Chapter XXII: Act I: SCENE 1. Page 180

DUKE. ... Then no more remains,
But that to your _sufficiency_, as your worth is able,
And let them work.

_Sufficiency_ is, no doubt, _ability_, and not _authority_, as Warburton conceives; and this shows that there is an omission in the speech of what the duke would have added concerning the authority which he meant to delegate. The most rational addition is that suggested by Mr. Tyrwhitt. It is remarkable that Dr. Johnson should contend for the introduction of a line of _thirteen_ syllables!

SCENE 1. Page 186.

DUKE. _Mortality_ and _mercy_ in Vienna
Live in thy _tongue_ and _heart_.

That is, "I delegate to thy tongue the power of pronouncing sentence of death, and to thy heart the privilege of exercising mercy." These are words of great import, and ought to be made clear, as on them depends the chief incident of the play.

SCENE 2. Page 191.

LUCIO. Behold, behold, &c.

This speech should have been given to the _first gentleman_, in order to correspond with the note, which is probably right.

SCENE 2. Page 191.

LUCIO. A _French crown_ more.

The quotations already given sufficiently exemplify the meaning; yet that which follows being remarkably illustrative, is offered in addition. "More seeming friendship [is] to be had in _an house of transgression_ for a _French crown_, though it be a _bald one_, than at Belinsgate for a boxe o' th'eare." _Vox graculi, or Jack Dawe's prognostication_, 1623, 4to, p. 60.

SCENE 2. Page 192.

I. GENT. How now, which of your _hips_ has the most profound
_sciatica_?

A most appropriate question to the bawd. The author of the facetious Latin comedy of _Cornelianum dolium_ has named one of Cornelius's strumpets _Sciatica_. She thus speaks of herself; "In lectulo meo ægrè me vertere potui; podagram, chiragram, et _hip_-agram (si ita dicere liceat) nocte quotidie sensi."

SCENE 2. Page 195.

BAWD. What's to do here, _Thomas_ Tapster?

Why does she call the clown by this name, when it appears from his own showing that his name was _Pompey_? Perhaps she is only quoting some old saying or ballad.

SCENE 3. Page 201.

CLAUD. ... for in her youth
There is a _prone_ and speechless dialect.

One of the old significations of this word appears to have been _easily moving_, which is evidently the sense required in this place. See Cotgrave's _Dictionary_, in _prone_.

SCENE 4. Page 203.

DUKE. Where youth and cost and witless bravery _keeps_.

Mr. Reed's explanation of this word as used for _dwells_, is confirmed by another passage in this play, Act IV. Scene 1.

"... a breath thou art
That dost this _habitation_ where thou _keep'st_
Hourly afflict."

SCENE 5. Page 208.

LUCIO. _For that, which_ if myself might be his judge,
He should receive his punishment in thanks.

It has been conceived that there is here a transposition at the press for "that for which." The emendation is more grammatical than _harmonious_; but the expression is quite in Shakspeare's manner. A few pages further on we have this similar phraseology:

"Whether you had not sometime in your life
Err'd in this point _which now you censure him_."

SCENE 5. Page 211.

LUCIO. Your brother and his _lover_.

This term was applied to the female sex not only in Shakspeare's time, but even to a very late period. Lady Wortley Montagu in a letter to her husband, speaking of a young girl who forbade the bans of marriage at Huntingdon, calls her _lover_. See her works, vol. i. p. 238.