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Come, we will walk : There's other of our friends Will greet us here anon, my gentle Varrius. [Exeunt.

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Street near the City Gate.

Enter ISABELLA and MARIANA.

ISAB. To fpeak fo indirectly, I am loth;
I would fay the truth; but to accuse him fo,
That is your part: yet I'm advis'd to do it;
He fays, to veil full purpose.3

MARI.

Be rul'd by him. ISAB. Befides, he tells me, that, if peradventure He speak againft me on the adverfe fide,

3 He fays, to veil full purpofe.] Mr. Theobald alters it to, He fays, t' availful purpose;

because he has no idea of the common reading. A good reafon! Yet the common reading is right. Full is ufed for beneficial; and the meaning is, He fays, it is to hide a beneficial purpose, that must not yet be revealed. WARBURTON.

To veil full purpose, may, with very little force on the words, mean, to hide the whole extent of our defign, and therefore the reading may ftand; yet I cannot but think Mr. Theobald's alteration either lucky or ingenious. To interpret words with fuch laxity, as to make full the fame with beneficial, is to put an end, at once, to all neceffity of emendation, for any word may then stand in the place of another. JOHNSON.

I think Theobald's explanation right, but his amendment unneceffary. We need only read vailful as one word. Shakspeare, who fo frequently ufes cite for excite, bate for abate, force for enforce, and many other abbreviations of a fimilar nature, may well be fuppofed to use vailful for availful. M. MASON.

If Dr. Johnson's explanation be right, (as I think it is,) the word fhould be written-veil, as it is now printed in the text.

That vail was the old fpelling of veil, appears from a line in The Merchant of Venice, folio, 1623:

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Vailing an Indian beauty

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for which in the modern editions veiling has been rightly substituted. MALONE.

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I should not think it ftrange; for 'tis a phyfick, That's bitter to fweet end.

MARI. I would, friar Peter

ISAB.

O, peace; the friar is come.

Enter Friar PETER.4

F. PETER. Come, I have found you out a stand moft fit,

Where you may have fuch vantage on the duke, He fhall not pafs you: Twice have the trumpets founded;

The generous and graveft citizens

Have hent the gates, and very near upon
The duke is ent'ring; therefore hence, away.

[Exeunt.

4 Enter Friar Peter.] This play has two friars, either of whom might fingly have ferved. I fhould therefore imagine, that Friar Thomas, in the first act, might be changed, without any harm, to Friar Peter; for why fhould the Duke unneceffarily truft two in an affair which required only one? The name of Friar Thomas is never mentioned in the dialogue, and therefore feems arbitrarily placed at the head of the scene. JOHNSON.

The generous, &c.] i. e. the most noble, &c. Generous is here ufed in its Latin fenfe. "Virgo generofa et nobilis." Cicero. Shakspeare uses it again in Othello:

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the generous iflanders

By you invited.

STEEVENS.

6 Have hent the gates,] Have feized or taken poffeffion of the gates. JOHNSON.

So, in Sir A. Gorges' tranflation of the 4th book of Lucan: did prevent

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"His foes, ere they the hills had bent."

Again, in T. Heywood's Rape of Lucrece, 1630:

"Lament thee, Roman land,

"The king is from thee bent."

Again, in the black-letter Romance of Syr Eglamoure of Artoys.

no date :

"But with the childe homeward gan ryde
"That fro the gryffon was hent."

ACT V. SCENE I.

A publick Place near the City Gaté.

MARIANA (veil'd) ISABELLA, and PETER, at a diftance. Enter at oppofite doors, DUKE, VARRIUS, Lords; ANGELO, ESCALUS, LUCIO, Provost, Officers, and Citizens.

DUKE. My very worthy coufin, fairly met :-Our old and faithful friend, we are glad to fee you. ANG. and ESCAL. Happy return be to your royal

grace!

