SEB. Antonio, O my dear Antonio!

How have the hours rack'd and tortur'd me,
Since I have loft thee?

ANT. Sebastian are you?

SEB.

Fear'ft thou that, Antonio?

ANT. How have you made divifion of yourself?An apple, cleft in two, is not more twin Than these two creatures. Which is Sebastian? OLI. Moft wonderful!

SEB. Do I ftand there? I never had a brother: Nor can there be that deity in my nature, Of here and every where. I had a fister, Whom the blind waves and furges have devour'd:Of charity,' what kin are you to me? [To VIOLA. What countryman? what name? what parentage?

VIO. Of Meffaline: Sebaftian was my father; Such a Sebaftian was my brother too,

-that

dented, men make one picture to represent several facesbeing viewed from one place or standing, did fhew the head of a Spaniard, and from another, the head of an ass.”—“ A picture of a chancellor of France prefented to the common beholder a multitude of little faces but if one did look on it through a perspective, there appeared only the fingle pourtraicture of the chancellor himself." Thus that, which is, is not, or in a different pofition appears like another thing. This feems alfo to explain a paffage in King Henry V. Act V. fc. ii: "Yes, my lord, you fee them perspectively, the cities turn'd into a maid.”

TOLLET.

I believe Shakspeare meant nothing more by this natural perSpearve, than a reflection from a glass or mirror. M. MASON.

Perfpective certainly means a glafs ufed for optical delufion, or a glafs generally. In Franck's Northern Memoirs, p. 16, Theophilus, one of the difcourfers, fays-" he that reads his own heart without a perspective, reads all the world." The book was written in 1658. DOUCE.

3 Of charity,] i. e. out of charity, tell me, &c. So, in The Taming of the Shrew:

"Now, let him speak; 'tis charity, to show," &c.

STEEVENS.

So went he fuited to his watery tomb:
If fpirits can affume both form and fuit
You come to fright us.

SEB.
A fpirit I am, indeed;
But am in that dimenfion grofsly clad,
Which from the womb I did participate.
Were you a woman, as the reft goes even,
I should my tears let fall upon your check,
And fay-Thrice welcome, drowned Viola!
V10. My father had a mole upon his brow.
SEB. And fo had mine.

V10. And died that day when Viola from her birth Had number'd thirteen years.

SEB. O, that record is lively in my foul!
He finished, indeed, his mortal act,

That day that made my fifter thirteen years.
V10. If nothing lets to make us happy both,
But this my mafculine ufurp'd attire,
Do not embrace me, till each circumftance
Of place, time, fortune, do cohere, and jump,
That I am Viola: which to confirm,

I'll bring you to a captain in this town,

Where lie my maiden weeds; by whofe gentle help
I was preferv'd, to ferve this noble count:
All the occurrence of my fortune fince
Hath been between this lady, and this lord.

SEB. So comes it, lady, you have been mistook:
[To OLIVIA.
But nature to her bias drew in that.
You would have been contracted to a maid;
Nor are you therein, by my life, deceiv'd,
You are betroth'd both to a maid and man.

2

Occurrence - -] I believe our author wrote-occurrents.

MALONE.

DUKE. Be not amaz'd; right noble is his blood.— If this be fo, as yet the glass seems true, I fhall have share in this most happy wreck: Boy, thou haft faid to me a thousand times,

[To VIOLA.

Thou never fhould'ft love woman like to me.
V10. And all thofe fayings will I over-fwear;
And all thofe fwearings keep as true in foul,
As doth that orbed continent the fire
That fevers day from night.

DUKE.

Give me thy hand; And let me fee thee in thy woman's weeds.

V10. The captain, that did bring me first on shore, Hath my maid's garments: he, upon fome action, Is now in durance; at Malvolio's fuit,

A gentleman, and follower of my lady's.

OLI. He fhall enlarge him:-Fetch Malvolio hither:

And yet, alas, now I remember me,
They fay, poor gentleman, he's much diftract.

