fcales against either scale, who committed treafon enough for God's fake, yet could not equivocate to Heaven: Oh, come in, equivocator. [Knock.] Knock, knock, knock. Who's there? faith (17) here's an English tailor come hither for stealing out of a French hofe: come in, tailor, here you may roaft your goofe. [Knock.] Knock, knock. Never at quiet! what are you? but this place is too cold for hell. ' devil-porter it no further: I had thought to have let in fome of all profeffions, that go the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire. [Knock.] Anon, anon. I pray you, remember the porter.

Enter MACDUFF and LENOX.

Macd. Was it fo late, friend, ere you went to bed, that you do ly fo late?

Port. Faith, Sir, we were carousing till the fecond cock: and drink, Sir, is a great provoker of three things.

Macd. 'What three things doth drink efpecially provoke?

Port. Marry, Sir, nofe painting, fleep, and urine. Lechery, Sir, it provokes and unprovokes; it provokes the defire, but it takes away the performance. Therefore much drink may be faid to be an equivocator with lechery; it makes him and it mars him; it fets him on, and it takes him off; it perfuades him, and difheartens him; makes him ftand to, and not stand to; in conclufion, equivocates him into a fleep, and giving him the lie, leaves him.

(17) Here's an English tailor come hither for ftealing out of a French hofe:] The archness of this joke confists in this; that a French hofe being fo very fhort and ftrait, a tailor must be a perfect master of his art, who could steal any thing out of it. As to the nature of the French hofe, we have seen that in Henay VIII.; our Poet calls them short-bolstered breeches. Mr Warburton.

2

Macd. I believe drink gave thee the lie latt night.

Port. That it did, Sir, i' th' very throat on me; but I requited him for his lie; and, I think, being too ftrong for him, though he took up my legs fometime, yet I made a fhift to caft him. Macd Is thy mafter firring?

Our knocking has awaked him; here he comes. Len. Good-morrow, noble Sir.

Enter MACBETH.

Macb. Good-morrow, both,

Macd. Is the King firring, worthy Thane?

Macd. Not yet.

Macb. He did command me to call timely on I've almoft flipt the hour.

Mach. Ell bring you to him.

[him;

Macd. I know this is a joyful trouble to you:

But yet 'tis one.

Macb. The labour, we delight in, phyfics pain; This is the door.

Macd. I'll make fo bold to call, for 'tis my limited

fervice.

[Exit Macduff. Len. 'Goes the King hence to-day?

Macb. He did appoint fo.

Len. The night has been unruly: where we lay, Our chimneys were blown down: and as they fay, Lamentings heard i' th' air, ftrange fcreams of death, And prophefying with accents terrible

Of dire combuition, and confused events,
New hatched to th' woeful time:

The obfcure bird clamoured the live-long night.
Some fay the earth was feverous, and did shake.
Macb. 'Twas a rough night.

Len. My young remembrance cannot parallel A fellow to it.

تر

Enter MACDUFF.

Macd. O horror! horror! horror!

[thee!

Nor tongue, nor heart, cannot conceive, nor name Mach. and Len. What's the matter?

Mach. Confufion now hath made his masterpiece;
Moft facrilegious murder hath broke ope
The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence
The life o' th' building.

Macb. What is't you fay? the life?
Len. Mean you his Majesty?

[fight
Macd. Approach the chamber, and destroy your
With a new Gorgon.---Do not bid me speak;
See, and then speak yourselves: awake! awake!
[Exeunt Macbeth and Lenox.
Ring the alarum-bell-murder! and treafon!
Banquo, and Donalbain! Malcolm! awake!
Shake off this downy fleep, death's counterfeit,
And look on death itself-up, up, and fee
The great doom's image-Malcolm! Banquo!
As from your graves rife up, and walk like fprights,
(18) To countenance this horror.-

Bell rings. Enter Lady MACBETH.

Lady. What's the bufinefs,

(18) To countenance this horror Ring the hell.]

I have ventured to throw out thefe laft words, as no part of the text Macduff had faid at the beginning of his fpeech, Ring out the alarum bell; but if the bell had rung out immediately, not a word of what he fays could have been diftinguished. King the bell, I fay, was a marginal direction in the Prompter's book for him to order the bell to be rung, the minute that Macduff ceafes fpeaking.

In proof of this, we may obferve that the hemiftich ending Macduff's speech, and that beginning Lady Macbeth's, nakes up a compleat verfe. Now if ring the bell had been a part of the text, can we imagine the Poet would have begun the Lady's fpeech with a broken line?

That fuch an hideous trumpet calls to parley
The fleepers of the house? fpeak.

Macd. Gentle Lady,

'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak.

The repetition in a woman's ear

Would murder as it fell-O Banquo, Banquok
Enter BAN QUO.

Our royal mafter's murdered.

Lady. Woe, alas!

What, in our houfe?-----

Ban. Too cruel, any where.

Macduff, I pr'ythee, contradict thyself,
And fay, it is not fo.

Enter MACBETH, LENOX, and ROSSE.

Mach. Had I but died an hour before this chance, I had lived a blessed time: for, from this instant, There's nothing ferious in mortality;

All is but toys; renown and grace is dead;
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.

Enter MALCOLM and DONALBAIN..

Don. What is amifs?

Macb. You are, and do not know't:

The fpring, the head, the fountain of your bloodIs ftopt; the very fource of it is ftopt.

Macd. Your royal father's murdered.

Mal. Oh, by whom?

Len. Thofe of his chamber, as it feemed, had donc't; Their hands and faces were all badged with blood, So were their daggers, which, unwiped, we found Upon their pülows, they ftared, and were distracted; No man's life was to be trufted with them.

Macb. O, yet I do repent me of my fury,

That I did kill them.

Macd. Wherefore did you fo?

Mach. Who can be wife, amazed, temperate and Loyal and neutral in a moment? no man." [furious, The expedition of my violent love

Out-run the paufer, reafon. Here lay Duncan,
His filver fkin laced with his golden blood,
And his gafhed ftabs looked like a breach in nature,
For ruin's wasteful entrance: there, the murderers,
Steeped in the colours of their trade, their daggers
Unmannerly breeched with gore. Who could refrain,
That had a heart to love, and in that heart
Courage, to make's love known?

Lady. Help me hence, ho!--- [Seeming to faint.
Macd. Look to the Lady.

Mal. Why do we hold our tongues,
That most may claim this argument for ours?
Don. What fhould be fpoken here,
Where our fate, hid within an augre-hole,
May rufh, and feize us? let's away: our tears
Are not yet brewed.

Mal. Nor our strong forrow on

The foot of motion.

Ban. Look to the Lady;

[Lady Macbeth is carried out.

And when we have our naked frailtics hid,

That fuffer in expofure, let us meet,

And queftion this moft bloody piece of work,

To know it further. Fears and fcruples fhake us:
In the great hand of God I ftand, and thence
Against the undivulged pretence I fight
Of treasonous malice.

Mach. So do I.

All. So, all.

Macb. Let's briefly put on manly readiness, And meet i' th' hall together.