Lucio. Oh, to him, to him, wench; he will relent;

He's coming: I perceiv't.

Prov. Pray heaven fhe win him!

Tab. We cannot weigh our brother with ourself 7: Great men may jeft with faints: 'tis wit in them; But, in the lefs, foul profanation.

Lucio. Thou'rt in the right, girl; more o' that. Ifab. That in the captain's but a cholerick word, Which in the foldier is flat blafphemy.

Lucio. Art advis'd o' that? more on't.

Ang. Why do you put these sayings upon me?
Ifab. Because authority, though it err like others,
Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself,

That skins the vice o' the top: Go to your bofom;
Knock there; and ask your heart, what it doth know
That's like my brother's fault: if it confefs
A natural guiltinefs fuch as is his,

felves out of their immortality, by indulging a paffion which does
not deferve that prerogative. The ancients thought, that immo-
derate laughter was caused by the bignefs of the spleen.

WARBURTON.

7 We cannot weigh our brother with yourself:] In former editions,

We cannot weigh our brother with ourfelf: Why not? Though this should be the reading of all the copies, 'tis as plain as light, it is not the author's meaning. Ifabella would fay, there is fo great a difproportion in quality betwixt lord Angelo and her brother, that their actions can bear no comparison, or equality, together: but her brother's crimes would be aggravated, Angelo's frailties extenuated, from the difference of their degrees and state of life. WARBURTON.

The old reading is right. We mortals, proud and foolish, cannot prevail on our paffions to weigh or compare our brother, a being of like nature and like frailty, with ourself. We have different names and different judgments for the fame faults committed by perfons of different condition. JOHNSON.

The reading of the old copy is confirmed by a paffage in Act V.
"If he had fo offended,

"He would have weigh'd thy brother by himself,
"And not have cut him off."

MALONE.

Let

Let it not found a thought upon your tongue
Against my brother's life.

Ang. [Afide.] She speaks, and 'tis

Such fenfe, that my fenfe breeds with it 8. [To lfab.] Fare you well.

Ifab. Gentle, my lord, turn back.

Ang. I will bethink me :-Come again to-morrow. Ifab. Hark, how I'll bribe you: Good my lord, turn back.

Ang. How! bribe me?

Ifab. Ay, with fuch gifts, that heaven shall share with you.

Lucio. You had marr'd all else.

Ifab. Not with fond fhekels of the tefted gold', Or ftones, whofc rates are either rich, or poor, As fancy values them: but with true prayers, That fhall be up at heaven, and enter there, Ere fun rife; prayers from preferved fouls *,

From

8 That my fenfe breeds with it. -] Thus all the folios. Some later editor has changed breeds to bleeds, and Dr. Warburton blames poor Mr. Theobald for recalling the old word, which yet is certainly right. My fenfe breeds with her fenfe, that is, new thoughts are stirring in my mind, new conceptions are hatched in my imagination. So we fay to brood over thought. JOHNSON. Sir W. Davenant's alteration favours the sense of the old reading:

9

She speaks fuch fenfe

As with my reafon breeds fuch images

As he has excellently form'd.- STEEVENS.

fond hekels] Fond, means very frequently in our author foolish. It fignifies in this place valued or prized by folly.

STEEVENS.

tefted gold,] i. e. attested, or marked with the stand

ard ftamp. WARBURTON.

Rather cupelled, brought to the teft, refined. JOHNSON. All gold that is tefted is not marked with the ftandard stamp. The verb has a different fenfe, and means tried by the cuppel, which is called by the refiners a teft. Vide Harris's Lex. Tech. Voce CUPPELL. Sir J. HAWKINS.

2

-preferved fouls,] i. e. preferved from the corruption of the world. The metaphor is taken from fruits preserved in fugar, WARBURTON.

E 3

Sa

From fafting maids, whofe minds are dedicate
To nothing temporal.

Ang. Well; come to me to-morrow,

Lucio, Go to; 'tis well; [Afide to Ifabel.] away,
Ifab. Heaven keep your honour fafe!
Ang. Amen:

For I am that way going to temptation,
Where prayers crofs 3.

Ifab. At what hour to-morrow

Shall I attend your lordship?
Ang. At any time 'forenoon.

[Afide

Ifab, Save your honour! [Ex, Lucio and Isabellai

So in The Amorous War, 1648:

Which

"You do not reckon us 'mongft marmalade,

"Quinces and apricots ? or take us for
"Ladies preferved?"

STEEVENS.

