VERG. O, a stool and a cushion for the sexton! 3 SEXTON. Which be the malefactors? DOGB. Marry, that am I and my partner. VERG. Nay, that's certain; we have the exhibition to examine. SEXTON. But which are the offenders that are to be examined? let them come before master constable. DOGB. Yea, marry, let them come before me.What is your name, friend? BORA. Borachio. DOGB. Pray write down-Borachio.-Yours, sirrah? CON. I am a gentleman, sir, and my name is Conrade. DOGB. Writedown-master gentleman Conrade. -Masters, do you serve God? CON. BORA. Yea, sir, we hope. his doing the duty of such an officer." But this error has only happened here; for throughout the scene itself he is described by his proper title. By mistake also in the quarto, and the folio, which appears to have been printed from it, the name of Kempe (an actor in our author's theatre) throughout this scene is prefixed to the speeches of Dogberry, and that of Cowley to those of Verges, except in two or three instances, where either Constable or Andrew are substituted for Kempe. MALONE. 3 O, a stool and a cushion for the sexton!] Perhaps a ridicule was here aimed at The Spanish Tragedy: "Hieron. What, are you ready? "Balth. Bring a chaire and a cushion for the king." MALONE. we have the exhibition to examine.] Blunder for examination to exhibit. See p. 116: "Take their examination yourself, and bring it me." STEEVENS. DOGB. Write down-that they hope they serve God:-and write God first; for God defend but God should go before such villains! - Masters, it is proved already that you are little better than false knaves; and it will go near to be thought so shortly. How answer you for yourselves? CON. Marry, sir, we say we are none. DOGB. A marvellous witty fellow, I assure you; but I will go about with him. Come you hither, sirrah; a word in your ear, sir; I say to you, it is thought you are false knaves. BORA. Sir, I say to you, we are none. DOGB. Well, stand aside.-'Fore God, they are both in a tale: Have you writ down-that they are none? 3 Con. Bora. Yea, sir, we hope. Dogb. Write down that they hope they serve God:-and write God first; for God defend but God should go before such villains!] This short passage, which is truly humorous and in character, I have added from the old quarto. Besides, it supplies a defect: for without it, the Town-Clerk asks a question of the prisoners, and goes on without staying for any answer to it. THEOBALD. The omission of this passage since the edition of 1600, may be accounted for from the stat. 3 Jac. I. c. 21, the sacred name being jestingly used four times in one line. BLACKSTONE. 'Fore God, they are both in a tale:] This is an admirable stroke of humour; Dogberry says of the prisoners that they are false knaves; and from that denial of the charge, which one in his wits could not be supposed to make, he infers a communion of counsels, and records it in the examination as an evidence of their guilt. SIR J. HAWKINS. If the learned annotator will amend his comment by omitting the word guilt, and inserting the word innocence, it will (except as to the supposed inference of a communication of counsels, which should likewise be omitted or corrected,) be a just and pertinent remark. RITSON. SEXTON. Master constable, you go not the way to examine; you must call forth the watch that are their accusers. DOGB. Yea, marry, that's the eftest way: "Let the watch come forth: -Masters, I charge you, in the prince's name, accuse these men. 1 WATCH. This man said, sir, that Don John, the prince's brother, was a villain. DOGB. Write down-prince John a villain :Why this is flat perjury, to call a prince's brother -villain. BORA. Master constable, DOGB. Pray thee, fellow, peace; I do not like thy look, I promise thee. SEXTON. What heard you him say else? 2 WATCH. Marry, that he had received a thousand ducats of Don John, for accusing the lady Hero wrongfully. " Yea, marry, that's the eftest way:] Our modern editors, who were at a loss to make out the corrupted reading of the old copies, read easiest. The quarto, in 1600, and the first and second editions in folio, all concur in reading-Yea, marry, that's the eftest way, &c. A letter happened to slip out at press in the first edition; and 'twas too hard a task for the subsequent editors to put it in, or guess at