Gon. Holloa, holloa! That eye that told you so, look'd but a-squint. • Gon. Mean you to enjoy him? Alb. The let-alone + lies not in your good will. Edm. Nor in thine, lord. Alb. Half-blooded fellow, yes. thine. On capital treason; and, in thy arrest, I bar it in the interest of my wife; And I, her husband, contradict your bans. Gon. An interlude ! Alb. Thou art arm'd, Gloster :-Let trumpet sound: Edg. What's he, that speaks for Edmund earl Edm. Himself;-What say'st thou to him! That, if my speech offend a noble heart, Despite thy victor sword, and fire-new fortane To prove upon thy heart, whereto I speak Edm. In wisdom I should ask thy name : + If none appear to prove upon thy person, Ere I taste bread, thou art in nothing less [Aside. Gon. If not, I'll ne'er trust poison. That names me traitor, villain-like he lies: Alb. A berald, ho! Edm. A herald, ho, a herald ! diers, All levied in my name, have in my name Took their discharge. Reg. This sickness grows upon me. Enter a HERALD. Alb. She is not well; convey her to my tent. Off. Sound, trumpet. [A Trumpet sounds. If any man of quality or degree, within the lists of the army, will maintain upon EDMUND, supposed earl of GLOSTER, that he is a manifold traitor, let him appear at the third sound of the trumpet: He is bold in his defence. Edm. Sound. speak. [Alarums.-They fight.-EDMUND falls. Alb. O save him, save him! Gon. This is mere practice, § Gloster: By the law of arms, thou wast not bound to Know'st thou this paper? Gon. Ask me not what I know. [Exit GONERIL. Alb. Go after her: she's desperate; govern her. [To an OFFICER, who goes out. Edm. What you have charg'd me with, that [out; have I done; And more, much more: the time will bring it 'Tis past, and so am 1: But what art thou, That hast this fortune on me? If thou art noble, I do forgive thee. Edg. Let's exchange charity. I am no less in blood than thou art, Edmund; If more, the more thou hast wrong'd me. My name is Edgar, and thy father's son. The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices [1 Trumpet. Make instruments to scourge us: [2 Trumpet. The dark and vicious place where thee he got, 13 Trumpet. Cost him his eyes. [Trumpet answers within. Enter EDGAR, armed, preceded by a Trumpet. Alb. Ask him his purposes, why he appears Upon this call o'the trumpet. Her. What are you? And, when 'tis told, O that my heart would | Speak, Edmund, where's the king? and where's You look as you had something more to say. Alb. If there be more, more woeful, hold it in ; For I am almost ready to dissolve, Edg. This would have seem'd a period [man, Whilst I was big in clamour, came there a Who having seen me in my worst estate, Shunn'd my abhorr'd society: but then, finding Who 'twas that so endur'd, with his strong arms He fasten'd on my neck, and bellow'd out Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him,. And there I left him tranc'd. Alb. But who was this? Edg. Kent, Sir, the banish'd Kent: who in disguise Follow'd his enemy king, and did him service !mproper for a slave. Cordelia ? See'st thou this object, Kent? [The Bodies of GONERIL and REGAN are brought in. Kent. Alack, why thus? Edm. Yet Edmund was belov❜d: Alb. Even so.-Cover their faces. Edm. I pant for life :-Some good I mean to do, Despite of mine own nature. Quickly send,- Alb. Run, run, O run Edg. To who, my lord ?-Who has the office ? send Thy token of reprieve. Edm. Well thought on; take my sword, Give it the captain. Alb. Haste thee, for thy life. [Erit EDGAR. Edm. He hath commission from thy wife and me To hang Cordelia in the prison, and Alb. The gods defend her! Bear him hence awhile. [EDMUND is borne off. Enter LEAR, with CORDELIA dead in his Arms; EDGAR, OFFICER, and others. Lear. Howl, howl, howl, howl!-O you are men of stones; Had I your tongues and eyes, I'd use them so That heaven's vault should crack :-O she is gone for ever! I know when one is dead, and when one lives; Kent. Is this the promis'd end?+ Lear. This feather stirs : she lives! if it be so, Kent. O my good master! Lear. Pr'ythee, away. Edg. 'Tis noble Kent, your friend. [Kneeling. Lear. A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all! [ever! I might have sav'd her; now she's gone for Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little. Ha! Enter a GENTLEMAN hastily, with a bloody What is't thou say'st?-Her voice was ever Knife. soft, [man : Kent. Nor no man else; all's cheerless, dark, | And thou no breath at all! O thou wilt com and deadly. no more, Your eldest daughters have fore-doom'd them-Never, never, never, never, never !— You lords, and noble friends, know our intent. The wages of their virtue, and all foes Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, That would upon the rack of this tough world Stretch him out longer. Edg. O he is gone, indeed. Kent. The wonder is, he hath endur'd so long: He but usurp'd his life. Alb. Bear them from hence.-Our present business Is general woe. Friends of my soul, you twain [To KENT and EDGAR. Rule in this realm, and the gor'd state sustain. Kent. I have a journey, Sir, shortly to go; My master calls, and I must not say, no. Alb. The weight of this sad time we must obey; Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest hath borne most: we, that are young, Shall never see so much, nor live so long. [Exeunt, with a dead March. • Die. MACBETH. LITERARY AND HISTORICAL NOTICE. IN this matchless tragedy Shakspeare has closely adhered to historical fact, excepting that Banquo, out of com pliment to his descendant James I. is excluded from all participation in the murder of Duncan. In the reign of Charles II. the songs of the witches were set to music by the celebrated Matthew Lock, and the play regarded as a semi-opera. The ghosts and witches, though admirably pourtrayed, have been censured as an insult to common sense; and cautions have been held out to the young and uninformed against imbibing the absurd principles of fatalism which are seemingly countenanced in many parts of this piece. But in the time of Shakspeare, the doctrine of witchcraft was at once established by law and by fashion, and it became not only unpolite, but criminal, to doubt it.