D. PEDRO. Why, how now, count? wherefore are you fad?

CLAUD. Not fad; my lord.

D. PEDRO. How then? Sick?

CLAUD. Neither, my lord.

BEAT. The count is neither fad, nor fick, nor merry, nor well: but civil, count; civil as an orange,* and fomething of that jealous complexion."

D. PEDRO. I'faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though, I'll be fworn, if he be fo, his conceit is falfe. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won; I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained: name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy!

LEON. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes: his grace hath made the match, and all grace fay Amen to it!

BEAT. Speak, count, 'tis your cue.

CLAUD. Silence is the perfecteft herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could fay how much.Lady, as you are mine, I am yours: I give away myself for you, and dote upon the exchange.

BEAT. Speak, coufin; or, if you cannot, ftop his mouth with a kifs, and let not him fpeak, neither. D. PEDRO. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. BEAT. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool,' it keeps on the windy fide of care:-My coufin tells him in his ear, that he is in her heart.

-civil as an orange,] This conceit occurs likewife in Nafbe's four Letters confuted, 1592: "For the order of my life, it is as civil as an orange." STEEVENS.

of that jealous complexion.] Thus the quarto, 1600. The folio reads, of a jealous complexion. STEEVENS.

3-poor fool,] This was formerly an expreffion of tenderness. See King Lear, laft fcene: "And my poor fool is hang'd." MALONE.

CLAUD. And fso she doth, coufin.

BEAT. Good lord, for alliance!"-Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am fun-burn'd;' I may fit in a corner, and cry, heigh ho! for a husband.

D. PEDRO. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.

BEAT. I would rather have one of your father's getting: Hath your grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent hufbands, if a maid could come by them.

D. PEDRO. Will you have me, lady?

BEAT. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working-days; your grace is too coftly to wear every day :-But, I befeech your grace, pardon me; I was born to speak all mirth, and no matter.

D. PEDRO. Your filence moft offends me, and to be merry best becomes you; for, out of queftion, you were born in a merry hour.

Good lord, for alliance!] Claudio has juft called Beatrice coufin. I fuppofe, therefore, the meaning is,-Good Lord, here have I got a new kinfman by marriage. MALONE.

I cannot understand these words, unless they imply a wish for the fpeaker's alliance with a husband. STEEVENS.

↑ Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am fun-burn'd;] What is it, to go to the world? perhaps, to enter by marriage into a fettled ftate; but why is the unmarried lady fun-burnt? I believe we should read,―Thus goes every one to the wood but I, and I am fun-burnt. Thus does every one but I find a shelter, and I am left expofed to wind and fun. The nearest way to the wood, is a phrafe for the readieft means to any end. It is faid of a woman, who accepts a worse match than those which she had refufed, that fhe has paffed through the wood, and at laft taken a crooked stick. But conjectural criticifm has always fomething to abate its confidence. Shak fpeare, in All's well that Ends well, ufes the phrafe, to go to the world, for marriage. So that my emendation depends only on the oppofition of wood to fun-burnt. JOHNSON.

I am fun-burnt may mean, I have loft my beauty, and am confequently no longer fuch an object as can tempt a man to marry. STEEVENS.

BEAT. No, fure, my lord, my mother cry'd; but then there was a ftar danced, and under that was I born.-Cousins, God give you joy!

LEON. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of?

BEAT. I cry you mercy, uncle.-By your grace's pardon. [Exit BEATRICE. D. PEDRO. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. LEON. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord: fhe is never fad, but when the fleeps; and not ever fad then; for I have heard my daughter fay, she hath often dream'd of unhappinefs, and waked herself with laughing.

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D. PEDRO. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband.

LEON. O, by no means; fhe mocks all her wooers out of fuit.

D. PEDRO. She were an excellent wife for Benedick.

LEON. O Lord, my lord, if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad.

D. PEDRO. Count Claudio, when mean you to go to church?

There's little of the melancholy element in her,]" Does not our life confift of the four elements?" fays Sir Toby, in Twelfth Night. So, alfo in King Henry V: "He is pure air and fire, and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him.”

