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Clo. Sir, I have been an unlawful bawd, time out of mind; but yet I will be content to be a lawful hangman. I would be glad to receive some instruction from my fellow partner.

Prov. What ho, Abhorson! Where's Abhorson, there?

Enter Abhorson.

Abhor. Do you call, sir?

Prov. Sirrah, here's a fellow will help you to-morrow in your execution: If you think it meet, compound with him by the year, and let him abide here with you; if not, use him for the present, and dismiss him: He cannot plead his estimation with you; he hath been a bawd.

Abhor. A bawd, sir? Fie upon him, he will discredit our mystery.

Prov. Go to, sir; you weigh equally; a feather will turn the scale.

[Exit.

Clo. Pray, sir, by your good favour, (for, surely, sir, a good favour you have, but that you have a hanging look,) do you call, sir, your occupation a mystery?

Abhor. Ay, sir; a mystery.

Clo. Painting, sir, I have heard say, is a mystery: and your whores, sir, being members of my occupation, using painting, do prove my occupation a mystery: but what mystery there should be in hanging, if I should be hang'd, I cannot imagine.3

.2

a good favour] Favour is countenance. Antony and Cleopatra:

66- why so tart a favour,

"To publish such good tidings?" Steevens.

So, in

3 - what mystery, &c.] Though I have adopted an emendation independent of the following note, the omission of it would have been unwarrantable.

Steevens.

what mystery there should be in hanging, if I should be bang'd, I cannot imagine.

Abhor. Sir, it is a mystery.

Glo Proof.

Abhor. Every true man's apparel fits your thief:

Clo. If it be too little for your thief, your true man thinks it big enough; if it be too big for your thief, your thief thinks it little enough so every true man's apparel fits your thief.] Thus it stood in all the editions till Mr. Theobald's, and was, methinks, not very difficult to be understood. The plain and humorous sense

Abhor. Sir, it is a mystery.

of the speech is this. Every true man's apparel, which the thief robs him of, fits the thief. Why? Because, if it be too little for the thief, the true man thinks it big enough: i. e. a purchase too good for him. So that this fits the thief in the opinion of the true man. But if it be too big for the thief, yet the thief thinks it little enough: i. e. of value little enough. So that this fits the thief in his own opinion. Where we see, that the pleasantry of the joke consists in the equivocal sense of big enough, and little enough. Yet Mr. Theobald says he can see no sense in all this, and therefore alters the whole thus:

Abhor. Every true man's apparel fits your thief.

Clown. If it be too little for your true man, your thief thinks it big enough: if it be too big for your true man, your thief thinks it little enough.

Let us

And for his alteration gives this extraordinary reason.-I am satisfied the poet intended a regular syllogism: and I submit it to judgment, whether my regulation has not restored that wit and bumour which was quite lost in the depravation.—But the place is corrupt, though Mr. Theobald could not find it out. consider it a little. The Hangman calls his trade a mystery: the Clown cannot conceive it. The Hangman undertakes to prove it in these words, Every true man's apparel, &c. but this proves the thief's trade a mystery, not the bangman's. Hence it appears, that the speech, in which the Hangman proved his trade a mystery, is lost. The very words it is impossible to retrieve, but one may easily understand what medium he employed in proving it without doubt, the very same the Clown employed to prove the thief's trade a mystery; namely, that all sorts of clothes fitted the hangman. The Clown, on hearing this argument, replied, I suppose, to this effect: Why, by the same kind of reasoning, I can prove the thief's trade too to be a mystery. The other asks how, and the Clown goes on as above, Every true man's apparel fits your thief; if it be too little, &c. The jocular conclusion from the whole, being an insinuation that thief and hangman were rogues alike. This conjecture gives a spirit and integrity to the dialogue, which, in its present mangled condition, is altogether wanting: and shews why the argument of every true man's apparel, &c. was in all editions given to the Clown, to whom indeed it belongs; and likewise that the present reading of that argument is the true. Warburton.

If Dr. Warburton had attended to the argument by which the Bawd proves his own profession to be a mystery, he would not have been driven to take refuge in the groundless supposition "that part of the dialogue had been lost or dropped.”

The argument of the Hangman is exactly similar to that of the Bawd. As the latter puts in his claim to the whores, as members of his occupation, and, in virtue of their painting, would enroll his own fraternity in the mystery of painters; so

VOL. III.

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Clo. Proof.

Abhor. Every true man's apparel fits your thief:4 If it be too little for your thief, your true man thinks it big enough; if it be too big for your thief, your thief thinks it little enough: so every true man's apparel fits your thief.

Re-enter Provost.

Prov. Are you agreed?

Clo. Sir, I will serve him; for I do find, your hangman is a more penitent trade than your bawd; he doth oftner ask forgiveness.5

the former equally lays claim to the thieves, as members of his occupation, and, in their right, endeavours to rank his brethren, the hangmen, under the mystery of fitters of apparel, or tailors. The reading of the old editions is therefore undoubtedly right; except that the last speech, which makes part of the Hangman's argument, is, by mistake, as the reader's own sagacity will readily perceive, given to the Clown or Bawd. I suppose, therefore, the poet gave us the whole thus:

Abhor. Sir it is a mystery.

