_Malcolm._--Nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it. He dy'd,
As one that had been studied in his death,
To throw away the dearest thing he _ow'd_,
As 'twere a careless trifle.
As the word _ow'd_ affords here no sense, but such as is forced and
unnatural, it cannot be doubted that it was originally written, The
dearest thing he _own'd_; a reading which needs neither defence nor
explication.
NOTE X.
_King._--There's no art,
To find the mind's construction in the face:
The _construction of the mind_ is, I believe, a phrase peculiar to
Shakespeare; it implies the _frame_ or _disposition_ of the mind, by
which it is determined to good or ill.
NOTE XI.
_Macbeth._ 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 thing
Safe tow'rd your love and honour_.
Of the last line of this speech, which is certainly, as it is now read,
unintelligible, an emendation has been attempted, which Dr. Warburton
and Mr. Theobald have admitted as the true reading:
--our duties
Are to your throne and state, children and servants,
Which do but what they should, in doing every thing
_Fiefs_ to your love and honour.
My esteem for these criticks, inclines me to believe, that they cannot
be much pleased with the expressions, _Fiefs to love_, or _Fiefs to
honour_; and that they have proposed this alteration, rather because no
other occurred to them, than because they approved it. I shall,
therefore, propose a bolder change, perhaps, with no better success, but
"sua cuique placent." I read thus,
--our duties
Are to your throne and state, children and servants,
Which do but what they should, in doing _nothing,
Save_ tow'rd _your love and honour_.
We do but perform our duty, when we contract all our views to your
service, when we act with _no other_ principle than regard to _your love
and honour_.
It is probable that this passage was first corrupted by writing _safe_
for _save_, and the lines then stood thus:
--doing nothing
Safe tow'rd your love and honour.
Which the next transcriber observing to be wrong, and yet not being able
to discover the real fault, altered to the present reading.
NOTE XII.