ABHOR. Sir, it is a mystery. clothes fitted the hangman. The Clown on hearing this argument, replied, I suppose, to this effect: Why, by the same kind of reasoning, 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 conclusion from the whole being an insinuation that thief and hangman were rogues alike. This conjecture gives a spirit and integrity to the dialogue, which, in its present mangled condition, is altogether wanting; and shews why the argument of every true man's apparel, &c. was in all 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 profession to be a mystery, he would not have been driven to take refuge in the groundless supposition, "that part of the dialogue had been lost 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; so 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 sagacity will readily perceive, given to the Clown or Bawd. I suppose, there, fore, 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; so 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 last sentence, If it be too little, &c. should be struck out. It makes part of Abhorson's argument, who has undertaken to prove that hanging was a mystery, and convinces the Clown of it by this very speech. M. MASON. CLO. 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: so every true man's apparel fits your thief. Re-enter Provost. PROV. Are you agreed? CLO. Sir, I will serve him; for I do find, your hangman is a more penitent trade than your bawd; he doth oftner ask forgiveness.9 PROV. You, sirrah, provide your block and your axe, to-morrow four o'clock. ABHOR. Come on, bawd; I will instruct thee in my trade; follow. 8 Every true man's apparel fits your thief:] So, in Promos and Cassandra, 1578, the Hangman says: "Here is nyne and twenty sutes of apparell for my share." True man, in the language of ancient times, is always placed in •pposition to thief. So, in Churchyard's Warning to Wanderers abroade, 1593: "The priuy thiefe that steales away our wealth, "Is sore afraid a true man's steps to see." STEEVens. Mr. Steevens seems to be mistaken in his assertion that true man in ancient times was always placed in opposition to thief. At least in the Book of Genesis, there is one instance to the contrary, ch. xlii. v. 11: "We are all one man's sons: we are all true men; thy servants are no spies." HENLEY. ask forgiveness.] So, in As you like it: The common executioner, "Whose heart the accustom'd sight of death makes hard, "Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck, "But first begs pardon." STEEVENS. CLO. I do desire to learn, sir; and, I hope, if you have occasion to use me for your own turn, you shall find me yare: for, truly sir, for your kind 2 ness, I owe you a good turn." 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: 'Tis now dead midnight, and by eight to-morrow Thou must be made immortal. Where's Barnardine? CLAUD. As fast lock'd up in sleep, as guiltless labour When it lies starkly in the traveller's bones: PROV. Who can do good on him? Well, go, prepare yourself. But hark, what noise? [Knocking within. be yare yare:] i. e. handy, nimble in the execution of my office. So, in Twelfth-Night: dismount thy tuck, in thy preparation." Again, in Antony and Cleopatra: "His ships are yare, yours heavy," STEEVENS. 2 a good turn.] i. e. a turn off the ladder. He quibbles on the phrase according to its common acceptation. FARMER. starkly] Stiffly. These two lines afford a very pleasing image. JOHNSON. 3 So, in The Legend of Lord Hastings, 1575: "Least starke with rest they finew'd waxe and hoare." Again, in an ancient Poem quoted in MS. Harl. 4690 : "Alle displayedde on the grounde, "And layne starkly on blode,-." Again, Thomas Lupton's Fourth Booke of Notable Thinges: Synewes cutte, starke, or sprayned in travell." STEEVENS. 66 Heaven give your spirits comfort! [Exit CLAUDIO. By and by: I hope it is some pardon, or reprieve, For the most gentle Claudio.-Welcome, father. Enter Duke. DUKE. The best and wholesomest spirits of the night Envelop you, good Provost! Who call'd here of PROF. It is a bitter deputy. DUKE. Not so, not so; his life is parallel'd Even with the stroke and line of his great justice; He doth with holy abstinence subdue That in himself, which he spurs on his 4 They will then,] Perhaps she will then. power SIR J. HAWKINS. The Duke expects Isabella and Mariana. A little afterward he says: Now are they come." RITSON. Even with the stroke-] Stroke is here put for the stroke of a pen or a line. JOHNSON. To qualify-] To temper, to moderate, as we say wine is qualified with water. JOHNSON. Thus before in this play: "So to enforce, or qualify the laws." With that which he corrects, then were he tyran nous; 8 But this being so, he's just.-Now are they come.[Knocking within.-Provost goes out. This is a gentle provost : Seldom, when That wounds the unsisting postern with these strokes." Again, in Othello: "I have drank but one cup to-night, and that was craftily qualified too." STEEVENS. 7 were he meal'd--] Were he sprinkled; were he defiled. A figure of the same kind our author uses in Macbeth: "The blood-bolter'd Banquo." JOHNSON. More appositely, in The Philosophers Satires, by Robert Anton: "As if their perriwigs to death they gave, "To meale them in some gastly dead man's grave." STEEVENS. Mealed is mingled, compounded; from the French mesler. BLACKSTONE. But this being so,] The tenor of the argument seems to require-But this not being so,-. Perhaps, however, the author meant only to say-But, his life being paralleled, &c. he's just. MALONE. • That spirit's possess'd with haste, That wounds the unsisting postern with these strokes.] The line is irregular, and the old reading, unresisting postern, so strange an expression, that want of measure, and want of sense, might justly raise suspicion of an error; yet none of the later editors seem to have supposed the place faulty, except Sir Thomas Hanmer, who reads: the unresting postern The three folios have it unsisting postern out of which Mr. Rowe made unresisting, and the rest followed him. Sir Thomas Hanmer seems to have supposed unresisting the word in the copies, from which he plausibly enough ex |