use one less hackneyed; as I think he had a right to do. Tale is the substantive form of the verb to tell; and Shakespeare repeatedly uses the verb in the exact sense of to count; as he also does thick in the exact sense of fast; and surely the phrase " as fast as you can count" is common enough. See foot-note 22.

ACT I., SCENE 4.

P. 25. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not

Those in commission yet return'd? - So the second folio. The first has "Or not."

P. 29.

ACT I., SCENE 5.

Thou'dst have, great Glamis,

That which cries, Thus thou must do, if thou have it, —

An act which rather thou dost fear to do

Than wishest should be undone. Instead of "An act which," the original has “and that which." This defeats the right sense of the passage, as it naturally makes which refer to the same thing as which in the preceding line; whereas it should clearly be taken as referring to the words "Thus thou must do." Hanmer reads "And that's what"; and the same change occurred to me, as it also did to Mr. Joseph Crosby, before either of us knew of Hanmer's reading. But I prefer " An act which," and have little doubt that the original reading crept in by mistake from the line before. The passage is commonly printed so as to make the words "if thou have it" a part of what is supposed to be cried by the crown. The original gives no sign as to how much of the speech is to be taken thus, none, that is, except what is implied in the word it. Of course the crown is the thing which Glamis would have; and if the crown is here represented as crying out to him "Thus thou must do, if thou have," there appears no way of getting the sense but by substituting me for it. If, however, we suppose only the words " Thus thou must do" to be spoken by the crown, and the following words to be spoken by Lady Macbeth in her own person, then it is right; and this is probably the way the passage ought to be understood and printed. Johnson saw the difficulty, and proposed to read "if thou have me."

P. 30. That no compunctious visitings of nature

Shake my fell purpose, nor break peace between

Th effect and it. The original has keepe instead of break,

and hit instead of it. The attempts that have been made to explain 'nor keep peace," are, it seems to me, either absurdly ingenious and over-subtile or something worse. The natural sense of it is plainly just the reverse of what was intended. To be sure, almost any language can be tormented into yielding almost any meaning. And we have too many instances of what may be called a fanaticism of ingenuity, which always delights especially in a reading that none but itself can explain, and in an explanation that none but itself can understand. See foot-note 8.- The other error, hit, corrects itself.

P. 31. Nor Heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,

To cry Hold, hold!. -"The blanket of the dark" seems to have troubled some persons greatly; and Collier's second folio substitutes blankness for blanket. This is dreadful. "The blanket of the dark" is indeed a pretty bold metaphor, but not more bold than apt; and I agree with Mr. Grant White, that "the man who does not apprehend the meaning and the pertinence of the figure had better shut his Shakespeare, and give his days and nights to the perusal of — some more correct and classic writer." See foot-note II.

ACT I., SCENE 6.

P. 32.

-The original

The guest of Summer, The temple-haunting martlet, does approve, &c. has "This guest," and Barlet instead of martlet. The latter was corrected by Rowe. As to the former, Lettsom says, "Read the. This was repeated by mistake from the beginning of the preceding speech."

P. 33. Where they most breed and haunt, &c. The original has must instead of most. Corrected by Rowe.

ACT I., SCENE 7.

P. 35. But here, upon this bank and shoal of time. -The original has "Schoole of time." Theobald's correction.

P. 35. Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,

That tears shall drown the wind. Mr. P. A. Daniel would read "in every ear"; and in support of that lection he quotes the following from Southwell, Saint Peter's Complaint, lxxvii. :

And seeke none other quintessence but tears,

That eyes may shed what enter'd at thine ears.

P. 36. Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,

And falls on th' other side.

So Hanmer. The original lacks side, and yet puts a period after other. Walker notes upon it thus: "Evidently th' other side'; and this adds one to the apparently numerous instances of omission in this play."-It has been ingeniously proposed to change itself into its sell, an old word for saddle. But the Poet very seldom uses its : besides, no change is necessary. See footnote 8.

