VOL. IV. WINTER'S 404. Your pardon Sir, for this; TALE. Should not this paffage be rather pointed thus? I'll blush you thanks. MALONE. 408. and then your blood had been the dearer by I know how much an ounce. I fufpect that a word was omitted at the prefs. We might, I think, fafely read: -by I know not how much an ounce. MALONE. 409. Add to my note.] So, in Myrrha, the Mother of Adonis, or Lufte's Prodigies, &c. 1607: Leave we him touz'd in care, for worldly wee, "Love to leave great men in their miferie." STEEVENS. 415. the former queen is well? i. e. at reft; dead. In Antony and Cleopatra, this phrafe is faid to be peculiarly applicable to the dead: "Me. Firft, madam, he is well? Cleop. Why there's more gold; but firrah, mark; "We ufe to fay, the dead are well; bring it to that, "The gold I give thee will I melt, and pour "Down thy ill-uttering throat." So, in Romeo and Juliet, Balthazar fpeaking of Juliet, whom he imagined to be dead, fays: "Then he is well, and nothing can be ill." Again, in K. Henry IV. P. II. Ch. Just. How does the king? "War. Exceeding well. His cares are now all ended. "Ch. Juft. I hope not dead. "War. He's walk'd the way of nature." Dr. Warburton's emendation is therefore certainly inadmiffible. MALONE. 426. Who was most marble there, changed colour.] I rather think, marble here means, hard-hearted, unfeeling. MALONE. 434. The fixure of her eye has motion in it.] To follow Steevens's note.-The reading of the old copy is ftrongly confirmed by our author's 88th Sonnet, where we meet a fimilar thought: "Your fweet hue, which methinks fill doth fland, "Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived." MALONE. 436. And from your facred vials pour your graces-] The expreflion feems to have been taken from the facred writings: And I heard a great voice out of the temple, faying to the angels, go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of VOL. IV. God upon the earth." Rev. xvi. 1. MALONE. WINTER'S 444. After Steevens's note 3.] "Some fay, they TALE. [witches] can keepe devils and fpirits, in the likeness of todes and cats." Scot's Difcovery of Witchcraft, book I. c. 4. TOLLET. MACBETH. 446. And Fortune on his damned quarrel fmiling] After MACBETH. Steevens's note.-The reading propofed by Dr. John fon, and his explanation of it, are ftrongly fupported by a paffage in our author's King John: 66 -And put his caufe and quarrel "To the difpofing of the cardinal." MALONE. 447.-unfeam'd him from the nave to the chops,] At the end of note 3.-The old reading is fupported by the following paffage in an unpublished play, entitled The Witch, by Thomas Middleton: "Draw it, or I'll rip thee down from neck to navel, Though there's fmall glory in't." MALONE. 448. As whence the fun &c.] To follow Steevens's note P. 449.-Sir William Davenant's alteration of this paffage affords a reasonably good comment upon it: "But then this day-break of our victory "That spring from whence our hopes did feem to rife." 450. As cannons overcharg'd with double cracks.] This word is used in the old play of K. John, 1591, and applied, as here, to ordnance: 66 -as harmless and without effect, "As is the echo of a cannon's crack." MALONE. 451. -So fhould he look That feems to fpeak ftrange things.] To follow Steevens's note'. p. 452.-i. e. that feems about to speak ftrange things. Our author himself furnishes us with the best comment on this paffage. In Antony and Cleopatra, we meet with nearly the fame idea: "The business of this man looks out of him." Again, VOL. IV. MACBETH. Again, in All's Well that ends Well: -Her bufinefs looks in her "With an importing visage." Again, in A Midsummer Night's Dream: "And let your prologue feem to fay &c." Surely there is no need of alteration. Sir W. Davenant reads : that comes to fpeak ftrange things. MALONE. 455. Add to note] Again, in the author's invocation to Wherever you fee me, truft unto yourselfe, or the Myfterie of Lending and Borrowing. Seria Focis, or the Tickling Torture, by Thomas Powell, London Cambrian, 1623: "Thou spirit of old Gybbs, a quondam cooke, And he fhall fing as fweet as ere did Sidney." STEEVENS. 456. And the very points they blow] To follow Steevens's note 3.-The fubftituted word was first given by Sir William Davenant, who in his alteration of this play, has retained the old, while at the fame time he furnished the modern editors with the new, reading: "I myself have all the other MALONE. "And then from every port they blow, "From all the points that feamen know." 464. Silenced with that] i. e wrap'd in filent wonder at the deeds performed by Macbeth, &c. MALONE. 