and, upon my life, fast asleep. Obferve her; stand

clofe.

Doct. How came fhe by that light?

Gent. Why, it stood by her. She has light by her continually; 'tis her command.

Doct. You fee, her eyes are open.

Gent. Ay, but their fenfe is fhut.

Doct. What is it fhe does now? Look how the rubs her hands.

Gent. It is an accuftom'd action with her, to feem thus washing her hands; I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.

Lady. Yet here's a fpot.

Dot. Hark, fhe fpeaks. I will fet down what comes from her, to fatisfy my remembrance the more ftrongly.

Lady. Out! damned fpot! out, I fay !——One; two; why then, 'tis time to do't:- Hell is murky!

Fie, my lord, fie! a foldier, and afraid? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?-Yet who would have thought the old man to have had fo much blood in him?

Doct. Do you mark that?

Lady. The Thane of Fife had a wife; Where is The now? What, will thefe hands ne'er be clean ?

7 Hell is murky!] Lady Macbeth is acting over, in a dream, the bufinefs of the murder, and encouraging her husband as when awake. She therefore, would never have faid any thing of the terrors of hell to one whofe confcience the faw was too much alarmed already for her purpofe. She certainly imagines herfelf here talking to Macbeth, who (fhe fuppofes) has just faid, Hell is murky, (i. e. hell is a difinal place to go to in confequence of fuch a deed) and repeats his words in contempt of his cowardice.

Hell is murky!-Fie, fie my lord, fie! a feldier, and afraid? This explanation, I think, gives a fpirit to the paffage, which, has hitherto appeared languid, being, perhaps, mifapprehended by those who placed a full point at the conclufion of it. STEEVENS.

VOL. IV.

L 1

No

No more o'that, my lord, no more o'that you mar all with this starting.

Dot. Go to, go to; you have known what you fhould not.

Gent. She has spoke what she should not, I am fure of that: Heaven knows, what she has known.

Lady. Here's the smell of the blood ftill: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh! oh! oh!

Dot. What a figh is there? The heart is forely charg❜d.

Gent. I would not have fuch a heart in my bofom, for the dignity of the whole body.

Dot. Well, well, well,

Gent. Pray God, it be, fir.

Doct. This disease is beyond my practice: Yet I have known thofe which have walk'd in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds.

Lady. Wash your hands, put on your night-gown; look not fo pale:--I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he cannot come out of his grave.

Do. Even fo?

Lady. To bed, to bed; there's knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand; what's done, cannot be undone: To bed, to bed, to bed. [Exit Lady.

Doct. Will the go now to bed?
Gent. Directly.

Dot. Foul whisperings are abroad: Unnatural deeds

Do breed unnatural troubles: Infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their fecrets.
More needs fhe the divine, than the phyfician.-
God, God, forgive us all!-Look after her;
Remove from her the means of all annoyance,

And

And still keep eyes upon her.-So, good-night:
My mind she has mated, and amaz'd my sight;
I think, but dare not speak.

Gent. Good night, good doctor.

[Exeunt,

Drum and Colours. Enter Menteth, Cathness, Angus, Lenox, and Soldiers.

Ment. The English power is near, led on by
Malcolm,

His uncle Seyward, and the good Macduff,
Revenges burn in them: for their dear causes
Would, to the bleeding and the grim alarm
Excite the mortified man.

Ang. Near Birnam-wood

Shall we well meet them; that way are they coming,
Cath. Who knows, if Donalbain be with his brother?
Len. For certain, fir, he is not: I have a file

Of all the gentry; there is Seyward's fon
And many unrough youths, that even now,
Proteft their firft of manhood,

Ment. What does the tyrant?

