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, anfwer."

Nay, but hear me :

Ang.
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 graciously to know I am no better.

Ang. Thus wifdom wishes to appear most bright, When it doth tax itself: as these black masks Proclaim an enfhield beauty ten times louder

Than

charity in fin to fave this brother. Isabella answers, that if Angelo will fave bim, he will take her foul that it were charity, not fin. Angelo replies, that if Ifabella would fave bim at the bazard of ber foul, it would be not indeed no fin, but a fin to which the charity would be equivalent.

5 I think it should be read,

And nothing of yours, answer.

JOHNSON

You, and whatever is yours, be exempt from penalty. JOHNSON.
And nothing of your anfwer, means, and make no part of those fins for
which you fhall be called to answer. STEEVENS.

This paffage would be clear, I think, if it were pointed thus:

To bave it added to the faults of mine,

And nothing of your, anfwer. STEEVENS.

So that the fubftantive answer may be understood to be joined in conAtruction with mine as well as your. The faults of mine anfwer are the faults which I am to answer for. TYRWHITT.

6 An enfield beauty is a fhielded beauty, a beauty covered or protected as with a field. STEEVENS.

- as these black masks,

Proclaim an enthield beauty, &c.

This fhould be written, en-fhell'd, or in-fhell'd, as it is in Coriolanus,
A& IV. fc. vi:

"Thrufts forth his horns again into the world

"That were in-fhell'd when Marcius ftood for Rome."

Thefe Masks must mean, I think, the Masks of the audience; however improperly a compliment to them is put into the mouth of Angelo. As Shakspeare would hardly have been guilty of fuch an indecorum to flatter a common audience, I think this paffage affords ground for fuppofing that the play was written to be acted at court. Some ftrokes of particular Battery to the King I have already pointed out; and there are feveral

other

Than beauty could difplayed.-But mark me;
To be received plain, I'll speak more grofs:
Your brother is to die.

Ifab. So.

Ang. And his offence is fo, as it appears
Accountant to the law upon that pain.7
Ifab. True.

Ang. Admit no other way to fave his life, (As I fubfcribe not that, nor any other,

But in the lofs of question,) that you, his fifter,

X 6.

Finding

other general reflections, in the character of the Duke especially, which feem calculated for the royal ear. TYRWHITT.

I do not think fo well of the conjecture in the latter part of this note, as I did fome years ago; and therefore I should wish to withdraw it. Not that I am inclined to adopt the idea of Mr. Ritfon, as I fee no ground for fuppofing that Isabella had any mafk in her band. My notion at present is, that the phrafe thefe black masks fignifies nothing more than black masks; according to an old idiom of our language, by which the demonftrative pronoun is put for the prepofitive article. See the Gloffary to Chaucer, edit. 1775; This, Thife. Shakspeare feems to have used the fame idiom not only in the paffage quoted by Mr. Steevens from Romeo and Juliet, but alfo in King Henry IV. Part I. A&t I. fc. iii:

66 -and, but for thefe vile guns,

"He would himself have been a foldier."

With respect to the former part of this note, though Mr. Ritfon has told us that enfield is CERTAINLY put by contraction for enshielded,” I have no objection to leaving my conjecture in its place, till fome authority is produced for fuch an ufage of enfield or enfhielded. TYRWHITT.

There are inftances of a fimilar contraction or elifion, in our author's plays. Thus, bloat for bloated, ballaft for ballafted, and raft for wafted, with many others. RITSON.

Sir William D'Avenant reads as a black mask; but I am afraid Mr.. Tyrwhitt is too well fupported in his first fuppofition, by a paffage at the beginning of Romeo and Juliet :

Thefe happy masks that kifs fair ladies' brows,
Being black, put us in mind they hide the fair.""

7 Pain is here for penalty, punishment.
8 To fubfcribe means, to agree to.

fenfe.

STEEVENS.

JOHNOON.

STEEVENS

Milton ufes the word in the fame

9 The lofs of queftion I do not well understand, and should rather read:

But in the tofs of question.

In the agitation, in the difcuffion of the queftion. To tofs an argument is a common phrafe. JOHNSON.

This

Finding yourself defir'd of fuch a perfon,
Whofe credit with the judge, or own great place,
Could fetch your brother from the manacles
Of the all-binding law; and that there were
No earthly mean to fave him, but that either
You must lay down the treasures of your body
To this fuppofed, or else let him fuffer;.
What would you do?

Ifab. As much for my poor brother, as myfelf::
That is, Were I under the terms of death,
The impreffion of keen whips I'd wear as rubies,
And strip myfelf to death, as to a bed.

That longing I have been fick for, ere I'd yield
My body up to shame.

Ang

Then must your brother dies
Ifab. And 'twere the cheaper way :
Better it were, a brother died at once,3-
Than that a fifter, by redeeming him,.
Should die for ever

Ang Were not you then as cruel as the sentence
That you
have flander'd fo? ̈ ́

Ifab. Ignomy 4 in ranfom, and free pardon,.

Are of two houfes: lawful mercy is

Nothing akin to foul redemption.

