MACBETH
[P. 60.] The poet’s eye. “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” v, 1, 12.
your only tragedy-maker. An adaptation of “your only jig-maker,” “Hamlet,” iii, 2, 132.
the air smells wooingly, the temple-haunting martlet. i, 6, 4-6.
blasted heath. i, 3, 77.
air-drawn dagger. iii, 4, 62.
the gracious Duncan. iii, 1, 66.
[P. 61.] blood-boultered Banquo. iv, 1, 123.
What are these. i, 3, 39.
bends up. i, 7, 80.
[P. 62.] The deed. Cf. ii, 2, 11: “The attempt and not the deed confounds us.”
preter[super]natural solicitings. i, 3, 130.
Bring forth. i, 7, 73.
[P. 63.] Screw his courage. i, 7, 60.
lost so poorly. Cf. ii, 2, 71: “Be not lost so poorly in your thoughts.”
a little water. ii, 2, 68.
the sides of his intent. i, 7, 26.
for their future days and nights. Cf. i, 5, 70: “To all our days and nights to come.” The next five quotations are from the same scene.
[P. 64.] Mrs. Siddons. Sarah Siddons (1775-1831), “The Tragic Muse,” the most celebrated actress in the history of the English stage. Hazlitt wrote this passage for the Examiner (June 16, 1816) immediately after seeing a performance of the part by Mrs. Siddons. See Works, VIII, 312-373.
[P. 65.] There is no art. i, 4, 11.
How goes the night. ii, 1, 1.
[P. 66.] Light thickens. iii, 2, 50.
Now spurs. iii, 3, 6.
[P. 67.] So fair and foul a day. i, 3, 38.
such welcome and unwelcome news together. Cf. iv, 3, 138: “such welcome and unwelcome things at once.”
Men’s lives are. Cf. iv, 3, 171:
“and good men’s lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps,
Dying or ere they sicken.”
Look like the innocent flower. i, 5, 66.
to him and all, “to all and him.” iii, 4, 91.
Avaunt and quit my sight. iii, 4, 93.
himself again. Cf. iii, 4, 107: “being gone, I am a man again.”
he may sleep. iv, 1, 86.
Then be thou jocund. iii, 2, 40.
Had he not resembled. ii, 2, 13.
should be women. i, 3. 45.
in deeper consequence. i, 3, 126.
Why stands. iv, 1, 125.
[P. 68.] He is as distinct a being, etc. Cf. Pope (Nichol Smith’s “Eighteenth Century Essays,” p. 48): “Every single character in Shakespeare is as much an individual as those in life itself; it is impossible to find any two alike; and such as from their relation or affinity appear most to be twins, will upon comparison be found remarkably distinct.” Beattie also had commented on “that wonderfully penetrating and plastic faculty, which is capable of representing every species of character, not as our ordinary poets do, by a high shoulder, a wry mouth, or gigantic stature, but by hitting off, with a delicate hand, the distinguishing feature, and that in such a manner as makes it easily known from all others whatsoever, however similar to a superficial eye.” (Quoted in Drake’s “Memorials of Shakespeare,” 1828, p. 255.) Richard Cumberland had developed a parallel between Macbeth and Richard III in the Observer, Nos. 55-58, but it is to the suggestion of Thomas Whateley that Hazlitt is chiefly indebted. Both Richard III and Macbeth, says Whateley, “are soldiers, both usurpers; both attain the throne by the same means, by treason and murder; and both lose it too in the same manner, in battle against the person claiming it as lawful heir. Perfidy, violence, and tyranny are common to both; and these only, their obvious qualities, would have been attributed indiscriminately to both by an ordinary dramatic writer. But Shakespeare, in conformity to the truth of history as far as it led him, and by improving upon the fables which have been blended with it, has ascribed opposite principles and motives to the same designs and actions, and various effects to the operation of the same events upon different tempers. Richard and Macbeth, as represented by him, agree in nothing but their fortunes.” (See the Variorum edition of “Richard III,” p. 549.) Hazlitt makes similar discriminations between the characters of Iago and Richard III, between Henry VI and Richard II, and between Ariel and Puck.
the milk of human kindness. i, 5, 18.
himself alone. Cf. 3 “Henry VI,” v, 6, 83: “I am myself alone.”
[P. 69.] For Banquo’s issue. iii, 1, 65.
Duncan is in his grave. iii, 2, 22.
direness is rendered familiar. v, 5, 14.
troubled with thick coming fancies. v, 3, 38.
[P. 70.] subject to all. “Measure for Measure,” iii, 1, 9.
My way of life. v, 3, 22.
[P. 71.] Lillo, George (1693-1739), author of several “bourgeois” tragedies of which the best known is “George Barnwell” (1731).
Specimens of Early English Dramatic Poets by Charles Lamb, 1808. (Works, ed. Lucas, IV, 144.)