Enter a Servant.

SCENE II. The Country near Dunsinane. Enter, with Drum and Colours, MENTETH, CATHNESS, The devil damn thee black, thou cream-fac'd loon !" ANGUS, LENOx, and Soldiers.

Ment. The English power is near, led on by
Malcolm,

His uncle Siward, and the good Macduff.
Revenges burn in them: for their dear causes
Would, to the bleeding, and the grim alarm,
Excite the mortified man.2

Ang.

Near Birnam wood
Shall we well meet them; that way are they coming.
Cath. Who knows, if Donalbaín be with his bro-
ther?

Len. For certain, sir, he is not: I have a file
Of all the gentry; there is Siward's son,
And many unrough youths, that even now
Protest their first of manhood.

Ment.
What does the tyrant?
Cath. Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies:
Some say, he's mad; others, that lesser hate him,
Do call it valiant fury: but, for certain,
He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause
Within the belt of rule.

Now does he feel

Ang.
His secret murders sticking on his hands;
Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;
Those he commands, move only in command,
Nothing in love: now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.

Ment.

Who then shall blame

To give obedience where 'tis truly ow'd:
Meet we the medecin of the sickly weal;
And with him pour we, in our country's purge,
Each drop of us.

Len.

Or so much as it needs,
To dew the sovereign flower, and drown the weeds.
Make we our march towards Birnam.

[Exeunt, marching. SCENE III. Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle. Enter MACBETH, Doctor, and Attendants. Macb. Bring me no more reports; let them fly all;

Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane,
I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm!
Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know
All mortal consequence, have pronounc'd me thus :
Fear not, Macbeth; no man, that's born of woman,
Shall e'er have power upon thee.- -Then fly, false
thanes,

And mingle with the English epicures:
The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear,
Shall never sagg' with doubt, nor shake with fear.

Where gott'st thou that goose look?
Serv. There is ten thousand-

Macb.

Serv.

Geese, villain?
Soldiers, sir.

Macb. Go, prick thy face, and over-red thy fear,
Thou lily-liver'd boy. What soldiers, patch ?*
Death of thy soul! those linen cheeks of thine
Are counsellors to fear,10 What soldiers, whey-
face?

Serv. The English force, so please you.
Macb. Take thy face hence.-Seyton!-I am
sick at heart,

When I behold-Seyton, I say!-This push
Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now.
I have liv'd long enough: my way of life
Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf:
And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses, not loud, but deep, mouth-honour, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, but dare not
Seyton!

1 Duncan had two sons by his wife, who was the daughter of Siward, Earl of Northumberland.-Holinshed.

2 By the mortified man is meant a religious man; one who has mortified his passions, is dead to the world, has abandoned it, and all the affairs of it; an ascetic. 3 And many unrough youths. This odd expression means smooth-faced, unbearded.

How does your patient, doctor?

Doct.

Not so sick, my lord,
As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies,
That keep her from her rest.

Macb.
Cure her of that:
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd;13
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
Raze out the written troubles of the brain;
And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff,
Which weighs upon the heart?
Doct.
Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.
Macb. Throw physic 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 couldst, doctor, cast
The water of my land,14 find her disease,

9 Putch, an appellation of contempt, signifying fool or low wretch.

10 i. e. they infect others who see them with cowardice. In King Henry V. the King says to the conspi rators, 'Your cheeks are paper.'

11 Sear is dry, withered. We have the same exprassion and sentiment in Spenser's Pastorals:

Also my lustful leaf is drie and seare. For way of life' Johnston would read May of life in which he was followed by Steevens and others. War burton contended for the original reading, and was

4 i. e. when all the faculties of the mind are employ-lowed by Mason. At a subsequent period Steevens

ed in self-condemnation.

5 The medecin, the physician. In the Winter's Tale, Camillo is called by Perdita the medecin of our house, 6 Shakspeare derived this thought from Holinshed: -The Scottish people before had no knowledge of nor understanding of fine fare or riotous surfeit; yet after they had once tasted the sweet poisoned bait thereof,' &c. those superfluities which came into the realme of Scotland with Englishmen.'-Hist. of Scotland, p. 179. 7 To sag, or swag, is to hang down by its own weight, or by an overload.

