Re-enter Provoft, BARNARDINE, CLAUDIO, and JULIET, Duke. Which is that Barnardine ? Prov. This, my lord. For better times to come :- -Friar, advise him ; That should have died when Claudio loft his head; his fake Is he pardon'd; And, for your lovely fake, Look that you love your wife; her worth, worth yours.4 And yet here's one in place I cannot pardon ;5 You, firrah, [To Lucio.] that knew me for a fool, a coward, One all of luxury," an afs, a madman; Wherein 9 Thy faults, fo far as they are punishable on earth, fo far as they are cognisable by temporal power, I forgive. JOHNSON. 2 It is fomewhat ftrange that Ifabel is not made to exprefs either gratitude, wonder, or joy, at the fight of her brother. JOHNSON. 3 Quits you, recompenfes, requites you. JOHNSON. 4 Sir T. Hanmer reads, Her worth works yours. This reading is adopted by Dr. Warburton, but for what reafon? How does her worth work Angelo's worth? it has only contributed to work his pardon. The words are, as they are too frequently, an affected gingle; but the fenfe is plain. Her worth, worth yours; that is, her value is equal to your value, the match is not unworthy of you. JOHNSON. 5 The Duke only means to frighten Lucio, whofe final fentence is to marry the woman whom he had wronged, on which all his other punishments are remitted. STEEVENS. 6 Luxury means incontinence. STEEVENS. Wherein have I fo deserved of you, That you extol me thus ? Lucio. 'Faith, my lord, I fpoke it but according to the trick:7 If you will hang me for it, you may, but I had rather it would please you, I might be whip'd. Duke. Whip'd firft, fir, and hang'd after.- Lucio. I befeech your highnefs, do not marry me to a whore! Your highness faid even now, I made you a duke; good my lord, do not recompence me, in making me a cuckold. Duke. Upon mine honour, thou shalt Thy flanders I forgive; and therewithal marry her. Remit thy other forfeits :-Take him to prison : Lucio. Marrying a punk, my lord, is preffing to death, whipping, and hanging. Duke. Sland'ring a prince deferves it. She, Claudio, that you wrong'd, look you reftore.- I have confefs'd her, and I know her virtue. Thanks, good friend Efcalus, for thy much goodness :? There's 7 To my custom, my habitual practice. JOHNSON. Lucio does not fay my trick, but the trick; nor does he mean to excufe himself by faying that he spoke according to his ufual practice, for that would be an aggravation to his guilt, but according to the trick and practice of the times. It was probably then the practice, as it is at this day, for the diffipated and profligate, to ridicule and flander perfons in high ftation, or of fuperior virtue. M. MASON. According to the trick, is, according to the fashion of thoughtless youth. MALONE. 8 Thy other punishments. JOHNSON. To forfeit anciently fignified to commit a carnal offence. STEEVENS. 9 I have always thought that there is great confufion in this concluding fpeech. If my criticifm would not be cenfured as too licentious, I should regulate it thus: Thanks There's more behind, that is more gratulate.2- What's mine is yours, and what is yours is mine :- What's yet behind, that's meet you all should know. Thanks, good friend Efcatus, for thy much goodness, Thanks, Provoft, for thy care and fecrecy s We fhall employ thee in a worthier place. Ang. The offence pardons itself. Duke. There's more bebind That is more gratulate. Dear Ifabel, I bave a motion, &c. JOHNSON. [Exeunt, 2 i. e. to be more rejoiced in; meaning, I fuppofe, that there is another world, where he will find yet greater reafon to rejoice in confequence of his upright miniftry. Efcalus is reprefented as an ancient nobleman, who, in conjunction with Angelo, had reached the highest office of the ftate. He therefore could not be fufficiently rewarded here; but is neceffarily referred to a future and more exalted recompenfe. STEEVENS. I cannot approve of Steevens's explanation of this paffage, which is very far-fetched indeed. The Duke gives Efcalus thanks for his much goodnefs, but tells him that he had fome other reward in ftore for him, more acceptable than thanks; which agrees with what he said before, in the beginning of this act ; we hear "Such goodness of your juftice, that our foul Heywood alfo in his Apology for Actors, 1612, uses to gratulate, in the fenfe of to reward. MALONE. Mr. M. Mafon's explanation may be right; but he forgets that the fpeech he brings in support of it, was delivered before the denouement of the fcene, and was, at that moment, as much addreffed to Angelo as to Efcalus; and for Angelo the Duke had certainly no reward or honours, in ftore. Befides, I cannot but regard the word-requital as an interpolation, because it deftroys the measure, without improvement of the fenfe. "Fore-running more," therefore, would only fignify-preceding further thanks. STEEVENS. 