Enter an Attendant. ATTEN. The king comes here to-night. LADY M. Thou'rt mad to say it: Is not thy master with him? who, wer't so, thee, and which preternatural agents endeavour to bestow upon thee. The golden round is the diadem. JOHNSON. So, in Act IV : " And wears upon his baby brow the round Metaphyfical for fupernatural. But doth seem to have thee crown'd withal, is not sense. To make it so, it should be fupplied thus: doth feem desirous to have. But no poetic licence would excuse this. An easy alteration will restore the poet's true reading : i. e. they feem already to have crowned thee, and yet thy difposition at present hinders it from taking effect. WARBURTON. The words, as they now stand, have exactly the fame meaning. Such arrangement is sufficiently common among our ancient writers. STEEVENS. I do not concur with Dr. Warburton, in thinking that Shakspeare meant to say, that fate and metaphyfical aid seem to have crowned Macbeth. Lady Macbeth means to animate her hufband to the attainment of " the golden round," with which fate and fupernatural agency seem to intend to have him crowned, on a future day. So, in All's well that ends well: "Our dearest friend "Prejudicates the business, and would seem There is, in my opinion, a material difference between"To have thee crown'd," and "To have crown'd thee;" of which the learned commentator does not appear to have been aware. Metaphysical, which Dr. Warburton has justly observed, means fupernatural, seems, in our author's time, to have had no other meaning. In the English Dictionary, by H. C. 1655, Metaphyficks are thus explained: "Supernatural arts." MALONE. ATTEN. So please you, it is true; our thane is coming: One of my fellows had the speed of him; Than would make up his message. LADY M. Give him tending, He brings great news. The raven himself is hoarse, 3 3 - The raven himself is hoarse, [Exit Attendant. Dr. Warburton reads: - The raven himself's not hoarse, Yet I think the present words may stand. The messenger, says the servant, had hardly breath to make up his message; to which the lady answers mentally, that he may well want breath, such a message would add hoarseness to the raven. That even the bird, whose harsh voice is accustomed to predict calamities, could not croak the entrance of Duncan but in a note of unwonted harshness. JOHNSON. The following is, in my opinion, the sense of this passage : Give him tending; the news he brings are worth the speed that made him lose his breath. [Exit Attendant.] 'Tis certain now-the raven himself is spent, is hoarse by croaking this very message, the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements. Lady Macbeth (for she was not yet unsexed) was likelier to be deterred from her design than encouraged in it by the fupposed thought that the message and the prophecy (though equally fecrets to the messenger and the raven) had deprived the one of speech, and added harsiness to the other's note. Unless we absurdly suppose the messenger acquainted with the hidden import of his message, speed alone had intercepted his breath, as repetition the raven's voice; though the lady confidered both as organs of that destiny which hurried Duncan into her meshes. FUSELI. Mr. Fuseli's idea, that the raven has croaked till he is hoarfe with croaking, may receive support from the following paffage in Romeo and Juliet : make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine "With repetition of my Romeo's name." Again, from one of the Parts of King Henry VI: "Warwick is hoarse with daring thee to arms." STEEVENS. That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan 4 - Come, come, you spirits-) For the fake of the metre I have ventured to repeat the word-come, which occurs only once in the old copy. All had been added by Sir William D'Avenant, to supply the same deficiency. STEEVENS. s mortal thoughts,] This expression signifies not the thoughts of mortals, but murderous, deadly, or deftructive defigns. So, in Act V : "Hold faft the mortal sword." And in another place : "With twenty mortal murders." JOHNSON. In Pierce Penniless his Supplication to the Devil, by T. Nashe, 1592, (a very popular pamphlet of that time,) our author might have found a particular description of these spirits, and of their office. "The second kind of devils, which he most employeth, are those northern Martii, called the Spirits of revenge, and the authors of massacres, and feedsmen of mischief; for they have commiffion to incense men to rapines, facrilege, theft, murder, wrath, fury, and all manner of cruelties: and they command certain of the fouthern spirits to wait upon them, as also great Arioch, that is termed the spirit of revenge." MALONE. remorse;] Remorse, in ancient language, fignifies pity. So, in King Lear: "Thrill'd with remorse, oppos'd against the act." Again, in Othello : "And to obey shall be in me remorse-." See notes on that passage, Act III. fc. iii. STEEVENS. 7 -nor keep peace between The effect, and it!] The intent of Lady Macbeth evi dently is to wish that no womanish tenderness, or confcientious And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring minif ters, Wherever in your fightless fubftances remorse, may hinder her purpose from proceeding to effect; but neither this, nor indeed any other sense, is expressed by the present reading, and therefore it cannot be doubted that Shakspeare wrote differently, perhaps thus : vene. That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep pace between To keep pace between, may fignify to pass between, to interPace is, on many occafions, a favourite of Shakspeare's. This phrase is, indeed, not usual in this sense; but was it not its novelty that gave occafion to the present corruption ? JOHNSON. - and it!] The folio reads and hit. It, in many of our ancient books, is thus spelt. In the first stanza of Churchyard's Discourse of Rebellion, &c. 1570, we have, Hit is a plague-Hit venom caftes-Hit poysoneth all-Hit is of kindeHit staynes the ayre. STEEVENS. The correction was made by the editor of the third folio. Lady Macbeth's purpose was to be effected by action. To keep peace between the effect and purpose, means, to delay the execution of her purpose; to prevent its proceeding to effect. For as long as there should be a peace between the effect and purpose, or, in other words, till hoftilities were commenced, till fome bloody action should be performed, her purpose [i. e. the murder of Duncan] could not be carried into execution. So, in the following paffage in King John, in which a corresponding imagery may be traced : Nay, in the body of this fleshly land, "This kingdom, this confine of blood and breath Hoftility and civil tumult reigns "Between my confcience and my cousin's death." A fimilar expreffion is found in a book which our author is known to have read, The Tragicall Hystorie of Romeus and Juliet, 1562: " In abfence of her knight, the lady no way could fayne she would." Sir W. D'Avenant's strange alteration of this play sometimes affords a reasonably good comment upon it. Thus, in the prefent inftance: You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night, 8 make thick "My blood, stop all paffage to remorse; "That no relapses 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. 9 You wait on nature's mischief!] Nature's mischief is mifchief done to nature, violation of nature's order committed by wickedness. JOHNSON. -Come, thick night, &c.] A fimilar invocation is found in A Warning for faire Women, 1599, a tragedy which was certainly prior to Macbeth: "O fable night, fit on the eye of heaven, * And pall thee-] i. e. wrap thyself in a pall. MALONE. WARBURTON. A pall is a robe of state. 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 scepter'd pall come sweeping by." Dr. Warburton seems to mean the covering which is thrown over the dead. To pall, however, in the present instance, (as Mr. Douce observes to me,) may fimply mean to wrap, to invest. STEEVENS. 3 That my keen knife-] The word knife, which at present has a familiar undignified meaning, was anciently used to express a fword or dagger. So, in the old black letter romance of Syr Eglamoure of Artoys, no date : "Through Goddes myght, and his knyfe, |