8cream-fac'd loon.' This word, which signifies a base abject fellow, is now only used in Scotland; it was formerly common in England, but spelt lown, and is justly considered by Horne Tooke as the past parti. ciple of to low or abase. Lowt has the same origin.

acquiesced in the propriety of the old reading, was life, which he interprets, with his predecessors, courag or progress. Malone followed the same tract. The fact is that these ingenious writers have mistaken the phrase, which is neither more nor less than a simple periphrasis for life.

12 i. e. scour the country round.

13 The following very remarkable passage in the Amadigi of Bernardo Tasso, which bears a striking resen blance to the words of Macbeth, was first pointed out in Mr. Weber's edition of Ford :

'Ma chi puote con erbe, od argomenti
Guarir l'infermita del intelletto?

Cant. xxxvi. St. St. 14 To cast the water was the empiric phrase for find ing out disorders by the inspection of urine.

1

1

1

Bring it after me.———

I will not be afraid of death and bane,
Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane. [Exit.
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, MAL-
COLM, 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.

Ment.

We doubt it nothing.
She. What wood is this before us?
Ment.

The wood of Birnam.
Mal. Let every soldier hew him down a bough,
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.

Sey. It is the cry of women, my good lord.
Macb. I have almost forgot the taste of fears:
The time has been, my senses would have cool'd
To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse, and stir
As life were in't: I have supp'd full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaught'rous thoughts,
Cannot once start me.-Wherefore was that cry?
Sey. The queen, my lord, is dead.
Macb. She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word."
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
And all our yesterdays have lighted foo's
To the last syllable of recorded time;10
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.-

Enter a Messenger.

Thou com'st to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.
shall report that which I say I saw,
Mess. Gracious my lord,

I

But know not how to do it.

Macb.

Well, say, sir.

Mess. As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,

Siw. We learn no other, but the confident tyrant The wood began to move.
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,3
Both more and less have given him the revolt;
And none serve with him but constrained things,
Whose hearts are absent too.

[Exeunt, marching.

Liar and slave!!!

Macb.
Mess. Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so:
Within this three mile may you see it coming;
I say, a moving grove.
Mach.

If thou speak'st false,
Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,
Till famine cling12 thee: if thy speech be sooth,
I care not if thou dost for me as much.-
I pall in resolution; and begin

To doubt the equivocation of the fiend,

That lies like truth: Fear not, till Birnam wood

Do come to Dunsinane ;—and now a wood

Comes toward Dunsinane.-Arm, arm, and out!---
If this, which he avouches, does appear,
There is nor flying hence, nor tarrying here,
I'gin to be a-weary of the sun,

And wish the estate o' the world were now undone.

SCENE V. Dunsinane. Within the Castle. En-Ring the alarum-bell :-Blow, wind! come, wrack! ter, with Drums and Colours, MACBETH, SEY-At least we'll die with harness on our back. TON, and Soldiers.

Macb. Hang out our banners on the outward walls;
The cry is still, They come: Our castle's strength'
Will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie,
Till famine and the ague eat them up:
Were they not forc'd with those that should be ours,
We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,
And beat them backward home. What is that
noise ?
[A cry within, of women.

What rhubarb, senna.' The old copy reads cyme.
The emendation is Rowe's.

2 A similar incident is recorded by Olaus Magnus, in his Northern History, lib. vii. cap. xx. De Strategeinate Hachonis per Frondes.

3 For where there is advantage to be given.' Dr. Johnson thought that we should read:

where there is a vantage to be gone.' i. e. where there is an opportunity to be gone, all ranks desert him. We might perhaps read :

where there is advantage to be gained;' and the sense would be nearly similar, with less violence to the text of the old copy.

4 i. e. Greater and less, or high and low, those of all

SCENE VI. The same. A Plain before the Cas-
Enter with Drums and Colours, MALCOLM,
Old SIWARD, MACDUFF, &c. and their Army,
with Boughs.

Mal. Now near enough; your leavy screens
throw down,

stroy the effect, and defeat the supposed purpose of the antecedent couplets.

8- my fell of hair,' my hairy part, my capilititium. Fell is skin, properly a sheep's skin with the wool on it. 9 There would have been a time for such a word.' Macbeth might mean that there would have been a more convenient time for such a word, for such intelligence. By a word certainly more than a single one was meant.

