[There is a kind of character in thy life,
That to the observer doth thy history
Fully unfold]
Either this introduction has more solemnity than meaning, or it
has a meaning which I cannot discover. What is there peculiar
in this, that a man's _life_ informs the observer of his _history_?
Might it be supposed that Shakespeare wrote this?
_There is a kind of character in thy_ look.
_History_ may be taken in a more diffuse and licentious meaning,
for _future occurrences_, or the part of life yet to come.
If this sense be received, the passage is clear and proper.
I.i.37 (8,1) [to fine issues] To great consequences. For high purposes.
I.i.41 (9,2) [But I do bend my speech To one that can my part in
him advertise] I know not whether we may not better read,
_One that can my part_ to _him advertise_,
One that can _inform himself_ of that which it would be otherwise
_my part_ to tell him.
I.i.43 (9,3) [Hold therefore, Angelo] That is, continue to be
Angelo; _hold_ as thou art.
I.i.47 (9,4) [first in question] That is, first called for; first
appointed.
I.i.52 (9,5) [We have with a leaven'd and prepared choice Proceeded
to you] [W: a levell'd] No emendation is necessary. _Leaven'd_
choice is one of Shakespeare's harsh metaphors. His train of
ideas seems to be this. _I have proceeded to you with choice_
mature, concocted, fermented, _leavened_. When bread is _leavened_
it is left to ferment: a _leavened_ choice is therefore a choice
not hasty, but considerate, not declared as soon as it fell
into the imagination, but suffered to work long in the mind.
Thus explained, it suits better with _prepared_ than _levelled_.
I.i.65 (10,6) [your scope is as mine own] That is, Your amplitude
of power.
I.ii.22 (12,7) [in metre?] In the primers, there are metrical graces,
such as, I suppose, were used in Shakespeare's time.
I.ii.25 (12,9) [Grace is grace, despight of all controversy] [Warbarton
had suspected an allusion to ecclesiastical disputes.] I
am in doubt whether Shakespeare's thoughts reached so far into
ecclesiastical disputes. Every commentator is warped a little
by the tract of his own profession. The question is, whether the
second gentleman has ever heard grace. The first gentleman limits
the question to _grace in metre_. Lucio enlarges it to _grace
in any_ form _or language_. The first gentleman, to go beyond him,
says, or _in any religion_, which Lucio allows, because the nature
of things is unalterable; grace is as immutably grace, as his
merry antagonist is a _wicked villain_. Difference in religion
cannot make a _grace_ not to be _grace_, a _prayer_ not to be _holy_; as
nothing can make a _villain_ not to be a _villain_. This seems to
be the meaning, such as it is.
I.ii.28 (12,1) [there went but a pair of sheers between us] We are
both of the same piece.
I.ii.35 (13,2) [be pil'd, as thou art pil'd, for a French velvet?]
The jest about the pile of a French velvet alludes to the loss of
hair in the French disease, a very frequent topick of our authour's
jocularity. Lucio finding that the gentleman understands the distemper
so well, and mentions it so _feelingly_, promises to remember
to drink his _health_, but to forget _to drink after him_. It was the
opinion of Shakespeare's time, that the cup of an infected person
was contagious.
I.ii.50 (13,3) [To three thousand dollars a year] [A quibble intended
between _dollars_ and _dolours_. Hammer.] The same jest occured before
in the _Tempest_.
I.ii.83 (15,5) [what with the sweat] This nay allude to the _sweating
sickness_, of which the memory was very fresh in the time of
Shakespeare: but more probably to the method of cure then used
for the diseases contracted in brothels.