you were the very man: Here's his dry hand1 up and down; you are he, you are he.

ANT. At a word, I am not.

URS. Come, come; do you think I do not know you by your excellent wit? Can virtue hide itself? Go to, mum, you are he:

there's an end.

graces will

appear, and

BEAT. Will you not tell me who told
BENE. No, you shall pardon me.

you so?

BEAT. Nor will you not tell me who you are? BENE. Not now.

BEAT. That I was disdainful,-and that I had my good wit out of the Hundred merry Tales;5Well, this was signior Benedick that said so.

"He hath a better bad habit of frowning, than the Count Palatine." STEEVENS.

4

his dry hand-] A dry hand was anciently regarded as the sign of a cold constitution. To this, Maria, in TwelfthNight, alludes, Act I. sc. iii. STEEVENS.

5

-Hundred merry Tales;] The book, to which Shakspeare alludes, might be an old translation of Les cent Nouvelles Nouvelles. The original was published at Paris, in the black letter, before the year 1500, and is said to have been written by some of the royal family of France. Ames mentions a translation of it prior to the time of Shakspeare.

In The London Chaunticleres, 1659, this work, among others, is cried for sale by a ballad-man: "The Seven Wise Men of Gotham; a Hundred merry Tales; Scoggin's Jests," &c. Again, in The Nice Valour, &c. by Beaumont and Fletcher: the Almanacs,

"The Hundred Novels, and the Books of Cookery." Of this collection there are frequent entries in the register of the Stationers' Company. The first I met with was in Jan. 1581. STEEVENS,

This book was certainly printed before the year 1575, and in much repute, as appears from the mention of it in Laneham's Letter concerning the entertainment at Kenelworth-Castle.

BENE. What's he?

BEAT. I am sure, you know him well enough. BENE. Not I, believe me.

BEAT. Did he never make you laugh?

BENE. I pray you, what is he?

dull

BEAT. Why, he is the prince's jester: a very fool; only his gift is in devising impossible slanders: none but libertines delight in him; and the commendation is not in his wit, but in his villainy ;?

Again, in The English Courtier and the Cuntrey Gentleman, bl. 1. 1586, sig. H 4: " -wee want not also pleasant mad headed knaves that bee properly learned and well reade in diverse pleasant bookes and good authors, As Sir Guy of Warwicke, the Foure Sonnes of Aymon, the Ship of Fooles, the Budget of Demandes, the Hundredth merry Tales, the Booke of Ryddles, and many other excellent writers both witty and pleasaunt," It has been suggested to me that there is no other reason than the word hundred to suppose this book a translation of the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles. I have now but little doubt that Boccace's Decameron was the book here alluded to. It contains just one hundred Novels. So, in Guazzo's Civile Conversation, 1586, p. 158: “ we do but give them occasion to turne over the Hundred Novelles of Boccace, and to write amorous and lascivious letters.' REED.

6 his gift is in devising impossible slanders:] We should read impassible, i, e. slanders so ill invented, that they will pass upon no body. WARBURTON.

Impossible slanders are, I suppose, such slanders as, from their absurdity and impossibility, bring their own confutation with them. JOHNSON.

Johnson's explanation appears to be right. Ford says, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, that he shall search for Falstaff in impossible places." The word impossible is also used in a similar sense in Jonson's Sejanus, where Silius accuses Afer of"Malicious and manifold applying,

"Foul wresting, and impossible construction,"

M. MASON

his villainy] By which she means his malice and im

for he both pleaseth men, and angers them, and then they laugh at him, and beat him: I am sure, he is in the fleet; I would he had boarded me.

BENE. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say.

BEAT. Do, do; he'll but break a comparison or two on me; which, peradventure, not marked, or not laughed at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge' wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Musick within.] We must follow the leaders.

BENE. In every good thing.

BEAT. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave. them at the next turning.

[Dance. Then exeunt all but Don JOHN,

BORACHIO, and CLAUDIO.

D. JOHN. Sure, my brother is amorous on Hero, and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it: The ladies follow her, and but one visor remains.

BORA. And that is Claudio: I know him by his bearing.

8

D. JOHN. Are not you signior Benedick?
CLAUD. You know me well; I am he.

D. JOHN: Signior, you are very near my brother in his love: he is enamoured on Hero; I pray you, dissuade him from her, she is no equal for his

piety. By his impious jests, she insinuates, he pleased libertines; and by his devising slanders of them, he angered them. WARBURTON.

8

his bearing.] i. e. his carriage, his demeanor. So, in Measure for Measure:

"How I may formally in person bear me,'

STEEVENS.

birth: you may do the part of an honest man in it.

CLAUD. How know you he loves her?

D. JOHN. I heard him swear his affection.

BORA. So did I too; and he swore he would

marry her to-night.

D. JOHN. Come, let us to the banquet.

[Exeunt Don JOHN and BORACHIO,

CLAUD. Thus answer I in name of Benedick, But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.'Tis certain so;-the prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things, Save in the office and affairs of love:

9

Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself,

And trust no agent: for beauty is a witch, Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.1

Therefore, &c.] Let which is found in the next line, is understood here. MALOne.

1

beauty is a witch,

Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.] i. e. as wax when opposed to the fire kindled by a witch, no longer preserves the figure of the person whom it was designed to represent, but flows into a shapeless lump; so fidelity, when confronted with beauty, dissolves into our ruling passion, and is lost there like a drop of water in the sea.

That blood signifies (as Mr. Malone has also observed) amorous heat, will appear from the following passage in All's well that ends well, Act III. sc. vii:

"Now his important blood will nought deny

"That she'll demand."

Again, in Chapman's version of the third Iliad, Helen, speaking of Agamemnon, says:

"And one that was my brother in law, when I contain'd my blood,

"And was more worthy:-"

STEEVENS.

This is an accident of hourly proof,

Which I mistrusted not: Farewell therefore, Hero!

Re-enter BENEDICK.

BENE. Count Claudio?

CLAUD. Yea, the same.

BENE. Come, will you go with me?
CLAUD. Whither?

BENE. Even to the next willow, about your own business, count. What fashion will you wear the garland of? About your neck, like an usurer's chain?2 or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the prince hath got your Hero.

2

CLAUD. I wish him joy of her.

BENE. Why, that's spoken like an honest drover;

usurer's chain Chains of gold, of considerable value, were in our author's time, usually worn by wealthy citizens, and others, in the same manner as they now are, on publick occasions, by the Aldermen of London. See The Puritan, or the Widow of Watling-Street, Act III. sc. iii. Albumazar, Act I. sc. vii, and other pieces. REED.

Usury seems about this time to have been a common topic of invective. I have three or four dialogues, pasquils, and discourses on the subject, printed before the year 1600. From every one of these it appears, that the merchants were the chief usurers of the age. STEEVENS.

So, in The Choice of Change, containing the triplicitie of Divinitie, Philosophie, and Poetrie, by S. R. Gent. 4to. 1598: "Three sortes of people, in respect of use in necessitie, may be accounted good:-Merchantes, for they may play the usurers, instead of the Jewes." Again, ibid: "There is a scarcitie of Jewes, because Christians make an occupation of usurie."

MALONE