SCENE IV.-A Room in Leonato's House. Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, BENEDICK, BEATRICE, URSULA, Friar, and HERO.

FRIAR. Did I not tell you she was innocent? LEON. So are the prince and Claudio, who accus'd her,

Upon the error that you heard debated:
But Margaret was in some fault for this;
Although against her will, as it appears
In the true course of all the question.

[well.

ANT. Well, I am glad that all things sort so BENE. And so am I, being else by faith enforc'd To call young Claudio to a reckoning for it.

LEON. Well, daughter, and you gentlewomen all,

Withdraw into a chamber by yourselves,
And, when I send for you, come hither mask'd:
The prince and Claudio promis'd by this hour
To visit me—you know your office, brother;
You must be father to your brother's daughter,
And give her to young Claudio. [Exeunt Ladies.
ANT. Which I will do with confirm'd counte-

nance.

;

[think.

BENE. Friar, I must entreat your pains, I FRIAR. To do what, signior?

BENE. To bind me, or undo me, one of them.— Signior Leonato, truth it is, good signior, Your niece regards me with an eye of favour. LEON. That eye my daughter lent her; 'tis

most true.

[her.

BENE. And I do with an eye of love requite
LEON. The sight whereof, I think, you had
from me,
[will?

From Claudio, and the prince. But what's your
BENE. Your answer, sir, is enigmatical:
But, for my will, my will is, your good will
May stand with ours, this day to be conjoin'd
In the estate of honourable marriage:-
In which, good friar, I shall desire your help.
LEON. My heart is with your liking.
FRIAR.
And my help.

Here come the prince, and Claudio."

(*) Old text, state.

Here come the prince, and Claudio.] This line is not in the olio.

b And I do give you her.] In the old copies, this speech is assigned to Leonato, but erroneously, as Theobald first pointed

Enter DON PEDRO, and CLAUDIO, with Attendants.

D. PEDRO. Good morrow to this fair assembly. LEON. Good morrow, prince; good morrow, Claudio;

We here attend you; are you yet determined To-day to marry with my brother's daughter? CLAUD. I'll hold my mind, were she an Ethiope. LEON. Call her forth, brother, here's the friar ready. [Exit ANTONIO.

D. PEDRO. Good morrow, Benedick: why, what's the matter,

That you have such a February face,

So full of frost, of storm, and cloudiness? CLAUD. I think, he thinks upon the savage bull::

Tush, fear not, man, we'll tip thy horns with gold, And all Europa shall rejoice at thee,

As once Europa did at lusty Jove,

When he would play the noble beast in love.

BENE. Bull Jove, sir, had an amiable low, And some such strange bull leap'd your father's

Writ in my cousin's hand, stolen from her pocket,

Containing her affection unto Benedick.

BENE. A miracle! here's our own hands against our hearts-Come, I will have thee; but, by this light, I take thee for pity.

BEAT. I would not deny you; but, by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion; and, partly, to save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption.

BENE. Peace, I will stop your mouth.

[Kissing her. D. PEDRO. How dost thou, Benedick the married man?

BENE. I'll tell thee what, prince; a college of wit-crackers cannot flout me out of my humour. Dost thou think, I care for a satire, or an epigram? No: if a man will be beaten with brains, he shall wear nothing handsome about him; in brief, since I do purpose to marry, I will think nothing to any purpose that the world can say against it; and therefore never flout at me for what I have

(*) First folio omits, what.

a Peace, I will stop your mouth.] The old editions give this speech to Leonato.

said against it; for man is a giddy" thing, and this is my conclusion. For thy part, Claudio, I did think to have beaten thee; but in that thou art like to be my kinsman, live unbruised, and love my cousin.

CLAUD. I had well hoped, thou wouldst have denied Beatrice, that I might have cudgelled thee out of thy single life, to make thee a double dealer; which, out of question, thou wilt be, if my cousin do not look exceeding narrowly to thee.

BENE. Come, come, we are friends:-let's have a dance ere we are married, that we may lighten our own hearts, and our wives' heels.

a Giddy-] That is, inconstant. So in "Henry V." Act I. Sc. 2:the Scot,

Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us."

LEON. We'll have dancing afterwards. BENE. First, o' my word; therefore, play music.-Prince, thou art sad; get thee a wife, get thee a wife: there is no staff more reverend than one tipped with horn.

Enter a Messenger.

MESS. My lord, your brother John is ta'en in flight,

And brought with armed men back to Messina. BENE. Think not on him till to-morrow, I'll devise thee brave punishments for him.-Strike up, pipers! [Dance.-Exeunt.

b A double dealer:] To appreciate the equivoque, it must be understood that double dealer was a term jocosely applied to any one notoriously unfaithful in love or wedlock.

