PROV. What ho, Abhorfon! Where's Abhorfon,

there?

Enter ABHORSON.

ABHOR. Do you call, fir?

PROV. Sirrah, here's a fellow will help you tomorrow in your execution: If you think it meet, compound with him by the year, and let him abide here with you; if not, ufe him for the prefent, and difmifs him: He cannot plead his estimation with you; he hath been a bawd.

ABHOR. A bawd, fir? Fie upon him, he will difcredit our mystery.

PROV. Go to, fir; you weigh equally; a feather will turn the scale. [Exit.

CLO. Pray, fir, by your good favour, (for, surely, fir, a good favour3 you have, but that you have a hanging look,) do you call, fir, your occupation a mystery?

ABHOR. Ay, fir; a mystery.

CLO. Painting, fir, I have heard fay, is a mystery; and your whores, fir, being members of my occupation, ufing painting, do prove my occupation a mystery: but what mystery there fhould be in hanging, if I fhould be hang'd, I cannot imagine.*

3

a good favour-] Favour is countenance. So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

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-why fo tart a favour,

"To publish fuch good tidings?" STEEVENS.

—what myftery, &c.] Though I have adopted an emendation independent of the following note, the omiffion of it would have been unwarrantable. STEEVENS.

what miftery there should be in hanging, if I should be hang'd, I cannot imagine.

Abhor. Sir, it is a miftery.

Clo. Proof.

ABHOR. Sir, it is a mystery.

CLO. Proof.

Abhor. Every true man's apparel fits your thief:

Clo. If it be too little for your thief, your true man thinks it big enough; if it be too big for your thief, your thief thinks it little enough fo every true man's apparel fits your thief.] Thus it tood in all the editions till Mr. Theobald's, and was, methinks, not very difficult to be understood. The plain and humorous fenfe of the fpeech is this. Every true man's apparel, which the thief robs him of, fits the thief. Why? Becaufe, if it be too little for the thief, the true man thinks it big enough: i. e. a purchase too good for him. So that this fits the thief in the opinion of the true man. But if it be too big for the thief, yet the thief thinks it little enough: i. e. of value little enough. So that this fits the thief in his own opinion. Where we fee, that the pleasantry of the joke confifts in the equivocal fenfe of big enough, and little enough. Yet Mr. Theobald fays, he can fee no fenfe in all this, and therefore alters the whole thus:

Abhor. Every true man's apparel fits your thief.

Clown. If it be too little for your true man, your thief thinks it big enough: if it be too big for your true man, your thief thinks it little enough.

And for his alteration gives this extraordinary reafon.—I am fatiffied the poet intended a regular fyllogifm; and 1 fubmit it to judgement, whether my regulation has not reftored that wit and humour which was quite loft in the depravation. But the place is corrupt, though Mr. Theobald could not find it out. Let us confider it a little. The Hangman calls his trade a mistery: the Clown cannot conceive it. The Hangman undertakes to prove it in these words, Every true man's apparel, &c. but this proves the thief's trade a mistery, not the bangman's. Hence it appears, that the fpeech, in which the Hangman proved his trade a mistery, is loft. The very words it is impoffible to retrieve, but one may eafily understand what medium he employed in proving it without doubt, the very fame the Clown employed to prove the thief's trade a mistery; namely, that all forts of clothes fitted the hangThe Clown, on hearing this argument, replied, I fuppofe, to this effect: Why, by the fame kind of reafoning, I can prove the thief's trade too to be a mistery. The other asks how, and the Clown goes on as above, Every true man's apparel fits your thief; if it be too little, &c. The jocular conclufion from the whole, being an infinuation that thief and hangman were rogues alike. This conjecture gives a spirit and integrity to the dialogue, which, in its prefent mangled condition, is altogether wanting; and thews why the argument of every true man's apparel, &c. was in all

man.

ABHOR. Every true man's apparel fits your thief: ' editions given to the Clown, to whom indeed it belongs; and likewise that the present reading of that argument is the true. WARBURTON.

If Dr. Warburton had attended to the argument by which the Bawd proves his own profeffion to be a mystery, he would not have been driven to take refuge in the groundlefs fuppofition," that part of the dialogue had been loft or dropped."

