Enter ISABElla.

How now, fair maid ?

ISAB.

I am come to know your pleasure. ANG. That you might know it, would much better please me,

Than to demand what 'tis. Your brother cannot

live.

ISAB. Even so ?-Heaven keep your honour!

[Retiring. ANG. Yet may he live a while; and, it may be, As long as you, or I: Yet he must die.

ISAB. Under your sentence?

ANG. Yea.

ISAB. When, I beseech you? that in his reprieve, Longer, or shorter, he may be so fitted,

That his soul sicken not.

ANG. Ha! Fye, these filthy vices! It were as good

To pardon him, that hath from nature stolen
A man already made, as to remit

Their sawcy sweetness, that do coin heaven's image,
In stamps that are forbid3: 'tis all as easy

hasty and passionate custom, which often, in his sudden distemper, would bid a pox or a plague on such as flocked to see him." TYRWHITT.

Mr. Tyrwhitt's apposite remark might find support, if it needed any, from the following passage in A True Narration of the Entertainment of his Royall Majestie, from the Time of his Departure from Edinbrogh, till his Receiving in London, &c. &c. 1603: "6 he was faine to publish an inhibition against the inordinate and dayly accesse of peoples comming," &c. STEEVENS. 2 that hath from nature stolen

A man already made,] i. e. that hath killed a man.

MALONE.

3 Their sawcy SWEETNESS, that do coin HEAVEN'S IMAGE, In STAMPS that are FORBID :] We meet with nearly the same words in King Edward III. a tragedy, 1596, certainly prior to this play:

6.

Falsely to take away a life true made *,
As to put mettle in restrained means
To make a false one.

"Commit high treason 'gainst the King of Heaven,
"To stamp his image in forbidden metal?"

These lines are spoken by the Countess of Salisbury, whose chastity (like Isabel's) was assailed by her sovereign.

Their sawcy sweetness Dr. Warburton interprets, their sawcy indulgence of their appetite. Perhaps it means nearly the same as what is afterwards called sweet uncleanness. MALONE.

Sweetness, in the present instance, has, I believe, the same sense as-lickerishness. STEEVENS.

4 FALSELY to take away a life true made,] Falsely is the same with dishonestly, illegally: so false, in the next line but one, is illegal, illegitimate. JOHNSON.

mettle in restrained MEANS,] In forbidden moulds. I suspect means not to be the right word, but I cannot find another. JOHNSON.

I should suppose that our author wrote

66 - in restrained mints,"

as the allusion may be still to coining. Sir W. D'Avenant omits the passage. STEEVENS.

Mettle, the reading of the old copy, which was changed to metal by Mr. Theobald, (who has been followed by the subsequent editors,) is supported not only by the general purport of the passage, (in which our author having already illustrated the sentiment he has attributed to Angelo by an allusion to coining, would not give the same image a second time,) but by a similar expression in Timon:

thy father, that poor rag,

"Must be thy subject; who in spite put stuff
"To some she-beggar, and compounded thee,
"Poor rogue hereditary."

Again, in The Winter's Tale:

"As rank as any flax-wench, that puts to,

"Before her troth-plight."

The controverted word is found again in the same sense in Mac

beth:

thy undaunted mettle should compose

Nothing but males."

Again, in King Richard II. :

"That mettle, that self-mould that fashion'd thee,

ISAB. Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth".

ANG. Say you so? then I shall poze you quickly. Which had you rather, That the most just law Now took your brother's life; or, to redeem him 7, Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness, As she that he hath stain'd?

Again, in Timon of Athens:

66

Common mother, thou,

"Whose womb unmeasurable, and infinite breast,
"Teems and feeds all; whose self-same mettle,

"Whereof thy proud child, arrogant man, is puff'd,
Engenders the black toad," &c.

Means is here used for medium, or object; and the sense of the whole is this: Tis as easy wickedly to deprive a man born in wedlock of life, as to have unlawful commerce with a maid, in order to give life to an illegitimate child.' The thought is simply, that murder is as easy as fornication; and the inference which Angelo would draw, is, that it is as improper to pardon the latter as the former. The words-to make a false one.evidently referring to life, show that the preceding line is to be understood in a natural, and not in a metaphorical, sense.

MALONE.

