forfeit in the fame kind? This would make mercy fwear, and play the tyrant.* PROV. A bawd of eleven years continuance, may it please your honour. BAWD. My lord, this is one Lucio's information against me: miftrefs Kate Keep-down was with child by him in the duke's time, he promised her marriage; his child is a year and a quarter old, come Philip and Jacob: I have kept it myself; and fee how he goes about to abuse me. ESCAL. That fellow is a fellow of much licence:let him be called before us.-Away with her to prifon: Go to; no more words. [Exeunt Bawd and Officers.] Provoft, my brother Angelo will not be alter'd, Claudio muft die to-morrow: let him be furnished with divines, and have all charitable preparation if my brother wrought by my pity, it fhould not be fo with him. PROV. So please you, this friar hath been with him, and advised him for the entertainment of death. ESCAL. Good even, good father. 3 forfeit-] i. e. tranfgrefs, offend; from the French for faire. STEEVENS. 4 mercy fwear, and play the tyrant.] We fhould read fwerve, i. e. deviate from her nature. The common reading gives us the idea of a ranting whore. WARBURTON. There is furely no need of emendation. We fay at prefent, Such a thing is enough to make a parfon fwear, i. e. deviate from a proper refpect to decency, and the fanctity of his character. The idea of wearing agrees very well with that of a tyrant in our ancient mysteries. STEEVENS. I do not much like mercy fwear, the old reading; or mercy fwerve, Dr. Warburton's correction. I believe it should be, this would make mercy fevere. FARMER. We ftill fay, to fwear like an emperor; and from fome old book, of which I unfortunately neglected to copy the title, I have noted10 fwear like a tyrant. To fwear like a termagant is quoted elsewhere. RITSON, 309 DUKE. Blifs and goodness on you! ESCAL. Of whence are you? DUKE. Not of this country, though my chance is now To use it for my time: I am a brother ESCAL. What news abroad i' the world? DUKE. None, but that there is fo great a fever on goodness, that the diffolution of it must cure it: novelty is only in requeft; and it is as dangerous to be aged in any kind of course, as it is virtuous to be constant in any undertaking. There is scarce truth enough alive, to make focieties fecure; but fecurity enough, to make fellowships accurs'd:' much upon this riddle runs the wifdom of the world. This news is old enough, yet it is every -from the fee,] The folio reads: The emendation, which is undoutedly right, was made by Mr. Theobald. In Hall's Chronicle, fea is often written for fee. MALONE. s There is fearce truth enough alive, to make focieties fecure; but fecurity enough, to make fellowships accurs'd:] The speaker here alludes to thofe legal fecurities into which " fellowship" leads men to enter for each other. So, in King Henry IV. Part II: "He would not take his bond and yours; he liked not the security." Falstaff in the fame scene, plays, like the Duke, on the fame word: "I had as lief they should put ratsbane in my mouth, as offer to ftop it with fecurity. I look'd he fhould have fent me two and twenty yards of fattin,-and he fends me fecurity. Well, he may fleep in fecurity," &c. MALONE. The fenfe is," There fcarcely exifts fufficient honefty in the world to make focial life fecure; but there are occafions enough where a man may be drawn in to become furety, which will make him pay dearly for his friendships." In excufe of this quibble, Shakspeare may plead high authority." He that hateth furetibip is fure." Prov. xi. 15. HOLT WHITE. day's news. I pray you, fir, of what difpofition was the duke? ESCAL. One, that, above all other ftrifes, contended especially to know himself. DUKE. What pleasure was he given to? ESCAL. Rather rejoicing to fee another merry, than merry at any thing which profefs'd to make him rejoice: a gentleman of all temperance. But leave we him to his events, with a prayer they may prove profperous; and let me defire to know how you find Claudio prepared. I am made to understand, that you have lent him vifitation. DUKE. He profeffes to have received no finifter measure from his judge, but most willingly humbles himself to the determination of justice: yet had he framed to himself, by the inftruction of his frailty, many deceiving promifes of life; which I, by