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, 6 * -Are not-] The old copy reads-Or not. The emendation was made by the editor of the second folio. MALONE. 5 With one that faw him die:) The behaviour of the thane of Cawdor corresponds, in almost every circumstance, with that of the unfortunate Earl of Effex, as related by Stowe, p. 793. His afking the Queen's forgiveness, his confeffion, repentance, and concern about behaving with propriety on the scaffold, are minutely described by that historian. Such an allusion could not fail of having the defired effect on an audience, many of whom were eye-witnesses to the severity of that justice which deprived the age of one of its greatest ornaments, and Southampton, Shakspeare's patron, of his dearest friend. STEEVENS. -studied in his death,] Instructed in the art of dying. It was usual to say studied, for learned in science. JOHNSON. His own profeffion furnished our author with this phrase. To be studied in a part, or to have studied it, is yet the technical term of the theatre. MALONE. Ез 1 To throw away the dearest thing he ow'd, DUN. There's no art, To find the mind's construction in the face : ? He was a gentleman on whom I built Enter MACBETH, BANQUO, ROSSE, and ANGUS. The fin of my ingratitude even now 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. STEEVENS. t suo và 7 To find the mind's construction in the face:] The conftruction of the mind is, I believe, a phrafe peculiar to Shakspeare: it implies the frame or disposition 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 sense of frame or structure; but the schoolterm was, I believe, intended by Shakspeare. The meaning is-We cannot conftrue or discover the disposition of the mind by the lineaments of the face. So, in King Henry IV. P. II; 66 Conftrue the times to their neceffities." In Hamlet we meet with a kindred phrafe : "Thefe profound heaves "You must translate; 'tis fit we understand them." Our author again alludes to his grammar, in Troilus and Creffida: "I'll decline the whole question." In his 93d Sonnet, however, we find a contrary sentiment afferted: " In many's looks the false heart's history Might have been mine! only I have left to say, ४ MACB. The service and the loyalty I owe, In doing it, pays itself. Your highness' part Is to receive our duties: and our duties Are to your throne and state, children, and servants; Which do but what they should, by doing every thing9 Safe toward your love and honour. More is thy due than more than all can pay.] More is due to thee, than, I will not say all, but more than all, i. e. the greatest recompenfe, can pay. Thus in Plautus: Nihilo minus. There is an obscurity in this passage, arifing from the word all, which is not used here perfonally, (more than all persons can pay) but for the whole wealth of the speaker. 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: 1 9 " I have only left to say, "That thou defervest more than I have to pay." fervants; MALONE. Which do but what they should, by doing every thing-] From Scripture: "So when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants : we have done that which was our duty to do." HENLEY. Which do but what they should, by doing every thing word safe as an instance of an adjective used adverbially. Read STEEVENS. "Safe (i. e. faved) toward you love and honour;" and then the sense will be-" Our duties are your children, and servants or vassals to your throne and state; who do but what they should, by doing every thing with a saving of their love and honour toward you." The whole is an allusion to the forms of doing homage in the feudal times. The oath of allegiance, or liege homage, to the king, was absolute, and without any exception; but fimple homage, when done to a fubject for 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 sovereign. "Sauf la foy que jeo doy a nostre seignor le roy," as it is in Littleton. And though the expression be somewhat stiff and forced, it is not more so than many others in this play, and suits well with the situation of Macbeth, now beginning to waver in his allegiance. For, as our author elsewhere says, [in Julius Cæfar:] "When love begins to ficken and decay, " It useth an enforced ceremony." BLACKSTONE. A fimilar expreffion occurs also in the Letters of the Paston Family, Vol. II. p. 254: "-ye shalle fynde me to yow as kynde as I maye be, my confciense and worshyp Savy'd. STEEVENS. A passage in Cupid's Revenge, a comedy by Beaumont and Fletcher, adds some support to Sir William Blackstone's emendation: "I'll speak it freely, always my obedience So alfo the following words, spoken by Henry Duke of Lancafter to King Richard II. at their interview in the Castle of Flint, (a passage that Shakspeare had certainly read, and perhaps remembered): My fovereign lorde and kyng, the cause of my coming, at this present, is, [your honour faved,] to have againe reftitution of my person, my landes, and heritage, through your favourable licence." Holinshed's Chron. Vol. II. Our author himself also furnishes us with a passage that likewise may serve to confirm this emendation. See The Winter's Tale, Act IV. fc. iii : "Save him from danger; do HIM love and honour." Again, in Twelfth-Night: "What shall you ask of me that I'll deny, "That honour fav'd may upon asking give?" " I something fear my father's wrath, but nothing Again, in Cymbeline : 66 (Always referv'd my holy duty) what "His rage can do on me.' Our poet has used the verb to fafe in Antony and Cleopatra : " -beft you saf'd the bringer "Out of the hoft." MALONE. To make thee full of growing.-Noble Banquo, That haft no less deserv'd, nor must be known No less to have done so, let me infold thee, And hold thee to my heart. BAN. There if I grow, The harvest is your own. Our eldest, Malcolm; whom we name hereafter, 2-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, seek to hide themselves " MALONE. lachrymas non sponte cadentes "Effudit, gemitusque expreffit pectore læto; "Non aliter manifesta potens abscondere mentis "Guadia, quam lachrymis." Lucan, Lib. IX. There was no English tranflation of Lucan before 1614.We meet with the same sentiment again in The Winter's Tale : It seemed forrow wept to take leave of them, for their joy waded in tears." It is likewise employed in the first scene of Much Ado about Nothing. MALONE. It is thus also that Statius describes the appearance of Argia and Antigone, Theb. III. 426: 4 Flebile gavisæ, STEEVENS. -hence to Inverness,] Dr. Johnson observes, in his |