carrion crows) off the seed-corn. The carrion crow, which is the crow proper, being almost extinct, the necessity of distinguishing it from the rook has passed away in common usage. The passage therefore simply means, the rook hastens its evening flight to the wood where its fellows are already assembled:' and to our mind the term 'rooky wood' is a lively and natural picture: the generic term 'crow' is used for the specific ‘rook.'” The preceding remarks are by the Rev. J. Mitford (Gentleman's Magazine for August 1844, p. 129).

P. 38. (61) "Enter BANQUO, and FLEANCE with a torch."

"Here again [see note 39] Fleance carries the torch to light his father; and in the old stage-direction nothing is said about a servant, who would obviously be in the way when his master is to be murdered. The servant is a merely modern interpolation." COLLIER.

Walker (Crit. Exam. &c. vol. ii. p. 244) would read "the general weal.”

The folio has "-- The times has bene."-The usual modern reading is that of the second folio, 66 the times have been;" very objectionable on ac

count of the "have been" in the preceding line.

P. 41. (64) "With twenty mortal murders on their crowns," "Murders' occurs four lines above, and 'murder' two lines below. This, by the way, would alone be sufficient to prove that 'murders' was corrupt. 'Mortal murders,' too, seems suspicious." Walker's Crit. Exam. &c. vol. i. p. 302.-"Read 'With twenty mortal gashes on their crowns.' Macbeth is thinking of what he has just heard from the Murderer;

'With twenty trenched gashes on his head;

The least a death to nature.' p. 39." W. N. LETTSOM.

P. 41. (65)

"If trembling I inhibit thee, protest me"

The folio has "If trembling I inhabit then, protest mee" (the punctuation of which was changed by the editor of the second folio to "If trembling I inhabit, then protest me"); and Horne Tooke and several others think the reading of the folio right.-Pope substituted "inhibit" for "inhabit ;" and Steevens proposed the substitution of "thee" for "then."-"I have not the least doubt that inhibit thee' is the true reading. In All's well that ends well we find in the second, and all the subsequent folios, 'which is the most inhabited sin of the canon,' instead of 'inhibited' [vol. iii. p. 210]. . . . Mr. Steevens's correction is strongly supported by the punctuation of the old copy." MALONE,

P. 42. (66)

"And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks,
When mine are blanch'd with fear."

"The old copy reads ‘is blanch'd.' Sir T. Hanmer corrected this passage in the wrong place, by reading 'cheek;' in which he has been followed by the subsequent editors. His correction gives, perhaps, a more elegant text, but not the text of Shakespeare. . . . Perhaps it may be said that 'mine' refers to 'ruby,' and that therefore no change is necessary. But this seems very harsh." MALONE. Assuredly "mine" does not refer to "ruby.”—1865. Here the plural "cheeks" is obviously right; for Macbeth is speaking, not of the face of an individual, but of the faces of the guests in general.

P. 42. (67)

“Augurs, and understood relations,"

Rowe printed "Augurs that understood relations.”—“Qy. ‘Auguries and,' &c. [Steevens's conjecture]." W. N. LETTSOM.

P. 42. (68)

"And betimes I will-to the weird sisters:"

Pope gave "Betimes I will, unto the weird sisters."—Mr. W. N. Lettsom (note on Walker's Crit. Exam. &c. vol. iii. p. 258) would read "And betimes will I to the weird sisters."

P. 44. (69) The folio has

“[Music and song within, ' Come away, come away,' &c.”

"Musicke, and a Song.

Hearke, I am call'd: my little Spirit see

Sits in a Foggy cloud, and stayes for me.

Sing within. Come away, come away, &c."

Compare, in Middleton's Witch, act iii. sc. 3 (Works, vol. iii. p. 303, ed. Dyce);

"Song above.

Come away, come away,

Hecate, Hecate, come away.

Hec. I come, I come, I come, I come,

With all the speed I may," &c.—

On the question whether Shakespeare borrowed from Middleton, or Middleton from Shakespeare, see the "Account of Middleton" prefixed to his Works, vol. i. p. 1, sqq., and Malone's Life of Shakespeare, p. 420 sqq. ed. 1821. There seems to be little doubt that Macbeth is of an earlier date than The Witch.

P. 44. (70)

"Enter LENNOX and another Lord."

Here, in my copy of the folio, "another Lord" is altered, in old handwriting, to "Ross," and rightly perhaps.

P. 44. (72)

"And the right-valiant Banquo walk'd too late," &c.

Mr. Grant White observes; "It is to Banquo that Lennox, in his ironical vein, applies the second time, as well as the first, the phrase 'walk'd too late.' Now, Macbeth seized the opportunity of Banquo's late walking, to put him out of the way, chiefly because Banquo more than suspected who was the real perpetrator of the crime, which Lennox, ironically conforming to general report, ascribes to Malcolm and Donalbain. This suspicion was obviously the reason for the murder of Banquo by the order of Macbeth. May we not then remove the point after the last 'late,' and read thus, making the passage declarative instead of interrogative?

'And the right-valiant Banquo walk'd too late;

Whom you may say, if 't please you, Fleance kill'd;
For Fleance fled. Men must not walk too late
Who cannot want the thought, how monstrous

It was for Malcolm and for Donalbain

To kill their gracious father.'

