Complete Works of Samuel Johnson

by Samuel Johnson

III.i.176 (75,6) [Hold you there] Continue in that resolution.

  III.i.255 (77,l) [only refer yourself to this advantage] This is scarcely to be reconciled to any established mode of speech. We may read, only reserve yourself to, or only reserve to yourself this advantage.

  III.i.266 (77,2) [the corrupt deputy scaled] To scale the deputy may be, to reach him, notwithstanding the elevation of his place; or it may be, to strip him and discover his nakedness, though armed and concealed by the investments of authority.

  III.ii.6 (78,4) [since, of two usuries] Sir Thomas Hammer corrected this with less pomp [than Warburton], then since of two usurers the merriest was put down, and the worser allowed, by order of law, a furr’d gown, &c. His punctuation is right, but the alteration, small as it is, appears more than was wanted. Usury may be need by an easy licence for the professors of usury.

  III.ii.14 (79,5) [father] This word should be expunged.

  III.ii.40 (80,7) [That we were all, as some would seem to be,

  Free from all faults, as faults from seeming free!]

  Sir T. Hammer reads,

  Free from all faults, as from faults seeming free.

  In the interpretation of Dr. Warburton, the sense is trifling, and the expression harsh. To wish that men were as free from faults, as faults are free from comeliness [instead of void of comeliness] is a very poor conceit. I once thought it should be read,

  O that all were, as all would seem to be. Free from all faults, or from false seeming free.

  So in this play,

  O place, 0 power — how dost thou Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls To thy false seeming.

  But now I believe that a less alteration will serve the turn.

  Free from all faults, or faults from seeming free;

  that men were really good, or that their faults were known, that men were free from faults, or faults from hypocrisy. So Isabella calls Angelo’s hypocrisy, seeming, seeming.

  III.ii.42 (81,8) [His neck will come to your waist] That is, his neck will be tied, like your waist, with a rope. The friars of the Franciscan order, perhaps of all others, wear a hempen cord for a girdle. Thus Buchanan,

  Fac gemant suis, Variata terga funibus.

  III.ii.51 (81,1) [what say’st thou to this tune, matter and method? Is’t not drown’d i’ the last rain?] [W: It’s not down i’ the last reign] Dr. Warburton’s emendation is ingenious, but I know not whether the sense may not be restored with less change. Let us consider it. Lucio, a prating fop, meets his old friend going to prison, and pours out upon him his impertinent interrogatories, to which, when the poor fellow makes no answer, he adds, What reply? ha? what say’st thou to this? tune, matter, and method, — is’t not? drown’d i’ th’ last rain? ha? what say’st thou, trot? &c. It is a common phrase used in low raillery of a man crest-fallen and dejected, that he looks like a drown’d puppy, Lucio, therefore, asks him, whether he was drowned in the last rain, and therefore cannot speak.

  III.ii.52 (82,2) [what say’st thou, trot?] Trot, or as it is now often pronounced, honest trout, is a familiar address to a man among the provincial vulgar. (1773)

  III.ii.54 (82,3) [Which is the way?] What is the mode now?

  III.ii.59 (82,4) [in the tub] The method of cure for veneral complaints is grosly celled the powdering tub.

  III.ii.89 (83,6) [Go — to kennel, Pompey — go] It should be remembered, that Pompey is the common name of a dog, to which allusion is made in the mention of a kennel. (1773)

  III.ii.135 (85,9) [clack-dish] The beggars, two or three centuries ago, used to proclaim their wont by a wooden dish with a moveable cover, which they clacked to shew that their vessel was empty. This appears in a passage quoted on another occasion by Dr. Gray, (see 1765, I,331,9 and the note in the 1765 Appendix)

  III.ii.144 (86,1) [The greater file of the subject] The larger list, the greater number.

  III.ii.193 (87,5) [He’s now past it] Sir Thomas Hammer, He is not past it yet. This emendation was received in the former edition, but seems not necessary. It were to be wished, that we all explained more, and amended less. (see 1765, I,333,5)

  III.ii.277 (90,9)

  [Pattern in himself to know,

  Grace to stand, and virtue go]

  These lines I cannot understand, but believe that they should be read thus:

  Patterning himself to know,

  In grace to stand, in virtue go;

  To pattern is to work after a pattern, and, perhaps, in Shakespeare’s licentious diction, simply to work. The sense is, he that bears the sword of heaven should be holy as well as severe; one that after good examples labours to know himself, to live with innocence, and to act with virtue.

