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 been still to do, had he not comprehended son and father, both, in his bloody purpose. Thus, the securing of the crown against Banquo's issue, is so far from being a secondary, that it is, indeed, the only instigation to this double murder. Banqio might have lived the lease of nature, if the Sisters had never revealed the scheme of his nativity.

That Macbeth felt a personal fear of Banquo on account of his superior courage, is an opinion founded, perhaps, on an erroneous conception of Shakspeare's meaning in the following lines:—