SCENE 1. Page 211.

Produced by Richard Tonsing, Chris Curnow and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This

file was produced from images generously made available

by The Internet Archive)

ILLUSTRATIONS

OF

SHAKSPEARE.

[Illustration: _Published by T. Tegg Cheapside, Sept.ʳ 1839._]

ILLUSTRATIONS

OF

SHAKSPEARE,

AND OF

ANCIENT MANNERS:

WITH

DISSERTATIONS

ON THE CLOWNS AND FOOLS OF SHAKSPEARE;

ON THE COLLECTION OF POPULAR TALES ENTITLED GESTA ROMANORUM;

AND ON THE ENGLISH MORRIS DANCE.

By FRANCIS DOUCE.

THE ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD BY JACKSON.

A NEW EDITION.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR THOMAS TEGG, CHEAPSIDE;

R. GRIFFIN AND CO., GLASGOW; TEGG AND CO., DUBLIN; ALSO

J. & S. A. TEGG, SYDNEY AND HOBART TOWN.

1839.

PRINTED BY RICHARD KINDER, GREEN ARBOUR COURT, OLD BAILEY.

PREFACE.

The practice, and also the necessity of explaining the writings of

Shakspeare, have already been so ably defended by former commentators,

that no other apology on the part of those who may elect to persevere

in this kind of labour seems to be necessary than with regard to the

qualifications of the writer: but as no one in this case perhaps ever

thought, or at least should think, himself incompetent to the task

assumed of instructing or amusing others, it may be as well, on the

present occasion, to waive altogether such a common-place intrusion

on the reader's time. It is enough to state that accident had given

birth to a considerable portion of the following pages, and that design

supplied the rest. The late Mr. Steevens had already in a manner too

careless for his own reputation, and abundantly too favourable to his

friend, presented to public view such of the author's remarks as were

solely put together for the private use and consideration of that

able critic. The former wish of their compiler has, with the present

opportunity, been accomplished; that is, some of them withdrawn, and

others, it is hoped, rendered less exceptionable.

The readers of Shakspeare may be properly divided into three classes.

The first, as they travel through the text, appeal to each explanation

of a word or passage as it occurs. The second read a large portion of

the text, or perhaps the whole, uninterruptedly, and then consult the

notes; and the third reject the illustrations altogether. Of these

the second appear to be the most rational. The last, with all their

affectation, are probably the least learned, but will undoubtedly

remain so; and it may be justly remarked on this occasion, in the

language of the writer who has best illustrated the principles of

taste, that "the pride of science is always meek and humble compared

with the pride of ignorance." He, who at this day can entirely

comprehend the writings of Shakspeare without the aid of a comment, and

frequently of laborious illustration, may be said to possess a degree

of inspiration almost commensurate with that of the great bard himself.

Mr. Steevens has indeed summed up every necessary argument in his

assertion that "if Shakspeare is worth reading, he is worth explaining;

and the researches used for so valuable and elegant a purpose, merit

the thanks of genius and candour, not the satire of prejudice and

ignorance."

The indefatigable exertions of Messrs. Steevens, Malone, Tyrwhitt, and

Mason, will ever be duly appreciated by the true and zealous admirers

of Shakspeare's pages. If the name of a celebrated critic and moralist

be not included on this occasion, it is because he was certainly

unskilled in the knowledge of obsolete customs and expressions.

His explanatory notes therefore are, generally speaking, the most

controvertible of any; but no future editor will discharge his duty to

the public who shall omit a single sentence of this writer's masterly

preface, or of his sound and tasteful characters of the plays of

Shakspeare. Of all the commentators Dr. Warburton was surely the worst.

His sentiments indeed have been seldom exhibited in modern editions but

for the purpose of confuting them.

The wide dispersion of those materials which are essential to the

illustration of inquiries like the present, will necessarily frustrate

every endeavour at perfection; a circumstance that alone should teach

every one discussing these difficult and obscure subjects, to speak

of them with becoming diffidence. The present writer cannot flatter

himself that he has uniformly paid a strict attention to this rule; the

ardour of conjecture may have sometimes led him, in common with others,

to forget the precepts he had himself laid down.

It may be thought by some, and even with great justice, that several

of the corrections are trifling and unimportant; but even these may

perhaps be endured wherever it shall be manifest that their object,

and it is hoped their effect, has been to remove error and establish

truth; a matter undoubtedly of some consequence in the school of

criticism. One design of this volume has been to augment the knowledge

of our popular customs and antiquities, in which respect alone the

writings of Shakspeare have suggested better hints, and furnished

ampler materials than those of any one besides. Other digressions too

have been introduced, as it was conceived that they might operate in

diminishing that tedium which usually results from an attention to

matters purely critical; and that whilst there was almost a certainty

of supplying some amusement, there might even be a chance of conveying

instruction. Sometimes there has been a necessity for stepping in

between two contending critics; and for showing, as in the case of many

other disputes, that both parties are in the wrong.

Some excuse may seem necessary for obtruding on the reader so many

passages from what Mr. Steevens has somewhere called "books too mean

to be formally quoted." And yet the wisest among us may be often

benefited by the meanest productions of human intellect, if, like

medicinal poisons, they be administered with skill. It had escaped the

recollection of the learned and accomplished commentator that he had

himself condescended to examine a multitude of volumes of the above

class, and even to use them with advantage to his readers in the course

of his notes.

With respect to what is often absurdly denominated _black letter_

learning, the taste which prevails in the present times for this sort

of reading, wherever true scholarship and a laudable curiosity are

found united, will afford the best reply to the hyper-criticisms and

impotent sarcasms of those who, having from indolence or ignorance

neglected to cultivate so rich a field of knowledge, exert the whole of

their endeavours to depreciate its value. Are the earlier labours of

our countrymen, and especially the copious stores of information that

enriched the long and flourishing reign of Elizabeth, to be rejected

because they are recorded in a particular typography?

Others again have complained of the redundancy of the commentators,

and of an affected display of learning to explain terms and illustrate

matters of obvious and easy comprehension. This may sometimes have

been the case; but it were easier to show that too little, and not

too much, has been attempted on many of these occasions. An eminent

critic has declared that "if every line of Shakspeare's plays were

accompanied with a comment, every intelligent reader would be indebted

to the industry of him who produced it." Shakspeare indeed is not more

obscure than contemporary writers; but he is certainly much better

worth illustrating. The above objectors, affectedly zealous to detect

the errors of other men, but more frequently betraying their own

self-sufficiency and over-weening importance, seem to forget that

comments and illustrations are designed for the more ignorant class of

readers, who are always the most numerous; and that very few possess

the happiness and advantage of being wise or learned.

It might be thought that in the following pages exemplifications of

the senses of words have been sometimes unnecessarily introduced where

others had already been given; but this has only been done where the

new ones were deemed of greater force or utility than the others, or

where they were supposed to be really and intrinsically curious. Some

of the notes will require that the _whole_ of others which they advert

to, should be examined in Mr. Steevens's edition; but these were not

reprinted, as they would have occupied a space much too unreasonable.

At the end of every play in which a fool or clown is introduced there

will be found particular and discriminative notice of a character which

some may regard as by no means unworthy of such attention.

The Dissertations which accompany this work will, it is hoped, not

be found misplaced nor altogether uninteresting. The subject of the

first of them, though often introduced into former notes on the plays

of Shakspeare and other dramatic writers, had been but partially and

imperfectly illustrated. The _Gesta Romanorum_, to which _The Merchant

of Venice_ has been so much indebted for the construction of its

story, had, it is true, been already disserted on by Mr. Warton with

his accustomed elegance; but it will be found that he had by no means

exhausted the subject. The _morris dance_, so frequently alluded to in

our old plays, seemed to require and deserve additional researches.

This preface shall not be concluded without embracing the opportunity

of submitting a very few hints to the consideration of all future

editors of Shakspeare.

It were much to be wished that the text of an author, and more

especially that of our greatest dramatic writer, could be altered as

seldom as possible by conjectural emendation, or only where it is

manifestly erroneous from typographical causes. The readers of Dr.

Bentley's notes on Milton will soon be convinced of the inexpediency

of the former of these practices, and of what little importance are

the conjectures of the mere scholar, when unaccompanied by skill and

judgement to direct them.

As the information on a particular subject has been hitherto frequently

dispersed in separate notes, and consequently remains imperfect in each

of them, would it not be more desirable to concentrate this scattered

intelligence, or even to reduce it to a new form, to be referred to

whenever necessary?

Although the strict restitution of the old orthography is not meant to

be insisted on, nor would indeed accommodate the generality of readers,

there are many instances in which it should be stated in the notes; and

such will occur to every skilful editor.

Every word or passage that may be substituted in the text in the

room of others to be found in any of the old editions should be

printed in Italics, and assigned to its proper owner, with a reason

for its preference to the originals. The mention of variations in

the old copies must of course be left to an editor's discretion. No

disparagement is meant to the memory or talents of one of the greatest

of men, when a protest is here entered against "the text of Dr.

Johnson." It is to be regretted that all editions of Shakspeare, as

well as of other dramatic writers, have not marginal references to the

acts and scenes of each play. Those of Bell and Stockdale are, in this

respect, preeminently useful. The time and trouble that would be saved

in consulting them would be very considerable.

The Edition of Shakspeare used in the compilation of this volume, and

to which the pages cited refer, is the last published by Mr. Steevens

himself, in fifteen volumes 8vo, 1793; but in order to facilitate a

reference to most other editions, the acts and scenes of the plays are

specified.

ILLUSTRATIONS

OF

SHAKSPEARE.

THE TEMPEST.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 9.

ANT. We are _merely_ cheated of our lives----

Mr. Steevens has remarked that _merely_ in this place signifies

_absolutely_. His interpretation is confirmed by the word _merus_ in

Littelton's dictionary, where it is rendered _downright_.

SCENE 2. Page 10.

MIRA. ... a brave vessel,

Who had, no doubt, some _noble creatures_ in her.

There is a peculiar propriety in this expression that has escaped the

notice it deserved. Miranda had as yet seen no other _man_ than her

father. She had perceived, but indistinctly, some living creatures

perish in the shipwreck; and she supposes they might be of her father's

species. Thus she afterwards, when speaking of Ferdinand, calls him

_noble_.

SCENE 2. Page 11.

MIRA. ... or _e'er_

It should the good ship, &c.

This word should always be written _ere_, and not _ever_, nor

contractedly _e'er_, with which it has no connection. It is pure Saxon,

æꞃ. The corruption in Ecclesiastes cited in the note, is as old as the

time of Henry the Eighth; but in Wicliffe we have properly "_er_ be to

broke the silveren corde," and so it is given by Chaucer.

SCENE 2. Page 20.

PRO. Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepar'd

A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg'd,

Nor tackle, sail, nor mast----

The present note is more particularly offered to the admirers of

ancient romances, and to which class Shakspeare himself, no doubt,

belonged. It is well known that the earliest English specimen of these

singular and fascinating compositions is the _Geste of king Horn_,

which has been faithfully published by the late Mr. Ritson, who has

given some account of a French copy in the British Museum. He did not

live to know that another manuscript of this interesting romance, in

the same language, is still remaining in private hands, very different

in substance and construction from the other. One might almost conclude

that some English translation of it existed in Shakspeare's time, and

that he had in the above passage imitated the following description of

the boat in which Horn and his companions were put by king Rodmund at

the suggestion of Browans,

"Sire, fet il purnez un de vos vielz chalanz

Metez icels valez ki jo vei ici estanz

Kil naient avirum dunt aseient aidanz

Sigle ne guvernad dunt il seint vaianz."

l. 58.

That is,

"Sir, said he, take one of your old boats, put into it these

varlets whom I see here; let them have no oars to help them, sail

nor rudder to put them in motion."

SCENE 2. Page 26.

ARI. ... sometimes I'd _divide_

And burn in many places; on the top-mast,

The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,

Then _meet and join_----

This is a very elegant description of a meteor well known to sailors.

It has been called by the several names of the fire of _Saint Helen_,

_Saint Elm_, _Saint Herm_, _Saint Clare_, _Saint Peter_, and _Saint

Nicholas_. Whenever it appeared as a single flame it was supposed by

the ancients to be _Helena_, the sister of Castor and Pollux, and in

this state to bring ill luck, from the calamities which this lady

is known to have caused in the Trojan war. When it came double it

was called Castor and Pollux, and accounted a good omen. It has been

described as a little blaze of fire, sometimes appearing by night

on the tops of soldiers' lances, or at sea on masts and sail-yards

whirling and leaping in a moment from one place to another. Some have

said, but erroneously, that it never appears but _after_ a tempest. It

is also supposed to lead people to suicide by drowning.

Further information on the subject may be collected from Plin. _Hist.

nat._ 1. ii. c. 37. Seneca _Quæst. nat._ c. 1. Erasm. _Colloq. in

naufragio._ Schotti. _Physica curiosa_, p. 1209. Menage _Dict. etym._

v. _Saint Telme._ Cotgrave _Dict._ v. _feu_, _furole_. Trevoux _Dict._

v. _furole_. _Lettres de_ Bergerac, p. 45. Eden's _Hist. of travayle_,

fo. 432 b. 433 b. Camerarii _Horæ subsecivæ_ iii. 53. Cambray _Voy.

dans la Finisterre_ ii. 296. Swan's _Speculum mundi_ p. 89. Shakspeare

seems to have consulted Stephen Batman's _Golden books of the leaden

goddes_, who, speaking of Castor and Pollux, says "they were figured

like two lampes or cresset lightes, one on the toppe of a maste, the

other on the stemme or foreshippe." He adds that if the light first

appears in the stem or foreship and ascends upwards, it is good luck;

if _either lights begin at the top-mast, bowsprit_ or foreship, and

descend towards the sea, _it is a sign of tempest_. In taking therefore

the latter position, Ariel had fulfilled the commands of Prospero to

raise a storm.

SCENE 2. Page 28.

ARI. From the still-vext _Bermoothes_----

_The voyage of Sir George Sommers_ to the Bermudas in the year 1609

has been already noticed with a view of ascertaining the _time_ in

which _The tempest_ was written; but the important particulars of his

_shipwreck_, from which it is exceedingly probable that the outline of

a considerable part of this play was borrowed, has been unaccountably

overlooked. Several contemporary narratives of the above event were

published, which Shakspeare might have consulted; and the conversation

of the time might have furnished, or at least suggested, some

particulars that are not to be found in any of the printed accounts. In

1610 Silvester Jourdan, an eyewitness, published _A discovery of the

Barmudas, otherwise called the_ ISLE OF DIVELS: _By Sir Thomas Gates,

Sir Geo. Sommers, and Captayne Newport, with divers others._ Next

followed Strachey's _Proceedings of the English colonie in Virginia_

1612, 4to, and some other pamphlets of less moment. From these accounts

it appears that the Bermudas had never been inhabited, but regarded

as _under the influence of inchantment_; though an addition to a

subsequent edition of Jourdan's work gravely states that they are _not

inchanted_; that Sommers's ship had been _split_ between two rocks;

that during his stay on the island several _conspiracies_ had taken

place; and that a _sea-monster in shape like a man_ had been seen, who

had been so called after the _monstrous tempests_ that often happened

at Bermuda. In Stowe's Annals we have also an account of Sommers's

shipwreck, in which this important passage occurs, "Sir George Sommers

sitting at the stearne, seeing the ship desperate of reliefe, looking

every minute when the ship would sinke, hee espied land, which

according to his and Captaine Newport's opinion, they judged it should

be that dreadfull coast of the _Bermodes_, which iland were of all

nations said and supposed to bee _inchanted and inhabited with witches

and devills_, which grew by reason of accustomed monstrous thunder,

storm, and _tempest_, neere unto those ilands, also for that the whole

coast is so wonderous dangerous of rockes, that few can approach them,

but with unspeakable hazard of _ship-wrack_." Now if some of these

circumstances in the shipwreck of Sir George Sommers be considered,

it may possibly turn out that _they_ are "the particular and recent

event which determined Shakspeare to call his play _The tempest_,"[1]

instead of "the great tempest of 1612," which has already been supposed

to have suggested its name, and which might have happened after its

composition. If this be the fact the play was written between 1609

and 1614 when it was so illiberally and invidiously alluded to in Ben

Jonson's Bartholomew-fair.

SCENE 2. Page 30.

PRO. What is't thou can'st demand?

ARI. ... My liberty.

PRO. Before the time be out? no more.

The spirits or familiars attending on magicians were always impatient

of confinement. Thus we are told that the spirit Balkin is wearied if

the action wherein he is employed continue longer than an hour; and

therefore the magician must be careful to dismiss him. The form of such

a dismission may be seen in Scot's _Discovery of witchcraft_, edit.

1665, folio, p. 228.

SCENE 2. Page 35.

PRO. ... My _quaint_ Ariel.

Quaint here means _brisk_, _spruce_, _dexterous_. From the French

_cointe_.

SCENE 2. Page 35.

CAL. As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd

With raven's feather from unwholsome fen,

Drop on you both! a south-west blow on you,

And blister you all o'er!

The following passage in Batman _uppon Bartholome his booke De

proprietatibus rerum_, 1582, folio, will not only throw considerable

light on these lines, but furnish at the same time grounds for

a conjecture that Shakspeare was indebted to it, with a slight

alteration, for the name of Caliban's mother Sycorax the witch. "The

raven is called corvus of CORAX ... it is said that _ravens birdes_

be fed with _deaw_ of heaven all the time that they have no black

_feathers_ by benefite of age." Lib. xii. c. 10. The same author will

also account for the choice which is made, in the monster's speech,

of the _South-west wind_. "This _Southern wind_ is hot and moyst....

_Southern winds_ corrupt and destroy; they heat and maketh men fall

into sicknesse." Lib. xi. c. 3. It will be seen in the course of these

notes that Shakspeare was extremely well acquainted with this work; and

as it is likely hereafter to form an article in a Shakspearean library,

it may be worth adding that in a private diary written at the time, the

original price of the volume appears to have been eight shillings.

SCENE 2. Page 36.

PRO. ... _urchins_

Shall, for that vast of night that they may work,

All exercise on thee.

Although _urchins_ sometimes means hedge-hogs, it is more probable

that in this place they denote fairies or spirits, and that Mr. Malone

is right in the explanation which he has given. The present writer's

former note must therefore be cancelled, as should, according to his

conception, such part of Mr. Steevens's as relates to the hedge-hog.

The same term both in the next act, and in the _Merry Wives of

Windsor_, is used in a similar sense.

Mr. Steevens in a note on this word in the last mentioned play has

observed that the _primitive_ sense of _urchin_ is a hedge-hog, whence

it came, says he, to signify any thing dwarfish. There is however

good reason for supposing it of Celtic origin. _Erch_ in Welsh, is

_terrible_, and _urzen_, a _superior intelligence_. In the Bas Breton

language _urcha_ signifies to _howl_. "_Urthinwad Elgin_," says Scot in

his _Discovery of witchcraft_, p. 224, edit. 1665, "was a spirit in the

days of King Solomon, came over with Julius Cæsar, and remained many

hundred years in Wales, where he got the above name."

The _urchin_ or _irchin_, in the sense of a hedge-hog, is certainly

derived from the Latin _ericeus_; and whoever is desirous of more

information concerning the radical of _ericeus_ may be gratified by

consulting Vossius's _Etymologicon_ v. _erinaceus_. With respect to the

application of urchin to any thing dwarfish, for we still say a _little

urchin_, this sense of the word seems to have originated rather from

the circumstance of its having once signified a fairy, who is always

supposed to be a diminutive being, than from the cause assigned by Mr.

Steevens.

It is true that in the ensuing act Caliban speaks of Prospero's

_spirits_ as attacking him _in the shape of hedge-hogs_, for which

another reason will be offered presently; and yet the word in question

is only one out of many used by Shakspeare, which may be best disposed

of by concluding that he designed they should be taken in both or

either of their senses.

In a very rare old collection of songs set to music by John Bennett,

Edward Piers or Peirce, and Thomas Ravenscroft, composers in the

time of Shakspeare, and entitled _Hunting_, _hawking_, _dauncing_,

_drinking_, _enamoring_, 4to, no date, there are, the _fairies_ dance,

the _elves_ dance, and the _urchins_ dance. This is the latter:

"By the moone we sport and play,

With the night begins our day;

As we friske the dew doth fall,

Trip it little _urchins_ all,

Lightly as the little bee,

Two by two, and three by three,

And about goe wee, goe wee."

SCENE 2. Page 40.

CAL. It would control my dam's God _Setebos_.

In Dr. Farmer's note it should have been added that the passage from

Eden's _History of travayle_ was part of Magellan's _Voyage_; or in Mr.

Tollet's, that Magellan was included in Eden's collection.

SCENE 2. Page 42.

ARI. Those are pearls, that were his eyes.

We had already had this image in King Richard the third, where

Clarence, describing his dream, says:

"... in those holes

Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept

(As 'twere in scorn of eyes) reflecting gems."

SCENE 2. Page 44.

MIRA ... What is't, a spirit?

Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, sir,

It carries a brave form.

The incident of Miranda's surprise at the first sight of Ferdinand, and

of her falling in love with him, might have been suggested by some lost

translation of the 13th tale in the _Cento novelle antiche_, and which

is in fact the subject of _father Philip's geese_, so admirably told by

Boccaccio and Lafontaine. It seems to have been originally taken from

the life of Saint Barlaam in _The golden legend_.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 54.

GON. How _lush_ and lusty the grass looks!

_Lush_, as Mr. Malone observes, has not yet been rightly interpreted.

It is, after all, an old word synonymous with _loose_. In the

_Promptuarium parvulorum_ 1516, 4to, we find "_lushe or slacke,

laxus_." The quotation from Golding, who renders _turget_ by this word,

confirms the foregoing definition, and demonstrates that as applied

to grass, it means _loose or swollen_, thereby expressing the state

of that vegetable when, the fibres being relaxed, it expands to its

fullest growth.

SCENE 2. Page 76.

CAL. Sometime like _apes_, that moe and chatter at me

And after bite me; then like _hedge-hogs_, which

Lie _tumbling_ in my barefoot way----

Shakspeare, who seems to have been well acquainted with Bishop

Harsnet's _Declaration of Popish impostures_, has here recollected that

part of the work where the author, speaking of the supposed possession

of young girls, says, "they make anticke faces, _girn, mow and mop

like an ape, tumble like a hedge-hogge_, &c." Another reason for the

introduction of urchins or hedge-hogs into this speech is, that on the

first discovery of the Bermudas, which, as has been already stated,

gave rise in part to this play, they were supposed to be "haunted

as all men know with _hogs_ and hobgoblings." See Dekkar's _Strange

horserace_, &c. sign. f. 3. b. and Mr. Steevens's note in p. 28.

SCENE 2. Page 77.

TRIN. A strange fish! Were I in England now (as once I was) and had

but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a

piece of silver: there would this monster make a man; any strange

beast there makes a man: when they will not give a doit to relieve

a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian.

This speech happily ridicules the mania that appears to have always

existed among our countrymen for beholding strange sights, however

trifling. A contemporary writer and professor of divinity has been no

less severe. Speaking of the crocodile, he says, "Of late years there

hath been brought into England, the cases or skinnes of such crocodiles

to be seene, and much money given for the sight thereof; the policy of

strangers laugh at our folly, either that we are too wealthy, or else

that we know not how to bestow our money." Batman _uppon Bartholome_,

fo. 359 b.

SCENE 2. Page 82.

STE. This _mooncalf_.

The best account of this fabulous substance may be found in Drayton's

poem with that title.

SCENE 2. Page 83.

STE. I was the _man in the moon_.

This is a very old superstition founded, as Mr. Ritson has observed,

on _Numbers_ xv. 32. See _Ancient songs_, p. 34. So far the tradition

is still preserved among nurses and schoolboys; but how the culprit

came to be imprisoned in the moon, has not yet been accounted for. It

should seem that he had not merely gathered sticks on the sabbath, but

that he had _stolen_ what he gathered, as appears from the following

lines in Chaucer's _Testament of Creseid_, where the poet, describing

the moon, informs us that she had

"On her brest a chorle painted ful even,

Bearing a bush of thorns on his backe,

Which for his _theft_ might clime no ner the heven."

We are to suppose that he was doomed to perpetual confinement in this

planet, and precluded from every possibility of inhabiting the mansions

of the just. With the Italians Cain appears to have been the offender,

and he is alluded to in a very extraordinary manner by Dante in the

twentieth canto of the _Inferno_, where the moon is described by the

periphrasis _Caino e le spine_. One of the commentators on that poet

says, that this alludes to the popular opinion of Cain loaded with the

bundle of faggots, but how he procured them we are not informed. The

Jews have some Talmudical story that Jacob is in the moon, and they

believe that his face is visible. The natives of Ceylon, instead of a

man, have placed a hare in the moon; and it is said to have got there

in the following manner. Their great Deity Budha when a hermit on

earth lost himself one day in a forest. After wandering about in great

distress he met a hare, who thus addressed him: "It is in my power to

extricate you from your difficulty; take the path on your right hand,

and it will lead you out of the forest." "I am greatly obliged to you,

Mr. Hare," said Budha, "but I am unfortunately very poor and very

hungry, and have nothing to offer you in reward for your kindness." "If

you are hungry," returned the hare, "I am again at your service; make a

fire, kill me, roast me, and eat me." Budha made the fire, and the hare

instantly jumped into it. Budha now exerted his miraculous powers,

snatched the animal from the flames, and threw him into the moon,

where he has ever since remained. This is from the information of a

learned and intelligent French gentleman recently arrived from Ceylon,

who adds that the Cingalese would often request of him to permit them

to look for the hare through his telescope, and exclaim in raptures,

that they saw it. It is remarkable that the Chinese represent the moon

by a rabbit pounding rice in a mortar. Their mythological moon Jut-ho

is figured by a beautiful young woman with a double sphere behind her

head, and a rabbit at her feet. The period of this animal's gestation

is thirty days; may it not therefore typify the moon's revolution round

the earth?

SCENE 2. Page 86.

CAL. Nor _scrape-trenchering_, nor wash-dish.

_Scraping trenchers_ was likewise a scholastic employment at college,

if we may believe the illiterate parson in the pleasant comedy of

_Cornelianum dolium_, where speaking of his haughty treatment of the

poor scholars whom he had distanced in getting possession of a fat

living, he says, "Illi inquam, qui ut mihi narrârunt, quadras adipe

illitas deglubere sunt coacti, quamdiu inter academicas ulnas manent,

dapsili more à me nutriti sunt, saginati imò &c." It was the office too

of apprentices. In _The life of a satirical puppy called Nim_, 1657,

12mo, a citizen describes how long "he bore the water tankard, _scrap't

trenchers_, and made clean shoes."

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 91.

FER. This wooden slavery, than _I would_ suffer.

The old copy reads _than to suffer_, which, however ungrammatical,

is justly maintained by Mr. Malone to be Shakspeare's language, and

ought therefore to be restored. Mr. Steevens objects on the score of

_defective_ metre: but this is not the case; the metre, however rugged,

is certainly _perfect_.

SCENE 1. Page 92.

MIRA. I am your wife, if you will marry me;

If not, I'll die your maid: to be your fellow

You may deny me; but I'll be your servant

Whether you will or no.

Mr. Malone has cited a very apposite passage from Catullus, but

Shakspeare had probably on this occasion the pathetic old poem of _The

nut-brown maid_ in his recollection.

SCENE 2. Page 94.

STE. Thy eyes are almost set in thy head.

TRIN. Where should they be set else? he were a brave monster

indeed, if they were set in his tail.

The curious reader may nevertheless be gratified with a ludicrous

instance of _eyes set in the tail_, if he can procure a sight of the

first cut in Caxton's edition of _Æsop's fables_. In the mean time

he is referred to the _genuine_ chap. xx. of Planudes's life of that

fabulist, which is generally omitted in the modern editions.

SCENE 2. Page 97.

CAL. What a py'd ninny's this? thou scurvy patch!

Dr. Johnson would transfer this speech to Stephano, on the ground that

Caliban could know nothing of the costume of fools. This objection is

fairly removed by Mr. Malone; besides which it may be remarked that at

the end of the play Caliban specifically calls Trinculo a _fool_. The

modern managers will perhaps be inclined for the future to dress this

character in the proper habit.

SCENE 2. Page 100.

CAL. Will you _troll_ the catch----

_Troll_ is from the French _trôler_, to _lead_, _draw_, or _drag_,

and this sense particularly applies to a catch, in which one part

is sung after the other, one of the singers leading off. The term is

_sometimes_ used as Mr. Steevens has explained it. Littelton renders

_to troll along his words_, by _volubiliter loqui sive rotundè_.

_Trolling_ for fish, is drawing the bait along in the water, to imitate

the swimming of a real fish.

SCENE 2. Page 104.

SEB. ... in _Arabia_

There is one tree, the Phœnix' throne, _one phœnix_

At this hour reigning there.

Bartholomæus _De propriet. rerum_, speaking of _Arabia_, says, "there

breedeth a birde that is called _Phœnix_;" and from what has already

been said of this book, it was probably one of Shakspeare's authorities

on the occasion.

SCENE 2. Page 106.

GON. Who would believe that there were mountaineers,

Dewlapp'd like bulls, whose throats had hanging at them

Wallets of flesh? or that there were such men,

_Whose heads stood in their breasts?_

The "dewlapp'd mountaineers" are shown to have been borrowed from

Maundeville's travels, and the same author doubtless supplied the other

monsters. In the edition printed by Thomas Este, without date, is

the following passage: "In another ile dwell men that have no heads,

and their eyes are in their shoulders, _and their mouth is on their

breast_." A cut however which occurs in this place is more to the

purpose, and might have saved our poet the trouble of consulting the

text, for it represents a complete head with eyes, nose, and mouth,

placed on the breast and stomach.

ACT IV.

SCENE 1. Page 122.

CER. Hail many-coloured messenger, that ne'er

Dost disobey the wife of Jupiter;

Who with thy saffron wings upon my flowers

Diffusest honey-drops, refreshing showers;

And with each end of thy blue bow dost crown

My bosky acres----

An elegant expansion of these lines in Phaer's _Virgil. Æn._ end of

book 4.

"Dame rainbow down therefore with safron wings of dropping showres.

Whose face a thousand sundry hewes against the sunne devoures,

From heaven descending came----"

SCENE 1. Page 131.

ARI. ... so I charm'd their ears,

That calf-like, they my lowing follow'd through

Tooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss and thorns

Which enter'd their frail skins.

Dr. Johnson has introduced a passage from Drayton's _Nymphidia_, as

resembling the above description. It is still more like an incident in

the well known story of the _friar and the boy_.

"Jacke toke his pype and began to blowe

Then the frere, as I trowe,

Began to daunce soone;

The breres scratched hym in the face

And in many another place

That the blode brast out,

He daunced among thornes thycke

In many places they dyde hym prycke, &c."

SCENE 1. Page 136.

CAL. And all be turn'd to _barnacles_, or apes.

Mr. Collins's note, it is presumed, will not be thought worth retaining

in any future edition. His account of the barnacle is extremely

confused and imperfect. He makes Gerarde responsible for an opinion not

his own; he substitutes the name of Holinshed for that of Harrison,

whose statement is not so ridiculous as Mr. Collins would make it, and

who might certainly have seen the feathers of the barnacles hanging

out of the shells, as the _fish barnacle_ or _Lepas anatifera_ is

undoubtedly furnished with a _feathered_ beard. The real absurdity was

the credulity of Gerarde and Harrison in supposing that the barnacle

goose was really produced from the shell of the fish. Dr. Bullein

not only believed this himself, but bestows the epithets, _ignorant_

and _incredulous_ on those who did not; and in the same breath he

maintains that crystal is nothing more than ice. See his _Bulwarke of

defence_, &c. 1562, Folio, fo. 12. Caliban's barnacle is the _clakis_

or tree-goose. Every kind of information on the subject may be found

in the _Physica curiosa_ of Gaspar Schot the Jesuit, who with great

industry has collected from a multitude of authors whatever they

had written concerning it. See lib. ix. c. 22. The works of Pennant

and Bewick will supply every deficiency with respect to _rational_

knowledge.

ACT V.

SCENE 1. Page 140.

PRO. Ye _elves_ of hills----

The different species of the fairy tribe are called in the Northern

languages _ælfen_, _elfen_, and _alpen_, words of remote and uncertain

etymology. The Greek ολβιος, _felix_, is not so plausible an original

as the Teutonic _helfen_, _juvare_; because many of these supernatural

beings were supposed to be of a mischievous nature, but all of them

might very properly be invoked to assist mankind. Some of the northern

nations regarded them as the souls of men who in this world had given

themselves up to corporeal pleasures, and trespasses against human

laws. It was conceived therefore that they were doomed to wander for a

certain time about the earth, and to be bound in a kind of servitude

to mortals. One of their occupations was that of protecting horses in

the stable. See Olaus Magnus _de gentibus septentrionalibus_, lib.

iii. cap. xi. It is probable that our fairy system is originally

derived from the Fates, Fauns, Nymphs, Dryads, Deæ matres, &c., of the

ancients, in like manner as other Pagan superstitions were corruptedly

retained after the promulgation of Christianity. The general stock

might have been augmented and improved by means of the crusades and

other causes of intercourse with the nations of the East.

SCENE 1. Page 141.

PRO. ... you demy-puppets, that

By moonshine do the _green-sour_ ringlets make,

Whereof the ewe not bites----

_Green sour_, if the genuine reading, should be given, as in the

first folio, without a hyphen; for such a _compound_ epithet will not

elsewhere be easily discovered. Though a real or supposed acidity in

this kind of grass will certainly warrant the use of _sour_, it is not

improbable that Shakspeare might have written _greensward_, i. e. the

green surface of the ground, from the Saxon ꞅƿeaꞃꝺ, skin.

SCENE 1. Page 158.

PRO. His mother was a witch; and one so strong

_That could control the moon_.

So in a former scene, Gonzalo had said, "You are gentlemen of

brave mettle; you would _lift the moon out of her sphere_, &c." In

Adlington's translation of _Apuleius_ 1596, 4to, a book well known to

Shakspeare, a marginal note says, "Witches in old time were supposed

to be of such power that they could pul downe _the moone by their

inchauntment_." In Fleminge's _Virgil's Bucolics_ is this line, "Charms

able are from heaven high to fetch the moone adowne;" and see Scot's

_Discoverie of witchcraft_ 1584, 4to, pp. 174, 226, 227, 250.

But all the above authorities are from the ancients, the system of

modern witchcraft not affording any similar instances of its power. The

Jesuit Delrio is willing to put up with any notice of this superstition

among heathen writers, but is extremely indignant to find it mentioned

by a Christian; contending that it exclusively belongs to the ancients.

_Disquis. magic._ lib. ii. quæst. xi. The following classical

references may not be unacceptable. The earliest on the list will be

that in Aristophanes's _Clouds_, where Strepsiades proposes the hiring

of a Thessalian witch to bring down the moon and shut her in a box that

he might thus evade paying his debts by the month.

"Quæ sidera excantata voce Thessalâ

_Lunamque cœlo deripit_."

Horat. _epod._ v.

"_Deripere lunam_ vocibus possum meis."

Horat. _epod._ xvii.

"Et jam _luna negat toties descendere cœlo_."

Propert. II. _el._ 28.

"Cantus et _é curru lunam deducere_ tentat

Et faceret, si non ære repuisa sonent."

Tibull. I. _el._ 8. and see _el._ 2.

... "_Phœbeque serena_

Non aliter diris verborum obsessa venenis

Palluit, et nigris, terrenisque ignibus arsit,

Et patitur tantos _cantu depressa_ labores

Donec suppositas propior despumet in herbas."[2]

Lucan vi.

"Mater erat Mycale; quam _deduxisse canendo_

Sæpe reluctanti constabat _cornua lunæ_."

Ovid. _Metam._ I. xii.

"Illa reluctantem _curru deducere lunam_

Nititur"

Ovid. _epist._ vi.

"Sic _te_ regentem frena nocturni ætheris

_Detrahere_ nunquam _Thessali cantus_ queant."

Senec. _Hippolyt._ Act. 2.

"Mulieres etiam lunam deducunt."

Petron. Hadrianid. 468.

In the same author the witch Enothea, describing her power, says,

"_Lunæ descendit imago, carminibus deducta meis._" p. 489.

It is said that Menanda wrote a play called _the Thessalian_, in which

were contained the several incantations used by witches to draw the

moon from the heavens.

So when the moon was eclipsed, the Romans supposed it was from the

influence of magical charms; to counteract which, as well as those

already enumerated, they had recourse to the sound of brazen implements

of all kinds. Juvenal alludes to this practice when he describes his

talkative woman.

"... Jam nemo tubas, nemo æra fatiget,

Una laboranti _poterit succurrere lunæ_."

_Sat._ vi. 441.

And see particularly Macrob. _Saturna._ l. v. c. 19. It is not

improbable that the rattling of the sistrum by the priests of Isis, or

the moon, may be in some way or other connected with this practice, or

have even been its origin.

In proportion to the advance of science, it will, no doubt, be found

that the Greeks and Romans borrowed more than is commonly imagined

from the nations of the East, where the present practice seems to have

been universal. Thus the Chinese believe that during eclipses of the

sun and moon these celestial bodies are attacked by a great serpent,

to drive away which they strike their gongs or brazen drums; the Turks

and even some of the American Indians entertain the same opinion. This

is perhaps a solution of the common subject on Chinese porcelain, of

a dragon pursuing a ball of fire, the symbol of the sun. The Hindoos

suppose that a serpent, born from the head of a giant slain by Vishnu,

is permitted by that deity to attack the sun. Krishna the Hindoo sun is

sometimes represented combating this monster, whence the Greek story of

Apollo and the serpent Python may have been derived.

THE FOOL.

The character of Trinculo, who in the _dramatis personæ_ is called a

_jester_, is not very well discriminated in the course of the play

itself. As he is only associated with Caliban and the drunken butler,

there was no opportunity of exhibiting him in the legitimate character

of a professed fool; but at the conclusion of the play it appears that

he was in the service of the king of Naples as well as Stephano. On

this account therefore, and for the reasons already offered in page

20, he must be regarded as an allowed domestic buffoon, and should be

habited on the stage in the usual manner.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See Malone's _Shaksp._ vol. i. part i. p. 379.

[2] The last line is a good comment on the "lunam despumari" of

Apuleius speaking of the effects of magical mutterings.

TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 170.

PRO. For I will be thy _beadsman_, Valentine.

A beadsman is one who offers up prayers to heaven for the welfare of

another. Many of the ancient petitions to great men were addressed

to them by their "poor daily orators and beadsmen." _To count one's

beads_, means, in the Romish church, to offer up as many prayers to

God and the Virgin Mary as the priest or some voluntary penance or

obligation shall have enjoined; and that no mistake may happen in the

number, they are reckoned by means of certain balls strung in a kind

of chaplet, and hence in the English language termed _beads_, from

the Saxon beaꝺ, a prayer. There is much difference of opinion among

ecclesiastical writers as to the origin of this practice. Some ascribe

its invention to Peter the hermit in the eleventh century, others to

Venerable Bede, misled probably by the affinity of the name. Monsieur

Fleury more rationally conceives it to be not older than the eleventh

century; but the probability is, that it was imported into Europe by

the crusaders, who found it among the Mahometans. The latter use it

wherever their religion has been planted, and there is even reason for

supposing that it originated among the natives of Hindostan. These

chaplets made of beads are called _rosaries_ when they are used in

prayers to the Virgin. The term _bead_, as applied to the materials of

which necklaces, &c. are made, seems therefore to have been borrowed

from the chaplet of rosaries in question.

SCENE 1. Page 171.

PRO. Over the boots? Nay, _give me not the boots_.

An allusion, as it is supposed, to the diabolical torture of the boot.

Not a great while before this play was written, it had been inflicted

in the presence of King James on one Dr. Fian, a supposed wizard,

who was charged with raising the storms that the King encountered in

his return from Denmark. In the very curious pamphlet which contains

the account of this transaction it is stated that "hee was with all

convenient speed, by commandement, convaied againe to the _torment of

the bootes_, wherein he continued a long time, and did abide so many

blowes in them, that his legges were crushte and beaten togeather

as small as might bee, and the bones and flesh so brused, that the

bloud and marrowe spouted forth in great abundance, whereby they were

made unserviceable for ever." The unfortunate man was afterwards

burned. But the above instrument of torture was not, as suggested in

one of the notes on this occasion, "used only in Scotland;" it was

known in France, and in all probability imported from that country.

