Mar. Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modest limits of order.

Sir To. Confine? I'll confine myself no finer than I am these clothes are good enough to drink in, and so be these boots too; an they be not, let them hang themselves in their own straps.

Mar. That quaffing and drinking will undo you : I heard my lady talk of it yesterday; and of a foolish knight, that you brought in one night here to be her wooer.

Sir To. Who? Sir Andrew Ague-cheek?

Mar. Ay, he.

Sir To. He's as tall a man as any's in Illyria. Mar. What's that to the purpose?

Sir To. Why, he has three thousand ducats a year.

Mar. Ay, but he'll have but a year in all these ducats: he's a very fool and a prodigal.

Sir To. Fie, that you'll say so! he plays o' the viol-de-gamboys, and speaks three or four languages word for word without book, and hath all the good gifts of nature.

--

Mar. He hath, indeed, almost natural: for, besides that he's a fool, he's a great quarreller; and, but that he hath the gift of a coward to allay the gust he hath in quarrelling, 'tis thought among the prudent he would quickly have the gift of a grave.

Sir To. By this hand, they are scoundrels, and substractors, that say so of him. Who are they?

1 The use of tall for bold, valiant, stout, was common in Shakespeare's time, and occurs several times in his works. See Merry Wives of Windsor, Act i. sc. 4, and note. Sir Toby is evidently bantering with the word, Sir Andrew being equally deficient in spirit and in stature.

H.

2 That is, the viol-di-gambo, a kind of violincello with six strings, then much used; so called because held between the legs.

H.

Mar. They that add, moreover, he's drunk nightly in your company.

3

Sir To. With drinking healths to my niece: I'll drink to her, as long as there is a passage in my throat, and drink in Illyria: He's a coward, and a coystril, that will not drink to my niece, till his brains turn o' the toe like a parish-top. What, wench! Castiliano vulgo; for here comes Sir Andrew Ague-face.

5

Enter Sir ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK.

4

Sir And. Sir Toby Belch! how now, Sir Toby Belch?

Sir To. Sweet Sir Andrew.

3 Holinshed classes coisterels with lacqueys and women, the unwarlike followers of an army. It was thus used as a term of contempt. Nares says,- -"A coystrel, or kestril, in falconry, is sometimes wrongly used for the name of a worthless, mongrel kind of hawk."

H.

4 A large top was formerly kept in each village of " merry England," for the peasantry to exercise and amuse themselves with in frosty weather. "He sleeps like a town-top," is an old proverb.

H.

5 It is generally allowed that here is a mistake; though whether it be the printer's or Sir Toby's, is somewhat questionable. Warburton proposed volto, wherein he has generally been followed. The meaning in this case would be, "put on a Castilian face," that is, grave looks; as in Hall's Satires:

"He can kiss his hand in gree,

And with good grace bow it below the knee,
Or make a Spanish face with fawning cheer."

As the text stands it is difficult to affix any meaning to it. Mr. Verplanck very aptly suggests that both vulgo and volto may be right; Sir Toby using the one and meaning the other, thus blundering, as he has done a little before in using viol-de-gamboys for viol-di-gambo. The Knight has already said that Sir Andrew "speaks three or four languages;" and it is not unlikely that he is here rivalling his learned friend, or perhaps ridiculing him. H.

Sir To. Accost, Sir Andrew, accost.
Sir And. What's that?

Sir To. My niece's chamber-maid.

6

Sir And. Good mistress Accost, I desire better acquaintance.

Mar. My name is Mary, sir.

Sir And. Good mistress Mary Accost,

Sir To. You mistake, knight: accost is, front her, board her, woo her, assail her.

Sir And. By my troth, I would not undertake her in this company. Is that the meaning of accost?

Mar. Fare you well, gentlemen.

Sir To. An thou let part so, Sir Andrew, 'would thou might'st never draw sword again!

Sir And. An you part so, mistress, I would I might never draw sword again.

think you have fools in hand?

Fair lady, do you

Mar. Sir, I have not you by the hand.

