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.)