completely superfluous. What
then are we to conclude concerning these problematical lines? First
begging the reader to bear in mind the tone of sophistry which has
been observed by Schlegel to pervade, and which is indeed manifest
throughout the persuasions of Lady Macbeth, we answer, that
she wilfully confounds her husband's,--probably vague and
unplanned--"enterprise" of obtaining the crown, with that "nearest
way" to which she now urges him; but, at the same time, she obscurely
individualizes the separate purposes in the words, "and to be _more_
than what you were, you would be so much more the man."

It is a fact which is highly interesting in itself, and one which
strongly impeaches the candour of the majority of Shakspere's
commentators, that the impenetrable obscurity which must have
pervaded the whole of this passage should never have been made the
subject of remark. As far as we can remember, not a word has been
said upon the matter in any one of the many superfluously explanatory
editions of our dramatist's productions. Censures have been
repeatedly lavished upon minor cases of obscurity, none upon this. In
the former case the fault has been felt to be Shakspere's, for it has
usually existed in the expression; but in the latter the language is
unexceptional, and the avowal of obscurity might imply the
possibility of misapprehension or stupidity upon the part of the
avower.

Probably the only considerable obstacle likely to act against the
general adoption of those views will be the doubt, whether so
important a feature of this consummate tragedy can have been left by
Shakspere so obscurely expressed as to be capable of remaining
totally unperceived during upwards of two centuries, within which
period the genius of a Coleridge and of a Schlegel has been applied
to its interpretation. Should this objection be brought forward, we
reply, in the first place, that the objector is 'begging' his
question in assuming that the feature under examination has remained
_totally_ unperceived. Coleridge by way of comment upon these words
of Banquo,

"Good sir, why do you stand, and seem to fear
Things that do sound so fair?"

writes thus: "The general idea is all that can be required of a
poet--not a scholastic logical consistency in all the parts, so as to
meet metaphysical objectors. * * * * * * * * How strictly true to
nature it is, that Banquo, and not Macbeth himself, directs our
notice to the effects produced