not gain much by an alteration which makes him say of a hero, that he
_redoubles strokes with double cracks_, an expression not more loudly to
be applauded, or more easily pardoned than that which is rejected in its
favour. That a cannon is charged _with thunder_, or _with double
thunders_, may be written, not only without nonsense, but with elegance,
and nothing else is here meant by _cracks_, which in the time of this
writer was a word of such emphasis and dignity, that in this play he
terms the general dissolution of nature the _crack of doom_.

The old copy reads,

_They doubly redoubled strokes_.

I.ii.46 (401,8) So should he look, that seems to speak things strange]
The meaning of this passage, as it now stands, is, _so should he look,
that looks as if he told things strange_. But Rosse neither yet told
strange things, nor could look as if he told them; Lenox only
conjectured from his air that he had strange things to tell, and
therefore undoubtedly said,

_What haste looks thro' his eyes?
So should he look, that_ teems _to speak thinks strange_.

He looks like one that _is big with_ something of importance; a metaphor
so natural that it is every day used in common discourse.

I.ii.55 (402,1) Confronted him with self-comparisons] [Theobald
interpreted "him" as Cawdor; Johnson, in 1745, accused Shakespeare of
forgetfulness on the basis of Theobald's error; and Warburton here
speaks of "blunder upon blunder."] The second blunderer was the present
editor.

I.iii.6 (403,5) _Aroint thee, witch_!] In one of the folio editions the
reading is _Anoint thee_, in a sense very consistent with the common
accounts of witches, who are related to perform many supernatural acts
by the means of unguents, and particularly to fly through the air to the
places where they meet at their hellish festivals. In this sense,
_anoint thee, Witch_, will mean, _Away, Witch, to your infernal
assembly_. This reading I was inclined to favour, because I had met with
the word _aroint_ in no other authour till looking into Hearne's
Collections I found it in a very old drawing, that he has published, in
which St. Patrick is represented visiting hell, and putting the devils
into great confusion by his presence, of whom one that is driving the
damned before him with a prong, has a label issuing out of his mouth
with these words, OUT OUT ARONGT, of which the last is evidently the
same with _aroint_, and used in the same sense as in this pass