After a pause, in which we may suppose the ambitious desire of a crown to return, so far as to make him undetermined what he shall do, and leave the decision to future time and unborn events, he concludes, Come what come may, Time and the hour runs thro' the roughest day. ; By which, I confess, I do not, with his two last commentators, imagine it meant either the tautology of time and the hour, or an allusion to time painted with an hour-glass, or an exhortation to time to hasten forward but I rather apprehend the meaning to be, tempus et hora, time and occasion, will carry the thing through, and bring it to some determined point and end, let its nature be what it will. In the next soliloquy, he agitates this great question concerning the proposed murder. One argument against it is, that such deeds must be supported by others of like nature: But, in these cases, We still have judgment here; that we but teach Bloody Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return He proceeds next to consider the peculiar relations, in which he stands to Duncan: He's here in double trust: First, as I am his kinsman and his subject, Strong both against the deed; then, as his host, Then follow his arguments against the deed, from the admirable qualities of the King: Besides, this Duncan Hath borne his faculties so meekly, hath been So clear in his great office, that his virtues Will plead, like angels, trumpet-tongu❜d, against So, says he, with many reasons to dissuade, I have none to urge me to this act, but a vaulting ambition; which, by a daring leap, often often procures itself a fall. And thus having determined, he tells Lady Macbeth; We will proceed no further in this business. He hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought Which would be worn, now in their newest gloss, Macbeth, in debating with himself, chiefly dwells upon the guilt, yet touches something on the danger, of assassinating the King. When he argues with Lady Macbeth, knowing her too wicked to be affected by the one, and too daring to be deterred by the other, he urges, with great propriety, what he thinks may have more weight with one of her disposition; the favour he is in with the King, and the esteem he has lately acquired of the people. In answer to her charge of cowardice, he finely distinguishes between manly courage and brutal ferocity. MACBETH. I dare do all that may become a man ; Who dares do more, is none. At At length, overcome, rather than persuaded, he determines on the bloody deed: I am settled, and bend up Each corp'ral agent to this terrible feat. How terrible to him, how repugnant to his nature, we plainly perceive, when, even in the moment that he summons up the resolution needful to perform it, horrid phantasms present themselves: murder alarmed by his sentinel the wolf stealing towards his design; witchcraft celebrating pale Hecate's offerings; the midnight ravisher invading sleeping innocence, seem his associates; and bloody daggers lead him to the very chamber of the King. At his return thence, the sense of the crime he has committed appears suitable to his repugnance at undertaking it. He tells Lady Macbeth, that, of the grooms who slept in Duncan's chamber,— MACBETH. There's one did laugh in's sleep, and one cry'd, Murder! They wak'd each other; and I stood and heard them; But they did say their prayers, and address them Again to sleep. LADY. LADY. There are two lodg'd together. MACBETH. One cry'd, God bless us! and, Amen! the other; LADY. Consider it not so deeply. MACBETH. But wherefore could not I pronounce, Amen? Stuck in my throat. MACBETH. Methought, I heard a voice cry, Sleep no more! 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 natural is the exclamation of a person, who, from the fearless state of unsuspecting innocence, |