Writ in my cousin's hand, ftolen from her pocket, Containing her affection unto Benedick. BENE. A miracle! here's our own hands against our hearts!-Come, I will have thee; but, by this light, I take thee for pity. BEAT. I would not deny you ;-but, by this good day, I yield upon great perfuafion; and, partly, to fave your life, for I was told you were in a confumption. BENE. Peace, I will ftop your mouth.— [Kiffing her. D. PEDRO. How doft thou, Benedick the married man? BENE. I'll tell thee what, prince; a college of wit-crackers cannot flout me out of my humour: • I would not deny you; &c.] Mr. Theobald fays, is not this mock-reafoning? She would not deny him, but that the yields upon great perfuafion. In changing the negative, I make no doubt but I have retrieved the poet's humour: and fo changes not into yet. But is not this a mock-critic? who could not fee that the plain obvious fenfe of the common reading was this, I cannot find in my heart to deny you, but for all that I yield, after having stood out great perfuafions to fubmiffion. He had faid-I take thee for pity, the replies-I would not deny thee, i. e. I take thee for pity too: but as I live, I am won to this compliance by importunity of friends. Mr. Theobald, by altering not to yet, makes it fuppofed that he had been importunate, and that he had often denied, which was not the cafe. WARBURTON. 7 Bene. Peace, I will ftop your mouth. [Kiffing her.] In former copies : Leon. Peace, I will ftop your mouth. What can Leonato mean by this? "Nay, pray, peace, niece! don't keep up this obftinacy of profeffions, for I have proofs to ftop your mouth." The ingenious Dr. Thirlby agreed with me, that this ought to be given to Benedick, who, upon faying it, kifles Beatrice; and this being done before the whole company, how natural is the reply which the prince makes upon it? How doft thou, Benedick the married man? Befides, this mode of fpeech, preparatory to a falute, is familiar to our poet in common with other stage-writers. THEOBALD. Doft thou think, I care for a fatire, or an epigram? No: if a man will be beaten with brains, he fhall wear nothing handfome about him: In brief, fince I do purpose to marry, I will think nothing to any purpose that the world can fay against it; and therefore never flout at me for what I have faid against it; for man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclufion. For thy part, Claudio, I did think to have beaten thee; but in that thou art like to be my kinfman, live unbruis'd, and love my cousin. 8 CLAUD. I had well hoped, thou wouldst have denied Beatrice, that I might have cudgell'd thee out of thy fingle life, to make thee a double dealer; which, out of queftion, thou wilt be, if my coufin do not look exceeding narrowly to thee. BENE. Come, come, we are friends :-let's have a dance ere we are married, that we may lighten our own hearts, and our wives' heels. LEON. We'll have dancing afterwards. BENE. First, o' my word; therefore, play, mufick. Prince, thou art fad; get thee a wife, get thee a wife there is no ftaff more reverend than one tipp'd with horn." in that-] i. e. becaufe. So, Hooker: " Things are preached not in that they are taught, but in that they are publifhed." STEEVENS. 9 no ftaff more reverend than one tipp'd with horn.] This paffage may admit of fome explanation that I am unable to furnish. By accident I loft feveral inftances I had collected for the purpose of throwing light on it. The following, however, may allitt the future commentator. MS. Sloan, 1691. "THAT A FELLON MAY WAGE BATTAILE, ORDER THEREOF. WITH THE by order of the lawe both the parties muft at their owne charge be armed withoute any yron or long armoure, and theire Enter a Meffenger. MESS. My lord, your brother John is ta'en in flight, And brought with armed men back to Meffina. BENE. Think not on him till to-morrow; I'll devife thee brave punishments for him.-Strike up, pipers. [Dance. [Exeunt. heades bare, and bare-handed and bare-footed, every one of them his Again, Britton, Pleas of the Crown, c. xxvii. f. 18: "Next let them go to combat armed without iron and without linnen armour, their heads uncovered and their hands naked, and on foot, with two baftons tipped with horn of equal length, and each of them a target of four corners, without any other armour, whereby any of them may annoy the other; and if either of them have any other weapon concealed about him, and therewith annoy his adverfary, let it be done as fhall be mentioned amongst combats in a plea of land." REED. Mr. Steevens's explanation is undoubtedly the true one. The allufion is certainly to the ancient trial by wager of battel, in suits both criminal and civil. The quotation above given recites the form in the former cafe,-viz. an appeal of felony. The practice was nearly fimilar in civil cafes, upon iffue joined in a writ of right. Of the laft trial of this kind in England, (which was in the thirteenth year of Queen Elizabeth,) our author might have read a particular account in Stowe's Annales. Henry Nailor, mafter of defence, was champion for the demandants, Simon Low and John Kyme; and George Thorne for the tenant, (or defendant,) Thomas Paramoure. The combat was appointed to be fought in Tuthill-fields, and the Judges of the Common Pleas and Serjeants at law attended. But a compromife was entered into between the parties, the evening before the appointed day, and they only went through the forms, for the greater fecurity of the tenant. Among other ceremonies Stowe mentions, that "the gauntlet that was caft down by George Thorne was borne before the fayd Nailor, in his paffage through London, upon a fword's point, and his bafton (a) ftaff of an ell long, made taper-wife, tipt with horn,) with his fhield of hard leather, was borne after him," &c. See alfo Minfheu's Dict. 1617, in v. Combat; from which it appears that Naylor on this occafion was introduced to the Judges, with "three folemn Congees," by a very reverend perfon, "Sir Jerome Bowes, ambaffador from Queen Elizabeth into Ruffia, who carried a red bafton of an ell long, tipped with horne."-In a very ancient law-book entitled Britton, the manner in which the combatants are to be armed is particularly mentioned. The quotation from the Sloanian MS. is a tranflation from thence. By a ridiculous miftake the words," fauns löge arme," are rendered in the modern translation of that book, printed a few years ago," without linnen armour;" and a mains nues and pies" [bare-handed and bare-footed] is tranflated," and their hands naked, and on foot. MALONE. This play may be justly faid to contain two of the most fprightly characters that Shakspeare ever drew. The wit, the humourift, the gentleman, and the foldier, are combined in Benedick. It is to be lamented, indeed, that the first and most splendid of the fe diftinctions, is difgraced by unneceffary profanenefs; for the goodnefs of his heart is hardly fufficient to atone for the licence of his tongue. The too farcaftic levity, which flashes out in the converfation of Beatrice, may be excufed on account of the fteadinefs and friendship fo apparent in her behaviour, when the urges her lover to rifque his life by a challenge to Claudio. In the conduct of the fable, however, there is an imperfection fimilar to that which Dr. Johnfon has pointed out in The Merry Wives of Windfor-the fecond contrivance is lefs ingenious than the firft:or, to fpeak more plainly, the fame incident is become stale by repetition. I wish fome other method had been found to entrap Beatrice, than that very one which before had been fuccefsfully practifed on Benedick. Much ado about Nothing, (as I understand from one of Mr. Vertue's MSS.) formerly paffed under the title of Benedick and Beatrix. Heming the player received, on the 20th of May, 1613, the fum of forty pounds, and twenty pounds more as his Majefty's gratuity, for exhibiting fix plays at Hampton-Court, among which was this comedy. STEEVENS. THE END OF THE FOURTH VOLUME. |