And let it keep one shape, till custom make it
Their perch, and not their terror.

Escal.

Ay, but yet

Let us be keen, and rather cut a little,

Than fall and bruise to death: 2 Alas! this gentleman, Whom I would save, had a most noble father.

Let but your honour know,3

(Whom I believe to be most strait in virtue)
That, in the working of your own affections,

Had time coher'd with place, or place with wishing,
Or that the resolute acting of your blood

Could have attain'd the effect of your own purpose,
Whether you had not sometime in your life
Err'd in this point which now you censure him,*

"Thy provost, to see execution done

"On these base Christians in Cæsarea." Steevens.

A prison for military offenders is at this day, in some places, called the Prevôt. Malone.

The Provost here, is not a military officer, but a kind of sheriff or gaoler, so called in foreign countries. Douce.

1

to fear the birds of prey,] To fear is to affright, to terrify. So, in The Merchant of Venice:

this aspect of mine

"Hath fear'd the valiant." Steevens.

2 Than fall, and bruise to death:] I should rather read fell, e. strike down. So, in Timon of Athens:

66 All save thee,

"I fell with curses."

Warburton.

Fall is the old reading, and the true one. Shakspeare has used the same verb active in The Comedy of Errors:

as easy may'st thou fall

"A drop of water,”

i. e. let fall. So, in As you

66

Like it:

the executioner

"Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck." Steevens. Than fall, and bruise to death:] i. e. fall the axe;-or rather, let the criminal fall, &c. Malone.

3 Let but your honour know,] To know is here to examine, to take cognizance. So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream:

"Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires;

"Know of your youth, examine well your blood." Johnson. 4 Err'd in this point, which now you censure him,] Some word seems to be wanting to make this line sense. Perhaps, we should read:

"Err'd in this point which now you censure him for. Steevens.

And pull'd the law upon you.

Ang. 'Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus, Another thing to fall. I not deny,

The jury, passing on the prisoner's life,

May, in the sworn twelve, have a thief or two

Guiltier than him they try: What's open made to

justice,

That justice seizes.5

What know the laws,

That thieves do pass on thieves? 'Tis very pregnant,"
The jewel that we find, we stoop and take it,
Because we see it; but what we do not see,
We tread upon, and never think of it.

You may not so extenuate his offence,

For I have had such faults; but rather tell me,
When I, that censure him, do so offend,
Let mine own judgment pattern out my death,
And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die.
Escal. Be it as your wisdom will.
Ang.

Where is the provost?

Prov. Here, if it like your honour.
Ang.

See that Claudio

Be executed by nine to-morrow morning:

The sense undoubtedly requires, 66 which now you censure him for," but the text certainly appears as the poet left it. I have elsewhere shewn that he frequently uses these elliptical expressions. Malone.

5 That justice seizes.] For the sake of metre, I think we should read,-seizes on, or, perhaps, we should regulate the passage thus;

6

Guiltier than him they try: What's open made

To justice, justice seizes. What know, &c. Steevens.

What know the laws,

That thieves do pass on thieves?] How can the administrators of the laws take cognizance of what I have just mentioned? How can they know, whether the jurymen who decide on the life or death of thieves be themselves as criminal as those whom they try? To pass on is a forensick term. Malone.

So, in King Lear, Act III, sc. vii:

"Though well we may not pass upon his life." See my note on this passage. Steevens.

7'Tis very pregnant,] 'Tis plain that we must act with bad as with good; we punish the faults, as we take the advantages that lie in our way, and what we do not see we cannot note. Johnson. 8 For I have bad-] That is, because, by reason that I have had such faults. Johnson,

Bring him his confessor, let him be prepar'd;
For that's the utmost of his pilgrimage.

[Exit Pro. Escal. Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all! Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall:

Some run from brakes of vice, and answer none:
And some condemned for a fault alone.9

9 Some rise, &c.] This line is in the first folio printed in Italics as a quotation. All the folios read in the next line :

Some run from brakes of ice, and answer none. Johnson. The old reading is, perhaps, the true one, and may mean, some run away from danger, and stay to answer none of their faults, whilst others are condemned only on account of a single frailty. If this be the true reading, it should be printed:

Some run from breaks [i. e. fractures] of ice, &c.

Since I suggested this, I have found reason to change my opinion. A brake anciently meant not only a sharp bit, a snaffle, but also the engine with which farriers confined the legs of such unruly horses as would not otherwise submit themselves to be shod, or to have a cruel operation performed on them. This, in some places, is still called a smith's brake. In this last sense, Ben Jonson uses the word in his Unterwoods:

"And not think he had eat a stake,

"Or were set up in a brake."

And, for the former sense, see The Silent Woman, Act IV Again, for the latter sense, Bussy d'Ambois, by Chapman : "Or, like a strumpet, learn to set my face

"In an eternal brake."

Again, in The Opportunity, by Shirley, 1640:

"He is fallen into some brake, some wench has tied him by the legs."

