8 54 fellows' counfels and your own, and good night.--Come, neighbour. 2 Watch. Well, maflers, we hear our charge: let us go fit here upon the church-bench till two, and then all to-bed. Dogb. One word more, honeft neighbours :- I pray you, watch about fignior Leonato's door; for the wedding being there to-morrow, there is a great coil to night: Adieu, be vigitant, I beseech you. [Exeunt DOG BERRY and VERGES. Enter BORACHIO and CONRADE. Bora. Conrade, I fay! [Afide. Con. Here, man, I am at thy elbow. Bora. Mafs, and my elbow itch'd'; I thought, there would a fcab follow. Con. I will owe thee an answer for that; and now forward with thy tale. Bora. Stand thee close then under this pent-houfe, for it drizzles rain; and I will, like a true drunkard,9 utter all to thee. Watch. [Afide.] Some treason, masters; yet ftand clofe. Bora. Therefore know, I have earned of Don John a thousand ducats. Con. Is it poffible that any villainy fhould be fo dear? Bera. Thou fhould't rather ask, if it were poffible any villainy fhould be fo rich; for when rich villains have need of poor ones, poor ones may make what price they will. Con. I wonder at it. Bora, That fhows, thou art unconfirm'd:2 Thou knoweft, that the fashion of a doublet, or a hat, or a cloak, is nothing to a man. Com, Yes, it is apparel. Bora. This is part of the oath of a grand juryman; and is one of many MALONE. proofs of Shakspeare's having been very converfant, at fome period of his life, with legal proceedings and courts of justice. 91 fuppofe, it was on this account that Shakspeare called him Borachie, from Boraccho, Spanish, a drunkard; or Borracha, a leathern receptacle for wine. STEEVENS. 24, e. unpractised in the ways of the world. WARBURTON. Bora. I mean, the fashion. Con. Yes, the fashion is the fashion. Bora. Tufh! I may as well fay, the fool's the fool. fee'st thou not what a deformed thief this fashion is? But Watch. I know that Deformed; he has been a vile thief this feven year; he goes up and down like a gentleman: I remember his name. Bora. Didft thou not hear fomebody? Con. No; 'twas the vane on the house. Bora. Seeft thou not, I fay, what a deformed thief this fafhion is how giddily he turns about all the hot bloods, between fourteen and five and thirty? fometime, fafhioning them like Pharaoh's foldiers in the reechy painting; fometime, like god Bel's priefts 4 in the old church window; fometime, like the fhaven Hercules in the fmirch'd wormD 4 — reechy painting;] Is painting discoloured by smoke. eaten STEEVENS. 4 Alluding to fome aukward reprefentation of the ftory of Bel and the Dragon, as related in the Apocrypha. STEEVENS. 5 By the haven Hercules is meant Samffon, the ufual fubje&t of old tapestry. In this ridicule on the fashion, the poet has not unartfully given a ftroke at the barbarous workmanship of the common tapestry hangings, then fo much in ufe. The fame kind of raillery Cervantes has employed on the like occafion, when he brings his kaight and 'fquire to an inn, where they found the ftory of Dido and neas reprefented in bad tapestry. On Sancho's feeing the tears fall from the eyes of the forfaken queen as big as walnuts, he hopes that when their atchievements became the general fubject for thefe forts of works, that fortune would fend them a better artist. What authorised the poet to give this name to Sampfon was the folly of certain Chriftian mythologifts, who pretend that the Grecian Hercules was the Jewish Sampion. The retenue of our author is to be commended: The fober audience of that time would have been offended with the mention of a venerable name on fo light an oc cafion. Shakspeare is indeed fometimes licentious in thefe matters: But to do him justice, he generally feems to have a fenfe of religion, and to be under its influence. What Pedro fays of Benedick, in this comedy, may be well enough applied to him: The man doth fear God, bowever it feems not to be in him by fome large jefts he will make. WARBURTON. I believe that Shakspeare knew nothing of these Chriftian mythologists, and by the fhaven Hercules meant only Hercules when fhaved to make him look like a woman, while he remained in the fervice of Omphale, his Lydian mistress. Had the faven Hercules been meant to reprefent Sampfon, he would probably have been equipped with a jaw bone instead of a club. STEEVENS. • Smirch'd is foiled, obfcured. STEEVENS. caten tapestry, where his codpiece feems as maffy as his club ? Con. All this I fee; and fee, that the fashion wears out more apparel than the man: But art not thou thyself giddy with the fashion too, that thou haft fhifted out of thy tale into tell ing me of the fashion ? Bora. Not fo neither: but know, that I have to-night wooed Margaret, the lady Hero's gentlewoman, by the name of Hero; fhe leans me out at her miftrefs' chamberwindow, bids me a thoufand times good night,-I tell this tale vilely:-I fhould firft tell thee, how the prince, Claudio, and my master, planted, and placed, and poffeffed by my mafter Don John, faw afar off in the orchard this amiable en counter. Con. And thought they, Margaret was Hero? Bora. Two of them did, the prince and Claudio; but the devil my master knew she was Margaret; and partly by his oaths, which firft poffeffed them, partly by the dark night, which did deceive them, but chiefly by my villainy, which did confirm any flander that Don John had made, away went Claudio enraged; fwore he would meet her as he was appointed, next morning at the temple, and there, before the whole congregation, fhame her with what he faw over-night, and fend her home again without a husband. Watch. We charge you in the prince's name, fand.. 2 Watch. Call up the right mafter conftable: We have here recovered the noft dangerous piece of lechery that ever was known in the common-wealth. 