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Compell'd these skipping Kernes to trust their

heels;

But the Norweyan lord, furveying vantage,

With furbish'd arms, and new supplies of men,

Began a fresh afsfault.

DUN.

SOLD.

Dismay'd not this

Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo?

Yes;

As sparrows, eagles; or the hare, the lion.
If I say footh, I must report they were

As cannons overcharg'd with double cracks;"

6 Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo;

Sold.

Yes;] The reader cannot fail to observe, that some word, necessary to complete the verse, has been omitted in the old copy. Sir T. Hanmer reads

Our captains, brave Macbeth, &c. STEEVENS.

7 As cannons overcharged with double cracks; &c.] That is, with double charges; a metonymy of the effect for the cause. HEATH. Mr. Theobald has endeavoured to improve the sense of this pasa sage, by altering the punctuation thus:

they were

As cannons overcharg'd; with double cracks
So they redoubled ftrokes

He declares, with some degree of exultation, that he has no idea of a cannon charged with double cracks; but surely the great author will not gain much by an alteration which makes him say of a hero, that he redoubles trokes with double cracks, an expression not more loudly to be applauded, or more cafily pardoned, than that which is rejected in its favour.

That a cannon is charged with thunder, or with double thunders, may be written, not only without nonsense, but with elegance, and nothing else is here meant by cracks, which in the time of this writer was a word of such emphasis and dignity, that in this play he terms the general diffolution of nature the crack of doom.

JOHNSON

Crack is used on a fimilar occafion by Barnaby Googe, in his Cupido Conquered, 1563:

" The canon's cracke begins to roore

" And darts full thycke they flye,

And cover'd thycke the armyes both,

"

" And framde a counter-skye. STEEVENS.

VOL. XI.

G

a

!

So they

8

Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe;
Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds,

Or memorize another Golgotha,

I cannot tell:

But I am faint, my gashes cry for help.

1

DUN. So well thy words become thee, as thy

wounds;

They smack of honour both:-Go, get him fur[Exit Soldier, attended.

geons.

Again, in the old play of King John, 1591, and applied, as here,

to ordnance:

66

as harmless and without effect,

"As is the echo of a cannon's crack."

MALONE.

* Doubly redoubled strokes &c.] "So, in King Richard II:

" And let thy blows, doubly redoubled,

" Fall," &c.

The irregularity of the metre, however, induces me to believe

our author wrote

they were

" As cannons overcharg'd with double cracks,

" Doubly redoubling strokes upon the foe." STEEVENS.

9 Or memorize another Golgotha, That is, or make another Golgotha, which should be celebrated and delivered down to pofterity, with as frequent mention as the first. HEATH.

The word memorize, which some suppose to have been coined by 'Shakspeare, is used by Spenser in a sonnet to lord Buckhurst prefixed to his Paftorals, 1579:

"

T. WARTON.

" In vaine I thinke, right honourable lord, " By this rude rime to memorize thy name. The word is likewise used by Drayton; and by Chapman, in his tranflation of the second book of Homer, 1598:

-- which let thy thoughts be sure to memorize." And again, in a copy of verses prefixed to Sir Arthur Gorges's tranflation of Lucan, 1614:

" of them whose ads they mean to memorize."

STEEVENS.

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MAL.

The worthy thane of Roffe. LEN. What a hafte looks through his eyes! So

should he look,

That feems to speak things strange.

9 Enter Roffe.] The old copy - Enter Rosse and Angus: but as only the thane of Roffe is spoken to, or speaks any thing in the remaining part of this scene; and as Duncan expresses himself in the fingular number,

Whence cam'st thou, worthy thane?

Angus may be confidered as a superfluous character. Had his prefent appearance been designed, the King would naturally have taken some notice of him. STEEVENS.

It is clear from a subsequent passage, that the entry of Angus was here designed; for in scene iii. he again enters with Rosse, and fays,

We are sent

" To give thee from our royal master thanks." MALONE. Because Roffe and Angus accompany each other in a subsequent scene, does it follow that they make their entrance together on the present occafion? STEEVENS.

2

dif

Who comes here?) The latter word is here employed as a diffyllable. MALONE.

Mr. Malone has already directed us to read - There - as a dissyllable, but without supporting his direction by one example of fuch ă practice.

