And fortune, on his damned quarrel fmiling," "แ &c. Again, in God's Revenge against Murder, hift. vi: Sypontu's in the mean time is prepared of two wicked gondaliers,' Again, in The Hiftory of Helyas Knight of the Sun, b. 1. no date: "he was well garnifhed of fpear, fword, and armoure," &c. These are a few out of a thousand inftances which might be brought to the fame purpose. Kernes and Gallowglaffes are characterized in the Legend of Roger Mortimer. See The Mirror for Magiftrates: -—the Gallowglass, the Kerne, "Yield or not yield, whom fo they take, they flay.” STEEVENS. The old copy has Gallow-groffes. Corrected by the editor of the fecond folio. MALONE. And fortune, on his damned quarrel fmiling,] The old copy has quarry; but I am inclined to read quarrel. Quarrel was formerly used for cause, or for the occafion of a quarrel, and is to be found in that sense in Holinfhed's account of the ftory of Macbeth, who, upon the creation of the prince of Cumberland, thought, fays the hiftorian, that he had a just quarrel to endeavour after the crown. The sense therefore is, Fortune fmiling on his execrable caufe, &c. JOHNSON. The word quarrel occurs in Holinfhed's relation of this very fact, and may be regarded as a fufficient proof of its having been the term here employed by Shakspeare: "Out of the weftern ifles there came to Macdowald a great multitude of people, to affift him in that rebellious quarrel." Befides, Macdowald's quarry (i. e. game) muft have confifted of Duncan's friends, and would the speaker then have applied the epithet-damned to them? and what have the smiles of fortune to do over a carnage, when we have defeated our enemies? Her bufinefs is then at an end. Her fmiles or frowns are no longer of any confequence. We only talk of thefe, while we are pursuing our quarrel, and the event of it is uncertain. it, STEEVENS. The reading proposed by Dr. Johnson, and his explanation of are ftrongly fupported by a paffage in our author's King John: And put his caufe and quarrel "To the difpofing of the cardinal.” Again, in this play of Macbeth: and the chance, of goodness, Be like our warranted quarrel." Here we have warranted quarrel, the exact opposite of damned quarrel, as the text is now regulated. 8 Show'd like a rebel's whore: But all's too weak: For brave Macbeth, (well he deferves that name,) Difdaining fortune, with his brandifh'd steel, Which fmok'd with bloody execution, Like valour's minion, Carv'd out his paffage, till he fac'd the flave;' And ne'er fhook hands, nor bade farewell to him, 2 Lord Bacon, in his Effays, ufes the word in the fame fenfe Wives are young men's miftreffes, companions for middle age, and old men's nurfes; fo as a man may have a quarrel to marry, when he will. MALONE. 8 Show'd like a rebel's whore :] I fuppofe the meaning is, that fortune, while fhe fmiled on him, deceived him. Shakspeare probably alludes to Macdowald's first fuccessful action, elated by which he attempted to purfue his fortune, but loft his life. 9 Like valour's minion, reads MALONE. Carv'd out his paffage, till he fac'd the flave ;] The old copy As an hemiftich must be admitted, it seems more favourable to the metre that it fhould be found where it is now left. -Till he tat'd the flave, could never be defigned as the beginning of a verse, if harmony were at all attended to in its conftruction. STEEVENS. Like valour's minion,] So, in King John: fortune fhall cull forth, "Out of one fide, her happy minion." MALONE. 2 And ne'er hook hands, &c. The old copy reads Which nev'r. STEEVENS. Mr. Pope, inftead of which, here and in many other places, reads-who. But there is no need of change. There is fcarcely one of our author's plays in which he has not used which for who. So, in The Winter's Tale: "the old fhepherd, which stands by," &c. MALONE. The old reading-Which never, appears to indicate that fome antecedent words, now irretrievable, were omitted in the playhoufe manufcript; unless the compofitor's eye had caught which from a foregoing line, and printed it instead of And. Which, in the prefent inftance, cannot well have been fubftituted for who, because it will refer to the flave Macdonel, instead of his conqueror Macbeth. STEEVENS. Till he unfeam'd him from the nave to the chops,3 And fix'd his head upon our battlements. DUN. O, valiant coufin! worthy gentleman! 