"a LOWER CHAIR"-The comment of Stevens, sixty years ago, shows how fashions go their rounds, and will amuse the reader of the present day :

"Every house had formerly, among its other furni ture, what was called a low chair, designed for the ease of sick people, and, occasionally, occupied by lazy ones. Of these conveniences I have seen many, though, perhaps, at present they are wholly disused."

66.

— an open room, and good for winter"-i. e. Open to the sun, and thus pleasant in winter-a matter on which the English of that day, like the old Romans, (imperfectly supplied with the means of agreeable artificial heat,) laid great stress.

"-three pence a BAY"-I should take this to mean, "three pence" for each large window; but "bay" is explained, in Coles's Dictionary, (1677,) as a front of twenty-four feet.

"I pray you home to dinner with me"-This pas sage amusingly marks the "early habits" of the period; for, although the scene is laid in Vienna, we find in this play, as in others, that Shakespeare often attributes the local manners and customs of his own country to his personages, wherever the scene may be laid.

touch'd with that REMORSE"-Here, and in act v., ("My sisterly remorse confutes my honour.") "remorse" is used for pity; as in OTHELLO, (act iii. scene 3.) "Become them with one half so good a grace As mercy does."

No poet repeats himself so little as Shakespeare, but he is sometimes fond of reproducing the same train of thought, modified and coloured by a different passion in the speaker, or a difference of character. Thus, throughout this dialogue, the reader cannot but observe that the topics of the argument for mercy, and even the illustrations of it, are the same as those employed by Portia, in her appeal to Shylock. Yet, (as Mrs. Jameson says,) "how like and how unlike! Portia's eulogy on mercy is a piece of heavenly rhetoric; it is the voice of a descended angel addressing an inferior nature. If not premeditated, it is at least a part of a preconcerted scheme; while Isabella's pleadings are forced from the abundance of her heart, in broken sentences, and with the artless vehemence of one who feels that life and death hang upon her appeal."

"Like man new made”—“This reduction of man to the first associations of his primitive creation, when his soul was all innocence, and expanding with the ardent fulness of anxious sympathy, is one of the most exquisite images in SHAKESPEARE. It tells us that man is all merciful when all innocent: how much more, then, should he be merciful towards his fellow-creatures when, as now, most guilty!"-Illust. Shak.

"WHERE they live to end"-The reading of the folios is here they live." Hanmer altered the text to "ere they live, to end; and Malone to where they live, to end." Collier maintains the old reading, as meaning that the law there had formerly slept, and criminals escaped; but now it is awake, and resolves to punish crimes-" but here they live to end." Here crimes live only that they may be brought to an end. The misprint of here for "where," in the old mode of writing, was very common; and the sense is thus clearer. The phrase, so amended, is Shakespearian; as in JULIUS CESAR

And where I did begin, there shall I end.

meant that peculiar turn of the human mind that inclines it to a spiteful and unseasonable mirth. Had the angels that, they would laugh themselves out of their immortality, by indulging a passion unworthy of that prerogative.

"FOND shekels"-" Fond" is foolish, and in this instance worthless, or only valued by the foolish.

"Where prayers CROSS"-"The meaning is not clear, but may thus be explained. Isabella prays, 'Heaven keep your honour safe:' Angelo answers, Amen; for, tempted as I am, I pray for one thing, you for another. You pray heaven to keep my honour safe, I the contrary; and thus our prayers cross.'"-COLLIER.

It rather means, I think, "where prayers cross” (not each other, but) our intended or wicked purpose. The concluding speech, "From thee," etc., supports this

sense.

- as the carrion does, not as the flower”—i. e. “I am not corrupted by her, but by my own heart, which excites foul desires, under the same benign influences that exalt her purity; as the carrion grows putrid by those beams which increase the fragrance of the violet." JOHNSON.

This image, as little agreeable as it may be, occurs again in the celebrated and much-contested passage in HAMLET "For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog," etc.

"-pitch our EVILS there"-"No language could more forcibly express the aggravated profligacy of Angelo's passion, which the purity of Isabella served but the more to inflame. The desecration of edifices devoted to religion, by converting them to the most abject purposes of nature, was an eastern method of expressing contempt." (See 2 Kings x. 27.)—HENLEY.

