And he that got it, fentenc'd: a young man Than die for this. DUKE. When must he die? PROV. As I do think, to-morrow.— I have provided for you; ftay a while, [To JULIET. And you shall be conducted. DUKE. Repent you, fair one, of the fin you carry? Who doth not fee that the integrity of the metaphor requires we should read: flames of her own youth? WARBURTON. Who does not fee that, upon such principles, there is no end of correction? JOHNSON. Dr. Johnfon did not know, nor perhaps Dr. Warburton either, that Sir William D'Avenant reads flames inftead of flares in his Law against Lovers, a play almoft literally taken from Measure for Measure, and Much ado about Nothing. FARMER. Shakspeare has flaming youth in Hamlet; and Greene, in his Never too Late, 1616, fays" he measured the flames of youth by his own dead cinders." Blifter'd her report, is disfigur'd her fame. Blifter feems to have reference to the flames mentioned in the preceding line, A fimilar use of this word occurs in Hamlet: "From the fair forehead of an innocent love, "And fets a blifter there." STEEVENS. In fupport of this emendation, it fhould be remembered, that flawes (for fo it was anciently fpelled) and flames differ only by a letter that is very frequently mistaken at the prefs. The fame miftake is found in Macbeth, A&t II. fc. i. edit. 1623: my fteps, which may they walk,”—inftead of which way. Again, in this play of Measure for Measure, A&t V. fc. i. edit. 1623 :-" give we your hand;" instead of me. In a former fcene of the play before us we meet with"burning youth." Again, in All's Well that ends Well: Yet, in his idle fire, "To buy his will, it would not feem too dear." To fall IN, (not inte) was the language of the time. So, in Cymbeline: almoft fpent with hunger, "I am fallen in offence." MALONE. JULIET. I do; and bear the shame most patiently. DUKE. I'll teach you how you fhall arraign your confcience, And try your penitence, if it be found, Or hollowly put on. JULIET. I'll gladly learn. DUKE. Love you the man that wrong'd you? JULIET. Yes, as I love the woman that wrong'd him. DUKE. So then, it seems, your most offenceful act Was mutually committed? JULIET. Mutually. DUKE. Then was your fin of heavier kind than his. JULIET. I do confefs it, and repent it, father. DUKE. 'Tis meet fo daughter: But left you do repent, As that the fin hath brought you to this fhame,Which forrow is always toward ourselves, not heaven; Showing, we'd not spare heaven,' as we love it, But left you do repent,] Thus the old copy. The modern editors, led by Mr. Pope, read: But repent you not." But left you do repent is only a kind of negative imperative— Ne te pæniteat, and means, repent not on this account. STEEVENS. I think that a line at least is wanting after the first of the Duke's fpeech. It would be prefumptuous to attempt to replace the words; but the fenfe, I am perfuaded, is easily recoverable out of Juliet's anfwer. I fuppofe his advice, in substance, to have been nearly this: "Take care, left you repent [not fo much of your fault, as it is an evil,] as that the fin hath brought you to this fhame.” Accordingly, Juliet's anfwer is explicit to this point: I do repent me, as it is an evil, And take the fame with joy. TYRWHITT. 3 Shrawing, ave'd not spare heaven,] The modern editors had changed this word into feek. STEEVENS. JULIET. I do repent me, as it is an evil; And take the fhame with joy. There reft." DUKE. [Exit. JULIET. Muft die to-morrow! O, injurious love, Showing, we'd not spare heaven,] i. e. fpare to offend heaven. MALONE. 4 There reft.] Keep yourself in this temper. JOHNSON. 