at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder, and called Adam.7

D.Pedro. Well, as time shall try :

In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.

Bene. The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns, and set them in my forehead: and let me be vilely painted; and in such great letters as they write, Here is good horse to hire, let them signify under my sign,-Here you may see Benedick the married man.

Claud. If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad.

D.Pedro. Nay, if Cupid hath not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly.

Bene. I look for an earthquake too then.

D. Pedro. Well, you will temporize with the hours. In the mean time, good signior Benedick, repair to Leonato's; commend me to him, and tell him, I will not fail him at supper; for, indeed, he hath made great preparation.

Bene. I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage; and so I commit you

Claud. To the tuition of God: From my house, (if I had it,)

D.Pedro. The sixth of July: Your loving friend, Benedick.8

Bene. Nay, mock not, mock not: The body of your discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and the. guards are but slightly basted on neither: ere you flout old ends any further, examine your conscience; and so I leave you.

[Exit.

Claud. My liege, your highness now may do me good.

liquor,) and was suspended on a line. He who beat out the bottom as he ran under it, and was nimble enough to escape its contents, was regarded as the hero of this inhuman diversion. STEEVENS.

[7] Adam Bel, Clym of the Cloughe, and Wyllyam of Cloudesle, were, says Dr. Percy, three noted outlaws, whose skill in archery rendered them formerly as famous in the North of England, as Robin Hood and his fellows were in the midland counties. Their place of residence was in the forest of Englewood, not far from Carlisle. At what time they lived does not ap pear. STEEVENS.

[8] The ridicule here is to the formal conclusions of Epistles dedicatory and Letters. Barnaby Googe thus ends his dedication to the first edition of Palingenius, 12mo. 1560: "And thus commytyng your Ladiship with all yours to the tuicion of the moste mercifull God, I ende. From Staple Inne at London, the eighte and twenty of March."

[9] Guards were ornamented lace or borders,

REED.

STEEVENS.

D.Pedro. My love is thine to teach; teach it but how, And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn Any hard lesson that may do thee good. Claud. Hath Leonato any son, my lord?

D. Pedro. No child but Hero, she's his only heir: Dost thou affect her, Claudio?

Claud. O my lord,

When you went onward on this ended action,
I look'd upon her with a soldier's eye,
That lik'd, but had a rougher task in hand
Than to drive liking to the name of love :
But now I am return'd, and that war-thought
Have left their places vacant, in their rooms
Come thronging soft and delicate desires,
All prompting me how fair young Hero is,
Saying, I lik'd her ere I went to wars.

D.Pedro. Thou wilt be like a lover presently,
And tire the hearer with a book of words:
If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it ;

And I will break with her, and with her father,
And thou shalt have her: Was't not to this end,
That thou began'st to twist so fine a story?
Claud. How sweetly do you minister to love,
That know love's grief by his complexion!
But lest my liking might too sudden seem,
I would have salv'd it with a longer treatise.

D.Pedro. What need the bridge much broader than the flood?

The fairest grant is the necessity :

Look, what will serve, is fit: 'tis once, thou lovʼst ;*
And I will fit thee with the remedy.

I know, we shall have revelling to-night ;
I will assume thy part in some disguise,
And tell fair Hero I am Claudio;

And in her bosom I'll unclasp my heart,
And take her hearing prisoner with the force
And strong encounter of my amorous tale:
Then, after, to her father will I break;
And, the conclusion is, she shall be thine :
In practice let us put it presently.

[Exeunt.

So, in Coriolanus:

[1] Once has here, I believe, the force of-once for all. **Once, if he do require our voices, we ought not to deny him. MAL.

SCENE II.

A Room in LEONATO's House. Enter LEONATO and ANTONIO.

Leon. How now, brother? Where is my cousin, your son? Hath he provided this music?

Ant. He is very busy about it. But, brother, I can tell you strange news that you yet dreamed not of. Leon. Are they good?

Ant. As the event stamps them; but they have a good cover, they show well outward. The prince and Count Claudio, walking in a thick-pleached alley in my orchard, were thus much overheard by a man of mine: The prince discovered to Claudio, that he loved my niece your daughter, and meant to acknowledge it this night in a dance; and, if he found her accordant, he meant to take the present time by the top, and instantly break with you of it.

Leon. Hath the fellow any wit, that told you this? Ant. A good sharp fellow : I will send for him, and question him yourself.

Leon. No, no; we will hold it as a dream, till it appear itself:-but I will acquaint my daughter withal, that she may be the better prepared for an answer, if peradventure this be true. Go you, and tell her of it. [Several persons cross the stage.] Cousins, you know. what you have to do.-O, I cry you mercy, friend; you go with me, and I will use your skill :-Good cousins, have a care this busy time. [Exeunt.

