Such is the_ world--such is the condition of human life, that we
always think_ to-morrow _will be happier than to-day, but to-morrow and
to-morrow steals over us unenjoyed and unregarded, and we still linger
in the same expectation to the moment appointed for our end. All these
days, which have thus passed away, have sent multitudes of fools to the
grave, who were engrossed by the same dream of future felicity, and,
when life was departing from them, were, like me, reckoning on
to-morrow_.
Such was once my conjecture, but I am now less confident. Macbeth might
mean, that there would have been a more convenient _time_ for such a
_word_, for such _intelligence_, and so fall into the following
reflection. We say we send _word_ when we give intelligence.
V.v.21 (524,8) To the last syllable of recorded time] _Recorded time_
seems to signify the time fixed in the decrees of Heaven for the period
of life. The _record_ of _futurity_ is indeed no accurate expression,
but as we only know transactions past or present, the language of men
affords no term for the volumes of prescience, in which future events
may be supposed to be written.
V.v.23 (524,9) The way to dusty death] _Dusty_ is a very natural
epithet. The second folio has,
_The way to_ study _death_.--
which Mr. Upton prefers, but it is only an errour by an accidental
transposition of the types.
V.
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