in his house without anie gard about him other than the garrison of the castle, [of Fores] which was wholie at his commandement) to make him awaie, and showed him the meanes whereby he might soonest accomplish it. "Donwald, thus being the more kindled in wrath by the words of his wife, determined to follow hir advice in the execution of so heinous an act. Whereupon devising with himselfe for a while, which way hee might best accomplish his cursed intent, at length gat opportunitie, and sped his purpose as followeth. It chanced that the king upon the daie before he purposed to depart foorth of the castell, was long in his oratorie at his praiers, and there continued till it was late in the night. At the last, comming foorth, he called such afore him as had faithfullie served him in pursute and apprehension of the rebels, and giving them heartie thanks he bestowed sundrie honourable gifts amongst them, of the which number Donwald was one, as he that had been ever accounted a most faithful servant to the king. "At length, having talked with them a long time he got him into his privie chamber, onlie with two of his chamberlains, who having brought him to bed, came foorth againe, and then fell to banketting with Donwald and his wife, who had prepared diverse delicate dishes, and sundrie sorts of drinks for their reare supper or collation, whereat they sate up so long, till they had charged their stomachs with such full gorges, that their heads were no sooner got to the pillow, but asleepe they were so fast, that a man might have removed the chamber over them, sooner than to have awaked them out of their drunken sleepe. "Then Donwald, though he abhorred the act greatlie in heart, yet through instigation of his wife, he called foure of his servants unto him, (whom he had made privie to his wicked intent before, and framed to his purpose with large gifts,) and now declaring unto them, after what sort they should worke the feat, they gladlie obeyed his instructions, and speedilie going about the murther, they enter the chamber in which the king laie, a little before cocks crow, where they secretlie cut his throte as he lay sleeping, without anie bustling at all: and immediately by a posterne gate they carried foorth the dead bodie into the fields, and throwing it upon a horse there provided for that purpose, they convey it unto a place about two miles distant from the castell. "Donwald, about the time that the murther was in dooing, got him amongst them that kept the watch, and so continued to companie with them all the residue of the night. But in the morning when the noise was raised in the kings chamber, how the king was slaine, his bodie conveied awaie, and the bed all bewraied with bloud, he with the watch ran thither, as though he had known nothing of the matter; and breaking into the chamber, and finding cakes of bloud in the bed, and on the floore about the sides of it, he forthwith slew the chamberlains, as guiltie of that heinous murther, and then like a madman running to an fro, he ransacked everie corner within the castell, as thoogh it had beene to have seene if he might have found either the bodie, or any of the murtherers hid in anie privie place; but at length comming to the posterne gate, and finding it open, he burdened the chamberleins, whom he had slaine, with all the fault, they having the keyes of the gates committed to their keeping all the night, and therefore it could not be otherwise (said he) but that they were of counsell in the committing of that most detestable murther. "Finallie, such was his over-earnest diligence in the severe inquisition and trial of the offenders heerein, that some of the lords began to mislike the matter, and to smell foorth shrewd tokens that he should not be altogether cleare himselfe. But for so much as they were in that countrie where he had the whole rule, what by reason of his friends and authoritie together, they doubted to utter what they thought, till time and place should better serve thereunto, and hereupon got them awaie everie man to his home." Malone. Add, at the conclusion of Mr. Malone's note, p. 85.] I believe, however a line has been lost after the words "stealthy pace." Our author did not, I imagine, mean to make the murderer a ravisher likewise. In the parallel passage in The Rape of Lucrece they are distinct persons: "While LUST and MURDER wake, to stain and kill.” Perhaps the line which I suppose to have been lost was of this import : and wither'd MURDER, Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf, Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace Enters the portal; while night-waking LUST, With Tarquin's ravishing sides, towards his design So, in The Spanish Tragedy: "At midnight "When man, and bird, and beast, are all at rest, "Save those that watch for rape and blodie murder." Of this There is reason to believe that many of the difficulties in Shakspeare's plays arise from lines and half lines having been omitted, by the compositor's eye passing hastily over them. kind of negligence there is a remarkable instance in the present play, as printed in the folio, 1632, where the following passage is thus exhibited: 66 that we but teach "Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return "To plague the ingredience of our poison'd chalice "To our own lips." If this mistake had happened in the first copy, and had been continued in the subsequent impressions, what diligence or sagacity could have restored the passage to sense? In the folio, 1623, it is right, except that the word ingredients is there also mis-spelt: 66 which, being taught, return "To plague the inventor. This even-handed justice "Commends the ingredience of our poison'd chalice "To our own lips." So, the following passage in Much Ado about Nothing: "And I will break with her and with her father, "And thou shalt have her. Was 't not to this end," &c. is printed thus in the folio, [1623] by the compositor's eye glancing from one line to the other: "And I will break with her. Was 't not to this end," &c. Again, we find in the play before us, edit. 1632: 66 for their dear causes "Excite the mortified man." instead of 64 for their dear causes "Would to the bleeding and the grim alarm Again, in The Winter's Tale, 1632: 66 in himself too mighty, "Until a time may serve." instead of 66 in himself too mighty, "And in his parties, his alliance. Let him be, See p. 101, n. 6.] After the horror and agitation of this scene, the reader may, perhaps, not be displeased to pause for a few minutes. The consummate art which Shakspeare has displayed in the preparation for the murder of Duncan, and during the commission of the dreadful act, cannot but strike every intelligent reader. An ingenious writer, however, whose comparative view of Macbeth and Richard