Chapter XXV: Act IV: SCENE 1. Page 318

ISAB. And that I have _possess'd_ him.

In the same sense Shylock says

"I have _possess'd_ your grace of what I purpose."

It were better that Shakspeare should be thus made his own commentator where it can be done, than that he should be explained by quotations from other authors.

SCENE 1. Page 319.

DUKE. ... volumes of report
Run with these false and most contrarious _quests_
Upon thy doings.

It is presumed that the sense of _messengers_ annexed to this word by Mr. Ritson cannot be maintained, but that the very line he refers to establishes it to be _searches_, _inquiries_. Mr. Malone's note is, of the others, the most satisfactory. The Duke alludes to the false and various conclusions that result from investigating the actions of men high in office. There is an old pamphlet with the whimsical title of _Jacke of Dover, his quest of inquiry, or his privy search for the veriest foole in England_, 1604, 4to.

SCENE 1. Page 321.

DUKE. Sith that the justice of your title to him
Doth _flourish_ the deceit.

That is, _decorate an action that would otherwise seem ugly_. Two metaphors have already been suggested; a third remains to be stated. _Flourish_ may, perhaps, allude to the ornaments that embellish the _ancient_ as well as modern books of penmanship. There are no finer specimens of beautiful writing extant than some of the reign of Elizabeth, who herself wrote a very elegant Italian hand in the early part of her life.

SCENE 2. Page 322.

PROV. ... and your deliverance with an _unpitied_ whipping; for you
have been a notorious bawd.

Mr. Steevens makes _unpitied_, _unmerciful_; it is rather _a whipping that none shall pity_, for the reason that immediately follows.

SCENE 2. Page 334.

PROV. Pardon me, good father, it is against my oath.

This is a very different provost from one of whom Fabian in his _Chronicle_, p. 187, relates the following story: "In the thyrde yere of the reigne of this Philip, _the provost of Paris_, having in his prison a Picard, a man of greate riches, whiche for felony or like crime, was judged to be hanged. The sayde provost for great benefit to him done and payment of great summes by the sayd Pycard, tooke an other poore innocent man, and put him to death, in steede of the sayd Pycarde. Of the whiche offence whan due proofe of it was made before the kynges counsayle, the sayde provoste for the same dede was put unto like judgement."

SCENE 3. Page 335.

CLO. First, here's young master Rash, he's in for _a commodity of
brown paper and old ginger_.

The nefarious practice of lending young men money in the shape of goods which are afterwards sold at a great loss, appears to have been more prevalent in the reign of Elizabeth than even at present. It is very strongly marked in Lodge's _Looking glasse for London and Englande_, 1598, where a usurer being very urgent for the repayment of his debt is thus answered, "I pray you, sir, consider that my losse was great by the commoditie I tooke up; you know, sir, I borrowed of you forty pounds, whereof I had ten pounds in money, and thirtie pounds in _lute strings_, which when I came to sell againe, I could get but five pounds for them, so had I, sir, but fifteene pounds for my fortie: In consideration of this ill bargaine, I pray you, sir, give me a month longer." But this sort of usury is much older than Shakspeare's time, and is thus curiously described in one of the sermons of Father Maillard, a celebrated preacher at Paris at the end of the fifteenth century, and whose style very much resembles that of John Whitfield. "Quidam indigens pecunia venit ad thesaurarium supra quem fuerunt assignata mille scuta; dicit thesaurarius, Ego dabo tibi, sed pro nunc non habeo argentum; sed expectes usque ad quindecim dies. Pauper dicit, Non possum expectare; respondet thesaurarius, Dabo tibi unam partem in argento et alia in mercantiis: et illud quod valebit centum scuta, faciet valere ducenta. Hic est usura palliata." _Sermo in feriam_, iiii. _de passione_.

SCENE 3. Page 337.

CLO. ... _ginger_ was not much in request, for the old women were
all dead.

This spice was formerly held in very great repute, and especially among elderly persons. Sir Thomas Elyot in his _Castle of health_, 1580, 12mo, says, it comforts the head and stomach, and being green and well confectioned, quickens remembrance, if it be taken in a morning fasting. Henry Buttes, who wrote a whimsical book entitled _Dyet's dry dinner_, 1599, 12mo, speaks much in its praise, and says that being condite with honey it "warmes olde mens bellyes." In Ben Jonson's masque of _The metamorphosed gipsies_, a country wench laments the being robbed of "a dainty race of _ginger_;" and in the old play of _The famous victories of Henry the fifth_, a clown charges a thief with having "taken the great race of ginger, that bouncing _Besse_ with the jolly buttocks should have had." In Beaumont and Fletcher's _Knight of the burning pestle_, the citizen's wife gives a man who had been soundly beaten some _green ginger_ to comfort him. Ginger was used likewise to spice ale. In Lodge's _Looking glasse for London and England_, the clown says, "Ile tell you, sir, if you did taste of the ale, all _Ninivie_ hath not such a cup of ale, it floures in the cup, sir, by my troth I spent eleven pence, besides _three rases of ginger_." The numerous virtues of this root are likewise detailed in Vennor's _Via recta ad vitam longam_.

SCENE 3. Page 342.

PROV. One _Ragozine_, a most notorious pirate.

Some attempt to elucidate this name has been made in the first note to the Merchant of Venice, into which it is rather improperly introduced. Mr. Heath had supposed that _Ragozine_ was put for _Ragusan_, _i. e._ a native of the city of _Ragusa_ on the gulf of Venice, famous for its trading vessels; but it was incumbent on that gentleman to have shown that the inhabitants of the above city were _pirates_. This however would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible; for, on the contrary, Rycaut, in his _State of the Ottoman empire_, has expressly declared that the _Ragusans_ never offered injury; but that, on receiving any, they very patiently supported it. Wherever Shakspeare met with the name of _Ragozine_, it should seem to be a _metathesis_ of the French _Argousin_, or the Italian _Argosino_, _i. e._ an officer or lieutenant on board a galley; and, as Menage conjectures, a corruption of the Spanish _Alguasil_. See Carpentier, _Suppl. ad gloss. Dufresne_, under the word _Argoisillo_.