Page:Some Textual Difficulties in Shakespeare.djvu/51

Rh art to arouse interest at once. There is need of clever "stage business" to catch the attention and start something of interest at once. Shakespeare makes subtle use of these official-looking parchments—documents no doubt be-sealed and beribboned to make them seem important. They enchain the attention at once. We find that he soon reveals the nature of one of them, not in mere statement but dramatically:

Put that to your sufficiency, as your worth is able,

And let them work.

He does not hand it over and designate it as a "commission" till four lines later, meantime he holds it before him and indicates it thus as being important. The Duke still has one left, and Angelo is now called in.

Theobald (1733) emended the passage—

then no more remains

But that to your sufficiency (you add

Due diligency) as your worth is able

And let them work.

As if such details as "due diligency" were not included in the larger meaning of the line! Such emendation is not warranted; but Theobald's fame is still of such power that this emendation is still used in widely-read editions.