The following representation of it is copied from Millæus's _Praxis

criminis persequendi_, Paris, 1541, folio. This instrument of torture

continued to be used in Scotland so late as the end of the 17th

century. See _A hind let loose_, 1687, 8vo, pp. 186, 198, in the

frontispiece to which work there is an indistinct representation of the

boot. It is said to have been imported from Russia by a Scotchman. See

Maclaurin's _Arguments in remarkable cases_, 4to, p. xxxvii.

[Illustration]

SCENE 1. Page 171.

VAL. ... To be

In love, where scorn is bought with groans: coy looks,

With heart-sore sighs; one fading moment's mirth,

With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights:

If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain;

If lost, why then a grievous labour won;

However, but a folly bought with wit,

Or else a wit by folly vanquished.

Thus explained by Dr. Johnson. "This love will end in a _foolish

action_, to produce which you are long to spend your _wit_, or it will

end in the loss of your wit, which will be overpowered by the folly

of love;" an explanation that is in part very questionable. The poet

simply means that love itself is sometimes a foolish object dearly

attained in exchange for reason; at others the human judgment subdued

by folly. He is speaking of love abstractedly, and not alluding to that

of Proteus.

SCENE 1. Page 178.

SPEED. I thank you, you have _testern'd_ me.

Mr. Holt White's information from a passage in Latimer's sermons, that

the tester was then worth _more_ than _six-pence_, is so far correct;

but as an inference might be drawn from the quotation that it was

actually worth _ten-pence_, it becomes necessary to state that at that

time, viz. in 1550, the tester was worth _twelve-pence_. It is presumed

that no accurate account of this piece of coin has been hitherto given;

and therefore the following attempt, which has been attended with no

small labour, may not be unacceptable.

The term, variously written, _teston_, _tester_, _testern_, and, in

_Twelfth night_, _testril_, is from the French _teston_, and so called

from the king's head, which first appeared on this coin in the reign

of Louis XII. A. D. 1513, though the Italians seem previously to have

had a coin of the same denomination. In our own country the name was

first applied to the English shilling (originally coined by Henry the

Seventh) at the beginning of the reign of Henry the Eighth, probably

because it resembled in value the French coin above described; so that

_shilling_ and _teston_ were at that time synonymous terms. Although

the teston underwent several reductions in value, it appears to have

been worth twelve-pence at the beginning of Edward the Sixth's reign,

from three several proclamations in his second and third years for

calling in, and at length annihilating, this coin, on account of the

forgeries that had been committed; Sir William Sharington having

falsified it to the amount of 12,000_l._, for which by an express act

of parliament he was attainted of treason. In the above proclamations

the testons are specifically described as "pieces of xiid commonly

called testons;" and in the last of them, the possessors are allowed

twelve-pence apiece on bringing them to the mint. Sir Henry Spelman,

who has asserted in his glossary that the teston was reduced to

nine-pence in the _first_ year of King Edward, must be mistaken. Stowe

more correctly informs us that on the 9th of July 1551 (the _fifth_

year of the King's reign), the base shillings of Henry VIII. and

Edward VI. were called down to _nine_-pence, and on the 17th of August

following to _six_-pence. He afterwards, under the year 1559, cites a

proclamation for reducing it still lower, viz. to fourpence halfpenny.

We must conclude that it again rose in value as the coin became

improved; for it appears from _Twelfth night_, Act II. Scene 3, that it

was in Shakspeare's time the same as the six-pence, and it has probably

continued ever since as another name for that coin.

SCENE 2. Page 185.

JUL. I see you have a _month's mind_ to them.

There is a great deal of quotation given in the notes, but nothing

after all that amounts to an explanation of the term. It alludes to

the mind or _remembrance_ days of our Popish ancestors. Persons in

their wills often directed that in a _month_, or any other specific

time, from the day of their decease, some solemn office for the repose

of their souls, as a mass or dirge, should be performed in the parish

church, with a suitable charity or benevolence on the occasion.

Polydore Vergil has shown that the custom is of Roman origin; and

he seems to speak of the month's mind as a ceremony peculiar to the

English. _De rer. invent._ lib. vi. c. 10.

ACT II.

SCENE 2. Page 201.

JUL. Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's sake.

[_giving a ring._

PRO. Why then we'll make exchange; here, take you this.

JUL. And seal the bargain with a holy kiss.

This was the mode of plighting troth between lovers in private. It was

sometimes done in the church with great solemnity, and the service on

this occasion is preserved in some of the old rituals. To the latter

ceremony the priest alludes in _Twelfth night_, Act V. Scene 1.

"A contract of eternal bond of love

Confirm'd by mutual joinder of your hands,

Attested by the holy close of lips,

Strengthen'd by interchangement of your rings, &c."

SCENE 4. Page 210.

SIL. That you are welcome?

PRO. ... _No_; that you are worthless.

Dr. Johnson has here inserted the particle _no_, "to fill up the

_measure_;" but the measure is not defective though the harmony is.

Mr. Steevens, disputing the suggestion of a brother critic, that

_worthless_ might have been designed as a trisyllable, asks whether

_worthless_ in the preceding speech of Sylvia is a trisyllable?

Certainly not; but he should have remembered the want of uniformity of

metre in many words among the poets of this period. Thus in p. 223,

lines 8 and 9, the word _fire_ is alternately used as a monosyllable

and dissyllable; and where the quantity is complete, as in the present

instance, the harmony is often left to shift for itself.

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 232.

DUKE. Why Phaeton, (for thou _art_ Merop's son)

It is far more likely that Shakspeare found this at the end of the

first book of Golding's _Ovid's metamorphosis_, than in the authorities

referred to in Mr. Steevens's note.

SCENE 1. Page 239.

LAUN. There; and _Saint Nicholas_ be thy speed.

The true reason why this Saint was chosen to be the patron of Scholars

may be gathered from the following story in his life, composed in

French verse by _Maitre Wace_, chaplain to Henry the Second, remaining

in manuscript but never printed. It appears from a passage in

Ordericus Vitalis, p. 598, that the metrical legends of Saints were

sung by the Norman minstrels to the common people.

"Treis clers aloent a escole,

Nen frai mie longe parole;

Lor ostes par nuit les oscieit,

Les cors musca, la ...[3]prenoit

Saint Nicolas par Deu le sout,

Sempris fut la si cum Deu plut,

Les clers al oste demanda,

Nes peut muscier einz lui mustra.

Seint Nicolas par sa priere

Les ames mist el cors ariere.

Por ceo qe as clers fist tiel honor

Font li clerc feste a icel jor."

That is, "Three scholars were on their way to school, (I shall not make

a long story of it,) their host murdered them in the night, and hid

their bodies; their ... he reserved. Saint Nicholas was informed of it

by God Almighty, and according to his pleasure went to the place. He

demanded the scholars of the host, who was not able to conceal them,

and therefore showed them to him. Saint Nicholas, by his prayers,

restored the souls to their bodies. Because he conferred such honour on

scholars, they at this day celebrate a festival."

It is remarkable, that although the above story explains the common

representation of the Saint, with three children in a tub, it is not to

be found in that grand repertory of Monkish lies, _The Golden Legend_.

It occurs, however, in an Italian life of Saint Nicholas, printed in

1645, whence it is extracted into the Gentleman's Magazine for 1777,

p. 158. There is a note by Mr. Whalley on _Saint Nicholas's clerks_,

as applied to _highwaymen_, in King Henry the Fourth, part the first,

vol. viii. p. 418, which, though erroneously conceived, would have been

more properly introduced on the present occasion. Standing where it

does, the worthy author is made responsible for having converted the

parish clerks of London into a nest of thieves, which he certainly

never intended. Those respectable persons, finding that scholars, more

usually termed clerks, had placed themselves under the patronage of

Saint Nicholas, conceived that _clerks_ of any kind might have the same

right, and accordingly took this saint as _their_ patron; much in the

same way as the wool-combers did Saint Blaise, who was martyred with an

instrument resembling a curry-_comb_, the nail-makers Saint _Clou_, and

the booksellers Saint John Port-_Latin_.

SCENE 2. Page 246.

PRO. Especially against his _very_ friend.

Mr. Steevens explains _very_ to be _immediate_. Is it not rather _true,

verus_? Thus Massinger calls one of his plays _A_ very _woman_. See

likewise the beginning of the Nicene creed.

ACT IV.

SCENE 2. Page 257.

HOST. ... the musick _likes_ you not.

i. e. _pleases_, in which sense it is used by Chaucer. This is the

genuine Saxon meaning of the word, however it might have been corrupted

in early times from its Latin original _licet_. In the next speech

Julietta plays upon the word.

SCENE 2. Page 258.

SIL. What is your will?

PRO. That I may compass yours.

SIL. You have your wish; my will is even this;--

On which Dr. Johnson observes, "The word _will_ is here ambiguous. He

wishes to _gain_ her _will_; she tells him, if he wants her _will_ he

has it." The learned critic seems to have mistaken the sense of the

word _compass_, when he says it means _to gain_. If it did, his remark

would be just. But to _compass_ in this place signifies, to _perform_,

_accomplish_, _take measures for doing a thing_. Thus in _Twelfth

night_, Act I. Scene 2, "that were hard to _compass_;" and in _1 Hen._

VI. Act V. Scene 5, "You judge it impossible to _compass_ wonders."

Accordingly Sylvia proceeds to instruct Proteus _how_ he may perform

her will. _Wish_ and _will_ are here used, as in many other places,

though inaccurately, as synonymous. If however Shakspeare really

designed to make Proteus say that he was desirous of _gaining_ Sylvia's

good will, she must be supposed, in her reply, purposely to mistake his

meaning.

SCENE 2. Page 260.

SIL. But since your falshood shall _become_ you well

To worship shadows, and adore false shapes.

Dr. Johnson objects to the sense of this passage, and the other

commentators offer conjectural interpretations; yet surely nothing is

more clear than the sense, and even the grammar may be defended. It

is simply, "since your falsehood shall _adapt or render you fit_ to

worship shadows." _Become_ here answers to the Latin _convenire_, and

is used according to its genuine Saxon meaning.

SCENE 2. Page 260.

HOST. By my HALLIDOM, I was fast asleep.

This Mr. Ritson explains, _by my holy doom_, or _sentence at the

resurrection_, from the Saxon halɩᵹꝺom; but the word does not appear

to have had such a meaning. It rather signifies holiness or honesty.

It likewise denoted a sacrament, a sanctuary, relics of saints, or

anything holy. It seems in later times to have been corrupted into

_holidame_, as if it expressed the holy virgin. Thus we have _so help

me God and hollidame_. See Bullein's _Book of the use of sicke men_,

1579, in folio, fo. 2 b.

SCENE 4. Page 270.

JUL. But since she did neglect her looking-glass,

And threw her _sun-expelling mask_ away.

It was the fashion at this time for the ladies to wear masks, which are

thus described by the puritanical Stubs in his _Anatomie of abuses_,

1595, 4to, p. 59. "When they use to ride abroad they have _masks and

visors made of velvet_ wherewith they cover all their faces, having

holes made in them against their eyes, whereout they looke. So that if

a man that knew not their guise before, should chaunce to meet one of

them, he would think he met a monster or a Devil, for face he can shew

(see) none, but two broad holes against their eyes, with glasses in

them." More will be said on the subject of this mode of disguising the

female face in a remark on _The merry wives of Windsor_, Act IV. Scene

2.

SCENE 4. Page 271.

JUL. ... 'twas Ariadne, passioning

For Theseus' perjury and unjust flight.

A note is here inserted, "not" says its learned and classical author,

"on the business of Shakspeare," but to introduce a conjecture relating

to one of Guido's paintings commonly supposed to represent Ariadne as

deserted by Theseus and courted by Bacchus, but which he conceives to

have been intended for Bacchus's desertion of this lady for an Indian

captive. An attentive examination of the print from Guido's picture

will, it is presumed, incline any one to hesitate much before he shall

decide on having discerned any traces of an Indian princess; and

this supposed character may rather turn out to be Venus introducing

the amorous Deity, attended by his followers, to Ariadne, forlorn

and abandoned by Theseus in the isle of Chios, according to Ovid,

or Naxos according to Lactantius. Nor is the female who accompanies

Bacchus "hanging on his arm," as stated by the critic. It is impossible

likewise to perceive in this figure the modest looks or demeanour

of a female captive, or in the supposed Bacchus the character of a

lover, insulting, according to Ovid's description, his former mistress

by displaying the beauties of another. Boccaccio has very comically

accounted for Ariadne's desertion by Theseus, and her subsequent

transfer to Bacchus. He supposes the lady to have been too fond of

the juice of the grape, and that on her continuing to indulge this

propensity, she was therefore called the wife of Bacchus. See _Geneal.

deor._ lib. xi. c. 29.

SCENE 4. Page 274.

JUL. Her eyes are _grey as glass_.

This was in old times the favourite colour of the eyes in both sexes:

"His eyen are _gray_ as any _glasse_."

_Romance of Sir Isenbras._

"Her eyen gray as glas."

_Romance of Libeaus desconus._

"Les iex _vairs_ et rians com un faucon."

_Roman de Guerin de Montglaive. MS._

And to come nearer to Shakspeare's time:--In the interlude of _Marie

Magdalene_, a song in praise of her says, "your eyes as _gray_ as

glasse and right amiable." The French term _ver_ or _vair_ has induced

some of their antiquaries to suppose that it meant _green_; but it

has been very satisfactorily shown to signify in general the colour

still called by heralds _vair_. It is certain however that the French

romances and other authorities allude occasionally to _green_ eyes.

SCENE 4. Page 274.

JUL. My substance should be _statue_ in thy stead.

In confirmation of Mr. M. Mason's note, it may be observed that in the

comedy of _Cornelianum dolium_, Act I. Scene 5, _statua_ is twice used

for a picture. They were synonymous terms, and sometimes a statue was

called a picture. Thus Stowe, speaking of Elizabeth's funeral, says

that when the people beheld "her _statue or picture_ lying upon the

coffin" there was a general sighing, &c. _Annals_, p. 815, edit. 1631.

In the glossary to Speght's _Chaucer_, 1598, _statue_ is explained

_picture_; and in one of the inventories of King Henry the Eighth's

furniture at Greenwich, several _pictures of earth_ are mentioned.

These were busts in _terra cotta_ like those still remaining in

Wolsey's palace at Hampton Court.

ACT V.

SCENE 1. Page 276.

EGL. That Silvia _at Patrick's cell_ should meet me.

The old copy reads "at _friar_ Patrick's cell," which Mr. Steevens

calls a redundance, justifying his alteration by a passage in the next

scene, where "At Patrick's cell" occurs. But the old reading is right,

and should not have been disturbed, there being no redundance when it

is judiciously read. Silvia is often used as a dissyllable, and must

here be read elliptically. Besides, we had "_friar_ Patrick's cell"

before in p. 263.

SCENE 4. Page 280.

VAL. And to the nightingale's complaining notes

Tune my distresses, and _record_ my woes.

It has been already observed that this term refers to the _singing

of birds_. It should have been added that it was formed from the

_recorder_, a sort of flute by which they were taught to sing.

SCENE 4. Page 286.

JUL. How oft hast thou with perjury _cleft_ the root?

The speech had been begun with a metaphor from archery, and is here

continued in the same strain. _To cleave the pin_, was to break the

nail which attached the mark to the butt.

SCENE 4. Page 290.

Mr. Ritson's reply to Mr. Tyrwhitt.

However ingenious and even just the system in this reply may be, it is

evident that Shakspeare was not governed by it; but, on the contrary,

that he _has_ taken the liberties pointed out by Mr. Tyrwhitt.

The proof is, 1. From the circumstance that none of Shakspeare's

contemporaries have used similar words in such a protracted form.

2. Because he has used other words in the same manner which are not

reducible to Mr. Ritson's system; such as _country_, _assembly_, &c.

He never troubled himself about establishing a canon of which he was,

in all likelihood, altogether ignorant; but occasionally took such

liberties as his verses required. This is clearly manifested by his

various use, in many instances, of the selfsame words.

THE CLOWNS.

The character of Speed is that of a shrewd witty servant. Launce is

something different, exhibiting a mixture of archness and rustic

simplicity. There is no allusion to dress, nor any other circumstance,

that marks either of them as the domestic fool or jester.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] A word defaced in the manuscript.

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 309.

SLEN. She has brown hair, and _speaks small like a woman_.

It may be doubted whether the _real humour_ of this speech has been

pointed out. Does it not consist in Slender's characterizing Ann Page

by a property belonging to himself, and which renders him ridiculous?

The audience would naturally smile at hearing him deliver the speech in

an effeminate tone of voice.

SCENE 1. Page 314.

FAL. But not kiss'd your keeper's daughter.

This has the appearance of a fragment of some old ballad.

SCENE 1. Page 317.

PIST. He hears with ears.

EVA. The tevil and his tarn! what phrase is this, _he hears with ear_?

Why it is affectations.

If, according to Mr. Henderson, Sir Hugh be justified in his censure

of this phrase as a pleonasm, we must also censure the parson in his

turn for having forgot that the common prayer would have furnished an

example of Pistol's language. See also _Jerem._ xxvi. 11.

SCENE 1. Page 317.

SLEN. Seven groats in _mill-sixpences_, and two _Edward

shovel-boards_ that cost me two shillings and twopence apiece.

These sixpences were coined in 1561, and are the first milled money

used in this kingdom. The invention is due to the French, and was

introduced here by a native of France, who misapplied his talents by

private coining, and suffered the penalty of the law. That seven

groats could be lost in sixpences must be placed to the account of

Master Slender's simplicity of wit.

With respect to the _Edward shovel-boards_:--Mr. Malone's inference

from the reading in the old quarto that "Slender means the broad

_shilling_ of _one of our kings_," is sufficiently maintained by the

other notes; but that it was the shilling of _Edward the Sixth_ there

is no doubt, no _other_ Edward having coined such a piece of money. It

still remains to explain how these shillings could have cost Master

Slender two and twopence apiece; because, if Dr. Farmer's quotation

from Folkes had gone far enough, it would have appeared that the

thick shillings mentioned by that writer were _pattern-pieces_, even

originally of great rarity, and never in circulation. Folkes could have

seen very few of such pieces, and it would be extremely difficult at

present to find a single one; whereas the common shillings of Edward

the Sixth remain in great numbers. We must suppose then that the

shillings purchased of the miller had been hoarded by him, and were

in high preservation, and heavier than those which had been worn in

circulation. These would consequently be of greater importance to a

nice player at the game of shovel-board, and induce him, especially if

an opulent man, to procure them at a price far beyond their original

value.

SCENE 1. Page 321.

BARD. ... And so conclusions _pass'd the careires_.

We are told that this is a technical term in the _manege_; but no

explanation is given. It was the same as _running a career_, or

galloping a horse violently backwards and forwards, stopping him

suddenly at the end of the career; "which career the more seldom it be

used and with the lesse fury, the better mouth shall your horse have,"

says Master Blundeville in his _Arte of ryding_, b. l. 4to, where

there is a whole chapter on the subject, as well as in "_The art of

riding_," translated by Thomas Bedingfield from the Italian of Claudio

Corte, 1584, 4to.

SCENE 1. Page 325.

SLEN. I hope upon familiarity will grow more contempt.

This is no more than a perversion of the common proverb, _Familiarity

breeds contempt_. Slender's school learning had furnished him on the

occasion. The phrase is still used in copy-books for children.

SCENE 1. Page 327.

SLEN. I bruis'd my shin the other day with playing at sword and

dagger with a _master of fence_.

"_Master of defence_, on the present occasion, does not simply

mean a professor of the art of fencing, but a person who had taken

his _master's degree_ in it," says Mr. Steevens, whose readers are

under great obligations to him for pointing out one of the greatest

curiosities extant on the ancient science of defence, in support of

his position. Yet it may be doubted whether the expression _master of

defence_ does not very often, and even on the present occasion, signify

merely a _professor of the art_. Numerous authorities might be adduced

on this side of the question, but perhaps a single one that is apposite

may suffice. In Eden's _History of travayle_, 1577, 4to, speaking of

Calecut in the East Indies, he says, "they have in the citie certayne

_maisters of fence_ that teach them how to use the swoord, &c." The

original Latin from which Eden translates has _lanista_. Now it is

not to be presumed that the last-mentioned _maisters of fence_ had

taken any degree. It must be owned that the evidence of the manuscript

cited by Mr. Steevens goes very far to show that none were allowed

to practise as professors who had not taken a degree in some fencing

school; an honour once conferred by king Edward the Sixth, and

generally granted, though not till after many years' experience, by one

who was himself a _master_. Yet a person who had only a _provost's_

degree might be allowed to teach, and _he_ would be termed a _master

of defence_.

SCENE 3. Page 330.

HOST. What says my _bully-rook_?

Messrs. Steevens and Whalley maintain that the above term (a cant one)

derives its origin from the _rook_ in the game of chess; but it is

very improbable that that noble game, never the amusement of gamblers,

should have been ransacked on this occasion. It means _a hectoring,

cheating sharper_, as appears from _A new dictionary of the terms

of the canting crew_, no date, 12mo, and from the lines prefixed to

_The compleat gamester_, 1680, 12mo, in both which places it is spelt

_bully-rock_. Nor is Mr. Whalley correct in stating that _rock_ and not

_rook_ is the _true_ name of the chess piece, if he mean that it is

equivalent to the Latin _rupes_.

SCENE 3. Page 333.

PIST. O base _Gongarian_ wight!

It is already shown that this is the same as _Hungarian_. It simply

means a _gipsy_. The parts of Europe in which it is supposed that the

gipsies originally appeared were Hungary and Bohemia. In Act IV. Scene

5, of this play, the host in the like cant language calls Simple a

_Bohemian Tartar_; and Munster in his _Cosmography_ informs us that the

Germans denominated the _gipsies Tartars_.

SCENE 3. Page 333.

FAL. I am glad I am so acquit of this _tinder box_.

There is a great deal of humour in this appellation. Falstaff alludes

to Pistol's rubicund nose, which, like the above utensil, carried fire

in it.

SCENE 3. Page 333.

PIST. Young ravens must have food.

Either Shakspeare or the adage, if it be one, has borrowed from

scripture. See _Psalm_ cxlvii. 9. or _Job_ xxxviii. 41.

SCENE 3. Page 337. Note 4.

To the instances adduced by Mr. Steevens in this note, of particular

phrases in old theatrical characters, may be added that of Murley

in _Sir John Oldcastle_, who is continually prefacing his speeches

with "fye paltry, paltry, in and out, to and fro upon occasion." This

practice has been revived in our modern comedies.

SCENE 4. Page 347.

CAIUS. You are John Rugby, and you are Jack Rugby: come take-a your

rapier, and come after my heel to de court.

It was the custom, in Shakspeare's time, for physicians to be attended

by their servants when visiting their patients. This appears from

the _second part_ of Stubs's _Anatomie of abuses_, sign. H. 4 b.,

where, speaking of physicians, he says, "For now they ruffle it out

in silckes and velvets, with _their men attending upon them_, whereas

many a poor man (God wot) smarteth for it." Servants also carried

their masters' rapiers: "Yf a man can place a dysh, fyll a boule and

_carrie his maister's rapier_, what more is or can be required at

his handes?"--Markham's _Health to the gentlemanly profession of a

serving-man_, sign. F. 3.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 357.

MRS. FORD. ... to the tune of _Green sleeves_.

Another ballad with this title, and which has an equally good claim

to be the one alluded to as those already quoted, may be seen in Mr.

Ellis's elegant _Specimens of the early English poets_, vol. iii. p.

327, edit. 1801.

SCENE 1. Page 358.

MRS. PAGE. ... for sure, unless he knew some _strain_ in me that I

know not myself----

The note seem to have wrested from this word its plain and obvious

meaning of _turn_, _humour_, _tendency_, in which it is often used by

Shakspeare.

SCENE 1. Page 359.

PIST. Hope is a _curtail dog_ in some affairs.

A curtail or curtal dog is placed by Howel in the vocabulary at the

end of his _Dictionary of four languages_ among hunting-dogs, and is

defined to be _a dog without a tail good for any service_. Yet we are

not to suppose that the word uniformly signifies an animal with its

tail cut off. It is in fact derived from _tailler court_, and applied

to _any_ animals that are defective, man not excepted. Thus in Greene's

_Quip for an upstart courtier_, a collier is made to say, "I am made a

_curtall_: for the pillory hath eaten off both my _eares_," sign. E.

2. Nashe, in his _Prayse of the red herring_, speaks of the "_curtaild

skinclipping pagans_." fo. 20. Dr. Stukeley, in a manuscript note in

his copy of Robin Hood's garland, states that "the _curtal_ fryer of

Fountain's abby is _Cordelier_, from the cord or rope which they wore

round their wast, to whip themselves with. They were of the Franciscan

order." But this is a mistake; and the opinion of Staveley much more

probable, who, in chap. xxv. of his _Romish horseleech_, says, that

in some countries where the Franciscan friars, conformably to the

injunction of their founder, wore short habits, the order was presently

contemned and derided, and men called them _curtailed friars_.

SCENE 2. Page 360.

FORD. Love my wife?

PIST. With _liver burning hot_.

It is here observed by Mr. Steevens, and elsewhere by Dr. Johnson,

that the liver was anciently supposed to be the inspirer of

amorous passions, and the seat of love. In conformity with this

opinion, we are told in the English translation of Bartholomæus _De

proprietatibus rerum_, lib. v. cap. 39, that "the lyver is the place

of voluptuousnesse and lyking of the flesh;" and again, "the liver is

a member, _hot_, &c." There is some reason for thinking that the idea

was borrowed from the Arabian physicians, or at least adopted by them;

for in the _Turkish tales_, an amorous tailor is made to address his

wife by the titles of "thou _corner of my liver_, and soul of my life!"

and in another place the king of Syria, who had sustained a temporary

privation of his mistress, is said to have had "his liver, which had

been _burnt up_ by the loss of her, cooled and refreshed at the sight

of her." In _Twelfth night_, Fabian, speaking of Olivia's supposed

letter to Malvolio, says, "This wins him, _liver and all_."

SCENE 2. Page 367, 368.

PAGE. I have heard the Frenchman hath good skill in his _rapier_.

SHAL. In these times you stand on distance, your passes stoccadoes

and I know not what. I have seen the time with my long sword I

would have made you four tall fellows skip like rats.

The notes on these speeches are at variance on a supposed anachronism

committed by Shakspeare in introducing the _rapier_ in the time of

Henry the Fourth. The same weapon is likewise found in _Richard II._

Act IV. Scene 1, where the controversy is renewed; and therefore it

will be proper in considering this question to state the evidence

and arguments in both places. It is maintained on one side that the

_rapier_ was not used in England before the reign of Elizabeth;

and in support of this opinion a passage from Carleton's _Thankful

remembrance of God's mercy_ is offered; which, being only a second-hand

and inaccurate statement from Darcie's _Annals of Elizabeth_, is not

deserving of further notice. Darcie himself informs us that one Rowland

York (who appears to have betrayed Deventer to the Spaniards in 1587)

was the _first_ that brought into England "that wicked and pernicious

fashion to fight in the fields in duels with _a rapier called a tucke_

onely for the thrust, &c." On this passage it may be remarked, that

the _rapier_ is not _generally_ spoken of, but only a particular sort,

the _tucke for the thrust_. On the same side Stowe is next cited, who

mentions that the mode of fighting with the sword and buckler was

frequent with all men till that of _the rapier and dagger_ took place,

when _suddenly the general quarrel of fighting abated_, which began

about the 20th of Elizabeth (1578). Now here the date seems rather

applicable to the cessation of the very popular combats with sword and

buckler, and the substitution only, and, as it will presently appear,

the revival of the rapier and dagger, as a more limited manner of

fighting, from its superior danger. There is another passage in Stowe,

p. 869, which not being already cited, and throwing some light on the

nature of the rapier, may deserve notice. The historian relates that

"Shortly after (referring to the 12th or 13th year of Elizabeth) began

_long tucks_ and _long rapiers_, and he was held the greatest gallant

that had the deepest ruffe and longest rapier: the offence to the eye

of the one, and the hurt unto the life of the subject that came by

the other, caused her majesty to make proclamation against them both,

and to place selected grave citizens at every gate to cut the ruffes,

and breake the rapiers points of all passengers that exceeded a yeard

in length of their rapiers, and a nayle of a yeard in depth of their

ruffes." But this is likewise no evidence in favour of the _general_

introduction of the _rapier_ in the reign of Elizabeth, as Stowe merely

refers to the _long foining or thrusting rapier_. The last quotation

on this side of the question is from Bulleine's _Dialogue between

soarnesse and chirurgi_, 1579, where the _long foining rapier_ is also

mentioned as "a _new_ kind of instrument to let blood withall."

On the opposite side, Mr. Ritson produces a quotation from Nashe's

_Life of Jacke Wilton_, who lived in the reign of Henry the Eighth, to

show that _rapiers_ were used at that period. This sort of evidence

might appear, on a first view, inadmissible, on the ground that Nashe

had committed an error, very common with Shakspeare, in ascribing a

custom of his own time to a preceding one, if it were not supported by

the manuscript cited by Mr. Steevens in vol. iii. p. 327, in which, but

not in the quotation from it, it appears that the _rapier_ actually was

in use in the time of Henry the Eighth; and therefore it is impossible

to decide that this weapon, which, with its name, we received from the

French, might not have been known as early as the reign of Henry the

Fourth, or even of Richard the Second. Shallow's ridicule of _passes

and stoccadoes_ seems more objectionable, and may possibly deserve the

appellation of anachronism. It is not a little remarkable that the

_rapier_ was an article of exportation from this country in Cromwell's

time. See _Oliverian acts_, A.D. 1657.

SCENE 1. Page 369.

FORD. Though Page be a secure fool, and stands so firmly on _his_

wife's frailty, yet I cannot put off _my_ opinion so easily: she

was in his company, &c.

This speech is surely not so obscure as the notes seem to consider

it. Ford says that _Page_ makes a firm stand with respect to, or on

the question of, _his_ wife's frailty. What follows better deserves

explanation, because the grammatical construction of the last sentence

is, that _Page's_ wife was in Falstaff's company; whereas Ford means

to say, "I cannot put off _my_ opinion, i. e. of _my own wife_, so

easily; as _she_ was in Falstaff's company," &c. The emphasis should be

laid on the words _his_ and _my_, and then the whole will be far more

intelligible.

SCENE 2. Page 375.

FAL. Your _cat-a-mountain_ looks.

A term borrowed from the Spaniards, who call the wild cat

_gato-montes_.

SCENE 2. Page 375.

FAL. Your _red lattice_ phrases.

Mr. Steevens, speaking of this external mark of an alehouse, says,

"Hence the present chequers." But in reality the _lattice_ is the

younger of the two, as the reference in the note to the Pompeii plate

in _Archæologia_ demonstrates. Although the Romans were not acquainted

with the game of chess, they certainly were with such a one as required

a board with squares; and in all probability this sign of a house of

entertainment where table games were played, has been handed down to

us from the ancients. The resemblance of _lattice_ work, or _laths_

crossing each other, to a chess or backgammon board, might induce some

ignorant painters to exhibit the former; but the _chequers_ have once

more reassumed their station. Nor was _red_ always the colour; for, in

the cant language of jolly fellows, a red or _blue_ lattice was termed

_a free school for all comers_. See Heywood's _Philocothonista_, 1635,

4to.

SCENE 2. Page 376.

QUICK. There is one mistress Ford, sir:--I pray come a little

nearer this ways:--I myself dwell with master Doctor Caius.

FAL. Well, on: mistress Ford, you say----

Is it not more natural that Falstaff should, in this first instance,

repeat the dame's own words, and say, "Well, one mistress Ford, you

say."

SCENE 2. Page 389.

FORD. ... an Irishman with my _aqua vitæ_ bottle----

_Irish aqua vitæ_ was certainly _usquebaugh_, and not _brandy_, as

Mr. Malone has observed; but Ford is here speaking of _English aqua

vitæ_, which was very different from the other so called from the Irish

words _uisge_, aqua, and _beatha_, vita. That the curious reader may

judge for himself, and at the same time be furnished with the means of

indulging any wish that he may have for tasting the respective sorts

in their genuine form, the following receipts for making them are

subjoined:--The first is from a manuscript monkish common-place book,

written about the reign of Henry the Sixth. "For to make water of lyff,

that ys clepyd aqua vitæ. Take and fylle thy violle fulle of lyes of

stronge vine, and put therto these powdrys. First powder of canel,

powder of clowes, powdyr of gyngevir, powdyr of notemugys, powder of

galyngale and powdyr of quibibis, poudyr of greyn de parys, poudyr of

longe pepyr, powdyr of blacke pepir, carewey, cirmowitteyn, comyn,

fenyl, smallache, persile, sawge, myntys, rewe, calamente, origaun, one

ounce or more or lesse as ye lykyth; stampe hem a lytill for it will be

bettyr, and put hem to these powdrys, than set thy glas on the fyre set

on the hovel and kepe it wel that the eyre come not owte and set ther

undyr a viole and kepe the watyr." The next is from _Cogan's Haven of

health_, 1612, 4to, chap. 222. "To make aqua vitæ. Take of strong ale,

or strong wine, or the lees of strong wine and ale together, a gallon

or two as you please, and take half a pound or more of good liquorice,

and as much annise seedes; scrape off the bark from the liquorice,

and cut it into thin slices, and punne the annise grosse, and steepe

altogether close covered twelve houres, then distill it with a limbecke

or serpentine. And of every gallon of the liquor you may draw a quart

of reasonable good _aqua vitæ_, that is of two galons two quarts. But

see that your fire be temperate, and that the heade of your limbecke

bee kept colde continually with fresh water, and that the bottome of

your limbecke bee fast luted with rye dough, that no ayre issue out.

The best ale to make _aqua vitæ_ of, is to be made of wheate malte, and

the next of cleane barley malte, and the best wine for that purpose

is sacke." The last is a receipt for making "Usquebath, or Irish

aqua vitæ. To every gallon of good aqua composita, put two ounces of

chosen liquorice bruised and cut into small peeces, but first cleansed

from all his filth, and two ounces of annis seedes that are cleane

and bruised; let them macerate five or six days in a wodden vessell,

stopping the same close, and then draw off as much as will runne

cleere, dissolving in that cleere aqua vitæ five or sixe spoonefulls

of the best malassoes you can get: Spanish cute if you can get it, is

thought better than malassoes: then put this into another vessell, and

after three or foure dayes (the more the better) when the liquor hath

fined itselfe, you maie use the same: some adde dates and raisins of

the sun to this receipt; those grounds which remaine you maie redistill

and make more aqua composita of them, and of that aqua composita you

maie make more _usquebath_."--Plat's _Delightes for ladies_, 1611,

24to. It is to be observed, that _aqua composita_ is wine of any kind

distilled with spices and sweet herbs. _Brandy_, or _burnt_ wine, seems

first to occur in Skinner's _Etymologicon_, 1671, under the name of

_Brandewin_, from the Dutch or German, and soon after in its present

form; yet _aqua vitæ_ was continued a long while afterwards.

SCENE 3. Page 395.

HOST. _Cry'd game_, said I well?

The evidence, and indeed the sense, in favour of the phrase to _cry

aim_, preponderates so greatly, that one cannot hesitate in discarding

the nonsensical expression of _cry'd game_, which derives not the least

support from any of Mr. Steevens's quotations. The probability is very

great that there was an error of the press, and that the words should

have been printed according to the orthography of the time, "Cry'd I

_ayme_, said I well?" A _g_ might easily have crept in instead of a _y_.

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 398.

SIM. Marry, sir, the _city-ward_----

"The old editions read _pittie-ward_, the modern editors _pitty-wary_,"

says Mr. Steevens, who in this edition has abandoned the best part

of a former note where he had proposed to read _petty-ward_, which

is the right word, and of the same import as the old one. That such

a word formerly existed is demonstrable from its still remaining as

a proper name, and near Wimbledon is a wood so called, probably from

the owner. Mr. Steevens mistakes in supposing _ward_ to mean _towards_

in this instance, where it is put for the division of a city; nor

does his quotation from William of Worcester assist him. The _via

de Petty_ and the _Pyttey gate_ might be named after the hundred of

Pyttey in Somersetshire. In Lyne's Map of Cambridge, 1574, we find the

_petticurie_.

SCENE 1. Page 399.

EVANS. I will knog his _urinals_ about his knave's costard----

This utensil was the usual concomitant of physicians in former times,

as appears from most of the frontispieces to old medical books and

other ancient prints.

SCENE 2. Page 410.

HOST. ... he smells April and May.

The same as if he had said he smells of _youth and courtship_,

symbolized by these months, the former of which in old calendars is

described in these lines:

"The next vi yere maketh foure and twenty,

And fygured is to joly Apryll;

That tyme of pleasures man hath moost plenty

Fresshe and lovyng his lustes to fulfyll----"

and the latter in the following:

"As in the month of Maye all thyng is in myght,

So at xxx yeres man is in chyef lykyng;

Pleasaunt and lusty, to every mannes syght,

In beaute and strength to women pleasyng."

SCENE 2. Page 412.

HOST. I will to my honest knight Falstaff, and drink _canary_ with him.

FORD. I think I shall drink-in _pipe-wine_ first with him; I'll make

him dance.

It may be doubted whether the exact meaning of this cluster of puns

has already been given. Mr. Tyrwhitt says he cannot understand the

phrase _to drink in pipe-wine_, and suggests that Shakspeare might

have written _horn-pipe wine_. Now Ford terms canary _pipe-wine_, both

because the _canary_ dance is performed to a tabor and _pipe_, and

because the canary _bird_ is said to _pipe_ his tunes. Ford is speaking

of Falstaff, not of Page, as Mr. Tyrwhitt's note implies when it refers

to horns. He says he will make him pipe and dance too.

SCENE 3. Page 414.

MRS. FORD. How now, my _eyas-musket_?

There was no reason for disturbing the etymology of this word given

by Dr. Warburton, by substituting that of Dame Juliana Bernes, which

for ingenuity and veracity may be well classed with many of those in

_Isidore of Seville_, or _The golden legend_. Take an example from the

latter. "Felix is sayd of _fero fers_, that is to saye, to bere, and of

this word _lis_, _litis_, whiche is as moche to say as stryfe, for he

bare stryfe for the fayth of our lorde." Turberville tells us that "the

first name and terme that they bestowe on a falcon is an _eyesse_, and

this name doth laste as long as she is in the eyrie and for that she

is taken from the _eyrie_." This is almost as bad as the lady abbess's

account. _Eyrie_ is simply the nest or _eggery_, and has no connexion

with the name of the bird. _Eyas_ or _nias_, is a term borrowed from

the French _niais_, which means any young bird in the nest, _avis in

nido_. It is the first of five several names by which a falcon is

called during its first year. The best account of this bird is in _La

fauconnerie de Charles d'Arcussa de Capre, seigneur d'Esparron_, 1643,

4to. A _musket_ is a sparrow-hawk, and is derived from the French

_mouchet_, and the latter probably from _musca_, on account of its

diminutive form. The humour therefore lies in comparing the page to a

young male sparrow-hawk, an emblem of his tender years and activity.

ACT IV.

SCENE 2. Page 448.

MRS. FORD. ... and her _muffler_ too.

It would oppress the reader by citing authorities to prove that the

muffler was a contrivance of various kinds to conceal a part of the

face, and that even a _mask_ was occasionally so denominated. From

an examination of several ancient prints and paintings, it appears

that when the muffler was made of linen, it only covered the lower

part of the face; such it was in the present instance, for the old

woman of Brentford would not want to conceal her eyes. It is otherwise

in _King Henry V._ Act III. Scene 1, where Fortune's _blindness_ is

described, and there a linen bandage would be meant, but perhaps not

very correctly called a muffler. The term is connected with the old

French _musser_ or _muçer_, to hide, or with _amuseler_, to cover the

_museau_ or _mufle_, a word which has been indiscriminately used for

the mouth, nose, and even the whole of the face; hence our _muzzle_. It

was enacted by a Scotish statute in 1457, that "na woman cum to kirk,

nor mercat, with her face _mussaled_ or covered that scho may not be

kend." Notwithstanding this interposition of the legislature, says

Mr. Warton, the ladies of Scotland continued _muzzled_ during three

reigns; and he cites Sir David Lyndsay's poem _In contemptioun of syde

taillis_, in which the author advises the king to issue a proclamation

that the women should show their faces as they did in France. _Hist. of

Eng. poetry_, ii. 324.