3 I am that way going to temptation,

Where prayers cross.]

way Angelo is going to temptation, we begin to perceive; but how prayers crafs that way, or cross each other, at that way, more than any other, I do not understand.

Ifabella prays that his honour may be fafe, meaning only to give him his title: his imagination is caught by the word honour: he feels that his honour is in danger, and therefore, I believe, anfwers thus:

I am that way going to temptation,

Which your prayer's cross.

That is, I am tempted to lofe that honour of which thou imploreft the preservation. The temptation under which I labour is that which thou haft unknowingly thwarted with thy prayer. He uses the fame mode of language a few lines lower. Ifabella, parting, fays:

Save your bonour!

Angelo catches the word-Save it! From what?

From thee; even from thy virtue!- JOHNSON. The best method of illuftrating this paffage will be to quote a fimilar one from the Merchant of Venice. Act III. fc. 1.

"Sal. I would it might prove the end of his loffes!

"Sola. Let me fay Amen betimes, left the devil cross thy prayer."

For the fame reafon Angelo feems to fay Amen to Ifabella's prayer; but, to make the expreffion clear, we should read perCaps Where prayers are craffed. TYRWHITT.

Ang

Ang. From thee; even from thy virtue!—
What's this? what's this? Is this her fault, or mine?
The tempter, or the tempted, who fins moft? Ha!
Not fhe; nor doth the tempt: but it is I4,
That lying, by the violet, in the fun,
Do, as the carrion does, not as the flower,
Corrupt with virtuous feason. Can it be,
That modefty may more betray our fenfe
Than woman's lightness? having wafte ground
enough,

Shall we defire to raze the fanctuary,

And pitch our evils there? Oh, fie, fie, fie!
What doft thou? or what art thou, Angelo?
Doft thou defire her foully, for those things
That make her good? Oh, let her brother live:
Thieves for their robbery have authority,

-it is I,

That lying, by the violet, in the fun, &c.]

I am not corrupted by her, but by my own heart, which excites foul defires under the fame benign influences that exalt her purity, as the carrion grows putrid by those beams which increase the fragrance of the violet, JOHNSON,

5

Can it be,

That modefy may more betray our fenfe
Than woman's lightness?]

So in Promos and Caffandra, 1578:

"I do proteft her modeft wordes hath wrought in me a maze,
"Though the be faire, fhe is not deackt with garish fhewes for

66 gaze,

"Hir bewtie lures, her lookes cut off fond fuits with chast "difdain.

"O God, I feele a fodaine change, that doth my freedome

"chayne.

"What didst thou fay? fie, Promos fie, &c." STEEVENS. 6 And pitch our evils there?] So in K. Henry VIII,

"Nor build their evils on the graves of great men. Neither of these paffages appear to contain a very elegant allu, fion. STEEVENS.

Evils, in the prefent instance, undoubtedly,ftands for forica. Dr. Farmer affures me he has feen the word evil used in this fenfe by our ancient writers; and it appears from Harrington's Metamorphofis of Ajax, &c. that privies were originally fo ill-contrived, even in royal palaces, as to deferve the title of evils or nuifances.

E 4

When

When judges fteal themselves. What? do I love her, That I defire to hear her speak again,

And feaft upon her eyes? what is't I dream on?
Oh, cunning enemy, that, to catch a faint,
With faints doft bait thy hook! most dangerous
Is that temptation, that doth goad us on

To fin in loving virtue: never could the ftrumpet,
With all her double vigour, art and nature,
Once ftir my temper; but this virtuous maid
Subdues me quite:-Ever, till now,

When men were fond, I fmil'd and wonder'd how".

[Exit,

SCENE III,

A Prifon.

Enter Duke, habited like a Friar, and Provof, Duke, Hail to you, provost! fo, I think, you are, Prov. I am the provoft: What's your will, good friar?

Duke. Bound by my charity, and my blefs'd order, I come to vifit the afflicted fpirits

Here in the prifon; do me the common right
To let me fee them; and to make me know
The nature of their crimes, that may minister
To them accordingly.

Prov, I would do more than that, if more were needful.

7 -I fmil'd and wonder'd how.] As a day must now intervene between this conference of Ifabella with Angelo, and the next, the act might more properly end here; and here, in my opinion, it was ended by the poet. JOHNSON.

8 I come to vifit the afflicted spirits

Here in the prison]

This is a fcriptural expreffion, very fuitable to the grave character which the Duke affumes, "By which also he went and * preached unto the fpirits in prison." 1 Pet. iii, 19. WHALLEY.

Enter