PROGRAMME.

Engagement of M'LLE

RHEA

SUPPORTED BY

WM. HARRIS and Selected Company,

Under the management of ARTHUR B. CHASE, Esq.

Much Ado About Nothing.

D. PEDRO. See you where Benedick hath hid himself?
CLAUD. O, very well, my lord: the music ended,
We'll fit the kid-fox with a penny-worth.

D. PEDRO. Come, Balthazar, we'll hear that song again.
BALTH. O good my lord, tax not so bad a voice,

To slander music any more than once.a

D. PEDRO. It is the witness still of excellency,

To put a strange face on his own perfection :pray thee, sing, and let me woo no more.

I

BALTH. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing; Since many a wooer doth commence his suit

To her he thinks not worthy; yet he woos;

Yet will he swear, he loves.

There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting.

D. PEDRO. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks, Note, notes, forsooth, and noting!

[Music.

BENE. [Aside.] Now, Divine air! now is his soul ravished!—Is it not strange, that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies! -Well, a horn for my money, when all 's done.

D. PEDRO. By my troth, a good song!

BALTH. And an ill singer, my lord.

D. PEDRO. Ha! no, no, 'faith; thou singest well enough for a shift.

(*) First folio, were.

To slander music any more than once.] This and the following line are printed twice in the folio, 1623.

a

BENE. [Aside.] An he had been a dog that should have howled thus, they would have hanged him: and, I pray God, his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as lief have heard the night-raven, come what plague could have come after it.

D. PEDRO. Yea, marry; [To CLAUDIO.]-Dost thou hear, Balthazar? I pray thee, get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the lady Hero's chamber-window.

BALTH. The best I can, my lord.

D. PEDRO. Do so: farewell. [Exit BALTHAZAR.] Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with signior Benedick?

CLAUD. [Aside to PEDRO.] O, ay:-Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits.(5) [Aloud.] I did never think that lady would have loved any

man.

LEON. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seemed ever to abhor.

BENE. [Aside.] Is 't possible? Sits the wind in that corner?

LEON. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it; but that she loves him with an enraged affection,-it is past the infinite of thought.

D. PEDRO. May be, she doth but counterfeit.

CLAUD. 'Faith, like enough.

LEON. O God! counterfeit! There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion, as she discovers it.

D. PEDRO. Why, what effects of passion shows she?

CLAUD. [Aside.] Bait the hook well; this fish will bite.

LEON. What effects, my lord! She will sit you,—you heard my daughter tell you how.

CLAUD. She did, indeed.

D. PEDRO. How, how, I pray you? you amaze me: I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. LEON. I would have sworn it had, my lord; especially against Benedick.

BENE. [Aside.] I should think this a gull, but that the whitebearded fellow speaks it: knavery cannot sure hide himself in such

reverence.

CLAUD. [Aside.] He hath ta'en the infection; hold it up.

D. PEDRO. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick?
LEON. No; and swears she never will: that's her torment.

CLAUD. 'Tis true, indeed; so your daughter says. Shall I, says she, that have so oft encountered him with scorn, write to him that I love him?

LEON. This says she now, when she is beginning to write to him: for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock, till she have writ a sheet of paper:-my daughter tells us all. CLAUD. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of.

An he had been a dog that should have howled thus, &c.] The howling of a dog was supposed to be a sound of luckless omen.

LEON. O!-when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found Benedick and Beatrice between the sheet ?—

CLAUD. That.

LEON. O she tore the letter into a thousand half-pence; railed at herself, that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her: I measure him, says she, by my own spirit; for I should flout him, if he writ to me; yea, though I love him, I should. CLAUD. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses;-0 sweet Benedick! God give me patience!

LEON. She doth indeed; my daughter says so: and the ecstacy hath so much overborne her, that my daughter is sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage to herself; it is very true.

D. PEDRO. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it.

CLAUD. To what end? He would but make a sport of it, and torment the poor lady worse.

D. PEDRO. An he should, it were an alms to hang him: she's an excellent sweet lady; and, out of all suspicion, she is virtuous. CLAUD. And she is exceeding wise.

D. PEDRO. In everything, but in loving Benedick.

LEON. O my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one, that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian.

D. PEDRO. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me; I would have daffed all other respects, and made her half myself: I pray you, tell Benedick of it, and hear what he will say.

LEON. Were it good, think you?

CLAUD. Hero thinks surely, she will die: for she says, she will die if he love her not; and she will die ere she make her love known; and she will die if he woo her, rather than she will 'bate one breath of her accustomed crossness.

D. PEDRO. She doth well; if she should make tender of her love, 't is very possible he'll scorn it; for the man, as you know all, hath a contemptible spirit.

CLAUD. He is a very proper man.

D. PEDRO. He hath, indeed, a good outward happiness.

CLAUD. 'Fore God, and in my mind, very wise.

D. PEDRO. He doth, indeed, show some sparks that are like wit. LEON. And I take him to be valiant.

*

D. PEDRO. AS Hector, I assure you; and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise; for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most† Christian-like fear. LEON. If he do fear God, he must necessarily keep peace; if he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling.

D. PEDRO. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God,

(*) First folio, see.

(†) First folio omits, most.

A contemptible spirit.] A mocking, contemptuous spirit.

b That are like wit.] Wisdom and wit, it must be remembered, were synonymous.

howsoever it seems not in him, by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece: shall we go seek* Benedick, and tell him of her love?

CLAUD. Never tell him, my lord; let her wear it out with good counsel.

LEON. Nay, that's impossible; she may wear her heart out first.

D. PEDRO. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter: let it cool the while, I love Benedick well; and I could wish he would modestly examine himself, to see how much he is unworthy† so good a lady.

LEON. My lord, will you walk? dinner is ready.

CLAUD. [Aside.] If he do not dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation.

D. PEDRO. [Aside.] Let there be the same net spread for her; and that must your daughter and her gentlewoman carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter; that's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show. Let us send her to call him into dinner.

[Exeunt DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and LEONATO. BENE. [Advancing.] This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne."-They have the truth of this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady; it seems, her affections have their full bent. Love me! why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censured: they say, I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive the love come from her; they say too, that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. -I did never think to marry:-I must not seem proud :-happy are they that hear their detractions, and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair; 't is a truth, I can bear them witness: and virtuous; 't is so, I cannot reprove it; and wise,—but for loving me. By my troth, it is no addition to her wit;-nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her.-I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage;-but doth not the appetite alter? A man loves the meat in his youth, that he cannot endure in his age: shall quips, and sentences, and these paper bullets of the brain, awe a man from the career of his humour? No; the world must be peopled. When I said, I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady: I do spy some marks of love in her,

Enter BEATRICE.

BEAT. Against my will, I am sent to bid you come in to dinner. BENE. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.

BEAT. I took no more pains for those thanks, than you take pains to thank me; if it had been painful, I would not have come. BENE. You take pleasure, then, in the message?

(*) First folio, see.

(†) First folio inserts, to have.

(+) First folio, the.

Merely a dumb show.] Entirely a dumb show. b Sadly borne.] Seriously carried on.