ACT I.
Scene 1. Page 180.
Duke. ... Then no more remains,
But that to your sufficiency, as your worth is able,
And let them work.
Sufficiency is, no doubt, ability, and not authority, as Warburton conceives; and this shows that there is an omission in the speech of what the duke would have added concerning the authority which he meant to delegate. The most rational addition is that suggested by Mr. Tyrwhitt. It is remarkable that Dr. Johnson should contend for the introduction of a line of thirteen syllables!
Scene 1. Page 186.
Duke. Mortality and mercy in Vienna
Live in thy tongue and heart.
That is, "I delegate to thy tongue the power of pronouncing sentence of death, and to thy heart the privilege of exercising mercy." These are words of great import, and ought to be made clear, as on them depends the chief incident of the play.
Scene 2. Page 191.
Lucio. Behold, behold, &c.
This speech should have been given to the first gentleman, in order to correspond with the note, which is probably right.
Scene 2. Page 191.
Lucio. A French crown more.
The quotations already given sufficiently exemplify the meaning; yet that which follows being remarkably illustrative, is offered in addition. "More seeming friendship [is] to be had in an house of transgression for a French crown, though it be a bald one, than at Belinsgate for a boxe o' th'eare." Vox graculi, or Jack Dawe's prognostication, 1623, 4to, p. 60.
Scene 2. Page 192.
I. Gent. How now, which of your hips has the most profound sciatica?
A most appropriate question to the bawd. The author of the facetious Latin comedy of Cornelianum dolium has named one of Cornelius's strumpets Sciatica. She thus speaks of herself; "In lectulo meo ægrè me vertere potui; podagram, chiragram, et hip-agram (si ita dicere liceat) nocte quotidie sensi."
Scene 2. Page 195.
Bawd. What's to do here, Thomas Tapster?
Why does she call the clown by this name, when it appears from his own showing that his name was Pompey? Perhaps she is only quoting some old saying or ballad.
Scene 3. Page 201.
Claud. ... for in her youth
There is a prone and speechless dialect.
One of the old significations of this word appears to have been easily moving, which is evidently the sense required in this place. See Cotgrave's Dictionary, in prone.
Scene 4. Page 203.
Duke. Where youth and cost and witless bravery keeps.
Mr. Reed's explanation of this word as used for dwells, is confirmed by another passage in this play, Act IV. Scene 1.
"... a breath thou art
That dost this habitation where thou keep'st
Hourly afflict."
Scene 5. Page 208.
Lucio. For that, which if myself might be his judge,
He should receive his punishment in thanks.
It has been conceived that there is here a transposition at the press for "that for which." The emendation is more grammatical than harmonious; but the expression is quite in Shakspeare's manner. A few pages further on we have this similar phraseology:
"Whether you had not sometime in your life
Err'd in this point which now you censure him."
Scene 5. Page 211.
Lucio. Your brother and his lover.
This term was applied to the female sex not only in Shakspeare's time, but even to a very late period. Lady Wortley Montagu in a letter to her husband, speaking of a young girl who forbade the bans of marriage at Huntingdon, calls her lover. See her works, vol. i. p. 238.