SCENE III.

2

Another Room in LEONATO's House. Enter Don JOHN and

CONRADE.

Conr. What the goodjere, my lord! why are you thus out of measure sad?

D.John. There is no measure in the occasion that breeds it, therefore the sadness is without limit. Conr. You should hear reason.

D.John. And when I have heard it, what blessing bringeth it?

Conr. If not a present remedy, yet a patient sufferance.

[2] Cousins were anciently enrolled among the dependants, if not the domestics, of great families, such as that of Leonato.-Petruchio, while intent on the subjection of Katherine, calls out in terms imperative, for his cousin Ferdinand. STEEVENS,

D.John. I wonder, that thou being (as thou say'st thou art) born under Saturn, goest about to apply a moral medicine to a mortifying mischief. I cannot hide what I am :3 I must be sad when I have cause, and smile at no man's jests; eat when I have stomach, and wait for no man's leisure; sleep when I am drowsy, and tend to no man's business; laugh when I am merry, and claw no man in his humour. 4

Conr. Yea, but you must not make the full show of this, till you may do it without controlment. You have of late stood out against your brother, and he hath ta'en you newly into his grace; where it is impossible you should take true root, but by the fair weather that you make yourself: it is needful that you frame the season for r your own harvest.

D.John. I had rather be a canker in a hedge, than a rose in his grace; and it better fits my blood to be disdain'd of all, than to fashion a carriage to rob love from any in this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied that I am a plaindealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle, and enfranchised with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage: If I had my mouth, I would bite ; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking in the mean time, let me be that I am, and seek not to alter me.

Conr. Can you make no use of your discontent? D.John. I make all use of it, for I use it only. Who comes here? what news, Borachio?

Enter BORACHIO.

Bora. I came yonder from a great supper; the prince, your brother, is royally entertained by Leonato ; and I can give you intelligence of an intended marriage.

D.John. Will it serve for any model to build mischief on? What is he for a fool, that betroths himself to unquietness?

[3] This is one of our author's natural touches. An envious and unsocia mind, too proud to give pleasure, and too sullen to receive it, always endeav ours to hide its malignity from the world and from itself, under the plainness of simple honesty, or the dignity of haughty independence. JOHNS. [4] To claw is to flatter. So, the pope's claw-backs, in Bishop Jewel, are the pope's flatterers. The sense is the same in the proverb, Mulus mulum scabit. JOHNSON.

[5] A canker is the canker-rose, dog-rose, cynosbatus, or hip. The sense is, I would rather live in obscurity the wild life of nature, than owe dignity or estimation to my brother. He still continues his wish of gloomy indepen dence. JOHNSON.

Bora. Marry, it is to your brother's right hand.
D.John. Who? the most exquisite Claudio?

Bora. Even he.

D.John. A proper squire! And who, and who? which way looks he?

Bora. Marry, on Hero, the daughter and heir of Leonato.

D.John. A very forward March-chick! How came you to this?

Bora. Being entertained for a perfumer, as I was smoking a musty room,6 comes me the prince and Claudio, hand in hand, in sad conference: I whipt me behind the arras; and there heard it agreed upon, that the prince should woo Hero for himself, and having obtained her, give her to count Claudio.

D.John. Come, come, let us thither; this may prove food to my displeasure; that young start-up hath all the glory of my overthrow; if I can cross him any way, I bless myself every way: You are both sure, and will assist me?

Conr. To the death, my lord.

D.John. Let us to the great supper; their cheer is the greater, that I am subdued: 'Would the cook were of my mind!-Shall we prove what's to be done? Bora. We'll wait upon your lordship.

ACT II.

SCENE 1-A Hall in LEONATO's House.

[Exeunt.

Enter LEONATO,

ANTONIO, HERO, BEATRICE, and others.

Leonato.

WAS not count John here at supper?

Ant. I saw him not.

Beat. How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him, but I am heart-burned an hour after.7

[6] The neglect of cleanliness among our ancestors, rendered such precau tions too often necessary. In the Harleian Collection of MSS. No. 6850. fol. 90, in the British Museum, is a paper of directions drawn up by Sir John Puckering's Steward, relative to Suffolk Place before Queen Elizabeth's visit to it in 1594. The 15th article is "The swetynynge of the house in all pla ces by any means."" Again, in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, "-the smoak of juniper is in great request with us at Oxford, to sweeten our chambers." See also King Henry IV. P. II. act 5, sc. 4. STEEVENS.

[7] The pain commonly called the heart-burn, proceeds from an acid humour in the stomach, and is therefore properly enough imputed to tart looks.

JOHNSON.