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Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry, Hold, hold! 5 Great Glamis! worthy

Cawdor! 6

Again, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. I. c. vi:

"

the red-cross knight was flain with paynim knife." STEEVENS.

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

-the blanket of the dark,] Drayton, in the 26th Song of his Polyolbion, has an expreffion resembling this:

"Thick vapours, that, like ruggs, still 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 same expreffion :

"The fullen night in mistie rugge is wrapp'd."

Mortimeriados, 4to. 1596.

Blanket was perhaps suggested to our poet by the coarfe woollen curtain of his own theatre, through which probably, while the house 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's night, (as he is but night's child,)
"The filver-fhining queen he would diftain;
"Her twinkling hand-maids too, [the stars] by him

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defil'd,

Through night's black bosom should not peep again."
MALONE.

5 To cry, Hold, hold!] On this passage there is a long criticism in The Rambler, Number 168. JOHNSON.

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

- in the dun air fublime,"

And had already told us, in the character of Comus, " 'Tis only daylight that makes fin,

"Which these dun shades will ne'er report."

Gawin Douglas employs dun as a fynonyme to fulvus.

STEEVENS. Enter MAСВЕТН.

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 instant.

To cry, Hold, hold!] The thought is taken from the old military laws which inflicted capital punishment upon "whofoever shall strike stroke at his adversary, either in the heat or otherwise, if a third do cry hold, to the intent to part them; except that they did fight a combat in a place enclosed: and then no man shall be so 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 likewise illuftrate the last line in Macbeth's concluding speech : "And damn'd be him who first cries, hold, enough!" STEEVENS.

6 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 softer 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 vasfals; a falutation apparently fitted rather to raise his thoughts to a level with her own purposes, than to teftify her joy at his return, or manifeft an attachment to his perfon: nor does any fentiment expressive of love or foftness fall from her throughout the play. While Macbeth himself, amidft the horrors of his guilt, still retains a character less fiend-like than that of his queen, talks to her with a degree of tendernefs, and pours his complaints and fears into her bofom, accompanied with terms of endearment. STEEVENS.

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

Duncan comes here to-night.

MACB.

My dearest love,

LADY M.

And when goes hence?

LADY M.

O, never

MACB. To-morrow, -as he purposes.

Shall fun that morrow see!

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

May read strange matters: 8-To beguile the time,

So, in Cymbeline :

"-his shipping,

"Poor ignorant baubles," &c.

Again, in The Tempest :

"ignorant fumes that mantle
"Their clearer reafon." STEEVENS,

This ignorant present,] Thus the old copy. Some of our modern editors read: "-present time:" but the phraseology in the text is frequent in our author, as well as other ancient writers. So, in the first scene 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 sense does not require the word time, and it is too much for the measure. Again, in Coriolanus :

"And that you not delay the present; but" &c. Again, in Corinthians I. ch. xv. v. 6: "-of whom the greater part remain unto this present."

Again, in Antony and Cleopatra :

"Be pleas'd to tell us

" (For this is from the present)

"The offer I have sent you."

how you take STEEVENS.

* 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
"Nothing but curious pleasures." STEEVENS.

Again, in our author's Rape of Lucrece:

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

MALONE.

Look like the time; 9 bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent

flower,

I

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

MACB. We will speak further.

LADY M.

To alter favour ever is to fear : 2

Leave all the reft to me.

9

-To beguile the time,

Only look up clear;

[Exeunt.

Look like the time;) The fame expreffion occurs in the

Sth 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 usually he was in every part;

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

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

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MALONE,

But be the ferpent under it.] Thus, in Chaucer's Squiere's

Tale, 10,827:

"So depe in greyne he died his coloures,

"Right as a ferpent hideth him under floures,

"Til he may fee his time for to bite." STEEVENS.

2 To alter favour ever is to fear :) So, in Love's Labour's

Loft:

"For blushing cheeks by faults are bred,
"And fears by pale white shown."

Favour is look, countenance. So, in Troilus and Creffida : "I know your favour, lord Ulysses, well." STEEVENS.

SCENE VI.

The fame. Before the Castle.

Hautboys. Servants of Macbeth attending,

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

DUN, This castle hath a pleasant feat; 3 the air

3 This castle hath a pleasant seat;] Seat here means fituation, Lord Bacon says, "He that builds a faire house upon an ill feat, committeth himself to prifon. Neither doe I reckon it an ill feat, only where the aire is unwholsome, but likewise where the aire is unequal; as you shall see many fine feats set upon a knap of ground invironed with higher hills round about it, whereby the heat of the sunne is pent in, and the wind gathereth as in troughs; fo as you shall have, and that suddenly, as great diverfitie of heat and cold, as if you dwelt in several places."

Effsays, 2d edit. 4to. 1632, p. 257. REED.

This castle hath a pleasant feat ;) This short dialogue between Duncan and Banquo, whilft they are approaching the gates of Macbeth's castle, has always appeared to me a striking instance of what in painting is termed repose. Their converfation very naturally turns upon the beauty of its fituation, and the pleasantness of the air; and Banquo, observing the martlet's nests in every recess of the cornice, remarks, that where those birds most breed and haunt, the air is delicate. The subject of this quiet and easy conversation gives that repose so neceffary to the mind after the tumultuous bustle of the preceding scenes, and perfectly contrafts the scene of horror that immediately fucceeds. It seems as if Shakspeare asked himself, What is a prince likely to say to his attendants on fuch an occafion? Whereas the modern writers seem, on the contrary, to be always searching for new thoughts, fuch as would never occur to men in the fituation which is represented. -This also is frequently the practice of Homer, who, from the midst of battles and horrors, relieves and refreshes the mind of the reader, by introducing some quiet Tural image, or picture of familiar domeftick life.

SIR J. REYNOLDS.

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