Oli. Pr'ythee, read i'thy right wits. Clo. So I do, madonna; but to read his right wits, is to read thus therefore perpend, my princefs, and give ear. Oli. Read it you, firrah. [TO FABIAN. Fab. [reads.] By the Lord, madam, you wrong me, and the world ball know it: though you have pus me into darkness, and given your drunken cousin rule over me, yet have I the benefit of my fenfes as well as your ladyship. I have your own letter that induced me to the femblance I put on; with the which I doubt not but to do myself much right, or you much Shame. Think of me as you please. I leave my duty a little unthought of, and speak out of my injury. Oli. Did he write this? Clo. Ay, madam. The madly-ufed Malvolio, Duke. This favours not much of distraction. Oli. See him deliver'd, Fabian; bring him hither. [Exit FABIAN. My lord, so please you, these things further thought on, To think me as well a fifter as a wife, One day shall crown the alliance on't, so please you,9 Duke. Madam, I am moft apt to embrace your offer. Your deed, the author of The Revifal pronounces to have no meaning. I fuppofe the Clown begins reading the letter in fome fantastical manner, on which Olivia afks him, if he is mad. No, madam, fays he, I do but barely deliver the fense of this madman's epiftle; if you would have it read as it ought to be, that is, with fuch a frantic accent and gefture as a madman would read it, you must allow vox, i. e. you must furnish the reader with a voice, or, in other words, read it yourself. But Mr. Malone's explanation, I think, is preferable to mine. STEEVENS. The Clown, we may prefume, had begun to read the letter in a very loud tone, and probably with extravagant gefticulation. Being repri manded by his miftrefs, he juftifies himself by faying, If you would bavi it read in character, as fuch a mad epiftle ought to be read, you must permit me to affume a frantick tone. MALONE. To reprefent his present state of mind, is to read a madman's letter, as I now do, like a madman. JoHNSON. 9 The word on't, in this place, is mere nonfenfe. I doubt not the poet wrote: -an't, fo please you. HEATH. This is well conjectured; but on't may relate to the double character of fifter and wife. JOHNSON. Your mafter quits you; [To VIOLA.] and, for your fervice done him, So much against the mettle of your fex,* Mal. Lady, you have. Pray you, perufe that letter: Write from it, if you can, in hand, or phrafe; Why you have given me fuch clear lights of favour; Oli. Alas, Malvolio, this is not my writing, And 2 So much against the weak frame and constitution of woman. Mettle is used by our author in many other places for fpirit; and as fpirit may be either high or low, mettle feems here to fignify natural timidity, or deficiency of fpirit. MALONE. 3 People of less dignity or importance. JOHNSON, -geck,] A fool. JOHNSON. And now I do bethink me, it was the First told me, thou waft mad; then cam'ft in fmiling, Of thine own caufe. Fab. Good madam, hear me speak; Oli. Alas, poor fool! how have they baffled thee? Clo. Why, fome are born great, fome atchieve greatness, and fome have greatness thrown upon them. I was one, fir, in this interlude; one fir Topas, fir; but that's al one-By the Lord, fool, I am not mad;-But do you remember? Madam, why laugh you at fuch a barren rafcal 5 i. e. then, that thou cam'st in smiling. MALONE. I believe the lady means only what he had clearly expreffed: "-thea thou cameft in smiling;" not that she has been informed of this circumftance by Maria. Maria's account, in fhort, was juftified by the subfequent appearance of Malvolio. STEEVENS. 6 Presuppos'd, for impofed. WARBURTON. Prefuppos'd rather feems to mean previously pointed out for thy imitation; or fuch as it was fuppofed thou would'st affume after thou hadit read the letter. The fuppofition was previous to the act. STEEVENS. 7 Surely we should rather read-conceiv'd in him. TYRWHITT. 8 Importance is importunacy, importunement. STEEVENS. The old copy points this paffage erroneously:" But do you re member, rafcal? an you fmile not, he's gagg'd: And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges. Mal. I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you. SONG. CLO. When that I was and a little tiny boy, A foolish thing was but a toy, For the rain it raineth every day. But when I came to man's eftate, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, But when I came, alas! to wive, [Exit. [Exeunt. But raember, madam," &c. I have followed the regulation propofed in the fubfequent note. STEEVENS. As the Clown is fpeaking to Malvolio, and not to Olivia, I think this paffage should be regulated thus-but do you remember ?-Madam, why laugh you, &c. TYRWHITT. 5 Perhaps we should read-confents. To convent, however, is to affemble; and therefore, the count may mean, when the happy hour calls us again together. STEEVENS. -i. e. shall serve, agree, be convenient. DoucE. Here again we have an old fong, fcarcely worth correction. 'Gainft VOL I. T knaves But when I came unto my bed, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, A great while ago the world begun, [Exit. knaves and thieves must evidently be, against knave and thief.-When I was a boy, my folly and mischievous actions were little regarded; but when I came to manhood, men hut their gates against me, as a knave and a thief. Sir Thomas Hanmer rightly reduces the fubfequent words, beds and beads, to the fingular number; and a little alteration is still wanting at the beginning of fome of the ftanzas. Mr. Steevens obferves in a note at the end of Much ado about Nothing, that the play had formerly paffed under the name of Benedict and Beatrix. It feems to have been the court-fashion to alter the titles. A very ingenious lady, with whom I have the honour to be acquainted, Mrs. Afkew of Queen's-Square, has a fine copy of the fecond folio edition of Shakspeare, which formerly belonged to King Charles I. and was a prefent from him to his Master of the Revels, Sir Thomas Herbert. Sir Thomas has altered five titles in the lift of the plays, to "Benedick and Beatrice,— Pyramus and Tbifby,-Refalinde,-Mr. Paroles, and Malvolio." It is lamentable to fee how far party and prejudice will carry the wifeft men, even against their own practice and opinions, Milton, in his Esxovoxdáng, cenfures King Charles for reading" one whom (fays he) we well knew was the closet companion of his folitudes, William Shakspeare." FARMER. I have followed the regulations propofed by Sir T. Hanmer and Dr. Farmer; and confequently, instead of knaves, thieves, beds, and heads, have printed knave, thief," &c. Dr. Farmer might have obferved, that the alterations of the titles are in his Majefty's own hand-writing, materially differing from Sir Thomas Herbert's, of which the fame volume affords more than one fpecimen. I learn from another manufcript note in it, that John Lowine acted King Henry VIII. and John Taylor the part of Hamlet. The book is now in my poffeffion. To the concluding remark of Dr. Farmer, may be added the following paflage from An Appeal to all rational men concerning King Charles's Trial, by John Cooke, 1649: Had he but ftudied fcripture half fo much as Ben Jonfon or Shakspeare, he might have learnt that when Amaziah was fettled in the kingdom, he fuddenly did justice upon those fervants which |