Enter Servant. How now, who's there? Serv. One Ifabel, a fifter, defires access to you. Ang. Teach her the way. [Solus.] Oh heavens! Why does my blood thus mufter to my heart", Making both it unable for itself, And difpoffeffing all my other parts So play the foolish throngs with one that fwoons; Blood, thou art but blood! is an interjected exclamation. JOHNSON. A Hebrew proverb feems to favour Dr. Johnfon's reading: 'Tis yet the devil's crest. Quit "A nettle standing among myrtles doth notwithstanding retain the name of a nettle." 2 STEEVENS. -to my heart.] Of this fpeech there is no other trace in Promos and Caffandra, than the following: "Both hope and dreade, at once my harte doth tuch." STEEVENS The gen❜ral fubjects to a well-wish'd king,] So the later editions: but the old copies read: The general fubject to a well-wish'd king. The general fubject feems a harsh expreffion, but general fubjects has no fenfe at all; and general was, in our authour's time, a word for people, fo that the general is the people, or multitude, fubject to a king. So in Hamlet: "The play pleafed not the million; 'twas caviare to the general." JOHNSON. Mr. Malone obferves, that the ufe of this phrase "the general" for the people, continued fo late as to the time of lord Clarendon." as rather to be confented to, than that the general fhould fuffer." Clar. Hift. B. v. p. 530, 8vo. Edit. I therefore adhere to the old reading, with only a flight change in the punctuation. The general, fubject to a well-wish'd king, i. e. the generality who are fubjects, &c. Twice in Hamlet our author ufes fubject for fubjects : "So nightly toils the subject of the land." act I. c. I. Quit their own part, and in obfequious fondness Enter Ifabella. How now, fair maid? Ifab. I am come to know your pleasure. Ang. That you might know it, would much better please me, Than to demand what 'tis. Your brother cannot live. Ifab. Even fo-Heaven keep your honour! [Going. Ang. Yet may he live a while; and, it may be, As long as you, or I: Yet he muft die. Again, act I. fc. 2: "The lifts and full proportions, all are made The general fubject however may mean the subjects in general. So in As you Like it. act II. fc. 7: "Wouldst thou difgorge into the general world.” STEEVENS. So the duke had before (act I. scene 2.) expreffed his diflike of popular applause. "I'll privily away. I love the people, "But do not like to ftage me to their eyes. I cannot help thinking that Shakespeare, in these two paffages intended to flatter that unkingly weaknefs of James the first, which made him fo impatient of the crowds that flocked to fee him, efpecially upon his first coming, that, as fome of our hiftorians fay, he reftrained them by a proclamation. Sir Symonds D'Ewes, in his Memoirs of his own Life *, has a remarkable paffage with regard to this humour of James. After taking notice, that the king going to parliament, on the 30th of January, 1620-1,"fpake lovingly to the people, and faid God blefs ye, God blefs ye;' he adds these words, "contrary to his former hafty and paffionate custom, which often, in his fudden diftemper, would bid a pox or a plague on fuch as flocked to see him." TYRWHITT. * A manuscript in the British Museum. " Ifab. When, I beseech you that in his reprieve, Longer, or fhorter, he may be so fitted, That his foul ficken not. Ang. Ha! Fie, these filthy vices! It were as good Their fawcy fweetnefs, that do coin heaven's image As to put metal in reftrained means Ifab. tis all as eafy] Easy is here put for light or trifling. "Tis, fays he, as light or trifling a crime to do fo, as fo, &c. Which the Oxford editor not apprehending, has altered it to just; for 'tis much easier to conceive what Shakespeare should fay, than what he does fay. So juft before, the poet faid, with his usual licence, their fawcy fweetness, for farvey indulgence of the appetite. And this, forfooth, muft be changed to fascy lewdness, though the epithet confines us, as it were, to the poet's word. WARBURTON. 5 Falfely to take away a life true made,] Falfely is the fame with difhoneftly, illegally: fo falfe, in the next lines, is illegal, illegitimate. JOHNSON. 