  III.ii.294 (91,5)

  [So disguise shall, by the disguis’d

  Pay with falshood false exacting]

  So disguise shall by means of a person disguised, return an injurious demand with a counterfeit person.

  IY.i.13 (93,4) [My mirth it much displeas’d, but pleas’d my woe] Though the musick soothed my sorrows, it had no tendency to produce light merriment.

  IV.i.21 (93,5) [constantly] Certainly; without fluctuation of mind.

  IV.i.28 (93,6) [circummur’d with brick] Circummured, walled round. He caused the doors to be mured and cased up.

  Painter’s Palace of Pleasure.

  IV.i.40 (94,7) [In action all of precept] I rather think we should read,

  In precept all of action, —

  that is, in direction given not by words, but by mute signs.

  IV.i.44 (94,8) [I have possess’d him] I have made him clearly and strongly comprehend.

  IV.i.60 (95,9) [O place and greatness] [It plainly appears, that this fine speech belongs to that which concludes the preceding scene, between the Duke and Lucio…. But that some time might be given to the two women to confer together, the players, I suppose, took part of the speech, beginning at No might nor greatness, &c. and put it here, without troubling themselves about its pertinency. Warburton.] I cannot agree that these lines are placed here by the players. The sentiments are common, and such as a prince, given to reflection, must have often present. There was a necessity to fill up the time in which the ladies converse apart, and they must have quick tongues and ready apprehensions, if they understood each other while this speech was uttered.

  IV.i.60 (95,1) [false eyes] That is, Eyes insidious and traiterous.

  IV.i.62 (95,2) [contrarious quests] Different reports, running counter to each other.

  IV.i.76 (96,4) [for yet our tithe’s to sow] [W: tilth] The reader is here attacked with a pretty sophism. We should read tilth, i.e. our tillage is to make. But in the text it is to sow; and who has ever said that his tillage was to sow? I believe tythe is right, and that the expression is proverbial, in which tithe is taken, by an easy metonymy, for harvest.

  IV.ii.69 (100,7) [ As fast lock’d up in sleep, as guiltless labour

  When it lies starkly in the traveller’s bones ]

  Stiffly. These two lines afford a very pleasing image.

  IV.ii.83 (101,1) [Even with the stroke] Stroke is here put for the stroke of a pen or a line.

  IV.ii.86 (101,2) [To qualify] To temper, to moderate, as we say wine is qualified with water.

  IV.ii.86 (101,3) [Were he meal’d] Were he sprinkled; were he defiled, A figure of the same kind our authour uses in Macbeth, The blood-bolter’d Banquo.

  IV.ii.91 (101,4) [that spirit’s possess’d with haste, That wounds the unresisting postern with these strokes] The line is irregular, and the unresisting postern so strange an expression, that want of measure, and want of sense, might justly raise suspicion of an errour, yet none of the later editors seem to have supposed the place faulty, except sir Tho. Hammer, who reads,

  the unresting postern.

  The three folio’s have it,

  unsisting postern,

  out of which Mr. Rowe made unresisting, and the rest followed him. Sir Thomas Hammer seems to have supposed unresisting the word in the copies, from which he
plausibly enough extracted unresting, but be grounded his emendation on the very syllable that wants authority. What can be made of unsisting I know not; the best that occurs to me is unfeeling.

  IV.ii.103 (103,6) [Duke. This is his lordship’s man. Prov. And here comes Claudio’s pardon]

  [Tyrwhitt suggested that the names of the speakers were misplaced] When, immediately after the Duke had hinted his expectation of a pardon, the Provost sees the Messenger, he supposes the Duke to to have known something, and changes his mind. Either reading may serve equally well. (1773)

  IV.ii.153 (104,7) [desperately mortal] This expression is obscure. Sir Thomas Hammer reads, mortally desperate. Mortally is in low conversation used in this sense, but I know not whether it was ever written. I am inclined to believe, that desperately mortal means desperately mischievous. Or desperately mortal may mean a man likely to die in a desperate state, without reflection or repentance. (see 1765, I,348,7)

  IV.ii.187 (106,8) [and tie the beard] A beard tied would give a very new air to that face, which had never been seen but with the beard loose, long, and squalid. (1773)

  IV.iii.4 (107,2) [First, here’s young master Rash] This enumeration of the inhabitants of the prison affords a very striking view of the practices predominant in Shakespeare’s age. Besides those whose follies are common to all times, we have four fighting men and a traveller. It is not unlikely that the originals of the pictures were then known.

