Mal.

P. 604-401.-525.

I am young; but something

You may deserve of him through me; and wisdom
To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb,

To appease an angry god.

I believe the old reading is right. I take the expression to be elliptical, and to be rightly explained by Mr. Heath.

P. 604.-402.-526.

Mal. That which you are, my thoughts cannot transpose:
Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell:

Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace,
Yet grace must still look so.

I think this is rightly explained by Dr. Johnson.

Macd.

P. 605.402.-527.

Bleed, bleed, poor country!

Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,

For goodness dares not check thee! wear thou thy wrongs,
Thy title is affeer'd!

I incline to Mr. Steevens's explanation; but I think Mr. Malone's may possibly be the true reading.

Mal.

P. 606.-403.-529.

I grant him bloody,

Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,

Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin

That has a name.

Dr. Johnson is right.

Macd.

P. 608.-404.-530.

This avarice

Sticks deeper; grows with more pernicious root

Than summer-seeding lust.

I agree with Malone. The emendation proposed by Mr. Justice Blackstone deserves the praise of great ingenuity.

P. 608.405.-531.

Yet do not fear;

Scotland hath foysons to fill up your will,
Of your mere own: All these are portable
With other graces weigh'd.

Steevens is right.

Mal.

Ibid.

Nay, had I power, I should

Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,
Uproar the universal peace, confound
All unity on earth.

I take Malone's second interpretation to be

the true one.

Mal.

P. 610-407-533.

What I am truly,
Is thine, and my poor country's, to command:
Whither, indeed, before thy here-approach,
Old Siward, with ten thousand warlike men,
All ready at a point, was setting forth.

Dr. Johnson is right.

Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rent the air
Are made, not mark'd,

66

So, "Rent your heart and not your garments." Joel ii. 13. And a strong wind shall rent it.” Ezekiel xiii. 2. and other parts of the Bible.

Rosse.

P. 613.410.539.

But I have words,

That would be howl'd out in the desert air,
Where hearing should not latch them.

Latch and catch are words, so very much alike in manuscript, that I incline to the easier word catch,

Let's make us medicines of our great revenge,

To cure this deadly grief.

Macd. He has no children.-All my pretty ones?
Did you say all?

Steevens's latter explanation is the right one. I know of no passage in the play from which it appears that Macbeth had children alive.

Macd.

P. 616-413.-543.

front to front,

Bring thou this fiend of Scotland, and myself,
Within my sword's length set him: if he 'scape,
Heaven forgive him too.

I do not think Mr. Malone has explained this rightly: I take the meaning to be this: All I ask of heaven is to set him within my sword's length;' if then I do not execute due vengeance on him, if I do not so exert myself as to render it impossible for him to escape, then may heaven forgive him too. He afterwards utters a sentiment somewhat similar:

Is ripe for shaking, and the Powers above
Put on their instruments.

Instruments, I believe, means gird on their swords. So Psalm vii. 13, 14. "If a man will not turn, he❝ will whet his sword: he hath bent

"his bow and made it ready. He hath prepared "for him the instruments of death: he ordaineth "his arrows against the persecutors."

Macb.

P. 624.-420.-555.

Seyton!-I am sick at heart,

When I behold-Seyton, I say!--This push
Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now.

Disseat is certainly right.

P. 625. 420.-556.

I have liv'd long enough: my way of life
Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf.

I prefer May to way.

P. 630.-425.-564.

Mal. For where there is advantage to be given,
Both more and less have given him the revolt.

I agree with Malone, and incline to read advantage to be

gone.

P. 632.-427.—567.

Macb. I have almost forgot the taste of fears:
The time has been, my senses would have cool'd
To hear a night-shriek.

Cool'd is the right word.

P. 635.-429-572.

I pull in resolution; and begin

To doubt the equivocation of the fiend,
That lies like truth.

I agree with Steevens and Malone, that there is no need of change.

P. 638.-431.-575.

Macd. I cannot strike at wretched kernes, whose arms
Are hir'd to bear their staves; either thou, Macbeth,
Or else my sword, with an unbatter'd edge,

I sheath again undeeded.

I do not suspect that a line has been lost. The sentence is meant to be left imperfect, to be

mentally supplied in the manner Malone recommends. It is natural for Macduff, amid the hurry and agitation of the battle, when his thoughts, full of the loss of his wife and children, and of his revenge on Macbeth, are crowding rapidly upon him, to leave the sentence incomplete. Such imperfect sentences, finished differently from the original intention of the speaker, are not uncommon in real life, and sometimes occur in Shakespeare.