Of pale diftemperatures, and foes to life?
In food, in fport, and life-preserving rest
To be difturb'd, would mad or man, or beaft:
The confequence is then, thy jealous fits
Have fcared thy husband from the ufe of wits.

Luc. She never reprehended him but mildly, When he demean'd himfelf rough, rude and wildly.Why bear you these rebukes, and anfwer not? ADR. She did betray me to my own reproof.Good people, enter, and lay hold on him.

ABв. No, not a creatúre enters in my house. ADR. Then, let your fervants bring my husband forth.

ABB. Neither; he took this place for fanctuary, And it fhall privilege him from your hands, Till I have brought him to his wits again, Or lofe my labour in affaying it.

ADR. I will attend my husband, be his nurse, Diet his fickness, for it is my office, And will have no attorney but myself; And therefore let me have him home with me. ABB Be patient; for I will not let him ftir, Till I have used the approved means I have, With wholesome fyrups, drugs, and holy prayers, To make of him a formal mán again: It is a branch and parcel of mine oath, A charitable duty of my order;

5

the emendation propofed by Mr. Heath ["their heels"] is right. In the English manufcripts of our author's time the pronouns were generally expreffed by abbreviations. In this very play we have already met their for her, which has been rightly amended: Among my wife and their confederates--." A& IV. fc. i.

5

MALONE.

a formal man again:] i. e. to bring him back to his fenfes, and the forms of fober behaviour. So, in Measure for Meafure,- informal women," for just the contrary. STEEVENS,

Therefore depart, and leave him here with me. ADR. I will not hence, and leave my husband here; And ill it doth befeem your holiness,

To feparate the husband and the wife.

him.

ABB. Be quiet, and depart, thou shalt not have
Exit Abbefs.
Luc. Complain unto the duke of this indignity.
ADR. Come, go; I will fall proftrate at his feet,
And never rife until my tears and prayers
Have won his grace to come in perfon hither,
And take perforce my husband from the abbess.

MER. By this, I think, the dial points at five:
Anon, I am fure, the duke himself in person
Comes this way to the melancholy vale;
The place of death and sorry execution,'
Behind the ditches of the abbey here.
ANG. Upon what caufe?

6

MER. To fee a reverend Syracufan merchant,

Who put unluckily into this bay

6 The place of death-] The original copy has — depth. Rowe made the emendation. MALONE.

7

forry execution, ] So, in Macbeth:

"

Mr.

"Of forrieft fancies your companion's making. Sorry, had anciently a ftronger meaning than at present. Thus, in Chaucer's Prologue to the Sompnoures Tale, v. 7283, Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit:

"This Frere, whan he loked had his fill
"Upon the turments of this fory place."

Again, in The Knightes Tale, where the temple of Mars is defcribed:

“All full of chirking was that fory place." STEEvens. Thus, Macbeth looking on his bloody hands after the murder of Duncan :

"This is a forry fight." HENLEY.

Mr. Douce is of opinion, that forry, in the text, is put for forrowful. STEEVens.

Against the laws and ftatutes of this town,
Beheaded publickly for his offence.

ANG. See, where they come; we will behold his death.

Luc. Kneel to the duke, before he pass the abbey.

Enter Duke attended; EGEON bare-headed; with the
Headfman and other Officers.

DUKE. Yet once again proclaim it publickly,
If any friend will pay the fum for him,
He shall not die, fo much we tender him.

ADR. Juftice, most facred duke, against the abbess! DUKE. She is a virtuous and a reverend lady; It cannot be, that fhe hath done thee wrong. ADR. May it please your grace, Antipholus, my hufband,

8

Whom I made lord of me and all I had,
At your important letters, this ill day
A most outrageous fit of madnefs took him;
That defperately he hurried through the street,
(With him his bondman, all as mad as he,)

Whom I made lord of me and all I had,

At your important letters, ] Important feems to be used for im portunate. JOHNSON.

