number of those Hawkes that are hie flying and towre Hawks." Booke of Falconrie, p. 53, ed. 1611. Act iii. sc. 3. "and near approaches The subject of our watch." 6 The Manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, "puts 'here' in his margin [for near']; either may be right." Collier's Notes and Emendations, &c. &c. p. 411. If Mr. Collier had carefully considered the context, he would have perceived that "here" cannot be right: The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day: Now the lated traveller apace, spurs The First Murderer knew, from the coming on of night, that Banquo was not far off; but, before hearing the tread of horses and the voice of Banquo, he could not know that the victim was absolutely close at hand. Act iii. sc. 4. "If trembling I inhabit, then protest me For this very doubtful reading of the old copies, the Manuscript-corrector of the folio, 1632, substitutes, "If trembling I exhibit, then protest me," &c. (i. e. If I exhibit trembling);—an alteration, which Mr. Collier allows to be "too prosaic" (Notes and Emendations, &c. p. 412), and which, in fact, is all but ludicrous. Act iii. sc. 5. "Get you gone, And at the pit of Acheron Meet me i' the morning." It is not a little amusing to read the notes on "Acheron," and to find Malone almost persuaded by a Mr. Plumptre that Shakespeare was thinking here of "Ekron” in Scripture.* Did these matter-of-fact commentators suppose that Shakespeare himself, had they been able to call him up from the dead, could have told them "all about it?" Not he;-no more than Fairfax, who, in his translation of the Gerusalemme (published before Macbeth was produced), has made Ismeno frequent "the shores of Acheron," without any warrant from Tasso; * "A Christian once, Macon he now adores, I understand that in Macbeth, as it is now acted at the Princess's Theatre, there is a perfectly correct representation of " the pit of Acheron." 66 When, in my Remarks on Collier's and Knight's editions of Shakespeare, p. 200, I said that "the other three Witches" are 66 the three who now enter for the first time, there being already three on the stage: the number of Witches in this scene is six,"-I made a great mistake, which was obligingly pointed out to me by Mr. Macready. "The other three Witches" means the three already on the stage, they being the other three, when enumerated along with Hecate, who may be considered as the chief Witch. Three Witches are quite sufficient for the business of the scene; and, as far as concerns the effect to be produced on the spectators, are even more impressive than six. Act v. sc. 3. "And, with some sweet oblivious antidote, Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs upon the heart." "From the writer of the manuscript notes in the folio, 1632, we learn that grief ought to have been inserted in stead of stuff"." Collier's Notes and Emendations, &c. p. 416. I must not be understood as positively maintaining the integrity of the old text, when I express my strong suspicion that the Manuscript-corrector altered "stuff" to 66 grief" merely because he was offended by an iteration which had gone much out of fashion at the time he wrote. Malone (in a note on the line) has already brought forward several* examples of similar repetitions from other plays of Shakespeare-(repetitions which, as well as his quibblings in serious dialogues, &c., the great poet would doubtless have avoided, had he lived in an age of severer taste); and I subjoin a variety of passages which will evince the fondness of our early authors for a jingle of that description; “I Harold then, a harauld [i. e. herald] sent in haste." King Harold,-A Mir. for Magistrates, &c. p. 248, ed. 1610. "In dreadfull feare amid the dreadfull place." Sackville's Induction,-Id. p. 261. "Of which the kings charge doth me cleere discharge." Tiptoft Earle of Worcester,-Id. p. 369. "I saw the polles cut off from polling theeues." Richard Neuill Earle of Warwicke,-Id. p. 374. "My selfe heere present do present to thee My life," &c. The Lord Hastings,—Id. p. 411. "On her [i. e. the Church] a strong hand violently laid, Preying on that they gaue for to be praid." The Lord Cromwell (by Drayton),-Id. p. 539. * Many more might be adduced,—such as, 66 Dy'd in the dying slaughter of their foes." R King John, act ii. sc. 2. แ They wreake their vengeaunce in his reeking blood." "The cannons thicke discharg'd on either hand, Wrapt clouds in clouds of smoake," &c. England's Eliza (by Niccols, appended to "For Hell and Darkness pitch their pitchy tents." Marlowe's Tamburlaine, Sec. Part,-Works, i. 215, ed. Dyce. "Whose yielding heart may yield thee more relief." Marlowe's Dido,—Id. ii. 413. "Lyke as a trembling hart, whose hart is pierst with an A. Fraunce's Countess of Pembrokes Yuychurch, Part. Sec., 1591, sig. 1 4. "There was a maide soe made as men might thinck her a goddesse." Translation from Heliodorus,-appended to "O Duke of Sore, what great sore didst thou find, Harington's Orlando Furioso, b. xxxvi. st. 7. "With true measur'd crowing the timely houres to speake, And still against his windie sire to winde his beake." A Herrings Tayle, &c. 1598, sig. в 2. "And not one foot his stedfast foot was moued," &c. Fairfax's Tasso, b. v. st. 63 (one of the innumerable things in that translation which are not to be found in the original). |