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gations laid on us by a higher power, could not be over-ruled by obligations which we lay upon ourselves.

JOHNSON.

Line 520. Like the poor cat the adage.] The adage alluded to is, The cat loves fish, but dares not wet her foot.

Catus amat pisces, sed non vult tingere plantas.

JOHNSON.

Line 544. Will I with wine and wassel so convince, &c.] To convince is in Shakspeare to overpower or subdue, as in this play, -Their malady convinces

The great assay of art.

JOHNSON.

Wassel or wassail is a word still in use in the midland counties, and signifies what is sometimes called Lambs Wool, i. e. roasted apples in strong beer, with sugar and spice. STEEVENS.

Line 547. A limbeck only:] That is, shall be only a vessel to emit fumes or vapours.

Line 551.

who shall bear the guilt

JOHNSON.

Of our great quell?] Quell is murder, manquellers being in the old language the term for which murderers is now used. JOHNSON.

ACT II. SCENE I.

The place is not mark'd in the old edition, nor is it easy to say where this encounter can be. It is not in the hall, as the editors have all supposed it, for Banquo sees the sky; it is not far from the bedchamber, as the conversation shews: it must be in the inner court of the castle, which Banquo might properly cross in his way to bed. JOHNSON. -There's husbandry in heaven,] Husbandry, i. e.

Line 6.

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Restrain in me the cursed thoughts, that nature
Gives

way to in repose!] It is apparent from what Banquo says afterwards, that he had been solicited in a dream to do something in consequence of the prophecy of the witches, that his waking senses were shock'd at; and Shakspeare has here finely contrasted his character with that of Macbeth. Banquo is praying against being tempted to encourage thoughts of guilt even in his sleep; while Macbeth is hurrying into temptation, and revolving in his mind every scheme, however flagitious, that may assist him

to complete his purpose. The one is unwilling to sleep, lest the same phantoms should assail his resolution again, while the other is depriving himself of rest through impatience to commit the murder. STEEVENS.

Line 33. If you shall cleave to my consent, when 'tis,] Macbeth expresses his thought with affected obscurity; he does not mention the royalty, though he apparently has it in his mind, If you shall cleave to my consent, if you shall concur with me when I determine to accept the crown, when 'tis, when that happens which the prediction promises, it shall make honour for you. JOHNSON.

Line 59. And on thy blade, and dudgeon, gouts of blood,] Though dudgeon does sometimes signify a dagger, it more properly means the haft or handle of a dagger, and is used for that particular sort of a handle which has some ornament carved on the top of it. STEEVENS.

Line 59.

62.

-gouts of blood,] Or drops, French. Pope. -Now o'er the one half world

Nature seems dead,] That is, over our hemisphere all

action and motion seem to have ceased. This image, which is perhaps the most striking that poetry can produce, has been adopted by Dryden in his Conquest of Mexico:

All things are hush'd as Nature's self lay dead,

The mountains seem to nod their drowsy head;

The little birds in dreams their songs repeat,

And sleeping flow'rs beneath the night dews sweat.

Even lust and envy sleep!

These lines, though so well known, I have transcribed, that the contrast between them and this passage of Shakspeare may be more accurately observed.

Night is described by two great poets, but one describes a night of quiet, the other of perturbation. In the night of Dryden, all the disturbers of the world are laid asleep; in that of Shakspeare, nothing but sorcery, lust, and murder, is awake. He that reads. Dryden, finds himself lull'd with serenity, and disposed to solitude and contemplation. He that peruses Shakspeare, looks round alarmed, and starts to find himself alone. One is the night of a lover, the other, of a murderer. JOHNSON.

Line 67. - -thus with his stealthy pace,

With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design

Moves like a ghost.] The poet is here attempting to

exhibit an image of secrecy, and caution, of anxious circumspection and guilty timidity, the stealthy pace of a ravisher creeping into the chamber of a virgin, and of an assassin approaching the bed of him whom he proposes to murder, without awaking him. JOHNSON.

Line 75. And take the present horror from the time,

Which now suits with it.] Whether to take horror

from the time means not rather to catch it as communicated, than to deprive the time of horror, deserves to be considered.

ACT II. SCENE II.

JOHNS.

Line 123. As they had seen me,] i. e. as if they had seen me. -124. Listening their fear.] i. e. Listening to their fear, the particle omitted. This is common in our author. STEEVENS. Line 136. the ravell'd sleave of care,] A skein of unwrought silk is called a sleave of silk, as I learned from Mr. Seward, the ingenious editor of Beaumont and Fletcher. JOHNSON. Line 160.

gild the faces of the grooms withal, For it must seem their guilt.] Could Shakspeare possibly mean to play upon the similitude of gild and guilt? JOHNS. Line 168. The multitudinous seas incarnardine,] To incarnardine, is to stain any thing of a flesh colour. STEEVENS.

