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And not have cut him off: Some one hath fet
Confefs the truth, and say by whose advice
Thou cam'ft here to complain.

ISAB.

you on';

And is this all?

Then, oh, you blessed minifters above,
Keep me in patience; and, with ripen'd time,
Unfold the evil which is here wrapt up

6

In countenance! Heaven fhield your grace from

woe,

As I, thus wrong'd, hence unbelieved go!

DUKE. I know, you'd fain be gone: An officer! To prifon with her:-Shall we thus permit A blafting and a fcandalous breath to fall

On him so near us? This needs must be a practice.7 -Who knew of your intent, and coming hither? ISAB. One that I would were here, friar Lodowick. DUKE. A ghoftly father, belike: Who knows

that Lodowick?

LUCIO. My lord, I know him; 'tis a medling

friar ;
r;

I do not like the man had he been lay, my lord,
For certain words he fpake against your grace
In your retirement, I had fwing'd him foundly.
DUKE. Words against me? This' a good friar,
belike!

In countenance!] i. e. in partial favour. WARBURTON. Countenance, in my opinion, does not mean partial favour, as Warburton fuppofes, but falfe appearance, hypocrify. Ifabella does not mean to accufe the Duke of partiality; but alludes to the fan&ified demeanour of Angelo, which, as fhe fuppofes, prevented the Duke from believing her ftory. M. MASON.

7 practice.] Practice, in Shakspeare, very often means fhameful artifice, unjustifiable ftratagem. So, in King Lear: This is practice, Glofter."

Again, in King John:

It is the fhameful work of Hubert's band,

"The practice and the purpose of the king." STEEVENS.

And to fet on this wretched woman here

-

Against our fubftitute! Let this friar be found. LUCIO. But yefternight, my lord, she and that friar I faw them at the prison: a fawcy friar,

A very fcurvy fellow.

F. PETER.

Bleffed be your royal grace!

I have flood by, my lord, and I have heard
Your royal ear abus'd: First, hath this woman
Moft wrongfully accus'd your substitute;
Who is as free from touch or foil with her,
As fhe from one ungot.

We did believe no lefs.

8

DUKE. Know you that friar Lodowick, that she speaks of? F. PETER. I know him for a man divine and holy; Not scurvy, nor a temporary medler, As he's reported by this gentleman; And, on my truft, a man that never yet Did, as he vouches, mifreport your grace.

.

LUCIO. My lord, most villainously; believe it, F. PETER. Well, he in time may come to clear himfelf;

But at this inftant he is fick, my lord,

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nor a temporary medler, ] It is hard to know what is meant by a temporary medler. In its ufual fenfe, as opposed to perpetual, it cannot be used here. It may ftand for temporal: the fenfe will then be, I know him for a holy man, one that meddles not with fecular affairs. It may mean temporifing: I know him to be a holy man, one who would not temporife, or take the opportunity of your abfence to defame you. Or we may read:

Not fcurvy, nor a tamperer and medler:

not one who would have tampered with this woman to make her a false evidence against your deputy. JOHNSON.

Peter here refers to what Lucio had before affirmed concerning Friar Lodowick. Hence it is evident that the phrafe "temporary medler,' was intended to fignify one who introduced himself, as often as he could find opportunity, into other men's concerns. See the context. HENLEY.

Of a strange fever: Upon his mere request, '
(Being come to knowledge that there was complaint
Intended 'gainft lord Angelo,) came I hither,

To speak, as from his mouth, what he doth know
Is true, and false; and what he with his oath,
And all probation, will make up full clear,
Whenfoever, he's convented. Firft, for this woman;
(To justify this worthy nobleman,

So vulgarly and perfonally accus'd,)

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his mere requeft,] i. e. his abfolute request. So, in Julius Cæfar: "Some mere friends, fome honourable Romans.

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• Whenfoever he's convented.] The firft folio reads, convented, and this is right: for to convene fignifies to assemble; but convent, to cite, or fummons. Yet because convented hurts the measure, the Oxford editor fticks to conven'd, though it be nonsense, and fignifies, Whenever he is affembled together. But thus it will be, when the author is thinking of one thing, and his critic of another. The poet was attentive to his fenfe, and the editor quite throughout his performance, to nothing but the measure; which Shakspeare having entirely neglected, like all the dramatic writers of that age, he has fpruced him up with all the exactness of a modern measurer of fyllables. This being here taken notice of once for all, shall, for the future, be forgot, as if it had never been.

WARBURTON.

The foregoing account of the measure of Shakspeare, and his contemporaries, ought indeed to be forgotten, becaufe it is untrue. To convent is no uncommon word. So, in Woman's a Weather→ cock, 1612:

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"Should tell the company convented there, &c.

To convent and to convene are derived from the fame Latin verb, and have exactly the fame meaning STEEVENS.

So valgarly.

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Meaning either fo grofsly, with fuch indecency of invective, or by fo mean and inadequate witneffes. JOHNSON. Vulgarly, I believe, means publickly. The vulgar are the common people. Daniel ufes vulgarly for among the common people:

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and which pleases vulgarly. STEEVENS.

Mr. Steevens's interpretation is certainly the true onc. So, in The Comedy of Errars, A& III. sc, i:

L

1

Her shall you hear difproved to her eyes,
Tillfhe herself confefs it.

DUKE.

Good friar, let's hear it. [ISABELLA is carried off, guarded; and MARIANA comes forward.

Do you not smile at this, lord Angelo?-
O heaven! the vanity of wretched fools! -
Give us fome feats. Come, coufin Angelo;
In this I'll be impartial; be you judge

Of your own caufe. Is this the witnefs, friar?
First, let her show her face; ' and after speak.

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Come, coufin Angelo;

In this I'll be impartial; be you judge

I will be

Of your own caufe.] Surely, fays Mr. Theobald, this duke had odd notions of impartiality! He reads therefore, partial, and all the editors follow him : even Mr. Heath declares the obfervation unanswerable. But fee the uncertainty of criticifm! impartial was fometimes used in the fenfe of partial. In the old play of Swetnam, the Woman Hater, Atlanta cries out, when the judges decree against the women:

"You are impartial, and we do appeal

From you to judges more indifferent."

FARMER.

So, in Marfton's Antonio and Mellida, 2d Part, 1602 : "There's not a beauty lives,

"Hath that impartial predominance

"O'er my affects, as your enchanting graces.

Again, in Romeo and Juliet, 1597:

Again:

“Cruel, unjust, impartial deftinies '"'

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7

In the language of our author's time im was frequently used as an augmentative or intenfive particle. MALONE.

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her face; The original copy reads your face. The emendation was made by the editor of the fecond folio.

MALONE

MARI. Pardon, my lord; I will not show my face, Until my husband bid me.

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Why, you

Are nothing then :-Neither maid, widow, nor wife? 6 LUCIO. My lord, fhe may be a punk; for many of them are neither maid, widow, nor wife.

DUKE. Silence that fellow; I would, he had some cause.

To prattle for himself.

LUCIO. Well, my lord.

MARI. My lord, I do confefs I ne'er was married; And, I confefs, befides, I am no maid;

I have known my husband; yet my

not,

That ever he knew me.

husband knows

LUCIO. He was drunk then, my lord; it can be no better.

DUKE. For the benefit of filence, 'would thou wert so too.

LUCIO. Well, my lord.

DUKE. This is no witnefs for lord Angelo.

MARI. NOW I come to't, my lord:

She, that accufes him of fornication,

6 Neither maid, widow, nor wife?] This is a proverbial phrase, to be found in Ray's Colle&ion. STEEVENS.

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