(1) SCENE I. He set up his bills here in Messina.] The only mode of advertising practised in Shakespeare's time appears to have been the very obvious one of attaching notices to posts and walls in places of great public resort: and these affiches were, of course, miscellaneous enough. Prominent among them were to be seen the play-bills, a step in advance of the or linary placards, in being often printed; the "terrible billes of "quack-salving emperickes;" the notification of servants who wanted employment, and masters who required servants; of landlords wanting to let, and tenants wishing to occupy; of those who had something to teach, and those who had much to learn; of the many who had lost, and the few who had found; and, which has more immediate reference to the passage in the text, the challenges of scholars, fencers, archers, wrestlers, watermen, &c. &c. with whom it was customary to "set up their bills," defying all comers, or sometimes only a particular rival, to a trial of skill.

(2) SCENE I.-And challenge Cupid at the flight: and my uncle's fool, reading the challenge, subscribed for Cupid, and challenged him at the bird-bolt.] The meaning of this, Douce says, is, "Benedick, from a vain conceit of his influence over women, challenged Cupid at roving (a particular kind of archery, in which flight-arrows are used). In other words, he challenged him to shoot at hearts. The fool, to ridicule this piece of vanity, in his turn challenged Benedick to shoot at crows with the cross-bow and birdbolt; an inferior kind of archery used by fools, who, for obvious reasons, were not permitted to shoot with pointed arrows; whence the proverb, 'A fool's bolt is soon shot.'

(3) SCENE I.-Like the old tale, my lord: it is not so, nor 't was not so; but, indeed, God forbid it should be so.] The old tale referred to-which has been preserved by Blakeway, a contributor of some intelligent notes to the Variorum edition, who took it down from the recitation of an aged female relative-is as follows:

"Once upon a time, there was a young lady (called Lady Mary in the story), who had two brothers. One summer, they all three went to a country seat of theirs, which they had not before visited. Among the other gentry in the neighbourhood who came to see them, was a Mr. Fox, a batchelor, with whom they, particularly the young lady, were much pleased. He used often to dine with them, and frequently invited Lady Mary to come and see his house. One day that her brothers were absent elsewhere, and she had nothing better to do, she determined to go thither; and accordingly set out unattended. When she arrived at the house, and knocked at the door, no one answered.* At length she opened it, and went in; over

* This circumstance in the story, Mr. Dyce supposes to have been borrowed from Spenser's Faërie Queene:—

"And, as she lookt about, she did behold

How over that same dore was likewise writ,
Be bolde, be bolde, and every where, Be bold;
That much she muz'd, yet could not construe it

the portal of the hall was written, Be bo', be bold, but not too bold she advanced: over the staircase the same inscription: she went up: over the entrance of a gallery, the same she proceeded: over the door of a chamber,Be bold, be bold, but not too bold, lest that your heart's blood should run cold.' She opened it; it was full of skeletons, tubs full of blood, &c. She retreated in haste; coming down stairs, she saw out of a window Mr. Fox advancing towards the house, with a drawn sword in one hand, while with the other he dragged along a young lady by her hair. Lady Mary had just time to slip down, and hide herself under the stairs, before Mr. Fox and his victim arrived at the foot of them. As he pulled the young lady up stairs, she caught hold of one of the bannisters with her hand, on which was a rich bracelet. Mr. Fox cut it off with his sword: the hand and bracelet fell into Lady Mary's lap, who then contrived to escape unobserved, and got home safe to her brother's house.

"After a few days, Mr. Fox came to dine with them as usual (whether by invitation, or of his own accord, this deponent saith not). After dinner, when the guests began to amuse each other with extraordinary anecdotes, Lady Mary at length said, she would relate to them a remarkable dream she had lately had. I dreamt, said she, that as you, Mr. Fox, had often invited me to your house, I would go there one morning. When I came to the house, I knocked, &c., but no one answered. When I opened the door, over the hall was written, 'Be bold, be bold, but not too bold.' But, said she, turning to Mr. Fox, and smiling, 'It is not so, nor it was not so; then she pursues the rest of the story, concluding at every turn with, 'It is not so, nor it was not so,' till she comes to the room full of dead bodies, when Mr. Fox took up the burden of the tale, and said, 'It is not so, nor it was not so, and God forbid it should be so;' which he continues to repeat at every subsequent turn of the dreadful story, till she came to the circumstance of his cutting off the young lady's hand, when upon his saying as usual, It is not so, nor it was not so, and God forbid it should be so,' Lady Mary retorts, But it is so, and it was so, and here the hand I have to show,' at the same time pro lucing the hand and bracelet from her lap; whereupon the guests drew their swords, and instantly cut Mr. Fox into a thousand pieces."

forest of Englewood, not far from Carlisle; but the period when they flourished is unknown.

