SCENE IV. A Room in Angelo's Houfe. Enter ANGELO. Ang. When I would pray and think, I think and pray And in my heart, the ftrong and fwelling evil How 8 Whilft my invention,] By invention, I believe the poet means imagination. STEEVENS. a face, "That overgoes my blunt invention quite." Again, in K. Henry V: "O for a mufe of fire, that would afcend "The brighteft heaven of invention!" MALONE. Anchors on Ijabel.] We meet with the fame fingular expreffion in Antony and Cleopatra: There would he anchor his afpect, and die "With looking on his life." MALONE. 1 Heaven in my mouth,] i. e. Heaven being in my mouth. MALONE. 2 Grown fear'd and tedious;] What we go to with reluctance may be faid to be fear'd. JOHNSON. 3 with boot,] Boot is profit, advantage, gain. STEEVENS, 4-change for an idle plume, Which the air beats for vain. O place! O form! &c.] There is, I believe, no inftance in Shakspeare, or any other author, of "for vain" being used for " in vain." Befides; has the air or wind lefs effect on a feather than on twenty other things or rather, is not the reverfe of this the truth? An idle plume afluredly is not that " ever-fixed mark," of which our author fpeaks elsewhere," that looks on tempefts, and is never fhaken." The old copy has vaine, in which way a vane or weather-cock was formerly fpelt. [See Minfheu's DICT. 1617, in verb.So allo, in Love's Labour's Loft, Act IV. fc. i. edit. 1623: "What weine? what weathercock ?" I would therefore read-vane.—I would exchange How often doft thou with thy cafes, thy habit, Enter exchange my gravity, fays Angelo, for an idle feather, which being driven along by the wind, ferves, to the fpectator, for a vane or weathercock. So, in The Winter's Tale: "I am a feather for each wind that blows." And in the Merchant of Venice we meet with a kindred thought: "I fhould be ftill "Plucking the grafs, to know where fits the wind.” The omiffion of the article is certainly awkward, but not without example. Thus, in K. Lear: "Hot queftrifts after him met him at gate." Again, in Coriolanus: "Go, fee him out at gates." Again, in Titus Andronicus: " Afcend, fair queen, Pantheon.” The author, however, might have written -an idle plume, Which the air beats for vane o' the place.-O form, How often doft thou-&c. The pronoun thou, referring to only one antecedent, appears to me ftrongly to fupport fuch a regulation. MALONE. 5-cafe,] For outfide; garb; external fhew. JoHNSON. 6 Wrench are from fools, and tie the wifer fouls To thy falfe feeming ?] Here Shakspeare judiciously diftinguishes 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 fplendour; thofe who confider men as well as conditions, are eafily perfuaded to love the appearance of virtue dignified with power. JOHNSON. 7-Blood, thou still art blood :] The old copy reads-Blood, thou art blood. Mr. Pope, to fupply the fyllable wanting to complete the metre, reads-Blood, thou art but blood! But the word now introduced appears to me to agree better with the context, and therefore more likely to have been the author's.-Blood is ufed here, as in other places, for temperament of body. MALONE. 8 Let's write good angel on the devil's horn, 'Tis not the devil's creft.] i. e. let the most wicked thing have but a virtuous pretence, and it fhall pafs for innocent. WARFURTON. It should be remembered that the devil is ufually reprefented with borns and cloven feet.-Dr. Johnson would read-Tis yet the devil's creft. He acknowledges, however, that the paffage may be understood, according to Dr. Warburton's explanation, O place, how dost thou Enter Servant. How now, who's there? Serv. One Ifabel, a fifter, defires access to you. Ang. Teach her the way. [Exit Serv.] O heavens ! Why does my blood thus mufter to my heart; Making both it unable for itself, And difpoffeffing all my other parts Of neceffary fitness ? So play the foolish throngs with one that fwoons; By which he fhould revive: and even fo Muft impose upon the world by, falfe appearances! fo much, that if we write good angel on the devil's born, 'tis not taken any longer to be the devil's creft. In this fenfe, Blood thou art, &c. is an interjected excla mation." The old copy appears to me to require no alteration. MALONE! 9to my beart;] Of this fpeech there is no other trace in Promos and Caffandra than the following: "Both hope and dreade at once my harte doth tuch." STEEVENS. The general, fubject to a well-wish'd king,] General was, in our author's time, a word for people, fo that the general is the people, or multitude, fubject to a king. So, in Hamlet: The play pleafed not the million: 'twas caviare to the general." JOHNSON. The ufe of this phrafe, "the general," for the people, continued fo late as to the time of lord Clarendon :-" as rather to be confented to, than that the general should suffer." Hift. B.V. p. 530. 