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and Vulcan a rare carpenter? Come, in what key shall a man take you, to go in the fong?

CLAUD. In mine eye, the is the fweeteft lady that ever I looked on.

BENE. I can fee yet without spectacles, and I fee no fuch matter: there's her coufin, an fhe were not poffeffed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty, as the first of May doth the last of December. But I hope, you have no intent to turn husband; have you?

7to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder, &c.] I know not whether I conceive the jeft here intended. Claudio hints his love of Hero. Benedick asks, whether he is ferious, or whether he only means to jeft, and to tell them that Cupid is a good barefinder, and Vulcan a rare carpenter. A man praifing a pretty lady in jeft, may show the quick fight of Cupid, but what has it to do with the carpentry of Vulcan? Perhaps the thought lies no deeper than this, Do you mean to tell us as new what we all know already? JOHNSON.

I believe no more is meant by thofe ludicrous expreffions than this. Do you mean, fays Benedick, to amufe us with improbable ftories?

An ingenious correfpondent, whofe fignature is R. W. explains the paffage in the fame fenfe, but more amply. "Do you mean to tell us that love is not blind, and that fire will not confume what is combuftible?"-for both thefe propofitions are implied in making Cupid a good hare-finder, and Vulcan (the God of fire) a good carpenter. In other words, would you convince me, whofe opinion on this head is well known, that you can be in love without being blind, and can play with the flame of beauty without being Scorched. STEEVENS.

I explain the paffage thus: Do you scoff and mock in telling us that Cupid, who is blind, is a good bhare-finder, which requires a quick eye-fight; and that Vulcan, a blacksmith, is a rare carpenter? TOLLET.

After fuch attempts at decent illuftration, I am afraid that he who wishes to know why Cupid is a good hare-finder, must discover it by the affistance of many quibbling allufions of the fame fort, about hair and hoar, in Mercutio's fong in the fecond Act of Romeo and Juliet. COLLINS.

8

to go in the fong?] i. e. to join with you in your fongto ftrike in with you in the fong. STEEVENS.

CLAUD. I would scarce truft myself, though I had fworn the contrary, if Hero would be my wife.

BENE. Is it come to this, i'faith? Hath not the world one man, but he will wear his cap with fufpicion? Shall I never fee a bachelor of threescore again? Go to, i'faith; an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it, and figh away Sundays. Look, Don Pedro is returned to feek

Re-enter Don PEDRO.

you.

D. PEDRO. What fecret hath held you here, that you followed not to Leonato's?

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wear his cap with fufpicion?] That is, fubject his head to the difquiet of jealoufy. JOHNSON.

In Painter's Palace of Pleasure, p. 233, we have the following paffage: "All they that weare bornes be pardoned to weare their cappes upon their heads." HENDERSON

In our author's time none but the inferior claffes wore caps, and fuch perfons were termed in contempt flat-caps. All gentlemen wore hats. Perhaps therefore the meaning is,-Is there not one. man in the world prudent enough to keep out of that state where he muft live in apprehenfion that his night-cap will be worn occafionally by another. So, in Othello:

"For I fear Caffio with my night-cap too." MALONE.

If this remark on the difufe of caps among people of higher rank be accurate, Sir Chriftopher Hatton, and other worthies of the court of Elizabeth, have been injurioufly treated; for the painters of their time exhibit feveral of them with caps on their heads.-It fhould be remembered that there was a material diftinétion between the plain ftatute-caps of citizens, and the ornamented ones worn by gentlemen. STEEVENS.

figh away Sundays.] A proverbial expreffion to fignify that a man has no reft at all; when Sunday, a day formerly of ease and diverfion, was paffed fo uncomfortably. WARBURTON.

I cannot find this proverbial expreffion in any ancient book whatever. I am apt to believe that the learned commentator has mistaken the drift of it, and that it most probably alludes to the ftrict manner in which the fabbath was obferved by the Puritans, who ufually spent that day in fighs and gruntings, and other hypo, critical marks of devotion. STEEVENS.

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

D. PEDRO. I charge thee on thy allegiance.

BENE. You hear, Count Claudio: I can be fecret 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.

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 forbid it fhould be fo. CLAUD. If my paffion change not fhortly, God forbid it should be otherwise.

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

CLAUD. You fpeak this to fetch me in, my lord. D. PEDRO. By my troth, I speak my thought. CLAUD. And, in faith, my lord, I spoke mine. BENE. And, by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine.3

Claud. If this were fo, fo were it uttered.] This and the three next fpeeches I do not well understand; there feems fomething omitted relating to Hero's confent, or to Claudio's marriage, elle I know not what Claudio can wish 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 seems something omitted which Claudio and Pedro concur in wishing. JOHNSON.

Claudio, evading at firft a confeffion of his paffion, fays; if I had really confided fuch a fecret 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. e. God forbid he fhould even wish to marry her; Claudio replies, God forbid I fhould not wish it. STEEVENS.

3

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 she should 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 stake.

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

CLAUD. And never could maintain his in the force of his will.+

part, but

BENE. That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewife give her most 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 said-“ God forbid it should be fo;" i. e. that Claudio fhould 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 born is an inexhauftible subject 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."

"Now, fir, when you come to your ftately gate, as you founded the recheat before, so now you must 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 shorte and one longe. The thred wynde one longe and two fhorte."

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

invifible baldrick, all women fhall pardon me: Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust 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 fhall fee thee, ere I die, look pale with love.

BENE. With anger, with fickness, 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,&

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.

6

hang my bugle in an invifible baldrick,] Bugle, i. e. buglehorn, hunting-horn. The meaning feems to be--or that I fhould be compelled 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: "Beholde the 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."

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

7

8

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 clofed up with a quantity of foot in a wooden bottle, (fuch as that in which