[82]
When Macbeth and the Thane of Fife encounter each other in battle, the tyrant does not resort to that power over his life with which he believed himself gifted, as, in the true spirit of a coward, he instantly would have done, had he personally feared him; but, yielding to a noble compunction for the inhuman wrongs he has done him, is desirous to avoid the necessity of adding the blood of Macduff himself to that already spilled in the slaughter of his dearest connexions:—
Macb. Of all men else, I have avoided thee:
But get thee back; my soul is too much charg'd
With blood of thine already.
