a man wholly possessed with his own present condition, and, therefore,
not at leisure to explain his own allusions to himself. If these words
are taken away, by which not only the thought but the numbers are
injured, the lines of Shakespeare close together without any traces of a
breach.

My genius is rebuk'd. He chid the sisters.

(b)--The common enemy of man.

It is always an entertainment to an inquisitive reader, to trace a
sentiment to its original source, and, therefore, though the term enemy
of man, applied to the devil, is in itself natural and obvious, yet some
may be pleased with being informed, that Shakespeare probably borrowed
it from the first lines of the Destruction of Troy, a book which he is
known to have read.

That this remark may not appear too trivial, I shall take occasion from
it to point out a beautiful passage of Milton, evidently copied from a
book of no greater authority: in describing the gates of hell, Book ii.
v.879, he says,

--On a sudden open fly,
With impetuous recoil and jarring sound,
Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder.

In the history of Don Bellianis, when one of the knights approaches, as
I remember, the castle of Brandezar, the gates are said to open,
_grating harsh thunder upon their brazen hinges_.