Already; and, as I hear, the provost hath
A warrant for his execution.

Ifab. Alas! what poor ability's in me
To do him good?

Lucio. Affay the power you have.
Ifab. My power! Alas! I doubt,-
Lucio. Our doubts are traitors,

And make us lofe the good we oft might win,
By fearing to attempt: Go to lord Angelo,
And let him learn to know, when maidens fue,
Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel,
All their petitions are as truly theirs

As they themselves would owe them 7.
Ifab. I'll fee what I can do.
Lucio. But fpeedily.

Ifab. I will about it strait;

No longer staying but to give the mother
Notice of my affair. I humbly thank you :

Commend me to my brother: foon at night
I'll fend him certain word of my fuccefs.
Lucio. I take my leave of you.

Ifab. Good fir, adieu.

7-would owe them.] To owe, i. e. to poffefs, to have. See vol. i. p. 38. STEEVENS.

the mother] The abbefs, or priorefs. JOHNSON.

ACT

ACT II. SCENE I.

Angelo's Houfe.

Enter Angelo, Efcalus, a Juftice, Provoft, and Attendants.
Ang. We must not make a scare-crow of the law;
Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,

And let it keep one shape, till custom make it
Their perch, and not their terror.

Efcal. Ay, but yet

Let us be keen, and rather cut a little,

Than fall, and bruife to death: Alas! this gentleman,
Whom I would fave, had a moft noble father.
Let but your honour know3, (whom I believe

Provoft.] "A Provost martial" Minfbieu explains "Prevost "des marefchaux: Præfectus rerum capitalium, Prætor-rerum ca"pitalium." EDITOR.

A provoft is generally the executioner of an army. So in the Famous Hiftory of Tho. Stukely, 1605 Bl. L.

"Provoft, lay irons upon him and take him to your charge." Again, in the Virgin Martyr by Maffenger:

"Thy provoft to fee execution done

STEEVENS.

"On these base Christians in Cæfarea." -to fear the birds of prey,] To fear is to affright, to terrify. So in The Merchant of Venice:

"this afpect of mine

"Hath fear'd the valiant." STEEVENS.

2 Than fall, and bruife to death.-] I fhould rather read, fell, i. e. ftrike down. So in Timon of Athens:

"All fave thee, I fell with curfes." WARBURTON. Fall is the old reading, and the true one. Shakspeare has used the same verb active in the Comedy of Errors:

"-as eafy may'st thou fall

"A drop of water.

i. e. let fall. So in As you like it:

66

-the executioner

"Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck."

STEEVENS.

3 Let but your honour know,-] To know is here to examine, to take cognisance. So in Midfummer-Night's Dream: "Therefore, fair Hermia, queftion your dfires; "Know of your truth, examine well your blood."

JOHNSON.

Το

To be most strait in virtue)

That, in the working of your own affections,
Had time coher'd with place, or place with wifhing,
Or that the refolute acting of your blood

Could have attain'd the effect of your own purpose,
Whether you had not fometime in your life
Err'd in this point which now you cenfure him,
And pull'd the law upon you.

Ang. "Tis one thing to be tempted, Efcalus,
Another thing to fall. I not deny,

The jury, paffing on the prifoner's life,

May, in the fworn twelve, have a thief or two Guiltier than him they try: What's open made to juftice,

That juftice feizes. What know the laws,

That thieves do pafs on thieves? "Tis very pregnant,
The jewel that we find, we ftoop and take it,
Because we fee it; but what we do not fee,
We tread upon, and never think of it.
You may not fo extenuate his offence,

For I have had fuch faults; but rather tell me,
When I that cenfure him do fo offend,

Let mine own judgment pattern out my death,
And nothing come in partial. Sir, he muft die.
Efcal. Be it, as your wifdom will.

Ang. Where is the provost?

Prov. Here, if it like your honour.
Ang. See that Claudio

Err'd in this point which now you cenfure him,] Some word fecins to be wanting to make this line fenfe. Perhaps, we fhould read:

Err'd in this point which now you cenfure him for.

