_On a Passage in "Macbeth."_--MR. SINGLETON (Vol. vii., p. 404.) says,
"Vaulting ambition, that _o'erleaps_ itself," is nonsense--the thing is
impossible; and proposes that "vaulting ambition" should "rest his hand
upon the pommel, and _o'erleap_ the saddle (sell)," a thing not uncommon in
the feats of horsemanship.
Did MR. SINGLETON never _o'erleap_ himself, and be too late--later than
_himself_ intended? Did he never, in his younger days, amuse himself with a
_soprasalto_; or with what Donne calls a "vaulter's sombersault?" Did he
never hear of any little plunderer, climbing a wall, _o'erreaching_ himself
to pluck an apple, and falling on the other side, into the hands of the
gardener? "By like," says Sir Thomas More, "the manne there _overshotte_
himself."
What was the _manne_ about? Attempting such a perilous gambol, perhaps, as
correcting Shakspeare.
To {overleap, overreach, overshoot} himself are merely, to {leap, reach,
shoot}, over or beyond the mark himself intended.