The annexed cuts exhibit different sorts of mufflers. The first and

third figures are copied from Jost Amman's _Theatrum mulierum_,

Francof. 1586, 4to; the second, from Speed's Map of England, is the

_costume_ of an English countrywoman in the reign of James I.; the

fourth is from an old German print; and the others from Weigel's

_Habitus præcipuorum populorum_, Nuremb. 1577, folio; a work which, for

the beauty of the wood-cuts, has never been surpassed.

[Illustration]

In the reign of Charles I. the ladies wore masks which covered the

eye-brows and nose, holes being left for the eyes. Sometimes, but not

always, the mouth was covered, and the chin guarded with a sort of

muffler then called a _chin-cloth_; these were chiefly used to keep

off the sun. See Hollar's print of _Winter_. The velvet masks probably

came from France, as they are mentioned in the _Book of values of

merchandize imported_, under the administration of Oliver Cromwell.

There was another sort called _visard masks_, that covered all the

face, having holes only for the eyes, a case for the nose, and a slit

for the mouth. They were easily disengaged, being held in the teeth by

means of a round bead fastened in the inside. These masks were usually

made of leather, covered with black velvet. Randle Holme, from whose

_Academy of armory_, book iii. c. 5, their description is extracted,

adds, that the devil invented them, and that none about court except

w----s, bawds, and the devil's imps, used them, being ashamed to show

their faces.

SCENE 2. Page 450.

PAGE. Why this _passes_!----

The word had been already explained by Warburton in p. 329. Page,

astonished at Ford's conduct, says it _exceeds every thing_. Such is

the sense in the New Testament, "the love of Christ, which _passeth_

knowledge," _Ephes._ iii. 19. The French often use _passer_ in the same

manner; and in _Hamlet_ we have this expression, "I have that within

which _passeth_ show."

SCENE 2. Page 452.

FORD. ... his wife's _leman_.

Mr. Steevens derives it from the Dutch, a language whence we have

borrowed few, if any words. The term is of Saxon origin, and _leveman_

can be traced to an Anglo-Norman period. This was afterwards contracted

into _leman_. The etymology is perhaps from leoꝼe, amabilis, and man,

homo. The latter in Saxon denoted both man and woman; so that _leman_

was formerly applied to both sexes as a _person beloved_.

SCENE 2. Page 455.

MRS. PAGE. ... in the way of _waste_----

This expression is from the same _law_ manufactory referred to by Mr.

Ritson in the preceding note. The incident in the present scene, of

Falstaff's threshing in the habit of a woman, might have been suggested

by the story of the beaten and contented cuckold in Boccaccio's

_Decameron_, day 7. ver. 7.

SCENE 5. Page 466.

SIMP. Pray you, sir, was't not the _wise woman of Brentford_?

Mr. Steevens cites _Judges_ v. 29, on this occasion: but the _wise

ladies_ there were of a very different character from the old woman

of Brentford, even according to the Hebrew text: see the Vulgate and

Septuagint versions, where the expression is still more remote. The

subject of these wise women will be resumed in a note on _Twelfth

night_, Act III. Scene 4.

ACT V.

SCENE 1. Page 475.

FAL. Hold up your head, and _mince_.

The word is properly explained by Mr. Steevens. Thus in _Isaiah_ iii.

16, "walking and _mincing_ as they go." Wicliffe has "with their feet

in curious goyng;" and Tindale, "tryppyng so nicely with their feet."

_To mince_ is likewise to walk in a stately, or, as Littelton expresses

it, _Junonian_ step.

SCENE 2. Page 477.

SLEN. I come to her in white, and cry _mum_, she cries, _budget_.

The word _mumbudget_, here divided, is used by Nashe in his _Have with

you to Saffron Walden_, where, speaking of Gabriel Harvey, he says, "no

villaine, no atheist, no murderer, but hee hath likened me too, for no

other reason in the earth, but because I would not let him go beyond

me, or _be won to put my finger in my mouth and crie mumbudget_ when

he had baffuld mee in print throughout England." To _play mumbudget_,

is rendered _demeurer court, ne sonner mot_, in Sherwood's _English

and French dictionary_, 1632, folio. _Mumchance_ is silence; and a

_mummery_ was a silent masquerade. _Mumbudget_ may be _silence in a

budget_, a something _closed_ or stopped up, Fr. _bouché_.

SCENE 4. Page 479.

MRS. PAGE.... hard by _Herne's oak_----

The tree in Windsor forest referred to in Mr. Steevens's note, was

said, on newspaper authority in 1795, to have been cut down by his

majesty's order, on account of its being totally decayed.

SCENE 5. Page 490.

PIST. _Vile_ worm!

Old copy _vild_, which Mr. Malone shows to have been the _old_

pronunciation. It may be added that it is likewise the _modern_ in some

of the provinces.

SCENE 5. Page 492.

[_Stage direction._] "During this song, the fairies _pinch_

Falstaff."

In the old collection of songs already cited in p. 7, there is one

entitled "The fayries daunce," which bearing some resemblance to that

by Shakspeare, may be entitled to the reader's notice:

"Dare you haunt our hallowed greene?

None but fayries here are seene.

Downe and sleepe,

Wake and weepe,

Pinch him black, and pinch him blew,

That seekes to steale a lover true.

When you come to heare us sing,

Or to tread our fayrie ring,

Pinch him black, and pinch him blew,

O thus our nayles shall handle you."

SCENE 5. Page 500.

PAGE. What cannot be eschew'd must be embrac'd.

This is either a proverbial saying now lost, or borrowed from one of

the following, "What cannot be altered must be borne not blamed;" "What

cannot be cured must be endured."

TWELFTH NIGHT.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 8.

DUKE. How will she love, when the rich _golden shaft_

Hath kill'd the flock of all affections else

That live in her.

This _golden shaft_ was supplied either from a description of Cupid

in Sidney's _Arcadia_, book ii., or from Ovid's _Metamorphoses_,

translated by Golding, 4to, fo. 8, where, speaking of Cupid's arrows,

he says,

"_That causeth love_ is all of _golde_ with point full sharp and

bright.

That chaseth love, is blunt, whose steele with leaden head is dight."

Milton seems to have forgotten that Love had only _one_ shaft of

_gold_. See _Parad. Lost_, iv. 1. 763.

SCENE 2. Page 11.

CAP. ... she hath abjur'd the company

And sight of men.

This necessary and justifiable change in the _ordo verborum_ from the

reading in the old copy, and to which Mr. Steevens lays claim, had been

already made by Sir Thomas Hanmer.

SCENE 3. Page 21.

SIR TO. ... Wherefore have these gifts a _curtain_ before them? are

they like to take dust, like mistress Mall's picture?

Mr. Malone's conjecture that curtains were at this time frequently

hung before pictures of value, is further supported in Scene 5 of this

Act, where Olivia, in unveiling her face, mentions the practice. In

Deloney's _Pleasant history of Jack of Newbery_, printed before 1597,

it is recorded that "in a faire large parlour, which was wainscotted

round about, Jacke of Newbery had fifteene faire pictures hanging,

_which were covered with curtaines of greene silke_, frienged with

gold, which he would often shew to his friends and servants."

SCENE 3. Page 23.

SIR AND. Taurus? that's _sides and heart_.

SIR TO. No, sir, it is _legs and thighs_.

Both the knights are wrong in their astrology, according to the

almanacs of the time, which make Taurus govern _the neck and throat_.

Their ignorance is perhaps intentional.

SCENE 5. Page 31.

SIR TO. ... How now, _sot_?

There is great humour in this ambiguous word, which applies equally to

the fool and the knight himself, in his _drunken condition_.

ACT II.

SCENE 3. Page 51.

CLOWN. How now, my hearts? Did you never see _the picture of we

three_?

The original picture, or sign as it sometimes was, seems to have

been two _fools_. Thus in Shirley's _Bird in cage_, Morello, who

counterfeits a _fool_, says, "_We be three of old_, without exception

to your lordship, only with this difference, I am the wisest fool."

In Day's comedy of _Law tricks_, 1608, Jul. says, "appoint the place

prest." To which Em. answers, "At the _three fools_." Sometimes, as Mr.

Henley has stated, it was two asses. Thus in Beaumont and Fletcher's

_Queen of Corinth_, Act III. Scene 1,

"NEAN. He is another _ass_, he says, I believe him.

UNCLE. _We be three_, heroical prince.

NEAN. Nay then we must have the _picture_ of 'em, and the word _nos

sumus_."

SCENE 3. Page. 53.

CLO. I did impeticos thy gratility.

This is undoubtedly the true reading, for the reason assigned by Mr.

Malone. From the discordant notes on the passage, a question has arisen

whether the fool means to say that he had put the six-pence into his

own petticoats, or given it to his petticoat companion, his _leman_.

Mr. Steevens has observed that "petticoats were not _always_ a part of

the dress of fools, though they were of idiots;" and on this assertion,

coupled with another by Dr. Johnson, that "fools were kept in long

coats to which the allusion is made," Mr. Ritson maintains that "it

is a very gross mistake to imagine that this character (_i. e._ our

clown's) was habited like an _idiot_." Now it is very certain, that

although the idiot fools were generally dressed in petticoats, the

allowed fool was occasionally habited in like manner, as is shown more

at large in another part of this volume; which circumstance, though it

may strengthen the opinion that the clown has alluded to his own dress,

by no means decides the above question, which remains very equally

balanced.

SCENE 3. Page 63.

SIR TO. Dost thou think because thou art virtuous, there shall beno

more _cakes and ale_?

The holiday cakes referred to in Mr. Letherland's note were the yule or

Christmas cakes; those on the lying-in of the Virgin; cross-buns, and

twelfth cakes. Mr. Lysons, in his account of Twickenham, mentions an

ancient custom of dividing two great cakes in the church on Easter-day

among the young people. This was regarded as a superstitious relic; and

it was ordered by the parliament in 1645, that the parishioners should

forbear that custom, and instead thereof buy loaves of bread for the

poor of the parish.

SCENE 4. Page 70.

DUKE. And the _free_ maids that weave their threads with bones.

The private memoirs of Peter the wild boy, if they could be disclosed,

would afford the best comment on the above disputed epithet, as applied

to the _websters_ in question.

SCENE 4. Page 71.

CLO. And in _sad cypress_ let me be laid.

Mr. Steevens has in this edition cancelled a brother commentator's

note, which ought on every account to have been retained, and has

himself attempted to show that a _shroud_ and not a _coffin_ of cypress

or cyprus is intended. It is no easy matter, from the ambiguity of the

word, to decide the question. The cypress tree was used by the ancients

for funeral purposes, and dedicated to Pluto. As it was not liable

to perish from rottenness, it appears to have been used for coffins.

See Mr. Gough's Introduction to _Sepulchral monuments_, p. lxvi. In

Quarles's _Argalus and Parthenia_, book iii., a knight is introduced,

whose

"... horse was black as jet,

His furniture was round about beset

With branches, slipt from the _sad cypresse tree_."

In further behalf of the wood, it may be worth remarking that the

expression _laid_ seems more applicable to a coffin than to a shroud,

in which a party may with greater propriety be said to be _wrapped_;

and also that the shroud is afterwards expressly mentioned by itself.

It is nevertheless very certain that the fine linen called Cyprus,

perhaps from being originally manufactured in the island of that name,

was used for shrouds. In the churchwardens' accounts of St. Mary's,

Cambridge, mention is made of _a sypyrs kyrcher belonging to the

cross_. In this instance there being the figure of a dead body on the

cross, the cyprus was designed as a shroud.

SCENE 5. Page 88.

MAL. By my life, this is my lady's hand: these be her very C's, her

U's, and her T's, and thus makes she her great P's.

Mr. Ritson having with great probability supplied the _whole_ direction

of the letter, there seems to be no foundation left for Blackstone's

conjecture. Malvolio had no motive for any _coarse_ allusion. With

respect to the instance of the letter in _All's well that ends well_

not being recited literally by Helen, it must be recollected that there

was no reason for making her do so, as she talks in _blank verse_; and

it would therefore have been improper that she should have given more

than the _substance_ of the letter.

SCENE 5. Page 93.

MAL. ... and wish'd to see thee _cross-gartered_.

Of this fashion but few vestiges remain; a circumstance the more

remarkable, as it must have been at one time extremely common among

the beaux in Elizabeth's reign. In the English edition of Junius's

_Nomenclator_, 1585, 12mo, mention is made of "hose garters, going

_acrosse_, or over-thwart, both above and below the knee." In the

old comedy of _The two angrie women of Abingdon_, 1599, 4to, a

_serving-man_ is thus described:

"... hee's a fine neate fellow,

A spruce slave, I warrant ye, he'ele have

His cruell _garters crosse about the knee_."

SCENE 5. Page 94.

MAL. I will be _point-de-vice_ [_device_].

As the instances of this expression are of rare occurrence, those

which follow are offered as likely to be useful to the author of any

future work that may resemble the well-planned, but unfinished glossary

of _obsolete and provincial words_ by the late Dr. Boucher. In the

interlude of _The nature of the four elements_, Sensuality, one of the

_dramatis personæ_, promises a banquet

"Of metys that be most delycate,

Which shall be in a chamber feyre

Replete with sote and fragrāt eyre

Prepared _poynt-deryse_."

In _Newes from the North_, 1579, 4to, mention is made of "costly

banqueting houses, galleries, bowling-allees, straunge toies of

_point-devise_ and woorkmanship," sign. G. In an old and very rare

satirical poem against married ladies, entitled, _The proude wyves

paternoster that wold go gaye, and undyd her husbande and went her

waye_, 1560, 4to, one of the gossips recommends her companion to wear

"Rybandes of sylke that be full longe and large,

With tryangles _trymly made poyntdevyse_."

Some further account of this piece may not be unacceptable. It is

described in Laneham's _Letter from Killingworth_ as forming part

of Captain Cox the mason's curious library. In the appendix to

Baker's _Biographia dramatica_, p. 433, a play under the same title

is mentioned as entered on the Stationers' books in 1559; but from

the correspondence in the date, it was, most likely, the present

work, which cannot be regarded as a dramatic one. It describes the

hypocritical behaviour of women at church, who, instead of attending

to their devotions, are more anxious to show their gay apparel. One

of these, observing a neighbour much better clothed than herself,

begins her _paternoster_, wherein she complains of her husband's

restrictions, and prays that she may be enabled to dress as gaily as

the rest of her acquaintance. She afterwards enters into conversation

with a female gossip, by whose mischievous instigation she is seduced

to rebel against her husband's authority. In consequence of this, the

poor man is first entreated, next threatened, and finally ruined. The

author of this poem is not the first who has irreligiously made use

of the present vehicle of his satire. One of the old Norman minstrels

had preceded him in _The usurer's paternoster_, which Mons. Le Grand

has inserted among his entertaining _fabliaux_, and at the same time

described some other similar compositions.

But to return to _point-device_:--There was no occasion for separating

the two last syllables of this term, as in the quotation from Mr.

Steevens's text, nor is it done when it occurs elsewhere in his

edition. It has been properly stated that _point-device_ signifies

_exact, nicely finical_; but nothing has been offered concerning the

etymology, except that we got the expression from the French. It

has in fact been supplied from the labours of the needle. _Poinet_

in the French language denotes a _stitch_; _devisé_ any thing

_invented_, _disposed_, or _arranged_. _Point-devisé_ was therefore

a particular sort of patterned lace worked with the needle; and the

term _point-lace_ is still familiar to every female. They had likewise

their _point-coupé_, _point-compté_, _dentelle au point devant

l'aiguille_, &c., &c. The various kinds of needle-work practised by

our indefatigable grandmothers, if enumerated, would astonish even

the most industrious of our modern ladies. Many curious books of

patterns for lace and all sorts of needle-work were formerly published,

some of which are worth pointing out to the curious collector. The

earliest on the list is an Italian book under the title of _Esemplario

di lavori: dove le tenere fanciulle & altre donne nobile potranno

facilmente imparare il modo & ordine di lavorare, cusire, raccamare,

& finalmente far tutte quelle gentillezze & lodevili opere, le quali

pò fare una donna virtuosa con laco in mano, con li suoi compasse

& misure. Vinegia, per Nicolo D'Aristotile detto Zoppino_, MDXXIX.

8vo. The next that occurs was likewise set forth by an Italian, and

entitled, _Les singuliers et nouveaux pourtraicts du seigneur Federic

de Vinciolo Venitien, pour toutes sortes d'ouvrages de lingerie_.

Paris, 1588, 4to. It is dedicated to the queen of France, and had been

already twice published. In 1599 a second part came out, which is much

more difficult to be met with than the former, and sometimes contains

a neat portrait, by Gaultier, of Catherine de Bourbon, the sister of

Henry the Fourth. The next is _Nouveaux pourtraicts de point coupé et

dantelles en petite moyenne et grande forme, nouvellement inventez et

mis en lumiere. Imprimé à Montbeliard_, 1598, 4to. It has an address to

the ladies, and a poem exhorting young damsels to be industrious; but

the author's name does not appear. Vincentio's work was published in

England, and printed by John Wolf, under the title of _New and singular

patternes and workes of linnen, serving for paternes to make all sortes

of lace, edginges and cut-workes. Newly invented for the profite and

contentment of ladies, gentilwomen, and others that are desireous of

this art._ 1591, 4to. He seems also to have printed it with a French

title. We have then another English book of which this is the title:

_Here foloweth certaine Patternes of Cut-workes: newly invented and

never published before. Also sundry sortes of spots, as flowers, birdes

and fishes, &c. and will fitly serve to be wrought, some with gould,

some with silke, and some with crewell in coullers: or otherwise at

your pleasure. And never but once published before. Printed by Rich.

Shorleyker._ No date, in oblong 4to. And, lastly, another oblong

quarto entitled _The needles excellency, a new booke wherin are divers

admirable workes wrought with the needle. Newly invented and cut in

copper for the pleasure and profit of the industrious._ Printed for

James Boler, &c. 1640. Beneath this title is a neat engraving of three

ladies in a flower garden, under the names of Wisdom, Industrie, and

Follie. Prefixed to the patterns are sundry poems in commendation of

the needle, and describing the characters of ladies who have been

eminent for their skill in needle-work, among whom are Queen Elizabeth

and the Countess of Pembroke. These poems were composed by John Taylor

the water poet. It appears that the work had gone through twelve

impressions, and yet a copy is now scarcely to be met with. This may

be accounted for by supposing that such books were generally cut to

pieces, and used by women to work upon or transfer to their samplers.

From the dress of a lady and gentleman on one of the patterns in the

last mentioned book, it appears to have been originally published

in the reign of James the First. All the others are embellished with

a multitude of patterns elegantly cut in wood, several of which are

eminently conspicuous for their taste and beauty.

It is therefore apparent that the expression _point-devise_ became

applicable, in a secondary sense, to whatever was uncommonly exact, or

constructed with the nicety and precision of _stitches made or devised

by the needle_.

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 97.

VIO. Dost thou live by thy _tabor_?

This instrument is found in the hands of fools long before the time

of Shakspeare. With respect to _the sign of the tabor_ mentioned in

the notes, it might, as stated, have been _the designation of a musick

shop_; but that it was _the sign of an eating-house kept by Tarleton_

is a mistake into which a learned commentator has been inadvertently

betrayed. It appears from Tarleton's _Jests_, 1611, 4to, that he kept

a tavern in Gracious [Gracechurch] street, at the sign of the _Saba_.

This is the person who in our _modern_ bibles is called the _queen of

Sheba_, and the sign has been corrupted into that of the _bell-savage_,

as may be gathered from the inedited metrical _romance of Alexander_,

supposed to have been written at the beginning of the fourteenth

century by Adam Davie, who, in describing the countries visited by his

hero, mentions that of _Macropy_ (the _Macropii_ of Pliny), and adds,

"In heore[4] lond is a cité

On of the noblest in Christianté[5];

Hit hotith[6] _Sabba_ in langage.

Thennes cam _Sibely savage_,

Of al theo world theo fairest quene,

To Jerusalem, Salamon to seone[7]

For hire fairhed[8], and for hire love,

Salamon forsok his God above."

_Sibely savage_, as a proper name, is another perversion of _si belle

sauvage_; and though the lady was supposed to have come from the

remotest parts of Africa, and might have been as black as a Negro,

we are not now to dispute the superlative beauty of the mistress of

Salomon, here converted into a Savage. It must be admitted that the

queen of Sheba was as well adapted to a sign as the wise men of the

East, afterwards metamorphosed into the three kings of Cologne.

Mr. Pegge, in his _Anecdotes of the English language_, p. 291, informs

us that a friend had seen a lease of the Bell Savage inn to _Isabella

Savage_; "which," says he, "overthrows the conjectures about a bell

and a savage, _la belle sauvage_, &c." It is probable that the learned

writer's friend was in some way or other deceived. The date of the

instrument is not mentioned; and if the above name really appeared in

the lease, it might have been an accidental circumstance at a period

not very distant. Mr. Pegge was likewise not aware that the same sign,

corrupted in like manner, was used on the continent.

SCENE 2. Page 109.

SIR TO. Go write it in a martial hand; be _curst_ and _brief_.

Of the latter sentence Dr. Johnson has not given the exact explanation.

It alludes to the proverb, "A curst _cur_ must be tied _short_."

SCENE 4. Page 120.

SIR TO. What, man! defy the Devil: consider, he's an _enemy_ to

mankind.

It was very much the practice with old writers, both French and

English, to call the Devil, _the enemy_, by way of pre-eminence,

founded perhaps on the words of Christ in _Luke_ x. 19. Thus at the

beginning of the _Roman de Merlin, MS._ "Mult fu iriez _li anemis_

quant nre sires ot este en anfer;" and see other examples in Barbasan's

glossary to the _Ordene de chevalerie_, 1759, 12mo, in v. _Anemi_. The

cause of the Devil's wrath in the above instance, was the liberation of

Adam, Noah, and many other saints and patriarchs from the purgatorial

torments which they had endured. In a most curious description of

hell in _Examples howe mortall synne maketh the synners inobedyentes

to have many paynes and doloures within the fyre of hell_, b. l. no

date, 12mo, the Devil is thus referred to: "Come than after me, and

I shal shewe unto the _the ryght cursed enemye_ of humayne lygnage."

And again, "About _the enemy_ there were so many devyls and of cursed

and myserable soules that no man myght beleve that of all the worlde

from the begynnynge myght be yssued and brought forth so many soules."

Sometimes he was called the _enemy of hell_, as in Larke's _Boke of

wisdome_, b. l. no date, 12mo, where it is said that "_the enemye of

hell_ ought to be doubted of every wise man." This note may serve also

in further explanation of the line in _Macbeth_, Act III. Scene 1,

"Given to the common _enemy_ of man."

It is remarkable that the Devil should be likewise called _the enemy of

mankind_ in the East. See Gladwin's _Persian moon-shee_, part ii. p. 23.

SCENE 4. Page 120.

FAB. Carry his water to _the wise woman_.

Here may be a direct allusion to one of the two ladies of this

description mentioned in the following passage from Heywood's play of

_The wise woman of Hogsdon_; "You have heard of _Mother Notingham_,

who for her time was prettily well skill'd in _casting of waters_: and

after her, _Mother Bombye_." The latter is sometimes alluded to by

Gerarde the Herbalist, who, speaking of the properties of vervain,

says, "you must observe _mother Bumbies_ rules to take just so many

knots or sprigs, and no more, least it fall out so that it do you no

good, if you catch no harme by it." _Historie of plants_, p. 581.

Lilly's comedy of _Mother Bombie_ is well known. The several

occupations of these impostors are thus described in the above play by

Heywood: "Let me see how many trades have I to live by: First, I am _a

wise-woman_, and a fortuneteller, and under that I deale in physicke

and forespeaking, in palmistry, and recovering of things lost. Next,

I undertake to cure madd folkes. Then I keepe gentlewomen lodgers, to

furnish such chambers as I let out by the night: Then I am provided for

bringing young wenches to bed; and, for a need, you see I can play the

match-maker. Shee that is but one, and professeth so many, may well be

tearmed _a wise-woman_, if there bee any." Such another character was

_Julian of Brentford_, mentioned in the _Merry wives of Windsor_. These

persons were sometimes called _cunning_ and _looming_ women.

SCENE 4. Page 121.

SIR TO. Come, we'll have him in a _dark room_, and bound. My niece

is already in the belief that he is _mad_.

The reason for putting Malvolio into a _dark room_ was to make _him_

believe that he was _mad_; for a _madhouse_ seems formerly to have

been called a _dark-house_. In the next act Malvolio says, "Good Sir

Topas, do not think I am _mad_, they have laid me here in _hideous

darkness_." And again, "I say this _house is dark_." In Act V. he asks,

"Why have you suffer'd me to be imprison'd, kept in _a dark-house_?"

In _As you like it_, Act III. Scene 1, Rosalind says that "love is a

_madness_, and deserves as well _a dark-house_ and a whip, as madmen

do." Edward Blount, in the second dedication to his _Hospitall of

incurable fooles_, 1600, 4to, a translation from the Italian, requests

of the person whom he addresses to take on him the office of patron

or treasurer to the hospital; and that if any desperate censurer shall

stab him for assigning his office or place, he presently take him into

_the dark ward_: and in the same work, certain idle fools are consigned

to the _darksome guesthouse of their madness_.

SCENE 4. Page 124.

OLI. I have said too much unto a heart of stone, and laid mine

honour too unchary _on't_.

This is the reading of the old copy, which has been unnecessarily

disturbed at Theobald's suggestion by substituting _out_. It might be

urged that _laying honour out_ is but an awkward phrase. The old text

simply means, I have _placed_ my honour too incautiously _upon_ a heart

of stone. The preceding note had shown that adjectives are often used

adverbially by Shakspeare.

SCENE 4. Page 127.

SIR TO. He is a knight, dubb'd with _unhack'd rapier_, and on

_carpet_ consideration.

The original word is _unhatch'd_, and if any alteration be admitted it

should be _an hatch'd_, for the first reason assigned in Mr. Malone's

ingenious note. Sir Toby says that his brother knight was no hero

dubbed in the field of battle, but a carpet knight made at home in time

of peace with a sword of ceremony richly _gilt or engraved_. In _Don

Quixote_, the damsel whom Sancho finds wandering in the streets of

Barataria disguised as a man, is furnished with "a very faire _hatched_

dagger," chap. 49 of Shelton's translation. In _The tragical history of

Jetzer_, 1683, 18mo, mention is made of "a sword richly _hatcht_ with

silver." Thus much in support of the above slight alteration of the old

reading. The second conjecture of Mr. Malone, that _unhatcht_ might

have been used in the sense of _unhack'd_, deserves much attention;

but there was no necessity for introducing the latter word into the

text. To _hatch_ a sword has been thought to signify to _engrave_ it;

but it appears from Holme's _Academy of armory_, B. iii. p. 91, that

"_hatching_, is _to silver or gild_ the hilt and pomell of a sword or

hanger."

With respect to _carpet_ knights, they were sometimes called knights

of the _green cloth_. For this information we are also indebted to

Holme, who, in his above cited work, B. iii. p. 57, informs us that

"all such as have studied law, physic, or any other arts and sciences

whereby they have become famous and serviceable to the court, city,

or state, and thereby have merited honour, worship, or dignity, from

the sovereign and fountain of honour; if it be the King's pleasure to

knight any such persons, seeing they are not knighted as soldiers,

they are not therefore to use the horseman's title or spurs; they are

only termed simply _miles et milites, knights of the carpet or knights

of the green cloth_, to distinguish them from knights that are dubbed

as soldiers in the field; though in these our days they are created

or dubbed with the like ceremony as the others are, by the stroak of

a naked sword upon their shoulder, with the words, _Rise up Sir T. A.

knight_."

ACT IV.

SCENE 1. Page 136.

CLO. I am afraid this great _lubber the world_ will prove a cockney.

A typographical corruption seems to have crept into this place from

similitude of sound; but a very slight alteration will restore the

sense. The clown is speaking of _vent_ as an affected word; and

we should therefore read "this great _lubberly word_ will prove a

cockney," i. e. will turn out to be cockney language.

SCENE 2. Page 140.

CLO. For as _the old hermit of Prague_----

Not the celebrated heresiarch Jerome of Prague, but another of that

name born likewise at Prague, and called _the hermit of Camaldoli_ in

Tuscany.

SCENE 2. Page 141.

CLO. Say'st thou that _house_ is dark?

This Mr. Malone conceives to be _a pompous appellation for the small

room_ in which Malvolio was confined; but it seems to be merely the

designation of a madhouse. See the preceding note on Act III. Scene 4,

p. 121.

ACT V.

SCENE 1. Page 157.

PRIEST. A contract of eternal bond of love

Confirm'd by mutual joinder of your hands,

Attested by the holy close of lips,

Strengthened by interchangement of your rings;

And all the ceremony of this compact

Seal'd in my function, by my testimony.

It will be necessary, for the better illustration of these lines, to

connect them with what Olivia had said to Sebastian at the end of the

preceding act:

"Now go with me, and with this holy man,

Into the chantry by: there _before him_

And underneath that consecrated roof

_Plight me the full assurance of your faith_;

That my most jealous and too doubtful soul

May live at peace. He shall conceal it

Whiles you are willing it shall come to note;

What time we will our _celebration_ keep

According to my birth."

Now the whole has been hitherto regarded as relating to _an actual

marriage_ that had been solemnized between the parties; whereas it is

manifest that nothing more is meant than a _betrothing_, _affiancing_

or _promise of future marriage_, anciently distinguished by the name

of _espousals_, a term which was for a long time confounded with

_matrimony_, and at length came exclusively to denote it. The form of

betrothing at church in this country, has not been handed down to us

in any of its ancient ecclesiastical service books; but it is to be

remembered that Shakspeare is here making use of foreign materials,

and the ceremony is preserved in a few of the French and Italian

rituals.

The custom of betrothing appears to have been known in ancient times

to almost all the civilized nations among whom marriage was considered

as a sacred engagement. Our northern ancestors were well acquainted

with it. With them the process was as follows: 1. _Procatio_, or

wooing. 2. _Impetratio_, or demanding of the parents or guardian. 3.

The conditions of the contract. All these were sealed by joining the

right hands, by a certain form of words, and a confirmation before

witnesses. The length of the time between espousals and marriage was

uncertain, and governed by the convenience of the parties; it generally

extended to a few months. Sometimes in cases of necessity, such as the

parties living in different countries, and where the interference of

proxies had been necessary, the time was protracted to three years.

The contract of the affiancing party was called _handsaul_; (whence

our _hansel_) of the agreeing party, _handfastening_. See Thorlacius

_De borealium veterum matrimonio_, 1785, 4to, pp. 33, 42. Vincent de

Beauvais, a writer of the 13th century, in his _Speculum historiale_,

lib. ix. c. 70, has defined _espousals_ to be _a contract of future

marriage_, made either by a simple promise, by earnest or security

given, by a ring, or by an oath. During the same period, and the

following centuries, we may trace several other modes of betrothing,

some of which it may be worth while to describe more at large.

I. The interchangement of rings.--Thus in Chaucer's _Troilus and

Creseide_, book 3.

"Sone after this they spake of sondry things

As fill to purpose of this aventure,

And playing _enterchaungeden her rings_

Of which I can not tellen no scripture.

But well I wot, a broche of gold and assure

In which a rubie set was like an herte

Creseide him yave, and stacke it on his sherte."

When espousals took place at church, rings were also interchanged.

According to the ritual of the Greek church, the priest first placed

the rings on the fingers of the parties, who afterwards exchanged them.

Sometimes the man only gave a ring. In the life of Saint Leobard, who

is said to have flourished about the year 580, written by Gregory of

Tours he gives a ring, a kiss, and a pair of shoes to his affianced.

The ring and shoes were a symbol of securing the lady's hands and

feet in the trammels of conjugal obedience; but the ring of itself

was sufficient to confirm the contract. In _The miracles of the

Virgin Mary_, compiled in the twelfth century by a French monk, there

is a story of a young man who, falling in love with an image of the

Virgin, inadvertently placed on one of its fingers a ring which he had

received from his mistress, accompanying the gift with the most tender

language of respect and affection. A miracle instantly took place, and

the ring remained immoveable. The young man, greatly alarmed for the

consequences of his rashness, consulted his friends, who advised him by

all means to devote himself entirely to the service of the Madonna. His

love for his former mistress prevailing over their remonstrances: he

married her; but on the wedding night the newly-betrothed lady appeared

to him, and urged her claim with so many dreadful menaces that the poor

man felt himself compelled to abandon his bride, and that very night

to retire privately to a hermitage, where he became a _monk_ for the

rest of his life. This story has been translated by Mons. Le Grand in

his entertaining collection of _fabliaux_, where the ring is called

a _marriage ring_: but this is probably a mistake in the translator,

as appears from several copies of the above _Miracles_ that have been

consulted. The giving of rings was likewise a _pledge of love_ in cases

where no marriage could possibly happen. In The _lay of Equitan_, a

married woman and her gallant exchange rings,

"Par lur anels sentresaísirent

Lur _fiaunce_ sentreplevirent."

In a romance written by Raimond Vidal, a Provençal poet of the

thirteenth century, a knight devotes himself to the service of a lady,

who promises him a kiss in a year's time when she shall be married.

They ratify the contract by an exchange of rings. Mr. Steevens has

on the present occasion introduced a note, wherein a ludicrous

superstition is mentioned, in order to prove that "in our ancient

_marriage ceremony_, the man received as well as gave a ring." But the

passage which he cites from Lupton is wrongly translated from Mizaldus,

who only speaks of _the_ marriage ring: and so it is in Scott's

_Discovery of witchcraft_, fo. 82. edit. 1584, 4to, where a similar

receipt is given. Mr. Steevens was indeed convinced of this by the

author of these observations, and in a note on _All's well that ends

well_ has retracted his opinion. No instance has occurred where rings

were _interchanged_ at a _marriage_.

II. The kiss that was mutually given. When this ceremony took place at

church, the lady of course withdrew the veil which was usually worn

on the occasion; when in private, the drinking of healths generally

followed.

III. The joining of hands. This is often alluded to by Shakspeare

himself. See a note in the _Winter's tale_, p. 17, Steevens's edition,

1793.

IV. The testimony of witnesses. That of the priest alone was generally

sufficient, though we often find many other persons attending the

ceremony. The words "there before him," and "he shall conceal it,"

in Olivia's speech, sufficiently demonstrate that betrothing and not

marriage is intended; for in the latter the presence of the priest

alone would not have sufficed. In later times, espousals in the church

were often prohibited in France, because instances frequently occurred

where the parties, relying on the testimony of the priest, scrupled not

to live together as man and wife; which gave rise to much scandal and

disorder. Excesses were likewise often committed by the celebration

of espousals in taverns and alehouses, and some of the synodal

decrees expressly enjoin that the parties shall not get drunk on these

occasions.

The ceremony, generally speaking, was performed by the priest demanding

of the parties if they had entered into a contract with any other

person, or made a vow of chastity or religion; whether they had acted

for each other, or for any child they might have had, in the capacity

of godfather or godmother, or whether they had committed incontinence

with any near relation of the other party; but the latter questions

might be dispensed with at the discretion of the priest. Then this

oath was administered--"You swear by God and his holy saints herein

and by all the saints of Paradise, that you will take this woman whose

name is N. to wife within forty days, if holy church will permit."

The priest then joined their hands, and said,--"And thus you affiance

yourselves;" to which the parties answered,--"Yes, sir." They then

received a suitable exhortation on the nature and design of marriage,

and an injunction to live piously and chastely until that event should

take place. They were not permitted, at least by the church, to

reside in the same house, but were nevertheless regarded as man and

wife independently of the usual privileges: and this will account for

Olivia's calling Cesario "husband;" and when she speaks of "keeping

_celebration_ according to her birth," it alludes to _future marriage_.

This took place in a reasonable time after betrothing, but was seldom

protracted in modern times beyond forty days. So in _Measure for

measure_, Claudio calls Julietta his _wife_, and says he got possession

of her bed upon a true _contract_. The duke likewise, in addressing

Mariana who had been _affianced_ to Angelo, says, "he is your _husband_

on a pre-contract."

Before we quit the subject, it may be necessary to observe that

betrothing was not an essential preliminary to marriage, but might be

dispensed with. The practice in this respect varied in different times

and places. The desuetude of espousals in England seems to have given

rise to the action at law for damages on breach of promise of marriage.

And thus much may suffice for a general idea of this ancient custom;

the legal niceties must be sought for in the works of the civilians.

SCENE 1. Page 159.

SIR TO. Then he's a rogue. After a _passy-measure_, or a _pavin_, I

hate a drunken rogue.

Florio, in his Italian dictionary, 1598, has "_passamezzo_, a

_passameasure_ in dancing, a cinque pace;" and although the English

word is corrupt, the other contributes to show a part, at least, of

the figure of this dance, which is said to have consisted in making

several steps round the ball-room and then _crossing it in the middle_.

Brantôme calls it "le _pazzameno_ d'Italie," and it appears to have

been more particularly used by the Venetians. It was much in vogue with

us during Shakspeare's time, as well as the _Pavan_; and both were

imported either from France, Spain, or Italy. In a book of instructions

for the lute, translated from the French by J. Alford, 1568, 4to, there

are two _passameze_ tunes printed in letters according to the lute

notation.

As to the _Pavan_, there is some doubt whether it originally belongs

to Spain or Italy. _Spanish pavans_ are certainly mentioned by Ben

Jonson in the _Alchymist_, and by Brantôme in his _Dames illustres_,

who adds that he had seen it danced by Francis I. and his sister,

the celebrated Margaret of Navarre, and also by Mary Queen of Scots.

There is good reason, however, for thinking the term is Italian, and

derived from the city of _Padua_, where the dance is said to have

been invented. Massa Gallesi, a civilian of the sixteenth century,

calls it _saltatio Paduana_. In a catalogue of books that were exposed

to sale at Frankfort fair, from 1564 to 1592, the following are

mentioned: "Chorearum molliorum collectanea omnis fere generis tripudia

complectens, utpote _Padoanas_, _passemezos_, allemandas, galliardas,

branles, et id genus alia, tam vivæ voci quam instrumentis musicis

accommodata. Antverpiæ, 1583, 4to." "Cantiones _Italicæ_ quas _Paduana_

Itali vocant, quatuor vocum. Venetiis, 1565, 4to." "Sixti Kargen,

renovata cythara, hoc est, novi et commodissimi exercendæ cytharæ modi,

constantes cantionibus musicis, _passomezo_, _podoanis_, gaillardis,

Alemanicis et aliis ejusmodi pulchris exemplis, ad tabulaturam communem

redactis. Argentorati, 1575, et Moguntiæ, 1569, folio." In Alford's

_Instructions for the lute_, above mentioned, there is a _Paduane_ and

a _Pavane_. Randle Holme, in his _Academy of armory_, 1688, folio,

book iii. c. 3, speaking of the _Pavan_ as a tune, describes it as

"the height of composition made only to delight the ear: be it of 2,

3, 4, 5, or 6 parts [it] doth commonly consist of three straines, each

straine to be played twice over." In an old MS. collection of lessons

for the virginals, there is one called "Dr. Bull's _melancholy_ pavin."

Mr. Tyrwhitt, therefore, is right in supposing that a jovial blade

like Sir Toby would be naturally averse to these grave dances, and the

dullness of the tunes belonging to them.

SCENE 1. Page 162.

DUKE. One face, one voice, one habit and two persons;

A natural _perspective_, that is, and is not.

The several kinds of perspective glasses that were used in Shakspeare's

time, may be found collected together in Scot's _Discoverie of

witchcraft_, 1584, 4to, book xiii. ch. 19. They cannot be exceeded in

number by any modern optician's shop in England. Among these, that

alluded to by the Duke is thus described: "There be glasses also

wherein one man may see another man's image, and not his own." It is to

be observed that a _perspective_ formerly meant a _glass_ that assisted

the sight in any way.

SCENE 1. Page 169.

MAL. And made the most notorious _geck_, and gull.

Dr. Johnson rightly explains geck, a fool. It is so in all the Northern

languages. In Saxon, ᵹæc is a cuckow, whence _gouk_, _gawk_, and

_gawky_. Mr. Steevens's quotations seem to exhibit the word in another

sense, viz. a _mock_ or _mockery_.

THE CLOWN.

The clown in this play is a domestic or hired fool, in the service

of Olivia. He is specifically termed "an _allowed_ fool," and "Feste

the jester, a fool that the lady Olivia's father took much delight

in." Malvolio likewise speaks of him as "a set fool." Of his dress it

is impossible to speak correctly. If the fool's expression, "I will

_impeticoat_ thy gratility," be the original language, he must have

been habited accordingly. Mr. Ritson has asserted that he has neither

coxcomb nor bauble, deducing his argument from the want of any allusion

to them. Yet such an omission may be a very fallacious guide in

judging of the habit of this character on the stage. It must, however,

be admitted, that where this happens there can be no clue as to the

precise manner in which the fool was dressed.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] their.

