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Great men may jest with saints: 'tis wit in them;
But, in the less, foul profanation.

Lucio. Thou 'rt in the right, girl; more o' that.
Isab. That in the captain 's but a choleric word,
Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

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

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

That skins the vice o' the top:8 Go to your bosom;
Knock there; and ask your heart, what it doth know
That's like my brother's fault: if it confess

A natural guiltiness, such as is his,

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

Ang.

.

[Aside.] She speaks, and 'tis Such sense, that my sense breeds with it."

ISAB.] Fare you well.

-[ To

with ourself. We have different names and different judgments for the same faults committed by persons of different condition. Johnson.

The reading of the old copy, ourself, which Dr. Warburton changed to yourself, is supported by a passage in the fifth Act: If he had so offended,

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

8 That skins the vice o' the top:] Shakspeare is fond of this indelicate metaphor. So, in Hamlet:

"It will but skin and film the ulcerous place." Steevens.
9 -that my sense breeds with it.] Thus all the folios. Some
later editor has changed breeds to bleeds, and Dr. Warburton
blames poor Theobald for recalling the old word, which yet is
certainly right. My sense breeds with her sense, that is, new
thoughts are stirring in my mind, new conceptions are batched in
my imagination. So we say, to brood over thought. Johnson.
Sir William D'Avenant's alteration favours the sense of the
old reading-breeds, which Mr. Pope had changed to bleeds.
She speaks such sense

As with my reason breeds such images
As she has excellently form'd.

Steevens.

I rather think the meaning is,-She delivers her sentiments with such propriety, force, and elegance, that my sensual desires are inflamed by what she says. Sense has been already used in this play with the same signification:

one who never feels

The wanton stings and motions of the sense."

H

Isab. Gentle my lord, turn back.

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

Ang. How! bribe me?

Isab. Ay, with such gifts, that heaven shall share with you.

Lucio. You had marr'd all else.

Isab. Not with fond shekels1 of the tested gold,2
Or stones, whose rates are either rich, or poor,
As fancy values them: but with true prayers,
That shall be up at heaven, and enter there,
Ere sun-rise; prayers from preserved souls,3
From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate
To nothing temporal.

Ang.
To-morrow.

Well: come to me

The word breeds is used nearly in the same sense in The Tempest:

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"Of two most rare affections! Heavens rain grace
"On that which breeds between them!" Malone.

The sentence signifies, Isabella does not utter barren words, but speaks such sense as breeds or produces a consequence in Angelo's mind. Thus truths which generate no conclusion are often termed barren facts. H. White.

I understand the passage thus:-Her arguments are enforced with so much good sense, as to increase that stock of sense which I already possess. Douce.

1 fond shekels - Fond means very frequently in our author, foolish. It signifies in this place valued or prized by folly. Steevens.

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2 tested gold, i. e, attested, or marked with the standard stamp. Warburton.

Rather cupelled,, brought to the test, refined. Johnson.

All gold that is tested is not marked with the standard stamp. The verb has a different sense, and means tried by the cuppel, which is called by the refiners a test. Vide Harris's Lex. Tech. Voce CUPPELL. Sir J. Hawkins.

3

preserved souls,] i. e. preserved from the corruption of the world. The metaphor is taken from fruits preserved in sugar. Warburton..

So, in The Amorous War, 1648:

"You do not reckon us 'mongst marmalade,

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Quinces and apricots? or take us for

"Ladies preserved?" Steevens.

Lucio. Go to; it is well; away. [Aside to ISAB.
Isab. Heaven, keep your honour safe!

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Shall I attend your lordship?

Ang. At any time 'fore noon.

Isab. Save your honour! [Exeunt Lucio and ISAB,
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 sins most? Ha!'

4

I am that way going to temptation,

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

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

I am that way going to temptation,

Which your prayers cross.

That is, I am tempted to lose that honour of which thou implorest the preservation. The temptation under which I labour is that which thou hast unknowingly thwarted with thy prayer. He uses the same mode of language a few lines lower. Isabella, parting, says:

Save your honour!

