(c)--Come fate into the list,
And champion me to th' utterance.--

This passage will be best explained by translating it into the language
from whence the only word of difficulty in it is borrowed. _Que la
destinée se rende en lice, et qu'elle me donne un défi_ à l'outrance. A
challenge or a combat _a l'outrance, to extremity_, was a fixed term in
the law of arms, used when the combatants engaged with an _odium
internecinum, an intention to destroy each other_, in opposition to
trials of skill at festivals, or on other occasions, where the contest
was only for reputation or a prize. The sense, therefore, is, Let fate,
that has fore-doomed the exaltation of the sons of Banquo, enter the
lists against me, with the utmost animosity, in defence of its own
decrees, which I will endeavour to invalidate, whatever be the danger.


NOTE XXV.

_Macbeth_. Ay, in the catalogue, ye go for men;
As hounds, and grey-hounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,
Shoughs, water-rugs, and demy-wolves are cleped
All by the name of dogs.

Though this is not the most sparkling passage in the play, and though
the name of a dog is of no great importance, yet it may not be improper
to remark, that there is no such species of dogs as _shoughs_ mentioned
by Caius De Canibus Britannicis, or any other writer that has fallen
into my hands, nor is the word to be found in any dictionary which I
have examined. I, therefore, imagined that it is falsely printed for