This unusual verb is not, I believe, to be found any where else in these works.

324.

Much detected for women."

I can by no means admit, with Mr. Malone, that detected stands for suspected; and the instances produced from the Old Tales, will not, I fear, support him :-whose daughter was detected of dishonesty, and generally so reported. Detected is, indeed, used here, in the same sense as that to which the Duke applies it; for he who is "generally reported to be dishonest," is already more than suspected: but the meaning, in both cases, is, I believe, not suspected, but accused, charged, appeached. Thus in a translation of The Annales of Tacitus, by Greenwey, 1622-"A notable example, that a free'd woman should defend, in such great crueltie of torture, strangers, and almost unknown to her, whenas men, and free-born, and gentlemen of Rome, and senators, not touched with tortures, detected the dearest of their kindred."

328. Sparrows must not build in his houseeaves, because they are lecherous.”

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Bickerstaff has made a whimsical use of this conceit in the Hypocrite; where it is said of Dr. Cantwell, that he used to make the maids lock up the turkey cocks every Saturday night, for fear they should gallant with the hens of a Sunday."

331. "There is scarce truth enough alive to make societies secure; but security enough to make fellowships accursed."

The obscurity in this passage arises from the jingle and double meaning of "security" in the first instance it implies safety, protection; in the second, confidence, implicit trust.

334. "How may likeness made in crimes,

Making practice on the times," &c.

How may a specious appearance, framed in villany, making practice, i. e. working deceitfully on the times, &c. Instances are not wanting of this use of the word practice, as in King Lear:

This act persuades me,

"That this remotion of the duke and her, "Is practice only."

341.

ACT IV. SCENE I.

My most stay."

The adverb, thus taking the station of an adjective, has already been remarked as uncouth phraseology.

SCENE II.

Happily,

"You something know;

Happily" for " haply" occurs in other places, as in The Taming of the Shrew, Act 4, Scene 4:

"And happily we might be interrupted."

356. "Insensible of mortality, and desperately mortal."

I believe the meaning is-free from the common and natural abhorrence of death, and prepared for a state of annihilation.

SCENE III.

367. "What if we do omit."

The disorder of the metre in many parts of this play appears to be incorrigible; but sometimes, as here, it is easily repaired by dismissing a useless word:

"Just of his colour, what if we omit

"This reprobate till he were well inclin❜d."

They must omit him, (or the hanging him) a great while before the prisoner would be well inclined to submit:-but "inclined" here means disposed" or "prepared" for death, by religious exercises.

368. "I am your free dependant."

i. e. Your willing servant."

375.

SCENE IV.

Makes me unpregnant,

"And dull to all proceedings."

"Makes me unpregnant," means, I believe, dispossesses me of my clear judgment. Hamlet uses the word in a similar sense:

-But I,

“A dull and muddy-metled rascal, peak "Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause, "And can say nothing."

"Yet reason dares her?—no.”

I am not satisfied with any of the attempts that have been made to explain this passage. I believe the meaning is :-How might this injured lady reproach me, if shame and delicacy did not restrain her tongue; yet reason, i. e. a just reflection on the cruel wrong she has suffered, as well as on the enormous guilt of the offender, must give her boldness sufficient for the accusation; yet no-that same reason and reflection, perceiving how I am fortified by my place and character against her charge, will teach her how ineffectual it would be: our poet would not scruple to write "dares" for makes daring.

377.

With dangerous sense.”

With a feeling of his wrongs that might suggest a dangerous revenge: dangerous sense is formidable indignation.

By so receiving."

I think we should read:

"For so receiving."

SCENE VI.

379. "To speak so indirectly, I am loth."

Without the warrant or direction of truth, or it may be, deviating from the direct course of truth.

H 3

ACT V. SCENE I.

383. "Upon a wrong'd, I'd fain have said, a maid."

Perhaps we should read:

"Upon a wronged-I would fain say maid.” Or else,

"Upon a wrong'd-I fain would have said maid."

Vail your regard."

Let it stoop-thus in Coriolanus:

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If he have power,
Then vail your ignorance.”

385. If she be mad, (as I believe no other,) "Her madness hath the oddest frame of

sense,

"Such a dependency of thing on thing, "As e'er I heard in madness."

Mr. Malone supposes that the author wrote neʼer” instead of" e'er:" but this, though it may be sense, is very harsh: if the pronoun "that" be substituted for the conjunction "as, which, indeed, concord requires, (the third line being redundant, and merely parenthetical) the sentence would be correct.

386. Do not banish reason for inequality."

Dr. Johnson's interpretation of this passage is, I believe, the right one; if in the comment the Duke had made on Isabella's language and deportment, he had charged her with incoherence or inequality, then, indeed, Mr. Malone's conjec