MALONE.

9 he hath often dream'd of unhappiness,] So all the editions; but Mr. Theobald alters it to, an happiness, having no conception that unhappiness meant any thing but misfortune, and that, he thinks, fhe could not laugh at. He had never heard that it fignified a wild, wanton unlucky trick. Thus Beaumont and Fletcher, in their comedy of The Maid of the Mill:

My dreams are like my thoughts, honest and innocent: "Yours are unhappy." WARBURTON.

CLAUD. To-morrow, my lord: Time goes on crutches, till love have all his rites.

LEON. Not till Monday, my dear fon, which is hence a just sevennight; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind.

D. PEDRO. Come, you shake the head at fo long a breathing; but, I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us; I will, in the interim, undertake one of Hercules' labours; which is, to bring fignior Benedick, and the lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection, the one with the other. I would fain have it a match; and I doubt not but to fashion it, if you three will but minifter fuch affiftance as I shall give you direction.

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into a mountain of affection, the one with the other.] A mountain of affection with one another is a ftrange expreffion, yet I know not well how to change it. Perhaps it was originally written to bring Benedick and Beatrice into a mooting of affection; to bring them not to any more mootings of contention, but to a mooting or converfation of love. This reading is confirmed by the prepofition with; a mountain with each other, or affection with each other, cannot be used, but a mooting with each other is proper and regular. JOHNSON.

Uncommon as the word proposed by Dr. Johnson may appear, it is used in feveral of the old plays. So, in Glapthorne's Wit in a Conftable, 1639:

66

one who never

"Had mooted in the hall, or feen the revels

Kept in the house at Christmas."

Again, in The Return from Parnaffus, 1606:

Again:

"It is a plain case, whereon I mooted in our temple.”

at a mooting in our temple." Ibid.

And yet, all that I believe is meant by a mountain of affection is, a great deal of affection.

In one of Stanyhurft's poems is the following phrafe to denote a large quantity of love:

"Lumps of love promift, nothing perform'd," &c.

Again, in The Renegado, by Maffinger:

'tis but parting with

"A mountain of vexation,"

LEON. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings.

CLAUD. And I, my lord.

D. PEDRO. And you too, gentle Hero?

HERO. I will do any modeft office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good hufband.

D. PEDRO. And Benedick is not the unhopefulleft hufband that I know: thus far can I praise him; he is of a noble ftrain,' of approved valour, and confirm'd honefty. I will teach you how to humour your coufin, that fhe fhall fall in love with Benedick-and I, with your two helps, will fo practice on Benedick, that, in defpite of his quick wit and his queafy ftomach,' he fhall fall in love with

Thus, alfo in K. Henry VIII: we find " a fea of glory." In Hamlet: "a fea of troubles." Again, in Howel's Hiftory of Venice: " though they fee mountains of miferies heaped on one's back." Again, in Bacon's Hiftory of K. Henry VII: "Perkin fought to corrupt the fervants to the lieutenant of the tower by mountains of promifes." Again, in The Comedy of Errors: "— the mountain of mad flesh that claims marriage of me." Little can be inferred from the prefent offence against grammar; an offence which may not strictly be imputable to Shakspeare, but rather to the negligence or ignorance of his tranfcribers or printers. STEEVENS.

Shakspeare has many phrafes equally harfh. He who would hazard fuch expreffions as a form of fortune, a vale of years, and a tempeft of provocation, would not fcruple to write a mountain of affection." MALONE.

a noble frain,] i. e. defcent, lineage. So in The Faery Queen, B. IV. C. viii. S. 33:

Sprung from the auncient ftocke of prince's ftraine:" Again, B. V. C. ix. S. 32:

"Sate goodly temperaunce in garments clene,

And facred reverence y born of heavenly frene." REED.

Again, in King Lear, A&t V. fc. iii:

Sir, you have shown to-day your valiant ftrain." STEEVENS. -queafy ftomach,] i. c. fqueamish. So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

Who queafy with his infolence already". STEEVENS.