his tongue is the clapper; for what his heart thinks, his tongue speaks.6

BENE. Gallants, I am not as I have been.
LEON. SO say I; methinks, you are fadder.

CLAUD. I hope, he be in love.

D. PEDRO. Hang him, truant; there's no true drop of blood in him, to be truly touch'd with love: if he be fad, he wants money.

BENE. I have the tooth-ach.

D. PEDRO. Draw it.

BENE. Hang it!

CLAUD. You must hang it first, and draw it after

wards.

D. PEDRO. What? figh for the tooth-ach?

LEON. Where is but a humour, or a worm?

BENE. Well, Every one can master a grief, but he that has it.

CLAUD. Yet say I, he is in love.

D. PEDRO. There is no appearance of fancy in him, unless it be a fancy that he hath to strange difguises; as, to be a Dutch-man to-day; a Frenchman to-morrow; or in the shape of two countries

6

as a bell, and his tongue is the clapper; &c.] A covert allufion to the old proverb :

7

"As the fool thinketh
"So the bell clinketh."

STEEVENS.

can mafter a grief,] The old copies read corruptlycannot. The correction was made by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

* There is no appearance of fancy &c.] Here is a play upon the word fancy, which Shakspeare uses for love as well as for humour, caprice, or affectation. JOHNSON.

at once, as, a German from the waist downward, all flops; and a Spaniard from the hip upward, no doublet: Unless he have a fancy to this foolery, as it appears he hath, he is no fool for fancy, as you would have it appear he is.3

9

CLAUD. If he be not in love with some woman,

-or in the Shape of two countries at once, &c.] So, in The Seven deadly Sinnes of London, by Tho. Decker, 1606, 4to. bl. 1: "For an Englishman's fute is like a traitor's bodie that hath been hanged, drawne, and quartered, and is set up in severall places: his codpiece is in Denmarke; the collor of his dublet and the belly, in France: the wing and narrow fleeve, in Italy: the short waste hangs ouer a Dutch botcher's stall in Utrich: his huge floppes speaks Spanish: Polonia gives him the bootes, &c. and thus we mocke euerie nation, for keeping one fashion, yet steale patches from euerie one of them, to peece out our pride; and are now laughing-stocks to them, because their cut so scurvily becomes us." STEEVENS.

I

- all flops ;) Slops are large loose breeches, or trowfers, worn only by failors at present. They are mentioned by Jonfon, in his Alchymist :

"-fix great flops

"Bigger than three Dutch hoys."

Again, in Ram-Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611:

- three pounds in gold

"These flops contain." STEEVENS.

Hence evidently the term flop-feller, for the venders of ready made clothes. NICHOLS.

2

- a Spaniard from the hip upward, no doublet:] There can be no doubt but we should read, all doublet, which corresponds with the actual dress of the old Spaniards. As the passage now stands, it is a negative description, which is in truth no description at all. M. MASON.

-no doublet:] or, in other words, all cloak. The words"Or in the shape of two countries," &c. to "no doublet," were omitted in the folio, probably to avoid giving any offence to the Spaniards, with whom James became a friend in 1604.

3

MALONE.

- have it appear he is.] Thus the quarto, 1600. The

folio, 1623, reads" have it to appear," &c. STEEVENS.

there is no believing old figns: he brushes his hat o' mornings; What should that bode?

D. PEDRO. Hath any man seen him at the barber's?

CLAUD. No, but the barber's man hath been seen with him; and the old ornament of his cheek hath already ftuffed tennis-balls.4

LEON. Indeed, he looks younger than he did, by the lofs of a beard.

D. PEDRO. Nay, he rubs himself with civet: Can you fmell him out by that?

CLAUD. That's as much as to say, The sweet youth's in love.

D. PEDRO. The greateft note of it is his melancholy. CLAUD. And when was he wont to wash his face? D. PEDRO. Yea, or to paint himself? for the which, I hear what they say of him.

CLAUD. Nay, but his jefting spirit; 'which is now crept into a lutestring,5 and now governed by stops.

* and the old ornament of his cheek hath already stuffed tennis-balls.] So, in A wonderful, Strange, and miraculous aftrological Prognoftication for this Year of our Lord, 1591, written by Nashe, in ridicule of Richard Harvey: "- they may fell their haire by the pound, to stuffe tennice balles."

