The old copy appears to me to require no alteration. MALONE. P. 121, 1. 14. The general, subject to a well wish'd King,] The ,, subjects;" but the old The general subject to a well-wish'd King. The general subject stems a harsh expression, but general subjects has no sense at all, and ge neral was, in our author's time, a word for people; so that the general is the people, or multitude, subject to a King. So, in Hamlet: ,,The play pleased not the million: to the general." JOHNSON. 'twas caviare 1 I cannot help thinking that Shakspeare,in these two passages, intended to Batter the makingly weakness of James the First, which made him so impatient of the crowds that flocked to see him, especially upon his first coming, that, as some of our historians say, he restrained them by a procla mation. Sir Symonds D'Ewes, in his Memoirs of his own Life, has a remarkable passage with regard to this humour of James. After taking notice, that the King going to parliament, on the goth of January, 1620-1,,,spake lovingly to 3. the people, and said, God bless ye, God bless ye;" he adds these words.,,,contrary to his former hasty and passionate custom, which often, in his sudden distemper, would bid a. pox or a plague on such as flocked to see him." TYRWHITT. P. 122, I. 2. 3. -- that hath from nature stolen killed a man. MALONE. a P. 122, 1. 4. Their sawcy sweetness Dr. Warburton interprets, their sawcy indulgence of their appetite. Perhaps it means nearly the same las what is afterwards called sweet uncleanness. Sweetness, in the present instance has, I believe, the same sense as lickerishness. STEEVENS P. 122, 1. 6. Falsely is the same with dishanestly, illegally: so false, in the next line but one, is illegal, illegitimate. JOHNSON. P. 122. 7. As to put mettle in, restrained. means,] In forbidden moulds. I suspect means not to be the right word, but I cannot find another. JOHNSON. 3 I should suppose that our author wrote, was A in restrained mints, as the allusion may be still to coining. Sir Wa D'Avenant omits the passage. STEEVENS. P. 122, 1. 9. Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth.] I woulds have it considered, whether the train of the dis course does not rather require Isabel to say: 'Tis so set down in carth, but not in heaven. When she has said this, Then, says Angelo, shall poze you quickly. Would you, who, for the present purpose, declare your brother's crime to be less in the sight of heaven, than the lawN has made it; would you commit that crime, light as it is, to save your brother's life? To shis she answers, not very plainly in either reading, butd more appositely to that which I propose:u I had rather give my body than my soul. JOHNSON. What you have stated is undoubtedly the divine law: murder and fornication are both, forbid by: the canon of scripture; — but on earth the lat ter offence is considered as less heinous than they former. MALONZ. AP. 122. 1. 17. I had rather give my body than my soul.] Isabel, I believe, uses the words, ,,give my body," in a different sense from that in which they had been employed by Angelo. She means, I think, I had rather die, than forfeit my eternal happinėss by the prostitution of my person. MALONE.` She may mean I had rather give up my body to imprisonment, than my soul to perdition. STEEVENS. P. 122, 1. 18. 19. Our compell'd sins Stand more for number than accomp.] Actions to which we are compelled, however numerous, are not imputed to us by heaven as 'crimes. If you cannot save your brother but by the loss of your chastity, it is not a voluntary but compelled sin, for which you cannot be accountable. MALONE. P. 122, 1. 30. 31. Pleas'd you to do't, at peril of your soul, Were equal poize of sin and charity.] The reasoning is thus: Angelo asks, whether there might not be a charity in sin to save this brother. Isabella auswers, that if Angelo will save him, she will stake her soul that it were charity, not sin. Angelo replies, that if Isabella would save him at the hazard of her soul, it would bes not indeed no sin, but a sin to which the charity would be equivalent. JOHNSON, P. 122, last 1. To have it added to the faults Tas And nothing of your, answer.] I think And nothing of yours, answer. You, and whatever is yours, be exempt from pe nalty. JOHNSON, And nothing of your answer, means, and make no part of those sins for which you shall be called to answer. STEEVENS. This passage would be clear, I think, if it were pointed thus: To have it added to the faults of mine, And nothing of your, answer. STEEVENS. So that the substantive answer may be understood to be joined in construction with mine as well as your. The faults of mine answer are to answer for. the faults which I am TYRWHITT. P. 123, 1. 9. An enshield beauty is a shielded beauty, a beauty covered or protected as with a shield. STEEVENS. as these black masks, Proclaim an enshield beauty, etc. This should be written, en-shell'd, or in-shell'd, as it is in Coriolanus, Act IV. sc. vi. ,,Thrusts forth his horns again into the world ,,That were in-shell'd when Marcius stood for Rome." These Masks must mean, I think, the Masks of the audience; however, improperly a compli ment to them is put into the mouth of Angelo. As Shakspeare would hardly have been guilty of such an indecorum to flatter a common audience, I think this passage affords ground for supposing that the play was written to be acted at court. Some strokes of particular flattery to the King I have already pointed out; and there are several other general relections, in the character of the Duke especially, which seem calculated for the royal ear. TYRWHITT. I do not think so well of the conjecture in the latter part of this note, as I did some years ago; and therefore I should wish to withdraw it. Not that I am inclined to adopt the idea of Mr. Rit9011, as I see no ground for supposing that Isabella had any mask in her hand. My notion at present is, that the phrase these black masks signifies nothing more than black masks; according to an old idiom of our language, by which the. demonstrative pronoun is put for the propositive article. See the Glossary to Chaucer, edit. 1775; This, Thise. Shakspeare seems to have used the same idiom not only in the passage quoted by Mr. Steevens from Romeo and Juliet, but also in King Henry IV. Part I. Act I. sc. iii. -and, but for these vile guns, ,,He would himself have been a soldier." With respect to the former part of this note, though Mr. Ritson has told us that,,,enshield is CERTAINLY put by contraction for enshielded," I have no objection to leaving my conjecture in its place, till some authority is produced for such au 'usage of enshield or enshielded. TYRWHITT. There are instances of a similar contraction or elision, in our author's plays. Thus, bloat for bloated, ballast for batiasted, wafted, with many others. RITSON Sir William D'Avenant reads and waft for as a black mask; but I am afraid Mr. Tyrwhitt is too well supported in his first supposition, by a passage at the beginning of Romeo and Juliet: ,,These happy masks that kiss fair ladies' brows, Being black, put us in mind they hide the fair." STEEVENS. |