* * * * * "Think you I can a resolution fetch From flowery tenderness?" It appears to me that a negative is required to make the passage more correct and natural; and we know how frequently it is omitted in these plays. Here, however, I think, 'a' has been printed in its place (see on Twelfth Night, ii. 2), for the compositor probably did not pronounce the _t_ in 'cannot,' and so made it 'can a.' I therefore read, 'I cannot resolution fetch.' Heath takes 'Think you' as imperative, not interrogative, like _Bethink you_. * * * * * "Thou art too noble to preserve a life In base appliances." It might seem better to read _By_ than 'In'; but it is not safe to meddle with prepositions. See on iv. 4. * * * * * "Nips youth in the head, and follies doth enmew As falcon doth the fowl." It is the falcon, not the fowl, that is enmewed. Would that every correction were as certain as that which I have made here! I read, with the fullest confidence, _enew_. (See Index _s. v._) It is a most curious circumstance that in this place of the MS. I unconsciously wrote _bud_ for 'head,' a correction which was afterwards given in Notes and Queries (3rd S. v. 229), and had, I believe, been previously proposed by Grey. If 'head' be the right reading, it may signify the state of bloom. "That unmatch'd form and feature of _blown_ youth" (Ham. iii. 1). * * * * * "The prenzie Angelo!-- Oh! 'tis the cunning livery of Hell The damnedst bodie to invest and cover In prenzie gardes." So the passage stands in the folio. As there is no such word known in English as 'prenzie,' the 2nd folio read _princely_, Hanmer _priestly_, which Mr. Dyce adopts. I think, however, that the German Tieck hit on the right word, _precise_, and I have so printed it without hesitation. We have had already, "Lord Angelo is precise" (i. 4), "is severe" (ii. 1), and "well-seeming" (iii. 1); but it is nowhere said that he was _princely_ or _priestly_, and surely the guards or bindings of a dress could hardly be so termed. As to the change of accent, which Mr. Dyce makes an objection, a reader of our old poets should be ashamed to urge it, it is of such frequent occurrence, and it occurs more than once in this very play. In i. 2 we actually have "précise villains," and "A sort of sober, scurvy, precise neighbours" (Jonson, Alch. i. 1). (See Introd. p. 80.) I further think we should read 'bodies,' and with Collier's folio _garbs_, which being spelt _garbes_ differs only in one letter from 'gardes.' As the latter were mere bindings, edgings, facings, they could hardly be said to cover a body. The infinitives 'invest' and 'cover' are used (as so frequently) where we now use a participle with an article. See Introd. p. 70. * * * * * "Yes.--Has he affections in him?"