dare has no fuch fignification. I have nothing to offer worth infertion. P. 313. l. 1. my authority bears a credent bulk ; JOHNS. Which no particular flander, &c.] Credent is creditable, inforcing credit, not questionable. The old English writers often confound the active and paffive adjectives. So Shakespeare, and Milton after him, ufe inexpreffive from inexpreffible. Particular is private, a French fenfe. No fcandal from any private mouth can reach a man in my authority. JOHNS. L. 9. we would, and we would not.] Here undoubtedly the act should end, and was ended by the poet; for here is properly a ceffation of action, and a night intervenes, and the place is changed between the paffages of this fcene and those The next act beginning with the following fcene, proceeds without any interruption of time or change of place. of the next. JOHNS. L. 10. Peter never delivers the letters, but tells his story without any credentials. The poet forgot the plot which he had formed. JOHNS. P. 314. J. 4. He fays to vail full purpose.] Mr. Theobald alters it to, He says, t' availful purpose; because he has no idea of the common reading. A good reafon! Yet the common reading is right. Full is used for beneficial; and the meaning is," He fays it is to hide a beneficial purpose, that must not yet be revealed." WARB. To vail full purpofe, may, with very little force on the words, mean to hide the whole extent of our defign, and therefore the reading may ftand; yet I cannot but think Mr. Theobald's alteration either lucky or ingenious. To interpret words with fuch laxity as to make full the fame with beneficial, is to put an end, at once, to all neceffity of emendation, for any word may then ftand in the place of another. JOHNS. L. 12. Enter Peter.] This play has two Friars, either of whom might fingly have ferved. I fhould therefore imagine that Friar Thomas, in the first act, might be changed, with out any harm, to Friar Peter; for why fhould the Duke unneceffarily truft two in an affair which required only one, The name of Friar Thomas is never mentioned in the dialogue, and therefore seems arbitrarily placed at the head of the scene. JOHNS. L. 16. Have bent the gates.] Have encircled, furrounded. or taken poffeffion of the gates. THEOB. & JOHNS. P. 315. 1. 19. vail your regard.] That is, withdraw your thoughts from higher things; let your notice defcend upon a wronged woman. To vail, is to lower. truth is truth P. 316. 1. 18. JOHNS. To th' end of reckoning.] That is, Truth has no gradations; nothing which admits of encrease can be fo much what it is, as truth is truth. There may be a strange thing, and a thing more ftrange, but if a propofition be true there can be none more true. L. 28. - as JOHNS. shy, as grave, as juft, as abfolute.] As fy; as referved, as abftracted: as just; as nice, as exact: as abfolute; as complete in all the round of duty. JOHNS. JOHNS. L. 30. In all his dreffings, &c.] In all his femblance of virtue, in all his habilimeuts of office. P. 317. 1. 8. do not banih reafon For inequality 3] Let not the high quality of my adverfary prejudice you against me. JOHNS. L. 11. And hide the falfe, feems true.] We fhould read Not bide. WARB. P. 318. 1. 24. Ob, that it were as like, as it is true!] Like is not here used for probable, but for feemly. She catches at the duke's word, and turns it to another fenfe; of which there are a great many examples in Shakespeare, and the writers of that time. WARB. Ibid.] I do not fee why like may not ftand here for probable, or why the lady fhould not wish that fince her tale is true it may obtain belief. If Dr. Warburton's explication be right, we should read, O! that it were as likely as 'tis true. Like I have never found fo feemly. CAN. & JOHNS. L. 28. In bateful practice.] Practice was used by the old writers for any unlawful or infidious ftratagem. So again, this must needs be practice; and again, let me have way to find this practice out. P. 319. 1. 8. In countenance.] i. e. in partial favour. JOHNS. WARB. P. 320. 1. 5.