[70]
Given to the common enemy of man,
To make them kings. The seed of Banquo kings!
may still, like staunch commentators, insist, that it is most likely the translation was published much earlier in the year than Macbeth;—and, surely, that our author might thus have read Holland's work, could, of all persons, with least grace be denied by Mr. Steevens, who has laboriously diffused Shakspeare's thirty-six plays through one-and-twenty volumes, to no other purpose, apparently, but that of proving him acquainted with (it would, certainly, be exaggeration, to say) every English book that had passed the press down to his time.
As a profound statesman, Octavius is celebrated by all the Historians who write of him; they are not so unanimous on the subject of his military prowess; on which, indeed, some of them have not hesitated to cast a slur of doubt. The lover of Cleopatra sunk before the fortune of his more prudent competitor for empire; but, in the most triumphant time of Cæsar's prosperity, neither calumny nor flattery was ever base or broad enough,
