who they found in her chamber, in great lamentation and mourning. To whom the duke saide, take courage madam for behold here a gentleman, that wil not sticke, both to father your child and to take you for his wife, no inferiour person, but the sonne and heyre of a noble duke, worthy of your estate and dignity.

" Iulina seeing Siluio in place, did know very well that he was the father of her childe, and was so rauished with ioy, that she knew not whether she were awake, or in some dreame. Siluio imbracing her in his armes, crauing forgiuenesse of all that was past: concluded with her the marriage day, which was presently accomplished with great ioy and contentation to all parties: and thus Siluio hauing attained a noble wife, and Silla his sister her desired husband, they passed the residue of their daies with such delight, as those that haue accomplished the perfections of their felicities." BOSWELL.

August 6, 1607, a comedy called What You Will, (which is the second title of this play,) was entered at Stationers' Hall by Tho. Thorpe. I believe, however, it was Marston's play with that name. Ben Jonson, who takes every opportunity to find fault with Shakspeare, seems to ridicule the conduct of TwelfthNight, in his Every Man out of his Humour, at the end of Act III. Sc. VI. where he makes Mitis say, "That the argument of his comedy might have been of some other nature, as of a duke to be in love with a countess, and that countess to be in love with the duke's son, and the son in love with the lady's waiting maid : some such cross wooing, with a clown to their serving man, better than be thus near and familiarly allied to the time." STEEVENS.

I suppose this comedy to have been written in 1607. Ben Jonson unquestionably could not have ridiculed this play in Every Man out of his Humour, which was written many years before it. See an Attempt to ascertain the Order of Shakspeare's Plays, vol. ii. MALONE.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

ORSINO, Duke of Illyria.

SEBASTIAN, a young Gentleman, Brother to Viola.

ANTONIO, a Sea Captain, Friend to Sebastian.

A Sea Captain, Friend to Viola.

Lords, Priests, Sailors, Officers, Musicians, and other Attendants.

SCENE, a City in Illyria; and the Sea-coast near it.

TWELFTH-NIGHT:

OR,

WHAT YOU WILL.

ACT I. SCENE I.

An Apartment in the Duke's Palace.

Enter DUKE, CURIO, Lords; Musicians attending.
DUKE. If musick be the food of love, play on,

Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting1,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again;-it had a dying fall2:

Give me EXCESS of it; that, SURFEITING, &c.] So, in The

Two Gentlemen of Verona :

"And now excess of it will make me surfeit."

* That strain again;-it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,

STEEVENS.

STEALING, and giving odour.) Milton, in his Paradise Lost,

b. iv. has very successfully introduced the same image :

now gentle gales,

66

Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense

"Those balmy spoils." STEEVENS.

"Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole

"That strain again; -it had a dying fall." Hence Pope, in

his Ode on Saint Cecilia's Day:

"The strains decay,

"And melt away,

"In a dying, dying fall."

Again, Thomson, in his Spring, v. 722, speaking of the night

ingale:

- Still at every dying fall

"Takes up the lamentable strain." HOLT WHITE.

O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet South3,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing, and giving odour. Enough; no more;
'Tis not so sweet now, as it was before.

O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou !
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe'er',
But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute! so full of shapes is fancy,
That it alone is high-fantastical 6.

CUR. Will you go hunt, my lord ?
DUKE.

CUR.

What, Curio ?

The hart.

DUKE. Why, so I do, the noblest that I have :

O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,

3

-the sweet SOUTH,) The old copy reads-sweet sound, which Mr. Rowe changed into wind, and Mr. Pope into south. The thought might have been borrowed from Sidney's Arcadia, lib. i.: - more sweet than a gentle South-west wind, which comes creeping over flowery fields," &c. This work was published in 1590. STEEVENS.

I see no reason for disturbing the text of the old copy, which reads-sound. The wind, from whatever quarter, would produce a sound in breathing on the violets, or else the simile is false. Besides, sound is a better relative to the antecedent, strain. DoUCE.

+ That breathes upon a bank of VIOLETS,] Here Shakspeare makes the wind steal odour from the violet. In his 99th Sonnet, the violet is made the thief:

"The forward violet thus did I chide:

"Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells, "If not from my love's breath?" MALONE.

5 Of what VALIDITY and pitch soe'er, Validity is here used for value. MALONE.

So, in King Lear :

"No less in space, validity, and pleasure." STEEVENS. 6 That it alone is HIGH-FANTASTICAL.) High-fantastical,

means 'fantastical to the height.'

So, in All's Well That Ends Well, vol. x. p. 474 :

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My high-repented blames,

"Dear sovereign, pardon me." STEEVENS.

Methought, she purg'd the air of pestilence;
That instant was I turn'd into a hart;

And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,
E'er since pursue me'.-How now? what news

from her ?

7 That instant was I turn'd into a hart;

And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,

E'er since pursue me.) This image evidently alludes to the story of Acteon, by which Shakspeare seems to think men cautioned against too great familiarity with forbidden beauty. Acteon, who saw Diana naked, and was torn to pieces by his hounds, represents a man, who, indulging his eyes, or his imagination, with the view of a woman that he cannot gain, has his heart torn with incessant longing. An interpretation far more elegant and natural than that of Sir Francis Bacon, who, in his Wisdom of the Ancients, supposes this story to warn us against enquiring into the secrets of princes, by showing, that those who know that which for reasons of state is to be concealed, will be detected and destroyed by their own servants. JOHNSON.

"That instant was I turn'd into a hart;

"And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,

"E'er since pursue me." Our author had here undoubtedly Daniel's fifth Sonnet in his thoughts:

"Whilst youth and error led my wand'ring mind,

"And sette my thoughts in heedles waies to range,

" All unawares, a goddesse chaste I finde,

(Diana like) to worke my suddaine change.

"For her no sooner had mine eye bewraid,
"But with disdaine to see mee in that place,
"With fairest hand the sweet unkindest maid
"Casts water-cold disdaine upon my face:
"Which turn'd my sport into a hart's despaire,
"Which still is chac'd, while I have any breath,
"By mine own thoughts, sette on me by my faire;

My thoughts, like hounds, pursue me to my death.
"Those that I foster'd of mine owne accord,
"Are made by her to murder thus theyr lord."

Delia and Rosamond, augmented, 16mo. 1594. The same observation has been made by an anonymous writer in the Gentleman's Magazine; but I had noticed this parallelism in my manuscript notes long before.

Daniel, however, was not the original proprietor of this thought. He appears to have borrowed it from Whitney's Emblems, 1586, p. 15, where it thus appears :