SOURCE: "Matter for a May Morning," in The Illustrated London News, Vol. 226, No. 6053, April 23, 1955, p. 754.

Malvolio, Olivia's steward in that Illyrian world of May, has been many people on many stages: I have seen him as a sombre precisian, an icy Cardinal in reduced circumstances, a blend of bullfrog and fretful porpentine. None would have recognised any other. Indeed, we could have a whole cast of rival Malvolios; and fun it might be.

What, in a speech, is the true man? Maria has set him down for us:

The devil a Puritan that he is, or any thing constantly, but a time-pleaser, an affectioned ass that cons state without book, and utters it by great swarths; the best persuaded of himself, so crammed, as he thinks, with excellencies, that it is his ground of faith that all that look on him love him [II. iii. 147-52].

And Olivia...