nor my persuasion, can with ease attempt you, I will go further than I meant, to pluck all fears out of you. Look you, sir, here is the hand and seal of the duke. You know the character, I doubt not; and the signet is not strange to you. Prov. I know them both. Duke. The contents of this is the return of the duke; you shall anon over-read it at your pleasure; where you shall find, within these two days he will be here. This is a thing, that Angelo knows not: for he this very day receives letters of strange tenor; perchance, of the duke's death; perchance, entering into some monastery; but, by chance, nothing of what is writ. Look, the unfolding star calls up the shepherd :9 Put not yourself into amazement, how these things should be: all difficulties are but easy when they are known. Call your executioner, and off with Barnardine's head: I will give him a present shrift, and advise him for a better place. Yet you are amazed; but this shall absolutely resolve you. Come away; it is almost clear dawn. [Exeunt SCENE III. Another Room in the same. Enter Clown. Clo. I am as well acquainted here, as I was in our house of profession :1 one would think, it were mistress Over-done's own house, for here be many of her old customers. First, here's young master Rash;2 he's 8 nothing of what is writ] We should read-bere writthe Duke pointing to the letter in his hand. Warburton. 9 the unfolding star calls up the shepherd:] "The star, that bids the shepherd fold, "Now the top of heaven doth hold." Milton's Comus. "So doth the evening star present itself 66 By which unto the fold he leads his flock." Steevens. Marston's Insatiate Countess, 1613. Malone. in our house of profession:] i. e. in my late mistress's ⚫ use which was a brofessed, a notorious bawdy-house. Malone. in for a commodity of brown paper and old ginger,3 nine-score and seventeen pounds; of which he made 2 First, here's young master Rash; &c.] This enumeration of the inhabitants of the prison affords a very striking view of the practices predominant in Shakspeare's age. Besides those whose follies are common to all times, we have four fighting men and a traveller. It is not unlikely that the originals of the pictures were then known. Johnson. Rash was the name of some kind of stuff So, in An Aprill Shower, shed in abundance of teares, for the death and incomparable losse, &c. of Richard Sacvile, &c. Earl of Dorset, c. 1624: Steevens. If this term alludes to the stufi' so called, (which was probably one of the commodities fraudulently issued out by money-lenders) there is nevertheless a pun intended. So, in an old MS. poem, entitled The Description of Women: "Their head is made of Rash, Douce. All the names here mentioned are characteristical. Rash was a stuff formerly used So, in A Reply as true as Steele, to a rusty, rayling, ridiculous, lying Libell, which was lately written by an impudent unsoder'd Ironmonger, and called by the name of an Answer to a foolish pamphlet, entitled A Swarme of Sectaries and Schismatiques. By John Taylour, 1641: "And with mockado suit, and judgment rash, "And tongue of sa e, thou'lt say all is but trash." Sericum rasum. See Minshieu's Dict, in v. Rash, and Florio's Italian Dict. 1598, in v. rascia, rascetta. Malone. 3 a commodity of brown paper and old ginger,] Thus the old copy. The modern editors read, brown pepper; but the fol lowing passage in Michaelmas Term, Com. 1607, will completely establish the original reading: "I know some gentlemen in town have been glad, and are glad at this time, to take up commodities in hawk's-hoods and brown paper دو Again, in A New Trick to cheat the Devil, 1636: 66 to have been so bit already "With taking up commodities of brown paper, "Buttons past fashion, silks, and sattins, "Babies and children's fiddles, with like trash "Took up at a dear rate, and sold for trifles." Again, in Greene's Quip for an Upstart Courtier, 1620: "For the merchant, he delivered the iron, tin, lead, hops, sugars, spices, oyls, brown paper, or whatever else, from six months to six months. Which when the poor gentleman came to sell again, he could not make three-score and ten in the hundred besides the usury." Again, in Greene's Defence of Coney five marks, ready money: marry, then, ginger was not much in request, for the old women were all dead.4 Then is there here one master Caper, at the suit of master Three-pile the mercer, for some four suits of peach-colour'd satin, which now peaches him a beggar. Then have we here young Dizy, and young catching, 1592: " so that if he borrow an hundred pound he shall have forty in silver, and three-score in wares; as lutestrings; hobby horses, or brown paper, or cloath," &c. Again, in The Spanish Curate of Beaumont and Fletcher: "Commodities of pins, brown papers, packthread." Again, in Gascoigne's Steele Glasse: "To teach young men the trade to sell browne paper.” Again, in Hall's Satires, Lib. IV: "But Nummius eas'd the needy gallant's care, "Or mol'd browne-paper that could nought auaile." Again, in Decker's Seven deadly Sinnes of London, 4to. bl. 1 1606: 66 and these are usurers who, for a little money, and a great deal of trash, (as fire-shouels, browne paper, motley cloakebags, &c.) bring yong nouices into a foole's paradice, till they have sealed the mortgage of their landes," &c. Steevens. A commodity of brown paper -] Mr. Steevens supports this rightly. Fennor asks, in his Comptor's Commonwealth, "suppose the commodities are delivered after Signior Unthrift and Master Broaker have both sealed the bonds, how must those hobby. horses, reams of brown paper, Jewes trumpes and bables, babies and rattles, be solde?" Farmer. In a MS. letter from Sir John Hollis to Lord Burleigh, is the following passage: "Your Lordship digged into my auncestors graves, and pulling one up from his 70 yeares reste, pronounced him an abominable usurer and merchante of browne paper, so hatefull and contemptible that the players acted him before the kinge with great applause." And again: "Nevertheles I denye that any of them were merchantes of browne paper, neither doe I thinke any other but your Lordship's imagination ever sawe or hearde any of them playde upon a stage; and that they were such usurers I suppose your Lordship will want testimonye." Douce. 