Ibid] The old word is certainly right. My Sense breeds with ber fenfe, that is, new thoughts are stirring in my mind, new conceptions are hatched in my imagination. So we say to brood over thought. L. 14. JOHNS. WARB. tefted gold] i. e. attested, or marked with the standard stamp. Ibid] Rather copelled, brought to the teft, refined. L. 18. JOHNS. preferved fouls] i. e. preserved from the corruption of the world. The metaphor is taken from fruits preserved in fugar. WARB. Ibid] In order to continue Dr. W's metaphor, we should alter fafting maids, to pickled maids. L. 25. I am that way going to temptation CANONS.* Where prayers cross] Which way Angelo is going to temptation, we begin to perceive, but how prayers crofs that way, or cross each other, at that way, more than any other, I do not understand. Isabella prays that his bonour may be safe, meaning only to give him his title: his imagination is caught by the word honour: he feels that his honour is in danger, and therefore, I believe, answers thus: I am that way going to temptation, That is, I am tempted to lose that honour of which thou imploreft the preservation. The temptation under which I labour is that which thou hast unknowingly thwarted with thy prayer. He uses the fame mode of language a few lines lower. Isabella, parting, says, Save your bonour. Angelo catches the word Save it! From what? From thee, even from thy virtue. P. 269. L. 3. That lying by the violet in the fun, &c.] I am not corrupted by her, but by my own heart, which excites foul defires under the sam benign influences that exalt her purity; as the carrion grows putrid by those beams which encrease the fragrance of the violet. JOHNS. L. 6. - virtuous season] i. e. kindly season. But the fubject here gives the figure a particular elegance. WARE.* L. 25. I fmil'd, and wonder'd bow] As a day must now intervene between this conference of Isabella with Angelo, and the next, the act might more properly end here, and here, in my opinion, it was ended by the poet. JOHNS. P. 270. L. 9. Who falling in the flaws of her own youth, Hath blister'd her report: Who doth not fee that the integrity of the metaphor requires we should read FLAMES of her own youth. WARB and CAPELL. Ibid] Who does not fee that upon fuch principles there is no end of correction. JOHNS. P. 271. L. 7. There reft] Keep yourself in this temper. JOHNS. L. II. ob, injurious love] Her execution was refpited on account of her pregnancy, the effects of her love: therefore the calls it injurious; not that it brought her to in me, but that it hindered her freeing herself from it. Is not this all very natural? yet the Oxford editor changes it to injurious law. WARB. Ibid] Mr. Warburton's supposition is absolutely without foundation, and of which there is not the leaft hint given in the play, which on the contrary very clearly infinuates, that her punishment was not to extend farther than the infamy and fome confinement. I cannot therefore but concur in Sir Thomas Hanmer's correction, Ob, injurious law. REVISAL.* L. 17. Whilst my intention] Nothing can be either plainer or exacter than this expreffion. But the old blundering folio having it, invention, this was enough for Mr Theobald (and Mr. Capell,) to prefer authority to fenfe. WARE. L. 23. Groton FEAR'D and tedious] We should read SEAR'D: i. e. old. So Sheakspear uses, in the fear, to fignify old age. WARB. Ibid] I think fear'd may stand, what we go to with re luctance may be faid to be fear'd. JOHNS. L. 27. Cafe] For outfide; garb; external shew. JOHNS. P. 272. L. 1. Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wifer fouls To thy false seeming?] Here Shakespeare judicioufly diftingui hes the different operations of high place upon different minds. Fools are frighted, and wife men are allured. Those who cannot judge but by the eye, are easily awed by splendour, those who confider men as well as conditions, are easily perfuaded to love the appearance of virtue dignified with power. JOHNS. L. 3. Let's write good angel on the devil's born; 'Tis not the devil's creft] i. e. Let the most wicked thing have but a virtuous pretence, and it shall pass for innocent. This was his conclusion from his preceding words, ob form! How often doft thou with thy cafe, thy babit, But the Oxford editor makes him conclude just counter to his own premises; by altering it to, Is't not the devil's creft. So that, according to this alteration, the reasoning stands thus. Falfe feeming wrenches awe from fools, and deceives the wife. Therefore, " let us but write good angel on the devil's horn;" (i. e. give him the appearance of an angel;) and what then? " Is't not the devil's crest?" (i. e. he shall be esteem'd a