Let me intreat you, speak the former language. (4) Ifab. My brother did love Juliet; And you tell me, that he fhall die for it. Ang. He fhall not, label, if you give me love. Ifab. I know, your virtue hath a licence in't, (5) Which feems a little fouler than it is, To pluck on others. Ang. Believe me, on mine honour, My words exprefs my purpose. Ifab. Ha! little honour to be much believ'd, And moft pernicious purpose!-feeming, feeming! (6) I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for't: Sign me a prefent pardon for my brother, Or, with an out-ftretch'd throat, I'll tell the world Ang. Who will believe thee, Isabel? my life, My vouch against you, and my place i'th' state, (7) (4) -fpeak the FORMER language.] We should read FORMAL, which he here uses for plain, direct. WARBURTON. Ifabella answers to his circumlocutory courtship, that the has but one tongue, fhe does not understand this new phrafe, and defires bim to talk his former language, that is, to talk as he talked before. (5) I know your virtue bath a licence in't,] Alluding to the licences given by Ministers to their Spies, to go into all fufpected companies and join in the language of Malecontents. WARBURTON. (6) Seeming, feeming! ] Hypocrify, hypocrify; counterfeit virtue. (7) My vouch against you.] The calling his denial of her charge, his vouch, has fomething fiue. Vouch is the testimony one man bears for another. So that, by this, he infinuates his authority was fo great, that his denial would have the fame credit that a vouch or testimony has in ordinary cafes, WARBURTON. I believe this beauty is merely imaginary, and that vouch against means no more than denial, Or Or elfe he must not only die the death, (8) Anfwer me to-morrow; Say what you can; my falfe o'erweighs your true. [Exit. Bidding the law make curtly to their will; To fuch abhorr'd pollution. Then, Ifabel, live chafte; and, brother die; I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request; And fit his mind to death, for his foul's Reft. [Exit. ACT III. SCENE I. The Prifon. S% Enter Duke, Claudio, and Provost. DUKE. O, then you've hope of pardon from lord Angelo? Claud. The miferable have no other medicine, But only Hope I've hope to live, and am prepar'd to die. [8] die the death.] This feems to be a folemn phrase for death inflicted by law. So in Midsummer Night's Dream. Prepare to die the death. Duke. Be abfolute for death: (9) or death, or life, Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life; If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing, That none but fools would keep; (1) a breath thou art, That do this habitation, (2) where thou keep'ft, (9) Be absolute for death :] Be determined to die, without any hope of life. Horace. -The bour which exceeds expeɛation will be welcome. (1) That none but fools would keep ;] But this reading is not only contrary to all Senfe and Reason, but to the Drift of this moral Difcourfe. The Duke, in his affum'd Character of a Friar, is endeavouring to inftil into the condemn'd Prisoner a Resignation of Mind to his Sentence; but the Senfe of the Lines, in this Reading, is a direct Persuasive to Suicide: Į make no Doubt, but the Poet wrote, That none but Fools would reck, i. e. care for, be anxious about, regret the lofs of. So in the Tragedy of Tancred and Gismunde, Act 4. Scene 3. Not that be RECKs this life And Shakespeare in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, WARBURTON. The meaning seems plainly this, that m'ne but fools would wish 20 keep life; or, none but fools awould keep it, if choice were allowed. A fenfe, which, whether true or not, is certainly innocent. (2) That do this habitation,] This reading is fubftituted by Sir Thomas Hanmer, for that doft. (3) -meerly thou art Death's Fool ; For him thou labour'ft by thy flight to fhun, And yet runn'ft tow'rd him fill.] In those old Farces called moRALITIES, the Fool of the piece, in order to fhew the inevitable approaches of Death, is made to employ all his ftratagems to avoid him: which, as the matter is ordered, bring the Fool, at every turn, into his very jaws. So that the representations of these scenes would afford a great deal of good mirth and morals mixed together. And from fuch circumftances, in the genius of our ancestors publick diverfions, I fuppofe it was, that the old proverb arofe, of being merry and wife, WARBURTON. (4) Are nurs'd by bafenefs:] Dr. Warburton is