8vo. MALONE. Twice in Hamlet our author ufes fubject for fubjects: "So nightly toils the fubject of the land." Act I. fc. i. Again, Act I. fc. ii: "The lifts and full proportions all are made "Out of his fubject." STEEVENS. So the duke had before (act I. fcene ii.) expreffed his diflike of popular applaufe: I cannot help thinking that Shakspeare, in thefe two paffages, intended to flatter that unkingly weakness of James the Firft, which made him fo VOL. II. E impatient Muft needs appear offence. Enter ISABELLA. How now, fair maid? Ifab. I am come to know your pleasure. Ang. That you might know it, would much better please me, Than to demand what 'tis. Your brother cannot live. Ifab. Under your fentence? Ang. Yea. Ijab. When, I beseech you? that in his reprieve, Longer, or fhorter, he may be fo fitted, That his foul ficken not. Ang. Ha! Fie, thefe filthy vices! It were as good To pardon him, that hath from nature ftolen A man already made 2, as to remit Their fawcy fweetnefs, that do coin heaven's image Falfely impatient of the crowds that flocked to fee him, especially upon his first coming, that, as fome of our hiftorians fay, he reftrained them by a proclamation. Sir Symonds D'Ewes, in his Memoirs of his own Life, [a Mf. in the British Museum,] has a remarkable paffage with regard to this humour of James. After taking notice, that the king going to parliament, on the 30th of January, 1620-1, "fpake lovingly to the people, and faid, God blefs ye, God blefs ye;" he adds thele words, contrary to his former hafty and paffionate cuftom, which often, in his fudden distemper, would bid a pox or a plague on fuch as flocked to fte him." TYRWHITT. 2 that bath from nature ftolen Aman already made,] i. e. that hath killed a man. MALONE. 3 Their faway fweetness, that do coin heaven's image In stamps that are forbid :] We meet with nearly the fame words in King Edward III. a tragedy, 1596, certainly prior to this play: And will your facred felf 66 "Commit high treafon 'gainst the king of heaven, "To ftamp his image in forbidden metal ?" Thefe lines are fpoken by the countefs of Salisbury, whofe chafity (like Ifabel's) was affailed by her fovereign. Their fawey fweetness Dr. Warburton interprets, their fawcy indul gence Falfely to take away a life true made, Ijab. 'Tis fet down fo in heaven, but not in earth 6. gence of the appetite. Perhaps it means nearly the fame as what is afterwards called fweet uncleanness. MALONE. 4 Falfely to take-] Falfely is the fame with dishonestly, illegally: so falfe, in the next lines, is illegal, illegitimate. JOHNSON. As to put mettle in reftrained means, To make a falfe one.] Mettle, the reading of the old copy, which was changed to metal by Mr. Theobald, (who has been followed by the fubfequent editors,) is fupported not only by the general purport of the paflage, (in which our author having already illuftrated the fentiment he has attributed to Angelo by an allufion to coining, would not give the fame image a fecond time,) but by a fimilar expression in Timon: thy father, that poor rag, "Must be thy fubject; who in fpite put fuff Again, in the Winter's Tale: "As rank as any flax-wench, that puts to, The controverted word is found again in the fame fenfe in Macbeth 66 thy undaunted mettle should compofe "Nothing but males." Again, in K. Ri bard II: 661 that bed, that womb, "That mettle, that felf-fame mould that fashion'd thee, "Made him a man." Means is here used for medium, or object, and the fenfe of the whole is this: 'Tis as eafy wickedly to deprive a man born in wedlock of life, as to have unlawful commerce with a maid, in order to give life to an illegi timate child. The thought is fimply, that murder is as eafy as fornication; and the inference which Angelo would draw, is, that it is as improper to pardon the latter as the former. The words to make a falfe one-evidently referring to life, fhew that the preceding line is to be understood in a natural, and not in a metaphorical, fenfe. MALONE. 6 'Tis fet down fo in heaven, but not in earth.] What you have stated is undoubtedly the divine law: murder and fornication are both forbid by the canon of fcripture;-but on earth the latter offence is confidered as lefs heinous than the former. MALONE. 7-or, to redeem bim,] The old copy has and to redeem him. The emendation was made by Sir William D'Avenant. MALONE. E 2 Give |