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And take my milk for gall,' you murd'ring minif

ters,

Wherever in your fightless substances

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You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunneft fmoke of hell!
That my keen knife fee not the wound it makes ;

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"My blood, ftop all paffage to remorse;
"That no relapfes into mercy may
"Shake my defign, nor make it fall before
"'Tis ripen'd to effect." MALONE.

take my milk for gall,] Take away my milk, and put gall into the place. JOHNSON.

4 You wait on nature's mischief!] Nature's mischief is mifchief done to nature, violation of nature's order committed by wickednefs. JOHNSON.

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Come, thick night, &c.] A fimilar invocation is found in A Warning for faire Women, 1599, a tragedy which was certainly prior to Macbeth:

"Oh fable night, fit on the eye of heaven,

"That it difcern not this black deed of darkness!

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My guilty foul, burnt with luft's hateful fire,

"Muft wade through blood to obtain my vile defire:
"Be then my coverture, thick ugly night!
"The light hates me, and I do hate the light."

And pall thee] i. e. wrap thyfelf in a pall.

MALONE.

WARBURTON.

A pall is a robe of ftate. So, in the ancient black letter romance of Syr Eglamoure of Artoys, no date;

The knyghtes were clothed in pall."

Again, in Milton's Penferofo:

"Sometime let gorgeous tragedy

"In fcepter'd pall come fweeping by."

Dr. Warburton feems to mean the covering which is thrown over the dead.

To pall, however, in the prefent inftance, (as Mr. Douce obferves to me,) may fimply mean-to wrap, to invest. STEEVENS.

That my keen knife-] The word knife, which at present has a familiar undignified meaning, was anciently used to exprefs a fword or dagger. So, in the old black letter romance of Syr Eglamoure of Artoys, no date:

Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry, Hold, bold !9- -Great Glamis! worthy

Cawdor!"

"Through Goddes myght, and his knyfe,
"There the gyaunte loft his lyfe."

Again, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. I. c. vi:

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the red-crofs knight was flain with paynim knife.”

STEEVENS.

To avoid a multitude of examples, which in the prefent instance do not seem wanted, I fhall only obferve that Mr. Steevens's remark might be confirmed by quotations without end. REED.

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the blanket of the dark,] Drayton, in the 26th song of his Polyolbion, has an expreffion refembling this:

"Thick vapours, that, like ruggs, ftill hang the troubled air." STEEVENS.

Polyolbion was not published till 1612, after this play had certainly been exhibited; but in an earlier piece Drayton has the fame expreffion :

"The fullen night in mistie rugge is wrapp'd." Mortimeriados, 4to. 1596.

Blanket was perhaps fuggefted to our poet by the coarfe woollen curtain of his own theatre, through which probably, while the houfe was yet but half-lighted, he had himself often peeped.-In King Henry VI. P. III. we have-" night's coverture.”

A kindred thought is found in our author's Rape of Lucrece, 1594:

"Were Tarquin night, (as he is but night's child,)
"The filver-fhining queen he would diftain;
"Her twinkling hand-maids too, [the stars] by him defil'd,
Through night's black bofom fhould not peep again."
MALONE.

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9 To cry, Hold, hold!] On this paffage there is a long criticism in the Kambler, Number 168. JOHNSON.

In this criticifm the epithet dun is objected to as a mean one. Milton, however, appears to have been of a different opinion, and has reprefented Satan as flying

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in the dun air fublime."

Gawin Douglas employs dun as a fynonyme to fulvus.

STEEVENS.

To cry, Hold, hold!] The thought is taken from the old military laws which inflicted capital punishment upon "whofoever

Enter MACBETH.

Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!
Thy letters have transported me beyond
This ignorant present,' and I feel now
The future in the inftant.

shall strike ftroke at his adversary, either in the heat or otherwife, if a third do cry bold, to the intent to part them; except that they did fight a combat in a place inclosed: and then no man fhall be fo hardy as to bid hold, but the general." P. 264 of Mr. Bellay's Inftructions for the Wars, tranflated in 1589. TOLLET.

