LUCIO. Not better than he, by her own report. ESCAL. Say you? LUCIO. Marry, sir, I think, if you handled her privately, she would sooner confess: perchance, publicly, she'll be ashamed. Take him hence; to the rack with him!--We'll touse you Joint by joint, but we will know his purpose.- DUKE. Be not so hot; the duke dare ESCAL. I will go darkly to work with her. Lucio. That's the way; for women are light Dare rack his own: his subject am I not, at midnight. a-his purpose.] Capell reads, "-this purpose," and Mr. Collier's annotator, "your purpose," but Boswell suggested that, after threatening the supposed Friar, Escalus addresses the close of the sentence to the bystanders. b Nor here provincial] Nor within the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the province. c Close-] So theold copies. In Mr. Collier's annotated folio, the word is changed to gloze, but most improperly; for "close" and not gloze, despite of all that can be adduced in favour of the latter, is the genuine word. In proof of this take the following unanswerable quotations. Nor here provincial. My business in this state Is this the man that you did tell us of? Lucio. 'Tis he, my lord. Come hither, goodman bald-pate: do you know me? DUKE. I remember you, sir, by the sound of your voice: I met you at the prison, in the absence of the duke. LUCIO. O, did you so? and do you remember what you said of the duke? DUKE. Most notedly, sir. LUCIO. Do you so, sir? and was the duke a fleshmonger, a fool, and a coward, as you then reported him to be? DUKE. You must, sir, change persons with me, ere you make that my report: you, indeed, spoke so of him; and much more, much worse. LUCIO. O, thou damnable fellow! did not I pluck thee by the nose, for thy speeches? DUKE. I protest, I love the duke as I love myself. ANG. Hark how the villain would close now, after his treasonable abuses! ESCAL. Such a fellow is not to be talked withal-away with him to prison!-where is the provost? away with him to prison! lay bolts enough upon him: let him speak no more. Away with those giglots too, and with the other confederate companion! [The Provost lays hand on the DUKE. DUKE. Stay, sir; stay a while. ANG. What! resists he? - Help him, Lucio. LUCIO. Come, sir; come, sir; come, sir; foh, sir! Why, you bald-pated, lying rascal! you must be hooded, must you? Show your knave's "It would become me better than to close Julius Cæsar, Act III. Sc. L. "This closing with him fits his lunacy." Titus Andronicus, Act V. Sc. 2. "I will close with this country peasant very lovingly." WEBSTER'S Works, Dyce's ed. p. 281. "Thus cunningly she clos'd with him, and he conceaves her thoughts."-WARNER'S Albion's England. visage, with a pox to you! show your sheep- | Make rash remonstrance of my hidden power, biting face, and be hanged an hour! Will't not off? [Pulls off the Friar's hood, and discovers the DUKE. Than let him so be lost. O, most kind maid! I do, my lord. DUKE. Go take her hence, and marry her Away with him! (*) Old text, ere mad'st. a Hath look'd upon my passes!] Passes, if not a typographical mistake, as we have sometimes suspected it to be, for lapses, may mean courses, from the French passées. b Remonstrance-] So the old text, and rightly, though Malone (*) First folio, confutation. and other editors persist in reading demonstrance. -thy fault thus manifested,-) Fault is an emendation of Mr. Dyce. The old copies have fault's. ! DUKE. Against all sense you do impórtune her: Should she kneel down in mercy of this fact, Her brother's ghost his paved bed would break, And take her hence in horror. MARI. Isabel, Sweet Isabel, do yet but kneel by me: ANG. I am sorry that such sorrow I procure; And so deep sticks it in my penitent heart, That I crave death more willingly than mercy; 'Tis my deserving, and I do entreat it. Hold up your hands, say nothing, I'll speak all. Re-enter Provost, with BARNARDINE, CLAUDIO, They say, best men are moulded out of faults, And, for the most, become much more the better For being a little bad: so may my husband. O, Isabel! will you not lend a knee? DUKE. He dies for Claudio's death. Most bounteous sir, [Kneeling. Look, if it please you, on this man condemn'd, Till he did look on me: since it is so, Let him not die. My brother had but justice, In that he did the thing for which he died: For Angelo, Merely, my lord. DUKE. Your suit's unprofitable: stand up, I Is he pardon'd; and, for your lovely sake, say.I have bethought me of another fault.Provost, how came it Claudio was beheaded At an unusual hour? PROV. DUKE. [TO ISABELLA.] If he be like your brother, for his sake Give me your hand, and say you will be mine, It was commanded so. He is my brother too: but fitter time for that.- DUKE. Had you a special warrant for the Look that you love your wife; her worth, worth a Your evil quits you well:] That is, requites you well: you receive good for evil. b Luxury,-] Concupiscence. I find an apt remission in myself; One all of luxury, an ass, a madman : LUCIO. Faith, my lord, I spoke it but according to the trick. If you will hang me for it, you may; but I had rather it would please you I might be whipped. DUKE. Whipp'd first, sir, and hang'd after.