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Prepares for fome attempt of war.4

LEN.

:

Sent he to Macduff?

LORD. He did and with an abfolute, Sir, not I, The cloudy meffenger turns me his back,

And hums; as who fhould fay, You'll rue the time That clogs me with this anfwer.

LEN. And that well might Advise him to a caution,' to hold what diftance His wifdom can provide. Some holy angel Fly to the court of England, and unfold His meffage ere he come; that a swift bleffing May foon return to this our fuffering country Under a hand accurs'd!"

LORD.

My prayers with him!?

[Exeunt.

Their refers to the fon of Duncan, and Macduff. Sir T. Hanmer reads unneceffarily, I think, the king. MALONE.

4 Prepares for fome attempt of war.] The fingularity of this expreffion, with the apparent redundancy of the metre, almost perfuade me to follow Sir T. Hanmer, by the omiffion of the two laft words. STEEVENS.

5 Advife him to a caution,] Sir T. Hanmer, to add smoothness to the verfification, reads—to a care.

I fufpect, however, the words-to a, are interpolations defigned to render an elliptical expreffion more clear, according to fome player's apprehenfion. Perhaps the lines originally ftood thus: And that well might

Advise him caution, and to hold what distance

His wisdom can provide. STEEVENS.

to this our fuffering country

Under a hand accurs'd!] The conftruction is,-to our country fuffering under a hand accurfed. MALONE.

7 My prayers with him!] The old copy, frigidly, and in defiance of measure, reads

I'll fend my prayers with him.

I am aware, that for this, and fimilar rejections, I fhall be cenfured by thofe who are difinclined to venture out of the track of the old ftage-waggon, though it may occafionally conduct them into a flough. It may foon, therefore, be discovered, that nume

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

A dark Cave. In the middle, a Cauldron boiling.

Thunder. Enter the three Witches.

1. WITCH. Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd." 2. WITCH. Thrice; and once the hedge-pig whin'd."

rous beauties are refident in the difcarded words-I fend; and that as frequently as the vulgarifm-on, has been difplaced to make room for-f, a diamond has been exchanged for a pebble.-For my own fake, however, let me add, that throughout the present tragedy no fuch liberties have been exercised, without the previous approbation of Dr. Farmer, who fully concurs with me in fuppofing the irregularities of Shakspeare's text to be oftener occafioned by interpolations, than by omiffions. STEEVENS.

8 Scene I.] As this is the chief scene of enchantment in the play, it is proper in this place to obferve, with how much judgement Shakspeare has felected all the circumftances of his infernal ceremonies, and how exactly he has conformed to common opinions and traditions:

"Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd."

The ufual form in which familiar fpirits are reported to converse with witches, is that of a cat. A witch, who was tried about half a century before the time of Shakspeare, had a cat named Rutterkin, as the fpirit of one of those witches was Grimalkin; and when any mifchief was to be done, fhe used to bid Rutterkin go and fly. But once when she would have sent Rutterkin to torment a daughter of the countess of Rutland, inftead of going or flying, he only cried mew, from whence the difcovered that the lady was out of his power, the power of witches being not univerfal, but limited, as Shakspeare has taken care to inculcate :

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Though his bark cannot be loft,

"Yet it thall be tempeft-toft."

The common afflictions which the malice of witches produced, were melancholy, fits, and lofs of flesh, which are threatened by one of Shakspeare's witches:

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3. WITCH. Harper cries: 'Tis time, 'tis time.

"Weary fev'n nights, nine times nine,

"Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine."

It was likewise their practice to deftroy the cattle of their neighbours, and the farmers have to this day many ceremonies to fecure their cows and other cattle from witchcraft; but they seem to have been moft fufpected of malice against fwine. Shakspeare has accordingly made one of his witches declare that she has been killing fwine; and Dr. Harfnet obferves, that about that time, a forv could not be ill of the measles, nor a girl of the fullens, but fome old woman was charg'd with witchcraft."

"Toad, that under the cold ftone,

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Days and nights haft thirty-one, "Swelter'd venom fleeping got,

"Boil thou firft i'the charmed pot."

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Toads have likewife long lain under the reproach of being by fome means acceffary to witchcraft, for which reafon Shakspeare, in the first scene of this play, calls one of the fpirits Paddock or Toad, and now takes care to put a toad first into the pot. When Vaninus was feized at Tholoufe, there was found at his lodgings ingens bufo vitro inclufus, a great toad shut in a vial, upon which thofe that profecuted him Veneficium exprobrabant, charged him, I fuppofe, with witchcraft.

"Fillet of a fenny fnake,

"In the cauldron boil and bake:

Eye of newt, and toe of frog ;

"For a charm," &c.

The propriety of thefe ingredients may be known by confulting the books de Viribus Animalium and de Mirabilibus Mundi, afcribed to Albertus Magnus, in which the reader, who has time and credulity, may difcover very wonderful fecrets.

