Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,
With his furcease, success; & that but this blow

We are told by Dryden, that "Ben Jonfon, in reading fome bombast speeches in Macbeth, which are not to be understood, used to say that it was horrour." - Perhaps the present passage was one of those thus depreciated. Any person but this envious detractor would have dwelt with pleasure on the tranfcendent beauties of this sublime tragedy, which, after Othello, is perhaps our author's greatest work; and would have been more apt to have been thrown into " ftrong shudders" and blood-freezing "agues," by its interesting and high-wrought scenes, than to have been offended by any imaginary hardness of its language; for such, it appears from the context, is what he meant by horrour. That there are difficult passages in this tragedy, cannot be denied; but that there are "some bombast speeches in it, which are not to be understood," as Dryden afferts, will not very readily be granted to him. From this assertion, however, and the verbal alterations made by him and Sir W. D'Avenant, in fome of our author's plays, I think it clearly appears that Dryden and the other poets of the time of Charles II. were not very deeply skilled in the language of their predeceffors, and that Shakspeare was not so well understood fifty years after his death, as he is at this day. MALONE.

* Could trammel up the confequence, and catch,

With his furcease, success ;) I think the reasoning requires that we should read :

With its fuccess furcease. - JOHNSON.

A trammel is a net in which either birds or fishes are caught. So, in The Isle of Gulls, 1633 :

"Each tree and shrub wears trammels of thy hair." Surcease is cessation, stop. So, in The valiant Welchman, 1615:

"Surcease brave brother: Fortune hath crown'd our brows."

His is ufed inftead of its, in many places. STEEVENS. The perfonal pronouns are so frequently used by Shakspeare, instead of the impersonal, that no amendment would be necefTary in this passage, even if it were certain that the pronoun his refers to affaffination, which seems to be the opinion of Johnson and Steevens; but I think it more probable that it refers to Duncan; and that by his furceafe Macbeth means Duncan's death, which was the object of his contemplation. M. MASON.

Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We'd jump the life to come. But, in these cafes,
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor: This even-handed justice3

His certainly may refer to afsassination, (as Dr. Johnfon, by his proposed alteration, seems to have thought it did,) for Shakspeare very frequently uses his for its. But in this place perhaps his refers to Duncan; and the meaning may be, If the affassination, at the same time that it puts an end to the life of Duncan, could procure me unalloyed happiness, promotion to the crown unmolefted by the compunctious vifitings of conscience, &c. To cease often fignifies in these plays, to die. So, in All's well that ends well:

"Or, ere they meet, in me, O nature, cease." I think, however, it is more probable that his is used for its, and that it relates to afsafination. MALONE.

Shoal of time,] This is Theobald's emendation, undoubtedly right. The old edition has school, and Dr. Warburton Shelve. JOHNSON.

By the Shoal of time, our author means the shallow ford of life, between us and the abyss of eternity. STEEVENS.

I

We'd jump the life to come.] So, in Cymbeline, A& V.

fc. iv:

" or jump the after-inquiry on your own peril."

STEEVENS.

"We'd jump the life to come," certainly means, We'd hazard or run the risk of what might happen in a future state of being. So, in Antony and Cleopatra :

Our fortune lies

"To jump a body with a dangerous physick,
"That's fure of death without it."

See note on this passage, Act III. sc. i. MALONE.

Bloody inftructions, which, being taught, return

To plague the inventor :) So, in Bellenden's tranflation of Hector Boethius: "He [Macbeth] was led be wod furyis, as ye

Commends the ingredients 4 of our poison'd chalice
To our own lips.5 He's here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been

nature of all tyrannis is, quhilks conquessis landis or kingdomes be wrangus titil, ay full of hevy thocht and dredour, and traisting ilk man to do ficlik crueltes to hym, as he did afore to othir." MALONE.

3

-This even-handed justice-] Mr. M. Mason observes, that we might more advantageously read

Thus even-handed justice, &c. STEEVENS.

