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Sir And. Ay, he does well enough, if he be dispos'd, and so do I too; he does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural.

Sir To. O, the twelfth day of December,

Mar. For the love o' God, peace.

Enter MALVOLIO.

[Singing.

Mal. My masters, are you mad? or what are you? Have you no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like tinkers at this time of night? Do you make an ale-house of my lady's house, that ye squeak out your coziers' catches without any mitigation or remorse of voice? Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time, in you?

Sir To. We did keep time, sir, in our catches. Sneck up!1

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This song, or, at least, one with the same burthen, is alluded to in Ben Jonson's Magnetic Lady, Vol. IV, p. 449:

"Com. As true it is, lady, lady i' the song." Tyrwhitt. The oldest song that I have seen with this burthen is in the old Morality, entitled The Trial of Treasure, 4to. 1567. The following is one of the stanzas:

"Helene may not compared be,

"Nor Cressida that was so bright,
"These cannot stain the shine of thee,
"Nor yet Minerva of great might;
"Thou passest Venus far away,

"Lady, lady;

"Love thee I will, both night and day,

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My dere lady." Malone.

coziers' catches-] A cozier is a tailor, from coudre to

sew, part. cousu, Fr. Johnson.

Our author has again alluded to their love of vocal harmony in King Henry IV, P. 1:

"Lady. I will not sing.

"Hot. 'Tis the next way to turn tailor, or be redbreast teacher."

A cozier, it appears from Minshieu, signified a botcher, or mender of old clothes, and also a cobler.-Here it means the former. Malone.

Minshieu tells us, that cozier is a cobler or sowter: and, in Northamptonshire, the waxed thread which a cobler uses in mending shoes, we call a codger's end. Whalley.

A coziers' end is still used in Devonshire for a cobler's end.

Henley.

1 Sneck up!] The modern editors seem to have regarded this unintelligible phrase as the designation of a biccup. It is how

My

Mal. Sir Toby, I must be round with you. lady bade me tell you, that though she harbours you as her kinsman, she's nothing allied to your disorders. If you can separate yourself and your misdemeanors, you are welcome to the house; if not, an it would please you to take leave of her, she is very willing to bid your farewel.

Sir To. Farewel, dear heart,2 since I must needs be gone.

Mal. Nay, good sir Toby.

Clo. His eyes do shew his days are almost done.

Mal. Is't even so?

Sir To. But I will never die.

Clo. Sir Toby, there you lie.

Mal. This is much credit to you.

Sir To. Shall I bid him go?

Clo. What an if you do?

Sir To. Shall I bid him go, and spare not?

Clo. O no, no, no, no, you dare not.

[Singing.

Sir To. Out. o' time? sir, ye lie.3-Art any more than a "steward? Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?

ever used in Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle, as it should seem, on another occasion: "Let thy father go sneck up, he shall never come between a pair of sheets with me again while he lives."

Again, in the same play: "Give him his money, George, and let him go sneck up." Again, in Wily Beguiled: "An if my mistress would be ruled by him, Sophos might go snick up." Again, in The Two Angry Women of Abingdon, 1599: "* they be not, let them go snick up.”. Again, in Heywood's Fair Maid of the West, 1631, Blurt Master Constable, no date, &c.

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Perhaps in the two former of these instances, the words may be corrupted. In King Henry IV, P. L, Falstaff says; "The Prince is a Jack, a Sneak-cup." i. e. one who takes his glass in a sneaking manner. I think we might safely read sneak-cup, at least, in Sir Toby's reply to Malvolio. I should not however omit to mention that sneck the door is a north country expression for latch the door."

Mr. Malone and others observe, that from the manner in which this cant phrase is employed in our ancient comedies, it seems to have been synonymous to the modern expressionGo bang yourself. Steevens.

2 Farewel, dear heart, &c.] This entire song, with some variations, is published by Dr. Percy, in the first volume of his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. Steevens.

Clo.. Yes, by Saint Anne; and ginger shall be hot i' the mouth too.

Sir To. Thou 'rt i' the right.Go, sir, rub your chain with crums:5-A stoop of wine, Maria!

Mal. Mistress Mary, if you prized my lady's favour at any thing more than contempt, you would not give means for this uncivil rule; she shall know of it, by this hand. [Exit.

3 Out o' time? sir, ye lie,] The old copy has-" out o' tune." We should read, "out of time," as his speech evidently refers to what Malvolio said before:

"Have you no respect of place or time in you?
"Sir Toby. We did keep time, sir, in our catches."

M. Mason.

The same correction, I find, had been silently made by Theobald, and was adopted by the three subsequent editors. Sir Toby is here repeating with indignation Malvolio's words.

In the MSS. of our author's age, tune and time are often quite undistinguishable; the second stroke of the u seeming to be the first stroke of the m, or vice versâ. Hence, in Macbeth, Act IV, sc. ult. edit. 1623, we have "This time, goes manly," instead of "This tune goes manly." Malone.

