emended, by altering these to their.

But that some time might be given to the two women to Confer together, the players, I suppose, took part of the speech, beginning at No might nor greatit here, without troubling ness, etc. and put themselves about its pertinency. However, we are obliged to them for not giving us their own impertinency, as they have frequently done in Other places. WARBURTON.

I cannot agree that these lines are placed here by the players. The sentiments are common, and such as Prince, given to reflection, must have often present. There was a necessity to fill up the time in which the ladies converse apart, and they must have quick tongues and ready apprehensions, if they understood each other while this speech was uttered. JOHNSON.

P. 147, 1. 3. false eyes - That is, Eyes insidious and taiterous. JOHNSON..

1. 6. Run with these false and most

contrarious quests

Upon thy doings!] Different reports,

running counter to each other. JOHNSON.

incline to think that quests here means inquisitions, in which sense the word was used in Shakspeare's time. See Minshieu's Dict. in v. Cole in his Latin Dictionary, 1679, renders,, ques, by „examen, inquisitio." MALONE.

T

4

False and contrarious quests in this place father mean lying and contradictory messengers, With whom run volumes of report. RITSON. P. 147, 1. 7. 'scapes of wit -] 1. e. sallics, Irregularities. STEEVENS.

P. 147, 1. 9. And rack thee in their fancies!] Though rack, in the present instance, may signify torture or mangte, it might also mean confuse:

VOL. II.

23

as the rack, i. e. Areting cloud, renders the object behind it obscure, and of undetermined form, STEEVENS.

F. 147, 1. 23. 24. Sith that the justice of your title to him

Doth flourish the deceit.]: A metaphor taken from embroidery, where a coarse ground is filled up, and covered with figures of rich mate rials and elegant workmanship. WARBURton.

Flourish is ornament in general. STEEVENS. Dr. Warburton's illustration of the metaphor seems to be inaccurate. The passage from another of Shakspeare's plays, quoted by Mr. Steevens, suggests to us the true one.

The term - flourish, alludes to the flowers impressed on the waste printed paper and old books, with which trunks are commonly lined. HENLEY.

When it is proved that the practice alluded to, was as ancient as the time of Shakspeare, Mr. Henley's explanation may be admitted. STEEVENS. · P. 147, 1. 25. Our corn's to reap, for yet our tythe's to sow.] As before, the blundering editors have made a Prince of the priestly Angelo, so here they have made a priest of the Prince. We should read tilth, ige. our tillage is yet to make.. The grain from which we expect our harvest, is not yet put into the ground. WARBURTON.

and

The reader is here attacked with a petty so phism. We should read, tilth, vi. e. our tillage is to make. But in the text it is to sow who has ever said that his tillage was to sow? I believe tythe is right, and that the expression is proverbial, in which the is taken by an easy metonymy, for harvest. JOHNSON.

Dr. Warburton did not do justice to his own conjecture; and no wonder, therefore, that Dr. Johnson has not. Tilth is provincially used for land till'd, prepared for sowing. Shakspeare, how has applied it before in its usual accepta

ever,

tion. FARMER.

Dr. Warburton's conjecture may be supported by many instances in Markham's English Hus bandman, 1635. TOLLET.

Tilth is used for crop, or harvest, by Gower, De Confessione Amantis, Lib. V. fol. 93. b. ̄`j ,,To 'sowe cockill with the corne,

,,So that the tilth is nigh folorne,

,,Which Christ sew first his own honde." Shakspeare uses the word bilth in a former scene of this play; and, (as Dr. Farmer has ob served,) in its common acceptation:

,, her plenteous womb

,,Expresseth its full tilth and husbandry." Again, in The Tempest:

bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none.“ but my quotation from Gower shows that, to sow tilth, was a phrase once in use. STEEVENS. This conjecture appears to me extremely probable.

- P. 148, 1.91. an unpitied whipping;] .me. an unmerciful one. STEEVENS.

P.148, 1.431. Favour is countenance.

JNVSTEEVENS

P. 149, 1. 4. 5. - what mystery, etc] Though I have adopted an emendation independent of the following note, the omission of it would have been unwarrantable. STEEVÉNS.AR

what mistery there should be in hanging, if I should be hang'd, I cannot imagine.CA Abhor. Sir, it is a mistery.^

Clo. Proof.

Abhor. Every true man's apparel fits your thief:

Clo. If it be too little for your thief, your true man thinks it big enough; if it be too big for your thief, your thief thinks it little enough: So every true man's apparel fits your thief.] Thus it stood in all the editions till Mr. Theobald's, and was, methinks, not very difficult to be understood, The plain and humourous sense of the speech is this. Every true man's apparel, which the thief robs him of, fits the thief. Why? Because, if it be too little for the thief, the true man thinks it big enough: i. e. a pur chase too good for him. So that this fits the thief in the opinion of the true man. But if it be too big for the thief, yet the thief thinks it little enough: i, e. of value little enough. So that this fits the thief in his own opinion. Where

we see, that the pleasantry of the joke consists in the equivocal sense of big enough, and little enough. Yet Mr. Theobald says, he can see no sense in all this, and therefore alters th the whole

thus:

"

Abhor. Every true man's apparel fits you? thief.

Glown. If it be too little for your true man, your thief thinks it big enough: if it be too big for your true man, your thief thinks it little enough.

1.

,

And for his alteration gives this extraordinary reason.- I am satisfied the poet intended a regular sollogism; and I submit it to judgement, whether my regulation has not restored that wit and humour which was quite lost in the depravation. But the place is "corrupt, though

१५

The

Mr. Theobald could not find it out. Let us consider it a little. The Hangman calls his trade a mistery: the Clown cannot conceive it. The Hangman undertakes to prove it in these words, Every true man's apparel, etc. but this proves the thief's trade a mistery, not the hangman's. Hence it appears, that the speech, in which the Hangman proved his trade a mistery, is lost. very words it is impossible to retrieve, but one may easily understand what medium he employed in proving it without doubt, the very same the Clown employed to prove the thief's trade a mistery; namely, that all sorts of clothes fitted the hangman. The Clown, on hearing this argu ment, replied, I suppose, to this effect: Why, by the same kind of reasoning, I can prove the thief's trade too to be a mistery. The other asks how, and the Clown goes on as above, Every true man's apparel fits your thief; if it be too little, etc. The jocular conlusion from the whole, being an insinuation that thief and hangman were rogues alike, This conjecture gives a a spirit and integrity to the dialogue, which, in its present mangled condition, is altogether wanting and shews why the argument of every true man's apparel, etc. was in all editions given to the Clown, to whom indeed it belongs; and likewise that the present reading of that argument is the true. WARBURTON.

If Dr. Warburton had attended to the argument

by which the Bawd proves his own profession to be ja mystery, he woul to take refuge in Would not have been driven the groundless supposition

that part of the dialogue had been lost or dropped. The argument of the Hangman is exactly similar to that of the Bawd. As the latter puts in his“