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No ceremony that to great ones 'longs,
Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
Become them with one half so good a grace,
As mercy does. If he had been as you, and you as he,
You would have slipt like him; but he, like you,
Would not have been so stern.

ANG.

Pray you, begone. ISAB. I would to heaven I had your potency, And you were Isabel! should it then be thus ? No; I would tell what 'twere to be a judge, And what a prisoner.

LUCIO. Ay, touch him: there's the vein. [Aside. ANG. Your brother is a forfeit of the law,

And you but waste your words.

ISAB.

Alas! alas!

Why, all the souls 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? O, think on that;
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new made 2.

I

WELL believe this.] Be thoroughly assured of this.
THEOBALD.

all the souls that WERE,] This is false divinity. We should read-are. WARBURTON.

I fear, the player, in this instance, is a better divine than the prelate. The souls that were," evidently refer to Adam and Eve, whose transgression rendered them obnoxious to the penalty of annihilation, but for the remedy which the Author of their being most graciously provided. The learned Bishop, however, is more successful in his next explanation. HENLEY.

2 And mercy then will breathe within your lips

Like man NEW MADE.] This is a fine thought, and finely expressed. The meaning is, that "mercy will add such a grace to your person, that you will appear as amiable as a man come fresh out of the hands of his Creator." WARBURTON.

I rather think the meaning is, "You will then change the seve

ANG.

Be you content, fair maid;

It is the law, not I, condemns your brother:
Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,

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It should be thus with him; he must die to-morrow. ISAB. To-morrow? O, that's sudden ! Spare him,

spare him:

He's not prepar'd for death! Even for our kitchens We kill the fowl of season 3; shall we serve heaven With less respect than we do minister

To our gross selves? Good, good my lord, bethink you:

Who is it that hath died for this offence ?

There's many have committed it.

LUCIO.

Ay, well said.

ANG. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept *:

Those many had not dar'd to do that evil,
If the first man that did the edict infringe",
Had answer'd for his deed: now, 'tis awake;
Takes note of what is done; and, like a prophet,

rity of your present character." In familiar speech, be quite another man."

JOHNSON.

66 And mercy then will breathe within your lips,

"You would

"Like man new made." You will then appear as tender-hearted and merciful as the first man was in his days of innocence, immediately after his creation. Malone.

I incline to a different interpretation : "And you, Angelo, will breathe new life into Claudio, as the Creator animated Adam, by breathing into his nostrils the breath of life." HOLT WHITE. 3- of season;] i. e. when it is in season. So, in The Merry Wives of Windsor: " - buck; and of the season too it shall appear." STEEVens.

4 The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept :] "Dormiunt aliquando leges, moriuntur nunquam," is a maxim in our law. HOLT WHITE.

5 If the first man, &c.] The word man has been supplied by the modern editors. I would rather read

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If he, the first," &c. TYRWHITT.
MALONE.

Man was introduced by Mr. Pope.

Looks in a glass, that shows what future evils,
(Either now, or by remissness new-conceiv'd,
And so in progress to be hatch'd and born,)
Are now to have no successive degrees,
But, where they live, to end".

ISAB.

like a prophet,

Yet show some pity.

Looks in a glass,] This alludes to the fopperies of the beril, much used at that time by cheats and fortune-tellers to predict by.

See Macbeth, Act IV. Sc. I.

So again, in Vittoria Corombona, 1612:

WARBURTON.

"How long have I beheld the devil in chrystal?"

STEEVENS.

The beril, which is a kind of crystal, hath a weak tincture of red in it. Among other tricks of astrologers, the discovery of past or future events was supposed to be the consequence of looking into it. See Aubrey's Miscellanies, p. 165, edit. 1721. REED.

7 (Either now,] Thus the old copy. Modern editors readOr new-. STEEVENS.

8 But, WHERE they live, to end.] The old copy reads-But, here they live, to end. Sir Thomas Hanmer substituted ere for here; but where was, I am persuaded, the author's word. So, in Coriolanus, Act V. Sc. V.:

66

but there to end,

"Where he was to begin, and give away
"The benefit of our levies," &c.

Again, in Julius Cæsar:

"And where I did begin, there shall I end."