[5] The mention of the region of Christianity is a whimsical

anachronism as connected with the story of Alexander; but we must do

our author the justice to admit that in _his_ time the Ethiopians were

Christians.

[6] is called.

[7] to see.

[8] fairness, beauty.

MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 180.

DUKE. ... Then no more remains,

But that to your _sufficiency_, as your worth is able,

And let them work.

_Sufficiency_ is, no doubt, _ability_, and not _authority_, as

Warburton conceives; and this shows that there is an omission in the

speech of what the duke would have added concerning the authority which

he meant to delegate. The most rational addition is that suggested by

Mr. Tyrwhitt. It is remarkable that Dr. Johnson should contend for the

introduction of a line of _thirteen_ syllables!

SCENE 1. Page 186.

DUKE. _Mortality_ and _mercy_ in Vienna

Live in thy _tongue_ and _heart_.

That is, "I delegate to thy tongue the power of pronouncing sentence of

death, and to thy heart the privilege of exercising mercy." These are

words of great import, and ought to be made clear, as on them depends

the chief incident of the play.

SCENE 2. Page 191.

LUCIO. Behold, behold, &c.

This speech should have been given to the _first gentleman_, in order

to correspond with the note, which is probably right.

SCENE 2. Page 191.

LUCIO. A _French crown_ more.

The quotations already given sufficiently exemplify the meaning;

yet that which follows being remarkably illustrative, is offered in

addition. "More seeming friendship [is] to be had in _an house of

transgression_ for a _French crown_, though it be a _bald one_, than

at Belinsgate for a boxe o' th'eare." _Vox graculi, or Jack Dawe's

prognostication_, 1623, 4to, p. 60.

SCENE 2. Page 192.

I. GENT. How now, which of your _hips_ has the most profound

_sciatica_?

A most appropriate question to the bawd. The author of the facetious

Latin comedy of _Cornelianum dolium_ has named one of Cornelius's

strumpets _Sciatica_. She thus speaks of herself; "In lectulo meo ægrè

me vertere potui; podagram, chiragram, et _hip_-agram (si ita dicere

liceat) nocte quotidie sensi."

SCENE 2. Page 195.

BAWD. What's to do here, _Thomas_ Tapster?

Why does she call the clown by this name, when it appears from his own

showing that his name was _Pompey_? Perhaps she is only quoting some

old saying or ballad.

SCENE 3. Page 201.

CLAUD. ... for in her youth

There is a _prone_ and speechless dialect.

One of the old significations of this word appears to have been _easily

moving_, which is evidently the sense required in this place. See

Cotgrave's _Dictionary_, in _prone_.

SCENE 4. Page 203.

DUKE. Where youth and cost and witless bravery _keeps_.

Mr. Reed's explanation of this word as used for _dwells_, is confirmed

by another passage in this play, Act IV. Scene 1.

"... a breath thou art

That dost this _habitation_ where thou _keep'st_

Hourly afflict."

SCENE 5. Page 208.

LUCIO. _For that, which_ if myself might be his judge,

He should receive his punishment in thanks.

It has been conceived that there is here a transposition at the

press for "that for which." The emendation is more grammatical than

_harmonious_; but the expression is quite in Shakspeare's manner. A few

pages further on we have this similar phraseology:

"Whether you had not sometime in your life

Err'd in this point _which now you censure him_."

SCENE 5. Page 211.

LUCIO. Your brother and his _lover_.

This term was applied to the female sex not only in Shakspeare's time,

but even to a very late period. Lady Wortley Montagu in a letter to her

husband, speaking of a young girl who forbade the bans of marriage at

Huntingdon, calls her _lover_. See her works, vol. i. p. 238.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 216.

ESCAL. Let us be keen, and rather cut a little

Than _fall_ and bruise to death.

On the very plausible authority of a passage in _As you like it_,

where the executioner is said to "fall his axe," the present metaphor

has been supposed to refer also to the punishment of decapitation. If

it be so, there is a manifest impropriety in the expression "cut a

little," as we are not to imagine that Escalus would intend to chop

off a criminal's hand, or to deprive him of his ears; both modes

of punishment, which though frequently practised in the reign of

Elizabeth, seem exclusively adapted to a community of barbarians. May

not the metaphor be rather borrowed from the cutting down of timber,

and Escalus mean to say, "Is it not better to lop off a few branches,

than to _fall_ the whole tree?"

SCENE 1. Page 217.

ANG. The jury, passing on the prisoner's life

May, in the sworn twelve, have a thief or two, &c.

We have here one of Shakspeare's trips; an English jury in a German

court of justice.

SCENE 1. Page 223.

CLO. Your honours have seen such dishes; they are not _China

dishes_, but very good dishes.

We must not conclude with Mr Steevens that a _China dish_ was such

an uncommon thing in the age of Shakspeare. In the first act of

Massinger's _Renegado_, this article is mentioned, together with

crystal glasses and pictures, as composing the furniture of a broker's

shop; and it appears from other authorities that China dishes were used

at banquets. During the reign of Elizabeth several Spanish carracks

were taken, a part of whose cargoes was _China ware of porcelaine_. The

recent seizure by Philip II. of Portugal and its colonies led to this

sort of commerce in the East Indies. In Minsheu's _Spanish dialogues_,

1623, folio, p. 12, _China mettall_ is explained to be "the fine dishes

of earth painted, such as are brought from Venice." It is very probable

that we had this commodity by means of our traffic with Italy, which

also supplied the term _porcelaine_. China ware was so called from its

resemblance to the polished exterior of the _concha Veneris_ or some

other similar shell, which, for reasons that cannot here be given, was

called _porcellana_. The curious reader may find a clue by consulting

Florio's Italian dictionary, 1598, under the word _porcile_. In the

time of Cromwell a duty of twenty shillings was paid on every dozen

_China dishes_ under a quart, and of sixty on those of a quart and

upwards. See _Oliverian acts_, A. D. 1657.

SCENE 2. Page 238.

ISAB. ... spare him, spare him;

He's not prepar'd for death! Even for our kitchens

We kill the fowl _of season_.

She means "not _before_ it is in season; not _prematurely_, as you

would kill my brother."

SCENE 2. Page 240.

ISAB. Could great men thunder

As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet,

For ev'ry pelting petty officer

Would use his heaven for thunder; nothing but thunder.

This fine sentiment, which nevertheless contains a very obvious fault

in the mode of expressing it, appears to have been suggested by the

following lines in Ovid's _Tristia_, lib. ii., that Shakspeare might

have read in Churchyard's translation:

"Si quoties peccant homines sua fulmina mittat

Jupiter, exiguo tempore inermis erit."

SCENE 2. Page 240.

ISAB.. Merciful heaven!

Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt

Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak,

Than the soft myrtle.

There is much affinity between the above lines and these in Persius,

sat. ii.:

"Ignovisse putas, quia, cum tonat, ocyus ilex

Sulfure discutitur sacro, quam tuque domusque?"

But although there were two or three editions of that author published

in England in the reign of Elizabeth, he does not appear to have been

then translated.

SCENE 2. Page 243.

ISAB. ... prayers from _preserved_ souls,

From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate

To nothing temporal.

Here is no metaphor from _preserved fruits_, as Warburton fancifully

conceives. _Preserved_ is used in its common and obvious acceptation.

Isabella alludes to the prayers of her fellow nuns in addition to her

own.

SCENE 2. Page 246.

ANG. O cunning _enemy_, that, to catch a saint,

With saints dost bait thy hook!

_Enemy_ is here used for the _Devil_. See before in p. 62, 63.

SCENE 4. Page 260.

ISAB. ... Sir, believe this,

I had rather give my body than my soul.

It is Isabella's purpose to give an evasive or ambiguous answer to

Angelo's strange question, and she accordingly does so. Or, if it have

any meaning, it may be "I would even consent to your terms if I could

save my soul, or if my soul did not thereby incur perdition."

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 272.

DUKE. ... merely thou art _Death's fool_;

For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun,

And yet run'st toward him still.

And in _Pericles_, Act III. Scene 2, "to please the _fool and death_."

One note may serve for both these passages.

Dr. Warburton had conceived an allusion in the first speech to certain

characters of _death and the fool_ in the old _moralities_, in which,

most unquestionably, they are not to be found, at least, in any which

now remain. It is in this place that the latter part of Mr. Steevens's

note on the passage in _Pericles_ should have been introduced, with

the following additional circumstances that had probably escaped the

learned commentator's recollection; that his informant concerning

the skeleton character at the fair remembered also to have seen

another personage in the habit of a fool: and that arriving when the

performances at the booth were finished for the evening, he could

not succeed in procuring a repetition of the piece, losing thereby

the means of all further information on the subject. It is therefore

probable that the remainder of Dr. Warburton's note is correct,

although he may have erred in his designation of this mummery. What

connection the subject in question has with the old initial letter of

_death and the fool_, and the _dance of death_, is shown in a note to

_Love's labour lost_, vol. v. p. 316, and in another on the passage

in _Pericles_, both of which should have been incorporated with the

present.

Mr. Ritson, in correcting a remark made by the ingenious continuator

of Ben Jonson's _Sad shepherd_, has inaccurately stated that the

figures in the initial letter were "actually copied from the margin of

an old missal." The letter that occurs in Stowe's _Survey of London_,

edit. 1618, 4to, is only an enlarged but imperfect copy from another

belonging to a regular dance of death used as initials by some of

the Basil printers in the sixteenth century, and which, from the

extraordinary skill that accompanies their execution, will ever rank

amongst the finest efforts in the art of engraving on blocks of wood

or metal. Most of the subjects in this dance of death have undoubtedly

been supplied by that curious pageant of mortality which, during the

middle ages, was so great a favourite as to be perpetually exhibited

to the people either in the sculpture and painting of ecclesiastical

buildings, or in the books adapted to the service of the church: yet

some of them but ill accord with those serious ideas which the nature

of the subject is calculated to inspire. In these the artist has

indulged a vein of broad and satirical humour which was not wholly

reserved for the caricaturists of modern times; and in one or two

instances he has even overleaped the bounds of decency. The letter in

Stowe's _Survey_ is the only one that appears to have been imitated

from the above alphabet; and as it throws some light on that part of

the Duke's speech which occasioned the present note, it is here very

accurately copied. It is to be remembered that in most of the old

_dances of death_ the subject of the fool is introduced: and it is, on

the whole, extremely probable that some such representation might have

suggested the image before us.

[Illustration]

SCENE 1. Page 285.

CLAUD. ... and the delighted spirit

To bathe in _fiery floods_, or to reside

In thrilling regions of _thick-ribbed ice_;

To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,

And _blown with restless violence_ round about

The pendant world; or to be worse than worst

Of those that lawless and incertain thoughts

Imagine _howling_!----

It is difficult to decide whether Shakspeare is here alluding to the

pains of hell or purgatory. May not the whole be a mere poetical

rhapsody originating in the recollection of what he had read in books

of Catholic divinity? for it is very certain that some of these were

extremely familiar to him. Among them he might have seen a compilation

on the pains of hell, entitled _Examples howe mortall synne maketh

the synners inobedyentes to have many paynes and dolours within the

fyre of hell_; black letter, no date, 12mo, and chiefly extracted from

that once popular work, the _Sermones discipuli_, which contains at

the end a promptuary of examples for the use of preachers. From this

little volume it may be worth while to select the following passage,

as according in some degree with the matter of Claudio's speech:--"he

tolde that he sawe in hell a torment of an _yzye ponde_ where the

soules the whiche therin were tormented cryed so horryble that they

were herde unto heven," sign. B. iij. "And the sayde beest was upon a

ponde full of _strong yse_, the which beest devoured the soules within

his wombe in suche maner that they became as unto nothynge by the

tormentes that they suffred. Afterwarde he put them out of his wombe

_within the yse of the sayde ponde_," sign. G. iij. "The caytyve was in

syke wyse, for she myght not helpe herself, the whiche herde terryble

cryes and _howlynges of soules_," sign. H. And again, "And the devyll

was bounde by every joynture of all his membres with great chaynes of

yron and of copre brennyng. And of great torment and vehement woodnes

whereof he was full he turned hym from the one syde unto the other, and

stretched out his handes in the multytude of the sayde soules, and toke

them, and strayned them in lykewyse as men may do a clustre of grapes

in theyr handes for to make the wyne come forth. And in such maner

he strayned them that he eyther brake theyr heedes, or theyr fete,

or handes, or some other membres. Afterward _he syghed and blewe and

dysperpeled the sayde soules_ into many of the tormentes of the fyre of

hell," sign. H. iiij.

The following lines from the sixth book of Phaer's Virgil might have

furnished some materials on the occasion:

"... some _hie in ayer_ doth hang in pinnes

Some fleeting ben in _floods_, and deepe in gulfes themselves they tier

Till sinnes away be _washt, or clensed cleer with purgin fire_."

In the old legend of _Saint Patrick's purgatory_ mention is made

of a lake of ice and snow, into which persons were plunged up to

their necks; and in the _Shepherd's calendar_, chap, xviii. there

is a description of hell as "the rewarde of them that kepen the X

comaundements of the Devyll," in in which these lines occur:

"... a _great froste_ in a water rounes

And after a _bytter wynde_ comes

Whiche gothe through the soules with yre;

Fendes with pokes pulle theyr flesshe ysondre,

They fyght and curse, and eche on other wonder."

Chaucer, in his _Assemblie of foules_, has given an abridgement of

Cicero's dream of Scipio; and speaking of souls in hell, he says:

"And breakers of the lawe, sothe to saine

And likerous folke, after that they been dede

_Shull whirle about the world_ alway in paine

Till many a world be passed."

It was not until the seventh century that the doctrine of purgatory was

confirmed, when "they held that departed souls expiated their sins by

_baths_, _ice_, _hanging in the air_, &c.," says a curious writer on

this subject. See Douglas's _Vitis degeneris_, 1668, 12mo, p. 77.

With respect to the much contested and obscure expression of _bathing

the delighted spirit in fiery floods_, Milton appears to have felt less

difficulty in its construction than we do at present; for he certainly

remembered it when he made Comus say,

"... one sip of this

Will _bathe_ the drooping _spirits in delight_

Beyond the bliss of dreams."

SCENE 2. Page 295.

ELB. Bless you good _father friar_.

DUKE. And you good _brother father_.

Mr. Tyrwhitt remarks that _father friar_ is a blunder, and so indeed

the Duke from his answer seems to consider it. Yet friars have often

been addressed in this way; and a few pages further Escalus calls the

Duke _father_, who had just been introduced to him as a _friar_. The

Duke, indeed, soon after uses the term _brother_ when speaking of

himself. Whilst the passage quoted by Mr. Steevens gives support to

Mr. Tyrwhitt's observation that _friar_ is a corruption of the French

_frere_, it seems to disprove his assertion that Elbow's phrase is

erroneous.

SCENE 2. Page 298.

LUCIO. What, is there none of _Pygmalion's images, newly made

woman_, to be had now, for putting the hand in the pocket, and

extracting it clutch'd?

None of the explanations of this speech are satisfactory, but least of

all such part of a note by the author of these remarks, as refers to

the _picklock_, which has been better accounted for by Mr. Ritson. It

is probable, after all, that Lucio simply means to ask the clown if _he

has no newly-coined money wherewith to bribe_ the officers of justice,

alluding to the portrait of the queen.

SCENE 2. Page 308.

ESCAL. This would make mercy _swear and play the tyrant_.

The old belief certainly was that tyrants in general swore lustily;

but here seems to be a particular allusion to the character of Herod,

in the mystery of _The slaughter of the innocents_, formerly acted by

the city companies in their pageants, and of which those for Chester

and Coventry are still preserved in the British Museum. In this curious

specimen of our early drama, Herod is made to swear by Mahound, by

cockes blood, &c. He is uniformly in a passion throughout the piece;

and this, according to the stage direction, "Here Erode ragis," is

exemplified by some extraordinary gesticulation. See the notes of

Messrs. Steevens and Malone on a passage in _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 2.

SCENE 2. Page 310.

DUKE. ... and now is he _resolved_ to die.

Mr. Reed has certainly adduced an instance which proves that _resolved_

occasionally means _satisfied_, and we still talk of resolving

difficulties, or a question in arithmetic; but in the passage before

us it seems rather to signify _resolute_, _firm_, _determined_. Thus

the allegorical romance of _Le chevalier deliberé_ was translated

into English in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, under the title of

_The resolved gentleman_; and into Spanish by that of _Il cavalero

determinado_.

ACT IV.

SCENE 1. Page 318.

ISAB. And that I have _possess'd_ him.

In the same sense Shylock says

"I have _possess'd_ your grace of what I purpose."

It were better that Shakspeare should be thus made his own commentator

where it can be done, than that he should be explained by quotations

from other authors.

SCENE 1. Page 319.

DUKE. ... volumes of report

Run with these false and most contrarious _quests_

Upon thy doings.

It is presumed that the sense of _messengers_ annexed to this word by

Mr. Ritson cannot be maintained, but that the very line he refers to

establishes it to be _searches_, _inquiries_. Mr. Malone's note is,

of the others, the most satisfactory. The Duke alludes to the false

and various conclusions that result from investigating the actions of

men high in office. There is an old pamphlet with the whimsical title

of _Jacke of Dover, his quest of inquiry, or his privy search for the

veriest foole in England_, 1604, 4to.

SCENE 1. Page 321.

DUKE. Sith that the justice of your title to him

Doth _flourish_ the deceit.

That is, _decorate an action that would otherwise seem ugly_. Two

metaphors have already been suggested; a third remains to be stated.

_Flourish_ may, perhaps, allude to the ornaments that embellish the

_ancient_ as well as modern books of penmanship. There are no finer

specimens of beautiful writing extant than some of the reign of

Elizabeth, who herself wrote a very elegant Italian hand in the early

part of her life.

SCENE 2. Page 322.

PROV. ... and your deliverance with an _unpitied_ whipping; for you

have been a notorious bawd.

Mr. Steevens makes _unpitied_, _unmerciful_; it is rather _a whipping

that none shall pity_, for the reason that immediately follows.

SCENE 2. Page 334.

PROV. Pardon me, good father, it is against my oath.

This is a very different provost from one of whom Fabian in his

_Chronicle_, p. 187, relates the following story: "In the thyrde yere

of the reigne of this Philip, _the provost of Paris_, having in his

prison a Picard, a man of greate riches, whiche for felony or like

crime, was judged to be hanged. The sayde provost for great benefit

to him done and payment of great summes by the sayd Pycard, tooke an

other poore innocent man, and put him to death, in steede of the sayd

Pycarde. Of the whiche offence whan due proofe of it was made before

the kynges counsayle, the sayde provoste for the same dede was put unto

like judgement."

SCENE 3. Page 335.

CLO. First, here's young master Rash, he's in for _a commodity of

brown paper and old ginger_.

The nefarious practice of lending young men money in the shape of goods

which are afterwards sold at a great loss, appears to have been more

prevalent in the reign of Elizabeth than even at present. It is very

strongly marked in Lodge's _Looking glasse for London and Englande_,

1598, where a usurer being very urgent for the repayment of his debt

is thus answered, "I pray you, sir, consider that my losse was great

by the commoditie I tooke up; you know, sir, I borrowed of you forty

pounds, whereof I had ten pounds in money, and thirtie pounds in _lute

strings_, which when I came to sell againe, I could get but five

pounds for them, so had I, sir, but fifteene pounds for my fortie:

In consideration of this ill bargaine, I pray you, sir, give me a

month longer." But this sort of usury is much older than Shakspeare's

time, and is thus curiously described in one of the sermons of Father

Maillard, a celebrated preacher at Paris at the end of the fifteenth

century, and whose style very much resembles that of John Whitfield.

"Quidam indigens pecunia venit ad thesaurarium supra quem fuerunt

assignata mille scuta; dicit thesaurarius, Ego dabo tibi, sed pro nunc

non habeo argentum; sed expectes usque ad quindecim dies. Pauper dicit,

Non possum expectare; respondet thesaurarius, Dabo tibi unam partem

in argento et alia in mercantiis: et illud quod valebit centum scuta,

faciet valere ducenta. Hic est usura palliata." _Sermo in feriam_,

iiii. _de passione_.

SCENE 3. Page 337.

CLO. ... _ginger_ was not much in request, for the old women were

all dead.

This spice was formerly held in very great repute, and especially among

elderly persons. Sir Thomas Elyot in his _Castle of health_, 1580,

12mo, says, it comforts the head and stomach, and being green and

well confectioned, quickens remembrance, if it be taken in a morning

fasting. Henry Buttes, who wrote a whimsical book entitled _Dyet's dry

dinner_, 1599, 12mo, speaks much in its praise, and says that being

condite with honey it "warmes olde mens bellyes." In Ben Jonson's

masque of _The metamorphosed gipsies_, a country wench laments the

being robbed of "a dainty race of _ginger_;" and in the old play of

_The famous victories of Henry the fifth_, a clown charges a thief

with having "taken the great race of ginger, that bouncing _Besse_

with the jolly buttocks should have had." In Beaumont and Fletcher's

_Knight of the burning pestle_, the citizen's wife gives a man who

had been soundly beaten some _green ginger_ to comfort him. Ginger

was used likewise to spice ale. In Lodge's _Looking glasse for London

and England_, the clown says, "Ile tell you, sir, if you did taste of

the ale, all _Ninivie_ hath not such a cup of ale, it floures in the

cup, sir, by my troth I spent eleven pence, besides _three rases of

ginger_." The numerous virtues of this root are likewise detailed in

Vennor's _Via recta ad vitam longam_.

SCENE 3. Page 342.

PROV. One _Ragozine_, a most notorious pirate.

Some attempt to elucidate this name has been made in the first note to

the Merchant of Venice, into which it is rather improperly introduced.

Mr. Heath had supposed that _Ragozine_ was put for _Ragusan_, _i. e._

a native of the city of _Ragusa_ on the gulf of Venice, famous for

its trading vessels; but it was incumbent on that gentleman to have

shown that the inhabitants of the above city were _pirates_. This

however would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible; for,

on the contrary, Rycaut, in his _State of the Ottoman empire_, has

expressly declared that the _Ragusans_ never offered injury; but that,

on receiving any, they very patiently supported it. Wherever Shakspeare

met with the name of _Ragozine_, it should seem to be a _metathesis_ of

the French _Argousin_, or the Italian _Argosino_, _i. e._ an officer or

lieutenant on board a galley; and, as Menage conjectures, a corruption

of the Spanish _Alguasil_. See Carpentier, _Suppl. ad gloss. Dufresne_,

under the word _Argoisillo_.

ACT V.

SCENE 1. Page 358.

ISAB. ... but let your reason serve

To make the truth appear, where it seems hid;

_And hide the false, seems true_.

The apparent difficulty in the last line proceeds from its elliptical

construction; yet the meaning is sufficiently obvious. Isabella

requests of the Duke to exert his reason _to discover_ truth where it

seems hid, and _to suppress_ falsehood _where it_ has the semblance of

truth. _Hide_ is, doubtless, a licentious word, but was used for the

reason suggested by Mr. Malone.

SCENE 1. Page 375.

LUCIO. Show your sheep-biting face, and be _hang'd an hour_.

There would have been little reason for dissenting from Mr. Henley's

ingenious note, in which he supposes that this expression refers to

the _pillory_, but for the subsequent remark by Lucio, "this may

prove worse than _hanging_." It seems therefore more probable that

"hang'd an hour" alludes to the _time_ usually allotted for torturing

the miserable object of the barbarous punishment by suspension,

which is justly execrated by Randle Holme as "a dog's death," and

always excites in the spectator a strange mixture of ludicrous and

shocking sensations. It dishonours the living more than it degrades

the criminal. The Turkish bowstring were much less offensive to the

feelings of humanity: but the more solemn and decorous infliction of

death, (if inflicted it must be,) would, as in military cases, be

the stroke of the bullet, provided such a measure could be adopted

without offending the soldier's honour. The pre-eminent mercy of the

English law disdains to augment the horrors of premature dissolution

by personal pain and torture; its object is to prevent or diminish

the commission of the crime. On this principle, one could wish that,

on the close of the usual necessary and consolatory preparation for

death, some mode of stupefying the offender were adopted; that no

sensation of torture on his part might be felt, nor any other on that

of the spectator, than a satisfaction that the sentence of the law

had been fulfilled. For this digression no apology can be necessary.

As to Mr. Daines Barrington's supposition, that "the criminal was

_suspended in the air by the collistrigium or stretch-neck_," a very

little reflection will suffice to show that it is founded in error.

Such a process would in _half an hour's_ time most effectually prevent

a repetition of the ceremony. The _collistrigium_ was so called from

the _stretching out or projection of the neck_ through a hole made in

the pillory for that purpose, or through an iron collar or _carcan_

that was sometimes attached to the _pillar_ itself. No punishment

has been inflicted in so many different ways as that of the pillory;

and therefore the following varieties of it have been thought worth

exhibiting.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

The first is from a manuscript of the Chronicle of Saint Denis, in the

British Museum, Bibl. Reg. 16. G. vi. It was written in the thirteenth

century. The second occurs in a manuscript of Froissart, preserved in

the same collection. The third is copied from a print in Comenius's

_Orbis pictus_, and furnishes a specimen of the _carcan_, the woman

being confined to the pillar by an iron ring or collar. The fourth is

from a table of the standard of ancient weights and measures in the

exchequer, and shows the mode of punishing a forestaller or regrator

in the time of Henry the Seventh. The fifth exhibits Robert Ockam

in the pillory for perjury. The fact happened in the reign of Henry

the Eighth, but the cut is copied from Fox's _Martyrs_, published

long afterwards. The sixth and last figure represents an ancient

pillory that formerly stood in the market-place of the village of

Paulmy in Touraine. It is copied from a view of the castle of Paulmy

in Belleforest's _Cosmographie universelle_, 1575, folio. Not long

since there was remaining in the Section des halles at Paris an old

hexangular building of stone, with open Gothic windows, through which

appeared an iron circle or _carcan_, with holes for placing the hands

and necks of several persons at the same time, in like manner as in

the first and last figures. There is an engraving of it in Millin's

_Antiquités nationales_, tom. iii. no. 34.

SCENE 1. Page 378.

DUKE. Being criminal in _double_ violation

Of sacred chastity, and of promise-breach.

Mr. Malone thinks _double_ refers to Angelo's conduct to _Mariana_ and

Isabel; but surely, however inaccurate the expression, it alludes to

Angelo's _double_ misconduct to _Isabella_, in having attempted _her_

chastity, and violated his promise with respect to her brother. Thus in

_Promos and Cassandra_:

"Thou wycked man, might it not thee suffice

By worse than force to spoyle her chastitie,

But heaping sinne on sinne against thy othe,

Hast cruelly her brother done to death."

In Cinthio Giraldi's novel, it is "Vous avez commis _deux crimes_ fort

grans, l'un d'avoir diffamé cette jeune femme, par telle tromperie que

l'on peut dire que vous l'avez forcée: l'autre d'avoir fait mourir son

frere contre la foy à elle donnée." Transl. by Chappuys, 1584.

SCENE 1. Page 385.

DUKE. Thy slanders I forgive; and therewithal

Remit thy other _forfeits_: Take him to prison.

Mr. Steevens has refined too much in supposing this word to mean

_carnal offences_. It is simply _penalties_. The Duke remits all

Lucio's offences except the injury done to the woman, and he is ordered

to remain in prison until he marry her. _Forfeit_ was also used in the

French sense of the word, _crime_, _transgression_.

THE CLOWN.

The clown in this play officiates as the tapster of a brothel; whence

it has been concluded that he is not a domestic fool, nor ought

to appear in the dress of that character. A little consideration

will serve to show that the opinion is erroneous, that _this_ clown

is _altogether_ a domestic fool, and that he should be habited

accordingly. In Act II. Scene 1, Escalus calls him a _tedious fool_,

and _Iniquity_, a name for one of the old stage buffoons. He tells

him that he will have him _whipt_, a punishment that was very often

inflicted on fools. In _Timon of Athens_ we have a _strumpet's fool_,

and a similar character is mentioned in the first speech in _Antony

and Cleopatra_. But if any one should still entertain a doubt on the

subject, he may receive the most complete satisfaction by an attentive

examination of ancient prints, many of which will furnish instances of

the common use of the domestic fool in brothels. In _Twelfth Night_,

Act IV. Scene 1, Sebastian mistakes the clown for such a character as

that before us, and calls him a _foolish Greek_, a term that is very

happily explained by Dr. Warburton, whose note both communicates and

receives support on the present occasion.

ON THE STORY AND CONSTRUCTION OF MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

Three sources whence the plot of this play might have been extracted,

have already been mentioned, viz. Whetstone's _Heptameron_, 1582,

4to; his _Promos and Cassandra_, 1578, 4to; and novel 5, decad.

8, in Cinthio Giraldi. It is probable that the general outline of

the story is founded on fact, as it is related, with some variety

of circumstance, by several writers, and appears to have been very

popular. It has therefore been thought worth while to point out the

following works in which it occurs.

In Lipsii _Monita et exempla politica_, Antverp. 1613, 4to, cap. viii.

Charles the bold duke of Burgundy causes one of his noblemen to be put

to death for offending in the manner that Angelo would have done; but

he is first compelled to marry the lady. This story has been copied

from Lipsius into Wanley's _Wonders of the little world_, book iii.

ch. 29, edit. 1678, folio; and from Wanley into that favourite little

chap book, Burton's _Unparalleled varieties_, p. 42. See likewise

_The spectator_, No. 491. This event was made the subject of a French

play by Antoine Maréchal, called _Le jugement équitable de Charles le

hardy_, 1646, 4to. Here the offender is called Rodolph governor of

Maestrick, and by theatrical licence turns out to be the duke's own

son. Another similar story of Charles's upright judgment may be found

in the third volume of Goulart's _Thrésor d'histoires admirables_,

1628, 8vo, p. 373.

Much about the time when the above events are supposed to have

happened, Olivier le Dain, for his wickedness surnamed the Devil,

originally the barber, and afterwards the favourite of Louis XI., is

said to have committed a similar offence, for which he was deservedly

hanged. See Godefroy's edition of the _Memoirs of Philip de Comines_,

Brussels, 1723, 8vo, tom. v. p. 55.

At the end of Belleforest's translation of Bandello's novels, there

are three additional of his own invention. The first of these relates

to a captain, who, having seduced the wife of one of his soldiers

under a promise to save the life of her husband, exhibited him soon

afterwards _through the window of his apartment_ suspended on a gibbet.

His commander, the marshal de Brissac, after compelling him to marry

the widow, adjudges him to death. The striking similitude of a part

of this story to what Mr. Hume has related of colonel Kirke, will

present itself to every reader, and perhaps induce some to think with

Mr. Ritson, (however they will differ in _his mode_ of expressing the

sentiment,) that Mr. Hume's narration is "an impudent and barefaced

lie." See _The quip modest_, p. 30. A defence also of Kirke may be

seen in the _Monthly magazine_, vol. ii. p. 544. Yet though we may

be inclined to adopt this side of the question, it will only serve

to diminish, in a single instance, the atrocities of that sanguinary

monster.

In Lupton's _Siuqila. Too good to be true_, 1580, 4to, there is a long

story of a woman, who, her husband having slain his adversary in a

duel, goes to the judge for the purpose of prevailing on him to remit

the sentence of the law. He obtains of her, in the first place, a

large sum of money, and afterwards the reluctant prostitution of her

person, under a solemn promise to save her husband. The rest, as in

Belleforest's novel.

In vol. i. of Goulart's _Thrésor d'histoires admirables_, above cited,

there are two stories on this subject. The first, in p. 300, is of

a citizen of Como in Italy, who in 1547 was detained prisoner by a

Spanish _captain_ on a charge of murder. The wife pleads for him as

before, and obtains a promise of favour on the same terms. The husband

recommends her compliance, after which the Spaniard beheads him.

Complaint is made to the _Duke of Ferrara_, who compels the captain to

marry the widow, and then orders him to be hanged. The other, in p.

304, is of a provost named _La Vouste_, whose conduct resembles that

of the other villain's, with this addition; he says to the woman, "I

promised to restore your husband; I have not kept him, here he is." No

punishment is inflicted on this fellow.

The last example to be mentioned on this occasion occurs in Cooke's

_Vindication of the professors and profession of the law_, 1646, 4to,

p. 61. During the wars between Charles the Fifth and Francis the First,

one Raynucio had been imprisoned at Milan for betraying a fort to the

French. His wife petitions the governor Don Garcias in his favour, who

refuses to listen but on dishonourable terms, which are indignantly

rejected. The husband, like Claudio in _Measure for measure_, at first

commends the magnanimity of his wife, and submits to his sentence; but

when the time for his execution approaches, his courage fails him, and

he prevails on his wife to acquiesce in the governor's demands. A sum

of ten thousand crowns is likewise extorted from the unhappy woman,

and she receives in return the dead body of her husband. The Duke of

Ferrara, Hercules of Este, who was general for the Emperor, is informed

of the circumstance. He first persuades the governor to marry the lady,

and then orders him to be beheaded.

Towards the conclusion of this play Dr. Johnson has observed, that

"every reader feels some indignation when he finds Angelo spared." This

remark is rigorously just, and calculated to satisfy those moralists

who would have preferred the catastrophe in some of the preceding

stories. But in the construction of a play theatrical effect was to

be attended to; on which ground alone the poet may be defended. The

other charge against him in Dr. Johnson's note is doubtless unfounded,

and even laboriously strained. Shakspeare has been likewise hastily

censured by a female writer of great ingenuity, for almost every

supposed deviation from the plot of Cinthio's novel, and even for

adhering to it in sparing Angelo.[9] It might however be contended,

that, if our author really used this novel,[10] he has, with some

exceptions, exerted a considerable degree of skill and contrivance

in his alterations; and that he has consequently furnished a rich

and diversified repast for his readers, instead of serving up the

simple story in the shape of such a tragedy as might have suited

a Greek audience, but certainly would not have pleased an English

one in his time. In the novel, the sister, when she solicits mercy

for her brother's murderer and her own seducer, (in the play Angelo

is neither but in intention,) justly urges that _excess of justice

becomes cruelty_. He therefore who would refuse mercy to Angelo for

an intentional offence, has no right to censure him for severity to

Claudio who had committed a real one. In the novel, the sister is

actually seduced, and her brother murdered; and yet she pleads for

the offender. In the play, though Isabella believes her brother to be

dead, she reconciles herself to the sad event, inasmuch as she knows

that he suffered by course of law, as well as by the cruelty of Angelo,

from whose iniquity she herself has happily escaped. She is stimulated

to solicit this man's life, from the suggestion and situation of

her friend the innocent Mariana, who would have felt more distress

from the death of Angelo, than the other parties discontent from his

acquittal. The female critic has likewise observed that "_Measure for

measure_ ought not to be the title, since justice is not the virtue

it inculcates." But surely, if Angelo had died, it would have been

_outmeasuring measure_; as it is, the administration of justice is duly

balanced, and both he and Claudio are equally punished in imagination.

The Duke too, who knew all the circumstances, deserves credit for some

ingenuity in his arrangements to protect the innocent, and, if not

rigidly to punish the guilty, at least to save a sinner. Nor will any

one contend that Angelo has escaped punishment: the agonizing state

of uncertainty in which he long remained after the mock sentence, the

bitter reproof of his colleague, and the still severer language of the

Duke, will, it is to be hoped, conduce to satisfy every feeling and

humane spectator of this fine play, that the poet has done enough to

content even the rigorous moralist, and to exemplify, in his own divine

words, that "earthly power doth then seem likest heaven's, when mercy

seasons justice."

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Dr. Johnson in his dedication to the above lady's work, speaking of

Shakspeare, says, "he lived in an age when the minds of his auditors

were not accustomed to balance probabilities, or to examine nicely the

proportion between causes and effects. It was sufficient to recommend a

story that it was far removed from common life, that its changes were

frequent, and its close pathetic." How much at variance is all this

with the sentiments that follow on our play, and how it serves to mark

the folly and absurdity of hireling dedications!

[10] It may well be doubted whether Shakspeare ever saw the story as

related by Cinthio. There was not, as far as we know at present, any

English translation of it in his time. He might indeed have seen the

French version by Gabriel Chappuys, printed at Paris, 1583, 8vo; but

it is certain that his chief model for the plot was the old play of

_Promos and Cassandra_, a circumstance unknown to Mrs. Lenox. All must

admit that the mode of saving the deputy's life is much better managed

by Shakspeare than by Whetstone.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 395.

Enter LEONATO....

This is the name of the injured lady's father in the novel of

Belleforest which Mr. Steevens supposes to have furnished the plot of

the play; a circumstance that tends very much to prove the justness of

that gentleman's opinion.

SCENE 1. Page 396.

MESS. Without a _badge_ of bitterness.

See a future note on _The taming of the shrew_, Act IV. Scene 1.

SCENE 1. Page 397.

BEAT. He _set up his bills_ here in Messina.

This mode of expression will admit of a little more illustration than

it has already received. The practice to which it refers was calculated

to advertise the public of any matters which concerned itself or the

party whose bills were set up; and it is the more necessary to state

this, because the passages which have been used in explanation might

induce the reader to suppose that challenges and prize-fightings were

the exclusive objects of these bills. This however was not the case.

In Northbrooke's _Treatise against dicing, dauncing, vaine plaies,

&c._, 1579, 4to, a work much resembling that extremely curious volume

Stubbes's _Anatomie of abuses_, we are told that they used "to _set

up their billes_ upon postes certain dayes before, to admonish the

people to make resort unto their _theatres_, that they may thereby

be the better furnished, and the people prepared to fill their

purses with their treasures." In the play of _Histriomastix_, a

man is introduced setting up _text billes for playes_; and William

Rankins, another puritanical writer against plays, which he calls _the

instruments of Satan_, in his _Mirrour of monsters_, 1587, 4to, p. 6,

says, that "players by _sticking of their bils_ in London, defile the

streetes with their infectious filthines." Mountebanks likewise set up

their bills. "Upon this scaffold also might bee mounted a number of

_quacksalving emperickes_, who arriving in some country towne, clap up

their _terrible billes_ in the market place, and filling the paper with

such horrible names of diseases, as if every disease were a divell,

and that they could conjure them out of any towne at their pleasure."

Dekkar's _Villanies discovered by lanthorne and candle-light, &c._,

1616, 4to, sign. H. Again, in _Tales and quick answeres_, printed by

Berthelette, b. l. n. d. 4to, a man having lost his purse in London

"_sette up bylles_ in divers places that if any man of the cyte had

founde the purse and woulde brynge it agayn to him he shulde have

welle for his laboure. A gentyllman of the Temple _wrote under one of

the byls_ howe the man shulde come to his chambers and told where."

It appears from a very rare little piece entitled _Questions of

profitable and pleasant concernings talked of by two olde seniors,

&c._, 1594, 4to, that Saint Paul's was a place in which these bills or

advertisements were posted up. Thomas Nashe in his _Pierce Pennilesse

his supplication to the divell_, 1595, 4to, sign. E. speaks of the

"maisterlessemen that _set up theyr bills in Paules for services_,

and such as paste up their papers on every post, for arithmetique

and writing schooles:" we may therefore suppose that several of the

walks about Saint Paul's cathedral then resembled the present Royal

Exchange with respect to the business that was there transacted; and

it appears indeed, from many allusions in our old plays, to have been

as well the resort of the idle, as the busy. The phrase of _setting up

bills_ continued long after the time of Shakspeare and is used in a

translation of Suetonius published in 1677, 8vo, p. 227.

SCENE 1. Page 399.

BEAT. ... challenged him at the _bird-bolt_.

In further exemplification of this sort of arrow, the following

representations have been collected. A very sagacious _modern_ editor

of King James's _Christ's kirk on the green_ has stated that the line

"the bolt flew o'er the bire" is a metaphor of a _thunderbolt_ flying

over the cowhouse!

[Illustration]

SCENE 1. Page 412.

BENE. Prove that ever I lose more blood with love, &c.

There is a covert allusion in this speech that will not admit of a

particular explanation. Debauchees imagine that wine recruits the loss

of animal spirits. _Love_ is used here in its very worst sense, and the

whole is extremely gross and indelicate.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 429.

BEAT. ... that I had my good wit out of _the hundred merry tales_.

