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Various - "Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917."

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The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes by Samuel Johnson

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--Whether he was
Combin'd with Norway, or did line the rebel
With hidden help and 'vantage, or with both
He labour'd in his country's wreck, I know not.

Neither Rosse knew what he had just reported, nor Macbeth what he had
just done. This seems not to be one of the faults that are to be imputed
to the transcribers, since, though the inconsistency of Rosse and Angus
might be removed, by supposing that their names are erroneously
inserted, and that only Rosse brought the account of the battle, and
only Angus was sent to compliment Macbeth, yet the forgetfulness of
Macbeth cannot be palliated, since what he says could not have been
spoken by any other.


NOTE VII.

My thought, whose murther yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man,--

The _single state of man_ seems to be used by Shakespeare for an
_individual_, in opposition to a _commonwealth_, or _conjunct body_ of
men.


NOTE VIII.

_Macbeth._--Come what come may,
_Time and the hour_ runs through the roughest day.

I suppose every reader is disgusted at the tautology in this passage,
_time and the hour_, and will, therefore, willingly believe that
Shakespeare wrote it thus,

--Come what come may,
Time! on!--the hour runs thro' the roughest day.

Macbeth is deliberating upon the events which are to befall him; but
finding no satisfaction from his own thoughts, he grows impatient of
reflection, and resolves to wait the close without harassing himself
with conjectures:

--Come what come may.

But, to shorten the pain of suspense, he calls upon time, in the usual
style of ardent desire, to quicken his motion,

Time! on!--

He then comforts himself with the reflection that all his perplexity
must have an end,

--The hour runs thro' the roughest day.

This conjecture is supported by the passage in the letter to his lady,
in which he says, _They referr'd me to the_ coming on of time _with,
Hail, King that shall be._


NOTE IX.

SCENE VI.

_Malcolm._--Nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it. He dy'd,
As one that had been studied in his death,
To throw away the dearest thing he _ow'd_,
As 'twere a careless trifle.

As the word _ow'd_ affords here no sense, but such as is forced and
unnatural, it cannot be doubted that it was originally written, The
dearest thing he _own'd_; a reading which needs neither defence nor
explication.


NOTE X.

_King._--There's no art,
To find the mind's construction in the face:

The _construction of the mind_ is, I believe, a phrase peculiar to
Shakespeare; it implies the _frame_ or _disposition_ of the mind, by
which it is determined to good or ill.


NOTE XI.

_Macbeth._ The service and the loyalty I owe,
In doing it, pays itself. Your highness' part
Is to receive our duties; and our duties
Are to your throne and state, children and servants;
Which do but what they should, by doing _every thing
Safe tow'rd your love and honour_.

Of the last line of this speech, which is certainly, as it is now read,
unintelligible, an emendation has been attempted, which Dr. Warburton
and Mr. Theobald have admitted as the true reading:

--our duties
Are to your throne and state, children and servants,
Which do but what they should, in doing every thing
_Fiefs_ to your love and honour.

My esteem for these criticks, inclines me to believe, that they cannot
be much pleased with the expressions, _Fiefs to love_, or _Fiefs to
honour_; and that they have proposed this alteration, rather because no
other occurred to them, than because they approved it. I shall,
therefore, propose a bolder change, perhaps, with no better success, but
"sua cuique placent." I read thus,

--our duties
Are to your throne and state, children and servants,
Which do but what they should, in doing _nothing,
Save_ tow'rd _your love and honour_.

We do but perform our duty, when we contract all our views to your
service, when we act with _no other_ principle than regard to _your love
and honour_.

It is probable that this passage was first corrupted by writing _safe_
for _save_, and the lines then stood thus:

--doing nothing
Safe tow'rd your love and honour.

Which the next transcriber observing to be wrong, and yet not being able
to discover the real fault, altered to the present reading.


NOTE XII.

SCENE VII.

--Thou'dst have, great Glamis,
That which cries, "thus thou must do, if thou have _it_;
And that," &c.

As the object of Macbeth's desire is here introduced speaking of itself,
it is necessary to read,

--thou'dst have, great Glamis,
That which cries, "thus thou must do, if thou have _me_."


