_There is a kind of character in thy_ look. _History_ may be taken in a more diffuse and licentious meaning, for _future occurrences_, or the part of life yet to come. If this sense be received, the passage is clear and proper. I.i.37 (8,1) [to fine issues] To great consequences. For high purposes. I.i.41 (9,2) [But I do bend my speech To one that can my part in him advertise] I know not whether we may not better read, _One that can my part_ to _him advertise_, One that can _inform himself_ of that which it would be otherwise _my part_ to tell him. I.i.43 (9,3) [Hold therefore, Angelo] That is, continue to be Angelo; _hold_ as thou art. I.i.47 (9,4) [first in question] That is, first called for; first appointed. I.i.52 (9,5) [We have with a leaven'd and prepared choice Proceeded to you] [W: a levell'd] No emendation is necessary. _Leaven'd_ choice is one of Shakespeare's harsh metaphors. His train of ideas seems to be this. _I have proceeded to you with choice_ mature, concocted, fermented, _leavened_. When bread is _leavened_ it is left to ferment: a _leavened_ choice is therefore a choice not hasty, but considerate, not declared as soon as it fell into the imagination, but suffered to work long in the mind. Thus explained, it suits better with _prepared_ than _levelled_. I.i.65 (10,6) [your scope is as mine own] That is, Your amplitude of power. I.ii.22 (12,7) [in metre?] In the primers, there are metrical graces, such as, I suppose, were used in Shakespeare's time. I.ii.25 (12,9) [Grace is grace, despight of all controversy] [Warbarton had suspected an allusion to ecclesiastical disputes.] I am in doubt whether Shakespeare's thoughts reached so far into ecclesiastical disputes. Every commentator is warped a little by the tract of his own profession. The question is, whether the second gentleman has ever heard grace. The first gentleman limits the question to _grace in metre_. Lucio enlarges it to _grace in any_ form _or language_. The first gentleman, to go beyond him, says, or _in any religion_, which Lucio allows, because the nature of things is unalterable; grace is as immutably grace, as his merry antagonist is a _wicked villain_. Difference in religion cannot make a _grace_ not to be _grace_, a _prayer_ not to be _holy_; as nothing can make a _villain_ not to be a _villain_. This seems to be the meaning, such as it is. I.ii.28 (12,1) [there went but a pair of sheers between us] We are both of the same piece. I.ii.35 (13,2) [be pil'd, as thou art pil'd, for a French velvet?] The jest about the pile of a French velvet alludes to the loss of hair in the French disease, a very frequent topick of our authour's jocularity. Lucio finding that the gentleman understands the distemper so well, and mentions it so _feelingly_, promises to remember to drink his _health_, but to forget _to drink after him_. It was the opinion of Shakespeare's time, that the cup of an infected person was contagious.