Sir And. Marry, but you shall have; and here's my hand.

Mar. Now, sir, thought is free: I pray you, bring your hand to the buttery-bar, and let it drink.7 Sir And. Wherefore, sweetheart? what's your metaphor ?

Mar. It's dry, sir.

Sir And. Why, I think so: I am not such an ass, but I can keep my hand dry. But what's your jest? Mar. A dry jest, sir.

Sir And. Are you full of them?

Sir Toby speaks more learnedly than intelligibly here, using accost in its original sense. The word is from the French accoster, to come side by side, or to approach. Accost is seldom used thus, which accounts for Sir Andrew's mistake.

H.

7 The buttery was formerly a place for all sorts of gastric refreshments; and a dry hand was considered a symptom of debility.

H.

Mar. Ay, sir; I have them at my fingers' ends: marry, now I let go your hand, I am barren.

[Exit MARIA. of canary:

Sir To. O knight! thou lack'st a cup When did I see thee so put down?

Sir And. Never in your life, I think; unless you see canary put me down: Methinks, sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian, or an ordinary man has: but I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit.

Sir To. No question.

Sir And. An I thought that, I'd forswear it. I'll ride home to-morrow, Sir Toby.

Sir To. Pourquoi, my dear knight?

Sir And. What is pourquoi? do or not do? I would I had bestowed that time in the tongues that I have in fencing, dancing, and bear-baiting: 0, had I but followed the arts!

Sir To. Then hadst thou had an excellent head of hair.

Sir And. Why, would that have mended my hair? Sir To. Past question; for thou seest it will not curl by nature.

8

Sir And. But it becomes me well enough, does't not?

Sir To. Excellent: it hangs like flax on a distaff; and I hope to see a housewife take thee between her legs and spin it off.

Sir And. 'Faith, I'll home to-morrow, Sir Toby: your niece will not be seen; or, if she be, it's four to one she'll none of me: the Count himself, here hard by, woos her.

Sir To. She'll none o' the Count: she'll not match

The original has cool my nature. The credit of the happy emendation belongs to Theobald.

H.

above her degree, neither in estate, years, nor wit; I have heard her swear it. Tut, there's life in't, man.

Sir And. I'll stay a month longer. I am a fellow o' the strangest mind i' the world: I delight in masques and revels sometimes altogether.

Sir To. Art thou good at these kickshaws, knight? Sir And. As any man in Illyria, whatsoever he be, under the degree of my betters: and yet I will not compare with an old man.

Sir To. What is thy excellence in a galliard, knight?

Sir And. 'Faith, I can cut a caper.

Sir To. And I can cut the mutton to't.

Sir And. And I think I have the back-trick, simply as strong as any man in Illyria.

Sir To. Wherefore are these things hid? wherefore have these gifts a curtain before them? are they like to take dust, like mistress Mall's picture?" why dost thou not go to church in a galliard, and come home in a coranto? 10 My very walk should be a jig:

9 Mistress Mall was a very celebrated character of the Poet's time, who played many parts (not on the stage) in male attire. Her real name was Mary Frith, though commonly known as Mall Cutpurse. In 1610 a book was entered at the Stationers, called "The Madde Prankes of Merry Mall of the Bankside, with her Walks in Man's Apparel, and to what purpose, by John Day." Middleton and Dekker wrote a comedy entitled The Roaring Girl, of which she was the heroine. The Poet here intimates that her picture was curtained to keep off the dust; others say, because it was not fit to be seen

H.

10 Galliard and coranto are names of dances: the galliard, a lively, stirring dance, from a Spanish word signifying cheerful, gay; the coranto, a quick dance for two persons, described as "traversing and running, as our country dance, but having twice as much in a strain." Sink-a-pace, that is, cinque-pas, "the name of a dance the measures whereof are regulated by the number five;" thus spoken of by Sir John Davies, in his poem on Dancing:

"Five was the number of the music's feet,

Which still the dance did with five paces meet." H.