Ere human statute purg'd the gentle weal3 ; That, when the brains were out, the man would die, And there an end: but now, they rise again, With twenty mortal murders on their crowns, And push us from our stools: This is more strange Than such a murder is. LADY M. My worthy lord, Your noble friends do lack you. Масв. I do forget: Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends; to all; Come, love and health Then I'll sit down:--Give me some wine, fill full: I drink to the general joy of the whole table, Ghost rises. And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss ; Would he were here! to all, and him, we thirst 5, And all to all". 3 Ere human statute purg'd the GENTLE WEAL;] The gentle weal, is, the peaceable community, the state made quiet and safe by human statutes. Mollia securæ peragebant otia gentes. JOHNSON. In my opinion it meansThat state of innocence which did not require the aid of human laws to render it quiet and secure.' M. MASON. • Do not MUSE at me,] To muse anciently signified to wonder, to be in amaze. So, in King Henry IV. Part II. Act IV.: “I muse, you make so slight a question." Again, in All's Well that Ends Well: "And rather muse, than ask, why I entreat you." STEEVENS. s to all, and him, we THIRST,] We thirst, I suppose, means we desire to drink. So, in Julius Cæsar, Cassius says, when Brutus drinks to him, to bury all unkindness 66 My heart is thirsty for that noble pledge." M. MASON. LORDS. Our duties, and the pledge. MACB. Avaunt! and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee! Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold; Thou hast no speculation in those eyes Which thou dost glare with! LADY M. Think of this, good peers, But as a thing of custom: 'tis no other; 8 And all to all.] i. e. all good wishes to all; such as he had named above, love, health, and joy. WARBURTON. I once thought it should be hail to all, but I now think that the present reading is right. JOHNSON. Timon uses nearly the same expression to his guests, Act I.: "All to you." 66 Again, in King Henry VIII. more intelligibly: "And to you all good health." STEEVENS. 7 - no speculation in those eyes -] So, in the 115th Psalm: eyes have they, but see not." STEEVENS. 8the HYRCAN tiger,] Theobald chooses to read, in opposition to the old copy-"Hyrcanian tiger;" but the alteration was unnecessary, as Dr. Philemon Holland, in his translation of Pliny's Natural History, p. 122, mentions the Hyrcane sea. TOLLET. Sir William D'Avenant unnecessarily altered this to Hircanian tiger, which was followed by Theobald, and others. Hircan tigers are mentioned by Daniel, our author's contemporary, in his Sonnets, 1594: "To Hircan tygers, and to ruthless beares." MALONE. Alteration certainly might be spared in Riche's Second Part of Simonides, 4to. 1584, sign. C1, we have-" Contrariewise these souldiers, like to Hircan tygers, revenge themselves on their own bowelles; some parricides, some fratricides, all homicides." REed. If trembling I inhibit thee, protest me The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow! [Ghost disappears. 9 If trembling I INHIBIT - Inhabit is the original reading, which Mr. Pope changed to inhibit, which inhibit Dr. Warburton interprets refuse. The old reading may stand, at least as well as the emendation. JOHNSON. Inhibit seems more likely to have been the poet's own word, as he uses it frequently in the sense required in this passsage, Othello, Act I. Sc. VII. : "I think their inhibition comes of the late innovation." To inhibit is to forbid. STEEVENS. I have not the least doubt that “inhibit thee," is the true reading. In All's Well that Ends Well, we find, in the second, and all the subsequent folios-" which is the most inhabited sin of the canon," instead of inhibited. The same error is found in Stowe's Survey of London, 4to. 1618, p. 772: "Also Robert Fabian writeth, that in the year 1506, the one and twentieth of Henry the Seventh, the said stewhouses in Southwarke were for a season inhabited, and the doores closed up, but it was not long, saith he, ere the houses there were set open again, so many as were permitted."