So, in King Lear:

"My mourning and important tears hath pitied." Again, in George Whetstone's Cafle of Delight, 1576: - yet won by importance accepted his courtefie.

Shakspeare, who gives to all nations the cuftoms of his own, feems from this paffage to allude to a court of wards in Ephesus, The court of wards was always confidered as a grievous oppreffion. It is glanced at as early as in the old morality of Hycke Scorner; 66 thefe ryche men ben unkinde: "Wydowes do curfe lordes and gentyllmen,

"For they contrayne them to marry with their men;

Ye, wheder they well or no. STEEVENS.

Doing difpleasure to the citizens

By rufhing in their houfes, bearing thence Rings, jewels, any thing his rage did like. Once did I get him bound, and fent him home, Whilft to take order for the wrongs I went, That here and there his fury had committed. Anon, I wot not by what strong escape,

9

2

He broke from thofe that had the guard of him;
And, with his mad attendant and himself, 3
Each one with ireful paffion, with drawn fwords,
Met us again, and, madly bent on us,
Chafed us away; till, raifing of more aid,
We came again to bind them: then they fled
Into this abbey, whither we purfued them;
And here the abbefs fhuts the gates on us,
And will not fuffer us to fetch him out,

Nor fend him forth, that we may bear him hence.
Therefore, moft gracious duke, with thy command,
Let him be brought forth, and borne hence for help.
DUKE. Long fince, thy husband ferv'd me in my

2

wars;

9 to take order] i. e. to take meafures. So, in Othello, A& V. "Honeft lago hath ta'en order for it.' STEEVENS.

by what ftrong escape,] Though ftrong is not unintelligible, I fufped we fhould read —— ftrange. The two words are often confounded in the old copies. MALONE.

A strong escape, I fuppofe, means an escape effe&ed by strength or violence. STEEVENS.

3

And, with his mad attendant and himself,] We should read:

We might read:

And here his mad attendant and himself.

Yet, as Mr. Ritson observes, the meeting to which Adriana alludes, not having happened before the abbey, we may more properly fuppofe our author wrote

And then his mad attendant and himself. STEEVENS.

I fufpect, Shakspeare is himself anfwerable for this inaccuracy.

MALONE.

And I to thee engag'd a prince's word,
When thou didst make him mafter of thy bed,

To do him all the grace and good I could.—
Go, fome of you, knock at the abbey-gate,
And bid the lady abbefs come to me;
I will determine this, before I flir.

Enter a Servant. '

SRRV. O mistress, mistress, fhift and fave

felf!

4

your

My master and his man are both broke loose,
Beaten the maids a-row, and bound the doctor,
Whofe beard they have finged off with brands of
5
fire;

And ever as it blazed, they threw on him.
Great pails of puddled mire to quench the hair:

4 Beaten the maids a-row,] i. e. fucceffively, one after another. So, in Chaucer's Wife of Bathes Tale, v. 6836, Mr. Tyrwhitt's

edit:

"A thousand time a-row he gan hire kiffe." Again, in Hormanni Vulgaria, p. 288:

"I fhall tell thee arowe all that I fawe.'

29

"Ordine tibi vifa omnia exponam." DOUCE.

STEEVENS.

5 Whofe beard they have finged off with brands of fire;] Such a ludicrous circumftance is not unworthy of the farce in which we find it introduced; but it is rather out of place in an epic poem, amidft all the horrors and carnage of a battle:

"Obvius ambuftum torrem Corinæus ab ara

66

Corripit, venienti Ebufo, plagamque ferenti, "Occupat os flammis: Illi ingens barba reluxit,

Nidoremque ambufta dedit. Virg. Æneis, Lib. XII.

STEEVENS.

See

Shakspeare was a great reader of Plutarch, where he might have feen this method of having in the life of Dion, p. 167, 4to. North's tranflation, in which aveganes may be tranflated brands.

S. W.

North gives it thus" with a hot burning cole to burne bis goodly bush of heare rounde about.' STEEVENS.