gravity, (call it which you will) is inherent, and native to the man, not mock or affected, which latter only are the fit objects to excite laughter.  His quality is at the best unlovely, but neither buffoon nor contemptible.  His bearing is lofty, a little above his station, but probably not much above his deserts.  We see no reason why he should not have been brave, honourable, accomplished.  His careless committal of the ring to the ground (which he was commissioned to restore to Cesario), bespeaks a generosity of birth and feeling.  His dialect on all occasions is that of a gentleman, and a man of education.  We must not confound him with the eternal old, low steward of comedy.  He is master of the household to a great Princess; a dignity probably conferred upon him for other respects than age or length of service.  Olivia, at the first indication of his supposed madness, declares that she “would not have him miscarry for half of her dowry.”  Does this look as if the character was meant to appear little or insignificant?  Once, indeed, she accuses him to his face—­of what?—­of being “sick of self-love,”—­but with a gentleness and considerateness which could not have been, if she had not thought that this particular infirmity shaded some virtues.  His rebuke to the knight, and his sottish revellers, is sensible and spirited; and when we take into consideration the unprotected condition of his mistress, and the strict regard with which her state of real or dissembled mourning would draw the eyes of the world upon her house-affairs, Malvolio might feel the honour of the family in some sort in his keeping; as it appears not that Olivia had any more brothers, or kinsmen, to look to it—­for Sir Toby had dropped all such nice respects at the buttery hatch.  That Malvolio was meant to be represented as possessing estimable qualities, the expression of the Duke in his anxiety to have him reconciled, almost infers.  “Pursue him, and entreat him to a peace.”  Even in his abused state of chains and darkness, a sort of greatness seems never to desert him.  He argues highly and well with the supposed Sir Topas, and philosophises gallantly upon his straw.[1] There must have been some shadow of worth about the man; he must have been something more than a mere vapour—­a thing of straw, or Jack in office—­before Fabian and Maria could have ventured sending him upon 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.

Bensley, accordingly, 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