before his death: You know, the courfe is common. If any thing fall to you upon this, more than thanks and good fortune, by the faint whom I profess, I will plead againft it with my life.

PROV. Pardon me, good father; it is against myoath.

DUKE. Were you fworn to the duke, or to the deputy?

PROV. To him, and to his fubftitutes.

DUKE You will think you have made no offence, if the duke avouch the juftice of your dealing?

PROV. But what likelihood is in that?

DUKE. Not a refemblance, but a certainty. Yet fince I fee you fearful, that neither my coat, integrity, nor my perfuafion, can with ease attempt you, I will go further than I meant, to pluck all fears out of you. Look you, fir, here is the hand and feal of the duke. You know the character, I doubt not; and the fignet is not ftrange to you.

PROV. I know them both.

DUKE. The contents of this is the return of the duke; you fhall anon over-read it at your pleasure; where you fhall 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 ftrange te

my garments would ferve the turn, or the baring of my beard; and to fay it was in ftratagem." MALONE.

6

you know, the courfe is common. ] P. Mathieu, in his Heroyke Life and deplorable Death of Henry the Fourth, of France, fays, that Ravaillac, in the midst of his tortures, lifted up his head and fhook a spark of fire from his beard. "This unprofitable care, (he adds) to fave it, being noted, afforded matter to divers to praise the custome in Germany, Swifferland, and divers other places, to have off, and then to burn all the haire from all parts of the bodies of thofe who are convicted for any notorious crimes." Grimftan's Tranflation, 4to. 1612. p. 181. REED.

nor; perchance, of the duke's death; perchance, entering into fome monaftery; but, by chance, nothing of what is writ. Look, the unfolding star calls up the fhepherd: Put not yourself into amazement, how these things fhould be: all difficulties are but eafy 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 refolve you. Come away; it is almoft clear

dawn.

SCENE III.

Another Room in the fame.

Enter Clown.

[Exeunt.

CLO. I am as well acquainted here, as I was in our house of profeffion: one would think, it were miftrefs Over-done's own houfe, for here be many of her old cuftomers. Firft, here's young mafter `Rash; * he's in for a commodity of brown paper

7

2

-nothing of what is writ.] We fhould read-here writthe Duke pointing to the letter in his hand. WARBURTON.

Now the top of heaven doth hold. Milton's Comus.

"So doth the evening ftar present itself
"Unto the careful fhepherd's gladfome eyes,
"By which unto the fold he leads his flock."

Marfton's Infatiate Countefs, 1613.

STEEVENS.

MALONE.

in our houfe of profeffion:] i. e. in my late myftrefs's house, which was a profeffed, a notorious bawdy-house. MALONE.

Firft, 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. Befides thofe whofe follies are common to all times, we have four fighting men and a traveller. VOL. VI.

M

and old ginger,' ninefcore and feventeen pounds; of which he made five marks, ready money: marry,

It is not unlikely that the originals of the pi&ures were then known. JOHNSON.

Rafh was the name of fome kind of ftuff. So, in An Aprill Shower, Jhed in abundance of teares, for the death and incomparable loffe, &c. of Richard Sacvile, &c. Earl of Dorfet, &c. 1624:

"For with the plaineft plaine yee faw him goe,

"In ciuill blacke of Rash, of Serge, or fo;
"The liuerie of wife ftayedneffe

STEEVENS.

If this term alludes to the ftuff fo called, (which was probably one of the commodities fraudulently iffued out by money-lenders} there is nevertheless a pun intended. So, in an old MS. poem, entitled, The Defcription of Women:

"Their head is made of Rash,

"Their tongues are made of Say." Douce.

Rafh was a

All the names here mentioned are characteristical. Atuff formerly used. So, in ▲ Reply as true as Steele, to a rusty, rayling, ridiculous, lying Libell, which was lately written by an impudent unfoder'd Ironmonger, and called by the name of an Answer to a foolish pamphlet entitled A Swarme of Seclaries and Schifmatiques. By John Taylour, 1641:

And with mockado fuit, and judgement rash,

"And tongue of faye, thou'lt fay all is but trash.” Sericum rafum. See Minfheu's Di&t. in v. Rafh, and Florio's Italian Dia. 1598, in v. rafcia, rafcetta. MALONE.

