Enter DUKE, ESCALUS, Lords, and Attendants.

DUKE. Efcalus,

ESCAL. My lord.

DUKE. Of government the properties to unfold, Would feem in me to affect fpeech and discourse; Since I am put to know, that your own fcience, Exceeds, in that, the lifts of all advice

2

2 Since I am put to know,] may mean, I am compelled to 457 knowledge.

So, in King Henry VI. P. II. fc. i:

86 ▬▬

had I first been put to speak my mind. " Again, in Drayton's Legend of Pierce Gavefton:

"

My limbs were put to travel day and night."

STEEVENS

STEEVENS,

My frength can give you: Then no more remains, But that to your fufficiency, as your worth is able, And let them work. The nature of our people,

+

Then no more remains,

But that to your fufficiency, as your worth is able,

And let them work.] To the integrity of this reading Mr. Theobald objects, and fays, What was Efcalus to put to his fufficiency? why, his fcience: But his faience and fufficiency were but one and the fame thing. On what then does the relative them depend? He will have it, therefore, that a line has been accidentally dropp'd, which he attempts to restore thus:

4

But that to your fufficiency you add

Due diligence, as your worth is able, &c.

Nodum in fcirpo quærit. And all for want of knowing, that by fufficiency is meant authority, the power delegated by the duke to Efcalus. The plain meaning of the word being this: Put your Skill in governing (lays the Duke) to the power which I give you to exercife it, and let them work together. WARBURTON.

Sir Thomas Hanmer having caught from Mr. Theobald a hint that a line was loft, endeavours to fupply it thus:

Then no more remains,

But that to your fufficiency you join

A will to ferve us, as your worth is able.

He has, by this bold conje&ure, undoubtely obtained a meaning, but, perhaps, not even in his own opinion, the meaning of Shakspeare.

That the paffage is more or less corrupt, I believe every reader will agree with the editors. I am not convinced that a line is loft, as Mr. Theobald conjectures, nor that the change of but to put, which Dr. Warburton has admitted after fome other editor, [Rowe] will amend the fault. There was probably fome original obfcurity in the expreffion, which gave occafion to mistake in repetition or tranfcription. I therefore fufpe& that the author wrote thus:

Then no more remains,

But that to your fufficiencies your worth is abled,
And let them work.

Let there

It may

Then nothing remains more than to tell you, that your virtue is now invefted with power equal to your knowledge and wisdom. fore your knowledge and your virtue now work together. eafily be conceived how fufficiencies was, by an inarticulate fpeaker, or inattentive hearer, confounded with fufficiency as, and how abled, a word very unufual, was changed into able. For abled, however, an authority is not wanting. Lea ufes it in the fame sense,

or

Our city's inftitutions, and the terms

nearly the fame with the Duke. As for fufficiencies, D. Hamilton in his dying fpeech, prays that Charles II. may exceed both the virtues and fulliciencies of his father. JOHNSON.

The uncommon redundancy, as well as obfcurity, of this verse may be confidered as evidence of its corruption. Take away the two firft words, and the fenfe joins well enough with what went Then (fays the Duke) no more remains to fay: Your fufficiency as your worth is able,

before.

And let them work.

1. e. Your skill in government is, in ability to ferve me, equal to the integrity of your heart, and let them co-operate in your future miniflry.

The verfification requires that either fomething fhould be added, or fomething retrenched. The latter is the eafier, as well as the fafer talk. I join in the belief, however, that a line is loft; and whoever is acquainted with the inaccuracy of the folio, (for of this play there is no other old edition,) will find my opinion justified.

STEEVENS. Some words feem to be loft here, the fenfe of which, perhaps, may be thus fupplied:

then no more remains,

But that to your fufficiency you put

A zeal as willing as your worth is able,
And let them work.

TYRWHITT.

I agree with Warburton in thinking that by fufficiency the duke means authority, or power; and, if that be admitted, a very flight alteration indeed will restore this paffage-the changing the word is into be. It will then run thus, and be clearly intelligible:

Then no more remains,

But that your fufficiency, as your worth, be able,
And let them work.

That is, you are thoroughly acquainted with your duty, so that nothing more is neceffary to be done, but to invest you with power equal to your abilities. M. MASON.

Then no more remains,

But that to your fufficiency ** as your worth is able,
And let them work.

I have not the fmalleft doubt that the compofitor's eye glanced. from the middle of the fecond of thefe lines to. that under it in the MS. and that by this means two half lines have been omitted. The very fame error may be found in Macbeth, edit. 1632:

For common juftice, you are as pregnant in,"
As art and practice hath enriched any

instead of

(6

which, being taught, return,

"To plague the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
To our own lips.'

13

which, being taught, return,

To plague the inventor. This even-handed juftice Commends the ingredients of our poifon'd chalice, ". &c. Again, in Much ado about Nothing, edit. 1623, p. 103:

And I will break with her. Was't not to this end," &c.

inftead of

"And I will break with her, and with her father,

"And thou shalt have her. Was't not to this end," &c. The following paffage, in King Henry IV. P. I. which is conftructed in a manner fomewhat fimilar to the present when corrected, appears to me to ftrengthen the fuppofition that two half lines have

been loft:

Sufficiency is kill in government; ability to execute his office. And let them work, a figurative expreffion; let them ferment.

MALONE,

5

the terms. -] Terms mean the technical language of the courts. An old book called Les Termes de la Ley, (written in Henry the Eighth's time) was in Shakspeare's days, and is now, the accidence of young ftudents in the law. BLACKSTONE.

6

the terms.

Send danger from the eaft unto the weft,
So honour crofs it from the north to fouth,
And let them grapple."

For common justice, you are as pregnant in,] The later editions all give it, without authority,

the terms

Of justice,

and Dr. Warburton makes terms fignify bounds or limits. I rather think the Duke meant to fay, that Efcalus was pregnant, that is ready and knowing in all the forms of the law, and, among other things, in the terms or times fet apart for its adminiftration.

JOHNSON.

The word pregnant is ufed with this fignification in Ram-Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611, where a lawyer is reprefented reading: ́ ́ In triceffimo primo Alberti Magni

'Tis very cleare the place is very pregnant." i. e. very expreffiue, ready, or very big with appofite meaning. Again,

the proof is molt pregnant." STEEVENS.

That we remember: There is our commiffion, From which we would not have you warp. hither,

L

I fay, bid come before us Angelo.

[Exit an Attendant. What figure of us think you he will bear? For you must know, we have with special foul Elected him our abfence to fupply; 7

Lent him our terror, dreft him with our love;
And given his deputation all the organs
Of our own power: What think you of it?
ESCAL. If any in Vienna be of worth
To undergo fuch ample grace and honour,
It is lord Angelo.

DUKE.

Look, where he comes.

ANG. Always obedient to your grace's will, I come to know your pleafure:

7 For you must know, we have, with special foul

Elected him our abfence to fupply;] By the words with Special foul elected him, I believe, the poet meant no more than that he was the immediate choice of his heart.

A fimilar expreffion occurs in Troilus and Creffida: with private foul,

<c

"Did in great Ilion thus tranflate him to me.

Enter ANGELO.

Again, more appofitely, in The Tempeft:

for feveral virtues

Call

STEEVENS.

"Have I lik'd feveral women, never any « With fo full foul, but fome defect," &c. Steevens has hit upon the true explanation of the paffage; and might have found a further confirmation of it in Troilus and Creffida, where, fpeaking of himself, Troilus fays,

ne'er did young man fancy

45

With fo eternal, and fo fix'd a foul.

To do a thing with all one's foul, is a common expreffion.

M. MASON.