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D. PEDRO. You embrace your charge too willingly. I think, this is your daughter.

LEON. Her mother hath many times told me fo. BENE. Were you in doubt, fir, that you ask'd her?

LEON. Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a child.

D. PEDRO. You have it full, Benedick: we may guefs by this what you are, being a man. Truly, the lady fathers herfelf:- Be happy, lady! for you are like an honourable father.

BENE. If fignior Leonato be her father, fhe would not have his head on her fhoulders, for all Meffina, as like him as she is.

BEAT. I wonder, that you will still be talking, fignior Benedick; no body marks you.

BENE. What, my dear lady Difdain! are you yet living?

BEAT. Is it poffible, difdain fhould die, while fhe hath fuch meet food to feed it, as fignior Benedick? Courtefy itself must convert to difdain, if you come in her presence.

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BENE. Then is courtefy a turn-coat: But it is certain, I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none.

3 your charge-] That is, your burden, your incumbrance.

Charge does not mean, as Dr. Johnfon explains it, cumbrance, but "the perfon committed to your care. ufed in the relationship between guardian and ward.

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fuch meet food to feed it, as fignior Benedick?] A kindred

thought occurs in Coriolanus, A& II. fc. i:

"Our very priests must become mockers, if they encounter fuch ridiculous fubjects as you are. STEEVENS.

BEAT. A dear happiness to women; they would else have been troubled with a pernicious fuitor. I thank God, and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that; I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man fwear he loves me.

BENE. God keep your ladyfhip ftill in that mind! fo fome gentleman or other fhall 'fcape a predeftinate fcratched face.

BEAT. Scratching could not make it worse, an 'twere fuch a face as yours were.

BENE. Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher. BEAT. A bird of my tongue, is better than a beast of yours.

BENE. I would, my horfe had the speed of your tongue; and fo good a continuer: But keep your way o' God's name; I have done.

BEAT. You always end with a jade's trick; I know you of old.

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D. PEDRO. This is the fum of all: Leonato,fignior Claudio, and fignior Benedick, my dear friend Leonato, hath invited you all. I tell him, we fhall flay here at the leaft a month; and he heartily prays, fome occafion may detain us longer: I dare fwear he is no hypocrite, but prays from his heart.

LEON. If you fwear, my lord, you shall not be forfworn. Let me bid you welcome, my lord: being reconciled to the prince your brother, I owe you all duty.

D. JOHN. I thank you:' I am not of many words, but I thank you.

LEON. Please it your grace lead on?

I thank you:] The poet has judiciously marked the gloominess of Don John's character, by making him averse to the common forms of civility. SIR J. HAWKINS,

D. PEDRO. Your hand, Leonato; we will go together.

[Exeunt all but BENEDICK and CLAUDIO. CLAUD. Benedick, didft thou note the daughter of fignior Leonato?

BENE. I noted her not; but I looked on her. CLAUD. Is he not a modeft young lady?

BENE. Do you queftion me, as an honeft man fhould do, for my fimple true judgement? or would you have me fpeak after my cuftom, as being a profeffed tyrant to their fex?

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CLAUD. No, I pray thee, speak in foberjudgement. BENE. Why, i'faith, methinks fhe is too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praife, and too little for a great praise: only this commendation I can afford her; that were fhe other than fhe is, fhe were unhandfome; and being no other but as she is, I do not like her.

CLAUD. Thou thinkeft, I am in fport; I pray thee, tell me truly how thou likeft her.

BENE. Would you buy her, that you inquire after her?

CLAUD. Can the world buy such a jewel?

BENE. Yea, and a cafe to put it into. But speak you this with a fad brow? or do you play the flouting Jack; to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder,

the flouting Jack;] Jack, in our author's time, I know not why, was a term of contempt. So, in King Henry IV. P. I. the prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup.' Again, in The Taming of the Shrew :

A& III: "

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"And twangling Jack, with twenty fuch vile terms, &c. See in Minfheu's Dict. 1617: "A Jack fauce, or faucie Jack. See also Chaucer's Cant. Tales, ver. 14816, and the note, edit. Tyrwhitt. Malone.

and Vulcan a rare carpenter? Come, in what key shall a man take you, to go in the song?