That is, Men, who will think that the alleged murder of Duncan by his
sons is a crime too monstrous for belief, must be careful not to walk too
late.'" Shakespeare's Scholar, &c. p. 403.-My kind friend, Mr. Grant White,
must allow me to say that I think his change of the punctuation in this
passage quite wrong, and his explanation over-subtle :-surely, Macbeth's
chief reason for getting rid of Banquo was, not "because Banquo more
than suspected who was the real perpetrator of the crime [of Duncan's
murder]," but because the Witches had declared that Banquo was to be
"father to a line of kings:" hence Macbeth's injunction to the Murderers
(p. 35);
"and with him-

To leave no rubs nor botches in the work-
Fleance his son, that keeps him company,
Whose absence is no less material to me
Than is his father's, must embrace the fate

Of that dark hour."

(Compare Holinshed; "The woords also of the three weird sisters would not out of his mind, which as they promised him the kingdome, so likewise did they promise it at the same time vnto the posteritie of Banquho. He willed therefore the same Banquho, with his sonne named Fleance, to come to a supper that he had prepared for them, which was indeed, as he had deuised, present death at the hands of certeine murderers," &c. Hist. of Scotland, p. 271, ed. 1808.)—1865. In his ed. of Shakespeare Mr. Grant White adheres to the common punctuation of this passage.

P. 44. (73)

"Who cannot want the thought," &c.

"The sense requires 'Who can want the thought, &c. Yet I believe the text is not corrupt. Shakespeare is sometimes incorrect in these minutia." MALONE.-" i. e. Who cannot but think." COLLIER.-Mr. Keightley (Notes and Queries for August 15, 1863, p. 122) proposes to read "We cannot," &c., putting a period, instead of an interrogation-point, at the end of the sentence.

66

'Free from our feasts and banquets bloody knives;
free honours;—"

"Read 'Keep from our feasts,' &c." W. N. LETTSOM.

P. 45. (77)

"the"

The folio has "their."

P. 45. (78)

"I'll send my prayers with him."

Walker (Shakespeare's Versification, &c. p. 274) considers these words, not as making up a line with what precedes, but as forming "a legitimate short line" by themselves.

The folio has "Harpier;" which is doubtless, as Steevens suggested, a mistake for "Harpie" = Harpy. ("This familiar does not cry out that it is time for them to begin their enchantments; but cries, i. e. gives them the signal, upon which the Third Witch communicates the notice to her sisters, 'Harper [Harpy] cries ;-'tis time, 'tis time.'

the article, which is required not only for the metre, but for the sense, having been omitted by mistake. Yet the mutilated line has found its defenders and admirers (who, we may be sure, if the folio, in As you like it, act ii. sc. 5, instead of

"Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me," &c.

had given us

"Under greenwood tree

Who loves to lie with me," &c.,

would have defended and admired that mutilated line also).

Here the stage-direction of the folio is "Enter Hecat, and the other three Witches" but, beyond all doubt, it means nothing more than that Hecate joins the three Witches already on the stage.- Various dramas, written long after Macbeth, afford examples of stage-directions worded in the same unintelligible style. E. g. Cowley's Cutter of Coleman Street opens with a soliloquy by Trueman Junior: his father presently joins him, and the stage-direction is, "Enter Trueman Senior, AND TRUEMAN JUN." Again, the second act of that play commences with a soliloquy by Aurelia; and when Jane joins her we find "Enter AURELIA, Jane.”

P. 46. (82)

"Music and song, 'Black spirits,' &c."

This song is found entire in Middleton's Witch, act v. sc. 2,-Works, vol. iii. p. 328, ed. Dyce. The two first lines of it (and whether or not more was introduced into Macbeth on our old stage is uncertain) are,

"Black spirits and white, red spirits and gray,

Mingle, mingle, mingle, you that mingle may !"—

According to Steevens, "the song was, in all probability, a traditional one;" and Mr. Collier, more confidently, says, "Doubtless it does not belong to Middleton more than to Shakespeare; but it was inserted in both dramas because it was appropriate :" but qy?-See note 69.

"Mr. Collier's annotator proposes to read 'bleaded corn;' and, although the impropriety of the alteration has been clearly shown, Mr. Collier has not hesitated to substitute it for the genuine word. Had he turned to Chap. iv. Book i. of 'Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft,'-a work the poet was undoubtedly well read in,-he would have found, among other actions imputed to witches, that they can transferre corn in the blade from one place to another.' And from the article on Husbandry in Comenius, Janua Linguarum, 1673, he might have learned that 'As soon as standing corn shoots up to a blade, it is in danger of scathe by a tempest.'" STAUNTON.

So Theobald.-The folio has "Natures Germaine,"-with which compare its spelling in King Lear, act iii. sc. 2;

"Cracke Natures mould, all germaines spill at once

That makes ingratefull Man."

(On the present passage a critic, quoted by Mr. Halliwell, has the following nonsensical remarks; "The lection of the ancient text has been modernly altered into germins, or seeds, to the annihilation of its true meaning, and the unspeakable depreciation of its force. Nature's german (or germaine, as it was formerly written) are nature's kindred, or those who stand in the relation of brotherhood to one another; that is, mankind in general. The treasure of nature's german is, therefore, the treasure, the best of the human race," &c. &c.)