Enter BEATRICE.
BEAT. Against my will, I am sent to bid you come
in to dinner.
BENE. Fair Beatrice, I thank

you
for

your pains.
BEAT. I took no more pains for those thanks,
" than you take pains to thank me; if it had been
painful, I would not have come.

BENE. You take pleasure then in the message ?

BEAT. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife's point, and choke a daw withal:

-You have no ftomach, fignior; fare you well. [Exit.

BENE. Ha! Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner —there's a double meaning in that. I took no more pains for those thanks, than you took pains to thank me -'that's as much as to say, Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks:-If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew: I will go get her picture.

[Exit.

Enter HERO, MARGARET, and URSULA.
HERO. Good Margaret, run thee into the parlour;
There'shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice
Proposing with the Prince and Claudio: '
Whisper her ear, and tell her, I and Ursula
Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse
Is all of her; say, that thou overheard's us;

9. Propofing with the Prince and Claudio : ] Proposing is conversing, from the French word propos, discourse, talk. STEEVENS.

And bid her steal into the pleached bower,
Where honey-fuckles, ripen'd by the sun,
Forbid the fun to enter; - like favourites,
Made proud by princes, that advance their pride
Against that power that bred it: - there will she

hide her, To listen our propose : " This is thy office, Bear thee well in it, and leave us alone. Marg. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently.

(Exit.
Hero. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come,
As we do trace this alley up and down,
Our talk must only be of Benedick:
When I do name him, let it be thy part
To praise him more than ever man did merit:
My talk to thee must be, how Benedick
Is fick in love with Beatrice: Of this matter
Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made,
That only wounds by hearsay. Now begin;

Enter BEATRICE, hehind.
For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs
Close by the ground, to hear our conference:

Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish
Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,
And greedily devour the treacherous bait:
So angle we for Beatrice ; who even now

Our

- our propose :). Thus the quarto. The folio reads purpose. Propofe is right. See the preceding note. Sreeyens.

Purpose, however, may be equally right. It depends only on the manner of accenting the word, which, in Shakspeare's time, was often used in the same sense as propose. Thus, in Knox's History of the Reformation in Scotland, p. 72:

with him fix persons ; and getting entrie, held purpose with the porter.” Again, p. 54, " After supper he held comfortable purpose of God's chosen chil. dren." REED.

1

MUCHADO Is couched in the woodbine coverture : Fear you not my part of the dialogue. HERO. Then go we near her, that her ear lose no

thing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it.

[They advance to the bowcr. No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful; I know, her fpirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock.' URS.

But are you sure, That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely?

Hero. So says the prince,andmynew-trothedlord. Urs. And did they bid you tell her ofit, madam?

HRRO. They did intreat me to acquaint her of it: But I persuaded them, if they lov'd Benedick, To wish him 4 wrestle with affection, And never to let Beatrice know of it.

Urs. Why did you so? Doth not the gentleman Deferve as full, as fortunate a bed, As ever Beatrice shall couch upon ?

3. As haggards of the rock. ] Turbervile, in his book of Falconry, 1575, tells us, that " the haggard doth come from foreign parts a ftranger and a passenger;" and Latham, who wrote after him, says, that, “ she keeps in subjeâion the most part of all the fowl that fly, insomuch, that the tassel gentle, her natural and chiefest companion, dares not come near that coast where the useth, nor fit by the place where she fiandeth. Such is the greatness of her spirit, She will not admit of any society, until such a time as nature worketh," &c.

So, in The tragical History of Didaco and Violenta, 1576 : " Perchaunce she's not of haggard's kind,

“ Nor heart so hard to bend,' &c. STEEVENS. 4 To wish him ] i. e. recommend or desire. So, in The Honesi Whore, 1604 :

" Go wish the surgeon to have great refpe&," &c. Again, in The Hoghath lost his Pearl, 1614: “But lady mine that shall be, your father, hath wish'd me to appoint the day with you." REED.

as full, &c.] So in Othello :
" What a full fortune doth the thick-lips owe?" &c.