HERO. O God of love! I know, he doth deserve
As much as may be yielded to a man:
But nature never fram'd a woman's heart
Of prouder ftuff than that of Beatrice:
Difdain and fcorn ride fparkling in her eyes,
Mifprifing" what they look on; and her wit
Values itself fo highly, that to her

All matter else feems weak: fhe cannot love,
Nor take no shape nor project of affection,
She is fo felf-endeared.

URS.

Sure, I think fo;

And therefore, certainly, it were not good
She knew his love, left the make sport at it.

HERO. Why, you speak truth: Inever yet faw man, How wife, how noble, young, how rarely featur'd, But she would spell him backward: if fair-faced,

Mr. M. Mafon very justly obferves, that what Urfula means to fay is," that he is as deferving of complete happiness in the mar riage ftate, as Beatrice herfelf." STEEVENS.

Mifprifing-] Defpifing, contemning. JOHNSON.

To mifprife is to undervalue, or take in a wrong light. So, in Troilus and Creffida:

a great deal mifprising

"The knight oppos'd." STEEVENS.

that to her

All matter elfe feems weak:] So, in Love's Labour's Loft:

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to your huge ftore

"Wife things feem foolish, and rich things but poor."

STEEVENS, 8-Spell him backward:] Alluding to the practice of witches in uttering prayers.

The following paffages containing a fimilar train of thought, are from Lyly's Anatomy of Wit, 1581:

"If one be hard in conceiving, they pronounce him a dowlte: if given to ftudie, they proclaim him a dunce: if merry, a jefter: if fad, a faint: if full of words, a fot: if without fpeech, a cypher: if one argue with him boldly, then is he impudent: if coldly, an innocent: if there be reafoning of divinitie, they cry, Que fupra nos, nihil ad nos: if of humanitie, fententias loquitur carnifex."

Again, p. 44, b. " if he be cleanly, they [women] term

She'd fwear, the gentleman should be her fifter;
If black, why, nature, drawing of an antick,
Made a foul blot: if tall, a lance ill-headed;
If low, an agate very vilely cut: 9

him proude: if meene in apparel, a floven: if tall, a lungis: if fhorte, a dwarfe: if bold, blunt: if fhamefaft, a cowarde," &c. P. 55" If the be well fet, then call her a boffe: if flender, a hafill twig: if nut brown, black as a coal: if well colour'd, a painted wall: if the be pleasant, then is she wanton: if fullen, a clowne: if honeft, then is the coye." STEEVENS.

If black, why, nature, drawing of an antick,

Made a foul blot :] The antick was a buffoon character in the old English farces, with a blacked face, and a patch-work habit. What I would obferve from hence is, that the name of antick or antique, given to this character, fhows that the people had fome traditional ideas of its being borrowed from the ancient mimes, who are thus defcribed by Apuleius: "mimi centunculo, fuligine faciem abducti." WARBURTON.

I believe what is here faid of the old English farces, is faid at random. Dr. Warburton was thinking, I imagine, of the modern Harlequin. I have met with no proof that the face of the antick or Vice of the old English comedy was blackened. By the word black in the text, is only meant, as I conceive, fwarthy, or dark brown. MALONE.

A black man means a man with a dark or thick beard, not a fwarthy or dark-brown complexion, as Mr. Malone conceives. DOUCE.

When Hero fays, that-" nature drawing of an antick, made a foul blot," the only alludes to a drop of ink that may cafually fall out of a pen, and spoil a grotesque drawing. STEEVENS.

9 If low, an agate very vilely cut :] But why an agate, if low? For what likeness between a little man and an agate? The ancients, indeed, ufed this ftone to cut upon; but very exquifitely. I make no queftion but the poet wrote:

— an aglet very vilely cut:

An aglet was a tag of thofe points, formerly fo much in fashion. Thefe tags were either of gold, filver, or brafs, according to the quality of the wearer; and were commonly in the shape of little images; or at leaft had a head cut at the extremity. The French call them, aiguillettes. Mezeray, fpeaking of Henry IIId's forrow for the death of the princefs of Conti, fays, "-portant meme fur les aiguillettes des petites tetes de mort." And as a tall man is before compared to a lance ill-headed; fo, by the fame figure, a little man is very aptly liken'd to an aglet ill-cut. WARBURTON.

If fpeaking, why, a vane blown with all winds;*

The old reading is, I believe, the true one. Vilely cut may not only mean aukwardly worked by a tool into fhape, but grotesquely veined by nature as it grew. To this circumftance, I fuppofe, Drayton alludes in his Mufes' Elizium :

"With th' agate, very oft that is

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Cut ftrangely in the quarry;

"As nature meant to fhow in this

"How the herself can vary."

Pliny mentions that the fhapes of various beings are to be dif covered in agates; and Mr. Addison has very elegantly compared Shakspeare, who was born with all the feeds of poetry, to the agate in the ring of Pyrrhus, which, as Pliny tells us, had the figure of Apollo and the nine Mufes in the veins of it, produced by the fpontaneous hand of nature, without any help from art.

