MAL. Lady, you have. Pray you, peruse that letter:

You must not now deny it is your hand,
Write from it, if you can, in hand, or phrase;
Or say, 'tis not your seal, nor your invention:
You can say none of this: Well, grant it then,
And tell me, in the modesty of honour,
Why you have given me such clear lights of favour;
Bade me come smiling, and cross-garter'd to you,
To put on yellow stockings, and to frown
Upon sir Toby, and the lighter people:
And, acting this in an obedient hope,
Why have you suffer'd me to be imprison❜d,
Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest,
And made the most notorious geck,' and gull,
That e'er invention play'd on? tell me why.
OLI. Alas, Malvolio, this is not my writing,

6

•lighter-] People of less dignity or importance.

geck,] A fool. JOHNSON.

So, in the vision at the conclusion of Cymbeline: "And to become the geck and scorn

"Of th' other's villainy."

JOHNSON.

Again, in Ane verie excellent and delectabill Treatise intitulit PHILOTUS, &c. 1603:

Again:

"Thocht he be auld, my joy, quhat reck,

"When he is gane give him ane geck,

"And take another be the neck.'

"The carle that hecht sa weill to treat you,
"I think sall get ane geck." STEEVENS.

Though, I confess, much like the character:
But, out of question, 'tis Maria's hand.
And now I do bethink me, it was she

First told me, thou wast mad; then cam❜st in
8
smiling,

And in such forms which here were presuppos'd'
Upon thee in the letter. Pr'ythee, be content:
This practice hath most shrewdly pass'd upon thee;
But, when we know the grounds and authors of it,
Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge
Of thine own cause.

FAB.

Good madam, hear me speak; And let no quarrel, nor no brawl to come, Taint the condition of this present hour, Which I have wonder'd at. In hope it shall not, Most freely I confess, myself, and Toby, Set this device against Malvolio here, Upon some stubborn and uncourteous parts We had conceiv'd against him:1 Maria writ The letter, at sir Toby's great importance;2

8

then cam'st in smiling,] i. e. then, that thou cam❜st in smiling. MALONE.

66

I believe the lady means only what she has clearly expressed : - then thou camest in smiling;" not that she had been informed of this circumstance by Maria. Maria's account, in short, was justified by the subsequent appearance of Malvolio. STEEVENS.

9

here were presuppos'd-] Presuppos'd, for imposed. WARBURTON. Presuppos'd rather seems to mean previously pointed out for thy imitation; or such as it was supposed thou would'st assume after thou hadst read the letter. The supposition was previous to the act. STEEVENS.

1

Upon some stubborn and uncourteous parts

We had conceiv'd against him:] Surely we should rather read-conceiv'd in him. TYRWHITT.

o at sir Toby's great importance ;] Importance is importunacy, importunement. STEEvens.

In recompense whereof, he hath married her.
How with a sportful malice it was follow'd,
May rather pluck on laughter than revenge;
If that the injuries be justly weigh'd,
That have on both sides past.

OLI. Alas, poor fool!3 how have they baffled thee!"

CLO. Why, some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrown upon them. I was one, sir, in this interlude; one sir Topas, sir; but that's all one :-By the Lord, fool, I am not mad ;-But do you remember? Madam, why laugh you at such a barren rascal? an you smile not, he's gagg'd: And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.

MAL. I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you.

[Exit. OLI. He hath been most notoriously abus'd. DUKE. Pursue him, and entreat him to a peace:He hath not told us of the captain yet;

3

Alas, poor fool!] See notes on King Lear, Act V. sc. iii.
REED.

how have they baffled thee!] See Mr. Tollet's note on a passage in the first scene of the first Act of King Richard II: "I am disgrac'd, impeach'd, and baffled here."

this

STEEVENS.

But do you remember? Madam,] The old copy points passage erroneously: "But do you remember, madam," &c. I have followed the regulation proposed in the subsequent note. STEEVENS.

As the Clown is speaking to Malvolio, and not to Olivia, I think this passage should be regulated_thus-but do you remember?-Madam, why laugh you, &c. TYRWhitt.

6

and entreat him to a peace:] Thus, in Fletcher's. Two Noble Kinsmen :

"And fluently persuade her to a peace." STEEVENS.

VOL. V.

E E

When that is known and golden time convents,"
A solemn combination shall be made

Of our dear souls-Mean time, sweet sister,
We will not part from hence.-Cesario, come;
For so you shall be, while you are a man;
But, when in other habits you are seen,
Orsino's mistress, and his fancy's queen. [Exeunt.

SONG.

CLO. When that I was and a little tiny boy,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,

For the rain it raineth every day.

7 convents,] Perhaps we should read-consents. To convent, however, is to assemble; and therefore, the count may mean, when the happy hour calls us again together. STEEVENS.

convents,] i. e. shall serve, agree, be convenient.

DOUCE.

• When that I was and a little tiny boy, &c.] Here again we have an old song, scarcely worth correction. Gainst knaves and thieves must evidently be, against knave and thief. When I was a boy, my folly and mischievous actions were little regarded; but when I came to manhood, men shut their gates against me, as a knave and a thief.

Sir Thomas Hanmer rightly reduces the subsequent words, beds and heads, to the singular number; and a little alteration is still wanting at the beginning of some of the stanzas.

Mr. Steevens observes in a note at the end of Much Ado about Nothing, that the play had formerly passed under the name of Benedict and Beatrix. It seems to have been the court-fashion to alter the titles. A very ingenious lady, with whom I have the honour to be acquainted, Mrs. Askew, of Queen's Square, has a fine copy of the second folio edition of Shakspeare, which formerly belonged to King Charles I. and was a present from him to Sir Thomas Herbert. Sir Thomas has altered five titles in the list of the plays, to "Benedick and Beatrice,-Pyramus and Thisby,-Rosalinde,-Mr. Paroles,-and Malvolio."

It is lamentable to see how far party and prejudice will carry the wisest men, even against their own practice and opinions.

But when I came to man's estate,

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,

'Gainst knave and thief men shut their gate,
For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came, alas! to wive,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
By swaggering could I never thrive,
For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came unto my bed,

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
With toss-pots still had drunken head,
For the rain it raineth every day.

A great while ago the world begun,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
But that's all one, our play is done,

And we'll strive to please you every day.

[Exit.

Milton, in his Eixovoxaacles, censures King Charles for reading "one whom (says he) we well knew was the closet companion of his solitudes, William Shakspeare." FARMER.

I have followed the regulations proposed by Sir T. Hanmer and Dr. Farmer; and consequently, instead of knaves, thieves, beds, and heads, have printed "knave, thief," &c.

Dr. Farmer might have observed, that the alterations of the titles are in his Majesty's own hand-writing, materially differing from Sir Thomas Herbert's, of which the same volume affords more than one specimen. I learn from another manuscript note in it, that John Lowine acted King Henry VIII. and John Taylor the part of Hamlet. The book is now in my possession. To the concluding remark of Dr. Farmer, may be added the following passage from An Appeal to all rational Men concerning King Charles's Trial, by John Cooke, 1649: "Had he but studied scripture half so much as Ben Jonson or Shakspeare, he might have learnt that when Amaziah was settled in the kingdom, he suddenly did justice upon those servants which killed