NOTE XIII.

--Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;
And chastise with the valour of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round,
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth _seem_
To have thee crown'd withal.

For _seem_, the sense evidently directs us to read _seek_. The crown to
which fate destines thee, and which preternatural agents _endeavour_ to
bestow upon thee. The _golden round_ is the _diadem_.


NOTE XIV.

_Lady Macbeth_.--Come, all you spirits
That tend on _mortal thoughts_, unsex me here;
And fill me, from the crown to th' toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood,
Stop up th' access and passage to remorse;
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor _keep peace_ between
Th' effect and it!


--Mortal thoughts,--
This expression signifies not _the thoughts of mortals_, but _murderous,
deadly_, or _destructive designs_. So in Act v.

Hold fast the _mortal_ sword.

And in another place,

With twenty _mortal_ murthers.

--Nor keep _peace_ between
Th' effect and it!--

The intent of Lady Macbeth evidently is to wish that no womanish
tenderness, or conscientious 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 Shakespeare wrote differently, perhaps, thus:


That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor _keep pace_ between
Th' effect and it.

To _keep pace between_, may signify to _pass between_, to _intervene_.
Pace is, on many occasions, a favourite of Shakespeare. This phrase, is
indeed, not usual in this sense; but was it not its novelty that gave
occasion to the present corruption?


NOTE XV.

SCENE VIII.

_King_. This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.

_Ban_. This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve,
By his lov'd mansionry, that heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here. No jutty frieze,
Buttrice, nor coigne of 'vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendent bed, and procreant cradle:
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observ'd,
The air is delicate.

In this short scene, I propose a slight alteration to be made, by
substituting _site_ for _seat_, as the ancient word for situation; and
_sense_ for _senses_, as more agreeable to the measure; for which reason
likewise I have endeavoured to adjust this passage,

--heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here. No jutty frieze,

by changing the punctuation and adding the syllable thus,

--heaven's breath
Smells wooingly. Here is no jutty frieze.

Those who have perused books, printed at the time of the first editions
of Shakespeare, know that greater alterations than these are necessary
almost in every page, even where it is not to be doubted, that the copy
was correct.


NOTE XVI.

SCENE. X.

The arguments by which Lady Macbeth persuades her husband to commit the
murder, afford a proof of Shakespeare's knowledge of human nature. She
urges the excellence and dignity of courage, a glittering idea which has
dazzled mankind from age to age, and animated sometimes the
housebreaker, and sometimes the conqueror; but this sophism Macbeth has
for ever destroyed, by distinguishing true from false fortitude, in a
line and a half; of which it may almost be said, that they ought to
bestow immortality on the author, though all his other productions had
been lost:

I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more is none.

This topick, which has been always employed with too much success, is
used in this scene, with peculiar propriety, to a soldier by a woman.
Courage is the distinguishing virtue of a soldier, and the reproach of
cowardice cannot be borne by any man from a woman, without great
impatience.

She then urges the oaths by which he had bound himself to murder Duncan,
another art of sophistry by which men have sometimes deluded their
consciences, and persuaded themselves that what would be criminal in
others is virtuous in them: this argument Shakespeare, whose plan
obliged him to make Macbeth yield, has not confuted, though he might
easily have shown that a former obligation could not be vacated by a
latter.


NOTE XVII.

Letting I dare not wait upon I would,
Like the poor cat i' th' adage.

The adage alluded to is, The cat loves fish but dares not wet her foot.

Catus amat pisces, sed non vult tingere plantas.


NOTE XVIII.

Will I with wine and wassel so convince.

To convince is, in Shakespeare, to _overpower_ or _subdue_, as in this
play:

--Their malady _convinces_
The great assay of art.


NOTE XIX.

--Who shall bear the guilt
Of our great _quell_?

_Quell_ is _murder, manquellers_ being, in the old language, the term
for which _murderers_ is now used.


NOTE XX.

ACT II. SCENE II.

--Now o'er one half the world
(a)_Nature seems dead_, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep; now witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecat's offerings: and wither'd murther,
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
_With (b)Tarquin's ravishing sides_ tow'rds his design
Moves like a ghost.--Thou sound and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my where-about;
_And (c)take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it_.--

(a)--Now o'er one half the world
Nature seems dead.

