Is not every creditor, where a debt is defperate, willing to take in meal or in malt, what he cannot get in money? And does not this mode of expreffion juftify the speaker in saying, agreeable to the idiom of our language, that as to

what poor duty cannot do,

Noble respect takes it in might, not merit

That is, not as an act of ability, though not of merit, as Dr. Johnfon fays; but as an act of merit, though not of ability thus in confequence of its inability, taking the will for the deed; viz. accepting the beft in its might to do, for the beft that might be done; rating the merit of the deed itself at nothing, agreeable to the first line of Thefeus's fpeech,

The kinder we to give them thanks for nothing.

Vol. I. Page 167.

THE. Now is the mural down between the two neighbours. DEM. No remedy, my lord, when walls are fo wilful to HEAR without warning.

On this paffage our editor quotes the following note from Dr. Warburton, without animadverfion. Shakespeare could

66 never write this nonfenfe: we fhould read to REAR "without warning; i. e. It is no wonder that walls fhould be "fuddenly down, when they were as fuddenly up; "REAR'D without warning."

Had our editor nothing to offer better than this? And hath he fo little veneration for Shakespeare, as fo readily to countenance the charge against him of writing nonsense? Did you, Dr. Johnson, ever read the fcene, wherein this paffage occurs, quite through? I could almost venture to affirm, that neither you nor Dr. Warburton ever could have read it through with any attention. It feems to me morally impoffible, if you had, that he could have made fo egregious a mistake, or you have admitted it among your notes.Shakespeare most undoubtedly wrote it HEAR, as it ftands in the text. For not to infift upon the palpable defects of Dr. Warburton's explanation, the moft undoubted evidence in justification of this reading,

reading, may be deduced from the context. In the preceding page the wall makes a fpeech, on which Thefeus fays, Would you defire lime and hair to speak better 2 and Demetrius answers, It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard discourse. On this Pyramus enters and clofes his fpeech with a curse against the wall. His fpeech ending with the words deceiving me, Upon which Thefeus again thus remarks,

The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again. No, fays the actor who play'd Pyramus, in truth, Sir, he should not.: DECEIVING ME, is Thilbe's cue; he is to enter, and I am to jpy her through the wall, You shall fee, it will fall pat I told you. Yonder he comes.

as

Now, Pyramus and Thisbe having met and spied each other through the crevice, for which purpose only the wall was introduced, their interview is no fooner over than the actor who played the wall, apparently, without waiting for his cue, as no body speaks to him, and he speaks to no person in the drama, fays,

Thus have I, wall, my part discharged fo;

And, being done, thus wall away doth go.

On which Thefeus obferves again, as in the paffage cited, Now is the mural down between the two neighbours. To which Demetrius anfwers; No remedy, my lord, when walls are fo wilful, to HEAR without WARNING. That is, so wilful as to take their cue before it be given them.

It is to be obferved, that Demetrius doth not fay, It is no wonder, as Dr. Warburton expreffes it in his explanation; but There is no remedy. I cannot doubt, therefore, that the above is the plain and obvious meaning of this paffage. That the expreffion, however, may bear a reference to fome latent meaning, I do not deny; and poffibly it may refer to a cuftom practifed by the magiftrates in many places abroad, of sticking up a notice or warning on the walls of ruinated and untenanted houfes, for the owners either to repair or pull them quite down.

MEASURE

MEASURE FOR

MEASURE.

Vol. 1. Page 266.

DUKE. We have with fpecial foul

pre

Elected him, our abfence to fupply. Dr.Warburton says, "This nonfenfe must be corrected thus ; "with special roll: i. e. by a fpecial commiffion." The fent editor, Dr. Johnson, thinks Warburton right in fuppofing à corruption, but lefs happy in his emendation. He reads, therefore, with special feal; which, he fays, is a very natural metonymy for a special commiffion.-But why did not our editor obviate the objection made against this fuppofition of a corruption, by the author of the Canons of Criticifm? Was his objection of too little weight, or was the writer of too little confequence to need a refutation? This author remarks on this paffage, that with fpecial foul, may fairly C be interpreted to mean, with great thought, upon mature deliberation; but that with special roll, for--by special commission, is harsh and aukward; and to elect a man by a commiffion, instead of—appoint him, is flat nonfenfe.' Now, this objection lies equally against Dr. Johnson's reading as against Dr. Warburton's, and must be removed before I withdraw my caveat against any innovation being made in the text. Indeed I will oppofe, totis viribus, the admiffion of Dr., Johnfon's feat, left fome future commentator should start up, and affirm that, although to elect by or with a commiffion may. be nonfenfe; yet to ERECT by or with a commiffion is sense; to erect here meaning nothing more than to fet up, to promote, which is done by commiffion. And how plaufibly might not. fuch an annotator maintain, that such reading would be perfectly confiftent with the context?

