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Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wifer fouls
To thy falfe feeming? Blood, thouflill art blood:7
Let's write good angel on the devil's horn,
'Tis not the devil's creft.

8

O place and greatness! millions of falfe eyes "Are ftuck upon thee.

We have all heard of Town-buils, Town-halls, Town-clocks, and Town-tops; but the vane o' the place (meaning a thing of general property, and proverbially diftin&t 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 ferved as an index to the wind: and with whatever propriety the vane in fome petty market-town might be diftinguifhed, can we conceive there was only a fingle weathercock in fo large a city as Vienna, where the scene of this comedy is laid? STEEVENS.

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cafe, For outfide; garb; external fhew. JOHNSON.

6 Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wifer fouls

Fools

To thy falfe feeming?] Here Shakspeare judiciously diftinguishes the different operations of high place upon different minds. are frighted, and wife men are allured. Those who cannot judge but by the eye, are cafily awed by splendour; those who confider men as well as conditions, are cafily perfuaded to love the appearance of virtue dignified with power. JOHNSON.

7

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Blood, thou fill art blood:] The old copy reads — Blood, thou art blood. Mr. Pope, to fupply the fyllable 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 ufed here, as in other places, for temperament of body.

MALONE.

8 Let's write good angel on the devil's horn,
'Tis not the devil's creft.] i. e. Let the most wicked thing have

but a virtuous pretence, and it fhall pafs for innocent.

his conclufion from his preceding words:

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To thy falfe feeming?

This was

But the Oxford editor makes him conclude juft counter to his own premifes; by altering it to,

Is't not the devil's creft?

So that, according to this alteration, the reasoning stands thus: Falle feeming, wrenches awe from fools, and deceives the wise.

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Therefore, Let us but write good angel on the devil's horn, (i. e. give him the appearance of an angel; and what then? Is't not the devil's, exeft? (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 feeming chara&er, and his real difpofition, obferves, that he could change his gravity for a plume He then digreffes into an apostrophe, O dignity, how doft thou impofe upon the world! then returning to himself, Blood (fays he) thou art but blood, however concealed with appearances and decorations. Title and character do not alter nature, which is ftill corrupt, however dignified:

Let's write good angel on the devil's horn;

Is't not? or rather

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'Tis yet the devil's creft.

It may however be understood, according to Dr. Warburton's explanation. O place, how doft thou impose upon the world by falfe appearances! fo much, that if we write good angel on the devil's horn, 'tis not taken any longer to be the devil's creft. In this fense, Blood, thou art but blood!

is an interjected exclamation. JOHNSON.

A Hebrew proverb feems to favour Dr. Johnfon's reading:

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'Tis yet the devil's creft.

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"A nettle ftanding among myrtles, doth notwithstanding retain the name of a nettle." STEEVENS.

This paffage, as it ftands, 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 wiler fouls to your false feeming, yet you make no alteration in the minds or conftitutions of thofe who poffefs, or affume you. - Though we should write good angel on the devil's horn, it will not change his nature, fo as to give him a right to wear that creft. " It is well known that the creft was formerly chofen either as emblematical of fome quality confpicuous in the perfon who bore it, or as alluding to fome remarkable incident of his life; and on this circumstance depends the juftness of the prefent allufion. M. MASON.

It should be remembered, that the devil is ufually reprefented with horns and cloven feet. The old copy appears to me to require no alteration. MALONE.

VOL. VI.

G

Why does my blood thus mufter to my heart;
Making both it unable for itfelf,

And difpoffeffing all my other parts

Of necellary fitnefs?

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So play the foolish throngs with one that fwoons;
Come all to help him, and so stop the air
By which he fhould revive: and even fo
The general, fubject to a well-with'd king, 3

2

to my heart;] Of this fpeech there is no other trace in Promos and Caffandra, than the following:

« Both hope and dreade at once my harte doth tuch.”

STEEVENS.

3 The general, fubject to a well-wish'd king,] The later editions have fubje&s;" but the old copies read:

The general fubject to a well-wifh'd king.

The general fubject feems a harsh expreffion, but general fubjects has no fenfe at all, and general was, in our author's time, a word for people; so that the general is the people, or multitude, fubject to a king. So, in Hamlet: « The play pleafed not the million: 'twas caviare to the general: JOHNSON

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Mr. Malone obferves, that the use of this phrase « the general, for the people, continued fo late as to the time of Lord Clarendon :as rather to be confented to, than that the general should fuffer. Hift. B. V. p. 530. 8vo. I therefore adhere to the old reading, with only a flight change in the pun&uation.

