Sir To. Thou art a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink.-Marian, I say!a stoop of wine!' Enter Clown. Sir And. Here comes the fool, i'faith. Clo. How now, my hearts? Did you never see the picture of we three ?? Sir To. Welcome, ass. Now let's have a catch. Sir And. By my troth, the fool has an excellent breast. I had rather than forty shillings I had such a leg; and so sweet a breath to sing, as the fool has. In sooth, thou wast in very gracious fooling last night, when thou spokest of Pigrogromitus, of the Vapians passing the equinoctial of Queubus; 'twas very good, i'faith. I sent thee sixpence for thy leman ; Hadst it? Clo. I did impeticos thy gratillity; for Malvolio's nose is no whip-stock: My lady has a white hand, and the Myrmidons are no bottle-ale houses. Sir And. Excellent! Why, this is the best fooling, when all is done. Now, a song. Sir To. Come on; there is sixpence for you: let's have a song. Sir And. There's a testril of me too: if one knight give a Clo. Would you have a love-song, or a song of good life? Sir To. A love-song, a love-song. Sir And. Ay, ay; I care not for good life. SONG. Clo. O mistress mine, where are you roaming? REED. A stoop seems to have been something more than half a gallon. An allusion to an old print, sometimes pasted on the wall of country alehouses, representing two, but under which the spectator reads "We three are asses." HENLEY. The money was given him for his leman, i. e. his mistress. STEEVENS. We must read-I did impetticoat thy gratuity. The fools were kept in long coats, to which the allusion is made. There is yet much in this dialogue which I do not understand. JOHNSON. It is a very gross mistake to imagine this character was habited like an ideot. Neither he nor Touchstone, though they wear a particoloured dress, has either coxcomb or bauble, nor is by any means to be confounded with the Fool in King Lear, nor even, I think, with the one in All's well that ends well.-A Dissertation on the Fools of Shakespeare, a character he has most judiciously varied and discriminated, would be a valuable addition to the notes on his plays. RITSON. [5] A whip-stock is I believe, the handle of a whip, round which a strap of leather is usually twisted, and is sometimes put for the whip itself. STEEV Journeys end in lovers' meeting, Sir And. Excellent good, i' faith! Clo. What is love? 'tis not hereafter; In delay there lies no plenty; Then come kiss me, sweet-and-twenty, Sir And. A mellifluous voice, as I am a true knight. Sir And. Very sweet and contagious, i' faith. Sir To. To hear by the nose, it is dulcet in contagion. But shall we make the welkin dance indeed ? Shall we rouse the night-owl in a catch, that will draw three souls out of one weaver? Shall we do that? Sir And. An you love me, let's do't: I am a dog at a catch. Clo. By'r lady, sir, and some dogs will catch well. Sir And. Most certain: let our catch be, Thou knave. Clo. Hold thy peace, thou knave, knight? I shall be constrain'd in't to call thee knave, knight. Sir And. 'Tis not the first time I have constrain'd one to call me knave. Begin, fool; it begins, Hold thy peace. Clo. I shall never begin, if I hold my peace. Sir And. Good, i'faith! come, begin. [5] This line is obscure; we might read: Come, a kiss then, sweet and twenty. [They sing a catch? Yet I know not whether the present reading be not right, for in some counties sweet and twenty, whatever be the meaning, is a phrase of endearment. JOHNSON. JOHNSON. [6] That is drink till the sky seems to run round. [7] Our author represents weavers as much given to harmony in his time. I have shown the cause of it elsewhere. And the peripatetic philosophy then in vogue, very liberally gave every man three souls: the vegetative or plastic, the animal, and the rational By the mention of these three, therefore, we may suppose it was Shakespeare's purpose, to hint to us those surprising effects of music, which the ancients speak of. When they tell us of Amphion, who moved stones and trees; Orpheus and Arion, who tamed savage beasts; and Timotheus, who governed as he pleased the passions of his human auditors. So noble an observation has our author WARBURTON. conveyed in the ribaldry of this buffoon character. I doubt whether our author had any allusion to this division of souls. I believe, be here only means to describe Sir Toby's catch as so harmonious, that it would MAL hale the soul out of a weaver (the warmest lover of a song,) thrice over. [8] This catch is lost. 8 JOHNSON. VOL. IV. Enter MARIA. Mar. What a catterwauling do you keep here! If my lady have not called up her steward, Malvolio, and bid him turn you out of doors, never trust me. Mal Sir To. My lady's a Cataian, we are politicians; volio's a Peg-a-Ramsey, and Three merry men be we.9 Am not I consanguineous? am I not of her blood? Tillyvalley, lady! There dwelt a man in Babylon, lady, lady [Singing. Clo. Beshrew me, the knight's in admirable fooling. Sir And. Ay, he does well enough, if he be disposed, and so do I too; he does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural. Sir To. O, the twelfth day of December,-[Singing. Enter MALVOLIO. Mal. My masters, are you mad? or what are you? Have you no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like tinkers at this time of night? Do ye make an alehouse of my lady's house, that ye squeak out your coziers' catches without any mitigation or remorse of voice? Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time, in you? Sir To. We did keep time, sir, in our catches. Sneck up!" Mal. Sir Toby, I must be round with you. My lady bade me tell you, that, though she harbours you as her kinsman, she's nothing allied to your disorders. If you can separate yourself and your misdemeanors, you are welcome to the house; if not, an it would please you to take leave of her, she is very willing to bid you farewell. [9] Three merry men be we, may, perhaps, have originally been taken from the song of Robin Hood and the Tanner. TYRWHITT. SIR J. HAWKINS. Peggy Ramsey is the name of some old song. [1] Tilly-Valley is a hunting phrase borrowed from the French. DOUCE [2] The ballad of Susanna, from whence this line is taken, was licensed by T. Colwell, in 1562, under the title of The goodly and constant Wyfe Susanna. T. WARTON. [3] A corier is a tailor, from coudre to sew, part. cousu, Fr. JOHNSON. Minsbieu tells us, that cozier is a cobler or sowter: and, in Northamptonshire, the waxed thread which a cobler uses in mending shoes, we call a codger's end. WHALLEY. [4] In King Henry IV. P. I. Falstaff says: "The Prince is a Jack, a Sneak-cup.” i. e. one who takes his glass in a sneaking manner. I should not however omit to mention that sneck the door is a northern country expression for latch the door. Mr. Malone and others observe, that from the manner in which this cant phrase is employed in our ancient comedies, it seems to have been synonymous to the modern expression-Go hang yourself. STEEVENS. Sir To. Farewell, dear heart, since I must needs be gone. Clo. His eyes do shew his days are almost done. Sir To. But I will never die. Clo. Sir Toby, there you lie. Mal. This is much credit to you. Clo. What an if you do? Sir To. Shall I bid him go, and spare not? Clo. O no, no, no, no, you dare not. [Singing. Sir To. Out o'time? sir, ye lie. Art any more than a steward? Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale ? Clo. Yes, by Saint Anne; and ginger shall be hot i' the mouth too. Sir To. Thou'rt i' the right.-Go, sir, rub your chain with crums :-A stoop of wine, Maria! Mal. Mistress Mary, if you prized my lady's favour at any thing more than contempt, you would not give means for this uncivil rule ; she shall know of it, by this hand. Mar. Go, shake your ears. [Exit. Sir And. 'Twere as good a deed as to drink when a man's a hungry, to challenge him to the field; and then to break promise with him, and make a fool of him. Sir To. Do't, knight; I'll write thee a challenge; or I'll deliver thy indignation to him by word of mouth. Mar. Sweet sir Toby, be patient for to-night; since the youth of the count's was to-day with my lady, she is much out of quiet. For monsieur Malvolio, let me alone with him if I do not gull him into a nayword,' and make him a common recreation, do not think I have wit enough to lie straight in my bed: I know, I can do it. [5] This entire song, with some variations, is published by Dr. Percy, in the first volume of his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. STÉEVENS. [6] It was the custom on holidays, and saints' days to make cakes in honour of the day The Puritans called this superstition; and in the next page Maria says, that Malvolio is a kind of Puritan. See Quarlous's Account of Rabbi Busy, Act 1. sc. iii in B. Jonson's Bartholomew Fair. LETHERLAND. [7] Stewards anciently wore a chain as a mark of superiority over other servants. The best method of cleaning any gilt plate, is by rubbing it with crumbs. See Webster's Dutchess of Malfy, 1623: "Yea, and the chippings of the buttery fly after him, to scouer his gold chain." STEEVENS. JOHNSON [8] Rule is method of life; so misrule is tumult and riot. [9] A nayword is what has been since called a bycword, a kind of proverbial re proach. STEEVENS. Sir To. Possess us, possess us; tell us something of him. Mar. Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of Puritan. Sir And. O, if I thought that, I'd beat him like a dog. Sir To. What, for being a Puritan? thy exquisite reason, dear knight? Sir And. I have no exquisite reason for't, but I have reason good enough. Mar. The devil a Puritan that he is, or any thing constantly but a time pleaser; an affectioned ass,' that cons state without book, and utters it by great swarths :' the best persuaded of himself, so crammed, as he thinks, with excellencies, that it is his ground of faith, that all, that look on him, love him; and on that vice in him will my revenge find notable cause to work. Sir To. What wilt thou do? Mar. I will drop in his way some obscure epistles of love; wherein, by the colour of his beard, the shape of his leg, the manner of his gait, the expressure of his eye, forehead, and complexion, he shall find himself most feelingly personated: I can write very like my lady, your niece; on a forgotten matter we can hardly make distinction of our hands. Sir To. Excellent! I smell a device. Sir And. I have't in my nose too. Sir To. He shall think, by the letters that thou wilt drop, that they come from my niece, and that she is in love with him. Mar. My purpose is, indeed, a horse of that colour. Sir And. And your horse now would make him an ass. Mar. Ass, I doubt not. Sir And. O, 'twill be admirable. Mar. Sport royal, I warrant you: I know, my physic will work with him. I will plant you two, and let the fool make a third, where he shall find the letter; observe his construction of it. For this night, to bed, and dream on the event. Farewell. Sir To. Good night, Penthesilea.❜ Sir And. Before me, she's a good wench. [Exit. Sir To. She's a beagle, true-bred, and one that adores me; What o'that? [1] Affection'd means affected. STEEVENS. [2] A swarth is as much grass or corn as a mower cuts down at one stroke of his scythe. STEEVENS. [3] i. e. Amazon. STEEVENS. |
