Impose me to what penance your invention But in miltaking. D. PEDRO. By my foul, nor I; And yet, to fatisfy this good old man, I would bend under any heavy weight That he'll enjoin me to. LEON. I cannot bid you bid my daughter live, That were impoffible; but, I pray you both, Poffefs the people 3 in Meffina here How innocent she died: and, if your love And fhe alone is heir to both of us; Give her the right you fhould have given her coufin, And fo dies my revenge. CLAUD. O, noble fir, 2 Impose me to what penance-] i. c. command me to undergo whatever penance, &c. A talk or exercise prescribed by way of punishment for a fault committed at the Univerfities, is yet called (as Mr. Steevens has observed in a former note) an impofition. MALONE. 3 Poffefs the people, &c.] To poffefs, in ancient language, fignifies. to inform, to make acquainted with. So, in The Merchant of Venice: "Is he yet poffefs'd how much you would?" Again, ibid : "I have poffefs'd your grace of what I purpose." STEEVENS. 4 And he alone is heir to both of us ;] Shakspeare feems to have forgot what he had made Leonato fay, in the fifth fcene of the first A& to Antonio, "How now, brother; where is my cousin your fon? hath he provided the mufick?" ANONYMOUS. Your over-kindnefs doth wring tears from me! For henceforth of poor Claudio. LEON. To-morrow then I will expect your coming; To-night I take my leave. This naughty man Shall face to face be brought to Margaret, BORA. No, by my foul, she was not; Nor knew not what fhe did, when fhe spoke to me; But always hath been juft and virtuous, In any thing that I do know by her. DOGB. Moreover, fir, (which, indeed, is not under white and black.) this plaintiff here, the offender, did call me afs: I beseech you, let it be remembered in his punishment: And alfo, the watch heard them talk of one Deformed: they fay, he wears a key in his ear, and a lock hanging by it; and 6 5 Who, I believe, was pack'd in all this wrong,] i. e. combined; an accomplice. So, in Lord Bacon's Works, Vol. IV. p. 269. edit. 1740. If the iffue fhall be this, that whatever fhall be done for him, shall be thought done for a number of perfons that shall' be laboured and packed So, in King Lear: MALONE. fuuffs and packings of the dukes." STEEVINS. Again, in Melvill's Memoirs, p. 9o. he was a fpecial inftrument of helping my Lord of Murray and Secretary Lidington to pack up the first friendship betwixt the two queens," &c. 6 REED. he wears a key in his ear, and a lock hanging by it;] There could not be a pleasanter ridicule on the fashion, than the conftable's defcant on his own blunder. They heard the confpirators fatirize the fashion; whom they took to be a man furnamed Deformed. This the conftable applies with exquifite humour to the courtiers, in a description of one of the most fantastical fashions of that time, the men's wearing rings in their ears, and indulging a favourite lock of hair which was brought 1 7 borrows money in God's name; the which he hath used fo long, and never paid, that now men grow hard-hearted, and will lend nothing for God's fake: Pray you, examine him upon that point. LEON. I thank thee for thy care and honeft pains. DOGB. Your worship speaks like a`most thankful and reverend youth; and I praise God for you. before, and tied with ribbons, and called a love-lock. Against this fashion William Prynne wrote his treatife, called, The Unlovelynefs of Love-Locks. To this fantastick mode Fletcher alludes in his Cupid's Revenge: "This morning I brought him a new perriwig with a lock at it - And yonder's a fellow come has bored a hole in his ear." And again, in his Woman-Hater: could endure an ear with a hole in it, or a platted lock," &c. -- If I WARBURTON. Dr. Warburton, I believe, has here (as he frequently does,) refined a little too much. There is no allufion, I conceive, to the fashion of wearing rings in the ears a fashion which our author himself followed). The pleasantry feems to confiftin Dogberry's fuppofing that the lock which DEFORMED Wore, must have a key to it. Fynes Moryfon in a very particular account that he has given of the dress of Lord Montjoy, (the rival, and afterwards the friend of Robert, Earl of Effex,) fays, that his hair was thinne on the head, where he wore it fhort, except a lock under his left eare, which he nourished the time of this warre, [the Irish War, in 1599.] and being woven up, hid it in his neck under his ruffe." ITINERARY, P. II. p. 45. When he was not on fervice, he probably wore it in a different fashion. The portrait of Sir Edward Sackville, Earl of Dorfet, painted by Vandyck, (now at Knowle,) exhibits this lock with a large knotted ribband at the end of it. It hangs under the ear on the left fide, and reaches as low as where the ftar is now worn by the knights of the garter. The fame fashion is alluded to in an epigram already quoted : "Or what he doth with fuch a horse-tail-lock," &c. 7 MALONE. and borrows money in God's name;] i. e. is a common beggar. This alludes, with too much levity, to the 17th verse of the xixth chapter of Proverbs: He that giveth to the poor, lendeth unto the Lord." STEEVENS, LEON. There's for thy pains. DOGB. God fave the foundation! LEON. GO, I discharge thee of thy prisoner, and I thank thee. DOGB. I leave an arrant knave with your worfhip; which, I beseech your worship, to correct yourfelf, for the example of others. God keep your worship; I wish your worship well; God reftore you to health: I humbly give you leave to depart; and if a merry meeting may be wifh'd, God prohibit it. Come, neighbour. [Exeunt DOGBERRY, VERGES, and Watch. LEON. Until to-morrow morning, lords, farewell. ANT. Farewell, my lords; we look for morrow. D. Pedro. We will not fail. CLAUD. 1 you to To-night I'll mourn with Hero. [Exeunt D. PEDRO and CLAUDio. LEON. Bring you thefe fellows on; we'll talk with Margaret, How her acquaintance grew with this lewd fellow. [Exeunt. 9 God fave the foundation!] Such was the cuftomary phrafe em ployed by those who received alms at the gates of religious houses. Dogberry, however, in the present inftance, might have defigned to fay "God fave the founder!" STEEvens. 2 1 lewd fellow.] Lewd, in this, and feveral other inftances, has not its common meaning, but merely fignifies idle. So, in King Richard III. A& I. fc. iii. "But you must trouble him with lewd complaints." STEEVENS. SCENE I I. LEONATO'S Garden. Enter BENEDICK and MARGARET, meeting. BENE. Pray thee, sweet mistress Margaret, deferve well at my hands, by helping me to the fpeech of Beatrice. MARG. Will you then write me a fonnet in praise of my beauty? BENE. In fo high a ftyle, Margaret, that no man living fhall come over it; for, in moft comely truth, thou deservest it. MARG. To have no man come over me? why, fhall I always keep below ftairs? 3 3 BENE. Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth, it catches. 3 To have no man come over me? why, shall I always keep below stairs?] I suppose, every reader will find the meaning. JOHNSON. Left he should not, the following inftance from Sir Afton's Cockayne's Poems is at his fervice : "But to prove rather he was not beguil'd, "Her he o'er-came, for he got her with child.". And another, more appofite, from Marfton's Infatiate Countess, 1613. "Alas! when we are once o'the falling hand, Mr. Theobald, to procure an obvious fenfe, would read ftairs. above But there is danger in any attempt to reform a joke two hundred years old. The fenfe, however, for which Mr. Theobald contends, may be reftored by fuppofing the lofs of a word; and that our author Why, fhall I always keep. men below ftairs?" i. e. never fuffer them to come up into my bed-chamber, for the purposes of love. STEEVENS, wrote |