Macb. 'Twas a rough night. Len. My young remembrance cannot parallel A fellow to it. Re-enter MACDUFF. Macd. O horror! horror! horror! Tongue, nor heart, Cannot conceive, nor name thee! Macb. Len. What's the matter? Macd. Confufion now hath made his master-piece! Most facrilegious murder hath broke ope The lord's anointed temple, and stole thence The life o'the building. Macb. What is't you fay? the life? Len. Mean you his majesty? Macd. Approach the chamber, and destroy your fight With a new Gorgan :-Do not bid me speak; See, and then speak yourselves.-Awake! awake! [Exeunt MACBETH and LENOX. Z 2 Ring A prophecy of an event new-batch'd feems to be a prophecy of an event past. And a prophecy new batch'd is a wry expreffion. The term newbatch'd is properly applicable to a bird, and that birds of ill omen thould be new-batch'd to the woeful time, that is, fhould appear in uncommon numbers, is very confiftent with the reft of the prodigies here mentioned, and with the univerfal diforder into which nature is described as thrown by the perpetration of this horrid murder. JOHNSON. I think Dr. Johnson's regulation of thefe lines is improper. Prophecying is what is new-batch'd, and in the metaphor holds the place of the egg. The events are the fruit of fuch hatching. STEEVINS. I think Steevens has justly explained this paffage, but fhould wish to read-prophecyings-in the plural. M. MASON. Dr. Johnfon obferves, that a prophecy of an event new-batch'd seems to be a prophecy of an event past. And a prophecy new-batch'd is a wry expreffion." The conftruction fuggefted by Mr. Steevens meets with the first objection. Yet the following paffage in which the fame imagery is found, inclines me to believe that our author meant, that new-batch'd fhould be referred to events, though the events were yet to come. Allowing for his ufual inaccuracy with refpect to the active and paffive parti ciple, the events may be faid to be the batch and brood of time." If the conftruction that I have fuggefted be the true one, batch'd must be here used for batching, or in the state of being batch'd.”—To the woeful time, means to fuit the woeful time. MALONE. The ufe of two negatives, not to make an affirmative, but to deny mere ftrongly, is very common in our author. STEVENS, Ring the alarum-bell:-Murder! and treason! [Bell rings. Lady M. Enter Lady MACBETH. What's the business, O, gentle lady, That fuch a hideous trumpet calls to parley "Tis not for you to hear what I can speak : Would murder as it fell,O Banquo! Banquo! Dear Duff, I pr'ythee, contradict thyself, And fay, it is not so. Re-enter MACBETH and LENOX. Mach. Had I but died an hour before this chance, I had liv'd a bleffed time; for from this inftant, There's 9 This is very fine. Had he been innocent, nothing but the murder itself, and not any of its aggravating circumstances, would naturally have affected her. As it was, her business was to appear highly difordered at the news. Therefore, like one who has her thoughts about her, she feeks for an agravating circumftance, that might be fuppofed moft to affect her perfonally; no confidering, that by placing it there, the difcovered rather a concern for herfeit than for the king. On the contrary, her husband, who had repented the act, and was now labouring under the horrors of a cent murder, in his exclamation, gives all the marks of forrow for the actitteli. WARBURTON. There's nothing ferious in mortality: All is but toys: renown, and grace, is dead Enter MALCOLM and DONALBAIN. Don. What is amifs? Macb. You are, and do not know it The fpring, the head, the fountain of your blood Mal. O, by whom? Len. Thofe of his chamber, as it feem'd, had done't: Their hands and faces were all badg'd with blood,2 So were their daggers, which, unwip'd, we found: Upon their pillows: They ftar'd, 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, amaz'd, temperate, and furious,, Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man : The expedition of my violent love Out-ran the paufer reafon.-Here lay Duncan, ? I once thought that our author wrote bath'd; but badg'd is certainly right. MALONE. 