Macb. ... Get thee gone; to-morrow
We'll hear, ourselves again.
i. e. when I have recovered from my fit, and am once more myself. It is an ablative absolute. Ourselves is much more properly used than ourself, the modern language of royalty.
Scene 4. Page 482.
Macb. If trembling I inhibit thee, protest me
The baby of girl.
Every partaker of the rational Diversions of Purley will here call to mind what has been advanced on the subject of this difficult and much contested passage; but with all the respect and admiration that are due to their profound and ingenious writer, will he feel himself altogether satisfied? It were to be wished that not only the above grammarian but another gentleman not less eminently qualified to illustrate any subject he undertakes, had favoured us with some example of the neutral use of inhabit in the sense of to house or remain at home. Until this be done, or even then, it may be boldly said, and without much difficulty maintained, that inhibit, in point of meaning, was Shakspeare's word. Nor is it a paradox to affirm that inhabit, the original reading, is also right; because this may be only one of the numerous instances during the former unsettled state of orthography, where the same word has been spelled in different ways. Mr. Malone has already supplied instances of inhabit for inhibit in a passage from All's well that ends well, in all the folios except the first, and another from Stowe's Survey of London. In the edition of the Shepherd's calendar, printed without date by Wynkyn de Worde in 4to, there is this sentence in chap. xxi.: "Correccyon is for to inhabyte & defende by the bridle of reason all errowres," &c. Later editions have inhibit. Are we then to suppose that all these examples are typographical mistakes, rather than a varied orthography?
The difficulty remains to extract a sense from inhibit adapted to the occasion. Mr. Steevens has justly said, "to inhibit is to forbid;" but this cannot be the present signification. A man cannot well be said to forbid another who has challenged him. He might indeed keep back or hesitate in such a case, which is the neutral sense now offered, but it must be confessed with nearly the same diffidence in its accuracy which has been expressed as to that of the others.
With respect to the punctuation, it is conceived, that considering the mode in which these plays were published, the authority of Shakspeare is almost out of the question; and therefore a judicious modern editor is entitled to use a great deal of discretion in corrections of this kind. In the present instance there is no great objection to the old pointing, though the comma should seem better after "inhibit," and may render the line more emphatic. "If trembling, I keep back, then protest me," &c. After all, this is one of the many instances in which the real meaning of the author cannot be satisfactorily obtained.
Scene 5. Page 490.
Enter Hecate.
Mr. Tollett has already vindicated Shakspeare from the supposed impropriety of introducing Hecate among modern witches. The fact seems to be, that acquainted, as he has elsewhere shown himself to have been, with the classical connection which this deity had with witchcraft, but knowing also, as Mr. Tollett's quotation from Scot indicates, that Diana was the name by which she was invoked in modern times, he has preferred the former rather than the latter name of the goddess, for reasons that were best known to himself.