"This push
Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now,"
we approve of the substitution of chair for "cheer," as proposed long ago by Bishop Percy, and now seconded by the MS. corrector. But we see no good reason for changing "stuff" into grief, in the line
"Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the hart."
There seems to have been but little grief on the part either of the tyrant or his lady; and the repetition of "stuffed" and "stuff" is very much after the manner of Shakespeare.
Scene 4. Malcolm says of Macbeth's followers—
"For where there is advantage to be given,
Both more and less, have given him the revolt;"
that is, where any advantage is held out, or "to be given" to them, both strong and weak desert Macbeth's standard. The MS. corrector proposes "advantage to be gotten; a better reading, which has been often suggested, is "advantage to be gained," and this we regard as more suitable to modern notions; but we counsel no change in the text, because the old reading was to a certainty the language of Shakespeare.
The latinism of farced, i.e., stuffed out, for "forced," has not a shadow of probability in its favour. Macbeth says of the troops opposed to him—
"Were they not forced with those that should be ours,
We might have met them, dareful, beard to beard."
"Forced," says Mr Singer very properly, "Is used in the sense of re-in-forced." Neither can we accept quailed for "cooled," at the recommendation of the MS. corrector, in these lines where Macbeth says—
"The time has been my senses would have cool'd
To bear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
As life were in't."
"My senses would have cooled"—that is, my nerves would have thrilled with an icy shudder. The received text is quite satisfactory.
Hamlet.— Act I. Scene 2.—In consistency with the verdict Just given, we must pronounce the following new reading, at any rate, reasonable.
Horatio, describing the effect of the appearance of the ghost upon Bernardo and Marcellus, tells Hamlet, as the quartos give it—
"They distill'd
Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
Stand dumb and speak not to him."
The folios read "bestilled." The MS. correction is bechill'd. And this we prefer to bestilled. It is quite in keeping with Macbeth's expression—
"My senses would have cool'd
To hear a night-shriek."
Shakespeare probably knew that "jelly" was gelu, ice. But "distilled," the common reading, affords quite as good a meaning as bechilled, and therefore, as this word has authority in its favour, which bechilled has not, we advise no alteration of the text.
Scene 3.—We think that the old corrector was right, when he changed "chief" into choice in the lines where the style in which Frenchmen dress is alluded to—
"And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chef in that."
This is the reading of the old copies. The modern editions read more intelligibly—
"Are most select and generous, chief in that"
"Chief" for chiefly. But we prefer the MS. correction—
"Are of a most select and generous choice in that,"
both as affording better sense, and as coming nearer the old text than the received reading does.
In the same scene, Polonius says to his daughter—
"I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth,
Have you so slander any moment's leisure,
As to give words, or talk with the lord Hamlet."
We believe that "slander" here means abuse, misuse, and therefore we prefer the received text to squander, the reading of the MS. corrector.
Scene 5.—The ghost says—
"Thus was I sleeping, by a brother's hand,
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once despatch'd."
