"Nips youth in the head, and follies doth enmew
As falcon doth the fowl."
It is the falcon, not the fowl, that is enmewed. Would that every correction were as certain as that which I have made here! I read, with the fullest confidence, enew. (See [Index] s. v.) It is a most curious circumstance that in this place of the MS. I unconsciously wrote bud for 'head,' a correction which was afterwards given in Notes and Queries (3rd S. v. 229), and had, I believe, been previously proposed by Grey. If 'head' be the right reading, it may signify the state of bloom. "That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth" (Ham. iii. 1).
"The prenzie Angelo!—
Oh! 'tis the cunning livery of Hell
The damnedst bodie to invest and cover
In prenzie gardes."
So the passage stands in the folio. As there is no such word known in English as 'prenzie,' the 2nd folio read princely, Hanmer priestly, which Mr. Dyce adopts. I think, however, that the German Tieck hit on the right word, precise, and I have so printed it without hesitation. We have had already, "Lord Angelo is precise" (i. 4), "is severe" (ii. 1), and "well-seeming" (iii. 1); but it is nowhere said that he was princely or priestly, and surely the guards or bindings of a dress could hardly be so termed. As to the change of accent, which Mr. Dyce makes an objection, a reader of our old poets should be ashamed to urge it, it is of such frequent occurrence, and it occurs more than once in this very play. In i. 2 we actually have "précise villains," and "A sort of sober, scurvy, precise neighbours" (Jonson, Alch. i. 1). (See Introd. p. [80].) I further think we should read 'bodies,' and with Collier's folio garbs, which being spelt garbes differs only in one letter from 'gardes.' As the latter were mere bindings, edgings, facings, they could hardly be said to cover a body. The infinitives 'invest' and 'cover' are used (as so frequently) where we now use a participle with an article. See Introd. p. [70].