devil.) WARB. Ibid] I am still înclined to the opinion of the Oxford editor. Angelo, reflecting on the difference between his seeming character, and his real disposition, observes that he "could change his gravity for a plume." He then digresses into an apoftrophe, "O dignity, how dost thou impofe upon the world!" then returning to himself, "Blood, fays he, thou art but blood," however concealed with appearances and decorations. Title and character do not alter nature, which is still corrupt, however dignified. Let's write good Angel on the devil's born ; Is't not? or rather - 'Tis yet - the Devil's creft. JOHNS. L. 15. The gen'ral fubjects to a well-wish'd King.] So the later editions: but the old copies read, the general subject to a well-wish'd king. The general subject seems a harsh expression, but general subjects has no sense at all; and general was in our author's time a word for people, so that the general is the people or multitude, subject to a king. So the general. in Hamlet, the play pleased not the million, 'twas caviare to JOHNS. P. 273. L. 9. - 'tis all as eafie] Easy is here put for light or trifling. 'Tis, says he, as light or trifing a crime to do so, as so, &c. Which the Oxford editor not apprehending, has altered it to juft; for 'tis much eafier to conceive what Shakespeare should say, than what he does say. So just before, the poet said, with his ufual licence, "their sawcy sweetness, for fawcy indulgence of the appetite." And this, forsooth, must be changed to "sawcy lewdness," tho' the epithet confines us, as it were to the poet's word. WARB. L. 10. Falfely is the fame with dishonesty, illegally, to falje in the next lines is illegal, illegitimate. JOHNS. L. 11. In restrained means. In forbidden moulds. I fufpect means not to be the right word, but I cannot find another. JOHNS. P. 274. L. 1. Pleas'd you to do't at peril, &c.] The reafoning is thus: Angelo asks, whether there might "not be a charity in fin to save this brother." Isabella answers, that " if Angelo will save him, she would stake her foul that it were charity not fin." Angelo replies, that if "Isabella would save him at the hazard of her foul, it would be not indeed no fin, but a sin to which the charity would be equivalent. JOHNS. L. 7. And nothing of your answer.] I think it should be read, " And nothing of yours answer." You and whatever is yours be exempt from penalty. JOHNS. L. 21. Accountant to the law upon that pain] Pain is here for penalty, punishment. L. 25. But in the loss of question] The loss of question I do not well understand, and should rather read, "But in the toss of question. In the agitation, in the discussion of the question. To tofs an argument is a common phrase. The Revisal reads, JOHNS. LIST of question. L. 29. The old editions read all-building law, from which binding in one of his copies. the editors have made all-kolding; yet Mr. Theobald has JOHNS. P. 275. L. 10.] A brother dy'd at once.] Perhaps we fhould read, Better it were a brother dy'd for once, JOHNS. L. 27. If not a feodary, but only be, &c.] This is so obscure, but the allufion is so fine, that it deserves to be explained. A feodary was one, that in the times of vassalage held lands of the chief lord, under the tenure of paying rent and service: which tenures were called feuda amongst the Goths. Now, fays Angelo, " we are all frail; yes, replies Isabella; if all mankind were not feodaries, who owe what they are to this tenure of imbecillity, and who succeed each other by the fame tenure, as well as my brother, I would give him up." The comparing mankind, lying under the weight of original fin, to a feodary, who owes fuit and fervice to his lord, is, I think, not ill imagined. WARB. L. 28. Το ove is in this place, to own, to bold, to have poffeffion. JOHNS. L. 30. Glaffes Which are as eafy broke, as they make forms] Would it not be better to read, take forms? JOHNS. P. 276. L. 1. In profiting by them] In imitating them, in taking them for examples. JOHNS. L. 3. And credulous to false prints] i. e. take any impreffion. WARB. L. 14. Speak the former language] We should read formal, which he here uses for plain, direct. WARE. Ibid] Ifabella answers to his circumlocutory courtship, that she has but one tongue, she does not understand this new phrafe, and defires him to talk his former language, that is, to talk as he talked before. JOHNS. L. 19. I know your virtue hath a licence in't] Alluding to the licences given by ministers to their spies, to go into all suspected companies and join in the language of malecon tents. L. 25. counterfeit virtue. WARB. feeming, seeming! -] Hypocrify, hypo rify; JOHNS. L. 32. My vouch against you] The calling his denial of |