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BENE. I would, your grace would conftrain me to tell.

D. PEDRO. I charge thee on thy allegiance.

BENE. You hear, Count Claudio: I can be secret as a dumb man, I would have you think fo; but on my allegiance,-mark you this, on my allegiance: -He is in love. With who? now that is your grace's part Mark, how fhort his answer is: --With Hero, Leonato's fhort daughter.

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CLAUD. If this were fo, fo were it uttered. * BENE. Like the old tale, my lord: it is not fo, nor 'twas not fo; but, indeed, God forbidit fhould be fo. CLAUD. If my paffion change not shortly, God forbid it fhould be otherwise.

D. PEDRO. Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy.

CLAUD. You speak this to fetch me in, my lord. D. PEDRO. By my troth, I speak my thought. CLAUD. And, in faith, my lord, I fpoke mine. BENE. And, by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine.

Claud. If this were fo, fo were it uttered.] This and the three next speeches I do not well understand; there feems fomething omitted relating to Hero's confent, or to Claudio's marriage, elfe I know not what Claudio can wifh not to be otherwife. The copies all read alike. Perhaps it may be better thus:

Claud. If this were fo, fo were it.

Bene. Uttered like the old tale, &c.

Claudio gives a fullen anfwer, if it is fo, fo it is. Still there feems fomething omitted which Claudio and Pedro concur in wifhing. JOHNSON.

Claudio, evading at firft a confeffion of his paffion, fays; if I had really confided such a secret to him, yet he would have blabbed it in this manner. In his next fpeech, he thinks proper to avow his love; and when Benedick fays, God forbid it should be fo, i. c. God forbid he should even wish to marry her; Claudio replies, God forbid I fhould not wifh it. STEEVENS.

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I spoke mine.] Thus the quarto, 1600. The folio reads

CLAUD. That I love her, I feel.

D. PEDRO. That fhe is worthy, I know.

BENE. That I neither feel how fhe fhould be loved. nor know how she should be worthy, is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me; I will die in it at the ftake.

D. PEDRO. Thou waft ever an obftinate heretick in the despite of beauty.

CLAUD. And never could maintain his part, but in the force of his will.

BENE. That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewife give her moft humble thanks: but that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an

"I speak mine."

But the former is right. Benedick means, that he poke his mind when he faid "God forbid it fhould be fo;" i. e. that Claudio should be in love, and marry in confequence of his paffion. STEEVENS.

but in the force of his will.] Alluding to the definition of a heretick in the schools. WARBURTON.

but that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead,] That is, I will wear a horn on my forehead which the huntsman may blow. A recheate is the found by which dogs are called back. Shakspeare had no mercy upon the poor cuckold, his horn is an inexhauftible fubje& of merriment. JOHNSON.

So, in The Return from Parnaffus: “

When you blow the

death of your fox in the field or covert, then you must found three notes, with three winds; and recheat, mark you, fir, upon the fame three winds.

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"Now, fir, when you come to your ftately gate, as you founded the recheat before, fo now you muft found the relief three times.

Again, in The Book of Huntynge, &c. bl. 1. no date: Blow the whole rechate with three wyndes, the firft wynde one longe and fix fhorte. The feconde wynde two fhorte and one longe. The thred wynde one longe and two fhorte.

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Among Bagford's Collections relative to Typography, in the British Museum, 1044, II. C. is an engraved half fheet, containing the ancient Hunting Notes of England, &c. Among thefe, I find,

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invifible baldrick, all women fhall pardon me: Because I will not do them the wrong to miftrust any, I will do myself the right to truft none; and the fine is, (for the which I may go the finer,) I will live a bachelor.

D. PEDRO. I shall fee thee, ere I die, look pale with love.

BENE. With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord; not with love: prove, that ever I lofe more blood with love, than I will get again with drinking, pick out mine eyes with a ballad-maker's pen, and hang me up at the door of a brothel-house, for the fign of blind Cupid.

D. PEDRO. Well, if ever thou doft fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument.

BENE. If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat, 8

Single, Double, and Treble Recheats, Running Recheat, Warbling Recheat, another Recheat with the tongue very hard, another smoother Recheat, and another warbling Recheat. The mufical notes are

affixed to them all. STEEVENS.

A recheate is a particular leffon upon the horn, to call dogs back from the fcent: from the old French word recet, which was used in the fame fenfe as retraite. HANMER.

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hang my bugle in an invifible baldrick,] Bugle, i. c. buglehorn, hunting-horn. The meaning feems to be or that I fhould be con pelled to carry a horn on my forehead where there is nothing vifible to fupport it. So, in John Alday's tranflation of Pierre Boifteau's Theatrum Mundi, &c. bl. 1. no date; hazard wherin thou art (fayth William de la Perriere) that thy round head become not forked, which were a fearfull fight if it were visible and apparent.

