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SCENE IV.

Fores. A Room in the Palace.

Flourish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENOX, and Attendants.

DUN. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not 4 Those in commiffion yet return'd?

MAL. My liege, They are not yet come back. But I have spoke With one that faw him die: 5 who did report, That very frankly he confefs'd his treasons; Implor'd your highness' pardon; and fet forth A deep repentance: nothing in his life Became him, like the leaving it; he died As one that had been studied in his death,"

4 Are not-] The old copy reads-Or not. emendation was made by the editor of the fecond folio.

The

MALONE.

With one that faw him die:] The behaviour of the thane of Cawdor correfponds, in almost every circumstance, with that of the unfortunate Earl of Effex, as related by Stowe, p. 793. His afking the Queen's forgivenefs, his confeffion, repentance, and concern about behaving with propriety on the fcaffold, are minutely described by that hiftorian. Such an allufion could not fail of having the defired effect on an audience, many of whom were eye-witneffes to the feverity of that juftice which deprived the age of one of its greatest ornaments, and Southampton, Shakspeare's patron, of his dearest friend. STEEVENS.

6 ftudied in his death,] Inftructed in the art of dying. It was usual to fay ftudied, for learned in science. JOHNSON. His own profeffion furnished our author with this phrafe. To be studied in a part, or to have studied it, is yet the technical term of the theatre. MALOne.

To throw away the dearest thing he ow'd,

As 'twere a careless trifle.

DUN.

There's no art,

To find the mind's conftruction in the face: ?

He was a gentleman on whom I built

An abfolute truft.-O worthieft coufin!

Enter MACBETH, BANQUO, ROSSE, and ANGUS.

The fin of my ingratitude even now
Was heavy on me: Thou art fo far before,
That fwifteft wing of recompenfe is flow

To overtake thee. 'Would thou hadft lefs deferv'd;
That the proportion both of thanks and payment

So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream: "Have you the lion's part written? pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am flow of Study."

The fame phrafe occurs in Hamlet. STEVENS

7 To find the mind's conftruction in the face:] The confruption of the mind is, I believe, a phrafe peculiar to Shakfpeare: it implies the frame or difpofition of the mind, by which it is determined to good or ill. JOHNSON.

Dr. Johnson seems to have understood the word construction in this place, in the fenfe of frame or structure; but the schoolterm was, I believe, intended by Shakspeare. The meaning is-We cannot conftrue or discover the difpofition of the mind by the lineaments of the face. So, in King Henry IV. P. II: Conftrue the times to their neceffities."

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In Hamlet we meet with a kindred phrase:

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"You must tranflate; 'tis fit we understand them." Our author again, alludes to his grammar, in Troilus and Creffida:

"I'll decline the whole queftion."

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In his 93d Sonnet, however, we find a contrary sentiment afferted:

"In many's looks the falfe heart's history

"Is writ." MALONE.

Might have been mine! only I have left to fay,
More is thy due than more than all can pay.

MACB. The fervice and the loyalty I owe,
In doing it, pays itself. Your highnefs' part
Is to receive our duties: and our duties

Are to your throne and ftate, children, and fervants; Which do but what they fhould, by doing every

Safe toward

thing 9

your

love and honour.'

• More is thy due than more than all can pay.] More' is due to thee, than, I will not fay all, but more than all, i. e. the greatest recompenfe, can pay. Thus in Plautus: Nihilo minus.

There is an obfcurity in this paffage, arifing from the word all, which is not ufed here perfonally, (more than all perfons can pay) but for the whole wealth of the fpeaker. So, more clearly, in King Henry VIII:

"More than my all is nothing."

This line appeared obfcure to Sir William D'Avenant, for he altered it thus:

"I have only left to fay,

"That thou deferveft more than I have to pay."

9 fervants ;

MALONE.

Which do but what they should, by doing every thing-] From Scripture: So when ye fhall have done all thofe things which are commanded you, fay, We are unprofitable fervants : we have done that which was our duty to do.' HENLEY.

I.

