CLAUD. Let me afk my fiftér pardon. I am fo out of love with. life, that I will fue to be rid of it. DUKE. Hold you there: Farewell..

2

Re-enter Provoft.

Provost, a word with you.

[Exit CLAUDIO.

PROV. What's your will, father?

DUKE. That now you are come, you will be gone: Leave me a while with the maid; my mind promises with my habit no lofs fhall touch her by my company. PROV. In good time. 3 Exit Provoft.

DUKE. The hand that hath made you fair, hath' made you good; the goodness, that is cheap in beauty, makes beauty brief in goodness; but grace, being the foul of your complexion, should keep the body of it ever fair. The affault, that Angelo hath made to you, fortune hath convey'd to my understanding; and, but that frailty hath examples for

thefe hopes fatisfy his refolution? or what harm was there, if they did? We must certainly read, Do not falfify your refolution with hopes that are fallible. And then it becomes a reasonable admonition. For hopes of life, by drawing him back into the world, would naturally elude or weaken the virtue of that refolution which was raised only on motives of religion. And this his confeffor had reason to warn him of. The term falfify is taken from fencing, and fignifies the pretending to aim a ftroke, in order to draw the adversary off his guard. So, Fairfax:

Now ftrikes he out, and now he falfifieth." Warburton. The sense is this: Do not reft with fatisfaction on hopes that are fallible. There is no need of alteration.

STEEVENS.

Perhaps the meaning is, Do not fatisfy or content yourself with that kind of refolution, which acquires ftrength from a latent hope that it will not be put to the teft; a hope, that in your case, if you rely upon it, will deceive you. MALONE.

2 Hold you there :] Continue in that refolution. JOHNSON. 3 In good time.] i, e. à la bonne heure, so be it, very well. STEEVENS.

his falling, I should wonder at Angelo. How would you do to content this fubftitute, and to fave your brother?

ISAB. I am now going to refolve him : I had rather my brother die by the law, than my fon fhould be unlawfully born. But O, how much is the good duke deceived in Angelo! If ever he return, and I can speak to him, I will open my lips in vain, or difcover his government.

DUKE. That fhall not be much amifs: Yet, as the matter now ftands, he will avoid your accufation; he made trial of you only. you only. *—Therefore faften your ear on my advifings; to the love I have in doing good, a remedy prefents itself. I do make myself. believe, that you may moft uprighteously do a poor wronged lady a merited benefit; redeem your brother from the angry law; do no ftain to your own gracious perfon; and much please the abfent duke, if, peradventure, he fhall ever return to have hearing of this bufinefs.

ISAB. Let me hear you fpeak further; I have fpirit to do any thing that appears not foul in the truth of my fpirit.

DUKE. Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have you not heard speak of Mariana the fifter of Frederick, the great foldier, who mifcarried at fea?

ISAB. I have heard of the lady, and good words went with her name.

DUKE. Her fhould this Angelo have married; was affianced to her by oath,' and the nuptial appointed: between which time of the contract, and limit of

-he made trial of you only. ] That is, he will fay he made trial of you only. M. MASON.

-by oath,] By inferted by the editor of the fecond folio.

MALONE.

the folemnity, her brother Frederick was wrecked at fea, having in that perifh'd veffel the dowry of his fifter. But mark, how heavily this befel to the poor gentlewoman: there fhe loft a noble and renowned brother, in his love toward her ever moft kind and natural; with him the portion and finew of her fortune, her marriage-dowry; with both, her combinate hufband,' this well-feeming Angelo!

ISAB. Can this be fo? Did Angelo so leave her? DUKE. Left her in her tears, and dry'd not one of them with his comfort; fwallowed his vows whole, pretending, in her, discoveries of difhonour: in few, beftowed her on her own lamentation," which fhe yet wears for his fake; and he, a marble to her tears, is washed with them, but relents not. ISAB. What a merit were it in death, to take this poor maid from the world! What corruption in this life, that it will let this man live!-But how out of this can she avail?

DUKE. It is a rupture that you may easily heal: and the cure of it not only faves your brother, but keeps you from difhonour in doing it.

ISAB. Show me how, good father.

DUKE. This fore-named maid hath yet in her the continuance of her firft affection; his unjuft unkindnefs, that in all reafon fhould have quenched her love, hath, like an impediment in the current, made

and limit of the folemnity,] So, in King John:
"Prescribes how long the virgin ftate fhall laft,
"Gives limits unto holy nuptial rites."

i. e. appointed times. MALONE

7 her combinate husband,] Combinate is betrothed.fettled by contract.

