ble: he forbears to touch on "the imperial theme," as relating to himself, and only asks "Do you not hope-your children-shall be kings, "When those that gave-the Thane of Cawdor to me, "Promis'd no less to them ?" Thus are we, with exquisite delicacy, by one sentence in the opening of the play, possessed of the perfect spirit of Macbeth's character. That, trusted home." That prediction, obtaining full credence, believed to the utmost extent of it. 48. - Why do I yield to that suggestion?" Suggestion, here, does not mean temptation, as Mr. Steevens would have it, but merely the mental image of the murder; for the crown is the temptation, and the idea or image of that was far from being horrid. 49. Present fears "Are less than horrible imaginings." Dangers distinctly and immediately before us, are less alarming than those remote, which present themselves through the mist of a terrified imagination:-fears for dangers, or cause of fears. A similar reflection is uttered by Satan, in Paradise Regained: The expectation more "Of fear torments me, than the feeling can." My single state of man." This may only imply my mere manhood, or the frail, unsupported condition of human nature; but I rather think it signifies, my "entire frame," or constitution, my whole corporeal and mental establishment; as in K. John: "This kingdom, this confine of flesh and blood." And in Julius Cæsar: The state of man, "Like to a little kingdom, suffers, then, Milton says, in the eleventh book of Paradise Lost 51. "Time and the hour runs thro' the roughest day." or, The word " hour," as I apprehend, is not introduced to express a new or different idea from that which belongs to "time," but is rather an amplification or enlargement of the previous sense, and might be so associated by the particle ," as well as "and;" the verb, therefore, "runs" is properly singular; and I fully agree with Mrs. Montague in the interpretation"Time and occasion;" i. e. time, and the fit time. It is not strictly pleonasm, as Mr. Steevens calls it, no more than is, in my opinion, the instance produced by him, for similar censure, from Othello: "The head and front of my offending" Which I take to mean-the capital accusation and full exhibition of the charge against me, or the substance and full display of my offence: or, perhaps, Othello, full of military ideas, by 66 head," means force," the collected strength and arranged view. Neither do I think Mr. Malone successful in the instance which he has produced to sustain his colleague: "Death, whose hour and time were certain." This surely is, whose hour and season, period of life; and then in the verses, "Time's young Hours," are merely the poetic personified Hours attendant upon Time. 52. ፡፡ My dull brain was wrought "With things forgotten." I was perplexed in an endeavour to recal what my dull brain had suffered to slip into oblivion. This is connected with what follows: "Kind gentlemen, your pains "The leaf to read them." But your kindness is set down in the book of my remembrance; and that the record may not, like lighter impressions, be effaced, I shall every day turn the leaf to read it. "The interim having weigh'd it." The interim is here used adverbially, as Mr. Malone justly remarks; "the while" is a common phrase of the same meaning. SCENE IV. 55. "Safe toward your love and honour.' Safe toward, I believe, means-with sure ten dency, with certain direction; and if so, it ought to be marked as a compound—“ safe-toward." 57. Noble Banquo, "Thou hast no less deserv'd, nor must be known "No less to have done so." The position here being affirmative, the negative conjunction is wrong; it ought to be " and must," &c. "On all deservers.-From hence to Inverness." The preposition here, alike impertinent to grammar, and burthensome to the metre, was properly omitted by Pope, SCENE V. 61. "The illness should attend it.". 62. "Illness," for criminal disposition. --Thou'dst have, great Glamis, "That which cries, Thus thou must do, if thou have it; "And that which rather thou dost fear to do, "Than wishest should be undone.” The obscurity of this passage arises from the accumulative conjunction, which leads us to expect new matter; whereas what follows is only amplification : "And that which rather thou dost fear to do," &c. Mr. Malone, I think, is mistaken, in supposing this to be a continuance of what was uttered by the object of ambition :-" Thou would'st have (says the Lady) the crown; which cries, thou must kill Duncan, if thou have it." This is an act which thou must do, if thou have the crown. "And (adds she) what thou art not disinclinedto, but art rather fearful to perform, than unwilling to have executed." Lady Macbeth avoids to name the murder in express terms; and most artfully tries to blend and confound the repulsive means with the alluring object, The golden round, "Which fate and metaphisical aid doth seem "To have thee crown'd withal." The poet's meaning is, I believe, what Mr. Malone has stated-(little differing, indeed, from what Doctor Warburton had before suggested) - --"Which fate and supernatural agency seem to intend to have thee crowned with. But it is impossible for this sense to be supported by any construction of the words before us. Something has been omitted; and, to make the passage intelligible, something must certainly be supplied. Doctor Johnson's expedient seems easy and satisfactory: 64. " "To have thee crown'd withal." Give him tending, "He brings great news. self is hoarse, The raven him "That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan "Under my battlements." Doctor Johnson and Mr. Fuseli appear to have been refining this passage into perplexity. That the messenger was out of breath, was surely from no |