Is fmother'd in furmife; and nothing is,
But what is not.

Ban. Look, how our partner's rapt.

Mach. If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me,

Without my ftir.

Ban. New honours, come upon him

Like our ftrange garments, cleave not to their mould, But with the aid of use.

Macb. Come what come may;

3 Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

Ban.

3 Time and the hour runs through the rougheft day.] I fuppofe every reader is difgufted at the tautology in this paffage, Time and the hour, and will therefore willingly believe that ShakeIpeare wrote it thus:

Come what come may,
Time! on;

the hour runs through the rougheft day. Macbeth is deliberating upon the events which are to befal him, but finding no fatisfaction from his own thoughts, he grows impatient of reflection, and refolves to wait the clofe without harraffing himself with conjectures.

Come what come may.

But to fhorten the pain of fufpenfe, he calls upon Time in the usual stile of ardent defire, to quicken his motion:

Time! on!

He then comforts himself with the reflection that all his perplexity must have an end :

the hour runs through the rougheft day.

This conjecture is fupported by the paffage in the letter to his lady, in which he fays, they referred me to the coming on of time, with Hail, king that halt be. JOHNSON.

Time and the hour}

Time is painted with an hour-glafs in his hand. This occafioited the expreffion. WARBURTON.

By this, I confefs I do not with his two laft commentators imagine is meant either the tautology of time and the hour, or an allufion to time painted with an hour-glafs, or an exhortation to time to haften forward, but rather to fay tempus & hora, time and occafion, will carry the thing through, and bring it to fome determined point and end, let its nature be what it will.

This note is taken from an Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespeare, &c. by Mrs. Montagu.

Such tautology is common to Shakespeare.

The

Ban. Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leifure. Mach. Give me your favour: my dull brain was wrought

With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains
Are register'd where every day I turn

The leaf to read them.-Let us toward the king.—
Think upon what hath chanc'd; and, at more time,
The interim having weigh'd it', let us speak
Our free hearts each to other.

Ban. Very gladly.

Mach. 'Till then, enough.-Come, friends.

SCENE

IV.

[Exeunt.

Flourish. Enter King, Malcolm, Donalbain, Lenox, and Attendants.

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

"The very head and front of my offending,"

is little lefs reprehenfible. Time and the hour, is time with his hours. STEEVENS.

The fame expreffion is used by a writer nearly contemporary with Shakespeare: "Neither can there be any thing in the world more acceptable to me than death, whofe bower and time if they were as certayne, &c." Fenton's Tragical Difcourfes, 1579. Again, in Davifon's Poems, 1621:

"Time's young hores attend her still,
"And her eyes and cheeks do fill
"With fresh youth and beauty."

Again, in Hoffman's Tragedy, 1631:
"The hour, the place, the time of

dull brain was wrought
-1

With things forgotten.

your arrive."

MALONE,

My head was worked, agitated, put into commotion. JOHNSON.

5 The interim having weigh'd it,]

This intervening portion of time is almost personified: it is reprefented as a cool impartial judge; as the paufer Reafon.

Hh3

STEEVENS.

Mal

Mal. My liege,

They are not yet come back. But I have fpoke
With one that faw him die; who did report,
That very frankly he confefs'd his treafons;
Implor'd your highness'pardon; and set forth
A deep repentance: nothing in his life
Became him, like the leaving it; he dy'd
As one that had been 7 ftudied in his death,
To throw away the dearest thing he ow'd,
As 'twere a careless trifle.

King. There's no art,

8 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, Roffe, and Angus,
The fin of my ingratitude even now
Was heavy on me: Thou art fo far before,
That fwifteft wing of recompence is flow

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

With one that faw him dic:The behaviour of the thame 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 forgiveness, his confeffion, repentance, and concern about behaving with propriety on the fcaffold, are minutely defcribed 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, Shakespeare's patron, of his dearest friend. STEEVENS.

7

-ftudied in his death,] Inftructed in the art of dying. It was ufual to fay studied, for learned in fcience. JOHNSON.

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

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

Mach. 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 thing

Safe toward your love and honour,

Which do but what they should, by doing every thing

Safe toward your love and honour.]

King.

Of the last line of this fpeech, which is certainly, as it is now read, unintelligible, an emendation has been attempted, which Dr. Warburton and Mr. Theobald once admitted as the true reading:

our duties

Are to your throne and ftate, children and fervants,
Which do but what they should, in doing every thing,

Fiefs to your love and honour.

My efteem for thefe critics inclines me to believe that they cannot be much pleafed with thefe expreffions fiefs to love, or fiefs to bonour, and that they have propofed this alteration rather becaufe no other occured to them, than because they approved of it. I fhall therefore propofe a bolder change, perhaps with no better fuccefs, but fua cuique placent. I read thus:

our duties

Are to your throne and ftate, children and fervants,
Which do but what they should, in doing nothing,
Save toward your love and honour.

We do but perform our duty when we contract all our views to your fervice, when we act with no other principle than regard to love and honour,

your

It is probable that this paffage was first corrupted by writing fafe for fave, and the lines then stood thus:

doing nothing

Safe toward your love and honour.

which the next tranfcriber obferving to be wrong, and yet not being able to difcover the real fault, altered to the prefent reading.

Dr. Warburton has fince changed fiefs to fief'd, and Hanmer has altered fafe to hap'd. I am afraid none of us have hit the right word. JOHNSON.

Mr. Upton gives the word fafe as an instance of an adjective ufed adverbially; and fays that it means here, with fafety, fecurity, and Juretifhip. Dr. Kenrick propofes to read:

Hh 4

1

Safe

King. Welcome hither:

I have begun to plant thee, and will labour
To make thee full of growing.-Noble Banquo,
That haft no less defery'd, nor must be known
No lefs to have done fo, let me enfold thee,
And hold thee to my heart.
Ban. There if I grow,
The harveft is your own.
King. My plenteous joys,

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

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

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

Mach. The reft is labour, which is not us'd for you:

I'll be myself the harbinger, and make joyful

Safe to ward your love and honour. To ward is to defend. So, in Titus Andronicus 66 it was a hand that warded him "From thousand dangers."

Again, more appofitely in Love's Labour's Loft:

66

pendants."

for the best ward of mine honour, is rewarding my de

Again, in K. Richard III. act V:

"Then, if you fight against God's enemies,

"God will, in juftice, ward you as his foldiers." Dr. Kenrick would certainly be right, if instead of love and honour, the words had been crown and honour, but there is fomeWhat of obfcurity in the idea of defending a prince's love in safety. STEEVENS.

to Invernefs,]

Dr. Johnfon obferves, in his Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland, that the walls of the caftle of Macbeth at Inverness are yet

ing. STEEVENS.

ftand

The