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CLAUD. In mine eye; fhe is the fweeteft lady that ever I looked on.

BENE. I can fee yet without fpectacles, and I fee no fuch matter: there's her coufin, an fhe were not poffeffed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty, as the firft of May doth the laft of December. But I hope, you have no intent to turn husband; have you?

to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder, &c.] I know not Claudio hints his whether I conceive the jet here intended. love of Hero. Benedick afks, whether he is ferious, or whether he only means to jeft, and to tell them that Cupid is a good harefinder, and Vulcan a rare carpenter. A man praising a pretty lady in jeft, may how the quick fight of Cupid, but what has it to do with the carpentry of Vulcan? Perhaps the thought lies no deeper than this, Do you mean to tell us as new what we all know already? JOHNSON.

I believe no more is meant by thofe ludicrous expreffions than this. Do you mean, fays Benedick, to amufe us with improbable

ftories?

An ingenious correfpondent, whofe fignature is R. W. explains the paffage in the fame fenfe, but more amply. "Do you mean to tell us that love is not blind, and that fire will not confume what is combuftible?" for both thefe propofitions are implied in making Cupid a good hare-finder, and Vulcan (the God of fire) a good carpenter. In other words, would you convince me, whofe opinion on this head is well known, that you can be in love without being blind, and can play with the flame of beauty without being Scorched. STEEVENS.

I explain the paffage thus: Do you fcoff and mock in telling us that Cupid, who is blind, is a good hare-finder, which requires a quick eye-fight; and that Vulcan, a blacksmith, is a rare carpenter?

TOLLET.

After fuch attempts at decent illufiration, I am afraid that he who wishes to know why Cupid is a good hare-finder, must discover it by the affifiance of many quibbling allufions of the fame fort, about hair and hoar, in Mercutio's fong in the fecond A& of Romeo and Juliet. Collins.

to

go

in the fong?] i. e. to join with you in your fongto frike in with you in the fong.

STEEVENS.

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CLAUD. I would fcarce truft myself, though I had fworn the contrary, if Hero would be my wife.

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BENE. Is it come to this, i'faith? Hath not the world one man, but he will wear his cap with fufpicion? Shall I never fee a bachelor of threefcore again? Go to, i'faith; an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it, and figh away Sundays. Look, Don Pedro is returned to feek

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Re-enter Don PEDRO.

you.

D. PEDRO. What fecret hath held you here, that. you followed not to Leonato's?

wear his cap with fufpicion?] That is, fubje&t his head to the difquiet of jealousy. JOHNSON.

In Painter's Palace of Pleasure, p. 233, we have the following palfage: "All they that weare hornes be pardoned to weare their cappes upon their heads. HENDERSON.

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In our author's time none but the inferior claffes wore caps, and fuch perfons were termed in contempt flat-caps. All gentlemen wore hats. Perhaps therefore the meaning is, Is there not one man in the world prudent enough to keep out of that ftate where he muft live in apprehenfion that his night-cap will be worn occafionally by another. So, in Othello:

For I fear Caffio with my night-cap too." MALONE.

If this remark on the difufe of caps among people of higher rank be accurate, Sir Chriftopher Hatton, and other worthies of the court of Elizabeth, have been injuriously treated; for the painters of their time exhibit feveral of them with caps on their heads. -It fhould be remembered that there was a material distinction between the plain ftatute-caps of citizens, and the ornamented ones worn by gentlemen. STEEVENS.

Jigh away Sundays.] A proverbial expreffion to fignify that a man has no reft at all; when Sunday, a day formerly of cafe and diverfion, was paffed fo uncomfortably. WARBURTON.

I cannot find this proverbial expreffion in any ancient book whatever. I am apt to believe that the learned commentator has mistaken the drift of it, and that it most probably alludes to the ftrict manner in which the fabbath was obferved by the Puritans, who usually spent that day in fighs and gruntings, and other hypocritical marks of devotion. STEEVENS.

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