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Shakespeare’s general plan, we have seen, is to show one set of forces advancing, in secret or open opposition to the other, to some decisive success, and then driven downward to defeat by the reaction it provokes.  And the advantages of this plan, as seen in such a typical instance as Julius Caesar, are manifest.  It conveys the movement of the conflict to the mind with great clearness and force.  It helps to produce the impression that in his decline and fall the doer’s act is returning on his own head.  And, finally, as used by Shakespeare, it makes the first half of the play intensely interesting and dramatic.  Action which effects a striking change in an existing situation is naturally watched with keen interest; and this we find in some of these tragedies.  And the spectacle, which others exhibit, of a purpose forming itself and, in spite of outward obstacles and often of inward resistance, forcing its way onward to a happy consummation or a terrible deed, not only gives scope to that psychological subtlety in which Shakespeare is scarcely rivalled, but is also dramatic in the highest degree.

But when the crisis has been reached there come difficulties and dangers, which, if we put Shakespeare for the moment out of mind, are easily seen.  An immediate and crushing counter-action would, no doubt, sustain the interest, but it would precipitate the catastrophe, and leave a feeling that there has been too long a preparation for a final effect so brief.  What seems necessary is a momentary pause, followed by a counter-action which mounts at first slowly, and afterwards, as it gathers force, with quickening speed.  And yet the result of this arrangement, it would seem, must be, for a time, a decided slackening of tension.  Nor is this the only difficulty.  The persons who represent the counter-action and now take the lead, are likely to be comparatively unfamiliar, and therefore unwelcome, to the audience; and, even if familiar, they are almost sure to be at first, if not permanently, less interesting than those who figured in the ascending movement, and on whom attention has been fixed.  Possibly, too, their necessary prominence may crowd the hero into the back-ground.  Hence the point of danger in this method of construction seems to lie in that section of the play which follows the crisis and has not yet approached the catastrophe.  And this section will usually comprise the Fourth Act, together, in some cases, with a part of the Third and a part of the Fifth.

Shakespeare was so masterly a playwright, and had so wonderful a power of giving life to unpromising subjects, that to a large extent he was able to surmount this difficulty.  But illustrations of it are easily to be found in his tragedies, and it is not always surmounted.  In almost all of them we are conscious of that momentary pause in the action, though, as we shall see, it does not generally occur immediately after the crisis.  Sometimes he allows himself