I fufpe& that the poet wrote

3

Who is't comes here? or - But who comes here? STEEVENS. _ So Should he look,

That seems to speak things strange. The meaning of this pafsage, as it now stands, is, so should he look, that looks as if he told things strange. But Rosse neither yet told strange things, nor could look as if he told them. Lenox only conjectured from his air that he had ftrange things to tell, and therefore undoubtedly faid:

What a hafte looks through his eyes!

So should he look, that teems to speak things strange.

:

ROSSE.

God fave the king!

DUN. Whence cam'st thou, worthy thane?

ROSSE.

From Fife, great king,

Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky, 4

He looks like one that is big with something of importance; a metaphor so natural that it is every day used in common discourse. JOHNSON

۱

Mr. M. Mason observes that the meaning of Lenox is, “So should he look, who seems as if he had strange things to speak." The following passage in The Tempest seems to afford no unapt

comment upon this:

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"The fetting of thine eye and cheek, proclaim

"A matter from thee-."

Again, in King Richard II:

" Men judge by the complexion of the sky, &c.
"So may you, by my dull and heavy eye,

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My tongue hath but a heavier tale to fay." STEEVENS.

That seems to speak things strange.] i. e. that seems about to speak ftrange things. Our author himself furnishes us with the best comment on this passage. In Antony and Cleopatra, we meet with nearly the fame idea:

4

" The business of this man looks out of him." MALONE. flout the sky, The banners may be poetically described as waving in mockery or defiance of the sky. So, in K. Edward III. 1599:

"And new replenish'd pendants cuff the air,
" And beat the wind, that for their gaudiness
"Struggles to kiss them.

"

The sense of the paffage, however, colle&ively taken, is this.Where the triumphant flutter of the Norweyan Handards ventilates or -cools the foldiers who had been heated through their efforts to secure Such numerous trophies of victory. STEEVENS.

Again, in King John:

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Mocking the air with colours idly spread." This paffage has perhaps been misunderstood. The meaning seems to be, not that the Norweyan banners proudly infulted the sky; but that, the standards being taken by Duncan's forces, and fixed in the ground, the colours idly flapped about, serving only to cool the conquerors, instead of being proudly displayed by their former poffeffors. The line in K. John, therefore, is the most per

fed comment on this. MALONE.

And fan our people cold. 5
Norway himfelf, with terrible numbers,
Affisted by that most difloyal traitor
The thane of Cawdor, 'gan a difmal conflict:
Till that Bellona's bridegroom, lapt in proof,
Confronted him with felf-comparisons, "

Point against point rebellious, arm 'gainst arm, Curbing his lavish spirit: And, to conclude,

The victory fell on us;-

DUN.

ROSSE. That now

Great happiness!

Sweno, the Norways' king, craves composition; Nor would we deign him burial of his men,

5 And fan our people cold.] In all probability fome words that rendered, this a complete verse, have been omitted; a loss more frequently to be deplored in the present tragedy, than perhaps in any other of Shakspeare. STEEVENS.

* Till that Bellona's bridegroom, may be added to the many others, speare knew of ancient mythology.

lapt in proof,) This passage which show how little Shake HENLEY.

Our author might have been misted by Holinshed, who, p. 567, speaking of King Henry V. lays - He declared that the goddeffe of battell, called Bellona," &c. &c. Shakspeare, therefore, haftily concluded that the Goddess of War was wife to the God of it.

Lapt in proof, is, defended by armour of proof, STEEVENS.

7 Confronted him with self-comparisons,] By him, in this verse, is meant Norway; as the plain conftruction of the English requires. And the affiftance the thane of Cawdor had given Norway, wasun. derhand; (which Raffe and Angus, indeed, had difcovered, but was unknown to Macbeth;) Cawdor being in the court all this while, as appears from Angus's speech to Macbeth, when he meets him to salute him with the title, and infinuates his crime to be lining the rebel with hidden help and 'vantage.

- with felf-comparisons,

brought, shew'd he was his equal.

& That now

i. e. gave him as good as he WARBURTON.

Sweno, the Norways king, The present irregularity of metre induces me to believe that Sweng was only a marginal reference,

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