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 of the battle that is to decide his doom, Richard acknowledges a conscience: Bold in supernatural assurances of security from all peril, Macbeth sighs for the protection of his former popularity.

Ambition is the sole impulse that directs every action of Richard's life: his heart, in which every malignant and violent passion reigns uncontrolled, is hardened in wickedness: his mind is sunk into that depth of hopeless depravity, where the bad believe all other men to be as abandoned as themselves: he attains the crown by hypocrisy habitual to him, and by murders, that entail no remorse on the stern valour with which he