that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn, by falling in love: And such a man is Claudio. I have known, when there was no musick with him but the drum and fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe: I have known, when he would have walked ten mile afoot, to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake, carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain, and to the purpose, like an honest man, and a soldier; and now is he turn'd orthographer; his words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted, and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not: I will not be sworn, but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me, he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair; yet I am well: another is wise; yet I am well: another virtuous; yet I am well: but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me;

2 This folly is the theme of all comic satire. In Andrew Borde's Introduction to Knowledge,' the English gentleman is represented naked, with a pair of shears in one hand and a piece of cloth on his arm, with the following verses:

'I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here,
Musing in my mynde what rayment I shal were,
For now I will ware this, and now I will were that,
And now I will were I cannot tell what.'

In Barnabe Riche's Faults and nothing but Faults,' 1606, The fashionmonger that spends his time in the contemplation of suites,' is said to have a sad and heavy countenance,' because his tailor hath cut his new sute after the olde stampe of some stale fashion that is at the least of a whole fortnight's standing.'

noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God3. Ha! the prince and monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour.

[Withdraws.

Enter DON PEDRO, LEONATO, and CLAUDIO. D. Pedro. Come, shall we hear this musick? Claud. Yea, my good lord:-How still the evening is,

As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony!

D. Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself?

Claud. O, very well, my lord: the musick ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a penny-worth.

Enter BALTHAZAR, with musick.

D. Pedro. Come, Balthazar, we'll hear that song again.

Balth. O good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander musick any more than once.

D. Pedro. It is the witness still of excellency, To put a strange face on his own perfection:I pray thee, sing, and let me woo no more.

Balth. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing: Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy; yet he woos; Yet will he swear, he loves.

3 Benedick may allude to the fashion of dyeing the hair, very common in Shakspeare's time. Or to that of wearing false hair, which also then prevailed. So, in a subsequent scene: "I like the new tire within excellently, if the hair were a thought browner."

4 Kid-fox has been supposed to mean discovered or detected fox; Kid certainly meant known or discovered in Chaucer's time. It may have been a technical term in the game of hidefox; old terms are sometimes longer preserved in jocular sports than in common usage. Some editors have printed it hid-fox; and others explained it young or cub-fox,

D. Pedro.

Nay, pray thee, come:

Or, if thou wilt hold longer argument,

Do it in notes.

Balth.

Note this before my notes,

There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. D. Pedro. Why these are very crotchets that he speaks;

Note, notes, forsooth, and noting!

[Musick.

Bene. Now, Divine air! now is his soul ravished! -Is it not strange, that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies?-Well, a horn for my money, when all's done.

BALTHAZAR sings.

I.

Balth. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever;

One foot in sea, and one on shore;
To one thing constant never:
Then sigh not so,

But let them go,

And be you blithe and bonny;
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into, Hey nonny, nonny.

II.

Sing no more ditties, sing no mo
Of dumps so dull and heavy;
The fraud of men was ever so,
Since summer first was leavy:
Then sigh not so, &c.

D. Pedro. By my troth, a good song.
Balth. And an ill singer, my lord.

D. Pedro. Ha? no; no, faith; thou singest well enough for a shift.

Bene. [Aside.] An he had been a dog, that should have howled thus, they would have hanged him: and, I pray God, his bad voice bode no mischief! I had as lief have heard the night-raven3, come what plague could have come after it.

D. Pedro. Yea, marry; [To CLAUDIO.]—Dost thou hear, Balthazar? I pray thee, get us some excellent musick; for to-morrow night we would have it at the lady Hero's chamber window.

Balth. The best I can, my lord.

D. Pedro. Do so: farewell. [Exeunt BALTHAZAR and musick.] Come hither, Leonato: What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with signior Benedick?

Claud. O, ay:-Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. [Aside to PEDRO.] I did never think that lady would have loved any man.

Leon. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful, that she should so dote on signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seemed ever to abhor.

Bene. Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner?

[Aside. Leon. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it; but that she loves him with an enraged affection, it is past the infinite of thought7.

D. Pedro. May be, she doth but counterfeit.
Claud. Faith, like enough.

Leon. O God! counterfeit! There never was

5 i. e. the owl; vUKTIKOρaй. So, in Henry VI. P. III.: 'The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time.' Thus also Milton, in L'Allegro: And the night-raven sings.'

6 This is an allusion to the stalking-horse; a horse either real or factitious, by which the fowler anciently skreened himself from the sight of the game.

7 i. e. but with what an enraged affection she loves him, it is beyond the infinite power of thought to conceive.'

counterfeit of passion came so near the life of sion, as she discovers it.

pas

D. Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she? Claud. Bait the hook well; this fish will bite.

[Aside. Leon. What effects, my lord! She will sit you,You heard my daughter tell you how.

Claud. She did, indeed.

D. Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me: I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection.

Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord; especially against Benedick.

Bene. [Aside.] I should think this a gull, but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it: knavery cannot, sure, hide itself in such reverence.

Claud. He hath ta'en the infection; hold it up.

[Aside.

D. Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick?

Leon. No; and swears she never will: that's her torment.

Claud. 'Tis true, indeed; so your daughter says: Shall I, says she, that have so oft encounter'd him with scorn, write to him that I love him!

Leon. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him: for she'll be up twenty times a night and there will she sit in her smock, till she have writ a sheet of paper:-my daughter tells us all.

Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of.

Leon. O!-When she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found Benedick and Beatrice between the sheet!

Claud. That.

Leon. O! she tore the letter into a thousand half