were of my mind!-Shall we go prove what's to be done?

BORA. We'll wait upon your lordship. [Exeunt.

ACT II.

SCENE I.

A Hall in LEONATO's Houfe.

Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, HERO, BEATRICE, and
Others.

LEON. Was not count John here at fupper?
ANT. I faw him not.

BEAT. How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him, but I am heart-burn'd an hour after." HERO. He is of a very melancholy difpofition.

BEAT. He were an excellent man, that were made juft in the mid-way between him and Benedick: the one is too like an image, and fays nothing; and the other, too like my lady's eldest fon, evermore tattling.

LEON. Then half fignior Benedick's tongue in count John's mouth, and half count John's melancholy in fignior Benedick's face,—

BEAT. With a good leg, and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his purfe, fuch a man would win any woman in the world,-if he could get her good will.

LEON. By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou be fo fhrewd of thy tongue. ANT. In faith, fhe is too curst.

9 heart-burn'd an hour after.] The pain commonly called the heart-burn, proceeds from an acid humour in the ftomach, and is therefore properly enough imputed to tart looks. JOHNSON.

BEAT. Too curft is more than curft: I fhall leffen God's fending that way: for it is faid, God fends a curft cow bort horns; but to a cow too curft he fends

none.

LEON. So, by being too curft, God will send you no horns.

BEAT. Juft, if he fend me no husband; for the which bleffing, I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening: Lord! I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face; I had rather lie in the woollen.2

LEON. You may light upon a husband, that hath no beard.

BEAT. What should I do with him? drefs him in my apparel, and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a beard, is more than a youth; and he that hath no beard, is lefs than a man: and he that is more than a youth, is not for me; and he that is less than a man, I am not for him: Therefore I will even take fix-pence in earnest of the bear-herd, and lead his apes into hell.

LEO. Well then, go you into hell? 3

BEAT. No; but to the gate: and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and fay, Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here's no place for you maids: fo de

2

in the woollen.] I suppose she means-between blankets, without fheets. STEEVENS.

3 Well then, &c.] Of the two next fpeeches Dr. Warburton fays, All this impious nonfenfe thrown to the bottom, is the players', and foifted in without rhyme or reafon. He therefore puts them in the margin. They do not deferve indeed fo honourable a place; yet I am afraid they are too much in the manner of our author, who is fometimes trying to purchafe merriment at too dear a rate. JOHNSON.

I have restored the lines omitted. STEEVENS.

liver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens; he shows me where the bachelors fit, and there live we as merry as the day is long.

ANT. Well, niece, [To HERO] I truft, you will be ruled by your father.

BEAT. Yes, faith; it is my coufin's duty to make courtesy, and say, Father, as it please you :-but yet for all that, coufin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another courtesy, and say, Father, as it please me.

LEON. Well, niece, I hope to fee you one day fitted with a husband.

BEAT. Not till God make men of fome other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be over-master'd 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 fons are my brethren; and truly, I hold it a fin to match in my kindred.

LEON. Daughter, remember, what I told you: if the prince do folicit you in that kind, you know your answer.

BEAT. The fault will be in the mufick, cousin, if you be not woo'd in good time: if the prince be too important, tell him, there is measure in every thing,' and fo dance out the answer. For hear me, Hero;

4 — if the prince be too important,] Important here, and in many other places, is importunate. JOHNSON.

So, in King Lear, A& IV. fc. iv:

5

great France

My mourning, and important tears hath pitied." STEEVENS. there is meafure in every thing,] A measure in old language, befide its ordinary meaning, fignified alfo a dance. MALONE, So, in King Richard II:

"My legs can keep no measure in delight,

"When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief." STEEVENS.

Wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the firft fuit is hot and hafty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly-modeft, as a measure full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance, and, with his bad legs, falls into the cinquepace faster and faster, till he fink into his grave.

LEON. Coufin, you apprehend passing shrewdly. BEAT. I have a good eye, uncle; I can fee a church by day-light.

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

Enter Don PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, BALTHAZAR ; 6 Don JOHN, BORACHIO, MARGARET, URSULA, and others, mafk'd.

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

HERO. So you walk foftly, and look fweetly, and fay nothing, I am yours for the walk; and, efpecially, when I walk away.

Balthazar;] The quarto and folio add-or dumb John.

STEEVENS.

Here is another proof that when the first copies of our author's plays were prepared for the prefs, the tranfcript was made out by the ear. If the MS. had lain before the tranfcriber, it is very unlikely that he should have miftaken Don for dumb: but, by an inarticulate fpeaker, or inattentive hearer, they might eafily be confounded. MALONE.

Don John's taciturnity has been already noticed. It feems therefore not improbable that the author himself might have occafionally applied the epithet dumb to him. REED.

7 your friend?] Friend, in our author's time, was the common term for a lover. So alfo in French and Italian. MALONE. Mr. Malone might have added, that this term was equally applicable to both fexes; for, in Meafure for Meafure, Lucio teils Ifabella that her brother had "got his friend with child." STEEVENS.

D. PEDRO. With me in your company?
HERO. I may say so, when I please.

D. PEDRO. And when please you to say fo? HERO. When I like your favour; for God defend, the lute should be like the cafe!

D. PEDRO. My visor is Philemon's roof; within the house is Jove.9

HERO. Why, then your vifor fhould be thatch'd. D. PEDRO. Speak low, if you speak love. [Takes her afide. BENE. Well, I would you did like me. MARG. So would not I, for your own fake; for I have many ill qualities.

the lute should be like the cafe!] i. e. that your face should be as homely and coarse as your mask. THEOBALD.

9 My vifor is Philemon's roof, within the house is Jove.] The firft folio has-Love; the quarto, 1600-love; fo that here Mr. Theobald might have found the very reading which, in the following note, he represents as a conjecture of his own. STEEVENS.

'Tis plain, the poet alludes to the story of Baucis and Philemon from Ovid: and this old couple, as the Roman poet describes it, lived in a thatch'd cottage:

- ftipulis & canna tecta paluftri.”

But why, within this houfe is love? Though this old pair lived in a cottage, this cottage received two ftraggling Gods, (Jupiter and Mercury) under its roof. So, Don Pedro is a prince; and though his vifor is but ordinary, he would infinuate to Hero, that he has fomething godlike within: alluding either to his dignity or the qualities of his mind and perfon. By thefe circumftances, I am fure, the thought is mended: as, I think verily, the text is too, by the addition of a fingle letter-within the house is Jove. Nor is this emendation a little confirmed by another passage in our author, in which he plainly alludes to the fame ftory. As you like it : "Jaques. O, knowledge ill inhabited, worse than Jove in a thatched boufe!" THEOBALD.

The line of Ovid above quoted is thus tranflated by Golding, 1587:

"The roofe thereof was thatched all with straw and fennish reede." MALONE.