LEON. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes: his grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it!

BEAT. Speak, count, 'tis your cue.

CLAUD. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy : I were but little happy, if I could say how much.Lady, as you are mine, I am yours: I give away myself for you, and dote upon the exchange.

BEAT. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss, and let him not speak, neither. D. PEDRO. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart.

BEAT. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool', it keeps on the windy side of care:-My cousin tells him in his ear, that he is in her heart.

8

CLAUD. And so she doth, cousin. BEAT. Good lord, for alliance !-Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sun-burned;

7

-poor fool,] This was formerly an expression of tenderness. See King Lear, last scene: "And my poor fool is hang'd."

MALONE.

8 Good lord, for ALLIANCE!] Claudio has just called Beatrice cousin. I suppose, therefore, the meaning is,- Good Lord, here have I got a new kinsman by marriage.' MALOne.

I cannot understand these words, unless they imply a wish for the speaker's alliance with a husband. STEEVENS.

I explain them: Good Lord, how many alliances are forming! Every one is likely to be married but me.' BOSWELL.

9 Thus goes every one to the WORLD but I, and I am SUNBURNED;] What is it, to go to the world? perhaps, to enter by marriage into a settled state; but why is the unmarried lady sun-burnt? I believe we should read,— Thus goes every one to the wood but I, and I am sun-burnt. Thus does every one but I find a shelter, and I am left exposed to wind and sun.' "The nearest way to the wood," is a phrase for the readiest means to any end. It is said of a woman, who accepts a worse match than those which she had refused, that "she has passed through the wood, and at last taken a crooked stick." But conjectural criticism has always something to abate its confidence. Shakspeare, in All's Well that Ends Well, uses the phrase, to go to the world, for marriage.

I may sit in a corner, and cry, heigh ho! for a hus

band.

D. PEDRO. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.

BEAT. I would rather have one of your father's getting: Hath your grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them.

D. PEDRO. Will you have me, lady?

BEAT. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working-days; your grace is too costly to wear every day :-But, I beseech your grace, pardon me; I was born to speak all mirth, and no matter.

D. PEDRO. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in a merry hour.

BEAT. No, sure, my lord, my mother cry'd; but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born.-Cousins, God give you joy!

LEON. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of?

BEAT. I cry you mercy, uncle.-By your grace's pardon. [Exit BEATRICE. D. PEDRO. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. LEON. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord: she is never sad, but when she sleeps; and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say, she hath often dreamed of unhappiness, and waked herself with laughing.

So that my emendation depends only on the opposition of wood to sun-burnt. JOHNSON.

"I am sun-burnt" may mean, I have lost my beauty, and am consequently no longer such an object as can tempt a man to marry.' STEEVENS. There's little of the MELANCHOLY ELEMENT in her,] "Does not our life consist of the four elements?" says Sir Toby, in Twelfth-Night. So, also in King Henry V.: "He is pure and fire, and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him." MALONE.

air

D. PEDRO. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband.

LEON. O, by no means; she mocks all her wooers out of suit.

D. PEDRO. She were an excellent wife for Benedick.

LEON. O lord, my lord, if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad.

D. PEDRO. Count Claudio, when mean you to go to church?

CLAUD. To-morrow, my lord: Time goes on crutches, till love have all his rites.

LEON. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just seven-night; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind.

D. PEDRO. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but, I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us; I will, in the interim, undertake one of Hercules' labours; which is, to bring signior Benedick, and the lady Beatrice, into a mountain of affection, the one with the other ". I

2

she hath often dreamed of UNHAPPINESS,] So all the editions; but Mr. Theobald alters it to, an happiness, having no conception that unhappiness meant any thing but misfortune, and that, he thinks, she could not laugh at. He had never heard that it signified a wild, wanton, unlucky trick. Beaumont and Fletcher, in their comedy of The Maid of the Mill:

3

Thus

"My dreams are like my thoughts, honest and innocent: "Yours are unhappy." WARBUrton.

into a MOUNTAIN of affection, the one with the other.] A mountain of affection with one another, is a strange expression, yet I know not well how to change it. Perhaps it was originally written to bring Benedick and Beatrice into a mooting of affec tion; to bring them not to any more mootings of contention, but to a mooting or conversation of love. This reading is confirmed by the preposition with; a mountain with each other,' or 'affection with each other,' cannot be used, but 'a mooting with each other' is proper and regular. JOHNSON.

Uncommon as the word proposed by Dr. Johnson may appear,

would fain have it a match; and I doubt not but to fashion it, if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction.

LEON. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings.

CLAUD. And I, my lord.

D. PEDRO. And you too, gentle Hero?

HERO. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband.

D. PEDRO. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know: thus far can I praise him; he is of a noble strain, of approved valour,

it is used in several of the old plays. So, in Glapthorne's Wit in a Constable, 1639:

"Had mooted in the hall, or seen the revels

Kept in the house at Christmas."

Again, in The Return from Parnassus, 1606 :

"It is a plain case, whereon I mooted in our temple."

Again :

at a mooting in our temple." Ibid.

And yet, all that I believe is meant by a mountain of affection is, a great deal of affection.

In one of Stanyhurst's poems is the following phrase to denote a large quantity of love:

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Lumps of love promist, nothing perform'd," &c.

Again, in the Renegado, by Massinger :

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-'tis but parting with

"A mountain of vexation."

Thus, also in King Henry VIII. we find "a sea of glory." In Hamlet, "a sea of troubles." Again, in Howel's History of Venice : though they see mountains of miseries heaped on one's back." Again, in Bacon's History of King Henry VII.: "Perkin sought to corrupt the servants to the lieutenant of the tower by mountains of promises." Again, in The Comedy of Errors: "the mountain of mad flesh that claims marriage of me." Little can be inferred from the present offence against grammar; an offence which may not strictly be imputable to Shakspeare, but rather to the negligence or ignorance of his transcribers or printers. STEEVENS.

Shakspeare has many phrases equally harsh. He who would hazard such expressions as a storm of fortune, a vale of years, and a tempest of provocation, would not scruple to write a mountain of affection. MALONE.

and confirmed honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick:-and I, with your two helps, will so practice on Benedick, that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Another Room in LEONATO's House.

Enter Don JOHN and BORACHIO.

D. JOHN. It is so; the count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato.

BORA. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it.

D. JOHN. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be medicinable to me: I am sick in displeasure to him; and whatsoever comes athwart his affection, ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage?

BORA. Not honestly, my lord; but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me.

D. JOHN. Show me briefly how.

4 — a NOBLE strain,] i. e. descent, lineage. So, in The Fairy Queen, b. iv. c. viii. s. 33:

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Sprung from the auncient stocke of prince's straine."

Again, b. v. c. ix. s. 32 :

"Sate goodly temperaunce in garments clene,

"And sacred reverence yborn of heavenly strene.”

It was used in the same sense by Shadwell, in his Virtuoso, Act I.: "Gentlemen care not upon what strain they get their sons." REED.

Again, in King Lear, Act V. Sc. III. :

Sir, you have shown to-day your valiant strain." STEEVENS. 5 QUEASY Stomach,] i. e. squeamish. So, in Antony and Cleopatra :

Who queasy with his insolence already." STEEVENS.