You must wear it one way, for the prince hath got your Hero.

CLAUD. I wish him joy of her.

BENE. Why, that's spoken like an honeft drover; fo they fell 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 ftole 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 fedges. But, that my lady Beatrice fhould 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 fo; I am apt to do myself wrong: I am not fo reputed: it is the base, the bitter difpofition of Beatrice, that puts the world into her perfon,' and fo gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may.

Re-enter Don PEDRO, HERO, and LEONATO.

D. PEDRO. Now, fignior, where's the count? Did you see him?

BENE. Troth, my lord, I have play'd the part of lady Fame. I found him here as melancholy as a

3 it is the bafe, the bitter difpofition of Beatrice, that puts the world into her perfon,] That is, It is the difpofition of Beatrice, who takes upon her to perfonate the world, and therefore represents the world as faying what he only fays herself.

The old copies read-bafe, though bitter: but I do not understand how bafe and bitter are inconfiftent, or why what is bitter fhould not be bafe. I believe, we may fafely read,—It is the base, the bitter difpofition. JOHNSON.

I have adopted Dr. Johnson's emendation, though I once thought it unneceffary. STEEVENS.

VOL. IV.

Ff

lodge in a warren; 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 forfaken, 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 tranfgreffion of a school-boy; who, being overjoy'd with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it.

D. PEDRO. Wilt thou make a trust a tranfgreffion? The tranfgreffion is in the ftealer.

BENE. Yet it had not been amifs, the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself; and the rod he might have beftow'd on you, who, as I take it, have ftol'n his bird's nest.

D. PEDRO. I will but teach them to fing, and reftore them to the owner.

BENE. If their finging answer your saying, by my faith, you say honestly.

— as melancholy as a lodge in a warren;] A parallel thought occurs in the firft chapter of Jaiah, where the prophet, defcribing the defolation of Judah, fays: "The daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers," &c. I am informed, that near Aleppo, thefe lonely buildings are ftill made ufe of, it being neceffary, that the fields where watermelons, cucumbers, &c. are raised, fhould be regularly watched. I learn from Tho. Newton's Herball to the Bible, 8vo. 1587, that "fo foone as the cucumbers, &c. be gathered, thefe lodges are abandoned of the watchmen and keepers, and no more frequented." From these forfaken buildings, it fhould feem, the prophet takes his comparison. STEEVENS.

5 of this young lady;] Benedick speaks of Hero as if she were on the ftage. Perhaps, both she and Leonato, were meant to make their entrance with Don Pedro. When Beatrice enters, the is fpoken of as coming in with only Claudio. STEEVENS.

I have regulated the entries accordingly. MALONE.

D. PEDRO. The lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to 'you; the gentleman, that danced with her, told her, the is much wrong'd by you.

BENE. O, the misused me paft the endurance of a block; an oak, but with one green leaf on it, would have answer'd her; my very vifor began to affume life, and fcold with her: She told me, not thinking I had been my felf, that I was the prince's jefter; that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jeft upon jeft, with fuch impoffible conveyance, upon me, that I ftood like a man at a mark, with a whole

fuch impoffible conveyance,] Dr. Warburton reads impaffable: Sir Tho. Hanmer impetuous, and Dr. Johnson importable, which, fays he, is ufed by Spenfer, in a fenfe very congruous to this paffage, for insupportable, or not to be fuftained. Alfo by the laft tranflators of the Apocrypha; and therefore fuch a word as Shakspeare may be supposed to have written. REED.

Importable is very often used by Lidgate in his Prologue to the tranflation of The Tragedies gathered by Ibon Bochas, &c. as well as by Holinfhed.

Impoffible may be licentioufly ufed for unaccountable. Beatrice has already faid, that Benedick invents impoffible flanders.

So, in The Fair Maid of the Inn, by Beaumont and Fletcher: "You would look for fome moft impoffible antick." Again, in The Roman Actor, by Maffinger:

to lofe

"Ourselves, by building on impossible hopes." STEEVENS. Impoffible may have been what Shakspeare wrote, and be used in the fenfe of incredible or inconceivable, both here and in the beginning of the scene, where Beatrice fpeaks of impoffible flanders. M. MASON. I believe the meaning is with a rapidity equal to that of jugglers, who appear to perform impoffibilities. We have the fame epithet again in Twelfth-Night: "There is no Chriftian can ever believe fuch impoffible paffages of groffnefs." So Ford fays in The Merry Wives of Windfor," I will examine impossible places." Again, in Julius Cæfar:

66

Now bid' me run,

"And I will strive with things impossible,

"And get the better of them."

Conveyance was the common term in our author's time for fleight of hand, MALONE.

army fhooting at me: She speaks poniards, and every word ftabs: if her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her, she would infect to the north ftar. I would not marry her, though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he tranfgrefs'd: she would have made Hercules have turn'd fpit; yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her; you shall find her the infernal Até in good apparel. I would to God, fome fcholar would conjure her; for, certainly, while the is here, a man may live as quiet in hell, as in a fanctuary; and people fin upon purpose, because they would go thither; fo, indeed, all difquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her.

8

Re-enter CLAUDIO, and BEATRICE.

D. PEDRO. Look, here fhe comes.

BENE. Will your grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the flightest errand now to the Antipodes, that you can devise to fend me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the fartheft inch of Afia; bring you the length of Prefter John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pig

6

She fpeaks poniards,] So, in Hamlet: "I'll fpeak daggers to her"

STEEVENS.

7 — the infernal Até in good apparel.] This is a pleasant allufion to the custom of ancient poets and painters, who reprefent the Furies in rags. WARBURTON.

Até is not one of the Furies, but the Goddefs of Revenge, or Difcord. STEEVENS.

8 fome Scholar would conjure her;] As Shakspeare always attributes to his exorcifts the power of raifing fpirits, he gives his conjurer, in this place, the power of laying them. M. MASON.

:9.

bring you the length of Prefter John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard;] i. e. I will undertake the hardest task,

mies, rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy: You have no employment for me?

D. PEDRO. None, but to defire your good company.

BENE. O God, fir, here's a dish I love not; I cannot endure my lady Tongue." [Exit. D. PEDRO. Come, lady, come; you have loft the heart of fignior Benedick.

BEAT. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me a while; and I gave him use for it,' a double heart for his fingle one: marry, once before, he won it of me with falfe dice, therefore your grace may well say, I have loft it.

D. PEDRO. You have put him down, lady, you have put him down.

BEAT. SO I would not he should do me, my lord, left I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek.

rather than have any converfation with lady Beatrice. Alluding to the difficulty of accefs to either of those monarchs, but more particularly to the former.

So, Cartwright, in his comedy called The Siege, or Love's Canvert, 1651:

bid me take the Parthian king by the beard: or draw an eye-tooth from the jaw royal of the Perfian monarch."

Such an achievement, however, Huon of Bourdeaux was fent to perform, and performed it. See chap. 46, edit. 1601: "he opened his mouth, and tooke out his foure great teeth, and then cut off his beard, and tooke thereof as much as pleased him." STEEVENS.

"Thou must goe to the citie of Babylon to the Admiral Gaudiffe, to bring me thy hand full of the heare of his beard, and foure of his greateft teeth. Alas, my lord, (quoth the Barrons) we fee well you defire greatly his death, when you charge him with fuch a meffage." Huon of Bourdeaux, ch. 17. BowLE.

2

my lady Tongue.] Thus the quarto, 1600. The folio reads-this lady Tongue, STEEVENS.

3

I gave him ufe for it,] Ufe, in our author's time, meant intereft of money, MALONE.