Angelo catches the word-Save it! From what?

Johnson.

From thee; even from thy virtue!The best method of illustrating this passage will be to quote a similar one from The Merchant of Venice, Act III, sci: "Sal. I would it might prove the end of his losses!

"Sola. Let me say Amen betimes, lest the devil cross thy prayer."

For the same reason Angelo seems to say Amen to Isabella's prayer; but, to make the expression clear, we should read perhaps-Where prayers are crossed. Tyrwhitt.

The petition of the Lord's Prayer—“ lead us not into temptation" is here considered as crossing or intercepting the onward way in which Angelo was going; this appointment of his for the morrow's meeting, being a premeditated exposure of himself to temptation, which it was the general object of prayer to thwart. Henley.

5

Ha!] This tragedy-Ha! (which clogs the metre) was certainly thrown in by the player editors. Steevens,

Not she; nor doth she tempt: but it is I,
That lying, by the violet, in the sun,6
Do, as the carrion does, not as the flower,
Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be,
That modesty may more betray our sense

Than woman's lightness?" having waste ground enough, Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary,

And pitch our evils there? Oh, fie, fie, fie!

it is I,

That lying, by the violet, in the sun, &c.] I am not corrupted by her, but by my own heart, which excites foul desires under the same benign influences that exalt her purity, as the carrion grows putrid by those beams which increase the fragrance of the violet. Johnson.

Can it be,

That modesty may more betray our sense

Than woman's lightness?] So, in Promos and Cassandra, 1578:

"I do protest her modest wordes hath wrought in me a

maze,

"Though she be faire, she is not deackt with garish shewes for gaze.

"Hir bewtie lures, her lookes cut off fond suits with chast disdain.

"O God, I feele a sodaine change, that doth my freedome chayne.

"What thou say? sie, Promos sie, &c. Steevens.

Sense has in this passage the same signification as in that above that my sense breeds with it." Malone.

8 And pitch our evils there?] So, in King Henry VIII:

"Nor build their evils on the graves of great men." Neither of these passages appear to contain a very elegant

allusion.

Evils, in the present instance, undoubtedly stand for forica. Dr. Farmer assures me he has seen the word evil used in this sense by our ancient writers; and it appears from Harrington's Metamorphosis of Ajax, &c. that privies were originally so illcontrived, even in royal palaces, as to deserve the title of evils, or nuisances. Steevens.

One of Sir John Berkenhead's queries confirms the foregoing observation:

"Whether, ever since the House of Commons has been locked up, the speaker's chair has not been a close-stool?" Two CENTURIES OF PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD, 8vo. no date.

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Malone,

No language could more forcibly express the aggravated profligacy of Angelo's passion, which the purity of Isabella

What dost thou? or what art thou, Angelo?
Dost thou desire her foully, for those things
That make her good? Oh, let her brother live:
Thieves for their robbery have authority,

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

And feast upon her eyes? "what is 't I dream on?” Oh, cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,

With saints dost bait thy hook! most dangerous

Is that temptation, that doth goad us on

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

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

[Exit.

SCENE III.

A Room in a Prison.

Enter DUKE, habited like a Friar, and Provost. Duke. Hail to you, provost! so, I think you are. Prov. I am the provost: What's your will, good friar? Duke. Bound by my charity, and my bless'd order, 1 come to visit the afflicted spirits

Here in the prison:1 do me the common right
To let me see them; and to make me know
The nature of their crimes, that I may minister
To them accordingly.

served but the more to inflame.-The desecration of edifices devoted to religion, by converting them to the most abject purposes of nature, was an eastern method of expressing contempt. See 2 Kings, x, 27. Henley.

9

I smil'd, and wonder'd bow.] As a day must now inter vene between this conference of Isabella with Angelo, and the next, the act might more properly end here: and here, in my opinion, it was ended by the poet. Johnson.

1 I come to visit the afflicted spirits

Here in the prison: This is a scriptural expression, very suitable to the grave character which the Duke assumes. "By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison." 1 Pet. iii, 19, Whalley.

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