4 Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?] It was the custom on holidays and saints days to make cakes in honour of the day. The Puritans called this, superstition; and in page 217 Maria says, that Malolio is sometimes a kind of Puritan. See Quarlous's Account of Rabbi Busy, Act I, sc. iii, in Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair.

5

Letherland.

rub your chain with crums:] That stewards anciently wore a chain, as a mark of superiority over other servants, may be proved from the following passage in The Martial Maid of Beaumont and Fletcher:

"Dost thou think I shall become the steward's chair? Will not these slender haunches shew well in a chain ?".

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Again:

"Pia. Is your chain right?

"Bob. It is both right and just, sir;

"For though I am a steward, I did get it
"With no man's wrong."

The best method of cleaning any gilt plate, is by rubbing it with crums. Nash, in his piece entitled Have with you to Saffron Walden, 1595, taxes Gabriel Harvey with "having stolen a nobleman's steward's chain, at his lord's installing at Windsor."

To conclude with the most apposite instance of all. Sce Webster's Dutchess of Malfy, 1623:

"Yea, and the chippings of the buttery fly after him, to scour his gold chain." Steevens.

Mar. Go shake your ears.

Sir And. 'Twere as good a deed as to drink when a man's a hungry, to challenge him to the field; and then to break promise with him, and make a fool of him.

Sir To. Do't, knight; I'll write thee a challenge: or I'll deliver thy indignation to him by word of mouth.

Mar. Sweet sir Toby, be patient for to-night; since the youth of the count's was to-day with my lady, she is much out of quiet. For monsieur Malvolio, let me alone with him: if I do not gull him into a nayword,7 and make him a common recreation, do not think I have wit enough to lie straight in my bed: I know, I can do it.

Sir To. Possess us,& possess us; tell us something of him.

Mar. Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of Puritan. Sir And. O, if I thought that, I'd beat him like a dog.

6 rule;] Rule is method of life; so misrule is tumult and riot. Johnson.

Rule, on this occasion, is something less than common method of life. It occasionally means the arrangement or conduct of a festival or merry-making, as well as behaviour in general, So, in the 27th song of Drayton's Polyolbion:

"Cast in a gallant round about the hearth they go,

"And at each pause they kiss; was never seen such rule "In any place but here, at bon-fire, or at yeule.”

Again, in Heywood's English Traveller, 1633:

"What guests we harbour, and what rule we keep."

Again, in Ben Jonson's Tale of a Tub:

"And set him in the stocks for his ill rule."

In this last instance it signifies behaviour.

There was formerly an officer belonging to the court, called Lord of Misrule. So, in Decker's Satiromastix: "I have some cousins-german at court shall beget you the reversion of the master of the king's revels, or else be lord of his Misrule now at Christmas." Again, in The Return from Parnassus, 1606: "We are fully bent to be lords of Misrule in the world's wild heath." In the country, at all periods of festivity, and in the inns of court at their Revels, an officer of the same kind was elected. Steevens.

7a nayword,] A nayword is what has been since called a byeword, a kind of proverbial reproach. Steevens.

8 Possess us,] That is, inform us, tell us, make us masters of the matter. Johnson.

Sir To. What, for being a Puritan? thy exquisite reason, dear knight?

Sir And. I have no exquisite reason for 't, but I have reason good enough.

Mar. The devil a Puritan that he is, or any thing constantly but a time-pleaser; an affection'd ass,' that cons state without book, and utters it by great swarths: the best persuaded of himself, so crammed, as he thinks, with excellencies, that it is his ground of faith, that all that look on him, love him; and on that vice in him will my revenge find notable cause to work.

Sir To. What wilt thou do?

Mar. I will drop in his way some obscure epistles of love; wherein, by the colour of his beard, the shape of his leg, the manner of his gait, the expressure of his eye, forehead, and complexion, he shall find himself most feelingly personated: I can write very like my lady, your niece; on a forgotten matter we can hardly make distinction of our hands.

Sir To. Excellent! I smell a device.

Sir And. I have't in my nose too.

Sir To. He shall think, by the letters that thou wilt drop, that they come from my niece, and that she is in love with him.

Mar. My purpose is, indeed, a horse of that colour. Sir And. And your horse now would make him an

ass.?

So, in The Merchant of Venice, Shylock says:

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I have possess'd your grace of what I purpose." Douce. 9 — an affection'd ass.] Affection'd means affected. In this I believe, it is used in Hamlet: " no matter in it that could indite the author of affection," i. e. affectation. Steevens.

sense,

1 great swarths:] A swarth is as much grass as a mower cuts down at one stroke of his scythe. Thus Pope, in his version of the 18th Iliad:

"Here stretch'd in ranks the levell'd swarths are found."

Steevens.

2 Sir And. And your horse now, &c.] This conceit, though bad enough, shews too quick an apprehension for Sir Andrew. It should be given, I believe, to Sir Toby; as well as the next short speech: "O, 'twill be admirable Sir Andrew does not usually give his own judgment on any thing, till he has heard that of some other person. Tyrwhitt.

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