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(11) Ten thousand thanks.

We are not to understand this literally, as if his majesty had enumerated his thanks, but that the royal thanks were liberal and unqualified. It is a poetical expressions, which is repeated in Act. II.-" I beg ten thousand pardons."

POPE.

(12) Let me wear the breeches.

Lady Macbeth wishes here to be masculine, to appear like a man; not absolutely and bona fide to

wear the dress of a man.

JOHNSON.

ACT II.

(13) A meer hoax.

The definition of this word hoar is rather obscure, but I think it is either derived from, or a continuation of, hocus pocus, which signifies a juggle, a cheat.

JOHNSON.

(14) 'Tis all my eye.

I think there must be some mistake here, and that the author had written, 'Tis all a lie."

WARBURTON.

'Tis all my eye, is correct. The meaning is, it is

all an error of my eye.

THEOBALD.

The signification of this sentence I understand to be this-It is my eye that deceives my understanding by the representation of a false razor. Probably the author alluded to "the mind's eye."

JOHNSON.

(15) my vision fob.

I think we should read rob, instead of fob-i. e. it is the business which I am about that robs me of my proper sight.

STEEVENS.

The substitution of rob for fob would be nonsense. Macbeth is not deprived of, but cheated in, his sight. To fob, signifies to trick, to impose upon, and is derived from the little pocket bearing that name, which is made in the breeches to receive the watch, that being the first thing which pickpockets generally

aim at.

JOHNSON.

(16) Hide my whereabout.

Whereabout is a substantive here; as if he had said, Hide whatever place I may tread on.

JOHNSON.

(17) And a—a—a— is all that I could

say.

In the folio edition it is And ah! ah! ah! is all that I could say, which is an evident blunder of the stupid editor.—a—a—a—, are no interjections; Macbeth was endeavouring to say amen, and he could only articulate the first syllable.

THEOBALD.

(18) Innocent rest.

Our author has laid the accent on the middle sylJable of innocent, which is not correct.

POPE.

(19) The hush-a-bye.

We certainly ought to read lull-a-bye, instead of

husk-a-bye.

STEEVENS.

Lull-a-by is the nurse's song to put children to sleep; but hush-a-bye are in general the words of that song, and are very poetically united here, constituting a single substantive.

JOHNSON.

(20) Goggle-eyed gazers.

That is, gazers with large rolling eyes.

Gazers whose eyes were looking a-squint.

MALONE.

This is certainly the true interpretation. We cannot suppose that the eyes of men, who were just fast asleep, could be large and rolling.

STEEVENS.

(21) Oh hold me gentlemen, for I must faint.

This is an excellent delineation of a pretended faint. Had Lady Macbeth been really inclined to faint, she would have suddenly dropped, without having given the gentlemen any notice: but finding it necessary to sham a faint, she is afraid of hurting herself, and thus unguardedly prepares the gentlemen to prevent her fall.

POPE.

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