32 When his wife enters, he tells her he is refolved to proceed no further in this fatal affair; and upon her calling him coward, he makes this fine reflection, I dare do all that may become a man ; Who dares do more is none. But what is will and refolution, when people's opinions are what the philofopher calls *KHPINAI ΥΠΟΛΗΨΕΙΣ? How does every honeft fuggeftion vanish, and resolution melt like wax before the fun, coming in competition with his ambition? For her fake (powerful phantom!) honour, honefty, all is facrificed. Macbeth is now king, and his wife a queen, in enjoyment of their utmost wishes. How dear the purchase, will foon appear. When he murders his royal hoft, he comes out with the bloody daggers. This circumftance, little as it seems, paints the hurry and agitation of his mind, ftronger than a thousand verses. But Shakespeare is full of these true touches of nature. Methought I heard a voice cry, 9 Sleep no more, Macbeth doth murder fleep, the innocent fleep, Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care, The death of each day's life, &c. 8 Epict. L. III. c. XVI. 9 Again, The repetition here-fleep no more, Macbeth doth murder fleep, the innocent fleep, &c.—has fomething in it ele gantly Again looking on his hands, What bands are bere? hab! they pluck out mine eyes. Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood Clean from my band ‘• ? 'Tis gantly pathetic.-fleep that knits up the ravell'd fieeve of care. The allufion is to fleav'd filk ravell'd: the allufion perhaps may appear trifling, but Shakespeare knows how to give trifles a new grace and dignity. 10 Shakespeare had this from his brother tragedians. So Hercules in Seneta : Artoum licet Macotis in me gelida transfundet mare, Et tota Tethys per meas currat manus, Hercul. Fur. A&. V. 'Tis faid of Oedipus, in Sophocles, that neither the waters of the Danube, or Phafis can wafh him and kis hovje clean. Οἶμαι γὰρ ἔτ ̓ ἂν Ισριν ἔτε φᾶσιν ἂν Νίψαι καθαρμῷ τήνδε τὴν είγην. In allufton to their expiatory washings in the fea or rivers. Various were the ceremonies of wathing among the Jews, as well as Gentiles; particularly that of the hands. Homer, II. X. 266. Χερσὶ δ' ανίπλωσιν. Διὰ λοίβουν αἴθυπα Γοπου 34 'Tis much happier for a man never to have known what honefty is, than once knowing it, after to forfake it. Macbeth begins now to fee, at a distance, that virtue which he had forfaken he fees the beauty of it, and repines at its lofs, Jealoufie, miftruft, and all the tyrannic paffions now wholly poffefs him. He grows chiefly jealous of Banquo, because his pofterity had been promised the crown. For Banquo's iffue bave I fil'd my mind: For them, the gracious Duncan have I murther'd. To make them kings: "the feed of Banquo kings: Rather than fo, come Fate into the lift, And champion me to tb' utterance 12 ! And Hence came the proverb of doing things with unwaßbed bands; i. e. impudently, without any regard to decency or religion. Henry IV. A& III. Falft. Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou doft, and do it with unwashed hands too. 11 The place fhould thus be pointed, To make them kings. The feed of Banque kings! to be spoken with irony and contempt, which gives a fpirit to the fentence. 12 Alluding to the words of the champion at the coronation. So Holingfhed: "Whoever fhall fay, that king "Richard is not lawful king, I will fight with him at the 06 UTTERANCE." And to have any virtue is caufe fufficient of a tyrant's hatred, hence vengeance is vowed àgainst Macduff. I am in blood Stept in fo far, that foould I wade no more, go o'er. “ UTTERANCE.” . e. to the uttermof, to the last extremity. « A outrance, à toute butranet, adv. L'un et l'autre "eft ban, et fignifie à la rigueur, avec violence. [pour fulvre quelqu'un à toute outrance. Coftar. Ce vous cût été peu "de gloire de mener à outrance un homme déja outré. "Voi. 1. 52." RICHELET. Douglaís in his translation of Virgil. Aen. V, 197. Olli certamine fummo Procumbunt. With all thare fazce than at the uterance. And Aen. X, 430. Et vos, Q Graiis imperdita corpora, Teucri. Und ze also feil bodyis of Trojanis, The gloffary thus explains it: "terance. Chauc Outrance, deftruction: to the uttermost of their Power. a F. Owltrance, extremity, excefs; combatre a oultrance, to fight it out, or to the uttermoft, not to spare one another "in fighting: and that from the adv. oultre, ultra. q. d. * ultrantia. 13 i. e. as to go o'er. 'Tis very common for our poet and his contemporaries to omit [to] the fign of the infinitive mood. D 2 This Book I. This is one of the great morals inculcated in the play, that wickedness draws on wickedness, such is it's deceitful nature. And how poetically is the whole managed, to make all the incidents produce each the other neceffarily and in order; till the measure of their iniquity being full, they both miserably perish? And thus the fatal effects of ambition are defcribed, and the story is one. The episodes, or under-actions, are so interwoven with the fabric of the story, that they are really parts of it, though feemingly but adornings. Thus, for inftance, it being proper to fhew the terrors of Macbeth for his murder of Banquo; the poet makes him haunted with 14 his apparition. And as wicked men are often fuperftitious, as well as inquifitive and jealous, to draw this character in him more strongly, he fends him to enquire his destiny of the three witches. But every thing falls out to encrease his misfortunes. There is fuch a caft of 14 antiquity, and fomething fo horridly folemn in this infernal ceremony of the witches, that I never con 14 The Greek rhetoricians call this, Qalaria and abdomena. One of the fineft inftances of this kind is in the Oreftes of Euripides. 15 If the reader has a mind to compare Shakespeare with the ancients, I would refer him to Ovid's Circe and Medaea, |