There are passages in his writings which we
could not have understood but for some acquaintance with the New
Testament. We will produce a few specimens of the kind we mean,
confining ourselves to one play, "Macbeth."
Just mentioning the phrase, "temple-haunting martlet" (act i. scene 6),
as including in it a reference to the verse, "Yea, the sparrow hath
found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay
her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts," we pass to the following
passage, for which we do not believe there is any explanation but that
suggested to us by the passage of Scripture to be cited.
Macbeth, on his way to murder Duncan, says,--
"Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,
And take the present horror from the time
Which now suits with it."
What is meant by the last two lines? It seems to us to be just another
form of the words, "For there is nothing covered, that shall not be
revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. Therefore whatsoever ye
have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye
have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the
house-tops.
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