To give me fecret harbour, hath a purpose
More grave and wrinkled than the aims and ends
Of burning youth.

FRI.

May your grace speak of it?

DUKE. My holy fir, none better knows than you How I have ever lov'd the life remov'd; ' And held in idle price to haunt affemblies, Where youth, and coft, and witlefs bravery keeps.' I have deliver'd to lord Angelo

(A man of stricture, and firm abstinence,)"

3 the life remov'd ;] i. e. a life of retirement, a life remote, or removed, from the buftle of the world.

So, in the Prologue to Milton's Mafque at Ludlow Caftle: I mean the MS. copy in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge:

I was not fent to court your wonder
"With diftant worlds, and ftrange removed climes."

STEEVENS.

4 witless bravery-] Bravery, in the prefent instance, fignifies bouy drefs. So, in The Taming of a Shrew:

With fcarfs, and fans, and double change of bravery."
STEEVENS.

- keeps.] i. e. dwells, refides. In this fenfe it is still used at Cambridge, where the ftudents and fellows, referring to their collegiate apartments, always fay they keep, i. e. refide there. REED.

6 A man of stricture, and firm abftinence,] Stricture makes no fenfe in this place. We fhould read:

A man of strict ure and firm abftinence.

i. e. a man of the exacteft condu&t, and practifed in the fubdual of his paffions. Ure is an old word for use, practice: so enur'd, habituated to. WARBURTON.

Stricture may eafily be used for ftri&ness; ure is indeed an old word, but, I think, always applied to things, never to perfons. JOHNSON.

Sir W. D'Avenant, in his alteration of this play, reads, ftri&ness. Ure is fometimes applied to perfons, as well as to things. So, in the Old Interlude of Tom Tyler and his Wife, 1661:

"So fhall I be fure

"To keep him in ure.”

The fame word occurs in Promos and Caffandra, 1578: "The crafty man oft puts these wrongs in ure."

STEEVENS.

My abfolute power and place here in Vienna,
And he fuppofes me travell'd to Poland;
For fo I have ftrew'd it in the common ear,
And fo it is receiv'd: Now, pious fir,
You will demand of me, why I do this?
FRI. Gladly, my lord.

DUKE. We have ftrict ftatutes, and most biting

laws,

(The needful bits and curbs for head-ftrong fteeds,)"

Which for these fourteen years we have let fleep; '

The needful bits and curbs for bead-ftrong fteeds,] In the copies,

The needful bits and curbs for head-ftrong weeds. There is no manner of analogy or confonance in the metaphors here and, though the copies agree, I do not think the author would have talked of bits and curbs for weeds. On the other hand, nothing can be more proper, than to compare perfons of unbridled licentioufnefs to head-ftrong feeds: and, in this view, bridling the paffions has been a phrafe adopted by our best poets.

THEOBALD.

Which for thefe fourteen years we have let fleep;] Thus the old copy; which alfo reads,

we have let flip." STEEVENS.

For fourteen I have made no fcruple to replace nineteen. The reafon will be obvious to him who recollects what the Duke [Claudio] has faid in a foregoing scene. I have altered the odd phrafe of " letting the laws flip" for how does it fort with the comparison that follows, of a lion in his cave that went not out to prey? But letting the laws fleep, adds a particular propriety to the thing reprefented, and accords exactly too with the fimile. It is the metaphor too, that our author feems fond of ufing upon this occafion, in several other paffages of this play:

The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept;
'Tis now awake.

And, fo again:

but this new governor

Awakes me all the enrolled penalties;

and for a name,

Now puts the drowsy and neglected act
Frefbly on me.

THEOBALD

Even like an o'er-grown lion in a cave,
That goes not out to prey: Now, as fond fathers
Having bound up the threat'ning twigs of birch,
Only to stick it in their children's fight,

For terror, not to ufe; in time the rod

8

Becomes more mock'd, than fear'd: fo our de

crees,

Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead;
And liberty plucks juftice by the nose;
The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart
Goes all decorum.

