The letter at Sir Toby's great importance ; 29
In recompense whereof he hath married her.
How with a sportful malice it was follow'd,
May rather pluck on laughter than revenge;
If that the injuries be justly weigh'd

That have on both sides pass'd.

Oli. Alas, poor soul, how have they baffled 30 thee! Clo. Why, some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrown upon them. I was one, sir, in this interlude, one Sir Topas, sir; but that's all one, By the Lord, Fool, I am not mad;—but do you remember? Madam, why laugh you at such a barren rascal? an you smile not, he's gagg'd: and thus the whirligig of time brings. in his revenges.

Mal. I'll be reveng'd on the whole pack of you. [Exit. Oli. He hath been most notoriously abused.

Duke. Pursue him, and entreat him to a peace :

He hath not told us of the captain yet:

When that is known, and golden time convents,31
A solemn combination shall be made

Of our dear souls. Meantime, sweet sister,
We will not part from hence.. - Cesario, come ;
For so you shall be, while you are a man;
But, when in other habits you are seen,
Orsino's mistress and his fancy's queen.

[Exeunt all but the Clown.

29 Importance for importunity. So, in King Lear, iv. 4: Therefore

great France my mourning and important tears hath pitied."

30 To treat with mockery or insult, to run a rig upon, and to make a butt

of, are among the old senses of baffle.

31 Convents is agrees or comes fit; a Latinism.

SONG.

Clo. When that I was and 32 a little tiny boy,

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,

A foolish thing was but a toy,

For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came to man's estate,

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
'Gainst knave and thief men shut their gate,33
For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came, alas! to wive,

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
By swaggering could I never thrive,
For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came unto my bed,

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
With toss-pots still had drunken head,34
For the rain it raineth every day.

A great while ago the world begun,

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain:
But that's all one, our play is done,

And we'll strive to please you every day.

[Exit.

32 This redundant use of and is not uncommon in old ballads. 23" When I was a boy, my mischievous pranks were little regarded; but, when I grew to manhood, men shut their doors against me as a knave and

a thief." Gate and door were often used synonymously.

་་

84" I had my head drunk with tossing off pots or drams of liquor." So

a grog-shop is sometimes called a pot-house; and to toss is still used for to drink.

CRITICAL NOTES.

ACT I., SCENE I.

Page 137. O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south,

That breathes upon a bank of violets,

Stealing and giving odour.

-

The original has sound instead of south. Pope, as is well known, substituted south, meaning, of course, the south wind, and was followed, I think, by all subsequent editors until Knight. The change is most certainly right. For with what propriety can a sound be said to “breathe upon a bank of violets, stealing and giving odour"? Moreover, in the old reading, we have a comparison made between a thing and itself! It is as much as to say, "The sweet sound came o'er my ear like the sweet sound." The Poet evidently meant to compare the music to a sweet breeze loaded with fragrance; the former coming over the ear as the latter comes over another sense. So that the old reading is simply absurd. Knight and Grant White waste a deal of ingenious and irrelevant rhetoric in trying to make it good; but nothing of that sort can redeem it from absurdity. And by the methods they use we can easily read almost any sense we please into whatever words come before us. In this case, they but furnish an apt illustration of how a dotage of the old letter, and a certain exegetical jugglery, may cheat even good heads into an utter dereliction of common sense. Some one has noted, that to suppose a comparison was here intended between the effect of music on the ear and that of fragrance on the sense of smell, is almost to ignore "the difference between poetry and prose." O no! it is merely to recognize the difference between sense and nonsense. For how should odour affect us but through the sense of smell? But perhaps the writer, being in a jocose humour, caught the style of "sweet bully Bottom," and so played the Duke into the funny idea of hearing an odour that he smelt, or of smelling a sound that he heard. For why not a sweetsounding smell as well as a sweet-smelling sound?-In England, how

ever, the south winds generally are so ill conditioned, that English editors are naturally reluctant to admit such a phrase as “the sweet south." But south winds are not the same everywhere as in England: and why may not the Poet have had in mind such a south as often breathes in other places? Nor do English writers always speak ill of winds that blow from southerly quarters. Sir Philip Sidney, in his Arcadia, 1590, has the following: "Her breath is more sweet than a gentle south-west wind, which comes creeping over flowery fields and shadowed waters.” And Lettsom notes upon the passage, "A south-wester is a heavy gale from the south-west; but we often have genial, bright, and growing weather from that quarter, as well as from the south."

P. 138. The element itself, till seven years hence. - The original has heate for hence. Corrected by Rowe. Heat is ridiculous.

P. 139.

When liver, brain, and heart,

-

These sovereign thrones, her sweet perfections, Are all supplied and fill'd with one self king. The original prints “Are all supplied and fill’d” as the latter part of the second line, and "her sweet perfections" as the first part of the third. Sense, logic, grammar, and prosody, all, I think, plead together for the transposition, which was made by Capell.

ACT I., SCENE 2.

P. 139. Vio. What country, friends, is this?

Cap.

Illyria, lady.

The

original has "This is Illyria, Ladie." Pope omitted This is, and Dyce suspected it to be an interpolation.

P. 140. When you, and this poor number saved with you. The original has those instead of this. Corrected by Capell.

P. 141.

Yet of thee

I well believe thou hast a mind that suits

With this thy fair and outward character. - The old text reads "I will believe." The correction is Walker's. We have many instances of well and will confounded.

ACT I., SCENE 3

P. 143. He hath, indeed, all most natural. So Collier's second folio. The original has "almost naturall.”

P. 144. What, wench! Castiliano volto. So Hanmer. The original has vulgo for volto.

P. 145. An thou let her part so. — - Her is wanting in the original. Supplied in the third folio.

P. 145. Never in your life, I think; unless you saw canary put me down. The original has see instead of saw.

P. 146. For thou see'st it will not curl by nature. The original reads "coole my nature." One of Theobald's happy corrections.

P. 147. And yet I will not compare with a nobleman. Instead of a nobleman, the original has an old man. But why should Sir Andrew here speak of comparing himself with an old man? The whole drift of the foregoing dialogue is clearly against that reading. Theobald proposed the change; and Dr. Badham, in Cambridge Essays, 1856, justly remarks upon it thus: "Sir Andrew has just been speaking of the Count Orsino as a rival whom he cannot pretend to cope with; so that the allusion to nobleman is most natural."

P. 148. It does indifferent well in a flame-colour'd stock. — The old text reads "a dam'd colour'd stocke." Corrected by Rowe. Knight changed dam'd to damask, which has been adopted in some editions. Collier's second folio has dun-colour'd.