V10. My legs do better understand me, sir, than I undertand what you mean by bidding me taste my legs.

SIR TO. I mean, to go, sir, to enter.

V10. I will answer you with gait and entrance : But we are prevented'.

Enter OLIVIA and MARIA.

Most excellent accomplished lady, the heavens rain odours on you!

SIR AND. That youth's a rare courtier! Rain odours! well.

V10. My matter hath no voice, lady, but to your own most pregnant and vouchsafed ear 2.

SIR AND. Odours, pregnant, and vouchsafed :I'll get 'em all three all ready 3.

3

OLI. Let the garden door be shut, and leave me to my hearing.

[Exeunt Sir TOBY, Sir ANDREW, and Maria. Give me your hand, sir.

V10. My duty, madam, and most humble service.

Brunck terms it, elegans locutio: and quotes Plautus as using gustare in the sense of experiri, periculum facere. Mostell, v. i. 15: Herus meus hic quidem est gustare ejus sermonem volo. BOSWELL. prevented.] i. e. our purpose is anticipated. So, in the 119th Psalm :

I

2

66

Mine eyes prevent the night-watches." STEEVENS. most PREGNANT and vouchsafed ear.] Pregnant, for ready; as in Measure for Measure, vol. ix. p. 8. STEEVENS. Vouchsafed, for vouchsafing. MALONE. 3 all three READY.] The old copy has-" all three already." Mr. Malone reads—“ all three all ready." STEEVENS.

The editor of the third folio reformed the passage by reading only-ready. But omissions ought always to be avoided if possible. The repetition of the word all is not improper in the mouth of Sir Andrew. MALONE.

Præferatur lectio brevior, is a well known rule of criticism; and in the present instance I most willingly follow it, omitting the useless repetition-all. STEEVENS.

OLI. What is your name?

V10. Cesario is your servant's name, fair princess.
OLI. My servant, sir! "Twas never merry world,
Since lowly feigning was call'd compliment:
You are servant to the count Orsino, youth.

Vio. And he is yours, and his must needs be

yours;

Your servant's servant is your servant, madam.
OLI. For him, I think not on him: for his

thoughts,

'Would they were blanks, rather than fill'd with me!

Vio. Madam, I come to whet your gentle thoughts

On his behalf:

OLI.
O, by your leave, I pray you;
I bade you never speak again of him :
But, would you undertake another suit,
I had rather hear you to solicit that,
Than musick from the spheres.

VIO. Dear lady,

OLI.

3

Give me leave, 'beseech you3: I did send, After the last enchantment you did here *,

3

I beseech you :] The first folio reads-" 'beseech you."
STEEVENS.

This ellipsis occurs so frequently in our author's plays, that I do not suspect any omission here. The editor of the third folio reads-"I beseech you;" which supplies the syllable wanting, but hurts the metre. MALONE.

I read with the third folio; not perceiving how the metre is injured by the insertion of the vowel-I. STEEvens.

4

- you did HERE,] The old copy reads-heare. STEEVENS. Nonsense. Read and point it thus:

"After the last enchantment you did here,"

i. e. after the enchantment your presence worked in my affections.
WARBURTON.

The present reading is no more nonsense than the emendation.
JOHNSON.

Warburton's amendment, the reading, “you did here," though

it may not perhaps be absolutely necessary to make sense of the

A ring in chase of you; so did I abuse
Myself, my servant, and, I fear me, you:
Under your hard construction must I sit,

To force that on you, in a shameful cunning, Which you knew none of yours: What might you think?

Have you not set mine honour at the stake,
And baited it with all the unmuzzled thoughts
That tyrannous heart can think? To one of your
receiving

5

passage, is evidently right. Olivia could not speak of her sending him a ring, as a matter he did not know except by hearsay; for the ring was absolutely delivered to him. It would, besides, be impossible to know what Olivia meant by the last enchant

66

ment," if she had not explained it herself by saying the last enchantment you did here." There is not, perhaps, a passage in Shakspeare, where so great an improvement of the sense is gained by changing a single letter. M. MASON.

The two words are very frequently confounded in the old editions of our author's plays, and the other books of that age. See the last line of King Richard III. quarto, 1613:

"That she may long live heare, God say amen.” Again, in The Tempest, folio, 1623, p. 3, 1. x. : "Heare, cease more questions."

