[161]
The appeals which Macbeth makes to his own conscious valour for support in all his extremities, are another conclusive proof that Shakspeare means him to be esteemed a man of indisputable spirit; in the mouth of one whom we knew to be a braggart, these self-confident expressions would degenerate into mere farce, and provoke only our ridicule and laughter. This point ought to have been noticed earlier, among the other mistakes of the Remarks and the Dissertation.
In the performance, on the Stage,—the valour of the tyrant, hateful as he is, invariably commands the admiration of every spectator of the play,