P. 36.

Wouldst thou lack that

Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,

And live a coward in thine own esteem, &c. - The original reads "Wouldst thou have that"; whereupon Johnson notes thus: "In this there seems to be no reasoning. I should read 'Or live'; unless we choose rather 'Wouldst thou leave that.'" The reading in the text was proposed anonymously, but occurred to me independently. Instead of have, crave has also been proposed. But Lady Macbeth evidently means that, with so good an opportunity as he now has for gaining the crown, nothing but cowardice can induce him to let it slip. We have the same error again in Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 2: “If you'll patch a quarrel, as matter whole you have, to make it with," &c. Here have should be lack, beyond question.

P. 37. I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more is none.

Lady M.

What beast was't, then,

That made you break this enterprise to me?—The original reads "Who dares no more ; a very palpable error. -Collier's second folio substitutes boast for beast, and the change has been regarded with favour in some quarters. Mr. John Forster, in The Examiner, Jan. 29, 1853, disposes of it thus: "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."

P. 37. And dash'd the brains on't out, had I so sworn

As you have done to this.

- So Lettsom. The original lacks on't, which is needful alike to sense and metre. The omission was doubtless owing to the close resemblance of on't and out.

P. 38.

If we should fail, —

Lady M.

We fail.

But screw your courage to the sticking-place,

And we'll not fail. Such, I am very confident, is the right pointing of this much-disputed passage. It is commonly given either with an (!) or an (?) after fail, as if the speaker did not admit the possibility of failure, and scouted at any apprehension of the kind. Now I cannot think her so far gone in the infatuation of crime as not to see and own the possibility that the enterprise may fail; but she is no doubt ambitious enough to risk life and all for the chance or in the hope of being a queen. And so I take her meaning to be, "If we fail, then we fail, and there's the end of it." And the use of the adversative but in what follows strongly favours this sense; in fact, will hardly cohere with any other sense. Accordingly the simple period is said to have been fixed upon by Mrs. Siddons after long study and exercise in the speech. See foot-note 15.

ACT II., SCENE I.

P. 40. Sent forth great largess to your officers. - The original has offices instead of officers. The context fairly requires a word denoting persons. Corrected by Rowe.

P. 42.

Now o'er the one half-world

Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse

The curtain'd sleep; now witchcraft celebrates

Pale Hecate's offerings. The second now is wanting in the original. Some complete the verse by printing sleeper; but surely the repetition of now is much better. Rowe's correction.

P. 42. With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost.— Thou sure and firm-set earth.

Hear not my steps which way they walk, &c. In the first of these lines, the original has sides instead of strides; in the second, sowre instead of sure; in the third, "which they may walke." The first two corrections are Pope's; the other, Rowe's.

P. 46.

This my hand will rather

The multitudinous sea incarnadine. - So Rowe. The original has Seas incarnardine. Some editors adopt incarnadine, but retain seas. In the former they are right, of course, there being really no such word as incarnardine: but surely multitudinous loses more than half its force, if made the epithet of a plural noun.

P. 49. Lamentings heard i̇ the air, strange screams of death :

And, prophesying, with accents terrible,

Of dire combustion and confused events

New-hatch'd to th' woeful time, the obscene bird

Clamour'd the livelong night. The original has obscure instead of obscene. The correction was proposed by Walker and White independently. See foot-note 35. Most editors have a different pointing in this passage; putting a colon after woeful time, and thus separating bird from prophesying, and turning the latter into a substantive. But surely it is far better, both in poetry and in sense, to regard the obscene, that is, ill-omened, bird as predicting the dreadful events in question. Or, if this be thought inconsistent with newhatch'd, we may, as White suggests, take prophesying in an interpretive sense, the sense of croaking or wailing a dismal and awful meaning into what is occurring. The word is often so used in the Bible; especially in Ezekiel, xxxvii.

P. 50. Banquo and Malcolm! Donalbain! awake!
Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit,
And look on death itself! up, up, and see

The great doom's image! Malcolm, Banquo! all!
As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites,
To countenance this horror!

[Alarum-bell rings. - In the first of these lines, the original reads "and Donalbaine : Malcolme," &c. I transpose the names for metre's sake. Also, in the fourth line, the original is without all, thus leaving a breach in the rhythm. The addition is Lettsom's. Again, the original has the last line thus: "To countenance this horror. Ring the bell"; and then, in another line, the stage-direction, "Bell rings. Enter Lady." Here, no doubt, as Malone observes, the players mistook " Ring the bell" for a portion of Macduff's speech, and so inserted the stage-direction, "Bell rings."