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SCENE II.

The Street before the Prifon.

Enter DUKE as a Friar; to him ELBOW, Clown, and Officers.

ELB. Nay, if there be no remedy for it, but that you will needs buy and fell men and women like beafts, we fhall have all the world drink brown and white baftard.*

DUKE. O, heavens! what ftuff is here?

CLO. 'Twas never merry world, fince, of two ufuries,' the merrieft was put down, and the worfer allow'd by order of law a furr'd gown to keep him warm; and furr'd with fox and lamb-skins too, to

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-baftard.] A kind of fweet wine, then much in vogue, from the Italian baftarde. WARBURTON.

See a note on King Henry IV. Part I. A& II. fc. iv. STEEVENS. Baftard was raisin-wine. See Minfhieu's Dict. in v. and Cole's Latin Dic. 1679. MALONE.

5 -fince, of two ufuries, ] Here a fatire on ufury turns abruptly to a fatire on the perfon of the ufurer, without any kind of preparation. We may be affured then, that a line or two, at least, have been loft. The fubje&t of which we may easily discover was a comparison between the two ufurers; as, before, between the two ufuries. So that, for the future, the paffage fhould be read with afterisks, thusby order of law,

*** ለ furr'd gown, &c. WARBURTON.

Sir Thomas Hanmer corrected this with lefs pomp, then fince of two ufurers the merrieft was put down, and the worfer allowed, by order of law, a furr'd gown, &c. His punctuation is right, but the alteration, fmall as it is, appears more than was wanted. Ufury may be used by an eafy licence for the profeffors of ufury. JOHNSON.

6 --and furr'd with fox and lamb-fkins too, &c.] In this paffage the foxes fkins are fuppofed to denote craft, and the lambfking innocence. It is evident therefore that we ought to read, furred with fox on lamb-fkins,' inftead of and lamb-fkins;" for otherwise, craft will not ftand for the facing. M. MASON.

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Fox-fkins and lamb-fkins were both ufed as facings to cloth in Shakspeare's time. See the Statute of Apparel, 24 Henry VIII.

fignify, that craft, being richer than inhocency, ftands for the facing.

ELB. Come your way, fir:-Blefs you, good father friar.

DUKE. And you, good brother father: What offence hath this man made you, fir?

ELB. Marry, fir, he hath offended the law; and, fir, we take him to be a thief too, fir; for we have found upon him, fir, a ftrange pick-lock, which we have sent to the deputy.

DUKE. Fie, firrah; a bawd, a wicked bawd!
The evil that thou caufeft to be done,

That is thy means to live: Do thou but think
What 'tis to cram a maw, or clothe a back,
From fuch a filthy vice: fay to thyfelf,-
From their abominable and beaflly touches

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c. 13. Hence fox-furr'd flave is used as an opprobrious epithet in Wily Beguiled, 1606, and in other old comedies. See alfo Characlerifmi, or Lenton's Leafures, &c. 1631 : « An Ufurer is an old fox, clad in lamb-fkin, who hath pray'd [prey'd] fo long abroad," &c.

MALONE.

7 ———and you, good brother father:] In return to Elbow's blundering addrefs of good father friar, i. c. good father brother, the Duke humouroufly calls him, in his own ftyle, good brother father. This would appear ftill clearer in French. Dieu vous béniffe, mon père frère. Et vous aufh, mon frère père. There is no doubt that our friar is a corruption of the French frère. TYRWHITT.

Mr. Tyrwhitt's obfervation is confirmed by a paffage in The Strangest Adventure that ever happened, &c. 4to. 1601:

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And I call to mind, that as the reverend father brother, Thomas Sequera, Superiour of Ebora, and mine auncient friend, came to vifite me, &c. STEEVENS.

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8 --a Strange pick-lock, ] As we hear no more of this charge, it is necessary to prevent honeft Pompey from being taken for a houfe-breaker. The locks which he had occafion to pick, were by no means common, in this country at least. They were probably introduced, with other Spanish customs, during the reign of Philip and Mary; and were fo well known in Edinburgh, that in one of Sir David Lindsay's plays, represented to thousands in the open air, fuch a lock is actually opened on the ftage. RITSON.

I drink, I eat, array myfelf, and live.
Canft thou believe thy living is a life,

So flinkingly depending? Go, mend, go, mend. CLO. Indeed, it does flink in fome fort, fir; but yet, fir, I would prove----

DUKE. Nay, if the devil have given thee proofs for fin,

Thou wilt prove his. Take him to prifon, officer;
Correction and inftruction muft both work,
Ere this rude beaft will profit.

ELB. He muft before the deputy, fir; he has given him warning: the deputy cannot abide a whoremafter if he be a whore-monger, and comes before him, he were as good go a mile on his errand.

DUKE. That we were all, as fome would feem to be, Free from our faults, as faults from feeming, free! *

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I drink, I eat, array myself, and live.] The old editions have,
I drink, I eat away myself, and live.