The old reading I believe to be the true one, because Shakspeare has very frequently used this mode of expression. So, a little lower: "Besides, this Duncan," &c. Again, in King Henry IV. P. I:

"That this fame child of honour and renown,
"This gallant Hotspur, this all-praised knight-."

MALONE.

* Commends the ingredients-) Thus, in a subsequent scene of this play :

" I wish your horses swift, and sure of foot,

"And so I do commend you to their backs.'

This verb has many shades of meaning. It seems here to

fignify-offers, or recommends. STEEVENS.

5

- our poison'd chalice

To our own lips.] Our poet, apis Matincæ more modoque, would ttoop to borrow a sweet from any flower, however humble in its fituation.

"The pricke of confcience (says Holinshed) caused him ever to feare, left he should be served of the same cup as he had ministered to his predecessor." STEEVENS.

* Hath borne his faculties so meek,] Faculties, for office, exercise of power, &c. WARBURTON.

"Duncan (fays Holinshed) was foft and gentle of nature." And again : "Macbeth spoke much against the king's foftness, and overmuch slackness in punishing offenders." STEEVENS. VOL. X.

G

So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off:
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubin, hors'd
Upon the fightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,

7 The deep damnation-) So, in A dolfull Discourse of a Lord and a Ladie, by Churchyard, 1593:

"in ftate

"Of deepe damnation stood."

I should not have thought this little coincidence worth noting, had I not found it in a poem which it should feem, from other passages, that Shakspeare had read and remembered.

STEEVENS.

Upon the fightless couriers of the air, Courier is only runner. Couriers of air are winds, air in motion. Sightless is invifille. JOHNSON.

Again, in this play:

"Wherever in your fightless substances," &c.

Again, in Heywood's Brazen Age, 1613:

Again:

"The flames of hell and Pluto's fightless fires."

"Hath any fightless and infernal fire

"Laid hold upon my flesh?"

Again, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, B. II. c. xi:

"The scouring winds that fightless in the founding air

do fly." STEEVENS.

So, in King Henry V:

"Borne with the invisible and creeping wind."

Again, in our author's 51ft Sonnet:

"Then should I spur, though mounted on the wind."

Again, in the Prologue to King Henry IV. P. II : "I, from the orient to the drooping west, "Making the wind my post-horse-."

The thought of the cherubin (as has been somewhere observed) seems to have been borrowed from the eighteenth Pfalm: "He rode upon the cherubins and did fly; he came flying upon the wings of the wind." Again, in the Book of Job, ch. xxx. v. 22: "Thou causeft me to ride upon the wind."

MALONE.

That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur To prick the fides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o'er-leaps itself,

And falls on the other. How now, what news?

That tears shall drown the wind.) Alluding to the remiffion of the wind in a shower. JOHNSON.

So, in King Henry VI. P. III:

"For raging wind blows up incessant showers;
"And, when the rage allays, the rain begins.'"

Again, in our author's Venus and Adonis :

"Even as the wind is hush'd before it raineth."

Again, in The Rape of Lucrece:

STEEVENS.

"This windy tempest, till it blow up rain
" Held back his forrow's tide, to make it more;

"At last it rains, and busy winds give o'er."

"Where are my tears?-rain, rain to lay this wind."

Again, in Troilus and Creffida :

I have no spur

MALONE.

To prick the fides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, The spur of the occafion is a phrase

used by Lord Bacon. STEEVENS.

So, in the tragedy of Cæfar and Pompey, 1607 :

"Why think you, lords, that 'tis ambition's Spur,
"That pricketh Cæfar to these high attempts?"

MALONE.

Again, in The First Part of the tragicall Raigne of Selimus, &c. 4to. 1594: "My sonnes whom now ambition ginnes to pricke."

TODD.

* And falls on the other.] Sir T. Hanmer has on this occafion added a word, and would read

And falls on the other fide.

Yet they who plead for the admission of this supplement, should confider, that the plural of it, but two lines before, had occurred.

I, also, who once attempted to justify the omiffion of this word, ought to have understood that Shakspeare could never mean to describe the agitation of Macbeth's mind, by the affift ance of a halting verse.

The general image, though confusedly expressed, relates to a