3

copy.

a commodity of brown paper and old ginger,] Thus the old The modern editors read, brown pepper; but the following paffage in Michaelmas Term, Com. 1607, will completely establish the original reading:

"I know fome gentlemen in town have been glad, and are glad at this time, to take up commodities in hawk's-hoods and brown-paper.”. Again, in A New Trick to cheat the Devil, 1636:

-to have been fo bit already

"With taking up commodities of brown paper, "Buttons paft fashion, filks, and fattins, "Babies and children's fiddles, with like trash "Took up at a dear rate, and fold for trifles." Again, in Greene's Quip for an Upstart Courtier, 1620:

For the merchant, he delivered the iron, tin, lead, hops, fugars, fpices, oyls, brown paper, or whatever elfe, from fix months to fix months. Which when the poor gentleman came to fell again, he could not make three fcore and ten in the hundred befides the ufury." Again, in Greene's Defence of Coney-catching, 1592:

then, ginger was not much in requeft, for the old women were all dead. * Then is there here one mafter Caper, at the fuit of master Three-pile the mercer, for fome four suits of peach-colour'd fatin, which now peaches him a beggar. Then have we here

fo that if he borrow an hundred pound, he fhall have forty in filver, and threefcore in wares; as luteftrings, 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 Glaffe:

..

"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,
"With a bafe bargaine of his blowen ware,
"Of fufted hoppes now loft for lacke of fayle,

Or mol'd browne-paper that could nought auaile."

Again, in Decker's Seven deadly Sinnes of London, 4to. bl. 1. 1606: and these are ufurers who, for a little money, and a great deale of trafh, (as fire-fhouels, browne-paper, motley cloacke-bags &c.) bring yong nouices into a foole's paradice, till they have fealed the mortgage of their landes," &c. STEEVENS.

66

A commodity of brown paper ] Mr. Steevens fupports this rightly. Fennor afks, in his Comptor's Commonwealth, fuppofe the commodities are delivered after Signior Unthrift and mafter Broaker have both fealed the bonds, how muft thofe hobby-horses, reams of brown paper, Jewes trumpes and bables, babies and rattles, be folde?" FARMER. 1

In a MS. letter from Sir John Hollis to Lord Burleigh, is the following paffage; "Your Lordship digged into my auncestors graves, and pulling one up from his 70 yeares refte, pronounced him an abominable ufurer and merchante of browne paper, fo hatefull and contemptible that the players aded him before the kinge with great applaufe." 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 fawè or hearde any of them playde upon a ftage; and that they were fuch ufurers I fuppofe your Lordship will want teftimonye.'

4

DOUCE.

ginger was not much in request, for the old women were all dead. So, in The Merchant of Venice : —“I would, the were as lying a goffip in that, as ever knapt ginger." STEEVENS.

young Dizy,' and young mafter Deep-vow, and mafter Copper-fpur, and mafter Starve-lacky the rapier, and dagger-man, and young Drop-heir that kill'd lufty Pudding, and master Forthright the tilter, and brave master Shoe-tye the great traveller, ' and

3

- young Dizy,] The old copy has-Dizey. This name, like the reft, muft have been defigned to convey fome meaning. It might have been corrupted from Dizzy, i. e. giddy, thoughtless. Thus Milton ftyles the people the dizzy multitude.

24

66

STEEVENS.

mafter Forthright-] The old copy reads-Forthlight. Dr. Johnson, however, propofes to read Forthright, alluding to the line in which the thruft is made. Mr. Ritfon defends the prefent reading, by fuppofing the allufion to be to the fencers thieat of making the light shine through his antagonist. REED.

Had he produced any proof that fuch an expreffion was in use in our author's time, his obfervation might have had fome weight. It is probably a phrase of the present century.

MALONE.

Shakspeare ufes the word forthright in The Tempest:

Through forthrights and meanders.

Again, in Troilus and Creffida, A&t. III. fc. iii :

"Or hedge afide from the dire& forthright." STEEVENS.

I

At

5 and brave mafter Shoe-tye the great traveller, ] The old copy reads - Shooty; but as most of these are compound names, fufped that this was originally written as I have printed ita this time Shoe-ftrings 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 Mufes' Looking Glass, 1638:

Bending his fupple hams, kiffing his hands, "Honouring /hoe-firings."

Again, in Maifton's 8th Satire :

"Sweet-faced Corinna, daine the riband tie.

"Of thy corke-fhooe, or els thy flave will die.'

As the perfon defcribed was a traveller, it is not unlikely that he might be folicitous about the minutia of drefs; and the epithet brave, i. e. fhowy, feems to countenance the fuppofition. STEEVENS. Mr. Steevens's fuppofition is ftrengthened by Ben Jonson's Epigran upon English Monheur, Whalley's edit. Vol. VI, p. 253:

That fo much scarf of France, and hat and feather,
And fhoe, and tye, and garter, fhould come hither.'

TOLLIT.