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ftand this in a manifefted effect, I crave but four days refpite; for the which you are to do me both a present and a dangerous courtesy.

PROV. Pray, fir, in what?

DUKE. In the delaying death.

PROV. Alack! how may I do it? having the hour limited; and an exprefs command, under penalty, to deliver his head in the view of Angelo? I may make my cafe as Claudio's, to crofs this in the smallest.

DUKE. By the vow of mine order, I warrant you, if my inftructions may be your guide. Let this Barnardine be this morning executed, and his head borne to Angelo.

PROV. Angelo hath seen them both, and will difcover the favour.+

DUKE. O, death's a great difguifer: and you may add to it. Shave the head, and tie the beard; and fay, it was the defire of the penitent to be fo bared"

the favour.] See note 3, p. 323. STEEVENS..

s — and tie the beard;] The Revifal recommends Mr. Simpfon's emendation, DIE the beard, but the prefent reading may ftand. Perhaps it was ufual to tie up the beard before decollation. Sir T. More is faid to have been ludicrously careful about this ornament of his face. It fhould, however, be remembered, that it was alfo the custom to die beards.

So, in the old comedy of Ram-Alley, 1611:

"What colour'd beard comes next by the window?

"A black man's, I think.

"I think, a red; for that is moft in fashion."

Again, in The Silent Woman: "I have fitted my divine and canonift, dyed their beards and all." Again, in The Alchemift: "

he had dy'd his beard, and all." STEEVENS.

A beard tied would give a very new air to that face, which had never been seen but with the beard loofe, long, and fqualid. JOHNSON. 6 to be fo bared-] Thefe words relate to what has just preceded have the head. The modern editions following the fourth folio, read—to be so barb'd; but the old copy is certainly right. So, in All's well that ends well: "I would the cutting of

before his death: You know, the course is common." If any thing fall to you upon this, more than thanks and good fortune, by the faint whom I profefs, I will plead againft it with my life.

PROV. Pardon me, good father; it is against my oath.

DUKE. Were you fworn to the duke, or to the deputy?

PROV. To him, and to his fubftitutes.

DUKE. You will think you have made no offence, if the duke avouch the juftice of your dealing? PROV. But what likelihood is in that?

DUKE. Not a resemblance, but a certainty. Yet fince I fee you fearful, that neither my coat, integrity, nor my perfuafion, can with ease attempt you, I will go further than I meant, to pluck all fears out of you. Look you, fir, here is the hand and feal of the duke. You know the character, I doubt not; and the fignet is not ftrange to you. PROV. I know them both.

DUKE. The contents of this is the return of the duke; you fhall anon over-read it at your pleasure; where you fhall find, within these two days he will be here. This is a thing, that Angelo knows not: for he this very day receives letters of ftrange te

my garments would ferve the turn, or the baring of my beard; and to fay it was in ftratagem." MALONE.

6 -you know, the courfe is common.] P. Mathieu, in his Heroyke Life and deplorable Death of Henry the Fourth, of France, fays, that Ravaillac, in the midst of his tortures, lifted up his head and fhook a fpark of fire from his beard. "This unprofitable care, (he adds) to fave it, being noted, afforded matter to divers to praife the custome in Germany, Swifferland, and divers other places, to have off, and then to burn all the haire from all parts of the bodies of those who are convicted for any notorious crimes." Grimfton's Tranflation, 4to. 1612. p. 181. REED.

nor; perchance, of the duke's death; perchance, entering into some monastery; but, by chance, nothing of what is writ." Look, the unfolding star calls up the shepherd: Put not yourself into amazement, how these things should be: all difficulties are but easy when they are known. Call your executioner, and off with Barnardine's head: I will give him a present shrift, and advise him for a better place. Yet you are amazed; but this fhall abfolutely refolve you. Come away; it is almost clear dawn. [Exeunt.

SCENE III.

Another Room in the fame.

Enter Clown.

CLO. I am as well acquainted here, as I was in our house of profeffion: one would think, it were mistress Over-done's own house, for here be many of her old customers. First, here's young master Rafh; he's in for a commodity of brown paper

7—nothing of what is writ.] We should read-here writ the Duke pointing to the letter in his hand. WARBURton, the unfolding far calls up the shepherd:] "The ftar, that bids the fhepherd fold,

"Now the top of heaven doth hold." Milton's Comus.

"So doth the evening ftar prefent itself
"Unto the careful fhepherd's glad fome eyes,

"By which unto the fold he leads his flock."

STEEVENS.

Marston's Infatiate Countefs, 1613. MALONE.

in our houfe of profeffion:] i. e. in my late mistress's house, which was a professed, a notorious bawdy-house. MALONE.

