[147]
If we might decide on the ruling character of men from their occasional starts of feeling, this passage would unanswerably prove that, in Mr. Whateley's acceptation of the word, Richard is more timid than Macbeth: for, of these two prodigies of guilt, he certainly appears the most fearfully alive to all the consequences of his enormous crimes, and the most terribly appalled by the reproaches of a condemning conscience.
Mr. Steevens upbraids Macbeth, that "he would at last secure himself by flight, but that flight is become an impossibility."
Shakspeare, vol. x. p. 299.
Was retreat ever thought disgrace-
