his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laugh'd at fuch
fhallow follies in others, become the argument of his own
fcorn, by falling in love: And fuch a man is Claudio. F
have known, when there was no mufick with him but the
drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and
the pipe: I have known, when he would have walk'd ten
mile afoot, to fee a good armour; and now will he lie ten
nights awake, carving the fashion of a new doublet. He
was wont to fpeak plain, and to the purpofe, like an honest
man, and a foldier; and now is he turn'd orthographer; his
words are a very fantaftical banquet, juft fo many strange
difhes. May I be fo converted, and fee with these eyes?
I cannot tell; I think not: I will not be fworn, but love
may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it,
till he have made an oyfter of me, he fhall never make me
fuch a fool. One woman is fair; yet I am well: another
is wife; yet I am well: another virtuous; yet I am well:
but till all graces come in one woman, one woman fhall not
come in my grace. Rich fhe fhall he, that's certain; wife, or
I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll
never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or
not I for an angel; of good difcourfe, an excellent musician,
and her hair fhall be of what colour it please God. Ha! the
prince and monfieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour.
[Withdraws.
Enter Don PEDRO, LEONATO, and CLAUDIO.

D. Pedro. Come, fhall we hear this mufick?
Claud. Yea, my good lord :-How ftill the evening is,

7 This folly, fo confpicuous in the gallants of former ages, is laughed. at by all our comic writers. STEEVENS.

8 Perhaps Benedick alludes to a fashion, very common in the time of Shakspeare, that of dying the bair.

Stubbes, in his Anatomy of Abuses, 1595, speaking of the attires of women's heads, fays: If any have haire of her owne naturall growing,. which is not faire ynough, then will they die it in divers colours."

STEEVENS.

The practice of dying the hair was one of those fashions fo frequent before and in Queen Elizabeth's time, as to be thought worthy of particu. lar animadverfion from the pulpit. REED.

Or he may allude to the fashion of wearing falfe bair," whatever colour it pleafed God." MALONE.

As hufh'd on purpose to grace harmony!

D. Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? Claud. O, very well, my lord: the mufick ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a penny-worth.9

Enter BALTHAZAR, with mufick."

D. Pedro. Come, Balthazar, we'll hear that fong again.3
Balth. O good my lord,,tax not fo bad a voice
To flander musick any more than once.

D. Pedro. It is the witnefs ftill of excellency,
To put a strange face on his own perfection :-
I pray thee, fing, and let me woo no more.

Balth. Because you talk of wooing, I will fing:
Since many a wooer doth commence his fuit
To her he thinks not worthy; yet he wooes ;
Yet will he fwear, he loves.

Nay, pray thee, come :

Note this before my notes,

There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting.

D. Pedro. Why thefe are very crotchets that he speaks; Note, notes, forfooth, and noting! 4

C 6

[Mufick.

9 i. e. we will be even with the fox now difcovered. GREY.

Bene,

It is not impoffible but that Shakspeare chofe on this occafion to employ an antiquated word; and yet if any future editor fhould choose to read-bid fox, he may obferve that Hamlet has faid-" Hide fox and all after." STEEVENS.

Dr. Warburton reads as Mr. Steevens propofes. MALONE.

A kid-fox feems to be no more than a young fox or cub. In As you Like it, we have the expreffion of two dog-apes.'

2

RISTON.

-with mufick.] I am not fure that this ftage-direction (taken from the quarto, 1600) is proper. Balthazar might have been defigned at once for a vocal and an inftrumental performer. Shakspeare's orchestra was hardly numerous; and the first folio, instead of Balthazar, only gives us Jacke Wilfon, the name of the actor who reprefented him.

STEEVENS.

3 Come, Balthazar, we'll bear that fong again.] Balthaza, the mufician and fervant to Don Pedro, was perhaps thus named from the cele brated, Baltazarini, called De Beaujoyeux, an Italian perform r on the violin, who was in the higheft fame and favour at the court of Henry II. of France, 1577. BURNEY,

4and noting!] The old copies-nothing. The correction was made by Mr. Theobald. MALONE

Bene. Now, Divine air! now is his foul ravish'd!—Is it not ftrange, that sheeps' guts fhould hale fouls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done.

BALTH. Sigh no more, ladies, figh no more,
Men were deceivers ever;
One foot in fea, and one on fhore;
To one thing constant never :
Then figh not fo,

But let them

And be you blith and bonny;
Converting all your founds of avoe
Into, Hey nonny, nonny.
II.

Sing no more ditties, fing no mo
Of dumps fo dull and heavy;
The fraud of men was ever so,
Since fummer firft was leavy.
Then figh not fo, &c.

D. Pedro. By my troth, a good fong.
Balth. And an ill finger, my lord.

D. Pedro. Ha? no; no; faith; thou fing'ft well enough for a fhift.

Bene. [Afide.] An he had been a dog, that fhould have howl'd thus, they would have hang'd him: and, I pray God, his bad voice bode no mifchief! I had as lief have heard the night-raven, come what plague could have come after it.