STEEVENS. 5-'Tis very pregnant,] "Tis plain that we must act with bad as with good; we punish the faults, as we take the advantages, that lie in our way, and what we do not fee we cannot note.

6 For I have had have had faults. JOHNSON.

JOHNSON.

-] That is, because, by reason that I

Be executed by nine to-morrow morning :
Bring him his confeffor, let him be prepar'd;
For that's the utmost of his pilgrimage. [Exit Prov.
Efcal. Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us

all!

Some rife by fin, and fome by virtue fall:

Some

7 Some rife, &c.] This line is in the first folio printed in Italics as a quotation. All the folios read in the next line:

Some run from brake of ice, and anfwer none.

JOHNSON.

The old reading is perhaps the true one, and may mean, fome run away from danger, and flay to answer none of their faults, whilst others are condemned only on account of a fingle frailty. If this be the true reading, it fhould be printed:

Some run from breaks [i. e. fractures] of ice, &c. Since I wrote this, I have found reafon to change my opinion. A brake anciently meant not only a sharp bit, a fuaffle, but also the engine with which farriers confined the legs of fuch unruly horfes as would not otherwise submit themfelves to be fhod, or to have a cruel operation performed on them. This, in fome places, is ftill called a fmith's brake. In this last fenfe, Ben Jonfon ufes the word in his Underwoods:

"And not think he had eat a stake,

"Or were fet up in a brake."

And, for the former fenfe, fee the Silent Woman, a&t IV. Again, for the latter fenfe, Buffy de Ambois, by Chapman : "Or, like a ftrumpet, learn to fet my face

"In an eternal brake,”

Again, in The Opportunity, by Shirley, 1640:

"He is fallen into fome brake, fome wench has tied him "by the legs."

Again, in Holland's Leaguer, 1633:

her I'll make

"A ftale, to catch this courtier in a brake."

I offer thefe quotations, which may prove of ufe to fome more fortunate conjecturer; but am able myfelf to derive very liule from them to fuit the paffage before us.

I likewife find from Holinfhed, p. 670, that the brake was an engine of torture. "The faid Hawkins was caft into the Tower, and at length brought to the brake, called the Duke of Excefter's daughter, by means of which pain he fhewed many things," &c.

When the dukes of Exeter and Suffolk (fays Blackstone in his Comment. vol. IV. chap. xxv. p. 320, 321) and other ministers of Hen. VI. had laid a design to introduce the civil law into

Some run from brakes of vice, and anfwer none;
And fome condemned for a fault alone.

Enter Elbow, Froth, Clown, Officers, &c. Elb. Come, bring them away: if these be good people in a common-weal, that do nothing but ufe their

this kingdom as the rule of government, for a beginning thereof they erected a rack for torture; which was called in derifion the Duke of Exeter's Daughter, and ftill remains in the Tower of London, where it was occafionally used as an engine of state, not of law, more than once in the reign of queen Elizabeth." See Coke's Inflit. 35. Barrington, 69, 385. and Fuller's Worthies, p. 317.

A part of this horrid engine still remains in the Tower, and the following is the figure of it.

It consists of a strong iron frame about fix feet long, with three rollers of wood within it: the middle of thefe, which has iron teeth at each end, is governed by two ftops of iron, and was, probably, that part of the machine which fufpended the powers of the reft, when the unhappy fufferer was fufficiently ftrained by the cords, &c to begin confeffion. I cannot conclude this account of it without confeffing my obligation to Sir Charles Frederick, who, politely condefcended to direct my enquiries, while his high command rendered every part of the Tower acceffible to my researches. I have fince obferved that, in Fox's Martyrs, edit. 1596, p. 1843, there is a reprefentation of the fame kind.

If Shakspeare alluded to this engine, the fenfe of the contefted paffage in Meafure for Meafure will be: Some run more than once from engines of punishment, and anfwer no interrogatories; while fome are condemned to fuffer for a fingle trefpass.

It