require "So," before "that." Here the Second Folio has accidentally lost a line, the passage standing thus:

Which being taught, return

To plague th'ingredience of our poison'd chalice

To our own lips.

This is worth observing, as an answer to those who profess to decry all departure from the old copies.

That "surcease" may be equivalent to cessation is evident from Romeo and Juliet, Act iv. Sc. 1.

No pulse

Shall keep his natural progress, but surcease to beat.

And that "jump" is used for disregard, may be proved from Cymbeline, Act v. Sc. 4.

Or jump the after-enquiry.

I. 7. MACBeth.

I have no spur

To prick the sides of my intent, but only

Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
And falls on the other.

I do not perceive any difficulty here, when we consider that the image in the Poet's mind was that of a horseman gallantly mounting into his seat. The words "spur" and "vault" plainly shew what was in the Poet's mind. Macbeth says that it is no instigation from without, only the working of ambition within; the purposes of which are often defeated, as a person mounting a horse may take too high a leap, and so, instead of seating himself in the saddle, fall on the other side of the horse. The word "oft" seems lost before "o'erleaps," and the word "side" is wanting to make the sense complete.

I. 7. MACBETH.

I dare do all which may become a man;

Who dares do more is none.

This reading, which is merely conjectural, which has not

the slightest show of authority from the only copies through which we receive any information respecting the true text as it flowed from the pen of Shakespeare, has so established itself in public opinion, and has received such extravagant praise from Dr. Johnson, that he will be thought a rash man who shall attempt to disturb the opinion, and to shew that it is not really what the Poet wrote or intended.

The original is this:

Who dares no more is none,

In the first place, the substitution of "do" for "no" is most violent. It was no in the First Folio, and no was allowed to remain by the editor of the Second. In the second place, if, indeed, Shakespeare meant to express the sentiment, which the line as amended implies, he has written feebly and imperfectly, and left his sense in some, perhaps not inconsiderable, obscurity.

It will be admitted that some change in the text as delivered to us is required; that it cannot stand as it appears in the original editions. The question is, not whether it shall be restored, but how it shall be restored? and I now venture to propose, I believe for the first time, that the second of the two lines shall be given to Lady Macbeth, retaining the exact text of the old copies.

The passage will then stand thus:

MACBETH.-We will proceed no further in this business :

MACBETH.

To be the same in thine own act and valour
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,

And live a coward in thine own esteem,

Letting "I dare not" wait upon
Like the poor cat i' th' adage?

"I would,"

Prithee, peace!

I dare do all that may become a man.

LADY MACBETH.-Who dares no more is none. What was it, then,*
That made you break this enterprise to me?

When you durst do it then you were a man ;
And to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both :
They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
Does unmake you.

Thus much is sufficient to shew the propriety of the proposed regulation. But this is not the only part of the instigation-scene in which passages appear to me to be given to the wrong speaker. It is manifest, on a little consideration of the state of Macbeth's mind, that he could not have used the words given to him,

Will it not be received

When we have marked with blood, &c.

If he had given utterance to any thing like this, he would have said "Will it be received," &c. while the words suit exactly with the state of mind and the objects of the unrelenting lady. Again, with less confidence, the last couplet of the scene appears to me to belong to Lady Macbeth, and not to her husband.

* The original copies read "What beast was't then." I regard the word "beast" as an intruder, and that it has got in thus: a copyist had written "wast" by mistake twice. The first being but imperfectly effaced or cancelled, it would be easily read "beast," the only word like it that could occur. This criticism has nothing to do with the more important points in the regulation of this passage.

The passage, regulated according to this view of it, will then stand thus:

LADY MACBETH.-(In continuation of what she before said.)

I have given suck, and know

How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:

I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums
And dashed the brains out, had I but so sworn
As you have done to this.

MACBETH.-If we should fail!

LADY MACBeth.

We fail!

But screw your courage to the sticking place,
And we'll not fail. When Duncan is asleep,
Whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey
Soundly invite him, his two Chamberlains
Will I with wine and wassel so convince,
That memory, the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume; and the receipt of reason
A limbeck only. When in swinish sleep
Their drenched natures lie as in a death,
What cannot you and I perform upon
Th'unguarded Duncan? What not put upon
His spungy officers, who shall bear the guilt
Of our great quell.

MACBETH.-(Aside.)

LADY MACBETH.

MACBETH.

Bring forth men-children only;
For thy undaunted metal should compose
Nothing but males.

Will it not be received
When we have marked with blood those sleepy two
Of his own chamber, and used their very daggers,
That they have done't. Who dares receive it other,
As we shall make our griefs and clamour roar
Upon his death.

I am settled, and bend up
Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.

LADY MACBETH.-Away, and mock the time with fairest show,

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

Macbeth was to go in to Duncan in accordance with the message brought by the lady.

I. 2. BANQUO

This diamond he greets your wife withal

By the name of "most kind hostess ;" and shut up

In measureless content.

Thus, in all the editions. The commentators are endeavouring to make sense of that which has no sense. "To shut up," says Mr. Steevens, is "to conclude," and he produces authorities, to which Mr. Malone makes an addition. Then comes Mr. Boswell, who "rather supposes it means enclosed in content, content with every thing around him ;" all thinking that Duncan is some way or other "shut up." Now, see the reading of the Second Folio,

This diamond he greets your wife withal

By the name of "most kind hostess ;" and shut it up

In measureless content.

Undoubtedly the jewel in its case.

That jewels were

inclosed in cases is a point which needs not a word of note

to prove.

II. 1. MACBETH.

thus with his stealthy pace,

With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost.

Tarquin seems to have haunted the imagination of Shakespeare from his early days, when he chose the rape of Lucretia as the subject of a poem. He appears in the plays several times, and often unexpectedly, and certainly never less propitiously than here, whether we read with the modern editors strides, or with the former editors, sides. It would a little improve the passage, if for the second" with," we read "or," the two motions of the murderer, stealthy and hasty.

This is usually printed with a comma after "attempt."