ments, but cries, i. e. gives them the signal, upon

which the third Witch communicates the notice to her sisters:

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

STEEVENS.

4. Round about the cauldron go;- -] Milton has caught this image in his Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity:

"In dismal dance about the furnace blue."

8. Swelter'd venom

STEEVENS.

-] This word seems to be

employ'd by Shakspere, to signify that the animal was moistened with its own cold exsudations. So, in the twenty-second song of Drayton's Polyolbion:

"And all the knights there dubb'd the morning but before,

"The evening sun beheld there swelter'd in their gore."

In the old translation of Boccace's Novels, the following sentence also occurs:" an huge and mighty toad, even weltering (as it were) in a hole full of poison.” "Sweltering in blood" is likewise an expression used by Fuller in his Church History, p. 37. STEEVENS.

10. Double, double toil and trouble ;] As this was a very extraordinary incantation, they were to double their pains about it. I think, therefore, it should be pointed as I have pointed it :

Double, double toil and trouble;

otherwise the solemnity is abated by the immediate recurrence of the rhime.

STEEVENS.

16.

-blind worm's sting,] The blind-worm is

the slow-worm. So Drayton in Noah's Flood: “The small-eyed slow-worm held of many blind.”

23.

the throat.

STEEVENS.

-maw, and gulf] The gulf is the swallow, STEEVENS.

In the Mirror for Magistrates, we have "monstrous

mawes and gulfes.".

24.

with

prey.

by violence.

HENDERSON.

-ravin'd salt sea shark ;] Ravin'd is glutted Ravin is the ancient word for prey obtained So, in Drayton's Polyolbion, song 7. -but a den for beasts of ravin made."

The same word occurs again in Measure for Measure. STEEVENS. 28. Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse;] Sliver'd is a common word in the North, where it means to cut a piece or slice. Again, in K. Lear:

"She who herself will sliver and disbranch."

STEEVENS.

29. Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips;] These ingredients, in all probability, owed their introduction to the detestation in which the Saracens were held, on account of the holy wars. STEEVENS.

33. Add thereto a tyger's chaudron.] Chaudron, i. e. entrails; a word formerly in common use in the books of cookery; in one of which, printed in 1597, I meet with a receipt to make a pudding of a calf's chaldron. Again, in Decker's Honest Whore, 1635: "Sixpence a meal wench, as well as heart can wish, with calves' chauldrons and chitterlings." At the coronation feast

of

of Elizabeth of York, queen of Henry VII. among other dishes, one was "a swan with chawdron," meaning sauce made with its entrails. See Ives's Select Papers, No. 3. p. 145. See also Mr. Pegge's Forme of Cury, a roll of ancient English Cookery, &c. 8vo. 1780. p. 66. STEEVENS. The word is still in common use in Leicestershire. NICHOLS.

44. -a song.] Of this song only the two first words are found in the old copy of the play. The rest was supplied from Betterton's or Sir W. Davenant's alteration of it in the year 1674. The song was, however, in all probability, a traditional one. The colours of spirits are often mentioned. Monsieur Thomas, 1639:

"Be thou black, or white, or green,

"Be thou hard, or to be seen."

44. Black spirits and white,

So, in

STEEVENS.

Blue spirits and grey.] The modern editors have silently deviated from Sir W. Davenant's alteration of Macbeth, from which this song hath been copied. Instead of "Blue spirits and grey," we there find "Red spirits," &c. which is certainly right. In a passage already quoted by Dr. Johnson, from Cainden, fairies are said to be red, black, and white.

Since the above was written, I have seen Middleton's MS, play, entitled, The Witch, in which this song is found; and there also the line stands :

Red spirits and grey."

MALONE.

48. By the pricking of my thumbs, &c.] It is a very ancient superstition, that all sudden pains of the body, and other sensations which could not naturally be accounted for, were presages of somewhat that was shortly to happen. Hence Mr. Upton has explained a passage in the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus: "Timeo quod rerum gesserim hic, ita dorsus totus prurit.”

STEEVENS. 57. -yesty waves.] That is, foaming or frothy waves. JOHNSON.

60. Though castles topple] Topple is used for tumble.

STEEVENS. 63. Of nature's germins-] This was substituted by Theobald for Nature's germaine.

So, in King Lear, a&t iii. sc. 2.

-all germins spill at once,

“That make ungrateful man.”

JOHNSON.

Germins are seeds which have begun to germinate or sprout. Germen, Lat. Germe, Fr. Germe is a word used by Brown in his Vulgar Errors: "Whether it be not made out of the germe or treadle of the egg,” &c. STEEVENS.

77. deftly show.] i. e. with adroitness, dexterously. So, in the second part of K, Edward IV. by Heywood, 1626:

"my mistress speaks deftly and truly.” Deft is a north country word. So, in Richard Brome's Northern Lass, 1633:

66

-He said I were a deft lass." STEEVENS.

78. Apparition of an armed head rises.] The armed head represents symbolically Macbeth's head cut off, and brought to Malcolm by Macduff. The bloody child is Macduff, untimely ripp'd from his mother's womb. The child with a crown on his head, and a bough in his hand, is the royal Malcolm, who ordered his soldiers to hew them down a bough, and bear it before them to Dunsinane. This observation I have adopted from Mr. Upton. STEEVENS.

Lord Howard, in his Defensative against the Poison of supposed Prophecies, mentions “ a notable example of a conjuror, who represented (as it were, in dumb show) all the persons who should possess the crown of France; and caused the king of Navarre, or rather a wicked spirit in his stead, to appear in the fifth place," &c. FARMER.

A vision of the same kind is exhibited (and that perhaps from which Shakspere took his idea, rather than from Virgil's) in the second canto of the Orlando Furioso. HENLEY.

80.

-say thou nought.] Silence was neces sary during all incantations. So, in Dr. Faustus, 1604: "Your grace demand no questions

"But in dumb silence let them come and go."

Again, in The Tempest:

-be mute, or else our spell is marr'd.”

82. Beware the thane of Fife.

STEEVENS.

-] -He had

learned of certain wizzards, in whose words he put

great