This is one very excellent inftance of the fagacity of our editors, and it were to be wished heartily, that they would have obliged us with their phyfical folution, how a man can eat away himself, and live. Mr. Bishop gave me that most certain emendation,' which I have fubftituted in the room of the former foolish reading; by the help whereof, we have this eafy fenfe that the Clown fed himself, and put cloaths on his back, by exercifing the vile trade of a bawd. THEOBALD.

2 That we were all, as fome would feem to be,

Free from our faults, as faults from feeming, free!] i. e. as faults are deftitute of all comeliness or feeming. The first of thefe lines refers to the deputy's fanctified hypocrify; the fecond to the Clown's beaftly occupation. But the latter part is thus ill expreffed for the fake of the rhyme. WARBURTON."

Sir Thomas Hanmer reads:

Free from all faults, as from faults feeming free.

In the interpretation of Dr. Warburton, the fenfe is trifling, and the expreffion harfh. To with that men were as free from faults, as faults are free from comeliness, [instead of void of comeliness is a very poor conceit. I once thought it fhould be read:

O that all were, as all would feem to be,
Free from all faults, or from falfe feeming free.

Enter LUCIO.

ELB. His neck will come to your waift, a cord, fir. 3

So in this play :

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O, place, O, power-how doft thou

Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wifer fouls
To thy falje seeming!"

But now I believe that a lefs alteration will ferve the turn:

Free from all faults, or faults from feeming free.

that men were really good, or that their faults were known, that were free from faults, or faults from hypocrify. So Isabella cal's Angelo's hypocrify, feeming, feeming. JOHNSON.

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I think we should read with Sir T. Hanmer:

Free from all faults, as from faults feeming free.

i. e. I wish we were all as good as we appear to be; a fentiment very naturally prompted by his refledion on the behaviour of Angelo. Sir T. Hanmer has only transposed a word to produce a convenient fenfe. STEEVENS.

Hanmer is right with refpect to the meaning of this paffage, but I think his transposition unneceffary. The words, as they stand, will exprefs the fame fense, if pointed thus:

Free from all faults, as, faults from, Seeming free.

Nor is this construction more harsh than that of many other sentences in the play, which of all thofe which Shakspeare has left us, is the most defective in that refpe&t. M. MASON.

The original copy has not Free at the beginning of the line. It was added unneceffarily by the editor of the second folio, who did not perceive that our, like many words of the fame kind, was used by Shakspeare as a diffyllable. The reading, from all faults, which all the modern editors have adopted, (I think, improperly,) was first introduced in the fourth folio. Dr. Johnson's conjectural reading, or, appears to me very probable. The compofitor might have caught the word as from the preceding line. If as be right, Dr. Warburton's interpretation is perhaps the true one. Would we were all as free from faults, as faults are free from, or deftitute of comeliness, or feeming. This line is rendered harfh and obfcure by the word free being dragged from its proper place for the fake of the rhyme. MALONE.

Till I meet with fome decifive inftance of the pronoun-our, ufed as a diffyllable, I read with the fecond folio, which I cannot fufpect of capricious alterations. STEEVENS.

3 His neck will come to your waist, a cord, fir.] That is, his neck

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CLO. I fpy comfort; I cry bail: Here's a gentleman, and a friend of mine.

LUCIO. How now, noble Pompey? What, at the heels of Cæfar? Art thou led in triumph? What, is there none of Pygmalion's images, newly made woman, to be had now, for putting the hand in the.

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4 Pygmalion's images, newly made

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woman,] By Pygmalion's images, newly made woman. I believe Shakspeare meant no than-Have you no women now to recommend to your cufomers, as fresh and untouched as Pygmalion's ftatue was, at the moment when it became flesh and blood? The paffage, may, however, contain fome allufion to a pamphlet printed in 1598, called, The Metamorphofs of Pygmalion's Image, and certain Satires. feen it, but it is mentioned by Ames, p. 568; and whatever its fubject might be, we learn from an order figned by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, that this book was commanded to be burnt. The order is inferted at the end of the fecond volume of the entries belonging to the Stationers' Company.

I have never

STEEVENS.

If Marfion's Metamorphofis of Pygmalion's Image be alluded to, I believe it must be in the argument. "The maide (by the power of Venus) was metamorphofed into a living woman.

There may,

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FARMER.

however, be an allufion to a paffage in Lylly's Woman in the Moone, 1597. The inhabitants of Utopia petition Nature for females, that they may, like other beings, propagate their fpecies. Nature grants their requeft, and "they draw the curtius from before Nature's fhop, where ftands an image clad, and fome unclad, and they bring forth the cloathed image," &c.

STEEVENS.

Perhaps the meaning is Is there no courtezan, who being newly made woman, i. c. lately debauched, flill retains the appearance of chastity, and looks as cold as a flatue, to be had, &c.

The following paffage in Blurt Mafier Conftable, a comedy, by Middleton; 1602, feems to authorize this interpretation: "Laz. Are all these women?

Imp. No, no, they are half men, and half women.

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