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Duke. My haste may not admit it;

Nor need you on mine honour have to do With any scruple: your scope 12 is as mine own;

So to enforce or qualify the laws,

As to your soul seems good. Give me your hand;
I'll privily away: I love the people,

But do not like to stage me to their eyes:
Though it do well, I do not relish well
Their loud applause, and aves 13 vehement;
Nor do I think the man of safe discretion,
That does affect it. Once more, fare you well.
Ang. The heavens give safety to your purposes!
Escal. Lead forth, and bring you back in hap-
piness.

Duke. I thank

you: Fare you well.

[Exit. Escal. I shall desire you, sir, to give me leave To have free speech with you; and it concerns me To look into the bottom of my place:

A

power I have; but of what strength and nature I am not yet instructed.

Ang. 'Tis so with me:-Let us withdraw together, And we may soon our satisfaction have

Touching that point.

Escal.

I'll wait upon your honour.

SCENE II. A Street.

[Exeunt.

Enter LUCIO and two Gentlemen.

Lucio. If the duke, with the other dukes, come not to composition with the king of Hungary, why, then all the dukes fall upon the king.

1 Gent. Heaven grant us its peace, but not the

king of Hungary's!

2 Gent. Amen.

Lucio. Thou concludest like the sanctimonious 13 Aves are hailings.

12 Scope is extent of power.

pirate, that went to sea with the ten commandments, but scraped one out of the table.

2 Gent. Thou shalt not steal?

Lucio. Ay, that he razed.

1 Gent. Why, 'twas a commandment to command the captain and all the rest from their functions; they put forth to steal: There's not a soldier of us all, that, in the thanksgiving before meat, doth relish the petition well that prays for peace.

2 Gent. I never heard any soldier dislike it. Lucio. I believe thee; for, I think, thou never wast where grace was said.

2 Gent. No? a dozen times at least.

1 Gent. What? in metre?

Lucio. In any proportion1, or in any language. 1 Gent. I think, or in any religion.

Lucio. Ay! why not? Grace is grace, despite of all controversy: As for example; Thou thyself art a wicked villain, despite of all grace.

1 Gent. Well, there went but a pair of shears between us2.

Lucio. I grant; as there may between the lists and the velvet: Thou art the list.

1 Gent. And thou the velvet: thou art good velvet; thou art a three-pil'd piece, I warrant thee: I had as lief be a list of an English kersey, as be pil'd, as thou art pil'd, for a French velvet 3. Do I speak feelingly now?

Lucio. I think thou dost; and, indeed, with most painful feeling of thy speech: I will, out of thine

1 i. e. measure.

2 We are both of the same piece.

3 'Pil'd, for a French velvet.'-Velvet was esteemed according to the richness of the pile; three-pil'd was the richest. But Pil'd also means bald. The jest alludes to the loss of hair in the French disease. Lucio, finding the Gentleman understands the distemper so well, and mentions it so feelingly, promises to rememher to drink his health, but to forget to drink after him. In old times the cup of an infected person was thought to be contagious.

own confession, learn to begin thy health; but, whilst I live, forget to drink after thee.

1 Gent. I think, I have done myself wrong; have I not?

2 Gent. Yes, that thou hast; whether thou art tainted, or free.

Lucio. Behold, behold, where madam Mitigation comes! I have purchased as many diseases under her roof, as come to

2 Gent. To what, I pray?

1 Gent. Judge.

2 Gent. To three thousand dollars a-year. 1 Gent. Ay, and more.

Lucio. A French crown more.

1 Gent. Thou art always figuring diseases in me: but thou art full of error; I am sound.

Lucio. Nay, not as one would say, healthy; but so sound, as things that are hollow; thy bones are hollow impiety has made a feast of thee.

Enter Bawd.

1 Gent. How now? Which of your hips has the most profound sciatica?

Bawd. Well, well; there's one yonder arrested, and carried to prison, was worth five thousand of you all.

1 Gent. Who's that, I pray thee?

Bawd. Marry, sir, that's Claudio, signior Claudio. 1 Gent. Claudio to prison! 'tis not so.

Bawd. Nay, but I know, 'tis so; I saw him arrested; saw him carried away; and which is more, within these three days his head's to be chopped off.

Lucio. But, after all this fooling, I would not have it so: Art thou sure of this?

Bawd. I am too sure of it; and it is for getting madam Julietta with child.

Lucio. Believe me, this may be: he promised to

meet me two hours since; and he was ever precise in promise-keeping.

2 Gent. Besides, you know, it draws something near to the speech we had to such a purpose.

1 Gent. But most of all, agreeing with the proclamation.

Lucio. Away; let's go learn the truth of it.

[Exeunt LUCIO and Gentlemen. Bawd. Thus, what with the war, what with the sweat, what with the gallows, and what with poverty, I am custom-shrunk. How now? what's the news with you?

Enter Clown.

Clo. Yonder man is carried to prison.
Bawd. Well; what has he done?

Clo. A woman.

Bawd. But what's his offence?

Clo. Groping for trouts in a peculiar river. Bawd. What is there a maid with child by him? Clo. No; but there's a woman with maid by him: You have not heard of the proclamation, have you?

Bawd. What proclamation, man?

Clo. All houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be pluck'd down.

Bawd. And what shall become of those in the city?

Clo. They shall stand for seed: they had gone down too, but that a wise burgher put in for them. Rawd. But shall all our houses of resort in the suburbs be pull'd down5?

Clo. To the ground, mistress.

4 The sweat; the consequences of the curative process then used for a certain disease.

5 In one of the Scotch Laws of James it is ordered, that common women be put at the utmost endes of townes, queire least

Bawd. Why, here's a change, indeed, in the commonwealth! What shall become of me?

Clo. Come, fear not you; good counsellors lack no clients though you change your place, you need not change your trade; I'll be your tapster still. Courage; there will be pity taken on you: you that have worn your eyes almost out in the service, you will be considered.

Bawd. What's to do here, Thomas Tapster? Let's withdraw.

Clo. Here comes signior Claudio, led by the provost to prison: and there's madam Juliet. [Exeunt.

SCENE III. The same.

Enter Provost1, CLAUDIO, JULIET, and Officers; LUCIO, and two Gentlemen.

Claud. Fellow, why dost thou show me thus to
the world?

Bear me to prison where I am committed.
Prov. I do it not in evil disposition,
But from lord Angelo by special charge.

Claud. Thus can the demi-god, Authority, Make us pay down for our offence by weight.The words of heaven ;-on whom it will, it will; On whom it will not, so; yet still 'tis just2.

Lucio. Why, how now, Claudio? whence comes this restraint?

peril of fire is.'-It is remarkable that the licensed houses of resort at Vienna, are at this time all in the suburbs, under the permission of the Committee of Chastity.

1 i. e. gaoler.

2 Authority being absolute in Angelo, is finely styled by Claudio, the demigod, whose decrees are as little to be questioned as the words of heaven. The poet alludes to a passage in St. Paul's Epist. to the Romans, ch. ix. v. 15-18: 'I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.'

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