SCENE III.

"the FLAMES of her own youth"-The old copies read flawes for "flames," which word Davenant, in his Law against Lovers," (a play patched up from this and MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING,) restored. The misprint of w for m was common in old works; and as the flames of youth is a natural expression, and the metaphor requires fire to produce the blistering in the next line, there is little doubt that Davenant, who flourished near the time of Shakespeare, was right. This reading has been adopted in all the editions since Warburton's, except those of Knight, who retains flaws, as merely a redundant confusion of metaphor.

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"LEAST you do repent"-"The modern editors have printed lest instead of 'least,' as it stands in the old copies, and have thus confused the meaning; which is, You do repent least that the sin hath brought you to this shame,' instead of repenting most the sin itself. This true reading makes the sense of the Duke's obser vation complete at But as we stand in fear,' without supposing his unfinished sentence to be broken in upou by Juliet, as it has been commonly printed."-Collier. The reply of Juliet supports Mr. Collier's return to the old reading, which I think certainly right.

tors of authority follow Malone in reading it " for vane"i. e. which the air beats about as a weathercock.

"Wrench awe from fools"—" Here Shakespeare ju diciously distinguishes the different operations of high

wise men are allured. Those who cannot judge but by the eye, are easily awed by splendour: those who consider men, as well as conditions, are easily persuaded to love the appearance of virtue dignified with power." JOHNSON.

- Blood, thou art blood"-Most editions, to remedy the supposed defect of the metre, read-" Blood, thou art but blood;" and "Blood, thou still art blood." But the rhythm seems shortened to make the stronger emphasis-"Blood, thou art blood;" and this would be lost by another syllable.

"Let's write good angel on the devil's horn,
'Tis not the devil's crest."

"Angelo's reasoning is-'O place! O form! though you wrench awe from fools, and tie even wiser souls to your false seeming, yet you make no alteration in the minds or constitutions of those who possess, or assume you. Though we should write good angel on the devil's horn, it will not change his nature, so as to give him a right to wear that crest.' It is well known that the crest was formerly chosen either as emblematical of some quality conspicuous in the person who bore it, or as alluding to some remarkable incident of his life; and on this circumstance depends the allusion."-M. MASON.

"THE GENERAL, subject to a well-wish'd king"-This is the old and intelligible reading. 'The general" is the people. So, in HAMLET-'twas caviare to the general," (act ii. scene 2;) and Lord Clarendon-" as rather to be consented to. than that the general should suffer."

"more for number than for accompt"-Sinful actions, done under compulsion, may add to the number of our wrong deeds, but are not of much account in summing up our guilt. This is sometimes literally true, but is here applied with a moral sophistry characteristic of the speaker.

"YOUR answer"-i. e. For you to answer.

"Or seem so, CRAFTY"-This is the old reading, and not craftily, as it has been modernized. "Or seem so, being crafty," is the meaning.

"When it doth TAX itself"-i. e. Acense-an old sense of the word, now become rare in modern use, but not quite antiquated.

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- the ALL-BINDING law"-The old folios have"all-building law." This Collier retains, as "referring to the constructive and repairing power of law." But this has no application to the context, which agrees perfectly with the emendation of "all-binding," which all other editors have concurred in adopting.

"IGNOMY in ransom"-"Ignomy" was a frequent mode of writing ignominy. Davenant, in his alteration of this play, has given the sense of this somewhat obscure allusion in his paraphrase

Ignoble ransom no proportion bears
To pardon freely given.

If not a FEODARY, but only he,

OWE, and succeed this weakness." "The word 'this' (instead of thy, as in the old copies) is from an old MS. note in Lord Egerton's first folio. It is probably right; and the meaning of the whole passage seems to be-If we are not all frail, let my brother die, if he alone offend, and have no feodary (companion) in this weakness.' To 'owe' is here, as in many other instances, to own."-COLLIER.

Feodary" meant, originally, vassal, and is sometimes taken for one who, as a vassal, assists his lord in any matter. The passage is, in any way, dark, and crowded with remote allusions. Nares ("Glossary")

has probably given the right explanation :—“ If he is the only one who holds by the common tenure of human frailty, and who 'owes' and 'succeeds by'-(i. e. possesses and succeeds to)—an inheritance of this infirmity."

