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being either negligently read, hastily pronounced, or imperfectly heard.

JOHNSON.

Line 118. He shall live a man forbid:] Forbid implies to prohibit, in opposition to the word bid in its present sense: it signifies, by the same kind of opposition, to curse, when it is derived from the same word in its primitive meaning. JOHNSON.

Line 120. Shall he dwindle, &c.] This mischief was supposed to be put in execution by means of a waxen figure, which represented the person who was to be consumed by slow degrees.

Line 141.

STEEVENS.

That man may question ?] Are ye any beings with which man is permitted to hold converse, or of which it is lawful

to ask questions.

JOHNSON.

Line 150. -thane of Cawdor!] In Johnson's Tour to the Western Islands of Scotland, we find that one ancient tower, with its battlements and winding stairs, of the castle of Cawdor still remains, from which Macbeth drew this title.

Line 157. Are ye fantastical,] By fantastical, he means creatures of fantasy, or imagination; the question is, Are these real beings before us, or are we deceived by illusions of fancy? JOHNS. Line 177. By Sinel's death,] The father of Macbeth. POPE. -eaten of the insane root,] The insane root means

.192.

the root which causes insanity.

Line 207.

-as thick as tale,] Meaning that the news came JOHNSON.

as thick as a tale can travel with the post.

Line 236. Might yet enkindle you-] Enkindle, for to stimulate you to seek. WARBURTON.

Line 244. -Swelling act] Swelling is used in the same sense in the Prologue to Hen. V.

"" "princes to act

"And monarchs to behold the swelling scene." STEEV. Line 246. This supernatural soliciting-] Soliciting means in

citement.

Line 253.

-Present fears

JOHNSON.

Are less than horrible imaginings:] Present fears are fears of things present, which Macbeth declares, and every man has found, to be less than the imagination presents them while the objects are yet distant. JOHNSON. Line 256. single state of man,] The single state of man

seems to be used by Shakspeare for an individual, in opposition to

a commonwealth, or conjunct body.

Line 256.

-function

Is smother'd in surmise; and nothing is,

JOHNSON.

But what is not.] All powers of action are oppressed and crushed by one overwhelming image in the mind, and nothing is present to me, but that which is really future. Of things now about me I have no perception, being intent wholly on that which has yet no existence. JOHNSON.

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With things forgotten.] My head was worked, agitated, put into commotion.

ACT I. SCENE IV.

JOHNSON.

Line 284. With one that saw him die:] The behaviour of the Thane of Cawdor corresponds in almost every circumstance with that of the unfortunate earl of Essex, as related by Stowe, p. 793. STEEVENS.

Line 289. -studied in his death,] Instructed in the art of dying. It was usual to say studied, for learned in science. JOHNS. Line 293. To find the mind's construction in the face:] The construction of the mind is, I believe, a phrase peculiar to Shakspeare; it implies the frame or disposition of the mind, by which it is determined to good or ill. JOHNSON.

Line 327.

hence to Inverness,] In Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, we find that the walls of Macbeth's castle at Inverness are yet standing.

ACT I. SCENE V.

Line 353.

-missives from the king,] i. e. messengers.

-377.

-the golden round,

Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem

To have thee crown'd withal.] For seem, the sense evidently directs us to read seek. The crown to which fate destines thee, and which preternatural agents endeavour to bestow upon thee. The golden round is the diadem. JOHNSON.

Line 391.

-The raven himself is hoarse,] Dr. Warburton reads,
-The raven himself's not hoarse,

yet I think the present words may stand. The messenger, says

the servant, had hardly breath to make up his message; to which the lady answers mentally, that he may well want breath, such a message would add hoarseness to the raven. That even the bird, whose harsh voice is accustomed to predict calamities, could not croak the entrance of Duncan but in a note of unwonted harshness. JOHNSON.

Line 394.

mortal thoughts,] This expression signifies not the thoughts of mortals, but murtherous, deadly, or destructive de

signs.

Line 397.

-401.

-remorse ;] i. e. pity.

take

JOHNSON.

-take my milk for gall,] Take away my milk, and

put gall into the place.

JOHNSON.

Line 404. You wait on nature's mischief!] Nature's mischief is mischief done to nature, violation of nature's order committed by wickedness. JOHNSON.

