Re-enter Attendant, with two Murderers,

Now to the door, and stay there till we call.9

[ Exit Attendant.
Was it not yesterday we spoke together?

1. Mur. It was, so please your highness.
МАСв.

Well then, now
Have you consider'd of my speeches ? Know,
That it was he, in the times past, which held you
So under fortune; which, you thought, had been
Our innocent felf: this I made good to you
In our last conference; pass'd in probation with

you,
How you were borne in hand ;' how cross'd; the

instruments;

2

当

The old copy

Again, in The History of Graund Amoure and la bel Pucelle, &c.
by Stephen Hawes, 1555 :

" That so many monsters put to, utterance.
Again, and more appositely, in the 14th book of Golding's
translation of Ovid's Metamorphosis:

“ To both the parties as the length from battell for to reft,

1" Aud not to fight to utterance.
Shakspeare uses it again in Cymbeline, A& III. sc. i.

STEEVENS.
Now to the door, and stay there till we call.]
reads

• Now go to the door &c;"
but for the sake of verlification I suppose the word go, which is
understood, may safely be omitted. Thus in the last scene of the
foregoing að:

Will you to. Scone?

No cousin, i'll to Fife,
In both these instances go is mentally inserted. STEEVENS.

-pafs'd in probation with you,
How you were borne in hand, &c.]

The words --- with you, I regard as an interpolation, and conceive the passage to have been originally given thus:

1

2

1

Who wrought with them; and all things else, that

might, To half a foul, and to a notion craz'd, Say, Thus did Banquo. 1. MUR.

You made it known to us. MACB. I did lo; and went further, which is now Our point of second meeting. Do you

find Your patience so predominant in your nature, That you can let this go? Are you so gospell d, 4 To pray for this good man, and for his issue,

4

" In our laft conference ; pass’d in probation how

" You were borne in hand: how cross'd ;" &c. Pass'd in probation is, I believe, only a bulky phrase employed to signify – proved. STEEVENS.

The meaning may be, " paft in proving to you, how you were," &c. So, in Othello :

so prove it,
" That the probation bear no hinge or loop

" To hang a doubt on. Perhaps after the words “ with you," there lhould be a comma rather than a semicolon. The constru&ion, however, may be different. " This I made good to you in our latt conference, palt &c. I made good to you, how you were borne," &c. To bear in hand is, to delude by encouraging hope and holding out fair profpe&s, without any intentiou of performance. MALONE. So, in Rum-Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611:

" Yet I will bear a dozen men in hand,
c. And make them all my gulls."

" See Vol. VI. p. 38, n. 6. STEEVENS. "E- Are you so gospellid, ] Are you of that degree of precise virtue? Gospeller was a name of contempt given by the Papists to the Lollards, the puritans of early times, and the precursors of protestantism. JOHNSON. So, in the Morality called Lusty Juventus, 1561:

" What, is Juventus become so tame

6 To be a newe gospeller?" Again :

- And yet ye are a great goSpeller in the mouth." I believe, however, that gospelled means no more than kept in obedience to that precept of the gospel, which teaches us " to pray for those that despitefully use us. STEVENS.

you to the

5

Whose heavy hand hath bow'd

grave, And beggar'd yours for ever? 1. MUR.

We are men, my liege. MACB. Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men; As hounds,and grey hounds, mungrels, spaniels,curs, Shoughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves, are cleped All by the name of dogs: the valued file?

6

? We are men, my liege ] That is, we have the same feelings as the reft of mankind, and, as men, are not without a manly refentment for the wrongs which we have suffered, and which you have now recited.

I thould not have thought so plain a passage wanted an explanation, if it had not been mistaken by Dr. Grey, who says; “ they don't answer in the name of Christians, but as men, whose humanity would hinder them from doing a barbarous ad." This false iuterpretation he has endeavoured to support by the well-known line of Terence :

“ Homo fum, humani nihil a me alienum puto." Thaç amiable sentiment does not appear very suitable to a cutthroa. They urge their manhood, in my opiniou, in order to show 'Macbeth their willingness, not their aversion, to execute his orders. MALONE.

6 Shoughs, ] Shoughs are probably what we now call socks, demiwolves, lycifcæ; dogs bred between wolves and dogs. Johnson.

