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My thought, whofe murder yet is but fantastical,
Shakes fo my fingle ftate of man, that function

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things prefent, which Macbeth declares, and every man has found,
to be less than the imagination presents them while the objects are
yet diftant. JOHNSON.

So, in The Tragedie of Cræfus, 1604, by lord Sterline:
"For as the fhadow feems more monftrous fill,

"Than doth the fubftance whence it hath the being,
So th' apprehenfion of approaching ill

"Seems greater than itself, whilft fears are lying."

STEEVENS.

By prefent fears is meant, the actual prefence of any objects of terror, So, in The Second Part of K. Henry IV. the King fays:

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All thefe bold fears

"Thou fee'ft with peril I have answered."

To fear is frequently ufed by Shakspeare in the sense of fright, In this very play, Lady Macbeth fays,

To alter favour ever is to fear.

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So, in Fletcher's Pilgrim, Curio fays to Alphonso,

"Mercy upon me, Sir, why are you feared thus?

Meaning, thus affrighted. M. MASON.

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- Single ftate of man,] The fingle flate of man seems to be ufed by Shakspeare for an individual, in oppofition to a commonwealth, or conjunt body. JOHNSON.

By Jingle ftate of man, Shakspeare might poffibly mean fomewhat more than individuality. He who, in the peculiar fituation of Macbeth, is meditating a murder, dares not communicate his thoughts, and confequently derives neither spirit, nor advantage, from the countenance, or fagacity, of others. This ftate of man may properly be ftyled fingle, folitary, or defenceless, as it excludes the benefits of participation, and has no refources but in itfelf.

It should be observed, however, that double and fingle anciently fignified rong and weak, when applied to liquors, and perhaps to other objects. In this fenfe the former word may be employed by Brabantio

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a voice potential,

"As double as the duke's;"

and the latter, by the Chief Juftice, speaking to Falstaff:

"Is not your wit fingle?

The fingle ftate of Macbeth may therefore fignify his weak and debile ftate of mind. STEEVENS.

Is fmother'd in furmise; and nothing is,

But what is not."

BAN.

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Look, how our partner's rapt. MACB. If chance will have me king, why, chance

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BAN.

New honours come upon him

Like our ftrange garments; cleave not to their

mould,

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Is fmother'd in furmife; and nothing is,

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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 ha yet no existence. JOHNSON.

Surmife, is fpeculation, conje&ure concerning the future.

MALONE.

Shakspeare has fomewhat like this fentiment in The Merchant of Venice:

"Where, every fomething being blent together,
"Turns to a wild of nothing".

Again, in K. Ricchard II:

is nought but shadows

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Of what it is not. STEEVENS.

"By this, I

7 Time and the hour runs through the roughest day. ] confefs, I do not with his two laft commentators imagine is meant either the tautology of time and the hour, or an allufion to timepainted with an hour-glafs, or an exhortation to time to haften forward, but rather to lay tempus & hora, time and occafion, will carry the thing through, and bring it to fome determined point and end, let its nature be what it will.

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This note is taken from an Effay on the Writings and Genius of Shakspeare, &c. by Mrs. Montagu.

BAN. Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your lei

fure.

MACB. Give me your favour: 8-my dull brain was wrought

With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains Are register'd where every day I turn

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The leaf to read them. Let us toward the king.— Think upon what hath chanc'd; and, at more time, The interim having weigh'd it, let us speak

Our free hearts each to other.

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Such tautology is common to Shakspeare.

"The very head and front of my offending,"

is little lefs reprehenfible. Time and the hour, is Time with his

hours. STEEVENS.

The fame expreffion is ufed by a writer nearly contemporary with Shakspeare: "Neither can there be any thing in the world more acceptable to me than death, whofe kower and time if they were as certayne, &c. Fenton's Tragical Difcourfes, 1579. Again,

in Davifon's Poems, 1621:

"Time's young kowres attend her ftill." Again, in our author's 126th Sonnet:

"O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
"Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his fickle, hour —."

favour:] i. e. indulgence, pardon. STEEVENS.

my dull brain was wrought

MALONE.

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

So, in Othello:

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The leaf to read them.] He means, as Mr. Upton has obferved, that they are registered in the table-book of his heart. So Hamlet fpeaks of the table of his memory.

MALONE.

3 The interim having weigh'd it,] This intervening portion of time is almoft perfonified: it is reprefented as a cool impartial judge; as the paufer Reafon. Or perhaps we should read-I' th' interim.

I believe, the interim is used adverbially : it in the interim." MALONE.

STEEVENS.

you having weighed

BAN.

Very gladly.

MACB. Till then, enough.-Come, friends.

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV.

Fores. A Room in the Palace.

Flourish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENOX, and Attendants.

DUN. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not4 Thofe in commiffion yet return'd?

MAL.

My liege,
But I have spoke

They are not yet come back.
With one that faw him die: 5 who did report,
That very frankly he confefs'd his treasons;
Implor'd your highness' pardon; and fet forth
A deep repentance: nothing in his life
Became him, like the leaving it; he died

As one that hath been ftudied in his death,"

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Are not] The old copy reads - Or not. dation was made by the editor of the fecond folio.

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The emen-
MALONE.

! With one that faw him die:] The behaviour of the thane of Cawdor correfponds in almost every circumftance with that of the unfortunate earl of Effex, as related by Stowe, p. 793. His asking the queen's forgiveness, his confeffion, repentance, and concern about behaving with propriety on the fcaffold, are minutely deSuch an allufion could not fail of having fcribed by that hiftorian. the defired effect on an audience, many of whom were eye-witneffes to the feverity of that juftice which deprived the age of one of its greatest ornaments, and Southampton, Shakspeare's patron, of his dearest friend.

STEEVENS.

- ftudied in his death, ] Inftru&ted in the art of dying. It was ufual to fay ftudied, for learned in fcience. JOHNSON.

To throw away the deareft thing he ow'd,
As 'twere a careless trifle.

DUN.

There's no art,

To find the mind's conftruction in the face:7
He was a gentleman on whom I built

An abfolute truft.-O worthieft coufin!

Enter MACBETH, BANQUO, ROSSE, and ANGUS.

The fin of my ingratitude even now
Was heavy on me: Thou art fo far before,
That swifteft wing of recompenfe is flow

To overtake thee. 'Would thou hadft lefs deferv'd;
That the proportion both of thanks and payment
Might have been mine! only I have left to say,
More is thy due than more than all can pay.

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H's own profeffion furnished our author with this phrase. To be ftudied in a part, or to have ftudied it, is yet the technical term of the theatre. MALONE.

To find the mind's conftruction in the face. ] The conftruction of the mind is, I believe, a phrafe peculiar to Shakspeare: it implies the frame or difpofition of the mind, by which it is determined to good or ill. JOHNSON.

Dr. Johnson seems to have underftood the word conftruction in this place, in the fenfe of frame or fructure; but the fchool-term was, I believe, intended by Shakspeare. The meaning, is, — We cannot conftrue or difcover the difpofition of the mind by the lineaments of the face. So, in K. Henry IV. P. II:

Conftrue the times to their neceffities."

In Hamlet we meet with a kindred phrase:

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"You must tranflate; 'tis fit we understand them."

Our author again alludes to his grammar, in Troilus and Creffida: I'll decline the whole queftion.

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In his 93d Sonnet, however, we find a contrary fentiment afferted: "In many's looks the falfe heart's hiftory

Is writ. MALONE.

More is due to i. e. the greatest

More is thy due than more thau all can pay.] thee, than, I will not fay all, but, more than all, recompence, can pay. Thus in Plautus: Nihilo minus.

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