That is, _over our hemisphere all action and motion seem to have
ceased_. This image, which is, perhaps, the most striking that poetry
can produce, has been adopted by Dryden, in his Conquest of Mexico.

All things are hush'd as Nature's self lay dead,
The mountains seem to nod their drowsy head:
The little birds in dreams their songs repeat,
And sleeping flowers beneath the night dews sweat.
Even lust and envy sleep!

These lines, though so well known, I have transcribed, that the contrast
between them and this passage of Shakespeare may be more accurately
observed.

Night is described by two great poets, but one describes a night of
quiet, the other of perturbation. In the night of Dryden, all the
disturbers of the world are laid asleep; in that of Shakespeare, nothing
but sorcery, lust, and murder, is awake. He that reads Dryden, finds
himself lulled with serenity, and disposed to solitude and
contemplation. He that peruses Shakespeare, looks round alarmed, and
starts to find himself alone. One is the night of a lover; the other,
that of a murderer.

(b)--Wither'd murder,
--thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing _sides_ tow'rds his design,
Moves like a ghost.--

This was the reading of this passage in all the editions before that of
Mr. Pope, who for _sides_, inserted in the text _strides_, which Mr.
Theobald has tacitly copied from him, though a more proper alteration
might, perhaps, have been made. A _ravishing stride_ is an action of
violence, impetuosity, and tumult, like that of a savage rushing on his
prey; whereas the poet is here attempting to exhibit an image of secrecy
and caution, of anxious circumspection and guilty timidity, the
_stealthy pace_ of a _ravisher_ creeping into the chamber of a virgin,
and of an assassin approaching the bed of him whom he proposes to
murder, without awaking him; these he describes as _moving like ghosts_,
whose progression is so different from _strides_, that it has been in
all ages represented to be, as Milton expresses it,

Smooth sliding without step.

This hemistich will afford the true reading of this place, which is, I
think, to be corrected thus:

--and wither'd murder,
--thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin ravishing, _slides_ tow'rds his design,
Moves like a ghost.

Tarquin is, in this place, the general name of a ravisher, and the sense
is: Now is the time in which every one is asleep, but those who are
employed in wickedness, the witch who is sacrificing to Hecate, and the
ravisher, and the murderer, who, like me, are stealing upon their prey.

When the reading is thus adjusted, he wishes with great propriety, in
the following lines, that the _earth_ may not _hear his steps_.

(c) And take the present horror from the time.
Which now suits with it.--

I believe every one that has attentively read this dreadful soliloquy is
disappointed at the conclusion, which, if not wholly unintelligible, is
at least obscure, nor can be explained into any sense worthy of the
author. I shall, therefore, propose a slight alteration,

--Thou sound and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my where-about,
And _talk_--the present horror of the time!--
That now suits with it.--

Macbeth has, in the foregoing lines, disturbed his imagination by
enumerating all the terrours of the night; at length he is wrought up to
a degree of frenzy, that makes him afraid of some supernatural discovery
of his design, and calls out to the stones not to betray him, not to
declare where he walks, nor _to talk_.--As he is going to say of what,
he discovers the absurdity of his suspicion, and pauses, but is again
overwhelmed by his guilt, and concludes that such are the horrours of
the present night, that the stones may be expected to cry out against
him:

_That_ now suits with it.

He observes in a subsequent passage, that on such occasions _stones have
been known to move_. It is now a very just and strong picture of a man
about to commit a deliberate murder, under the strongest convictions of
the wickedness of his design.


NOTE XXI.

SCENE IV.

_Len_. The night has been unruly; where we lay
Our chimneys were blown down: and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i'th'air, strange screams of death,
And prophesying with accents terrible
Of dire combustion, and confused events,
_New-hatch'd to the woeful time_.
The obscure bird clamour'd the live-long night:
Some say, the earth was fev'rous, and did shake.

These lines, I think, should be rather regulated thus:

--prophesying with accents terrible,
Of dire combustion and confused events.
New-hatch'd to th'woeful time, the obscure bird
Clamour'd the live-long night. Some say, the earth
Was fev'rous and did shake.

