The structure of the last line is like that of "Thy knee bussing the stones" (Cor. iii. 1). "The mind is its own place" (Par. Lost, i. 254), and similar places. There can be little doubt, I think, that _on't_ was effaced at the end of the third line; for the poet could hardly, even in his most careless moment, have termed solid parts of a building 'pendent nests,' etc. Wordsworth, with this very place in his mind, wrote: "_On_ coigns of vantage _hang_ their nests of clay" (Misc. Son. 34). It is also in favour of this reading that it throws the metric accent on _this_, thereby adding force. 'Coign of vantage' would seem to be _coin d'avantage_, Fr., and denoting a projection of some kind. * * * * * SC. 7. "If it were done when 'tis done then 'twere well It were done quickly. If the assassination Could trammel up the consequence, and catch With his success surcease; that but this blow Might be the be-all and the end-all here; But here--upon this bank and shoal of time-- We'd jump the life to come.... But in these cases," etc. So the passage should be pointed. The first 'done' in the first line is, finished, ended; from 'If' in the second line to 'life to come' in the seventh is one sentence, with the same idea repeated in three several forms, and not completed; common sense dictates the transposition of 'surcease' and 'success,' the latter signifying accomplishment; 'but' in lines four and six is, only; 'the life to come' is not the future state but the remaining years of his own life, as is manifest from what follows. In scene 5 we have had, "Which shall to all our _nights and days to come_." We also meet with, "True swains in love shall in the _world to come_" (Tr. and Cr. iii. 2). "Thus all his _life to come_ is loss and shame." Cowley, Davideis, ii. 616. * * * * * "Vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself, And falls on the other _side_.--How now! what news?" Hanmer also supplied _side_, which metre and sense demand alike. He had completed what he intended to say, and was pausing when his wife entered. * * * * * "At what it did so freely? From this time Such I account thy love." A line or more must have been lost between these lines. * * * * * "I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none." For 'do' in the second line, the correction of Southern and Rowe, generally adopted, the folio has _no_, which Mr. Hunter retains, giving the line to Lady Macbeth. But her reply, "What _beast_ was it then?" shows that _do_ was the poet's word. ACT II. SC. 1. "Sent forth great largess to your officers."