STEEVENS.

8-beftowed her on her own lamentation,] i. e. left her to her forrows.

MALONE.

Rather, as our author expreffes himself in King Henry V.gave her up" to them.

STEEVENS.

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it more violent and unruly. Go you to Angelo; answer his requiring with a plaufible obedience; agree with his demands to the point: only refer yourself to this advantage, '-firft, that your flay with him may not be long; that the time may have all fhadow and filence in it; and the place answer to convenience: this being granted in course, now follows all. We fhall advife this wronged maid to ftead up your appointment, go in your place; if the encounter acknowledge itfelf hereafter, it may compel him to her recompence: and here, by this is your brother faved, your honour untainted, the poor Mariana advantaged, and the corrupt deputy fcaled. The maid will I frame, and make fit for

only refer yourself to this advantage, ] This is fcarcely to be reconciled to any eftablished mode of fpeech. We may read, only referve yourself to, or only referve to yourself this advantage. JOHNSON. Refer yourself to, merely fignifies have recourse to, betake yourself to, this advantage. STEEVENS.

2

the corrupt deputy fcaled.] To fcale the deputy may be, to reach him, notwithstanding the elevation of his place; or it may be, to trip him and difcover his nakedness, though armed and concealed by the investments of authority. JOHNSON.

To fcale, as may be learned from a note to Coriolanus, Ad I. fc. i. moft certainly means, to diforder, to difconcert, to put to flight. An army routed is called by Holinfhed, an army fcaled. The word fometimes fignifies to diffufe or difperfe; at others, as I fup. pofe in the prefent inftance, to put into confufion. STEEVENS.

To fcale is certainly to reach (as Dr. Johnson explains it) as well as to difperfe or spread abroad, and hence its application to a routed army which is fcattered over the field. The Duke's meaning appears to be, either that Angelo would be over-reached, as a town is by the fcalade, or that his true character would be spread or laid open, fo that his vilenefs would become evident. Dr. Warburton thinks it is weighed, a meaning which Dr. Johnson affixes to the word in another place. See Coriolanus, A&. I. fc. i.

Scaled, however, may mean-laid open, as a corrupt fore is by removing the flough that covers it. The allufion is rendered lefs difgufting, by more elegant language, in Hamlet:

It will but fkin and film the ulcerous place; "Whiles rank corruption; mining all within, "Infeas unfeen." RITSON.

his attempt. If you think well to carry this as you may, the doublenefs of the benefit defends the deceit from reproof. What think you of it?

ISAB. The image of it gives me content already; and, I truft, it will grow to a moft profperous perfection.

DUKE. It lies much in your holding up: Hafte you speedily to Angelo; if for this night he entreat you to his bed, give him promife of fatisfaction. I will presently to St. Luke's; there, at the moated grange refides this dejected Mariana: At that place call upon me; and difpatch with Angelo, that it may be quickly.

ISAB. I thank you for this comfort: Fare you well, good father. [Exeunt feverally.

3

the moated grange-] A grange is a folitary farm-houfe. So, in Othello:

A grange implies fome one particular house immediately inferior in rank to a hall, fituated at a small distance from the town or vil lage from which it takes its name; as, Hornby grange, Blackwell grange; and is in the neighbourhood fimply called The Grange. Originally, perhaps, these buildings were the lord's granary or ftorehouse, and the refidence of his chief bailiff. (Grange, from Granagium, Lat.) RITSON.

A grange, in its original fignification, meant a farm-houfe of a monaftery (from grana gerendo), from which it was always at fome little distance. One of the monks was usually appointed to infpe& the accounts of the farm. He was called the Prior of the Grange; --in barbarous Latin, Grangiarius. Being placed at a distance from the monaftery, and not connected with any other buildings, Shakspeare, with his wonted licence, ufes it, both here and in Othello, in the fenfe of a folitary farm-house.

I have fince obferved that the word was ufed in the fame fenfe by the contemporary writers. So, in Tarleton's Newes out of Purgatory, printed about the year 1590: till my return I would have thee stay at our little graunge house in the country.' In Lincolnshire they at this day call every lone houfe that is unconnected with others, a grange. MALONE.

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