a courting errand to Olivia.  There was some consonancy (as he would say) in the undertaking, or the jest would have been too bold even for that house of misrule.  There was “example for it,” said Malvolio; “the lady of the Strachy married the yeoman of the wardrobe.”  Possibly too he might remember—­for it must have happened about his time—­an instance of a Duchess of Malfy (a countrywoman of Olivia’s, and her equal at least) descending from her state to court her steward—­

  The misery of them that are born great! 
  They are forced to woo, because none dare woo them.

To be sure the lady was not very tenderly handled for it by her brothers in the sequel, but their vengeance appears to have been whetted rather by her presumption in re-marrying at all, (when they had meditated the keeping of her fortune in their family) than by her choice of an inferior, of Antonio’s noble merits especially, for her husband; and, besides, Olivia’s brother was just dead.  Malvolio was a man of reading, and possibly reflected upon these lines, or something like them in his own country poetry—­

  —­Ceremony has made many fools. 
  It is as easy way unto a duchess
  As to a hatted dame, if her love answer: 
  But that by timorous honours, pale respects,
  Idle degrees of fear, men make their ways
  Hard of themselves.

“’Tis but fortune, all is fortune.  Maria once told me, she did affect me; and I have heard herself come thus near, that, should she fancy, it should be one of my complexion.”  If here was no encouragement, the devil is in it.  I wish we could get at the private history of all this.  Between the Countess herself, serious or dissembling—­for one hardly knows how to apprehend this fantastical great lady—­and the practices of that delicious little piece of mischief, Maria—­

  The lime twigs laid
  By Machiavel the waiting maid—­

the man might well be rapt into a fool’s paradise.

Bensley threw over the part an air of Spanish loftiness.  He looked, spake, and moved like an old Castilian.  He was starch, spruce, opinionated, but his superstructure of pride seemed bottomed upon a sense of worth.  There was something in it beyond the coxcomb.  It was big and swelling, but you could not be sure that it was hollow.  You might wish to see it taken down, but you felt that it was upon an elevation.  He was magnificent from the outset; but when the decent sobrieties of the character began to give way, and the poison of self-love in his conceit of the Countess’s affection gradually to work, you would have thought that the hero of La Mancha in person stood before you.  How he went smiling to himself! with what ineffable carelessness would he twirl his gold chain! what a dream it was! you were infected with the illusion, and did not wish that it should be removed! you had no room for laughter! if an unseasonable reflection of morality obtruded itself, it was a deep sense of