1-Watch. And one Deformed is one of them; I know him, he wears a lock. Con. Matters, mafters, 2 Watch. You'll be made bring Deformed forth, I war rant you. Con. Mafters, 1 Watch. Never fpeak; we charge you, let us obey you to go with us. Bora. We are like to prove a goodly commodity, being. taken up of these men's bills.7 Con 7 Here is a cluster of conceits. Commedity was formerly as now, the ufual term, for an article of merchandife. To take up, befides its com Con. A commodity in question, I warrant you. Come, we'll obey you. 3. Act. The [Exeunt. CONH. 4. At je Room in LEONATO's Houfe. Enter HERO, MARGARET, and URSULA. Hero. Good Urfula, wake my coufin Beatrice, and defire her to rife. Urf. I will, lady. Hero. And bid her come hither. Urf. Well. [Exit URSULA. Marg. Troth, I think, your other rabato 9 were better. Hero. No, pray thee, good Meg, I'll wear this. Marg. By my troth, it's not fo good; and I warrant, your coufin will fay fo. Hero. My coufin's a fool, and thou art another; I'll wear none but this. Marg. I like the new tire within excellently, if the hair were a thought browner: 2 and your gown's a most rare fashion, i'faith. I faw the duchefs of Milan's gown, that they praise fo. Hero. O, that exceeds, they fay. Marg. By my troth it's but a night-gown in respect of D5 yours: mon meaning, (to apprehend, was the phrase for obtaining goods on credit. "If a man is thorough with them in honest taking up, (lays Fa'staff,) then they must stand upon fecurity." Bill was the term both for a fingle bond, and a halberd. We have the fame conceit in King Henry VI. P. II: "My lord, when fhall we go to Cheapfide, and take up commodities upon our bills?" MALONE. 8 i. e. a commodity fubject to judicial trial or examination. Thus Hooker: "Whofoever be found guilty, the communion book hath deferved leaft to be called in question for this fault." STERVENS. 9 An ornament for the neck, a collar-band or kind of ruff. Fr. Rabat. Menage faith it comes from rabattre, to put back, because it was at first. nothing but the collar of the shirt or shift turn'd back towards the fhouliers. T. HAWKINS. 4 i. e. the falfe hair attached to the cap; for we learn from Stubbes's Anatomie of Abufes, 1595, P. 40, that ladies were not fimplie content with their own haire, but did buy up other haire either of horfes, mares, or any other ftrange beafts, dying it of what collout they lift themfelves." STELVEES yours: Cloth of gold, and cuts, and laced with filver; fet with pearls, down fleeves, fide-fleeves,3 and skirts round, underborne with a bluifh tinfel: but for a fine, quaint, graceful, and excellent fashion, yours is worth ten on't. Hero. God give me joy to wear it, for my heart is exceeding heavy! Marg. 'Twill be heavier foon, by the weight of a man. Hero. Fie upon thee! art not ashamed? Marg. Of what, lady? of speaking honourably? Is not marriage honourable in a beggar? Is not your lord honourable without marriage? I think, you would have me fay, faving your reverence,-a husband: an bad thinking do not wreft true fpeaking, I'll offend no body: Is there any harm in-the beavier for a husband? None, I think, an it be the right hufband, and the right wife; otherwife 'tis light, and not heavy: Afk my lady Beatrice elfe, here she comes, Enter BEATRICE. Hero. Good morrow, coz. Beat. Good morrow, fweet Hero. Hers. Why, how now! do you speak in the fick tune? Marg. Clap us into-Light o' love; that goes without a burden; do you fing it, and I'll dance it. 3 Beat -fide-feeves,] Side-Bleeves, I believe, mean long ones. So, in Greene's Farewell to Follie, 1617: "As great felfe-love lurketh in a fidegowne, as in a fhort armour." Such long fleeves, within my memory, were worn by children, and were called banging-fleeves ; a term which is preserved in a line, I think, of Dryden : "And mifs in banging-fleewes now shakes the dice." wide Side or fyde in the North of England, and in Scotland, is ufed for long when applied to a garment, and the word has the fame fignification in the Anglo-Saxon and Danish. STEEVENS. Side-fleeves were certainly long-Leeves, as will appear from the following inftance, in Fitzherbert's Book of Hufbandry: "Theyr cotes be fo Lyde that they be fayne to tucke them up whan they ride, as women do theyr kyrtels whan they go to the market," &c. REED. This is the name of an old dance tune which has occurred already in The |