But mine is all as hungry as the sea",

And can digest as much: make no compare
Between that love a woman can bear me,

And that I owe Olivia.

V10.

Aye, but I know,—

DUKE. What dost thou know?

V10. Too well what love women to men may

owe:

In faith, they are as true of heart as we.
My father had a daughter lov'd a man,
As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman,
I should your lordship.

DUKE.

And what's her history? V10. A blank, my lord: She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i' the budo, Feed on her damask cheek: she pin'd in thought';

minutes before that he said they had more constancy in love than M. MASON.

men.

Mr. Mason would read-suffers; but there is no need of change. Suffer is governed by women, implied under the words, "their love." The love of women, &c. who suffer. MALONE. 5- as HUNGRY as the sea,] So, in Coriolanus : "Then let the pebbles "Fillip the stars." like a wORM i' the BUD,]

6

speare:

on the hungry beach
STEEVENS.

So, in the fifth Sonnet of Shak

Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,
"Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name."

Again, in our author's Rape of Lucrece :

STEEVENS.

Why should the worm intrude the maiden bud?"

Again, in King Richard II. :

"But now will canker sorrow eat my bud,

"And chase the native beauty from his cheek." MALONE. 7 she pin'd in THOUGHT;] Thought formerly signified melancholy. So, in Hamlet:

"Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." Again, in The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, 1562: "The cause of this her death was inward care and thought."

MALONE.

Mr. Malone says, thought means melancholy. But why wrest from this word its plain and usual acceptation, and make Shak

And, with a green and yellow melancholy,
She sat like patience on a monument,

Smiling at grief. Was not this love, indeed? We men may say more, swear more: but, indeed, Our shows are more than will; for still we prove Much in our vows, but little in our love.

DUKE. But died thy sister of her love, my boy? VIO. I am all the daughters of my father's house, And all the brothers too;-and yet I know not:Sir, shall I to this lady?

speare guilty of tautology? for in the very next line he uses "melancholy." DoUCE.

8 And, with a green and yellow melancholy,] Chaucer, in his Romaunt of the Rose, has a similar description of sorrow, and is guilty of the same tautology:

"Sorrow was painted next Envie,

66

Upon that wall of masonrie;
"But well was seene in her colour,
"That she had lived in languour,
"Her seemed to have the jaundice,
"Not halfe so pale was Avarice,
"Ne nothing like of leannesse,

"For sorowe, thought, and great distress,

"That she had suffred daie and night

"Made her yellow, and nothing bright!" Boswell.

9 She sat like patience on a monument,

Smiling at grief.] So, in Middleton's Witch, Act IV. Sc. III.: "She does not love me now, but painefully

"Like one that's forc'd to smile upon a grief." DOUCE. For the sake of those readers who may think that this exquisite passage stands in no need of explanation, I have saved them from the interruption which would have been occasioned by the long notes written upon it, and have thrown them to the end of the play. BOSWELL.

1 I am all the daughters of my father's house,

And all the brothers too;] This was the most artful answer that could be given. The question was of such a nature, that to have declined the appearance of a direct answer, must have raised suspicion. This has the appearance of a direct answer, that the sister died of her love; she (who passed for a man) saying, she was all the daughters of her father's house. WARBURTON.

Such another equivoque occurs in Lyly's Galathea, 1592: “— my father had but one daughter, and therefore I could have no sister." STEEVENS.

DUKE.

Ay, that's the theme.

To her in haste; give her this jewel; say,
My love can give no place, bide no denay'.

[Exeunt.

SCENE V.

OLIVIA'S Garden.

Enter Sir TOBY BELCH, Sir ANDREW AGUe-cheek, and FABIAN.

SIR TO. Come thy ways, signior Fabian.

FAB. Nay, I'll come; if I lose a scruple of this sport, let me be boiled to death with melancholy. SIR TO. Would'st thou not be glad to have the niggardly rascally sheep-biter come by some notable shame ?

FAB. I would exult, man: you know, he brought me out of favour with my lady, about a bear-baiting here.

SIR TO. To anger him, we'll have the bear again; and we will fool him black and blue :-Shall we not, sir Andrew ?

SIR AND. An we do not, it is pity of our lives.

Enter MARIA.

