only his gift is in devifing impoffible flanders: none bat libertines delight him; and the commendation is not in his wit, but in his villainy; for he both pleafeth men, and angers them, and then they laugh at him, and beat him: I am fure, he is in the fleet; I would he had boarded me. Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you fay.

Beat. Do, do: he'll but break a comparison or two on me; which, peradventure, not mark'd, or not laugh'd at, ftrikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge' wing faved, for the fool will eat no fupper that night. [Mufick within.] We must follow the leaders.

Bene. In every good thing.

Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. [Dance. Then exeunt all but Don JOHN, BORACHIO, and CLAUDIO. D. John. Sure, my brother is amorous on Hero, and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it: The ladies follow her, and but one vifor remains.

Bora. And that is Claudio: I know him by his bearing. D. John. Are not you fignior Benedick?

Claud. You know me well; I am he.

D. John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love: he is enamoured on Hero; I pray you, diffuade him from her, she is no equal for his birth: you may do the part of an honeft man init.

Claud. How know you he loves her?

D. John. I heard him fwear his affection.

Bora. So did I too; and he swore he would marry her tonight.

D. John.

8 We fhould read impassible, i. e. flanders fo ill invented, that they will pafs upon no body. WARBURTON.

Impoffible flanders are, I fuppofe, fuch flanders as, from their abfurdity and impossibility, bring their own confutation with them. JOHNSON. Johnfon's explanation appears to be right. Ford fays, in The Merry Wives of Windfor, that he shall fearch for Falstaff in "imp fible places." The word impoffible is also used in a similar sense in Jonson's Sejanus.

M. MASON. 9 By which the means his malice and impiety. By his impious jefts, the infinuates, he pleafed libertines; and by his devifing flanders of them, he angered them. WARBURTON.

2 i, e. his carriage, his demeanour. STILVENS.

D. John. Come, let us to the banquet.

[Exeunt Don JOHN and BORACHIO. Claud. Thus answer I`in the name of Benedick, But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.'Tis certain fo ;-the prince wooes for himself. Friendship is conftant in all other things, Save in the office and affairs of love:

Therefore, all hearts in love ufe their own tongues;
Let every eye negociate for itself,

And truft no agent: for beauty is a witch,
Against whofe charms faith melteth into blood.
This is an accident of hourly proof,

Which I mistrusted not; Farewell therefore, Hero!

Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own bufinefs, count. What fashion will you wear the garland of? About your neck, like an ufurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You muft wear it one way, for the prince hath got your Hero.

Claud. I with him joy of her.

Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honeft drover; fo they fell bullocks. But did you think, the prince would have ferved you thus?

Claud. I pray you, leave me.

3 Let, which is found in the next line, is understood here.

MALONE.

4 Chains of gold, of a confiderable value, were in our author's time, ufually worn by wealthy citizens, and others, in the fame manner as they now are, on publick occafions, by the Aldermen of London. See The Puritan, or the Widow of Watling fireet, Act III. fc. iii. Albumazar, A& I. fc. vii, and other pieces. REED.

Ufury feems about this time to have been a common topick of invective. I have three or four dialogues, pafquils, and difcourfes on the fubject, printed before the year 1600. From every one of these it appears, that the merchants were the chief ufurers of the age.

VOL. II.

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STEEVENS.

Bene.

Bene. Ho! now you ftrike like the blind man ; 'twas the boy that ftole your meat, and you'll beat the poft.

Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. [Exit.

Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! Now will he creep into fedges.- But, that my lady Beatrice fhould know me, and not know me! The prince's fool!-Ha! it may be, I go under that title, because I am merry.-Yea; but fo; I am apt to do myfelf wrong: I am not fo reputed: it is the base, the bitter difpofition of Beatrice, that puts the world into her perfon, and fo gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may.

Re-enter Don PEDRO, HERO, and LEONATO.

D. Pedro. Now, fignior, where's the count? Did you fee him?

6

Bene. Troth, my lord, I have play'd the part of lady Fame. I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren; I told him, and, I think, I told him true, that your grace had got the good will of this young lady; and I offered him my company to a willow tree, either to make

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him

5 That is, It is the difpofition of Beatrice, who takes upon her to perfonate the world, and therefore represents the world as saying what she only fays berfelf.

ihe old copies read-base, though bitter: but I do not understand how bafe and bitter are inconfiftent, or why what is bitter fhould not be bafe. I believe, we may fafely read,—It is the base, the bitter difpofition.

JOHNSON.

I have adopted Dr. Johnson's emendation, though I once thought it unneceffary. STEEVENS.