Line 405. And pall thee-] i. e. wrap thyself in a pall. WARB,

408. To cry hold! hold!] On this passage there is a long criticism in the Rambler. JOHNSON. Line 408. Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor!] Shakspeare has supported the character of lady Macbeth by repeated efforts, and never omits an opportunity of adding a trait of ferocity, or a mark of the want of human feelings, to this monster of his own creation. The softer passions are more obliterated in her than in her husband, in proportion as her ambition is greater. She meets him here on his return from an expedition of danger with such a salutation as would have become one of his friends or vassals; a salutation apparently fitted rather to raise his thoughts to a level with her own purposes, than to testify her joy at his return, or manifest an attachment to his person: nor does any sentiment expressive of love or softness fall from her throughout the play. While Macbeth himself in the midst of the horrors of his guilt still retains a character less fiend-like than that of his queen, talks to her with a degree of tenderness, and pours his complaints and fears into her bosom, accompanied with terms of endearment.

Line 412.

STEEVENS.

This ignorant present,] Ignorant has here the signification of unknowing; that is, I feel by anticipation those future hours, of which, according to the process of nature, the present time would be ignorant. JOHNSON.

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Line 436. Unto our gentle senses.] Senses are nothing more than each man's sense. Gentle senses is very elegant, as it means placid, calm, composed, and intimates the peaceable delight of a fine day. JOHNSON. Line 438.

barlet.

-martlet,] This bird is in the old edition called

JOHNSON. Line 441. coigne of vantage,] Convenient corner. JOHNSON. -449. How you shall bid God-yield us-] To bid any one God-yeld him, i. e. God yield him, was the same as God reward him. WARBURTON.

I believe yield, or, as it is in the folio of 1623, eyld, is a corrupted contraction of shield. The wish implores not reward but protection.

JOHNSON.

Line 457. We rest your hermits.] Hermits for beadsmen.

That is, we as hermits shall always pray for you.

ACT I. SCENE VII.

WARBURTON.

STEEVENS.

Line 474. —If the assassination, &c.] Of this soliloquy the meaning is not very clear; I have never found the readers of Shakspeare agreeing about it. I understand it thus,

"If that which I am about to do, when it is once done and ex"ecuted, were done and ended without any following effects, it "would then be best to do it quickly; if the murder could termi"nate in itself, and restrain the regular course of consequences, "if its success could secure its surcease, it being once done successfully, without detection, it could fix a period to all vengeance "and enquiry, so that this blow might be all that I have to do, " and this anxiety all that I have to suffer; if this could be my "condition, even here in this world, in this contracted period of

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temporal existence, on this narrow bank in the ocean of eternity, "I would jump the life to come, I would venture upon the deed " without care of any future state. But this is one of those cases "in which judgment is pronounced and vengeance inflicted upon "us here in our present life. We teach others to do as we have "done, and are punished by our example." JOHNSON.

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To our own lips.] Our poet, apis matinæ more modoque, would stoop to borrow a sweet from any flower, however humble in its situation.

"The pricke of conscience (says Holinshed) caused him ever "to feare, lest he should be served of the same cup as he had "minister'd to his predecessor." STEEVENS. Line 489. Hath borne his faculties so meek,] Faculties, for office, exercise of power, &c. WARBURTON.

Line 494.

-or heaven's cherubin, hors'd

Upon the sightless couriers of the air,] Couriers of

air are winds, air in motion. Sightless is invisible.

JOHNSON.

Line 497. That tears shall drown the wind.] Alluding to the remission of the wind in a shower.

JOHNSON.

Line 501. Enter Lady.] The arguments by which lady Macbeth persuades her husband to commit the murder, afford a proof of Shakspeare's knowledge of human nature. She urges the excellence and dignity of courage, a glittering idea which has dazzled mankind from age to age, and animated sometimes the housebreaker, and sometimes the conqueror; but this sophism Macbeth has for ever destroyed, by distinguishing true from false fortitude, in a line and a half; of which it may almost be said, that they ought to bestow immortality on the author, though all his other productions had been lost :

I dare do all that may become a man,

Who dares do more, is none.

This topic, which has been always employed with too much. success, is used in this scene with peculiar propriety, to a soldier by a woman. Courage is the distinguishing virtue of a soldier, and the reproach of cowardice cannot be borne by any man from a woman, without great impatience.

She then urges the oaths by which he had bound himself to murder Duncan, another art of sophistry by which men have sometimes deluded their consciences, and persuaded themselves that what would be criminal in others is virtuous in them: this argument Shakspeare, whose plan obliged him to make Macbeth yield, has not confuted, though he might easily have shewn that a former obligation could not be vacated by a latter: that obli

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