STEEVENS.

Again, in Ram-Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611: "Thy beard shall serve to stuff those balls by which I get me heat at tenice."

Again, in The Gentle Craft, 1600:

5

"He'll shave it off, and stuffe tenice balls with it."

HENDERSON.

-crept into a lutestring,] Love-fongs in our author's

time were generally fung to the musick of the lute. So, in King Henry IV. P. I:

------as melancholy as an oid lion, or a lover's lute."

MALONE.

D. PEDRO. Indeed, that tells a heavy tale for him: Conclude, conclude, he is in love.

CLAUD. Nay, but I know who loves him.

D. PEDRO. That would I know too; I warrant, one that knows him not.

CLAUD. Yes, and his ill conditions; and, in despite of all, dies for him.

D. PEDRO. She shall be buried with her face upwards.6

She shall be buried with her face upwards.] Thus the whole fet of editions: but what is there any way particular in this? Are not all men and women buried fo? Sure, the poet means, in opposition to the general rule, and by way of diftinction, with her heels upwards, or face downwards. I have chosen the first reading, because I find it the expression in vogue in our author's time. THEOBALD.

This emendation, which appears to me very specious, is rejected by Dr. Warburton. The meaning seems to be, that the who acted upon principles contrary to others, should be buried with the same contrariety. JOHNSON.

Mr. Theobald quite mistakes the scope of the poet, who prepares the reader to expect somewhat uncommon or extraordinary; and the humour consists in the disappointment of that expectation, as at the end of Iago's poetry in Othello:

"She was a wight, (if ever fuch wight were)"To fuckle fools, and chronicle small beer." HEATH. Theobald's conjecture may, however, be supported by a pafsage in The Wild Goose Chase of Beaumont and Fletcher:

66

love cannot starve me;

"For if I die o' th' first fit, I am unhappy,

"And worthy to be buried with my heels upwards." Dr. Johnson's explanation may likewise be countenanced by a passage in an old black letter book, without date, intitled, A merye Jest of a Man that was called HOWLEGLAS, &c. "How Howleglas was buried."-" Thus as Howleglas was deade, then they brought him to be buryed. And as they would have put the coffyn into the pytte with 11 cordes, the corde at the fete brake, so that the fote of the coffyn fell into the botome of the pyt, and the coffyn stood bolt upryght in the middes of the grave. Then defired the people that stode

BENE. Yet is this no charm for the tooth-ach.Old fignior, walk afide with me, I have studied eight or nine wife words to speak to you, which these hobby-horses must not hear.

[Exeunt BENEDICK and LEONATO.

about the grave that tyme, to let the coffyn to stand bolt upryght. For in his lyfe tyme he was a very marvelous man, &c. and shall be buryed as marvailoufly; and in this maner they left Howleglass," &c.

That this book was once popular, may be inferred from Ben Jonson's frequent allusions to it in his Poetaster :

"What do you laugh, Owleglas?" Again, in The Fortunate Isles, a masque: "What do you think of Owlglas, "Inftead of him?"

And again, in The Sad Shepherd. This history was originally written in Dutch. The hero is there called Uyle-spegel. Under this title he is likewise introduced by Ben Jonson in his Alchymist, and the masque and paftoral already quoted. Menage speaks of Ulespeigle as a man famous for tromperies ingenieuses; adds that his Life was tranflated into French, and quotes the title-page of it. I have another copy published A Troyes, in 1714, the title of which differs from that fet down by Menage.

The paffage indeed may mean only-She shall be buried in her lover's arms. So, in The Winter's Tale:

"Flo. What? like a corfe?

"Per. No, like a bank for love to lie and play on;
"Not like a corse: or if,-not to be buried,
"But quick and in my arms."

On the whole, however, I prefer Mr. Theobald's conjecture to my own explanation. STEEVENS.

This last is, I believe, the true interpretation. Our author often quotes Lilly's Grammar; and here perhaps he remembered a phrafe that occurs in that book, p. 59, and is thus interpreted: "Tu cubas fupinus, thou liest in bed with thy face upwards." Heels and face never could have been confounded by either the eye or the ear.

Befides; Don Pedro is evidently playing on the word dies in Claudio's speech, which Claudio uses metaphorically, and of which Don Pedro avails himself to introduce an allusion to that confummation which he supposes Beatrice was dying for.

MALONE.