Vio. I am bound to your niece, fir: I mean, fhe is the list" of my voyage.

Sir To. Tate your legs, fir, put them to motion.

Vio. My legs do better understand me, fir, than I understand what you mean by bidding me taste my legs.

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

Vio. I will answer you with gait and entrance: But we are prevented.

Enter OLIVIA and Maria.

Moft excellent accomplish'd lady, the heavens 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 ear.2.

Sir And. Odours, pregnant, and vouchsafed:—I'll get 'em all three ready.3

Oli. Let the garden door be fhut, and leave me to my hearing. [Exeunt SIR TOBY, SIR ANDREW, and MARIA. Give me your hand, fir.

Vio. My duty, madam, and most humble fervice.
Oli. What is

your name?

Vio. Cefario is your fervant's name, fair princess.

7 Is the bound, limit, farthest point: JOHNSON.

Perhaps this expreffion was employed to ridicule the fantastic ufe of a verb, which is many times as quaintly introduced in the old pieces, as in this play, and in The true Tragedies of Marius and Scilla, 1594:

"A climbing tow'r that did not take the wind." STIEVENS,

9 i. c. our purpofe is anticipated. So, in the 119th Praim:

"Mine eyes prevent the night-watches. STEEVENS.

2 Pregnant for ready; as in Measure for Meafure, A& I. fc. i

Vouchsafed for vouchfafing. MALONE

STEEVENS.

3 The old copy has all three already. Mr. Malone reads➡“ all three all ready." STIEVING.

The editor of the third folio reformed the paffage by reading only ready. But omiffions ought always to be avoided if poffible. The repetition of the word all is not improper in the mouth of Sir Andrew.

MALONE.

Præferatur leio brevior, is a well known rule of criticism; and in the prefent inftance I moft willingly follow it, omitting the ufelefs repetition -all. STEEVENS

Oli. My fervant, fir! 'Twas never merry world,
Since lowly feigning was call'd compliment:
You are fervant to the count 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 fill'd with me!
Vio. Madam, I come to whet your gentle thoughts
On his behalf:-

Oli.

O, by your leave, I pray you ;

I bade you never speak again of him;
But, would you undertake another fuit,
I had rather hear you to folicit that,
Than mufick from the spheres.

Vio.

Dear lady,

Oli. Give me leave, I beseech you: I did fend, After the laft enchantment you did here,+

4 The old copy reads-beare. STEEVENS. Nonfenfe. Read and point it thus:

After the laft enchantment you did here,

A ring

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

WARBURTON.

The prefent reading is no more nonfenfe than the emendation.

JOHNSON. Warburton's amendment, the reading," you did bere," though it may not perhaps be abfolutely neceffary to make fenfe of the paffage, is evidently right. Olivia could not fpeak of her fending him a ring, as a matter he did not know except by hearfay; for the ring was abfolutely delivered to him. It would, befides, be impoffible to know what Olivia meant by the laft enchantment, if she had not explained it herself, by saying-"the last enchantment you did bere." There is not, perhaps, a paffage in Shakspeare, where fo great an improvement of the fenfe is M. MASON. gained by changing a single letter.

The two words are very frequently confounded in the old editions of our author's plays, and the other books of that age. See the last line of K. Richard III. quarto, 1613:

"That the may long live beare, God fay amen."

I could add twenty other inftances, were they neceffary. Throughout the first edition of our author's Rape of Lucrece, 1594, which was probably printed under his own infpection, the word we now fpell bere is conftantly written beare. Let me add, that Viola had not simply beard that a ring had been sent (if even fuch an expreffion as" After the last enchantment, you did beare," were admiffible;) she had feen and talked with the bearer of it. MALONI.

A ring in chafe of you; fo did I abuse
Myfelf, my fervant, and, I fear me, you :
Under your hard conftruction must Í 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 the unmuzzled thoughts

That tyrannous heart can think? To one of your receiving Enough is fhewn; a cyprus, not a bosom,

Hides my poor

heart: So let me hear you speak.

Vio. I pity you.

Oli. That's a degree of love.

Vio. No, not a grife;7 for 'tis a vulgar proof,
That very oft we pity enemies.

