understand what you mean by bidding me tafte my legs.

Sir To. I mean, to go, Sir, to enter.

Vio. I will anfwer you with gaite and entrance; but we are prevented.

Enter Olivia and Maria.

Moft excellent accomplish'd Lady, the heav'ns rain odours on you!

Sir And. That youth's a rare Courtier! rain odours? well.

Vio. My matter hath no voice, Lady, but to your own most pregnant and vouchfafed ears.

Sir And. Odours, pregnant, and vouchfafed :-I'll get 'em all three ready.

Oli. Let the garden door be fhut, and leave me to my hearing.

[Exeunt Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Maria.

SCENE

Give me your hand, Sir.

III.

Vio. My duty, Madam, and most humble fervice.
Oli. What is your name?

Vio. Cefario is your fervant's name, fair Princess.
Oli. My fervant, Sir? 'Twas never merry world,
Since lowly feigning was call'd compliment:
Y'are fervant to the Duke Orfino, youth.

Vio. And he is yours, and his must needs be yours: Your fervant's fervant is your fervant, Madam.

Oli. For him, I think not on him: for his thoughts, 'Would they were blanks, rather than filled with me! Vio. Madam, I come to whet your gentle thoughts On his behalf.

• most pregnant and vouchsafed ear.] Pregnant, for ready. WARB. Oli.

Dd 2

Oli. O, by your leave, I pray you ;-
I bade you never fpeak again of him.
But would you undertake another fuit,
I'd rather hear you to folicit that'
Than mufick from the fpheres,
Vio. Dear lady,

Oli. Give me leave, I beseech you: I did fend,
After the last enchantment, (you did hear)°-
A ring in chafe of you. So did I abuse
Myfelf, my fervant, and, I fear me, you;
Under your hard conftruction muft I fit,
To force that on you in a fhameful cunning,
Which you knew none of yours. What might you
think?

Have you not fet mine honour at the stake,

And baited it with all th' unmuzzled thoughts

That tyrannous heart can think? to one of your receiving

7

Enough is fhewn; a cyprus, not a bofom,

Hides my poor heart. So let us hear you speak.
Vio. I pity you.

Oli. That's a degree to love.

Vio. No, not a grice'; for 'tis a vulgar proof, That very oft we pity enemies.

Oli. Why then, methinks, 'tis time to smile again; O world, how apt the poor are to be proud! If one fhould be a prey, how much the better To fall before the lion, than the wolf! [Clock ftrikes. The clock upbraids me with the waste of time. Be not afraid, good youth, I will not have you ;

6 After the laf enchantment, you did hear.] Nonfenfe.

Read and point it thus,

nonfenfe than the emendation.

7 to one of your receiving] i. t. to one of your ready aprehenfor.

After the last enchantment you She confiders him as an arch

did here,

i, e. after the enchantment, your prefence worked in my affections. WARBURTON

The prefent reading is no more

page.

WARBURTON.

A cyprus is a transparent stuff. 9 A grice is a fiep, fometimes Written greefe from degres, French.

C

And yet when wit and youth are come to harvest,
Your wife is like to reap a proper man :
There lies your way, due weft.

Vio. Then weftward hoe:

Grace and good difpofition attend your ladyship;
You'll nothing, Madam, to my Lord by me?

Oli. Stay; pr'ythee tell me, what thou think'ft of me?

Vio. That you do think, you are not what you are. Oli. If I think fo, I think the fame of you. Vio. Then think you right, I am not what I am. Oli I would you were, as I would have you be! Vio. Would it be better, Madam, than I am? I wish it might, for now I am your fool.

Oli. O, what a deal of fcorn looks beautiful
In the contempt and anger of his lip!

A murd'rous guilt fhews not itself more foon,
Than love that would feem hid: love's night is noon.
Cefario, by the rofes of the fpring,

By maid-hood, honour, truth, and every thing,
I love thee fo, that, maugre all thy pride,
Nor wit, nor reafon, can my paffion hide.
Do not extort 'wry reafons from this claufe,
For that I woo, thou therefore haft no caufe:
But rather reafon thus with reafon fetter;
Love fought is good; but given, unfought, is better.
Vio. By innocence I fwear, and by my youth,

I have one heart, one bosom, and one truth,
'And that no woman has; nor never none
Shall miftrefs be of it, fa ve I alone 2.
And fo adieu, good Madam; never more
Will I my master's tears to you deplore.