The argument of the Hangman is exactly similar to that of the Bawd. As the latter puts in his claim to the whores, as members of his occupation, and, in virtue of their painting, would enroll his own fraternity in the mystery of painters; fo the former equally lays claim to the thieves, as members of his occupation, and, in their right, endeavours to rank his brethren, the hangmen, under the mystery of fitters of apparel, or tailors. The reading of the old editions is therefore undoubtedly right; except that the last speech, which makes part of the Hangman's argument, is, by mistake, as the reader's own fagacity will readily perceive, given to the Clown or Bawd. I fuppofe, therefore the poet gave us the whole thus: Abhor. Sir, it is a mystery.

Clown. Proof.

Abhor. Every true man's apparel fits your thief: if it be too little for your thief, your true man thinks it big enough: if it be too big for your thief, your thief thinks it little enough; fo every true man's apparel fits your thief.

I must do Dr. Warburton the justice to acknowledge, that he hath rightly apprehended, and explained the force of the Hangman's argument. HEATH.

There can be no doubt but the word Clown, prefixed to the laft fentence, If it be too little, &c. fhould be ftruck out. part of Abhorfon's argument, who has undertaken to prove that It makes hanging was a mystery, and convinces the Clown of it by this very speech. M. MASON.

Every true man's apparel fits your thief:] So, in Promos and Caffandra, 1578, the Hangman fays:

"Here is nyne and twenty futes of apparell for True man, in the language of ancient times, is always placed in my share." oppofition to thief.

So, in Churchyard's Warning to Wanderers abroade, 1593:

"The priuy thiefe that steales away our wealth,

"Is fore afraid a true man's steps to fee." STEEVENS.

Mr. Steevens feems to be mistaken in his affertion that true man in ancient times was always placed in oppofition to thief. At least in the book of Genefis, there is one inftance to the contrary, ch. xlii. v. 1 1 -"We are all one man's fons: we are all true men ; thy fervants are no pies." HENLEY.

If it be too little for your thief, your true man thinks it big enough; if it be too big for your thief, your thief thinks it little enough: fo every true man's apparel fits your thief.

Re-enter Provoft.

PROV. Are you agreed?

Czo. Sir, I will ferve him; for I do find, your hangman is a more penitent trade than your bawd; he doth oftner ask forgiveness."

PROV. You, firrah, provide your block and your axe, to-morrow four o'clock.

ABHOR. Come on, bawd; I will inftruct thee in my trade; follow.

CLO. I do defire to learn, fir; and, I hope, if you have occasion to use me for your own turn, you fhall find me yare: for, truly fir, for your kindness, I owe you a good turn.

8

PROV. Call hither Barnardine and Claudio:

[Exeunt Clown and ABHORSON. One has my pity; not a jot the other,

Being a murderer, though he were my brother.

Enter CLAUDIO.

Look, here's the warrant, Claudio, for thy death:

6 afk forgiveness.] So, in As you like it:

7

The common executioner,

"Whofe heart the accuftom'd fight of death makes hard, "Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck,

"But first begs pardon." STEEVENS.

-yare:] i. e. handy, nimble in the execution of my office. So, in Twelfth Night: difmount thy tuck, be yare in thy

66

preparation." Again, in Antony and Cleopatra:

8

"His fhips are yare, yours heavy. STEEVENS.

a good turn.] i. e. a turn off the ladder. He quibbles

on the phrafe according to its common acceptation. FARMER.

'Tis now dead midnight, and by eight to-morrow Thou must be made immortal. Where's Barnardine? CLAUD. As faft lock'd up in fleep, as guiltless la

bour

When it lies starkly in the traveller's bones:
He will not wake.

PROV.

Who can do good on him? Well, go, prepare yourself. But hark, what noife?

[Knocking within. Heaven give your fpirits comfort! [Exit CLAUDIO.] By and by :

I hope it is fome pardon, or reprieve,

For the most gentle Claudio.-Welcome, father.

Enter DUKE.

DUKE. The best and wholesomest spirits of the night

Envelop you,good Provoft! Who call'd here of late? PROV. None, fince the curfew rung.

9

PROV. What comfort is for Claudio?

PROV. It is a bitter deputy.

farkly] Stiffly. These two lines afford a very pleafing image. JOHNSON.

So, in The Legend of Lord Haftings, 1575:

"Leaft farke with reft they finew'd waxe and hoare."

STEEVENS.

They will then,] Perhaps he will then. SIR J. HAWKINS. The Duke expects Isabella and Mariana. A little afterward he

fays: 66 Now are they come." RITSON.