Gon. Holloa, holloa!

That eye that told you so, look'd but a-squint. •
Reg. Lady, I am not well; else I should answer
From a full-flowing stomach.-General,
Take thou my soldiers, prisoners, patrimony;
Dispose of them, of me; the walls are thine:
Witness the world, that I create thee here
My lord and master.

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.
Reg. Let the drum strike, and prove my title
[To EDMUND.
Alb. Stay yet; hear reason:-Edmund, I
arrest thee

thine.

On capital treason; and, in thy arrest,
This gilded serpent: [Pointing to GON.]-for
your claim, fair sister,

I bar it in the interest of my wife;
'Tis she is sub-contracted to this lord,
And I, her husband, contradict your bans.
If you will marry, make your love to me,
My lady is bespoke.

Gon. An interlude!

Gloster :-Let

Alb. Thou art arm'd,
trumpet sound:
If none appear to prove upon thy person,
Thy heinous, manifest, and many treasons,
There is my pledge; [Throwing down a Glove.]
I'll prove it on thy heart,
Ere I taste bread, thou art in nothing less
Than I have here proclaim'd thee.

Reg. Sick, O, sick!

[Aside.

Gon. If not, I'll ne'er trust poison.
Edm. There's my exchange: [Throwing down
a Glove.] what in the world he is
That names me traitor, villain-like he lies:
Call by thy trumpet: he that dares approach,
On him, on you, (who not ?) I will maintain
My truth and honour firmly.

Alb. A herald, ho!

Edm. A herald, ho, a herald !
Alb. Trust to thy single virtue!

for thy

diers, All levied in my name, have in my name Took their discharge.

Reg. This sickness grows upon me.

Edm. Sound.

Her. Again.
Her. Again.

Enter a HERALD.

Alb. She is not well; convey her to my tent. [Exit REGAN, led. Come hither, herald,-Let the trumpet sound,— And read out this.

Off. Sound, trumpet. [A Trumpet sounds.

sol

HERALD reads.

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.

I come to cope withal.

Alb. Which is that adversary?

Edm. In wisdom I should ask thy name : → But, since thy outside looks so fair and warlike, [breathes, And that thy tongue some 'say of breeding What safe and nicely I might well delay the By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn: Back do I toss these treasons to thy head; With the heli-hated lie o'erwhelm thy heart; Which, (for they yet glance by, and scarcely bruise,) [way, This sword of mine shall give them instant Where they shall rest for ever.-Trumpets,

speak.

Edg. What's he, that speaks for Edmund earl of Gloster ?

Your name, your quality? and why you answer
This present summons?

Edg. Know, my name is lost;

By treason's tooth bare-gnawn, and cankerbit:
Yet am I noble, as the adversary

Alluding to the proverb: "Love being jealous makes a good eye look a-squint.”

The hinderance.

11. c. Valour.

To prove upon thy heart, whereto I speak
Thou liest.

[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 answer

An unknown opposite: thou art not vanquish'd,
But cozen'd and beguil'd.

Alb. Shut your mouth, dame,

Or with this paper shall I stop it :-Hold, Sir:Thou worse than any name, read thine own evil:

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,

3 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?

No tearing, lady; I perceive, you know it.
[Gives the Letter to EDMUND.
Gon. Say, if I do; the laws are mine, not
Who shall arraign me for't?
Alb. Most monstrous!
Know'st thou this paper?

[thine:

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 have I done; [out; 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.

Edm. Thou hast spoken right, 'tis true;
The wheel is come full circle: 1 am here.

Alb. Methought, thy very gait did prophesy
A royal nobleness :-I must embrace thee;
Let sorrow split my heart, if ever I
Did hate thee, or thy father I

Scene III.

KING LEAR.

And, when 'tis told, O that my heart would | Speak, Edmund, where's the king? and where's

Durst!

Cordelia ?

The bloody proclamation to escape,

That follow'd me so near, (0 our lives' sweetness!

That with the pain of death we'd hourly die, Rather than die at once!) taught me to shift luto a madman's rags; to assume

a

sem

blance

That very dogs disdain'd: and in this habit
Met I my father with his bleeding rings,
Their precious stones new lost; became his
[despair:
guide,
Led him, begg'd for him, sav'd him from
Never (O fault!) reveal'd myself unto him,
Until some half hour past, when I was arm'd,
Not sure, though hoping, of this good success,
I ask'd his blessing, and from first to last
Told him my pilgrimage: But his flaw'd

heart,

(Alack, too weak the conflict to support!) Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief, Burst smilingly.

Edm. This speech of your's hath mov'd me, do good: but speak And shall, perchance, you on; You look as you had something more to say. Alb. If there be more, more woeful, hold it in;

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:
The one the other poison'd for my sake,
And after slew herself.

Alb. Even so.-Cover their faces.

Edm. I pant for life :-Some good I mean to
do,

Despite of mine own nature. Quickly send,-
Be brief in it,-to the castle; for my writ
Is on the life of Lear, and on Cordelia ;-
Nay, send in time.

For I am almost ready to dissolve,
Hearing of this.

Edg. This would have seem'd a period
To such as love not sorrow; but another,
To amplify too much, would make much more,
[man,
And top extremity.
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

. For ever.

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

He fasten'd on my neck, and bellow'd out
As he'd burst heaven; threw him on my fa-
ther;

Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him,.
That ever ear receiv'd: which in recounting
His grief grew puissant, and the strings of life
Began to crack: Twice then the trumpet
sounded,

And there I left him tranc'd.

