Languages & literature > Key to the drama

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cho's plot upon the Queen, and the caufe of
his fudden death. The artful Queen had
every point of evidence quite clear, Ban-
cho's undrefs, his body being actually
found in her bed, her loud and diftradted
fcreams, the diftrefs and confufion in
which Ihe at firft appeared ; in Ihort every
prefumption concurred to exculpate her,
and condemn the unhappy Bancho / I
alone doubted; I defired that the fatal
poinard Ihould be openly expofed; perhaps
fome one might inform, if ever, and
where it had been feen before; becaufe
fure I faid it was none of Bancho’s; in that
moment I Hood fmgle, even the penetra¬
ting Argyle* till after he had feen Inetta, was
unfufpicious: and in fine, this dark affair
was fo well conduced on the part of Mac¬
beth and his wife, that the majority of the
council would have voted fome fort of
ignominy upon the dead body ; but Mas-
bethy who until the laft, had fat filent, as
if determined that his opinion, or what he
fhould fay, might biafs no mortal, then
rofe up and fpoke; he pathetically re-
greted, that by fuch an unexpefted de¬
generacy in the breaft of his coufin Bancho^
he had fuffered, as well as the ftate, an irre¬
parable lofs ; the ftate had loft a good
foldier and a counfellor ; he had, for his
fliarc, not only laft thefe, but withal, the
partner