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Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between The effect, and it! Come to my woman's breafts,

-nor keep peace between

The effect, and i!] The intent of Lady Macbeth evidently is to wish that no womanish tenderness, or confcientious remorse, may hinder her purpose from proceeding to effe&; but neither this, nor indeed any other fenfe, is expreffed by the prefent reading, and therefore it cannot be doubted that Shakspeare wrote differently, perhaps thus:

That no compunctious vifitings of nature

Shake my fell purpose, nor keep pace between

The ffed and it.

To keep pace between, may fignify to pass between, to intervene. Pace is on many occasions a favourite of Shakspeare's. This phrase is indeed not ufual in this fenfe; but was it not its novelty that gave occafion to the prefent corruption? JOHNSON.

and it! The folio reads, and hit. It, in many of our ancient books, is thus fpelt. In the first stanza of Churchyard's Difcourfe of Rebellion, &c. 1570, we have, Hit is a plague-Hit venom caftes-Hit poyfoneth all-Hit is of kinde-Hit ftaynes the ayre. STEEVENS.

The correction was made by the editor of the third folio.

Lady Macbeth's purpose was to be effected by adion. To keep peace between the effect and purpose, means, to delay the execution of her purpose; to prevent its proceeding to effect. For as long as there fhould be a peace between the effect and purpose, or in other words, till hoftilities were commenced, till fome bloody action. fhould be performed, her purpofe [i. e. the murder of Duncan] could not be carried into execution. So, in the following paffage in King John, in which a correfponding imagery may be traced: Nay, in the body of this fleshly land,

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"This kingdom, this confine of blood and breath,

...

Hoftility and civil tumult reigns

"Between my confcience and my coufin's death."

A fimilar expreffion is found in a book which our author is known to have read, the Tragicall Hyftorie of Romeus and Juliet, 1562:

"In abfence of her knight, the lady no way could

"Keep truce between her griefs and her, though ne'er so fayne

[he would."

Sir W. D'Avenant's ftrange alteration of this play fometimes affords a reasonably good comment upon it. Thus, in the present inftance:

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And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring minis

ters,

Wherever in your fightlefs fubflances

You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunneft fmoke of hell!-
That my keen knife' fee not the wound it makes;

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-take my milk for gall,] Take away my milk, and put gall into the place. JOHNSON.

4 You wait on naturês mischief!] Nature's mischief is mischief done to nature, violation of nature's order committed by wicked. nefs. JOHNSON.

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-Come, thick night, &c.] A fimilar invocation is found in A Warning for faire. Women, 1599, a tragedy which was certainly prior to Macbeth:

"Oh fable night, fit on the eye of heaven,

"That it difcern not this black deed of darkness!

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My guilty foul, burnt with luft's hateful fire,

"Muft wade through blood to obtain my vile defire:
"Be then my coverture, thick ugly night!
"The light hates me, and I do hate the light."

And pall thee] i. e. wrap thyfelf in a pall.

MALONE.

WARBURTON.

A pall is a robe of state. So, in the ancient black letter romance of Syr Eglamoure of Artoys, no date;

"The knyghtes were clothed in pall."

Again, in Milton's Penferofo:

"Sometime let gorgeous tragedy

"In fcepter'd pall come fweeping by."

Dr. Warburton feems to mean the covering which is thrown over the dead.

To pall, however, in the prefent inftance, (as Mr. Douce obferves to me,) may fimply mean-to wrap, to invest. STEEVENS. 7 That my keen knife-] The word knife, which at prefent has a familiar undignified meaning, was anciently used to exprefs a fword or dagger. So, in the old black letter romance of Syr Eglamoure of Artoys, no date:

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Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,'
To cry, Hold, hold !9Great Glamis ! worthy
Cawdor! 2

"Through Goddes myght, and his knyfe,
"There the gyaunte loft his lyfe."

Again, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. I. c. vi:

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-the red-crofs knight was flain with paynim knife.”

STEEVENS.

To avoid a multitude of examples, which in the present inftance do not feem wanted, I fhall only obferve that Mr. Steevens's remark might be confirmed by quotations without end. REED.

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--the blanket of the dark,] Dravton, in the 26th fong of his Polyolbion, has an expreffion refembling this:

"Thick vapours, that, like ruggs, ftill hang the troubled

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Polyolbion was not published till 1612, after this play had certainly been exhibited; but in an earlier piece Drayton has the fame expreffion:

"The fullen night in miftie rugge is wrapp'd."

