reasons, but need not be supposed to have been proud of the feat. So here, the divine hack, having written for hire a play of no value in his own eyes, gave it a flick of the finger, and let it go. A name for the thing? What you will!

MAURICE HEWLETT.

TWELFTH NIGHT;

OR,

WHAT YOU WILL

ORSINO, Duke of Illyria.

SEBASTIAN, brother to Viola.

ANTONIO, a sea captain, friend to Sebastian.

A Sea Captain, friend to Viola.

Lords, Priests, Sailors, Officers, Musicians, and other Attendants.

SCENE: A city in Illyria, and the sea-coast near it

The piece was printed for the first time in the First Folio of 1623. It is there divided into acts and scenes. Rowe in his edition of 1709 was the first to supply a list of characters with an indication of the "Scene."

DUKE

Enough; no more:

F MUSIC BE THE FOOD

of love, play on;

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,

The appetite may sicken, and so die.

That strain again! it had a dying fall:

O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,

That breathes upon a bank of violets,

Stealing and giving odour!

'T is not so sweet now as it was before.

5 sound] This is the reading of the Folios, for which Pope, followed by many other editors, substituted south, i, e., the south wind. But

O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou!
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe'er,
But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute! so full of shapes is fancy,
That it alone is high fantastical.

CUR. Will you go hunt, my lord?

DUKE.

CUR. The hart.

What, Curio?

DUKE. Why, so I do, the noblest that I have:
O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,
Methought she purged the air of pestilence!
That instant was I turn'd into a hart;

And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,
E'er since pursue me.

Enter VALENTINE

How now! what news from her? VAL. So please my lord, I might not be admitted; But from her handmaid do return this answer:

there is no need for any alteration. The sweet low hum (of the summer air) may well be imagined by poets to give forth an "odour." Cf. Milton's Comus, 555-557: “At last a soft and solemn-breathing sound Rose like a steam of rich distilled perfumes, and stole upon the air."

11 Receiveth as the sea] Cf. Sonnet cxxxv, 9: "The sea, all water, yet receives rain still."

21-23 turn'd into a hart] A vague reminiscence of the story of Acteon. See note on M. Wives, II, i, 106. The precise imagery of the "hart,"