[52]
His ruling thoughts at once discover themselves; and, through all the struggles of his conscience, he still betrays the ambitious hope, that these mysterious Hags will prove oracles of verity to him, as their speeches have already shone so prosperously, and so quickly, on Macbeth. Never could these discordant and horrible emotions have been excited in the virtuous mind of Banquo by declarations, which he had, as Mr. Whateley avers, contemned, ridiculed, and disregarded.
To conclude:—A play is written on some event, for the purpose of being acted; and plays are so inseparable from the notion of action,
