MEASURE FOR MEASURE. DUKE. ACT I. SCENE 1. Page 180. Then no more remains, But that to your sufficiency, as your worth is able, SUFFICIENCY is, no doubt, ability, and not authority, as Warburton conceives; and this shows that there is an omission in the speech of what the duke would have added concerning the authority which he meant to delegate. The most rational addition is that suggested by Mr. Tyrwhitt. It is remarkable that Dr. Johnson should contend for the introduction of a line of thirteen syllables! SCENE 1. Page 186. DUKE. Mortality and mercy in Vienna Live in thy tongue and heart. That is, "I delegate to thy tongue the power of pronouncing sentence of death, and to thy heart the privilege of exercising mercy." These are words of great import, and ought to be made clear, as on them depends the chief incident of the play. SCENE 2. Page 191. Lucio. Behold, behold, &c. This speech should have been given to the first gentleman, in order to correspond with the note, which is probably right. SCENE 2. Page 191. LUCIO. A French crown more. The quotations already given sufficiently exemplify the meaning; yet that which follows being remarkably illustrative, is offered in addition. "More seeming friendship [is] to be had in an house of transgression for a French crown, though it be a bald one, than at Belinsgate for a boxe o' th'eare." Vox graculi,or Jack Dawe's prognostication, 1623,4to, p. 60. SCENE 2. Page 192. 1. GENT. How now, which of your hips has the most profound sciatica? A most appropriate question to the bawd. The author of the facetious Latin comedy of Cornelianum dolium has named one of Cornelius's strumpets Sciatica. She thus speaks of herself; "In lectulo meo ægrè me vertere potui; podagram, chiragram, et hip-agram (si ita dicere liceat) nocte quotidie sensi." SCENE 2. Page 195. BAWD. What's to do here, Thomas Tapster? Why does she call the clown by this name, when it appears from his own showing that his name was Pompey? Perhaps she is only quoting some old saying or ballad. There is a prone and speechless dialect. One of the old significations of this word appears to have been easily moving, which is evidently the sense required in this place. See Cotgrave's Dictionary, in prone. SCENE 4. Page 203. DUKE. Where youth and cost and witless bravery keeps. Mr. Reed's explanation of this word as used for dwells, is confirmed by another passage in this play, Act IV. Scene 1. a breath thou art That dost this habitation where thou keep'st SCENE 5. Page 208. LUCIO. For that, which if myself might be his judge, It has been conceived that there is here a transposition at the press for "that for which." The emendation is more grammatical than harmonious; but the expression is quite in Shakspeare's manner. A few pages further on we have this similar phraseology: "Whether you had not sometime in your life Err'd in this point which now you censure him." SCENE 5. Page 211. LUCIO. Your brother and his lover. This term was applied to the female sex not only in Shakspeare's time, but even to a very late period. Lady Wortley Montagu in a letter to her husband, speaking of a young girl who forbade the bans of marriage at Huntingdon, calls her lover. See her works, vol. i. p. 238. ACT II. SCENE 1. Page 216. ESCAL. Let us be keen, and rather cut a little On the very plausible authority of a passage in As you like it, where the executioner is said to "fall his axe," the present metaphor has been supposed to refer also to the punishment of decapitation. If it be so, there is a manifest impropriety in the expression "cut a little," as we are not to imagine that Escalus would intend to chop off a criminal's hand, or to deprive him of his ears; both modes of punishment, which though frequently practised in the reign of Elizabeth, seem exclusively adapted to a community of barbarians. May not the metaphor be rather borrowed from the cutting down of timber, and Escalus mean to say, "Is it not better to lop off a few branches, than to fall the whole tree?" SCENE 1. Page 217. ANG. The jury, passing on the prisoner's life May, in the sworn twelve, have a thief or two, &c. We have here one of Shakspeare's trips; an English jury in a German court of justice. SCENE 1. Page 223. CLO. Your honours have seen such dishes; they are not China dishes, but very good dishes. We must not conclude with Mr Steevens that a China dish was such an uncommon thing in the age of Shakspeare. In the first act of Massinger's Renegado, this article is mentioned, together with crystal glasses and pictures, as composing the furniture of a broker's shop; and it appears from other authorities that China dishes were used at banquets. During the reign of Elizabeth several Spanish carracks were taken, a part of whose cargoes was China ware of porcelaine. The recent seizure by Philip II. of Portugal and its colonies led to this sort of commerce in the East Indies. In Minsheu's Spanish dialogues, 1623, folio, p. 12, China mettall is explained to be "the fine dishes of earth painted, such as are brought from Venice." It is very probable that we had this commodity by means of our traffic with Italy, which also supplied the term porcelaine. China ware was so called from its resemblance to the polished exterior of the concha Veneris or some other similar shell, which, for reasons that cannot here be given, was called porcellana. The curious reader may find a clue by consulting Florio's Italian dictionary, 1598, under the word porcile. In the time of Cromwell a duty of twenty shillings was paid on every dozen China dishes under a quart, and of sixty on those of a quart and upwards. See Oliverian acts, a. D. 1657. ISAB. SCENE 2. Page 238. spare him, spare him; He's not prepar'd for death! Even for our kitchens We kill the fowl of season. She means "not before it is in season; not prematurely, as you would kill my brother." SCENE 2. Page 240. ISAB. Could great men thunder As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet, For ev'ry pelting petty officer Would use his heaven for thunder; nothing but thunder. This fine sentiment, which nevertheless contains a very obvious fault in the mode of expressing it, appears to have been suggested by the following lines in Ovid's Tristia, lib. ii., that Shakspeare might have read in Churchyard's translation : "Si quoties peccant homines sua fulmina mittat SCENE 2. Page 240. ISAB. Merciful heaven! Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt There is much affinity between the above lines and these in Persius, sat. ii. : Ignovisse putas, quia, cum tonat, ocyus ilex Sulfure discutitur sacro, quam tuque domusque?" But although there were two or three editions of that author published in England in the reign of Elizabeth, he does not appear to have been then translated. ISAB. SCENE 2. Page 243. prayers from preserved souls, From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate Here is no metaphor from preserved fruits, as Warburton fancifully conceives. Preserved is used in its common and |