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At the fouth entry :-retire we to our chamber: A little water clears us of this deed:

How easy is it then? Your conftancy

Hath left you unattended.-[Knocking.] Hark! more knocking :

Get on your nightgown, left occafion call us,
And fhow us to be watchers:-Be not loft

So poorly in your thoughts.

MACB. To know my deed, 'twere beft not know myself.

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[Knock. Wake Duncan with thy knocking! Ay, 'would thou

could't! 5

Again, in our Liturgy :

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-be made one fold under one shepherd." But, fetting afide examples, are there not many unique phrafes in our author? STEEVENS.

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My hands are of your colour; but I fhame

To wear a heart fo white.] A fimilar antithefis is found in Marlowe's Luft's Dominion, written before 1593:

"Your cheeks are black, let not your foul look white."

MALONE.

3 To know my deed, 'twere beft not know myself. i. e. While I have the thoughts of this deed, it were beft not know, or be loft to, myself. This is an answer to the lady's reproof:

be not loft

So poorly in your thoughts. WARBURTON.

Wake Duncan with thy knocking!] Macbeth is addreffing the perfon who knocks at the outward gate.--Sir William D'Avenant, in his alteration of this play, reads (and intended probably to point) Wake, Duncan, with this knocking! conceiving that Macbeth called upon Duncan to awake. From the fame mifapprehenfion, I once thought his emendation right; but there is certainly no need of change. MALONE.

See Mr. Malone's extract from Mr. Whately's Remarks on fome of the charaders of Shakspeare, at the conclusion of this tragedy. STEEVENS,

5 Ay, would thou could't! The old copy has-I; but as ay, the affirmative particle, was thus written, I conceive it to have been defigned here. Had Shakspeare meant to exprefs "I would," he might perhaps only have given us-Would, as on many other occafions. The repentant exclamation of Macbeth, in my judge

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PORTER. Here's a knocking, indeed! If a man were porter of hell-gate, he fhould have old turning the key. [Knocking.] Knock, knock, knock: Who's there, i'the name of Belzebub? Here's a farmer, that hang'd himself on the expectation of plenty: Come in time; have napkins enough about you; here you'll fweat for't. [Knocking.] Knock, knock: Who's there, i'the other devil's name? 'Faith, here's an equivocator, that could fwear in both the fcales againft either fcale; who committed treafon enough for God's fake, yet could not equivocate to heaven: O, come in equivocator. [Knocking.] Knock, knock, knock: Who's

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ment, derives force from the prefent change; a change which has been repeatedly made in fpelling this ancient fubftitute for the word of enforcement -ay, in the very play before us. STEEVENS.

5 Scene III.] Though Shakspeare (fee Sir J. Reynolds's excellent note on A& I. fc. vi. p. 63.) might have defigned this fcene as another inftance of what is called the repofe in painting, I cannot help regarding it in a different light. A glimpse of comedy was expected by our author's audience in the moft ferious drama; and where elfe could the merriment, which he himself was always ftruggling after, be fo happily introduced? STEEVENS.

6 he should have old turning the key.] i. c. frequent, more than enough. So, in K. Henry IV. P. II. the Drawer fays Then here will be old utis." See note on this paffage. STEEVENS.

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napkins enough-] i. e. handkerchiefs. So, in Othello: "Your napkin is too little." STEEVENS.

here's an equivocator,-who committed treafon enough for God's fake.] Meaning a Jefuit: an order fo troublefome to the ftate in queen Elizabeth and king James the first's time. ventors of the execrable doârine of equivocation. WARBURTON.

The in

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there? 'Faith here's an English tailor come hither, for ftealing out of a French hofe: 9 Come in, tailor; here you may roaft your goofe. [Knocking.] Knock, knock: Never at quiet! What are you?—But this place is too cold for hell. I'll devil-porter it no further: I had thought to have let in some of all

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9 -here's an English tailor come hither, for fealing out of a French hofe: The archness of the joke confifts in this, that a French hofe being very fhort and ftrait, a taylor muft be mafter of his trade who could fteal any thing from thence. WARBURTON. Dr. Warburton has faid this at random. The French hofe (according to Stubbs in his Anatomie of Abufes were in the year 1595 much in fashion.- -- The Gallic hofen are made very large and wide, reaching down to their knees only, with three or foure gardes apecce laid down along either hofe."

Again in The Ladies Privilege, 1640:

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wear their long

“Parisian breeches, with five points at knees,

"Whose tags, concurring with their harmonious fpurs, "Afford rare mufic; then have they doublets

"So fhort i'th' waift, they feem as twere begot

"Upon their doublets by their cloaks, which to fave ftuff
Are but a year's growth longer than their skirts;
"And all this magazine of device is furnish'd

"By your French taylor.",

Again, in The Defence of Coneycatching, 1592: "Bleft be the French fleeves and breech verdingales that grants them (the tailors leave to coney-catch fo mightily." STEEVENS.

