Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff3,
Which weighs upon the heart?

Our author's idea might have been caught from the sixth book of the Æneid, where the effects of Lethe are described :

Lethæi ad fluminis undam

Securos latices, et longa oblivia potant.

Thus translated by Phaer, 1558 :

"These liquors quenching cares, and long forgetful draughts thei drink

"That of their liues, and former labours past, they neuer

thinck."

Thus also Statius, Theb. i. 341:

Grata laboratæ referens oblivia vitæ.

STEEVENS.

5 Cleanse the STUFF'D bosom of that perilous stuff,] Stuff'd is the reading of the old copy; but, for the sake of the ear, which must be shocked by the recurrence of so harsh a word, I am willing to read-foul, as there is authority for the change from Shakspeare himself, in As You Like It, Act II. Sc. VI. :

"Cleanse the foul body of the infected world."

We properly speak of cleansing what is foul, but not what is stuffed. STEEVENS.

The recurrence of the word stuff, in this passage, is very unpleasing to the ear, but there is no ground, I think, to suspect the text to be corrupt: for our author was extremely fond of such repetitions. Thus, in Antony and Cleopatra :

"Now for the love of love."

"The greatest grace lending grace."

All's Well that Ends Well.

All's Well that Ends Well.

"Our means will make us means."

"Is only grievous to me, only dying." King Henry VIII. Upon his brow shame is asham'd to sit."

66

Romeo and Juliet.

King John.

"For by this knot thou shalt so surely tie
"Thy now unsur'd assurance to the crown."
Believe me, I do not believe thee, man."
"Those he commands, move only in command —.”

Ibid.

Macbeth.

The words stuff and stuff'd, however mean they may sound at present, have, like many other terms, been debased by time, and appear to have been formerly considered as words proper to be used in passages of the greatest dignity. As such, Shakspeare has employed them in Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, The Winter's Tale, Julius Cæsar, &c. Again, in The Tempest, in a passage where the author certainly aimed at dignity:

DOCT.

Must minister to himself.

Therein the patient

MACB. Throw physick to the dogs, I'll none of

it.

Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff :Seyton, send out.-Doctor, the thanes fly from

me:

Come, sir, despatch :-If thou could'st, doctor, cast
The water of my land, find her disease,
And purge it to a sound and pristine health,
I would applaud thee to the very echo,
That should applaud again.-Pull't off, I say.—

"And, like this unsubstantial pageant, faded,
"Leave not a rack behind.-We are such stuff

"As dreams are made of."

In a note on a passage in Othello, Dr. Johnson observes, that "stuff, in the Teutonick languages, is a word of great force. The elements (he adds) are called in Dutch hoefd stoffen, or headstuffs." MALOne.

The present question is not concerning the dignity of the wordstuffed, but its nauseous iteration, of which no example has been produced by Mr. Malone; for that our author has indulged himself in the repetition of harmonious words, is no proof that he would have repeated harsh ones.

I may venture also (in support of my opinion) to subjoin, that the same gentleman, in a very judicious comment on King Henry IV. Part II. has observed, "that when a word is repeated without propriety, in the same, or two succeeding lines, there is great reason to suspect some corruption." STEEVENS.

To show Mr. Steevens's inconsistency, I will transcribe what he says in Othello, vol. ix. p. 316, on the line

"If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trash."

"It is scarce necessary to support the present jingle of the word trash; it is so much in our author's manner, although his worst." Is trash more harmonious than stuff? Boswell.

cast

The water of my land,] "To cast the water" was the phrase in use for finding out disorders by the inspection of urine. So, in Eliosto Libidinoso, a novel, by John Hinde, 1606: "Lucilla perceiving, without casting her water, where she was pained," &c. Again, in The Wise Woman of Hogsdon, 1638: "Mother Nottingham, for her time, was pretty well skilled in casting waters."

STEEVENS.

What rhubarb, senna", or what purgative drug, Would scour these English hence ?-Hear'st thou of them?

DocT. Ay, my good lord; your royal preparation Makes us hear something.

MACB.

Bring it after me.

[Exit.

I will not be afraid of death and bane,

Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.

DOCT. Were I from Dunsinane away and clear, Profit again should hardly draw me here.

[Exit.

SCENE IV.

Country near Dunsinane: A Wood in view.

Enter, with Drum and Colours, MALCOLM, old SIWARD and his Son, MACDUff, Menteth, CathNESS, ANGUS, LENOX, ROSSE, and Soldiers marching.

MAL. Cousins, I hope, the days are near at hand, That chambers will be safe.

6

MENT.

We doubt it nothing.

The wood of Birnam.

SIW. What wood is this before us?
MENT.