"SMELL of calumny”—“Your accusation will appear so gross, that it will stifle yourself, and be considered a calumny. Shakespeare has suffered from the love of the literal in his commentators. Stevens informs us that the above is a metaphor from a lamp or candle extinguished in its own grease! He would have done better, in this way, to have said that it was taken from a cannon stifled in its own report, by the smell of gunpowder. The word 'smell' is, however, used here in a sense common with Shakespeare; as though he had said smacks of calumny."-Illust. Shak.

ACT III.-SCENE I.

"That DOST this habitation"-"Sir T. Hanmer changed 'dost' to do, without necessity or authority. The construction is not, the skyey influences that do,' but, a breath thou art, that dost, etc. If 'Servile to all the skyey influences' be enclosed as a parenthesis, all the difficulty will vanish."-Porson.

"-thou art DEATH'S FOOL"-This allegorical imagery is not used in an abstract sense only, for such things were actually represented on the stage, in Shakespeare's time. In some of the pieces called "Moralities," or "Mysteries," a figure of Death, with a large mouth, would appear, and the Clown, or Fool of the piece, ran about in every direction to avoid him, and yet nearly fell into his jaws at almost every turn. In Stowe's "Survey," the initial letter contains a drawing of one of these struggles between Death and the Fool.

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nurs'd by BASENESS"-The condensation of thought, in single words and phrases, which is so characteristic of this and all the later dramas of its author, cannot be better shown than by comparing these lines with Johnson's excellent note on them; yet the paraphrase would furnish the material for many a page. in a still more diluted exposition of the same humbling truth:

"A minute analysis of life at once destroys that splen dour which dazzles the imagination. Whatever gran deur can display, or luxury enjoy, is procured by 'baseness'-by offices of which the mind shrinks from the contemplation. All the delicacies of the table may be traced back to the shambles and the dunghill; all magnificence of building was hewn from the quarry; and all the pomp of ornament dug from among the damps and darkness of the mine."-JOHNSON.

death, which is no more"-Johnson is indignant at this passage, as teaching that "death" is only sleep"a sentence which in the friar is impious, in the reasoner foolish, in the poet trite and vulgar.' Surely the Poet is here misunderstood. The friar does not speak of the "something after death," but of the transit from life, which he compares to that into sleep. The great hereafter is a subject the Poet is not wont to treat with levity. Provok'st, in this passage, is another instance of his peculiar use of words of Latin derivation, employing them in their original sense, and not in the derivative one in more common use. Provoke is not to irritate, but to solicit, to invite.

"— palsied ELD"-i. e. Old age, or old people.

"an everlasting LEIGER"-A "leiger" was a permanently resident ambassador. This is best explained by Lord Bacon:-"Leiger ambassadors, or agents, were sent to remain in or near the courts of those

princes, or states, to observe their motions, or to hold correspondence with them." The same association of ideas is carried forward in the word appointment, which Stevens explains as preparation for death. But the word especially belongs to an ambassador, as we find in Burnet:-" He had the appointments of an ambassador, but would not take the character."

all the world's VASTIDITY"-i. e. Though you were the possessor of the vast world, the terms proposed will fetter you to a fixed limit.

the poor beetle, that we tread upon"-These lines, taken apart from the context, would indicate that the bodily pain, such as is attended with death, is felt with equal severity by a giant and a beetle. The physiologists tell us that this is not true; and that the nervous system of a beetle does not allow it to feel pain so acutely as that of a man. We hope this is correct; but we are not sure that Shakespeare meant to refine quite so much as the entomologists are desirous to believe. "It is somewhat amusing, (says a writer in the Eutomological Magazine,') that his words should, in this case, be entirely wrested from their original purpose. His purpose was to show how little a man feels in dying; that the sense of death is most in apprehension, not in the act; and that even a beetle, which feels so little, feels as much as a giant does. The less, therefore, the beetle is supposed to feel, the more force we give to the sentiment of Shakespeare."

"-follies doth EMMEW"-Angelo makes follies mew up, or hide themselves; as the falcon compels the fowl to conceal himself. "Emmew" was a term in falconryto coop up.