III, has just reached my hands, has developed some of the more minute traits of the character of Macbeth, particularly in the present and subsequent scene, with such acuteness of observation, that I am tempted to transcribe such of his remarks as relate to the subject now before us, though I do not entirely agree with him. After having proved, by a deduction of many particulars, that the towering ambition of Richard is of a very different colour from that of Macbeth, whose weaker desires seem only to aim at pre-eminence of place, not of dominion, he adds: " Upon the same principle a distinction still stronger is made in the article of courage, though both are possessed of it even to an eminent degree; but in Richard it is intrepidity, and in Macbeth no more than resolution: in him it proceeds from exertion, not from nature; in enterprize he betrays a degree of fear, though he is able, when occasion requires, to stifle and subdue it. When he and his wife are concerting the murder, his doubt, if we should fail?' is a difficulty raised by an apprehension, and as soon as that is removed by the contrivance of lady Macbeth, to make the officers drunk and lay the crime upon them, he runs with violence into the other extreme of confidence, and cries out, with a rapture unusual to him, - Bring forth men children only, &c. - Will it not be receiv'd 'When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two 'Of his own chamber, and us'd their very daggers, which question he puts to her who had the moment before sug gested the thought of— 'His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt and his asking it again, proceeds from that extravagance with which a delivery from apprehension and doubt is always accompanied. Then, summoning all his fortitude, he says, I am settled,' &c. and proceeds to the bloody business without any further recoil. But a certain degree of restlessness and anxiety still continues, such as is constantly felt by a man not naturally very bold, worked up to a momentous achievement. His imagination dwells entirely on the circumstances of horror which surround him; the vision of the dagger; the darkness and the stillness of the night, and the terrors and the prayers of the chamberlains. Lady Macbeth, who is cool and undismayed, attends to the business only; considers of the place where she had laid the daggers ready; the impossibility of his missing them; and is afraid of nothing but a disappointment. She is earnest and eager; he is uneasy and impatient; and therefore wishes it over: 'I go, and it is done;' &c. "But a resolution thus forced cannot hold longer than the immediate occasion for it: the moment after that is accomplished for which it was necessary, his thoughts take the contrary turn, and he cries out, in agony and despair, 'Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou could'st.' "That courage which had supported him while he was settled and bent up, forsakes him so immediately after he has performed the terrible feat, for which it had been exerted, that he forgets the favourite circumstance of laying it on the officers of the bedchamber; and when reminded of it, he refuses to return and complete his work, acknowledging "I am afraid to think what I have done; Look on 't again I dare not.' "His disordered senses deceive him; and his debilitated spirits fail him; he owns that every noise appals him;' he listens when nothing stirs; he mistakes the sounds he does hear; he is so confused as not to know whence the knocking proceeds. She, who is more calm, knows that it is from the south entry; she gives clear and direct answers to all the incoherent questions he asks her; but he returns none to that which she puts to him; and though after some time, and when necessity again urges him to recollect himself, he recovers so far as to conceal his distress, yet he still is not able to divert his thoughts from it: all his answers to the trivial questions of Lenox and Macduff are evidently given by a man thinking of something else; and by taking a tincture from the subject of his attention, they become equivocal: Macd. Is the king stirring, worthy thane? Macb. Not yet. 'Len. Goes the king hence to-day? Macb He did appoint so. Len. The night has been unruly; where we lay 'Macb. 'Twas a rough night.' "Not yet implies that he will by and by, and is a kind of guard against any suspicion of his knowing that the king would never stir more. He did appoint so, is the very counterpart of that which he had said to Lady Macbeth, when on his first meeting her she asked him 'Lady M. When goes he hence? 'Macb. To-morrow, as he purposes.' in both which answers he alludes to his disappointing the King's intention. And when forced to make some reply to the long description given by Lenox, he puts off the subject which the other was so much inclined to dwell on, by a slight acquiescence in what had been said of the roughness of the night; but not like a man who had been attentive to the account, or was willing to keep up the conversation." Remarks on some of the Characters of Shakspeare, [by Mr. Whately,] 8vo. 1785. To these ingenious observations I entirely subscribe, except that I think the wavering irresolution and agitation of Macbeth after the murder ought not to be ascribed solely to a remission of courage, since much of it may be imputed to the remorse which would arise to a man who was of a good natural disposition, and is described as originally "full of the milk of human kindness; -not without ambition, but without the illness should attend it." Malone. See Remarks on Mr. Whateley's Dissertation, p. 243 & seq. They first appeared in The European Magazine, for April, 1787. I cannot, however, dismiss this subject without taking some notice of an observation that rather diminishes than increases the reputation of the foregoing tragedy. It has been more than once oberved by Mr. Boswell, and other collectors of Dr. Johnson's fugitive remarks, that he always described Macbeth as a drama that might be exhibited by puppets; and that it was rather injured than improved by scenical accompaniments, et quicquid telorum habent armamentaria theatri. I must confess, I know not on what circumstances in this tragedy such a decision could have been founded; nor shall I feel myself disposed to admit the propriety of it, till the inimitable performances of Mr. Garrick and Mrs. Pritchard have faded from my remembrance. Be it observed, however, that my great coadjutor had not advanced this position among his original or subsequent comments on Macbeth. It rather seems to have been an effusion provoked from him in the warmth of controversy, and not of such a nature as he himself would have trusted to the press. In Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides, 3d edit. p. 386, the Doctor |