ness, and given your drunken cousin rule over me, yet have I the benefit of my senses as well as your ladyship. I have your own letter that induced me to the semblance I put on; with the which I doubt not but to do myself much right, or you much shame. Think of me as you please. I leave my duty a little unthought of, and speak out of my injury. THE MADLY USED MALVOLIO."

OLI. Did he write this?

CLO. Ay, madam.

DUKE. This savours not much of distraction.

OLI. See him deliver'd, Fabian; bring him hither.

[Exit FABIAN. My lord, so please you, these things further thought on, To think me as well a sister as a wife,

One day shall crown the alliance on 't, so please you,
Here at my house, and at my proper cost.

DUKE. Madam, I am most apt to embrace your offer. Your master quits you [To VIOLA]; and, for your service done him,

So much against the mettle of your sex,
So far beneath your soft and tender breeding,
And since you call'd me master for so long,
Here is my hand; you shall from this time be
Your master's mistress.

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, 't is not your seal, not 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,
Though, I confess, much like the character:
But, out of question, 't is Maria's hand.
And now I do bethink me, it was she

First told me thou wast mad; thou cam'st in smiling,
And in such forms which here were presuppos'd

Upon thee in the letter. Prithee, 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: Maria writ
The letter, at sir Toby's great importance;
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 pass'd.

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

66

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.
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;
When that is known, and golden time convents,
A solemn combination shall be made
Of our dear souls-Meantime, 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.

CLO.

SONG.

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.

[Exit.

[Exeunt.

But when I came to man's estate,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
'Gainst knaves and thieves 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

VARIOUS READINGS.

"O! it came o'er my ear like the sweet south,
That breathes upon a bank of violets."

The reading of all the early editions is,

"O! it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound."

The Corrector of the folio "has struck out the last two letters of sound,' and replaced them by th."

(ACT I., Sc. 1.) POPE. Shakspere has nowhere given the south wind the quality of odour-breathing. In 'As You Like It' we have the "foggy south;" in 'Romeo and Juliet' the "dewdropping south;" and in 'Cymbeline'"the south-fog rot him."

"It does indifferent well in a flame-coloured stock." POPE. "It does indifferent well in a dun-coloured stock."

The original has dam'd-coloured stock.

"She took no ring of me." Mr. Collier says, "The ambiguity, to say the least of it, belonging to Viola's words, 'She took the ring of me,' is entirely avoided by reading, 'She took no ring of me. This alteration renders what the heroine afterwards says, quite consistent, 'I left no ring with her.'"

(ACT I., Sc. 2.) MS. Corrector

Many words in Shakspere are elided both in prose and verse. We read this passage, "in a dam'sk-coloured stock;"-the colour of a damask-rose. Sir Andrew would not have chosen a dun-coloured stocking to set off "the excellent constitution" of his leg.

(Act II., Sc. 1.) MS. Corrector.

Olivia has sent the Steward with a message about the ring, which has no foundation in fact. Viola, with ready subtlety, adopts the fiction, to save Olivia from the suspicions of her own servant. If she had said, "she took no ring of me," she would have exposed Olivia by the unqualified contradiction. When she is alone, she expresses the truth, "She took no ring of me."

"Not, like the haggard, check at every feather."
(ACT III., Sc. 1.) MS. Corrector.

Mr. Collier considers this to be an improvement of the original,— "And, like the haggard," &c.

And this would be an improvement, if all the wise fool's jests were necessarily personal. As we understand it,

"He must observe their mood on whom he jests;"

whilst, at the same time, like the haggard, or wild hawk, he flies "at every feather". is voluble about every light thing that comes before his eye. If he were not like the haggard, he would be a wise man, and not a fool.

GLOSSARY.

AFFECTIONED. Act II., Sc. 3.

"An affectioned ass, that cons state without book."

Affection is used more than once by Shakspere in the sense of affectation, as here.

BOARD. Act I., Sc. 3.

"Accost, is, front her, board her, woo her, assail her.”

To board, is to accost or address. See 'All's Well that Ends
Well.' Act V., Sc. 3.

BREAST. Act II., Sc. 3.

"The fool has an excellent breast."

Breast is here used for voice, and the use was not unfrequent. Tusser, among others, used it when speaking of himself as being placed in the choir at Winchester:

"The better breast, the lesser rest,

To serve the quire."

BROCK. Act II., Sc. 5.

"Marry, hang thee, brock!"

A brock is a badger, here used as a term of contempt.

"I had as lief be a Brownist as a politician."

The Brownists were a sect who maintained that the discipline of the Church of England was Popish and anti-Christian.