The PRECISE Angelo"-The first folio has, "the prenzie Angelo ;" and the second substituted princely for prenzie. The word occurs again three lines lower, where Isabella talks of "prenzie guards." Warburton would read priestly in both places, and Tieck suggests precise; which last, strange as it may be that a critic, who has learned English as a foreign language, should have hit what so many ingenious Englishmen had missed, bears in itself strong presumption of being the true reading. We agree with Knight, that, "having to choose some word which would have the double merit of agreeing with the sense of the passage and being similar in the number and form of the letters, nothing can be more unfortunate than the correction of princely. Warburton's priestly is much nearer the meaning intended to be conveyed. Tieck's precise has a much closer resemblance to prenzie than either of the others

(Prenzie; precise; princelie; priestlie.)

Angelo has already been called precise; and the term, so familiar to Shakespeare's contemporaries, of precisian, for puritan, and precise in reference to strictness of morals and manners, would make Claudio's epithet appropriate and intelligible. Princely guards (understanding by guards the trimmings of a robe) certainly does not give us the meaning of the Poet: it only says, the worst man may wear a rich robe. Priestly is here again much better. But precise guards distinctly gives is the formal trimmings of the scholastic robe, to which Milton alludes in Comus:'

O foolishness of men! that lend their ears
To those budge doctors of the Stoic fur,
And fetch their precepts from the Cnyic tub."

"If it were damnable"-" Shakespeare shows his knowledge of human nature, in the conduct of Claudio. When Isabella first tells him of Angelo's proposal, he answers, with honest indignation, agreeably to his settled principles

Thou shalt not do't.

But the love of life, being permitted to operate, soon furnishes him with sophistical arguments: he believes it cannot be very dangerous to the soul, since Angelo, who is so wise, will venture it."-JOHNSON.

"And blown with restless violence round about The pendent world," etc.

This idea does not belong to any form of Christian doctrine or opinion, but comes from the ancient philoso phy, taught by Cicero in his "Somnium Scipionis:""Eorum animi qui se corporis voluptatibus dediderunt, corporibus elapsi circum terram ipsam volutantur," etc The metrical harmony of the spheres, so beautifully introduced in the MERCHANT OF VENICE, (act v. scene 1..) is also one of the topics of Cicero, in this same philosophical fragment; so that it is probable that the Poet may have drawn that, as well as this poetic notion of the old philosophy, from the same source. If it is not allowed that he could read the original, yet he might have read Newton's translation, which was turned into English" in 1577.

"—age, ache, PENURY"-The oldest copy has perjury. It was corrected in the second folio. In a previous line it has thought for "thoughts."

"What sin you do to save a brother's life, Nature dispenses with the deed so far," etc. "One of the most dramatic passages in the present play, (says Hazlitt, in his Characters of Shakespeare's Plays,') is the interview between Claudio and his sister. when she comes to inform him of the conditions on which Angelo will spare his life. What adds to the dramatic beauty of the scene, and the effect of Claudio's passionate attachment to life, is that it immediately follows the Duke's lecture to him, in the character of the Friar, recommending an absolute indifference to it." The attempt of Claudio to prove to his sister that the loss of her chastity, upon such an occasion, will be a virtue, is finely characteristic of the profound knowledge Shakespeare possessed of the intricate complexities of the human heart. 'Shakespeare was, in one sense, the least moral of all writers, (says Hazlitt;) for morality (commonly so called) is made up of antipathies; and his talent consisted in sympathy with human nature, in all its shapes, degrees, depressions, and elevations. The object of the pedantic moralist is to find out the bad in every thing: his was to show that there is some soul of goodness in things evil.'" With reference to the representation of such scenes on the stage, Schlegel observes:-"It is certainly to be wished that decency should be observed on all public occasions, and consequently also on the stage; but even in this it is possible to go too far. That censorious spirit, which scents out impurity in every sally of a bold and vivacious descrip tion, is at best but an ambiguous criterion of purity of morals; and there is frequently concealed under this hypocrisy the consciousness of an impure imagination. The determination to tolerate nothing which has the least reference to the sensual relation between the two sexes may be carried to a pitch extremely oppressive to a dramatic poet, and injurious to the boldness and freedom of his composition. If considerations of such a nature were to be attended to, many of the happiest parts of the plays of Shakespeare, for example, in

MEASURE FOR MEASURE, and ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, which are handled with a due regard to decency, must be set aside for their impropriety.'