SIR TO. Here comes the little villain :-How now, my metal of India 2 ?

bide no DENAY.] Denay is denial. To denay is an antiquated verb sometimes used by Holinshed. So, p. 620: "-the state of a cardinal which was naied and denaied him."

Again, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, b. ii. ch. 10:

66

thus did say

"The thing, friend Battus, you demand, not gladly I denay.”

2

STEEVENS.

my METAL of India ?] So, in Ram Alley, 1611:

66

'Come, wench of gold."

MAR. Get ye all three into the box-tree: Malvolio's coming down this walk: he has been yonder

So, also, in King Henry IV. Part I.: “Lads, boys, hearts of gold, &c.

Again, ibidem:

and as bountiful

"As mines of India."

Again, in King Henry VIII. :

66

To-day the French

66

All clinquant, all in gold, like heathen gods,
"Shone down the English; and to-morrow they

66

Made Britain India; every man that stood,

"Shew'd like a mine."

So Lyly, in his Euphues and his England, 1580: "I saw that India bringeth gold, but England bringeth goodness."

Again, in Wily Beguil'd, 1606: "Come, my heart of gold, let's have a dance at the making up of this match."-The person there addressed, as in Twelfth-Night, is a woman. The old copy has mettle. The two words are very frequently confounded in the early editions of our author's plays. The editor of the second folio arbitrarily changed the word to nettle; which all the subsequent editors have adopted. MALONE.

"-my nettle of India?" The poet must here mean a zoophite, called the Urtica Marina, abounding in the Indian seas.

Quæ tacta totius corporis pruritum quendam excitat, unde nomen urticæ est sortita."

Wolfgangi Franzii Hist. Animal, 1665, p. 620. "Urticæ marinæ omnes pruritum quendam movent, et acrimonia suâ venerem extinctam et sopitam excitant."

Johnstoni Hist. Nat. de Exang. Aquat. p. 56. Perhaps the same plant is alluded to by Greene, in his Card of Fancy, 1608" the flower of India, pleasant to be seen, but whoso smelleth to it, feeleth present smart." Again, in his Mamillia, 1593: Consider, the herb of India is of pleasant smell, but whoso cometh to it, feeleth present smart." Again, in P. Holland's translation of the ninth book of Pliny's Natural History: "As for those nettles, there be of them that in the night raunge to and fro, and likewise change their colour. Leaves they carry of a fleshy substance, and of flesh they feed. Their qualities is to raise an itching smart." Maria had certainly excited a congenial sensation in Sir Toby. The folio, 1623, reads-“ mettle of India," which may mean, my girl of gold, my precious girl. The change, however, which I have not disturbed, was made by the editor of the folio, 1632, who, in many instances, appears to have regulated

i' the sun, practising behaviour to his own shadow, this half hour: observe him, for the love of mockery; for, I know, this letter will make a contemplative ideot of him. Close, in the name of jesting! The men hide themselves.] Lie thou there; [throws down a letter.] for here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling3. [Exit MARIA.

Enter MALVOLIO.

MAL. 'Tis but fortune; all is fortune. Maria once told me, she did affect me: and I have heard herself come thus near, that, should she fancy, it should be one of my complexion. Besides, she uses me with a more exalted respect, than any one else that follows her. What should I think on't?

SIR TO. Here's an over-weening rogue!

FAB. O, peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him; how he jets under his advanced plumes!

SIR AND. 'Slight, I could so beat the rogue :

his text from more authentic copies of our author's plays than were in the possession of their first collective publishers.

STEEVENS.

Nettle of India, which Steevens has ingeniously explained, certainly better corresponds with Sir Toby's description of Maria"here comes the little villain." The nettle of India is the plant that produces what is called cow-itch, a substance only used for the purpose of tormenting, by its itching quality. M. MASON.

3 here comes the TROUT that must be caught with TICKLING.] Cogan, in his Haven of Health, 1595, will prove an able commentator on this passage: "This fish of nature loveth flatterie: for, being in the water, it will suffer it selfe to be rubbed and clawed, and so to be taken. Whose example I would wish no maides to follow, least they repent afterclaps." STEEVENS.

4

how he JETS] To jet is to strut, to agitate the body by a proud motion. So, in Arden of Feversham, 1592:

"Is now become the steward of the house,
"And bravely jets it in a silken gown."

Again, in Bussy D'Ambois, 1607:

"To jet in others' plumes so haughtily." STEEVENS.