466. That, trufted home-] Surely we ought to readthrufted. The error is, I find, as old as the first folio. The added word, home, clearly fhews, in my apprehenfion, that trufted [i. e. confided in] was not the author's word. Thrufted is the regular participle from the verb to thrust, and, though now not often ufed, was perhaps common in the time of Shakspeare. So we meet in K. Henry V: "With cafted flough, and fresh legerity." MALONE. 468. Time and the hour-] Add to my note, p. 469.— Again, in our author's 126th Sonnet : "O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power 470. There's no art To find the mind's conftruction in the face.] the the difpofition of the mind by the lineaments of the face. The VOL. IV. fame expreffion occurs in The Second Part of K. Henry IV. "Conftrue the times to their neceffities." In Hamlet we meet a kindred phrase: "Thefe profound heaves "You must tranflate; 'tis fit we understand them " Our author again alludes to his grammar, in Troilus and Creffida, Vol. IX. p. 61. "I'll decline the whole queftion." Dr. Johnfon feems to have underftood the word conftruction in this place, in the fenfe of frame or fructure; but the fchoolterm was, I believe, intended by Shakspeare. In his 93d Sonnet, we find a contrary fentiment afferted: "In manys' looks the falje heart's biflory "Is writ." MALONE. 471. More is thy due than more than all can pay.] More is due to thee, than, I will not fay all, but, more than all, i. e. the greatest recompence, can pay. There is an obfcurity in this line, arifing from the word all, which is not used here perfonally (more than all perfons can pay), but for the whole wealth of the fpeaker. So, more clearly, in K. Henry VIII. "More than my all is nothing." This line appeared obfcure to Sir William Davenant, for he has altered it thus: "I have only left to fay "That thou deservest more than I have to pay." Ibid. Safe toward your love and honour.] MALONE. Safe (i. e. faved) toward you love and honour; and then the fenfe will be- " Our duties are your children, and fervants or vaffals to your throne and ftate; who do but what they fhould, by doing every thing with a faving of their love and honour toward you." The whole is an allusion to the forms of doing homage in the feudal times. The oath of allegiance, or liege homage, to the king was abfolute and without any exception; but fimple homage, when done to a fubject for lands holden of him, was always with a faving of the allegiance (the love and honour) due to the fovereign. "Sauf la foy que jeo doy a noftre feignor le roy," as it is in Lyttleton. And though the expreffion be fomewhat ftiff and forced, it is not more fo than many others in this play, and fuits well with the fituation of Macbeth, now beginning to L 3 waver MACBETH. VOL. IV. waver in his allegiance. For, as our author elsewhere MACBETH. fays, 472. "When love begins to ficken and decay, -My plenteous joys, " Wanton in fulness, feck to hide themselves 66 -Lacrimas non fponte cadentes "Effudit, gemitufque expreffit pectore læto." Ibid. From hence to Inverneffe, -E. Lucan, lib. ix. MALONE. And bind us further to you.] The circumftance of Duncan's vifiting Macbeth, is fupported by hiftory; for, from the Scotifh Chronicle it appears, that it was cuftomary for the king to make a progrefs through his dominions every year. "Inerat ei [Duncano] laudabilis confuetudo regni pertranfire regiones femel in anno." Fordun. Scotichron. lib. iv. c. 44. "Singulis annis ad inopum querelas audiendas perluftra. bat provincias." Buchan. lib. vii. MALONE. 476. The raven himself is boarfe] Sir W. Davenant feems to have viewed this paffage in the fame false light in which it appeared to Dr. Warburton; for he reads "There would be mufick in a raven's voice, "Which should but croak the entrance of the king." MALONE. Ibid. To follow note 2.] It was added by Sir William Davenant. MALONE. Ibid. -nor keep peace between The effect and it.] Add to my note, p. 477.-A fimilar expreffion is found in a "In abfence of her knight, the lady no way could 478. That my keen knife-] This word has been ob jected to, as being connected with the moft fordid offices, and therefore unfuitable to the great occafion on which it is ufed. But, however mean it may found to a modern ear, it was formerly a word of fufficient dignity, and is conftantly ufed by Shakspeare and his contemporaries as fynonymous to dagger. So, in Antony and Cleopatra : |