s behalf. À 
In the fifth act is introduced: the most striking character of the 
drama, Malzah, Saul’s evil spirit. Seldom indeed has so successful an 
attempt been made to create a supernatural being who would appeal to 
the reader’s sympathy with all the force of a human character. The 
vague, intangible conceptions that most of us have of the nature of a 
supernatural being are here put into concrete form with marvellous skill. 
Malzah, though an evil spirit, does not repel us. He pities Saul, while 
compelled to drive him to madness, as decreed by the higher powers. 
The author has conceived him as a mischievous sprite rather than one 
altogether vicious. 
Saul, possessed by Malzah, becomes an object of pity and terror. 
David is brought to him, and with his harp charms away his madness. 
Malzah is left without occupation. 
In the second part of the drama the personality of David looms 
up ever more largely, and overshadows that of Saul, around whose 
unfortunate head the clouds of adversity, resulting from his own obstin- 
acy and lack of faith, grow denser and more ominous. Ahinoam, Saul’s 
gentle and devoted queen, brightens many otherwise gloomy scenes 
with her presence, and our vivacious friend Malzah flashes as a ray où 
sunshine—evil sunshine if you will have it so—across the darkening 
pages. ; 
Saul cannot drive from his mind that terrible picture of the 
slaughtered Amalekites, and rebelliously questions the goodness of 

1“ *Malzah’ was to him the most real of all the characters in the drama. 
He looked upon that spiritual being as in a peculiar sense the creation of 
his inventive faculty, and had come at last to regard him as having a certain 
personality, as though he were a sort of familiar of his own.’’—John Reade. 
