Let me intreat you, fpeak the former language. (4) Ifab. My brother did love Juliet; And you tell me, that he fhall die for it. Ang. He fhall not, label, if you give me love. Ifab. I know, your virtue hath a licence in't, (5) Which feems a little fouler than it is, To pluck on others. Ang. Believe me, on mine honour, My words exprefs my purpose. Ifab. Ha! little honour to be much believ'd, And most pernicious purpofe!-feeming, feeming!-(6) will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for't: Sign me a prefent pardon for my brother, Or, with an out-ftretch'd throat, I'll tell the world Ang. Who will believe thee, Ifabel? My unfoil'd name, th' auftereness of my life, That you fhall ftifle in your own report, (4)~ - Speak the FORMER language.] We should read FORMAL, which he here ufes for plain, direct. WARBURTON. Ijabella anfwers to bis circumlocutory courtship, that the has but one to gue, the does not understand this new phrafe, and defires him to talk his former language, that is, to talk as he talked before. (5) I know your virtue bath a licence in't,] Alluding to the licences given by Minifters to their Spies, to go i fufpected companies and join in the language of Malecontents, WARBURTON. (6) -feeming, feeming! Hypocrify, hypocrify; counterfeit virtue. 15. (7) My vouch against you.] The calling his denial of her charge, his vouch, has fomething fine. Vouch is the teftimony one man bears for another. So that, by this, he infinuates his authority was fo great, that his denial would have the fame credit that a vouch or tellimony has in ordinary cafes, WARBURTON. I believe this beauty is merely imaginary, and that wouch againft means no more than denial. Or Or else he must not only die the death, (8) you, Say what you can; my falfe o'erweighs your true. [Exit. Bidding the law make curtly to their will; To fuch abhorr'd pollution. Then, Ifabel, live chafte; and, brother die ; I'll tell him yet of Angelo's requeft; And fit his mind to death, for his foul's Reft. [Exin ACT III. SCENE I. The Prifon. Enter Duke, Claudio, and Provost, DUKE. O, then you've hope of pardon from lord Angelo. Claud. The miferable have no other medicine, But only Hope I've hope to live, and am prepar'd to die. [8] die the death.] This feems to be a folemn phrafe for death inflicted by law. So in Midfummer-Night's Dream. Prepare to die the death. [9] prompture.] Suggeftion, temptation, instigation. Duke. Duke. Be abfolute for death: (9) or death, or life, Shall thereby be the fweeter. Reason thus with life 'If I do lose thee, I do lofe a thing, ; That none but fools would keep; (1) a breath thou art, That do this habitation, (2) where thou keep'ft, And yet runn'ft tow'rd him ftill. Thou art not noble Are nurs❜d by baseness: (4) thou'rt by no means valiant, For (9) Be abfolute for death :] Be determined to die, without any hope of life. Horace. —The bour which exceeds expectation will be welcome. (1) That none but fools would keep ;] But this reading is not only contrary to all Senfe and Reafon; but to the Drift of this moral Difcourfe. The Dake, in his affum'd Character of a Friar, is endeavouring to inftil into the condemn'd Prifoner a Refignation of Mind to his Sentence; but the Senfe of the Lines, in this Reading, is a direct Persuasive to Suicide: I make no Doubt, but the Poet wrote, That none but Fools would reck, i. e. care for, be anxious about, regret the loss of. So in the Tragedy of Tancred and Gismunda, Act 4. Scene 3. Not that fbe RECKs this life And Shakespeare in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, WARBURTON. The meaning feems plainly this, that none but fools would wish to keep life; or, none but fools would keep it, if choice were allowed. A fenfe, which, whether true or not, is certainly innocent. (2) That do this habitation,] This reading is fubftituted by Sir Thomas Hanmer, for that doft. (3) • meerly thou art Death's Fool; For him thou labour'ft by thy flight to fhun, And yet runn'ft tow'rd bim ftill.] In those old Farces called moRALITIES, the Fool of the piece, in order to fhew the inevitable approaches of Death, is made to employ all his ftratagems to avoid bim: which, as the matter is ordered, bring the Fool, at every turn, into his very jaws. So that the representations of these scenes would afford a great deal of good mirth and morals mixed together. And from fuch circumftances, in the genius of our ancestors publick diverfions, I fuppofe it was, that the old proverb arofe, of being merry and wife, WARBURTON. (4) Are