When they did fay, God bless us. Mach. But wherefore could not I pronounce, amen? I had moft need of bleffing, and amen Stuck in my throat. Lady. Thefe deeds muft not be thought After these ways; fo, it will make us mad. Mach. Methought, I heard a voice cry, Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder fleep, the innocent sleep; Balm A skein of filk is called a leave of filk, as I learned from Mr. Seward, the ingenious editor of Beaumont and Fletcher. JOHNSON. Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd fleave of care,] To confirm the ingenious conjecture that leave means fleaved, filk ravell'd, it is obfervable, that a poet of Shakespeare's age, Drayton, has alluded to it likewise in his Queft of Cynthia: "At length I on a fountain light, "Whose brim with pinks was platted, "The banks with daffadillies dight, "With grafs, like leave, was matted." LANGTON. Sleave is mentioned in Holinfhed's Hift. of England, p. 835: "Eight wild men all apparelled in green mofs made with leved filk." Perhaps the fame word, though differently fpelt, occurs in the Lover's Complaint, by Shakespeare, p. 87, and 88, Lintot's edition: "Found yet mo letters fadly penn'd in blood, "Enfwath'd and feal'd to curious fecrecy." Again, in the Mufes Elizium, by Drayton : Again: thrumb'd with grafs "As foft as leave or farcenet ever was.' 99 That in the handling feels as foft as any leave." The death of each day's life, fore labour's bath, &c.] In this encomium upon fleep, amongst the many appellations which are given it, fignificant of its beneficence and friendliness to life, we find one which conveys a different idea, and by no means agrees with the reft, which is : The death of each day's life, Kk 4 I make Balm of hurt minds, great nature's fecond course, Lady. What do you mean? Mach. Still it cry'd, Sleep no more! to all the house : Glamis hath murder'd fleep; and therefore Cawdor Shall fleep no more, Macbeth fhall fleep no more! Lady. Who was it, that thus cry'd? Why, worthy thane, You do unbend your noble ftrength, to think Mach. I'll go no more: I am afraid to think what I have done; Lady. Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers: The fleeping, and the dead, I make no question but Shakespeare wrote: The birth of each day's life, For The true characteristick of fleep, which repairs the decays of la bour, and affifts that returning vigour which fupplies the next day's activity. The player-editors feem to have corrupted it for the fake of a filly gingle between life and death. WARBURTON. I neither perceive the corruption, nor any neceffity for alteraThe death of each day's life, means the end of each day's labour, the conclufion of all that bustle and fatigue that each day's life brings with it. STEEVENS. tion. 7 Chief nourisher in life's feaft ;] So, in Chaucer's Squiere's Tale, v. 10661; late edit. That fears a painted devil.] So, in Vittoria Corombona, 1612: Terrify babes, my lord, with painted devils." STEEVENS. gild the faces of the grooms withal, For it muft feem their guilt.] Could For it must seem their guilt. [Exit. Knocking within. Mach. Whence is that knocking! How is't with me, when every noise appals me? What hands are here? Ha! they pluck out mine eyes! Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood' Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather The multitudinous feas incarnardine, 2 Making the green-one red 3. R Could Shakespeare poffibly mean to play upon the fimilitude of gild and guilt? JOHNSON. This quibble very frequently occurs in the old plays. A few inftances (for I could produce a dozen at least) may fuffice: "Cand. You have a filver beaker of my wife's? "Flu. You fay not true, 'tis gilt. "Cand. Then you fay true: "And being gilt, the guilt lies more on you." Again, in Middleton's comedy of A mad World my Mafters, 1608: "Though guilt condemns, 'tis gilt must make us glad." And, laftly, from Shakespeare himself: "England fhall double gild his treble guilt." Hen. IV. p. z. Again, in Hen. V : "Have for the gilt of France, O guilt