From the unfortunate loss of these _Merry tales_, a doubt has arisen

from whence they were translated, it being pretty clear that they were

not originally written in English. Two authorities have been produced

on this occasion, the _Cent nouvelles nouvelles_, and the _Decameron_

of Boccaccio.

Mr. Steevens is an advocate for the first of these, and refers to an

edition of them mentioned by Ames. This, it is to be presumed, is the

_Hundred merry tales_ noticed under the article for James Roberts. To

this opinion an objection has been taken by Mr. Ritson, on the ground

that _many_ of the tales in the _Cent nouvelles nouvelles_ are "very

tragical, and none of them calculated to furnish a lady with good

wit." Now it appears that out of these hundred stories _only five are

tragical_, viz. novels 32, 47, 55, 56, and 98. In the old editions they

are entitled _Comptes plaisans et recreatiz pour deviser en toutes

compaignies_, and _Moult plaisans á raconter par maniere de joyeuseté_.

Mr. Reed has "but little doubt that Boccace's _Decameron_ was the book

here alluded to." If this gentleman's quotation from Guazzo's _Civile

conversation_, 1586, be meant to establish the existence of the above

work in an English dress it certainly falls short of the purpose;

because it is no more than a translation of an author, who is speaking

of the _original Decameron_. But there is a more forcible objection

to Mr. Reed's opinion, which is, that the first _complete_ English

translation of Boccaccio's novels was not published till 1620, and

after Shakspeare's death. The dedication states indeed, that _many_

of the tales had long since been published; but this may allude to

those which had appeared in Painter's _Palace of pleasure_, or in

some other similar work not now remaining. There are likewise two or

three of Boccaccio's novels in Tarlton's _Newes out of purgatory_,

which might be alluded to in the above dedication, if the work which

now remains under the date of 1630 was really printed in 1589, as may

be suspected from a license granted to Thomas Gubbin. There seems to

have been some prior attempt to publish the _Decameron_ in English,

but it was "recalled by my Lord of Canterbury's commands." See a note

by Mr. Steevens prefixed to _The two gentlemen of Verona_. There is a

remarkable fact however that deserves to be mentioned in this place,

which is, that in the proem to Sacchetti's _Novelle_, written about

the year 1360, it appears that Boccaccio's novels had been _then_

translated into English, not a single vestige of which translation is

elsewhere to be traced.

A third work that may appear to possess some right to assert its claim

on the present occasion is the _Cento novelle antiche_, which might

have been translated before or in Shakspeare's time, as it has been

already shown in a note on the story of _Twelfth night_ that he had

probably seen the 13th novel in that collection. It may likewise be

worth mentioning that Nashe in his _Pappe with an hatchet_, speaks of

a book then coming out under the title of _A hundred merrie tales_, in

which Martin Marprelate, _i. e._ John Penry, and his friends were to be

satirized.

On the whole, the evidence seems to preponderate in favour of the _Cent

nouvelles nouvelles_. As the _greatest portion_ of this work consists

of _merry stories_, there is no impropriety in calling it _The hundred

merry tales_; the term _hundred_ being part of the original title, and

the epithet _merry_ in all probability an addition for the purpose of

designating the _general quality_ of the stories. The _Decameron_ of

Boccaccio, which contains more tragical subjects than the other, is

called in the English translation _A hundred_ PLEASANT _novels_.

Whatever the _hundred merry tales_ really were, we find them in

existence so late as 1659, and the entire loss of them to the present

age might have been occasioned by the devastation in the great fire of

London.

SCENE 1. Page 432.

BENE. Come, will you go with me?

CLAUD. Whither?

BENE. Even to _the next willow_, about your own business, Count. What

fashion will you wear the _garland_ of?

It was the custom for those who were _forsaken in love_ to wear willow

garlands. This tree might have been chosen as the symbol of sadness

from the verse in psalm 137, "We hanged our harps upon the willows, in

the midst thereof;" or else from a coincidence between the _weeping_

willow and falling _tears_. Another reason has been assigned. The

_Agnus castus_ or _vitex_, was supposed by the ancients to promote

chastity, "and the willow being of a much like nature," says an old

writer, "it is yet a custom that he which is deprived of his love must

wear a willow garland." Swan's _Speculum mundi_, chap. 6. sect. 4.

edit. 1635. Bona, the sister of the king of France, on receiving news

of Edward the Fourth's marriage with Elizabeth Grey, exclaims, "In hope

he'll prove a widower shortly, I'll wear a _willow garland_ for his

sake." See _Henry the Sixth_, part iii. and Desdemona's willow song in

_Othello_, Act IV. Two more ballads of a similar nature may be found in

Playford's _Select ayres_, 1659, folio, pp. 19, 21.

SCENE 1. Page 438.

BEAT. Civil as an _orange_, and something of _that_ jealous

complexion.

This reading of the older copy has been judiciously preferred to _a_

jealous complexion. _Yellow_ is an epithet often applied to jealousy

by the old writers. In _The merry wives of Windsor_, Nym says he will

possess Ford with _yellowness_. Shakspeare more usually terms it

_green-eyed_.

SCENE 3. Page 447.

BENE. ... now will he lie ten nights awake, _carving the fashion of

a new doublet_.

The print in Borde of the Englishman with a pair of shears, seems

to have been borrowed from some Italian or other foreign picture in

ridicule of our countrymen's folly. Coryat, in his _Crudities_, p.

260, has this remark; "we weare more phantasticall fashions than any

nation under the sunne doth, the French onely excepted; which hath

given occasion both to the Venetian and other Italians to brand the

Englishman with a notable marke of levity, by painting him starke naked

with a paire of shears in his hand, _making his fashion of attire_

according to the vaine invention of his braine-sicke head, not to

comelinesse and decorum." Purchas, in his _Pilgrim_, 1619, 8vo, speaks

of "a naked man with sheeres in one hand and cloth in the other," as a

general emblem of fashion. Many other allusions to such a figure might

be cited, but it was not peculiar to the English. In _La geographie

Françoise_, by P. Du Val d'Abbeville, 1663, 12mo, the author, speaking

of the _Frenchman's_ versatility in dress, adds, "dans la peinture des

nations on met pres de luy _le cizeau_."

The inconstancy of our own countrymen in the article of dress is

described in the following verses from John Halle's _Courte of vertue_,

1565, 12mo.

"As fast as God's word one synne doth blame

They devyse other as yll as the same,

And this varietie of Englyshe folke,

Dothe cause all wyse people us for to mocke.

For all discrete nations under the sonne,

Do use at thys day as they fyrst begonne:

And never doo change, but styll do frequent,

Theyr old guyse, what ever fond folkes do invent.

But we here in England lyke fooles and apes,

Do by our vayne fangles deserve mocks and japes,

For all kynde of countreys dooe us deryde,

In no constant custome sythe we abyde

For we never knowe howe in our aray,

We may in fyrme fashion stedfastly stay."

Randle Holme complained that in his time (1680) Englishmen were as

changeable as the moon in their dress, "in which respect," says he, "we

are termed the Frenchmen's apes, imitating them in all their fantastick

devised fashions of garbs." _Acad. of armory_, book iii. ch. 5.

SCENE 3. Page 452.

CLAUD. _Stalk on, stalk on_, the fowl sits.

It has been already shown that the _stalking bull_ was equally

common with the stalking _horse_. It was sometimes used for decoying

partridges into a _tunnelling net_, or cage of net work, in the form

of a tun, with doors. The process is described at large, with a print,

in Willughby's _Ornithology_, 1678, folio, p. 34, where an account is

also given of the _stalking-horse_, _ox_, _stag_, &c.

Howel in his _Vocabulary_, sect. xxxv. seems to have mistaken the _tun_

or net into which the birds were driven, for the stalking bull itself.

Sometimes, as in hunting the wolf, an artificial bush and a wooden

screen were used to stalk with. See Clamorgan, _Chasse du loup_, 1595,

4to, p. 29.

SCENE 3. Page 455.

LEON. She tore the letter into a thousand _halfpence_.

Mr. Theobald explains this "into a thousand pieces of the same

bigness," as if Beatrice had torn the letter by rule and compass. Mr.

Steevens more properly supposes halfpence to mean _small pieces_;

but his note would have been less imperfect if he had added that the

halfpence of Elizabeth were of _silver_, and about the size of a modern

silver penny.

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 469.

D. PEDRO. ... the little _hangman_ dare not shoot at him.

Dr. Farmer has illustrated this term by citing a passage from Sidney's

_Arcadia_; but he has omitted a previous description in which Cupid is

metamorphosed into a strange old monster, sitting on a _gallows_ with a

crown of laurel in one hand, and a purse of money in the other, as if

he would persuade folks by these allurements _to hang_ themselves. It

is certainly possible that this might have been Shakspeare's prototype;

we should otherwise have supposed that he had called Cupid a hangman

metaphorically, from the remedy sometimes adopted by desparing lovers.

SCENE 4. Page 488.

MARG. Clap us into _light o'love_.

When Margaret adds that this tune "goes without a burden," she does

not mean that it never had words to it, but only that it wanted a

very common appendage to the ballads of that time. The name itself

may be illustrated by the following extract from _The glasse of man's

follie_, 1615, 4to. "There be wealthy houswives, and good house-keepers

that use no starch, but faire water: their linnen is white, and they

looke more Christian-like in small ruffes, then _Light of love_ lookes

in her great starched ruffs, looke she never so hie, with eye-lids

awrye." This anonymous work is written much in the manner of Stubbes's

_Anatomie of abuses_, and for the same purpose.

ACT IV.

SCENE 1. Page 510.

BENE. Tarry, sweet Beatrice.

BEAT. _I am gone, though I am here._ There is no love in you--Nay,

I pray you let me go.

Though three explanations have been already offered, there is room

for further conjecture. From the latter words of Beatrice it is clear

that Benedick had stopped her from going. She may therefore intend to

say that notwithstanding she is detained by force, she is in reality

absent; her heart is no longer Benedick's.

ACT V.

SCENE 1. Page 524.

LEON. His _May of youth_, and bloom of _lustyhood_.

An allusion to these lines in the old calendars that describe the state

of man:

"As in the month of _Maye_ all thyng is in myght

So at xxx yeres man is in chyef lykyng.

Pleasaunt and _lusty_, to every mannes syght

In beaute and strength, to women pleasyng."

In the _Notbrowne mayde_ we have the expression _lusty May_. Capel's

edit. p. 6. Roger Ascham, speaking of young men, says; "It availeth not

to see them well taught in yong yeares, and after when they come to

_lust and youthfull dayes_, to give them licence to live as they _lust_

themselves." _Scholemaster_, 1571, fo. 13. See a former note in p. 45.

SCENE 1. Page 529.

CLAUD. If he be, [angry] he knows how to turn his girdle.

Mr. Holt White's ingenious note may be supported by the following

passage in Carew's _Survey of Cornwall_, 1602, 4to. p. 76: the author

is speaking of wrestling. "This hath also his lawes, of taking hold

onely above girdle, wearing a girdle to take hold by, playing three

pulles, for tryall of the mastery, &c."

SCENE 4. Page 554.

BENE. Prince, thou art sad; get thee a wife, get thee a wife; there

is no _staff_ more reverend than one _tipp'd with horn_.

In this comparison the prince is the staff, and the question is

what sort of a one is here alluded to. Messrs. Steevens, Reed, and

Malone, conceive it to be the staff used in the ancient trial by wager

of battle; but this seems to have but small claim to be entitled

_reverend_. On the contrary, as the combatants were of the meaner

class of people, who were not allowed to make use of edged weapons,

the higher ranks usually deciding the business by hired champions, it

cannot well be maintained that much, if any, reverence belongs to such

a staff. It is possible, therefore, that Shakspeare, whose allusions

to _archery_ are almost as frequent as they are to cuckoldom, might

refer to the _bowstaff_, which was usually tipped with a piece of horn

at each end, to make such a notch for the string as would not wear,

and at the same time to strengthen the bow, and prevent the extremities

from breaking. It is equally possible that the walking-sticks or staves

used by _elderly_ people might be intended, which were often headed or

_tipped_ with a cross piece of _horn_, or sometimes amber. They seem

to have been imitated from the _crutched_ sticks, or _potences_, as

they were called, used by the friars, and by them borrowed from the

celebrated _tau_ of St. Anthony. Thus in _The Canterbury tales_, the

Sompnour describes one of his friars as having "a scrippe and _tipped

staf_," and he adds that

"His felaw had _a staf tipped with horn_."

In these instances the epithet _reverend_ is much more appropriate than

in the others.

* * * * *

Mrs. Lenox, assuming, with the same inaccuracy as had been manifested

in her critique on _Measure for measure_, that Shakspeare borrowed his

plot from Ariosto, proceeds to censure him for "poverty of invention,

want of judgment, and wild conceits," deducing all her reasoning from

false premises. This is certainly but a bad method of _illustrating_

Shakspeare.

MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 6.

EGE. Happy be Theseus, our renowned _duke_.

This is in reality no "misapplication of a modern title," as Mr.

Steevens conceived, but a legitimate use of the word in its primitive

Latin sense of _leader_; and so it is often used in the Bible. Not so

the instance adduced of _sheriffs of the provinces_, which might have

been avoided in our printed bibles. Wicliffe had most properly used

_prefectis_. Shakspeare might have found _Duke_ Theseus in the _book of

Troy_, or in Turbervile's _Ovid's Epistles_. See the argument to that

of Phædra to Hippolytus.

SCENE 1. Page 9.

THE. You can endure the livery of a _nun_,

For aye to be in shady _cloister_ mew'd.

The threatening to make a nun of poor Hermia is as whimsical an

anachronism as any in Shakspeare.

SCENE 1. Page 13.

LYS. Making it _momentany_ as a sound.

_Momentany_ and _momentary_ were indiscriminately used in Shakspeare's

time. The former corresponds with the French _momentaine_.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 30.

FAI. And I serve the fairy queen,

_To dew her orbs upon the green_.

Mr. Steevens in the happy and elegant remark at the end of his note

on the last line, has made a slight mistake in substituting _Puck_

for the _fairy_. When the damsels of old gathered the May dew on the

grass, and which they made use of to improve their complexions, they

left undisturbed such of it as they perceived on the fairy-rings;

apprehensive that the fairies should in revenge destroy their beauty.

Nor was it reckoned safe to put the foot within the rings, lest they

should be liable to the fairies' power.

SCENE 1. Page 32.

_Puck._ But they do _square_.

Dr. Johnson has very justly observed that to _square_ here is to

quarrel. In investigating the reason, we must previously take it for

granted that our verb _to quarrel_ is from the French _quereller_, or

perhaps both from the common source, the Latin _querela_. Blackstone

has remarked that the glaziers use the words _square_ and _quarrel_

as synonymous terms for a pane of glass, and he might have added for

the instrument with which they cut it. This, he says, is somewhat

whimsical; but had he been acquainted with the reason, he might have

been disposed to waive his opinion, at least on the present occasion.

The glazier's instrument is a _diamond_, usually cut into such a

_square_ form as the _supposed diamonds_ on the French and English

cards, in the former of which it is still properly called _carreau_,

from its _original_. This was the _square_ iron head of the arrow used

for the cross-bow. In English it was called a _quarrel_, and hence

the glazier's diamond and the pane of glass have received their names

of _square_ and _quarrel_. Now we may suppose without straining the

point very violently, that these words being evidently synonymous in

one sense, have corruptedly become so in another; and that the verb

_to square_, which correctly and metaphorically, even at this time,

signifies _to agree_ or _accord_, has been carelessly and ignorantly

wrested from its true sense, and from frequent use become a legitimate

word. The French have avoided this error, and to express a meaning very

similar to that of _to quarrel_ or _dispute_, make use of the word

_contrecarrer_.

SCENE 1. Page 37.

PUCK. The wisest aunt telling the saddest tale,

Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;

Then slip I from her bum, down-topples she.

The celebrated duchess of Newcastle, in a poem of some fancy, entitled

_The queen of fairies_, makes Puck or hobgoblin the queen of fairies'

fool, and alludes to the above prank in the following lines:

"The goodwife sad squats down upon a stool,

Not at all thinking it was Hob the fool,

And frowning sits, then Hob gives her a slip,

And down she falls, whereby she hurts her hip."

The above dame is a farmer's wife who has been scolding because she was

unable to procure any butter or cheese, and at Puck's holding up the

hens' rumps to prevent their laying eggs too fast.

With respect to the word _aunt_, it has been usually derived from the

French _tante_; but the original Norman term is _ante_. See examples in

Carpentier _Suppl._ ad Ducang. v. _avuncula_. So the author of the old

and excellent farce of _Maistre Patelin_,

"Vostre belle ante, mourut-elle?"

SCENE 2. Page 39.

Enter OBERON and TITANIA.

Mr. Tyrwhitt's remark that the Pluto and Proserpine of Chaucer were the

true progenitors of Oberon and Titania, may be perfectly true; but the

name of Oberon as king of the fairies, must have been exceedingly well

known from the romance of Huon of Bourdeaux, in which this Oberon makes

a very conspicuous figure.

SCENE 2. Page 41.

TITA. Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead,

By paved fountain.

Milton, doubtless, had these lines in recollection when he wrote,

"To hill or valley, fountain or fresh shade."

_Par. lost_, b. v. l. 203.

SCENE 2. Page 41.

TITA. _To dance our ringlets_ to the whistling wind.

An allusion to what the country people call _fairy rings_, which they

suppose to be the tracks of the dances of those diminutive beings.

SCENE 2. Page 43.

TITA. The _nine mens morris_ is fill'd up with mud.

This game was sometimes called _the nine mens merrils_, from _merelles_

or _mereaux_, an ancient French word for the jettons or counters, with

which it was played. The other term _morris_ is probably a corruption

suggested by the sort of _dance_ which in the progress of the game

the counters performed. In the French _merelles_ each party had three

counters only, which were to be placed in a line in order to win the

game. It appears to have been the _Tremerel_ mentioned in an old

fabliau. See Le Grand _Fabliaux et contes_, tom. ii. p. 208.

Dr. Hyde thinks the morris or merrils was known during the time that

the Normans continued in possession of England, and that the name was

afterwards corrupted into _three mens morals_, or _nine mens morals_.

If this be true, the conversion of _morals_ into _morris_, a term so

very familiar to the country people, was extremely natural. The doctor

adds, that it was likewise called _nine-penny_, or _nine-pin miracle_,

_three-penny morris_, _five-penny morris_, _nine-penny morris_, or

_three-pin_, _five-pin_, and _nine-pin morris_, all corruptions of

_three-pin_, &c. _merels_. Hyde _Hist. Nerdiludii_, p. 202.

SCENE 2. Page 44.

TITA. The _human mortals_ want their winter here.

In the controversy respecting the immortality of fairies, Mr. Ritson's

ingenious and _decisive_ reply in his _Quip modest_ ought on every

account to have been introduced. A few pages further Titania evidently

alludes to the _immortality_ of fairies, when, speaking of the

changeling's mother, she says, "but she, _being mortal_, of that boy

did die." Spenser's fairy system and his pedigree were allegorical,

invented by himself, and not coinciding with the popular superstitions

on the subject. _Human mortals_ is merely a pleonasm, and neither put

in opposition to _fairy mortals_, according to Mr. Steevens, nor to

_human immortals_, according to Ritson; it is simply the language of a

fairy speaking of men.

A posthumous note by Mr. Steevens has not contributed to strengthen

his former arguments, as the authors therein mentioned do not,

strictly speaking, allude to the sort of fairies in question, but to

spirits, devils, and angels. Shakspeare, however, would certainly

be more influenced by popular opinion than by the dreams of the

casuists. There is a curious instance of the nature of fairies,

according to the belief of more ancient times, in the romance of

Lancelot of the lake. "En celui temps," (the author is speaking of

the days of king Arthur,) "estoient appellees faees toutes selles qui

sentremettoient denchantemens et de charmes, et moult en estoit pour

lors principalement en la Grande Bretaigne, et savoient la force et la

vertu des paroles, des pierres, et des herbes, parquoy _elles estoient

tenues en jeunesse et en beaulte_, et en grandes richesses comme elles

devisoient." This perpetual youth and beauty cannot well be separated

from a state of immortality. Nor would it be difficult to controvert

the sentiments of those who have maintained the mortality of _devils_,

by means of authorities as valid as their own. The above interesting

romance will furnish one at least that may not be unacceptable.

Speaking of the birth of the prophet and enchanter Merlin, it informs

us that his mother would not consent to the embraces of any man who

should be visible; and therefore it was by some means ordained that a

_devil_ should be her lover. When he approached her, to use the words

of the romance, "la damoiselle le tasta et sentit quil avoit le corps

moult bien fait; non pourtant les dyables n'ont ne corps ne membres

que l'en puisse veoir ne toucher, _car spirituelle chose ne peut estre

touchée, et tous diables sont choses spirituelles_." The fruit of this

amour was Merlin; but he, being born of woman, was but a semi-devil,

and subject to mortality. A damsel with whom he had fallen in love,

prevailed on him to disclose some of his magical arts to her, by means

of which she deceived him, and preserved her chastity by casting him

into a deep sleep whenever he importuned her. The romance adds, "si

le decevoit ainsi _pource qu'il estoit mortel_; mais s'il eust este

_du tout dyable_, elle ne l'eust peu decepvoir; car ung dyable ne peut

dormir."

SCENE 2. Page 45.

TITA. Therefore the moon, _the governess of floods_,

_Pale_ in her anger, _washes all the air_,

That rheumatic diseases do abound.

Thus in Newton's _Direction for the health of magistrates and

studentes_, 1574, 12mo, we are told that "the moone is _ladie of

moysture_;" and in Hamlet, Act I. Scene 1, she is called "the _moist_

star." In Bartholomæus _De propriet. rerum_, by Batman, lib. 8. c.

29, the moon is described to be "mother of all _humours_, minister

and _lady of the sea_." But in Lydgate's prologue to his _Storie of

Thebes_, there are two lines which Shakspeare seems closely to have

imitated;

"Of Lucina the moone, _moist and pale_,

That many _showre fro heaven_ made availe."

The same mode of expression occurs in Parkes's _Curtaine drawer of the

world_, 1612, 4to, p. 48: "the centinels of the season ordained to

marke the _queen of floods_ how she lends her borrowed light." This

book deserves to be noticed for the good sense which it contains, and

the merit of some occasional pieces of poetry.

SCENE 2. Page 50.

OBE. I do but beg a little changeling boy

To be my _henchman_.

Of all the opinions concerning the origin of this word, that of Sir

William Spelman alone can be maintained. If instead of deriving it

from the _German_, he had stated that it came to us through the _Saxon_

Henᵹeꞅꞇ, a _horse_, his information had been more correct. Although in

more modern times the pages or henchmen might have walked on foot, it

is very certain that they were originally _horsemen_, according to the

term. Thus in Chaucer's _Floure and the leafe_:

"And every knight had after him _riding_

Three _henshmen_, on him awaiting."

If the old orthography _henxmen_ had not been unfortunately disturbed,

we should have heard nothing of the conjectures about _haunch_ and

_haunch_-men.

SCENE 2. Page 58.

Enter DEMETRIUS, _Helena following him_.

However forward and indecorous the conduct of Helena in pursuing

Demetrius may appear to modern readers, such examples are very frequent

in old romances of chivalry, wherein Shakspeare was undoubtedly well

read. The beautiful ballad of the Nut-brown maid might have been more

immediately in his recollection, many parts of this scene having a very

strong resemblance to it.

SCENE 2. Page 61.

HEL. I'll follow thee, and _make a heaven of hell_.

Imitated by Milton:

"The mind is its own place, and in itself

Can make a _heav'n of hell_, a hell of heaven."

_Par. lost_, b. i. l. 254.

SCENE 2. Page 62.

OBE. Quite overcanopied with _lush_ woodbine.

See what has been already said on this word in p. 8; the meaning is

the same as there. Theobald's amendment from _luscious_ was probably

in conformity with that passage; and the printers of the old editions

not comprehending the meaning of _lush_, which even in their time was

an antiquated word, ignorantly, as well as unharmoniously, substituted

_luscious_.

SCENE 3. Page 68.

HER. ... in human modesty

Such separation, as, may well be said,

Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid.

That is, "_let there be_ such separation," &c. A comma should be placed

after _modesty_.

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 77.

QUIN. When you have spoken your speech, enter into that _brake_.

It is submitted that _brake_ cannot _in this instance_ signify _a large

extent of ground, overgrown with furze_, but merely the hawthorn bush

or _tyring-house_ as Quince had already called it.

SCENE 1. Page 83.

BOT. Nay I can _gleek_ upon occasion.

Again, in _Romeo and Juliet_, Act IV. Scene 5:

"1. MUS. What will you _give us_?

_Pet._ No money, on my faith; but the _gleek_."

On which consult Mr. Steevens's posthumous note in Mr. Reed's last

edition.

Mr. Pope had justly remarked that to _gleek_ is to _scoff_. In some

of the notes on this word it has been supposed to be connected

with the card game of _gleek_; but it was not recollected that the

Saxon language supplied the term Glɩᵹ, _ludibrium_, and doubtless a

corresponding verb. Thus _glee_ signifies _mirth_ and _jocularity_;

and _gleeman_ or _gligman_, a minstrel or _joculator_. _Gleek_ was

therefore used to express a stronger sort of joke, a _scoffing_. It

does not appear that the phrase _to give the gleek_ was ever introduced

in the above game, which was borrowed by us from the French, and

derived from an original of very different import from the word in

question.

SCENE 1. Page 84.

TITA. And light them at the fiery glow-worms _eyes_.

Dr. Johnson's objection to the word eyes, has been very skilfully

removed by Mr. Monck Mason; but this gentleman appears to have

misconceived the meaning of Shakspeare's most appropriate epithet of

_ineffectual_, in the passage from _Hamlet_. The glow-worm's fire was

_ineffectual_ only at the approach of morn, in like manner as the light

of a candle would be at mid-day.

SCENE 1. Page 88.

OBE. What night-_rule_ now about this haunted grove?

Mr. Steevens has properly explained _night-rule_. _Rule_ in this word

has the same meaning as in the Christmas lord of mis-_rule_, and is a

corruption of _revel_, formerly written _reuel_.

SCENE 2. Page 89.

PUCK. An _ass's nowl_ I fixed on his head.

The receipt for making a man resemble an ass, already given in a

former note, must give place to the following in Scot's _Discoverie of

witchcraft_, b. 13. c. xix. "Cutt off the head of a horsse or an asse

(before they be dead), otherwise the vertue or strength thereof will be

the lesse effectuall, and make an earthern vessell of fit capacitie to

conteine the same, and let it be filled with the oile and fat thereof;

cover it close, and dawbe it over with lome: let it boile over a soft

fier three daies continuallie, that the flesh boiled may run into oile,

so as the bare bones may be seene: beate the haire into powder, and

mingle the same with the oile; and annoint the _heads of the standers

by_, and they shall seem to have horsses or _asses_ heads."

SCENE 2. Page 95.

OBE. All fancy-sick she is, and pale of _cheer_.

Mr. Steevens deduces this word from the Italian _cara_; but it is from

the old French _chere_, face. Lydgate finishes the prologue to his

_Storie of Thebes_ with these lines:

"And as I coud, with a pale _cheare_,

My tale I gan anone, as ye shall heare."

SCENE 2. Page 103.

HEL. So with two seeming _bodies_, but one _heart_;

Two of the _first_, like coats in heraldry,

Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.

It may be doubted whether this passage has been rightly explained,

and whether the commentators have not given Shakspeare credit for

more skill in heraldry than he really possessed, or at least than he

intended to exhibit on the present occasion. Helen says, "we had two

seeming bodies, but only one heart." She then exemplifies her position

by a simile--"we had _two of the first_, i. e. _bodies_, like the

double coats in heraldry that belong to man and wife as _one person_,

but which, like our _single heart_, have but _one crest_."

SCENE 2. Page 112.

PUCK. And yonder shines _Aurora's harbinger_,

At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there,

Troop home to church-yards.

Aurora's harbinger is Lucifer, the morning star.

"Now the bright morning star, _day's harbinger_,

Comes dancing from the East----"[11]

It was the popular belief that ghosts retired at the approach of day.

Thus the spirit of Hamlet's father exclaims,

"But soft, methinks I scent the morning air."

In further illustration see a subsequent note on _Hamlet_, Act I. Scene

1.

SCENE 2. Page 117.

HEL. And, sleep, that sometime shuts up sorrow's eye.

Again, in Macbeth:

"Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care." #/

ACT V.

SCENE 1. Page 145.

PHILOST. ... I have heard _it_ over,

And it is nothing, nothing in the world;

Unless you can find sport in their _intents_,

Extremely stretch'd, and conn'd with cruel pain,

To do you service.

Dr. Johnson suspects a line to be lost, as he "knows not what it is to

_stretch_ and _con_ an _intent_;" but it is surely not _intents_ that

are _stretch'd and conn'd_ but the _play_, of which Philostrate is

speaking. If the line

"Unless you can find sport, &c."

were printed in a parenthesis, all would be right. Mr. Steevens, not

perceiving this, has endeavoured to wrest from the word _intents_,

its plain and usual meaning, and would unnecessarily convert it to

_attention_, which might undoubtedly be _stretch'd_, but could not well

be _conn'd_.

SCENE 1. Page 148.

PHILOST. The prologue is _addrest_.

We have borrowed this sense of the word (_ready_) from the French

_adressé_.

SCENE 1. Page 157.

MOON. This lantern doth the _horned_ moon present.

But why _horned_? He evidently refers to the _materials_ of which the

_lantern_ was made.

SCENE 2. Page 168.

PUCK. By the triple _Hecat's team_.

By this team is meant the chariot of the moon, said to be drawn by two

horses, the one black, the other white. It is probable that Shakspeare

might have consulted some translation of Boccaccio's _Genealogy of

the gods_, which, as has been already remarked, appears to have

occasionally supplied him with his mythological information. As this

is the first time we meet with the name of _Hecate_ in our author, it

may be proper to notice the error he has committed in making it a word

of two syllables, which he has done in several other places, though in

one (viz. I. _Henry Sixth_, if he wrote that play) it is rightly made a

trisyllable:

"I speak not to that railing Hĕcătē."

Act III. Scene 2.

His contemporaries have usually given it properly. Thus Spenser in the

_Fairy queen_,

"As Hĕcătē, in whose almighty hand."

B. vii. Canto 6.

Ben Jonson has, of course, always been correct. Mr. Malone observes, in

a note on _Macbeth_, Act III. Scene 5, that Marlowe, though a scholar,

has used the word _Hecate_ as a dissyllable. It may be added that

Middelton and Golding have done the same; the latter in his translation

of Ovid, book vii. has used it in both ways.

SCENE 2. Page 168.

PUCK. I am sent with broom before,

To sweep the dust behind the door.

In confirmation of Dr. Johnson's remark that fairies delight in

cleanliness, two other poems shall be quoted. The first is the _Fairy

queen_, printed in Percy's Ancient Ballads, iii. 207, edit. 1775.

"But if the house be swept,

And from uncleanness kept,

We praise the household maid," &c.

The other is the _Fairies farewell_, by Bishop Corbet, printed also in

Percy's collection, iii. 210, from his _Poetica stromata_, 1648, 18mo.

It is also in a preceding edition of the bishop's poems, 1647, 18mo.

"Farewell rewards and fairies!

Good housewives now may say;

For now foule sluts in dairies

Doe fare as well as they:

And though they sweepe their hearths no less

Than mayds were wont to doe,

Yet who of late for cleanliness

Finds sixepence in her shoe?"

SCENE 2. Page 170.

OBE. To the best _bride bed_ will we,

Which by us shall _blessed_ be.

Mr. Steevens remarks that the ceremony of blessing the bed was observed

at the marriage of a _princess_. It was used at _all_ marriages. This

was the form, copied from the Manual for the use of Salisbury. "Nocte

vero sequente cum sponsus et sponsa _ad lectum pervenerint_, accedat

sacerdos et benedicat thalamum, dicens: Benedic, Domine, thalamum

istum et omnes habitantes in eo; ut in tua pace consistant, et in

tua voluntate permaneant: et in amore tuo vivant et senescant et

multiplicentur in longitudine dierum. Per Dominum.--Item _benedictio

super lectum_. Benedic, Domine, hoc _cubiculum_, respice, quinon dormis

neque dormitas. Qui custodis Israel, custodi famulos tuos in hoc lecto

quiescentes _ab omnibus fantasmaticis demonum illusionibus_: custodi

eos vigilantes ut in preceptis tuis meditentur dormientes, et te per

soporem sentiant: ut hic et ubique defensionis tuæ muniantur auxilio.

Per Dominum.--Deinde fiat benedictio _super eos in lecto_ tantum cum

Oremus. Benedicat Deus corpora vestra et animas vestras; et det super

vos benedictionem sicut benedixit Abraham, Isaac, et Jacob, Amen.--His

peractis _aspergat eos aqua benedicta_, et sic discedat et dimittat eos

in pace." We may observe on this strange ceremony, that the purity of

modern times stands not in need of these holy aspersions to lull the

senses and dissipate the illusions of the Devil. The married couple

would, no doubt, rejoice when the benediction was ended. In the French

romance of _Melusine_, the bishop who marries her to Raymondin blesses

the nuptial bed. The ceremony is there represented in a very ancient

cut, of which a copy is subjoined. The good prelate is sprinkling

the parties with holy water. Sometimes during the benediction the

married couple only _sat_ upon the bed; but they generally received

a portion of consecrated bread and wine. It is recorded in France,

that on frequent occasions the priest was improperly detained till the

hour of midnight, whilst the wedding guests rioted in the luxuries

of the table, and made use of language that was extremely offensive

to the clergy, and injurious to the salvation of the parties. It was

therefore, in the year 1577, ordained by Pierre de Gondi, archbishop

of Paris, that the ceremony of blessing the nuptial bed should for the

future be performed in the day time, or at least _before supper_, and

in the presence only of the bride and bridegroom, and of their nearest

relations.

[Illustration]

There is a singularity in this cut which may well excuse a short

digression. This is the _horned_ head-dress of the bride, a fashion

that prevailed in England during the reign of Henry the Sixth, and for

a short time afterwards. Lydgate has left us an unpublished ditty, in

which he complains of it. As it is, like most of his other poetry, very

dull and very tedious, a couple of stanzas may suffice; each concludes

with a line to recommend the _casting away of these horns_.

"Clerkys recorde by gret auctorite,

Hornys were yove to beestys for diffence;

A thyng contrary to femynyte

To be made sturdy of resistence.

But arche wyves egre in ther violence,

Fers as tygre for to make affray,

They have despyt and ageyn conscience

Lyst nat of pryde ther _hornys cast away_.

Noble pryncessys, this litel shoort ditee

Rewdly compiled lat it be noon offence

To your womanly merciful pitie,

Thouh it be rad in your audience;

Peysed ech thyng in your just advertence,

So it be no displesaunce to your pay,

Undir support of your patience

Yevyth example _hornys to cast away_."

_Harl. MS._ No. 2255.

In France, this part of female dress was a frequent subject of clerical

reprehension. Nicholas de Claminges, a doctor of the Sorbonne, and

contemporary with Lydgate, compares it to the horns of oxen. "Tenduntur

hinc et inde mira et inaudita deformitate gemina cornua bipedali

prope intervallo à se distantia, majorique latitudine caput fœmineum

diffundunt quam bubalinum longitudine distenditur. Auro ac gemmis omnia

rutilant. Stibio et cerusa pinguntur facies; patent colla; nudantur

pectora." Nicolai de Clemangiis _opera_, Lugd. Batavor. 1613, 4to, p.

144. And again, in his letters, "quid de _cornibus_ et caudis loquar,

quas illic jam vulgo matronæ gestant, qua in re naturam videntur

humanam reliquisse, bestialemque sibi ultro adscivisse. Adde quod _in

effigie cornutæ fœminæ Diabolus plerumque pingitur_." We cannot but

admire the pious writer's ingenuity in the latter declaration, and how

well it was calculated to terrify the ladies out of this preposterous

fashion.

SCENE 2. Page 171.

OBE. With this field-dew _consecrate_

Every fairy take his gait;

And _each several chamber bless_,

Through this palace with sweet peace.

Thus in the _Merry wives of Windsor_, Act V. Scene 5:

"Search Windsor castle, elves, within and out:

Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room."

In the first line of Oberon's speech there seems to be a covert

satire against holy water. Whilst the popular confidence in the power

of fairies existed, they had obtained the credit of occasionally

performing much good service to mankind; and the great influence which

they possessed gave so much offence to the holy monks and friars, that

they determined to exert all their power to expel the above imaginary

beings from the minds of the people, by taking the office of the

fairies' benedictions entirely into their own hands. Of this we have a

curious proof in the beginning of Chaucer's admirable tale of the _Wife

of Bath_:

"I speke of many hundred yeres ago;

But now can no man see non elves mo,

For now the grete charitee and prayeres

Of limitoures and other holy freres

That serchen every land and every streme.

As thikke as motes in the sonne beme,

_Blissing halles, chambres, kichenes, and boures,

Citees and burghes, castles highe and toures,

Thropes and bernes, shepenes and dairies,

This maketh that ther ben no faeries:

For ther as wont to walken was an elf,

Ther walketh now the limitour himself_."

The other quotation from Chaucer, which Mr. Steevens has given, is not

to the present purpose. The _fairies' blessing_ was to bring _peace_

upon the house of Theseus; the _night-spell_ in the _Miller's tale_,

is pronounced _against the influence of elves_, and those demons,

or evil spirits, that were supposed to occasion the night-mare, and

other nocturnal illusions. As this is a subject that has never been

professedly handled, it may be worth while to bring together a few

facts that relate to it; to do it ample justice would require an

express dissertation.

A belief in the influence of evil spirits has been common to all

nations, and in the remotest periods of the human history. The gross

superstitions of the middle ages, which even exceeded those in Pagan

times, had given birth to a variety of imaginary beings, who were

supposed to be perpetually occupied in doing mischief to mankind.

The chief of these were the _Incubus_, or _night-mare_, and certain

_fairies of a malignant nature_. It therefore became necessary to check

and counteract their operations by spells, charms, and invocations to

saints. Some of these have been preserved. The lines given to Mad Tom

in _Lear_, beginning

"Saint Withold footed thrice the wold,"

is one of them; and in the notes belonging to it, as well as in those

by Mr. Tyrwhitt on the _Canterbury tales_, vol. iv. 242, others have

been collected. To these may be added the following in Cartwright's

play of _The Ordinary_, Act III. Scene 1:

"Saint Francis, and Saint Benedight,

Blesse this house from wicked wight,

From the night-mare and the goblin,

That is hight _good fellow Robin_.

Keep it from all evil spirits,

Fayries, weezels, rats and ferrets,

From curfew time

To the next prime."

This indeed may be rather considered as satirical, but it is a parody

on those which were genuine. Sinclair, in his _Satan's invisible

world discovered_, informs us that "At night, in the time of popery,

when folks went to bed, they believed the repetition of this following

prayer was effectual to preserve them from danger, and the house too."

"Who sains the house the night,

They that sains it ilka night.

Saint Bryde and her brate,

Saint Colme and his hat,

Saint Michael and his spear,

Keep this house from the weir;

From running thief,

And burning thief;

And from an ill Rea,

That be the gate can gae;

And from an ill weight,

That be the gate can light

Nine reeds about the house;

Keep it all the night,

What is that, what I see

So red, so bright, beyond the sea?

'Tis he was pierc'd through the hands,

Through the feet, through the throat,

Through the tongue;

Through the liver and the lung.

Well is them that well may

Fast on Good-friday."

As darkness was supposed to be more immediately adapted to the

machinations of these malicious spirits, it was natural that, on

retiring to rest, certain prayers should be chosen to deprecate their

influence, which was often regarded as of a _particular kind_. To this

Imogen alludes when she exclaims,

"To your protection I commend me, Gods!

From fairies, and the _tempters of the night_

Guard me, beseech ye!"

_Cymbeline_, Act II. Scene 2.

So Banquo in _Macbeth_:

"Restrain in me the _cursed thoughts that nature

Gives way to in repose_."

An ancient hymn by Saint Ambrose goes to the same point:

"Procul recedant somnia

Et noctium phantasmata:

Hostemque nostrum comprime

Ne _polluantur corpora_."

The demon who was supposed to have particular influence in these

nocturnal illusions, was Asmodeus, the lame devil of whom Mons. Le Sage

has made such admirable use. In expelling him, the sign of the cross

was most efficacious; a very old practice on similar occasions, as we

learn from the following lines in Prudentius:--

"Fac, cum _vocante somno

Castum petis cubile_

Frontem, locumque cordis

_Crucis_ figura signes.

