A forged letter, purporting to be written by his noble mistress, is made to fall into Malvolio's hands, in which she begs for his love, and instructs him, as a sign of his affection towards her, always to smile, and to wear cross-gartered yellow stockings. He "smiles his face into more lines than are in the new map [of 1598] with the augmentation of the Indies;" he wears his preposterous garters in the most preposterous fashion. The conspirators pretend to think him mad, and treat him accordingly. The Clown comes to visit him disguised in the cassock of Sir Topas the curate. "Well," says the mock priest (not without intention on the poet's part), when Maria gives him the gown, "I'll put it on, and I will dissemble myself in't; and I would I were the first that ever dissembled in such a gown." It is to Malvolio, too, that the merry and mellow Sir Toby, amid the applause of the Clown, addresses the taunt:-- "_Sir Toby_. Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale? "_Clown_. Yes, by Saint Anne; and ginger shall be hot i' the mouth too." In these words, which were one day to serve as a motto to Byron's _Don Juan_, there lies a gay and daring declaration of rights. _Twelfth Night, or What you Will_, must have been written in 1601, for in the above-mentioned diary kept by John Manningham, of the Middle Temple, we find this entry, under the date February 2, 1602: "At our feast wee had a play called Twelve Night, or what you will, much like the commedy of errores, or Menechmi in Plautus, but most like and neere to that in Italian called _Inganni_. A good practise in it to make the steward beleeve his lady widdowe was in love with him," &c. That the play cannot have been written much earlier is proved by the fact that the song, "Farewell, dear heart, since I must needs be gone," which is sung by Sir Toby and the Clown (ii. 3), first appeared in a song-book (_The Booke of Ayres_) published by Robert Jones, London, 1601. Shakespeare has altered its wording very slightly. In all probability _Twelfth Night_ was one of the four plays which were performed before the court at Whitehall by the Lord Chamberlain's company at Christmastide, 1601-2, and no doubt it was acted for the first time on the evening from which it takes its name. Among several Italian plays which bore the name of _Gl'Inganni_ there is one by Curzio Gonzaga, published in Venice in 1592, in which a sister dresses herself as her brother and takes the name of Cesare--in Shakespeare, Cesario--and another, published in Venice in 1537, the action of which bears a general resemblance to that of _Twelfth Night_. In this play, too, passing mention is made of one "Malevolti," who may have suggested to Shakespeare the name Malvolio.