se"; that
is, a thing that we have paused and deliberated upon. Here it would
seem that the Poet, so he got the several elements of thought and the
corresponding parts of expression drawn in together, cared little for
the precise form and order of the latter, trusting that the hearer or
reader would mentally shape and place them so as to fit the sense. But
the meaning is not always so easy to come at as in these two cases. In
_Macbeth_, v. 4, when others are surmising and forecasting the issue
of the war, Macduff says, "Let our just censures attend the true
event, and put we on industrious soldiership." He wants to have the
present time all spent in doing the work, not in speculating of the
issue; and his meaning is, Let us not try to judge how things are
going, till the actual result enables us to judge rightly; or, Let
our judgments wait till the issue is known, _that so they may be_
just. In this case, the ideas signified by _judgment, waiting, result,
known_, and _just_ were all to be expressed together, and the
answering parts of language are disposed in the handiest order for
metre and brevity; while the relations which those parts bear to each
other in the speaker's thought are to be gathered from the subject and
drift of the foregoing dialogue.

As this is at times a rather troublesome feature in the Poet's style,
I will add a few more instances. Thus in the same play: "This castle
hath a pleasant seat: the air nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
unto our gentle senses"; that is, the air _sweetens_ our senses _into
gentleness_, or _makes_ them gentle, by its purity and pleasantness.
Again: "Ere humane statute purg'd the gentle weal"; which means, ere
humane laws _made_ the commonwealth gentle by cleansing it from the
wrongs and pollutions of barbarism. So too in _King Henry the Fifth_,
when the conspiring lords find their plot detected, and hear the doom
of death pronounced upon them by the King, one of them says, "And God
be thanked for prevention; which I in sufferance heartily will
rejoice;" meaning, that he is thankful their murderous purpose is
defeated, though it be by their death; and that he will heartily
rejoice for such defeat, even while suffering the pains it involves.
Again, in _King Henry the Fourth_, when Hotspur is burning to cross
swords with Prince Henry in the forthcoming battle:

"And, fellows, soldiers, friends,
Better consider what you have to do,
Than I, that have