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words Shakespeare wrote, but which had dropped out in the press,"-forgetting, I presume, that in other four places of this scene we have lines without any rhyme ;

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First Witch. Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!" "These two verses should be pronounced by 1, 2, 3, in chorus." W. N. LETT

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and "Tale" has not wanted several defenders. The latest of them, Mr. Singer, remarks (Shakespeare Vindicated, &c. p. 251); "Rowe was right in correcting the obvious misprint can to came, but wrong in disturbing the old undoubted word tale: 'as thick as tale' is as quick as they could be told or numbered. Shakespeare [as Steevens had already observed] has the word thick for quick twice, and Baret in v. 'Crebritas literarum, the often sending, or thicke coming of letters." But was such an expression as "thick as tale" ever employed by any writer whatsoever? Now, "thick as hail" is of the commonest occurrence;

"Out of the towne came quarries thick as haile."

Drayton's Battaile of Agincourt, p. 20, ed. 1627.

"Curse, ban, and breath out damned orisons,
As thicke as haile-stones for[e] the springs approach."
First Part of the Troublesome Raigne of King John,
sig. F 4, ed. 1622.

"The English archers shoot as thick as haile."

Harington's Orlando Furioso, B. xvi. st. 51.

"Rayning down bullets from a stormy cloud,

As thick as hail, upon their armies proud."

Sylvester's Du Bartas,-Fourth Day of the First Week, p. 38, ed. 1641.

"More thick they fall then haile," &c.

A Herrings Tayle, &c. 1598, sig. C 2.

"Darts thick as haile their backs behinde did smite."

Niccols's King Arthur,-A Winter Night's Vision, &c. (Contin. of A Mir. for Mag.), 1610, p. 583.

“xáraça . . . hail . . . words poured forth hastily and vehemently are termed xáλağa." Maltby's Greek Gradus, ed. 8vo, 1830. “xaλašeπhs, hurling abuse as thick as hail." Liddell and Scott's Greek Lex.

(Mr. Collier informs us that his Ms. Corrector, though he changes "Can" to "Came," leaves "tale" unaltered. And what then? This is not the only corrupted word in Macbeth which he has passed over: we are told that, in act ii. sc. 1," no change is made [by the Ms. Corrector] in Tarquin's ravishing sides,' as if that expression were not objectionable.")

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1865. Both Mr. Staunton and Mr. Grant White retain the old reading here; the former editor declaring that "Rowe most unwarrantably changed 'tale' to 'hail;' the latter that "hail' is equally absurd and extravagant."

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"Only to herald thee into his sight,
Not pay thee."

'Only to herald thee to's (or in's) sight, not pay thee'?"

Walker's Crit. Exam. &c. vol. iii. p. 251.

P. 12. (20)

"Time and the hour"

The commentators have illustrated this expression from English authors. It is not unfrequent in Italian;

"Ma perch' e' fugge il tempo, e così l'ora,

P. 12. (21)

La nostra storia ci convien seguire."

Pulci, Morg. Mag. C. xv. last stanza.

"Ferminsi in un momento il tempo e l' ore.”

Michelagnolo, Son, xix.

"Aspettar vuol ch' occasion gli dia,
Come dar gli potrebbe, il tempo e l' hora."

Dolce, Prime Imprese del Conte Orlando,
C. xvii. p. 145, ed. 1572.

"Are not"

So the second folio.-The first folio has "Or not."

P. 13. (22) "In drops of sorrow.-Sons, kinsmen, thanes,"

Walker (Shakespeare's Versification, &c. p. 28) calls this line "suspicious."

P. 14. (23)" And bind us further to you.

Arrange

Macb. The rest is labour, which is not us'd for you,” &c.

And bind us further to you.

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That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan

Under my battlements. Come, you spirits"

The reader may understand this, with Johnson, to mean, that the raven, "whose harsh voice is accustomed to predict calamities, could not croak the entrance of Duncan but in a note of unwonted harshness," or, with Fuseli, that "the raven himself is spent, is hoarse by croaking," &c. but let him treat with due contempt the following explanation of a modern critic, quoted by Mr. Halliwell (approvingly !); “The informant of Duncan's approach to the place where he is to die, is the raven that croaks his fatal entrance; and being scarcely able to speak his message, is termed a raven of unusual hoarseness, or one more than commonly ominous of death.”—Sir William Davenant (in his alteration of Macbeth) printed "Come, all you spirits," &c.; Steevens, “Come, come, you spirits."

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The folio has "and hit."-Corrected in the third folio.

P. 16. (26) "Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark," Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector substitutes ". the blankness of the dark." Nor is he the only one who has unnecessarily meddled with the passage; for Coleridge proposed " the blank height of the dark," &c.; a conjecture which appeared in the first ed. of his Table-Talk (ii. 296), but which, on my urging its absurdity to the editor, was omitted in the second edition of that valuable miscellany.