Ang. You feem'd of late to make the law a tyrant;:

And rather prov'd the fliding of your brother

A merriment than a vice.

This expreffion, I believe, means, but in idle fuppofition, or converfation that tends to nothing, which may therefore, in our author's language, be:

ca led the loss of question. STEEVENS.

Question is, ufed here, as in many other places, for converfation.

2 The old editions read:

-all-building law. JOHNSON..

The emendation-is Theobald's.. STEEVENS..

3 Perhaps we fhould read:

MALONEY

Better it were, a brother died for once, &c. JOHNSON.

4 So the word ignominy was formerly written.

Creffida, A&t V. fc. iii:

Thus, in Troilus and

Hence, brother lacquey! ignomy and fhame," &c. REID. The fecond folio reads ignominy; but whichfoever reading we take, the line will be inharmonious, if not defective. STEEVENS.

fab. O, pardon me, my lord; it oft falls out,
To have what we'd have, we speak not what we mean:
I fomething do excufe the thing I hate,

For his advantage that I dearly love.
Ang. We are all frail.

Ifab.

Elfe let my

brother die,

If not a feodary, but only he,
Owe, and fucceed by weakness.

Ang.

Nay, women are frail too Ijab. Ay, as the glaffes where they view themselves; Which are as eafy broke as they make forms.7 Women!-Help heaven! men their creation mar In profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail;.

Fors

5 This is fo obfcure, but the allufion fo fine, that it deferves to be explained. A feodary was one that in the times of vaffalage held lands of the chief lord, under the tenure of paying rent and fervice: which tenures were called feuda amongst the Goths. Now, fays Angelo, "we are all frail;""Yes, replies Isabella; if all mankind were not feedaries, who owe what they are to this tenure of imbecility, and who succeed each other by the fame tenure, as well as my brother, I would give him up." The comparing mankind, lying under the weight of original fin, to a feedary, who owes fuit and fervice to his lord, is, I think, not ill imagined. WARRURTON..

Mr. M. Mafon cenfures me for not perceiving that feodary fignifies an accomplice. Of this I was fully aware, as it fupports the fenfe contended for by Warburton, and feemingly acquiefced in by Dr. Johnfon.-Every vaffal was an accomplice with his lord; i. e. was fubject to be executor of the mifchief he did not contrive, and was obliged to follow in every bad caufe which his fuperior led. STEEVENS.

-I have shewn in a note on Cymbeline, that feodary was used by Shakspeare in the fenfe of an afficiate, and fuch undoubtedly is its fignification here. MALONE

6 To owe is, in this place, to own, to bold, to have poffeffion.

7 Would it not be better to read?

take forms. JOHNSON.

JOHNSON.

8 In imitating them, in taking them for examples. JOHNSON. If men mar their own creation, by taking women for their example, they cannot be faid to profit much by them. Ifabella is deploring the condition of woman-kind, formed fo frail and credulous, that men prove the deftruction of the whole fex, by taking advantage of their weakness, and ufing them for their own purpofes. She therefore calls upon Heaven to affift them. This, though obfcurely expreffed, appears to be the meaning of this passage. M. Mason.-,

Dr. Johnfon

For we are soft as our complexions are,

And credulous to fatfe prints.

Ang.

I think it well:

And from this teftimony of your own fex,

(Since, I fuppofe, we are made to be no stronger
Than faults may fhake our frames,) let me be bold ;-
I do arreft your words; Be that you are,

That is, a woman; if you be more, you're none;
If you be one, (as you are well exprefs'd
By all external warrants,) fhow it now,
By putting on the deftin'd livery.

2

Ifab. I have no tongue but one: gentle my lord,
Let me intreat you fpeak the former language.
Ang. Plainly conceive, I love you.

Ifab. My brother did love Juliet; and you
That he fhall die for it.

tell me,

Ang. He fhall not, Ifabel, if you give me love. Ifab. I know, your virtue hath a licence in't,3 Which feems a little fouler than it is,

To pluck on others.

Ang

Believe me on mine honour,

My words exprefs my purpose.

Ifab. Ha! little honour to be much believ'd,

And moft pernicious purpofe !-Seeming, feeming !+-
I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for't:

Sign

Dr. Johnfon does not feem to have understood this paffage. Ifabella certainly does not mean to say that men mar their own creation by taking women for examples. Her meaning is, that men debase their nature by taking advantage of fuch weak pitiful creatures.-Edinburgh Magazine, Nov. 1786. STEEVENS.

9 i. e. take any impreffion. WARBURTON.

2 Isabella answers to his circumlocutory courtship, that she has but one tongue, the does not understand this new phrafe, and defires him to talk his former language, that is, to talk as he talked before. JOHNSON.

3 Alluding to the licences given by minifters to their fpies, to go into all fufpected companies, and join in the language of malcontents.

WARBURTON.

I fufpect Warburton's interpretation to be more ingenious than juft. The obvious meaning is-I know your virtue affumes an air of licentieufness which is not natural to you, on purpose to try me.-Edinburgh Magazine, Nov. 1786. STEEVENS.

4 Hypocrify, hypocrify; counterfeit virtue. JOHNSON.