Crux pellit omne crimen,

Fugunt crucem tenebræ:

Tali dicata signo

Mens fluctuare nescit.

Procul, ô procul _vagantum

Portenta somniorum_,

Procul esto pervicaci

Præstigiator astu."

Relics of saints, images of the holy Virgin, sanctified girdles, and

a variety of other amulets were resorted to on the same occasion,

exhibiting a lamentable proof of the imbecility of human nature.

SCENE 2. Page 172.

PUCK. _Give me your hands_, if we be friends.

Thus in the _epilogue_ to Stubbes's excellent play of _Senile odium_,

"... jam _vestræ quid valeant manus_

Nimis velim experiri: ab illis enim vapulare, munus erit."

FOOTNOTES:

[11] It has not been recollected to what poet these lines belong.

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 181.

KING. Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,

Live register'd upon our _brazen tombs_.

It was the fashion in Shakspeare's time, and had been so from the

thirteenth century, to ornament the tombs of eminent persons with

figures and inscriptions on _plates of brass_: to these the allusion

seems rather to be made, than to monuments that were entirely of brass,

such being of very rare occurrence.

SCENE 1. Page 182.

_Long._ Fat paunches have lean pates.

From the Latin _pinguis venter non gignit sensum tenuem_. See Ray's

_Proverbs_. The rest of Longaville's speech, "and dainty bits," &c.

merely repeats the same sentiment for the sake of a rhime.

SCENE 1. Page 183.

BIRON. If study's gain be _thus_, and this be so.

Mr. Ritson would read, _If study's gain be this_. There is no occasion

for any change. _Thus_ means _after this manner_; but the poet would

not write _this_, in order to avoid a cacophony.

SCENE 1. Page 191.

KING. This _child of fancy_, that Armado hight,

For interim to our studies shall relate,

In high-horn words, the worth of many a knight

From _tawny_ Spain, lost in the world's debate.

The context seems to indicate that _child of fancy_ is here used

precisely in the sense in which Milton applied it to Shakspeare, from

whom he probably borrowed it. The meaning of this controverted speech

may be as follows: "this child of _invention_ shall relate to us, in

his bombastic language, the worthy deeds of many a Spanish knight

which are now forgotten amidst those topics that engage the attention

of mankind." The expression _tawny Spain_ may refer to the Moors in

that country; for although they had been expelled from thence almost a

century before the time of Shakspeare, it was allowable on the present

occasion to refer to the period when they flourished in Spain; or he

might only copy what he found in the original story of the play.

SCENE 2. Page 198.

ARM. Why, sadness is one and the self same thing, dear _imp_.

This word, which is well explained by Mr. Ritson, was often, as in the

present instance, used to _pages_. Thus Urquhart in his _Discovery of a

jewel_, &c. p. 133, calls a person of this description "a hopeful youth

and tender _imp_ of great expectation."

SCENE 2. Page 200.

MOTH ... the _dancing horse_ will tell you.

The best account of Banks and his famous horse Morocco is to be found

in the notes to a French translation of Apuleius's _Golden ass_ by

Jean de Montlyard, Sieur de Melleray, counsellor to the Prince of

Condé. This work was first printed in 1602, 8vo, and several times

afterwards. The author himself had seen the horse, whose master he

calls a _Scotishman_, at Paris, where he was exhibited in 1601, at the

Golden Lion, Rue Saint Jaques. He is described as a _middle-sized bay

English gelding, about 14 years old_. A few quotations from the work

itself may not be unacceptable. "Son maistre l'appelle _Moraco_....

Nous avons vu son maistre l'interroger combien de francs vaut l'escu:

et luy, donner trois fois du pied en terre. Mais chose plus estrange,

parce que l'escu d'or sol et de poids vaut encor maintenant au mois de

Mars 1601, plus que trois francs: l'Escossois luy demanda combien de

sols valoit cest escu _outre_ les trois francs; et Moraco frappa quatre

coups, pour denoter les quatre sols que vaut lescu de surcroist." In

which remark the counsellor shows himself less sagacious than the

horse he is describing. He proceeds: "Après un infinité de tours de

passe-passe, il luy fait danser les _Canaries_ avec beaucoup d'art et

de dexterité." The rest of the numerous tricks performed by this animal

are much the same as those practised by the horses educated under

the ingenious Mr. Astley. We also learn from this French work, that

the magistrates, conceiving that all this could not be done without

the aid of magic, had some time before imprisoned the master, and

put the horse under sequestration; but having since discovered that

every thing was effected by mere art and the making of signs, they

had liberated the parties and permitted an exhibition. The Scotchman

had undertaken to teach any horse the same tricks in a twelvemonth.

It is said that both the horse and his master were afterwards burned

at Rome as magicians; nor is this the only instance of the kind. In a

little book entitled _Le diable bossu_, Nancy, 1708, 18mo, there is an

obscure allusion to an English horse, whose master had taught him to

know the cards, and which was burned alive at Lisbon in 1707; and Mr.

Granger, in his _Biographical history of England_, vol. iii. p. 164,

edit. 1779, has informed us that within his remembrance a horse which

had been taught to perform several tricks was, with his owner, put into

the Inquisition. The author of the life of Mal Cutpurse, 1662, 12mo,

mentions her "fellow humourist _Banks the vintner in Cheapside_, who

taught his horse to dance and shooed him with silver." In the eighth

book of Markham's _Cavalarice or the English horseman_, 1607, 4to,

there is a chapter "how a horse may be taught to doe and tricke done

by _Bankes his curtall_." It is extremely curious, and towards the end

throws light upon the second line of Bastard's epigram quoted by Mr.

Steevens.

SCENE 2. Page 203.

ARM. _Green_, indeed, is the colour of _lovers_.

_Green eyes_, _jealousy_, and _the willow_, have been mentioned as

the subjects of this allusion; but it is, perhaps, to _melancholy_,

the frequent concomitant of love. Thus in _Twelfth night_, "And with

a _green_ and yellow _melancholy_;" certainly in that instance, the

effect of love.

SCENE 2. Page 206.

DULL. She is allowed for the _day_-woman.

See more on the word _dey_ in Mr. Tyrwhitt's edition of _The Canterbury

tales_, iii. 287, who supposes that a _dey_ originally meant a day

labourer, however it came afterwards to be applied to the _dairy_: yet

this conjecture must give way to Dr. Johnson's statement that _day_ is

an old word for milk. The doctor has not indeed produced any authority,

and the original Saxon word seems lost; but in the Swedish language,

which bears the greatest affinity to our own of any other, as far as

regards the Teutonic part of it, _dia_ signifies _to milk_, and _deie_,

in Polish, the same. _Die_, in Danish, is _the breast_. The nearest

Saxon word that remains is _diende_, _sucklings_; and there can be

no doubt that we have the term in question from some of our northern

ancestors. The _dey_ or dairy maid is mentioned in the old statutes

that relate to working people; and in that of 12 Ric. II. the annual

wages of this person are settled at six shillings.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 221.

PRIN. Good wits will be jangling: but gentles agree.

These alliterative and anapæstic lines are in the manner of Tusser, who

has many such; for example,

"At Christmas of Christ many carols we sing."

It will be admitted that the construction of this sort of verse is

rather less adapted to a court than a cottage; but it is presumed that

none will be inclined to find Shakspeare guilty of such poetry, which a

good deal resembles the halfpenny book style of

"Here's N. with a nag that is prancing with pride,

And O. with an owl hooping close by his side."

SCENE 1. Page 222.

BOVET. His heart like an agate with your print impressed.

An allusion either to the figures of the human face often found in

agates and other stones, or to an engraved gem.

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 225.

MOTH. Master, will you win your love with a French _brawl_.

The word _brawl_ in its signification of a dance is from the French

_branle_, indicating a shaking or swinging motion. The following

accounts of this dance may be found more intelligible than that cited

from Marston. It was performed by several persons uniting hands in a

circle, and giving each other continual shakes, the steps changing with

the tune. It usually consisted of three _pas_ and a _pied-joint_, to

the time of four strokes of the bow; which being repeated was termed a

_double brawl_. With this dance balls were usually opened. _Le branle

du bouquet_ is thus described in _Deux dialogues du nouveau langage

François, Italianizé_, &c. Anvers, 1579, 24mo:--"Un des gentilhommes

et une des dames, estans les premiers en la danse, laissent les autres

(qui cependant continuent la danse) et se mettans dedans la dicte

compagnie, _vont baisans par ordre toutes les personnes qui y sont_: à

sçavoir le gentil-homme les dames, et la dame les gentils-hommes. Puis

ayans achevé leurs baisemens, au lieu qu'ils estoyent les premiers en

la danse, se mettent les derniers. Et ceste façon de faire se continue

par le gentilhomme et la dame qui sont les plus prochains, jusques à

ce qu'on vienne aux derniers."--P. 385. It is probably to this dance

that the puritan Stubbes alludes in the following words: "for what

clipping, what culling, what _kissing and bussing, what smouching and

slabbering one of another_: what filthy groping and unclean handling

is not practised every where in these dauncings? Yea the very deed

and action itselfe which I will not name for offending chaste eares,

shall bee purtrayed and shadowed foorth in their bawdy gestures of one

to another."--_Anatomie of abuses_, p. 114, edit. 1595, 4to. And John

Northbrooke, another writer _ejusdem farinæ_, in his invective called

_A treatise wherein dicing, dauncing, vaine plaies or enterludes_, &c.

1579, 4to, exclaims that "the Pagans were better and more sad than

wee be, they never knewe this newe fashion of dauncing of ours, and

uncleanely handling and groping, and _kissings_, and a very kindling

of lechery: whereto serveth all that _bassing_, as were pigeons the

birdes of Venus?" And again; "they daunce with disordinate gestures,

and with monstrous thumping of the feete, to pleasant soundes,

to wanton songues, to dishonest verses, maidens and matrons are

groped and handled with unchaste hands, _and kissed and dishonestly

embraced_," fo. 64, 66. Amidst a great variety of _brawls_ mentioned

in the very curious treatise on dancing by Thoinot Arbeau, entitled

_Orchesographie_, Lengres, 1588, 4to, there is a _Scotish brawl_, with

the music, which is here given as a specimen of an old Scotish tune.

[Music]

The facetious macaronic poet Antony Sablon, or de Arena, whose work

Camden says he "kept as a jewel," has left the following description of

a brawl:--

_Modus dansandi branlos._

"Ipse modis branlos debes dansare duobus,

Simplos et duplos usus habere solet.

Sed branlos duplos, passus tibi quinque laborent.

Tres fac avantum, sed reculando duos,

Quattuor in mensura ictus marchabis eundo,

Atque retornando quattuor ipse dabis."

This dance continued in fashion in our own country so late as the

year 1693, when Playford published a book of tunes in which a _brawl_

composed by Mons. Paisable occurs; and see many of the little French

pieces in the _Theatre de la foire_, 1721.

SCENE 1. Page 225.

MOTH. _Canary_ it with your feet.

The _canary_ was another very favourite dance. In the translation

of Leo's _Description of Africa_, by Pory, 1600, folio, there is an

additional account of the _Canary islands_, in which the author,

speaking of the inhabitants, says, "They were and are at this day

delighted with a kind of dance which they use also in Spain, and in

other places, and because it took originall from thence, it is called

_the Canaries_." Thoinot Arbeau likewise mentions this opinion, but

is himself, in common with some others, inclined to think that the

dance originated from a ballet composed for a masquerade, in which the

performers were habited as kings and queens of Morocco, or as savages

with feathers of different colours. He then describes it as follows:--A

lady is taken out by a gentleman, and after dancing together to the

cadences of the proper air, he leads her to the end of the hall; this

done he retreats back to the original spot, always looking at the lady.

Then he makes up to her again, with certain steps, and retreats as

before. His partner performs the same ceremony, which is several times

repeated by both parties, with various strange fantastic steps, very

much in the savage style. This dance was sometimes accompanied by the

castagnets. The following _Canary_ tune is from Arbeau.

[Music]

SCENE 1. Page 236.

COST. Guerdon,--O sweet guerdon!

Mr. Steevens deduces this word from the middle age Latin _regardum_.

It is presumed that few, if any, words are derived from the Latin of

that period, which itself was rather corrupted by the introduction of

terms from the living languages of Europe Latinized by the Monkish

writers. _Guerdon_, as used by us, is immediately from the French: not

equivalent, as some have imagined, with _don_ de _guerre_, but formed

from the Teutonic _werd_ or _wurth_, i. e. _price_, _value_.

SCENE 1. Page 237.

BIRON. This _wimpled_, whining, purblind, wayward boy.

If, as Mr. Steevens observes, the advocates for Shakspeare's learning,

on a presumption that he might have been acquainted with the Roman

_flammeum_, or seen the celebrated gem of the marriage of Cupid

and Psyche, had applauded the choice of his epithet, it is certain

they would have shown very little skill or critical judgment on the

occasion. By _wimpled_, Shakspeare means no more than that Cupid was

hood-winked, alluding to the usual representation in paintings where he

is exhibited with a bandage over his eyes. It may be observed here that

the blindness of the God of love is not warranted by the authority of

any ancient classic author, but appears to have been the invention of

some writer of the middle ages; not improbably Boccaccio, who in his

_Genealogy of the Gods_ gives the following account: "Oculos autem illi

fascia tegunt, ut advertamus amantes ignorare quo tendant; nulla eorum

esse indicia, nullæ rerum distinctiones, sed sola passione duci."--Lib.

ix. c. 4.

The oldest English writer who has noticed the blindness of love is

Chaucer, in his translation of the _Roman de la rose_:

"The God of love, _blind as stone_."

But this line is not in the French original. Shakspeare himself has

well accounted for Cupid's blindness:

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,

And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind."

_M. N. Dream_, Act I. Scene 1.

SCENE 1. Page 240.

BIRON. And I to be a corporal of the field.

Dr. Farmer's quotation of the line from Ben Jonson, "As corporal of

the field, maestro del campo," has the appearance, without perhaps

the intention, of suggesting that these officers were the same:

this, however, was not the fact. In Styward's _Pathway to martiall

discipline_, 1581, 4to, there is a chapter on the office of _maister

of the campe_, and another on _the electing and office of the foure

corporalls of the fields_; from which it appears that "two of the

latter were appointed for placing and ordering of shot, and the other

two for embattailing of the pikes and billes, who according to their

worthinesse, if death hapneth, are to succeede the great sergeant or

sergeant major."

SCENE 1. Page 241.

BIRON. ... like a _German clock_.

Such part of Mr. Steevens's note as relates to the invention of clocks

may, in a future edition, be rendered more correct by consulting

Beckman's _History of inventions_. It is certain that we had clocks in

England before the reign of Elizabeth; but they were not in general

use till that time, when most, if not all, of them were imported from

Germany. These clocks resembled what are still made for the use of the

lower classes of people by several ingenious Germans established in

London.

SCENE 1. Page 242.

BIRON. Some men must love my lady, and some Joan.

Alluding to the homely proverb, "Joan's as good as my lady in the

dark:" and in Markham's _Health to the gentlemanly profession of

serving men_, sign. I. 3, we have, "What hath Joan to do with my lady?"

ACT IV.

SCENE 1. Page 243.

PRIN. ... my friend, where is the bush

That we must stand and play the murderer in?

The practice of ladies shooting at deer in this passage alluded to,

is of great antiquity, as may be collected from Strutt's _Sports and

pastimes of the people of England_, p. 9. The old romances abound with

such incidents; but one of the most diverting is recorded in _The

history of prince Arthur_, part 3, chap. cxxiv. where a lady huntress

wounds Sir Lancelot of the Lake, instead of a deer, in a manner most

"comically tragical."

SCENE 1. Page 246.

COST. God-dig-you-den all.

"A corruption," says Mr. Malone very justly, "of God give you good

even." Howel, at the end of his _Parley of the beasts_, has an

advertisement relating to orthography, in which, after giving several

examples that the French do not speak as they write, he observes that

"the English come not short of him (the Frenchman); for whereas he

writes, _God give you good evening_, he often saies, _Godi_, _godin_."

But the whole of what Howel has said on this subject is unfairly

pillaged from _Claude de Sainliens_, or, as he chose to call himself

in this country, _Hollyband_; who after very successfully retorting a

charge made by the English, that Frenchmen do not sound their words as

they spell them, is nevertheless content to admit that his countrymen

do _sometimes_ err, as when they say _avoo disné_, for _avez vous

disné_? See his treatise _De pronuntiatione linguæ Gallicæ_, Lond.

1580, 12mo, p. 81. This person was a teacher of languages in London,

and wrote several ingenious works, among which is the _first_ French

and English dictionary, 1580, and 1593, 4to; afterwards much amplified

by Randle Cotgrave, and by him rendered the best repertory of old

French that is extant. It is in other respects an extremely valuable

work.

SCENE 1. Page 49.

BOVET. A phantasm, a _Monarcho_.

Another trait of this person's character is preserved in Scot's

_Discoverie of witchcraft_, edit. 1584, p. 54, where, speaking of the

influence of melancholy on the imagination, he says, "the Italian, whom

we call here in England _the Monarch_, was possessed of the like spirit

or conceipt." This conceit was, that all the ships which came into port

belonged to him.

SCENE 2. Page 526.

Enter HOLOFERNES.

A part of Mr. Steevens's note requires the following

correction:--Florio's _First fruites_ were _printed_ in 1578, 4to, by

Thomas Dawson. In 1598 he dedicated his Italian and English dictionary

to Roger Earl of Rutland, Henry Earl of Southampton, and Lucy Countess

of Bedford. As to the edition of 1595, mentioned by Mr. Steevens, does

it really exist, or has not too much confidence been placed in the

elegant but inaccurate historian of English poetry? See vol. iii. p.

465, note (h).

SCENE 2. Page 262.

HOL. _Dictynna_, goodman Dull; _Dictynna_, goodman Dull.

It is possible, as Mr. Steevens has remarked, that Shakspeare might

have found Diana's title of _Dictynna_ in Golding's Ovid; but there

is reason for supposing that he had seen an English translation of

Boccaccio's _Genealogy of the Gods_, though we have it not at present.

E. Kerke, in his notes on Spenser's _Shepherd's calendar_, quotes this

work; yet he might have used the original. From the same source it

was possible for Shakspeare to have acquired the present information,

as well as what other mythology he stood in need of. The Latin

dictionaries of Eliot and Cooper would likewise supply him with similar

materials.

SCENE 3. Page 274.

BIRON. Thou mak'st the _triumviry_, the corner-cap of society,

_The shape of love's Tyburn_ that hangs up simplicity.

An allusion to the gallows of the time, which was occasionally

_triangular_. Such a one is seen in some of the cuts to the first

edition of Holinshed's _Chronicle_, and in other ancient prints.

SCENE 3. Page 276.

BIRON. By earth she is _but corporal_; there you lie.

This is Theobald's alteration from the old reading, which was, "She

is not, Corporal, there you lie," and has been adopted by the modern

editors from its apparent ingenuity. A little attention may serve to

show that no change was necessary, and that the original text should

be restored. Theobald says that Dumain had _no post in the army_, and

asks what wit there is in calling him corporal. The answer is, As much

as there had already been in Biron's calling himself _a corporal of

Cupid's field_; a title equally appropriate to Dumain on the present

occasion. To render the matter still clearer, it may be observed that

Biron does not give the lie to Dumain's assertion that his mistress

was a _divinity_, as presumed by the amended reading, but to that of

her being _the wonder of a mortal eye_. Dumain is answered sentence by

sentence.

SCENE 3. Page 276.

DUM. Her amber hairs for foul have amber _coted_.

Mr. Steevens's explanation of _coted_, and of the whole line, is

inadmissible. _Foulness_ or _cloudiness_ is no criterion of the

_beauty_ of amber. Mr. Malone has partly explained _coted_, by

_marked_, but has apparently missed the sense of it here when he adds

_written down_. Mr. Mason has given the true construction of the line,

but he mistakes the meaning of _coted_, which, after all, merely

signifies to _mark_ or _note_. The word is from the French _coter_,

which, in like manner as Mr. Malone has well observed of the English

term, is the old orthography of _quoter_. The grammatical construction

is, "her amber hairs have marked or shown that [real] amber is foul in

comparison of themselves."

SCENE. 3. Page 291.

LONG. Some tricks, some _quillets_, how to cheat the Devil.

The objection to Warburton's derivation of _quillet_ from the _French_

is, that there is no such term in the language: nor is it exclusively

applicable to law-chicane, though generally so used by Shakspeare. It

strictly means a _subtilty_, and seems to have originated among the

schoolmen of the middle ages, by whom it was called a _quidlibet_.

They had likewise their _quodlibets_ and their _quiddities_. From the

schoolmen these terms were properly enough transferred to the lawyers.

Hamlet says, "Why may not that be the scull of a lawyer? where be

his _quiddits_ now, his _quillets_, his cases, his tenures and his

tricks?" The conjectures of Peck, and after him of Dr. Grey in a note

to Hudibras, seem to merit but little attention.

SCENE 3. Page 294.

BIRON. Still climbing trees in the _Hesperides_.

An error is here laid to Shakspeare's charge, of which he is not

perhaps guilty. The expression _trees in the Hesperides_ must be

regarded as elliptical, and signifies _trees in the gardens of the

Hesperides_. Shakspeare is seldom wrong in his mythology, and, if

he had doubted on the present occasion, the dictionaries of Eliot

or Cooper would have supplied him with the necessary information.

The first quotation in the note from Greene, is equally elliptical;

for this writer was too good a scholar to have committed the mistake

ascribed to Shakspeare: so that the passage, instead of convicting

the latter, does in reality support him. As to the other quotation

from _Orpheus and Eurydice_, the learned critic himself lays but

little stress on it; or indeed might, on reconsideration, be disposed

to think the expression correct. It would not be difficult to trace

instances in modern authors of the use of _Hesperides_ for _gardens of

the Hesperides_. See Lempriere's excellent classical dictionary, edit.

1792, 8vo.

ACT V.

SCENE 1. Page 302.

HOL. His humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his _tongue

filed_.--

Mr Steevens has remarked that Chaucer, Skelton, and Spenser are

frequent in their use of this phrase, but he has offered no

explanation. It signifies _polished language_; thus Turbervile, in his

translation of _Ovid's epistles_, makes Phyllis say to her lover--

"Thy many smooth and _filed_ wordes

Did purchase credites place."

SCENE 1. Page 306.

ARM. ... a sweet touch, a quick _venew_ of wit.

The _cut and thrust_ notes on this occasion exhibit a complete _match_

between the two great Shakspearean _maisters of defence_. "A venew,"

says Mr. Steevens, "is the technical term for a _bout_ (or _set-to_,

as he had before called it in vol. iii. p. 317,) at the fencing

school." On the other hand, Mr. Malone maintains that "a venue is _not_

a _bout_ at fencing, but a _hit_;" and his opponent retorts on the

ground of _positiveness_ of denial. As the present writer has himself

been an amateur and practitioner of the noble science of defence, he

undertakes on this occasion the office of umpire between the sturdy

combatants.

The quotations adduced on either side are not calculated to ascertain

the clear and genuine sense of the word _venew_, and it is therefore

necessary to seek for more decisive evidence respecting its meaning.

Howel in his _Lexicon tetraglotton_, 1660, mentions "a veny in fencing;

venue, _touche_, toca;" and afterwards more fully in his vocabulary,

sect. xxxii. "A foin, _veny_, or stoccado; la botta; la _touche_, le

_coup_." In Sir John Harrington's _Life of Dr. Still_, is the following

expression, "he would not sticke to warne them in the arguments to

take heede to their answers, like a perfect fencer that will tell

afore-hand in which button he will give the _venew_." _Nugæ antiquæ_,

vol. ii. p. 158, edit. 1804, by Park. In Ben Jonson's _Every man in

his humour_, Act I. Scene 5, Bobadil, in answer to Master Matthew's

request for _one venue_, says, "Venue! fie: most gross denomination as

ever I heard; O, the _stoccata_, while you live, sir, note that." On

this passage, Mr. Reed, in a note on the play of _The widow's tears_,

Dodsley's _Old plays_, vol. vi. 152, observes that "the word appears to

have been out of fashion with the fantastic gallants of the time very

early." Its occurrence however so late as the time in which Howel's

dictionary was published seems to render this ingenious remark very

questionable, and suggests another explanation of Bobadil's wish to

change the word, namely, his coxcombly preference of the terms of the

Spanish and Italian schools of fencing to those used in the English,

which, it is presumed, were more immediately borrowed from our Gallic

neighbours. That the terms _stoccado_ and _imbrocato_ denoted a _hit_

or thrust, may be collected from many passages in Vincent Saviolo's

_Use of the rapier and dagger_, 1595, 4to; and in Florio's Italian

dictionary, 1598, folio, _stoccata_ is rendered, _a foyne, a thrust

given in fence_; and _tocco, a venie at fence, a hit_. All the above

circumstances considered, one should feel inclined to adjudge the palm

of victory to Mr. Malone.

It is however remarkable enough that Mr. Steevens is accidentally

right in defining a _venew_ a _bout_, without being aware of the

signification of the latter word. Florio renders _botta_, a _blowe_,

a _stroake_. In the best of all the ancient French treatises on the

art of fencing, entitled _Traicté sur l'espée seule, mere de toutes

armes_, &c., by Henry De Sainct Didier, Paris, 1573, 4to, it is said,

"_bottes_ en Napollitain, vaut autant à dire, que _coups_ en François."

He then mentions five sorts of _bottes_, viz. _maindrette_, _renverse_,

_fendante_, _estoccade_, and _imbroucade_. Nevertheless the word _bout_

had been used in the sense of a _set-to_ in Shakspeare's time. In _The

first part of King Henry the Sixth_, Act I. Scene 5, Talbot says to

the Pucelle, "I'll have a _bout_ with thee." It retained, however, its

original meaning long afterwards. Howel, and Sherwood likewise in his

English dictionary at the end of Cotgrave have "a boute, coup," and so

it is defined by Skinner: but the following passage from the account

given by Sir Thomas Urquhart in his singular book entitled _A discovery

of a most exquisite jewel found in the kennel of Worcester streets_,

&c. 1652, 12mo, of the combat between the admirable Crichton and the

celebrated Mantuan duellist, will put the matter beyond all doubt.

"Then was it that to vindicate the reputation of the duke's family and

to expiate the blood of the three vanquished gentlemen, he alonged a

_stoccade de pied ferme_; then recoyling, he advanced another thrust,

and lodged it home; after which retiring again, his right foot did beat

the cadence of the blow that pierced the belly of this Italian, whose

heart and throat being hit with the two former stroaks, these _three

franch bouts_ given in upon the back of other ... by them he was to be

made a sacrifice of atonement for the slaughter of the three aforesaid

gentlemen who were wounded in the very same parts of their bodies by

other such _three venees_ as these." The same mode of expression is

also used by the same writer in a subsequent account of a duel between

Francis Sinclair, a natural son of the Earl of Caithness, and a German,

at Vienna; where it was agreed that he who should give the other the

first _three bouts_, should have a pair of golden spurs, in the event

of which combat Sinclair "gave in two _venees_ more than he was obliged

to."

On the whole therefore it appears that _venew_ and _bout_ equally

denote a _hit_ in fencing; that both Mr. Steevens and Mr. Malone are

right in this respect; but that the former gentleman is inaccurate in

supposing a _venew_ to mean a _set-to_, and the latter equally so in

asserting that "a _venew_ is _not_ a _bout_."

SCENE 1. Page 311.

DULL. I will play on the tabor to the worthies, and let them dance

the _hay_.

This dance was borrowed by us from the French. It is classed among the

_brawls_ in Thoinot Arbeau's _Orchesographie_, already mentioned in

page 135.

SCENE 2. Page 312.

ROS. For he hath been five thousand years a boy.

KATH. Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too.

This description of Cupid is borrowed from some lines in Sidney's

_Arcadia_, B. ii. See them already quoted on another occasion by Dr.

Farmer in _Much ado about nothing_, Act III. Scene 2.

SCENE 2. Page 316.

ROS. That he should be my _fool_, and I his _fate_.

Dr. Warburton's conclusion that _fate_ here signifies _death_ is not

satisfactory. Death would be an awkward character for Rosaline to

assume, but that of _dame fortune_ infinitely more natural.

It must be owned that destiny and fortune are, strictly speaking, very

different characters; yet they have sometimes been confounded. Even

Pindar, as Pausanias observes, has made fortune one of the _Parcæ_. In

_Julius Cæsar_, the expression, "he is but fortune's _knave_," seems

to resemble the present, and to mean, "he is the servant of fortune

and _bound to obey her_." Shakspeare is very fond of alluding to the

_mockery_ of fortune. Thus we have

"O I am fortune's fool."

_Romeo and Juliet._

"Ye fools of fortune."

_Timon of Athens._

"I am the natural fool of fortune."

_King Lear._

In the last of which passages a pointed allusion is made to the _idiot

fool_. Sir J. Suckling uses the same expression in his play of _The

goblins_; and Hamlet speaks of "the fools of nature," precisely in the

same sense.

SCENE 2. Page 327.

BOVET. Fleeter than arrows, _bullets_, wind, thought, swifter

things.

The word _bullets_ is doubtless an interpolation in the manuscript by

some ignorant person who thought it more appropriate than _arrows_, on

account of the substitution of fire-arms for archery. It might very

properly be omitted in the text, without any diminution of editorial

accuracy.

SCENE 2. Page 330.

BOVET. Fair ladies mask'd are roses in their bud;

Dismask'd their damask sweet commixture shown,

Are _angels vailing clouds_, or roses blown.

Of the several explanations here offered of _vailing_, Dr. Johnson's

is the best. The poet compares a lady unmasking to an angel dispelling

the clouds in his descent from heaven to earth. The term is from the

old French _avaler_ to _put_ or _let down_; the true etymology of which

appears in the phrase _à mont et à val_, from top to bottom, from

_mountain_ to _valley_, which very often occurs in old romances. In

that of the _Saint Graal_, MS. we have "et avalerent aval le vessel."

In Spenser's _Shepherd's calendar_, under January, "By that the welked

Phœbus gan _availe_."

SCENE 2. Page 339.

BIRON. _Three pil'd_ hyperboles.

So in Fennor's _Compter's commonwealth_, 1617, 4to, p. 14, we

have "_three pil'd_, huge Basilisco oaths, that would have torne a

roring-boyes eares in a thousand shatters."

SCENE 2. Page 345.

COST. You cannot _beg us_, sir.

It has been already stated that it was not the next relation only who

begged the wardship of _idiots_ in order to obtain possession of their

property, but any person who could make interest with the sovereign

to whom the legal guardianship belongs. Frequent allusions to this

practice occur in the old comedies. In illustration of it, Mr. Ritson

has given a curious story, which, as it is mutilated in the authority

which he has used, is here subjoined from a more original source, a

collection of tales, &c., compiled about the time of Charles the First,

preserved among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum, No. 6395. "The

Lord North begg'd old Bladwell for a foole (though he could never prove

him so), and having him in his custodie as a lunaticke, he carried

him to a gentleman's house, one day, that was his neighbour. The L.

North and the gentleman retir'd awhile to private discourse, and left

Bladwell in the dining roome, which was hung with a faire hanging;

Bladwell walking up and downe, and viewing the imagerie, spyed a foole

at last in the hanging, and without delay drawes his knife, flyes at

the foole, cutts him cleane out, and layes him on the floore; my L. and

the gentl. coming in againe, and finding the tapestrie thus defac'd, he

ask'd Bladwell what he meant by such a rude uncivill act; he answered

Sʳ. be content, I have rather done you a courtesie than a wrong, for if

ever my L. N. had seene the foole there, he would have begg'd him, and

so you might have lost your whole suite." The same story, but without

the parties' names, is related in Fuller's _Holy state_, p. 182. Powel,

in his _Attourney's academy_, 1630, 4to, says, "I shall neede to give

you this monitorie instruction touching an _ideot_; that you be assured

that yourselfe is somewhat the wiser man before you goe about to _beg

him_, or else never meddle with him at all, lest you chance to play

at handy-dandy, which is the guardian or which is the foole? and the

case alter, _è converso_, _ad conversum_." In _A treatise of taxes_,

1667, 4to, p. 43, there is the following passage: "Now because the

world abounds with this kind of fools, (Lottery fools,) it is not fit

that every man that will may cheat every man that would be cheated; but

it is rather ordained that the sovereign should have the guardianship

of these fools, _or that some favourite should beg the sovereign's

right of taking advantage of such men's folly, even as in the case

of lunatics and ideots_." To this practice too, Butler alludes, in

_Hudibras_, part iii. canto I, l. 590.

"Beg one another idiot

To guardians, ere they are begot."

Mr. Justice Blackstone, in treating of idiots, has spoken of it; and

adds in a note, that the king's power of delegating the custody of them

to some subject who has interest enough on the occasion, has of late

been very rarely exerted.

SCENE 2. Page 350.

BIRON. The Pedant, the Braggart, the Hedge-priest, the Fool And the

boy:--

Abate a throw at _novum_; and the whole world again,

Cannot prick out _five_ such, take each one in his vein.

The game of _novum_ or _novem_, here alluded to, requires further

illustration to render the _whole_ of the above passage intelligible.

It is therefore necessary to state that it was _properly_ called _novum

quinque_, from the two principal throws of the dice, nine and five; and

then Biron's meaning becomes perfectly clear, according to the reading

of the old editions. The above game was called in French _quinquenove_,

and is said to have been invented in Flanders.

SCENE 2. Page 351.

Pageant of the nine worthies.

The _genuine_ worthies were Joshua, David, Judas Maccabeus, Hector,

Alexander, Julius Cæsar, Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey of

Bulloigne, or sometimes in his room Guy of Warwick. Why Shakspeare, in

the _five_ of them only whom he has introduced by name, has included

Hercules and Pompey, remains to be accounted for. It was a great pity

to omit, on this occasion, the very curious specimen of an ancient

pageant given by Mr. Ritson, who, in stating that nothing of the kind

had ever appeared in print, seems to have forgotten the pageants of

Dekker, Middleton, and others, a list of which may be found in Baker's

_Biographia dramatica_, vol. ii. 270.

SCENE 2. Page 353.

BIRON. Your nose _smells_ no, in this, most _tender smelling_

knight.

He is addressing, or rather ridiculing Alexander. Plutarch in his life

of that hero relates, on the authority of Aristoxenus, that his skin

"had a marvellous good savour, and that his breath was very sweet,

in so much that _his body had so sweet a smell_ of itselfe that all

the apparell he wore next unto his body, tooke thereof a passing

delightfull savour, as if it had been perfumed." This Shakspeare had

read in Sir Thomas North's translation.

SCENE 2. Page 353.

COST. Your lion, that holds his _poll-ax_ sitting, &c.

The clown's Cloacinian allusion to the arms of Alexander is a wilful

_blunder_, for the purpose of introducing his subsequent joke about

Ajax. These are the arms themselves copied from the _Roman des neuf

preux_, Abbeville, 1487, folio, showing that the chair is not a

chaise-perçée.

[Illustration]

The modern _patent Bramahs_ were in Shakspeare's time called _Ajaxes_.

Thus in _The hospitall of incurable fooles_, 1600, 4to, fo. 7:

"Whoever saw so many odd mechanicks as are at this day, who not with

a geometricall spirite like Archimedes, but even with arte surpassing

the profoundest Cabalistes, who instead of a pigeon loft, place in the

garrets of houses, _portable_ and commodious _Ajaxes_." The marginal

explanation comes _closer_ to the point. Again, "the Romans might well

be numbered amongst those three-elbowed fooles in adoring Stercutio for

a God, shamefully constituting him a patron and protector of _Ajax_ and

his commodities," fo. 6.

SCENE 2. Page 360.

COST. I will not fight with a _pole_, like a _northern man_.

On this passage Dr. Farmer says, "_Vir borealis_, a clown, See glossary

to Urry's Chaucer." The Doctor's notes are generally clear and

instructive, but in this instance he is obscure. It is presumed that

he intends to refer the reader to the word _borel_ in Urry's glossary,

where it is properly explained _a clown_. Whether _borel_ be derived

from _borealis_ may be questioned; but Shakspeare in all probability

was unacquainted with this word and its etymology. Does he not refer to

the particular use of the quarter staff in the Northern counties?

SCENE 2. Page 367.

PRIN. As _bombast_, and as lining to the time.

_Bombast_ is from the Italian _bombagia_, which signifies all sorts

of cotton wool. Hence the stuff called _bombasine_. The cotton put

into ink was called _bombase_. "Need you any inke and _bombase_?"

Hollyband's _Italian schole-maister_, 1579, 12mo, sign. E. 3.

THE CLOWN.

The clown in this play is a mere country fellow. The term _fool_

applied to him in Act V. Scene 2, means nothing more than a _silly

fellow_. He has not sufficient simplicity for a natural fool, nor wit

enough for an artificial one.

It will probably be discovered at some future time that this play was

borrowed from a French novel. The _dramatis personæ_ in a great measure

demonstrate this, as well as a palpable Gallicism in Act IV. Scene 1,

viz. the terming a _letter_ a _capon_.

MERCHANT OF VENICE.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 397.

SALAR. There, where your _argosies_, with portly sail

Like signiors and rich burghers _of_ the flood,

Or as it were the _Pageants_ of the sea,

Do overpeer the petty traffickers.

Argosies are properly defined to be "ships of great burthen," and so

they are described almost wherever they are mentioned. Mr. Steevens

has quoted Rycaut's _Maxims of Turkish polity_, to show that the term

originated in a corruption of _Ragosies_, i. e. ships of _Ragusa_.

However specious this may appear, it is to be observed that Rycaut,

a writer at the end of the seventeenth century, only states it as _a

matter of report_, not as a _fact_; and he seems to have followed the

slight authority of Roberts's _Marchant's map of commerce_. If any

instance shall be produced of the use of such a word as _ragosie_, the

objection must be given up. In the mean time it may be permitted to

hazard another opinion, which is, that the word in question derives

its origin from the famous ship _Argo_: and indeed Shakspeare himself

appears to have hinted as much; for the story of Jason is twice

adverted to in the course of this play. On one of these occasions

Gratiano certainly alludes to Antonio's argosie when he says,

"We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece."

Act III. Scene 2.

Gregory of Tours has more than once made use of _Argis_ to express a

ship generally. With respect to _Ragozine_, it has been contended in a

former note, page 89, that this name ought not to have been introduced

in the discussion of the present subject.

Mr. Steevens remarks that both ancient and modern editors have hitherto

been content to read "burghers _on_ the flood;" and, on the authority

of a line in which we have "burghers _of a city_," he has substituted

"burghers _of_ the flood." He might have been less inclined to this

new reading, had he recollected that the "signiors and rich burghers

_on_ the flood" are the Venetians, who may well be said to live _on_

the sea. It would be difficult to discover who are the signiors and

burghers _of_ the flood, unless they be whales and porpoises.

In calling argosies _the pageants of the sea_, Shakspeare alludes to

those enormous machines, in the shapes of castles, dragons, ships,

giants, &c., that were drawn about the streets in the ancient shows or

pageants, and which often constituted the most important part of them.

SCENE 1. Page 399.

SALAN. Now, by _two-headed Janus_.

Dr. Warburton's note may well be spared in all future editions. If

Shakspeare have shown a knowledge of the antique, which he might have

obtained from his dictionary at school, the Doctor has, unluckily, on

this occasion proved himself less profound in it than Shakspeare, or he

would not have ventured to assert that the heads of Janus were those of

Pan and Bacchus, Saturn and Apollo, &c. It is presumed that these heads

will continue to perplex the learned for many generations.

SCENE 2. Page 410.

POR. If a _throstle_ sing.

Notwithstanding the apparent difference in opinion between Messrs.

Steevens and Malone respecting this bird, they are both right. The

throstle is only a variety of the thrush, as will be seen by consulting

Mr. Pennant's Account of English birds. In _The new general history

of birds_, 1745, 12mo, there is an account of "the song-thrush, or

throstle;" and see Randle Holme's _Academy of armory_, book ii. ch. 12,

no. lxxiii.

SCENE 3. Page 413.

Enter SHYLOCK.

His stage dress should be _a scarlet hat lined with black taffeta_.

This is the manner in which the Jews of Venice were formerly

distinguished. See Saint Didier _Histoire de Venise_. In the year 1581

they wore _red caps_ for distinction's sake, as appears from Hakluyt's

_Voyages_, p. 179, edit. 1589. Lord Verulam, in his Essay on usury,

speaking of the witty invectives that men have made against usury,

states one of them to be "that usurers should have _orange-tawny

bonnets_, because they do _Judaize_."