---King James himself in his dialogues of Damonologie, re-printed in Loudon soon after his succession, has speculated deeply on the illusions of spirits, the compact of witches, &c. ; and our dramatist only turned to his advantage a system universally admitted. In representation, some un. interesting scenes are omitted; many of the witches' dialogues adapted to beautiful music, and a song or two, probably written by Sir W. Davenant, added to the parts. Betterton, amidst many bad alterations, hit upon the plan of making the witches deliver all the prophecies, by which a deal of the trap-work is avoided; and Garrick substituted some excellent passages to be uttered by Macbeth, whilst expiring, in lieu of the disgusting exposure of his head by Macduff. The neatest criticism upon the play, and the most concise record of its historical facts, are contained in the following extract from a standard publication: “Macbeth flourished in Scotland about the middle of the tenth century. At this period Duncan was king, a mild and humane prince, but not at all possessed of the genius requisite for governing a country so turbulent, and so infested by the intrigues and animosities of the great Macbeth, a powerful nobleman, and nearly allied to the crown. Not contented with curbing the king's authority, carried still further his mad ambition; he murdered Duncan at Inverness, and then seized upon the throne. Fearing lest his ill-gotten power should be stripped from him, he chased Malcolm Kenmore, the son and heir, into England, and put to death Mac Gill and Banquo, the two most powerful men in his dominions. Macduff next becoming the object of his suspicion, he escaped into England; but the inhuman usurper wreaked his vengeance on his wife and children, whom he caused to be cruelly butchered. Siward, whose daughter was married to Duncan, embraced, by Edward's orders, the protection of his distressed family. He marched an army into Scotland, and having defeated and killed Macbeth in battle, he restored Malcolm to the throne of his ancestors. The tragedy founded upon the history of Macberb, though contrary to the rules of the drama, contains an infinity of beauties with respect to language, character, passion, and incident; and is thought to be one of the very best pieces of the very best masters in this kind of writing that the world ever produced. The danger of ambition is well described, and the passions are directed to their true ends; so that it is not only admirable as a poem, but one of the most moral pieces existing." of the English Forces. YOUNG SIWARD, his Son. SEYTON, an Officer attending on Macbeth. An English Doctor.-A Scotch Doctor. LADY MACBETH. LADY MACDUFF. Gentlewoman attending on Lady Macbeth. Lords, Gentlemen, Officers, Soldiers, Mur- The Ghost of Banquo, and several other SCENE, in the end of the fourth act, lies in England; through the rest of the play, in Scotland; and, chiefly, at Macbeth's Castle. ACT I. SCENE 1.-An open Place. Thunder and Lightning. Enter three WITCHES. 1 Witch. When shall we three meet again In thunder, lightning, or in rain? 2 Hitch. When the hurlyburly's done, When the battie's lost and won: • Tumult. 3 Witch. That will be ere set of sun. 1 Witch. Where the place? 2 Witch. Upon the heath: 3 Witch. There to meet Macbeth. 1 Witch. I come, Graymalkin I [WITCHES vanish. SCENE II.-A Camp near Fores. Alarum within. Enter King DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENOX, with ATTENDANTS, meeting a bleeding SOLDIER. Dun. What bloody man is that? He can report, As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt Mal. This is the sergeant, Who, like a good and hardy soldier, fought Sold. Doubtfully it stood; As two spent swimmers, that do cling together, And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald (Worthy to be a rebel; for to that The multiplying villanies of nature Do swarm upon him,) from the western isles, Disdaining fortune, with his brandish'd steel, Carv'd out his passage, till he fac'd the slave; And ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him, Till he unseain'd him from the nave to the chaps, And fix'd his head upon our battlements. Dun. O valiant cousin! worthy gentleman! Sold. As whence the sun 'gins his reflection Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break; So from that spring, whence comfort seem'd to Who comes here? Enter ROSSE. Mal. The worthy thane of Rosse. That seems to speak things strange. Dun. Whence cam'st thou, worthy thane? Where the Norweyan banners flout ** the sky, Norway himself, with terrible numbers, The thane of Cawdor, 'gan a dismal conflict: Truth. Make another Golgotha as memorable as the first. Mock. + Shakspeare means Mars. :: Defended by armour of proof. Confronted him with self-comparisons, Dun. Great happiness! Rosse. That now Sweno, the Norways' king, craves composition; Dun. No more that thane of Cawdor, shall deceive Our bosom interest :-Go, pronounce his death, Dun. What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath [Exeunt. won. SCENE III-A Heath-Thunder. Enter the three WITCHES. 1 Witch. Where hast thou been, sister ? 2 Witch. Killing swine. 3 Witch. Sister, where thou? 1 Witch. A Sailor's wife had chesnuts in her lap, And mounch'd, and mounch'd, and mounch'd :Give me, quoth I: Aroint thee, witch! the rump-fed ronyon cries. Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o'the 2 Witch. I'll give thee a wind. 3 Witch. And I another. 1 Witch. I myself have all the other; I will drain him dry as hay: 2 Witch. Show me, show me. 1 Witch. Here I have a pilot's thumb, Wreck'd, as homeward he did come. 3 Witch. A drum, a drum; Macbeth doth come. [Drum within. All. The weird sisters, ¶ hand in hand, Enter MACBETH and BANQUO. are these, So wither'd and so wild in their attire: By each at once her choppy finger laying Macb. Speak, if you can ;-What are you? |