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Claud. Good day to both of you.
Leon. Hear you, my lords?

Pedro. We have fome hafte, Leonato.

Leon. Some hafte, my lord! well, fare you well, my lord.

Are you fo hafty now? well, all is one.

Pedro. Nay, do not quarrel with us, good old man. Ant. If he could right himfelf with quarrelling, Some of us would lye low.

Claud. Who wrongs him?

Leon. Marry, thou doft wrong me, thou diffembler, thou!

Nay, never lay thy hand upon thy fword,

I fear thee not.

Claud. Marry, befhrew my hand,

If it fhould give your age fuch cause of fear;
In faith, my hand meant nothing to my fword.
Leon. Tufh, tufh, man, never fleer and jeft at me;
I speak not like a dotard, nor a fool;

As, under privilege of age, to brag

What I have done being young, or what would do,
Were I not old: know, Claudio, to thy head,

Thou haft fo wrong'd my innocent child and me,
That I am forc'd to lay my reverence by;
And, with grey hairs, and bruife of many days,
Do challenge thee to tryal of a man;

I fay, thou haft bely'd mine innocent child,

Thy flander hath gone through and through her heart,
And the lyes bury'd with her ancestors,

O, in a tomb where never fcandal flept,
Save this of hers, fram'd by thy villany!

Claud. My villany?

Leon. Thine, Claudio; thine, I fay.
Pedro. You fay not right, old man.

· Leon. My lord, my lord,

I'll prove

it on his body, if he dare;

Defpight his nice fence and his active practice,
His May of youth, and bloom of luftyhood.

4

Claud.

Claud. Away, I will not have to do with you.

Leon. 3 Canft thou fo daffe me? thou haft kill'd my
child;

If thou kill'ft me, boy, thou falt kill a man..
Ant. He fhall kill two of us, and men indeed;
But that's no matter, let him kill one first;
Win me and wear me, let him ahfwer me;
Come, follow me, boy; come, boy, follow me;
Sir boy, I'll whip you from your foining fence;
Nay, as lam a gentleman, I will.

Leon. Erother,

Ant. Content yourfelf; God knows, I lov'd my
Niece;

And he is dead, flander'd to death by villains,
That dare as well anfwer a man, indeed,

As I dare take a ferpent by the tongue.
Boys, apes, braggarts, jacks, milkfops!
Leon. Brother Anthony

Ant. Hold you content; what, man? I know them,
yea,

And what they weigh, even to the utmoft fcruple:
Scambling, cut-facing, fashion monging boys,

3 Carft Thru fi daffe me? -] This is a Country Word, Mr. Pope tells us, fign.fying, daunt, It may be fo; but that is not the Expofition here: To date, and doff are fynonymous Terms, that mean, to put of which is the very Senfe requir'd here, and what Leonato would reply, upon Cloudio's faying, He would have nothing to do with him.

THEOBALD.

4 Ant. He fall kill tavo of us, &c.] This Brother Anthony is the true picture imaginable of human nature. He had af fumed the Character of a Sage to comfort his Brother, o'er

whelm'd with grief for his only daughter's affront and dishonour; and had teverely reproved him for not commanding his paffion Letter on to trying an occafion. Yet, immediately after this, no fooner does he begin to fufpect that his Age and Valur are flighted, but he falls into the molt intemperate fit of rage himfelf and all his Brother can do or fay is not of power to pacify him. This is copying nature with a penetration and exactness of judgment peculiar to Shakepeare. As to the expreffion, toở, of his paflion, nothing can be more highly painted. WARB.

That

That lye, and cog, and flout, deprave and flander,
Go antickly and how an outward hideoufnefs,
And fpeak off half a dozen dangerous words,
How they might hurt their enemies, if they durft ;
And this is all.

Leon. But, brother Anthony,

Ant. Come, 'tis no matter:

Do not you meddle, let me deal in this.

Pedro. Gentlemen both, we will not wake your patience.

My heart is forry for your daughter's death;
But, on my Honour, fhe was charg'd with nothing
But what was true, and very full of proof.

Leon. My lord, my lord

Pedro. I will not hear you.

Leon. No! come, brother, away, I will be heard. Ant. And fhall, or fome of us will fmart for it.

