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You all know your several offices; take care to assist in making preparations at this busy time for my new guests. I would therefore read cousins in both places.

MALONE. 857. Don John] The folio has Sir John. MALONE. What, the good jer, my lord!] We should read, STEEVENS.

goujere. 368. ---I cannot hide what I am:] This is one of our author's natural touches. An envious and un social mind, too proud to give pleasure, and too sul, len to receive it, always endeavours to hide its malig nity from the world and from itself, under the plainness of simple honesty, or the dignity of haughty independence. JOHNSON.

373. -claw no man in his humour.] To claw is to fatter. So the pope's claw-backs, in bishop Jewel, are the pope's flatterers. The sense is the same in the proverb, Mulus mulum scabit. JOHNSON.

In Wylson on Usury, 1571, p. 141. "therefore I will clawe him, and saye well might he fare, and Godd's blessing have he too."

REED.

382. I had rather be a canker in a hedge, than a rose in his grace;] A canker is the canker rose, dog rose, cynosbatus, or hip. JOHNSON.

So, in Heywood's Love's Mistress, 1636:
"A rose, a lily, a blew-bottle, and a canker

flower,"

Again, in Shakspere's 54th Sonnet:

C

The

"The canker blooms have full as deep a die
"As the perfumed tincture of the rose."

I think no change is necessary.

STEEVENS.

The former speech, in my apprehension, shews clearly that the old copy is right. Conrade had said: "He hath ta'en you new into his grace, where it is impossible that you should take root but by the fair weather that you make yourself." To this Don John replies, with critical correctness: "I had-rather be a canker in a hedge, than a rose in his grace." We meet a kindred expression in Macbeth:

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"I have begun to plant thee, and will labour
"To make thee full of growing."

Again, in K. Henry VI. Part III.

"I'll plant Plantaganet, root him up who dares."

415.

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-in sad conference ;] Sad in this, as in

other instances, signifies serious.

424. both sure,

STEEVENS.

-] i. e. to be depended on.

STEEVENS.

Line 4.

ACT II.

HEART-BURN'D an hour after.]

The pain commonly called the heart-burn, proceeds

from

from an acid humour in the stomach, and is therefore properly enough imputed to tart looks.

JOHNSON.

30. -in woollen.] Thus the modern editors. The old copies read--in the woollen. STEEVENS. 69. if the prince be too important,] Important here, and in many other places, is importunate.

JOHNSON. 84. Balthazar,] The quarto and folio add-or dumb John. STEEVENS.

or dumb John.] Here is another proof, that when the first copies of our author's plays were prepared for the press, the transcript was made out by the ear. If the MS. had lain before the transcriber, it is very unlikely that he should have mistaken Don for dumb : but, by an inarticulate speaker, or inattentive hearer, they might easily be confounded. MALONE.

In answer to this remark, it is well observed by Mr. Reed, that Don John's taciturnity has been already no ticed. It seems therefore not improbable, that the author himself might have occasionally applied the epithet dumb to him. HENLEY.

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97. Pedro. Speak low, &c.] This speech, which is given to Pedro, should be given to Margaret.

REVISAL.

98. Balth. Well, I would you did like me.] This, and the two following little speeches, which I have placed to Balthazar, are in all the printed copies given to Benedick. But, 'tis clear, the dialogue here ought to be betwixt Balthazar and Margaret: Bene

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dick, a little lower, converses with Beatrice: and so every man talks with his woman once round. THEOBALD.

104. amen.] I do not concur with Theobald in his arbitrary disposition of these speeches. Balthazar is called in the old copies dumb John, as I have already observed; and therefore it should seem, that he was meant to speak but little. When Benedick says, the hearers may cry, amen, we must suppose that he leaves Margaret and goes in search of some other sport. Margaret, utters a wish for a good partner. Balthazar, who is represented as a man of the fewest words, repeats Benedick's Amen, and leads her off, desiring, as he says in the following short speech, to put himself to no greater expence of breath.

STEEVENS.

This whole note is, I apprehend, founded on a mistake; or, in the stage-direction in the old copy, at the beginning of this scene, was, I believe, an accidental repetition; and dumb, I suspect, was writren instead of Don, through the mistake of the transcriber, whose ear deceived him.

I think it extremely probable, that the regulation proposed by Theobald, and the author of the Revisal,

is right.

116.

MALONE.

his dry hand] A dry hand was anciently regarded as the sign of a cold constitution. To this Maria, in Twelfth Night, alludes, act i. sc. 3.

STEEVENS.

128. -Hundred merry Tales; -] The book, to which Shakspere alludes, was an old translation of

Les

Les cent Nouvelles Nouvelles. The original was published at Paris, in the black letter, before the year 1500, and is said to have been written by some of the royal family of France. Ames mentions a translation

of it prior to the time of Shakspere.

In the London Chaunticleres, 1659, this work, among others, is cry'd for sale by a ballad-man. "The

Seven Wise Men of Gotham; a Hundred Merry Tales; Scoggin's Jests," &c.

Again, in the Nice Valour, &c. by Beaumont and Fletcher:

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"The Hundred Novels, and the Books of Cookery." Of this collection there are frequent entries in the register of the Stationers' Company. The first I met with was in January 1581. STEEVENS.

This Book was certainly printed before the year 1575, and in much repute, as appears from the mention of it in Langham's Letter. Again, in The English Courtier and the Cuntrey Gentleman, bl. let. 1586. Sign. H. 4. -wee want not also pleasant madheaded knaves that bee properly learned and well reade in diverse pleasant bookes and good authors. As Sir Guy of Warwicke, the Foure Sonnes of Amon, the Ship of Fooles, the Budget of Demaundes, the Hundredth Merry Tales, the Booke of Ryddles, and many other excellent writers both witty and pleasaunt." It has been suggested to me, that there is no other reason than the word hundred to suppose this book a translation of the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles. REED. Ciij

136.

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