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-a WARPED slip of WILDERNESS"-i. e. Wildness-a wild "slip," not proceeding from the grafted stock. Beaumont and Fletcher, Decker, and Milton, use "wilderness" in the same sense.

"the goodness that is cheap in beauty"-The quaint brevity of the sentence makes it obscure. He says "The goodness which, when associated with beauty, is held cheap, does not remain long so associated; but grace, being the very life of your features, must continue to preserve their beauty."

"the corrupt deputy SCALED"-i. e. Exposed, by removing the scales which cover him. This is the ordinary explanation of the word, which, however, Nares ("Glossary") rejects, and interprets it as "weighed in the scales."

"the MOATED GRANGE"-A lonely house or farm, with a moat around it. A " grange" formerly meant the farm-house belonging to a monastery, and situated at some distance. On this suggestion of the utter desolation of Mariana, whose loving and deserted heart was left to prey upon itself, and to torment her imagination with one constant, unchangeable, and unavailing idea, a beautiful poem has been founded, by Tennyson.

SCENE II.

"-drink brown and white BASTARD"-i. e. A kind of sweet wine, made of raisins, then much used-from the Italian bastardo. It is used here with a double meaning.

"good BROTHER FATHER"-" In return to Elbow's blundering address of good father friar-(i. e. “good father brother')-the Duke humorously calls him, in his own style, good brother father.' This would appear still clearer in French-Dieu vous benisse, mon père frère. Et vous aussi, mon frère père.' There is no doubt that our friar is a corruption of the French frère."-TYRWHITT.

A. De Vigny, in the preface to his spirited translation of OTHELLO, etc., into French verse, expresses his surprise at finding so much of the antiquated English of Shakespeare to be good old French.

"From our faults, as faults from sceming, free"— The meaning is obscure from brevity. The Duke wishes that we were all as free from faults as faults are from seeming to be so. Many editors print, with the second folio," Free from our faults," etc.

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- your waist, a cord, sir"-Alluding to the "cord" round a friar's "waist."

"it is not the WEAR"-i. e. It is not the fashion. "he is a MOTION"-i. e. He is a puppet-made of wood.

"DETECTED for women"-The use of this word, in the various extracts from old authors, collected by the commentators, show that its old meaning was (not suspected, as some of them say, but) charged, arraigned, accused. Thus, in Greenway's "Tacitus," (1622,) the Roman senators, who informed against their kindred, are said "to have detected the dearest of their kindred." "-in her CLACK-DISH"- -"A wooden dish, with a moveable cover, formerly carried by beggars, which they clacked and clattered to show that they were empty. In this they received the alms. It was one mode of attracting attention. Lepers, and other paupers deemed infectious, originally used it, that the sound might give warning not to approach too near, and alms be given without touching the object. The custom of clacking at Easter is not yet quite disused, in some of the counties in England. Lucio's meaning is too evident to want explanation."-SINGER.

"an INWARD of his"-"Inward" is intimate. Here it is used substantively.

"the business he hath HELMED"-The business, vessel of the state, of which he hath taken the helm. "an OPPOSITE"-i. e. Adversary, or opponent. "eat MUTTON on FRIDAYS"-This figure is taken from the fasting required on Fridays, and from the word mutton" being applied to flesh, both human and bestial. "Mutton" and "laced mutton" were the commonest terms applied to prostitutes, in Shakespeare's time.

"come PHILIP and JACOB"-A quaint allusion to the saints' days, Philip and James, or Jacobus.

"the DISSOLUTION of it must cure it"—i. e. Virtue has become so extreme, that it must have a speedy end. The reference is to the overstrained sanctity and zeal of Angelo.

"to make fellowships accurs'd"-" The sense is, (says Holt White,) there scarcely exists sufficient honesty in the world to make social life secure; but there are occasions enough when a man may be drawn in to become surety, which will make him pay dearly for his friendships.'

"Grace to stand, and virtue go"-Coleridge, in his "Literary Remains," observes, upon this passage, "Worse metre, indeed, but better English would beGrace to stand, virtue to go."