When Mr. Steevens cenfured Dr. Warburton in this place, he forgot the uncertainty of French Fashions. In The Treasury of ancient and modern Times, 1613, we have an account (from Guyon, I fuppofe) of the old French dreffes: "Mens hofe answered in length to their short-skirted doublets; being made close to their limbes, wherein they had no meanes for pockets." And Withers, in his fatyr againft vanity, ridicules the fpruze, diminitive, neat, Frenchman's hofe, FARMER.

From the following paffages in The Scornful Lady, by Beaumont and Fletcher, which appeared about the year 1613, it may be colle&ed that large breeches were then in fashion :

Saville. fan old fteward.]" A comelier wear, I wis, than your dangling flops." Afterwards Young Lovelefs fays to the fteward,"“This is as plain as your old minikin breeches." MALONE.

profeffions, that go the primrofe way to the everlafting bonfire. [Knocking.] Anon, anon; I pray you, remember the porter. [Opens the gate.

Enter MACDUFF and LENOX.

MACD. Was it fo late, friend, ere you went to bed,

That you do lie fo late?

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PORT. 'Faith, fir, we were caroufing 'till the fecond cock and drink, fir, is a great provoker of three things.

MACD. What three things does drink especially provoke ?

PORT. Marry, fir, nofe-painting, fleep, and urine. Lechery, fir, it provokes, and unprovokes: it provokes the defire, but it takes away the performance: Therefore, much drink may be faid to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him; it fers him on, and it takes him off; it perfuades him, and difheartens him; makes him ftand to, and not ftand to: in conclufion, equivocates him in a fleep,3 and giving him the lie, leaves him.

9 the primrofe way to the everlafting bonfire.] So, in Hämlet: Himfelf the primrose path of dalliance treads." Again, in All's well that ends well : " the flowery way that leads &c. to

the great fire. STEEVENS.

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till the fecond cock ] Cockcrowing. So, in King Lear :

" he begins at curfew, and walks till the firft cock." Again,

in the xiith Mery iefte of the Widow Edith, 1573: .

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The time they pas merely til ten of the clok,
"Yea, and I fhall not lye, till after the fitit cok."

STEEVENS.

It appears from a paffage in Romeo and Juliet, that Shafpeare means, that they were carousing till three o'clock:

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6.11 The fecond cock has crow'd;

"The curfew-bell has toll'd: 'tis three o'clock." MALONE. in a fleep,] Surely we should read-into a fleep, or-inte fleep. M. MASON.

MACD. I believe, drink gave thee the lie laft night.4

The old reading is the true one. Our author frequently uses in for into. So, in K. Richard III:

"But, first, I'll turn yon' fellow in his grave."

Again, ibid

"Falfely to draw me in these vile suspects." STEEVENS.

The

4 I believe, drink gave thee the lie last night.] It is not very easy to ascertain precifely the time when Duncan is murdered. converfation that paffes between Banquo and Macbeth in the first fcene of this act might lead us to fuppofe that when Banquo retired to reft it was not much after twelve o'clock:

Ban. How goes the night, boy?

Fle. The moon is down; I have not heard the clock. "Ban. And fhe goes down at twelve.

"Fle. I take't 'tis later fir."

The king was then abed ;" and immediately after Banquo retires Lady Macbeth ftrikes upon the bell, and Macbeth commits the murder. In a few minutes afterwards the knocking at the gate commences, (end of fc. ii.) and no time can be fuppofed to elapfe between the fecond and the third fcene, becaufe the porter gets up' in confequence of the knocking yet here Macduff talks of last night, and fays that he was commanded to call timely on the king, and that he fears he has almoft overpafs'd the hour; and the porter tells him "6 we were caroufing till the fecond cock;" fo that we must fuppofe it to be now at leaft fix o'clock; for Macduff has already expressed his furprize that the porter should lie fo late. From Lady Macbeth's words in the fifth a&, One,-two-'tis time to do't,"—it should seem that the murder was committed at two o'clock, and that hour is certainly not inconfiftent with the conversation above quoted between Banquo and his fon; for we are not told how much later than twelve it was when Banquo retired to reft: but even that hour of two will not correspond with what the Porter and Macduff fay in the prefent scene.

I fufpect our author (who is feldom very exact in his computation of time) in fac meant that the murder fhould be fuppofed to be committed a little before day-break, which exa&ly correfponds with the fpeech of Macduff now before us, though not fo well with the other circumftances already mentioned, or with Lady Macbeth's defiring her husband to put on his nightgown (that he might have the appearance of one newly roufed from bed,) left óccafion fhould call them," and fhow them to be watchers;" which may fignify perfons who fit up late at night, but can hardly mean thofe who do not go to bed till day-break.

Shakspeare, I believe, was led to fix the time of Duncan's murder near the break of day by Holinshed's account of the murder of

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