Oli. Why, then, methinks, 'tis time to fmile 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?

The clock upbraids me with the waste of time.
Be not afraid, good youth, I will not have you :
And yet, when wit and youth is come to harvest,
Your wife is like to reap a proper man:
There lies your way, due weft,

Vio.

[Glock ftrikes.

Then weftward-hoe :

Grace, and good difpofition 'tend your ladyship!
You'll nothing, madam, to my lord by me?

Oli. Stay:

I pr'ythee, tell me, what thou think'st of me.

Vie. 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.

R 2

Oli.

5 i. e. to one of your ready apprehenfion. She confiders him as an arch page. WARBURTON.

6 Tranfparent ftuff. JOHNSON.

7 Is a step, fometimes written greefe from degres, French. JOHNSON. 8 That is, it is a common proof. The experience of every day fhews that, &c. MALONE.

9 This is the name of a comedy by T. Decker, 1607. He was affifted in it by Webster, and it was acted with great fuccefs by the children of Paul's, on whom Shakspeare has bestowed such notice in Hamlet, that we may be fure they were rivals to the company patronized by himself.

STEEVENS.

Oli. I would, you were as I would have be!
you
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 shows not itself more foon
Than love that would seem hid: love's night is noon.
Cefario, by the roses of the spring,

2

By maidhood, honour, truth, and every thing,
I love thee fo, that, maugre all my pride,
Nor wit, nor reason, can my paffion hide.
Do not extort thy reafons from this clause,
For, that I woo, thou therefore hast no cause::
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,

3

I have one heart, one bosom, and one truth,
And that no woman has ; 3 nor never none
Shall mistress be of it, fave I alone.4

And fo adieu, good madam; never more
my mafter's tears to you deplore.

Will I

Oli. Yet come again: for thou, perhaps, may'st move That heart, which now abhors, to like his love.

SCENE II.

A room in Olivia's house.

[Exeunt.

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

Sir And. No, faith, I'll not stay a jot longer.

Sir To. Thy reason, dear venom, give thy reafon.
Fab. You must needs yield your reafon, fir Andrew.
Sir And. Marry, I faw your niece do more favours to the

2 i. e, in spite of. STEEVENS.

3 And that beart and bosom I have never yielded to any woman.

count's

JOHNSON.

These three words Sir Thomas Hanmer gives to Olivia probably

enough. JOHNSON.

count's ferving man, than ever the beftowed upon me; I faw't i'the orchard.

Sir To. Did fhe fee thee the while, old boy? tell me that. Sir And. As plain as I see you now.

Fab. This was a great argument of love in her toward

you.

Sir And. 'Slight! will you make an ass o’me ?

Fab. I will prove it legitimate, fir, upon the oaths of judgement and reason.

Sir To. And they have been grand jury-men, fince before Noah was a failor.

Fab. She did fhow favour to the youth in your fight, only to exafperate you, to awake your dormouse valour, to put fire in your heart, and brimstone in your liver: You thould then have accosted her; and with fome excellent jefts, firenew from the mint, you should have bang'd the youth into dumbness. This was look'd for at your hand, and this was baulk'd the double gilt of this opportunity you let time wash off, and you are now failed into the north of my lady's opinion; where you will hang like an icicle on a Dutchman's 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 Brownift, as a politician.

Sir To. Why then, build me thy fortunes upon the basis of valour. Challenge me the count'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

5 The Brownifts were fo called from Mr. Robert Browne, a noted fepasatift in Queen Elizabeth's reign. Strype, in his life of Whitgift, p. 323, informs us, that Browne, in the year 1589," went off from the separation, and came into the communion of the church."

This Browne was defcended from an ancient and honourable family in Rutlandshire; his grandfather Francis, had a charter granted him by K. Henry VIII. and confirmed by act of parliament; giving him leave ❝ to put on his bat in the presence of the king, or bis heirs, or any lord spiritual or temporal in the land; and not to put it off, but for bis own ease and pleafure." Neal's Hiftory of New-England, Vol. I. p. 58. GREY.

The Brownifts feem, in the time of our author, to have been the con-kant object of popular satire.