SCENE 3. Page 414.

SHY. He lends out money gratis, and brings down

The rate of usance here with us in Venice.

"It is almost incredyble what gaine the Venetians receive by the usury

of the Jewes, both pryvately and in common. For in everye citee the

Jewes kepe open shops of usurie, taking gaiges of ordinarie for xv

in the hundred by the yere; and if at the yeres ende the gaige be

not redemed, it is forfeite, or at the least dooen away to a great

disadvantage: by reason whereof the Jewes are out of measure wealthie

in those parties."--Thomas's _Historye of Italye_, 1561, 4to, fo. 77.

SCENE 3. Page 416.

SHY. He stuck them up before the _fulsome_ ewes.

_Fulsome_ has, doubtless, the same signification as the preceding

epithet _rank_, the physical reason for its application being very

generally known. "Ικτιδος _pellis_. Proverbium apud Germanos in

vilissimum quodque et maxime _fœtidum_ scortum. Nam Ictis, id est

sylvestris mustela cum graviter exarserit, male olet." Erasmi _Adagia_.

Spenser makes one of his shepherds speak thus of a kid:

"The blossoms of lust to bud did beginne

And spring forth _ranckly_ under his chinne."

_Fulsome_ is from the Gothic _fuls_, i. e. _foul_, _fœtid_. That it

sometimes had another root, viz. _full_, is manifest from the line in

Golding's _Ovid_, whose expression "fulsome dugs" is in the original

"_pleno_ ubere," but is of no service on the present occasion, though

quoted by Mr. Steevens.

SCENE 3. Page 418.

SHY. About my money and my _usances_.

Mr. Steevens asserts that _use_ and _usance_ anciently signified

_usury_, but both his quotations show the contrary. Mr. Ritson very

properly asks whether Mr. Steevens is not mistaken; and Mr. Reed,

maintaining that he is right, adduces a passage which _proves_ him

to be _wrong_. A gentleman, says Wylson, borrowed 1000 pounds,

running still upon _usury_ and _double usury_. "The merchants termyng

it _usance_ and _double usance_, by _a more clenly name_," i. e.

_interest_, till he owed the usurer five thousand pounds, &c. The

sense was obscured by the omission of an important comma after the

word _name_. Mr. Malone's note was quite adequate to the purpose of

explanation.

SCENE 3. Page 421.

SHY. ... seal me there

Your single bond; and in _a merry sport_,

If you repay me not, &c.

Thus in the ballad of _Gernutus_:

"But we will have _a merry jeast_

For to be talked long;

You shall make me _a bond_, quoth he.

That shall be large and strong."

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 423.

MOR. But let us make incision for your love,

To prove whose blood is _reddest_, his, or mine.

Dr. Johnson's observation that "red blood is a traditionary sign

of courage" derives support from our English Pliny, Bartholomew

Glantville, who says, after Isidorus, "_Reed_ clothes ben layed upon

deed men in remembrance of theyr _hardynes_ and _boldnes_, whyle they

were in theyr bloudde." On which his commentator Batman remarks: "It

appereth in the time of the Saxons that the manner over their dead was

a _red_ cloath, as we now use black. The _red_ of _valiauncie_, and

that was over kings, lords, knights and valyaunt souldiours."

SCENE 2. Page 426.

LAUN. Do not run; scorn _running with thy heels_.

Mr. Steevens calls this _absurdity_, and introduces a brother critic,

Sir Hugh Evans, who had maintained that "he hears with ears" was

_affectations_: both the parties had forgotten their Bible. As to the

proposed alteration "_withe_ thy heels," it might be asked, who ever

heard of a person _binding_ his _own heels_ to prevent running? Mr.

Malone has well defended the consistency of Launcelot's speech. It may

be added that in _King Richard II._ Act V. Scene 3, we have "_kneel_

upon my _knees_."

SCENE 2. Page 427.

LAUN. Well, my _conscience_ says--Launcelot, budge not; budge,

says the _fiend_; budge not, says my _conscience_.

It is not improbable that this curious struggle between Launcelot's

conscience and the fiend might have been suggested by some well-known

story in Shakspeare's time, grafted on the following Monkish fable. It

occurs in a collection of apologues that remain only in manuscript,

and have been severally ascribed to Hugo of Saint Victor, and Odo de

Sheriton or Shirton, an English Cistercian Monk of the 12th century.

"Multi sunt sicut mulier delicata et pigra. Talis vero mulier dum jacet

mane in lecto et audit pulsari ad missam, cogitat secum quod vadat ad

missam. Et cum _caro_, quæ pigra est, timet frigus, respondet et dicit,

Quare ires ita mane, nonne scis quod clerici pulsant campanas propter

oblationes? dormi adhuc; et sic transit pars diei. Postea iterum

_conscientia pungit eam_ quod vadat ad missam. Sed _caro_ respondet, et

dicit, Quare ires tu tam cito ad ecclesiam? certè tu destrueres corpus

tuum si ita manè surrexeris, et hoc Deus non vult ut homo destruat

seipsum; ergo quiesce et dormi. Et transit alia pars diei. Iterum

_conscientia pungit eam_ quod vadat ad ecclesiam; sed _caro_ dicit, Ut

quid ires tam cito? Ego bene scio quod talis vicina tua nondum vadit

ad ecclesiam; dormi parum adhuc. Et sic transit alia pars diei. Postea

_pungit eam conscientia_; sed _caro_ dicit, Non oportet quod adhuc

vadas, quia sacerdos est curialis et bene expectabit te; attende et

dormi. Et sic dormiendo transit tempus. Et tamen ad ultimum verecundia

tacita atque coacta, surgit et vadit ad ecclesiam, et invenit portas

clausas." Then follows the moral of the fable, in which the church

is repentance, the bells the preachers. The lazy flesh prevails over

conscience, till, on the approach of death, fear dictates the sending

for the priest. An imperfect confession of sins takes place; the party

dies, and the miserable soul finds the gates of heaven shut.

SCENE 5. Page 443.

SHY. The _patch_ is kind enough.

It has been supposed that this term originated from the name of a fool

belonging to Cardinal Wolsey, and that his parti-coloured dress was

given to him in allusion to his name. The objection to this is, that

the motley habit worn by fools is much older than the time of Wolsey.

Again, it appears that _Patch_ was an appellation given not to one fool

only that belonged to Wolsey. There is an epigram by Heywood, entitled

_A saying of Patch my Lord Cardinal's foole_; but in the epigram itself

he is twice called _Sexten_, which was his real name. In a manuscript

life of Wolsey, by his gentleman usher Cavendish, there is a story

of another fool belonging to the Cardinal, and presented by him to

the King. A marginal note states that "this foole was callid _Master

Williames_, owtherwise called _Patch_."[12] In Heylin's _History of

the reformation_, mention is made of another fool called _Patch_,

belonging to Elizabeth. But the name is even older than Wolsey's time;

for in some household accounts of Henry the Seventh, there are payments

to a fool who is named _Pechie_, and _Packye_. It seems therefore more

probable on the whole that fools were nick-named _Patch_ from their

dress; unless there happen to be a nearer affinity to the Italian

_pazzo_, a word that has all the appearance of a descent from _fatuus_.

This was the opinion of Mr. Tyrwhitt in a note on _A midsummer night's

dream_, Act III. Scene 2. But although in the above instance, as well

as in a multitude of others, a _patch_ denotes a fool or simpleton,

and, by corruption, a clown, it seems to have been occasionally used

in the sense of _any low or mean person_. Thus in the passage in _A

midsummer night's dream_ just referred to, Puck calls Bottom and his

companions _a crew of patches_, _rude mechanicals_, certainly not

meaning to compare them to pampered and sleek buffoons. Whether in

this sense the term have a simple reference to that class of people

whose clothes might be pieced or _patched_ with rags; or whether it is

derived from the Saxon verb pæcan, to deceive by false appearances,

as suggested by the acute and ingenious author of _The diversions of

Purley_, must be left to the reader's own discernment.

SCENE 7. Page 450.

MOR. ... They have in England

A coin that bears the figure of an Angel

Stamped in gold; but that's _insculp'd upon_;

But here an angel in a golden bed

Lies all _within_.

To _insculp_, as Mr. Steevens has observed, means _to engrave_, but is

here put in opposition to it, and simply denotes to _carve in relief_.

The angel on the coin was _raised_; on the casket _indented_. The word

_insculp_ was however formerly used with great latitude of meaning.

Shakspeare might have caught it from the casket story in the _Gesta

Romanorum_, where it is rightly used: "the third vessell was made of

lead, and thereupon was _insculpt_ this posey, &c."

SCENE 7. Page 450.

MOR. _Gilded tombs_ do worms infold.

The old editions read _gilded timber_; and however specious the

alteration in the text, on the ground of redundancy of measure or

defect in grammar, it might have been dispensed with. _To infold_ is

_to inwrap or contain any thing_; and therefore, unless we conclude

that _do_ is an error of the press for _doth_, we must adopt the other

sense, however ungrammatically expressed, and suppose the sentiment

to be, that _timber though fenced or protected with gilding in still

liable to the worm's invasion_. The lines cited by Mr. Steevens from

the _Arcadia_ supports the original reading, as do the following from

Silvester's _Works_, edit. 1633, p. 649:

"Wealth on a cottage can a palace build,

New paint old walls, and _rotten timber guild_."

SCENE 8. Page 453.

SALAR. And for the Jew's bond, which he hath of me,

Let it not enter in your _mind of love_.

Dr. Johnson suspects a corruption. Mr. Langton would place a comma

after _mind_. The expression seems equivalent to a _loving_ or

affectionate _mind_, a mind made up of love.

SCENE 9. Page 458.

AR. What's here? the portrait of a blinking ideot,

Presenting me a schedule.

This idea suggests the story of a Jew apothecary, who, to ridicule the

Mayersbachs of his time, placed in the front of his shop the figure

of a grinning fool holding out an urinal. See Pancirollus _De rebus

deperditis_, lib. ii. tit. 1.

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 465.

SHY. It was my _turquoise_.

If the reason last assigned in Mr. Steevens's note for the value which

Shylock professes for the turquoise be entitled to any preference, the

information whereon it rests must be referred to the right owner, who

is Anselm de Boot, Nicols being only the translator of his work.

SCENE 2. Page 469.

POR. ... he makes a _swan-like_ end.

Fading in musick.

That the swan uttered musical sounds at the approach of death was

credited by Plato, Chrysippus, Aristotle, Euripides, Philostratus,

Cicero, Seneca, and Martial. Pliny, Ælian, and Athenæus, among the

ancients, and Sir Thomas More, among the moderns, treat this opinion

as a vulgar error. Luther believed in it. See his _Colloquia_, par. 2,

p. 125, edit. 1571, 8vo. Our countryman Bartholomew Glantville thus

mentions the singing of the swan: "And whan she shal dye and that a

fether is pyght in the brayn, then she syngethe, as Ambrose sayth," _De

propr. rer._ 1. xii. c. 11. Monsieur Morin has written a dissertation

on this subject in vol. v. of the _Mem. de l'acad. des inscript._ There

are likewise some curious remarks on it in Weston's _Specimens of the

conformity of the European languages with the Oriental_, p. 135; in

Seelen _Miscellanea_, tom. i. 298; and in Pinkerton's _Recollections of

Paris_, ii. 336.

SCENE 2. Page 472.

BASS. Nor none of thee, thou _pale and common drudge_

'Tween man and man.

The greatest part of the current coin being of _silver_, this metal

is here emphatically called the common drudge in the more frequent

transactions among men.

SCENE 2. Page 472.

BASS. Thy _plainness_ moves me more than eloquence.

However elegant this emendation by Dr. Warburton, it must yield to

the decisive reasoning of Dr. Farmer and Mr. Malone, in favour of

_paleness_, which ought to have been adopted in the text.

SCENE 2. Page 474.

BASS. Fair Portia's _counterfeit_?

A further illustration occurs in the beginning of Lilie's dedication

to his _Euphues_, "Parasius drawing the _counterfeit_ of Hellen, made

the attire of her head loose." In Littelton's _English and Latin

dictionary_, we have "A counterfeit of a picture, _ectypum_."

SCENE 2. Page 480.

GRA. We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece.

The meaning is "Antonio with his _argosie_ is not the successful Jason;

we are the persons who have won the fleece." See the note in p. 153.

SCENE 2. Page 480.

POR. ... else nothing in the world

Could turn so much the constitution

Of any _constant_ man.

This word occasionally signified _grave_, as in the present instance.

In Withall's _Shorte dictionarie_, 1599, 4to, fo. 105, we have "sadde,

_grave_, constant,--_gravis_." So in _Twelfth night_, when Malvolio is

under confinement, he says, "I am no more mad than you are; make the

trial of it in any _constant question_."

ACT IV.

SCENE 1. Page 501.

SHY. Why he a _swollen_ bagpipe.

We have here one of the too frequent instances of _conjectural_

readings; but it is to be hoped that all future editors will restore

the original _woollen_, after weighing not only what has been already

urged in its support, but the additional and accurate testimony of

Dr. Leyden, who in his edition of _The complaynt of Scotland_, p.

149, informs us that the Lowland bagpipe commonly had the bag or sack

covered with _woollen cloth_ of a green colour, a practice which, he

adds, prevailed in the northern counties of England.

SCENE 1. Page 506.

BASS. Why dost thou _whet thy knife_ so earnestly?

This incident occurs in the ballad of _Gernutus_, whence there is

reason to suppose it was borrowed. In 1597 was acted at Cambridge a

Latin play called _Machiavellus_, in which there is a Jew, but very

unlike Shylock. He is a shrewd intriguing fellow of considerable

humour, who, to obtain possession of a girl, puts a number of tricks

on the Machiavel of the piece, and generally outwits him. In one scene

he overhears his rival despairing of success with the father of his

mistress, and expressing a wish that he had some instrument wherewith

to put an end to his misery. On this he lays a _knife_ in his way,

but first takes care _to whet it_. To _The merchant of Venice_ or

to _Gernutus_ the Latin play was indebted. If to the former, then

Shakspeare's play must have been acted before 1597; if to the latter,

it strengthens the above conjecture that he borrowed from the ballad.

Should Gosson's _Jew shown at the Bull_ ever make its appearance, all

would be set right.

SCENE 1. Page 507.

GRA. And, whilst thou _lay'st_ in thy unhallow'd dam.

Is not this a very common misprint for _lay'dst_, where the preterite

is intended?

SCENE 1. Page 509.

POR. But mercy is above this scepter'd sway,

It is enthroned in the hearts of _kings_,

It is _an attribute to God_ himself,

And earthly power doth then show likest God's

When _mercy_ seasons justice.

This beautiful sentiment accords very much with the following speech

made by Sir James Melvil to the queen of Scots, and printed in his

_Memoirs_, p. 149, edit. 1752, 8vo. These, however, were not published

till a considerable time after his death. "For as princes are called

divine persons, so no _prince_ can pretend to this title, but he who

_draws near the nature of God_ by godliness and good government, being

slow to vengeance, and _ready to forgive_."

SCENE 1. Page 518.

GRA. Had I been judge thou should'st have had _ten_ more

To bring thee to the gallows.

We had already had an English trial by jury at Vienna. See p. 78. Here

we have one at Venice.

ACT V.

SCENE 1. Page 523.

LOR. Stood Dido with a willow in her hand.

On this passage Mr. Steevens founds an argument that Shakspeare _was

no reader of the classics_. It is true that no classical authority for

the above circumstance relating to Dido can be found, and that other

instances of our poet's errors in classical matters might be adduced;

but this will not prove his ignorance of Greek and Roman writers. On

the contrary, do not the numerous quotations from them in the notes

of his commentators afford sufficient testimony that he had read many

ancient authors through the medium of English translations? If this

had not been the case, to what end has the useful and interesting list

of such translations been drawn up and published by the above learned

critic? Wherever Shakspeare met with the image in question, it has

reference to the popular superstitions relating to the willow, which

will be more fully illustrated in some remarks on a passage in Othello.

SCENE 1. Page 529.

LOR. You shall perceive them make a mutual _stand_,

Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest _gaze_.

This is spoken of young _colts_, but the speech is only a poetical

amplification of a phrase that seems more properly to belong to _deer_.

In the _Noble arte of venerie or hunting_, ascribed to Turbervile, the

author or translator, speaking of the hart, says, "when he stayeth to

looke at any thing, then he _standeth at gaze_;" and again, "he loveth

to hear instruments and assureth himselfe when he heareth a flute

or any other sweete noyse. He marvelleth at all things, and taketh

pleasure to _gaze_ at them." See likewise Holland's translation of

_Pliny_, tom. i. p. 213.

SCENE 1. Page 530.

LOR. The man that hath no musick in himself,

Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,

Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;

The motions of his spirit, &c.

Had the sentiments in the note on this passage been expressed by Dr.

Johnson, disorganized as he was for the enjoyment of music, it would

not have been matter to wonder at: but that such a man as Mr. Steevens,

whose ordinary speech was melody, and whose correct and elegant ear

for poetical concord is so frequently manifested in the course of his

Shakspearean labours, should have shown himself a very Timon in music,

can only be accounted for by supposing that he regarded the speech

in question as a libel on his great colleague's organization. He has

here assumed a task, which Dr. Johnson would for obvious reasons have

declined; and with the feeble aid of an illiberal passage from Lord

Chesterfield's _Letters_, has most disingenuously endeavoured to cast

an odium on a science which from its intimate and natural connexion

with poetry and painting, deserves the highest attention and respect.

He that is happily qualified to appreciate the _better parts_ of music,

will never seek them in the society so emphatically reprobated by the

noble lord, nor altogether in the way he recommends. He will not lend

an ear to the vulgarity and tumultuous roar of the tavern catch, or the

delusive sounds of martial clangour; but he will enjoy this heavenly

gift, this exquisite and soul-delighting sensation, in the temples of

his God, or in the peaceful circles of domestic happiness: he will

pursue the blessings and advantages of it with ardour, and turn aside

from its abuses.

The quotation which Mr. Steevens has given from Peacham, is in reality

an _encomium_ on music as practised in the time of Shakspeare. It

indicates that gentlemen then associated with their equals only in

the pursuit of this innocent recreation; and the same writer would

have furnished many other observations that tend to place the science

of music in an amiable, or at least in a harmless point of view.

Mr. Steevens might have also recollected that Cicero has called it

"Stabilem thesaurum, qui _mores_ instituit, componitque, ac mollit

irarum ardores." It will be readily conceded that Shakspeare has

overcharged the speech before us, and that it by no means follows

that a man who is unmusical must be a traitor, a Machiavel, a robber;

or that he is deserving of no confidence. This, however, is all

that should have occupied the commentator's notice; and herein his

castigation would have been really meritorious. The Italians too have

a proverb that is equally reprehensible: "Whom God loves not, that man

loves not music." Let such extravagancies be consigned to the censure

they deserve!

SCENE 1. Page 542.

GRA. ... The first _intergatory_

That my Nerissa shall besworn on----

This word being nothing more than a contraction of _interrogatory_,

should be elliptically printed, _inter'gatory_.

THE CLOWN.

There is not a single circumstance through the whole of this play which

constitutes Lancelot an _allowed fool or jester_; and yet there is some

reason for supposing that Shakspeare intended him as such, from his

being called _a patch_, a _fool_ of Hagar's offspring, and in one place

_the_ fool. It is not reasonable, however, to conclude that a person

like Shylock would entertain a domestic of this description; and it is

possible that the foregoing terms may be merely designed as synonymous

with the appellation of _clown_, as in _Love's labour's lost_. On the

whole, we have here a proof that Shakspeare has not observed that nice

discrimination of character in his clowns for which some have given him

credit.

ON THE SOURCES FROM WHICH THE STORY OF THIS PLAY HAS BEEN DERIVED.

The present subject, notwithstanding it has been already discussed with

considerable labour and ingenuity, may still be said to rest in much

obscurity. This has partly arisen from some confusion in the mode of

stating the information conveyed in the several notes wherein it has

been discussed. To render this position the more intelligible, it will

be necessary to say a few words on each commentator's opinion: and

first on that of Dr. Farmer. He states that the _story_ was taken from

an old translation of the _Gesta Romanorum, first printed_ by Wynkyn

de Worde; and that Shakspeare has closely copied some of the language.

The Doctor's use of the word _story_ is not consistent with his usual

accuracy, because, in what follows, he speaks only of the incident

of the caskets, which forms in reality but _a part of the story_. It

is much to be wished, for reasons which will hereafter appear, that

Dr. Farmer had been more particular in his account of the edition of

the _Gesta Romanorum_ which he says was printed by Wynkyn de Worde,

none such having, after much inquiry, been discovered; and it is to be

feared that he had trusted to a previous statement of his friend the

accomplished and elegant historian of English poetry, whose accuracy is

unhappily known to have been by no means commensurate with his taste.

The Doctor's assertion, that Shakspeare "closely copied some of the

language," cannot be maintained until it be first ascertained if any

use had been made of the _Gesta Romanorum_ by the author of the old

play of the _Jew_, mentioned by Gosson, and also in what particulars

Shakspeare followed him. It is proper to take notice in this place of

the mistake that has been committed by those who speak of Shakspeare's

_imitations_ of the sources of this play, and who forget that one on

the same subject had already appeared, and which might have furnished

him with the _whole_ of the plot. It is however probable that he

improved it by means of other novels, as will be seen hereafter.

The next critic to be noticed is the truly learned and judicious Mr.

Tyrwhitt. He informs us that the _two principal incidents_ of this

play occur in the _Gesta Romanorum_, and produces some extracts from a

_Latin manuscript_ of that work in the British museum. Admitting that

the incident of the _caskets_ might have been taken from the _English

Gesta Romanorum_, as mentioned by Dr. Farmer, he cautiously gives it as

his opinion that both the stories in the _Gesta Romanorum_ quoted by

himself are the remote originals of Shakspeare's play; for he had also

forgotten the elder drama mentioned by Gosson. He thinks, however, that

the bond story might have come to Shakspeare from the _Pecorone_, but

suspects on the whole that he followed some hitherto unknown novelist,

who had saved him the trouble of working up the two stories into one.

Aware also that Shakspeare's small acquaintance with the Latin language

would scarcely enable him to consult the manuscript _Gesta Romanorum_,

he has very properly used the expression _remote originals_; and the

rather, because he had probably examined the printed English editions

without finding the story of the bond, which would hardly have escaped

the diligent researches of Dr. Farmer, had it really been there. The

fact however is, that the bond story did exist in English long before

Shakspeare's time, and it is extremely probable that the original

author of the _Jew_ used some English _Gesta Romanorum_ for the _whole_

of his plot. There is more stress to be laid on this opinion so far

as it regards the original dramatist, because it seems most probable

that Shakspeare, on account of the closer resemblance of the story

in the _Pecorone_ to _his_ incident of the bond, had, with great

advantage, made use of some translation of it now irrecoverably lost.

For this reason, with all due respect for Mr. Tyrwhitt's opinion, it

is improbable that Shakspeare followed some unknown novelist _who had

saved him the trouble of working up the two stories into one_; unless

it be conceded that such person was the author of the elder play.

The last opinion to be noticed is that of Dr. Johnson; and he remarks

that the modern translator of the _Pecorone_ thought the incident

of the caskets was borrowed from Boccaccio. This shall be examined

presently. The Doctor thinks, however, that Shakspeare had some other

novel in view, a conjecture which Mr. Malone very properly supports by

a reference to Dr. Farmer's note.

In offering some additional observations on the stories that are

connected with the _Merchant of Venice_, it will be necessary, for the

purpose of avoiding confusion, to speak separately of the two main

incidents on which that play is constructed.

STORY OF THE CASKETS.

The novel of Boccaccio that has been cited on this occasion, together

with some other tales that resemble it, have, it is conceived, no

manner of connexion with the play. The curious reader will find one of

these stories, and perhaps the most ancient of them, in the lives of

Barlaam and Josaphat, as related in the Golden legend, though compiled

at a period much anterior to that amusing work. Another is in Gower's

_Confessio amantis_, fo. 96, edit. 1532; and a third in the same

work, fo. 96, verso. The latter has been related in a more ample and

ingenious manner in the _Cento novelle antiche_, nov. 65.

In chap. 109 of _the Latin printed copy_ of the _Gesta Romanorum_,

a very different work from that referred to by Dr. Farmer and Mr.

Tyrwhitt, there is the following story: A smith had lost a chest of

money, which being carried by the sea to the shores of a distant

country, was taken up by an inn-keeper, who, not suspecting that it

contained any thing, threw it carelessly aside. Having occasion one day

for some fuel to warm his guests, he broke up the chest, and finding

the money, laid it by safely, till some one should arrive to claim

it. The smith soon afterwards appeared; and having publicly declared

his loss, the inn-keeper resolved to ascertain if it were the will of

Providence that he should make restitution. He therefore caused three

pasties to be made; the first he filled with earth, the second with

dead men's bones, and the third with money. He then invited the smith

to dinner, and gave him the choice of the pasties. The smith fixed on

those with the earth and bones, and relinquished the other. The host

now concluded that it was not the will of Heaven that he should restore

the money; he therefore called in the blind and the lame, opened the

other pasty in their presence, and divided the treasure between them.

But the work to which the play stands immediately indebted, is a _Gesta

Romanorum_ in English, _never printed in Latin_, and of which the

earliest edition that could be procured on the present occasion was

printed by Thomas Est, in 1595, 12mo, and several times afterwards. The

latter part only of the 32nd history has been used. This has already

been given in English by Dr. Farmer, and in Latin by Mr. Tyrwhitt. It

has undoubtedly furnished the author of the play with the incident of

the caskets; but he has transposed the mottoes of the gold and silver

ones, and substituted another for that of lead.

THE BOND STORY.

The character of Leti as an historian warrants an opinion that _his_

story is a mere fabrication, grafted on one of those that he had

met with on the same subject. The tale itself is most probably of

Eastern origin. Besides that given by Mr. Malone from Ensign Munro's

manuscript, a similar one is related in Gladwin's _Persian Moonshee_,

story 13; and another likewise from an oriental source, in the _British

magazine_ for 1800, page 159.

In Tyron, _Recueil de plusieures plaisantes nouvelles_, &c., Anvers,

1590, 18mo, a Christian borrows 500 ducats of a Jew at Constantinople,

on condition of paying two ounces of flesh for usury. At the expiration

of the term the Christian refuses to pay more than the principal. The

matter is brought before the Emperor Solyman, who orders a razor to

be brought, and admonishes the Jew not to cut off more or less than

the two ounces on pain of death. The Jew gives up the point. The same

story occurs in _Roger Bontemps en belle humeur_; in the _Tresor des

recreations_, Douay, 1625, 18mo, p. 27; in _Doctæ nugæ Gaudensij

Jocosi_, 1713, 12mo, p. 23; in the _Courier facetieux_, Lyon, 1650,

8vo, p. 109; in the _Chasse ennuy_, Paris, 1645, 18mo, p. 49; in

Corrozet _Divers propos memorables_, &c., 1557, 12mo, p. 77, of which

work there is an English translation under the title of _Memorable

conceits of divers noble and famous personages of Christendome_, &c.,

1602, 24mo; in _Apophthegmes, ou La recreation de la jeunesse_, p. 155.

It agrees also with the story related by Gracian in his _Hero_. See

Steevens's _Shakspeare_, V. 515.

It has been imitated by Antony Munday in his _Astræpho, being the third

part of Zelauto, or The fountaine of fame_, 1580, 4to. This writer had

found it in Silvayn's _Orator_, which, as we have already seen, he

translated. Instead of the cutting off a pound of flesh, it is agreed

that one of the party's eyes shall be pulled out. Besides the ballad of

_Gernutus the Jew of Venice_, printed in Dr. Percy's Reliques, there is

another less ancient, under the title of _The cruel Jew's garland_, in

which the story is varied, and with some ingenuity.

A part of the novel in the _Pecorone_ is most likely of Oriental

origin, and might have been transmitted to Ser Giovanni from the same

source that supplied Boccaccio and many of the French minstrels with

their stories, viz. the crusades.

As the Bond Story in the _Gesta Romanorum_ is not known to exist at

present in any printed edition, though it might in Shakspeare's time,

and as the Latin original mentioned by Mr. Tyrwhitt _has never been

printed_, it is therefore offered to the reader's notice, and will

afford besides an interesting specimen of ancient English. It occurs in

a manuscript preserved in the Harleian collection, No. 7333, written in

the reign of Henry the Sixth. The language is of the same period.

"Selestinus reignid a wyse emperoure in Rome, and he had a faire

dowter; and in his tyme ther was a knyᵹte that lovid this dowter,

but he thowte in himselfe that he dud al in veyne, for he thouᵹt as

forsothe that the emperoure wolde not late him to have hir, for he

was unworthi therto; nevertheles he thought yf he myght be any wey

have love of the damiselle it were inowe to me. He yede ofte tyme to

the damisell and aspied hir wille; and she said to him ayene that he

travaylid al in veyne, for trowist thow, quod she, with thi deseyvable

of faire wordes to begile me? Nay sir, be my soule, hit shal not be

so. Thenne saide the kniᵹte, What shal I yeve to the and late me lye

by the a nyght? Not thowh thou woldest yeve me an C marke of florens,

quod she, thou shalt not lye by me a nyght. Then hit shal be as thou

wilte, quod he. What dude he but purveyde him of so muche mony, s.

an C. marke of floreyns, and yaf hir. Whenne nyght come the kniᵹte

enterid into the bed of the mayde, and anoon he was aslepe, and she

dude of hir harnes, and come and laye downe by him. So the kniᵹte laye

slepynge al the nyght. On the morow she ros, and did on hir clothis,

and wishe hir hondes. And the kniᵹte awoke of his slepe, and thenne he

said, Come hedir to me that I may do my wille with the. Nay, by the

helth of my fadir, that wolle I not, quod she; for frende, I do the no

wronge. Thow accordiste with me that I shulde lye with the al nyght,

and so it is idon; for I lay by the al nyght, and thou sleptest and

preferdest me no solace, and therrfore blame thi selfe, and not me.

And the kniᵹte was hevy, and seide, What shal I yeve to the and lete

me lygge by the another nyght? As much, quod she, as thou did afor,

and no lesse. I assente, seide he. And the kniᵹte yede and solde alle

his movable goodes, and made redy an C. marke of floreynse. But se

now a marvelouse case; for right as hit was the furste nyght, so hit

was in the secounde. Thenne the kniᵹte mervaylid mor thanne man may

suppose, and hevy he was, and saide, Allas, for now have I spend al my

godes withoute spede; and therfore thow I shulle dye therefor I woll

make another ende, how moch shall I yeve the, and late us be togeder

the thirde nyght, quod the kniᵹte to the damisell. Sothely, she saide,

yf thou have me, as thou paide afore, _fiat voluntas tua_. I assent,

quod he, thou shalte have thin askynge and thi wille. The kniᵹte yede

into fer contree, til he come to a grete citee, in the whiche wer many

marchaunts and many philesophers, amonge the wiche was master Virgile

the philesopher. Then the kniᵹte yede to a grete marchaunt, and saide,

I have [nede] of monye, and yf thou wolt lende me an C marke unto a

certeyne day, I wolle ley to the al my londes undir this conducion

that if I holde not my day thow shalt have my londes for evere. Thenne

seyde the marchaunt, Der frend, I sette not so muche be thi londes,

but yf thow wolt make this covenaunt, that I shal sey to the, I wolle

fulfill thi wille. This saide he I am redy to do thi wille, yf thou

wolt do my petucion. Thenne, seide he, when this covenaunt is made that

I shalle seye unto the, thenne I shalle fulfille thyne askynge; and

the covenaunt shalle be this, that thou make to me a charter of thine

owne blood, in conducion that yf thowe kepe not thi day of payment, hit

shalle be lefulle to me for to draw awey alle the flesh of thi body

froo the bone with a sharp swerde, and yf thow wolt assent herto, I

shalle fulfille thi wille. The kniᵹte lovid the damisell so moch that

he grauntid al this, and made a charter of his owne bloode, and selid

it, and after the selyng this marchaunt toke him the money that he

askid. When he had the moneye, he thoute to him selfe, yf I gete my

wylle by this moneye, I am but dede; nay, nay, it may not be so. When

he harde tell of the grete name of maister Virgile, he yede to him,

and seide, Gode sir, I have previ counseill to speke a twene us too,

and I beseche yow of your wise counseill in this cas. Sey on, quod

Virgile, and I shalle telle the aftir my discrecion. Sir, I love the

dowter of the emperoure more than ye wolle trowe, and I accordid with

her for a certen sum of money. I have be disceyvid two nyghts in swiche

maner; and tolde alle the cas as welle as he coude, and sir nowe I have

borowed of a marchaunt so much moneye for the same cas to be fulfillid,

and undir this conducion, that yf I holde not my day of payment, hit

shalle thenne be lefulle to him to helde of alle the skynne of my body

with his swerde, and then I am but dede, and therfor sir, I am com to

you to have counsaill and wyt how I may bothe have helpe ayenste swiche

a parill, and also to have the love of that lovely lady. Thou hast

made a lewde covenaunt, seide Virgile, for as a man bindithe him with

his owne wille, right so he shall be servid be lawe of the emperoure;

and therefore thou shalt do wysely for to kepe the day of thi payment

alle things lefte. And towchinge the damesell I shall yeve the a tale

of truthe. Bitwene her shete and her coverlyte of hir bed is a letter

of swiche vertu, that whoso ever gothe with hir to bed, he shall anon

falle into a dede slepe; and he shalle not wake til time that hit be

put awey: and therfor when thou comest to hir bed, seche a twene the

shete and the coverlyte, and thow shalt fynde the letter; and when

thow hast founde hit caste hit fer from the bedde, and then entre into

the bed, for thou shalte not slepe til tyme that thow haste doon thi

wille with the damiselle, and that shalle torne to the gret honour and

joye. The kniᵹte toke his leve at Virgile, and thonkid him moche of his

hie counseill and yede to the damysell, and yafe hir the monye. When

nyᵹt come the kniᵹt enterid the chaumber, and preveli putte his honde

bitwene the coverlite and the shete, and there he fonde the letter;

and whenne he hadde hit he caste hit fer fro the bedde, and lay downe

and feynid as he hadde islepte, and thenne the damiselle knowing that

he had yslepte as he dude afor, she caste of hir clothis, and went to

bedde. Anon the kniᵹte sette hande to hir as is the maner of bed, and

she perceyved that, and prayd him of grace, and to save hir maydinhede,

and I shall dobble al the monye that thow hast yevin to me and yeve it

to the.... And aftur he lovid hir so muche that he drow so moche to hir

compane that he forᵹate the marchaunt and the day of payment was passid

by the space of xiiii dayes. And as he lay in a certen nyght in his

bed, hit come to his mynde the day that he made to the marchaunt, and

alle his bowells wer storid therewithe, and thenne said to her, Alas

woman that ever I saw the, for I am but dede. I borowed for thi love

swiche a some of mony for to pay at a certeyne day bi this conducion,

that yf I pay not at my day he shall have full power for to hilde

of the fleshe of my body without contradiccion; and now my day is

passid fourtenyte ago, so hih I sette myn hert in the. Then seide she,

Sorowithe not so moche, gothe to him, and debbelithe the mony to him,

and yf he wolle not, aske howe moche he wolle have, and I shalle paye

it. Tho was the kniᵹte comfortid. He yede to the citee, and there he

mette with the marchaunt in the stret, and lowly he saluid him. Tho

saide the marchaunt, So sey I not to the. Thenne seyde the kniᵹte,

Sir, for the trespas that I have made ayenste youre convencion I wolle

dowble the payment. Naye seide the marchaunt, that spake we not of, I

wolle have right as thou dudest bynde the to me. Aske of me, quod the

knight, as much mony as thou wolte, and thowe shalt be paide for my

trespas. It is veyne that thow spekist, quod the marchaunt, for thowhe

thou geve to me al the gode of thi citee, I wolle have the covenaunt I

holde, and non othere wolle I have of the than as the charter asselid

makith mencioun of; and anon he made the kniᵹt to be itake and lad to

the castell, and sette him in a safe ward, abyding the justice. When

the juge was come and satte in the dome, the kniᵹt come to barr among

other prisoners, and the marchaunt shewid his lettire afor the juge.

Anoon as the juge sawe there his owne dede, he said to alle that stode

aboute, Sirs, ye know welle it is the law of the emperour that yf enye

man bynde him by his owne freewille he shal resseyve as he servithe,

and therefore this marchaunt shalle have covenaunt as lawe wolle. Now

in al this tyme the damysell his love had sent kniᵹts for to aspie and

enquer how the law was pursued ayenst him, and whenne she harde telle

that the lawe passid ayenst him, she kytte of al the longe her of hir

hede, and cladde hir in precious clothing like to a man, and yede to

the palys there as hir lemon was to be demyd, and saluyd the justice,

and all they trowid that she had be a kniᵹte; and the juge enquerid

of what contree she was, and what she had to do ther. She said, I am

a kniᵹte, and come of fer contree, and her tithings that there is a

kniᵹte amonge yowe that shuld be demid to dethe for an obligacion that

he made to a marchaunt, and therefor I am come to deliver him. Thenne

the juge said, It is lawe of the emperoure that who so ever byndethe

him with his owne propre wille and consent withoute enye constraynynge

he shulde be servid so ayene. When the damisell harde this she turnid

to the marchaunt and saide, Der frende, what profite is it to the that

this kniᵹte that stondithe her redy to the dome be slayne? it wer

[better] to the to have monye than to have him slayne. Thou spekest al

in veyne, quod the marchaunt, for withoute doute I wolle have the lawe

sithe he bonde him so frely, and therefor he shalle have noon other

grace than lawe wolle, for he come to me, and I not to him. I desirid

him not thereto ayenste his wille. Thenne saide she, I praye the howe

moche shall I yeve to have my petucion? I shalle yeve the thi monye

double, and yf that be not plesynge to the, aske of me what thou wolte,

and Thou shalt have. Then saide he, thow harde me never seye but that I

wolde have my covenaunte kept. Sothely, seyde she, and thou shalt trowe

me afor your [you] sir juge, and afor yowe alle, I sey now sir juge

ywithe a right wisdome of that that I shal seye to yowe; ye have ihard

howe moche I have proferid this marchaunt for the lyf of this kniᵹte,

and he forsakithe all, and askithe the lawe, and that likith me moche;

and therfore lordinges that beye her, herithe me what I shalle seye.

Ye knowithe welle that the kniᵹt bonde him never by letter but that

the marchaunt shulde have power to kutte his fleshe fro the boons, but

there was no covenaunt made of sheding of blode, thereof was nothing

ispoke, and therefor late him set hond on him anoon, and yf he shede

ony bloode with his shavinge of the fleshe forsothe then shalle the

kynge have goode lawe upon him. And when the marchaunt harde this he

said, Yef me my monye, and I foryeve my accion. Fforsothe, quod she,

thou shalt not have oo penye, for afor al this companye I proferid to

the al that I myght, and thou forsoke hit, and saydist with a lowde

wyse, I shalle have my covenaunte; and therfor do thi beste with him,

but loke that thow shede no blode I charge the; for it is not thin, ne

no covenaunt was thereof. Thenne the marchaunt seynge this yede away

confus. And so was the Kniᵹt's lyf savid, and no penye ipayde. And

she yede home ayene, and dude of that clothinge, and clothid hit as

she was afor like to a woman. And the kniᵹte yede home ayene, and the

damisell turnid and met him, and askid howe he had ispedde, as thowhe

she had not knowen therof. A, lady, quod he, this day was I in poynt

to be dede for thy love, but as I was in point to be dampned, there

come in sodeynlye a knite, a fair and well ishape, the whiche I saw

never afor, and he delivirid me by his exellent wisdom bothe from dethe

and eke from payment of moneye. Thenne were thowhe, quod she, unkynde

that woldest nat bidde that kniᵹte to mete, that so faire had savid

the. He aunswerde therto, and saide that he come sodeinly and sodenly

yede. Thenne seide she, Knowiste thow him if thou seye him? Yee, quod

he, right wele. She yede up and cladde hir as she dide afore, and then

she yede forthe. And the kniᵹte knew her thenne wele, and for joye fel

doune upon hire, and said, Blessid be thow, and the houre in the whiche

I fyrste knew the. And he wepte, and aftir he weddid hir and livid and

deyde in the service of God, and yelde to God goode sowlis."

