courtesy, and say, Father, as it please you :—but yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another courtesy, and say, Father, as it please me.

Leon. Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.

Beat. Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a piece of valiant dust? To make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my brethren; and truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred.

Leon. Daughter, remember what I told you; if the prince do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer.

Beat. The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not wooed in good time: if the prince be too important, tell him, there is measure in every thing, and so dance out the answer. For hear me, Hero; wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace; the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly-modest, as a measure full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance, and, with his bad legs, falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.

Leon. Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly. Beat. I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by day-light.

Leon. The revellers are entering; brother, make good room.

Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, BALTHAZAR ; DON JOHN, BORACHIO, MARGARET, URSULA, and others masked.

D. Pedro. Lady, will you walk about with your friend?

1 Importunate.

2 A measure, in old language, besides its ordinary meaning, signified also a dance.

Hero. So you walk softly, and look sweetly, and say nothing, I am yours for the walk; and, especially, when I walk away.

D. Pedro. With me in your company?

Hero. I may say so, when I please.

D. Pedro. And when please you to say so?

Hero. When I like your favor; for God defend, the lute should be like the case!

D. Pedro. My visor is Philemon's roof; within the house is Jove.1

Hero. Why, then, your visor should be thatched. D. Pedro. Speak low, if you speak love.

[Takes her aside. Bene. Well, I would you did like me.

Marg. So would not I, for your own sake; for 1 have many ill qualities.

Bene. Which is one?

Marg. I say my prayers aloud.

Bene. I love you the better; the hearers may cry, Amen.

Marg. God match me with a good dancer!

Balth. Amen.

Marg. And God keep him out of my sight, when the dance is done!-Answer, clerk.

Balth. No more words; the clerk is answered. Urs. I know you well enough; you are seignior Antonio.

Ant. At a word, I am not.

Urs. I know you by the waggling of your head.
Ant. To tell you true, I counterfeit him.

Urs. You could never do him so ill-well, unless you were the very man: here's his dry hand up and down; you are he, you are he.

Ant. At a word I am not.

Urs. Come, come; do you think I do not know you by your excellent wit? Can virtue hide itself? Go to, mum, you are he; graces will appear, and there's an end.

1 Alluding to the fable of Baucis and Philemon in Ovid.

Beat. Will you not tell me who told

Bene. No, you shall pardon me.

Beat. Nor will you not tell me who

Bene. Not now.

you so?

you are?

Beat. That I was disdainful,-and that I had my good wit out of the Hundred merry Tales;1-Well, this was seignior Benedick that said so.

Bene. What's he?

Beat. I am sure, you know him well enough.

Bene. Not I, believe me.

Beat. Did he never make you laugh?

Bene. I pray you, what is he?

Beat. Why, he is the prince's jester; a very dull fool; only his gift is in devising impossible slanders: none but libertines delight in him; and the commendation is not in his wit, but in his villany; for he both pleaseth men, and angers them, and then they laugh at him, and beat him: I am sure he is in the fleet: I would he had boarded me.

Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say.

Beat. Do, do: he'll but break a comparison or two on me; which, peradventure, not marked, or not laughed at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music within.

We must follow the leaders.

Bene. In every good thing.

Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning.

[Dance. Then exeunt all but DON JOHN, BORACHIO, and CLAUDIO.

D. John. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero, and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it: the ladies follow her, and but one visor remains.

1 This was a term for a jest-book in Shakspeare's time, from a popular collection of that name, about which the commentators were much puzzled, until a large fragment was discovered in 1815, by the Rev. J. Conybeare, Professor of Poetry in Oxford.

VOL. I.

56

Bora. And that is Claudio: I know him by his bearing.

D. John. Are not you seignior Benedick?
Claud. You know me well; I am he.

D. John. Seignior, you are very near my brother in his love: he is enamored on Hero; I pray you, dissuade him from her; she is no equal for his birth: you may do the part of an honest man in it.

Claud. How know you he loves her?

D. John. I heard him swear his affection.

Bora. So did I too; and he swore he would marry her to-night.

D. John. Come, let us to the banquet.

[Exeunt DON JOHN and BORACHIO. Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick, But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.'Tis certain so;-the prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things,

Save in the office and affairs of love:

Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues,

Let every eye negotiate for itself,

And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch,

Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.1

This is an accident of hourly proof,

Which I mistrusted not: farewell, therefore, Hero!

Re-enter BENEDICK.

Bene. Count Claudio?

Claud. Yea, the same.

Bene. Come, will you go with me?
Claud. Whither?

Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, count. What fashion will you wear the garland of? About your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the prince hath got your Hero. Claud. I wish him joy of her.

1 Blood signifies amorous heat or passion.

Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drover; so they sell bullocks. But did you think the prince would have served you thus?

Claud. I pray you, leave me.

Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man: 'twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post.

Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you.

[Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! Now will he creep into sedges. But, that my lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The prince's fool!-Ha! it may be, I go under that title, because I am merry.-Yea; but so; I am apt to do myself wrong: I am not so reputed: it is the base, the bitter disposition of Beatrice, that puts the world into her person, and so gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may.

Re-enter DON PEDRO.

D. Pedro. Now, seignior, where's the count? Did you see him?

Bene. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of lady Fame. I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren;1 I told him, and, I think, I told him true, that your grace had got the good will of this young lady; and I offered him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as 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

A parallel thought occurs in Isaiah, c. i., where the prophet, in describing the desolation of Judah, says, "The daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers," &c. It appears that these lonely buildings were necessary, as the cucumbers, &c. were obliged to be constantly watched and watered, and that as soon as the crop was gathered they were forsaken.