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                "That piece of song,
That old and antique song we heard last night."

The Duke has forgotten that Feste, and not Cesario, was the singer. Fleay overlooks this touch of nature, and attributes the passage to an older play or first draught, which appears uncorrected in the present play. But the Duke is mooning about in his sentimental fashion, and vaguely recollects that Cesario was presented to him as one that could sing "and speak to him in many sorts of music." He had done so, no doubt, so that the mistake was natural to the distraught mind of the Duke, who seems to allude to it when he says immediately to Cesario,—

          "If ever thou shalt love,
In the sweet pangs of it remember me;
For such as I am all true lovers are,
Unstaid and skittish in all motions else,
Save in the constant image of the creature
That is belov'd."

His obliviousness is indeed so profound that he blunders in dismissing Feste when the song is over, saying to him, "Give me now leave to leave thee." This, so far from being an imperfect reading, is a perfect touch of his abstruse mood. It amuses Feste, who says aside, "Now the melancholy god protect thee," &c. Every line and word of this beautiful scene is unalterably well placed.

We see that the Clown adds a good voice to his other gifts; he does every thing "dexteriously," and is in high demand for his companionable spirits. For Sir Andrew and Sir Tobey his songs are blithe and free: all the ballads and ditties that had vogue in Feste's time are at