  IV.iii.17 (108,4) [master Forthlight] Should not Forthlight be Forthright, alluding to the line in which the thrust is made? (1773)

  IV.iii.21 (108,6) [in for the Lord’s sake] [i.e. to beg for the rest of their lives. Warburton.] I rather think this expression intended to ridicule the puritans, whose turbulence and indecency often brought them to prison, and who considered themselves as suffering for religion.

  It is not unlikely that men imprisoned for other crimes, might represent themselves to casual enquirers, as suffering for puritanism, and that this might be the common cant of the prisons. In Donne’s time, every prisoner was brought to jail by suretiship.

  IV.iii.68 (110,7) [After him, fellows] Here was a line given to the Duke, which belongs to the Provost. The Provost, while the Duke is lamenting the obduracy of the prisoner, cries out,

  After him, fellows, &c.

  and, when they are gone out, turns again to the Duke.

  IV.iii.72 (110,8) [to transport him] To remove him from one world to another. The French trepas affords a kindred sense.

  IV.iii.115 (112,1)

  [I will keep her ignorant of her good,

  To make her heavenly comforts of despair,

  When least it is expected.]

  A better reason might have been given. It was necessary to keep Isabella in ignorance, that she might with more keenness accuse the deputy.

  IV.iii.139 (113,2) [your bosom] Your wish; your heart’s desire.

  IV.iii.149 (113,3) [I am combined by a sacred vow] I once thought this should be confined, but Shakespeare uses combine for to bind by a pact or agreement, so he calls Angelo the combinate husband of Mariana.

  IV.iii.163 (113,4) [if the old fantastical duke] Sir Thomas Hammer reads, the odd fantastical duke, but old is a common word of aggravation in ludicrous language, as, there was old revelling.

  IV.iii.170 (114,5) [woodman] That is, huntsman, here taken for a hunter of girls.

  IV.iv.19 (115,6) [sort and suit] Figure and rank.

  IV.iv.27 (115,7) [Yet reason dares her No] Mr. Theobald reads,

  — Yet reason dares her note.

  Sir Thomas Hammer,

  — Yet reason dares her: No.

  Mr. Upton,

  — Yet reason dares her — No,

  which he explains thus: Yet, says Angelo, reason will give her courage — No, that is, it will not. I am afraid dare has no such signification. I have nothing to offer worth insertion.

  IV.iv.28 (116,8)

  [For my authority bears a credent bulk;

  That no particular scandal once can touch]

  Credent is creditable, inforcing credit, not questionable. The old English writers often confound the active and passive adjectives. So Shakespeare, and Milton after him, use inexpressive from inexpressible.

  Particular is private, a French sense. No scandal from any private mouth can reach a man in my authority.

  IV.iv.36 (116,9) [Nothing goes right; we would, and we would not] Here undoubtedly the act should end, and was ended by the poet; for here is properly a cessation of action, and a night intervenes, and the place is changed, between the passages of this scene, and those of the next. The next act beginning with the following scene, proceeds without any interruption of time or change of place.

  IV.v.1 (117,1) [Duke. These letters at fit time deliver me] Peter never delivers the letters, but tells his story without any credentials. The poet forgot the plot which he had formed.

  IV.vi.4 (118,2) [He says, to vail full purpose] [T: t’availful] [Warburton had explained “full” as “beneficial.”] To vail full purpose, may, with very little force on the words, mean, to hide the whole extent of our design, and therefore the reading may stand; yet I cannot but think Mr. Theobald’s alteration either lucky or ingenious. To interpret words with such laxity, as to make full the sane with beneficial, is to put an end, at once, to all necessity of emendation, for any word may then stand in the place of another.

  IV.vi.9 (118,3) [Enter Peter] This play has two Friars, either of whom might singly have served. I should therefore imagine, that Friar Thomas, in the first act, might be changed, without any harm, to Friar Peter; for why should the Duke unnecessarily trust two in an affair which required only one. The none of Friar Thomas is never mentioned in the dialogue, and therefore seems arbitrarily placed at the head of the scene.

