duke; you shall anon overread it at your pleasure; where you shall find, within these two days he will be here. This is a thing that Angelo knows not: for he this very day receives letters of strange tenor; perchance, of the duke's death; perchance, entering into some monastery; but, by chance, nothing of what is writ21. Look, the unfolding star calls up the shepherd 22. Put not yourself into amazement, how these things should be: all difficulties are but easy when they are known. Call your executioner, and off with Barnardine's head: I will give him a present shrift, and advise him for a better place. Yet you are amazed; but this shall absolutely reyou. Come away; it is almost clear dawn.

solve 23

[Exeunt.

SCENE III. Another Room in the same.

Enter Clown.

Clo. I am as well acquainted here, as I was in our house of profession: one would think it were mistress Overdone's own house, for here be many of her old customers. First, here's young master Rash1; he's in for a commodity of brown paper and old ginger, ninescore and seventeen pounds; of

21 What is writ;' we should read here writ;' the Duke pointing to the letter in his hand.

22 So Milton in Comus:

'The star that bids the shepherd fold
Now the top of heaven doth hold.'

23 i. e. convince you.

1 This enumeration of the inhabitants of the prison affords a very striking view of the practices predominant in Shakspeare'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. Rash was a silken stuff formerly worn in coats: all the names are characteristic.

which he made five marks, ready money2: marry, then, ginger was not much in request, for the old women were all dead. Then is there here one master Caper, at the suit of master Three-pile the mercer, for some four suits of peach-colour'd satin, which now peaches him a beggar. Then have we here young Dizy, and young master Deep-vow, and master Copper-spur, and master Starve-lackey the rapier and dagger man, and young Drop-heir that kill'd lusty Pudding, and master Forthright the tilter, and brave master Shoe-tie the great traveller, and wild Half-can that stabb'd Pots, and, I think, forty more; all great doers in our trade, and are now for the Lord's sake 3.

2 It was the practice of money lenders in Shakspeare's time, as well as more recently, to make advances partly in goods and partly in cash. The goods were to be resold generally at an enormous loss upon the cost price, and of these commodities it appears that brown paper and ginger often formed a part. This custom is illustrated by numerous extracts from cotemporary writers, in the Variorum Shakspeare. In Green's Defence of Coney-catching, 1592; if he borrow a hundred pound, he shall have forty in silver, and threescore in wares; as lute strings, hobby-horses, or brown paper,' &c. "Which when the poor gentleman came to sell again, he could not make threescore and ten in the hundred beside the usury. .—Quip for an upstart Courtier, 1620.

3 It appears from Davies's Epigrams, 1611, that this was the language in which prisoners who were confined for debt addressed passengers:

Good gentle writers, for the Lord's sake, for the Lord's sake, Like Ludgate prisoners, lo, I, begging, make My mone.'

And in Nashe's Peirce Pennilesse, 1593,At that time that thy joys were in the fleeting, and thus crying for the Lord's sake out of an iron window.' A very curious passage in confirmation of this has occurred to me in Baret's Alvearie, 1573, under the word Interest, or the borrowing of usurie money wherewith to pay my debt.'' And therefore methinke it is prettily sayd in Grammar that Interest will be joyned with Mea, Tua, Sua, Nostra, Vestra, and Cuia, only in the ablative case, because they are pronounes possessives. For how great so ever his possessions, goodes, or

Enter ABHORSON.

Abhor. Sirrah, bring Barnardine hither.

Clo. Master Barnardine! you must rise and be hang'd, master Barnardine!

Abhor. What, ho, Barnardine!

Barnar. [Within.] A pox o' your throats! Who makes that noise there? What are you?

Clo. Your friends, sir; the hangman: You must be so good, sir, to rise and be put to death.

Barnar. [Within.] Away, you rogue, away; I am sleepy.

Abhor. Tell him, he must awake, and that quickly

too.

Clo. Pray, master Barnardine, awake till you are executed, and sleep afterwards.

Abhor. Go in to him, and fetch him out.

Clo. He is coming, sir, he is coming; I hear his straw rustle.

Enter BARNARDINE.

Abhor. Is the axe upon the block, sirrah?
Clo. Very ready, sir.

Barnar. How now, Abhorson? what's the news with you?

Abhor. Truly, sir, I would desire you to clap into your prayers; for, look you, the warrant's come. Barnar. You rogue, I have been drinking all night, I am not fitted for't.

lands be that haunteth the company of this impersonall, if now perchance he be able to kepe three persons, at length he shall not be able to kepe one: yea he himselfe shall shortly become such an impersonall, that he shall be counted as nobody, without any countenance, credit, person, or estimation among men. And when he hath thus filched, and fleeced his possessive so long till he hath made him as rich as a new shorn sheepe, then will he turn him to commons into Ludgate: where for his ablative case he shall have a dative cage, craving and crying at the grate, your worships' charitie FOR THE LORD'S SAKE.'

Clo. O, the better, sir; for he that drinks all night, and is hanged betimes in the morning, may sleep the sounder all the next day.

Enter Duke.

Abhor. Look you, sir, here comes your ghostly father; Do we jest now, think

you?

Duke. Sir, induced by my charity, and hearing how hastily you are to depart, I am come to advise you, comfort you, and pray with you.

Barnar. Friar, not I; I have been drinking hard all night, and I will have more time to prepare me, or they shall beat out my brains with billets: I will not consent to die this day, that's certain.

Duke. O, sir, you must: and therefore, I beseech

you,

Look forward on the journey you shall go.

Barnar. I swear, I will not die to-day for any man's persuasion.

Duke. But hear you.

Barnar. Not a word; if you have any thing to say to me, come to my ward; for thence will not I to-day.

Enter Provost.

[Exit.

Duke. Unfit to live, or die: O, gravel heart!After him, fellows; bring him to the block.

[Exeunt ABHORSON and Clown. Prov. Now, sir, how do you find the prisoner? Duke. A creature unprepar'd, unmeet for death; And, to transport him in the mind he is,

Were damnable.

Prov.

Here in the prison, father,

There died this morning of a cruel fever

4 i. e. to remove him from one world to another. The French trépas affords a kindred sense.

One Ragozine, a most notorious pirate,

A man of Claudio's years; his beard and head,
Just of his colour: What if we do omit
This reprobate, till he were well inclined;
And satisfy the deputy with the visage
Of Ragozine, more like to Claudio?

Duke. O, 'tis an accident that heaven provides! Despatch it presently; the hour draws on Prefix'd by Angelo; See, this be done, And sent according to command; whiles I Persuade this rude wretch willingly to die.

Prov. This shall be done, good father, presently. But Barnardine must die this afternoon:

And how shall we continue Claudio,

To save me from the danger that might come,
If he were known alive?

Duke. Let this be done :-Put them in secret holds, Both Barnardine and Claudio: Ere twice

The sun hath made his journal greeting to

The under generation 5, you shall find

Your safety manifested.

Prov. I am your free dependant.
Duke.

And send the head to Angelo.

Quick, despatch,

[Exit Provost.

Now will I write letters to Angelo,

The provost, he shall bear them,-whose contents

Shall witness to him, I am near at home;
And that, by great injunctions, I am bound
To enter publickly: him I'll desire

To meet me at the consecrated fount,
A league below the city; and from thence,
By cold gradation and weal-balanced form,
We shall proceed with Angelo.

5 The under generation, the antipodes.