(5) SCENE III.-As I was smoking a musty room.] The disregard of ventilation and cleanliness in early times was such as to render this precaution very necessary. Steevens has quoted from the Harleian MSS. No. 6850, a paper of directions drawn up by Sir John Puckering's steward, relative to Suffolk Place, before Queen Elizabeth's visit to it, in 1594. The 15th article is- The swetynynge of the house in all places by any means." And old Burton, in his "Anatomy of Melancholy," ed. 1632, p. 261, tells us that "the smoake of juniper is in great request with us at Oxford, to sweeten our chambers."

(1) SCENE I.-The Hundred merry tales.] Of this popular old jest book, printed by John Rastell, 1517-1533, a fragment, containing nearly all the tales, was fortunately discovered by the Rev. J. J. Conybeare some years ago, and has been carefully reprinted by Mr. Singer, under the title of "Shakspeare's Jest Book." The stories thus rescued from oblivion are so sadly deficient in point, and sometimes in decency also, that Beatrice might well resent the imputation of having derived her wit from such a source.

(2) SCENE I.-As melancholy as a lodge in a warren.] "They used in the old time in their vineyards and cucumber gardens, to erect and builde little cotages and lodges for their watchfolkes and keepers that looked to the same, for feare of filchers and stealers; which lodges and cotages, so soone as the grapes and cucumbers were gathered, were abandoned of the watchmen and keepers, and no more frequented. From this forsaking and leaving of these lodges and cotages, the prophet Isaiah taketh a similitude, and applieth the same against Jerusalem, the which hee pronounceth, should be so ruinated and laid waste, that no relick thereof should be left, and that it should become even as an empty and tenantlesse cotage or lodge in a forsaken vineyard and abandoned cucumber garden."-NEWTON's Herbal for the Bible, 1587.

By the solitarinesse of the house I judged it a lodge in a forest, but there was no bawling of dogges thereabout." -The Man in the Moone telling Strange Fortunes, 1609. Quoted by Mr. Halliwell.

(3) SCENE III.-Her hair shall be of what colour it please God.] A sarcasm upon the practice so prevalent in Elizabeth's reign of dyeing the hair :

"If any have haire of her own naturall growing, which is not faire enough, then will they die it in divers colours, almost chaunging the substaunce into accidentes by their devilish and more than thrice cursed devises. So, whereas their haire was given them as a signe of subjection, and therefore they were commanded to cherish the same, now have they made it an ornament of pride and destruction to themselves for ever excepte they repent."-The Anatomie of Abuses, by Phillip Stubs, 1584.

Mr. Halliwell has discovered several ancient recipes for dyeing the hair: among them is one in "The Treasure of Evonymus," 1559, which is peculiar :—

"Sponsa solis beeten, otherwyse the siedes of solsosium beeten, put it in milke of a woman that nurseth a boy ten otherwise xi. daies, and then make an oyl; this oyll, sod with leved gold,

seething it gentely by the space of one day, is marvelous, for if a man washe his heares therewith they shall become lyke gold; if the face be wet, and rubbed with the same, it shall be plaine and cleare, that it shall seeme angellike, continuing for the space of v. dayes."

(4) SCENE III.-Jacke Wilson.] "John Wilson, the composer, was born in 1594. Anthony Wood tells us, that having an early taste for music, he became one of the most eminent masters of that science. In 1626 he was constituted a gentleman of the Royal Chapel,' and about the same time, according to Wood, musician in ordinary' to Charles I. He was created Doctor of Music in the University of Oxford, in 1644. At the Restoration, he was appointed chamber musician to Charles II.; and on the death of Henry Lawes, in 1662, was again received into the Chapel Royal. He died in 1673, at nearly seventynine years of age."-RIMBAULT.

(5) SCENE III. -Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits.] Claudio alludes to the stalking-horse, behind which the fowlers of old were used to screen themselves from the sight of their game.

But sometime it so happeneth, that the Fowl are so shie, there is no getting a shoot at them without a Stalking-horse, which must be some old Jade trained up for that purpose, who will gently, and as you will have him, walk up and down in the water which way you please, flodding and eating on the grass that grows therein.

"You must shelter yourself and Gun behind his foreshoulder, bending your Body down low by his side, and keeping his Body still full between you and the Fowl: Being within shot, take your Level from before the forepart of the Horse, shooting as it were between the Horse's Neck and the Water. Now to supply the want of a Stalking-horse, which will take up a great deal of Time to instruct and make fit for this Exercise; you may make one of any Pieces of old Canvas, which you must shape into the Form of an Horse, with the Head bending downwards as if he grazed. You may stuff it with any light matter; and do not forget to paint it of the Colour of an Horse, of which the Brown is the best. * It must be made so portable, that you may bear it with ease in one Hand, moving it so as it may seem to Graze as you go.

"Sometimes the Stalking-horse was made in shape or an Ox; sometimes in the form of a Stag-and sometimes to represent a tree, shrub, or bush. In every case tin Stalking-horse had a spike at the bottom to stick into the ground while the fowler took his level."-The Gentleman's Recreation.