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Duke. Let all the reft give place.

[Exeunt CURIO and Attendants.

Once more, Cefario,

upon

her,

Get thee to yon' fame fovereign cruelty:
Tell her, my love, more noble than the world,
Prizes not quantity of dirty lands;
The parts that fortune hath bestow'd
Tell her, I hold as giddily as fortune;
But 'tis that miracle, and queen of gems,
That nature pranks her in,9 attracts my foul.
Vin. But, if she cannot love you, fir?
Duke. I cannot be fo answer'd.

Vio.

'Sooth, but you muft.

Say, that fome lady, as, perhaps, there is,
Hath for your love as great a pang of heart
As you have for Olivia: you cannot love her ;
You tell her fo; Muft fhe not then be answer'd?
Duke. There is no woman's fides,

Can bide the beating of fo ftrong a paffion
As love doth give my heart: no woman's heart
So big, to hold fo much; they lack retention.
Alas, their love may be call'd appetite,-
No motion of the liver, but the palate,
That fuffer furfeit, cloyment, and revolt;2

But

9 What is that miracle, and queen of gems? we are not told in this reading. Befides, what is meant by nature pranking ber in a miracle ?—We fhould read:

But 'tis that miracle, and queen of gems

That nature pranks, her mind,

i. e. what attracts my foul, is not her fortune, but ber mind, that miracle and queen of gems that nature pranks, i. e. fets out, adorns.

WARBURTON.

The miracle and queen of gems is her beauty, which the commentator might have found without fo emphatical an enquiry. As to her mind, he that should be captious would fay, that though it may be formed by nature, it must be pranked by education.

Shakspeare does not fay that nature pranks ber in a miracle, but in the miracle of gems, that is, in a gem miraculously beautiful. JOHNSON.

To prank is to deck out, to adorn. See Lye's Etymologicon. HEATH. The Duke has changed his opinion of women very fuddenly. It was but a few minutes before, that he faid they had more conftancy in love than men. M, MASON,

But mine is all as hungry as the fea,

And can digest as much: make no compare
Between that love a woman can bear me,
And that I owe Olivia.

Vio.

Ay, but I know,

Duke. What doft thou know?

Vio. Too well what love women to men may owe :
In faith, they are as true of heart as we.
My father had a daughter lov'd a man,
As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman,
I should your lordship.

Duke.

And what's her history?
Vio. A blank, my lord: She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i'the bud,
Feed on her damafk cheek: fhe pin'd in thought;3
And, with a green and yellow melancholy,
She fat like patience on a monument,

Smiling at grief,+ Was not this love, indeed ?
We men may fay more, fwear more: but, indeed,

3 Thought formerly fignified melancholy. MALONE.

Our

Mr. Malone fays, thought means melancholy. But why wreft from this word its plain and ufual acceptation, and make Shakspeare guilty of tautology? for in the very next line he uses " Melancholy." DOUCE.

4 Mr. Theobald fuppofes this might poffibly be borrowed from Chaucer : "And ker befidis wonder difcreetlie

"Dame pacience yfitting there I fonde
"With facé pale, upon a bill of fonde."

And adds: “If he was indebted, bowever, for the first rude draught, bow amply bas be repaid that debt, in heightening the picture! How much does the green and yellow melancholy tranfcend the old bard's pale face; the monument bis hill of fand."-I hope this critic does not imagine Shakspeare meant to give us a picture of the face of patience, by bis green and yellow melancholy; because, he says, it transcends the pale face of patience, given as by Chaucer. To throw patience into a fit of melancholy, would be indeed very extraordinary. The green and yellow then belonged not to patience, but to her who fat like patience. To give patience a pale face was proper and had Shakipeare defcribed ber, he had done it as Chaucer did.. But Shakspeare is speaking of a marble statue of patience; Chaucer of patience herself. And the two representations of her, are in quite different views. Our poet, speaking of a defpairing lover, judiciously compares her to patience exercised on the death of friends and relations; which affo ds him the beautiful picture of patience on a monument. The old bard, fpeak. ing of patience herfelf, directly, and not by comparison, as judiciously draws her in that circumftance where the is most exercifed, and has Q

occation

Our fhows are more than will; for ftill we prove
Much in our vows, but little in our love..

Duke. But dy'd thy, fifter of her love, my boy?
Vio. I am all the daughters of my father's house,
And all the brothers too;5-and yet I know not:
Sir, fhall I to this lady?

Dule. occafion for all her virtue ;. that is to fay, under the loffes of shipwreck. And now we fee why the is reprefented as fitting on a bill of fand, to defign the fcene to be the fea-fhore. It is finely imagined; and one of the noble fimplicities of that admirable poet. But the critic thought, in good earneft, that Chaucer's invention was fo barren, and his imagination fo beggarly, that he was not able to be at the charge of a monument for his goddess, but left her, like a ftroller, funning herfelf upon a heap of fand. WARBURTON.

This celebrated image was not improbably first sketched out in the old play of Pericles. I think, Shakspeare's hand may be fometimes feen in the latter part of it, and there only.

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-thou [Marina] doft look

"Like Patience, gazing on kings' graves, and fmiling
"Extremity out of act." FARMER.

So, in our author's Rape of Lucrece :

"So mild, that Patience feem'd to fcorn bis wees."

