Leon. No, no; we will hold it as a dream till it appear 2 itself but I will acquaint my daughter withal, that she may be the better prepared for an answer, if peradventure this be true. Go and tell her of it. — [Exit ANTONIO.- Several persons cross the stage.] Cousin,3 you know what you have to do. O, I cry you mercy,4 friend; go you with me, and I will use your skill. - Good cousin, have a care this busy time.

you

[Exeunt.

SCENE III. · Another Room in LEONATO's House.

Enter Don JOHN and CONRADE.

Con. What the good-year, 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.

Con. You should hear reason.

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

eth it?

Con, If not a present remedy, yet a patient sufferance.
D. John. I wonder that thou, being (as thou say'st thou

2 Appear is used repeatedly by the Poet as a transitive verb, and in the sense of to show, to manifest, to make apparent. So in Cymbeline, iv. 2: "This youth, howe'er distress'd, appears he hath had good ancestors." Also in Coriolanus, iv. 3, in the passive voice: "Your favour is well appeared by your tongue." And in Troilus and Cressida, iii. 3: "Appear it to your mind that, through the sight I bear in things to come," &c. - This use of the word was pointed out to me by Mr. Joseph Crosby.

3 Leonato sees his brother's son crossing the stage among the other persons, and stops him. Cousin was constantly used for nephew, niece, or, more generally still, for kinsman.

4 "I cry you mercy" is I ask your pardon. Used constantly so by the Poet. See vol. iii., page 46, note 14.

1 Good-year is best explained as a corruption of the French goujeer, the old name of what was known far and wide as the morbus Gallicus. If that explanation be right, which some doubt, it presents a strange instance of the transmogrification of words into the reverse of their original senses,

art) born under Saturn,2 goest about to apply a moral medicine to a mortifying mischief. I cannot hide what I am :3 I must be sad when I have cause, and smile at no man's jests; eat when I have stomach, and wait for no man's leisure; sleep when I am drowsy, and tend on no man's business; laugh when I am merry, and claw4 no man in his humour.

Con. Yea, but you must not make the full show of this till you may do it without controlment. You have of late stood out against your brother, and he hath ta'en you newly into his grace; where it is impossible you should take true root but by the fair weather that you make yourself: it is needful that you frame the season for your own harvest.

D. John. I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace; and it better fits my blood to be disdain'd of all than to fashion a carraige to rob love from any in this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle, and enfranchised with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking: in the mean time let me be that I am, and seek not to alter

me.

Con. Can you make no use of your

discontent?

2 In old astrological language, to be "born under Saturn" was to have a "Saturnine complexion," as it was called; that is, to be of a moping, melancholy, or misanthropic temper.

3 An envious and unsocial mind, too proud to give pleasure and too sullen to receive it, often endeavours to hide its malignity from the world, and from itself, under the plainness of simple honesty or the dignity of haughty independence.

4 To claw, in the sense of to scratch, and to ease by scratching, was sometimes used for to soothe, flatter, or curry favour. See vol. ii., page 52, note II. 5 This use of grace in the sense of favour was very common.

6 The meaning is, "I would rather be a wild dog-rose in a hedge than a garden rose of his cherishing." Richardson says that in Devonshire the dogrose is called canker-rose.

D. John. I make all use of it, for I use it only.7 — Who comes here?

What news, Borachio?

Enter BORACHIO.

Bora. I came yonder from a great supper: the Prince your brother is royally entertained by Leonato; and I can give you intelligence of an intended marriage.

D. John. Will it serve for any model to build mischief on? What is he for a fool that betroths himself to unquietness?

Bora. Marry, it is your brother's right hand.

D. John. Who, the most exquisite Claudio?
Bora. Even he.

D. John. A proper squire! And who, and who? which way looks he?

Bora. Marry, on Hero, the daughter and heir of Leonato. D. John. A very forward March-chick! 9 How came you

to this?

Bora. Being entertained for a perfumer, as I was smoking a musty room,10 comes me the Prince and Claudio, hand in hand, in sad 11 conference: I whipt me behind the arras; 12 and there heard it agreed upon, that the Prince should woo Hero for himself, and having obtain'd her, give her to Count Claudio.

་་

7 I use nothing else; have no other counsellor.

8 Model is here used in an unusual sense; but Bullokar explains it, 'Model, the platforme, or form of any thing."

9 A presumptuous or aspiring youngster; thinking to marry much above his rank. Claudio is regarded as a pushing upstart.

10 Such a perfuming of rooms was often resorted to as a substitute for cleanliness. So in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy: "The smoke of juniper is in great request with us at Oxford, to sweeten our chambers."

11 Sad, again, for serious, earnest, grave. See page 161, note 17.

12 Arras were the tapestries with which rooms were lined before plastering grew into use; so named from a town in France where they were made,

D. John. Come, come, let us thither: this may prove food to my displeasure. That young start-up hath all the glory of my overthrow: if I can cross him any way, I bless myself every way. You are both sure,13 and will assist me?

Con. To the death, my lord.

D. John. Let us to the great supper: their cheer is the greater that I am subdued. Would the cook were of my mind! Shall we go prove what's to be done? Bora. We'll wait upon your lordship.

[Exeunt.

ACT II.

SCENE I.-A Hall in LEONATO's House.

Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, HERO, BEATRICE, and others.

Leon. Was not Count John here at supper?

Ant. I saw him not.

Beat. How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am heart-burn'd an hour after.

Hero. He is of a very melancholy disposition.

Beat. He were an excellent man that were made just in the midway between him and Benedick: the one is too like an image, and says nothing; and the other too like my lady's eldest son, evermore tattling.

Leon. Then half Signior Benedick's tongue in Count John's mouth, and half Count John's melancholy in Signior Benedick's face,

Beat. With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his purse, such a man would win any woman in the world, if he could get her good-will.

13 Sure is still used sometimes in the sense of to be relied upon.

Leon. By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.

Ant. In faith, she's too curst.

Beat. Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God's sending that way; for it is said, God sends a curst cow short horns; but to a cow too curst He sends none.

Leon. So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns. Beat. Just, if He send me no husband; for the which blessing I am at Him upon my knees every morning and evening. Lord, I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face I had rather lie in the woollen.1

Leon. You may light on a husband that hath no beard. Beat. What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel, and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth; and he that hath no beard is less than a man: and he that is more than a youth is not for me; and he that is less than a man, I am not for him therefore I will even take sixpence in earnest of the bear-ward, and lead his apes into Hell.

Leon. Well, then, go you into Hell?

Beat. No; but to the gate; and there will the Devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say, Get you to Heaven, Beatrice, get you to Heaven; here's no place for you maids: so deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the Heavens,3 he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long.

1 Probably meaning, lie between the blankets, without sheets. Beatrice is thinking, apparently, that a beard would make kissing rather uncomfortable. Wearing woollen next the skin was sometimes imposed as a penance. See vol. ii., page 104, note 71.

2 Bear-ward is, properly, a keeper of a bear or bears: here it seems to stand for a showman of strange beasts in general, and of monkeys in particular. Beatrice is alluding to certain odd old notions about the future destiny of those who die old maids. See vol. ii., page 174, note 2.

3" For the Heavens " is probably intended here as a petty oath.