wild Half-can that stabb'd Pots, and, I think forty more; all great doers in our trade, 6 and are now for the Lord's fake. 7 The finery which induced our author to give his traveller the name of Shoe-tye, was used on the flage in his time. Would not this fir, (fays Hamlet) and a foreft of feathers — with two Provencial rofes on my raz'd shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, fir?" MALONE. The rafes mentioned in the foregoing inftance, were not the ligatures of the fhoe, but the ornaments above them. STEEVENS. - all great doers in our trade. ] The word doers is here used in a wanton fenfe. See Mr. Collins's note; A& I. fc. ii. 7 MALONE - for the Lord's fake. ] i.-c. to beg for the rest of their lives. WARBURTON. I rather think this expreffion intended to ridicule the Puritans, whose turbulence and indecency often brought them to prifon, and who confidered themfelves as fuffering for religion. It is not unlikely that men imprisoned for other crimes, might reprefent themselves to cafual enquirers, as fuffering for pu ritanism, and that this might be the common cant of the prifons. In Donne's time, every prifoner was brought to jail by furetifhip. JOHNSON. The word in (now expunged in confequence of a following and appofite quotation of Mr. Malone's) had been fupplied by fome of the modern editors. The phrafe which Dr. Johnfon has juftly explained, is ufed in A New Trick to cheat the Devil, 1636: «< I held it, wife, a deed of charity, and did it for the Lord's fake. STEEVENS. I believe Dr. Warburton's explanation is right. It appears from a poem entitled, Paper's Complaint printed among Davies's epigrams, [about the year 1611.] that this was the language in which prifoners who were confined for debt, addreffed paffengers: "Good gentle writers, for the Lord's fake, for the Lord's fake, "Like Lugdate prifoner, ló, I, begging make "My mone. The meaning, however, may be, to beg or borrow for the reft of their lives. A paffage in Much Ado about Nothing may countenance this interpretation: he wears a key in his ear, and a lock hanging to it, and borrows money in God's name, the which he hath used fo long, and never paid, that men grow hard-hearted, and will lend nothing for God's fake." Enter ABHORSON. ABHOR. Sirrah, bring Barnardine hither. CLO. Master Barnardine! you must rise and be hang'd, mafter Barnardine! ABHOR. What, ho, Barnardine! BARNAR. [Within.] A pox o' your throats! Who makes that noife there? What are you ? CLO. Your friends, fir; the hangman: You must be fo good, fir, to rise and be put to death. BARNAR. [Within.] Away, you rogue, away; I am fleepy. ABHOR. Tell him, he muft awake, and that quickly too. CLO. Pray, mafter Barnardine, awake till you are executed, and fleep afterwards. ABHOR. Go in to him, and fetch him out. CLO. He is coming, fir, he is coming; I hear his ftraw ruftle. Enter BARNARDINE. ABHOR. Is the axe upon the block, firrah? BARNAR. How now, Abhorfon? what's the news with you? ABHOR. Truly, fir, I would defire you to clap into your prayers;" for, look you, the warrant's come. Mr. Pope reads-and are now in for the Lord's fake. Perhaps unneceffarily. In K. Henry IV. P. I. Falstaff says, there's not three of my hundred and fifty left alive; and they are for the town's to beg during life. MALONE. end, 7 to clap into your prayers;] This cant phrase occurs alfo in As you Like it: Shall we clap into't roundly, without hawking or fpitting?" STEEVENS. BARNAR. You rogue, I have been drinking all night, I am not fitted for't. CLO. O, the better, fir; for he that drinks all night, and is hang'd betimes in the morning, may fleep the founder all the next day. ABHOR. LOOK you, fir, here comes your ghoftly father; Do we jeft now, think you? DUKE. Șir, induced by my charity, and hearing how haftily you are to depart, I am come to advise you, comfort you, and pray with you. BARNAR. Friar, not I; I have been drinking hard all night, and I will have more time to prepare me, or they shall beat out my brains with billets: I will not consent to die this day, that's certain. DUKE. O, fir, you muft: and therefore, I beseech you, Look forward on the journey you fhall go. BARNAR. I fwear, I will not die to-day for any man's perfuafion. DUKE. But heard you,—— BARNAR. Not a word; if you have any thing to fay to me, come to my ward; for thence will not I to-day. Enter Provost. [Exit. DUKE. Unfit to live, or die: O, gravel heart!---After him, fellows; bring him to the block. 8 [Exeunt ABHORSON and Clown. After him, fellows; ] Here is a line given to the Duke, which belongs to the Provost. The Provost, while the Duke is lamenting PROV. Now, fir, how do you find the prifoner? DUKE. A creature unprepar'd, unmeet for death; And, to transport him in the mind he is, Were damnable. PROV. Here in the prison, father, There died this morning of a cruel fever DUKE. O, 'tis an accident that heaven provides! And how fhall we continue Claudio, To fave me from the danger that might come, If he were known alive? DUKE. Let this be done;-Put them in fecret holds, Both Barnardine and Claudio: Ere twice the obduracy of the prifoner, cries out: After him, fellows, &c. and when they are gone ouf, turns again to the Duke. JOHNSON. I do not fee why this line fhould be taken from the Duke, and ftill lefs why it fhould be given to the Provost, who, by his queftion to the Duke in the next line, appears to be ignorant of every thing that has paffed between him and Barnardine. TYRWHITT. to transport him-] To remove him from one world to The French trepas alfords a kindred fenfe. JOHNSON. 2 The under generation, you fhall find PROV. I am your free dependant. Quick, difpatch, And fend the head to Angelo. [Exit Provost. Now will I write letters to Angelo, The provoft, he fhall bear them,-whofe contents fhall witnefs to him, I am near at home; And that, by great injunctions, I am bound To meet me at the confecrated fount, A league below the city; and from thence, 2 The under generation,] So Sir Thomas Hanmer, with true judgement. It was in all the former editions: To yonder ye under and yonder were confounded. JOHNSON. The old reading is not yonder but yond. STEEVens. To yond generation,] Prisons are generally fo conftructed as not to admit the rays of the fun. Hence the Duke here fpeaks of its greeting only those without the doors of the jail, to which he must be fuppofed to point when he speaks these words. Sir T. Hanmer, I think without neceffity, reads -To the under generation, which has been followed by the fubfequent editors. Journal, in the preceding line, is daily. Journalier, Fr. Mr. Malone reads: To yond generation, you shall find. MALONE. But furely it is impoffible that yond fhould be the true reading; for unless ge-ne-ra-ti-on were founded as a word of five fyllables, (a practice from which every ear must revolt, ) the metre would be defe&ive. It reminds one too much of Peafcod, in Gay's What d'ye call it: "The Pilgrim's Progress-eighth-e-di-ti-on, "Lon-don prin-ted for Ni-cho-las Bod-ding-ton.” By the under generation our poet means the antipodes. So, in King Richard II: 66 when the fearching eye of heaven is hid "Behind the globe, and lights the lower world.” STERVENS. |