Again, in Holland's Leaguer, 1633:

her I'll make

"A stale, to catch this courtier in a brake.”

I offer these quotations, which may prove of use to some more fortunate conjecturer; but am able myself to derive very little from them to suit the passage before us.

I likewise find from Holinshed, p. 670, that the brake was an engine of torture. "The said Hawkins was cast into the Tower, and at length brought to the brake, called the Duke of Excester's daughter, by means of which pain he shewed many things," &c.

"When the Dukes of Exeter and Suffolk (says Blackstone, in his Commentaries, Vol. IV, chap. xxv, p. 320, 321) and other ministers of Hen. VI, had laid a design to introduce the civil law into this kingdom as the rule of government, for a beginning thereof they erected a rack for torture; which was called in de rision the Duke of Exeter's Daughter, and still remains in the

Enter ELBOW, FROTH, Clown, Officers, &c.

Elb. Come, bring them away: if these be good people in a common-weal, that do nothing but use their

Tower of London, where it was occasionally used as an engine of state, not of law, more than once in the reign of Queen Elizabeth." See Coke's Instit. 35, Barrington, 69, 385, and Fuller's Worthies, p. 317.

A part of this horrid engine still remains in the Tower. It consists of a strong iron frame about six feet long, with three rollers of wood within it. The middle one of these, which has iron teeth at each end, is governed by two stops of iron, and was, probably, that part of the machine which suspended the powers of the rest, when the unhappy sufferer was sufficiently strained by the cords, &c. to begin confession. I cannot conclude this account of it without confessing my obligation to Sir Charles Frederick, who politely condescended to direct my inquiries, while his high command rendered every part of the Tower accessible to my researches.

I have since observed that, in Fox's Martyrs, edit. 1596, p. 1843, there is a representation of this machine. To this also, Skelton, in his Why come ye not to Court, seems to allude: "And with a cole rake

"Bruise them on a brake."

If Shakspeare alluded to this engine, the sense of the contested passage will be: Some run more than once from engines of punishment, and answer no interrogatories: while some are condemned to suffer for a single trespass.

It should not, however, be dissembled, that yet a plainer meaning may be deduced from the same words. By brakes of vice may be meant a collection, a number, a thicket of vices. The same image occurs in Daniel's Civil Wars, B. IV:

Rushing into the thickest woods of spears, "And brakes of swords," &c.

That a brake meant a bush, may be known from Drayton's poem on Moses and his Miracles:

"Where God unto the Hebrew spake,

66

Appearing from the burning brake."

Again, in The Mooncalf of the same author:

"He brings into a brake of briars and thorn,

"And so entangles."

Mr. Tollet is of opinion that, by brakes of vice, Shakspeare means only the thorny paths of vice.

So, in Ben Jonson's Underwoods, Whalley's edit. Vol. VI,

p. 367:

"Look at the false and cunning man, &c..

"Crush'd in the snakey brakes that he had past." Steevens. The words-answer none (that is, make no confession of guilt) evidently shew that brake of vice here means the engine of torture. The same mode of question is again referred to in Act V

abuses in common houses, I know no law: bring them

away.

Ang. How now, sir! What's your name? and what's the matter?

Elb. If it please your honour, I am the poor duke's constable, and my name is Elbow; I do lean upon justice, sir, and do bring in here before your good honour two notorious benefactors.

Ang. Benefactors? Well; what benefactors are they? are they not malefactors?

Elb. If it please your honour, I know not well what they are: but precise villains they are, that I am sure of: and void of all profanation in the world, that good christians ought to have.

Escal. This c mes off well; here's a wise officer. Ang. Go to: what quality are they of? Elbow is your name? Why dost thou not speak, Elbow?2

"To the rack with him: we 'll touze you joint by joint, "But we will know this purpose."

The name of brake of vice, appears to have been given this machine, from its resemblance to that used to subdue vicious horses; to which Daniel thus refers:

"Lyke as the brake within the rider's hande

"Doth straine the horse nye wood with grief of paine,
"Not us'd before to come in such a band," &c.

Henley.

I am not satisfied with either the old or present reading of this very difficult passage; yet have nothing better to propose. The modern reading, vice, was introduced by Mr. Rowe. In King Henry VIII, we have

""Tis but the fate of place, and the rough brake
"That virtue must go through.

Malone.

This comes off well;] This is nimbly spoken; this is volubly uttered. Johnson.

The same phrase is employed in Timon of Athens, and elsewhere; but in the present instance it is used ironically. The meaning of it, when seriously applied to speech, is-This is well delivered, this story is well told. Steevens.

2 Why dost thou not speak, Elbow?] Says Angelo to the constable. "He cannot, sir, (quoth the Clown) he 's out at elbow." I know not whether this quibble be generally understood: he is out at the word elbow, and out at the elbow of his coat. The Constable, in his account of master Froth and the Clown, has a stroke at the Puritans, who were very zealous against the stage about this time: "Precise villains they are, that I am sure of; and void of all profanation in the world, that good christians ought to have." "Farmer.