seriously applied to speech, is This is well de livered, this story is well told. STEEVENS.

P. 104, l. 19. 20. Ang. Go to: What quality are they of? Elbow is your name? Why dost thou not speak, Elbow?] Says Angelo to the con stable.,,He cannot, Sir, (quoth the Clown,) he's out at elbow." I know not whether this quibble be generally understood: he is out at the word elbow, and out at the elbow of his coat. The Constable, in his account of master Froth and the Clown, has a stroke at the Puritans, who were very zealous against the stage about this time:,,Precise villains they are, that I am sure of; and void of all profanation in the world, that good Christians ought to have." FARMER.

› P. 104, l. 24. He Sir? a tapster, Sir; parcelbawd;] This we should now express by saying, he is half-tapster, half-bawd.

JOHNSON.

P. 104, 1. 27. A hot house is an English name for a bagnio. JOHNSON.

P. 104. 1. 30. My wife, Sir, whom I detest etc.] He designed to say protest.. Mrs. Quickly makes the same blunder in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I. sc. iv. ,,But, I detest, an honest maid," etc. STEEVENS.

P. 105, 1. 11. Ay, Sir, by mistress Overdone's means:] Here seems to have been some mention made of Froth, who was to be accused, and some words therefore may have been lost, unless the irregularity of the narrative may be better impu ted to the ignorance of the constable. JOHNSON. P. 105, 1. 20. Stewed prunes were to be found in every brothel. STEEVENS.

P. 105, 1. 24. A China dish, in the age of Shakspeare, must have been such an uncommon thing, that the Clown's exemption of it, as no

utensil in a common brothel, is a striking cir cumstance in his absurd and tautological deposition. STEEVENS.

a low

P. 106, I. 25. He, Sir, sitting, as I say, in a lower chair,] Every house had formerly, among its other furniture, what was called chair, designed for the ease of sick people, and, occasionally, occupied by lazy ones. Of these conveniencies I have seen many, though, perhaps, at present they are wholly disused. STEEVENS. P. 107, l. 20. I'll be supposed upon a book,] He means deposed. MALONE.

P. rog, first 1. Justice or Iniquity ?] These were, I suppose, two personages well known to the audience by their frequent appearance in the old moralities. The words, therefore, at that time produced a combination of ideas, which they have now lost. JOHNSON.

Justice or Iniquity?] i. e. The constable or the fool. Escalus calls the latter Iniquity, in allusion to the old Vice, a familiar character, in the ancient moralities and dumb- shews. Justice may have a similar allusion, which I am unable to explain. Iniquitie is one of the personages in the,,Worthy interlude of Kynge Darius,“ 4to. bl. 1. no date, And in the First Part of King Henry IV. Prince Henry calls Falstaff, ,,that reverend Vice, that grey Iniquity.". RITSON.

P. 108, 1. 4. O thou wicked Hannibal!] Mis taken by the constable for Cannibal. JOHNSON. P. 108, 1. 22. thou art to continue.] Perhaps Elbow, misinterpreting the language of Escalus, supposes the Clown is to continue in confinement; at least, he conceives some severe punishment or other to be implied by the word continue. STEEVENS.

P. 109, first 1. Draw has here a cluster of senses. As it refers to the tapster, it signifies to drain, to empty; as it is related to hang it means to be conveyed to execution on a hurdle. In Froth's answer, it is the same as to bring along by some motive or power. JOHNSON.

P. 109, 1. 11. Pompey.] His mistress in a pre ceding scene, calls him Thomas. RITSON.

P. 109, l. 14. 'Troth, and your bum is the greatest thing about you; Harrison in his De scription of Britain, prefixed to Holingshed's Chronicle, condemns the excess of apparel amongst his countrymen. Should any curious reader wish for more information upon this subject, he is réferred to „Strutt's Manners and Customs of the English," Vol. III. p. 86. DOVCE.

But perhaps an ancient MS. ballad, entitled, lamentable complaint of the pore country men againste great hose, for the losse of there cattel les tailes, Mus. Brit. MS. Harl. 367. may throw further light on the subject. STEEVENS.

P. 109, 1. 32. take order i. e. take mea

sures. STEEVENS..

P. 110, 1. 5. A bay of building is, in many parts of England, a common term, of which the best conception that ever I could obtain, is, that it is the space between the main beams of the roof: so that a barn crossed twice with beams is a barn of three bays. JOHNSON.

P. 112, 1. 28. Your Honour, which is so often repeated in this scene, was in our author's time the usual mode of address to a Lord. It had be come antiquated after the Restoration; for Sir William D'Avenant in his alteration of this play has substituted your Excellence in the room of it. MALONE

P. 112, 1. 29. Stay a little while.] It is not clear why the Provost is bidden to stay, nor when he goes out. JOHNSON.

The entrance of Lucio and Isabella should not, perhaps, he made till after Angelo's speech to the Provost, who had only announced a lady, and seems to be detained as a witness to the purity of the deputy's conversation with her. His exit. may be fixed with that of Lucie and Isabella. He cannot remain longer, and there is no reason to think he departs before. RITSON.

Stay a little while, is said by Angelo, in answer to the words,,,Save your honours" which denoted the Provost's intention to depart. Isabella uses the same words to Angelo, when she goes out, near the conclusion of this scene! So also, when she offers to retire, on finding her suit ineffectual:,,Heaven keep your honour!« MALONE.

~~P. 113, ̈l. 4. 5. For which I must not plead, but that I am

At war,

'twixt will, and will not.] This is obscure; perhaps it may be mended by reading:

For which I must now plead; but yet I am At war, twixt will, and will not. Yet and ye are almost undistinguishable in an an cient manuscript. Yet no alteration is necessary; since the speech is not unintelligible as it now stands. JoHNSON.

P. 113, 1. 8. 9.

let it be his fault,

And not my brother.] i. e. let his fault be condemned, or extirpated, but let not my brother himself suffer. MALONE.

- P. 113, 1. 34. Bemorse, fu this place, as in maný others, signifies pity. Sec Othello, Act III. STEEVENS,

P. 114, 1. 21. Why, all the souls that were, 1 were forfeit once;]

This is false divinity. We should read -are. WARBURTON,

I fear, the player, in this instance, is a better divine than the prelate. The souls that WERE, evidently refer to Adam and Eve, whose trans gression rendered them obnoxious to the penalty of annihilation, but for the remedy which the author of their being most graciously provided. The learned Bishop, however, is more successful in his next explanation. HENLEY.

P. 114, L. 26. 27. And mercy then will breathe within your lips,

Like man new made.] This is a fine thought, and finely expressed. The meaning is, that mercy will add such a grace to your per son, that you will appear as 'amiable as a man come fresh out of the hands of his Creator.

WARBURTON.

I rather think the meaning is, You will then change the severity of your present character. In familiar speech, You would be quite another man. JOHNSON.

You will then appear as tender hearted and merciful as the first man was in his days of inno cence, immediately after his creation. MALONE. I incline to a different interpretation: And you, Angelo, will breathe new life into Claudio, as the Creator animated Adam, by,,breathing into his nostrils the breath of life."

HOLT WHITE.

P. 114, last 1. We hill the fowl of season; i. e. when it is in season. So, in The Merry Wi ves of Windsor: ,,-buck; and of the season too it shall appear. STEEVENS.