DUKE. Many and hearty thankings to you both. We have made inquiry of you; and we hear Such goodness of your juftice, that our foul Cannot but yield you forth to public thanks, Fore-running more requital.

ANG.

You make bonds ftill greater.

my

DUKE. O, your defert speaks loud; and I fhould

wrong it,

To lock it in the wards of covert bofom,
When it deferves with characters of brafs
A forted refidence, 'gainst the tooth of time,
And razure of oblivion: Give me your hand,
And let the subject see, to make them know

Again, in the ancient metrical Romance of Syr Guy of Warwick, b. l. no date:

Again,

Some by the arms bent good Guy," &c.

"And fome by the bridle him hent.”

Spenfer often uses the word hend for to seize or take, and overhend for to overtake. STEEVENS.

Hent, benten, hende, (says Junius, in his Etymologicon,) Chaucero eft, capere, affequi, prehendere, arripere, ab A. S. hendan.

MALONE.

That outward courtefies would fain proclaim
Favours that keep within.-Come, Escalus;
You must walk by us on our other hand;-
And good fupporters are you.

PETER and ISABELLA come forward.

F. PETER. Now is your time; fpeak loud, and kneel before him.

ISAB. Juftice, O royal Duke! Vail your regard'
Upon a wrong'd, I'd fain have faid, a maid!
O worthy prince, difhonour not your eye
By throwing it on any other object,

Till you have heard me in my true complaint,
And given me juftice, juftice, juftice, juftice!

DUKE. Relate your wrongs: In what? By whom?
Be brief:

Here is lord Angelo fhall give you justice;
Reveal yourself to him.

ISAB.

O, worthy duke,

You bid me feek redemption of the devil: Hear me yourself; for that which I muft fpeak Muft either punish me, not being believ'd,

Or wring redress from you: hear me, O, hear me, here.

7-Vail your regard-] That is, withdraw your thoughts from higher things, let your notice defcend upon a wronged woman. To vail is to lower. JOHNSON.

This is one of the few expreffions which might have been borrowed from the old play of Promos and Caffandra, 1578:

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vail thou thine ears."

So, in Stanyhurft's tranflation of the 4th Book of Virgil's Æneid: Phrygio liceat fervire marito."

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"Let Dido vail her heart to bed-fellow Trojan."

Thus alfo, in Hamlet:

"Do not for ever, with thy vailed lids,
"Seek for thy noble father in the dust."

STEEVENS.

HENLEY.

ANG. My lord, her wits, I fear me, are not firm: She hath been a fuitor to me for her brother, Cut off by course of justice.

ISAB.

By course of justice!

ANG. And she will speak moft bitterly, and strange. ISAB. Most strange, but yet moft truly, will I fpeak: That Angelo's forfworn; is it not strange? That Angelo's a murderer; is't not strange? That Angelo is an adulterous thief, An hypocrite, a virgin-violator;

Is it not strange, and strange?

DUKE.

Nay, it is ten times ftrange.

ISAB. It is not truer he is Angelo,

Than this is all as true as it is ftrange:

Nay, it is ten times true; for truth is truth
To the end of reckoning.

DUKE.

Away with her:-Poor foul,

She speaks this in the infirmity of sense.

ISAB. O prince, I cónjure thee, as thou believ’st There is another comfort than this world,

That thou neglect me not, with that opinion
That I am touch'd with madness: make not impof-

fible

That which but feems unlike: 'tis not impoffible,
But one, the wicked'ft caitiff on the ground,
May feem as fhy, as grave, as juft, as abfolute,"

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To the end of reckoning.] That is, truth has no gradations; nothing which admits of encrease can be fo much what it is, as truth is truth. There may be a strange thing, and a thing more frange, but if a propofition be true, there can be none more true.

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JOHNSON.

as fhy, as grave, as juft, as abfolute,] As fhy; as referved, as abftracted: as juft; as nice, as exact: as abfolute; as complete in all the round of duty. JOHNSON.

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