This species of dogs is mentioned in Nash's Lenten Stuffe, &c. 1599: "--a trundle-cail, tike or shough or two.'

STEEVENS. the valued file -- ] In this speech the word file occurs twice, and seems iu both places to have. a meaning different from its present use. The expression, valued file, evidently means, lift or catalogue of value. A station ir the file, and not in the worst rank, may mean, a place in the list of manhood, and not in the lowest place. But file seems rather to meau, in this place, a poft of honour; the first rank, in opposition to the last; a meaning which I have not observed in any other place. JOHNSON.

The valued file is the file or lift where the value and peculiar qualities of every thing is set down, in contradiftin&ion'lo what he immediately mentions, the bill that writes them all alike. File, in the second instance, is used ise the same sense as in this, and with a reference to it. - Now if you belong to any cials that deserves a place in the valued file of man, and are not of the lowest rank, the common herd of mankind, that are not worth distinguishing from cache other.

7

a

T

Ε Τ

Distinguishes the swift, the flow, the subtle,
The house-keeper, the hunter, every one
According to the gift which bounteous nature
Hath in him clos'd; whereby he does receive
Particular addition, from the bill
That writes them all alike: and fo of men.
Now, if you have a station in the file,
And not in the worst rank of manhood, say it;
And I will put that business in

your

bosoms,
Whose execution takes your enemy off;
Grapples you to the heart and love of us,
Who wear our health but fickly in his life,
Which in his death were perfect.
2. MUR.

I am one, my liege,
Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world
Have fo incens'd, that I am reckless what
I do, to spite the world.
1. MUR.

And I another,
So

weary with disasters, tugg'd with fortune,

2

90

File and lif are synonymous, as in the last ad of this play:

I have a file. 76 Of all the geniry. Again, in Heywood's dedication to the second part of his Iron Age, 1632: -- to number you in the file and list of my best and choiceft well-wishers." This expression occurs more thąu once in The Beggars' Bush of Beaumont and Fletcher :

all ways worthy, ". As else in any file of mankind." Shakspeare likewise has it in Measure for Meajure :

The greater file of the subje& held the duke to be wise. In short, the valued file is the catalogue with prices annexed to it." Steevens. 9 And not

:] And was supplied by Mr. Rowe for the sake of STEEVENS. So weary with disasters, tugg'd with fortune , ] We see the speaker means to say, that he is weary with struggling with adverse fortune. But this reading expresses but half the idea; viz. of a man tugg'd and haled by fortune without making resistance. To, give the compleat thought, we should read :

So weary with disaftrous tugs with fortune,

1

metre.

Both of you

That I would set my life on any chance,
To mend it, or be rid on't.

МАСв.
Know, Banquo was your enemy.
2. MUR.

True, my lord. MACB. So is he mine: and in such bloody dis

tance, That every minute of his being thrusts Against my near'lt of life: And though I could Wiih baie-fac'd power sweep him from my fight, And bid my will avouch it; yet I muft not, For certain friends 4 that are both his and mine,

3

This is, well expressed, and gives the reason of his being weary, because fortune always hitherto got the better. And that Shakspeare knew how to express this thought, we have an infance in The Winter's Tale:

- Let myself and fortune

Ing for the time to come.
Besides, to be tugg‘d with fortune, is scarce English.

WARBURTOŃ. Tugg'd with fortune may be, tugg'd or worried by fortune.

Johnson. I have left the foregoing note as an evidence of Dr. Warburton's properlily to needless alterations.

Mr. Malone very justly observes that the old reading is confirmed by the following paflage in an Epifle to Lord Southampton, By S. Daniel, 1603 :

- He who hath never warr'd with misery,
". Nor ever tugg‘d with fortune and distress.” STÉEVENS.
in such bloody distance, ) Distance, for enmity.

WARBURTON. By, bloody distance is here meant, such a diftance as mortal ene. mies would ftaná at from each other, when their quarrel must be determined by the sword. This sense seems evident from the continuation of the metaphor, where every minute of his being is represented as thrusting at the nearest part where life resides.

STEEVENS. 4 For certain friends --] For, in the present instance, figuifies because of. So, in Coriolanus :

Speak, good Cominius,
" Leave nothing out for length." STEEVENS.

3