6 in restrained means,] In forbidden moulds. I fufpect means not to be the right word, but I cannot find another. I should fufpect that the author wrote, in reftrained mints, JOHNSON. as the allufion is ftill to coining. Sir W. Davenant omits the paffage. STEEVENS. On reading this paffage, it feemed probable to me that Shakefpeare, having already illuftrated this thought by an allusion to coining, would not give the fame image a fecond time; and that he wrote As to put mettle in reftrained means. On looking into the folio I found my conjecture confirmed, for that is the original reading. It is likewife fupported by a fimilar expreffion in Timon: thy father, that poor rag, "Put ftuff to fome the beggar, and compounded thee "Poor rogue hereditary." The Jab. 'Tis fet down fo in heaven, but not in earth 7. Ang. Say you fo? then I fhall poze you quickly. Which had you rather, That the most juft law Now took your brother's life; or, to redeem him, Give up your body to fuch fweet uncleanness, As the that he hath ftain'd} Ifab. Sir, believe this, I had rather give my body than my foul. Ang. I talk not of your foul; Our compell❜d fins Stand more for number than for accompt. Ifab. How fay you? Ang. Nay, Pll not warrant that; for I can fpeak Against the thing I fay. Answer to this, I, now the voice of the recorded law, The fenfe is clear, and means may stand without alteration.'Tis as eafy wickedly to deprive a man born in wedlock of life, as to have unlawful commerce with a maid in order to give life to an illegitimate child. The thought is fimply, that murder is as eafy as fornication, and it is as improper to pardon the latter as the former. The words-to make a falfe one-evidently referring to life, fhew that the preceding line is to be understood in a natu ral and not in a metaphorical fenfe. MALONE. - 'Tis fet down fo in heaven, but not in earth.] I would have it confidered, whether the train of the difcourfe does not rather re quire Ifabel to fay: 'Tis fo fet down in earth, but not in heaven, When the has faid this, Then, fays Angelo, I fhall poze you quickly. Would you, who, for the prefent purpose, declare your brother's crime to be less in the fight of heaven, than the law has made it; would you commit that crime, light as it is, to fave your brother's life? To this fhe anfwers, not very plainly in either reading, but more appofitely to that which I propofe: I had rather give my body, than my foul. JOHNSON. Ang Ang. Pleas'd you to do't, at peril of your foul*, Were equal poize of fin and charity. Ifab. That I do beg his life, if it be fin, Heaven, let me bear it! you granting of my fuit, If that be fin, I'll make it my morn prayer To have it added to the faults of mine, And nothing of your, answer 9. Ang. Nay, but hear me : Your fenfe purfues not mine: either you are ignorant Or feem fo, craftily; and that's not good. Ifab. Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good, But gracioufly to know I am no better. Ang. Thus wifdom wishes to appear moft bright, When it doth tax itself: as thefe black masks Proclaim an enfhield beauty ten times louder Than * Pleas'd you to do't, at peril, &c.] The reasoning is thus: Ahgelo afks, whether there might not be a charity in fin to fave this brother. Ifabella answers, that if Angelo will fave him, he will ftake her foul that it were charity, not fin. Angelo replies, that if Ifabella would fave him at the hazard of her foul, it would be not indeed no fin, but a fin to which the charity would be equivalent. JOHNSON And nothing of your, anfwer.] I think it should be read, And nothing of yours, anfier. You, and whatever is yours, be exempt from penalty. JOHNSON. And nothing of your anfver, means, and make no part of those for which you shall be called to answer. STEEVENS. This paffage would be clear, I think, if it were pointed thus: To have it added to the faults of mine, And nothing of your, answer. So that the fubftantive anfwer may be understood to be joined in conftruction with mine as well as your. The faults of mine anfwer are the faults which I am to answer for. TYRWHITT. Proclaim an enfhield beauty-] An enfield beauty is a fielded beauty, a beauty covered as with a shield. STEEVENs. as thefe black masks Proclaim an enfield beauty, &c. This fhould be written en-fbell'd, or in-fbell'd, as it is in Coriolanus, Vol. VII. p. 411: "Thrufts forth his horns again into the world "That were in-fhell'd when Marcius stood for Rome." These |