  IV.vi.14 (119,4) [Have bent the gates] Have taken possession of the gates, (rev. 1778, II,134,4)

  V.i.20 (120,5) [vail your regard] That is, withdraw your thoughts from higher things, let your notice descend upon a wronged woman. To vail, is to lower.

  V.i.45 (121,6) [truth is truth To the end of reckoning] That is, truth has no gradations; nothing which admits of encrease can be so much what it is, as truth is truth. There may be a strange thing, and a thing more strange, but if a proposition be true, there can be none more true.

  V.i.54 (121,7) [as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute] As shy; as reserved, as abstracted: as just; as nice, as exact: as absolute; as complete in all the round of duty.

  V.i.56 (121,8) [In all his dressings] In all his semblance of virtue, in all his habiliments of office.

  V.i.64 (122,1) [do not banish reason For inequality] Let not the high quality of my adversary prejudice you against me.

  V.i.104 (124,4) [Oh, that it were as like, as it is true!] [Warburton had explained “like” as “seemly.”] Like I have never found for seemly.

  V.i.107 (124,8) [In hateful practice] Practice was used by the old writers for any unlawful or insidious stratagem. So again,

  This must needs be practice:

  and again,

  Let me have way to find this practice out.

  V.i.145 (125,6) [nor a temporary medler] It is hard to know what is meant by a temporary medler. In its usual sense, as opposed to perpetual, it cannot be used here. It may stand for temporal: the sense will then be, I know him for a holy man, one that meddles not with secular affairs. It may mean temporising: I know him to be a holy man, one who would not temporise, or take the opportunity of your absence to defame you. Or we may read,

  Not scurvy, nor a tamperer and medler:

  not one who would bare tampered with this woman to make her a false evidence against your deputy.

  V.i.160 (126,8) [So vulgarly and personally accus’d] Meaning either so grosly, with such indecency of invective, or by so mean and inadequate witnesses.

  V.i.205 (128,2) [This is a strange abuse] Abuse stands in this place for deception, or puzzle. So in Macbeth,

  This strange and self abuse,

  me
ans, this strange deception of himself.

  V.i.219 (129,3) [her promised proportions Came short of composition] Her fortune, which was promised proportionate to mine, fell short of the composition, that is, contract or bargain.

  V.i.236 (129,4) [These poor informal women] I once believed informal had no other or deeper signification than informing, accusing. The scope of justice, is the full extent; but think, upon farther enquiry, that informal signifies incompetent, not qualified to give testimony. Of this use there are precedents to be found, though I cannot now recover them.

  V.i.245 (130,5) [That’s seal’d in approbation?] Then any thing subject to counterfeits is tried by the proper officers and approved, a stamp or seal is put upon it, as among us on plate, weights, and measures. So the Duke says, that Angela’s faith has been tried, approved, and seal’d in testimony of that approbation, and, like other things so sealed, is no more to be called in question.

  V.i.255 (131,6) [to hear this matter forth] To hear it to the end; to search it to the bottom.

  V.i.303 (132,4) [to retort your manifest appeal] To refer back to

  Angelo and the cause in which you appealed from Angelo to the

  Duke.

  V.i.317 (133,5) [his subject I am not, Nor here provincial] Nor here accountable. The meaning seems to be, I am not one of his natural subjects, nor of any dependent province.

  V.i.323 (133,6) [the forfeits in a barber’s shop] [Warburton had explained that a list of forfeitures were posted in barber shops to warn patrons to keep their hands off the barber’s surgical instruments.] This explanation may serve till a better is discovered. But whoever has seen the instruments of a chirurgeon, knows that they may be very easily kept out of improper hands in a very small box, or in his pocket.

  V.i.336 (134,7) [And was the duke a fleshmonger, a fool, and a coward, as you then reported him to be?] So again afterwards,

  You, sirrah, that know me for a fool, a coward, One of all luxury —

  But Lucio had not, in the former conversation, mentioned cowardice among the faults of the duke. — Such failures of memory are incident to writers more diligent than this poet.

  V.i.359 (135,8) [show your sheep-biting face, and be hang’d an hour’ Will’t not off?] This is intended to be the common language of vulgar indignation. Our phrase on such occasions is simply; show your sheep-biting face, and be hanged. The words an hour have no particular use here, nor are authorised by custom. I suppose it was written thus, show your sheep-biting face, and be hanged — an’ how? wilt not off? In the midland counties, upon any unexpected obstruction or resistance, it is common to exclaim an’ how?