For you must know, we have with special feal
Erected him our abfence to fupply;

Lent him our terror, dreft him with our love,
And giv'n his deputation all the organs

Of our own power.

Might

Might he not exclaim, Is it not plain, that the duke means to fay he has erected, that is, fet up Angelo in the place of himself? Besides, who could refufe, after having changed • two letters at the inftance of Dr. Johnfon, to make so small ⚫ a variation as one for his fucceffor? Tis only, he might plead, changing an I for an r, merely one liquid for another; the transcribers and printers might eafily mistake it.' Who ' does not fee, (as Dr. Johnson says in another place) that upon such principles there is no end of correction !'-Away, therefore, with all fuch trifling, and revere the TEXT of SHAKESPEARE.

66

Vol. I. Page 308.

ISAB. Elfe let my brother die,
If not a feodary, but only he,
Owe, and fucceed by weakness.

This paffage feems to have confounded all the commentators.
Dr. Warburton makes the following curious and learned note
upon it. "This is so obfcure a paffage, but fo fine in its ap-
plication, that it deferves to be explained. A feodary was
ἐσ one that, in the times of vaffalage, held lands of the chief
"lord, under the tenure of paying rent and service, which te-
"nures were called feuda amongst the Goths. Now, fays An-
gelo, we are all frail; yes, replies Isabella, if all mankind
were not feodaries, who owe what they are to this tenure of imbe-
cility, and who fucceed each other by the fame tenure, as well as
my brother, I would give him up. The comparing mankind,
¢ lying under the weight of original fin, to a feodary, who
"owes fuit and fervice to his lord, is, I think, not ill-ima-
"gined."-This note, with little variation, is inferted in.
Theobald's edition; who fays it explains one of the most
beautiful allufions imaginable.-The prefent editor inferts
this note alfo, without any remark of his own. He obferves
indeed, that to owe means in this place to own, to hold, to
have poffeffion. For my part, I never could reconcile the
words of this paffage, by any mode of conftruction, to the
fense here put on it. Indeed, it never appeared to mẹ, from

the

the tenour of the converfation, that Ifabel could poffibly entertain fuch a conftrained and far-fetched allufion, as the ingenious Dr. Warburton hath here fifhed out for her. I conceive her meaning to be much more fimple, and if the reader obferves the connection of this fpeech with thofe of Angelo that precede and follow, I doubt not but he will be of my opinion. It is true, that to owe means here, as in other parts * of Shakespeare's writings, to own, to have, to be possessed of or invefted with. The word feodary, however, is not derived from feuda, nor hath its meaning here any relation to the customs of the feudal times, but is derived from fœdus, a covenant, and is therefore mif- fpelt, it having here the fame meaning as the word feodary in the following paffage in Cymbeline, where it means an accomplice, a confederate, a companion equally guilty.

damn'd paper!

Black as the ink that's on thee: fenfelefs bauble,

Art thou a feodarie for this act?

Taking the words in this, their true fenfe, let us fee if we cannot, without forcing their conftruction, difcover a meaning more in character with the speaker, and therefore more likely to be intended by Shakespeare:

ANG. We are all frail.

ISAB. Elfe let my brother die ;

If not a feodary, but only he,

Owe, and fucceed by, weakness.

That is, Let my brother die, if not one of his companions, if only he, of all his fex, is frail, and hath fucceeded in his · attempts on women, by taking advantage of a like frailty in • them.'—That this is the true fenfe, I think, is put past difpute by the subsequent speech of Angelo; who takes occafion, from the laft fuggeftion of Ifabel, to fay

#

Nay, women are frail TOO.

Particularly in the Tempeft; where Profpero fays to Fer

dinand,

Thou doft here ufurp

The name thou ow'st not.

E

Which