Samuel Johnson - Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III - The Tragedies

III.iv.76 (474,6) Ere human statute purg'd the gentle weal] The gentle weal , is, the peaceable community , the state made quiet and safe by human statutes .

III.iv.92 (475,7) And all to all] I once thought it should be hail to all, but I now think that the present reading is right.

III.iv.105 (475,8) If trembling I inhabit] This is the original reading, which Mr. Pope changed to inhibit , which inhibit Dr. Warburton interprets refuse . The old reading may stand, at least as well as the emendation. Suppose we read,

III.iv.110 (476,9) Can such things be,/And overcome us, like a summer's cloud,/Without our special wonder?] [W: Can't] The alteration is introduced by a misinterpretation. The meaning is not that these things are like a summer-cloud , but can such wonders as these pass over us without wonder, as a casual summer cloud passes over us.

III.iv.112 (477,1) You make me strange/Even to the disposition that I owe] You produce in me an alienation of mind , which is probably the expression which our author intended to paraphrase.

III.iv.124 (477,2) Augurs, and understood relations] By the word relation is understood the connection of effects with causes; to understand relations as an angur , is to know how these things relate to each other, which have no visible combination or dependence.

III.iv.141 (479,5) You lack the season of all natures, sleep] I take the meaning to be, you want sleep , which seasons , or gives the relish to all nature . Indiget somni vitae condimenti .

III.v.24 (480,8) vaporous drop, profound] That is, a drop that has profound , deep , or hidden qualities.

III.v.26 (480,9) slights] Arts; subtle practices.

III.vi (481,1) Enter Lenox, and another Lord ] As this tragedy, like the rest of Shakespeare's, is perhaps overstocked with personages, it is not easy to assign a reason why a nameless character should be introduced here, since nothing is said that might not with equal propriety have been put into the mouth of any other disaffected man. I believe therefore that in the original copy it was written with a very common form of contraction Lenox and An. for which the transcriber, instead of Lenox and Angus, set down Lenox and another Lord . The author had indeed been more indebted to the transcriber's fidelity and diligence had he committed no errors of greater importance.

III.vi.36 (482,3) and receive free honours] [ Free for grateful. WARBURTON.] How can free be grateful ? It may be either honours freely bestowed , not purchased by crimes; or honours without slavery , without dread of a tyrant.

IV.i (484,5) As this is the chief scene of enchantment in the play, it is proper in this place to observe, with how much judgment Shakespeare has selected all the circumstances of his infernal ceremonies, and how exactly he has conformed to common opinions and traditions:

The usual form in which familiar spirits are reported to converse with witches, is that of a cat. A witch, who was tried about half a century before the time of Shakespeare, had a cat named Rutterkin, as the spirit of one of these witches was Grimalkin; and when any mischief was to be done she used to bid Rutterkin go and fly , but once when she would have sent Rutterkin to torment a daughter of the countess of Rutland, instead of going or flying , he only cried mew , from whence she discovered that the lady was out of his power, the power of witches being not universal, but limited, as Shakespeare has taken care to inculcate:

The common afflictions which the malice of witches produced were melancholy, fits, and loss of flesh, which are threatened by one of Shakespeare's witches:

It was likewise their practice to destroy the cattle of their neighbours, and the farmers have to this day many ceremonies to secure their cows and other cattle from witchcraft; but they seem to have been most suspected of malice against swine. Shakespeare has accordingly made one of his witches declare that she has been killing swine , and Dr. Harsenet observes, that about that time, a sow could not be ill of the measles, nor a girl of the sullens, but some old woman was charged with witchcraft .

Toads have likewise long lain under the reproach of being by some means accessory to witchcraft, for which reason Shakespeare, in the first scene of this play, calls one of the spirits Padocke or Toad, and now takes care to put a toad first into the pot. When Vaninus was seized at Theleuse, there was found at his lodgings ingens Bufo Vitro inclusus, a great toad shut in a vial , upon which those that prosecuted him, Veneficium exprebrabent, charged him , I suppose, with witchcraft .

The propriety of these ingredients may be known by consulting the books de Viribus Animalium and de Mirabilibus Mundi , ascribed to Albertus Magnus, in which the reader, who has time and credulity, may discover very wonderful secrets.

It has been already mentioned in the law against witches, that they are supposed to take up dead bodies to use in enchantments, which was confessed by the woman whom king James examined, and who had of a dead body that was divided in one of their assemblies, two fingers for her share. It is observable that Shakespeare, on this great occasion, which involves the fate of a king, multiplies all the circumstanaces of horror. The babe, whose finger is used, must be strangled in its birth; the grease must not only be human, but must have dropped from a gibbet, the gibbet of a murderer; and even the sow, whose blood is used, must have offended nature by devouring her own farrow. These are touches of judgment and genius.

And in a former part,

These two passages I have brought together, because they both seem subject to the objection of too much levity for the solemnity of enchantment, and may both be shewn, by one quotation from Camden's account of Ireland, to be founded upon a practice really observed by the uncivilised natives of that country: "When any one gets a fall, says the informer of Camden , he starts up, and, turning three times to the right , digs a hole in the earth; for they imagine that there is a spirit in the ground, and if he falls sick in two or three days, they send one of their women that is skilled in that way to the place, where she says, I call thee from the east, west, north, and south, from the groves, the woods, the rivers, and the fens, from the fairies red, black, white ." There was likewise a book written before the time of Shakespeare, describing, amongst other properties, the colours of spirits.