251. "Your brother is a forfeit of the law." Perhaps we should read to the law; yet the text may stand, a legal forfeit. "He that might the 'vantage best have took.” Took for taken or ta'en. This confusion of the tenses, which is not more remarkable in the works of Shakspeare, than in those of other writers, who are supposed to be more tenacious of accuracy, cannot be too often pointed at with reprehension: every person attached to grammatical propriety, must be offended at such expressions as these:-I have drank, I have spoke, I have wrote, for I have drunk, I have spoken, I have written and again-I writ, I drunk; for I wrote, I drank, &c. Dr. Lowth, indeed, in his elegant little essay of English grammar, has taken notice of this abuse; but if the editors of Shakspeare, and of our other eminent authors, had descended to expose the instances as they occur, their remarks would have been more effectual in correcting and purifying our language, than the most diffuse and systematic treatise of philology. How would you be, If He who is the top of judgment, should "But judge you as you are ?" This sentiment also occurs in The Merchant of Venice: 66 Consider this, "That in the course of justice none of us "Should see Salvation." And again in Hamlet: "Use every one according to his desert, and who "Shall 'scape whipping?" 254. " Pelting petty officer," &c. Pelting is mean, obscure, inconsiderable; as in K. Richard II. "This scepter'd isle is now leas'd out, 255. "We cannot weigh our brother with ourself." I believe this is put generally "we," for mankind :-we, of human nature, cannot justly estimate the motives and principles of our brethren, by what we perceive in ourselves; for there will always be a difference between men, especially between those great ones, in whom, to jest with saints is wit," and "the less," in whom it is "foul profanation." 258. "As fancy values them but with true prayers." Prayers" is one of those words which the poet lengthens or contracts, to accommodate the measure of his verse: thus it is, in the same sentence, a dissyllable: "Ere sun-rise, práyérs from preserved souls." Amen! for I "Am that way going to temptatión Where my honour and my cupidity are at variance, where my solicitations or prayers to obtain possession of Isabella's beauties, must be crossed or thwarted by this prayer of her's, for the safety of my honour. SCENE III. 262. "The nature of their crimes," &c. It would be in vain to attempt a supplement to the numerous hemistics that disfigure the versification in this play: in the present instance, however, the measure might be formed by the admission of an apposite word. "The nature of their several crimes, that I May minister to them accordingly." 265. "Grace go with you! Benedicite." A word appears to have been omitted: perhaps "All grace go with you! Benedicite." Thus in Much Ado About Nothing: "His grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it, SCENE IV. 266. "When I would pray and think, I think and pray "To several subjects; heaven hath my empty words, "Whilst my invention, hearing not my The word "empty" should be ejected from the second of these lines: the King, in Hamlet, is in a similar predicament with Angelo : "My words fly up, my thoughts remain below; "Words without thoughts never to Heaven go." 267. "The strong and swelling evil." As "evils," in the former scene, is well explained by Mr. Steevens and Mr. Henley, to signify Forica, will it appear ludicrous to suppose it may have the same sense here? if this be admitted, we should read, instead of " swelling," smelling; the M and the W, by inversion, are often confounded at the press. My gravity, wherein I take pride." Angelo is reflecting on his former vanity, which, in his present state of mind, he despises ; he cannot now take pride in "what he could, with boot, change for an idle plume." We should, I am persuaded, read, "I took pride." 269. Blood thou art but blood. "Let's write good angel on the devil's horn; "'Tis not the devil's crest.". Dr. Warburton's interpretation of this passage appears to be entirely foreign from the sense implied in Angelo's reflection, which I take to be this:-Titles and distinctions, though often falsely applied, are not thereby appropriated: and howsoever they may "wrench awe from fools," and obtain respect even from "the wiser souls,' they cannot alter the true qualities of things. Blood is still but blood; depravity, although covered with the garb of virtue, is still depravity: it is the difference expressed between association and connexion. Their sentiment a little varied, and the conclusion resting on the fair side, is introduced in Macbeth: Though all things foul should wear the brows of grace, "Yet grace would still seem so." "Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls." Better, perhaps, "Yea, tie the wiser souls." 276. "Which had you rather that the most just law "Now took your brother's life-" It would, perhaps, be better: "Which would you rather that the most just law "Now take your brother's life," &c. 277. Were equal poize of sin and charity." We should, I think, read— 279. ""Twere equal poise," &c. "Admit no other way to save his life, This is confused: we should extend the compass of the parenthesis, and instead of the pronoun "that," read "this." "Admit (no other way to save his life, "As I subscribe not this, nor any other, "But in the loss of question,) that you, his sister," &c. i. e. By ellipsis, there being no other way, &c. |