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Beholde the

It is ftill faid of the mercenary cuckold, that he carries his horns in his pockets.

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STEEVENS.

notable argument. ] An eminent fubject for fatire.

JOHNSON.

in a bottle like a cat,] As to the cat and bottle, I can

procure no better information than the following.

In fome counties in England, a cat was formerly closed up with a quantity of foot in a wooden bottle, (fuch as that in which

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and fhoot at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the fhoulder, and call'd Adam.

fhepherds carry their liquor,) and was suspended on a line. He who beat out the bottom as he ran under it, and was nimble enough to escape its contents, was regarded as the hero of this inhuman diverfion.

Again, in Warres, or the Peace is broken, bl. 1. "arrowes flew fafter than they did at a catte in a basket, when Prince Arthur, or the Duke of Shordich, ftrucke up the drumme in the field.

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In a Poem, however, called Cornu-copiæ, or Pafquil's Night-cap, or an Antidote to the Head ache, 1623, p. 48, the following paffage

Occurs:

"Fairer than any flake in Greys-inn field, &c. "Guarded with gunners, bill-men, and a rout "Of bow-men bold, which at a cat do Jhoot." Again, ibid:

"Nor at the top a cat-a-mount was fram'd,
"Or fome wilde beaft that ne'er before was tam'd;
"Made at the charges of fome archer ftout,
"To have his name canoniz'd in the clout.

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The foregoing quotations may ferve to throw fome light on Benedick's allufion. They prove, however, that it was the custom to fhoot at factitious as well as real cats. STEEVENS.

This practice is ftill kept up at Kelfo, in Scotland, where it is called Cat-in-barrel. See a defcription of the whole ceremony in a little account of the town of Kelso, published in 1789, by one Ebenezer Lazarus, a filly Methodist, who has interlarded his book with fcraps of pious and other poetry. Speaking of this fport, he fays:

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The cat in the barrel exhibits fuch a farce,

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"That he who can relifh it is worse than an afs. DOUCE. and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder, and call'd Adam.] But why fhould he therefore be called Adam? Perhaps, by a quotation or two we may be able to trace the poet's allufion here. In Law-Tricks, or, Who would have thought it, (a comedy written by John Day, and printed in 1608,) I find this fpeech: "Adam Bell, a fubftantial outlaw, and a paffing good archer, yet no tobacconift." By this it appears, that Adam Bell at that time of day was of reputation for his fkill at the bow. I find him again mentioned in a burlefque poem of Sir William D'Avenant's, called The long Vacation in London. THEOBALD.

Adam Bel, Clym of the Cloughe, and Wyllyam of Cloudefle, were, fays Dr. Percy, three noted outlaws, whofe fkill in Archery, rendered them formerly as famous in the North of England, as

D. PEDRO. Well, as time fhall try: In time the favage bull doth bear the yoke.

BENE. The favage bull may; but if ever the fenfible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns, and fet them in my forehead: and let me be vilely painted; and in fuch great letters as they write, Here is good horfe to hire, let them fignify under my fign, Here you may fee Benedick the married man. CLAUD. If this fhould ever happen, thou would'st be horn-mad.

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D. PEDRO. Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice,' thou wilt quake for this fhortly. BENE. I look for an earthquake too then.

D. PEDRO. Well, you will temporize with the hours. In the mean time, good fignior Benedick, repair to Leonato's; commend me to him, and tell him, I will not fail him at fupper; for, indeed, he hath made great preparation.

Robin Hood and his fellows were in the midland counties. Their place of refidence was in the foreft of Englewood, not far from Carlille. At what time they lived does not appear. The author of the common ballads on The Pedigree, Education, and Marriage of Robin Hood, makes them contemporary with Robin Hood's father, in order to give him the honour of beating them. See Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, Vol. I. p. 143, where the ballad on these outlaws is preferved. STEEVENS.

2 In time the favage bull doth bear the yoke. ] This line is from The Spanish Tragedy, or Hieronymo, &c. and occurs also, with a flight variation, in Watfons' Sonnets, 4to. bl. 1. printed in 1581. See note on the laft edition of Dodley's Old Plays, Vol. XII. p. 387. STEEVENS.

The Spanish Tragedy was printed and acted before 1593. MALONE. It may be proved that The Spanish Tragedy had at least been written before 1562. STEEVENS.

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if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice,] All modern writers agree in reprefenting Venice in the fame light as the ancients did Cyprus. And it is this chara&er of the people that is here alluded to. WARBURTON.

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