143. To what we fear of death.] Most certainly the idea of the "spirit bathing in fiery floods," or of residing in thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice," is not original to our poet; which is the whole that is wanted for the argument: but I am not sure that they came from the Platonick hell of Virgil. The monks also had their hot and their cold hell, "the fyrste is fyre that ever brenneth, and never gyveth lighte," says an old homily :-" The seconde is passying cold, that yf a greate hylle of fyre were cast therin, it shold torn to yce." One of their legends, well remembered in the time of Shakspere, gives us a dialogue between a bishop and a soul tormented in a piece of ice which was brought to cure a brenning heate in his foot; take care, that you do not interpret this the gout, for I remember Menage quotes a canon upon us, "Si quis dixerit episcopum podagrá laborare, anathema sit." Another tells us of the soul of a monk fastened to a rock, which the winds were to blow about for a twelvemonth, and purge of its enormities. Indeed this doctrine was before now introduced into poetick fiction, as you may see in a poem, "where the lover declareth his pains to exceed far the pains of hell," among the many miscellaneous ones subjoined to the works of Surrey. Nay, a very learned and inquisiGij tive tive brother-antiquary hath observed to me, on the authority of Blefkenius, that this was the ancient opinion of the inhabitants of Iceland, who were certainly very little read either in the poet or the philosopher. FARMER. Lazarus, in the Shepherd's Calendar, is represented to have seen these particular modes of punishment in the infernal regions: "Secondly, I have seen in hell a floud frozen as ice, wherein the envious men and women were plunged unto the navel, and then suddainly came over them a right cold and great wind that grieved and pained them right sore," &c. STEEVENS. ] In Isabella's 152. Is't not a kind of incest,declamation there is something harsh, and something forced and far-fetched. But her indignation cannot be thought violent, when we consider her not only as a virgin, but as a nun. JOHNSON. 155. a warped slip of wilderness] Wilder. ness is here used for wildness, the state of being dis orderly. So, in the Maid's Tragedy: "And throws an unknown wilderness about me." Again, in Old Fortunatus, 1600: "But I in wilderness totter'd out my youth." The word, in this sense, is now obsolete, though employed by Milton : "The paths, and bowers, doubt not, but our joint hands "Will keep from wilderness with ease.' STEEVENS. 156. Take my defiance:] Defiance is refusal So, in Romeo and Juliet: "I do defy thy commiseration." STEEVENS. 163. but a trade:] A custom; a practice; an established habit. So we say of a man much addicted JOHNSON. to any thing, he makes a trade of it. 185. Do not satisfy your resolution with hopes that are fallible] The sense is this. Do not rest with satisfaction on hopes that are fallible. 190. Hold you lution. there ; STEEVENS. -] Continue in that reso JOHNSON. 197. In good time.] i. e. a la bonne heure, so be it, very well. The same expression occurs in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, and in Richard III. STEEVENS. 241. -her combinate husband,-] Combinate is STEEVENS. betrothed, settled by contract. 264. 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. JOHNSON. 274. -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. JOHNSON. To scale, as may be learned from a note to Coriolanus, act i. sc. 1, most certainly means, to disorder, to disconcert, to put to flight. An army routed is called by Holinshed an army scaled. The word some Giij times times signifies to diffuse or disperse; at others, as I suppose in the present instance, to put into confusion. STEEVENS. To scale is certainly to reach as well as to disperse or spread abroad, and hence its application to a routed army which is scattered over the field. The Duke's meaning appears to be, either that Angelo would be over-reached, as a town is by the scalade, or that his true character would be spread or laid open, so that his vileness would become evident. Dr. Warburton thinks it is weighed, a meaning which Dr. Johnson affixes to the word in another place. See Coriolanus, act i. scene 1. REMARKS. 285. -the moated grange A grange is a solitary farm-house. So, in Othello: "My house is not a grange.” STEEVENS. A grange implies some one particular house imme. diately inferior in rank to a hall, situated at a small distance from the town or village from which it takes its name; as Hornby-Grange, Blackwell-Grange; and is in the neighbourhood simply called The Grange. Originally, perhaps, these buildings were the lord's granary or store-house, and the residence of his chief bailiff. (Grange, from Granagium, Lat.) REMARKS. 294. —bastard.] A kind of sweet wine, then much in vogue, from the Italian bastardo. WARBURTON. 296. -since of two usuries, &c.] Hanmer corrected the passage thus: 3 since of two usurers 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 used by an easy license for the professors of usury. 304. JOHNSON. -father: -] In return to Elbow's blundering address of good father friar, i. e. good father brother, the duke humorously calls him, in his own style, good brother father. This would appear still clearer in French. Dieu vous benisse, mon pere frere.-Et vous aussi, mon frere pere. There is no doubt that our friar is a corruption of the French frere. TYRWHITT. 316. I drink, I eat, array myself, and live.] The old editions have, I drink, I eat away myself, and live. This is one very excellent instance of the sagacity of our editors, and it were to be wished heartily, that they would have obliged us with their physical solu tion, how a man can eat away himself, and live. Mr. Bishop gave me that most certain emendation, which I have substituted in the room of the former foolish reading; by the help whereof, we have this easy sense that the clown fed himself, and put clothes on his back, by exercising the vile trade of a bawd. THEOBALD. 329. That we were all, as some would seem to be, Free from all faults, as faults from seeming free!] I think |