Viewing Angelo, therefore, as a man proverbial for rigidly virtuous conduct; who stood "at a guard with envy;" who challenged scrutiny; and who was above the tongue of slander; I do not think that primsie can be looked upon as an appropriate designation in the mouth of Claudio. He would use some word in the greatest possible contrast to the infamous conduct Isabella was imputing to Angelo: primsie would be weak and almost unmeaning, and, as such, I will not receive it as Shakespeare's, so long as the choice of a better remains.
Does not Shakspeare, by his frequent repetition of precise, in this play, seem purposely to stamp it with that peculiar signification necessary to his meaning, that is, rigidly virtuous? Another example of it, not, I believe, before noticed, is where Elbow describes his "two notorious benefactors" as "precise villains," "void of all profanation that good Christians ought to have."
The humour of this is in the contrast afforded by Elbow's association of incongruous and inconsistent terms, causing Escalus to exclaim, "Do you hear how he misplaces?" Precise therefore in this place also requires a meaning as opposite as possible to villany, something more than formal, in order that the humour may be fully appreciated.
With respect to Halliwell's quotation from Fletcher's poems, it certainly confers upon prin a very different meaning from any that prim is capable of receiving: the context requires prin to have some signification akin to fleshless; like "bodyes at the resurrection, just rarifying into ayre." Prin, in this sense, would seem to have some relation to pine, since pin and prin were synonymous.
A. E. B.
Leeds, July, 1851
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
(Vol. iii, pp. 166, 230, 412.)
The earliest divisions of the Decalogue are those of Josephus (Ant. Jud., lib. iii. c. v. s. 5.), the Chaldee Paraphrase of Jonathan, and Philo-Judæus de Decem Oraculis. According to the two former, the 3rd verse of Exod. xx., "Thou shalt have no other gods but me," contains the first commandment, the 4th, 5th, and 6th, the second. Philo makes the Preface or Introduction to be a distinct commandment, as do also St. Jerome and Hesychius. The two latter make what we call the first and second to be the second only; but Philo does not recite the words "Thou shalt have no other gods but me;" and whether he understood them in the first or the second, does not hence appear. The same uncertainty is found in Athanasius in Synopsi S. Scripturæ.
It may however be inferred, from these two writers giving the commencement only of the other commandments, that they made the prohibition, "Thou shalt not make," &c., in the same manner the commencement of the second; and therefore joined the other, "Thou shalt have," &c., to the words "I am the Lord thy God."
Those which we call the first and second were united by St. Augustine.