DUN. There's no art, To find the mind's construction in the face": Enter MACBEth, Banquo, Rosse, and Angus. The sin of my ingratitude even now Was heavy on me: Thou art so far before, That swiftest wing of recompense is slow To overtake thee. 'Would thou hadst less deserv'd; That the proportion both of thanks and payment Might have been mine! only I have left to say, More is thy due than more than all can pay". con 7 To find the mind's construction in the face :] The struction of the mind' is, I believe, a phrase 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 construe or discover the disposition of the mind by the lineaments of the face." So, in King Henry IV. Part II. : "Construc the times to their necessities." In Hamlet we meet with a kindred phrase: "You must translate; 'tis fit we understand them." Our author again alludes to his grammar, in Troilus and Cressida : "I'll decline the whole question." In his 93d Sonnet, however, we find a contrary sentiment asserted: "In many's looks the false heart's history "Is writ." MALONE. 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 recompense, can pay. Thus in Plautus: Nihilo minus. There is an obscurity in this passage, arising from the word all, which is not used here personally, (more than all persons can pay) but for the whole wealth of the speaker. So, more clearly, in King Henry VIII. : 66 More than my all is nothing." MACB. The service and the loyalty I owe, In doing it, pays itself. Is to receive our duties Your highness' part Are to your throne and state, children, and ser vants; Which do but what they should, by doing every thing9 Safe toward your love and honour'. This line appeared obscure to Sir William D'Avenant, for he alrered it thus: 9 "I have only left to say, "That thou deservest more than I have to pay." MALONE. servants; 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 SAFE TOWARD YOUR LOVE AND HONOUR.] Mr. Upton gives the word safe as an instance of an adjective used adverbially. STEEVENS. Read 66 Safe (i. e. saved) 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 simple homage, when done to a subject for lands holden of him, was always with a saving 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 Cæsar:] 66 "When love begins to sicken and decay, "It useth an enforced ceremony." 66 BLACKSTONE. A similar expression 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 conscience and worshyp savy'd." STEEVENS. A passage in Cupid's Revenge, a comedy by Beaumont and DUN. Welcome hither: I have begun to plant thee, and will labour BAN. The harvest is your own. DUN. There if I grow, My plenteous joys, Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves In drops of sorrow 3.-Sons, kinsmen, thanes, Fletcher, adds some support to Sir William Blackstone's emendation: "I'll speak it freely, always my obedience So also the following words, spoken by Henry Duke of Lancaster to King Richard II. at their interview in the Castle of Flint, (a passage that Shakspeare had certainly read, and perhaps remembered): "My sovereign lorde and kyng, the cause of my coming, at this present, is, [your honour saved,] to have againe restitution 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. Sc. III. : "Save him from danger; do him love and honour." Again, in Twelfth-Night: "What shall you ask of me that I'll deny, Again, in Cymbeline: Our 66 66 I something fear my father's wrath, but nothing poet has used the verb to safe in Antony and Cleopatra : 66 -FULL of growing.] Is, I believe, exuberant, perfect, complete in thy growth. So, in Othello: "What a full fortune doth the thick-lips owe?" MALONE. 3 My plenteous joys, Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves In drops of sorrow.] lachrymas non sponte cadentes Effudit, gemitusque expressit pectore læto; And you whose places are the nearest, know, Our eldest, Malcolm; whom we name hereafter, But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine MACB. The rest is labour, which is not us'd for you: I'll be myself the harbinger, and make joyful DUN. My worthy Cawdor! MACB. The prince of Cumberland !—That is a step, Non aliter manifesta potens abscondere mentis There was no English translation of Lucan before 1614.-We meet with the same sentiment again in The Winter's Tale: "It seemed sorrow 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 Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, that the walls of the castle of Macbeth, at Inverness, are yet standing. STEEVENS. The circumstance of Duncan's visiting Macbeth is supported by history; for, from the Scottish Chronicles, it appears that it was customary for the king to make a progress through his dominions every year. Inerat ei [Duncano] laudabilis consuetudo regni pertransire regiones semel in anno." Fordun. Scotichron. lib. iv. c. xliv. 66 66 Singulis annis ad inopum querelas audiendas perlustrabat provincias." Buchan. lib. vii. MALONE. 5 The prince of CUMBERLAND!] So, Holinshed, History of Scotland, p. 171: “Duncan having two sonnes, &c. he made the elder of them, called Malcolme, prince of Cumberland, as it was thereby to appoint him successor in his kingdome immediatlie after his decease. Mackbeth sorely troubled herewith, for that he On which I must fall down, or else o'er-leap, [Aside. For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires! saw by this means his hope sore hindered, (where, by the old laws of the realme the ordinance was, that if he that should succeed were not of able age to take the charge upon himself, he that was next of bloud unto him should be admitted,) he began to take counsel how he might usurpe the kingdome by force, having a just quarrel so to doe (as he tooke the matter,) for that Duncane did what in him lay to defraud him of all manner of title and claime, which he might, in time to come, pretend unto the crowne." When a The crown of Scotland was originally not hereditary. successor was declared in the life-time of a king, (as was often the case,) the title of Prince of Cumberland was immediately bestowed on him as the mark of his designation. Cumberland was at that time held by Scotland of the crown of England as a fief. STEEVENS. The former part of Mr. Steevens's remark is supported by Bellenden's translation of Hector Boethius: "In the mene tyme Kyng Duncane maid his son Malcolme Prince of Cumbir, to signify y he suld regne eftir hym, quhilk was gret displeseir to Makbeth; for it maid plane derogatioun to the thrid weird promittit afore to hym be this weird sisteris. Nochtheles he thoct gif Duncane were slane, he had maist rycht to the croun, because he wes nerest of blud yairto, be tenour of ye auld lavis maid eftir the deith of King Fergus, quhen young children wer unable to govern the croun, the nerrest of yair blude sal regne." So also Buchanan, Rerum Scoticarum Hist. lib. vii. : "Duncanus e filia Sibardi reguli Northumbrorum, duos filios genuerat. Ex iis Milcolumbum, vixdum puberem, Cumbriæ præfecit. Id factum ejus Macbethus molestius, quam credi poterat, tulit, eam videlicet moram sibi ratus injectam, ut, priores jam magistratus (juxta visum nocturnum) adeptus, aut omnino a regno excluderetur, aut eo tardius potiretur, cum præfectura Cumbria velut aditus ad supremum magistratum SEMPER esset habitus." It has been asserted by an anonymous writer [Mr. Ritson] that "the crown of Scotland was always hereditary, and that it should seem from the play that Malcolm was the first who had the title of Prince of Cumberland." An extract or two from Hector Boethius will be sufficient relative to these points. In the tenth chapter of the eleventh book of his History we are informed, that some of the friends of Kenneth III. the eightieth King of Scotland, came among the nobles, desiring them to choose Malcolm, the son |