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BEATRICE advances.

BEAT. What fire is in mine ears?7 Can this be true? Stand I condemn'd for pride and fcorn fo much? Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu!

No glory lives behind the back of fuch.
And, Benedick, love on, I will requite thee.;

Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand;
If thou doft love, iny kindnefs fhall incite thee
To bind our loves up in a holy band:
For others fay, thou doft deferve; and I
Believe it better than reportingly.

SCENE II.

A Room in LEONATO's Houfe.

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[Exit.

Enter Don PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, and

LEONATO.

D. PEDRO. I do but ftay till your marriage be confummate, and then go I toward Arragon.

CLAUD. I'll bring you thither, my lord, if you'll youchfafe me.

7 What fire is in mine ears?] Alluding to a proverbial faying of the common people, that their ears burn, when others are talking of them. WARBURTON.

The opinion from whence this proverbial faying is derived, is of great antiquity, being thus mentioned by Pliny: "Moreover is not this an opinion generally received. That when our ears do glow and tingle, fome there be that in our absence doe talkè of us?" Philemon Holland's Tranflation, B. XXVIII. p. 297. and Brown's, Vulgar Errors. REED.

8 Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand;] This image is taken from falconry. She had been charged with being as wild as haggards of the rock; the therefore fays, that wild as her heart is, the will tame it to the hand. JOHNSON.

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D. PEDRO. Nay, that would be as great a foil in the new glofs of your marriage, as to fhow a child his new coat, and forbid him to wear it. I will only be bold with Benedick for his company; for, from the crown of his head to the fole of his foot, he is all mirth; he hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's bow-ftring, and the little hangman dare not shoot at him: he hath a heart as found as a bell, and his tongue is the clapper; for what his heart thinks, his tongue fpeaks. 3

BENE. Gallants, I am not as I have been.
LEON. So fay I; methinks, you are fadder.
CLAUD. I hope, he be in love.

D. PEDRO. Hang him, truant: there's no true drop of blood in him, to be truly touch'd with love: if he be fad, he wants money.

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BENE. I have the tooth-ach.

D. PEDRO. Draw it.

BENE. Hang it!

as to show a child his new coat, and forbid him to wear it.]

So, in Romeo and Juliet:

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"As is the night before fome festival,

"To an impatient child, that hath new robes,

"And may not wear them." STEEVENS.

the little hangman dare not shoot at him :] This character

of Cupid came from the Arcadia of Sir Philip Sidney:

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Millions of yeares this old drivell Cupid lives;

"While ftill more wretch, more wicked he doth prove:
"Till now at length that Jove him office gives,
"(At Juno's fuite, who much did Argus love,)

In this our world hangman for to be

"Of all thofe fooles that will have all they fee."

B. II. ch. xiv. FARMER,

as a bell, and his tongue is the clapper; &c.] A cover allufion to the old proverb:

"As the fool thinketh

So the bell clinketh." STEEVENS.

CLAUD. You must hang it first, and draw it afterwards.

D. PEDRO. What? figh for the tooth-ach? LEON. Where is but a humour, or a worm? BENE. Well, Every one can master' a grief, but he that has it.

CLAUD. Yet fay I, he is in love.

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D. PEDRO. There is no appearance of fancy in him, unless it be a fancy that he hath to ftrange difguifes; as, to be a Dutch-man to-day; a Frenchman to-morrow; or in the fhape of two countries at once, as, a German from the waist downward, all flops; and a Spaniard from the hip upward, no

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can mafter a grief,] The old copies read corruptly — cannot. The correction was made by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

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There is no appearance of fancy, &c.] Here is a play upon the word fancy, which Shakspeare uses for love as well as for humour, caprice, or affectation. JOHNSON.

5 —or in the Shape of two countries at once, &c.] So, in The Seven deadly Sinnes of London, by Tho. Dekker, 1606. 4to. bl. 1. "For an Englishman's fute is like a traitor's bodie that hath been hauged, drawne, and quartered, and is fet up in severall places: his codpiece is in Denmarke; the collor of his dublet and the belly, in France the wing and narrow fleeve, in Italy: the short wafte hangs ouer a Dutch botcher's ftall in Utrich his huge floppes fpeaks Spanish: Polonia gives him the bootes, &c. and thus we mocke cuerie nation, for keeping one fashion, yet fteale patches from euerie one of them, to peece out our pride; and are now laughing-ftocks to them, because their cut fo fcurvily becomes us."

