with a whole army shooting at me: She speaks poniards, and every word stabs: if her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her, she would infect to the north star. I would not marry her, though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgressed: she would have made Hercules have turned spit; yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire. too. Come, talk not of her; you shall find her the infernal Até in good apparel." I would to God, some scholar would conjure her; for, certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell, as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so, indeed, all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follow her.

same epithet again in Twelfth-Night: "There is no Christian can ever believe such impossible passages of grossness." So Ford says, in The Merry Wives of Windsor:-"I will examine impossible places." Again, in Julius Cæsar:

Now bid me run,

"And I will strive with things impossible,

"And get the better of them."

Conveyance was the common term in our author's time for sleight of hand. MALONE.

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She speaks poniards,] So, in Hamlet:

"I'll speak daggers to her." STEEVENS.

the infernal Até in good apparel.] This is a pleasant allusion to the custom of ancient poets and painters, who represent the Furies in rags. WARBURTON.

Até is not one of the Furies, but the Goddess of Revenge, or Discord. STEEVENS.

1

some scholar would conjure her ;] As Shakspeare always attributes to his exorcists the power of raising spirits, he gives his conjurer, in this place, the power of laying them. M. MASON.

Re-enter CLAUDIO and BEATRICE.

D. PEDRO. Look, here she comes.

BENE. Will your grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes, that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the farthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pigmies, rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy: You have no employment for me?

2

D. PEDRO. None, but to desire your good company.

BENE. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not; I cannot endure my lady Tongue.3

2

[Exit.

bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard;] i. e. I will undertake the hardest task, rather than have any conversation with lady Beatrice. Alluding to the difficulty of access to either of those monarchs, but more particularly to the former.

So, Cartwright, in his comedy called The Siege, or Love's Convert, 1651:

66

bid me take the Parthian king by the beard; or draw an eye-tooth from the jaw royal of the Persian monarch." Such an achievement, however, Huon of Bourdeaux was sent to perform, and performed it. See chap. 46, edit. 1601: he opened his mouth, and tooke out his foure great teeth, and then cut off his beard, and tooke thereof as much as pleased him." STEEVENS.

"Thou must goe to the citie of Babylon to the Admiral Gaudisse, to bring me thy hand full of the heare of his beard, and foure of his greatest teeth. Alas, my lord, (quoth the Barrons,) we see well you desire greatly his death, when you charge him with such a message." Huon of Bourdeaux, ch. 17. BOWLE.

3 my lady Tongue.] Thus the quarto, 1600. The folio reads-this lady Tongue. STEEVens.

D. PEDRO. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of signior Benedick.

4

BEAT. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me a while; and I gave him use for it, a double heart for his single one: marry, once before, he won it of me with false dice, therefore your grace may well say, I have lost it.

D. PEDRO. You have put him down, lady, you have put him down.

BEAT. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. D. PEDRO. Why, how now, count? wherefore are you sad?

CLAUD. Not sad, my lord.

D. PEDRO. How then? Sick?
CLAUD. Neither, my lord.

BEAT. The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well: but civil, count; civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion.

5

6

D. PEDRO. I'faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though, I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won; I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained: name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy!

I gave him use for it,] Use, in our author's time, meant interest of money. MALOne.

- civil as an orange,] This conceit occurs likewise in Nashe's Four Letters confuted, 1592: "For the order of my life, it is as civil as an orange." STEEVENS.

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of that jealous complexion.] Thus the quarto, 1600; the folio reads, of a jealous complexion. STEEVENS.

LEON. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes: his grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it!

BEAT. Speak, count, 'tis your cue.

CLAUD. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much.Lady, as you are mine, I am yours: I give away myself for you, and dote upon the exchange.

BEAT. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss, and let him not speak, neither.

D. PEDRO. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart.

BEAT. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool," it keeps on the windy side of care:-My cousin tells him in his ear, that he is in her heart.

CLAUD. And so she doth, cousin.

BEAT. Good lord, for alliance!8-Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sun-burned;"

7

poor fool,] This was formerly an expression of tenderness. See King Lear, last scene: "And my poor fool is hang'd." MALONE.

Good lord, for alliance!] Claudio has just called Beatrice cousin. I suppose, therefore, the meaning is,-Good lord, here have I got a new kinsman by marriage. MALONE,

I cannot understand these words, unless they imply a wish for the speaker's alliance with a husband. STEEVENS.

9 Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburned ;] What is it, to go to the world? perhaps, to enter by 'marriage into a settled state; but why is the unmarried lady sun-burnt? I believe we should read,―Thus goes every one to the wood but I, and I am sun-burnt. Thus does every one but I find a shelter, and I am left exposed to wind and sun. The nearest way to the wood, is a phrase for the readiest means to

I may sit in a corner, and cry, heigh ho! for a husband.

D. PEDRO, Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.

BEAT. I would rather have one of your father's getting: Hath your grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them.

D. PEDRO. Will you have me, lady?

BEAT. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days; your grace is too costly to wear every day:-But, I beseech your grace, pardon me; I was born to speak all mirtha, and no matter..

D. PEDRO. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in a merry hour.

BEAT. No, sure, my lord, my mother cry'd; but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born.-Cousins, God give you joy!

LEON. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of?

BEAT. I cry you mercy, uncle.-By your grace's pardon. [Exit BEATRICE. D. PEDRO. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. LEON. There's little of the melancholy element

any end. It is said of a woman, who accepts a worse match than those which she had refused, that she has passed through the wood, and at last taken a crooked stick. But conjectural criticism has always something to abate its confidence. Shakspeare, in All's well that ends well, uses the phrase, to go to the world, for marriage. So that my emendation depends only on the opposition of wood to sun-burnt. JOHNSON.

I am sun-burnt may mean, I have lost my beauty, and am consequently no longer such an object as can tempt a man to marry. STEEVENS..