Even like an o'er-grown lion in a cave, That goes not out to prey: Now, as fond fathers For terror, not to use; in time the rod Becomes more mock'd, than feared: fo our decrees, And liberty plucks juftice by the nose; Fri. It refted in your grace To unloofe this ty'd-up juftice, when you pleas'd: And it in you more dreadful would have feem'd, Than in lord Angelo. Duke. I do fear, too dreadful: I Sith 'twas my fault to give the people scope, And not the punishment. Therefore, indeed, my father, I have on Angelo impos'd the office; Who may, in the ambush of my name, ftrike home, And yet, my nature never in the fight To do it flander 2: And to behold his sway, I will, noticed-unobferved;" for fo the fame phrafe is used by Sir Andrew Aguecheek: "Let him let the matter flip, and I'll give him my horfe grey Capulet." Again in Marlow's Doctor Fauftus 1631: "Shall I let flip fo great an injury." Again in A Mad World my Mafters, by Middleton, 1640: "Well, things muft lip and fleep-I will diffemble." Again, in The Spanish Tragedy, 1605: "My fimplicity may make them think "That ignorantly I will let all flip." MALONE. • Becomes more mock'd than fear'd: -] Becomes was added by Mr. Pope to restore sense to the paffage, fome fuch word having been left out. STEEVENS. Sith.] i. e. fince. STEEVENS. 2 To do it Лlander. -] The text ftood: So do in flander. Sir I will, as 'twere a brother of your order, Is more to bread than ftone: Hence fhall we fee, Sir Thomas Hanmer has very well corrected it thus, Yet perhaps less alteration might have produced the true reading, So doing flandered. And yet my nature never fuffer flander by doing any open acts of feverity. JOHNSON. The old text ftood, To do in flander. in the fight Hanmer's emendation is in my opinion beft. So in Hen. IV. p. 1: "Do me no flander, Douglas, I dare fight." STEEVENS. The words in the preceding line-ambush and strike, fhew that fight is the true reading. MALONE. 3 in perfon bear,] Mr. Pope reads, -my perfon bear. Perhaps a word was dropped at the end of the line, which originally ftood thus, How I may formally in perfon bear me, Like a true friar. So in the Tempeft: 66 fome good inftruction give 66 How I may bear me here." Sir W. Davenant reads, in his alteration of the play : I may in perfon a true friar feem. STEEVENS. 4 Stands at a guard- -] Stands on terms of defiance. JOHNSON. SCENE SCENE V. A Nunnery. Enter Ifabella and Francifca. Ifab. And have you nuns no farther privileges? Ifab. Yes, truly: I fpeak not as defiring more; Nun. It is a man's voice: Gentle Isabella, Then, if you speak, you must not fhew your face; Enter Lucio. Lucio. Hail, virgin, if you be ; as thofe cheek-rofes A novice of this place, and the fair fifter Ifab. Why her unhappy brother? let me afk; Lucio. Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets Not to be weary with you, he's in prifon. Ifab. Woe me! For what? Lucio. For that, which, if myfelf might be his judge, He should receive his punishment in thanks: He hath got his friend with child. Ifab. Sir, make me not your story . Lucio. 'Tis true:-I would not (though 'tis my familiar fin With maids to feem the lapwing, and to jeft, 3 make me not your ftory.] Do not, by deceiving me, make me a fubject for a tale. JOHNSON.[ Benedict Perhaps only, Do not divert yourself with me, as you would with a ftory, do not make me the fubject of your drama. talks of becoming-the argument of his own fcorn. Sir W. Davenant reads -fcorn instead of story. STEEVENS. tis my familiar fin 6. With maids to feem the lapwing, The Oxford editor's note on this paffage is in these words. The Tapwings fly, with feeming fright and anxiety, far from their nefts, to deceive those who feek their young. And do not all other birds do the fame? But what has this to do with the infidelity of a general lover, to whom this bird is compared? It is another quality of the lapwing, that is here alluded to, viz. its perpetually flying fo low and fo near the paffenger, that he thinks he has it, and then is fuddenly gone again. This made it a proverbial expreffion to fignify a lover's falfhood: and it seems to be a very old one: for Chaucer, in his Plowman's Tale, fays: : -And lapwings that well conith lie. WARBURTON. The modern editors have not taken in the whole fimilitude here they have taken notice of the lightness of a spark's behaviour to his mistress, and compared it to the lapwing's hovering and fluttering as it flies. But the chief, of which no notice is taken, is, and to jeft. (See Ray's Proverbs) "The lapwing cries, tongue far from heart." i. e. most farthest from the nest, i. e. She is, as Shakespeare has it here Tongue far from heart. "The farther fhe is from her neft, where her heart is with her young ones, fhe is the louder, or perhaps all tongue." SMITH, Shakespeare has an expreffion of the like kind, Com. of Errors, act. iv. fc. 3: Adr. Far from her neft the lapwing cries away, "My heart prays for him, tho' my tongue do curfe." We meet with the fame thought in John Lilly's comedy, intitled Campafpe (first published in 1591) act ii. fc. 2. from whence Shakespeare might borrow it: "Alex. Not with Timoleon you mean, wherein you resemble the lapwing, who crieth moft where her neft is not, and so, to lead me from efpying your love for Campafpe, you cry Timoclea." GRAY Tongue Tongue far from heart) play with all virgins fo: As with a faint. Ifab. You do blafpheme the good, in mocking me. Lucio. Do not believe it. Fewnefs and truth 7, 'tis thus: Your brother and his lover have embrac❜d: As those that feed grow full; as bloffoming time Ifab. Some one with child by him?-My cousin Lucio. Is the your coufin? Ifab. Adoptedly; as fchool-maids change their Lucio. She it is. Ifab. O, let him marry her?! Lucio. This is the point. true ones. 8 Fewnefs and truth, &c.] i. e. in few words, and those To teeming foyfon; fo STEEVENS. As the fentence now ftands, it is apparently ungrammatical. I read, At bloffoming time, &c. That is, As they that feed grow full, fo her womb now, at bloffoming time, at that time through which the feed time proceeds to the harveft, her womb shows what has been doing. Lucio ludicrously calls pregnancy blooming time, the time when fruit is promised, though not yet ripe. JOHNSON. Instead of that, we may read-doth; and, instead of brings, bring. STEEVENS. O, let him marry her.] O is an insertion of the modern edi-, tors. I cannot relish it. If any word is to be inferted to fill up the metre, I should prefer, Why. TYRWHITT. The |