under one head; whose house too was said to be descended from Banquo. WARBURTON.

Line 225. Sirrah, your father's dead;] Sirrah was not formerly used as a term of reproach, as at present.

Line 299. Bestride our downful'n birthdom] The allusion is to a man from whom something valuable is about to be taken by violence, and who, that he may defend it without incumbrance, lays it on the ground, and stands over it with his weapon in his hand. Our birthdom, or birth right, says he, lies on the ground; let us, like men who are to fight for what is dearest to them, not abandon it, but stand over it and defend it. This is a strong picture of obstinate resolution. JOHNSON.

Line 322. Though all things foul, &c.] The meaning perhaps is this:-My suspicions cannot injure you, if you be virtuous, by supposing that a traitor may put on your virtuous appearance. I do not say that your virtuous appearance proves you a traitor; for virtue must wear its proper form, though that form be often counterfeited by villany. JOHNSON.

JOHNSON.

Line 531. fee-grief,] A peculiar sorrow; a grief that hath a single owner. The expression is, at least to our ears, very harsh. Line 545. Were, on the quarry of these murdered deer,] Quarry is a term used both in hunting and falconry. In either of these diversions it means the death of the game. STEEVENS. Line 560. He has no children.] It has been observed by an anonymous critick, that this is not said of Macbeth, who had children, but of Malcolm, who having none, supposes a father can be so easily comforted. JOHNSON.

Line 564. At one fell swoop?] Swoop is the fall of a bird

of prey upon his quarry.

Line 565. Dispute it like a man.] i. e. contend with your present sorrow like a man. STEEVENS.

10

ANNOTATIONS ON

[ACT V.

ACT V.

Line 90. Excite the mortified man.] By the mortified man, is meant a religious; one who has subdued his passions, is dead to the world, has abandoned it, and all the affairs of it: an Ascetic. WARBURTON. Line 134. English epicures:] The reproach of Epicurism, on which Mr. Theobald has bestowed a note, is nothing more than a natural invective uttered by an inhabitant of a barren country, against those who have more opportunities of luxury. JOHNSON. Line 144.

those linen cheeks of thine

Are counsellors to fear.] The meaning is, they infect others who see them with cowardice. WARBURTON. Line 181. Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff,] 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 would be willing to read, foul, were there any authority for the change. STEEVENS. Line 189.

cast

The water of my land,] To cast the water was the phrase in use for finding out disorders by the inspection of urine. STEEVENS.

Line 227. 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, and shall know what we have of our own, and what they have a right to take from us.

Line 247.

She should have died hereafter;

STEEVENS.

There would have been a time for such a word, &c.] There would have been a time for such a world! -It is a broken speech, in which only part of the thought

I read,

ACT v.]

MACBETH.

11

is expressed, and may be paraphrased thus: The queen is dead. Macbeth. Her death should have been deferred to some more peaceful hour; had she lived longer, there would at length have been a time for the honours due to her as a queen, and that respect which I owe her for her fidelity and love. Such is the world-such is the condition of human life, that we always think to-morrow will be happier than to-day, but to-morrow and tomorrow steals over us unenjoyed and unregarded, and we still lin ger in the same expectation to the moment appointed for our end. All these days, which have thus passed away, have sent multitudes of fools to the grave, who were engrossed by the sume dream of future felicity, and, when life was departing from them, were, like me, reckoning on to-morrow.

Such was once my conjecture, but I am now less confident. 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.

Line 251. 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. JOHNSON

to dusty death.] Dr. Warburton reads

Dusty is a very natural epithet.

JOHNSON.

The dust of death is an expression used in the 22d Psalm.

STEEVENS.

Line 354. I bear a charmed life,] In the days of chivalry, the champions' arms being ceremoniously blessed, each took an oath, that he used no charmed weapons. Macbeth, according to the law of arms, or perhaps only in allusion to

12

ANNOTATIONS, &c.

[ACT V.

this custom, tells Macduff of the security he had in the pre

diction of the spirit.

Line 363.

STEEVENS.

palter with us in a double sense ;] That

shuffle with ambiguous expressions.

JOHNSON

Line 398.

Had I as many sons as I have hairs,

I would not wish them to a fairer death:

And so his knell is knoll'd.] This incident is thus related from Henry of Huntingdon by Camden, in his Remains, from which our author probably copied it.

When Seyward, the martial earl of Northumberland, understood that his son, whom he had sent in service against the Scotchmen, was slain, he demanded whether his wounds were in the fore part or hinder part of his body. When it was answered, in the fore part, he replied, “I am right "glad; neither wish I any other death to me or mine."

JOHNSON.

END OF THE ANNOTATIONS ON MACBETH.