A _prophecy_ of an _event new-hatch'd_, seems to be _a prophecy_ of an
_event past_. The term _new-hatch'd_ is properly applicable to a _bird_,
and that birds of ill omen should be _new-hatch'd to the woeful time_ is
very consistent with the rest of the prodigies here mentioned, and with
the universal disorder into which nature is described as thrown, by the
perpetration of this horrid murder.


NOTE XXII.

--Up, up, and see
The great doom's image, Malcolm, Banquo,
As from your graves rise up.--

The second line might have been so easily completed, that it cannot be
supposed to have been left imperfect by the author, who probably wrote,


--Malcolm! Banquo! rise!
As from your graves rise up.--

Many other emendations, of the same kind, might be made, without any
greater deviation from the printed copies, than is found in each of them
from the rest.


NOTE XXIII.

_Macbeth_.--Here, lay Duncan,
His silver skin laced with his golden blood;
And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature,
For ruin's wasteful entrance: there, the murtherers
Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers
_Unmannerly breech'd with gore_.--

An _unmannerly dagger_, and a _dagger breech'd_, or as in some editions
_breach'd with gore_, are expressions not easily to be understood, nor
can it be imagined that Shakespeare would reproach the murderer of his
king only with _want of manners_. There are, undoubtedly, two faults in
this passage, which I have endeavoured to take away by reading,

--Daggers
_Unmanly drench'd_ with gore.--

_I saw_ drench'd _with the king's Mood the fatal daggers, not only
instruments of murder but evidences of_ cowardice.

Each of these words might easily be confounded with that which I have
substituted for it by a hand not exact, a casual blot, or a negligent
inspection.

Mr. Pope has endeavoured to improve one of these lines, by substituting
_goary blood_ for _golden blood_, but it may easily be admitted, that he
who could on such an occasion talk of _lacing the silver skin_, would
_lace it_ with _golden blood_. No amendment can be made to this line, of
which every word is equally faulty, but by a general blot.

It is not improbable, that Shakespeare put these forced and unnatural
metaphors into the mouth of Macbeth, as a mark of artifice and
dissimulation, to show the difference between the studied language of
hypocrisy, and the natural outcries of sudden passion. This whole
speech, considered in this light, is a remarkable instance of judgment,
as if consists entirely of antitheses and metaphors.


NOTE XXIV.

ACT III. SCENE II.

_Macbeth_.--Our fears in Banquo
Stick deep; and in his royalty of nature
Reigns that, which would be fear'd. 'Tis much he dares,
And to that dauntless temper of his mind,
He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour
To act in safety. There is none but he,
Whose being I do fear: and, under him,
My genius is rebuk'd; (a)_as, it is said,
Anthony's was by Caesar_. He chid the sisters,
When first they put the name of king upon me,
And bade them speak to him; then, prophet-like,
They hail'd him father to a line of kings:
Upon my head they plac'd a fruitless crown,
And put a barren sceptre in my gripe,
Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand,
No son of mine succeeding. If 'tis so,
For Banquo's issue have I 'fil'd my mind;
For them, the gracious Duncan have I murther'd,
Put rancours in the vessel of my peace
Only for them; and mine eternal jewel
Given to the (b)_common enemy of man_,
To make them kings,--the seed of Banquo kings.
Rather than so, come fate into the list,
(c)And champion me to th' _utterance_!--

(a)--As, it is said,
Anthony's was by Caesar.

Though I would not often assume the critick's privilege, of being
confident where certainty cannot be obtained, nor indulge myself too
far, in departing from the established reading; yet I cannot but propose
the rejection of this passage, which, I believe, was an insertion of
some player, that, having so much learning as to discover to what
Shakespeare alluded, was not willing that his audience should be less
knowing than himself, and has, therefore, weakened the author's sense by
the intrusion of a remote and useless image into a speech bursting from
a man wholly possessed with his own present condition, and, therefore,
not at leisure to explain his own allusions to himself. If these words
are taken away, by which not only the thought but the numbers are
injured, the lines of Shakespeare close together without any traces of a
breach.

My genius is rebuk'd. He chid the sisters.