Firft, here's young mafter Rafh; &c.] This enumeration of the inhabitants of the prifon affords a very ftriking view of the practices predominant in Shakspeare's age. Befides thofe whofe follies are common to all times, we have four fighting men and a traveller.

and old ginger,' ninefcore and seventeen pounds; of which he made five marks, ready money: marry,

It is not unlikely that the originals of the pictures were then known. JOHNSON.

Rafh was the name of fome kind of ftuff. So, in An Aprill
Shower, fbed in abundance of teares, for the death and incomparable
loffe, c. of Richard Sacvile, &c. Earl of Dorfet, &c. 1624:
For with the plaineft plaine yee faw him goe,

"In ciuill blacke of Rab, of Serge, or fo;
"The liuerie of wife ftayedneffe".

STEEVENS.

If this term alludes to the ftuff fo called, (which was probably one of the commodities fraudulently iffued out by money-lenders) there is nevertheless a pun intended. So, in an old MS. poem, entitled, The Defcription of Women:

"Their head is made of Rafb,

Rafb was a

"Their tongues are made of Say." DOUCE. All the names here mentioned are characteristical. ftuff formerly used. So, in A Reply as true as Steele, to a ruffy, rayling, ridiculous, lying Libell, which was lately written by an impudent unfoder'd Ironmonger, and called by the name of an Answer to a foolish pamphlet entitled A Swarme of Sectaries and Schifmatiques. By John Taylour, 1641:

"And with mockado fuit, and judgement rah,

"And tongue of faye, thou'lt fay all is but trafh." Sericum rafum. See Minfheu's Dict. in v. Rab, and Florio's Italian Dict. 1598, in v. rafcia, rafcetta. MALONE.

3 -a commodity of brown paper and old ginger,] Thus the old copy. The modern editors read, brown pepper; but the following paffage in Michaelmas Term, Com. 1607, will completely establish the original reading:

"I know fome gentlemen in town have been glad, and are glad at this time, to take up commodities in hawk's-hoods and brown paper." Again, in A New Trick to cheat the Devil, 1636:

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to have been fo bit already

"With taking up commodities of brown paper, "Buttons paft fashion, filks, and fattins, "Babies and children's fiddles, with like trash "Took up at a dear rate, aud fold for trifles." Again, in Greene's Quip for an Upftart Courtier, 1620:

"For the merchant, he delivered the iron, tin, lead, hops, fugars, fpices, oyls, brown paper, or whatever elfe, from fix months to fix months. Which when the poor gentleman came to fell again, he could not make three score and ten in the hundred befides the ufury." Again, in Greene's Defence of Coney-catching, 1592:

then, ginger was not much in request, for the old women were all dead. Then is there here one master Caper, at the suit of master Three-pile the mercer, for fome four fuits of peach-colour'd fatin, which now peaches him a beggar. Then have we here

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fo that if he borrow an hundred pound, he shall have forty in filver, and threefcore in wares; as luteftrings; hobby-horses, or brown paper, or cloath," &c.

Again, in The Spanish Curate of Beaumont and Fletcher:
"Commodities of pins, brown papers, packthread.”
Again, in Gafcoigne's Steele Glaffe:

"To teach young men the trade to fell browne paper.”

Again, in Hall's Satires, Lib. IV:

"But Nummius eas'd the needy gallant's care, "With a base bargaine of his blowen ware, "Of fufted hoppes now loft for lacke of fayle, "Or mol'd browne-paper that could nought auaile." Again, in Decker's Seven deadly Sinnes of London, 4to. bl. 1. 1606: and thefe are ufurers who, for a little money, and a great deale of trash, (as fire-fhouels, browne paper, motley cloake-bags, &c.) bring yong nouices into a foole's paradice, till they have fealed the mortgage of their landes," &c. STEEVENS.

A commodity of brown paper-] Mr. Steevens fupports this rightly. Fennor afks, in his Comptor's Commonwealth, "fuppofe the commodities are delivered after Signior Unthrift and Master Broaker have both fealed the bonds, how muft thofe hobby-horses, reams of brown paper, Jewes trumpes and bables, babies and rattles, be folde?" FARMER.

In a MS. letter from Sir John Hollis to Lord Burleigh, is the following paffage: "Your Lordfhip digged into my auncestors graves, and pulling one up from his 70 yeares rette, pronounced him an abominable ufurer and merchante of browne paper, fo hatefull and contemptible that the players acted him before the kinge with great applaufe.". And again : "Nevertheles I denye that any of them were merchantes of browne paper, neither doe I thinke any other but your Lordship's imagination ever fawe or hearde any of them playde upon a ftage; and that they were fuch ufurers I fuppofe your Lordship will want teftimonye."

DOUCE.

-ginger was not much in request, for the old women were all
"I would, fhe were
STEEVENS.

dead.] So, in The Merchant of Venice:
as lying a gossip in that, as ever knapt ginger."

VOL. IV.

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