3 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 fuch an occafion talk of lacing the filver 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 Shakspeare put thefe forced and unnatural metaphors into the mouth of Macbeth as a mark of artifice and diflimulation, to fhow the difference between the ftudied language of hypocrify, and the natural outcries of fudden paffion. This whole fpeech, fo confidered, is a remarkable instance of judgment, as it confifts entirely of antithefis and metaphor. JOHNSON.. And his gafh'd ftabs look'd like a breach in nature, That To gild any thing with blood is a very common phrafe in the old plays. The allufion here is to the decoration of the richeft habits worn in the age of Shakspeare, when it was ufual to lace cloth of filver with gold, and cloth of gold with filver. The fecond of thefe fashions is mentioned in Much ado about Nothing, A&t III. fc. iv: Cloth of gold,—laced with filver." STEFVENS. The allufion is f ridiculous on fuch an occafion, that it difcovers the declaimer not to be affected in the manner he would reprefent himself. The whole fpeech is an unnatural mixture of far-fetch'd and commonplace thoughts, that shows him to be acting a part. WARBURTON. 4 The expreffion may mean, that the daggers were covered with blood, quite to their breeches, i. e. their bilts or handles. The lower end of a cannon is called the breech of it; and it is known that both to breech and to unbreech a gun are common terms. STEEVENS. Mr. Warton haft juftly obferved that the word unmannerly is here used adverbially. So friendly is used for friendly in K. Henry IV. P. II. and faulty for faultily in As you like it. MALONE. Though fo much has been written on this paffage, the commentators have forgotten to account for the attendants of Duncan being furnished with daggers. The fact is, that in Shakspeare's time a dagger was a common weapon, and was ufually carried by fervants and others, fufpended at their backs. MALONE. ..... The fenfe is, in plain language, Daggers miliwny—in a juus manner ---Sheath'd with blood. A fcabbard is called a filche, a leather coat, in Romeo;-but you will ask, whence the allufion to breeches? Dr. Warburton and Dr. Johnson have well obferved, that this fpeech of Macbeth is very artfully made up of unnatural thoughts and language: in 1605 (the year in which the play appears to have been written) a book was published by Peter Erondell (with commendatory poems by Daniel, and other wits of the time,) called The French Garden, or a Summer Dayes Labour, containing, among other matters, fome dialogues of a dramatick caft, which, I am perfuaded, our author had read in the English; and from which he took, as he fuppofed, for his prefent purpofe, this quaint expreffion. I will quote literatim from the 6th dialogue: "Boy! you do nothing but play tricks there, go fetch your master's filver-hatched daggers, you have not brushed their breeches, bring the brushes, and brush them before me."-Shakspeare was deceived by the pointing, and evidently fuppofes breeches to be a new and affected term for fcabbards. But had he been able to have read the French on the other page, even as a learner, he must have been fet right at once. "Garçon, vous ne faites que badiner, allez querir les poignards argentez de vos maistres, vous n'avez pas efpouffeté leur That had a heart to love, and in that heart Lady M. Macd. Look to the lady." Mal. Help me hence, ho!" Why do we hold our tongues, That moft may claim this argument for ours Mal. The foot of motion. Nor our ftrong forrow on ་ Ban. Look to the lady : [Lady MACBETH is carried out. And when we have our naked frailties hid, That fuffer in exposure, let us meet, And question this most bloody piece of work, Of treafonous malice." leur baut de-chauffes," ,”—their breeches, in the common fenfe of the word : as in the next fentence bas-de chauffes, ftockings, and fo on through all the articles of drefs. FARMER. 5 Mr. Wheatley juftly obferves that "on Lady Macbeth's feeming to faint, while Banquo and Macduff are folicitous about her, Macbeth, by his unconcern, betrays a consciousness that the fainting is feigned." I may add, that a bold and hardened villain would from a refined policy have affumed the appearance of being alarmed about her, left this very im putation fhould arife against him: the irrefolute Macbeth is not fufficiently at eafe to act fuch a part. MALONE. 6 i. e. when we have clothed our balf-dreft bodies, which may take cold from being expofed to the air. It is poffible that in fuch a cloud of words, the meaning might efcape the reader. STEEVENS. The porter in his fhort fpeech had obferved, that this place [i. e.. the court, in which Banquo and the reft now are,] is too cold for hell." MALONE. 7. Pretence is intention, defign, a fenfe in which the word is often used by Shakspeare. Banquo's meaning is,-in our present state of doubt and uncer |