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Claud. Thou thinkest, I am in sport; I pray thee, tell me truly how thou likest her?

Bene. Would you buy her, that you inquire after her? Claud. Can the world buy such a jewel?

Bene. Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this with a sad brow? or do you play the flouting Jack; to tell us Cupid is a good nare-finder, and Vulcan a rare carpenter? Come, in what key shall a man take you, to go in the song?

Claud. In mine eye, she is the sweetest lady that I ever looked on.

Bene. I can see yet without spectacles, and I see no such matter there's her cousin, an she were not pos sessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty, as the first of May doth the last of December. But I hope, you have no intent to turn husband; have you?

Claud. I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the contrary, if Hero would be my wife.

Bene. Is it come to this, i'faith? Hath not the world one man, but he will wear his cap with suspicion ?" Shall I never see a bachelor of three-score again? Go to, i'faith; an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it, and sigh away Sundays. Look, Don Pedro is returned to seek you.

Re-enter Don PEDRO,

D. Pedro. What secret hath held you here, that you followed not to Leonato's?

Bene. I would, your grace would constrain me to tell. D. Pedro. I charge thee on thy allegiance.

Bene. You hear, count Claudio: I can be secret as a dumb man, I would have you think so; but on my allegiance,-mark you this, on my allegiance :-He is in love. With who?-now that is your grace's part.Mark, how short his answer is :-With Hero, Leonato's short daughter.

[3] Do you mean to tell us that love is not blind, and that fire will not consume what is combustible? for both these propositions are implied in making Cupid a good hare-finder, and Vulcan (the god of fire) a good carpenter.

STEEVENS.

I explain the passage thus: Do you scoff and mock in telling us that Cupid, who is blind, is a good hare-finder, which requires a quick eye-sight; and that Vulcan, a blacksmith, is a rare carpenter? TOLLET.

After such attempts at decent illustration. I am afraid that he who wishes to know why Cupid is a good hare finder, must discover it by the assistance of many quibbling allusions of the same sort, about hair and hoar, in Mercutio's song in the second Act of Romeo and Juliet. COLLINS.

[4] That is, subject his head to the disquiet of jealousy.

JOHNSON.

Claud. If this were so, so were it uttered.

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.

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. 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

[5] A recheate is a particular lesson upon the horn, to call dogs back from the scent: from the old French word recet, which was used in the same sense às retraite. HANMER.

[6] As to the cat and bottle, I can procure no better information than the follow ing: In some counties in England, a cat was formerly closed up with a quantity of soot in a wooden bottle, (such as that in which shepherds carry their liquor,) and

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 wouldst be horn-mad.

D. Pedro. Nay, if Cupid hath 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

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. Claud. My liege, your highness now may do me good,

was suspended on a line. He who beat out the bottom as he ran under it, and was nimble enough to escape its contents, was regarded as the hero of this inhuman di version. STEEVENS.

[7] Adam Bel, Clym of the Cloughe, and Wyllyam of Cloudesle, were, says Dr. Percy, three noted outlaws, whose skill in archery rendered them formerly as famous in the North of England, as Robin Hood and his fellows were in the midland Counties. Their place of residence was in the forest of Englewood, not far from Carlisle. At what time they lived does not appear. STEEVENS.

[8] The ridicule here is to the formal conclusions of Epistles dedicatory and Letters. Barnaby Googe thus ends his dedication to the first edition of Palingénius, 12mo. 1560: " And thus commytyng your Ladiship with all yours to the tuition of the moste merciful God, I ende. From Staple Inne at London, the eighte and twenty of March." REED.

[9] Guards were ornamented lace or borders. STEEVENS.

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-thought
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!
But lest my liking might too sudden seem,
I would have salv'd it with a longer treatise.

D. Pedro. What need the bridge much broader than
the flood?

The fairest grant is the necessity:

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.

[Exeunt.

[1] Once has here, I believe, the force of once for all. So, in Coriolanus: Dace, if he do roquize our voices, we ought not to deny him." MALONE.

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SCENE II.

A Room in LEONATO's House. Enter LEONATO and Antonio, 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 loved 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?

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, 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. [Exeunt.

SCENE III.

Another room in LEONATO's house. Enter Don JOHN and CONRADE.

Conr. What the gcodjere, 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.

Conr. You should hear reason.

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

Conr. If not a present remedy, yet a patient sufferance. [2] Cousins were anciently enrolled among the dependants, if not the domestics, of great families, such as that of Leonato.-Petruchio, while intent on the subjection of Katharine, calls out in terms imperative, for his cousin Ferdinand. STEEVENS.

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