OLI. Get him to bed, and let his hurt be look'd to. [Exeunt Clown, Sir TOBY, and Sir ANDREW. Enter SEBASTIAN.

SEB. I am sorry, madam, I have hurt your kins

man;

But, had it been the brother of my blood,

I must have done no less, with wit, and safety.
You throw a strange regard upon me, and
By that I do perceive it hath offended you;
Pardon me, sweet one, even for the vows
We made each other but so late ago.

DUKE. One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons;

A natural perspective 7, that is, and is not.

therto printed, "Will you help an ass-head," &c. but why should Sir Toby thus unmercifully abuse himself? MALONE.

As I cannot help thinking that Sir Toby, out of humour with himself, means to discharge these reproaches on the officious Sir Andrew, who also needs the surgeon's help, I have left the passage as I found it. Mr. Malone points it thus: "Will you help? An ass-head," &c! STEEVENS.

7 A natural PERSPECTIVE,] A perspective seems to be taken for shows exhibited through a glass with such lights as make the pictures appear really protuberant. The Duke therefore says, that nature has here exhibited such a show, where shadows seem realities; where that which is not appears like that which is.

JOHNSON.

I apprehend this may be explained by a quotation from a duodecimo book called Humane Industry, 1661, p. 76 and 77: “It is a pretty art that in a pleated paper and table furrowed or indented, men make one picture to represent several faces-that being viewed from one place or standing, did shew the head of a Spaniard, and from another, the head of an ass.”—"A picture of a chancellor of France presented to the common beholder a multitude of little faces; but if one did look on it through a perspective, there appeared only the single pourtraicture of the chancellor himself." Thus that, which is, is not, or in a different position appears like another thing. This seems also to explain a passage in King Henry V. Act V. Sc. II. : "Yes, my lord, you see them perspectively, the cities turned into a maid." TOLLET.

SEB. Antonio, O my dear Antonio!

How have the hours rack'd and tortur'd me,
Since I have lost thee.

ANT. Sebastian are you?

SEB.

Fear'st thou that, Antonio? ANT. How have you made division of yourself?— An apple, cleft in two, is not more twin

Than these two creatures. Which is Sebastian? OLI. Most wonderful!

SEB. Do I stand there? I never had a brother:
Nor can there be that deity in my nature,
Of here and every where. I had a sister,
Whom the blind waves and surges have devour'd:-
Of charity, what kin are you to me? [TO VIOLA.
What countryman? what name? what parentage?
VIO. Of Messaline: Sebastian was my father;
Such a Sebastian was my brother too,
So went he suited to his watery tomb:
If spirits can assume both form and suit
You come to fright us.

SEB.
A spirit I am indeed;
But am in that dimension grossly clad,
Which from the womb I did participate.
Were you a woman, as the rest goes even,
I should my tears let fall upon your cheek,
And say-Thrice welcome, drowned Viola!

V10. My father had a mole upon his brow.

I believe Shakspeare meant nothing more by this natural perspective, than a reflection from a glass or mirror. M. MASON.

Perspective certainly means a glass used for optical delusion, or a glass generally. In Franck's Northern Memoirs, p. 16, Theophilus, one of the discoursers, says-" he that reads his own heart without a perspective, reads all the world." The book was written in 1658. DOUCE.

8 Of charity,] i. e. out of charity, tell me, &c. So, in The Taming of The Shrew:

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Now, let him speak; 'tis charity to show," &c.

STEEVENS.

SEB. And so had mine.

V10. And died that day when Viola from her

birth

Had number'd thirteen years.

SEB. O, that record is lively in my soul !
He finished, indeed, his mortal act,

That day that made my sister thirteen years.
V10. If nothing lets to make us happy both,
But this my masculine usurp'd attire,

Do not embrace me, till each circumstance
Of place, time, fortune, do cohere, and jump,
That I am Viola: which to confirm,

I'll bring you to a captain in this town,
Where lie my maiden weeds; by whose gentle help
I was preserv'd, to serve this noble count:
All the occurrence of my fortune since
Hath been between this lady, and this lord.

SEB. So comes it, lady, you have been mistook: [TO OLIVIA

But nature to her bias drew in that.
You would have been contracted to a maid;
Nor are you therein, by my life, deceiv'd,
You are betroth'd both to a maid and man.
DUKE. Be not amaz'd; right noble is his blood.—
If this be so, as yet the glass seems true,
I shall have share in this most happy wreck :
Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand times,
[TO VIOLA.

Thou never should'st love woman like to me.
Vio. And all those sayings will I over-swear;
And all those swearings keep as true in soul,
As doth that orbed continent, the fire

That severs day from night.

DUKE.

Give me thy hand; And let me see thee in thy woman's weeds.

Vio. The captain, that did bring me first on shore, Hath my maid's garments: he, upon some action,

Is now in durance; at Malvolio's suit,

A gentleman, and follower of my lady's.

OLI. He shall enlarge him :-Fetch Malvolio hither:

And yet, alas, now I remember me,
They say, poor gentleman, he's much distract.

Re-enter Clown, with a letter.

A most extracting frenzy of mine own
From my remembrance clearly banish'd his.-
How does he, sirrah?

CLO. Truly, madam, he holds Belzebub at the stave's end, as well as a man in his case may do: he has here writ a letter to you, I should have given it you to-day morning; but as a madman's epistles are no gospels, so it skills not much, when they are delivered.

OLI. Open it, and read it.

CLO. Look then to be well edified, when the fool delivers the madman:-By the Lord, madam,OLI. How now! art thou mad?

CLO. No, madam, I do but read madness: an your ladyship will have it as it ought to be, you must allow vox2.

A most EXTRACTING frenzy-] i. e. a frenzy that drew me away from every thing but its own object. WARBURTON.

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I formerly supposed that Shakspeare wrote-distracting; but have since met with a passage in The Historie of Hamblet, bl. 1. 1608, sig. C 2, that seems to support the reading of the old copy: -to try if men of great account be extract out of their wits." MALONE. So, William de Wyrcester, speaking of King Henry VI. says: subito cecidit in gravem infirmitatem capitis, ita quod extractus à mente videbatur." STEEVENS.

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2

- you must allow vox.] I am by no means certain that I understand this passage, which, indeed, the author of The Revisal pronounces to have no meaning. I suppose the Clown begins reading the letter in some fantastical manner, on which Olivia asks him," if he is mad. No, madam, (says he,) I do but barely

OLI. Pr'ythee, read i̇' thy right wits.

CLO. So I do, madonna; but to read his right wits, is to read thus: therefore perpend, my princess, and give ear.

OLI. Read it you, sirrah.

[TO FABIAN. FAB. [reads.] By the Lord, madam, you wrong me, and the world shall know it: though you have put me into darkness, 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,

deliver the sense of this madman's epistle: if you would have it read as it ought to be, (that is,) with such a frantic accent and gesture as a madman would read it, you must allow vox," i. e. you must furnish the reader with a voice, or, in other words, read it yourself. But Mr. Malone's explanation, I think, is preferable to mine, STEEVENS.

The Clown, we may presume, had begun to read the letter in a very loud tone, and probably with extravagant gesticulation. Being reprimanded by his mistress, he justifies himself by saying, "If you would have it read in character, as such a mad epistle ought to be read, you must permit me to assume a frantick tone." MALONE.

3- but to read his right wits,] To represent his present state of mind, is to read a madman's letter, as I now do, like a madman. JOHNSON.