ANG. See that Claudio Be executed by nine to-morrow morning: Exit Provost. ESCAL. Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all! Some rife by fin, and fome by virtue fall: 9 Some rife &c.] This line is in the firft folio printed in Italics as a quotation. All the folios read in the next line: Some run from brakes of ice, and answer none. JOHNSON. The old reading is, perhaps, the true one, and may mean, Some run away from danger, and stay to answer none of their faults, whilst others are condemned only on account of a fingle frailty. If this be the true reading, it fhould be printed: Some run from breaks [i. e. fractures] of ice, &c. Since I fuggefted this, I have found reafon to change my opinion. A brake anciently meant not only a sharp bit, a fnaffle, but alfo the engine with which farriers confined the legs of fuch unruly horfes as would not otherwise submit themselves to be fhod, or to have a cruel operation performed on them. This, in fome places, is ftill called a fmith's brake. In this last sense, Ben Jonfon ufes the word in his Underwoods: "And not think he had eat a ftake, "Or were fet up in a brake." And, for the former fenfe, fee The Silent Woman, A&. IV. Again, for the latter fenfe, Buffy d'Ambois, by Chapman : "Or, like a ftrumpet, learn to fet my face "In an eternal brake." Again, in The Opportunity, by Shirley, 1640: "He is fallen into fome brake, fome wench has tied him by the legs." Again, in Holland's Leaguer, 1633: "A ftale, to catch this courtier in a brake." I offer thefe quotations, which may prove of ufe to fome more fortunate conjecturer; but am able myself to derive very little from them to fuit the paffage before us. Enter ELBOW, FROTH, Clown, Officers, &c. ELB. Come, bring them away: if these be good people in a common-weal, that do nothing but use I likewife find from Holinfhed, p. 670, that the brake was an engine of torture. "The faid Hawkins was caft into the Tower, and at length brought to the brake, called the Duke of Excefter's daughter, by means of which pain he fhewed many things," &c. "When the Dukes of Exeter and Suffolk, (fays Blackftone, in his Commentaries, Vol. IV. chap. xxv. p. 320, 321,) and other minifters of Henry VI. had laid a defign to introduce the civil law into this kingdom as the rule of government, for a beginning thereof they erected a rack for torture; which was called in derifion the Duke of Exeter's Daughter, and ftill remains in the Tower of London, where it was occafionally ufed as an engine of ftate, not of law, more than once in the reign of Queen Elizabeth." See Coke's Inftit. 35, Barrington, 69, 385, and Fuller's Worthies, p. 317. A part of this horrid engine ftill remains in the Tower, and the following is the figure of it: It confifts of a ftrong iron frame about fix feet long, with three rollers of wood within it. The middle one of thefe, which has iron teeth at each end, is governed by two ftops of iron, and was, probably, that part of the machine which fufpended the powers of the reft, when the unhappy fufferer was fufficiently their abuses in common houfes, I know no law; bring them away. ftrained by the cords, &c. to begin confeffion. I cannot conclude this account of it without confeffing my obligation to Sir Charles Frederick, who politely condescended to direct my enquiries, while his high command rendered every part of the Tower acceffible to my researches. I have fince obferved that, in Fox's Martyrs, edit. 1596, p. 1843, there is a representation of the fame kind. To this alfo, Skelton, in his Why come ye not to Court, seems to allude: "And with a cole rake "Bruise them on a brake." If Shakspeare alluded to this engine, the sense of the contefted paffage will be: Some run more than once from engines of punishment, and answer no interrogatories; while fome are condemned to fuffer for a fingle trefpafs. It should not, however, be diffembled, that yet a plainer meaning may be deduced from the fame words. By brakes of vice may be meant a collection, a number, a thicket of vices. The fame image occurs in Daniel's Civil Wars, B. IV: 66 Rufhing into