6 "Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth.] I would have it considered, whether the train of the discourse does not rather rether require Isabel to say:

66

"I shall poze

"Tis so set down in earth, but not in heaven.” When she has said this, Then," says Angelo, you quickly." Would you, who, for the present purpose, declare your brother's crime to be less in the sight of heaven, than the law has made it; would you commit that crime, light as it is, to save your brother's life? To this she answers, not very plainly in either reading, but more appositely to that which I propose :

"I had rather give my body than my soul." JOHNSON. What you have stated is undoubtedly the divine law: murder and fornication are both forbid by the canon of scripture ;—but on earth the latter offence is considered as less heinous than the former. MALONE.

7

So, in King John:

"Some sins do bear their privilege on earth,

"And so doth yours." STEEVENS.

OR, to redeem him,] The old copy has-and to redeem him. The emendation was made by Sir William D'Avenant.

MALONE.

Sir, believe this,

ISAB.

I had rather give my body than my soul".

ANG. I talk not of your soul; Our compell'd sins Stand more for number than accompt 9.

ISAB.

How say you? ANG. Nay, I'll not warrant that; for I can speak Against the thing I say, Answer to this ;I, now the voice of the recorded law, Pronounce a sentence on your brother's life: Might there not be a charity in sin,

To save this brother's life?

ISAB.

Please you to do't,

I'll take it as a peril to my soul,

It is no sin at all, but charity.

ANG. Pleas'd you to do't, at peril of your Were equal poize of sin and charity.

soul'

ISAB. That I do beg his life, if it be sin, Heaven, let me bear it! you granting of my suit,

8 I had rather GIVE MY BODY than my soul.] Isabel, I believe, uses the words, "give my body." in a different sense from that in which they had been employed by Angelo. She means, I think, "I had rather die, than forfeit my eternal happiness by the prostitution of my person." MALONE.

She may mean I had rather "give up my body to imprisonment, than my soul to perdition.". STEEVENS.

9Our compell'd sins

Stand more for NUMBER than ACCOMPT.] Actions to which we are compelled, however numerous, are not imputed to us by heaven as crimes. If you cannot save your brother but by the loss of your chastity, it is not a voluntary but compelled sin, for which you cannot be accountable. MALONE.

The old copy reads

"Stand more for number than for accompt."

I have omitted the second for, which had been casually repeated by the compositor. STEEVENS.

Pleas'd you to do't, at peril, &c.] The reasoning is thus: Angelo asks, whether there might "not be a charity in sin to save this brother." Isabella answers, that "if Angelo will save him, she will stake her soul that it were charity, not sin." Angelo replies, that if Isabella would "save him at the hazard of her soul, it would be not indeed no sin, but a sin to which the charity would be equivalent." JOHNSON..

If that be sin, I'll make it my morn prayer
To have it added to the faults of mine,
And nothing of your, answer 2.

ANG.

Nay, but hear me: Your sense pursues not mine: either you are igno

rant,

Or seem so, craftily; and that's not good.

ISAB. Let me be ignorant *, and in nothing good, But graciously to know I am no better.

ANG. Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright, When it doth tax itself: as these black masks Proclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder

5

2 And nothing of YOUR, answer.] I think it should be read"And nothing of yours, answer."

You, and whatever is yours, be exempt from penalty. JOHNSON. "And nothing of your answer," [as it stands in the old copy] means, ' and make no part of those sins for which you shall be called to answer.' STEEVENS.

'This passage would be clear, I think, if it were pointed thus: "To have it added to the faults of mine,

"And nothing of your, answer."

So that the substantive answer may be understood to be joined in construction with mine as well as your. The faults of mine answer are the faults which I am to answer for. TYRWHITT.

3-craftily:] The old copy reads-crafty. Corrected by Sir William D'Avenant. MALONE.

4 Let ME be ignorant,] Me is wanting in the original copy. The emendation was made by the editor of the second folio. MALONE. 5 Proclaim an ENSHIELD beauty-] An enshield beauty is a shielded beauty, a beauty covered or protected as with a shield.' STEEVENS.

66 as these black masks Proclaim an enshield beauty," &c. This should be written enshell'd, or in-shell'd, as it is in Coriolanus, Act IV. Sc. VI. :

66

Thrusts forth his horns again into the world

"That were in-shell'd when Marcius stood for Rome." These masks must mean, I think, the masks of the audience however improperly a compliment to them is put into the mouth of Angelo. As Shakspeare would hardly have been guilty of such an indecorum to flatter a common audience, I think this passage affords ground for supposing that the play was written to be acted at court. Some strokes of particular flattery to the King I have already pointed out; and there are several other general reflec