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Finger of birth-ftrangled babe, "Ditch-deliver'd by a drab;"

It has been already mentioned in the law againft witches, that they are fuppofed to take up dead bodies to ufe in enchantments, which was confeffed by the woman whom king James examined, and who had of a dead body, that was divided in one of their affemblies, two fingers for her fhare. It is obfervable, that Shakfpeare, on this great occafion which involves the fate of a king, multiplies all the circumitances of horror. The babe, whofe finger is ufed, must be ftrangled in its birth; the greafe muft not only be human, but muft have dropped from a gibbet, the gibbet of a murderer; and even the fow, whofe blood is used, must have of

1. WITCH. Round about the cauldron go;' In the poifon'd entrails throw.——

fended nature by devouring her own farrow. These are touches of
judgement and genius.

"And now about the cauldron fing,-
"Black fpirits and white,
"Red fpirits and grey,

"Mingle, mingle, mingle,
"You that mingle may.

And in a former part:

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weird fifters, hand in hand,

"Thus do go about, about;

"Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,
"And thrice again, to make up nine!”

Thefe two paffages I have brought together; because they both feem fubject to the objection of too much levity for the folemnity of enchantment, and may both be fhown, by one quotation from Camden's account of Ireland, to be founded upon a practice really obferved by the uncivilifed natives of that country: "When any one gets a fall, says the informer of Camden, he starts up, and, turning three times to the right, digs a hole in the earth; for they imagine that there is a fpirit in the ground, and if he falls fick in two or three days, they fend one of their women that is skilled in that way to the place, where the fays, I call thee from the east, weft, north and fouth, from the groves, the woods, the rivers, and the fens, from the fairies, red, black, white." There was likewife a book written before the time of Shakfpeare, defcribing, amongst other properties, the colours of fpirits.

Many other circumstances might be particularifed, in which Shakspeare has fhown his judgement and his knowledge.

JOHNSON.

• Thrice the brinded cat hath merw'd.] A cat, from time immemorial, has been the agent and favourite of witches. This fuperftitious fancy is pagan, and very ancient; and the original, perhaps, this: When Galinthia was changed into a cat by the Fates (fays Antonius Liberalis, Metam. cap. 29.), by witches, (fays Paufanias in his Bootics,) Hecate took pity of her, and made her her priestess; in which office he continues to this day. Hecate herself too, when Typhon forced all the gods and goddeffes to hide themfelves in animals, affumed the shape of a cat. So, Ovid:

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Fele foror Phabi latuit." WARBURTON.

Thrice; and once the hedge-pig whin'd.] Mr. Theobald reads,

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Toad, that under coldest stone,"
Days and nights haft thirty one

twice and once, &c. and obferves that odd numbers are used in all enchantments and magical operations. The remark is juft, but the paffage was mifunderstood. The second Witch only repeats the number which the firft had mentioned, in order to confirm what fhe had faid; and then adds, that the hedge-pig had likewife cried, though but once. Or what feems more eafy, the hedge-pig had whined thrice, and after an interval had whined once again.

Even numbers, however, were always reckoned inaufpicious. So, in The Honeft Lawyer, by S. S. 1616: "Sure 'tis not a lucky time; the first crow I heard this morning, cried twice. This even, fir, is no good number." Twice and once, however, might be a cant expreffion. So, in King Henry IV. P. II. Silence fays, "I have been merry twice and once, ere now. STEEVENS.

The urchin, or hedgehog, from its folitarinefs, the uglinefs of its appearance, and from a popular opinion that it fucked or poifoned the udders of cows, was adopted into the demonologic fyftem, and its fhape was fometimes fuppofed to be affumed by mischievous elves. Hence it was one of the plagues of Caliban in The Tempest.

T. WARTON.

3 Harper cries:] This is fome imp, or familiar fpirit, concerning whofe etymology and office, the reader may be wiser than the editor. Thofe who are acquainted with Dr. Farmer's pamphlet, will be unwilling to derive the name of Harper from Ovid's Harpalos, ab igrala rapio. See Upton's Critical obfervations, &c. edit. 1748, p. 155.

Harper, however, may be only a mifpelling, or misprint, for harpy. So, in Marlowe's Tamburlaine, &c. 1590:

"And like a harper tyers upon my life."

The word cries likewife feems to countenance this fuppofition. Crying is one of the technical terms appropriated to the noise made by birds of prey, efpecially when they are hungry. STEEVENS.

4

'Tis time, 'tis time.] This familiar does not cry out that it is time for them to begin their enchantments; but cries, i. e. gives them the fignal, upon which the third Witch communicates the notice to her fifters:

Harper cries:-'Tis time, 'tis time.

Thus too the Hecate of Middleton, already quoted:

Hec.] Heard you the owle yet?

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Stad.] Briefely in the copps.

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Hec.] 'Tis high time for us then." STEEVENS.

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