5 Grace go with you! Benedicite!] The former part of this line evidently belongs to Juliet. Benedicite is the Duke's reply. RITSON. This regulation is undoubtedly proper: but I fuppofe Shakspeare to have written, 6 Juliet. May grace go with you! Benedicite! STEEVENS. O, injurious love,] Her execution was refpited on account of her pregnancy, the effects of her love; therefore the calls it injurious; not that it brought her to fhame, but that it hindered her freeing herself from it. Is not this all very natural? yet the Oxford editor changes it to injurious law. JOHNSON. I know not what circumftance in this play can authorise a fuppofition that Juliet was refpited on account of her pregnancy; as her life was in no danger from the law, the feverity of which was exerted only on the feducer. I fuppofe fhe means that a parent's love for the child the bears, is injurious, because it makes her careful of her life in her prefent fhameful condition. Mr. Tollet explains the paffage thus: "O, love, that is injurious in expediting Claudio's death, and that refpites me a life, which is a burthen to me worse than death!" STEEVENS. Both Johnson's explanation of this paffage, and Steevens's refutation of it, prove the neceffity of Hanmer's amendment, which removes every difficulty, and can fcarcely be confidered as an alteration, the trace of the letters in the words law and love being fo nearly alike. The law affected the life of the man only, not that of the woman; and this is the injury that Juliet complains of, as fhe wished to die with him. M. MASON, That refpites me a life, whofe very comfort PROV. 'Tis pity of him. [Exeunt. SCENE IV. A Room in ANGELO's Houfe. Enter ANGELO." ANG. When I would pray and think, I think and pray To feveral fubjects: heaven hath my empty words; Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue, 7 Enter Angelo.] Promos, in the play already quoted, has likewife a foliloquy previous to the fecond appearance of Caffandra. It begins thus: "Do what I can, no reafon cooles defire: "The more I ftrive my fond affectes to tame, "Within my breaft, vaine thoughts to forge and frame," &c. Whilft my invention,] exacter than this expreffion. STEEVENS. Nothing can be either plainer or [Dr. Warburton means-intention, a word fubftituted by himself.] But the old blundering folio having it, invention, this was enough for Mr. Theobald to prefer authority to fenfe. WARBURTON. Intention (if it be the true reading) has, in this inftance more than its common meaning, and fignifies eagerness of defire. So, in The Merry Wives of Windjor: "-course o'er my exteriors, with fuch greediness of intention.” By invention, however, I believe the poet means imagination. So, in our author's 103d fonnet: 66 a face, "That overgoes my blunt invention quite." Again, in King Henry V: O for a mufe of fire, that would afcend STEEVENS. "The brightest heaven of invention!" MALONE. Steevens fays that intention, in this place, means eagerness of defire;—but I believe it means attention only, a sense in which the Anchors on Ifabel: Heaven in my mouth, Grown fear'd and tedious; yea, my gravity, word is frequently used by Shakspeare and the other writers of his time.-Angelo fays, he thinks and prays to feveral subjects; that Heaven has his prayers, but his thoughts are fixed on Ifabel.— So, in Hamlet, the King fays: "My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: M. MASON. Anchors on Ifabel:] We have the fame fingular expreffion in Antony and Cleopatra: "There would he anchor his afpéct, and die The fame phrafe occurs again in Cymbeline: "Pofthumus anchors upon Imogen." STEEVENS. 2 Grown fear'd and tedious;] We should read feared. i. e. old. So, Shakspeare uses in the fear, to fignify old age. WARBURTON. I think fear'd may ftand. What we go to with reluctance may be faid to be fear'd. JOHNSON. 3 with boot,] Bo is profit, advantage, gain. So, in M. Kyffin's tranflation of The Andria of Terence, 1588: " You obtained this at my hands, and I went about it while there was any boot." Again, in The Pinner of Wakefield, 1599: "Then lift to me: Saint Andrew be my boot, change for an idle plume, STEEVENS. Which the air beats for vain. O place! O form! &c.] There is, I believe, no inftance in Shakspeare, or any other author, of "for vain" being used for " in vain." Befides; has the air or wind less effect on a feather than on twenty other things? or rather, is not the reverse of this the truth? An idle plume affuredly is not that "ever-fixed mark," of which our author speaks elsewhere, "that looks on tempefts, and is never shaken.” The old copy has vaine, in which way a vane or weather-cock was formerly fpelt. [See Minfbieu's Dicт, 1617, in verb.-So alfo, in Love's |