LUCIO. 'Tis true. I would not. Though 'tis my familiar sin

With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest,

lessness of either the transcriber or compositor. See a note on Love's Labour's Lost, Act II. Sc. I.:

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A man of sovereign, peerless, he's esteem'd." And another on Coriolanus, Act I. Sc. IV. :

"You shames of Rome! you herd of-Boils and plagues

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Plaster you o'er!" MALONE.

So

3 I would not-] i. e. Be assured, I would not mock you. afterwards: "Do not believe it:" i. e. Do not suppose that I would mock you. MALONE.

I am satisfied with the sense afforded by the old punctuation.

4

'tis my familiar sin

STEEVENS.

With maids to seem the LAPWING,] The Oxford editor's note on this passage is in these words: "The lapwings fly, with seeming fright and anxiety, far from their nests, to deceive those who seek their young." And do not all other birds do the same? But what has this to do with the infidelity of a general lover, to whom this bird is compared? It is another quality of the lapwing that is here alluded to, viz. its perpetual flying so low and so near the passenger, that he thinks he has it, and then is suddenly gone again. This made it a proverbial expression to signify a lover's falshood; and it seems to be a very old one: for Chaucer, in his Plowman's Tale, says:

"And lapwings that well conith lie." WARBURton. The modern editors have not taken in the whole similitude here: they have taken notice of the lightness of a spark's behaviour to his mistress, and compared it to the lapwing's hovering and fluttering as it flies. But the chief, of which no notice is taken, is,— "-and to jest." [See Ray's Proverbs.] "The lapwing cries, tongue far from heart; " i. e. most farthest from the nest; i. e. She is, as Shakspeare has it here,-Tongue far from heart. "The farther she is from her nest, where her heart is with her young ones, she is the louder, or, perhaps, all tongue." SMITH. Shakspeare has an expression of the like kind in his Comedy of Errors:

"Adr. Far from her nest the lapwing cries away; My heart prays for him, though my tongue do curse." We meet with the same thought in Lily's Campaspe, 1584, from whence Shakspeare might borrow it:

"Alex. you resemble the lapwing, who crieth most where her nest is not, and so, to lead me from espying your love for Campaspe, you cry Timoclea." GREY.

5

Tongue far from heart,-play with all virgins so 3:
I hold you as a thing ensky'd, and sainted;
By your renouncement, an immortal spirit;
And to be talk'd with in sincerity,

As with a saint.

ISAB. You do blaspheme the good, in mocking

me.

LUCIO. Do not believe it. Fewness and truth

'tis thus:

Your brother and his lover" have embrac'd:

5 'Tis true. I would not. Though 'tis my familiar sin With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest, Tongue far from heart,-play with all virgins so: &c.] This passage has been pointed in the modern editions thus: "'Tis true:-I would not (though "With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest, Tongue far from heart) play with all virgins so : "I hold you," &c.

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'tis my

familiar sin

According to this punctuation, Lucio is made to deliver a sentiment directly opposite to that which the author intended. Though 'tis my common practice to jest with and to deceive all virgins, I would not so play with all virgins.'

The sense, as I have regulated my text, appears to me clear and easy. 'Tis very true, (says he,) I ought indeed, as you say, to proceed at once to my story. Be assured, I would not mock you. Though it is my familiar practice to jest with maidens, and, like the lapwing, to deceive them by my insincere prattle, though, I say, it is my ordinary and habitual practice to sport in this manner with all virgins, yet I should never think of treating you so; for I consider you, in consequence of your having renounced the world, as an immortal spirit, as one to whom I ought to speak with as much sincerity as if I were addressing a saint.' MALONE.

Mr. Malone complains of a contradiction which I cannot find in the speech of Lucio. He has not said that it is his practice to jest with and deceive all virgins. "Though (says he) it is my practice with maids to seem the lapwing, I would not play with all virgins so;" meaning that she herself is the exception to his usual practice. Though he has treated other women with levity, he is serious in his address to her. STEEVENS.

6 FEWNESS and truth, &c.] i. e. in few words, and those true ones. In few, is many times thus used by Shakspeare. STEEVENS. 7 Your brother and his LOVER -] i. e. his mistress; lover, in our author's time, being applied to the female as well as the

As those that feed grow full; as blossoming time,
That from the seedness the bare fallow brings
To teeming foison; even so her plenteous womb
Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.

ISAB. Some one with child by him ?-My cousin
Juliet ?

male sex. Thus, one of his poems, containing the lamentation of a deserted maiden, is entitled, "A Lover's Complaint."

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So, in Tarleton's Newes out of Purgatory, bl. 1. no date : he spide the fetch, and perceived that all this while this was his lover's husband, to whom he had revealed these escapes."

MALONE.

