which preternatural agents endeavour to bestow upon thee. The golden round is the diadem.

NOTE XIV.

Lady Macbeth.

COME all you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to th' toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood,
Stop up
th' access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my full purpose, nor keep peace between

Th' effect and it.

Mortal thoughts.

This expression signifies not the thoughts of mortals, but murtherous, deadly, or destructive designs. So in Act 5th.

Hold fast the mortal sword.

And in another place,

With twenty mortal murthers,

Nor keep pace between

Th' effect and it.

The intent of Lady Macbeth, evidently is to wish that no womanish tenderness, or conscientious remorse may hinder her purpose from proceeding to effect; but neither this, nor indeed any other sense is expressed by the present reading, and therefore it cannot be doubted that Shakespeare wrote differently, perhaps thus :

That no compunctious visitings of nature

Shake my fell purpose, nor keep pace between
Th' effect and it.

To keep pace between, may signify to pass between, to intervene. Pace is on many occasions a favourite of Shakespeare. This phrase is indeed not usual in this sense, but was it not its novelty that gave occasion to the present corruption?

King.

NOTE XV.

SCENE VIII.

THIS castle hath a pleasant seat; the air,

Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself

Unto our gentle senses.

Banquo. This guest of summer,

The temple-haunting Martlet, does approve,
By his lov'd mansionary, that heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here. No jutting frieze,
Buttrice, nor coigne of vantage, but this bird

Hath made his pendent bed, and procreant cradle :
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observ'd
The air is delicate.

In this short scene, I propose a slight alteration to be made, by substituting site for seat, as the ancient word for situation; and sense for senses, as more agreeable to the measure; for which reason likewise I have endeavoured to adjust this passage,

-Heaven's breath

Smells wooingly here. No jutting frieze,

By changing the punctuation and adding a syllable thus,

-Heaven's breath

Smells wooingly. Here is no jutting frieze." Those who have perused books printed at the time of the first editions of Shakespeare, know that

greater alterations than these are necessary almost in every page, even where it is not to be doubted that the copy was correct.

NOTE XVI.

SCENE X.

THE arguments by which Lady Macbeth persuades her husband to commit the murder, afford a proof of Shakespeare's knowledge of human nature. She urges the excellence and dignity of courage, a glittering idea which has dazzled mankind from age to age, and animated sometimes the housebreaker; and sometimes the conqueror: but this sophism Macbeth has for ever destroyed by distinguishing true from false fortitude, in a line and a half; of which it may almost be said, that they ought to bestow immortality on the author, though all his other productions had been lost.

I dare do all that may become a man,

Who dares do more is none.

This topick, which has been always employed with too much success, is used in this scene with peculiar propriety, to a soldier by a woman. Courage is the distinguishing virtue of a soldier, and the reproach of cowardice cannot be borne by any man from a woman, without great impatience,

She then urges the oaths by which he had bound himself to murder Duncan, another art of sophistry by which men have sometimes deluded their consciences, and persuaded themselves that what would be criminal in others is virtuous in them; this argu

ment Shakespeare, whose plan obliged him to make Macbeth yield, has not confuted, though he might easily have shown that a former obligation could not be vacated by a latter.

NOTE XVII.

LETTING I dare not, wait upon I would,

Like the poor cat i' th' adage.

The adage alluded to is, The cat loves fish, but dares not wet her foot,

Catus amat pisces, sed non vult tingere plantas.

NOTE XVIII.

WILL I with wine and wassel so convince.

To convince is in Shakespeare to over-power or subdue, as in this play,

Their malady convinces

The great assay of art.

NOTE XIX.

WHO shall bear the guilt

Of our great quell.

Quell is murder, manquellers being in the old lan guage the term for which murderers is now used.

NOTE XX.

ACT II. SCENE II.

Now o'er one half the world

(1) Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse

The curtain'd sleep; now witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecat's offerings: and wither'd murder,
(Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,

Whose howl's his watch) thus with his stealthy pace,
With (2) Tarquin's ravishing sides tow'rds his design
Moves like a ghost-Thou sound and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my where-about,

And (3) take the present horror from the time,
That now suits with it

(1)- -Now o'er one half the world Nature seems dead.

That is, over our hemisphere all action and motion seem to have ceased. This image, which is perhaps, the most striking that poetry can produce, has been adopted by Dryden in his "Conquest of Mexico."

All things are hush'd as nature's self lay dead,
The mountains seem to nod their drowsy head:
The little birds in dreams their songs repeat,
And sleeping flow'rs beneath the night-dews sweat.
Even lust and envy sleep!

These lines, though so well known, I have transcribed, that the contrast between them and this passage of Shakespeare may be more accurately observed.

Night is described by two great poets, but one describes a night of quiet, the other of perturbation. In the night of Dryden, all the disturbers of the world are laid asleep; in that of Shakespeare, nothing but sorcery, lust, and murder is awake. He that reads Dryden, finds himself lulled with serenity, and disposed to solitude and contemplation. He that peruses Shakespeare, looks round alarmed, and starts