ae Sa 
65 
Concluding his lecture, Mr. Marvin contrasted the evidences 
of devotion and the artistic life of the 14th, 15th, and 16th 
centuries with the present day. He considered that when one 
noted the wonderful erection of those times, the intellectual 
power was as great as our own more self-conscious and vaunted 
powers. The architectural conceptions of modern times were 
inferior to those of the times to which he referred. 
MACBETH AND KING LEAR. 
By THOMAS LEYLAND. October 18th, 1891. 
Perhaps I may take it for granted at the outset of this 
consideration of two of Shakespeare’s leading characters, that 
the two doctrines of Development and Degeneration are com- 
monly accepted to be as true in the realm of morals as they are 
in the realm of physical nature. 
If that is so, my task will be a comparatively easy one, for I 
have set before myself the task of indicating how those two 
great creations of character, each in its own way, illustrate the 
important principles just mentioned. We are not worst at once, 
neither are we best at once. We may say with Paul, that ‘“ Evil 
men wax worse and worse,” and with the Hebrew proverbialist 
that ‘‘The path of the just is as the shining light which 
shineth more and more.” Ray Lancaster may call our attention 
to the one doctrine in physical nature, and Charles Darwin may 
point out and elucidate the other in the outward world, but our 
poets have made plain the principle in the realm of character 
from time immemorial. No one has done this better than 
Shakespeare, and nowhere in his works has he done this better 
than in the plays of Macbeth and King Lear. 
We shall start with Macbeth from the hill-top, so to speak, of 
life, and we shall descend in imagination with him into the 
misty valley ; and then we shall start with Lear from the lower 
level of life, and ascend in imagination with him to the heights. 
The essayist then went on to indicate the high estimation in 
| which Macbeth was held at the time of the opening of the play, 
and how, through his ambition, and the encouragement of that 
ambition by his wife, he gradually rose in position, and, in a 
corresponding ratio, fell in character. Retribution came as a 
matter of course, and the whole career, as shown in the play, 
was a descent, indicating that even 
“Talents angel-bright, 
Tf wanting worth, are shining instruments 
In false ambition’s hand, to finish faults 
Illustrious, and give infamy renown.” 