the thickeft woods of fpears, "And brakes of fwords," &c. That a brake meant a bufh, may be known from Drayton's poem on Mofes and his Miracles: "Where God unto the Hebrew spake, Again, in The Mooncalf of the fame author: "He brings into a brake of briars and thorn, Mr. Tollet is of opinion that, by brakes of vice, Shakspeare means only the thorny paths of vice. So, in Ben Jonfon's Underwoods, Whalley's edit. Vol. VI. p. 367: "Look at the false and cunning man, &c."Crufh'd in the fnakey brakes that he had paft.” STEEVENS. The words-anfwer none, (that is, make no confeffion of guilt,) evidently fhew that brake of vice here means the engine of torture. The fame mode of question is again referred to in A& V: "To the rack with him: we'll touze you joint by joint, "But we will know this purpose." The name of brake of vice, appears to have been given this ANG. How now, fir! What's your name? and what's the matter? ELB. If it please your honour, I am the poor duke's conftable, and my name is Elbow; I do lean upon juftice, fir, and do bring in here before your good honour two notorious benefactors. ANG. Benefactors? Well; what benefactors are they are they not malefactors? ELB. If it please your honour, I know not well what they are but precife villains they are, that I am fure of; and void of all profanation in the world, that good chriftians ought to have. ESCAL. This comes off well; officer. I here's a wife ANG. Go to: What quality are they of? Elbow is your name? Why doft thou not speak, Elbow ? 2 machine from its refemblance to that used to fubdue vicious horfes; to which Daniel thus refers : Lyke as the brake within the rider's hande "Doth ftraine the horse nye wood with grief of paine, "Not us'd before to come in fuch a band," &c. HENLEY. I am not fatisfied with either the old or present reading of this very difficult paffage; yet have nothing better to propose. The modern reading, vice, was introduced by Mr. Rowe. In King Henry VIII. we have 66 'Tis but the fate of place, and the rough brake "That virtue muft go through." MALONE. 1 This comes off well;] This is nimbly spoken; this is volubly uttered. JOHNSON. The fame phrafe is employed in Timon of Athens, and elfewhere; but in the present inftance it is ufed ironically. The meaning of it, when seriously applied to speech, is--This is well delivered, this story is well told. STEEVENS. 2 Why doft thou not fpeak, Elbow?] Says Angelo to the conftable. "He cannot, fir, (quoth the Clown,) he's out at elbow." I know not whether this quibble be generally under CLO. He cannot, fir; he's out at elbow. ELB. He, fir? a tapfter, fir; parcel-bawd; 3 one that ferves a bad woman; whofe house, fir, was, as they fay, pluck'd down in the fuburbs; and now the profeffes a hot-house,+ which, I think, is a very ill house too. ESCAL. How know you that? ELB. My wife, fir, whom I deteft 5 before heaven your honour, and ESCAL. HOW! thy wife? ELB. Ay, fir; whom, I thank heaven, is an honest woman, ftood: he is out at the word elbow, and out at the elbow of his coat. The Constable, in his account of master Froth and the Clown, has a ftroke at the Puritans, who were very zealous against the stage about this time: "Precise villains they are, that I am fure of; and void of all profanation in the world, that good Chriftians ought to have." FARMER. 3 a tapfter, fir; parcel-bawd;] This we fhould now exprefs by faying, he is half-tapfter, half-bawd. JOHNSON. Thus, in King Henry IV. P. II: 66 a parcel-gilt goblet." STEEVENS. -fhe profeffes a hot-house,] A hot-house is an English name for a bagnio. So, Ben Jonson : "Where lately harbour'd many a famous whore, "And ftill be a whore-houfe." JOHNSON. Again, in Goulart's Admirable Hiftories, &c. 1607: “—hearing that they were together in a hot-house at an old woman's that dwelt by him." STEEVENS. 5 whom I deteft-] He defigned to fay proteft. Mrs. Quickly makes the fame blunder in The Merry Wives of Windfor, A&I. fc. iv: " But, I deteft, an honest maid," &c. STEEVENS. I think that Elbow, in both inftances, ufes deteft for atteft; that is, to call witness. M. MASON. |