the word under this accidental depravation. There is no doubt but the author wrote, as I have restored the text-Yea, marry, that's the deftest way, i. e. the readiest, most commodious way. The word is pure Saxon. Deaplice, debite, congrue, duely, fitly, Ledærhe, opportune, commode, fitly, conveniently, seasonably, in good time, commodiously. Vide Spelman's Saxon Gloss. THEOBALD. Mr. Theobald might have recollected the word deftly in Macbeth: "Thyself and office deftly show." Shakspeare, I suppose, designed Dogberry to corrupt this word as well as many others. STEEVENS. DOGB. Flat burglary, as ever was committed. VERG. Yea, by the mass, that it is. SEXTON. What else, fellow ? 1 WATCH. And that count Claudio did mean, upon his words, to disgrace Hero before the whole assembly, and not marry her. DOGB. O villain! thou wilt be condemned into everlasting redemption for this. SEXTON. What else? 2 WATCH. This is all. SEXTON. And this is more, masters, than you can deny. Prince John is this morning secretly stolen away; Hero was in this manner accused, in this very manner refused, and upon the grief of this, suddenly died.--Master constable, let these men be bound, and brought to Leonato's; I will go before, and show him their examination. [Exit. DOGB. Come, let them be opinioned. VERG. Let them be in band. CON. Off, coxcomb! • Verg. Let them be in band. Con. Off, coxcomb!] The old copies read, "Let them be in the hands of coxcomb." STEEVENS. Mr. Theobald gives these words to Conrade, and says-But why the Sexton should be so pert upon his brother officers, there seems no reason from any superior qualifications in him; or any suspicion he shows of knowing their ignorance. This is strange. The Sexton throughout shows as good sense in their examination as any judge upon the bench could do. And as to his suspicion of their ignorance, he tells the Town-Clerk, That he goes not the way to examine. The meanness of his name hindered our editor from seeing the goodness of his sense. But this Sexton was an ecclesiastic of one of the inferior orders called the sacristan, and not a brother officer, as the editor calls him. I suppose the book from whence the poet took his sub. DOGB. God's my life! where's the sexton? let ject, was some old English novel translated from the Italian, where the word sagristano was rendered sexton. As in Fairfax's Godfrey of Boulogne : "When Phœbus next unclos'd his wakeful eye, The passage then in question is to be read thus: Con. Off, coxcomb ! [Exit. Dogberry would have them pinioned. The Sexton says, it was sufficient if they were kept in safe custody, and then goes out. When one of the watchmen comes up to bind them, Conrade says, Off, coxcomb! as he says afterwards to the constable, Away! you are an ass. But the editor adds, The old quarto gave me the first umbrage for placing it to Conrade. What these words mean I don't know: but I suspect the old quarto divides the passage as I have done. WARBURTON. Theobald has fairly given the reading of the quarto. Dr. Warburton's assertion, as to the dignity of a sexton or sacristan, may be supported by the following passage in Stanyhurst's version of the fourth Book of the Æneid, where he calls the Massylian priestess: " in soil Massyla begotten, " Sexten of Hesperides sinagog." STEEVENS. Let them be in hand.] I had conjectured that these words should be given to Verges, and read thus-Let them bind their hands. I am still of opinion that the passage belongs to Verges; but, for the true reading of it, I should wish to adopt a much neater emendation, which has since been suggested to me in conversation by Mr. Steevens-Let them be in band. Shakspeare, as he observed to me, commonly uses band for bond. So, in King Henry VI. P. III: TYRWHITT. " And die in bands for this unmanly deed!" It is plain that they were bound from a subsequent speech of Pedro: "Whom have you offended, masters, that you are thus bound to your answer?" STEEVENS. Off, coxcomb!] The old copies read-of, and these words make a part of the last speech, "Let them be in the hands of coxcomb." The present regulation was made by Dr. Warburton, and has been adopted by the subsequent editors. Off was formerly spelt of. In the early editions of these plays a broken sentence (like that before us,-Let them be in the hands-) is |