MAL. Let every soldier hew him down a bough',

senna,] The old copy reads-cyme. STEEVENS. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE.

Let every soldier hew him down a bough,] A similar incident is recorded by Olaus Magnus, in his Northern History, lib. vii. cap. xx. "De Stratagemate Regis Hachonis per Frondes:

"Nec accelerationi prospera fortuna defuit: nam primam et secundam vigilum stationem suspenso tacitoque itinere prætervectus, cum ad extremas sylvarum latebras devenisset, jussit abscissos arborum ramos singulorum suorum manibus gestari. Quod cum milites in tertiâ statione constituti adverterant, mox Sigaro nuntiant se insolitam et stupendam rei novitatem admirantibus oculis subjecisse. Visum quippe erat nemus suis sedibus evulsum ad regiam usque properare. Tum Sigarus animo ad insidiarum conVOL. XI.

S

And bear't before him; thereby shall we shadow The numbers of our host, and make discovery Err in report of us.

SOLD.

It shall be done.

SIW. We learn no other, but the confident tyrant Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure Our setting down before't.

MAL.

"Tis his main hope:

For where there is advantage to be given,
Both more and less have given him the revolt 9;

8

siderationem converso, respondit, eo sylvarum accessu sibi extrema fata portendi." BOSWELL.

8 But the CONFIDENT tyrant-] We must surely read—

the confin'd tyrant." WARBURTON.

He was confident of success; so confident that he would not fly, but endure their setting down before his castle. JOHNSON. 9 For where there is ADVANTAGE TO be given,

Both more and less have given him the revolt;] The impropriety of the expression "advantage to be given," instead of "advantage given," and the disagreeable repetition of the word given, in the next line, incline me to read:

where there is a 'vantage to be gone,

"Both more and less have given him the revolt."

Advantage or 'vantage, in the time of Shakspeare, signified opportunity. "He shut up himself and his soldiers (says Malcolm) in the castle, because when there is an opportunity to be gone, they all desert him."

More and less is the same with greater and less. So, in the interpolated Mandeville, a book of that age, there is a chapter of India the More and the Less. JOHNSON.

I would read, if any alteration were necessary:

"For where there is advantage to be got."

But the words, as they stand in the text, will bear Dr. Johnson's explanation, which is most certainly right." For wherever an opportunity of flight is given them," &c.

More and less, for greater and less, is likewise found in Chaucer: "From Boloigne is the erle of Pavie come,

"Of which the fame yspronge to most and leste.”

Again, in Drayton's Polyolbion, Song the 12th:

"Of Britain's forests all from th' less unto the more."

Again, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, b. v. c. viii.:

66

all other weapons lesse or more,

"Which warlike uses had devis'd of yore." STEEVENS. "Where there is advantage to be given," I believe, means,

And none serve with him but constrained things, Whose hearts are absent too.

MACD.

Let our just censures

Attend the true event', and put we on

Industrious soldiership.

The time approaches,

That will with due decision make us know

What we shall say we have, and what we owe 2.

where advantageous offers are made to allure the adherents of Macbeth to forsake him. HENLEY.

I suspect that given was caught by the printer's eye glancing on the subsequent line, and strongly incline to Dr. Johnson's emendation-gone. MALONE.

Why is the repetition of the word-given, less venial than the recurrence of the word stuff'd, in a preceding page? See Mr. Malone's objections to my remark on "Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff," p. 255. STEEVENS.

Mr. Malone does not here object to the repetition of the word, but to its meaning. BosWELL.

1 Let our JUST censures

ATTEND the true event,] The arbitrary change made in the second folio (which some criticks have represented as an improved edition) is here worthy of notice:

"Let our best censures

"Before the true event, and put we on," &c.

MALONE.

Surely, a few errors in a few pages of a book, do not exclude all idea of improvement in other parts of it. I cherish this hope for my own sake, as well as for that of other commentators on Shakspeare. STEEVENS.

2 What we shall say we HAVE, and what we owв.] i. e. perty and allegiance. WARBURTton.

pro

When we are governed by legal kings, we shall know the limits of their claim, i. e. shall know what we have of our own, and what they have a right to take from us.

Mr. Henley explains the passage thus: "The issue of the contest will soon decide what we shall say we have, and what may be accounted our own." To owe here is to possess. STEEVENS. Had these lines been put into the mouth of any of the Scottish Peers, they might possibly bear the meaning that Steevens contends for; but as they are supposed to be spoken by Siward, who was not to be governed either by Malcolm or Macbeth, they can scarcely admit of that interpretation. Siward probably only means to say, in more pompous language, that the time approached which was to decide their fate. M. MASON.