In the paffage in the text, our author perhaps meant to perfonify GRIEF as well as PATIENCE; for we can fcarcely understand "ut grief" to mean "in grief," as no ftatuary could, I imagine, form a countenance in which smiles and grief fhould be at once expreffed. Shakspeare might have borrowed his imagery from fome ancient monument on which these two figures were reprefented. MALONE.

I am unwilling to fuppofe a monumental image of Patience was ever confronted by an emblematical figure of Grief, on purpose that one might fit and fmile at the other; becaufe fuch a reprefentation might be confidered as a fatire on human infenfibility. When Patience fmiles, it is to exprefs a chriftian triumph over the common caufe of forrow, a cause, of which the farcophagus, near her station, ought very fufficiently to remind her. True Patience, when it is ber cue to fmile over calamity, knows her office without a prompter; knows that stubborn lamentation difplays a coill most incorrect to beaven; and therefore appears 'content with one of its fevereft difpenfations, the lofs of a relation or a friend. Ancient tombs, indeed (if we must conftrue grief into grievance, and Shakspeare has certainly ufed the former word for the latter,) frequently exhibit cumbent figures of the deceased, and over these an image of Patience, without impropriety, might exprefs a fmile of complacence:

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"Her meek hands folded on her modeft breaft,
"With calm fubmiffion lift the adoring eye

44 Even to the ftorm that wrecks her." STEEVENS.

5 This was the most artful anfwer that could be given. The question

was of fuch a mature, that to have declined the appearance of a direct

anfwer

Duke.

Ay, that's the theme.

To her in hafte; give her this jewel; fay,
My love can give no place, bide no denay."

SCENE V.

Olivia's Garden.

[Exeunt.

Enter SIR TOBY BELCH, SIR ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK, and FABIAN.

Sir To. Come thy ways, fignior Fabian.

Fab. Nay, I'll come; if I lofe a fcruple of this fport, let me be boil'd to death with melancholy.

Sir To. Would't thou not be glad to have the niggardly rafcally fheep-biter come by fome notable shame?

Fab. I would exult, man: you know, he brought me out of favour with my lady, about a bear-baiting here.

Sir To. To anger him, we'll have the bear again; and we will fool him black and blue :-Shall we not, fir Andrew ? Sir And. An we do not, it is pity of our lives.

Enter MARIA.

Sir To. Here comes the little villain:-How now, my nettle of India ??

Mar. Get ye all three into the box-tree: Malvolio's coming down this walk; he has been yonder i'the fun, practising behaviour to his own fhadow, this half hour: obferve him, for the love of mockery; for, I know, this letter will make a contemplative ideot of him. Clofe, in the name of jefting! [The men hide themselves.] Lie thou there; [throws down a letter.

anfwer, must have raised fufpicion. This has the appearance of a direct answer, that the fifter died of her love; the (who paffed for a man) faying fhe was all the daughters of her father's houfe. WARBURTON. Such another equivoque occurs in Lylly's Galathea, 1592: father had but one daughter, and therefore I could have no fifter." STEEVENS.

-my

6 Denay, is denial. To denay is an antiquated verb fometimes ufed by Holinfhed: fo, p. 620: " -the ftate of a cardinal which was naied and denaied him." STEEVENS.

7 The poet muft here mean a zoophite, called the Urtica Marina, abounding in the Indian feas. STEEVENS.

letter.] for here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling. [Exit MARIA

Enter MALVOLIO.

Mal. 'Tis but fortune; all is fortune. Maria once told me, she did affect me and I have heard herself come thus near, that, should the fancy, it should be one of my complexion. Befides, fhe ufes me with a more exalted refpect, than any one elfe that follows her. What should I think

on't?

Sir To. Here's an over-weening rogue!

Fab. O, peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him; how he jets under his advanced plumes!

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Sir And. 'Slight, I could fo beat the rogue :

Sir To. Peace, I fay.

Mal. To be count Malvolio ;

Sir To. Ah, rogue!

Sir And. Pistol him, pistol him.

Sir To. Peace, peace!

Mal. There is example for't; the lady of the ftrachy . married the yeoman of the wardrobe.

Sir

Cogan, in his Haven of Health, 1595, will prove an able commentator on this paffage: "This fith of nature loveth flatterie : for, being in the water, it will fuffer it felfe to be rubbed and clawed, and fo to be taken Whofe example I would with no maides to follow, least they repent afterclaps." STEEVENS.

9 To jet is to ftrut, to agitate the body by a proud motion. STEEVENS. 2 We should read Tracky, i. e. Thrace; for fo the old English writers called it. Mandeville fays: "As Trachye and Macedoigne, of the which Alifandre was kyng · It was common to use the article the before names of places: and this was no improper inftance, where the scene was in Illyria. WARBURTON.

What we should read is hard to. fay, Here is an allufion to fome old story which I have not yet difcovered. JOHNSON.

Straccia (fee Torriano's and Altieri's dictionaries) fignifies clouts and tatters; and Torriano in his grammar, at the end of his dictionary, fays that fractio was pronounced ftratchi. So that it is probable that Shak fpeare's meaning was this, that the lady of the queen's wardrobe had married a yeoman of the king's, who was vastly inferior to her. SMITH.

Such is Mr. Smith's note; but it does not appear that frachy was ever an English word, nor will the meaning given it by the Italians be of any ufe on the prefent occafion.

Perhaps

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