STEEVENS.

Dr. Warburton reads aglet, which was adopted, I think, too haftily by the fubfequent editors. I fee no reafon for departing from the old copy. Shakspeare's comparisons fcarcely ever answer completely on both fides. Dr. Warburton asks, "What likeness is there between a little man and an agate?" No other than that both are small. Our author has himself in another place compared a very little man to an agate. "Thou whorfon mandrake, (fays Falstaff to his page,) thou art fitter to be worn in my cap, than to wait at my heels. I was never fo man'd with an agate till now." Hero means no more than this: "If a man be low, Beatrice will fay that he is as diminutive and unhappily formed as an ill-cut agate."

It appears both from the paffage juft quoted, and from one of Sir John Harrington's epigrams, 4to. 1618, that agates were commonly worn in Shakspeare's time:

The author to a daughter nine years old.

"Though pride in damfels is a hateful vice,

"Yet could I like a noble-minded girl,
"That would demand me things of coftly price,

"Rich velvet gowns, pendents, and chains of pearle, "Cark'nets of agats, cut with rare device," &c.

Thefe lines, at the fame time that they add fupport to the old reading, fhew, I think, that the words " vilely cut," are to be understood in their ufual fenfe, when applied to precious ftones, viz. awkwardly wrought by a tool, and not, as Mr. Steevens fuppofes, grotefquely veined by nature. MALONE.

a vane blown with all winds;] This comparison might VOL. IV.

Hh

་

If filent, why, a block moved with none.
So turns fhe every man the wrong fide out;
And never gives to truth and virtue, that
Which fimpleness and merit purchaseth.

URS. Sure, fure, fuch carping is not commendable.

HERO. NO: not to be fo odd, and from all fashions, As Beatrice is, cannot be commendable:

But who dare tell her fo? If I should speak,
She'd mock me into air; O, fhe would laugh me
Out of myself, prefs me to death with wit."
Therefore let Benedick, like cover'd fire,
Confume away in fighs, wafte inwardly:
It were a better death than die with mocks;
Which is as bad as die with tickling.*

URS. Yet tell her of it; hear what she will say.
HERO. No; rather I will go to Benedick,
And counsel him to fight against his paffion:
And, truly, I'll devife fome honest flanders
To ftain my coufin with: One doth not know,
How much an ill word may empoifon liking.

have been borrowed from an ancient black-letter ballad, entitled A Comparison of the Life of Man:

3

"I may compare a man againe,

"Even like unto a twining vane,

"That changeth even as doth the wind;

"Indeed fo is man's fickle mind." STEEVENS.

prefs me to death] The allufion is to an ancient punishment of our law, called peine fort et dure, which was formerly inflicted on those perfons, who, being indicted, refufed to plead. In confequence of their filence, they were preffed to death by an heavy weight laid upon their ftomach. This punishment the good fenfe and humanity of the legislature have within these few years abolished. MALONE.

Which is as bad as die with tickling.] The author meant that tickling fhould be pronounced as a triffyllable; tickeling. So, in Spenfer, B. II. Canto xii:

a ftrange kind of harmony;

"Which Guyon's fenfes foftly tickeled," &c. MALONE.

URS. O, do not do your coufin fuch a wrong. She cannot be fo much without true judgement, (Having fo fwift and excellent a wit,

As fhe is priz'd to have,) as to refuse
So rare a gentleman as fignior Benedick.
HERO. He is the only man of Italy,
Always excepted my dear Claudio.

URS. I pray you, be not angry with me, madam, Speaking my fancy; fignior Benedick,

For fhape, for bearing, argument, and valour,
Goes foremost in report through Italy.

HERO. Indeed, he hath an excellent good name. URS. His excellence did earn it, ere he had it.— When are you married, madam?

HERO. Why, every day;-to-morrow: Come, go in; I'll fhow thee fome attires; and have thy counfel, Which is the best to furnish me to-morrow.

URS. She's lim'd' I warrant you; we have caught her, madam.

HERO. If it prove fo, then loving goes by haps: Some Cupid kills with arrows, fome with traps. [Exeunt HERO and URSULA.

5

-fo fwift and excellent a wit,] Swift means ready. So, in As you Like it, A&t V. fc. iv :

"He is very swift and fententious." STEEVENS.

argument,] This word feems here to fignify discourse, or, the powers of reafoning. JOHNSON.

Argument, in the prefent inftance, certainly means conversation. So, in King Henry IV. P. I: "It would be argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jeft for ever." STEEVENS, ↑ She's lim'd-] She is enfnared and entangled as a sparrow with birdlime. JOHNSON.

So, in The Spanish Tragedy:

"Which fweet conceits are lim'd with fly deceits.”

The folio reads-She's ta'en. STEEVENS.