ESCAL. No, Pompey.

8

CLO. Truly, sir, in my poor opinion, they will to't then If your worship will take order for the drabs and the knaves, you need not to fear the bawds.

ESCAL. There are pretty orders beginning, I can tell you: It is but heading and hanging.

CLO. If you head and hang all that offend that way but for ten year together, you'll be glad to give out a commission for more heads. If this law hold in Vienna ten year, I'll rent the fairest house in it, after three pence a bay 9: If you live to see this come to pass, say, Pompey told you so.

ESCAL. Thank you, good Pompey: and, in requital of your prophecy, hark you,-I advise you, let me not find you before me again upon any complaint whatsoever, no, not for dwelling where you do; if I do, Pompey, I shall beat you to your tent, and prove a shrewd Cæsar to you; in plain dealing, Pompey, I shall have you whipt: so for this time, Pompey, fare you well.

CLO. I thank your worship for your good counsel; but I shall follow it, as the flesh and fortune shall better determine.

8 take order-] i. e. take measures. So, in Othello: "Honest Iago hath ta'en order for't." STEEVENS.

9-I'll rent the fairest house in it, after three pence a BAY :] A bay of building is, in many parts of England, a common term, of which the best conception that ever I could obtain is, that it is the space between the main beams of the roof; so that a barn crossed twice with beams is a barn of three bays. JOHNSON.

66 that by the yearly birth

"The large-bay'd barn doth fill," &c.

I forgot to take down the title of the work from which this instance is adopted. Again, in Hall's Virgidemiarum, lib. iv.: "His rent in faire respondence must arise, "To double trebles of his one yeares price; "Of one bayes breadth, God wot, a silly cote "Whose thatched spars are furr'd with sluttish soote."

STEEVENS.

Whip me? No, no; let carmen whip his jade;
The valiant heart's not whipt out of his trade.

[Exit. ESCAL. Come hither to me, master Elbow ; come hither, master Constable. How long have you been in this place of constable?

ELB. Seven year and a half, sir.

ESCAL. I thought, by your readiness' in the office, you had continued in it some time: You say, seven years together?

ELB. And a half, sir.

ESCAL. Alas! it hath been great pains to you! They do you wrong to put you so oft upon't: Are there not men in your ward sufficient to serve it?

ELB. Faith, sir, few of any wit in such matters: as they are chosen, they are glad to choose me for them; I do it for some piece of money, and go through with all.

ESCAL. Look you, bring me in the names of some six or seven, the most sufficient of your parish.

ELB. To your worship's house, sir?

ESCAL. To my house: Fare you well. [Exit ELBOW.] What's o'clock, think you?

JUST. Eleven, sir.

ESCAL. I pray you home to dinner with me.
JUST. I humbly thank you.

ESCAL. It grieves me for the death of Claudio;

But there's no remedy.

JUST. Lord Angelo is severe.

ESCAL

It is but needful:

Mercy is not itself, that oft looks so;
Pardon is still the nurse of second woe:

1

by YOUR readiness-] Old copy-the readiness. Corrected by Mr. Pope. In the MSS. of our author's age, yo. and y'. (for so they were frequently written) were easily confounded. MALONE.

But yet,-Poor Claudio!-There's no remedy.

Come, sir.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Another Room in the Same.

Enter Provost and a Servant.

SERV. He's hearing of a cause; he will come straight.

I'll tell him of you.

PROV. Pray you, do. [Exit Servant.] I'll know
His pleasure; may be, he will relent: Alas,
He hath but as offended in a dream!

All sects, all ages smack of this vice; and he
To die for it!-

ANG.

Enter ANGELO.

Now, what's the matter, provost ? PROV. Is it your will Claudio shall die to-mor

row?

ANG. Did I not tell thee, yea? hadst thou not order?

Why dost thou ask again?

Lest I might be too rash :

PROV.
Under your good correction, I have seen,
When, after execution, judgment hath
Repented o'er his doom.

ANG.

Go to; let that be mine:

I crave your honour's pardon.

Do you your office, or give up your place,
And you shall well be spar'd.

PROV.
What shall be done, sir, with the groaning Juliet?
She's very near her hour.

ANG.

Dispose of her

To some more fitter place; and that with speed.

Re-enter Servant.

SERV. Here is the sister of the man condemn'd, Desires access to you.

ANG.

Hath he a sister?

PROV. Ay, my good lord; a very virtuous maid, And to be shortly of a sisterhood,

If not already.

ANG.

Well, let her be admitted.

[Exit Servant.

See you, the fornicatress be remov'd;

Let her have needful, but not lavish, means;
There shall be order for it.

Enter Lucio and Isabella.

3

PROV. Save your honour! [Offering to retire. ANG. Stay a little while 3.-[To ISAB.] You are welcome: What's your will?

ISAB. I am a woeful suitor to your honour, Please but your honour hear me.

2 * Save YOUR HONOUR!] Your honour, which is so often repeated in this scene, was in our author's time the usual mode of address to a lord. It had become antiquated after the Restoration; for Sir William D'Avenant, in his alteration of this play, has substituted your excellence in the room of it. MALONE.

3 Stay a little while.] It is not clear why the Provost is bidden to stay, nor when he goes out. JOHNSON.

The entrance of Lucio and Isabella should not, perhaps, be made till after Angelo's speech to the Provost, who had only announced a lady, and seems to be detained as a witness to the purity of the deputy's conversation with her. His exit may be fixed with that of Lucio and Isabella. He cannot remain longer, and there is no reason to think he departs before. RITSON.

Stay a little while, is said by Angelo, in answer to the words, Save your honour; which denoted the Provost's intention to depart. Isabella uses the same words to Angelo, when she goes out, near the conclusion of this scene. So also, when she offers to retire, on finding her suit ineffectual: "Heaven keep your honour!" MALONE.

ANG.

Well; what's your suit? ISAB. There is a vice, that most I do abhor,

And most desire should meet the blow of justice;
For which I would not plead, but that I must;
For which I must not plead, but that I am
At war, 'twixt will, and will not *.

ANG.

Well; the matter?

ISAB. I have a brother is condemn'd to die: I do beseech you, let it be his fault,

And not my

PROV.

brother".

Heaven give thee moving graces! ANG. Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it! Why, every fault's condemn'd, ere it be done : Mine were the very cipher of a function,

To fine the faults, whose fine stands in record,
And let go by the actor.

4 For which I must not plead, but that I am

At war, 'twixt WILL, and WILL NOT.] This is obscure; perhaps it may be mended by reading:

"For which I must now plead; but yet I am

"At war, 'twixt will, and will not."

Yet and yt are almost undistinguishable in an ancient manuscript. Yet no alteration is necessary, since the speech is not unintelligible as it now stands. JOHNSON.

"For which I must not plead, but that I am

"At war, 'twixt will, and will not." i. e. for which I must not plead, but that there is a conflict in my breast betwixt my affection for my brother, which induces me to plead for him, and my regard to virtue, which forbids me to intercede for one guilty of such a crime; and I find the former more powerful than the latter. MALONE.

And not my brother.] i. e. let his fault be condemned, or extirpated, but let not my brother himself suffer. MALONE.

TO FINE the faults,] To fine means, I think, to pronounce the fine or sentence of the law, appointed for certain crimes. Mr. Theobald, without necessity, reads find. The repetition is much in our author's manner. MALONE.

Theobald's emendation may be justified by a passage in King Lear :

"All's not offence that indiscretion finds,
"And dotage terms so." STEEvens.