Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,
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 terrors 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 horrors 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.

Lenox. THE night has been unruly; where we lay
Our chimnies were blown down. And, as they say,
Lamentings i' th' air, strange screams of death,
And prophesying with accents terrible

Of dire combustions, and confused events,
New hatch'd to the woful time.

VOL. II.

The obscure bird clamor'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 combustions and confused events,
New hatch'd to th' woful time, the obscure bird
Clamor'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 hatchd to the woful 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 imper fect 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 lac'd 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 breeched, or as in some editions, breach'd with gore, are expressions not easily to be understood, nor can it be imagined that Shakspeare 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 blood 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 Shakspeare 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 it consists entirely of antitheses and metaphors.

NOTE XXIV.

ACT III.....SCENE II.

'Tis much he dares,

Macbeth......OUR fears in Banquo
Stick deep, and in his royalty of nature
Reigns that which would be fear'd.
And to that dauntless temper of his mind,
He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valor
To act in safety. There is none but he,
Whose being I do fear; and under him,
My genius is rebuk’d; (1) as it is said

Anthony's was by Cesar. 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 fill'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 (2) common enemy of man,

To make them kings.....the seed of Banquo kings.
Rather than so, come fate into the list,
(3) And champion me to th' utterance...................

(1)As it is said,

Anthony's was by Cesar.

Though I would not often assume the critic'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 Shakspeare 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 Shakspeare close together without any traces of a breach.

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

(2)..........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