Mal. Lady, you have. Pray you, peruse that letter:

You must not now deny it is your hand,
Write from it, if you can, in hand, or phrase;
Or say 'tis not your seal, nor your invention:
You can say none of this: Well, grant it then,
And tell me, in the modesty of honour,
Why you have given me such clear lights of favour;
Bade me come smiling, and cross-garter'd to you,
To put on yellow stockings, and to frown
Upon Sir Toby, and the lighter 20 people:
And, acting this in an obedient hope,
Why have you suffer'd me to be imprison'd,
Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest,
And made the most notorious geck 21, and gull,
That e'er invention played on? tell me why.

Oli. Alas, Malvolio, this is not my writing,
Though, I confess, much like the character:
But, out of question, 'tis Maria's hand.
And now I do bethink me, it was she

First told me, thou wast mad: then cam'st 22 in smiling,

And in such forms which here were presuppos'd Upon thee in the letter. Pr'ythee, be content: This practice 23 hath most shrewdly pass'd upon thee;

But, when we know the grounds and authors of it,

Sirs, I will practise on this drunken man.'

23 Practice is a deceit, an insidious stratagem. So in the Induction to the Taming of the Shrew.

Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge

Of thine own cause.

Fab.

Good madam, hear me speak; And let no quarrel, nor no brawl to come,

Taint the condition of this present hour,

Which I have wonder'd at. In hope it shall not,
Most freely I confess, myself, and Toby,
Set this device against Malvolio here,
Upon some stubborn and uncourteous parts
We had conceiv'd against him: Maria writ
The letter, at Sir Toby's great importance 24;
In recompense whereof, he hath married her.
How with a sportful malice it was follow'd,
May rather pluck on laughter than revenge;
If that the injuries be justly weigh'd,

That have on both sides past.

Oli. Alas, poor fool! how have they baffled 25 thee!

Clo. Why, some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrown upon them. I was one, sir, in this interlude; one Sir Topas, sir; but that's all one:-By the Lord, fool, I am not mad.—But do you remember? Madam, why laugh you at such a barren rascal? an you smile not, he's gagg'd: And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.

Mal. I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you.

[Exit.

Oli. He hath been most notoriously abus'd. Duke. Pursue him, and entreat him to a peace :He hath not told us of the captain yet; When that is known and golden time convents 26,

24 Importunacy.

:

25 Baffled is cheated. See Note on the first Scene of K. Rich. II. * i. e. Shall serve, agree, be convenient.

A solemn combination shall be made

Of our dear souls.—Mean time, sweet sister,
We will not part from hence-Cesario, come,
For so you shall be, while you are a man;
But, when in other habits you are seen,
Orsino's mistress, and his fancy's queen. [Exeunt.

SONG.

Clo. When that I was and a little tiny boy,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,

A foolish thing was but a toy,

For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came to man's estate,

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
'Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate,
For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came, alas! to wive,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
By swaggering could I never thrive,
For the rain it raineth every day,

bed,

But when I came unto my
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
With toss-pots still had drunken head,
For the rain it raineth every day.

A great while ago the world begun,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
But that's all one, our play is done,
And we'll strive to please you every day.

[Exit.

THIS play is in the graver part elegant and easy, and in some of the lighter scenes exquisitely humorous. Ague-cheek is drawn with great propriety, but his character is, in a great measure, that of natural fatuity, and is therefore not the proper prey of a satirist. The soliloquy of Malvolio is truly comic; he is betrayed to ridicule merely by his pride. The marriage of Olivia, and the succeeding perplexity, though well enough contrived to divert on the stage, wants credibility, and fails to produce the proper instruction required in the drama, as it exhibits no just picture of life. JOHNSON.

END OF VOL. I.

C. and C. Whittingham, College House, Chiswick.