your trouble: the fashion of the world is to avoid coft, and you encounter it.

Leon. Never came trouble to my houfe in the likeness of your grace: for trouble being gone, comfort fhould remain; but, when you depart from me, forrow abides, and happiness takes his leave.

3

D. Pedro. You embrace your charge too willingly.I think, this is your daughter.

Leon. Her mother hath many times told me fo.

Bene. Were you in doubt, fir, that you afk'd her?

Leon. Signior Benedick, no, for then were you a child.

D. Pedro. You have it full, Benedick: we may guess by this what you are, being a man. Truly, the lady fathers herfelf:- -Be happy, lady! for you are like an honourable

father.

Bene. If fignior I eonato be her father, fhe would not have his head on her fhoulders, for all Meffina, as like him as she is. Beat. I wonder that you will ftill be talking, fignior Benedick; no body marks you.

Bene. What, my dear lady Difdain! are you yet living? Beat. Is it poffible, difdain should die, while fhe hath fuch meet food to feed it, as fignior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come in her prefence.

Bene. Then is courtefy a turn-coat :-But it is certain, I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none.

Beat. A dear happiness to women; they would elfe have been troubled with a pernicious fuitor. I thank God, and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that; I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man fwear he loves me. Bene. God keep your ladyfhip ftill in that mind! fo fome gentleman or other fhall 'fcape a predeftinate fcratched face. Beat. Scratching could not make it worse, an 'twere such a face as yours were.

B5

Bene.

hot-blooded youth that will keep him company through all bis mad pranks? JOHNSON.

4

3 That is, your burden, Your incumbrance. rself be a posture Charge does not mean, as Dr. Johnson explains it, burden, incum rance, t but the perfon committed to your care." So it is used in the relation hip between guardian and ward. Douce,

Bene. Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.

Beat. A bird of my tongue, is better than a beaft of yours. Bene. I would, my horfe had the fpeed of your tongue; and fo good a continuer: But keep your way o'God's name; I have done.

Beat. You always end with a Jade's trick; I know you of old.

D. Pedro. This is the fum of all: Leonato,-fignior Claudio, and fignior Benedick,-my dear friend Leonato, hath invited you all. I tell him, we fhall ftay here at the deaft a month; and he heartily prays, fome occafion may detain us longer: I dare fwear he is no hypocrite, but prays from his heart.

Leon. If you fwear, my lord, you fhall not be forfworn.Let me bid you welcome, my lord: being reconciled to the prince your brother, I owe you all duty.

D. John. I thank you: 5 I am not of many words, but I thank you.

Leon. Please it your grace lead on?

D. Pedro. Your hand, Leonato ; we will go together. [Exeunt all but BENEDICK and CLAUDIO. Claud. Benedick, didft thou note the daughter of fignior Leonato ?

Bene. I noted her not; but I looked on her.

Claud. Is fhe not a modeft young lady?

Bene. Do you queftion me, as an honeft man should do, for my fimple true judgement? or would you have me speak after my cuftom, as being a profeffed tyrant to their fex ? Claud. No, I pray thee, fpeak in fober judgement.

Bene. Why, i'faith, methinks fhe is too low for a high praife, too brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great praife only this commendation I can afford her; that were The other than fhe is, fhe were unhandsome; and being no other but as she is, I do not like her.

Claud. Thou thinkeft, I am in fport; I pray thee, tell me truly how thou likeft her.

Bene. Would you buy her, that you inquire after her?

B 5

Claud

5 The poet has judiciously marked the gloominefs of Don John's character, by making him averse to the common forms of civility.

6

SIR J. HAWKINS,

Claud. Can the world buy fuch a jewel?

Bene. Yea, and a cafe to put it into. But fpeak you this with a fad brow? or do you play the flouting Jack; to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder, and Vulcan a rare carpenter ?7 Come, in what key shall a man take you, to go in the fong? 8

Claud. In mine eye, fhe is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.

Bene. I can fee yet without fpectacles, and I fee no fuch matter: there's her coufin, an fhe were not poffeffed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty, as the firft of May doth the laft of December. But I hope, you have no intent to turn husband; have you?

Claud. I would fcarce truft myfelf, though I had fworn the contrary, if Hero would be my wife.

Bene. Is it come to this, i'faith? Hath not the world one man, but he will wear his cap with fufpicion ? 9 Shall I

6

B 6

never

Jack, in our author's time, I know not why, was a term of con. tempt. MALONE.

7 I know not whether I conceive the jeft here intended. Claudio hints his love of Hero. Benedick afks, whether he is ferious, or whether he only means to jeft, and to tell them that Cupid is a good bare-finder, and Vulcan a rare carpenter. A man praifing a pretty lady in jeft, may fhew the quick fight of Cupid, but what has it to do with the carpentry of Vulcan? Perhaps the thought lies no deeper than this, Do you mean to tell us as new what we all know already? JOHNSON.

I believe no more is meant by thofe ludicrous expreffions than this.Do you mean, fays Benedick, to amufe us with improbable stories? STEEVENS.