Mr. Tollet's note will likewife illuftrate the last line in Macbeth's concluding speech:

"And damn'd be him who firft cries, hold, enough!” STEEVENS.

2 Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor!] Shakspeare has fupported the character of lady Macbeth by repeated efforts, and never omits any opportunity of adding a trait of ferocity, or a mark of the want of human feelings, to this monfter of his own creation. The fofter paffions are more obliterated in her than in her husband, in proportion as her ambition is greater. She meets him here on his arrival from an expedition of danger, with fuch a falutation as would have become one of his friends or vaffals; a falutation apparently fitted rather to raise his thoughts to a level with her own purposes, than to testify her joy at his return, or manifeft an attachment to his perfon: nor does any fentiment expreffive of love or softness fall from her throughout the play. While Macbeth himself, amidst the horrors of his guilt, ftill retains a character less fiend-like than that of his queen, talks to her with a degree of tenderness, and pours his complaints and fears into her bofom, accompanied with terms of endearment. STEEVENS.

3 This ignorant prefent,] Ignorant has here the fignification of unknowing; that is, I feel by anticipation thofe future honours, of which, according to the process of nature, the present time would be ignorant. JOHNSON.

So, in Cymbeline:

"his fhipping,

"Poor ignorant baubles," &c.

Again, in The Tempest:

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ignorant fumes that mantle

"Their clearer reafon." STEEVENS.

MACB.

Duncan comes here to-night.

LADY. M.

My dearest love,

And when goes hence?

O, never

MACB. To-morrow,-as he purposes.

LADY. M.

Shall fun that morrow fee!

Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men May read strange matters: To beguile the time, Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,

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This ignorant prefent,] Thus the old copy. Some of our modern editors read : "-prefent time:" but the phrafeology in the text is frequent in our author, as well as other ancient writers. So in the firft fcene of The Tempest: If you can command these elements to filence, and work the peace of the present, we will not hand a rope more." The fenfe does not require the word time, and it is too much for the measure. Again, in Coriolanus:

"And that you not delay the prefent; but" &c. Again, in Corinthians I. ch. xv. v. 6: “ - of whom the greater

part remain unto this prefent."

Again, in Antony and Cleopatra:

"Be pleas'd to tell us

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(For this is from the prefent) how you take "The offer I have fent you." STEEVENS.

4 Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men

May read, &c.] That is, thy looks are fuch as will awaken men's curiofity, excite their attention, and make room for fufpicion. HEATH.

So, in Pericles Prince of Tyre, 1609:

"Her face the book of praises, where is read

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Nothing but curious pleafures." STEEVENS. Again, in our author's Rape of Lucrece:

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"Poor women's faces are their own faults' books."

To beguile the time,

MALONE.

Look like the time;] The fame expreffion occurs in the 8th book of Daniel's Civil Wars:

"He draws a traverse 'twixt his grievances;

"Looks like the time: his eye made not report

"Of what he felt within; nor was he lefs

"Than ufually he was in every part;

"Wore a clear face upon a cloudy heart." STEEVENS.

Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,

But be the serpent under it. He that's coming
Muft be provided for: and you fhall put
This night's great business into my despatch;
Which fhall to all our nights and days to come
Give folely fovereign fway and masterdom.

MACB. We will speak further.

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Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, BANQUO, LENOX, MACDUFF, ROSSE, ANGUS, and Attendants.

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DUN. This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air Nimbly and fweetly recommends itself

The feventh and eighth books of Daniel's Civil Wars were not published till the year 1609; [fee the Epiftle Dedicatorie to that edition:] fo that, if either poet copied the other, Daniel muft have been indebted to Shakspeare; for there can be little doubt that Macbeth had been exhibited before that year. MALONE.

• To alter favour ever is to fear:] So, in Love's Labour's Loft: "For blufhing cheeks by faults are bred,

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And fears by pale white shown."

Favour is-look, countenance. So, in Troilus and Crefida:

"I know your favour, lord Ulyffes, well." STEEVENS. "This caftle hath a pleasant seat ;] Seat here means fituation. Lord Bacon fays, "He that builds a faire houfe upon an ill feat, committeth himself to prifon. Neither doe I reckon it an ill feat, only

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