undoubtedly mistaken in fuppofing that by bafeness is meant felf love, here affigned as VOL. II. C the For thou doft fear the foft and tender fork Of a poor worm (5). Thy beft of Reft is fleep, (6) And that thou oft provok'ft; yet grofly fear'st Thy death, which is no more. (7) Thou'rt not thyfelf, That iffue out of duft. Happy thou art not; Thou art not certain; For thy complexion fhifts to strange effects, (8) After the moon. the motive of all human actions. meant only to observe, "that a minute analysis of life at once deftroys that fplendour which dazzles the imagination. Whatever grandeur can display, or luxury enjoy, is procured by bafenefs, by offices of which the mind fhrinks from the contemplation. All the delicacies of the table may be traced back to the shambles and the duoghill, all magnificence of building was hewn from the quarry, and all the pomp of ornaments, dug from among the damps and darkness of the mine. Of a poor worm] Worm is put for any creeping thing or ferpent. Shakespeare fuppofes falfely, but according to the vulgar notion, that a ferpent wounds with his tongue, and that his to tongue is forked. He confounds reality and fiction, a ferpent's tongue is foft but not forked nor hurtful If it could hurt, it could not be soft. In Midfummer Night's Dream he has the fame notion. With doubler tongue Than thine, O ferpent, never adder fung. (6) — thy best of reft is fleep, And that thou oft provok'ft; yet gröfly fear'ft Thy death which is no more.- -] Evidently from the following paffage of Cicero: Habes fomnum imaginem Mortis, eamque quotidie induis, & dubitas quin fenfus in morte nullus fit, cum in ejus fimulacro videas effe nullum fenfum. But the Epicurean infinuation is, with great judgment, omitted in the imitation. WARBURTON. Here Dr. Warburton might have found a fentiment worthy of his animadverfion. I cannot without indignation find Shakespeare laying, that death is only fleep, lengthening out his exhortation by a sentence which in the Friar is impious, in the reafoner is foolish, and in the poet trite and vulgar. (7) Thou'rt not thyself;] Thou art perpetually repaired and renovated by external affiftance, thou fubfiftest upon foreign matter, and haft no power of producing or continuing thy own being. (8) frange effects,] For effects read affects; that is, affections, paffions of mind, or diforders of body variously affected. So in Othello, The young affects, Thou Thou bear'ft thy heavy riches but a journey, For ending thee no fooner. Thou haft nor youth, nor age; (9) But as it were an after-dinner's fleep, Dreaming on both; for all thy bleffed youth (1) (9) Thou haft nor youth, nor age; But as it were an after-dinner's fleep, Becomes Dreaming on both ;] This is exquisitely imagined. When we are young we bufy ourselves in forming schemes for fucceeding time and mifs 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 bufinefs of the present time, resembles our dreams after dinner when the events of the morning are mingled with the defigns of the evening. (1) For all thy bleed youth Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms Of palfied Eld; and when thou'rt old and rich, Thou haft neither beat, &c.] The drift of this period is to prove, that neither youth nor age can be faid to be really enjoyed, which, in poetical language, is,We have neither youth nor age. But how is this made out? That Age is not enjoyed he proves, by recapitulating the infirmities of it, which deprive that period of life of all fenfe of pleasure. To prove that Youth is not enjoyed, he uses thefe words, For all thy bleed youth becomes as aged, and do h beg the alms of palfied Eld. Out of which, he that can deduce the conclufion, has a better knack at logic than I have. fuppofe the Poot wrote, i. e. when thy youthful appetite becomes palled, as it will be in the very enjoyment, the blaze of youth is at once affuaged, and thou immediately contractest the infirmities of old age; as, particularly the palfie and other nervous disorders, consequent on the inordinate ufe of fenfual pleasures. This is to the purpofe; and proves Youth is not enjoyed by fhewing the fhort duration of it. WARBURTON. Here again I think Dr. Warburton totally mistaken. Shakespeare declares that Man, has neither youth nor age, for in youth, which is the happiest time, or which might be the happieft, he commonly wants means to obtain what he could enjoy; he is dependant C 2 од |