SEB. This is the air; that is the glorious fun This pearl fhe gave me, I do feel't, and fee't: And though 'tis wonder that enwraps me thus, Yet 'tis not madness. Where's Antonio then? I could not find him at the Elephant : Yet there he was; and there I found this credit, That he did range the town to feek me out."

The reason why the Vice exhorts the Devil to pare his nails, is, because the Devil was fuppofed from choice to keep his nails always unpared, and therefore to pare them was an affront. So, in Camden's Remaines, 1615:

"I will follow mine own minde and mine old trade;
"Who fhall let me? the divel's nailes are unparde."

Yet there he was; and there I found this credit,

MALONE.

That he did range, &c.] i. e. I found it juftified, credibly vouched. Whether the word credit will eafily carry this meaning, I am doubtful. The expreffion feems obfcure; and though I have not difturbed the text, I very much fufpect that the poet

wrote:

- and there I found this credent.

He uses the fame term again in the very fame fenfe in The Winter's Tale:

Then 'tis very credent,

"Thou may'ft cojoin with fomething, and thou doft," &c. THEOBALD.

Credit, for account, information. The Oxford editor roundly alters it to current; as he does almoft every word that Shakspeare ufes in an anomalous fignification. WARBURTON.

Theobald propofes to read credent, but credent does not fignify juftified or vouched; it means probable only, as appears from the paffage he himself has quoted. Warburton fays, that credit means account or information; but as I know no inftance of the word's being used in that acceptation, I believe we should read, credited inftead of credit. M. MASON.

His counsel now might do me golden fervice:
For though my foul difputes well with my fense,
That this may be fome error, but no madness,
Yet doth this accident and flood of fortune
So far exceed all inftance, all difcourfe,"
That I am ready to diftruft mine eyes,
And wrangle with my reason, that perfuades me
To any other truft, but that I am mad,
Or else the lady's mad; yet, if 'twere fo,

She could not sway her house, command her followers,

Take, and give back, affairs, and their dispatch, With such a smooth, difcreet, and stable bearing, As, I perceive, fhe does: there's fomething in't, That is deceivable. But here comes the lady.*

Enter OLIVIA, and a Priest.

OLI. Blame not this hafte of mine: If you mean well,

Now go with me, and with this holy man,

Credent is creditable, not queftionable. So, in Measure for Measure, Angelo fays:

"For my authority bears a credent bulk." STEEVENS. Perhaps credit is here used for credited. So, in the first scene of this play, beat for heated; and in Hamlet, boift for boifted.

MALONE.

9 — all inftance, all difcourfe,] Difcourfe, for reafon.

Inftance is example. JOHNSON.

WARBURTON,

• To any other truft,] To any other belief, or confidence, to any other fixed opinion. JOHNSON.

3 deceivable.] Our author licentiously ufes this word for deceptious. MALONE.

4 That is deceivable. But here comes the lady.] The old copy reads:

46

But here the lady comes." STEEVENS.

Into the chantry by: there, before him,
And underneath that confecrated roof,
Plight me the full affurance of your faith;
That my moft jealous and too doubtful foul
May live at peace: He fhall conceal it,
Whiles you are willing it fhall come to note;
What time we will our celebration keep
According to my birth.-What do you say?
SEB. I'll follow this good man, and go with you;
And, having fworn truth,' ever will be true.

OLI. Then lead the way, good father;-And heavens fo fhine,"

That they may fairly note this act of mine! [Exeunt.

ACT V.

SCENE I.

The Street before Olivia's Houfe.

Enter Clown, and FABIAN.

FAB. Now, as thou loveft me, let me fee his letter.

3 Into the chantry by:] Chantries (fays Cowel in his Lar Dictionary) are ufually little chapels, or particular altars, in fome cathedral or parochial church; and endowed with revenues for the maintenance of one or more priefts, whofe office it is to fing maffes for the fouls of their founders, &c. STEEVENS.

4 Whiles-] is until. This word is ftill fo ufed in the northern countries. It is, I think, ufed in this fenfe in the preface to the Accidence. JOHNSON.