10 The last sylle of recorded time' seems to sig. nify the utmost period fixed in the decrees of heaven for the period of life. The record of futurity is indeed no accurate expression; but as we only know transactions, past or present, the language of men affords no term for the volumes of prescience in which future events may be supposed to be written.

11 [Striking him] says the stage direction in the margin of all the modern editions: but this stage direc. tion is not in the old copies: it was first interpolated by Rowe; and is now omitted on the suggestion of the late Mr. Kemble. See his Essay on Macbeth and King Richard III. Lond. 1817, p. 111.

12 To cling, in the northern counties, signifies to shrivel, wither, or dry up. Clung-wood is wood of which the sap is entirely uried or spent. The same idea is well expressed by Pope in his version of the nineteenth Iliad, 166:

Clung with dry famine, and with toils declin'd.' 13 Harness, armour.

Macb. Why should I play the Roman fool, and Had I as many sons as I have hairs,

I would not wish them to a fairer death:10
And so his knell is knoll'd.

9 To cry hold! was the word of yielding (according to Carew's Survey of Cornwall, p. 74,) that is whea one of the combatants cries so. To cry heid! whea persons were fighting, was an authoritative way of sepAl-arating them, according to the old military laws This is shown by the following passage produced by Mr. Tollet: it declares it to be a capital offence Whosoever shall strike stroke at his adversary, either in the heat or otherwise, if a third do cry hold, to the intent to part them.'-Bellay's Instructions for the Wars, 1599.

Mal.

He's worth more sorrow, | Which would be planted newly with the time,--
As calling home our exil'd friends abroad,
That fled the snares of watchful tyranny;
Producing forth the cruel ministers

And that I'll spend for him.
Siw.
He's worth no more;
They say, he parted well, and paid his score:
And so, God be with him!-Here comes newer
comfort.

Re-enter MACDUFF, with MACBETH's Head on a

Pole.'

Macd. Hail, king! for so thou art; Behold,
where stands

The usurper's cursed head: the time is free:
I see thee compass'd with thy kingdom's pearl,2
That speak my salutation in their minds;
Whose voices I desire aloud with mine,—
Hail, king of Scotland!
All.

Hail, king of Scotland!
[Flourish.
Mal. We shall not spend a large expense of
time,

Before we reckon with your several loves,
And make us even with you. My thanes and kins-

men,

Henceforth be earls, the first that ever Scotland
In such an honour nam'd. What's more to do,

1 These words, on a pole,' Mr. Steevens added to the stage direction from the Chronicle. The stage directions of the players are often incorrect, and sometimes ludicrous.

2 Thy kingdom's pearl,' thy kingdom's wealth or ornament. Rowe altered this to peers, without authority. 3 To spend an expense of time is, it is true, an awk. ward expression, yet it is probably correct; for, in the Comedy of Errors, Act iii. Sc. 1, Antipholus of Ephesus says This jest shall cost me some expense.'

Of this dead butcher, and his fiendlike queen;
Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands
Took off her life;-this, and what needful else
That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace,
We will perform in measure, time, and place:
So thanks to all at once, and to each one,
Whom we invite to see us crown'd at Scone.
[Flourish. Exeunt.

THIS play is deservedly celebrated for the propriety of its fictions, and solemnity, grandeur, and variety of its action; but it has no nice discriminations of character: the events are too great to admit the influence of particular dispositions, and the course of the action necessarily determines the conduct of the agents.

The danger of ambition is well described; and I know not whether it may not be said, in defence of some parts which now seem improbable, that in Shakspeare's time it was necessary to warn credulity against vain and illusive predictions.

The passions are directed to their true end. Lady Macbeth is merely detested; and though the courage of Macbeth preserves some esteem, yet every reader rejoices at his fall. JOHNSON.

4 Malcolm, immediately after his coronation, called a parliament at Forfair; in the which he rewarded them with lands and livings that had assisted him against Macbeth. Manie of them that were before thones were at this time made earles; as Fife, Menteith, Atholl, Levenox, Murrey, Caithness, Rosse, and Angus.-Holinshed's History of Scotland, p. 176.

