Languages & literature > Key to the drama

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but daily proclamations of attainder and
forfeiture. The wifeft heads, the beft hearts,
and nobleft blood of the nation, muft all
be perfecufed, to make vacant places of
honour, power and truft, for the moll con-
fummate ruffians, that any nation ever
produced; thele, by gratifying every promp¬
titude to luft in their fovereign tyrant,
might themlelves commit, with impunity,
every degree of outrage, robbery and ra¬
pine they had a mind to ; which if you
will give me leave, I fhall illuftrate by one
fhocking example.
‘ There was a gentleman of family in
the highlands, named Maclean; he had a
moft beautiful wife with whom he had
lived, and was living, in a ftate of the ut-
moft concord and felicity ; one of Mac¬
beth’s body guards happening to ride paft
the caftle of Maclean^ faw his wife, and
immediately conceived a defire to enjoy her;
he returned to the caftle, and after being
entertained with every proof of hofpitality,
he had the impudence in the hufbands pre¬
fence to offer unbecoming addrefles to the
wife of Maclean, which he enforced by the
argument of his influence at court, and his
being fo much a favourite with the King,
that he was employed in all his moft fecret
and perfonal expeditions; the hufband and
wife both treated fuch an infult with the
contempt