6 A parallel thought occurs in the first chapter of Ifaiab, where the prophet, defcribing the defolation of Judah, fays: "The daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers," &c. I am informed, that near Aleppo, thefe lonely buildings are still made ufe of, it being neceffary, that the fields where water-melons, cucumber, &c. are raifed, fhould be regularly watched. I learn from Tho. Newton's Herball to the Bible, 8vo. 1587 that "fo foone as the cucumbers, &c. be gathered, thefe lodges are abandoned of the watchmen and ke pers, and no more frequented." From these forfaken buildings, it fhould feem, the prophet takes his comparifon. STEEVENS.

7 Benedick fpeaks of Hero as if he were on the stage. Perhaps, both the and Leonato, were meant to make their entrance with Don Pedro When Beatrice enters, the is fpoken of as coming in with only Claudio. STEEVENS,

I have regulated the entries accordingly. MALONE.

him a garland, as being forfaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipped.

D. Pedro. To be whipped! What's his fault?

Bene. The flat tranfgreffion of a school-boy; who, being overjoy'd with finding a bird's neft, fhows it his companion, and he steals it.

D. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a trangreffion? The tranfgreffion is in the stealer.

Bene. Yet it had not been amifs, the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself; and the rod he might have bestow'd on you, who, as I take it, have ftol'n his bird's nest.

D. Pedro. I will but teach them to fing, and restore them to the owner.

Bene. If their finging anfwer your faying, by my faith, you fay honeftly.

D. Pedro. The lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you; the gentleman, that danced with her, told her, fhe is much wrong'd by you.

Bene. O, fhe mifufed me paft the endurance of a block; an oak, but with one green leaf on it, would have answer'd her; my very vifor began to affume life, and fcold with her: She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the prince's jefter; that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jeft upon jeft, with fuch impoffible conveyance, upon me, that I ftood like a man at a mark, with a whole army fhoot

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8 Dr. Warburton reads impalable: Sir Tho. Hanmer impetuous, and Dr. Johnson importable, which, fays he, is ufed by Spenfer, in a fenfe very congruous to this paffage, for infupportable, or not to be sustained. Allo by the laft tranflators of the Apocrypha; and therefore fuch a word as Shakspeare may be fuppofed to have written. REED.

Importable is very often ufed by Lidgate in his Prologue to the tranflation of The Tragedies gathered by Ibon Bochas, &c. as well as by Holinshed. Impoffible may be licentiously ufed for unaccountable. Beatrice has already faid, that Benedick invents impoffible flanders. STEEVENS.

Impoffible may have been what Shakspeare wrote, and be used in the fense of incredible or inconceivable, both here and in the beginning of the fcene, where Beatrice fpeaks of impoffible flanders. M. MASON.

I believe the meaning is-with a rapidity equal to that of jugglers, whe appear to perform impoffibilities.

Conveyance was the common term in our author's time for fleight of band. MALONE,

ing at me: She fpeaks poniards, and every word ftabs: if her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her, the would infect to the north ftar. I would not marry her, though fhe were endowed wirh all that Adam had left him before he tranfgrefs'd: fhe would have made Hercules have turn'd fpit; yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her; you fhall find her the infernal Até in good apparel. I would to God, fome fcholar would conjure her; 3 for, certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell, as in a fanctuary; and people fin upon purpose, because they would go thither; fo, indeed, all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her.

Re-enter CLAUDIO, and BEATRICE.

D. Pedro. Look, here fhe comes.

Bene. Will your grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes, that you can devife to fend me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the fartheft inch of Afia; bring you the length of Prefter John's foot; fetch you a hair of the great Cham's beard; 4 do you any embaffage to the Pigmies, rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy: You have no employment for me?

D. Pedro. None, but to defire your good company.

Bene. O God, fir, here's a difh I love not; I cannot endure my lady Tongue.

[Exit. D. Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have loft the heart of fignior Benedick.

Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me a while; and I gave him ufe for it, a double heart for his fingle one: marry,

9 -She fpeaks poniards,] So, in Hamlet.

STEEVENS.

once

"I'll fpeak daggers to her". 2 This is a pleasant allufion to the custom of ancient poets and painters, who represent the Furies in rags.

WARBURTON.

Até is not one of the Furies, but the Goddess of Revenge, or Discord. STLEVENS.

3 As Shakspeare always attributes to his exorcifts the power of raising fpirits, he gives his conjurer, in this place, the power of laying them. M. MASON.

-i. e. I will undertake the hardest task, rather than have any converfation with lady Beatrice. Alluding to the difficulty of access to either of those monarchs, but more particularly to the former.

5 Use, in our author's time, meant intereft of money. MALONE.