ANG.

Enter ANGELO.

Now, what's the matter, provost? PROV. Is it your will Claudio fhall die to-morrow? ANG. Did I not tell thee, yea? hadft thou not order?

Why doft thou ask again?

PROV.

Left I might be too rash :

Under your good correction, I have feen,
When, after execution, judgement hath
Repented o'er his doom.

ANG.

Go to; let that be mine:

Do you your office, or give up your place,
And you shall well be fpar'd.

PROV.

I crave your honour's pardon.What shall be done, fir, with the groaning Juliet? She's very near her hour.

ANG.

Dispose of her

To some more fitter place; and that with speed.

Re-enter Servant.

SERV. Here is the fifter of the man condemn'd, Defires access to you.

ANG.

Hath he a fifter?

PROV. Ay, my good lord; a very virtuous maid, And to be shortly of a fifterhood,

See you, the fornicatress be remov'd;

Let her have needful, but not lavish, means;
There fhall be order for it.

Enter Lucio and ISABELLA.

PROV. Save your honour!? [Offering to retire. ANG. Stay a little while. [To ISAB.] You are welcome: What's your will?

ISAB. I am a woeful fuitor to your honour, Please but your honour hear me.

ANG.

Well; what's your fuit?

ISAB. There is a vice, that most I do abhor, And most defire fhould meet the blow of juftice; For which I would not plead, but that I must; For which I must not plead, but that I am At war, 'twixt will, and will not.3

Save your honour!] Your honour, which is fo often repeated in this fcene, was in our author's time the ufual mode of addrefs to a lord. It had become antiquated after the Restoration; for Sir William D'Avenant in his alteration of this play has substituted your excellence in the room of it. MALONE.

Stay a little while.] It is not clear why the Provost is bidden to ftay, nor when he goes out. JOHNSON.

The entrance of Lucio and Ifabella should not, perhaps, be made till after Angelo's fpeech to the Provoft, who had only announced a lady, and feems to be detained as a witnefs to the purity of the deputy's converfation with her. His exit may be fixed with that of Lucio and Isabella. He cannot remain longer, and there is no reafon to think he departs before. RITSON.

Stay a little while, is faid by Angelo, in anfwer to the words, "Save your honour;" which denoted the Provoft's intention to depart. Ifabella ufes the fame words to Angelo, when she goes out, near the conclufion of this scene. So alfo, when the offers to retire, on finding her fuit ineffectual: "Heaven keep your honour!" MALONE.

3 For which I must not plead, but that I am At war, 'twixt will, and will not.] This is obfcure; perhaps it may be mended by reading:

For which I muft now plead; but yet I am

At war, 'twixt will, and will not.

Yet and yt are almost undistinguishable in an ancient manufcript.

ANG.

Well; the matter?

ISA B. I have a brother is condemn'd to die: I do befeech you, let it be his fault,

And not my brother.+

PROV.

Heaven give thee moving graces!

ANG. Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it! Why, every fault's condemn'd, ere it be done : Mine were the very cypher of a function, To find the faults, whofe fine stands in record, And let go by the actor.

ISAB. O juft, but fevere law! I had a brother then.-Heaven keep your honour!

[Retiring. LUCIO. [TO ISAB.] Give't not o'er fo: to him again, intreat him;

Kneel down before him, hang upon

his gown; You are too cold: if you should need a pin, You could not with more tame a tongue defire it: To him, I fay.

Yet no alteration is neceffary, fince the fpeech is not unintelligible as it now ftands. JOHNSON.

For which I must not plead, but that I am

At war, 'twixt will, and will not.] i. e. for which I must not plead, but that there is a conflict in my breaft betwixt my affection for my brother, which induces me to plead for him, and my regard to virtue, which forbids me to intercede for one guilty of fuch a crime; and I find the former more powerful than the latter. MALONE.

let it be his fault,

And not my brother.] i. e. let his fault be condemned, or extirpated, but let not my brother himself fuffer. MALONE.

5 To find the faults,] The old copy reads—To fine, &c.

STEEVENS.

To fine means, I think, to pronounce the fine or fentence of the law, appointed for certain crimes. Mr. Theobald, without neceffity, reads find. The repetition is much in our author's manner. MALONE. Theobald's emendation may be juftified by a paffage in King Lear: "All's not offence that indifcretion finds, "And dotage terms fo." STEEVENS.

ISAB. Muft he needs die?

ANG.

Maiden, no remedy.

ISAB. Yes; I do think that you might pardon him, And neither heaven, nor man, grieve at the mercy. ANG. I will not do't.

ISAB.

But can you, if you would? ANG. Look, what I will not, that I cannot do.

ISAB. But might you do't, and do the world no wrong,

If so your heart were touch'd with that remorfe
As mine is to him?

ANG.

He's fentenc'd; 'tis too late.

LUCIO. You are too cold

8

[To ISABELLA. ISAB. Too late? why, no; I, that do speak a word, May call it back again: Well believe this, No ceremony that to great ones 'longs, Not the king's crown, nor the deputed fword, The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe, Become them with one half fo good a grace, As mercy does. If he had been as you, And you as he, you would have flipt like him; But he, like you, would not have been fo ftern.

6-touch'd with that remorse-] Remorfe, in this place, as in many others, fignifies pity.

So, in the 5th Act of this play:

66

My fifterly remorfe confutes my honour, "And I did yield to him."

Again, in Heywood's Iron Age, 1632:

"The perfect image of a wretched creature,
"His fpeeches beg remorse."

See Othello, A& III. STEEVENS.

7 May call it back again:] The word back was inferted by the editor of the fecond folio, for the fake of the metre. MALONE. Surely, it is added for the fake of fenfe as well as metre. STEEVENS, · Well believe this,] Be thoroughly affured of this. THEOBALD.

ANG. Pray you, begone.

ISAB. I would to heaven I had your potency, And you were Ifabel! fhould it then be thus? No; I would tell what 'twere to be a judge, And what a prisoner.

LUCIO. Ay, touch him: there's the vein. [Afide, ANG. Your brother is a forfeit of the law, And you but waste your words.

ISAB. Alas! alas! Why, all the fouls that were," were forfeit once; And He that might the vantage best have took, Found out the remedy: How would you be, If he, which is the top of judgement, fhould But judge you as you are? O, think on that; And mercy then will breathe within your lips, Like man new made."

9 all the fouls that were,] This is falfe divinity. We fhould read-are. WARBURTON.

I fear, the player, in this inftance, is a better divine than the prelate. The fouls that WERE, evidently refer to Adam and Eve, whofe tranfgreffion rendered them obnoxious to the penalty of annihilation, but for the remedy which the author of their being moft graciously provided. The learned Bishop, however, is more fuccefsful in his next explanation. HENLEY.

2 And mercy then will breathe within your lips,

Like man new made.] This is a fine thought, and finely expreffed. The meaning is, that mercy will add fuch a grace to your perfon, that you will appear as amiable as a man come fresh aut of the hands of his Creator. WARBURTON.

I rather think the meaning is, You will then change the feverity of your prefent character. In familiar fpeech, You would be quite another man. JOHNSON.

And mercy then will breathe within your lips,

Like man new made.] You will then appear as tender-hearted and merciful as the firit man was in his days of innocence, immediately after his creation. MALONE.

I incline to a different interpretation:--And you, Angelo, will breathe new life into Claudio, as the Creator animated Adam, by "breathing into his noftrils the breath of life." HOLT WHITE