Which do but what they should, by doing every thing Safe toward your love and honour.] Mr. Upton gives the word safe as an instance of an adjective used adverbially.

Read

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STEEVENS.

Safe (i. e. faved) toward you love and honour;" and then the fenfe will be" Our duties are your children, and fervants or vaffals to your throne and ftate; who do but what they should, by doing every thing with a faving of their love and honour toward you." The whole is an allufion to the forms of doing homage in the feudal times. The oath of allegiance, or liege homage, to the king, was abfolute, and without any exception; but fimple homage, when done to a fubject for

J

DUN.

Welcome hither:

I have begun to plant thee, and will labour

lands holden of him, was always with a faving of the allegiance (the love and honour) due to the fovereign." Sauf la foy que jeo doy a noftre feignor le roy," as it is in Littleton. And though the expreffion be fomewhat ftiff and forced, it is not more fo than many others in this play, and fuits well with the fituation of Macbeth, now beginning to waver in his allegiance. For, as our author elsewhere fays, [in Julius Cæfar :]

"When love begins to ficken and decay,
"It useth an enforced ceremony."

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BLACKSTONE.

A fimilar expreffion occurs alfo in the Letters of the Pafton Family, Vol. II. p. 254: -ye fhalle fynde me to yow as kynde as I maye be, my confcienfe and worshyp favy'd."

STEEVENS.

A paffage in Cupid's Revenge, a comedy by Beaumont and Fletcher, adds fome fupport to Sir William Blackstone's emendation :

"I'll speak it freely, always my obedience
"And love preferved unto the prince."

So alfo the following words, fpoken by Henry Duke of Lancafter to King Richard II. at their interview in the Caftle of Flint, (a paffage that Shakspeare had certainly read, and perhaps remembered): "My fovereign lorde and kyng, the cause of my coming, at this prefent, is, [your honour faved,] to have againe reftitution of my perfon, my landes, and heritage, through your favourable licence." Holinfhed's Chron. Vol. II.

Our author himself also furnishes us with a paffage that likewife may ferve to confirm this emendation. See The Winter's Tale, Act IV. sc. iii:

"Save him from danger; do HIм love and honour." Again, in Twelfth-Night:

"What fhall you afk of me that I'll deny,

"That honour fav'd may upon asking give?”

Again, in Cymbeline:

"I fomething fear my father's wrath, but nothing
"(Always referv'd my holy duty) what

"His rage can do on me."

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Our poet has used the verb to fafe in Antony and Cleopatra:

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beft you faf'd the bringer

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"Out of the hoft.' MALONE.

To make thee full of growing."-Noble Banquo, That haft no less deferv'd, nor must be known No lefs to have done fo, let me infold thee,

And hold thee to my heart.

BAN.

The harvest is your own.

DUN.

There if I grow,

My plenteous joys, Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves In drops of forrow.3-Sons, kinfmen, thanes, And you whofe places are the nearest, know, We will establish our estate upon

Our eldest, Malcolm; whom we name hereafter,
The prince of Cumberland: which honour must
Not, unaccompanied, inveft him only,

But figns of nobleness, like stars, shall shine
On all defervers. From hence to Inverness,4
And bind us further to you.

3-full of growing.] Is, I believe, exuberant, perfect, complete in thy growth. So, in Othello:

"What a full fortune doth the thick-lips owe?"

3 My plenteous joys

Wanton in fulness, feek to hide themselves

In drops of forrow.]

"lachrymas non fponte cadentes

MALONE.

"Effudit, gemitufque expreffit pectore læto;
"Non aliter manifefta potens abfcondere mentis
"Guadia, quam lachrymis.' Lucan, Lib. IX.

There was no English tranflation of Lucan before 1614.We meet with the fame fentiment again in The Winter's Tale: "It seemed forrow wept to take leave of them, for their joy waded in tears." It is likewife employed in the first scene of Much Ado about Nothing. MALONE.

It is thus also that Statius defcribes the appearance of Argia and Antigone, Theb. III. 426:

Flebile gavifa,

STEEVENS.

hence to Inverness,] Dr. Johnson obferves, in his

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