МАСВ.

LEN. Ay, my good lord.

Fled to England?

MACB. Time, thou anticipat'ft my dread CX6 ploits :

The flighty purpose never is o'ertook,

Unless the deed go with it: From this moment, The very firftlings' of my heart fhall be

The firfilings of my hand.

And even now

To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done:

The caftle of Macduff I will furprise ;

81

Seize upon Fife; give to the edge o'the fword.
His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate fouls
That trace his line.8 No boafting like a fool;
This deed I'll do, before this purpose cool:
But no more fights !-Where are thefe gentlemen?
Come, bring me where they are.

[Exeunt.

Time, thou anticipat'ft my dread exploits :] To anticipate is here to prevent, by taking away the opportunity. JOHNSON.

7 The very firftlings--] Firflings in its primitive fenfe is the firft produce or offspring. So, in Heywood's Silver Age, 1613: "The firflings of their vowed facrifice." Here it means the thing first thought or done. again in the prologue to Troilus and Creffida :

The word is ufed

Leaps o'er the vant and firfilings of thefe broils."

STEEVENS.

8 That trace his line.] i. e. follow, fucceed in it. So, in Si Arthur Gorges' tranflation of the third book of Lucan, 1614:

"The tribune's curfes in like cafe

“Said he, did greedy Craffus trace.”

The old copy reads

That trace him in his line.

The metre, however, demands the omiffion of fuch unnecef fary expletives. STEEVENS.

9 But no

more fights: This hafty reflection is to be confidered

as a moral to the foregoing fcene:

Tu ne qua fieris fcire, (nefas) quem mihi, quem tibi
Finem Di dederint Leuconoe, nec Babylonios

Ṭentaris numeros, ut melius, quicquid erit, pati. STEEVENS.

SCENE II.

Fife. A Room in Macduff's Cafle.

Enter Lady MACDUFF, her fon, and Rosse.

L. MACD. What had he done, to make him fly the land?

ROSSE. You must have patience, madam.

L. MACD.

He had none:

His flight was madness: When our actions do not, Our fears do make us traitors.2

Whether it was his wifdom, or his fear.

L. MACD. Wifdom! to leave his wife, to leave his babes,

His manfion, and his titles, in a place
From whence himfelf does fly? He loves us not;
He wants the natural touch:3 for the poor wren,
The most diminutive of birds, will fight,

Our fears do make us traitors. ] i. e. our flight is confidered as an evidence of our guilt. STEEVENS.

3 natural touch:] Natural fenfibility. He is not touched with natural affection. JOHNSON.

So, in an ancient MS. play, intitled The Second Maiden's Tragedy:

4

"There's no fuch natural touch, fearch all his bosom."

STEEVENS.

-the poor wren, &c.] The fame thought occurs in the third part of K. Henry VI:

66 -doves will peck, in fafety of their brood.
"Who hath not feen them (even with those wings
"Which fometimes they have us'd in fearful flight)
"Make war with him that climb'd unto their neft,
"Offering their own lives in their young's defence?"

STEEVENS.

Her young ones in her neft, against the owl.
All is the fear, and nothing is the love;
As little is the wifdom, where the flight
So runs against all reason.

Rosse.

My dearest coz',

I pray you, fchool yourself: But, for your husband,
He is noble, wife, judicious, and best knows
The fits o'the season. I dare not speak much fur-

ther:

5

But cruel are the times, when we are traitors,
And do not know ourselves; when we hold rumour
From what we fear," yet know not what we fear;

The fits o'the feafon.] The fits of the feafon fhould appear to be, from the following paffage in Coriolanus, the violent diforders of the feafon, its convulfions:

Perhaps the meaning is,—what is moft fitting to be done in every conjun&ture. ANONYMOUS.

- when we are traitors,

And do not know ourselves;] i. e. we think ourselves innocent, the government thinks us traitors; therefore we are ignorant of ourfelves. This is the ironical argument. The Oxford editor alters

But sure they did know what they said, that the ftate efteemed them traitors. WARBURTON.

Rather, when we are confidered by the ftate as traitors, while at the fame time we are unconscious of guilt: when we appear to others fo different from what we really are, that we seem not to know ourselves. MALONE.

7 when we hold rumour

From what we fear,] To hold rumour fignifies to be governed by the authority of rumour.

WARBURTON.

I rather think to hold means, in this place, to believe, as we fay, I hold fuch a thing to be true, i. c. I take it, I believe it to be fo. Thus, in K. Henry VIII:

But float upon a wild and violent fea,

8

Each way, and move. I take my leave of you:
Shall not be long but I'll be here again:

Things at the worft will ceafe, or elfe climb upward
To what they were before. My pretty coufin,
Bleffing upon you!

L

L. MACO. Father'd he is, and yet he's father-
lefs.

ROSSE. I am fo much a fool, fhould I ftay longer,
It would be my difgrace, and your difcomfort:
I take my leave at once.

L. MACD.

[Exit ROSSE.
Sirrah, your father's dead;9
And what will you do now? How will you live?
SON. As birds do, mother.

L. MACD.
What, with worms and flies?
SON. With what I get, I mean; and fo do they.

The fenfe of the whole paffage will then be: The times are cruel when our fears induce us to believe, or take for granted, what we hear rumoured or reported abroad; and yet at the fame time, as we live under a tyrannical government where will is fubftituted for law, we know not what we have to fear, because we know not when we offend. Or When we are led by our fears to believe every rnmour of danger we hear, yet are not confcious to ourselves of any crime for, which we should be disturbed with thofe fears. A paffage like this occurs in K. John:

"Poffefs'd with rumours, full of idle dreams,

"Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear." This is the best I can make of the paffage. SREEVENS.

8 Each ua), and move. Perhaps the poet wrote And each way move. If they floated each way, it was needless to inform us that they moved The words may have been cafually transposed, and erroneously pointed. STEEVENS

9 Sirrah, your father's dead;] Sirrah in our author's time was not a term of reproach, but generally ufed by mafters to fervants, parents to children, &c. So before, in this play, Macbeth fays to his fervant,

"Sirrah, a word with you attend thofe men our pleasure?"

MALONE.

L. MACD. Poor bird! thou'dft never fear the net, nor lime,

- The pit-fall, nor the gin.

SON. Why thould I, mother? Poor birds they are not fet for.

My father is not dead, for all your saying.

L. MACD. Yes, he is dead; how wilt thou do for a father?

SON. Nay, how will you do for a husband?
L. MACD. Why, I can buy me twenty at any
market.

SON. Then you'll buy 'em to fell again.
L. MACD. Thou speak'ft with all thy wit; and
yet i'faith,

With wit enough for thee.

SON. Was my father a traitor, mother?
L. MACD. Ay, that he was.

SON. What is a traitor?

L. MACD. Why, one that fwears and lies,
SON. And be all traitors, that do fo?

L. MACD. Every one that does fo, is a traitor, and must be hang'd.

SON. And muft they all be hang'd, that swear and

lie?

L. MACD. Every one.

SON. Who muft hang them?

L. MACD. Why, the honeft men.

SON. Then the liars and fwearers are fools: for there are liars and fwearers enough to beat the honeft men, and hang up them.

L. MACD. Now God help thee, poor monkey! But how wilt thou do for a father?