Do give thee five-fold blazon :-Not too fast :-soft! soft
Unless the master were the man.-How now ?

Even so quickly may one catch the plague?
Methinks, I feel this youth's perfections,
With an invisible and subtle stealth,

To creep in at mine eyes.

What, ho, Malvolio !—

Well, let it be.

Re-enter MALVOLIO.

Mal. Here, madam, at your service.

Oli. Run after that same peevish messenger,
The county's man: he left this ring behind him,
Would I, or not: tell him, I'll none of it.
Desire him not to flatter with his lord,

Nor hold him up with hopes; I am not for him :
If that the youth will come this way to-morrow,
I'll give him reasons for't. Hie thee, Malvolio.
Mal. Madam, I will.

[Exit

Oli. I do I know not what: and fear to find Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind.

Fate, shew thy force: Ourselves we do not owe;
What is decreed, must be ; and be this so!

[Exit.

ACT II.

SCENE I.-The Sea-coast. Enter ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN.

Antonio.

WILL you stay no longer? nor will you not, that I go with you?

Seb. By your patience, no: my stars shine darkly over me; the malignancy of my fate might, perhaps, distemper yours; therefore I shall crave of you your leave, that I may bear my evils alone: It were a bad recompense for your love, to lay any of them on you.

Ant. Let me yet know of you, whither you are bound? Seb. No, 'sooth, sir; my determinate voyage is mere extravagancy. But I perceive in you so excellent a touch of modesty, that you will not extort from me what I am willing to keep in; therefore it charges me in manners the rather to express myself. You must know of me then, Antonio, my name is Sebastian, which I called Rodorigo; my father was that Sebastian of Messaline, whom I know, you have heard of: he left behind him, myself, and a sister, both born in an hour. If the heavens had

been pleased, 'would we had so ended! but you, sir, al· tered that; for, some hour before you took me from the breach of the sea, was my sister drowned.

Ant. Alas, the day!

Seb. A lady, sir, though it was said she much resembled me, was yet of many accounted beautiful: but, though I could not, with such estimable wonder, overfar believe that, yet thus far I will boldly publish her, she bore a mind that envy could not but call fair: she is drowned already, sir, with salt water, though I seem to drown her remembrance again with more.

Ant. Pardon me, sir, your bad entertainment.

Seb. O, good Antonio, forgive me your trouble. Ant. If y you will not murder me for my love, let me be your servant.

Seb. If you will not undo what you have done, that is, kill him whom you have recovered, desire it not. Fare ye well at once: my bosom is full of kindness; and I am yet so near the manners of my mother, that upon the least occasion more, mine eyes will tell tales of me. I am bound to the count Orsino's court: Farewell. [Exit. Ant. The gentleness of all the gods go with thee! I have many enemies in Orsino's court, Else would I very shortly see thee there: But, come what may, I do adore thee so,

That danger shall seem sport, and I will go.

SCENE II.

[Exit

A Street. Enter VIOLA; MALVOLIO following. Mal. Were not you even now with the countess Olivia ? Vio. Even now, sir; on a moderate pace I have since arrived but hither.

Mal. She returns this ring to you, sir; you might have saved me my pains, to have taken it away yourself. She adds moreover, that you should put your lord into a desperate assurance she will none of him: And one thing more; that you be never so hardy to come again in his affairs, unless it be to report your lord's taking of this. Receive it so.

Vio. She took the ring of me; I'll none of it.

Mal. Come, sir, you peevishly threw it to her; and her will is, it should be so returned: if it be worth stooping for, there it lies in your eye; if not, be it his that finds it.

[Exit.

Vio. I left no ring with her; What means this lady?
Fortune forbid, my outside have not charm'd her!
She made good view of me; indeed, so much,
That, sure, methought, her eyes had lost her tongue,
For she did speak in starts distractedly.

She loves me, sure; the cunning of her passion
Invites me in this churlish messenger.

None of my lord's ring! why, he sent her none.
I am the man ;-If it be so, (as 'tis,)
Poor lady, she were better love a dream.
Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness,
Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.
How easy is it, for the proper-false

In women's waxen hearts to set their forms!
Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we;

For, such as we are made of, such we be.

How will this fadge ? My master loves her. dearly;
And I, poor monster, fond as much on him;
And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me :
What will become of this! As I am man,
My state is desperate for my master's love;
As I am woman, now alas the day!

What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe?
O time, thou must untangle this, not I;

It is too hard a knot for me t' untie.

SCENE III.

[Exit.

A Room in OLIVIA's House. Enter Sir TOBY BELCH, and Sir ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK.

Sir To. Approach, sir Andrew: not to be a-bed after midnight, is to be up betimes; and diluculo surgere, thou know'st,

Sir And. Nay, by my troth, I know not: but I know, to be up late, is to be up late.

Sir To. A false conclusion; I hate it as an unfilled cann: To be up after midnight, and to go to bed then, is early; so that, to go to bed after midnight, is to go to bed betimes. Do not our lives consist of the four elements?

Sir And. 'Faith, so they say; but, I think, it rather consists of eating and drinking.9

[8] To fadge, is to suit, to fit, to go with.

STEEVENS.

[9] A ridicule on the medical theory of that time, which supposed health to consist in the just temperament and balance of the four elements in the human frame. WARBURTON.

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 ;3 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?
O, stay and hear; your true love's coming,
That can sing both high and low:
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;

2

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.

STEEVENS.

The money was given him for his leman, i. e. his mistress. 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,
Every wise man's son doth know

Sir And. Excellent good, i' faith!
Sir To. Good, good.

Clo. What is love? 'iis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come, is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty;

Then come kiss me, sweet-and-twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure.

Sir And. A mellifluous voice, as I am a true knight.
Sir To. A contagious breath.

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.

[They sing a catch?

[5] This line is obscure; we might read:

Come, a kiss then, sweet and twenty.

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. 17 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 conveyed in the ribaldry of this buffoon character. WARBURTON.

I doubt whether our author had any allusion to this division of souls. I believe, he here only means to describe Sir Toby's catch as so harmonious, that it would hale the soul out of a weaver (the warmest lover of a song,) thrice over. MAL [8] This catch is lost.

JOHNSON.