D. Pedro. Yea, marry ; [To CLAUDIO.]-Doft thou hear, Balthazar? I pray thee, get us fome excellent mufick; for tomorrow night we would have it at the lady Hero's chamberwindow.

Balth. The best I can, my lord.

D. Pedro. Do fo: farewell. [Exeunt BALTHAZAR and mufick.] Come hither, Leonato: What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with fignior Benedick?

Claud. O, ay :-Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl fits." [Afide

STEEVENS.

to

5 i. e. the owl; vuntin'opa 6 This is an allufion to the ftalking-horse; a horse either real or facti

tieus,

to PEDRO.] I did never think that lady would have loved any

man.

Leon. No, nor I neither; but moft wonderful, that the fhould fo dote on fignior Benedick, whom the hath in all outward behaviours feem'd ever to abhor.

Bene. Is't poffible? Sits the wind in that corner? [Afide. Leon. By my troth, my lord, 1 cannot tell what to think of it; but that the loves him with an enraged affection,-it is paft the infinite of thought.7

D. Pedro. May be, the doth but counterfeit.
Claud. 'Faith, like enough.

Leon. O God! counterfeit! There never was counterfeit
of paffion came fo near the life of paffion, as fhe difcovers it.
D. Pedro. Why, what effects of paffion shows the?
Claud. Bait the hook well; this fish will bite.

[Afide. Leon.

tious, by which the fowler anciently sheltered himself from the fight of the game. STEEVENS.

7 It is impoffible to make sense and grammar of this fpeech. And the reason is, that the two beginnings of two different fentences are jumbled together and made one. For-but that he loves bim with an enraged affection, is only part of a sentence, which fhould conclude thus,-is moft certain. But a new idea striking the fpeaker, he leaves his fentence unfinished, and turns to another,—It is paft the infinite of thought,-which is likewife left unfinished; for it should conclude thus-to Jay bow great that affection is. Those broken disjointed fentences are ufual in converfation. However there is one word wrong, which yet perplexes the fense; and that is infinite. Human thought cannot furely be called infinite with any kind of figurative propriety. I fuppofe the true reading was definite. This makes the passage intelligible. It is paft the definite of thought,-i. e. it cannot be defined or conceived how great that affection is. Shakspeare uses the word again in the fame fenfe in Cymbeline:

"For ideots, in this cafe of favour, would
"Be wifely definite.

i. e. could tell how to pronounce or determine in the cafe.

WARBURTON.

Here are difficulties raised only to show how eafily they can be removed. The plain fenfe is, I know not what to think otherwife, but that he loves bim with an enraged affection: It (this affection) is paft the infinite of thought. Here are no abrupt ftops, or imperfect fentences. Infinite may well enough ftand; it is ufed by more careful writers for indefinite: and the speaker only means, that thought, though in itself unbounded, cannot reach or estimate the degree of her paffion. JOHNSON.

The meaning I think, is, but with what an enraged affection fhe loves bim, it is beyond the power of thought to conceive. MALONE.

Leon. What effects, my lord! She will fit you,-You heard my daughter tell you how.

Claud. She did, indeed.

D. Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me: I would have thought her fpirit had been invincible against allaffaults of affection.

Leon. I would have fworn it had, my lord; especially against Benedick..

Bene. [Afide.] I fhould think this a gull, but that the white bearded fellow fpeaks it: knavery cannot, fure, hide himself in fuch reverence.

Claud. He hath ta'en the infection; hold it up. [Afide. D. Pedro. Hath fhe made her affection known to Benedick ? Leon. No; and fwears he never will: that's her tor

ment.

Claud. 'Tis true, indeed; fo your daughter fays: Shall I, fays fhe, that have fo oft encounter'd him with scorn, write to bim that I love him?

Leon. This fays fhe now when the is beginning to write to him for fhe'll be up twenty times a night; and there will fhe fit in her fmock, till the have writ a fheet of paper :8my daughter tells us all.

Claud. Now you talk of a fheet of paper, I remember a pretty jeft your daughter told us of,

Leon. O!-When she had writ it, and was reading it over,. fhe found Benedick and Beatrice between the sheet

Claud. That.

Leon.

Shakspeare has more than once availed himfelf of fuch incidents as occurred to him from hiftory, &c. to compliment the princes before whom his pieces were performed. A ftriking inftance of flattery to James occurs in Macbeth; perhaps the paffage here quoted was not less grateful to Elizabeth, as it apparently alludes to an extraordinary trait in one of the letters pretended to have been written by the hated Mary to Bothwell:

"I am nakit, and ganging to fleep, and zit I ceafe not to fcribble all this paper, in fo meikle as reft is thairof." That is, I am naked, and going to fleep, and yet I ceafe not to fcribble to the end of my paper, much as there remains of it unwritten on. HENLEY.

Mr. Henley's obfervation muft fall to the ground; the word in every edition of Mary's letter which Shakspeare could poffibly have feen, being rkit, not nakit. " I am irkit” means, I am uneasy. STEEVENS.