Re-enter Clown, with a letter.

A moft extracting frenzy3 of mine own
From my remembrance clearly banish'd his.—
How does he, firrah?

A moft extracting frenzy-] i. e. a frenzy that drew me away from every thing but its own object. WARBURTON. So, William de Wyrcefter, fpeaking of King Henry VI. fays fubito cecidit in gravem infirmitatem capitis, ita quod extractus

à mente videbatur." STEEVENS.

I formerly fuppofed that Shakspeare wrote-diffracting; but have fince met with a paffage in The Hiftorie of Hamblet, bl. 1. 1608, Sig. C 2, that feems to fupport the reading of the old copy: to try if men of great account be extrad out of their wits." MALONE.

CLO. Truly, madam, he holds Belzebub at the ftave's end, as well as a man in his cafe may do: he has here writ a letter to you, I fhould have given it you to-day morning; but as a madman's epiftles are no gofpels, fo it skills not much, when they are delivered.

OLI. Open it, and read it.

CLO. Look then to be well edified, when the fool delivers the madman.-By the Lord, madam,

OLI. How now! art thou mad?

CLO. No, madam, I do but read madness: an your ladyship will have it as it ought to be, you muft allow vox.*

OLI. Pr'ythee, read i'thy right wits.

CLO. So I do, madonna; but to read his right wits,' is to read thus: therefore perpend, my princess, and give ear. OLI. Read it you,

firrah.

[TO FABIAN.

-you must allow vox.] I am by no means certain that I understand this paffage, which, indeed, the author of The Revifal pronounces to have no meaning. I fuppofe the Clown begins reading the letter in fome fantastical manner, on which Olivia afks him, if he is mad. No, madam, fays he, I do but barely deliver the fenfe of this madman's epiftle; if you would have it read as it ought to be, that is, with fuch a frantic accent and gesture as a mad man would read it, you must allow vox, i. e. you must furnish the reader with a voice, or, in other words, read it yourself. But Mr. Malone's explanation, I think, is preferable to mine.

STEEVENS

The Clown, we may prefume, had begun to read the letter in a very loud tone, and probably with extravagant gefticulation. Being reprimanded by his miftrefs, he juftifies himself by saying, If you would have it read in character, as fuch a mad epiftle ought to be read, you must permit me to affume a frantick tone.

MALONE.

$ but to read his right wits,] To reprefent his prefent state of mind, is to read a madman's letter, as I now do, like a madman. JOHNSON,

FAB. [reads.] By the Lord, madam, you wrong me, and the world shall know it: though you have put me into darkness, and given your drunken coufin rule over me, yet have I the benefit of my fenfes as well as your ladyship. I have your own letter that induced me to the Semblance I put on; with the which I doubt not but to do myfelf much right, or you much shame. Think of me as you pleafe. I leave my duty a little unthought of, and Speak out of my injury. The madly-ufed Malvolio.

OLI. Did he write this?

CLO. Ay, madam.

DUKE. This favours not much of diftraction.

OLI. See him deliver'd, Fabian; bring him hither. [Exit FABIAN. My lord, so please you, these things further thought

on,

To think me as well a fifter as a wife,

One day fhall crown the alliance on't, fo please you,"

Here at my house, and at my proper cost.

DUKE. Madam, I am most apt to embrace your offer.

Your mafter quits you; [To VIOLA.] and, for your fervice done him,

So much against the mettle of

your fex,'

• One day shall crown the alliance on't, so please you,] The word on't, in this place, is mere nonfenfe. I doubt not the poet wrote: ·an't, so please you. HEATH.

This is well conjectured; but on't may relate to the double character of fifter and wife. JOHNSON.

7 So much against the mettle of your fex,] So much against the weak frame and conftitution of woman. Mettle is ufed by our author in many other places for spirit; and as spirit may be either high or low, mettle feems here to fignify natural timidity, or deficiency of Spirit. Shakspeare has taken the fame licence in All's well that ends well: