And to fet on this wretched woman here
Against our substitute!—Let this friar be found.
Lucio. But yefternight, my lord, she and that friar
I saw them at the prison: a fawcy friar,

A very fcurvy fellow.

F. PETER.

Bleffed be your royal grace!

I have stood by, my lord, and I have heard
Your royal ear abus'd: Firft, hath this woman
Moft wrongfully accus'd your fubftitute;

Who is as free from touch or foil with her,
As the from one ungot.

DUKE.

We did believe no less.
Know you that friar Lodowick, that she speaks of?
F. PETER. I know him for a man divine and holy;
Not fcurvy, nor a temporary medler,
As he's reported by this gentleman;

And, on my trust, a man that never yet
Did, as he vouches, mifreport your grace.

Lucio. My lord, most villainoufly; believe it. F. PETER. Well, he in time may come to clear himself;

But at this inftant he is fick, my lord,

8 nor a temporary medler,] It is hard to know what is meant by a temporary medler. In its ufual fenfe, as opposed to perpetual, it cannot be ufed here. It may ftand for temporal: the fense will then be, I know him for a holy man, one that meddles not with fecular affairs. It may mean temporifing: I know him to be a holy man, one who would not temporife, or take the opportunity of your abfence to defame you. Or we may read :

Not fcurvy, nor a tamperer and medler:

not one who would have tampered with this woman to make her a false evidence against your deputy. JOHNSON.

Peter here refers to what Lucio had before affirmed concerning Friar Lodowick. Hence it is evident that the phrase "temporary medler," was intended to fignify one who introduced himself, as often as he could find opportunity, into other men's concerns. See the context. HENLEY.

Of a strange fever: Upon his mere request,"
(Being come to knowledge that there was complaint
Intended 'gainst lord Angelo,) came I hither,
To fpeak, as from his mouth, what he doth know
Is true, and falfe; and what he with his oath,
And all probation, will make up full clear,
Whenfoever he's convented. First, for this woman;
(To juftify this worthy nobleman,

So vulgarly and perfonally accus'd,)

9-bis mere request,] i.e. his abfolute requeft. So, in Julius Cæfar: "Some mere friends, fome honourable Romans."

Again, in Othello:

"The mere perdition of the Turkish fleet." STEEVENS. Whenfoever he's convented.] The firft folio reads, convented, and this is right: for to convene fignifies to affemble; but convent, to cite, or fummons. Yet becaufe convented hurts the measure, the Oxford editor flicks to conven'd, though it be nonsense, and fignifies, Whenever he is affembled together. But thus it will be, when the author is thinking of one thing, and his critic of another. The poet was attentive to his fenfe, and the editor quite throughout his performance, to nothing but the meafure; which Shakfpeare having entirely neglected, like all the dramatic writers of that age, he has fpruced him up with all the exactness of a modern measurer of fyllables. This being here taken notice of once for all, fhall, for the future, be forgot, as if it had never been.

WARBURTON.

The foregoing account of the measure of Shakspeare, and his contemporaries, ought indeed to be forgotten, becaufe it is untrue. To convent is no uncommon word. So, in Woman's a Weathercock, 1612:

"Should tell the company convented there," &c.

To convent and to convene are derived from the fame Latin verb, and have exactly the fame meaning. STEEVENS.

3 So vulgarly- Meaning either fo grofsly, with fuch indecency of invective, or by fo mean and inadequate witneffes. JOHNSON. Vulgarly, I believe, means publickly. The vulgar are the common people. Daniel ufes vulgarly for among the common people:

"and which pleafes vulgarly." STEEVENS.

Mr. Steevens's interpretation is certainly the true one. So, in The Comedy of Errors, Act III. fc. i:

Her shall you hear difproved to her eyes,

Till the herself confefs it.

DUKE.

Good friar, let's hear it. [ISABELLA is carried off, guarded; and MARIANA comes forward.

Do you not fimile at this, lord Angelo?-
O heaven! the vanity of wretched fools!-
Give us fome feats.-Come, coufin Angelo;
In this I'll be impartial; be you judge
Of your own caufe.-Is this the witnefs, friar?
First, let her show her face; and, after, fpeak.

