The under generation, you fhall find Your fafety manifested. PROV. I am your free dependant. And tend the head to Angelo. Quick, defpatch, [Exit Provoft. Now will I write letters to Angelo, The provost, he shall bear them,-whofe contents To meet me at the confecrated fount, A league below the city; and from thence, The under generation,] So Sir Thomas Hanmer, with true judgement. It was in all the former editions: To yonder. e under and yonder were confounded. JOHNSON, The old reading is not yonder but yond. STEEVENS. To yond generation,] Prifons are generally fo conftructed as not to admit the rays of the fun. Hence the Duke here speaks of its greeting only thofe without the doors of the jail, to which he must be fuppofed to point when he speaks these words, Sir T. Hanmer, I think without neceffity, reads-To the under generation, which has been followed by the subsequent editors. Journal, in the preceding line, is daily. Journalier, Fr. Mr. Malone reads: MALONE, To yond generation, you fhall find. But furely it is impoffible that yond fhould be the true reading; for unless ge-ne-ra-ti-on were founded as a word of five syllables, (a practice from which every ear muft revolt,) the metre would be defective. It reminds one too much of Peafcod, in Gay's What d'ye call it : "The Pilgrim's Progrefs-eighth-e-di-ti-on, "Lon-don prin-ted for Ni-cho-las Bod-ding-ton." By the under generation our poet means the antipodes. So, in King Richard II: 66 when the fearching eye of heaven is hid STEEVENS. By cold gradation and weal-balanced form,' Re-enter Provost. PROV. Here is the head; I'll carry it myself. DUKE. Convenient is it: Make a fwift return; For I would commune with you of fuch things, That want no ear but yours. PROV. I'll make all speed. ISAB. [Within.] Peace, ho, be here! [Exit. DUKE. The tongue of Ifabel:-She's come to know, If yet her brother's pardon be come hither: Enter ISABELLA. ISAB. Ho, by your leave. DUKE. Good morning to you, fair and gracious daughter. ISAB. The better, given me by fo holy a man. Hath yet the deputy fent my brother's pardon? DUKE. He hath releas'd him, Ifabel, from the world; His head is off, and fent to Angelo. 3 weal-balanced form,] Thus the old copy. Mr. Heath thinks that well-balanced is the true reading; and Hanmer was of the fame opinion. STEEVENS. 4 When it is leaft expected.] A better reafon might have been given. It was neceffary to keep Ifabella in ignorance, that she might with more keennefs accufe the deputy. JOHNSON. ISAB. Nay, but it is not fo. It is no other: DUKE. Show your wisdom, daughter, in your close patience. ISAB. O, I will to him, and pluck out his eyes. DUKE. You fhall not be admitted to his fight. ISA B. Unhappy Claudio! Wretched Isabel! Injurious world! Moft damned Angelo! DUKE. This nor hurts him, nor profits you a jot: Forbear it therefore; give your cause to heaven. Mark what I fay; which you fhall find By every fyllable, a faithful verity: The duke comes home to-morrow;-nay, dry your eyes; One of our convent, and his confeffor, Gives me this inftance: Already he hath carried Notice to Efcalus and Angelo; Who do prepare to meet him at the gates, In that good path that I would wish it go; ISAB. I am directed by you. DUKE. This letter then to friar Peter give; 'Tis he that fent me of the duke's return: Say, by this token, I defire his company At Mariana's house to-night. Her caufe, and yours, I'll perfect him withal; and he shall bring you Before the duke; and to the head of Angelo Accufe him home, and home. For my poor self, I am combined by a facred vow, your bofom-] Your wish; your heart's defire. JOHNSON. 6 I am combined by a facred vow,] I once thought this should be confined, but Shakspeare ufes combine for to bind by a pact or agreement; fo he calls Angelo the combinate hufband of Mariana. JOHNSON. And shall be abfent. Wend you' with this letter: LUCIO. O, pretty Ifabella, I am pale at mine heart, to fee thine eyes fo red: thou must be patient: I am fain to dine and sup with water and bran; I dare not for my head fill my belly; one fruitful meal would fet me to't: But they fay the duke will be here to-morrow. By my troth, Ifabel, I lov'd thy brother: if the old fantastical duke of dark corners' had been at home, he had lived. [Exit ISABELLA, DUKE. Sir, the duke is marvellous little beholden to your reports; but the beft is, he lives not in them." 7 Wend you-] To wend is to go.-An obfolete word. So, in The Comedy of Errors: Hopeless and helplefs doth Egeon wend." Again, in Orlando Furiofo, 1599: "To let his daughter end with us to France." STEEVENS, 8 if the old, &c.] Sir Thomas Hanmer reads the odd fantaftical duke; but old is a common word of aggravation in ludicrous language, as, there was old revelling. JOHNSON. - duke of dark corners-] This duke who meets his mistresses in by-places. So, in King Henry VIII: "There is nothing I have done yet, o' my conscience, "Deserves a corner.' MALONE. - he lives not in them.] i. e. his character depends not on them. So, in Much ado about Nothing: "The practice of it lives in John the baftard." STEEVENS, 2 LUCIO. Friar, thou knoweft not the duke fo well as I do: he's a better woodman than thou takest him for. DUKE. Well, you'll answer this one day. Fare ye well. LUCIO. Nay, tarry; I'll go along with thee; I can tell thee pretty tales of the duke. DUKE. You have told me too many of him already, fir, if they be true; if not true, none were enough. Lucio. I was once before him for getting a wench with child. DUKE. Did you fuch a thing? Lucio. Yes, marry, did I: but was fain to forfwear it; they would else have married me to the rotten medlar. DUKE. Sir, your company is fairer than honest: Reft you well. LUCIO. By my troth, I'll go with thee to the lane's end: If bawdy talk offend you, we'll have very little of it: Nay, friar, I am a kind of burr, I shall stick. [Exeunt. 2 woodman-] A woodman seems to have been an attendant or fervant to the Officer called Forrefter. See Manwood on the Foreft Laws, 4to. 1615, p. 46. It is here, however, used in a wanton fenfe, and was, probably, in our author's time generally fo received. In like manner in The Chances, A&t I. fc. ix. the Landlady fays: Well, well, fon John, "I fee you are a woodman, and can choose So, in The Merry Wives of Windfor, Falstaff asks his mistresses: 66 |