Cath. Great Dunfinane he ftrongly fortifies : Some fay, he's mad; others, that leffer hate him, Do call it valiant fury: but, for certain, He cannot buckle his diftemper'd cause

My mind fhe has mated,-] Conquer'd or fubdued. Pope. Rather aftonished, confounded. JOHNSON,

9 Excite the mortified man.]

Mr. Theobald will needs explain this expreffion. It means (fays he) the man who has abandoned himself to defpair, who has no fpirit or refolution left. And to fupport this fenfe of mortified man, hẹ quotes mortified fpirit in another place. But if this was the meaning, Shakespeare had not wrote the mortified man, but a mertified In a word, by the mortified man, is meant a religious; one who has fubdued his paffions, is dead to the world, has abandoned it, and all the affairs of it: an Afcetic. WARBURTON,

man.

L1 2

With

Within the belt of rule.

Ang. Now does he feel

His fecret murthers fticking on his hands;
Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;
Thofe, he commands, move only in command,
Nothing in love: now does he feel his title
Hang loofe about him, like a giant's robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.

Ment. Who then fhall blame

His pefter'd fenfes to recoil, and start,
When all that is within him does condemn
Itfelf, for being there?

Cath. Well, march we on,

To give obedience where 'tis truly ow'd.
Meet we the medecin of the fickly weal;

And with him pour we, in our country's purge,
Each drop of us.

Len. Or fo much as it needs,

To dew the fovereign flower, and drown the weeds. Make we our march towards Birnam.

[Exeunt, marching.

SCENE III.

Enter Macbeth, Do&tor, and Attendants.

Mach. Bring me no more reports:-Let them fly all: 'Till Birnam-wood remove to Dunfinane,

I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm? Was he not born of woman? Spirits, that know All mortal confequences, have pronounc'd me thus*:

When all that is within him does condemn
Itfelf, for being there?]

That is, when all the faculties of the mind are employed in felfcondemnation. JOHNSON.

2

Bring me no more reports, &c.]

Tell me not any more of defertions-Let all my subjects leave meI am fafe till, &c. JOHNSON.

have pronounc'd me thus:]

So the old copy. The modern editors, for the fake of metre, bave pronounc'd it. STEVENS.

read,

Fear

Fear not, Macbeth; no man, that's born of woman,
Shall e'er have power upon thee.-Then fly, falfe Thanes,
And mingle with the English Epicures.

The mind I fway by, and the heart I bear,
Shall never fagg with doubt, nor fhake with fear.
Enter a Servant.

The devil damn thee black, thou creamfac'd loon!
Where got'it thou that goofe-look?

Ser. There is ten thousand

Mach. Geefe, villain?

Ser. Soldiers, fir.

Machb. Go, prick thy face, and over-red thy fear, Thou lily-liver'd boy. What foldiers, patch * ? Death of thy foul! thofe linen cheeks of thine Are counsellors to fear. What foldiers, whey-face? Ser. The English force, fo pleafe you.

Mach. Take thy face hence.-Seyton!-I am fick at heart,

When I behold-Seyton, I fay!-This pufh

English Epicures.]

The reproach of Epicurifin, on which Mr. Theobald has beftowed a note, is nothing more than a natural invective uttered by an inhabitant of a barren country, against those who have more opportunities of luxury. JOHNSON.

Shakespeare took the thought from Holinfhed, p. 180, of his Hiftory of Scotland: "For manie of the people abhorring the "riotous maners and fuperfluous gormandizing brought in

66

among them by the Englyfhemen, were willing inough to re"ceive this Donald for their king, trufting (becaufe he had beene brought up in the Ifles with the old cuftomes and maners of "their antient nation, without taft of English likerous delicats), "&c." The fame hiftorian informs us, that in thofe days the Scots eat but once a day, and even then very fparingly. STEEVENS.

*-patch?] An appellation of contempt, alluding to the py'd, patch'd, or particoloured coats anciently worn by the fools belonging to the people of diftinction. STEEVENS.

4

thofe linen cheeks of thine

Are counsellors to fear.]

The meaning is, they infect others who fee them with cowardice.

L13

WARBURTON.

Will