M. Mason proposed to read

In grace to stand, and virtue go. The text, as it stands, accords with the pervading compressed and broken style of the whole drama.

"weed my vice, and let his grow"-Some commentators make this refer to the Duke's personal fault, which he confesses-"'twas my fault to give this people scope." I rather think most readers will agree with Malone, that "My does not relate to the Duke in particular, but to any indefinite person. The meaning seems to be, to destroy by extirpation (as it is expressed in another place) a fault that I have committed, and to suffer his own vices to grow to a rank and luxuriant height. The speaker puts himself in the case of an unoffending person.”

"Most pond'rous and substantial things"-I believe, with several of the best critics, that this passage, probably originally obscure from brevity of expression, has become more so from some misprint, the correction of which has not been discovered. Likeness (says Collier) has been construed comeliness; but likeness made in crimes may refer to the resemblance, in vicious inclination, between Angelo and Claudio." Stevens gave up the lines as unintelligible, and the other commentators have not extracted much meaning out of them. We have printed the old text, as at least as good as any of the proposed emendations. The sense seems to beHow may persons, of similar criminality, by making practice on the times, draw to themselves, as it were with spiders' webs, the ponderous and substantial benefits of the world."

ACT IV.-Scene 1.

"Take, O! take those lips away"-The earliest authority for assigning this song to Shakespeare, (excepting that one stanza of it is found here,) is the spurious edition of his " Poems," printed in 1640. It is inserted in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Bloody Brother," (act v. scene 2,) with a second stanza, as follows:Hide, O! hide those hills of snow, Which thy frozen bosom bears, On whose tops the pinks that grow Are of those that April wears; But first set my poor heart free, Bound in those icy chains by thee.

Critics differ as to the authorship. Coupling the two circumstances that one stanza of the song is found here, and that the whole was imputed to Shakespeare in 1640, his claim may be admitted, until better evidence is adduced to deprive him of it; unless, indeed, we admit Weber's very probable conjecture, that this stanza is Shakespeare's, and that Fletcher, having occasion for a similar song, borrowed the first, and added the second

stanza.

"a PLANCHED gate"-i. e. A gate made of boards: (from the French planche.)

"There, have I made my promise, upon the Heavy middle of the night to call upon him."

I have here, like Knight, preferred retaining the original metrical regulation, harsh as it may be, to an arbi

trary change, which adds little melody to the linesand these, indeed, are not the worse for approaching to prose. By pointing and reading, as the sense directs, "have I made my promise" parenthetically, or between commas, the verse is more perceptible. Kuight well remarks:-"There are many examples in Shakespeare's later plays, particularly in HENRY VIII., of metrical arrangements such as this, in which the freedom of versification is carried to the extremest limit. We believe it to be characteristic of a period of the Poet's life, and therefore cannot consent to remove these decided indications. The lines are ordinarily regulated as follows:There have I made my promise to call on him, Upon the heavy middle of the night."

"I have POSSESS'D him"-i. e. Informed him.

"most contrarious QUESTS"-i. e. False and contradictory inquisitions, and pryings into conduct. Inquest, in its legal sense, has the same origin, being an inquiry by a jury; and was abridged to "quest," as it may still be heard in vulgar usage.

"FLOURISH the deceit"-i. e. Bestow propriety, and ornament-like rich work upon a coarse ground. So, in TWELFTH NIGHT

Empty trunks o'erflourish'd by the devil.

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"our TILTH's to sow"-The older copies have, our tythes to sow." Warburton suggested it was a misprint for "tilth," which is, I think, the true reading, though not generally adopted. Tilth" was a favourite old farming word, which is thus explained, by an old writer on husbandry-(Markham's "English Husbandry," 1635:)" Begin to sow your barley upon that ground which the year before did lye fallow, and is commonly called your tilth, or fallow-field." It is a confirmation of this correction that, in this very book, or another page, "tilth" is misprinted, as here, tithe. The Duke then says-"The harvest is so far from being ready to reap, that we have as yet not even sowed our field!"