Alb. Run, run, O run

Edg. To who, my lord ?-Who has the office? send

To hang Cordelia in the prison, and
To lay the blame upon her own despair,
That she fordid herself. ⚫

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;
She's dead as earth;-Lend me a looking-glass;
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
Why, then she lives.

Kent. Is this the promis'd end ? +

Alb. But who was this?

Edg. Kent, Sir, the banish'd Kent: who in
disguise
Follow'd his enemy king, and did him service
Improper for a slave.

Enter a GENTLEMAN hastily, with a bloody
Knife.
Gent. Help! help! O help!

Edg. What kind of help?
Alb. Speak, man.

Eg. What means that bloody knife?
Gent. 'Tis hot, it smokes ;

It came even from the heart of

Edg. Or image of that horror?

Alb. Fall, and cease! ‡

Lear. This feather stirs : she lives! if it be so,
It is a chance that does redeem all sorrows
That ever I have felt.

[Kneeling.

Kent. O my good master!

Lear. Pr'ythee, away.

Edg. 'Tis noble Kent, your friend. Lear. A plague upon you, murderers, traitors [ever!all! I might have sav'd her; now she's gone for Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little. Ha! What is't thou say'st ?-Her voice was [man :soft, Gentle, and low; an excellent thing in woI kill'd the slave that was a hanging thee. Off. 'Tis true, my lords, he did. Lear. Did I not, fellow?

ever

[chion

I have seen the day, with my good biting faul-
I would have made them skip: I am old now,
And these same crosses spoil me.-Who are
[straight.
you?
Mine eyes are none o'the best:-I'll tell you
Kent. If fortune brag of two she lov'd and
[hated,
One of them we behold.
Lear. This is a dull sight: Are you not
Kent?

[Caius ?
Kent. The same:
Where is your servant
Your servant Kent:
Lear. He's a good fellow, I can tell you
[rotten.
that;
He'll strike, and quickly too :-He's dead and
Kent. No, my good lord; I am the very
man ;-

Lear. I'll see that straight.

Kent. That, from your first of difference and
Have follow'd your sad steps.
Lear. You are welcome hither.

[decay,

All. Who, man? speak.

Gent. Your lady, Sir, your lady: and her By her is poison'd; she confesses it.

[sister

Edm. I was coutracted to them both; all Now marry in an instant.

[three

Alb. Produce their bodies, be they alive or
dead!-
This judgment of the heavens, that makes us
tremble,

Touches us not with pity. [Exit GENTLEMAN.
Enter KENT.

Edg. Here comes Kent, Sir.

Abb. O it is be.

The time will not allow the compliment,

Which very manners urges.

A ́ent. I am come

•

To bid my king and master aye good night;
Is be not here?

Alb. Great thing of us forgot !—

• Destroyed herself.

The end of the world, or the horrible circumstan
ces preceding it?
11. e. Die ; Albany speaks to Lear.

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!—
selves,

And desperately are dead.
Lear. Ay, so I think.

Alb. He knows not what he says; and vain
That we present us to him.
[it is
Edg. Very bootless. •

Pray you, undo this button: Thank you, Sir.-Do you see this? Look on her,-look,—ber lips,

[He dies.

Look there, look there!-
Edg. He faints -My lord, my lord,-
Kent. Break, heart; I pr'ythee, break I
Edg. Look up, my lord.

Kent. Vex not his ghost: O let him pass!⚫
he hates him,

That would upon the rack of this tough world
Stretch him out longer.

Edg. O he is gone, indeed.

Kent. The wouder 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 bath borne most: we, that are young,
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.
[Exeunt, with a dead March.

• Die.

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 re-
garded 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 Domonologie, re-printed in Lou-
don 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 exp ing, in lie of the disgust.
ing 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 in-
trigues and animosities of the great Macbeth, a powerful nobleman, and nearly allied to the crown. Not con-
tented with curbing the king's authority, carried still further his mad ambition; he murdered Duncan at In-
verness, and then seized upon the throne. Fearing lest his ill-gotten power should be stripped from him,
be 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 pro-
tection 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 Mac
beth, 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."

DUNCAN, King of Scotland.
MALCOLM,

DONALBAIN, his Sons.

MACBETH.

DRAMATIS PERSONE.

MACBETH, Generals of the King's Army.

BANQUO.

MACDUFF,

LENOX,

ROSSE,
MENTETH,

ANGUS,
CATHNESS,

FLEANCE, Son to Banquo.
SIWARD, Earl of Northumberland, General

Noblemen of Scotland.

of the English Forces. YOUNG SIWARD, his Son.

SEYTON, an Officer attending on Macbeth.
Son to Macduff.

An English Doctor.-A Scotch Doctor.
A Soldier.-A Porter.-An old Man.

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 Witch. When the hurlyburly's
When the battle's lost and wou:

done,

• Tumult.

The Ghost of Banquo, and several other
Apparitions

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.

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
All. Paddock calls :-Anon.-
Fair is foul, and foul is fair :
Hover through the fog and filthy air.

[WITCHES vanish.

SCENE II.-A Camp near Fores.

Alarum within. Enter King DUNCAN, MAL-
COLM, DONALBAIN, LENOX, with ATTEND-The victory fell on us;---
ANTS, meeting a bleeding SOLDIER.
Dun. Great happiness!

Rosse. That now

Dun. What bloody man is that? He can report,