They wak'd each other; and I stood and heard them, But they did fay their prayers, and address them Again to fleep. LADY. There are two lodg'd together. MACBETH. One cry'd, God bless us! and, Amen! the other; LADY. Confider it not fo deeply. MACBETH. But wherefore could not I pronounce, Amen? Stuck in my throat. MACBETH. Methought, I heard a voice cry, Sleep no more! Macbeth doth murder fleep; the innocent fleep. Then he replies, when his lady bids him carry back the daggers; I am afraid to think what I have done! Look on't again I dare not. How How natural is the exclamation of a perfon, who, from the fearless state of unfuspecting Innocence, is fallen into the fufpicious condition of Guilt, when upon hearing a knocking at the gate he cries out; MACBETH. How is it with me, when every noife appals me? The Poet has contrived to throw a tinc✩ ture of remorfe even into Macbeth's refolution to murder Banquo.He does not proceed in it like a man, who, impénitent in crimes, and wanton in fuccefs, gaily goes forward in his violent career; but feems impelled onward, and stimulated to this additional villany, by an apprehenfion, that, if Banquo's pofterity should inherit the crown, he has facrificed his virtue, and defiled his own foul in vain. MACBETH. If 'tis fo, For Banquo's iffue have I 'fil'd my mind ; For them, the gracious Duncan have I murder'd; Only for them; and mine eternal jewel Giv'n to the common enemy of man, To make them Kings, the feed of Banquo kings. His defire to keep Lady Macbeth innocent of this intended murder, and yet from the fulness of a throbbing heart, uttering what may render suspected the very thing he wishes to conceal, fhews how deeply the author enters into human nature in general, and in every circumftance preferves the confiftency of the character he exhibits. How strongly is expreffed the great truth, that to a man of courage, the most terrible object is the perfon he has injured, in the following addrefs to Banquo's ghost : MACBETH. What man dare, I dare. Approach thou like the rugged Ruffian bear, Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves The baby of a girl. Hence, terrible fhadow 3 It is impoffible not to fympathize with the terrors Macbeth expreffes in his disordered fpeech. MACBETH. It will have blood.-They fay, blood will have blood. Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak; Augurs, that understand relations, have, By magpies, and by choughs, and rooks, brought forth The fecret'ft man of blood. The perturbation, with which Macbeth again reforts to the Witches, and the tone of refentment and abhorrence with which he addresses them, rather expreffes his sense of the crimes, to which their promises excited him, than any fatisfaction in the regal condition, thofe crimes had procured. MACBETH. How now, you fecret, black, and midnight hags! The unhappy and difconfolate ftate of the most triumphant villany, from a consciousness of mens internal deteftation of that flagitious greatness, to which they are forced N forced to pay external homage, is finely expreffed in the following words : I have liv'd long enough: my way of life Is fall'n into the fear, the yellow leaf: And that which should accompany o'd age, As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have; but in their stead, Curfes not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath, Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not. Toward the conclufion of the piece, his mind feems to fink under its load of guilt! Despair and melancholy hang on his words! By his address to the phyfician, we perceive he has griefs that prefs harder on him than his enemies : MACBETH. Canft thou not minifter to a mind difeas'd; Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow; Raze out the written troubles of the brain; And, with fome fweet oblivious antidote, Cleanse the stuff'd bofom of that perilous stuff Which weighs upon the heart? The alacrity with which he attacks young Siward, and his reluctance to engage with Macduff, 1 |