Lucio. Thou'rt in the right, girl; more o'that. Isab. That in the captain's but a choleric word, Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

Lucio. Art advis'd o'that? more on't.

Ang. Why do you put these sayings upon me?
Isab. Because authority, though it err like others,
Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself,

That skins the vice o'the top: Go to your bosom;
Knock there; and ask your heart, what it doth know
That's like my brother's fault: if it confess

A natural guiltiness, such as is his,

Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue
Against my brother's life.

Ang.

She speaks, and 'tis

Such sense, that my sense breads with it.- -Fare you Isab. Gentle my lord, turn back.

[well.

Ang. I will bethink me :-Come again to-morrow.
Isab. Hark, how I'll bribe you: Good my lord, turn
Ang. How! bribe me?

[back.

Isab. Ay, with such gifts, that heaven shail share with
Lucio. You had marr'd all else.

Isab. Not with fond shekels' of the tested gold,
Or stones, whose rates are either rich, or poor,
As fancy values them: but with true prayers,
That shall be up at heaven, and enter there,
Ere sun-rise: prayers from preserved souls,
From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate
To nothing temporal.

[you.

[Aside to ISABEL.

Amen for I

[Aside.

— fond shekels-] Fond means very frequently in our author, foolish. It signifies in this place valued or prized by folly.-STEEVENS.

k

tested gold,] i. e. Brought to the test, cupelled, refined.-JOHNSON.

1 I am that way going to temptation,

Where prayers cross.] This appointment of his for the morrow's meeting, being a premeditated exposure of himself to temptation, and thus crossing the petition of the Lord's prayer, lead us not into temptation.-HENLEY.

Ang.

[Exeunt Lucio, ISABELLA, and Provost. From thee; even from thy virtue!

What's this? what's this? Is this her fault or mine?

The tempter or the tempted, who sins most? Ha!
Not she; nor doth she tempt: but it is I,
That lying by the violet, in the sun,

Do, as the carrion does, not as the flower,
Corrupt with virtuous season.m

Can it be,

That modesty may more betray our sense

Than woman's lightness? Having waste ground enough,
Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary,

And pitch our lives there? O, fy, fy, fy !
What dost thou? or what art thou, Angelo?

Dost thou desire her foully, for those things

That make her good? O, let her brother live :
Thieves for their robbery have authority,

When judges steal themselves. What? do I love her,
That I desire to hear her speak again,

And feast upon her eyes? What is't I dream on?
O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,
With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous
Is that temptation, that doth goad us on

To sin in loving virtue: never could the strumpet,
With all her double vigour, art, and nature,
Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid
Subdues me quite;-Ever till now,

When men were fond, I smil❜d and wonder'd how. [Exit."

m Corrupt with virtuous season.] I am not corrupted by her but my own heart, which excites foul desires under the same benign influences that exalt her purity, as the carrion grows putrid by those beams which increase the fragrance of the violet.-JOHNSON.

As a day must intervene between this conference of Isabella with Angelo, and the next, the act might now properly end here; and here, in my opinion, it was ended by the poet.-JOHNSON.

SCENE III..

A Room in a Prison.

Enter Duke, habited like a Friar, and Provost.

Duke. Hail to you, provost! so, I think you are. Prov. I am the provost: What's your will, good friar? Duke. Bound by my charity, and my bless'd order, I come to visit the afflicted spirits

Here in the prison: do me the common right

To let me see them; and to make me know

The nature of their crimes, that I may minister

To them accordingly.

Prov. I would do more than that, if more were needful..

Enter JULIET.

Look, here comes one; a gentlewoman of mine,

Who falling in the flames of her own youth,
Hath blister'd her report: She is with child;
And he that got it, sentenc'd: a young man
More fit to do another such offence,

Than die for this.

Duke.

When must he die?

Prov. As I do think to-morrow.

I have provided for you; stay a while,

And you shall be conducted.

[To JULIET.

Duke. Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry?
Juliet. I do; and bear the shame most patiently.

Duke. I'll teach you how you shall arraign your conAnd try your penitence, if it be sound,

Or hollowly put on.

Juliet.

I'll gladly learn.

Duke. Love you the man that wrong'd you

?

[science,

Juliet. Yes, as I love the woman that wrong'd him. Duke. So then, it seems, your most offenceful act Was mutually committed?

Juliet.

Mutually.

Duke. Then was your sin of heavier kind than his.
Juliet. I do confess it, and repent it, father.

Duke. 'Tis meet so, daughter: But lest you do repent,
As that the sin hath brought you to this shame,-
Which sorrow is always toward ourselves, not heaven;
Showing, we would not spare heaven, as we love it,
But as we stand in fear,-

Juliet. I do repent me, as it is an evil; And take the shame with joy.

Duke.

There rest.

Your partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow,
And I am going with instruction to him.-
Grace go with you! Benedicite!

Juliet. Must die to-morrow! O, injurious Love,1

[Exit.

Ang. When I would pray and think, I think and pray
To several subjects: heaven hath my empty words;
Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,
Anchors on Isabel: Heaven in my mouth,
As if I did but only chew his name;

And in my heart, the strong and swelling evil
Of my conception: The state, whereon I studied,
Is like a good thing, being often read,
Grown fear'd' and tedious; yea, my gravity,

१ O, injurious Love,] This place has been considered as corrupt.-Sir Thomas Hanmer proposes to read law.-The old folio has Love, printed with a capital, which I have restored.-Love is here spoken of by Juliet as the deity who had injuriously appointed her destiny.

r

invention,] i. e. Imagination.

- fear'd-] What we go to with reluctance may be said to be fear'd.— JOHNSON.

Wherein (let no man hear me) I take pride,

Could I, with boot, change for an idle plume,

Which the air beats for vane. O place! O form!
How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,
Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls
To thy false seeming? Blood, thou still art blood:
Let's write good angel on the devil's horn,

"Tis not the devil's crest."

Why does my blood thus muster to my heart;

Making both it unable for itself,

And dispossessing all the other parts

Of necessary fitness?

So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons;

Come all to help him, and so stop the air

By which he should revive: and even so

The general, subject to a well-wish'd king,
Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness
Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love
Must needs appear offence.'

Which the air beats for vane.] In this passage gravity appears to be used for rank and place, these Angelo would change, with boot,—with advantage,—for idle plume, for a useless feather, which the air beats for vane-which serves as a vane to tell the direction of the wind.

"Let's write good angel on the devil's horn,

'Tis not the devil's crest.] Though we should write good angel on the devil's horn, it will not change his nature, so as to give him a right to wear that crest. -M. MASON.

× The general,—] i. e. Generality, who are subject, &c.

y I cannot help thinking that in this passage, Shakspeare intended to flatter the unkingly weakness of James the First, which made him so impatient of the crowds that flocked to see him, especially upon his first coming, that, as some of our historians say, he restrained them by a proclamation. Sir Simonds d'Ewes, in his Memoirs of his own life (MS. in the British Museum), has a remarkable passage with respect to this humour of James. After taking notice, that the King going to Parliament, on the 30th of January, 1620-1."spake lovingly to the people, and said, God bless ye, God bless ye;" he adds these words, "contrary to his former haste and passionate custom, which often, in his sudden distemper, would bid a pox or a plague on such as flocked to see bim."-TYRWHITT.