indeed!" STEEVENS. Sufcipit, 6 Gelli, quantum non ultima Tethys, Catullus in Gellium, 83. Οἶμαι γὰρ ἔτ ἀν Ιστρον ἔτε φᾶσιν ἂν Νίψαι καθαρμῷ τηνδε τὴν στέγην. Sophoc, Qedip. "Quis eluet me Tanais? aut quæ barbaris "Tantum expiarit fceleris !" Senec. Hippol. STEEVENS. So, in the Infatiate Countefs, by Marston, 1603: 2 "Although the waves of all the northern sea "Should flow for ever through thefe guilty hands, MALONE. -incarnardine,] To incarnardine, is to stain any thing of flesh colour, or red. Carnardine is the old term for carnation. So, in a comedy called Any Thing for a quiet Life: "Grograms, fattins, velvet fine, "The rofy-colour'd carnardine." STEEVENS. 3 Making the green-one red.] The Re-enter Lady Macbeth. Lady. My hands are of your colour; but I fhame To wear a heart fo white. I hear a knocking [Knock, At the fouth entry:-retire we to our chamber: A little water clears us of this deed: How easy is it then? Your conftancy Hath left you unattended.-Hark! more knocking: [Knock. Get on your night-gown, left occafion call us, And fhew us to be watchers :-Be not loft So poorly in your thoughts, Mach. To know my deed,-'Twere beft not know myself. Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would, thou couldft! [Knock. [Exeunt, The fame thought occurs in The Downfal of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, 1601: Again: "He made the green fea red with Turkish blood." "The multitudes of feas died red with blood." Another not unlike it is found in Spenfer's Faery Queen, b. ii, c. 10. ft. 48: "The whiles with blood they all the fhore did stain, Again, in the 19th fong of Drayton's Polyolbion: "And the vaft greenish fea difcolour'd like to blood,” It had been common to read: Making the green one, red. The author of the Gray's Inn Journal, No. 17, firft made this elegant and neceffary change, which has hitherto been adopted without acknowledgment. STEEVENS. 4 To know my deed, Twere beft not know myself.] i. e. While I have the thoughts of this deed, it were belt not know, or be loft to, myself. This is an anfwer to the lady's reproof: -be not loft. So poorly in your thoughts. But the Oxford editor, perceiving neither the fenfe, nor the pertinency of the anfwer, alters it to: To unknow my decd.-'Twere beft not know myself. WARBURTON. SCENE [Knocking within.] Port. Here's a knocking, indeed! If a man were porter of hell-gate, he fhould have old turning the key. [Knock.] Knock, knock, knock: Who's there, i'the name of Belzebub? Here's a farmer, that hang'd himself on the expectation of plenty: come in time; have napkins enough about you; here you'll fweat for't. [Knock.] Knock, knock: Who's there, i'the other devil's name? 'Faith, here's an equivocator, that could fwear in both the fcales. against either scale; who committed treafon enough for God's fake, yet could not equivocate to heaven: oh, come in, equivocator. [Knock.] Knock, knock, knock: Who's there? 'Faith, here's an English tay 7 lor -napkins enough-] i. e. handkerchiefs. So, in Othello: "Your napkin is too little." STEEVENS, 6-here's an equivocator, who committed treafon enough for God's fake,] Meaning a jefuit: an order fo troublesome to the state in queen Elizabeth and king James the firft's time. The inventors of the execrable doctrine of equivocation. WARBUrton. 7 here's an English taylor come hither, for stealing out of a French bofe:] The archness of the joke confifts in this, that a French hofe being very short and strait, a taylor must be master of his trade who could steal any thing from thence. WARBURTON. Dr. Warburton has faid this at random. The French hofe (according to Stubbs in his Anatomie of Abuses) were in the year 1595 much in fashion. "The Gallic bofen are made very large and wide, reaching down to their knees only, with three or foure gardes apcece laid down along either hofe." Again, in the Ladies Privilege, 1640: 66 -wear their long "Parifian breeches, with five points at knees, "Whofe tags concurring with their harmonious fpurs, "Upon their doublets by their cloaks, which to fave stuff, "And |