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Bene. Like the old tale, my lord: "it is not so, nor 'twas not so; but, indeed, God forbid it should be so."

Claud. If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it should be otherwise.

D. Pedro. Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy.

Claud. You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.

D. Pedro. By my troth, I speak my thought.
Claud. And, in faith, my lord, I spoke mine.

Bene. And, by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine.

Claud. That I love her, I feel.

D. Pedro. That she is worthy, I know.

Bene. That I neither feel how she should be loved, nor know how she should be worthy, is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me; I will die in it at the stake.

D. Pedro. Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite of beauty.

Claud. And never could maintain his part, but in the force of his will.P

Bene. That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks but that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick, all women shall pardon me: Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none; and the fine' is, (for the which I may go the finer,) I will live a bachelor.

D. Pedro. I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.

appears to be something omitted here, either relating to Hero's consent, or to Claudio's marriage.-JOHNSON.

These words relate to an old nursery story which has been recovered, by Mr. Blakeway's having heard it told him as a child.-A young lady going accidentally to the house of a gentleman, saw him, while she herself remained concealed, murder a young lady. On the gentleman's next visit at her father's, she related the occurrence which she had seen, as if she had dreamt it, repeating at the end of every particular, "it is not so, nor it was not so, and God forbid it should be so.' ."-The story at full length is told in the last edition of Malone's Shakspeare, vol. vii. 164, and a very fearful story it is. in the force of his will.] By obstinacy against conviction, alluding to the definition of a heretic in the schools.-WARBURTON.

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·recheat winded in my forehead,] A recheat, a hunting term for a certain set of notes sounded on the horn, to call the dogs off.-NARES.

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the fine-] i. e. The conclusion.

Bene. With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord; not with love: prove, that ever I lose more blood with love, than I will get again with drinking, pick out mine eyes with a ballad-maker's pen, and hang me up at the door of a brothel-house, for the sign of blind Cupid.

D. Pedro. Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument.

Bene. If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat,' and shoot at me and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder, and called Adam.'

D. Pedro. Well, as time shall try:

In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke."

Bene. The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns, and set them in my forehead: and let me be vilely painted; and in such great letters as they write, Here is good horse to hire, let them signify under my sign,-Here you may see Benedick the married man.

Claud. If this should ever happen, thou would'st be horn-mad.

D. Pedro. Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly.

Bene. I look for an earthquake too then.

D. Pedro. Well, you will temporize with the hours. In the mean time, good signior Benedick, repair to Leonato's; commend me to him, and tell him, I will not fail him at supper; for, indeed, he hath made great preparation.

Bene. I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage; and so I commit you—

in a bottle like a cat,] That it was the habit to shoot at a cat hung up in wicker basket or bottle, is evident from the following quotation:

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"Fairer than any stake in Gray's Inn Fields,
Guarded with gunners, bill-men, and a rout
Of bow-men bold, which at a cat do shoot."—

Cornucopia, or Pasguil's Night-Cap, p. 48, 1623. Adam.] This may allude perhaps to Adam Bell, "a substantial outlaw, and a passing good archer;"-but Adam is also used as a term of praise in cant language, signifying "the first-i. e. the most excellent,-of men." u In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.] A line from The Spanish Tragedy, or Hieronymo, &c.

* Venice,] All modern writers represent Venice in the same light as the ancients did Cyprus, and it is this character of the people that is here alluded to.-WARBURTON.

Claud. To the tuition of God: From my house, (if I had it)

D. Pedro. The sixth of July: Your loving friend, Benedick.

Bene. Nay, mock not, mock not: The body of your discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and the guards are but slightly basted on neither: ere you flout old ends any further, examine your conscience; and so I leave you. [Exit BENEDICK.

Claud. My liege, your highness now may do me good. D. Pedro. My love is thine to teach; teach it but how, And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn Any hard lesson that may do thee good.

Claud. Hath Leonato any son, my lord?

D. Pedro. No child but Hero, she's his only heir. Dost thou affect her, Claudio?

Claud.

O my lord,

When you went onward on this ended action,

I look'd upon her with a soldier's eye,
That lik'd, but had a rougher task in hand
Than to drive liking to the name of love:
But now I am return'd, and that war-thoughts
Have left their places vacant, in their rooms
Come thronging soft and delicate desires,
All prompting me how fair young Hero is,
Saying, I lik'd her ere I went to wars.

