"Lord Angelo is precise,
Stands at a guard with envy, scarce confesses
That his blood flows, or that appetite
Is more to bread than stone. Hence we shall see,
If power change purpose, what our seemers be."
"The 'pensive' Angelo" might be admissible, though not so appropriate as "the precise;" but "pensive" is inapplicable to the word "guards," in the sense which the poet everywhere attaches to it. In the second Scene of this Act the Clown says:
"Craft being richer than innocency, stands for the facing."
Your correspondent may be assured that the word he would substitute was never written or printed "penzive" in Shakspeare's time.
Mr. Collier's objection, that "precise" "sounds ill as regards the metre, the accent falling on the wrong syllable," has no weight with me, for it is doubtful whether the accent was not placed on the first syllable of "prècise" by the poet and his cotemporaries; but were this not the case, I should still very much prefer the reading proposed by Tieck, and adopted by Mr. Knight, to any other that has been proposed, and have little doubt that it is the true one.
S. W. SINGER.