"Yet reason dares her?-no.”

I am not satisfied with any of the attempts that have been made to explain this passage. I believe the meaning is:-How might this injured lady reproach me, if shame and delicacy did not restrain her tongue; yet reason, i. e. a just reflection on the cruel wrong she has suffered, as well as on the enormous guilt of the offender, must give her boldness sufficient for the accusation; yet no-that same reason and reflection, perceiving how I am fortified by my place and character against her charge, will teach her how ineffectual it would be: our poet would not scruple to write "dares" for makes daring.

377.

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With dangerous sense.”

With a feeling of his wrongs that might suggest a dangerous revenge: dangerous sense is formidable indignation.

By so receiving."

I think we should read:

For so receiving."

SCENE VI.

379. "To speak so indirectly, I am loth."

Without the warrant or direction of truth, or it may be, deviating from the direct course of truth.

H 3

t

ACT V. SCENE I.

383. "Upon a wrong'd, I'd fain have said, a

maid."

Perhaps we should read:

Upon a wronged-I would fain say maid."
Or else,

Upon a wrong'd-I fain would have said maid."

"Vail your regard."

Let it stoop-thus in Coriolanus:

385. If she be mad, (as I believe no other,) "Her madness hath the oddest frame of

sense,

"Such a dependency of thing on thing,
"As e'er I heard in madness."

Mr. Malone supposes that the author wrote "ne'er" instead of" e'er:" but this, though it may be sense, is very harsh: if the pronoun "that" be substituted for the conjunction " which, indeed, concord requires, (the third line being redundant, and merely parenthetical) the sentence would be correct.

as,"

386. "Do not banish reason for inequality."

Dr. Johnson's interpretation of this passage is, I believe, the right one; if in the comment the Duke had made on Isabella's language and deportment, he had charged her with incoherence or inequality, then, indeed, Mr. Malone's conjec

ture might be just; but as, on the contrary, the speech of the lady is remarked for its consistency, I cannot help thinking that she conjures the Duke not to let rank and high place suppress or supersede the pleadings of humble innocence.

your reason serve

Let "To make the truth appear, where it seems hid; "Not hide the false, seems true."

Perspicuity must always give place to the charm of a jingle; the plain sense is, employ your reason to take off the veil that now obscures the truth, and not to continue the deception by which falshood assumes the character of truth.

388.

His purpose surfeiting."

Mr. Steevens proposes to read "forfeiting"but the text is right: the purpose implied is not the release of Claudio, but the enjoyment of Isabella.

Duke. "

This is most likely." Isab. "O, that it were as like as it is true."

I believe Isabella means, O that my story were, indeed, what you seem to think it, an invention only of mine! that it were as much a false resemblance as it is a reality.

393. "In this I'll be impartial; be you judge 'Of your own cause."

Notwithstanding the passages produced by Dr. Farmer, to shew that "impartial" was sometimes used to express "partial," I cannot think that it is the case in the present instance. "I'll be impartial," means, I believe," I'll be indiffer

ent, I'll take no part in the cause, but leave it entirely to you of whose wisdom and integrity I am fully persuaded." As "impartial" is here used for indifferent," so is " indifferent," in another place, put for "impartial."

"Look on my wrongs with an indifferent eye." King Richard II. Act 2, Scene 3. 395. "Who thinks, he knows, that he ne'er knew my body,

"But knows, he thinks, that he knows Isabel's."

A similar jingle we find in As You Like It, Act 5:

"I sometimes do believe, and sometimes do not, "As those that fear; they hope and know they fear."

I

But, remarks Dr. Johnson, Lucio had not, in the former conversation, mentioned coward. believe it is not necessary, either to the consistency of the character or the humour of the scene, that Lucio should here repeat, with fidelity, the exact terms of the abuse which his invention had produced before; and his mentioning coward now is enough for the Duke to lay hold of it after

wards. 410. "

Till he did look on me."

I believe there are very few who, in contemplating the scene before us, will not agree in the justness of Dr. Johnson's comment upon it: it is true that Isabella is not prompt to comply with the request of Mariana, but when she yields at length female vanity is very conspicuously a motive with her.

413. "As like almost to Claudio as himself." The same comparison is attempted in Hamlet: Like

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"As thou art to thyself."

"Her worth, worth yours."

Dr. Johnson's question upon Hanmer's reading, (her worth, works yours, which Dr. Warburton adopted)" how does her worth work Angelo's worth?" need not go unanswered:-her virtues are sufficient to atone for your offences; and, for her sake, I deem you again eligible to my favour."

Dr. Johnson's judgment of the serious parts of this play appears rather a harsh one : Mr. Harris, the author of Hermes, once spoke of it to me as a great favourite of his. LORD CHEDWORTH.