Ex. ambo.

SCEN E III.

Enter Benedick.

Pedro. See, fee, here comes the man we went to feek.
Claud. Now Signior, what news?
Bene. Good day, my lord.

5-we will not WAKE your patience.] This conveys a fentiment that the fpeaker would by no means have implied, That the patience of the two Old men was not exercifed, but afleep, which upbraids them for infenfibility under their wrong. Shake fpeare must have wrote We will not WRACK, i. e. deftroy your patience by tantalizing you.

WARBURTON. This emendation is very fpe

cious, and perhaps is right; yet the prefent reading may admit a congruous meaning with lefs difficulty than many other of Shatefpare's expreffions.

The old men have been both very angry and outrageous; the Prince tells them that he and Claudio will not wake their patience: will not any longer force them to endure the presence of thofe whom, though they look on them as enemies, they cannot reift.

Pedro.

Pedro. Welcome, Signior; you are almost come to part almost a fray.

Claud. We had like to have had our two nofes fnapt off with two old men without teeth.

Pedro. Leonato and his brother; what think'ft thou? had we fought, I doubt, we should have been too young for them.

Bene. In a falfe quarrel there is no true valour : I came to feek you both.

Claud. We have been up and down to feek thee; for we are high-proof melancholy, and would fain have it beaten away: wilt thou use thy wit?

Bene. It is in my fcabbard; fhall I draw it? Pedro. Doft thou wear thy wit by thy fide? Claud. Never any did fo, though very many have been befide their wit. I will bid thee draw, as we do the minstrels; draw, to pleasure us.

Pedro. As I am an honeft man, he looks pale: art thou fick or angry?

Claud. What? courage, man: what tho' care kill'd a cat, thou haft mettle enough in thee to kill care.

Bene. Sir, I fhall meet your wit in the career, if you charge it against me-I pray you, chufe another fubject.

Claud. Nay then give him another ftaff; this laft was broke crofs.

Pedro. By this light, he changes more and more: I think, he be angry, indeed.

Claud. If he be, he knows how to turn his girdle'.
Bene. Shall I fpeak a word in your ear?
Claud. God blefs me from a challenge!

Bene. You are a villain; I jeft not. I will make it

6 Nay, then give him anether faff; &c.] Allufion to Tiling. See note, As you like it. A& 3. Scene 10. WARBURTON to turn his girdle.]

7

We have a proverbial fpeech, f he be angry, let him turn bis girdle. But I do not know its original or meaning.

good

good how you dare, with what you dare, and when you dare. Do me right, or I will proteft your cowardife. You have kill'd a fweet lady, and her death fhall fall heavy on you. Let me hear from you. Claud. Well, I will meet you, fo I may have good cheer.

Pedro. What, a feast?

Claud. I'faith, I thank him; he hath bid me to a calves-head and a capon, the which if I do not carve moft curiously, fay, my knife's naught. Shall I not find a woodcock too?

Bene. Sir, your wit ambles well; it goes eafily.

Pedro. I'll tell thee, how Beatrice prais'd thy wit the other day I faid, thou hadst a fine wit; right, fays fhe, a fine little one; no, faid I, a great wit; just, faid fhe, a great grofs one; nay, faid I, a good wit; juft, faid fhe, it hurts no body; nay, faid I, the gentleman is wife; certain, faid fhe, a wife gentleman; nay, said I, he hath the tongues; that I believe, faid fhe, for he fwore a thing to me on Monday night, which he forfwore on Tuesday morning; there's a double tongue, there's two tongues. Thus did fhe an hour together tranf-fhape thy particular virtues ; yet, at last, fhe concluded with a figh, thou waft the propereft man in Italy.

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Claud. For the which fhe wept heartily, and faid, The car'd not.

Pedro. Yea, that she did; but yet for all that, and if she did not hate him deadly, fhe would love him dearly; the old man's daughter told us all.

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Claud. All, all; and moreover, God saw him when be was bid in the garden.

3 a wife gentleman;] This jeft depending on the colloquial ufe of words is now obfcure; perhaps we should read, a wife gentle man, or a man wife

VOL. III.

enough to be coward. Perhaps wife gentleman was in that age ufed ironically, and always stood for filly fellow.

S

Pedro..

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