P. 16. (27) "This ignorant present, and I feel now"

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On the modern alteration, "This ignorant present time, and I feel now," Steevens remarks; The sense does not require the word time,"—which is true," and it is too much for the measure," which is nonsense.-"Here," says Walker, “I suspect, a word has dropt out; an accident which seems to have happened not unfrequently in the Folio Macbeth." Shakespeare's Versification, &c. p. 157.—Mr. W. N. Lettsom would read and I feel e'en

now."

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P. 16. (28)

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"This"

"Read The.' 'This' was repeated by mistake from the beginning of the preceding speech." W. N. LETTSOM,

P. 17. (29)

The folio has "Barlet."

"martlet,"

P. 17. (30)

"Smells wooingly here," &c.

This line seems to be mutilated. Hanmer prints "Smells sweet and wooingly," &c.

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Mason would read "thus ;" and so Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector.

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So the folio exactly: but qy.?-Hanmer printed "And falls on th' other side;" which Walker (Crit. Exam, &c. vol. iii. p. 253) says is "evidently" right. Steevens remarks that "they who plead for the admission of this supplement should consider that the plural of it, but two lines before, had occurred."

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The folio has "Who dares no more," &c.-Mr. Hunter (New Illust. of Shakespeare, ii. 179) would retain "no," and transfer these words to Lady Macbeth: which I cannot but think as improper as the other alterations proposed by Mr. Hunter in the distribution of the dialogue throughout this

scene.

P. 19. (36)

"What beast was't, then,"

Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector substitutes "What boast was't, then;" on which an accomplished critic [Mr. John Forster] has remarked as follows; "The expression immediately preceding and eliciting Lady Macbeth's reproach is that in which Macbeth declares that he dares do all that may become a man, and that who dares do more is none. She instantly takes up that expression. If not an affair in which a man may engage, what beast was it, then, in himself or others, that made him break this enterprise to her? The force of the passage lies in that contrasted word, and its meaning is lost by the proposed substitution." The Examiner, Jan, 29, 1853. See too Blackrood's Magazine for Oct. 1853, p. 459.

P. 19. (37)

"And dash'd the brains out, had 1 so sworn as you

Have done to this."

"Is 'And dash'd the brains out' English? Read 'And dash'd the brains on't out,' &c., and arrange with the folio [which has

'And dasht the Braines out, had I so sworne

As you haue done to this']." W. N. LETTSOM.

P. 19. (38)

"We fail!

But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we'll not fail."

Here the punctuation of the folio is "We faile ?" which Mr. Collier retains, observing that "perhaps we may take it as some evidence of the ancient mode of delivering these two words interrogatively." But he forgets that in the folio the interrogation-point is frequently equivalent to an exclamationpoint. Mr. Knight gives the pointing which Steevens had suggested, “We fail." He remarks; "the quiet self-possession of the punctuation we have adopted appears preferable to the original 'We fail?" Now, any kind of admission on the part of Lady Macbeth that the attempt might prove unsuccessful is surely quite inconsistent with all that she has previously said, and all that she afterwards says, in the present scene. Her contemptuous exclamation "We fail!" is designed to check the very idea of failure as it rises in her husband's mind.

1865. In the second edition of his Shakespeare, 1858, Mr. Collier writes thus; "The Rev. Mr. Dyce, who is generally hyper-emphatic upon punctuation (the importance of which nobody disputes), strangely informs us here that there is in reality no difference' between a note of interrogation and a mark of admiration. He makes a difference between them in works he has himself edited-and rightly: at the end of his own notes he often places a mark of admiration, and at the end of the notes of rival critics a note of interrogation. See particularly the first play in his Beaumont and Fletcher, vol. i. pp. 58, 93, &c. What can he mean, too, by not putting a note of admiration after 'Oh God' in 'The Scornful Lady' (iii. 106), and by putting one after' Lazarillo, thou art happy,' in 'The Woman-Hater' (i. 36)? Every editor, however careful, and Mr. Dyce is one of the most so, is liable to such mistakes. In the instance before us, we purposely place a note of interrogation after 'We fail,' following the precedent of old copies, and thinking it right to adhere to the practice."

Mr. Collier does not state fairly what I said about the pointing of the present passage. My words were; "Though Mr. Collier makes a distinction between Malone's punctuation and his own, there is in reality no difference: whether the words be pointed 'We fail!' or 'We fail?' (and I much prefer the former method), they can only be understood as an impatient and contemptuous repetition of Macbeth's' We fail,'"-(Remarks on Mr. Collier's and Mr. Knight's editions of Shakespeare, p. 190),-in which quotation I am confident that the unprejudiced reader will discover nothing "strange."

Mr. Collier goes on to ask, "What I can mean by not putting a note of admiration after 'Oh God,' in the following passage of The Scornful Lady?"

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