[Re-enter Servant.]

Serv. Here is the fifter of the man condemn'd,

Defires access to you.

Ang. Hath he a fister ?

Prov. Ay, my good lord; a very virtuous maid,

And to be shortly of a fifter-hood,

If not already.

Ang. Well, let her be admitted.

See you, the fornicatress be remov'd;

Let her have needful, but not lavish means;

There fhall be order for it.

Prov. Save your honour!

[Exit Servant:

Ang. Stay a little while.-(Enter Lucio and Ifabella.) You are welcome: What's your will?

Ifab. I am a woeful fuitor to your honour,

Please but your honour hear me.

Ang. Well, what's your fuit?

Ifab. There is a vice, that moft I do abhor, And most defire fhould meet the blow of juftice; For which I would not plead, but that I must;

For which I must not plead, but that I am

At war, 'twixt will, and will not.

Ang. Well, the matter?

Ifab. I have a brother is condemn'd to die : I do befeech you, let it be his fault,

And not my brother.

Prov Heaven give thee moving graces!

Ang. Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it!
Why, every fault's condemn'd, ere it be done :
Mine were the very cypher of a function,
To find the faults, whofe fine ftands in record,
And let go by the actor.

`s I must now plead; but yet.

Ifab. O juft, but fevere law!

I had a brother then.-Heaven keep your honour !

Lucio. [To Ifab.] Give't not o'er fo: to him again, intreat him;

Kneel down before him, hang upon his gown;

You are too cold: if you should need a pin,

You could not with more tame a tongue defire it:
To him I fay.

Ifab. Muft he needs die?

Ang. Maiden, no remedy.

Ifab. Yes; I do think that you might pardon him, And neither heaven, nor man, grieve at the mercy. Ang. I will not do't.

Ifab. But can you, if you would?

Ang. Look, what I will not, that I cannot do.

Ifab. But might you do't, and do the world no wrong, If fo your heart were touch'd with that remorfe

As mine is to him?

Ang. He's fentenc'd; 'tis too late.

Lucio. You are too cold.

[To Ifabel.

Ifab. Too late? why, no; I, that do speak a word, May call it back again: Well believe this,

No ceremony that to great ones 'longs,
Not the king's crown, nor the deputed fword,
The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
Become them with one half fo good a grace,
As mercy does.

If he had been as you, and you as he,

You would have flipt, like him; but he, like you,
Would not have been fo ftern.

t

Ang. Pray you, be gone.

remorfe]-pity-fo again in this play.

"My fifterly remorfe confutes my honour."

A&t V, S. 1. Ifab.

Ifab. I would to heaven I had your potency,
And you were Ifabel! fhould it then be thus?
No; I would tell what 'twere to be a judge,
And what a prifoner.

Lucio. [Afide.] Ay, touch him: there's the vein.
Ang. Your brother is a forfeit of the law,
And you but waste your words.

Ifab. Alas! alas!

Why, all the fouls that were, were forfeit once ;
And He that might the vantage best have took,
Found out the remedy: How would you be,
If he, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you, as you are? Oh, think on that,
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new made.

W

Ang. Be you content, fair maid;

It is the law, not I, condemns your brother:
Were he my kinfman, brother, or my son,
It should be thus with him ;-he muft die to-morrow.
Ifab. To-morrow? Oh, that's fudden! Spare him, spare

him;

He's not prepar'd for death! Even for our kitchens
We kill the fowl, of feafon; fhall we ferve heaven

With less respect than we do minister

To our grofs felves? Good, good my lord, bethink you: Who is it that hath died for this offence?

There's many have committed it.

Lucio. Ay, well faid.

Ang. The law hath not been dead, though it hath flept: Those many had not dared to do that evil,

* If the first man, that did the edict infringe,

" tell]-fhew.

❤ Like man new made ]-before he fell; or, you'll abate your rigour,

and become a new man.

Had answer'd for his deed: now, 'tis awake;

2

Takes note of what is done; and, like a prophet,
'Looks in a glass that fhews what future evils,
(Either now, or by remiffness new conceiv'd,
And fo in progrefs to be hatch'd and born)
Are now to have no fucceffive degrees,
But, ere they live, to end.

Ifab. Yet fhew some pity.

Ang. I fhew it most of all, when I shew justice; For then I pity those I do not know,

Which a dismiss'd offence would after gall;

And do him right, that, anfwering one foul wrong,
Lives not to act another. Be fatisfy'd;

Your brother dies to-morrow; be content.

Ifab. So you must be the firft, that gives this fentence; And he, that fuffers: Oh, it is excellent

To have a giant's ftrength; but it is tyrannous,

To use it like a giant.

Lucio. That's well faid.

Fab. Could great men thunder

As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet,
For every pelting, petty officer,

y Looks in a glass]-Aftrologers, fays Mr. Aubrey, pretended to dif cover past and future events by looking into a beryl, or chrystal ring. MISCEL. P. 165.

Witches were wont to fhew, to fuch as confulted them, the figures, or images of the perfons, or things fought for, reflected by a mirrour. This Jonfon calls "The taking in of fhadows with a glass." "And yet the eighth appears, who bears a glass."

2

MACBETH, A& IV, S. 1. Mach. fhews what future evils, (either now, &c.]-forefhews what evils, either in actual existence at present, or in embryo only, are henceforth not to be suffered to proceed from bad to worse, the worse being to end ere they live, by cutting off the bad.

a pelting,]-paltry.

"

pelting river."

MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, Act II, S. 2. Queen.
Poor pelting villages.

LEAR, Act II, S. 3. Edg.

Would

Would use his heaven for thunder; nothing but thunder.

Merciful heaven!

Thou rather with thy fharp and fulphurous bolt

b

Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak,

Than the foft myrtle: O, but man! proud man, (Dreft in a little brief authority;

Moft ignorant of what he's most affur'd,

His glaffy effence) like an angry ape,

с

Plays fuch fantaftick tricks before high heaven,
As make the angels weep; who, with our fpleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.

Lucio. Oh, to him, to him, wench: he will relent; He's coming; I perceiv't.

Prov. Pray heaven fhe win him!

Ijab. We cannot weigh our brother with ourself: Great men may jeft with faints: 'tis wit in them; But, in the less, foul profanation.

Lucio. Thou'rt in the right, girl; more o' that. Ifab. That in the captain's but a cholerick word, Which in the foldier is flat blafphemy.

Lucio. Art advis'd o' that? more on't.

Ang. Why do you put thefe fayings upon me?
Ifab. Because authority, though it err like others,
Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself,

That skins the vice o' the top: Go to your bofom;
Knock there; and afk your heart, what it doth know
That's like my brother's fault: if it confefs

A natural guiltinefs fuch as is his;

Let it not found a thought upon your tongue
Against my brother's life.

bgnarled]-knotted.

with our fpleens,]-our turn of mind. laugh mortal.]-hazard their immortality by indulging an exceffive degree of merriment.

We cannot weigh our brother with ourself:]-do not ufually make the like allowances for others, especially our inferiours.

Ang.