The term was applied to the female sex, not only in Shakspeare's time, but even to a very late period. Lady Wortley Montague, in a letter to her husband, speaking of a young girl who forbade the banns of marriage at Huntingdon, calls her lover. See her works, vol. i. p. 238. BLAKEWAY.

8

As blossoming time,

That from the seedness the bare fallow brings

To teeming FOISON; even so-] As the sentence now stands, it is apparently ungrammatical. I read

"At blossoming time," &c.

That is, As they that feed grow full, so her womb now at blossoming time, at that time through which the seed time proceeds to the harvest, her womb shows what has been doing. Lucio ludicrously calls pregnancy blossoming time, the time when fruit is promised, though not yet ripe. JOHNSON.

Instead of that, we may read-doth; and, instead of brings, bring. Foizon is plenty. So, in The Tempest: nature should bring forth,

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"Of its own kind, all foizon," &c. Teeming foizon, is abundant produce. STEEVENS.

This passage seems to me to require no amendment; and the meaning of it is this: "As blossoming time proves the good tillage of the farmer, so the fertility of her womb expresses Claudio's full tilth and husbandry." By blossoming time is meant, the time when the ears of corn are formed. M. MASON.

This sentence, as Dr. Johnson has observed, is apparently ungrammatical. I suspect two half lines have been lost. Perhaps however an imperfect sentence was intended, of which there are many instances in these plays :-or, as might have been used in the sense of like. Tilth is tillage.

So, in our author's 3d Sonnet:

"For who is she so fair, whose unear'd womb

'Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?" MALONE,

LUCIO. Is she your cousin?

ISAB. Adoptedly: as school-maids change their

names,

By vain though apt affection.

LUCIO.

She it is.

This is the point.

ISAB. O, let him marry her!
LUCIO.
The duke is very strangely gone from hence;
Bore many gentlemen, myself being one,
In hand, and hope of action: but we do learn
By those that know the very nerves of state,
His givings out were of an infinite distance
From his true-meant design. Upon his place,
And with full line of his authority,

1

Governs lord Angelo; a man, whose blood
Is very snow-broth; one who never feels
The wanton stings and motions of the sense;
But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge
With profits of the mind, study and fast.
He (to give fear to use2 and liberty,
Which have, for long, run by the hideous law,
As mice by lions,) hath pick'd out an act,
Under whose heavy sense your brother's life
Falls into forfeit: he arrests him on it;
And follows close the rigour of the statute,
To make him an example: all hope is gone,
Unless you have the grace by your fair prayer

9 Bore many gentlemen,

3

In hand, and hope of action:] To bear in hand is a common phrase for to keep in expectation and dependance; but we should read:

So, in Macbeth :

"How you were borne in hand," &c. STEEVENS.

I -with FULL LINE-] With full extent, with the whole length. JOHNSON.

2

to give fear to USE-] To tices long countenanced by custom. 3 Unless you have the grace]

intimidate use, that is, pracJOHNSON.

That is, the acceptableness,

To soften Angelo: And that's my pith

4

Of business 'twixt you and your poor brother.
ISAB. Doth he so seek his life?

LUCIO.

Has censur'd him 5

Already; and, as I hear, the provost hath

A warrant for his execution.

ISAB. Alas! what poor ability's in me To do him good?

LUCIO.

Assay the power you have.

Our doubts are traitors,

ISAB. My power! Alas! I doubt,LUCIO. And make us lose the good we oft might win, By fearing to attempt: Go to lord Angelo, And let him learn to know, when maidens sue, Men give like gods; but when they weep and

kneel,

All their petitions are as freely theirs

6

the power of gaining favour. So, when she makes her suit, the Provost says:

"Heaven give thee moving graces!" JOHNSON.

my PITH

Of business-] The inmost part, the main of my message.
JOHNSON.

So, in Hamlet:

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And enterprises of great pith and moment." STEEVENS. 5 Has CENSURD HIM ] i. e. sentenced him. So, in Othello:

66

to you, lord governor,

"Remains the censure of this hellish villain." STEEVENS. We should read, I think, he has censured him, &c. In the MSS. of our author's time, and frequently in the printed copy of these plays, he has, when intended to be contracted, is writtenh'as. Hence probably the mistake here.

So, in Othello, 4to. 1622:

And it is thought abroad, that 'twixt my sheets "H'as done my office."

Again, in All's Well That Ends Well, p. 247, folio, 1623, we find H'as twice, for He has. See also Twelfth-Night, p. 258, edit. 1623"-h'as been told so," for "he has been told so."

Yet after all as Shakspeare and the writers of his time frequently omit the personal pronoun, this emendation may be unnecessary. MALONE.

"All their petitions are as FREELY theirs-] All their requests