nurs'd by bafenefs:] Dr. Warburton is undoubtedly miftaken in supposing that by bafeness is meant self-love, hese affigned as VOL. II. C the For thou doft fear the foft and tender fork Of a poor worm (5). Thy beft of Reft is fleep, (6) After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor; For, like an afs, whofe back with ingots bows, the motive of all human actions. Shakespeare meint only to obferve, that a minute analyfis of life at once deftroys that splendour which dazzles the imagination. Whatever grandeur can difplay, or luxury enjoy, is procured by bafenefs, by offices of which the mind fhrinks from the contemplation. All the delicacies of the table may be traced back to the fhambles and the dunghill, all magnificence of building was hewn from the quarry, and all the pomp of ornaments, dug from among the damps and darkness of the mine. (5) the foft and tender fork Of a poor worm.-] Worm is put for any creeping thing or ferpent. Shakespeare fuppofes falfely, but according to the vulgar notion, that a ferpent wounds with his tongue, and that his tongue is forked. He confounds reality and fiction, a ferpent's tongue is foft but not forked nor hurtful If it could hurt, it could not be foft. In Midfummer Night's Dream he has the fame notion. With doubler tongue Than thine, O ferpent, never adder stung. (6) thy best of rest is fleep, And that thou oft provok'st; yet grofly fear'ft Thy death which is no more.-] Evidently from the following paffage of Cicero: Habes fomnum imaginem Mortis, eamque quotidie induis, dubitas quin fenfus in morte nullus fit, cum in ejus fimulacro videas effe nullum fenfum. But the Epicurean infinuation is, with great judgment, omitted in the imitation. WARBURTON. Here Dr. Warburton might have found a fentiment worthy of his animadversion. I cannot without indignation find Shakespeare saying, that death is only fleep, lengthening out his exhortation by a sentence which in the Friar is impious, in the reafoner is foolish, and in the poet trite and vulgar. (7) Thou'rt not thyself;] Thou art perpetually repaired and renovated by external affiftance, thou fubfifteft upon foreign matter, and haft no power of producing or continuing thy own being. (8) -frange effects,] For effects read affects; that is, affections paffions of mind, or diforders of body variously affected. So in Othella, The young affects. Thou Thou bear'ft thy heavy riches but a journey, For ending thee no fooner. Thou haft nor youth, nor age; (9) But as it were an after-dinner's fleep, Dreaming on both; for all thy bleffed youth (1) (9) Thou haft nor youth, nor age; But as it were an after-dinner's fleep, Becomes Dreaming on both ;] This is exquifitely imagined. When we are young we bufy ourselves in forming schemes for fucceeding time and miss the gratifications that are before us; when we are old we amuse the languor of age with the recollection of youthful pleasures or performances; fo that our life, of which no part is filled with the business of the prefent time, resembles our dreams after dinner when the events of the morning are mingled with the defigns of the evening. (1) For all thy bleed youth Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms Of palfied Eld; and when thou'rt old and rich, Thou haft neither beat, &c.. ] The drift of this period is to prove, that neither youth nor age can be faid to be really enjoyed, which, in poetical language, is,- We have neither youth nor age. But how is this made out? That Age is not enjoyed he proves, by recapitulating the infirmities of it, which deprive that period of life of all fenfe of pleasure. To prove that Youth is not enjoyed, he ufes thefe words, For all thy bleffed youth becomes as aged, and do:h beg the alms of palfied Eld. Out of which, he that can deduce the conclufion, has a better knack at logic than I have. I fuppofe the Poet wrote, i. e. when thy youthful appetite becomes palled, as it will be in the very enjoyment, the blaze of youth is at once affuaged, and thou immediately contracteft the infirmities of old age; as, particularly the palfie and other nervous diforders, confequent on the inordinate ufe of fenfual pleasures. This is to the purpose; and proves Youth s not enjoyed by fhewing the short duration of it. WARBURTON. Here again I think Dr. Warburton totally mistaken. Shakespeare declares that Man has neither youth nor age, for in youth, which is the happiest time, or which might be the happieft, he commonly wants means to obtain what he could enjoy; he is dependant C& |