My abfolute Pow'r and Place here in Vienna ; Duke. We have ftrict Statutes and moft biting Laws, The needful bites and curbs for head ftrong Steeds, ' Which for thefe nineteen years we have let fleep; Even like an o'er-grown lion in a cave, That goes not out to prey. Now, as fond fathers For terror, not to ufe; in time the rod Becomes more mock'd, than fear'd: fo our Decrees, A man of STRICT URE and let lip.] For fourteen I have firm abftinence. e. a man of the exacteft conduct, and practifed in the fub. dual of his paffions. Ure an old word for ufe, practice, so enur d, habituated to. WARBURTON, Stricture may e fily be used for Brianefs; ure is indeed an old word, but, I think, always applied to things, never to perfons. made no Scruple to replace nine- In the copies, The needful Bits and Curbs for headstrong Weeds:] There is no matter of Analogy or Confonance, in the Metaphors here: and, tho' the Copies agree, I do not think, the Author would have talk'd of Bits and Curbs for Weeds. On the oder hand, nothing can be mte proper, than to compare Pertons of unbridled Licentiousness Awakes me all th' enrolled Pe to head frong Steeds; and, in this View, bridling the Paffions has been a phrafe adopted by our beft Poets, THEOBALD. 2 In former editions, Which for thefe fourteen years we have And fo, again, but this new Governer nalties ; and for a Name Now puts the drowly and neg leted & Freshly on me. THEOBALD. Dead Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead; Fri. It rested in your Grace T' unloose this ty'd up juftice, when you pleas'd: Duke. I do fear, too dreadful. Sith 'twas my fault to give the people scope, And not the punishment. Therefore, indeed, my father, Who may in the ambush of my name ftrike home, To do it flander. 3 And to behold his fway, I will, as 'twere a Brother of your Order, Vifit both prince and people. Therefore, pr'ythee, How I may formally in perfon bear, Like a true Friar. More reafons for this action. Only, this one:-Lord Anglo is precife; 4 Stands at a guard with envy; scarce confeffes Is more to bread than ftone: hence fhall we fee, If pow'r change purpose, what our feemers be. [Exeunt. 3 The text ftood. So do in flander.] Sir Thomas Hanmer has very well corrected it thus, To do it flander. 4 Stands at a guard.] Stands on terms of defiance. Ꭲ . SCENE Enter Ifabella and Francifca. ND have you Nuns no further privileges? Ifab. A Nun. Are not these large enough? Ifab. Yes, truly; I fpeak not as defiring more; Nun. It is a man's voice. Gentle Isabella, Then, if you speak, you must not fhew your face; Enter Lucio. Lucio. Hail, virgin, (if you be) as those cheek-rofes Proclaim you are no lefs; can you so stead me, As bring me to the fight of Ifabella, A novice of this place, and the fair fifter To her unhappy brother Claudio? Ijab. Why her unhappy brother? let me afk The rather, for I now muft make you know I am that Ifabella, and his fifter. Lucio. Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you; Not to be weary with you, he's in prison. Ifab. Wo me! for what? Lucio. For that, which, if myfelf might be his judge, He fhould receive his punishment in thanks; He He hath got his friend with child. Ifab. Sir, make me not your story. " With maids to feem the lapwing, and to jeft, As with a Saint. familiar Ifab. You do blafpheme the good, in mocking me. Ifab. Some one with child by him?-my cousin Juliet? Ijab. Adoptedly, as school-maids change their names, 5-make me not your flory.] Do not, by deceiving me, make me a fubject for a tale. 6 'tis my familiar fin With maids to feem the lap wing,- The Oxford Edi tor's note, on this pafiage, is in thefe words. The lapwings fly with feeming fright and anxiety far from their nefts, to deceive thofe who feek their young. And do not all other birds do the fame? But what has this to dɔ with the infidelity of a general lover to whom this bird is compared. It is another quality of the lapwing, that is here alluded to, viz. its perpetually flying fo low and fo near the faffenger, that he thinks he has it, and then is fuddenly gone again. This made it a proverbial expreffion to fignify a lover's falfhood; and it feems to be a very old one: for Chaucer, in his Plowman's Tale, fays-And lapwings that well conith lie. WARBURTON. 7 -as blooming time That from the feedness the bare fallow brings To teeming foyfen; fo-] As the fentence now ftands it is apparently ungrammatical, I read, At blooming time, &c. That is, As they that feed grow full, so her womb now at bloiton.ing time, at that time through which the feed time proceeds to the harvest, her womb ihows what has been doing. Lucio ludicrously calls pregnancy blooming time, the time when fruit is promifes, though not yet ripe. Py By vain, tho' apt, affection. Lucio. She it is. Ifab. O, let him marry her! Lucio. This is the point. 8 The Duke is very ftrangely gone from hence; Ifab. Doth he fo Seek for his life? I Lucio. H'as cenfur'd him already; And, as I hear, the Provost hath a warant |