SCENE II.

A Room in the Prison.

Enter Provost and Clown.

PROV. Come hither, sirrah: Can you cut off a man's head?

CLO. If the man be a bachelor, sir, I can but if he be a married man, he is his wife's head, and I can 'never cut off a woman's head.

PROV. Come, sir, leave me your snatches, and yield me a direct answer. To-morrow morning are to die Claudio and Barnardine: Here is in our prison a common executioner, who in his office lacks a helper: if you will take it on you to assist him, it shall redeem you from your gyves; if not, you shall have your full time of imprisonment, and your deliverance with an unpitied whipping; for you have been a notorious bawd.

p.

beginning of March you shall begin to sowe your barley upon that ground which the year before did lye fallow, and is commonly called tilth or fallow field." In your 74 of this book, a corruption, like our author's, occurs: "As before, I said beginne to failow your tithe field;" whlch is undoubtedly misprinted for tilth field. TOLLET.

Tilth is used for crop, or harvest, by Gower, De Confessione Amantis, lib. v. fol. 93, b. :

"To sowe cockill with the corne,

"So that the tilth is nigh forlorne,

"Which Christ sew first his owne honde."

Shakspeare uses the word tilth in a former scene of this play; ́and, (as Dr. Farmer has observed,) in its common acceptation: her plenteous womb

66

Expresseth its full tilth and husbandry."

Again, in The Tempest:

66

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. MALONE. an UNPITIED whipping;] i. e. an unmerciful one.

STEEVENS.

CLO. Sir, I have been an unlawful bawd, time out of mind; but yet I will be content to be a lawful hangman. I would be glad to receive some instruction from my fellow partner.

PROV. What ho, Abhorson! Where's Abhorson, there?

Enter ABHORSON.

ABHOR. Do you call, sir?

PROV. Sirrah, here's a fellow will help you tomorrow in your execution: If you think it meet, compound with him by the year, and let him abide here with you; if not, use him for the present, and dismiss him: He cannot plead his estimation with you; he hath been a bawd.

ABHOR. A bawd, sir? Fye upon him, he will discredit our mystery.

PROV. Go to, sir; you weigh equally; a feather will turn the scale. [Exit.

CLO. Pray, sir, by your good favour, (for, surely, sir, a good favour you have, but that you have a hanging look,) do you call, sir, your occupation a mystery?

ABHOR. Ay, sir; a mystery.

CLO. Painting, sir, I have heard say, is a mystery; and your whores, sir, being members of my occupation, using painting, do prove my occupation a mystery: but what mystery there should be in hanging, if I should be hang'd, I cannot imagine 7.

6 a good FAVOUR -] Favour is countenance. So, in Antony and Cleopatra :

"To publish such good tidings." STEEVENS.

7- what mystery, &c.] Though I have adopted an emendation independent of the following note, the omission of it would have been unwarrantable. STEEVENS.

"what mystery there should be in hanging, if I should be hang'd, I cannot imagine.

"Abhor. Sir, it is a mystery.

"Clo. Proof.

ABHOR. Sir, it is a mystery.

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 humorous 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 purchase 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 the whole thus:

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

"Clown. 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."

And for his alteration gives this extraordinary reason."1 am satisfied the poet intended a regular syllogism; and I submit it to judgment, whether my regulation has not restored that wit and humour which was quite lost in the depravation."—But the place is corrupt, though 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," &c. 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. The 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 argument, 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," &c. The jocular conclusion from the whole being an insinuation that thief and hangman were rogues alike. This conjecture gives 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," &c.

ABHOR. Every true man's apparel fits your thief®: If it be too little for your thief, your true man

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 a mystery, he would not have been driven to take refuge in 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 claim to the whores, as members of his occupation, and, in virtue of their painting, would enroll his own fraternity in the mystery of painters; so the former equally lays claim to the thieves, as members of his occupation, and, in their right, endeavours to rank his brethren, the hangmen, under the mystery of fitters of apparel, or tailors. The reading of the old editions is, therefore, undoubtedly right; except that the last speech, which makes part of the Hangman's argument, is, by mistake, as the reader's own sagacity will readily perceive, given to the Clown or Bawd. I suppose, therefore, the poet gave us the whole thus:

"Abhor. Sir, it is a mystery.

"Clown. Proof.

"Abhor. Every true man's apparel fits your thief: if it be too little for your thief, your true man thinks it big enough: if it be too thief thinks it little enough: so every true

big for your thief, your
man's apparel fits your thief."

I must do Dr. Warburton the justice to acknowledge, that he hath rightly apprehended and explained the force of the Hangman's argument. HEATH.

There can be no doubt but the word Clown, prefixed to the last sentence, "If it be too little," &c. should be struck out. It makes part of Abhorson's argument, who has undertaken to prove that hanging was a mystery, and convinces the Clown of it by this very speech. M. MASON.

Every TRUE MAN's apparel fits your thief:] So, in Promos and Cassandra, 1578, the Hangman says:

"Here is nyne and twenty sutes of apparell for my share." True man, in the language of ancient times, is always placed in opposition to thief.

So, in Churchyard's Warning to Wanderers Abroade, 1593: "The priuy thiefe that steales away our wealth,

"Is sore afraid a true man's steps to see." STEEVENS. Mr. Steevens seems to be mistaken in his assertion that true

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.

Re-enter Provost.

PROV. Are you agreed?

CLO. Sir, I will serve him; for I do find, your hangman is a more penitent trade than your bawd; he doth oftener ask forgiveness 9.

PROV. You, sirrah, provide your block and your axe to-morrow, four o'clock.

ABHOR. Come on, bawd; I will instruct thee in my trade; follow.

CLO. I do desire to learn, sir; and, I hope, if you have occasion to use me for your own turn, you shall find me yare: for, truly, sir, for your kindness, I owe you a good turn 2.

PROV. Call hither Barnardine and Claudio:

[Exeunt Clown and ABHORSON. Th'one has my pity; not a jot the other, Being a murderer, though he were my brother.

Enter CLAUDIO.

Look, here's the warrant, Claudio, for thy death:

man in ancient times was always placed in opposition to thief. At least in the Book of Genesis, there is one instance to the contrary, ch. xlii. v. 11: "We are all one man's sons: we are all true men; thy servants are no spies." HENLEY.

- ask forgiveness.] So, in As You Like It:

"Whose heart the accustom'd sight of death makes hard, "Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck,

"But first begs pardon." STEEVENS.

-yare:] i. e. handy, nimble in the execution of my office. So, in Twelfth-Night: "dismount thy tuck, be yare in thy preparation." Again, in Antony and Cleopatra :

2

"His ships are yare, yours heavy." STEEVENS,

a good turn.] i. e. a turn off the ladder. He quibbles on the phrase according to its common acceptation. FARMER.