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ROSSE.

His absence, sir,

Lays blame upon his promise. Please it your high

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Here, my lord. What is't that

LORDS.

What, my good lord?

moves your highness?

MACB. Which of you have done this?.

MACB. Thou can'st not say, I did it: never shake Thy gory locks at me.

ROSSE. Gentlemen, rise; his highness is not well. LADY M. Sit, worthy friends:-my lord is often And hath been from his youth: 'pray you, keep seat;

thus,

lous by "hard use," Macbeth betrays himself (as Mr. Whateley has observed) " by an over-acted regard for Banquo, of whose absence from the feast he affects to complain, that he may not be suspected of knowing the cause, though at the same time he very unguardedly drops an allusion to that cause." MALONE.

These words do not seem to convey any consciousness of guilt on the part of Macbeth, or allusion to Banquo's murder, as Mr. Whateley supposes. Macbeth only means to say " I have more cause to accuse him of unkindness for his absence, than to pity him for any accident or mischance that may have occasioned it." DOUCE.

* Here, my lord. &c.] The old copy-my good lord; an interpolation that spoils the metre. The compositor's eye had caught-good from the next speech but one. STEEVENS.

VOL. X.

N

5

The fit is momentary; upon a thought
He will again be well: If much you note him,
You shall offend him, and extend his passion;
Feed, and regard him not.-Are you a man?

MACB. Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that

Which might appal the devil.

LADY M.

O proper stuff!"

This is the very painting of your fear:
This is the air-drawn dagger, which, you said,
Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws, and starts,
(Impostors to true fear,) would well become

b

- upon a thought-] i. e. as speedily as thought can be exerted. So, in King Henry IV. P. I: "-and, with a thought, seven of the eleven I pay'd." Again, in Hamlet :

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-

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as swift

“As meditation, or the thoughts of love." STEEVENS.

extend his passion ;) Prolong his suffering; make his fit longer. JOHNSON.

O proper stuff!] This speech is rather too long for the circumstances in which it is spoken. It had begun better atShame itself! JOHNSON.

Surely it required more than a few words, to argue Macbetlı out of the horror that possessed him. M. MASON.

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O, these flaws, and starts,

(Impostors to true fear,) would well become &c.] i. e. these flaws and starts, as they are indications of your needless fears, are the imitators or impostors only of those which arise from a fear well grounded. WARBURTON.

Flaws are sudden gusts. JOHNSON.

So, in Coriolanus :

" Like a great sea-mark, standing every flaw."

Again, in Venus and Adonis :

STEEVENS.

"Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds."

MALONE.

Impostors to true fear, mean impostors when compared with true fear. Such is the force of the preposition to in this place.

M. MASON.

A woman's story, at a winter's fire,
Authoriz'd by her grandam. Shame itself!
Why do you make such faces? When all's done,
You look but on a stool.

MACB. Pr'ythee, see there! behold! look! lo!
how say you?

Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.If charnel-houses, and our graves, must send Those that we bury, back, our monuments

Shall be the maws of kites.9

LADY M.

[Ghost disappears.

What! quite unmann'd in folly?1

MACB. If I stand here, I saw him.
LADY M.

Fye, for shame!

MACB. Blood hath been shed ere now, i'the

olden time,

So, in King Henry VIII: "Fetch me a dozen crab-tree staves, and strong ones; these are but switches to them."

STEEVENS.

To may be used for of. In The Two Gentlemen of Verona we have an expression resembling this:

"Thou counterfeit to thy true friend." MALONE.

9 Shall be the maws of kites.] The same thought occurs in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. II. c. viii :

"Be not entombed in the raven or the kight."

Thus also, inter nubes tenebrasque Lycophronis atri, v. 413 :

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Πολλῶν γὰρ ἐν σπλάγχνοισι τυμβευθήσεται

“ Νήριθμος ἐσμὸς." STEEVENS.

" In splendidissimum quemque captivum, non sine verborum contumelia, sæviit: ut quidem uni suppliciter sepulturam precanti respondisse dicatur, jam istam in volucrum fore potestatem." Sueton. in August. 13. MALONE.

What! quite unmann'd in folly?] Would not this question be forcible enough without the two last words, which overflow the metre, and consequently may be suspected as interpolations?

STEEVENS.

*i'the olden time,] Mr. M. Mason proposes to read"the golden time," meaning the golden age: but the ancient

Ere human statute purg'd the gentle weal;3
Ay, and since too, murders have been perform'd
Too terrible for the ear: the times have been,
That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end: but now, they rise again,
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
And push us from our stools: This is more strange
Than such a murder is.

LADY M.

My worthy lord,

Your noble friends do lack you.

MACB.

I do forget :Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends; I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing

To those that know me. Come, love and health

to all;

reading may be justified by Holinshed, who, speaking of the Witches, says, they "resembled creatures of the elder world;" and in Twelfth-Night we have

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dallies with the innocence of love,

"Like the old age."

Again, in Thystorie of Jacob and his twelve Sones, bl. 1. printed

by Wynkyn de Worde:

"Of dedes done in the olde tyme."

Again, in our Liturgy-" and in the old time before them."

STEEVENS.

3 Ere human statute purg'd the gentle weal;] The gentle weal, is, the peaceable community, the state made quiet and safe by human statutes.

"Mollia securæ peragebant otia gentes." JOHNSON.

In my opinion it means "That state of innocence which did not require the aid of human laws to render it quiet and secure." M. MASON.

4 Do not muse at me,] To muse anciently signified to wonder,

to be in amaze. So, in King Henry IV. P. II. Act IV:

"I muse, you make so slight a question."

Again, in All's well that ends well:

" And rather muse, than ask, why I entreat you."

STEEVENS.

Then I'll sit down: Give me some wine, fill

full:

I drink to the general joy of the whole table,

Ghost rises.

And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss; Would he were here! to all, and him, we thirst, And all to all.

LORDS. Our duties, and the pledge.

MACB. Avaunt! and quit my sight! Let the

earth hide thee!

Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes

Which thou dost glare with!

LADY M.

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Think of this, good peers,

But as a thing of custom: 'tis no other;

Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.

MACB. What man dare, I dare:

Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,

5-to all, and him, we thirst,] We thirst, I suppose, means we desire to drink. So, in Julius Cæsar, Cassius says, when Brutus drinks to him, to bury all unkindness

" My heart is thirsty for that noble pledge." M. MASON. And all to all.] i. e. all good wishes to all; such as he had named above, love, health, and joy. WARBURTON.

I once thought it should be hail to all, but I now think that the present reading is right. JOHNSON.

Timon uses nearly the same expression to his guests, Act I; "All to you."

Again, in King Henry VIII. more intelligibly:

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" And to you all good health." STEEVENS.

no speculation in those eyes-] So, in the 115th Psalm;

"-eyes have they, but see not." STEEVENS.

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