MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

ACT I. SCENE I.

Enter Duke, Lords, &c.

187. Duke. "Escalus

Esc.

My lord."

It is improbable that any poet should begin a dialogue in verse with this awkward fragmentsomething has been lost, perhaps, like this

188.

Duke. "Now hear our purpose, Escalus"-
Esc. 66
My lord!"

Duke. "Of government," &c.

No more remains

"But that to your sufficiency, as your worth is able,

"And let them work."

One more attempt, perhaps as unsatisfactory as those already produced, to restore this confused passage, to any thing like sense and harmony.

No more remains,

"But to your sufficiency your worth be added;

And let them work."

I need not, says the Duke, suggest the rules of good government to one who is better ac

quainted with them than myself: no more then remains, to qualify you fully and effectually to take my place, but that your worth, i. e. integrity, moral excellence be added, in the public estimation, to your acknowledged abilities.

"For common justice, you are as pregnant in,

"As art and practice hath enriched any, "That we remember."

This is such verbal concord as an ostler uses, when, boasting of his experience, he says, I wish I had as many guineas as I have curried a horse. Some arrangement like this is necessary—

"For common justice, you are as pregnant in "As any, most enrich'd by art and practice "That we remember," &c.

192. There is a kind of character in thy life, That, to the observer, doth thy history Fully unfold."

The progress of thy life has marked upon thy countenance and exterior, a character, which clearly denotes what thou art.

193. "As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd."

The hypermeter might be obviated in this man

"We had them not; spirits are not finely touch'd, "But to fine issues; nor nature never lends."

This is not a double negative, as Mr. Steevens calls it; "nor" is the appropriate negative conjunction, as it is also in the passage quoted for similar censure from Julius Cæsar

"There is no harm intended to your person, "Nor to no Roman else."

194. "Both thanks and use."

Use," here, is equivocal; exercise or application, and usance or interest.

"To one that can my part in him advertise."

To one that can already declare or make known all those precepts which I would impart to him: in this sense advertisement seems to be used in Much ado about Nothing:

'My griefs cry louder than advertisement."

197. "Ithank you; fare you well."

This hemistic appears to be interpolation: the Duke had already taken his leave; and the words of Escalus seem only intended to follow him.

"And it concerns me."

I believe we should read, as it concerns me. "I am not yet instructed."

To this hemistic perhaps was added

"And would learn."

G 2

Qui non prohibet cum prohibere potest, jubet. LORD CHEDWORTH.

"More" here is adverbial, and the placing it between the adjective pronoun and the substantive is very uncouth.-See Much ado about Nothing, "Thy much misgovernment.”

SCENE V.

219. "Not to be weary with you."

Weary," for tedious, prolix.

"Make me not your story.”

I am inclined to think that Mr. Steevens's first interpretation of this passage is the true one, "Make me not a person in your ludicrous drama." 224. "To give fear to use."

To annex terror to the commission of that act, for which Claudio was condemned. Use has the same meaning in other places, as in Othello, "He hath used thee."

227.

ACT II. SCENE I.

Rather cut a little,

"Than fall, and bruise to death."

Mr. Steevens is right in annexing the active

sense to "fall;" Rowe employs the word in the same manner, in Jane Shore:

Our new-fangled gentry

"Have fall'n their haughty crests."

229. "Guiltier than him they try; what's open made to justice."

This line is, at once, exuberant and ungrammatical. We might read:

"Guilter than he they try; what's ope to justice."

The bad grammar, which Mr. Steevens seems not to have been aware of, proceeds from an inattention to an implied ellipsis in the construction. The jury may have among them a thief or two, gultier than (he is) whom they try.

Pregnant is replete with conviction, full of clear argument, as in the first scene of this play :

"For common justice you are as pregnant in—”

i. e. As complete and expert in the knowledge of, &c.

230. "Some run from brakes of vice, and answer none."

By brakes of vice, I believe, are meant obstructions in the way of virtue: some people, says Escalus, run from, or avoid those, and so have no vices to answer for.