D. Pedro. Thou wilt be like a lover presently,
And tire the hearer with a book of words:
If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it;
And I will break with her, and with her father,
And thou shalt have her: Was't not to this end,
That thou began'st to twist so fine a story?

Claud. How sweetly do you minister to love,
That know love's grief by his complexion!

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guarded-] Guards were ornamental lace or borders.-STEEVENS. -flout old ends any further,] The duke and Claudio have been quizzing Benedick on the formal beginning of his leave-taking-and so I commit you which they immediately interrupt in the midst and finish according to the usual epistolary style of the time.-Benedick desires them not to flout old ends, to scorn old conclusions, but to examine their conscience, and remember whether they have never been guilty of using such formalities.

But lest my liking might to sudden seem,

I would have salv'd it with a longer treatise.

D. Pedro. What need the bridge much broader than The fairest grant is the necessity:"

[the flood?

Look, what will serve, is fit: 'tis once, thou lov'st;

And I will fit thee with the remedy.

I know, we shall have revelling to-night;

I will assume thy part in some disguise,
And tell fair Hero I am Claudio;

And in her bosom I'll unclasp my heart,
And take her hearing prisoner with the force
And strong encounter of my amorous tale:
Then, after, to her father will I break;
And, the conclusion is, she shall be thine:
In practice let us put it presently.

SCENE II.

A Room in Leonato's House.

Enter LEONATO and ANTONIO.

[Exeunt.

Leon. How now, brother? Where is my cousin, your son? Hath he provided this music?

Ant. He is very busy about it. But, brother, I can tell you strange news that you yet dreamed not of. Leon. Are they good?

Ant. As the event stamps them; but they have a good cover, they show well outward. The prince and count Claudio, walking in a thick-pleached alley in my orchard, were thus much overheard by a man of mine: The prince discovered to Claudio, that he lov'd my niece your daughter, and meant to acknowledge it this night in a dance; and, if he found her accordant, he meant to take the present time by the top, and instantly break with you of it. Leon. Hath the fellow any wit, that told you this?

a The fairest grant is the necessity:] No one can have a better reason for a grant than the plea of its necessity.-WARBURTON. Mr. Hayley proposes to read to necessity.

'tis once, thou lov'st ;] Once may mean "once for all"-"'tis enough to say at once."-STEEVENS.

— a thick-pleached-] i. e. Thickly interwoven.

Ant. A good sharp fellow; I will send for him, and question him yourself.

Leon. No, no; we will hold it as a dream, till it appear itself:-but I will acquaint my daughter withal, that she may be the better prepared for an answer, if peradventure this be true. Go you, and tell her of it. [Several persons cross the stage.] Cousins,d you know what you have to do. -O, I cry you mercy, friend: you go with me, and I will use your skill:-Good cousins, have a care this busy time.

SCENE III.

Another Room in Leonato's House.

Enter JOHN and CONRADE.

[Exeunt.

Con. What the good year, my lord! why are you thus

out of measure sad?

D. John. There is no measure in the occasion that breeds it, therefore the sadness is without limit.

Con. You should hear reason.

D. John. And when I have heard it, what blessing bringeth it?

Con. If not a present remedy, yet a patient sufferance. D. John. I wonder, that thou being (as thou say'st thou art) born under Saturn, goest about to apply a moral medicine to a mortifying mischief. I cannot hide what I am: I must be sad when I have cause, and smile at no man's jests; eat when I have stomach, and wait for no man's leisure; sleep when I am drowsy, and tend to no man's business; laugh when I am merry, and clawf no man in his humour.

d

Con. Yea, but you must not make the full show of this,

- Cousins,] Cousins were anciently enrolled among the dependants, if not the domestics of great families such as those of Leonato.-Petruchio, while intent on the subjection of Catherine, calls out in terms imperative for his cousin Ferdinand.-STEEVENS.

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the good year,] Wherever this expression occurs it has been invariably changed into gonjere,-but that it was a common exclamation, is plain from its having been used by the wife of Sir Thomas Moore, when she visited him in prison.-Roper says that she began reproving, "What the good yeare, Mr. Moore, I marvell that you will now so play the foole."-BLAKEWAY. f claw-] i. e. Flatter.

VOL. II.

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