. It implies however as late a date as 1596 for _King John_.]

[Footnote 246: Even if this were true, the retort is obvious that
neither is there anything resembling the murder-scene in _Macbeth_.]

[Footnote 247: I have confined myself to the single aspect of this
question on which I had what seemed something new to say. Professor
Hales's defence of the passage on fuller grounds, in the admirable paper
reprinted in his _Notes and Essays on Shakespeare_, seems to me quite
conclusive. I may add two notes. (1) The references in the Porter's
speeches to 'equivocation,' which have naturally, and probably rightly,
been taken as allusions to the Jesuit Garnet's appeal to the doctrine of
equivocation in defence of his perjury when, on trial for participation
in the Gunpowder Plot, do not stand alone in _Macbeth_. The later
prophecies of the Witches Macbeth calls 'the equivocation of the fiend
That lies like truth' (V. v. 43); and the Porter's remarks about the
equivocator who 'could swear in both the scales against either scale,
who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to
heaven,' may be compared with the following dialogue (IV. ii. 45):

_Son._ What is a traitor?

_Lady Macduff._ Why, one that swears and lies.

_Son._ And be all traitors that do so?

_Lady Macduff._ Everyone that does so is a traitor, and must
be hanged.

Garnet, as a matter of fact, _was_ hanged in May, 1606; and it is to be
feared that the audience applauded this passage.

(2) The Porter's soliloquy on the different applicants for admittance
has, in idea and manner, a marked resemblance to Pompey's soliloquy on
the inhabitants of the prison, in _Measure for Measure_, IV. iii. 1 ff.;
and the dialogue between him and Abhorson on the 'mystery' of hanging
(IV. ii. 22 ff.) is of just the same kind as the Porter's dialogue with
Macduff about drink.]

[Footnote 248: In the last Act, however, he speaks in verse even in the
quarrel with Laertes at Ophelia's grave. It would be plausible to
explain this either from his imitating what he thinks the rant of
Laertes, or by supposing that his 'towering passion' made him forget to
act the madman. But in the final scene also he speaks in verse in the
presence of all. This again might be accounted for by saying that he is
supposed to be in a lucid interval, as indeed his own language at 239
ff. implies. But the probability