Line 182. To know my deed,—'twere best not know myself.] i.e. While I have the thoughts of this deed it were best not know, or be lost to, myself. WARBURTON.

ACT II. SCENE III.

Line 191.

193.

napkins enough-] i. e. handkerchiefs. STEEV. -here's an equivocator,-who committed treason enough for God's sake,] Meaning a jesuit: an order so troublesome to the state in queen Elizabeth and king James the first's time. The inventors of the execrable doctrine of equivocation. WARB.

Line 198.- -here's an English tailor come hither, for stealing out of a French hose:] The archness of the joke consists in this, that a French hose being very short and strait, a tailor must be master of his trade who could steal any thing from thence. WARB.

Line 230. I made a shift to cast him.] To cast him up, to ease my stomach of him. The equivocation is between cast or throw, as a term of wrestling, and cast or cast up. JOHNSON.

Line 345. For 'tis my limited service,] Limited, for appointed. WARBURTON.

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Cannot conceive, &c.] The use of two negatives, not to make an affirmative, but to deny more strongly, is very common in our author. STEEVENS.

Line 292. What, in our house?] This is very fine. Had she been innocent, nothing but the murder itself, and not any of its aggravating circumstances, would naturally have affected her.

Line 310. -322.

WARBURTON.

-badg'd with blood;] i. e. marked.

-Here lay Duncan,

His silver skin lac'd with his golden blood;] It is not improbable, that Shakspeare put these forced and unnatural metaphors into the mouth of Macbeth as a mark of artifice and dissimulation, to shew the difference between the studied language of hypocrisy, and the natural outcries of sudden passion. This whole speech so considered, is a remarkable instance of judgment, as it consists entirely of antithesis and metaphor. JOHNSON.

Line 327. Unmannerly breech'd with gore:] The expression may mean, that the daggers were covered with blood, quite to the breeches, i. e. their hilts or handles. The lower end of a cannon is called the breech of it. STEEVENS. In the great hand of God I stand; and, thence, Against the undivulg'd pretence I fight

Line 346.

Of treasonous malice.] Pretence is simulation; a pretence of the traitor, whoever he might be, to suspect some other of the murder. I here fly to the protector of innocence from any charge which, yet undivulg'd, the traitor may pretend to fix upon JOHNSON.

me.

Line 362. This murderous shaft that's shot,

Hath not yet lighted ;] The design to fix the murder upon some innocent person has not yet taken effect. JOHNSON

Line 384.

ACT II. SCENE IV.

in her pride of place,] Finely express'd, for confidence in its quality. WARBURTON. Line 403. What good could they pretend?] To pretend is here to propose to themselves, to set before themselves as a motive of action. JOHNSON.

ACT III. SCENE 1.

Line 8. (As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine-)] Shine, for prosper. WARBURTON. Shine, for appear with all the lustre of conspicuous truth. JOHNS. Line 74. For Banquo's issue have I fil'd my mind;] We should read, -'filed my mind; i. e. defiled. WARBURTON. This mark of contraction is not necessary. To file is in the bishop's Bible.

JOHNSON.

Line 78. -the common enemy of man,] It is always an entertainment to an inquisitive reader, to trace a sentiment to its original source; and therefore, though the term enemy of man, applied to the devil, is in itself natural and obvious, yet some may be pleased with being informed, that Shakspeare probably borrowed it from the first lines of the Destruction of Troy, a book which he is known to have read. This expression, however, he might have had in many other places. The word fiend signifies enemy.

Line 80.

-come, fate, into the list

JOHNSON.

And champion me to the utterance!] This passage will be best explained by translating it into the language from whence the only word of difficulty in it is borowed. Que la destinée se rende en lice, et qu'elle me donne un defi a l'outrance. A challenge or a combat a l'outrance, to extremity, was a fix'd term in the law of arms, used when the combatants engaged with an odium internecinum, an intention to destroy each other, in opposition to trials of skill at festivals, or on other occasions, where the contest was only for reputation or a prize. The sense therefore is, Let Fate, that has fore-doom'd the exaltation of the sons of Banquo, enter the lists against me, with the utmost animosity, in defence of its own decrees, which I will endeavour to invalidate, whatever be the danger. JOHNSON.

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