SCENE 11.

on

every TRUE man's apparel fits your thief"—____ This is the old and more characteristic division of the dialogue, though the last speech of the Clown has been, after much learned discussion, in several editions, coupled with Abhorson's answer. The Clown asks Abhorson for proof that his occupation is a mystery, and receives for reply, merely, "Every true man's (i. e. honest man's) apparel fits your thief." The Clown, who is a quick fellow, catches at the reasoning passing in Abhorson's mind, and explains in what way "every true man's apparel fits your thief." The author has made Abhorson a person of a certain concise and silent gravity, as if, indeed, he painted from some individual of this class, whose peculiarities he thought worthy of being preserved in this representative of his profession. He, therefore, contents himself with the assertion upon which the Clown enlarges.

you shall find me YARE"-i. e. Handy; nimble in the execution of the office.

"

"it lies STARKLY"-i. e. Stiffly. "were he MEAL'D"- Meal'd (says Blackstone, and Nares) means mingled, or compounded-(from the French méler.) Mell, for meddle, or mingle, is common." I doubt this, and prefer Johnson's explanation :"Were he meal'd; were he sprinkled, or defiled." A figure of the same kind our author uses in MACBETH:The blood-bolter'd Banquo.

"UNSISTING postern"-" Unsisting (says Blackstone) may signify never at rest, always opening." It may be a misprint for resisting, or unresting.

the assignment of these speeches. In the original, the Duke says, "This is his lordship's man;" whereas it is not likely that the Provost, who has so strongly expressed his opinion that Angelo would be unrelenting, and who subsequently says "I told you," should, upon the very appearance of a messenger, exclaim-" And here comes Claudio's pardon."

SCENE III.

young MR. RASH"-"This enumeration of the inhabitants of the prison affords a very striking view of the practices predominant in Shakespeare's age. Besides those whose follies are common to all times, we have four fighting-men and a traveller. It is not unlikely that the originals of the pictures were then known."-JOHNSON.

"a commodity of brown paper and old ginger”— An amusing and instructive paper might be made up from the plays, novels, and essays of France and England, for the last three centuries, describing the still familiar arts of the money-lenders, to whom men of desperate credit are driven for aid, in contriving to avoid the usury laws, by obliging the hapless customer to take a portion of their loan in some unsaleable commodities, such as "brown paper and old ginger." From Shakespeare, who, as he soon became (in his own phrase)" a rich fellow enough, and had every thing handsome about him," must have described only the experience of others, to Sheridan, who doubtless related his own experience in that of Charles Surface, there is hardly an English writer of comic fiction but has at least hinted at this fruitful topic. Le Sage, Molière, etc., down to the present novelists of Paris, have also found in this perpetual food for pleasantry; and their laughable satire would not require much alteration to make it very intelligible on this side of the Atlantic. The first notice of it, that has fallen in my way, was in Wilson's " Discourse on Usury," (1572;) and, as he speaks of it as being then no novelty, this establishes a very respectable antiquity for this time-honoured usage.

"for the Lord's sake"-Alluding to the custom of prisoners begging "for the Lord's sake"-a custom which lasted, in London, till the present generation. Thomas Nash thus mentions begging for the Lord's sake," at the Fleet, in his "Pierce Penniless," (1592:)— At that time that thy joys were in the fleeting, and thus crying, for the Lord's sake,' out of an iron window."

"YONDER generation”—“ The original is gond, in which the printer no doubt followed the contraction of the writer. But in most modern editions, we have the under generation; which change (says Johnson) was made by Hanmer, with true judgment.' Shakespeare has, indeed, in RICHARD II., alluded to the antipodes in a poetical figure:

when the searching eye of heaven is hid Behind the globe, and lights the lower world. But what is gained in the passage before us by perplexing the time when the Duke assures the Provost he shall find his safety manifested? The scene takes place before the dawning: Claudio is to be executed by four of the clock. The Duke says

As near the dawning, provost, as it is, You shall hear more ere morning. Subsequently, when the morning is come, Isabella is told the Duke comes home to-morrow.' Speaking, then, in the dark prison, before sunrise, nothing can be more explicit than the Duke's statement that before the sun has twice made his daily greeting to 'yonder' generation-i. e. to the life without the walls-the Provost shall be assured of his safety. But at the time when he was speaking it would be evening at the antipodes: and if the Provost waited for his safety till the sun had twice risen upon the under generation, he would have to wait till a third day before he received that assurance: and this contradicts what is afterwards said of to-mor row."-KNIGHT.