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STEEVENS.

all flops;] Slops are large loofe breeches, or trowfers, worn only by failors at prefent. They are mentioned by Jonfon, in his Alchymift:

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fix great flops

Bigger than three Dutch hoys."

Again, in Ram Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611.

three pounds in gold

"Thefe flops contain." STEEVENS.

Hence evidently the term flop-feller, for the venders of ready made clothes. NICHOLS,

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doublet:

Unless he have a fancy to this foolery, as it appears he hath, he is no fool for fancy, as you would have it appear he is.

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CLAUD. If he be not in love with fome woman, there is no believing old figns: he brushes his hat o' mornings; What should that bode?

D. PEDRO. Hath any man seen him at the barber's? CLAUD. No, but the barber's man hath been seen with him; and the old ornament of his cheek hath already ftuffed tennis-balls. "

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LEON. Indeed, he looks younger'than he did, by the lofs of a beard.

D. PEDRO. Nay, he rubs himself with civet: Can you fmell him out by that?

CLAUD. That's as much as to fay, The fweet youth's in love.

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a Spaniard from the hip upward, no doublet:] There can be no doubt but we fhould read, all doublet, which correfponds with the actual drefs of the old Spaniards. As the paffage now ftands, it is a negative description, which is in truth no defcription at all. M. MASON.

"Or

-no doublet:] or, in other words, all cloak. The words in the shape of two countries," &c. to "no doublet," were omitted in the folio, probably to avoid giving any offence 'to the Spaniards, with whom James became a friend in 1604. MALONE.

8 have it appear he is.] Thus the quarto, 1600. 1623. reads - have it to appear," &c. STEEVENS.

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The foliol

and the old ornament of his cheek hath already stuff'd tennisballs.] So, in A wonderful, Strange, and miraculous aftrological. Prognoftication for this. Year of our Lord 1591; written by Nafhe, in ridicule of Richard Harvey: they may fell their haire STEEVENS.

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by the pound, to ftuffe tennice balles."

Again, in Ram Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611.

"Thy beard fhall ferve to stuff those balls by which I get me heat at tenice."

Again, in The Gentle Craft, 1600.

He'll fhave it off, and Stuffe tenice balls with it." HENDERSON.

D.PEDRO. The greatest note of it is his melancholy. CLAUD. And when was he wont to wafh his face? D. PEDRO. Yea, or to paint himself? for the which, I hear what they say of him.

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CLAUD. Nay, but his jefling fpirit; which is now crept into a luteftring, and now governed by ftops.

D. PEDRO. Indeed, that tells a heavy tale for him: Conclude, conclude, he is in love.

CLAUD. Nay, but I know who loves him.

D. PEDRO. That would I know too; I warrant, one that knows him not.

CLAUD. Yes, and his ill conditions; and, in despite of all, dies for him.

D. PEDRO. She fhall be buried with her face upwards. *

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crept into a luteftring,] Love-fongs in our author's time were generally 'fung to the mufick of the lute. So, in K. Henry IV. P. I: " - as melancholy as an old lion, or a lover's lute." MALONE.

2 She shall be buried with her face upwards.] Thus the whole fet of editions: but what is there any way particular in this? Are not all men and women buried fo? Sure, the poet means, in oppofition to the general rule, and by way of diftin&tion, with her heels upwards, or face downwards. I have chofen the firft reading, because I find it the expreffion in vogue in our author's time. THEOBALD.

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This emendation, which appears to me very specious, is rejected by Dr. Warburton. The meaning seems to be, that she who acted upon principles contrary to others, fhould be buried with the fame contrariety. JOHNSON.

Mr. Theobald quite mistakes the scope of the poet, who prepares the reader to expect fomewhat uncommon or extraordinary; and the humour confifts in the disappointment of that expectation, as at the end of Iago's poetry in Othello:

"She was a wight, (if ever fuch wight were)

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"To fuckle fools, and chronicle fmall beer." HEATH.

Theobald's conjecture may, however, be fupported by a paffage in The Wild Goofe Chafe of Beaumont and Fletcher:

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