"A vulgar comment will be made of it;
"And that fuppofed by the common rout,—
"That may," &c.

Again, in Twelfth Night:

66

for 'tis a vulgar proof,

"That very oft we pity enemies." MALONE.

Come, coufin Angelo ;

In this I'll be impartial; be you judge

Of your own cauje.] Surely, fays Mr. Theobald, this duke had odd notions of impartiality! He reads therefore,-I will be partial, and all the editors follow him: even Mr. Heath declares the obfervation unanswerable. But fee the uncertainty of criticism! impartial was fometimes used in the fenfe of partial. In the old play of Swetnam, the Woman Hater, Atlanta cries out, when the judges decree against the women:

You are impartial, and we do appeal

"From you to judges more indifferent." FARMER.

So, in Marston's Antonio and Mellida, 2d Part, 1602: "There's not a beauty lives,

"Hath that impartial predominance

"O'er my affects, as your enchanting graces."

Again, in Romeo and Juliet, 1597:

"Cruel, unjust, impartial destinies!"

Again:

—this day, this unjust, impartial day."

In the language of our author's time im was frequently used as an augmentative or intensive particle. MALONE.

sher face;] The original copy reads-your face. The emendation was made by the editor of the fecond folio.

MALONE.

MARI. Pardon, my lord; I will not fhow my face, Until my husband bid me.

Why, you

Are nothing then :-Neither maid,widow, nor wife?" Lucio. My lord, fhe may be a punk; for many of them are neither maid, widow, nor wife.

DUKE. Silence that fellow: I would, he had fome caufe

To prattle for himself.

Lucio. Well, my lord.

MARI. My lord, I do confefs I ne'er was married; And, I confefs, befides, I am no maid:

I have known my husband; yet my husband knows

not,

That ever he knew me.

LUCIO. He was drunk then, my lord; it can be no better.

DUKE. For the benefit of filence, 'would thou wert fo too.

LUCIO. Well, my lord.

DUKE. This is no witness for lord Angelo.

MARI. Now I come to't, my lord:

She, that accufes him of fornication,

6 Neither maid, widow, nor wife?] This is a proverbial phrafe, to be found in Ray's Collection. STEEVENS.

In felf-fame manner doth accufe my husband;
And charges him, my lord, with fuch a time,
When I'll depofe I had him in mine arms,
With all the effect of love.

ANG.

Charges fhe more than me?

MARI. Not that I know.
DUKE.

No? you fay, your husband.

MARI. Why, juft, my lord, and that is Angelo, Who thinks, he knows, that he ne'er knew my body, But knows, he thinks, that he knows Isabel's.

ANG. This is a strange abuse:-Let's fee thy face. MARI. My husband bids me; now I will unmask. [Unveiling.

This is that face, thou cruel Angelo,
Which, once thou fwor'ft, was worth the looking on:
This is the hand, which, with a vow'd contract,
Was faft belock'd in thine: this is the body
That took away the match from Isabel,
And did fupply thee at thy garden-house,
In her imagin'd perfon.

"This is a ftrange abufe:] Abufe ftands in this place for deception or puzzle. So, in Macbeth:

my ftrange and felf abuse,"

means, this ftrange deception of myself. JOHNSON.

8 And did fupply thee at thy garden-house,] A garden-house in the time of our author was ufually appropriated to purposes of intrigue. So, in SKIALETHIA, or a shadow of truth, in certain Epigrams and Satyres, 1598:

"Who, coming from the CURTAIN, sneaketh in

"To fome old garden noted house for fin."

Again, in The London Prodigal, a comedy, 1605: "Sweet lady, if you have any friend, or garden-house, where you may employ a poor gentleman as your friend, I am yours to command in all fecret fervice." MALONE.

See also an extract from Stubbes's Anatomie of Abuses, 4to, 1597, p. 57; quoted in Vol. V. of Dodfley's Old Plays, edit, 1780, p. 74. REED.