And that no woman has.] And that heart and bojom I have never yielded to any woman.

2 Save I alone.] These three words Sir Thomas Hanmer gives of Olivia probably enough.

Dd 3

Oli.

Oli. Yet come again; for thou, perhaps, may'ft

move

That heart, which now abhors, to like his love.

SCENE IV.

[Exeunt.

Changes to an Apartment in Olivia's Houfe.

Enter Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Fabian.
Sir And. O, faith, I'll not stay a jot longer.

N%
N Sir To. Thy reafon, dear venom, give

thy reason.

Fab. You must needs yield your reafon, Sir Andrew. Sir And. Marry, I faw your niece do more favours to the Duke's ferving-man, than ever fhe bestow'd on me. I faw't, i'th' orchard.

Sir To. Did the fee thee the while, old boy, tell me that?

Sir And. As plain as I fee you now.

Fab. This was a great argument of love in her towards you.

Sir And. 'Slight! will you make an ass o' me? Fab. I will prove it legitimate, Sir, upon the oaths of Judgment and Reason,

Sir To. And they have been Grand Jury-men fince before Noah was a failor.

Fab. She did fhew favour to the youth in your fight, only to exafperare you, to awake your dormoufe valour, to put fire in your heart, and brimstone in your liver. You should then have accofted her, with fame excellent jefts, fire-new from the mint; you should have bang'd the youth into dumbness. This was look'd for at your hand, and this was baulkt. The double gilt of this opportunity you let time wash off, and you are now fail'd into the north of my lady's opinion; where you will hang like an ificle on a Dutchman's

beard,

beard, unless you do redeem it by fome laudable attempt, either of valour or policy.

Sir And. And't be any way, it must be with valour; for policy I hate: I had as lief be a Brownist, as a politician.

Sir To. Why then, build me thy fortunes upon the bafis of valour; challenge me the Duke's youth to fight with him; hurt him in eleven places; my niece fhall take note of it; and affure thyfelf, there is no love-broker in the world can more prevail in man's commendation with woman, than report of valour.

Fab. There is no way but this, Sir Andrew.

Sir And. Will either of you bear me a challenge to him?

Sir To. Go, write in a martial hand; be curft and brief: it is no matter how witty, fo it be eloquent, and full of invention; taunt him with the licence of ink; if thou thou'ft him fome thrice, it shall not be amifs;

3

taunt him with the Licence of Ink; if thou thou'st him fome thrice,] There is no Doubt, I think, but this Paffage is One of those, in which our Author intended to fhew his Respect for Sir Walter Raleigh, and a Deteftation of the Virulence of his Profecutors. The Words, quoted feem to me directly levelled at the Attorney-General Coke, who, in the Trial of Sir Walter, attacked him with all the following indecent Expreffions." All "that he did was by the Infliga. "tion, thou Viper; for I thou "thee, thou Traytor!" (Here by the way, are the Poet's three thou's.) "You are an odious "Man," "Is he bafe? I re"turn it into thy Throat, on his "behalf.". "O damnable

"Atheist !"—" Thou art a mon

fier; thou haft an English Face, "but a Spanish Heart. "Thou haft a Spanish Heart, and "thyfelf art a Spider of Hell."

"Go to, Iwill lay thee on "thy Back for the confident' ft "Traytor that ever came at a "Bar, &c." Is not here all the Licence of Tongue, which the Poet fatyrically prescribes to Sir Andrew's Ink? And how mean an Opinion Shakespeare had of these petulant Invectives, is pretty evident from his Clofe of this Speech; Let there be Gall enough in thy Ink, tho' thou write it with a Goofe pen, no matter. -A keener Lath at the Attorney for a Fool, than all the Contumelies the Attorney threw at the Prisoner, as a fuppos'd Traytor!