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Enter ELBOW, FROTH, Clown, Officers, &c.

ELB. Come, bring them away: if thefe be good people in a common-weal, that do nothing but ufe

I likewife find from Holinfhed, p. 670, that the brake was an engine of torture. .. The faid Hawkins was caft into the Tower, and at length brought to the brake, called the Duke of Excefter's daughter, by means of which pain he fhewed many things,

&c.

When the Dukes of Exeter and Suffolk (fays Blackftone, in his Commentaries, Vol. IV. chap. xxv. p. 320, 321,) and other minifters of Hen. VI. had laid a defign to introduce the civil law into this kingdom as the rule of government, for a beginning thereof they erected a rack for torture; which was called in derifion the Duke of Exeter's Daughter, and ftill remains in the Tower of London, where it was occafionally ufed as an engine of ftate, not of law, more than once in the reign of Queen Elizabeth." See Coke's Inflit. 35. Barrington. 69. 385. and Fuller's Worthies, P. 317.

A part of this horrid engine fill remains in the Tower, and the following is the figure of it:

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It confifts of a ftrong iron frame about fix feet long, with three rollers of wood within it. The middle one of thefe, which has iron teeth at each end, is governed by two flops of iron, and was, probably, that part of the machine which fufpended the powers of the reft, when the unhappy fufferer was fufficiently ftrained by the cords, &c. to begin confeffion. I cannot conclude this account of it without confeffing my obligation to Sir Charles Frederick, who politely condefcended to direct my enquiries, while

their abufes in common houfes. I know no law: bring them away.

his high command rendered every part of the Tower acceffible to my researches.

I have fince obferved that, in Fox's Martyrs, edit. 1596, p. 1843, there is a representation of the fame kind. To this alfo, Skelton, in his Why come ye not to Court, feems to allude:

"And with a cole rake

Bruife them on a brake."

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If Shakspeare alluded to this engine, the fenfe of the contefted paffage will be: Some run more than once from engines of punishment, and anfwer no interrogatories: while fome are condemned to suffer for a fingle trespass.

It fhould not, however, be diffembled, that yet a plainer meaning may be deduced from the fame words. By brakes of vice may be meant a collection, a number, a thicket of vices. The fame image occurs in Daniel's Civil Wars, B. IV:

Rushing into the thickest woods of fpears,

"And brakes of fwords," &c.

That a brake meant a bufh, may be known from Drayton's poem on Mofes and his Miracles:

"Where God unto the Hebrew spake,

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Appearing from the burning brake."

Again, in The Mooncalf of the fame author:

"He brings into a brake of briars and thorn,

And fo entangles."

Mr. Tollet is of opinion that, by brakes of vice, Shakspeare means only the thorny paths of vice.

So, in Ben Jonfon's Underwoods, Whalley's edit. Vol. VI.

p. 367:

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Look at the falfe and cunning man, &c.-
Crush'd in the fnakey brakes that he had past."

STEEVENS.

The words anfwer none (that is, make no confeffion of guilt) evidently shew that brake of vice here means the engine of torture. The fame mode of question is again referred to in A& V:

To the rack with him: we'll touze you joint by joint,

But we will know this purpose."

The name of brake of vice, appears to have been given this machine, from its refemblance to that used to fubdue vicious horfes;

to which Daniel thus refers:

Lyke as the brake within the rider's hande

"Doth fraine the horse nye wood with grief of paine,
"Not us'd before to come in fuch a band," &c.

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HENLEY.

ANG. How now, fir! What's your name? and what's the matter?

ELB. If it please your honour, I am the poor duke's conftable, and my name is Elbow; I do lean upon justice, fir, and do bring in here before your good honour two notorious benefactors.

ANG. Benefactors? Well; what benefactors are they? are they not malefactors?

ELB. If it please your honour, I know not well what they are: but precife villains they are, that I am fure of; and void of all profanation in the world, that good chriftians ought to have.

ESCAL. This comes off well; here's a wife officer. ANG. Go to: What quality are they of? Elbow is your name? Why doft thou not fpeak, Elbow? * CLO. He cannot, fir; he's out at elbow.

I am not fatisfied with either the old or prefent reading of this very difficult paffage; yet have nothing better to propofe. The modern reading, vice, was introduced by Mr. Rowe. In King Henry VIII. we have

"'Tis but the fate of place, and the rough brake
"That virtue muft go through.

MALONE.