-not 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 used here. It may stand for temporal: the fenfe will then be, I know him for a boly man, one that meddles not with secular 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 falfe evidence against your Deputy. JOHNS. L. 18. Whenever he's conven'd.] The first folio reads convented, and this is right: for to convene fignifies to affemble; but convent, to cite, or fummons. Yet, because convented hurts the measure, the Oxford Editor sticks to conven'd, tho' it be nonfenfe, 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 measure: which Shakefpear 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 Syllables. This being here taken notice of once for all, fhall, for the future, be forgot, as if it had never been. WARB. L. 20. So vulgarly.] Meaning either, fo grofly, with fuch indecency of invective, or by fo mean and inadequate witneffes. JOHNS. L. 26. In former Editions:- come, coufin Angelo, In this I'll be impartial: be you judge Of your own Cuafe.] Surely, this Duke had odd Notions of impartiality; to commit the decifion of a Caufe to the Perfon accus'd. He talks much more rationally in the character of the Friar. The Duke's unjust, Thus to retort your manifeft Appeal; And put your Trial in the Villain's mouth, I think, there needs no ftronger authority to convince, that the Poet must have wrote as I have corrected; In this I will be partial.— THEOB. P. 322. 1. 4.] Abufe ftands in this place for deception, or puzzle. So in Macbeth, this frange and self abuse, means this ftrange deception of himself. L. 20. ber promifed proportions JOHNS. Came fhort of compofition;-] Her fortune which was promifed proportionate to mine, fell short of the compofition, that is, contract or bargain. JOHNS. P. 323. 1. 7. These poor informal women.] i. e. women who have ill concerted their story. Formal fignifies frequently, in our author, a thing put into form or method: fo informal, out of method, ill concerted. How easy is it to lay, that Shakespear might better have wrote informing, i. e. accufing. But he who (as the Oxford Editor) thinks he did write fo, knows nothing of the character of his stile. WARB. Ibid.] I once believed informal had no other or deeper fignification than informing, accufing; but I think, upon further enquiry, that it fignifies incompetent, not qualified to give teftimony. Of this ufe I have found precedents, though I cannot now recover them. The scope of justice, is the full extent. JOHNS. L. 18. That's fear'd in approbation.] When any thing fubject to counterfeits is tried by the proper officer's and approved, a ftamp or feal is put upon it, as among us on plate, weights and measures. So the Duke fays that Angelo's faith has been tried, approved and fear'd in teftimony of that approbation, and, like other things fo fealed, is no more to be called in question. JOHNS. L. 29. to bear this matter forth.] To hear it to the end; to fearch it to the bottom. I P. JOHNS. P. 325. 1. 14. to retort your manifeft appeal.] To refer back to Angelo the cause in which you appealed from Angelo to the Duke.. The JOHNS. L. 30. Nor here provincial.] Nor here accountable. meaning feems to be, I am not one of his natural subjects, nor of any dependent province. JOHNS. P. 326. 1. 3. Stands like the forfeits in a barber's shop.] Barber's fhops were, at all times, the refort of idle people. Tonftrina erat quædam: hic folebamus ferè Which Donatus calls apta fedes otiofis. Formerly, with us, the better fort of people went to the Barber's fhop to be trimm'd; who then practifed the under parts of Surgery:. fo that he had occafion for numerous inftruments, which lay there ready for ufe; and the idle people, with whom his shop was generally crowded, would be perpetually handling and mifufing them. To remedy which, fuppofe, there was placed up against the wall a table of forfeitures adapted to every offence of this kind; which, it is not likely, would long preserve its authority. WARB. Ibid.] This explanation may serve till a better is difcovered. But whoever has feen the inftruments of a chirurgeon, knows that they may be very easily kept out of imprcper hands in a very small box, or in his pocket. JOHN. Ibid.] Dr. Johnson appears to know very little of the provincial manners of his country now; he would hardly elfe have been at a lofs, with respect to the paffage before 'us. The Tables of Forfeits, hung up in Barber's fhops, are ftill extant in fome parts of England. I remember to have feen one in an excurfion from Burlington to Northallerton, in Yorkshire. Its contents ftruck me much; they do not, however, relate to the handling of Chirurgical inftruments, but to civility and good behaviour. These statutes were in rhime, and were entitled : Rules for feemly behaviour First come, first ferve-then come not late; For he, who from thefe Rules fhall fwerve, 1. Who enters here with boots and spurs, 2. Who rudely takes another turn, |