my good leifure, have difcredited to him, and now is he refolved to die. ESCAL. You have paid the heavens your function, and the prifoner the very debt of your calling. I have labour'd for the poor gentleman, to the extremeft shore of my modefty; but my brother juftice have I found fo fevere, that he hath forced me to tell him, he is indeed-justice." DUKE. If his own life answer the ftraitness of his proceeding, it fhall become him well; wherein if he chance to fail, he hath sentenced himself. ESCAL. I am going to vifit the prisoner; Fare you well. 6 refolved-] i. e. fatisfied. So, in Middleton's More Diffemblers befides Women, Act I. fc. iii: "The blefling of perfection to your thoughts lady; 7 — he is indeed-juftice.] Summum jus, fumma injuria. STEEVENS. DUKE. Peace be with you! [Exeunt ESCALUS and Provost. He, who the fword of heaven will bear, 8 Pattern in himself to know, Grace to ftand, and virtue go;] 8 Thefe lines I cannot under ftand, but believe that they fhould be read thus: Patterning himself to know, In grace to ftand, in virtue go. To pattern is to work after a pattern, and, perhaps, in Shakspeare's licentious diction, fimply to work. The fenfe is, he that bears the Sword of heaven fhould be holy as well as fevere; one that after good examples labours to know himself, to live with innocence, and to act with virtue. JOHNSON. This paffage is very obfcure, nor can be cleared without a more licentious paraphrafe than any reader may be willing to allow. He that bears the word of heaven should be not less holy than severe : Should be able to difcover in himself a pattern of such grace as can avoid temptation, together with fuch virtue as dares venture abroad into the world without danger of feduction. STEEVENS. Grace to ftand, and virtue go;] This laft line is not intelligible as it ftands; but a very flight alteration, the addition of the word in, at the beginning of it, which may refer to virtue as well as to grace, will render the sense of it clear." Pattern in himself to know," is to feel in his own breast that virtue which he makes others practise. M. MASON. "Pattern in himself to know," is, to experience in his own bofom an original principle of action, which, instead of being borrowed or copied from others, might serve as a pattern to them. Our author, in The Winter's Tale, has again ufed the fame kind of imagery: By the pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out "The purity of his." 66 In The Comedy of Errors he ufes an expreffion equally hardy and licentious: "And will have no attorney but myself;" which is an abfolute catachrefis; an attorney importing precisely a perfon appointed to act for another. In Every Woman in her Humour, 1609, we find the fame expreffion : he hath but fhown "A pattern in himself, what thou shall find "In others." MALONE. More nor lefs to others paying, 9 To weed my vice, and let his grow!] i. e. to weed faults out of my dukedom, and yet indulge himself in his own private vices. So, in The Contention betwyxte Churchyeard and Camell, &c. 1560: "For Cato doth affyrme "Ther is no greater shame, "Than to reprove a vyce " And your felves do the fame." STEEVENS. My, does not, I apprehend, relate to the Duke in particular, who had not been guilty of any vice, but to any indefinite person. The meaning feems to be-To deftroy by extirpation (as it is expressed in another place) a fault that I have committed, and to fuffer his own vices to grow to a rank and luxuriant height. The fpeaker, for the fake of argument, puts himself in the case of an offending perfon. MALONE. The Duke is plainly speaking in his own perfon. What he here terms "" my vice," may be explained from his converfation in Act I. fc. iv. with Friar Thomas, and efpecially the following line: 'twas my fault to give the people fcope." The vice of Angelo requires no explanation. HENLEY. Though angel on the outward fide!] Here we fee what induced our author to give the outward-fainted deputy, the name of Angelo. 3 How may likeness, made in crimes, Making practice on the times, Draw with idle spiders' strings, MALONE. Moft pond rous and fubftantial things!] The old copy reads"To draw with," &c. STEEVENS. Thus all the editions read corruptly; and fo have made an obfcure paffage in itself, quite unintelligible. Shakspeare wrote it thus: |