I explain the paffage thus: Do you fcoff and mock in telling us that Cupid, who is blind, is a good bare finder, which requires a good eye-fight; and that Vulcan, a blackfmith, is a rare carpenter? TOLLET.

After fuch attempts at decent illuftration, I am afraid that he who wishes to know why Cupid is a good bare-finder, muft difcover it by the affistance of many quibbling allufions of the fame fort, abcut hair and boar, in Mercutio's fong in the fecond Act of Romeo and Juliet. COLLINS. 8 i. e. to join with you in your fong-to ftrike in with you in the fong. STEEVENS.

9 That is, fubject his head to the difquiet of jealoufy. JOHNSON. In Painter's Palace of Pleafure, p. 233, we have the following paffage : All they that weare bornes be pardoned to weare their cappes upon their heads." HENDERSON.

In our author's time, none but the inferior claffes wore caps, and fuch perfons were termed in contempt flat caps. All. gentlemen wore hats.

Perhaps

never fee a batchelor of threefcore again.

Go to, i'faith; an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it, and figh away Sundays. Look, Don Pedro is returned to feek you.

Re-enter Don PEDRO.

D. Pedro. What fecret hath held here, that you Jowed not to Leonato's ?

you

Bene. I would, your grace would conftrain me to tell.
D. Pedro. I charge thee on thy allegiance.

fol

Bene. You hear, Count Claudio: 1 can be fecret as a dumb man, I would have you think fo; but on my allegiance,-mark you this, on my allegiance:-He is in love. With who?now that is your grace's part.-Mark, how fhort his answer is:-With Hero, Leonato's fhort daughter. Claud. If this were fo, fo were it utter'd.3

Bene. Like the old tale, my lord: it is not fo, nor 'twas not fo; but, indeed, God forbid it should be fo.

Claud. If my paffion change not thortly, God forbid 'it fhould be otherwise.

D. Pedro.

Perhaps therefore the meaning is,-Is there not one man in the world prudent enough to keep out of that state where he must live in apprehenfion that his night-cap will be worn occafionally by another. MALONE.

If this remark on the difufe of caps among people of higher rank be accurate, Sir Chriftopher Hatton, and other worthies of the Court of Elizabeth, have been injuriously treated; for the painters of their time exhibit feveral of them with caps on their heads.-It fhould be remembered that there was a material diftinction between the plain ftatute-caps of citizens, and the ornamented ones worn by gentlemen. STEEVENS. -figb away Sundays.] A proverbial expreffion to fignify that a man has no reft at all; when Sunday, a day formerly of eafe and diverhon, was paffed fo uncomfortably. WARBURTON.

2

I cannot find this proverbial expreffion in any ancient book whatever. I am apt to believe that the learned commentator has mistaken the drift of , and that it most probably alludes to the ftrict manner in which the fabbath was obferved by the Puritans, who usually spent that day in fighs and pruntings, and other hypocritical marks of devotion. STEEVENS.

3 Claudio, evading at firft a confeffion of his paffion, fays; if I had really confided fuch a fecret to him, yet he would have blabbed it in this manner. In his next speech, he thinks proper to avow his love; and when Benedick fays, God forbid it should be so, i. e. God forbid he should even with to marry her; Claudio replies, God forbid I fhould not wish it. STEEVENS

D. Pedro. Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy.

Claud. You speak this to fetch me in, my lord..

D. Pedra. By ny troth, I fpeak my thought.

Claud. And, in faith, my lord, I fpoke mine.

Bene. And, by my two faiths and troths, my lord, Ifpoke mine.

Claud. That I love her, I feel.

D. Pedro. That she is worthy, I know.

Bene. That I neither feel how the fhould be loved, nor know how she should be worthy, is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me; I will die in it at the ftake..

D. Pedro. Thou waft ever an obftinate heretick in the defpite of beauty.

Claud. And never could maintain his part, but in the force of his will.4

6

Bene. That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewife give her most humble thanks: bat that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick, all women fhall pardon me : Because I will not do them the wrong to miftruft any, I will do myself the right to truft none; and the fine is, (for the which I may go the finer,) I will live a bachelor.

D. Pedro. I fhall fee thee, ere I die, look pale with love. Bene. With anger, with ficknefs, or with hunger, my lord; not with love: prove, that ever I lofe more blood with love, than I will get again with drinking, pick out my eyes with a ballad-maker's pen, and hang me up at the door of a brothel-house, for the fign of blind Cupid.

4 Alluding to the definition of a heretick in the schools.

D. Pedro.

WARBURTON,

5 A recbeate is the found by which dogs are called back. Shakspeare had no mercy upon the poor cuckold, his born is an inexhaustible subjectof merriment. JOHNSON.

A recheate is a particular leffon upon the horn, to call dogs back from the fcent from the old French word recet, which was used in the fame fenfe as retraite. HANMER.

6 Bugle, i. e. bugle-horn, hunting-horn. The meaning feems to be -or that I fhould be compelled to carry a horn on my forehead where there is nothing vifible to fupport it.

It is ftill faid of the mercenary cuckold, that he carries bis borns in bis pockets. STIEVENS

3.