3 -he unfeam'd him from the nave to the shops,] We seldom hear of fuch terrible cross blows given and received but by giants and miscreants in Amadis de Gaule. Befides, it must be a ftrange aukward stroke that could unrip him upwards from the navel tơ the chops. But Shakspeare certainly wrote: -be unfeam'd him from the nape to the chops. i. e. cut his skull in two; which might be done by a Highlander's fword. This was a reafonable blow, and very naturally expreffed, on supposing it given when the head of the wearied combatant was reclining downwards at the latter end of a long duel. For the nape is the hinder part of the neck, where the vertebræ join to the bone of the skull. So, in Coriolanus: "O! that you could turn your eyes towards the napes of your necks." The word unfeamed likewife becomes very proper; and alludes to the future which goes cross the crown of the head in that direation called the futura fagittalis; and which, consequently, muft be opened by fuch a ftroke. It is remarkable, that Milton, who in his youth read and imitated our poet much, particularly in his Comus, was misled by this corrupt reading. For in the manuscript of that poem, in Trinity-College library, the following lines are read thus: "Or drag him by the curls, and cleave his fcalpe "Down to the hippes. An evident imitation of this corrupted paffage. But he alter'd it with better judgement to: to a foul death "Curs'd as his life." WARBURTON. The old reading is certainly the true one, being juftified by a paffage in Dido Queene of Carthage, by Tho. Nash, 1594: "Then from the navel to the throat at once "He ript old Priam." So likewise in an ancient MS. entitled The boke of huntyng, that is cleped Mayfler of Game: Cap. V. Som mem haue fey hym flitte a man fro the kne up to the breft, and fle hym all ftarke dede at o ftrok." STEEVENS. Again, by the following paffage in an unpublished play, entitled The Witch, by Thomas Middleton, in which the fame wound is described, though the ftroke is reverfed: "Draw it, or I'll rip thee down from neck to NAVEL, 3 SOLD. As whence the fun 'gins, his reflexion Shipwrecking ftorms and direful thunders break ;* So from that fpring, whence comfort feem'd to come, Difcomfort fwells.5 mark: Mark, king of Scotland, No fooner juftice had, with valour arm'd, 3 As whence the fun 'gins his reflection] The thought is expreffed with fome obfcurity, but the plain meaning is this: Aš the fame quarter, whence the blessing of day-light arifes, fometimes fends us, by a dreadful reverfe, the calamities of forms and tempefts; fo the glorious event of Macbeth's victory, which promifed us the comforts of peace, was immediately fucceeded by the alarming news of the Nort weyan invafion. The natural hiftory of the winds, &c. is foreign to the explanation of this paffage. Shakspeare does not mean, in conformity to any theory, to say that storms generally come from the eaft, If it be allowed that they fometimes iffue from that quarter, it is fufficient for the purpose of his comparison. STEEVENS. The natural hiftory of the winds, &c. was idly introduced on this occafion by Dr. Warburton. Sir William Davenant's reading of this paffage, in an alteration of this play, published in quarto, in 1674, affords a reasonably good comment upon it: "But then this day-break of our victory That fpring from whence our hopes did feem to rife." —thunders break;] The word break is wanting in the oldeft copy. The other folios and Rowe read-breaking. Mr. Pope made the emendation. STEEVENS. Break, which was suggested by the reading of the fecond folio, is very unlikely to have been the word omitted in the original copy. It agrees with thunders;--but who ever talked of the breaking of a form? MALONE. The phrafe, I believe, is fufficiently common. All for Love, &c. A& I: แ the Roman camp Thus Dryden id Hangs o'er us black and threat'ning, like a form "Juft breaking o'er our heads." STEEVENS. 5 Difcomfort fwells.] Difcomfort the natural oppofite to comfort. JOHNSON. Compell'd these skipping Kernes to truft their heels; But the Norweyan lord, furveying vantage, DUN. Dismay'd not this Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo? Yes; 6 7 6 Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo; Sold. Yes;] The reader cannot fail to obferve, that fome word, neceffary to complete the verfe, has been omitted in the old copy. Sir T. Hanmer reads Our captains, brave Macbeth, &c. STEEVENS. 7 As cannons overcharg'd with double cracks; &c.] That is, with double charges; a metonymy of the effe&t for the caufe. HEATH. Mr. Theobald has endeavoured to improve the sense of this pasfage, by altering the pun&uation thus: they were As cannons overcharg'd; with double cracks He declares, with fome degree of exultation, that he has no idea of a cannon charged with double cracks; but furely the great author will not gain much by an alteration which makes him fay of a hero, that he redoubles ftrokes with double cracks, an expreffion not more loudly to be applauded, or more cafily pardoned, than that which is rejeded in its favour. That a cannon is charged with thunder, or with double thunders, may be written, not only without nonfenfe, but with elegance, and nothing else is here meant by cracks, which in the time of this writer was a word of fuch emphafis and dignity, that in this play he terms the general diffolution of nature the crack of doom. JOHNSON. Crack is ufed on a fimilar occafion by Barnaby Googe, in his Cupido Conquered, 1563: "The canon's cracke begins to roore "And cover'd thycke the armyes both, VOL. XI. C |