He hath not touch'd you yet. I am young; but some

thing

You may deserve of him through me; and wisdom To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb,

To appease an angry god.

Macd. I am not treacherous.

Mal.

But Macbeth is.

A good and virtuous nature may recoil,

In an imperial charges. But I shall crave your pardon; That which you are, my thoughts cannot transpose: Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell: Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace, Yet grace must still look soo.

Macd.

I have lost my hopes.

Mal. Perchance, even there, where I did find my doubts.

Why in that rawness left you wife and child,

(Those precious motives, those strong knots of love,) Without leave taking?—I pray you,

Let not my jealousies be your dishonours,

But mine own safeties: You may be rightly just, Whatever I shall think.

Macd.

cerne.

Bleed, bleed, poor country!

4 You may deserve of him through me. The old copy reads disThe emendation was made by Theobald. In the subsequent part of the line something is wanted to complete the sense. There is no verb to which wisdom can refer. Perhaps we should read:

"But something

You may deserve of him through me; and wisdom
'Twere to offer," &c.

5 A good and virtuous nature may recoil

In an imperial charge.

i. e. A good mind may recede from goodness in the execution of a royal commission.

6 Yet grace must still look so, i. e. must still look as it does. An expression of a similar nature occurs in Measure for Measure:"Good alone

Is good; without a name vileness is so."

Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,
For goodness dares not check thee!

wrongs;

wear thou thy

The title is affeer'd' !-Fare thee well, lord:

I would not be the villain that thou think'st
For the whole space that's in the tyrant's grasp,
And the rich East to boot.

Mal.

Be not offended:
I speak not as in absolute fear of you.
I think our country sinks beneath the yoke;
It weeps, it bleeds; and each new day a gash
Is added to her wounds: I think, withal,
There would be hands uplifted in my right;
And here, from gracious England, have I offer
Of goodly thousands: But, for all this,
When I shall tread upon the tyrant's head,
Or wear it on my sword, yet my poor country
Shall have more vices than it had before;
More suffer, and more sundry ways than ever,
By him that shall succeed.

Macd.

What should he be?

Mal. It is myself I mean: in whom I know All the particulars of vice so grafted,

That, when they shall be open'd, black Macbeth

Will seem as pure as snow; and the poor state
Esteem him as a lamb, being compar'd

With my confineless harms 8.

Macd.

Not in the legions

7 To affeer is a law term, signifying to assess or reduce to certainty. The meaning therefore may be, the title is confirmed. My interpretation of the passage is this: "Bleed, bleed, poor country! Great Tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure, for goodness dares not check thee! Wear thou the honours achieved by thy wrongs; the title to them is now confirmed."

8 Confineless harms, i. e. immeasurable evils. Thus in the Merry Wives of Windsor, Act ii. Sc. 2, we have

"Thou unconfinable baseness."

Of horrid hell, can come a devil more damn'd
In evils, to top Macbeth.

Mal.

I grant him bloody,

Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,

Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin

That has a name: But there's no bottom, none,
In my voluptuousness: your wives, your daughters,
Your matrons, and your maids, could not fill up
The cistern of my lust; and my desire

All continent impediments would o'erbear,
That did oppose my will: Better Macbeth,
Than such a one to reign.

Macd.

Boundless intemperance
In nature is a tyranny; it hath been
The untimely emptying of the happy throne,
And fall of many kings. But fear not yet
To take upon you what is yours: you may
Enjoy your pleasures in a spacious plenty,
And yet seem cold, the time you may so hood-wink.
We have willing dames enough; there cannot be
That vulture in you, to devour so many

As will to greatness dedicate themselves,
Finding it so inclin'd.

Mal.

With this, there grows,
In my most ill-compos'd affection, such
A staunchless avarice, that, were I king,
I should cut off the nobles for their lands;
Desire his jewels, and this other's house :
And my more-having would be as a sauce
To make me hunger more; that I should forge
Quarrels unjust against the good, and loyal,
Destroying them for wealth.

Macd.

This avarice

Sticks deeper; grows with more pernicious root

9 The old copy has convey. The words were easily confounded in copying from old MS.

Than summer-seeming lust 10; and it hath been
The sword of our slain kings: Yet do not fear;
Scotland hath foysons11 to fill up your will,
Of your mere own: All these are portable 12,
With other graces weigh'd.

Mal. But I have none: The king-becoming graces,
As justice, verity, temperance, stableness,
Bounty, perséverance, mercy, lowliness,
Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude,
I have no relish of them; but abound
In the division of each several crime,

Acting it many ways. Nay, had I power, I should Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,

Uproar the universal

All unity on earth.

Macd.

peace, confound

O Scotland! Scotland!

Mal. If such a one be fit to govern, speak :

I am as I have spoken.

Macd.

Fit to govern!

No, not to live.-O nation miserable,

With an untitled 13 tyrant bloody-sceptred,
When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again?
Since that the truest issue of thy throne

By his own interdiction stands accurs'd,

And does blaspheme his breed?-Thy royal father Was a most sainted king; the queen, that bore thee, Oftener upon her knees than on her feet,

10 Summer-seeming lust, i. e. summer-resembling lust, blazing hot for a while, but then passing away. Avarice is not so transient, as it increases with age. In Donne's Poems Malone has pointed out its opposite-winter-seeming.

11 Foysons, i. e. plenty.

12 Portable answers exactly to a phrase now in use. Such failings may be borne with, or are bearable.

13 With an untitled tyrant. Thus in Chaucer's Manciple's Tale:

Died every day she liv'd 14. Fare thee well!
These evils, thou repeat'st upon thyself,

Have banish'd me from Scotland.-O, my breast,
Thy hope ends here!

Mal.

Macduff, this noble passion, Child of integrity, hath from my soul

Wip'd the black scruples, reconcil'd my thoughts
To thy good truth and honour. Devilish Macbeth
By many of these trains hath sought to win me
Into his power; and modest wisdom plucks me
From over-credulous haste: But God above
Deal between thee and me! for even now
I put myself to thy direction, and
Unspeak mine own detraction: here abjure
The taints and blames I laid upon myself,
For strangers to my nature. I am yet
Unknown to woman; never was forsworn;
Scarcely have coveted what was mine own;
At no time broke my faith; would not betray
The devil to his fellow; and delight

No less in truth, than life: my first false speaking
Was this upon myself: What I am truly,
Is thine, and my poor country's, to command:
Whither, indeed, before thy here-approach,
Old Siward, with ten thousand warlike men,
Already at a point, was setting forth:
Now we'll together; And the chance, of goodness,
Be like our warranted quarrel! Why are you silent?
Macd. Such welcome and unwelcome things at once,
"Tis hard to reconcile.

14 Died every day she lived. The expression is derived from the Sacred Writings::-"I protest by your rejoicing, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily."-1 Cor. xv. 31.

At a point, i. e. at a stay or stop, settled, determined. The Rev. Mr. Arrowsmith has fully exemplified this phrase in Notes and Queries, vol. 7, p. 521.