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Upon thy doings! thousand 'scapes of wit"
Make thee the father of their idle dream,

And rack thee in their fancies! 2-Welcome! How agreed?

Re-enter MARIANA and ISABELLA.

ISAB. She'll take the enterprize upon her, father, If you advise it.

It is not my consent,

DUKE.

But my intreaty too.

ISAB.

Little have you to say,

When you depart from him, but, soft and low,
Remember now my brother.

MARI.

Fear me not.

DUKE. Nor, gentle daughter, fear you not at all: He is your husband on a pre-contract: To bring you thus together, 'tis no sin; Sith that the justice of your title to him

DICT. in v. Cole, in his Latin Dictionary, 1679, renders " A quest," by "examen, inquisitio." MALONE.

False and contrarious quests, in this place, rather mean lying and contradictory messengers, with whom run volumes of report. An explanation, which the line quoted by Mr. Steevens will serve to confirm.

RITSON.

'scapes of wit-] i. e. sallies, irregularities. So, in King John, Act III. sc. iv:

"No 'scape of nature, no distemper'd day." STEEVens.

And rack thee in their fancies!] Though rack, in the present instance, may signify torture or mangle, it might also mean confuse; as the rack, i. e. fleeting cloud, renders the object behind it obscure, and of undetermined form. So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

"That which was now a horse, even with a thought,
"The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct,
"As water is in water.". STEEVENS.

Doth flourish the deceit.3 Come, let us go; Our corn's to reap, for yet our tithe's to sow." [Exeunt,

Doth flourish the deceit.] A metaphor taken from embroidery, where a coarse ground is filled up, and covered with figures of rich materials and elegant workmanship. WARBurton. Flourish is ornament in general. So, in our author's Twelfth Night:

66 empty trunks o'erflourish'd by the devil."

STEEVENS.

Dr. Warburton's illustration of the metaphor seems to be inaccurate. The passage from another of Shakspeare's plays, quoted by Mr. Steevens, suggests to us the true one.

The term-flourish, alludes to the flowers impressed on the waste printed paper and old books, with which trunks are commonly lined. HENLEY.

When it is proved that the practice alluded to, was as ancient as the time of Shakspeare, Mr. Henley's explanation may be admitted. STEEVENS.

*for yet our tithe's to sow.] As before, the blundering editors have made a prince of the priestly Angelo, so here they have made a priest of the prince. We should read tilth, i. e. our tillage is yet to make. The grain from which we expect our harvest, is not yet put into the ground. WARBURTON.

The reader is here attacked with a petty sophism. We should read tilth, i. e. our tillage is to make. But in the text it is to sow; and who has ever said that his tillage was to sow? I believe tythe is right, and that the expression is proverbial, in which tythe is taken, by an easy metonymy, for harvest,

JOHNSON.

Dr. Warburton did not do justice to his own conjecture; and no wonder, therefore, that Dr. Johnson has not.-Tilth is provincially used for land till'd, prepared for sowing. Shakspeare, however, has applied it before in its usual acceptation. FARMER.

Dr. Warburton's conjecture may be supported by many instances in Markham's English Husbandman, 1635: "After the beginning of March you shall begin to sowe your barley upon that ground which the year before did lye fallow, and is com monly called your tilth or fallow field." In p. 74 of this book, a corruption, like our author's, occurs: "As before, I said beginne to fallow your tithe field;" which is undoubtedly misprinted for tilth field. TOLLET.

SCENE II.

A Room in the Prison.

Enter Provost and Clown.

PROV. Come hither, sirrah: Can you cut off a man's head?

CLO. If the man be a bachelor, sir, I can: but if he be a married man, he is his wife's head, and I can never cut off a woman's head.

PROV. Come, sir, leave me your snatches, and yield me a direct answer. To-morrow morning are to die Claudio and Barnardine: Here is in our prison a common executioner, who in his office lacks a helper: if you will take it on you to assist him, it shall redeem you from your gyves; if not, you shall have your full time of imprisonment, and your de liverance with an unpitied whipping; for you have been a notorious bawd.

Tilth is used for crop, or harvest, by Gower, De Confessione Amantis, Lib. V. fol. 93, b:

"To sowe cockill with the corne,

"So that the tilth is nigh forlorne,

"Which Christ sew first his owne honde."

Shakspeare uses the word tilth in a former scene of this play; and, (as Dr. Farmer has observed,) in its common acceptation: her plenteous womb

66

"Expresseth its full tilth and husbandry."

Again, in The Tempest:

66

bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none." But my quotation from Gower shows that, to sow tilth, was a phrase once in use.

STEEVENS.

This conjecture appears to me extremely probable. MALONE, an unpitied whipping ;] i. e. an unmerciful one.

5

STEEVENS.

CLO. Sir, I have been an unlawful bawd, time out of mind; but yet I will be content to be a lawful hangman. I would be glad to receive some instruction from my fellow partner.

PROV. What ho, Abhorson! Where's Abhorson, there?

Enter ABHORSON.

ABHOR. Do you call, sir?

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, use him for the present, and dismiss him: He cannot plead his estimation with you; he hath been a bawd.

ABHOR. A bawd, sir? Fye upon him, he will discredit our mystery.

PROV. Go to, sir; you weigh equally; a feather will turn the scale.

6

[Exit.

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

ABHOR. Ay, sir; a mystery.

CLO. Painting, sir, I have heard say, is a mystery; and your whores, sir, being members of my occupation, using painting, do prove my occupation a

6

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

66

why so tart a favour,

"To publish such good tidings." STEEVENS.

mystery: but what mystery there should be in hanging, if I should be hang'd, I cannot imagine."

7 - what mystery &c.] Though I have adopted an emendation independent of the following note, the omission of it would have been unwarrantable. STEEVENS.

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

Abhor. Sir, it is a mistery.

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: so every true man's apparel fits your thief.] Thus it stood in all the editions till Mr. Theobald's, and was, methinks, not very difficult to be understood. The plain and humorous sense of the speech is this. Every true man's apparel, which the thief robs him of, fits the thief. Why? Because, 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 see, that the pleasantry of the joke consists in the equivocal sense of big enough, and little enough. Yet Mr. Theobald says, he can see no sense 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 reason.—I am satisfied the poet intended a regular syllogism; and I submit it to judgment, whether my regulation has not restored that wit and humour which was quite lost in the depravation.—But the place is corrupt, though Mr. Theobald could not find it out. Let us consider 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 hangman's. Hence it appears, that the speech, in which the Hangman proved his trade a mistery, is lost. The very words it is impossible to retrieve, but one may easily understand what medium he employed in proving it without doubt, the very same the Clown employed to prove the thief's trade a mistery; namely, that all sorts of

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