Clown. Proof.

Abhor. Every true man's apparel fits your thief; if it be too little for your thief, your true man thinks it big enough: if it be too big for your thief, your thief thinks it little enough; so every true man's apparel fits your thief.

I must do Dr. Warburton the justice to acknowledge, that he hath rightly apprehended, and explained the force of the Hangman's argument Heath.

There can be no doubt but the word Clown, prefixed to the last sentence, If it be to little, &c. should be struck out. It makes part of Abhorson's argument, who has undertaken to prove that hanging was a mystery, and convinces the Clown of it by this very speech. M. Mason,

4 Every true man's apparel fits your thief:] So, in Promos and Cassandra, 1578, the Hangman says:

"Here is nyne and twenty sutes of apparell for my share.” True man, in the language of ancient times, is always placed in opposition to thief.

So, in Churchyard's Warning to Wanderers abroade, 1593: "The priuy thief that steales away our wealth,

"Is sore afraid a true man's steps to see." Steevens. Mr. Steevens seems to be mistaken in his assertion that true man in ancient times was always placed in opposition to thief. At least in the book of Genesis, there is one instance to the contrary, ch. xlii, v. 11 :—“ We are all one man's sons: we are all true men; thy servants are no spies." Henley.

5

ask forgiveness.] So, in As you Like it

The common executioner,

Prov. You, sirrah, provide your block and your axe, to-morrow four o'clock.

Abhor. Come on, bawd; I will instruct thee in my trade; follow.

Clo. I do desire to learn, sir; and, I hope, if you have occasion to use me for your own turn, you shall find me yare: for, truly sir, for your kindness, I owe you a good turn.7

Prov. Call hither Barnardine and Claudio.

[Exeunt Clo. and ABHOR.

One has my pity; not a jot the other,

Being a murderer, though he were my brother.
Enter CLAUDIO.

Look, here's the warrant, Claudio, for thy death:
'Tis now dead midnight, and by eight to-morrow
Thou must be made immortal. Where 's Barnardine?
Claud. As fast lock'd up in sleep, as guiltless labour
When it lies starkly in the traveller's bones:

He will not wake.

Prov.

Who can do good on him?

Well, go, prepare yourself. But hark, what noise?

[Knocking within. Heaven give your spirits comfort! [Exit CLAUD.] By and by:

I hope it is some pardon, or reprieve,

For the most gentle Claudio.-Welcome, father.

6

Enter DUKE.

Duke. The best and wholesomest spirits of the night

"Whose heart the accustom'd sight of death makes hard "Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck,

"But first begs pardon." Steevens.

yare:] i. e. handy, nimble in the execution of my office. So, in Twelfth Night: "

dismount thy tuck, be yare

in thy preparation." Again, in Antony and Cleopatra:

"His ships are yare, yours heavy." Steevens.

7 ―a good turn.] i. e. a turn off the ladder. He quibbles on the phrase according to its common acceptation. Farmer. starkly] Stiffly. These two lines afford a very pleasing image. Johnson.

8

So, in The Legend of Lord Hastings, 1575:

Least starke with rest they finew'd waxe and hoare."

Steevens.

Envelop you, good Provost! Who call'd here of late? Prov. None, since the curfew rung.

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Prov. It is a bitter deputy.

Duke. Not so, not so; his life is parallel'd

Even with the stroke and line of his great justice; He doth with holy abstinence subdue

That in himself, which he spurs on his power

To qualify2 in others: were he meal'd3

With that which he corrects, then were he tyrannous; But this being so, he's just.-Now are they come.[Knocking within.-Prov. goes out. This is a gentle provost: Seldom, when

The steeled gaoler is the friend of men.

How now? What noise? That spirit's possess'd with haste,

"They will then,] Perhaps-she will then. Sir J. Hawkins. The Duke expects Isabella and Mariana. A little afterward he says:

66 Now are they come." Ritson.

1 Even with the stroke-] Stroke is here put for the stroke of a pen or a line. Johnson.

2 To qualify-] To temper, to moderate, as we say wine is qualified with water. Johnson.

Thus before, in this play :

"So to enforce, or qualify the laws." Again, in Othello:

"I have drank but one cup to-night, and that was craftily qualified too." Steevens.

3

were be meal'd—] Were he sprinkled; were he defiled. A figure of the same kind our author uses in Macbeth: "The blood-bolter'd Banquo." Johnson.

More appositely, in The Philosophers Satires, by Robert Anton: "As if their perriwigs to death they gave.

"To meale them in some gastly dead man's grave." Steevens.

Mealed is mingled, compounded; from the French mesler. Blackstone.

4 But this being so,] The tenor of the argument seems to require-But this not being so, —. Perhaps, however, the author meant only to say-But, his life being paralleled, &c. le 's just. Malone.

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