How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit, I adhere to the old reading.-As fair is known to have been repeatedly used by Shakspeare, Marston, &c. for fairness, vain might have been employed on the present occasion, instead of vanity. Pure is also substituted for purity in England's Helicon. See likewise notes on The Midsummer Night's Dream, Act I, sc. i, and The Comedy of Errors, Act II, sc. i. Again, in Love's Labour's Lost, foul is given, as a substantive, to express foulness. The air is represented by Angelo as chastising the plume for being vain. A feather is exhibited by many writers as the emblem of vanity. Shakspeare himself, in K. Henry VIII, mentions fool and feather as congenial objects. That the air beats the plume for its vainness, is a supposition fanciful enough; and yet it may be paralleled by an image in K. Edward III, 1599, where flags are made the assailants, and "cuff the air, and beat the wind" that struggles to kiss them. The pronoun thou, referring to the double antecedents place and form, ought to be no objection, for, a little further on, the Duke says: "O place and greatness! millions of false eyes "Are stuck upon thee." We have all heard of Town-bulls, Town-balls, Town-clocks, and Town-tops; but the vane o' the place (meaning a thing of general property, and proverbially distinct from private ownership) is, to me at least, an idea which no example has hitherto countenanced.-I may add, that the plume could be no longer idle, if it served as an index to the wind:-and with whatever propriety the vane in some petty market-town might be distinguished, can we conceive there was only a single weathercock in so large a city as Vienna, where the scene of this comedy is laid? Steevens. 5- case,] For outside; garb; external show. Johnson. 6 Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls To thy false seeming?] Here Shakspeare judiciously distinguishes the different operations of high place upon different minds. Fools are frighted, and wise men are allured. Those who cannot judge but by the eye, are easily awed by splendour; those who consider men as well as conditions, are easily per suaded to love the appearance of virtue dignified with power. Johnson. Blood, thou still art blood:] The old copy reads-Blood, thou art blood. Mr. Pope, to supply the syllable wanting to complete the metre, reads-Blood, thou art but blood! But the word now introduced appears to me to agree better with the context, and therefore more likely to have been the author's.Blood is used here, as in other places, for temperament of body. Malone.. Let's write good angel on the devil's horn, 8 Let's write good angel on the devil's born, 'Tis not the devil's crest.] i. e. Let the most wicked thing have but a virtuous pretence, and it shall pass for innocent. This was his conclusion from his preceding words: -O form! How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit, Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls But the Oxford editor makes him conclude just counter to his own premises; by altering it to, Is 't not the devil's crest? So that, according to this alteration, the reasoning stands thus:-False seeming, wrenches awe from fools, and deceives the wise. Therefore, Let us but write good angel on the devil's born, (i. e. give him the appearance of an angel ;) and what then? Is 't not the devil's crest? (i. e. he shall be esteemed a devil.) Warburton. I am still inclined to the opinion of the Oxford editor. Angelo, reflecting on the difference between his seeming character, and his real disposition, observes, that he could change his gravity for a plume. He then digresses into an apostrophe, O dignity, how dost thou impose upon the world! then returning to himself, Blood (says he) thou art but blood, however concealed with appearances and decorations. Title and character do not alter nature which is still corrupt, however dignified: Let's write good angel on the devil's horn; Is 't not?-or rather—'Tis yet the devil's crest. It may however be understood, according to Dr. Warburton's explanation. O place, how dost thou impose upon the world by false appearances! so much that if we write good angel on the devil's born, 'tis not taken any longer to be the devil's crest. this sense. Blood, thou art but blood! is an interjected exclamation. Johnson. In A Hebrew proverb seems to favour Dr. Johnson's reading: -'Tis yet the devil's crest." "A nettle standing among myrtles, doth notwithstanding retain the name of a nettle." Steevens. This passage, as it stands, appears to me to be right, and Angelo's reasoning to be this: "O place! O form! though you wrench awe from fools, and tie even wiser souls to your false seeming, yet you make no alteration in the minds or constitutions of those who possess, or assume you.-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." It is well known that the crest was formerly chosen either as emblematical of some quality conspicuous in the person who bore it, or as alluding to VOL. III. I i Enter Servant. How now, who's there? Serv. One Isabel, a sister, Teach her the way. [Exit Serv. Desires access to you. O heavens! Why does my blood thus muster to my heart;9 And dispossessing all my other parts Of necessary fitness? So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons; By which he should revive: and even so some remarkable incident of his life; and on this circumstance depends the justness of the present allusion. M. Mason. It should be remembered, that the devil is usually represented with borns and cloven feet. The old copy appears to me to require no alteration. Malone. 9to my heart;] Of this speech there is no other trace in Promos and Cassandra, than the following: "Both hope and dreade at once my harte doth tuch." Steevens, 1 The general, subject to a well-wish'd king,] The later editions have-" subjects;" but the old copies read: The general subject to a well-wish'd king.. The general subject seems a harsh expression, but general subjects has no sense at all, and general was, in our author's time, a word for people; so that the gneral is the people, or multitude, subject to a king. So, in Hamlet: "The play pleased not the million: 'twas caviare to the general." Johnson. Mr. Malone observes, that the use of this phrase "the general," for the people, continued so late as to the time of Lord Clarendon:-"as rather to be consented to, than that the general should suffer." Hist. B. V, p. 530, 8vo. I therefore adhere to the old reading, with only a slight change in the punctuation. The general, subject to a well-wish'd king, Quit, &c. i. e. the generality who are subjects, &c. Twice in Hamlet our author uses subject for subjects; "So nightly toils the subject of the land." Act I, sc. i. Again, Act I, sc. ii: "The lists and full proportions, all are made "Out of his subject.” The general subject however may mean the subjects in general. So, in As you Like it, Act II, sc. vii: "Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world." Steevens. Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness 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. So the Duke had before (Act I, sc. ii,) expressed his dislike of popular applause: "I'll privily away. I love the people, "But do not like to stage me to their eyes. Though it do well, I do not relish well "Their loud applause and aves vehement: I cannot help thinking that Shakspeare, in these two passages, 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 Symonds D'Ewes, in his Memoirs of his own Life,* has a remarkable passage with regard to this humour of James. After taking notice, that the King going to parliment, 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 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 Edenbrogh, till his receiving in London, &c. &c. 1603: "he was faine to publish an inhibition against the inordinate and dayly accesse of peoples comming," &c. Steevens, * A Manuscript in the British Museum, Ang. Ha! Fie, these filthy vices! It were as good Their sawcy sweetness, that do coin heaven's image 2 that bath from nature stolen A man already made,] i. e. that hath killed a man. Malone. 3 Their saucy 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: 66 And will your sacred self "Commit high treason 'gainst the king of heaven, These lines are spoken by the countess of Salisbury, whose chastity (like Isabel's) was assailed by her sovereign. Their saucy sweetness Dr. Warburton interprets, their saucy indulgence of their appetite. Perhaps it means nearly the same as what is afterwards called sweet unclearness. 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. 5 —— - 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, -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 followedby 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: 66 thy father, that poor rag, "Must be thy subject; who in spite put stuff Again, in The Winter's Tale: "As rank as any flax-wench, that puts to, |