KING JOHN.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

THIS historical play was founded on a former drama, I do the deed, and the sententious brevity of the close, entitled 'The Troublesome Raigne of John, King of manifest that consummate skill and wonderful knowEngland, with the Discoverie of King Richard Cordelion's base Son, vulgarly named the Bastard Fawconbridge: also the Death of King John at Swinstead Abbey. As it was (sundry times) publikely acted by the Queenes Majesties Players in the honourable Cittie of London." This piece, which was in two parts, was printed at London for Sampson Clarke, 1591,' without the author's name: was again republished in 1611, with the letters W. Sh. in the title-page; and afterwards, in 1622, with the name of William Shakspeare at length. It may be found by the curious reader among the Six Old Plays on which Shakspeare founded,' &c. published by Mr. Steevens and Mr. Nichols some years since.

Shakspeare has followed the old play in the conduct of its plot, and has even adopted some of its lines. The number of quotations from Horace, and similar scraps of learning scattered over this motley piece, ascertain it to have been the work of a scholar. It contains likewise a quantity of rhyming Latin and ballad metre; and, in a scene where the Bastard is represented as plundering a monastery, there are strokes of humour which, from their particular turn, were most evidently produced by another hand than that of Shakspeare. Pope attributes the old play to Shakspeare and Rowley conjointly; but we know not on what foundation. Dr. Farmer thinks there is no doubt that Rowley wrote the old play; and when Shakspeare's play was called for, and could not be procured from the players, a piratical bookseller reprinted the old one under his name.

Though, as Johnson observes, King John is not written with the utmost power of Shakspeare,' yet it has parts of preeminent pathos and beauty, and charac. ters highly interesting drawn with great force and truth. The scene between John and Hubert is perhaps one of the most masterly and striking which our poet ever penned. The secret workings of the dark and turbulent soul of the usurper, ever shrinking from the full developement of his own bloody purpose, the artful expressions of grateful attachment by which he wins Hubert to

ledge of human character which are to be found in Shakspeare alone. But what shall we say of that heart-rending scene between Hubert and Arthur? a scene so deeply affecting the soul with terror and pity, that even the sternest bosom must melt into tears; it would perhaps be too overpowering for the feelings, were it not for the alleviating influence of the innocence and artless eloquence of the poor child.' His death afterwards, when he throws himself from the prison walls, excites the deepest commiseration for his hapless fate. The maternal grief of Constance, moving the haughty unbending soul of a proud queen and affectionate mother to the very confines of the most hopeless despair, bordering on madness, is no less finely conceived, than sustained by language of the most impassioned and vehement eloquence. How exquisitely beautiful are the following lines:

'Grief fills the room up of my absent child; Lies in his bed; walks up and down with me; Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, Remembers me of all his gracious parts, Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form; Then have I reason to be fond of grief.' Shakspeare has judiciously preserved the character of the Bastard Faulconbridge, which was furnished him by the old play, to alleviate by his comic humour the poignant grief excited by the too painful events of the tragic part of the play. Faulconbridge is a favourite with every one: he is not only a man of wit, but an heroic soldier; and we lean toward him from the first for the good humour he displays in his litigation with his brother respecting the succession to his supposed father:

'He hath a trick of Cœur de Lion's face, The very spirit of Plantagenet!' This bespeaks our favour toward him his courage, his wit, and his frankness secure it.

Schlegel has remarked that, in this play, the political and warlike events are dressed out with solemn

pomp, for the very reason that they possess but little fortune by similar means, and wishes rather to being true grandeur. The falsehood and selfishness of the monarch are evident in the style of the manifesto; conventional diguity is most indispensable when personal dignity is wanting. Faulconbridge ridicules the secret springs of politics without disapproving them, but frankly confesses that he is endeavouring to make his

to the deceivers than the deceived. Our commiseration
is a little excited for the fallen and degraded monarch
toward the close of the play. The death of the king
and his previous suffering are not among the least in-
pressive parts; they carry a pointed moral.
Malone places the date of the composition in 1506.

KING JOHN:

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

PRINCE HENRY, his Son; afterwards King Henry III.
ARTHUR, Duke of Bretagne, Son of Geffrey, late
Duke of Bretagne, the elder Brother of King John.
WILLIAM MARESHALL, Earl of Pembroke.
GEFFREY FITZ-PETER, Earl of Essex, chief Jus-
ticiary of England.