Again, in Love's Labour's Lost, 1623, p. 139:

"Let us complain to them what fools were keare.” Again, in All's Well That Ends Well, 1623, p. 239 : "That hugs his kicksey-wicksey heare at home." Again, in Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, vol. i. p. 205:

to my utmost knowledge, heare is simple truth and verity."

I could add twenty other instances were they necessary. Throughout the first edition of our author's Rape of Lucrece, 1594, which was probably printed under his own inspection, the word we now spell here, is constantly written heare.

Let me add, that Viola had not simply heard that a ring had been sent (if even such an expression as " After the last enchantment, you did heare," were admissible;) she had seen and talked with the bearer of it. MALONE.

5 To one of your RECEIVING ] i. e. to one of your ready apprehension. She considers him as an arch page. WARBURTON. See p. 381, n. 8. STEEVENS.

Enough is shown; a cyprus, not a bosom,
Hides my heart: So let me hear you speak 7.
V10. I pity you.

OLI. That's a degree to love.

Vio. No, not a grise; for 'tis a vulgar proof", That very oft we pity enemies.

OLI. Why, then, methinks, 'tis time to smile again :

O world, how apt the poor are to be proud!
If one should be a prey, how much the better
To fall before the lion, than the wolf?

[Clock strikes.
The clock upbraids me with the waste of time.—
Be not afraid, good youth, I will not have you :
And yet, when wit and youth is come to harvest,
Your wife is like to reap a proper man:

There lies your way, due west.

6

VIO.

Then westward-hoe':

a cyprus,] Is a transparent stuff. JOHNSON.

7 Hides my heart: So let me HEAR you speak.] The word hear is used in this line like "tear, dear, swear," &c. as a dissyllable. The editor of the second folio, to supply what he imagined to be a defect in the metre, reads-" Hides my poor heart;" and all the subsequent editors have adopted his interpolation. MALone.

I have retained the pathetic and necessary epithet poor. The line would be barbarously dissonant without it. STEEVENS. See the Essay on Shakspeare's Versification. BosWELL. 8 a grise;] Is a step, sometimes written greese, from degres, French. JOHNSON.

So, in Othello:

9

66

Which, as a grise or step, may help these lovers."
STEEVENS.

'tis a VULGAR proof,] That is, it is a common proof. The experience of every day shows that, &c. MALONE.

Then WESTWARD-HOE:] This is the name of a comedy by T. Decker, 1607. He was assisted in it by Webster, and it was acted with great success by the children of Paul's, on whom Shakspeare has bestowed such notice in Hamlet, that we may be sure they were rivals to the company patronized by himself.

STEEVENS.

Grace, and good disposition 'tend your ladyship!
You'll nothing, madam, to my lord by me?
OLI. Stay:

I pr'ythee, tell me, what thou think'st of me.
Vio. That you do think, you are not what you

are.

OLI. If I think so, I think the same of you.

Vio. Then think you right; I am not what I am. OLI. I would, you were as I would have you be ! V10. Would it be better, madam, than I am, I wish it might; for now I am your fool.

OLI. O, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful

In the contempt and anger of his lip 2!

A murd'rous guilt shows not itself more soon
Than love that would seem hid: love's night is

noon.

Cesario, by the roses of the spring,

By maidhood, honour, truth, and every thing,
I love thee so, that, maugre" all thy pride,
Nor wit, nor reason, can my passion hide.
Do not extort thy reasons from this clause,
For, that I woo, thou therefore hast no cause:
But, rather, reason thus with reason fetter:
Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better.
V10. By innocence I swear, and by my youth,
I have one heart, one bosom, and one truth,
And that no woman has *; nor never none

4

Shall mistress be of it, save I alone".

2 O, what a deal of scorn looks BEAUTIFUL

In the contempt and ANGER of his lip!] So, in our author's Venus and Adonis :

3

1599:

Which bred more beauty in his angry eyes." STEEVENS. maugre] i. e. in spite of. So, in David and Bethsabe,

"Maugre the sons of Ammon and of Syria." STEEVENS. 4 And that no woman has ;] And that heart and bosom I have never yielded to any woman. JOHNSON.

5 save I alone.] These three words Sir Thomas Hanmer gives to Olivia probably enough. JOHNSON.