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Line 287. under grievous imposition:] I once thought it should be inquisition, but the present reading is probably right. The crime would be under grievous penalties imposed. JOHNSON.

ACT I. SCENE IV.

Line 296. Believe not, that the dribbling dart of love

Can pierce a cómplete bosom :] Think not that a breast completely armed can be pierced by the dart of love that comes fluttering without force.

Line 303.

JOHNSON.

-the life removed;] i. e. A retired life. 307. (A man of stricture and firm abstinence,)] We should read,

A man of strict ure and firm abstinence,

i. e. a man of the exactest conduct, and practised in the subdual of his passions. Ure an old word for use, practice: so enur'd, habituated to. WARBURTON.

Stricture may easily be used for strictness; ure is indeed an old word, but, I think, always applied to things, never to persons.

JOHNSON.

Line 316. The needful bits and curbs for head-strong steeds,] Nothing can be more proper, than to compare persons of unbridled licentiousness to head-strong steeds: and, in this view, bridling the passions has been a phrase adopted by our best poets.

THEOBALD.

Line 318. Which for these fourteen years we have let sleep;] By letting the laws sleep, adds a particular propriety to the thing represented, and accords exactly too with the simile. It is the metaphor too, that our author seems fond of using upon this occasion, in several other passages of this play,

The law hath not been dead, tho' it hath slept;

'Tis now awake.

THEOBALD.

Line 324. Becomes more mock'd than fear'd:] Becomes was added by Mr. Pope to restore sense to the passage, some such word having been left out.

Line 335. Sith- -] i. e. Since.

344.

STEEVENS.

To do it slander.] Perhaps an alteration might

have produced the true reading,

And yet my nature never, in the sight,

So doing slandered.

And yet my nature never suffers slander by doing any open acts of severity.

JOHNSON.

Line 352. Stands at a guard- -] Stands on terms of de

fiance.

JOHNSON.

ACT I. SCENE V.

Line 388.

make me not your story.] Do not, by deceiving

me, make me a subject for a tale.

JOHNSON.

Perhaps only, Do not divert yourself with me, as you would with

a story.

Line 390.

-'tis my familiar sin

STEEVENS.

With maids to seem the lapwing,] The quality of the lapwing, alluded to here, is, its perpetually flying so low and so near the passenger, that he thinks he has it, and then is suddenly gone again. This made it a proverbial expression to signify a lover's falshood. WARBURTON.

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That from the seedness the bare fallow brings

To teeming foison; even so— -] As the sentence

now stands, it is apparently ungrammatical. I read,

At blossoming time, &c.

That is, As they that feed grow full, so her womb now at blossoming time, at that time through which the seed time proceeds to the harvest, her womb shows what has been doing. Lucio ludicrously calls pregnancy blossoming time, the time when fruit is promised, though not yet ripe. JOHNSON.

Foison is, plenty.

Line 415. Bore many gentlemen,

In hand, and hope of action:] To bear in hand is a common phrase for to keep in expectation and dependance, but

we should read,

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Line 420. whole length. Line 426. that is, practices long countenanced by custom.

with full line- -] With full extent, with the

JOHNSON.

JOHNSON.

-to give fear to use- -] To intimidate use,

Line 433. Unless you have the grace] That is, the acceptableness, the power of gaining favour. So when she makes her suit, the provost says,

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"And enterprises of great pith and moment."

Line 437. Has censured him,] i. e. sentenced him.

450.

STEEVENS.

-owe them.] i. e. Own or possess them.

ACT II. SCENE I..

Line 2.

-to fear the birds of prey,] To fear is to affright,

to terrify. So in The Merchant of Venice,

"-this aspect of mine

"Hath fear'd the valiant."

STEEVENS.

Line 7. Than fall, and bruise to death.] Shakspeare has used the same expression in the Comedy of Errors:

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Line 10. Let but your honour know,] To know is here to examine, to take cognizance. So in Midsummer-Night's Dream,

Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires ;

Know of your truth, examine well your blood.

JOHNSON.

Line 26. 'Tis very pregnant,] 'Tis plain that we must act with bad as with good; we punish the faults, as we take the advantages, that lie in our way, and what we do not see we cannot note. JOHNSON.

Line 32. For I have had- -] That is, because, by reason that I have had faults. JOHNSON.

Line 45. Some rise, &c.] This line is in the first folio printed in Italics as a quotation. All the folios read in the next line, Some run from brakes of ice, and answer none.

JOHNSON.

The old reading is perhaps the true one, and may mean, some

run away from danger, and stay to answer none of their faults, whilst others are condemned only on account of a single frailty.

STEEVENS.

Mr. Tollet's opinion of "brakes of vice" is, that it simply means, the paths of vice, and not an engine of torture, so called, invented by the duke of Exeter and Suffolk, in the time of Henry VI. Line 64. This comes off well;] This is nimbly spoken; this is volubly uttered. JOHNSON. Line 69.

A tapster, Sir; parcel bawd;] This we should now express by saying, he is half-tapster, half-bawd. JOHNSON. She professes a hot-house,] A hot-house is an

Line 72.

English name for a bagnio.

Where lately harbour'd many a famous whore,

Ben Jonson.

JOHNSON.

A purging-bill now fix'd upon the door, Tells you it is a hot-house; so it may, And still be a whore-house. Line 90. Ay, Sir, by mistress Over-done'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 imputed to the ignorance of the constable. JOHNSON.

Line 97.

-stew'd prunes;] Stewed prunes were the stand

ing dishes of bawdy-houses.

Line 136.

-lower chair,] i. e. Easy chair.

165. I'll be supposed] i. e. I'll be sworn or deposed. 183. 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.

Line 188. Hannibal!] Mistaken by the constable for Cannibal. JOHNSON.

215.

they will draw you,] 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 JOHNSON. -greatest thing about you;] It appears from

motive or power.

Line 227.

Strutt's Manners of the People, and Holinshed, that it was the fashion in Elizabeth's time, to wear "breyches well boulstered up "and wyde."

Line 252. I'll rent the fairest house in it, after three pence a bay] A bay of building is, in many parts of England, a common term, of which the best conception that I could ever attain, 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.

ACT II. SCENE II.

Line 335. Stay a little while.] It is not clear why the provost is bidden to stay, nor when he goes out. JOHNSON.

Line 343.

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,

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Yet and yt are almost undistinguishable in a manuscript. Yet no alteration is necessary, since the speech is not unintelligible as it

now stands. Line 372.

nifies pity.

Line 394.

JOHNSON.

-touch'd with that remorse,] Remorse here sig

all the souls that were,] This is false divinity. WARBURTON.

We should read, are.

Line 399. 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 person, 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 would then change the severity of your present character. In familiar speech, You would be quite another man.

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JOHNSON.

Looks in a glass,] This alludes to the fopperies of the berril, much used at that time by cheats and fortune-tellers to predict by.

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WARBURTON.

Ang. I shew it most of all, when I shew justice;

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