WILLIAM LONGSWORD, Earl of Salisbury.
ROBERT BIGOT, Earl of Norfolk.

HUBERT DE BURGH, Chamberlain to the King.
ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE, Son of Sir Robert
Faulconbridge:

PHILIP FAULCONBRIDGE, his Half-brother, Bas-
tard Son to King Richard the First.

JAMES GURNEY, Servant to Lady Faulconbridge.
PETER of Pomfret, a Prophet.

PHILIP, King of France.
LEWIS, the Dauphin.

ACT I.

SCENE I. Northampton. A Room of State in
the Palace. Enter KING JOHN, QUEEN ELINOR,
PEMBROKE, ESSEX, SALISBURY, and others, with
CHATILLON.

King John.

Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us?
Chat. Thus, after greeting, speaks the king of
France,

In my behaviour,' to the majesty,
The borrow'd majesty of England here.

Eli. A strange beginning ;-borrow'd majesty!
K. John. Silence, good mother; hear the em-
bassy.

Chat. Philip of France, in right and true behalf
Of thy deceased brother Geffrey's son,
Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim
To this fair island, and the territories;

To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine:
Desiring thee to lay aside the sword,
Which sways usurpingly these several titles;
And put the same into young Arthur's hand,
Thy nephew, and right royal sovereign.

K. John. What follows, if we disallow of this?
Chat. The proud control of fierce and bloody

war,

To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld.

K. John. Here have we war for war, and blood for blood,

Controlment for controlment: so answer France. Chat. Then take my king's defiance from my mouth,

The furthest limit of my embassy.

So, hence! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath,
And sullen' presage of your own decay.-
An honourable conduct let him have:-
Pembroke, look to't; Farewell, Chatillon.

[Exeunt CHATILLON and PEMBROKE.
Eli. What now, my son? have I not ever said,
How that ambitious Constance would not cease,
Till she had kindled France, and all the world,
Upon the right and party of her son?
This might have been prevented and made whole,
With very easy arguments of love!
Which now the manage of two kingdoms must
With fearful bloody issue arbitrate.

K. John. Our strong possession, and our right
for us.

Eli. Your strong possession, much more than
your right;

Or else it must go wrong with you, and me:
So much my conscience whispers in your ear;
Which none but heaven, and you, and I, shall hear.
Enter the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, whe
whispers Essex.

Essex. My liege, here is the strangest contro-
versy,

Come from the country to be judg'd by you,
That e'er I heard: Shall I produce the men?
K. John. Let them approach. [Exit Sheriff.
Our abbies, and our priories, shall pay
Re-enter Sheriff, with ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE,
and PHILIP, his bastard Brother."

This expedition's charge.-What men are you?
Bast. Your faithful subject, I, a gentleman,

K. John. Bear mine to him, and so depart in Born in Northamptonshire; and eldest son,

peace:

Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France;
For ere thou canst report I will be there,
The thunder of my cannon shall be heard:

1 In my behaviour probably means 'In the words and action I am now going to use."

2 Control here means constraint or compulsion. 3 i. e. gloomy, dismal.

4 i. e. conduct, administration.

5 Shakspeare in adopting the character of Philip Faulconbridge from the old play, proceeded on the following slight hint :

Next them a bastard of the king's deceas'd,
A hardie wild-head, rough and venturous.'
The character is compounded of two distinct person.

As I suppose, to Robert Faulconbridge;
A soldier, by the honour-giving hand
Of Coeur-de-lion knighted in the field.
K. John. What art thou?

ages. 'Sub illius temporis curriculo Falcasius de Brente, Neusteriensis, et spurius ex parte matris, atque Bastardus, qui in vili jumento manticato ad Regis paulo ante clientelam descenderat.' Mathew Paris.-Holinshed says that Richard I. had a natural son named Philip, who, in the year following, killed the Viscount de Limoges to revenge the death of his father. Perhaps the name of Faulconbridge was suggested by the fol lowing passage in the continuation of Harding's Chro nicle, 1543, fol. 24, 6:- One Faulconbridge, th' eris of Kent his bastarde, a stoute-hearted man."