The prophecy is not, that future evils should end, ere, or before they are born; or, in other words, that there should be no more evil in the world (as Sir T. Hanmer by his alteration seems to have understood it); but, that they should end where they began,' i. e. with the criminal; who, being punished for his first offence, could not proceed by successive degrees in wickedness, nor excite others, by his impunity, to vice. So, in the next speech:

"And do him right, that, answering one foul wrong,

"Lives not to act another."

It is more likely that a letter should have been omitted at the press, than that one should have been added.

The same mistake has happened in The Merchant of Venice, folio, 1623, p. 173, col. 2:- "ha, ha, here in Genoa,"-instead of "where? in Genoa ?" MALONE.

Dr. Johnson applauds Sir Thomas Hanmer's emendation. I prefer that of Mr. Malone.

Steevens.

ANG. I show it most of all, when I show justice; For then I pity those I do not know,

Which a dismiss'd offence would after gall;

And do him right, that, answering one foul wrong, Lives not to act another. Be satisfied;

Your brother dies to-morrow: be content.

ISAB. So you must be the first, that gives this

sentence;

And he, that suffers: O, it is excellent

To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant1.

LUCIO.

That's well said.

ISAB. Could great men thunder

As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet, For every pelting 2, petty officer,

Would use his heaven for thunder; nothing but thunder.

Merciful heaven!

Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt, Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak",

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show some pity.

Ang. I show it most of all, when I show justice;

For then I pity those I do not know,] This was one of Hale's memorials. . When I find myself swayed to mercy, let me remember, that there is a mercy likewise due to the country."

JOHNSON.

To use it LIKE A GIANT.] Isabella alludes to the savage conduct of giants in ancient romances. STEEVENS. 2-pelting,] i. e. paltry.

This word I meet with in Mother Bombie, 1594:
will not shrink the city for a pelting jade."

66

STEEVENS.

It occurs very frequently in Shakspeare and his contemporaries in the same sense. BOSWELL.

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in wood.

GNARLED oak,] Gnarre is the old English word for a knot

So, in Antonio's Revenge, 1602:

"Till by degrees the tough and gnarly trunk

"Be riv'd in sunder."

Again, in Chaucer's Knight's Tale, Tyrwhitt's edit. v. 1979: "With knotty knarry barrein trees old." STEEVENS.

Than the soft myrtle ;-But man, proud man*!
Drest in a little brief authority;

Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd,
His glassy essence,-like an angry ape,

Plays such fantastick tricks before high heaven,
As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal o.

LUCIO. O, to him, to him, wench: he will relent; He's coming, I perceive't.

PROV.

Pray heaven, she win him! ISAB. We cannot weigh our brother with ourself":

4 Than the soft myrtle; But man, proud man!] The defective metre of this line shews that some word was accidentally omitted at the press; probably some additional epithet to man; perhaps weak,-" but man, weak, proud man-. The editor of the second folio, to supply the defect, reads-0, but man, &c. which, like almost all the other emendations of that copy, is the worst and the most improbable that could have been chosen. In the old copies, But is printed with a capital letter, which shows that no word was intended to precede it. MALONE.

I am content with the emendation of the second folio, which I conceive to have been made on the authority of some manuscript, or corrected copy. STEEVENS.

5 As make the angels weep;] for the sins of men is rabbinical. inducunt Hebræorum magistri."

6 —who, with our spleens,

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The notion of angels weeping "Ob peccatum flentes angelos Grotius ad S. Lucam.

THEOBALD.

Would all themselves laugh mortal.] Mr. Theobald says the meaning of this is, that if they were endowed with our spleens and perishable organs, they would laugh themselves out of immortality; or, as we say in common life, laugh themselves dead; which amounts to this, that if they were mortal, they would not be immortal. Shakspeare meant no such nonsense. By spleens, he meant that peculiar turn of the human mind, that always inclines it to a spiteful, unseasonable mirth. Had the angels that, says Shakspeare, they would laugh themselves out of their immortality, by indulging a passion which does not deserve that prerogative. The ancients thought, that immoderate laughter was caused by the bigness of the spleen. WARBURTON.

7 We cannot weigh our brother with OURSELF:] We mortals, proud and foolish, cannot prevail on our passions to weigh or compare our brother, a being of like nature and like frailty, with ourVOL. IX.

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