4 ginger was not much in request, for the old women were all dead.] So, in The Merchant of Venice :" I would, she were as lying a gossip in that, as ever knapt ginger.” Steevens. 5 - young Dizy,] The old copy has-Dizey. This name, like the rest, must have been designed to convey some meaning, It might have been corrupted from Dizzy, i e. giddy, thoughtless. Thus Milton styles the people" the Dizzy multitude." Steevens. master Deep-vów, and master Copper-Spur, and master Starve-lacky the rapier and dagger-man, and young Drop-heir that killed lusty pudding, and master Forthright the tilter, and brave master Shoe-tye the great traveller, and wild Half-can that stabbed Pots, and, I think, forty more; all great doers in our trade, and are now for the Lord's sake.9 6 8 master Forthright] The old copy reads-Fourthlight. Dr. Johnson, however, proposes to read Forthright, alluding to the line in which the thrust is made. Mr. Ritson defends the present reading, by supposing the allusion to be to the fencer's threat of making the light shine through his antagonist. Reed. Had he produced any proof that such an expression was in use in our author's time, his observation might have had some weight. It is probably a phrase of the present century. Malone. Shakspeare uses the word forthright in The Tempest: "Through forthrights and meanders." Again, in Troilus and Cressida, Act III, sc. iii: "Our hedge aside from the direct forthright." Steevens. 7 and brave master Shoe-tye the great traveller,] The old copy reads-Shooty; but as most of these are compound names, I suspect that this was originally written as I have printed it. At this time Shoe-strings were generally worn. So, in Decker's Match me in London, 1631: "I think your wedding shoes have not been oft untied " Again, in Randolph's Muses' Looking Glass, 1638: "Bending his supple hams, kissing his hands Again, in Marston's 8th Satire : "Sweet-faced Corinna, daine the riband tie "Of thy cork-shooe, or els thy slave will die." As the person described was a traveller, it is not unlikely that he might be solicitous about the minutia of dress; and the epithet brave, i. e. showy, seems to countenance the supposition. Steevens. Mr. Steevens's supposition is strengthened by Ben Jonson's Epigram upon English Monsieur, Whalley's edit. Vol. VI, p. 253: "That so much scarf of France, and hat and feather, Tollet. The finery which induced our author to give his traveller the name of Shoe-tye, was used on the stage in his time. "Would not this, sir, (says Hamlet) and a forest of feathers,—with two Provencial roses on my raz'd shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?" Malone. The roses mentioned in the foregoing instance, were not the ligatures of the shoe, but the ornaments above them. Steevens, Enter ABHORSON. Abhor. Sirrah, bring Barnardine hither. Clo. Master Barnardine! you must rise and be hang'd, master Barnardine! Abhor. What, ho, Barnardine ! Barnar. [within] A pox o' your throats! Who makes that noise there? What are you? Clo. Your friends, sir; the hangman: You must be so good, sir, to rise and be put to death. Barnar. [within] Away, you rogue, away; I am sleepy. 8 all great doers in our trade.] The word doers is here used in a wanton sense. See Mr. Collins's note, Act I, sc. ii. 9 lives. Malone. -for the Lord's sake.] i. e. to beg for the rest of their Warburton. I rather think this expression intended to ridicule the Puritans, whose turbulence and indecency often brought them to prison, and who considered themselves as suffering for religion. It is not unlikely that men imprisoned for other crimes, might represent themselves to casual inquirers, as suffering for puritanism, and that this might be the common cant of the prisons. In Donne's time, every prisoner was brought to jail by suretiship. Johnson. The word in (now expunged in consequence of a following and apposite quotation of Mr. Malone's) had been supplied by some of the modern editors. The phrase which Dr. Johnson has justly explained, is used in A New Trick to cheat the Devil, 1636: " I held it, wife, a deed of charity, and did it for the Lord's sake." Steevens. I believe Dr. Warburton's explanation is right. It appears from a poem, entitled Paper's Complaint, printed among Davies's epigrams, [about the year 1611] that this was the language in which prisoners who were confined for debt, addressed passengers: "Good gentle writers, for the Lord's sake, for the Lord' sake, "Like Ludgate prisoner, lo, I, begging, make 66 My mone The meaning, however, may be, to beg or borrow for the rest of their lives. A passage in Much Ado about Nothing may countenance this interpretation: "he wears a key in his ear, and a lock hanging to it: and borrows money in God's name, the which he hath used so long, and never paid, that men grow hard-hearted, and will lend nothing for God's sake." Mr. Pope reads-and are now in for the Lord's sake. Perhaps unnecessarily. In K. Henry IV, P. I, Falstaff says, "there's not three of my hundred and fifty left alive; and they are for the town's end, to beg during life." Malone. |