(b)--The common enemy of man.

It is always an entertainment to an inquisitive reader, to trace a
sentiment to its original source, and, therefore, though the term enemy
of man, applied to the devil, is in itself natural and obvious, yet some
may be pleased with being informed, that Shakespeare probably borrowed
it from the first lines of the Destruction of Troy, a book which he is
known to have read.

That this remark may not appear too trivial, I shall take occasion from
it to point out a beautiful passage of Milton, evidently copied from a
book of no greater authority: in describing the gates of hell, Book ii.
v.879, he says,

--On a sudden open fly,
With impetuous recoil and jarring sound,
Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder.

In the history of Don Bellianis, when one of the knights approaches, as
I remember, the castle of Brandezar, the gates are said to open,
_grating harsh thunder upon their brazen hinges_.

(c)--Come fate into the list,
And champion me to th' utterance.--

This passage will be best explained by translating it into the language
from whence the only word of difficulty in it is borrowed. _Que la
destinee se rende en lice, et qu'elle me donne un defi_ a l'outrance. A
challenge or a combat _a l'outrance, to extremity_, was a fixed term in
the law of arms, used when the combatants engaged with an _odium
internecinum, an intention to destroy each other_, in opposition to
trials of skill at festivals, or on other occasions, where the contest
was only for reputation or a prize. The sense, therefore, is, Let fate,
that has fore-doomed the exaltation of the sons of Banquo, enter the
lists against me, with the utmost animosity, in defence of its own
decrees, which I will endeavour to invalidate, whatever be the danger.


NOTE XXV.

_Macbeth_. Ay, in the catalogue, ye go for men;
As hounds, and grey-hounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,
Shoughs, water-rugs, and demy-wolves are cleped
All by the name of dogs.

Though this is not the most sparkling passage in the play, and though
the name of a dog is of no great importance, yet it may not be improper
to remark, that there is no such species of dogs as _shoughs_ mentioned
by Caius De Canibus Britannicis, or any other writer that has fallen
into my hands, nor is the word to be found in any dictionary which I
have examined. I, therefore, imagined that it is falsely printed for
_slouths_, a kind of slow hound bred in the southern parts of England,
but was informed by a lady, that it is more probably used, either by
mistake, or according to the orthography of that time, for _shocks_.


NOTE XXVI.

_Macbeth_.--In this hour, at most,
I will advise you where to plant yourselves;
Acquaint you with the perfect spy o'th'time,
The moment on't; for't must be done to-night,
And something from the palace.--

What is meant by _the spy of the time_, it will be found difficult to
explain; and, therefore, sense will be cheaply gained by a slight
alteration.--Macbeth is assuring the assassins that they shall not want
directions to find Banquo, and, therefore, says,

I will--
_Acquaint you with_ a perfect spy _o'th'time_.

Accordingly a third murderer joins them afterwards at the place of
action.

_Perfect_ is _well instructed_, or _well informed_, as in this play,

Though in your state of honour I am _perfect_.

_Though I am_ well acquainted _with your quality and rank_.


NOTE XXVII.

SCENE IV.

_2 Murderer_. He needs not to mistrust, since he delivers
Our offices and what we have to do,
To the direction just.

Mr. Theobald has endeavoured unsuccessfully to amend this passage, in
which nothing is faulty but the punctuation. The meaning of this abrupt
dialogue is this: The _perfect spy_, mentioned by Macbeth in the
foregoing scene, has, before they enter upon the stage, given them the
directions which were promised at the time of their agreement; and,
therefore, one of the murderers observes, that, since _he has given them
such exact information, he needs not doubt of their performance_. Then,
by way of exhortation to his associates, he cries out,

--To the direction just.

_Now nothing remains but that we conform exactly to Macbeth's
directions_.


NOTE XXVIII.

SCENE V.

_Macbeth_. You know your own degrees, sit down:
At first and last, the hearty welcome.

As this passage stands, not only the numbers are very imperfect, but the
sense, if any can be found, weak and contemptible. The numbers will be
improved by reading,

--sit down at first,
And last a hearty welcome.

But for _last_ should then be written _next_. I believe the true
reading is,