It may be worth thy pains; for I can sing,
And speak to him in many sorts of music,
That will allow me very worth his service."
What else may hap, to time I will commit;
Only shape thou thy silence to my wit.

Cap. Be you his eunuch, and your mute I 'll be: When my tongue blabs, then let mine eyes not see! Vio. I thank thee: Lead me on.

SCENE III.

A Room in Olivia's House.

[Exeunt.

Enter, Sir TOBY BELCH, and MARIA.

Sir To. What a plague means my niece, to take the death of her brother thus? I am sure, care's an enemy to life.

Mar. By by troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier o'nights; your cousin, my lady, takes great exceptions to your ill hours.

Sir To. Why, let her except before excepted."

Mar. Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modest limits of order.

Sir To. Confine? I'll confine myself no finer than I am: these clothes are good enough to drink in, and so be these boots too; an they be not, let them hang themselves in their own straps.

Mar. That quaffing and drinking will undo you: I heard my lady talk of it yesterday; and of a foolish knight, that you brought in one night here, to be her

wooer.

Sir To. Who? Sir Andrew Ague-cheek?
Mar. Ay, he.

5 That will allow me ] To allow is to approve. So, in King Lear, Act II, sc. iv:

66 if your sweet sway

"Allow obedience -"Steevens.

let her except before excepted.] A ludicrous use of the formal law prase. Farmer.

Sir To. He's as tall a man as any 's in Illyria.
Mar. What's that to the purpose?

Sir To. Why, he has three thousand ducats a year. Mar. Ay, but he'll have but a year in all these ducats; he's a very fool, and a prodigal.

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Sir To. Fye, that you'll say so! he plays o' the violde-gambo, and speaks three or four languages word for word without book, and hath all the good gifts of

nature.

Mar. He hath, indeed,-almost natural: for, besides that he's a fool, he 's a great quarreller; and, but that he hath the gift of a coward to allay the gust he hath in quarrelling, 'tis thought among the prudent, he would quickly have the gift of a grave.

Sir To. By this hand they are scoundrels, and subtractors, that say so of him. Who are they?

Mar. They that add moreover, he 's drunk nightly in your company.

Sir To. With drinking healths to my niece; I'll drink to her, as long as there is a passage in my throat and drink in Illyria: He's a coward, and a coystril,1

as tall a man -] Tall means stout, courageous. So, in Wily Beguiled:

Again:

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Ay, and he is a tall fellow, and a man of his hands too."

"If he do not prove himself as tall a man as he." Steevens. 8 viol-de-gambo,] The viol-de-gambo seems, in our author's time, to have been a very fashionable instrument. In The Return from Parnassus, 1606, it is mentioned, with its proper derivation:

"Her viol-de-gambo is her best content,

"For 'twixt her legs she holds her instrument." Collins. So, in the Induction to the Mal-content, 1606:

come sit between my legs here."

"No indeed, cousin; the audience will then take me for a viol-de-gambo, and think that you play upon me."

In the old dramatic writers, frequent mention is made of a case of viols, consisting of a viol-de-gambo, the tenor and the

treble.

See Sir John Hawkins's Hist. of Music, Vol. IV, p. 32, n. 338, wherein is a description of a case more properly termed a chest of viols. Steevens.

9 He hath indeed,-almost natural:] Mr. Upton proposes to regulate this passage differently:

"He hath indeed, all, most natural. Malone.

that will not drink to my niece, till his brains turn o' the toe like a parish-top.

What, wench? Castiliano vulgo;3 for here comes Sir Andrew Ague-face.

Enter Sir ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK,

Sir And. Sir Toby Belch! how now, Sir Toby Belch?

a coystril,] i. e. a coward cock. It may, however, be a keystril, or a bastard hawk; a kind of stone-hawk. So, in Arden of Feversham, 1592:

66

as dear

"As ever coystril bought so little sport." Steevens.

A coystril is a paltry groom, one only fit to carry arms, but not to use them. So in Holinshed's Description of England, Vol. I, p. 162: "Costerels, or bearers of the armes of barons or knights." Vol. III, p. 248: "So that a knight with his esquire and coistrell with his two horses." P. 272: women lackies and coisterels, are considered as the unwarlike attendants on an army." So, again, in p. 127, and 217 of his History of Scotland. For its etymology, see Coustille and Coustillier in Cotgrave's Dictionary. Tollet.

2 like a parish-top.] This is one of the customs now laid aside. A large top was formerly kept in every village, to be whipped in frosty weather, that the peasants might be kept warm by exercise, and out of mischief, while they could not work. The same comparison is brought forward in the Night Walker of Fletcher:

"And dances like a town-top, and reels and hobbles." Steevens. "To sleep like a town-top," is a proverbial expression. A top is said to sleep, when it turns round with great velocity, and makes a smooth humming noise. Blackstone.

3 Castiliano vulgo;] We should read volto. In English, put on your Castilian countenance; that is, your grave, solemn looks. Warburton.