-The passage is not in the printed copy of Fabian, but that writer left in manuscript à continuation of his Chronicle from the accession of King Henry VII. to near the time of his own death, (1512,) which was in Stowe's possession in the year 1600, but I believe is now lost. By the other slight but happy emendation, the reading thee instead of then, which was proposed by Mr. Steevens, and to which I have paid the respect that it deserved, by giving it a place in my text, this passage is rendered clear and easy. Mr. Steevens's correction is strongly supported by the punctua tion of the old copy, where the line stands-" If trembling I inhabit then, protest," &c. and not-" If trembling I inhabit, then protest," &c. In our author's King Richard II. we have nearly the same thought: "If I dare eat, or drink, or breathe, or live, "I dare meet Surrey in a wilderness." MALONE. Inhabit is the original reading; and it needs no alteration. The obvious meaning is- Should you challenge me to encounter you in the desert, and I, through fear, remain trembling in my castle, then protest me,' &c. Shakspeare here uses the verb inhabit in a neutral sense, to express continuance in a given situation; and Milton has employed it in a similar manner : Unreal mockery', hence !-Why, so ;-being gone, I am a man again.-Pray you, sit still. LADY M. You have displac'd the mirth, broke the good meeting, With most admir'd disorder. MACB. Can such things be, And overcome us like a summer's cloud, Without our special wonder2? You make me strange "Meanwhile inhabit lax, ye powers of heaven!" HENLEY. To inhabit, a verb neuter, may undoubtedly have a meaning like that suggested by Mr. Henley. Thus, in As You Like It: "O knowledge ill-inhabited! worse than Jove in a thatched house!" Inhabited, in this instance, can have no other meaning than lodged. It is not, therefore, impossible, that by inhabit, our author capriciously meant stay within doors.'-If, when you have challenged me to the desert, I sculk in my house, do not hesitate to protest my cowardice. STEEVENS. The reading-" If trembling I inhibit,"-and the explanation of it, derives some support from Macbeth's last words "And damn'd be him that first cries, hold! enough!" I cannot reconcile myself to Henley's or Steevens's explanation. of inhabit. M. MASON. Another instance of inhabit, used as a neuter verb, may be found in Fletcher's Mad Lover: "Her eye inhabits on him." Where a satisfactory meaning can be elicited from the old copy, it is surely taking too great a liberty to introduce an alteration which requires the amendment of two words. Mr. Horne Tooke very strenuously defends the original reading, which, had I been at liberty to do it, I should have retained, but has added no additional argument in its support to what had been already produced. BosWELL. Unreal MOCKERY,] i. e. unsubstantial pageant, as our author calls the vision in The Tempest; or the picture in Timon of Athens, ". a mocking of the life." STEEVENS. 2 Can such things be, And OVERCOME us like a summer's cloud, Without our special wonder?] The meaning is, "Can such wonders as these pass over us without wonder, as a casual summer cloud passes over us?" JOHNSON. No instance is given of this sense of the word overcome, which Even to the disposition that I owe 3, When now I think you can behold such sights, has caused all the difficulty; it is, however, to be found in Spenser's Fairy Queen, b. iii. c. vii. st. 4: 66 A little valley "All covered with thick woods, that quite it overcame." Again, in Chapman's version of the fifteenth Iliad: 66 his eyes were overcome "With fervour, and resembled flames-." Again, in the fourth Iliad : "So (after Diomed) the field was overcome FARMER. "With thick impressions of the Greeks-." STEEvens. Again, in Marie Magdalene's Repentaunce, 1567: "With blode overcome were both his eyen." MALONE. 3 You make me strange Even to the disposition that I owe,] Which, in plain English, is only: " You make me just mad." WARBURTON. 66 You produce in me an alienation of mind; which is probably the expression which our author intended to paraphrase. JOHNSON. I do not think that either of the editors has very successfully explained this passage, which seems to mean,-" You prove to me that I am a stranger even to my own disposition, when I perceive that the very object which steals the colour from my cheek, permits it to remain in yours." In other words, You prove to me how false an opinion I have hitherto maintained of my own courage, when yours, on the trial, is found to exceed it." A thought somewhat similar occurs in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act II. Sc. I. "I'll entertain myself like one I am not acquainted withal." Again, in All's Well That Ends Well, Act V.: : 66 if you know "That you are well acquainted with yourself." STEEVENS. The meaning, I think, is, You render me a stranger to, or forgetful of, that brave disposition which I know I possess, and make me fancy myself a coward, when I perceive that I am terrified by a sight which has not in the least alarmed you.' A passage in As You Like It may prove the best comment on that before us: "If with myself I hold intelligence, "Or have acquaintance with my own desires-." So Macbeth says, he has no longer acquaintance with his own brave disposition of mind: His wife's superior fortitude makes |