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Of this dead butcher, and his fiend-like Queen,
Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands
Took off her life; — this, and what needful else
That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace,
We will perform in measure, time, and place.
So, thanks to all at once, and to each one,
Whom we invite to see us crown'd at Scone.
[Flourish. Exeunt

NOTES ON MACBETH.

p. 427.

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p. 428.

ACT FIRST.

SCENE I.

"I come, Graymalkin":

Graymalkin' was almost as common a name for a cat as Towser' for a dog or Bayard' for a horse. Cats played an important part in witchcraft.

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"Paddock calls : 'Paddock' means a toad. The folio gives this passage thus:

"All. Padock calls anon: faire is foule, and foule is faire Houer through the fogge and filthie ayre."

The arrangement of the text was first proposed, I believe, by Mr. Hunter. It seems to me to be required both by the succession of the thoughts, and by the ternary sequence of the dialogue of the Witches throughout the Scenes in which we see them at their incantations.

SCENE II.

a bleeding Soldier The folio, "a bleeding Captaine." He was a sergeant - an officer, it appears, of higher rank in Shakespeare's time than now, when grades are increased in number and more clearly defined than they were before the tactics of Cromwell, Marlborough, and Frederick had systematized the construction of armies. Shakespeare found a sergeant sent as a messenger, though upon a different errand, in the earlier part, of Holinshed's relation of Macbeth's story.

66

thy knowledge of the broil": - The folio, "the knowledge; " but I have no hesitation in adopting the reading of Mr. Collier's folio of 1632.

VOL. X.

G G

(513)

p. 428.

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p. 429.

"The merciless Macdonwald" : — So the folio. But, as Holinshed has, "Macdowald," it is more than probable that the old reading is a slight misprint.

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- for to that," &c.: For to that' is equivalent

to because.'

• Of Kernes and Gallowglasses" : — See the Notes on King Henry the Sixth, Part II. Act IV. Sc. 9. In support of the remarks there made, see these passages. "These Curlewes are mountains full of dangerous passages, especially when the Kern take a stomach and a pride to enter into action," &c. The Glory of England, Lib. I. Chap. XVII., The Description of Ireland. "Then fin time of war] doe they retire under the covert of castles lying altogether in one roome both to prevent robberies of Kern, and spoile by Wolves." Ibid. "The name of Galliglas is [1610] in a manner extinct, but of Kern in great reputation, as serving them in their revolts, and proving sufficient soldiers, but excellent for skirmish." Ibid. They [the Irish] are desperate in revenge, and their Kerne think no man dead untill his head be off." Ibid.

The folio,

on his damned quarrel smiling":"on his damned quarry smiling." But this reading affords no sense suitable to the context, and without any hesitation I adopt that suggested by Johnson, which, although it might have been altogether conjectural with him, is made in a certain degree authoritative by its occurrence in Holinshed's relation of this very fact. "Out of the western isles there came to Macdowald a great multitude of people to assist him in that rebellious quarrel." As to the use of 'quarrel' in the sense of cause, Malone quoted most appositely the following passage from Bacon's Essay Of Marriage and Single Life: Wives are young Men's Mistresses, Companions for middle Age, and old Men's Nurses. So as a man may have a Quarrel to marry, when he will." Macdonwald's quarry could only mean his slaughtered enemies, upon whom Fortune did not smile, and whom, as Duncan's friends, the Sergeant would not have "damned."

but all's too weak":- Mr. Hunter suggests, with some reason, that we should read, "but all-to weak," i. e., but entirely, completely weak; as, “a certain woman cast a piece of a millstone upon Abimelech's head, and all-to brake his scull." Judges ix. 53.

and direful thunders [break] has only, and direful thunders;

" : The first folio the second, and

p. 429.

p. 430.

direful thunders breaking:" upon which Pope judiciously formed the reading of the text.

"So they doubly redoubled strokes," &c. : The phrase doubly redoubled" is found also in Richard the Second, Act I. Sc. 3: "thy blows doubly redoubled fall." But the halting rhythm of the first part of this line, its two superfluous syllables, and the unmitigated triplication of double,' lead me to think that the greater part of a line has been lost, of which in so they' we have only the first two or last two syllables.

"Enter Rosse and Angus" :- So the folio. Only Rosse speaks or is spoken to. But in the very next Scene Rosse and Angus execute the commission given in this, and the latter says, "We are sent," &c.

at Saint Colmes' Inch "

"Colmes'-inch, now called Inchcomb, (says Steevens,) is a small island, lying in the Firth of Edinburgh, with an abbey upon it, dedicated to St. Columb; called by Camden Inch Colm, or The Isle of Columba." Here Colmes' is a dissyllable.

SCENE III.

"Aroint thee, witch! the rump-fed ronyon cries": This vulgar exorcism occurs again in King Lear, Act III. Sc. 4, but has been found in the works of no other author. Its etymology has not been traced, unless Mr. Wilbraham's conjecture (Cheshire Gloss. in v. 'Rynt') that it is formed from Arowme' remote, deprope, seorsum, is correct. (See Promptorium Parvulorum in v. Arowme.') Rynt thee witch, quoth Bess Locket to her mother,' is a North of England folk saying. Possibly 'aroint' is a corruption of avaunt.' Ronyon' was a vulgar term See the Note

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of reproach, equivalent to scurvy drab.'
on As You Like It, Act II. Sc. 2.

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p. 431. "I' th' shipman's card":— i. e., his chart, which rightfully should be pronounced cart, the ch as in charta.

"Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine":- Pining away, the disease now known as marasmus, was one of the evils most commonly attributed to witchcraft; because by the inferior pathological knowledge of the days when witches were believed in, it could be attributed to no physiological cause. The witch was supposed to produce this effect by puncturing with needles, or melting away, a little waxen image of her intended victim.

"The weird sisters": - This word should be pronounced wayrd, (ei as in obeisance,' 'freight,' 'weight,'

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