Castiliano vulgo;] I meet with the word Castilian and Castilians in several of the old comedies. It is difficult to assign any peculiar propriety to it, unless it was adopted immediately after the defeat of the Armada, and became a cant term capriciously expressive of jollity or contempt. The Host, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, calls Caius a Castilian-king Urinal; and in The Merry Devil of Edmonton, one of the characters says: "Ha! my Castilian dialogues!" In an old comedy called Look about you, 1600, it is joined with another toper's exclamation very frequent in Shakspeare:

"And Rivo will he cry, and Castile too."

So again, in Marlowe's Few of Malta, 1633: "Hey, Rivo Castiliano, man's a man."

Again, in The Stately Moral of the Three Lords of London, 1590: "Three Cavaliero's Castilianos here," &c.

Sir To. Sweet sir Andrew!

Sir And. Bless you, fair shrew.

Mar. And you too, sir.

Sir To. Accost, sir Andrew, accost.
Sir And. What's that?

Sir To. My niece's chamber-maid.

Sir And. Good mistress Accost, I desire better acquaintance.

Mar. My name is Mary, sir.

Sir And. Good Mistress Mary Accost,

Sir To. You mistake, knight: accost, is, front her, board her, woo her, assail her.

Cotgrave, however, informs us, that Castille not only signifies the noblest part of Spain, but contention, debate, brabling, altercation. Ils sont en Castille. There is a jarre betwixt them; and prendre la Castille pour autruy: To undertake another man's quarrel. Steevens.

Mr. Steevens has not attempted to explain vulgo, nor perhaps can the proper explanation be given, unless some incidental application of it may be found in connexion with Castiliano, where the context defines its meaning. Sir Toby here, having just declared that he would persist in drinking the health of his niece, as long as there was a passage in his throat, and drink in Illyria, at the sight of Sir Andrew, demands of Maria, with a banter, Castiliano vulgo. What this was, may be probably inferred from a speech in The Shoemaker's Holiday, 4to, 1610: " -- Away, firke, scower thy throat, thou shalt wash it with Gastilian licuor." Henley.

4 Accost, sir Andrew, accost.] To accost, had a signification in our author's time that the word now seems to have lost. In the second part of The English Dictionary, by H. C. 1655, in which the reader "who is desirous of a more refined and elegant speech," is furnished with hard words, " to draw near,” is explained thus: "To accost, appropriate, appropinquate." See also Cotgrave's Dict. in verb. accoster. Malone.

5

board her,]"I hinted that bourd was the better reading. Mr. Steevens supposed it should then be bourd with her; but to the authorities which I have quoted for that reading n Jonson, Catiline, Act I, sc. iv, we may add the following: “I'll bourd him straight; how now Cornelio ?”

All Fools, Act V, sc. i. "He brings in a parasite that flowteth, and bourdeth them Nash's Lenten Stuff, 1599.

thus."

"I can bourd when I see occasion."

'Tis Pity she's a Whore, p. 38. Whalley.

Sir And. By my troth, I would not undertake her in this company. Is that the meaning of accost? Mar. Fare you well, gentlemen.

Sir To. An thou let part so, sir Andrew, 'would thou might'st never draw sword again.

Sir And. An you part so, mistress, I would I might never draw sword again. Fair lady, do you think you have fools in hand?

Mar. Sir, I have not you by the hand.

Sir And. Marry, but you shall have; and here's my hand.

Mar. Now, sir, thought is free: I pray you, bring your hand to the buttery-bar, and let it drink.

Sir And. Wherefore, sweet heart? what's your metaphor?

Mar. It's dry, sir,7

I am still unconvinced that board (the naval term) is not the proper reading. It is sufficiently familiar to our author in other places. So, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act II, sc. i:

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unless he knew some strain in me, that I know not myself, he would never have boarded me in this fury.

"Mrs. Ford. Boarding, call you it? I'll be sure to keep him above deck," &c. &c. Steevens.

Probably board her may mean no more than salute her, speak to her, &c. Sir Kenelm Digby, in his Treatise of Bodies, 1643, fol. Paris, p. 253, speaking of a blind man says: "He would at the first aboard of a stranger, as soone as he spoke to him, frame a right apprehension of his stature, bulke, and manner of mak

ing. Reed.

To board is certainly to accost, or address. So, in the History of Celestina the Faire, 1596: " whereat Alderine somewhat displeased for she would verie faine have knowne who he was, boorded him thus. Ritson.

6 Fair lady, do you think you have fools in hand?

Mar. Now, sir, thought is free:] There is the same pleasantry in Lyly's Euphues, 1581: "None (quoth she) can judge of wit but they that have it; why then (quoth he) doest thou think me a fool? Thought is free, my Lord, quoth she." Holt White.

7 It's dry sir.] What is the jest of dry hand, I know not any better than Sir Andrew. It may possibly mean, a hand with no money in it; or, according to the rules of physiognomy, she may intend to insinuate, that it is not a lover's hand, a moist hand being vulgarly accounted a sign of an amorous constitution. Johnson.

So, in Monsieur D'Olive, 1606: "But to say you had a dull eye, a sharp nose (the visible marks of a shrew): a dry hand,