FullReads

(a) She should have died hereafter,
There would have been a time for such a word.

This passage has very justly been suspected of being corrupt. It is not apparent for what word there would have been a time, and that there would or would not be a time for any word, seems not a consideration of importance sufficient to transport Macbeth into the following exclamation. I read, therefore:

She should have died hereafter,
There would have been a time for–such a world!—
To-morrow, etc.

It is a broken speech, in which only part of the thought is expressed, and may be paraphrased thus: The queen is dead. Macbeth. Her death should have been deferred to some more peaceful hour; had she lived longer, there would at length have been a time for the honours due to her as a queen, and that respect which I owe her for her fidelity and love. Such is the world–such is the condition of human life, that we always think to-morrow will be happier than to-day; but to-morrow and to-morrow steals over us unenjoyed and unregarded, and we still linger in the same expectation to the moment appointed for our end. All these days, which have thus passed away, have sent multitudes of fools to the grave, who were engrossed by the same dream of future felicity, and, when life was departing from them, were, like me, reckoning on to- morrow.

(b) To the last syllable of recorded time.

Recorded time seems to signify the time 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.

NOTE XLV.

Macbeth.
If thou speak’st false.
Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,
Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth,
I care not if thou dost for me as much.–
I pull in resolution; and begin
To doubt th’ equivocation of the fiend,
That lies like truth: “Fear not till Birnam wood
Do come to Dunsinane,” and now a wood
Comes toward Dunsinane.

I pull in resolution.–

Though this is the reading of all the editions, yet as it is a phrase without either example, elegance, or propriety, it is surely better to read:

I pall in resolution.–

I languish in my constancy, my confidence begins to forsake me. It is scarcely necessary to observe how easily pall might be changed into pull by a negligent writer, or mistaken for it by an unskilful printer.

NOTE XLVI.

SCENE VIII.

Siward
Had I as many sons as I have hairs,
I would not wish them to a fairer death:
And so his knell is knoll’d.

This incident is thus related from Henry of Huntingdon, by Camden, in his Remains, from which our author probably copied it.

When Siward, the martial Earl of Northumberland, understood that his son, whom he had sent in service against the Scotchmen, was slain, he demanded whether his wound were in the fore part or hinder part of his body. When it was answered in the fore part, he replied, “I am right glad; neither wish I any other death to me or mine.”

* * * * *

After the foregoing pages were printed, the late edition of Shakespeare, ascribed to Sir Thomas Hanmer, fell into my hands; and it was, therefore, convenient for me to delay the publication of my remarks, till I had examined whether they were not anticipated by similar observations, or precluded by better. I, therefore, read over this tragedy, but found that the editor’s apprehension is of a cast so different from mine, that he appears to find no difficulty in most of those passages which I have represented as unintelligible, and has, therefore, passed smoothly over them, without any attempt to alter or explain them.