cle does not, as I remember, mention any. The same thought occurs again in King John: "He talks to me that never had a son." Again, in King Henry VI. Part III. "You have no children: butchers, if you had, morse." 522. At one fell swoop?] bird of prey on his quarry. 1612: STEEVENS. Swoop is the descent of a So, in The White Devil, "That she may take away all at one swoop." Again, in the Beggar's Bush, by Beaumont and Fletcher: --no star prosperous! "All at a swoop!" STEEVENS. 523. Dispute it like a man.] i. e. contend with your present sorrow like a man. So, in Twelfth Night, act iv. sc. 3. "For though my soul disputes well with my sense," STEEVENS &c. 536. Cut short all intermission ;- -] i. e. all pause, all intervening time. So, in King Lear: "Delivered letters, spight of intermission.” 540. STEEVENS This tune-] The folio reads: This time. Tune is Rowe's emendation. STEEVENS. Rowe's emendation is supported by a former passage in this play, where the word, which he has introduced, is used in a similar manner : "Macb. Went it not so? "Banq. To the self-same tune and words." Line 27. Ar, but their sense is shut.] The old copy has are shut; and so the author certainly wrote, though it sounds so harshly to our ears as not to deserve to be restored. Thus in his 112th sonnet: "To critick and to censurers stopped are." MALONE. 33. Yet here's a spot.] A passage somewhat similar occurs in Webster's Vittoria Corombona, &c. 1612: -Here's a white hand! "Can blood so soon be wash'd out?" Webster's play was published in 1612; Shakspere's in 1623. 38. -Hell is murkey!] Lady Macbeth is acting over, in a dream, the business of the murder of Duncan, and encouraging her husband as when awake. She, therefore, would not have even hinted the terrors of of hell to one whose conscience she saw was too much alarmed already for her purpose. She certainly imagines herself here talking to Macbeth, who, she supposes, had just said, Hell is murkey (i. e. hell is a dismal place to go to in consequence of such a deed), and repeats his words in contempt of his cowardice.Hell is murkey! Fie, fie, my lord! fie! a soldier, and afraid? This explanation, I think, gives a spirit to the passage, which has hitherto appeared languid, being perhaps misapprehended by those who placed a full point at the conclusion of it. STEEVENS. 41. who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?] Statius, in a passage already quoted, speaking of the sword by which an old man was slain, calls it, egentem sanguinis ensem; and Ovid, describing a wound inflicted on a superannuated ram, has the same circumstance: See catch-word Alphabet. The expression is taken from chess-playing : that so young a warrior "Should bide the shock of such approved knights, "As he this day hath match'd and mated too:” sons (says Holinshed) by his wife, who was the daughter of Siward, Earl of Northumberland." STEEVENS. 88. 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. So, in Monsieur D'Olive, 1606: "He like a mortified hermit sits." Again, in Green's Never too late, 1616: "I per ceived in the words of the hermit the perfect idea of a mortified man." 94. STEEVENS. Unrough youths] An odd expression. It means smooth-fac'd, unbearded. 111. When all that is within him does condemn tion. 115. Itself, for being there?] That is, when all the faculties of the mind are employed in self-condemnaJOHNSON. The medicin―] i. e. physician. Shakspere uses this word in the feminine gender, where Lafeu speaks of Helen in All's Well that Ends Well; and Florizel, in The Winter's Tale, calls Camillo, "the medicin of our house." STEEVENS. 119. To dew the sovereign flower, &c.] This uncommon verb occurs in Look about You, 1600: "Dewing your princely hand with pity's tear.' Again, in Spenser's Faery Queen, b. iv. c. 8. "Dew'd with her drops of bounty soveraine." STEEVENS. 121. Bring me no more reports, &c.] Tell me not any more more of desertions-Let all my subjects leave me—I am safe till, &c. JOHNSON. 128. 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. Shakspere took the thought from Holinshed, p. 180. of his History of Scotland: "For manie of the people abhorring the riotous manners and superfluous gor*mandizing brought in among them by the Englishemen, were willing inough to receive this Donald for their king, trusting (because he had beene brought up in the isles, with the old customes and manners of their antient nation, without tast of English likerous delicats)," &c. The same historian informs us, that in those ages the Scots eat but once a day, and even then very sparingly. It appears from Dr. Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, that the natives had neither kail nor brogues, till they were taught the art of planting the one, and making the other, by the soldiers of Cromwell; and yet King James VI. in his 7th parliament, thought it necessary to form an act "against superfluous banqueting." 130. Shall never sagg with doubt, to fluctuate, to waver. So, in the 16th ton's Polyolbion : STEEVENS. -] To sagg is song of Dray "This said, the aged Street sag'd sadly on alone." Drayton is speaking of a river. STEEVENS. To sag, or swag, is to sink down by its own weight, |