of the body; 6. That every such
person being convicted shall suffer death." This law was repealed in our
own time.

Thus, in the time of Shakespeare, was the doctrine of witchcraft at once
established by law and by the fashion, and it became not only unpolite,
but criminal, to doubt it; and as prodigies are always seen in
proportion as they are expected, witches were every day discovered, and
multiplied as fast in some places, that bishop Hall mentions a village
in Lancashire, where their number was greater than that of the houses.
The jesuits and sectaries took advantage of this universal error, and
endeavoured to promote the interest of their parties by pretended cures
of persons afflicted by evil spirits; but they were detected and exposed
by the clergy of the established church.

Upon this general infatuation Shakespeare might be easily allowed to
found a play, especially since he has followed with great exactness such
histories as were then thought true; nor can it be doubted that the
scenes of enchantment, however they may now be ridiculed, were both by
himself and his audience thought awful and affecting.

I.i.10 (396,5) Fair is foul, and foul is fair] I believe the meaning is,
that _to us_, perverse and malignant as we are, _fair is foul, and foul
is fair_.

I.ii.14 (398,9) And Fortune, on his damned quarry smiling] Thus the old
copy; but I am inclined to read _quarrel_. _Quarrel_ was formerly used
for _cause_, or for _the occasion of a quarrel_, and is to be found in
that sense in Hollingshed's account of the story of Macbeth, who, upon
the creation of the prince of Cumberland, thought, says the historian,
that he had _a just quarrel_, to endeavour after the crown. The sense
therefore is, _Fortune smiling on his excrable cause_, &c. This is
followed by Dr. Warburten. (see 1765, VI, 373, 4).

I.ii.28 (400,4) Discomfort swells] _Discomfort_ the natural opposite to
_comfort_. _Well'd_, for _flawed_, was an emendation. The common copies
have, _discomfort swells_.

I.ii.37 (400,5) As cannons overcharg'd with double cracks,
So they
Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe]

Mr. Theobald has endeavoured to improve the sense of this passage by
altering the punctuation thus:

--_they were
As cannons overcharg'd, with double cracks
So they redoubled strokes_--

He declares, with some degree of exultation, that he has no idea of a
_cannon charged with double cracks_; but surely the great author will