Mortimeriados, 4to. 1596. Blanket was perhaps fuggefted to our poet by the coarse woollen curtain of his own theatre, through which probably, while the house was yet but half-lighted, he had himself often peeped.-In King Henry VI. P. III, we have-night's coverture."

A kindred thought is found in our author's Rape of Lucrece, 1594:

Were Tarquin night, (as he is but night's child,)
"The filver-fhining queen he would diftain;

"Her twinkling hand-maids too, [the stars] by him defil'd,
Through night's black bofom should not peep again.”

66

MALONE.

9 To cry, Hold, hold!] On this paffage there is a long criticism in the Rambler, Number 168. JOHNSON.

In this criticism the epithet dun is objected to as a mean one. Milton, however, appears to have been of a different opinion, and has reprefented Satan as flying

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-in the dun air fublime."*

Gawin Douglas employs dun as a fynonyme to fulvus.

STEEVENS.

To cry, Hold, hold! The thought is taken from the old military laws which inflicted capital punishment upon whofoever

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Enter MACBETH.

Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!
Thy letters have transported me beyond
This ignorant prefent, and I feel now
The future in the inftant.

fhall ftrike ftroke at his adverfary, either in the heat or otherwise, if a third do cry hold, to the intent to part them; except that they did fight a combat in a place inclosed: and then no man fhall be fo hardy as to bid hold, but the general." P. 264 of Mr. Bellay's Inftructions for the Wars, tranflated in 1589. TOLLET.

Mr. Tollet's note will likewife illuftrate the laft line in Macbeth's concluding speech:

"And damn'd be him who firft cries, hold, enough!"

STEEVENS.

• Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor!] Shakspeare has fupported the chara&er of lady Macbeth by repeated efforts, and never omks any opportunity of adding a trait of ferocity, or a mark of the want of human feelings, to this monfter of his own creation. The fofter paffions are more obliterated in her than in her husband, in proportion as her ambition is greater. She meets him here on his arrival from an expedition of danger, with fuch a falutation as would have become one of his friends or vaffals; a falutation apparently ed rather to raise his thoughts to a level with her own purposes, than to teftify her joy at his return, or manifeft an attachment to his perfon: nor does any fentiment expreffive of love or foftness fall from her throughout the play. While Macbeth himself, amicft the horrors of his guilt, ftill retains a chara&er lefs fiend-like than that of his queen, talks to her with a degree of tenderness, and pours his complaints and fears into her bofom, accompanied with terms, of endearment. STEEVENS.

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

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MACB.

My deareft love,.

Duncan comes here to-night.

LADY M.

And when goes hence?

MACB To-morrow, as he purposes.

LADY M.

Shall fun that morrow fee!

O, never

Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men May read ftrange matters: 4-To beguile the time, Look like the time; 5 bear welcome in your eye,

Some of our mo

This ignorant prefent,] Thus the old copy. dern editors read: "-prefent time:" but the phraseology in the text is frequent in our author, as well as other ancient writers. So in the firft scene of The Tempeft: "If you can command thefe elements to filence, and work the peace of the prefent, we will not hand a rope more." The fenfe does not require the word time, and it is too much for the measure. Again, in Coriolanus:

"And that you not delay the prefent; but" &c.

Again, in Corinthians I. ch. xv. v. 6: "of whom the greater part remain unto this prefent."

Again, in Antony and Cleopatra:

"Be pleas'd to tell us

"(For this is from the prefent) how you take

"The offer I have fent you.' STEEVENS.

Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men

May read, &c.] That is, thy looks are fuch as will awaken men's curiofity, excite their attention, and make room for fufpicion.

HEATH.

So, in Pericles Prince of Tyre, 1609:

"Her face the book of praises, where is read
"Nothing but curious pleasures." STEEVENS.

Again, in our author's Rape of Lucrece:

"Poor women's faces are their own faults' books."

To beguile the time,

MALONE.

Look like the time ;] The fame expreffion occurs in the 8th

book of Daniel's Civil Wars:

"He draws a traverse 'twixt his grievances;

Looks like the time: his eye made not report

"Of what he felt within; nor was he lefs

"Than ufually he was in every part;

"Wore a clear face upon a cloudy heart." STEEVENS.

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