9 This comes off well;] This is nimbly spoken; this is volubly uttered. JOHNson.

The fame phrafe is employed in Timon of Athens, and elsewhere 3 / but in the prefent inftance it is ufed ironically. The meaning of it, when seriously applied to fpeech, is. This is well delivered, this story is well told. STEEVENS.

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2 Why doft thou not speak, Elbow?] Says Angelo to the confta ble. "He cannot, fir, (quoth the Clown,) he's out at elbow." I know not whether this quibble be generally underflood: he is out at the word elbow, and out at the elbow of his coat. The Conftable, in his account of master Froth and the Clown, has a ftroke at the Puritans, who were very zealous against the ftage about this time: .. Precife villains they are, that I am fure of; and void of all profanation in the world, that good Christians ought to have." FARMER.

ANG. What are you, fir?

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ELB. He, fir? a tapfter, fir; parcel-bawd; one that ferves a bad woman; whofe house, fir, was, as they fay, pluck'd down in the fuburbs; and now fhe profeffes a hot-house, which, I think, is a very ill houfe too.

ESCAL. How know you that?

ELB. My wife, fir, whom I deteft' before heaven and your honour,

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ESCAL. How! thy wife?

ELB. Ay, fir; whom, I thank heaven, is 'an honest

woman;

ESCAL. Doft thou deteft her therefore?

ELB. I fay, fir, I will detest myself also, as well as fhe, that this house, if it be not a bawd's house, it is pity of her life, for it is a naughty house.

ESCAL. How doft thou know that, conftable? ELB. Marry, fir, by my wife; who, if fhe had been a woman cardinally given, might have been accufed in fornication, adultery, and all uncleanliness there.

ESCAL. By the woman's means?

3 ------a tapfer, hr; parcel-bawd; ] This we should now exprefs by faying, he is half-tapfter, half-bawd. JOHNSON.

Thus, in King Henry IV. P. II: sa parcel-gilt goblet.

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STEEVINS.

·She profeffes a hot-houfe, ] A hot-houfe is an English name for a Bagnio. So, Ben Jonfon:

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"Where lately harbour'd many a famous whore,
"A purging bill now fix'd upon the door,

Tells you it is a hot-houfe: fo it may,

And ftill be a whore-house. JOHNSON.

whom I deteft] He defigned to fay proteft. Mrs. Quickly makes the fame blunder in The Merry Wives of Windsor, AaI. fc. iv. But, I deteft, an honeft maid," &c. STEEVENS.

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ELB. Ay, fir, by miftrefs Overdone's means: " but as she spit in his face, fo fhe defy'd him.

CLO. Sir, if it please your honour, this is not fo. ELB. Prove it before thefe varlets here, thou honourable man, prove it.

ESCAL. Do you hear how he mifplaces?

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[To ANGELO.

CLO. Sir, fhe came in great with child; and longing (faving your honour's reverence,) for ftew'd prunes; fir, we had but two in the houfe, which at that very diftant time flood, as it were, in a fruitdish, a dish of fome three-pence; your honours have seen such dishes; they are not China dishes, but very good difles.

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ESCAL. Go to, go to; no matter for the dish, fir. CLO. No, indeed, fir, not of a pin; you are therein · in the right: but, to the point: As I fay, this mistrefs Elbow, being, as I fay, with child, and being great belly'd, and longing, as I faid, for prunes;

6 Ay, fir, by mifirefs Overdone's means:] Here feems to have been fome mention made of Froth, who was to be accused, and fome words therefore may have been loft, unless the irregularity of the narrative may be better imputed to the ignorance of the conftable. JOHNSON.

7 ·Stew'd prunes ;] Stewed prunes were to be found in every brothel.

So, in Maroccus Exfiaticus, or Bankes's Bay Horfe in a Trance, 1395: "With this flocke of wenches will this truftie Roger and his Bettrice fet up, forfooth, with their pamphlet pots and flewed prunes, &c. in a finful faucer," &c.

See a note on the 3d fcene of the 3d Act of the First Part of King Henry IV. In the old copy prunes are fpelt, according to vulgar pronunciation, prewyns. STEEVENS.

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not China difhes,] A China difh, in the age of Shakspeare, muft have been fuch an uncommon thing, that the Clown's exemption of it, as no utenfil in a common brothel, is a ftriking circumftance in his abfurd and tautological deposition.

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STEEVENS.

VOL. VI.

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