The general, fubject to a well-wish'd king,
Quit, &c.

i. c. the generality who are fubjects, &c.
Twice in Hamlet our author ufes fubje&t for subjects:
So nightly toils the fubject of the land. '

Again, A& I. fc. ii:

Aa I. fc. i.

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The general fubject however may mean the fubjects in general, So, in As you like it, A& II. fc. vii:

"Wouldst thou difgorge into the general world."

STEEVENS.

So the Duke had before (A& I. fc. ii.) expreffed his diflike of popular applaufe:

cr

I'll privily away. I love the people,

But do not like to flage me to their eyes.
Though it do well, I do not relish well
Their loud applaufe and aves vchement:

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Quit their own part, and in obfequious fondness Crowd to his prefence, where their un taught love Muft needs appear offence.

Enter ISABELLA.

How now, fair maid?

ISAB. I am come to know your pleafure. ANG. That you might know it, would much better

please me,

Than to demand what'tis. Your brother cannot live. ISAB. Even fo? - 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 fentence?

" Nor do I think the man of fafe difcretion,,
"That does affed it."

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I cannot help thinking that Shakspeare, in these two paffages, intended to flatter the unkingly weakness of James the Firft, which made him fo impatient of the crowds that flocked to fee him, elpecially upon his firft coming, that, as fome of our hiftorians fay he restrained them by a proclamation. Sir Symonds D'Ewes, in his Memoirs of his own Life, has a remarkable paffage with regard to this humour of James. After taking notice, that the King going to parliament, on the 30th of January, 1620-1, « ípake lovingly to the people, and said, God bless ye, God bless ye; he adds these words, contrary to his former hafty and paffionate custom, which often, in his fudden diftemper, would bid a pox or a plague on fuch as flocked to fee him. TYRWHITT. Mr. Tyrwhitt's appofite remark might find support, needed any, from the following paffage in a True Narration of the Entertainment of his Royall Majeftie, from the Time of his Departure from Edinbrogh, till his receiving in London, &c. &c. 1603, was faine to publish an inhibition against the inordinate and dayly acceffe of peoples comming," &c. STERVENS.

A Manufcript in the British Museum,

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if it

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ANG. Yea.

ISAB. When, I befeech you? that in his reprieve, Longer, or fhorter, he may be fo fitted,

That his foul ficken not.

ANG. Ha! Fie, thefe filthy vices! It were as good To pardon him, that hath from nature ftolen A man already made, as to remit

4

Their fawcy fweetnefs, that do coin heaven's image,
In ftamps that are forbid: ' 'tis all as easy
Falfely to take away a life true made,

As to put mettle in reftrained means,
To make a falfe one.

that hath from nature stolen

6

A man already made, ] i. e. that hath killed a man.

Their fawcy fweetness, that do coin heaven's image

MALONE.

In ftamps that are forbid : ] We meet with nearly the fame words in King Edward III. a tragedy, 1596, certainly prior to this play : And will your facred felf

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"Commit high treafon 'gainst the king of heaven,

To flamp his image in forbidden metal?”

their fawcy

Thefe lines are spoken by the countess of Salisbury, whose (chastity like Ifabel's) was affailed by her fovereign. Their fawcy Sweetness Dr. Warburton interprets, indulgence of their appetite. Perhaps it means nearly the fame as what is afterwards called fweet uncleanness. Malone.

as

Sweetness, in the prefent inftance has, I believe, the fame sense - lickerifhnefs. STEEVENS.

--

6 Falfely to take away a life true made,] Falfely is the fame with difhoneftly, illegally: fó falfe, in the next line but one, is illegal, illegitimate. JOHNSON.

7 mettle in reftrained means, ] In forbidden moulds. I fufpect means not to be the right word, but I cannot find another.

I should fuppofe that our author wrote,

in reftrained mints,

1

JOHNSON.

as the allufion may be ftill to coining. Sir W. D'Avenant omits the paffage. STEEVENS.

Mettle, the reading of the old copy, which was changed to metal by Mr. Theobald, (who has been followed by the fubfequent editors, is fupported not only by the general purport of the paffage,

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