The fword of our flain kings: Yet do not fear; MAL.But I have none: The king-becoming graces, All unity on earth." "The feeded pride "That hath to its maturity grown up -foyfons] Plenty. POPE. It means provifions in plenty. So, in The Ordinary by Cartwright: "New foyfons byn ygraced with new titles." The word was antiquated in the time of Cartwright, and is by him put into the mouth of an antiquary. Again, in Holinfhed's Reign of K. Henry VI. -fifteene hundred men, and great foifon P. 1613: of vittels." See Vol. III. p. 124, n. 7. STEEVENS. 66 5 -All these are portable,] Portable is, perhaps here used for fupportable. All thefe vices, being balanced by your virtues, may be endured. MALONE. Portable answers exactly to a phrafe now in ufe. Such failings may be borne with, or are bearable. STEEVENS. Nay, had 1 power, I should Pour the fweet milk of concord into hell, All unity on earth.] Malcolm, I think, means to fay, that if he had ability, he would change the general state of things, and introduce into hell, and earth, perpetual vexation, uproar, and confufion. Hell, in its natural ftate, being always reprefented as full of difcord and mutual enmity, in which its inhabitants may be fuppofed to take the greateft delight, he propofes as the feverest MAGD. O Scotland! Scotland! MAL. If fuch a one be fit to govern, speak: I am as I have spoken. MACD. Fit to govern! No, not to live.-O nation miferable, With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter'd, By his own interdiction ftands accurs'd, And does blafpheme his breed?-Thy royal father Was a most fainted king; the queen, that bore thee, Oftner upon her knees than on her feet, Died every day fhe lived. Fare thee well! stroke on them, to pour the fweet milk of concord amongst them, fo as to render them peaceable and quiet, a ftate the most adverse to their natural difpofition; while on the other hand he would throw the peaceable inhabitants of earth into uproar and confufion. Perhaps, however, this may be thought too ftrained an interpre tation. Malcolm, indeed, may only mean, that he will pour all that milk of human kindness, which is fo beneficial to mankind, into the abyfs, fo as to leave the earth without any portion of it; and that by thus depriving mankind of thofe humane affections which are fo neceffary to their mutual happiness, he will throw the whole world into confufion. I believe, however, the former interpretation to be the true one. In King James's firft fpeech to his parliament, in March 1603-4, he fays, that he had " fuck'd the milk of God's truth with the milk of his nurfe." The following paffage in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, which exhibits the reverfe of this image, may be urged in favour of my firft interpretation: "If he, compact of jars, grow mufical, "We shall have fhortly difcord in the fpheres." MALONE. I believe, all that Malcolm defigns to fay is,-that, if he had power, he would even annihilate the gentle fource or principle of peace pour the foft milk by which it is nourished, among the flames of hell, which could not fail to dry it up. Lady Macbeth has already obferved that her husband was "too full of the milk of human kindness." STEEVENS. Died every day fhe lived.] The expreffion is borrowed from the facred writings: "I proteft by your rejoicing which I have in Chrift Jefus, I die daily." MALONE. These evils, thou repeat'ft upon thyself, Have banish'd me from Scotland.-O, my breast, Thy hope ends here! MAL. Macduff, this noble paffion, Child of integrity, hath from my foul 8 Wip'd the black fcruples, reconcil'd my thoughts Unknown to woman; never was forfworn; No lefs in truth, than life: my firft falfe fpeaking J. Davies of Hereford, in his Epigram on-a Proud lying Dyer, has the fame allufion : "Yet (like the mortifide) he dyes to live." To die unto fin, and to live unto righteousness, are phrafes employed in our liturgy. STEEVENS. 8 From over-credulous hafte :] From over-hafty credulity. MALONE. 9thy bere-approach,] The old copy has-they here. Corrected by the editor of the fecond folio. MALONE. 2 ten thousand warlike men, All ready at a point,] At a point, may mean all realy at a Now we'll together; And the chance, of goodness, Be like our warranted quarrel!' Why are you filent? MACD. Such welcome and unwelcome things at once, 'Tis hard to reconcile. Enter a Doctor. MAL. Well; more anon.-Comes the king forth, I pray you? Docr. Ay, fir: there are a crew of wretched fouls, That stay his cure: their malady convinces * time; but Shakspeare meant more: He meant both time and place, and certainly wrote: All ready at appoint, i. e. at the place appointed, at the rendezvous. WARBURTON. There is no need of change. JOHNSON. 3 So, in Spenfer's Faery Queene, B. I. c. ii: "A faithleffe Sarazin all arm'd to point." MALONE. And the chance, of goodness, Be like our warranted quarrel!] The chance of goodness, as it is commonly read, conveys no fenfe. If there be not fome more important errour in the paffage, it fhould at least be pointed thus: and the chance, of goodness, Be like our warranted quarrel! That is, may the event be, of the goodnefs of heaven, [pro juftitia divina,] anfwerable to the caufe." Mr. Heath conceives the fenfe of the paffage to be rather this: And may the fuccefs of that goodness, which is about to exert itself in my behalf, be fuch as may be equal to the justice of my quarrel. But I am inclined to believe that Shakspeare wrote: and the chance, O goodness, Be like our warranted quarrel! This fome of his tranfcribers wrote with a small o, which another imagined to mean of. If we adopt this reading, the fense will be: And O thou fovereign Goodness, to whom we now appeal, may our fortune anfewer to our caufe. JOHNSON. 4 convinces-] i. e. overpowers, fubdues. See p. 396, n. 4. STEEVENS. The great affay of art; but, at his touch, MAL. I thank you, doctor. [Exit Doctor. MACD. What's the disease he means? MAL. 'Tis call'd the evil : A most miraculous work in this good king; Which often, fince my here-remain in England, I have feen him do. How he folicits heaven, Himself best knows: but strangely-vifited people, All fwoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye, The mere defpair of furgery, he cures ; Hanging a golden ftamp about their necks, • The mere despair of furgery, he cures ;] Dr. Percy in his notes on the Northumberland Houfhold Book fays, "that our ancient kings even in those dark times of fuperftition, do not seem to have affected to cure the king's evil.-This miraculous gift was left to be claimed by the Stuarts: our ancient Plantagenets were humbly content to cure the cramp." In this affertion however the learned editor of the above curious volume has been betrayed into a mistake by relying too implicitly on the authority of Mr. Anftis. The power of curing the king's evil was claimed by many of the Plantagenets. Dr. Borde who wrote in the time of Henry the 8th fays, The Kynges of England by the power that God hath given to them dothe make ficke men whole of a fycknes called the Kynge's Evyll." In Laneham's Account of the Entertainment at Kenel-worth Caftle it is faid "and also by her highness [Q. Elizabeth] accustomed mercy and charitee, nyne cured of the peynful and dangerous diseaz called the King's Evil, for that kings and queens of this realm without oother medfin, (fave only by handling and prayer) only doo it." Polydore Virgil afferts the fame; and Will. Tooker in the reign of Queen Elizabeth publifhed a book on this subject, an account of which is to be feen in Dr. Douglas's treatise entitled "The Criterion," p. 191. See Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays, Vol. XII. p. 428. edit. 1780. REED. 6 — a golden Stamp &c.] This was the coin called an angel. So, Shakspeare, in The Merchant of Venice: |