knows nothing of the meaning of it. He supposes bay to be that projection called a bay-window; as if the way of rating houses was by the number of their bay-windows. But it is quite another thing, and signifies the squared frame of a timber house; each of which divisions or squares is called a bay. Hence a building of so many bays. WARBURTON. 20 And mercy then will breathe within your lips, Like man new made.] This is a fine thought, and finely expressed. The meaning is, that mercy will add such a grace to your person, that you will appear as amiable as a man come fresh out of the hands of his Creator. WARBURTON. I rather think the meaning is, You would then change the severity of your present character. In familiar speech, You would be quite another man. JOHNSON. 21 -gnarled oak,] Gnarre is the old English word for a knot in the wood. 29who, with our spleens, Would all themselves laugh mortal.] STEEVENS. Mr. Theobald says the meaning of this is, that if they were endowed with our spleens and perishable organs, they would laugh themselves out of immortality: Which amounts to this, that if they were mortal, they would not be immortal. Shakspeare meant no such nonsense. By spleens, he meant that peculiar turn of the human mind, that always inclines it to a spiteful, unseasonable mirth. Had the angels that, says Shakspeare, they would laugh themselves out of their immortality, by indulging a passion which does not deserve that prerogative. The ancients thought, that immoderate laughter was caused by the bigness of the spleen. 23 -She speaks, and 'tis WARBURTON. Such sense, that my sense breeds with it.] Mr. Malone here appears to me to give the true meaning of Shakspeare. Angelo by his own sense means his lust, which is stirred more fiercely by the worth of Isabella. So afterwards, Can it be 'That modesty may more betray our sense, 24 I smil'd, and wonder'd how.] As a day must now intervene between this conference of Isabella with Angelo, and the next, the act might more properly end here; and here, in my opinion, it was ended by the poet. JOHNSON. 25 Let's write good angel on the devil's horn, 'Tis not the devil's crest.] i. e. Let the most wicked thing have but a virtuous pretence, and it shall pass for innocent. This was his conclusion from his preceding words, -O form! How often dost thou with thy case, thy kabit, But the Oxford editor makes him conclude just counter to his own premises; by altering it to, Is't not the devil's crest? So that, according to this alteration, the reasoning stands thus.-False seeming wrenches awe from fools, and deceives the wise. Therefore, Let us but write good angel on the devil's horn, (i. e. give him the appearance of an angel;) and what then? Is't not the devil's crest? (i. e. he shall be esteemed a devil.) WARBURTON. I am still inclined to the opinion of the Oxford editor. Angelo, reflecting on the difference between his seeming character, and his real disposition, observes, that he could change his gravity for a plume. He then digresses into an apostrophe, O dignity, how dost thou impose upon the world! then returning to himself, Blood, says he, thou art but blood, however concealed with appearances and decorations. Title and character do not alter nature, which is still corrupt, however dignified. Let's write good angel on the devil's horn; Is't not?—or rather—'Tis yet the devil's crest. It may however be understood, according to Dr. Warburton's explanation, O place, how dost thou impose upon the world by false appearances! so much, that if we write good angel on the devil's horn, 'tis not taken any longer to be the devil's crest. In this sense, Blood, thou art but blood! is an interjected exclamation. JOHNSON. 26 But in the loss of question,)] The loss of question I do not well understand, and should rather read, But in the toss of question. In the agitation, in the discussion of the question. To toss an argument is a common phrase. JOHNSON. But by loss of question. This expression I believe means, but in idle supposition, or conversation that tends to nothing, which may therefore, in our author's language, be call'd the loss of question. Question, in Shakspeare, often bears this meaning. STEEVENS. 66 27 If not a feodary, but only he, &c.] This is so obscure, but the allusion so fine, that it deserves to be explained. A feodary was one that in the times of vassalage held lands of the chief lord, under the tenure of paying rent and service: which tenures were called feuda amongst the Goths. Now, says Angelo, "we are all frail: yes, replies Isabella; if all mankind were not feodaries, who owe what they are to this "tenure of imbecillity, and who succeed each other 66 'by the same tenure, as well as my brother, I would "give him up." The comparing mankind, lying under the weight of original sin, to a feodary, who owes suit and service to his lord, is, I think, not ill imagined. WARBURTON. 29 In profiting by them.] In imitating them, in taking them for examples. JOHNSON. "Dr. Johnson," says a writer in the Edinburgh Magazine, "does not seem to have understood this passage. Isabella certainly does not mean to say that men mar their own creation by taking women for examples. Her meaning is, that men debase their nature by taking advantage of such weak pitiful creatures. 29 -Seeming, seeming !-] Hypocrisy, hypocrisy! counterfeit virtue ! 30-prompture-] Instigation. JOHNSON. 31 That dost this habitution,] Sir T. Hanmer reads do for dost, and uses no parenthesis to inclose Servile to all the skiey influences.' This reading I am sorry that he had no authority for, as I confess it pleases me better than Mr. Steevens's text. The doctrine of fatality is common enough to Shakspeare, and I either do discover or fancy that I do, more of his strength of expression, in the idea of the influences of heaven afflicting man, than in 'man's body,' or the 'habitation of his life, being afflicted by his life itself, 32 -Thou hast nor youth, nor age; But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep, This is exquisitely imagined. When we are young; we busy ourselves in forming schemes for succeeding time, and miss the gratifications that are before us; when we are old, we amuse the languor of age with the recollection of youthful pleasures or performances; so that our life, of which no part is filled with the business of the present time, resembles our dreams after dinner, when the events of the morning aré mingled with the designs of the evening. JOHNSON. 93 leiger:] Leiger is the same with resident. JOHNSON. 94 His filth being cast,] To cast a pond is to empty it of its mud. |