-Proclaim it, provost, round about the city, If any woman's† wrong'd by this lewd fellow, -As I have heard him swear himself there's one Whom he begot with child, -let her appear, And he shall marry her: the nuptial finish'd, Let him be whipp'd and hang'd. LUCIO. I beseech your highness, do not marry me to a whore! Your highness said even now, I (*) Old text, so deserv'd. (+) Old text, woman. made you a duke: good my lord, do not recompense me in making me a cuckold. DUKE. Upon mine honour, thou shalt marry her. Thy slanders I forgive; and therewithal Remit thy other forfeits. - Take him to prison; And see our pleasure herein executed. LUCIO. Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death, whipping, and hanging. DUKE. Slandering a prince deserves it. [Exeunt Officers with LUCIO. She, Claudio, that you wrong'd, look you restore.Joy to you, Mariana ! - Love her, Angelo: I have confess'd her, and I know her virtue.Thanks, good friend Escalus, for thy much goodness: There's more behind that is more gratulate.-- adopted, it was a great protection to their property against the feudal claims of wardship. With respect to the sense of the word propagation, as implying the increase of money by interest, there is a pertinent illustration in "Twelfth Night," Act III. Sc. 1, where the Clown says to Viola,"Would not a pair of these have bred, sir?" and she replies, "Yes, being kept together, and put to use." Sometimes, however, the improvement of the dowry was not assured by the accumulation of periodical interest; but was left altogether dependent on the good will of a relation. There is an instance of this power being given, in the will of Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex, 1361; one of the bequests of which is to "Thomasine Belle, xl marks, [6l. 13s. 4d.] for her marriage, or more, if she be well married." But, in the testament of Henry, the last Lord Grey of Codnor, dated Sept. 10th, 1492, there occurs an instance, perhaps still more to the purpose. The testator is directing the payment of several bequests to his illegitimate children, and he orders that his cousin, Sir Thomas Barrow, should pay 100l. to two of them, named Richard Grey, and "the Greater Harry;" or else, that the land of his part stand still in feoffees' hands, "till Two Hundred Marks [331. 6s. 8d.] be raised and paid to the marriage of the said two children." Still, after all the endeavours to impart a meaning to the word "propagation" in this passage, the expression is so peculiar that it will be suspected. Malone proposed to read, "for prorogation;" and Mr. Collior's annotator, "for procuration." Query, is the disputed word a misprint for propugnation? "Only for propu;nation [that is, defence, or preservation] of a dower,"Shakespeare uses the word in this sense elsewhere :"What propugnation is in one man's valour." Troilus and Cressida, Act II. Sc. 2. people either in the sculpture and painting of ecclesiastical buildings, or in the books adapted to the service of the church." * But, notwithstanding such eminent authority, it may well be questioned whether Shakespeare's allusion is not rather to some old stage representation, familiar to his auditory, where the Devil and the Fool; Death and the Fool; and Time and the Fool, and Life, Time's fool "-First Part of Henry IV. Act V. Sc. 4. ACT I. (1) SCENE II. - Enter POMPEY.] The original stage direction is "Enter Clown." Of this character Mr. Douce remarks,-"The clown in this play officiates as the tapster of a brothel; whence it has been concluded that he is not a domestic fool, nor ought to appear in the dress of that character. A little consideration will serve to shew that the opinion is erroneous, that this clown is altogether a domestic fool, and that he should be habited accordingly. In Act II. Sc. 1, Escalus calls him a tedious fool, and Iniquity, a name for one of the old stage buffoons. He tells him that he will have him whipt, a punishment that was very often inflicted on fools. In Timon of Athens, we have a strumpet's fool, and a similar character is mentioned in the first speech in Antony and Cleopatra. But if any one should still entertain a doubt on the subject, he may receive the most complete satisfaction by an attentive examination of ancient prints, many of which will furnish instances of the common use of the domestic fool in brothels." Illustrations of Shakespeare, I. 151. (2) SCENE II.— this we came not to, Only for propagation of a dower If propagation be the poet's word, its most literal mean- (1) SCENE I.— ACT III. merely, thou art death's fool.] "A more content in course of true delight Steevens and Douce conceive the general idea was sug- were in turn brought into ludicrous collision for the entertainment of the spectators. * Douce's Illustrations of Shakespeare, I. 130. |