"That time of year thou may'st in me behold,
"When yellow leaves," &c.

159. -skirr the country round;] To skirr, I believe, signifies to scour, to ride hastily. The word is used by Beaumont and Fletcher in the Martial Maid:

"Whilst I, with this and this, well mounted skirr'd

"A horse troop, through and through," &c. Again, in Henry V.

"And make them skirr away, as swift as stohes "Enforced from the old Assyrian slings." Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Bonduca : -the light shadows,

"That, in a thought, scur o'er the fields of corn, "Halted on crutches to them." STEEVENS. 160. talk of fear.] The second folio reads, stand in fear. HENDERSON. 170. Cleanse the foul bosom of that perilous stuff,] Stuff'd is the reading of the old copy; but for the sake of the ear, which must be shocked by the recurrence of so harsh a word, I am willing to read, foul, as there is authority for the change from Shakspere himself, As You Like It, act ii. sc. 6.

"Cleanse the foul body of th' infected world.”

STEEVERS. The recurrence of the word stuff in the original is certainly unpleasing; but I have no doubt the old reading was the true one, because Shakspere was extremely

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tremely fond of such repetitions. Of this several instances may be produced; and with respect to the word stuft, however mean it may sound at present, it, like many other terms, has been debased by time, and appears to have been formerly considered as a word proper to be used in passages of the greatest dignity. MALONE.

The water of my land,- -] To cast the water was the phrase in use for finding out disorders by the inspection of urine. So, in Eliosto Libidinoso, a novel, by John Hinde, 1606: "Lucilla perceiving, without casting her water, where she was pained," &c. Again, in The Wise Woman of Hogsdon, 1638: “ Mother Nottingham, for her time, was pretty well skilled in casting waters." STEEVENS.

182.

201.

-senna,-] The old copy reads-cyme.

STEEVENS.

-but the confident tyrant] Macbeth was confident of success; so confident that he would not fly, but endure their setting down before his castle.

205.

JOHNSON. For where there is advantage to be given,

Both more and less have given him the revolt ;] The propriety of the expression, advantage to be given, instead of advantage given, and the disagreeable repetition of the word given in the next line, incline me to read:

where there is a 'vantage to le gone, Both more and less have given him the revolt.

Advantage,

Advantage, or 'vantage, in the time of Shakspere, -signified opportunity. He shut up himself and his soldiers (says Malcolm) in the castle, because when there is an opportunity to be gone, they all desert him.

More and less is the same with greater and less. So, in the interpolated Mandeville, a book of that age, there is a chapter of India the More and the Less. JOHNSON. I would read, if any alteration were necessary: For where there is advantage to be got.

But the words, as they stand in the text, will bear Dr. Johnson's explanation, which is most certainly right." For wherever an opportunity of flight is given them," &c.

More and less for greater and less, is likewise found in Chaucer :

"From Boloigne is the erle of Pavie come,

"Of which the fame yspronge to most and leste.” Again, in Drayton's Polyolbion, song the 12th :

"Of Britain's forests all from th' less unto the more,"

Again, in Spenser's Faery Queen, b. v. c. viii.

66 -all other weapons lesse or more,

"Which warlike uses had devis'd of yore." STEEVENS.

Surely, there canbe little doubt that the word given, was caught by the Printer's eye glancing on the subsequent line; and I think as little, that we ought to read either gone, got, or gain'd; any of which will serve equally well.

N

MALONE.

Where

Where there is advantage to be given, I believe, means where advantageous offers are made to allure the adherents of Macbeth to forsake him. HENLEY.

209. Let our just censures

phabet.

Attend the true event,] See catch-word Al

214. What we shall say we have, and what we owe,] i. e. property and allegiance. WARBURTON.

What we shall say we have, and what we owe.] When we are governed by legal kings, we shall know the limits of their claim, i. e. shall know what we have of our own, and what they have a right to take from us. STEEVENS.

The issue of the contest will soon decide what we shall say we have, and what may be accounted our To owe here is to possess.

own.

216.

arbitrate:] i. e. determine.

HENLEY.

JOHNSON.

So, in the 18th Odyssey, translated by Chapman :

"Can arbitrate a war of deadliest weight."

So, again, in King Lear:

"I'll firmly patch it with the fox's fell."

"The goujeres shall devour them flesh and fell."

A dealer

STEEVENS.

A dealer in hides is still called a fell-monger.

230.

I have supt full with horrors;] Statius

has a similar thought in the second book of his Thebais: -attollit membra, toroque,

"Erigitur plenus monstris, vanumque cruorem "Excutiens."

The conclusion of this passage may remind the reader of lady Macbeth's behaviour in her sleep.

234. She should have dy'd hereafter;

STEEVENS.

There would have been a time for such a word.—] Macbeth might mean, that there would have been a more convenient time for such a word, for such intelligence, and so fall into the following reflection: We say we send word when we give intelligence.

JOHNSON. 236. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,] This repetition, as Dr. Farmer observed to me, occurs in Barclay's Ship of Fooles, 1570.

“Cras, cras, cras, to-morrow we shall amende."

STEEVENS.

238. To the last syllable of recorded time;] Recorded time seems to signify the time fixed in the decrees of Heaven for the period of life. The record of futurity is indeed no accurate expression; but, as we only know transactions past or present, the language of men affords no term for the volumes of prescience, in which future events may be supposed to be written.