3 I cannot help taking notice with how much judgement Shakspeare has given turns to this story from what he found it in Cynthio Giraldi's novel. In the first place, the brother is there actually executed, and the governor fends his head in a bravado to the fifter, after he had debauched her on promise of marriage: a circumftance of too much horror and villainy for the stage. And, in the next place, the fifter afterwards is, to folder up her disgrace, married to the governour, and begs his life of the emperour, though he had unjustly been the death of her brother. Both which abfurdities the poet has avoided by the episode of Mariana, a creature purely of his own invention. The Duke's remaining incognito at home to supervise the conduct of his deputy, is also entirely our author's fiction. This story was attempted for the fcene before our author was fourteen years old, by one George Whetstone, in Two Comical Difcourfes, as they are called, containing the right excellent and famous hiftory of Promos and Caffandra, printed with the black letter, 1578. The author going that year with Sir Humphrey Gilbert to Norimbega, left them with his friends to publish. THEOBALD. The novel of Cynthio Giraldi, from which Shakspeare is fuppofed to have borrowed this fable, may be read in Shakspeare illuftrated, elegantly translated, with remarks which will affift the enquirer to difcover how much abfurdity Shakspeare has admitted or avoided. I cannot but fufpect that fome other had new-modelled the novel of Cynthio, or written a story which in fome particulars refembled it, and that Cynthio was not the author whom Shakspeare immediately followed. The Emperor in Cynthio is named Maximine; the Duke, in Shakspeare's enumeration of the perfons of the drama, is called Vincentio. This appears a very flight remark; but fince the Duke has no name in the play, nor is ever mentioned but by his title, why should he be called Vincentio among the perfons, but because the name was copied from the ftory, and placed fuperfluously at the head of the lift by the mere habit of transcription? It is therefore likely that there was then a story of Vincentio Duke of Vienna, different from that of Maximine Emperor of the Romans. Of this play the light or comic part is very natural and pleasing, but the grave fcenes, if a few paffages be excepted, have more labour than elegance. The plot is rather intricate than artful. The time of the action is indefinite; fome time, we know not how much, must have elapfed be tween the recefs of the Duke and the imprisonment of Claudio; for he must have learned the story of Mariana in his disguise, or he delegated his power to a man already known to be 'corrupted. The unities of action and place are fufficiently preferved. JOHNSON. The duke probably had learnt the ftory of Mariana in fome of his former retirements, having ever loved the life removed." (Page 432) "And he had a fufpicion that Angelo was but a feemer, (page 434) and therefore he stays to watch him. BLACKSTONE. Just as this play was completing at the press, some ingenious illustrations of feveral parts of it, from fimilar paffages in the Bible, appeared in the Gentle man's Magazine for 1795, p. 644. NICHOLS. ADDENDA. : Tempest, p. 64. c. 18. Broom, in this place, fignifies the Spartium fcoparium, of which brooms are frequently made. Near Gamlingay in Cambridgeshire it grows high enough to conceal the tallest cattle as they pass through it; and in places where it is cultivated, ftill higher: a circumftance that had escaped my notice, till I was told of it by Professor Martin, whose name I am particularly happy to infert among those of other friends who have honoured and improved this work by their various communications. STEEVENS. Gent. of Verona, p. 99, 1. 19, for Look, read, And. Ibid. p. 108, l. 16. for fhe made, read, fhe bath made. Merry Wives, &c. p. 216. n. 6. up with your fights,] This paffage may receive an additional and perhaps a fomewhat different illuftration from John Smith's Sea-Grammar, 40. 1627. In page 58 he fays, "But if you fee your chafe ftrip himself into fighting failes, that is, to put out his colours in the poope, his flag in the maine top, his ftreamers or pendants at the end of his yards' arms, &c. provide yourself to fight." Again, p. 60. "Thus they ufe to ftrip themselves into their fhort failes, or fighting failes, which is only the fore fail, the maine and fore top failes, becaufe the reft should not be fired or spoiled; befides they would be troublesome to handle, hinder our fights and the ufing our armes: he makes ready his clofe fights fore and aft." In a former paffage, p. 58, he has faid that a hip's clofe fights are small ledges of wood laid croffe one another, like the grates of iron in a prifon's window, betwixt the maine maft and the fore maft, and are called gratings or nettings," &c. STEEVENS. Twelfth Night, p. 387, n. 5. Dr. Farmer would read fat inftead of tall, the former of these epithets, in his opinion, being referable to the following words good boufekeeper. STEEVENS. END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. |