FRI.

It rested in your grace To unloose this tied-up juftice, when you pleas'd:

The latter emendation may derive fupport from a paffage in Hamlet:

"That have a father kill'd, a mother stain❜d,
"Excitements of my reafon and my blood,
"And let all fleep?"

If flip be the true reading, (which, however, I do not believe,) the fenfe may be,-which for these fourteen years we have suffered to pass unnoticed, unobferved; for fo the fame phrase is used in Twelfth Night :-" Let him let this matter flip, and I'll give him my horse, grey Capulet."

Mr. Theobald altered fourteen to nineteen, to make the Duke's account correfpond with a speech of Claudio's in a former fcene, but without neceffity. Claudio would naturally represent the period during which the law had not been put in practice, greater than it really was. MALONE.

Theobald's correction is mifplaced. If any correction is really necessary, it should have been made where Claudio, in a foregoing scene, fays nineteen years. I am difpofed to take the Duke's words. WHALLEY.

• Becomes more mock'd, than fear'd:] Becomes was added by Mr. Pope, to restore sense to the paffage, fome fuch word having been left out. STEEVENS.

9 The baby beats the nurse,] This allufion was borrowed from an ancient print, entitled The World turn'd upfide down, where an infant is thus employed. STEEVENS.

And it in you more dreadful would have feem'd, Than in lord Angelo.

DUKE. I do fear, too dreadful: Sith 'twas my fault to give the people scope, 'Twould be my tyranny to strike, and gall them, For what I bid them do: For we bid this be done, When evil deeds have their permiffive pafs, And not the punishment.

father,

Therefore, indeed, my

I have on Angelo impos'd the office;

Who may, in the ambush of my name, ftrike home,
And yet my nature never in the fight,

To do it flander: And to behold his fway,
I will, as 'twere a brother of your order,

Vifit both prince and people: therefore, I pr'ythee,
Supply me with the habit, and instruct me
How I may formally in person bear3 me

Sir Thomas Hanmer has very well corrected it thus:

To do it flander:

Yet perhaps lefs alteration might have produced the true

reading:

And

And yet my nature never, in the fight,

So doing flandered:

yet my nature never suffer flander, by doing any open acts of feverity. JOHNSON.

Hanmer's emendation is fupported by a paffage in King Henry IV. P. I:

"Do me no flander, Douglas, I dare fight." STEEVENS. Fight feems to be countenanced by the words ambush and strike. Sight was introduced by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

3

in perfon bear-] Mr. Pope reads,
-my perfon bear.

Like a true friar. More reafons for this action,
At our more leisure fhall I render you;
Only, this one:-Lord Angelo is precife;

4

Stands at a guard with envy; fcarce confeffes
That his blood flows, or that his appetite

Is more to bread than ftone: Hence fhall we fee,
If power change purpose, what our feemers be.

[Exeunt.

SCENE V.

A Nunnery.

Enter ISABELLA and FRANCISCA.

ISAB. And have you nuns no further privileges? FRAN. Are not these large enough?

ISAB. Yes, truly: I fpeak not as defiring more; But rather wishing a more strict restraint Upon the fifter-hood, the votarifts of faint Clare. LUCIO. Ho! Peace be in this place! [Within] ISAB. Who's that which calls?

Perhaps the word which I have inferted in the text, had dropped out while the fheet was at prefs. A fimilar phrase occurs in The Tempest:

fome good inftruction give

"How I may bear me here.”

Sir W. D'Avenant reads, in his alteration of the play:

I may in perfon a true friar feem.

The fenfe of the paffage (as Mr. Henley obferves) is-How I may demean myfelf, fo as to fupport the character I have affumed.

STEEVENS.

Stands at a guard-] Stands on terms of defiance.

JOHNSON.

This rather means, to ftand cautiously on his defence, than on

terms of defiance. M. MASON.