Isab. Why, as all comforts are, most good. Indeed lord Angelo, &c. Indeed is the same as in truth, or truly, the common beginning of speeches in Shakspere's age. See Charles the First's Trial. The king and Bradshaw seldom say any thing without this preface: "Truly, Sir."BLACKSTONE. 59. an everlasting leiger : Therefore your best appointment] Leiger is the same with resident. Appointment; preparation; act of fitting, or state of being fitted for any thing. So in old books, we have a knight well appointed; that is, well armed and mounted, or fitted at all points. JOHNSON. The word leiger is thus used in the comedy of Look about You, 1600: "Why do you stay, sir? "Madam, as leiger to solicit for your absent love." Again, in Leicester's Commonwealth, " a special man of that hasty king, who was his Ledger, or Agent, in London," &c. STEEVENS. 60. -your best appointment-] The word appointment, on this occasion, should seem to comprehend confession, communion, and absolution. "Let him (says Escalus) be furnished with divines, and have all charitable preparation." The King in Hamlet, who was cut off prematurely, and without such prepara. tion, is said to be dis-appointed. Appointment, however, may be more simply explained by the following passage in The Antipodes, 1638: "your "your lodging "Is decently appointed." i. e. prepared, fur nished. 71. a restraint, STEEVENS. To a determin'd scope.] A confinement of your mind to one painful idea; to ignominy, of which the remembrance can neither be suppressed nor escaped. JOHNSON. 72. Though all the world's vastidity] The old copy reads: Through all, &c. MALONE. 84. the poor beetle, &c.] The reasoning is, that death is no more than every being must suffer, though the dread of it is peculiar to man; or perhaps, that we are inconsistent with ourselves, when we so much dread that which we carelessly inflict on other creatures, that feel the pain as acutely as we. JOHNSON. 90. I will encounter darkness as a bride, And hug it in mine arms.] So in the first part of Jeronimo, or the Spanish Tragedy, 1605: "night, "That yawning Beldam, with her jetty skin, STEEVENS. 97. -follies doth emmew,] Forces follies to lie in cover, without daring to show themselves. JOHNSON. 98. As faulcon doth the fowl,-] In whose presence the follies of youth are afraid to show themselves, as the fowl is afraid to flutter while the faulcon hovers over it. G 3 So, So, in the Third Part of King Henry VI. "not he that loves him best, "The proudest he that holds up Lancaster, " Dares stir a wing, if Warwick shakes his bells." To emmew is a term in falconry used by Beaumont and Fletcher, in The Knight of Malta: "I have seen him scale STEEVENS. 99. His filth within being cast, To casta pond, is to empty it of mud. 101. The princely Angelo? JOHNSON. -princely guards !) The first folio has in both places, prenzie, from which the other folios made princely, and every editor may make what he JOHNSON. can. Princely guards mean no more than the ornaments of royalty, which Angelo is supposed to assume during the absence of the Duke. The stupidity of the first editors is sometimes not more injurious to Shakspere, than the ingenuity of those who succeeded them. In the old play of Cambyses, I meet with the same expression. Sisamnes is left by Cambyses to distribute justice while he is absent; and in a soliloquy says, "Now may I wear the brodered garde, "And lye in downe bed soft." Again, the queen of Cambyses says: 4 " I do " I do forsake these broder'd gardes STEEVENS. 115. as a pin.] So in Hamlet : -Has he affeflions in him WARBURTON. That thus can make him bite the law by the nose ? Or of the deadly seven it is the least.] I was led into a mistake concerning this passage, and into a hasty censure of Dr. Warburton, by the false pointing of the modern editions, according to which, the word force could not admit of his interpretation. But I am now convinced that he was right, and that these lines should be pointed thus: Has he affections in him That thus can make him bite the law by the nose, Is he attuated by passions that impel him to transgress the law, at the very moment that he is enforcing it against others? [I find, he is.] Surely then [since this is so general a propensity] it is no sin, or at least a venial one. So, in the next act : "A deflower'd maid, "And by an eminent body that enforc'd Force is again used for enforce in King Henry VIII. "If you will now unite in your complaints, Again, in Coriolanus: "Why force you this?" MALONE. 123. If it were damnable, &c.] Shakspere shows his knowledge of human nature in the conduct of Claudio. When Isabella first tells him of Angelo's proposal, he answers, with honest indignation, agreeably to his settled principles, Thou shalt not do't. But the love of life being permitted to operate, soon furnishes him with sophistical arguments, he believes it cannot be very dangerous to the soul, since Angelo, who is so wise, will venture it. JOHNSON. 125. Be perdurably fin'd?-] Perdurably is lastingly. So, in Othello: "cables of perdurable toughness." STEEVENS. 132. -delighted spirit] i. e. the spirit accustomed here to ease and delights. This was properly urged as an aggravation to the sharpness of the torments spoken of. WARBURTON. I think with Dr. Warburton, that by the delighted spirit is meant, the soul once accustomed to delight, which of course must render the sufferings, afterwards described, less tolerable. Thus our author calls youth, blessed, in a former scene, before he proceeds to shew its wants and its inconvéniencies. STEEVENS. 138. lawless and incertain thoughts] Conjecture sent out to wander without any certain direction, |