being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipped.

D. Pedro. To be whipped! What's his fault?

Bene. The flat transgression of a schoolboy; who, being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it.

D. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer.

Bene. Yet it had not been amiss, the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself; and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stol'n his bird's nest.

D. Pedro. I will but teach them to sing, and restore them to the owner.

Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith, you say honestly.

D. Pedro. The lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you; the gentleman, that danced with her, told her, she is much wronged by you.

Bene. O, she misused me past the endurance of a block; an oak, but with one green leaf on it, would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life, and scold with her 15: She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the prince's jester: that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest, with such impossible 16 conveyance, upon me, that I stood like a man at a mark, with a

15 It is singular that a similar thought should be found in the tenth Thebaid of Statius, v. 658.

ipsa insanire videtur Sphynx galeæ custos.'

16 i. e. with a rapidity equal to that of jugglers,' whose conveyances or tricks appear impossibilities. Impossible may, how ever, be used in the sense of incredible or inconceivable, both here and in the beginning of the scene, where Beatrice speaks of impossible slanders.'

whole army shooting at me: She speaks poniards, and every word stabs: if her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her, she would infect to the north star. I would not marry her, though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgressed; she would have made Hercules have turned spit; yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her; you shall, find her the infernal Até 17 in good apparel. I would to God, some scholar would conjure her; for, certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell, as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither: so, indeed, all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follow her.

Re-enter CLAUDIO, BEATRICE, HERO, and
LEONATO.

D. Pedro. Look, here she comes.

Bene. Will your grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes, that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the farthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard: do you any embassage to the Pigmies, rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy: You have no employment for me?

D. Pedro. None, but to desire your good company.

Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not; I cannot endure my lady Tongue. [Exit. D. Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of signior Benedick.

Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me a while; 17 The goddess of discord.

and I give him use 18 for it, a double heart for his single one: marry, once before, he won it of me with false dice, therefore your grace may well say,

I have lost it.

D. Pedro. You have put him down, lady, you have put him down.

Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. D. Pedro. Why, how now, count? wherefore are sad?

you

Claud. Not sad, my lord.

D. Pedro. How then? Sick?
Claud. Neither, my lord.

Beat. The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well: but civil, count; civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion.

D. Pedro. I'faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though, I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won; I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained: name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy!

Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes: his grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it!

Beat. Speak, count, 'tis your cue 19.

Claud. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much.Lady, as you are mine, I am yours: I give away myself for you, and dote upon the exchange.

Beat. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss, and let him not speak neither.

18 Interest.

19 i. e. your part or turn; a phrase among the players. V. Note on Hamlet, Act ii. Sc. 2.

D. Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. Beat. Yea, my lord: I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care:-My cousin tells him in his ear, that he is in her heart.

Claud. And so she doth, cousin.

Beat. Good lord, for alliance!-Thus goes every one to the world but I2o, and I am sun-burned; I may sit in a corner, and cry, heigh ho! for a husband. D. Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. Beat. I would rather have one of your father's getting: Hath your grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them.

D. Pedro. Will you have me, lady?

Beat. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working-days; your grace is too costly to wear every day :-But, I beseech your grace, pardon me : I was born to speak all mirth, and no matter.

D. Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in a merry hour.

Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cry'd; but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy!

Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of?

Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle.-By your grace's pardon. [Exit BEATRice. D. Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. Leon. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord: she is never sad, but when she sleeps; and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daugh

20 i. e. good lord, how many alliances are forming! Every one' is likely to be married but I. I am sun-burned means 'I have lost my beauty; and am consequently no longer an object to tempt a man to marry.'

ter say, she hath often dreamed of unhappiness 21, and waked herself with laughing.

D. Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband.

Leon. O, by no means; she mocks all her wooers out of suit.

D. Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick. Leon. O lord, my lord, if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad.

D. Pedro. Count Claudio, when mean you to go to church?

Claud. To-morrow, my lord: Time goes on crutches, till love have all his rites.

Leon. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just seven-night: and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind.

D. Pedro. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but, I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us; I will, in the interim, undertake one of Hercules' labours; which is, to bring signior Benedick and the lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection 22, the one with the other. I would fain have it a match; and I doubt not but to fashion

21 i. e. mischief. Unhappy was often used for mischievous, as we now say an unlucky boy for a mischievous boy. So, in All's Well that Ends Well, Act iv. Sc. 5:

'A shrewd knave and an unhappy.'

22A mountain of affection with one another' is, as Johnson observes, a strange expression; yet all that is meant appears to be a great deal of affection.' In the Renegado, by Massinger,

we have:

'tis but parting with

A mountain of vexation.'

Thus also in Hamlet, a sea of troubles;' and in Henry VIII. 'a sea of glory.' In the Comedy of Errors: the mountain of mad flesh that claims marriage of me.' And in other places, a storm of fortune,' 'the vale of years,' 'a tempest of provocation.' VOL. II.