While, however, LEGES has shown good cause against the adoption of either of the above epithets, it does not appear to me that he has succeeded in establishing a case in favour of the word "pensive," which he proposes instead. In the first place, the passages your correspondent quotes, show Angelo to be "strict," "firm," "precise," to be "a man whose blood is very snow-broth," &c., but certainly not "pensive" in the common acceptation of the word. Secondly, he fails to show that, if Shakspeare meant by "pensive" anything more than thoughtful in the passages he cites, he meant anything so strong as religiously melancholy, which would be the sense required to be of any service to him as an epithet to the word "guards."
I will now, with your permission, call attention to what I consider an oversight of enquirers into this subject. The conditions required, as your correspondent well states, are "that the word adopted shall be (1) suitable to the reputed character of Angelo; (2) an appropriate epithet to the word 'guards;' (3) of the proper metre in both places; and (4) similar in appearance to the word 'prenzie.'" Now, it does not appear to have been considered that this similarity was to be sought in manuscript, and not in print; or, if considered, that much more radical errors arise from illegible manuscripts than the critics have allowed for. In his "Introductory Notice," Mr. Knight says the word (prenzie) "appears to have been inserted by the printer in despair of deciphering the author's manuscript." Yet in his note to the text he has printed it, together with three suggested emendations, as though he would call attention to the comparative similarity in print. But if, as all have hitherto assumed, the printer had read the first three or four letters correctly, is it not most probable that the context, with the word recurring within four lines, would have set him right? And his having twice inserted a word having no apparent meaning, is it not as probable that he was misled at the very beginning of the word by some careless combination of letters presenting accidentally the same appearance in the two instances? Having thus shown that the search for the true word may have been too restricted, I will proceed to make a final suggestion.
When Claudio exclaims in surprise—
"The ( ) Angelo!"
it is quite clear that the epithet which has to be supplied is one in total contrast to the character just given of him by Isabella. What is this character?
"This outward-sainted deputy,—
Whose settled visage and deliberate word
Nips youth i' the head, and follies doth emmew,
As falcon doth the fowl,—is yet a devil;
His filth within being cast, he would appear