Almoft throughout the old copies of Shakspeare, whiles is given us instead of while. Mr. Rowe, the first reformer of his fpelling, made the change. STEEVENS.

It is used in this fenfe in Tarleton's Nervs out of Purgatorie. See the novel at the end of The Merry Wives of Windfor. MALONE. truth,] Truth is fidelity. JOHNSON.

5

6

heavens fo fhine, &c.] Alluding perhaps to a fuperftitious fuppofition, the memory of which is ftill preferved in a proverbial faying: " Happy is the bride upon whom the fun shines, and blessed the corpfe upon which the rain falls." STEEVENS.

CLO. Good master Fabian, grant me another re

quest.

FAB. Any thing.

CLO. Do not defire to fee this letter.

FAB. That is, to give a dog, and, in recompence, defire my dog again.

Enter DUKE, VIOLA, and Attendants.

DUKE. Belong you to the lady Olivia, friends? CLO. Ay, fir; we are fome of her trappings. DUKE. I know thee well; How doft thou, my good fellow?

CLO. Truly, fir, the better for my foes, and the worfe for my friends.

DUKE. Juft the contrary; the better for thy friends. CLO. No, fir, the worse.

DUKE. How can that be?

CLO. Marry, fir, they praise me, and make an afs of me; now my foes tell me plainly, I am an afs: fo that by my foes, fir, I profit in the knowledge of myself; and by my friends I am abused: so that, conclufions to be as kiffes, if your four negatives make your two affirmatives,' why, then the worse for my friends, and the better for my foes.

DUKE. Why, this is excellent.

7-conclufions to be as kiffes, if your four negatives make your two affirmatives,] One cannot but wonder, that this paffage fhould have perplexed the commentators. In Marlowe's Luft's Dominion, the Queen fays to the Moor:

Come, let's kiffe."

Moor. "Away, away."

Queen. "No, no, fayes, I; and twice away, fayes stay.” Sir Philip Sidney has enlarged upon this thought in the fixty

third stanza of his Aftrophel and Stella. FARMER.

CLO. By my troth, fir, no; though it please you to be one of my friends.

DUKE. Thou shalt not be the worfe for me; there's gold.

CLO. But that it would be double-dealing, fir, I would you could make it another.

DUKE. O, you give me ill counfel.

CLO. Put your grace in your pocket, fir, for this once, and let your flesh and blood obey it.

DUKE. Well, I will be fo much a finner to be a double dealer; there's another.

CLO. Primo, fecundo, tertio, is a good play; and the old faying is, the third pays for all: the triplex, fir, is a good tripping meafure; or the bells of St. Bennet, fir, may put you in mind; One, two, three.

8

or the bells of St. Bennet, fir, may put you in mind;] That is, if the other arguments I have ufed are not fufficient, the bells of St. Bennet, &c. MALONE.

or.

We should read-" as the bells of St. Bennet," &c. instead of M. MASON.

When in this play Shak fpeare mentioned the bed of Ware, he recollected that the fcene was in Illyria, and added, in England; but his fenfe of the fame impropriety could not reftrain him from the bells of St. Bennet. JOHNSON.

Shakspeare's improprieties and anachronisms are furely venial in comparison with thofe of contemporary writers. Lodge, in his True Tragedies of Marius and Sylla, 1594, has mentioned the razors of Palermo and St. Paul's fteeple, and has introduced a Frenchman, named Don Pedro, who, in confideration of receiving forty crowns, undertakes to poifon Marius. Stanyhurft, the tranflator of four books of Virgil, in 1582, compares Chorcbus to a bedlamite, fays, that old Priam girded on his fword Morglay; and makes Dido tell Encas, that fhe fhould have been contented had she been brought to bed even of a cockney.

Saltem fi qua mibi de te fufcepta fuiffet

Ante fugam foboles

yf yeet foom progenye from me

"Had crawl'd, by thee father'd, yf a cockney dandiprat hopthumb." STEEVENS.