"Madam, for a twelvemonth's approbation, MALONE. 273. -prone and speechless dialect,] I can scarcely tell what signification to give to the word prone. Its primitive and translated senses are well known. The author may, by a prone dialect, mean a dialect which men are prone to regard, or a dialect natural and unforced, as those actions seem to which we are prone. Either of these interpretations are sufficiently strained; but such distortion of words is not uncommon in our author. For the sake of an easier sense, we may read, -In her youth There is a pow'r, and speechless dialect, Or thus: There is a prompt and speechless dialect. JOHNSON. Prone, perhaps, may stand for humble, as a prone posture is a posture of supplication. So, in The Opportunity, by Shirley, 1640: "You have prostrate language." The same thought occurs in the Winter's Tale: Sir W. Davenant, in his alteration of the play, changes prone to sweet. I mention some of his variations, to shew that what appear difficulties to us, were were difficulties to him, who living nearer the time of Shakspere, might be supposed to have understood his language more intimately. STEEVENS. Prone is used here for prompt. So, in our author's Rape of Lucrece, 1594: "O that prone lust should stain so pure a bed !" MALONE. 279. under grievous imposition:] I once thought it should be inquisition, but the present reading is probably right. The crime would be under grievous penalties imposed. JOHNSON. 281. lost at a game of tick-tack.- -] Ticktack is a game at tables. Jeu au tric-trac is used in French, in a wanton sense. MALONE. The same phrase, in Lucio's wanton sense, occurs in Lusty Juventus. STEEVENS. 286. Believe not that the dribbling dart of love Can pierce a complete bosom :] Think not that a breast completely armed can be pierced by the dart of love, that comes fluttering without force. JOHNSON. 293. -the life remov'd ;] i. e. a life of retirement, a life removed from the bustle of the world. STEEVENS. 297. (A man of stricture, and firm abstinence)] Stricture may easily be used for stri&ness; ure is indeed an old word, but, I think, always applied to things, never to persons. JOHNSON. Sir W. Davenant, in his alteration of this play, reads, stridness. STEEVENS. 305. (The needful bits and curbs for head-strong steeds)] In the copies, The needful bits and curbs for head-strong weeds. There is no matter of analogy or consonance in the metaphors here: and, though the copies agree, I do not think the author would have talked of bits and curbs for weeds. On the other hand, nothing can be more proper, than to compare persons of unbridled licentiousness to head-strong steeds: and, in this view, bridling the passions has been a phrase adopted by our best poets. THEOBALD. 306. Which for these nineteen years we have let sleep ;] In former editions, Which for these fourteen years we have let slip. For fourteen I have made no scruple to replace nineteen. The reason will be obvious to him who recollects what the Duke [Claudio] has said in a foregoing scene. I have altered the odd phrase of letting the laws slip: for how does it sort with the comparison that follows, of a lion in his cave that went not out to prey? But letting the laws sleep, adds a particular propriety to the thing represented, and accords exactly too with the simile. It is the metaphor too that our author seems fond of using upon this occasion, in several other passages of this play: The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept; And, so again : -but this new governor Awakes me all the enrolled penalties; -and -and for a name, Now puts the drowsy and neglected act Freshly on me. THEOBALD. I once thought that the words let slip (which is the reading of the old copy, and I believe, right) related to the line immediately preceding-the needful bits and curbs, which we have suffered for so many years to hang loose. But it is clear from a passage in Twelfth Night that these words should be referred to laws, "which for these nineteen years we have suffered to pass unnoticed-unobserved;" for so the same phrase is used by Sir Andrew Aguecheek: "Let him let the matter slip, and I'll give him my horse grey Capulet.' Again, in Marlow's Doctor Faustus, 1631: "Shall I let slip so great an injury?" " Again, in A Mad World my Masters, by Middleton, 16,0: "Well, things must slip and sleep-I will dissemble." Again, in The Spanish Tragedy, 1605: "My simplicity may make them think "That ignorantly I will let all slip.” The two readings which Mr. Theobald has introduced into the text, he might have found in an alteration of this play, published in 1700, by Charles Gildon, under the title of Measure for Measure, or Beauty the best Advocate: "We have strict statutes and sharp penal laws, "Which I have suffer'd nineteen years to sleep." And And he might have supported the latter by the following passage in Hamlet: -How stand I then, "That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd, "And let all sleep." MALONE. Mr. Malone, in a note on line 254, &c. supposed Lord Strafford to have adverted, in his defence, to that passage. It seems no less probable that he thought upon this, and if so, it is obvious that he understood sleep to be the original word. HENLEY. Theobald's correction is misplaced. If any cor. rection is really necessary, it should have been made where Claudio, in a foregoing scene, says nineteen years. I am disposed to take the Duke's words. WHALLEY. A similar observation on this passage occurs in the Remarks. 312. Becomes more mock'd, than fear'd:- -] Becomes was added by Mr. Pope, to restore sense to the passage, some such word having been left out. STEEVENS. 322. Sith -] i. e. since. 330. To do it slander : STEEVENS. -] The text stood, So do in slander.. Sir Thomas Hanmer has very well corrected it thus, To do it slander. Yet perhaps less alteration might have produced the true reading, And |