On the whole, then, it is conceived that the outline of the _bond

story_ is of Oriental origin;[13] that the author of the old play

of _The Jew_, and Shakspeare in his Merchant of Venice, have not

confined themselves to one source only in the construction of their

plot; but that the _Pecorone_, the _Gesta Romanorum_, and perhaps the

old _Ballad of Gernutus_, have been respectively resorted to. It is

however most probable that the original play was indebted chiefly, if

not altogether, to the _Gesta Romanorum_, which contained both the

main incidents; and that Shakspeare expanded and improved them, partly

from his own genius, and partly, as to the bond, from the _Pecorone_,

where the coincidences are too manifest to leave any doubt. Thus, the

scene being laid at Venice; the residence of the lady at Belmont; the

introduction of a person bound for the principal; the double infraction

of the bond, viz., the taking more or less than a pound of flesh and

the shedding of blood, together with the after-incident of the ring,

are common to the novel and the play. The whetting of the knife might

perhaps have been taken from the _Ballad of Gernutus_. Shakspeare was

likewise indebted to an authority that could not have occurred to the

original author of the play in an English form; this was, Silvayn's

_Orator_, as translated by Munday. From that work Shylock's reasoning

before the senate is evidently borrowed; but at the same time it has

been most skilfully improved.

The frequent allusions to the _different Gesta Romanorum_ may have

excited a wish to be more familiarly acquainted with that singular and

interesting work; but as the discussion of the subject in this place

would have augmented the tediousness of the note, it has been thought

better to make the attempt in a separate dissertation, where it is

hoped that any obscurity in the preceding remarks will be removed.

It is much to be lamented that this exquisitely beautiful drama can

neither be read nor performed, without exciting in every humane and

liberal mind an abhorrence of its professed design to vilify an ancient

and respectable, but persecuted, nation. It should be remembered that

contempt and intolerance must naturally excite hatred; that to provoke

revenge is, in fact, to become responsible for the crimes it may

occasion; that to those who would degrade and oppress us, it is but

justice to oppose craft; and that nature has supplied even the brute

creation with the means of resisting persecution. It will be readily

conceded that there happily exist in the present moment but few remains

of the illiberal prejudices complained of, the asperity of which has

been greatly mitigated by the laudable and successful exertions of a

modern dramatic writer, to whom the Jewish people are under the highest

obligations.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] It may be worth remarking that the historian Stowe has made great

use of this curious and valuable Life of Wolsey, without naming the

author. It has been several times printed, but the manuscript copies

have greatly the advantage in fullness and accuracy.

[13] If the horrible incident of the cutting off the flesh had not

occurred in the several Oriental stories that have been mentioned,

one should have supposed that it had been suggested by that atrocious

decemviral law of the Twelve Tables, which empowered a creditor to

mangle the living body of his debtor without fear of punishment for

cutting more or less than the magistrate allowed. For the honour of the

Roman law, it is not recorded that the above inhuman decree was ever

enforced.

AS YOU LIKE IT.

ACT I.

SCENE 2. Page 16.

CEL. This is not fortune's work neither, but _nature's_, who perceiving

our _natural_ wits too dull to reason of such Goddesses,

hath sent this _natural_ for our whetstone.

It must be observed that Touchstone is here called a _natural_ merely

for the sake of alliteration and a punning jingle of words; for he is

undoubtedly an artificial fool.

SCENE 2. Page 29.

LE BEAU. More suits you to conceive, _than me_ to speak of.

The old copy had, _than I_. These grammatical errors in the use of

the personal pronoun should either be _uniformly_ corrected or left

entirely to themselves. Mr. Steevens in p. 9, note 7, seems to regard

them as the anomalies of the play-house editors; but Mr. Malone,

probably with more reason, is inclined to place them to the author's

own account. If the present correction by Mr. Rowe be retained in

future editions, we ought not to find such expressions as "hates

nothing more than _he_," p. 14; "no child but _I_," p. 15, and _who_

for _whom_ perpetually.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 37.

DUKE S. Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious _jewel_ in his head.

What that stone which many people suppose to come from the head of

a toad really was, would be no easy task at present to determine.

Various conjectures have made it the _bsatrachites_, _chelonites_,

_brontia_, _ceraunia_, _glossopetra_, &c. Neither is it certain that

the text alludes to a _stone_; for Gesner informs us that in his

time, and _in England more particularly_, the common people made

superstitious uses of a _real jewel_ that always could be found in a

toad's head, viz., its _forehead bone_. To obtain this they severed

the animal in two parts, and exposed it to be devoured by ants; by

which means it presently became a skeleton. The above author carefully

distinguishes this bone from the toadstone, and from Pliny's bone

mentioned in Mr. Steevens's note. He has likewise with great industry,

as on all occasions, collected much that relates to the subject of the

toadstone. See his work _De quadrup. ovipar._ p. 65. It must be owned

that better naturalists than Shakspeare believed in the common accounts

of the toadstone. Batman in his edition to the article relating to the

_botrax_ or _rubeta_ in Bartholomæus _De propr. rerum_, informs us that

"some toads that breed in Italy and about Naples, have in their heads

a stone called a _crapo_, of bignes like a big peach, but flat, of

colour gray, with a browne spot in the midst _said to be of vertue_. In

times past they were much worne, and used in ringes, as the forewarning

against venime." Another learned divine who is often very witty, but on

this occasion perfectly grave, has told us that "some report that the

toad before her death sucks up (if not prevented with sudden surprisal)

the precious stone (as yet but a jelly) in her head, grudging mankind

the good thereof."--Fuller's _Church history_, p. 151. In a medical

work too we are informed that "in the head of a greate tode there is a

stone, which stone being stampt and geven to the pacyent to drinke in

warme wine, maketh him to pise the stone out incontinent," &c.--Lloyd's

_Treasure of helth_, pr. by Copland, n. d. 12mo. The notion of jewels

in the heads of animals is very widely spread. Mr. Wilkins has informed

us that it is a vulgar notion in India that some species of serpents

have precious stones in their heads. _Hectopades_, p. 302. The best

account of the different sorts of toadstones, so far as regards the

illustration of the above superstitious notions, is in Topsell's

_History of serpents_, 1608, folio, p. 188.

SCENE 1. Page 39.

1. LORD. To the which place a poor sequester'd stag

Did come to languish ...

... and _the big round tears_

Cours'd one another down his innocent nose

In piteous chase.

The stag is said to possess a very large secretion of tears. "When

the hart is arered, he fleethe to a ryver or ponde, and roreth cryeth

and _wepeth_ when he is take."--Bartholomæus _De propriet. rerum_,

1. xviii. c. 30. Batman, in his commentary on that work, adds, from

Gesner, that "when the hart is sick and hath eaten many serpents for

his recoverie, he is brought unto so great a heate, that he hasteth to

the water, and their covereth his body unto the very eares and eyes, at

which time _distilleth many teares_ from which the [Bezoar] stone is

gendered," &c. The translator of _The noble arte of Venerie_ makes the

hart thus address the hunter:

"O cruell, be content, to take in worth my _teares_,

Which growe to gumme, and fall from me; content thee with my heares,

Content thee with my hornes, which every yeare I mew,

Since all these three make medicines, some sicknesse to eschew.

My _teares_ congeal'd to gumme, by peeces from me fall,

And thee preserve from pestilence, in pomander or ball.

Such wholesome _teares_ shedde I, when thou pursewest me so."

Compare also Virgil's description of the wounded stag in the seventh

book of the Æneid.

SCENE 2. Page 43.

DUKE. And let not search and inquisition _quail_

To bring again these foolish runaways.

"To _quail_," says Mr. Steevens, "is to _faint_, to sink into

dejection;" and so it certainly is, but not in this instance; for

neither search nor inquisition could very well faint or become

dejected. They might indeed _slacken_, _relax_, or _diminish_, and

such is really the present meaning of the word. Thus "Hunger cureth

love, for love _quaileth_ when good cheare faileth."--_The choise of

change_, 1585, 4to, sign. L. i. _To quail_ is also used in the several

senses of to _sink_, _abate_, _deaden_, _enfeeble_, _press down_, and

_oppress_; all of which might be exemplified from the writings of

authors contemporary with Shakspeare, and some of them from his own. It

seems to be a modification of to quell, i. e. to destroy altogether, to

kill, from the Saxon cƿellan.

SCENE 2. Page 54.

JAQ. But that they call compliment, is like the encounter of two

_dog-apes_.

Bartholomæus, speaking of apes, says, "some be called _cenophe_;

and be lyke to an _hounde_ in the face, and in the body lyke to an

_ape_."--Lib. xviii. c. 96.

SCENE 5. Page 55.

JAQ. Ducdáme, ducdáme, ducdáme.

The stanza which the facetious old squire sang before Dr. Farmer has

occurred in the following shape; but where is the Œdipus who shall

unfold the connexion of either with Jaques's song?

"O _damy_ what makes my _ducks_ to die?

What can ail them, Oh!

They eat their victuals and down they lie,

What can ail them, Oh!"

SCENE 7. Page 66.

JAQ. ... All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players.

Mr. Steevens refers to the _totus mundus exerceat histrioniam_ of

Petronius, with whom probably the sentiment originated; but this

author had not been translated in Shakspeare's time. The play of

_Damon and Pythias_, which Mr. Malone has cited, might have furnished

the observation. There are likewise two other probable sources that

are worthy of notice on this occasion. The first is Withal's _Short

dictionarie in Latine and English_, several times printed in the reign

of Elizabeth, where in fo. 69 of the edit. 1599, is the following

passage: "This life is a certain enterlude or _plaie_. _The world is a

stage_ full of chang everie way, _everie man is a plaier_." The other

is Pettie's translation of Guazzo's _Civile conversation_, 1586, 4to,

where one of the parties introduces the saying of some philosopher

"that this _world_ was a _stage_, we the _players_ which present the

comedie." Shakspeare had himself used nearly the same language in the

first act of _The merchant of Venice_:

"I hold the world, but as the world, Gratiano,

A stage, where every man must play a part."

A portion of Jaques's speech has been imitated in some lines by

Thomas Heywood among the commendatory verses prefixed to his _Actors

vindication_, 1658, 4to:

"The world 's a theater, the earth a stage,

Which God and nature doth with actors fill;

All men have parts, and each man acts his own," &c.

SCENE 7. Page 66.

JAQ. And one man in his time plays many parts,

_His acts being seven ages_.

A print of the seven ages of men like those referred to by Messrs.

Henley and Steevens may be seen in Comenius's _Orbis pictus_, tit.

xxxvii., in which are found _the infant_, _the boy_, and _the decrepid

old man_: the rest of Shakspeare's characters seem to be of his own

invention. There is a division of the seven ages of man in Arnolde's

_Chronicle_, fo. lix. verso, agreeing, except in the arrangement of

years, with that given by Mr. Malone from _The treasury of ancient and

modern times_.

SCENE 7. Page 69.

JAQ. _Sans_ teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.

This word, introduced into our language as early as the time of

Chaucer, has sometimes received on the stage a French pronunciation,

which in the time of Shakspeare it certainly had not. The old

orthography will serve to verify this position:

"I none dislike, I fancie some,

But yet of all the rest,

_Sance_ envie, let my verdite passe,

Lord Buckhurst is the best."

Turbervile's verses before his

_Tragical tales_, 1587, 4to.

ACT III.

SCENE 2. Page 82.

ROS. I'll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it with a

medlar: then it will be the _earliest_ fruit in the country, for

you'll be rotten ere you be half ripe, and that's the right virtue

of the medlar.

On this Mr. Steevens observes that Shakspeare had little knowledge of

gardening, the medlar being one of the latest fruits, and uneatable

till the end of November. But is not the charge, at least in this

instance, unfounded; and has not the learned commentator misunderstood

the poet's meaning? It is well known that the medlar is only edible

when _apparently_ rotten. This is what Shakspeare calls its _right

virtue_. If a fruit be fit to be eaten when rotten and _before it be

ripe_, it may in one sense be termed _the earliest_. The inaccuracy

seems to be in making the medlar rotten before it is ripe, the

rottenness being, as it is conceived, the ripeness.

SCENE 2. Page 93.

ORL. I pray you, mar no more of my verses with reading them

ill-favouredly.

This very much resembles the _sed male cum recitas, incipit esse

tuum_, in one of Martial's epigrams, lib. i. ep. 39, of which the

following translation was made by Timothy Kendall, in his _Flowers of

epigrammes_, 1577, 12mo:

"The booke which thou doest read, it is

Frende Fidentinus myne;

_But when thou ill doest read it, then

Beginns it to bee thyne_."

SCENE 4. Page 111.

CEL. He hath bought a pair of _cast_ lips of Diana: a nun of

winter's sisterhood kisses not more religiously; the very ice of

chastity is in them.

Theobald explains _cast_ lips "a pair _left off_ by Diana." It is not

easy to conceive how the goddess could _leave off_ her lips; or how,

being left off, Orlando could purchase them. Celia seems rather to

allude to a statue _cast in plaister or metal_, the lips of which might

well be said to possess _the ice_ of chastity.

As to the "nun of winter's sisterhood," Warburton might have contented

himself with censuring the dullness of Theobald. His own _sisterhoods

of the seasons_ are by much too refined and pedantic, and in every

respect objectionable. Shakspeare poetically feigns a new order of

nuns, most appropriate to his subject, and wholly devoid of obscurity.

SCENE 5. Page 115.

SIL. ... The common executioner

_Falls not the axe_ upon the humbled neck.

There is no doubt that the expression _to fall the axe_ may with

propriety refer to the usual mode of decapitation; but if it could be

shown that in the reign of Elizabeth this punishment was inflicted

in England by an instrument resembling the French guillotine, which

though merciful in the discharge of its office, has justly excited

abhorrence from the number of innocent victims that have suffered by

it, the expression would perhaps seem rather more appropriate. Among

the cuts to the first edition of Holinshed's chronicle such a machine

is twice introduced; and as it does not appear that in either instance

there was any cause for the particular use of it, we may reasonably

infer that it was at least sometimes adopted. Every one has heard

of the _Halifax gibbet_, which was just such another instrument, and

certainly introduced into that town, for reasons that do not appear,

long before the time in which Holinshed was printed. It is said that

the Earl of Morton, the Scotish regent, saw it at Halifax, and that he

introduced it into Scotland, where it was used for a considerable time

afterwards.[14] In that country it was called _the maiden_, and Morton

himself actually suffered by it, when condemned as an accomplice in

the murder of Lord Darnley. In the best edition of Holinshed, Thynne's

continuation of Hector Boethius's history is printed, in which there

is an account of the conference between the Earl and the Ministers of

Edinburgh, under the title of _The examination and answers of the Earl

of Morton before his death, but after his condemnation_. Thynne seems

to say that the above account was delivered over to him, but he has

omitted to state the particulars. In a manuscript of this conference,

written at the time, and in the possession of the author of these

observations, it is called _The some of all the conferrence that was

betweene the Earle Morton and John Dury and Mr. Walker the same daye

that he suffered which was the 2 June 1581_, and differs in several

places from the other. In both, at the end, there is an account of the

Earl's last moments, in which it is stated (the MS. being here quoted)

that he "layde his head _under the axe_, his handes being unbounde,

Mr. Walker cried in his eare, Lord Jesus receive thy spirite, he saide

Jesus receive my sowle, which wordes he was speaking while _the axe

fell on his necke_." This extract would alone be sufficient to decide

on the mode in which Morton was beheaded; but in the MS. there is a

neat drawing of the machine itself, resembling the cut in the earliest

edition of Holinshed, except that in the latter the axe is suspended

to the top of the frame by a string which the executioner cuts with a

knife, whilst in the other, a peg, to which the string is attached, is

drawn out of one of the sides.

It may be worth adding that in _King Henry VI. part 2_, Eleanor says to

her husband the duke of Gloucester,

"But be thou mild, and blush not at my shame,

Nor stir at nothing, till the axe of death

_Hang over thee_----"

SCENE 5. Page 118.

ROS. ... What though you have _more_ beauty

(As by my faith, I see no more in you

Than without candle may go dark to bed)

The old copy reads _no beauty_. Mr. Malone substitutes _mo_, i. e.

_more_, and supports his alteration by making Rosalind allow that Phœbe

had _more_ beauty than her lover; but she soon afterwards asserts the

contrary in the most positive terms. The omission of the disputed

monosyllable, which in the old copy might have caught the compositor's

eye in the ensuing line and occasioned the mistake, will certainly

correct the present redundancy in the line, and perhaps restore the

author's original language. _As_ in the next line appears to have the

power of _though_; a word that could not be used on account of its

introduction in the preceding line.

ACT IV.

SCENE 1. Page 130.

ROS. I will laugh like a _hyen_, and that when thou art inclined to

_sleep_.

"He commeth to houses _by night_, and feineth _mannes voyce_ as he

maye," &c.--Bartholomæus _De propriet. rer._ lib. xviii. c. 61. _De

Hiena_.

SCENE 3. Page 142.

OLI ... for 'tis

The royal disposition of that beast,

To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead.

This property of the lion, whether true or false, was acknowledged

by our forefathers. Thus in "_The choise of change containing the

divinitie, philosophie, and poetrie_," &c., 1585, 4to, a work evidently

constructed on the model of the Welsh triads, we find the following

passage: "three things shew that there is a great clemencie in lions;

_they will not hurt them that lie groveling_," &c. Bartholomæus says,

"their mercie is known by many and oft ensamples: _for they spare

them that lye on the ground_." Shakspeare again alludes to the lion's

generosity in _Troilus and Cressida_, Act V. Scene 3:

"Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you

Which better fits a lion than a man."

ACT V.

SCENE 2. Page 152.

ROS. By my life, I do; which I tender dearly, though I say I am a

magician.

Of the two constructions of this speech, that by Mr. Steevens seems

deserving of the preference; but the grounds on which it stands require

examination. A statute against witchcraft was made in the first year

of king James. Now if, as Dr. Warburton conceives, it is to this that

Rosalind alludes, the play must have been written after 1603. Mr.

Malone, whose opinion is supported by very solid reasons, thinks it was

written in 1600; and therefore to reconcile the explanation given by

Mr. Steevens, we must suppose that the foregoing allusion is to some

prior statutes of Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth, which punished those

who practised witchcraft with death.

SCENE 2. Page 154.

ROS. I will satisfy you if ever I _satisfy'd_ man.

The context seems to require that we should read _satisfy_; and it was

the genius of Shakspeare's age to write so.

THE CLOWN.

Touchstone is the domestic fool of Frederick the duke's brother, and

belongs to the class of witty or allowed fools. He is threatened with

the whip, a mode of chastisement which was often inflicted on this

motley personage. His dress should be a party-coloured garment. He

should occasionally carry a bauble in his hand, and wear asses' ears

to his hood, which is probably the head dress intended by Shakspeare,

there being no allusion whatever to a cock's head or comb. The

three-cornered hat which Touchstone is made to wear on the modern stage

is an innovation, and totally unconnected with the genuine costume of

the domestic fool.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] See Hume's hist. of the houses of Douglas and Angus, 1644, folio,

p. 356. There are good reasons for supposing that the instrument in

question was invented in Germany.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

In the _dramatis personæ_ of this play the "gentle astringer" is

omitted, who, though he says but little, has a better claim to be

inserted than Violenta, who says nothing. Mr. Steevens remarks that her

name was borrowed from an old _metrical history_ entitled _Didaco and

Violenta_; but Shakspeare more probably saw it in the running title of

Painter's _Palace of pleasure_, whence he got his plot of this play,

and where the above history occurs in _prose_. The title is borrowed

from a proverbial saying much older than the time of Shakspeare.

Knyghton has preserved some of the speeches of Jack Straw and his

brother insurgents; and in that of Jack Carter we have this expression:

_for if the ende be wele than is alle wele_. The orations of these

heroes were made up of proverbial saws, a proof of the great influence

they must have had with the common people. See the _Decem scriptores_

by Twysden, col. 2637.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 187.

LAF. A fistula, my Lord.

What Mr. Steevens calls the _inelegance_ of the king's disorder is not

to be placed to Shakspeare's account; for it is specifically mentioned

both in Painter's story of _Giletta_, and in Boccaccio himself. It is

singular that the learned critic should not have remembered this.

SCENE 1. Page 188.

COUNT. Where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there

commendations go with pity; they are virtues and traitors too.

The explanations of this speech appear to be too refined; and Dr.

Warburton's, as usual, particularly so. The meaning is simply

this:--_where strong and useful talents are combined with an evil

disposition, we feel regret even in commending them; because, in such a

mind, however good in themselves, their use and application are always

to be suspected_.

SCENE 3. Page 217.

CLO. A _prophet_ I madam.

A reconsideration of these words have suggested the necessity of

cancelling _both_ the notes, for the clown is not a _natural_, but an

_artificial_ fool.

SCENE 3. Page 224.

HEL. Indeed, my mother! or were you _both our mothers_.

This strange and faulty language deserved notice. It should have been,

_or were you so to both_.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 234.

BER. I shall stay here the _forehorse to a smock_

Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry

Till honour be brought up, and _no sword worn,

But one to dance with_.

He means that he shall remain at home to _lead out ladies_ in the

dance, till honour, &c. In _Titus Andronicus_, Act II. Scene 1,

Demetrius speaks of _a dancing rapier_. The custom of wearing swords

in the dancing schools is exemplified in a curious story related in

_Newes from the North_, 1579, 4to, where "Pierce Plowman sheweth how

his neighbour and hee went to the tavern and to _the dauncing schoole_

and what hapned there," in these words: "Now was there one man of our

company that was as deaf as a doore naile. When we were come into the

schoole; the musitions were playing and one dauncing of a galiard, and

even at our entring hee was beginning a trick as I remember of sixteens

or seventeens, I doo not very wel remember, but wunderfully hee leaped,

flung and took on, which the deaf man beholding, and not hearing any

noyse of the musick, thought verily that hee had been stark mad and out

of his wit, and of pure pittie and compassion ran to him and caught him

in his armes and held him hard and fast. The dauncer not knowing his

good meaning, and taking it to the wurst, and having _a dagger_ drew

it out, and smot the man a great blowe upon the hed, and brake his hed

very sore." Another illustration of the subject is too interesting from

the picture of ancient manners which it exhibits to stand in need of

any apology for its insertion. It is from Stafforde's _Briefe conceipt

of English pollicy_, 1581, 4to. "I thinke wee were as much dread or

more of our enemies, when our gentlemen went simply and our serving

men plainely, without cuts or gards, bearing their heavy swordes

and buckelers on their thighes insted of cuts and gardes and _light

daunsing swordes_; and when they rode carrying good speares in theyr

hands in stede of white rods, which they cary now more like ladies

or gentlewomen then men; all which delicacyes maketh our men cleane

effeminate and without strength."

SCENE 2. Page 249.

CLO. As Tib's rush for Tom's forefinger.

The covert allusion mentioned by Mr. Ritson is, in all probability,

the right solution of this passage; but the practice of marrying with

a rush ring may admit of some additional remarks. Sir John Hawkins

had already, in a very curious and interesting note, illustrated the

subject; and it must appear very extraordinary that _one of the

subsequent notes_ should question the practice of marrying with a rush

ring, on the grounds that _no authority_ had been produced in support

of it. This must therefore be explained. The fact is, that the author

of the doubts had never seen Sir John Hawkins's _entire_ note, which

had originally appeared in the edition of 1778, but was injudiciously

suppressed in that of 1785. In the edition of 1790 there is only a

brief and general statement of Sir John's opinion, and this led to the

doubts expressed. In 1793 Mr. Steevens restores a note which he had

already cancelled, and _with all its authorities before him_, permits

them to be questioned; but there are many who will comprehend his

motive.

The information from Du Breul (not Breval, as misprinted) _Theâtre

des antiquitez de Paris_. 1612. 4to, is worth stating more at large.

The author tells us that in the official court of the church of Saint

Marinus, those who have lived unchastely are conducted to the church by

two officers, in case they refuse to go of their own accord, and there

married by the curate with a _rush ring_. They are likewise enjoined

to live in peace and friendship, thereby to preserve the honour of

their friends and relations, and their own souls from the danger they

had incurred. This is only practised where no other method of saving

the honour of the parties and their connexions can be devised. A

modern French writer remarks on this ceremony; "pour faire observer,

sans doute, au mari, combien etoit _fragile la vertu_ de celle qu'il

choisissait."

With respect to the constitutions of the bishop of Salisbury in 1217,

which forbid the putting of _rush rings_ on women's fingers, there

seems to be an _error_ in the reason for this prohibition as stated

by Sir John Hawkins, but for which he is not perhaps responsible. He

says it is insinuated by the bishop, "that there were some people

weak enough to believe, that what was thus done in jest, was a real

marriage." The original words, as in Spelman's _councils_, are these:

"ne dum jocari se putat, honoribus matrimonialibus se _abstringat_."

Now unless we read "_adstringat_" there is a difficulty in making sense

of the passage, which seems to mean, _least, whilst he thinks he is

only practising a joke, he may be tying himself in the matrimonial

noose_. It is to be observed that this consequence was not limited to

the deception of putting _a rush ring only_ on the woman's finger, but

any ring whatever, whether of vile or of precious materials.

In Greene's _Menaphon_ is this passage: "Well, 'twas a good worlde when

such simplicitie was used, sayes the old women of our time, when a

_ring of a rush_ would tie as much love together as a gimmon of golde."

But _rush rings_ were sometimes innocently used. Thus in Spenser's

_Shepherds calendar_, eclog. xi. mention is made of "the knotted _rush

rings_, and gilt rosemaree" of the deceased shepherdess. Again in

Fletcher's _Two noble kinsmen_, Act iv.;

"... _Rings_ she made

Of _rushes_ that grew by, and to 'em spoke

The prettiest posies: _thus our true love's ty'd;

This you may loose, not me_; and many a one."

_Tib_ and _Tom_ were names for any low or vulgar persons, and they are

usually mentioned together in the same manner as _Jack_ and _Gill_, &c.

In the morality of _Like will to like quoth the devil to the collier_,

Nicholas Newfangle says,

"By the mas for thee he is so fit a mate

As _Tom_ and _Tib_ for Kit and Kate."

In the old song of _The shepheard's holyday_, we have,

"Jetting Gill,

Jumping Will,

O'r the floore will have their measure;

Kit and Kate

There will waite,

_Tib_ and _Tom_ will take their pleasure."

Thomas Drant in his translation of Horace's _Arte of poetrye_, 1567,

4to, has Englished _fricti ciceris et nucis emptor_, by _Tom and

Tib_, &c.; and in _A satyr against Satyrs, or St. Peter's vision

transubstantiated_, 1680, 4to, are these lines:

"O' th same bead-string with fryar hang'd a nun,

What, would not you have _Tib_ to follow _Tom_?"

SCENE 3. Page 257.

HEL. To each of you one fair and virtuous mistress

Fall, when love please! _marry to each, but one!_

Mr. Tyrwhitt regards the latter exclamation as ludicrous, in

consequence of Helena's limitation of _one_ mistress to each lord, and

would therefore give it to Parolles. Mr. Mason, on the contrary, is of

opinion that the words _but one_, mean _except one_; that the person

excepted is Bertram, whose mistress Helena hoped she herself should

be; and that she makes the exception out of modesty, as otherwise it

would extend to herself. Of these two opinions the first is the most

probable, deriving considerable support from the _one_ in the preceding

line; for if Shakspeare had meant _except one_, he would have written

"_a_ fair and virtuous mistress." Helena's exception as stated by Mr.

Mason might indeed have been made on the score of modesty so far as

regarded her beauty; but she could not with propriety admit that she

had no _virtue_.

SCENE 3. Page 257.

LAF. I'd give bay _Curtal_.

Mr. Steevens should have added that this was a proper name for a horse,

as well as an appellation for a dock'd one. "Their knavery is on this

manner; they have always good geldings and trusty, which they can make

_curtailes_ when they list, and againe set too large tailes, hanging

to the fetlockes at their pleasure."--_Martin Marhall's apologie to

the belman of London_, 1610, sign. G. _Curtail_ is not from _cur_ and

_tail_, as stated in some dictionaries, but from the French _tailler

court_.

ACT III.

SCENE 6. Page 298.

2. LORD. If you give him not _John Drum's entertainment_.

The meaning of this phrase has been very well ascertained, but its

origin remains to be traced. Is it a metaphor borrowed from the

_beating_ of a drum, or does it allude to the drumming a person out of

a regiment? There can be no reference to a real person, because in many

old writers we find both _Jack_ and _Tom_ Drum.

ACT IV.

SCENE 3. Page 323.

1. LORD. _Hoodman_ comes!

An allusion to the game of blindman's buff, formerly called _hoodman

blind_.

SCENE 3. Page 326.

PAR. He was whipp'd for getting the _sheriff's fool_ with child.

Mr. Ritson will not admit this to be a fool kept by the sheriff for

diversion, but supposes her one of those idiots whose care, as he

says, devolved on the sheriff when they had not been begged of the

king on account of the value of their lands. Now if this was the law,

the sheriff must have usually had more than one idiot in his custody;

and had Shakspeare alluded to one of these persons, he would not

have chosen so definite an expression as that in question; he would

rather have said, "_a_ sheriff's fool." Female idiots were retained

in families for diversion as well as male, though not so commonly;

and there would be as much reason to expect one of the former in the

sheriffs household as in that of any other person. It is not impossible

that our author might have in view some real event that had just

happened.

SCENE 3. Page 327.

BER. I know his brains are forfeit to the next _tile_ that falls.

In Whitney's _Emblems_, a book certainly known to Shakspeare, there is

a story of three women who threw dice to ascertain which of them should

first die. She who lost affected to laugh at the decrees of fate, when

_a tile suddenly falling_, put an end to her existence.

SCENE 3. Page 329.

PAR. ... a dangerous and lascivious boy, who is _a whale to

virginity_.

This is an allusion to the story of _Andromeda_ in old prints, where

the monster is very frequently represented as a _whale_.

SCENE 3. Page 333.

PAR. For a _quart d'ecu_ he will sell the fee simple of his

salvation.

The quart d'ecu, or as it was sometimes written _cardecue_, was a

French piece of money first coined in the reign of Henry III. It was

the fourth part of the _gold_ crown, and worth fifteen sols. It is a

fact not generally known, that many foreign coins were current at this

time in England; some English coins were likewise circulated on the

continent. The French crown and its parts passed by weight only.

SCENE 4. Page 339.

HEL. All's well that ends well: still _the fine's a crown_.

In _King Henry VI. part 2._ Act V. we have "la fin couronne les

œuvres." Both phrases are from the Latin _finis coronat opus_. In

this sense we still use the expression to _crown_, for to _finish_

or _make perfect_. _Coronidem imponere_ is a metaphor well known to

the ancients, and supposed to have originated from the practice of

finishing buildings by placing a crown at their top as an ornament;

and for this reason the words _crown_, _top_ and _head_ are become

synonymous in most languages.

There is reason for believing that the ancients placed a crescent at

the beginning, and a crown, or some ornament that resembled it, at the

end of their books. In support of the first usage we have a poem by

Ausonius entitled CORONIS which begins in this manner:

"Quos legis à prima deductos _menide_ libri."

And of the other, these lines in Martial, lib. x. ep. 1:

"Si nimius videor, seraque _coronide_ longus

Esse liber: legito pauca, libellus ero."

The mark which was used in later times for the _coronis_ has been

preserved in the etymologies of Isidore, lib. i. c. 20. It is this,

[Illustration]; and in some manuscripts of that writer [Illustration]

and [Illustration]. In other places it has these forms, [Illustration].

SCENE 5. Page 343.

CLO. But sure, he is _the prince of the world_.

The Devil is often called so by Saint John.

ACT V.

SCENE 2. Page 349.

PAR. Good Monsieur _Lavatch_.

"This," says Mr Steevens, "is an undoubted and perhaps _irremediable_

corruption of some French word." Yet the name is obviously _La vache_,

which, whether really belonging to the clown or not, seems well adapted

to such a character.

SCENE 2. Page 351.

CLO. Here is a _pur_ of fortune's sir, or of fortune's cat.

The text is perfectly intelligible, and requires no conjectural

amendment. The clown calls Parolles's letter a _pur_; because, like the

purring of the sycophant cat, it was calculated to procure favour and

protection.

THE CLOWN.

He is a domestic fool of the same kind as Touchstone.

TAMING OF THE SHREW.

INDUCTION.

SCENE 1. Page 386.

SLY. Therefore, _paucas pallabris_.

Perhaps these words are part of an old Spanish proverb, corresponding

with the Portuguese, "A o hom entendedor _poucas palavras_," i. e. to

an intelligent man, few words. Most of the modern European languages

have a proverb like our "word to the wise." In Ben Jonson's _Masque

of Augures_, Vangoose is made to exclaim "hochos-pochos, _paucos

palabros_."

SCENE 1. Page 394.

LORD. And when he says he is ----, say that he dreams.

Of the various modes of filling up this blank suggested in the notes,

that of Dr. Johnson, who would insert _sly_, is the most probable. Mr.

Steevens asks, "how should the Lord know the beggar's name to be Sly?"

This is very true; yet Shakspeare might as well forget himself in this

place as he certainly did a few pages afterwards, where he makes the

Lord's servant talk of _Cicely_ Hacket, &c.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 414.

KATH. I pray you, sir, is it your will

To make a _stale_ of me amongst these _mates_.

She means to say, "do you intend to make a strumpet of me among these

companions?" but the expression seems to have been suggested by the

chess-term of _stale mate_, which is used when the game is ended by

the king being alone and unchecked, and then forced into a situation

from which he is unable to move without going into check. This is a

dishonourable termination to the adversary, who thereby loses the game.

Thus in Lord Verulam's twelfth essay, "They stand still like a _stale_

at chess, where it is no _mate_, but yet the game cannot stir."

SCENE 2. Page 427.

PET. Be she as foul as was Florentius' love.

Dr. Farmer's note might have been omitted, as it refers to a story

which has no manner of connection with that to which Petruchio alludes.

SCENE 2. Page 436.

PET. Tush, tush, _fear_ boys with _bugs_.

To _fear_ is to frighten. In Mathews's _Bible_, psalm xci. v. 5, is

thus rendered: "Thou shalt not nede to be afraied for any _bugs_ by

night." In the Hebrew it is "_terror_ of the night;" a curious passage,

evidently alluding to that horrible sensation the night-mare, which

in all ages has been regarded as the operation of evil spirits. Thus

much seemed necessary in explanation or defence of the above most

excellent old translation, which we have retained with very little

change in the language; for the expression, from its influence on a

modern ear, might have been liable to a very ludicrous construction.

The word _bug_ is originally Celtic, _bŵg_, a ghost or goblin, and

hence _bug-bear_, _boggerd_, _bogle_, _boggy-bo_, and perhaps _pug_, an

old name for the Devil. _Boggy-bo_ seems to signify the _spirit_ Bo,

and has been thought, with some probability, to refer to a warrior of

that name, the son of Odin, and of great celebrity among the ancient

Danes and Norwegians. His name is said to have struck his enemies

with terror, and might have been used by the nurses of those times to

frighten children, as that of Marlborough was in France on the same

occasion. It is remarkable that the Italian women use _bau bau_, for

this purpose, and the French _ba-bo_. It should seem as if _bug_ had

been metaphorically applied to the _cimex_, that insect being in all

respects _a terror of the night_. Nor was the word used in this sense

till late in the seventeenth century, the old names for the house bug

being, _wall-louse_, _wig-louse_, _chinch_, _punie_, and _puneez_; the

two last from the French.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 442.

KATH. And, for your love to her, _lead apes in hell_.

It is perhaps an ill-natured, though a very common, presumption, that

the single state of old maids originates either in prudery or in real

aversion to the male sex, and that consequently they deserve some kind

of punishment in the next world. It is therefore not a matter of wonder

that some of our waggish forefathers, impressed with this idea, should

have maintained that these obdurate damsels would be condemned to lead

apes in the inferior regions, instead, as Mr. Steevens has ingeniously

suggested, of children; or perhaps with a view to compel them to bestow

such attention on these deformed animals as they had formerly denied to

men. So in Rabelais' hell, Alexander the great is condemned, for his

ambition, to mend old stockings, and Cleopatra, for her pride, to cry

onions.

It is said that homicides and adulterers were in ancient times

compelled by way of punishment to lead an ape by the neck, with their

mouths affixed in a very unseemly manner to the animal's tail. The

fact is mentioned in the early Latin dictionary entitled _Vocabularius

breviloquus_, and in the _Catholicon_ of Johannes Januensis, both

printed at the end of the fifteenth century, under the article

_anulus_. It is added, that the above punishment being found too

opprobrious was commuted for wearing a ring on the finger, which the

higher classes caused to be made of gold or silver; and this is further

stated to have been the reason why the general practice of wearing

rings declined. After all it may be a mere fabrication for the purpose

of introducing an etymology of the word _annulus_, that cannot here be

repeated.

SCENE 1. Page 450.

HOR. And, _twangling Jack_.

It is the author's desire to withdraw a former note on this passage,

which, as well as a few others of a confidential nature, was not

intended for publication. To _twangle_ means to make any sharp shrill

noise on a stringed instrument, as a bad player would do. A _Jack_

denotes a low or mean person, and is occasionally used as a term

of reproach. Thus Horatio is afterwards called "swearing _Jack_."

_Twangling Jack_ may sometimes allude to that little machine in

harpsichords and spinnets in which the quill is placed that strikes

the wires. The _jangling Jack_ mentioned in Mr. Steevens's note is

not connected with the other. He is a mere _prating fellow_. Thus in

Drant's translation of Horace's ninth satire, 1567, 4to:

"A _prater_ shal becom his death,

Therefore, let him alwayes,

If he be wise, shun _jangling jackes_,

After his youthful dayes."

SCENE 1. Page 461.

GRE. My hangings all of _Tyrian tapestry_.

Whether the purple of Tyre be here alluded to is doubtful. There is

a Turkish city of some celebrity in Natolia called Tiria, where,

according to the account of Paul Lucas, carpets are manufactured; and

in the _Comedy of errors_, Act IV. Scene 1, mention is made of _Turkish

tapestry_.

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 470.

LUC. ... for, _but_ I be deceiv'd.

Mr. Malone has well explained this word as meaning _unless_, in which

sense it is often used by Shakspeare. It is the Saxon buꞇon, _nisi_.

Sometimes it was used with _if_, as "I wol breake thy heed _but if_

thou get the hense;" from Terence's "Diminuam ego tibi caput, _nisi_

abis," Udall's _Floures from Latine_, 1533, 12mo.

SCENE 2. Page 487.

PET. Go to the feast, revel and _domineer_.

So in Tarlton's _Jests_, "T. having been _domineering_ very late at

night with two of his friends." In these instances to _domineer_ is to

_bluster_.

SCENE 2. Page 487.

PET. She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house,

My houshold stuff, my field, my barn,

My horse, my ox, my ass, my any thing.

In the anonymous play of _A knacke to knowe a knave_, 1594, one of

the old men says, "My house? why, 'tis my goods, my wyfe, my land, my

horse, my ass, or any thing that is his." If Mr. Malone's conjecture

respecting the date of _The taming of the shrew_ be well founded, it is

difficult to say whether Shakspeare is the borrower, in this instance,

or not.

ACT IV.

SCENE 1. Page 494.

CRU. ... their _blue coats_ brushed----

Thus in Nashe's _Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriell Harvey's

hunt is up_, when this foul-mouth'd writer has accused his adversary

Harvey of defrauding Wolfe his printer of thirty-six pounds, he adds,

that he borrowed of him a _blue coat_ for his man; "and yet Wolfe did

not so much as _brush_ it, when he lent it him, or presse out the print

where the _badge_ had been." In another place, alluding to the same

transaction, he states that Wolfe "lent him one of his prentises for

a serving creature to grace him, clapping an old _blue coate_ on his

backe, which was one of my Lord of Harford's liveries (he pulling the

_badge_ off)."

The practice of giving liveries to menial servants has not originated

in modern times. It is mentioned in some of the statutes made in the

reign of Richard the Second. In that of Edward the Fourth the terms

_livery_ and _badge_ appear to have been synonymous, the former having

no doubt been borrowed from the French language, and signifying a

thing _delivered_. The badge consisted of the master's device, crest,

or arms, on a separate piece of cloth, or sometimes silver, in the

form of a shield, fastened to the left sleeve. Greene, in his _Quip

for an upstart courtier_, speaking of some serving men, says, "their

cognizance, as I remember, was a peacocke without a tayle." In queen

Elizabeth's time the nobility gave silver badges, as appears from

Hentzner's _Travels_, p. 156, edit. Norimb. 1612, 4to. "Angli magnifici

domi forisque magna assectantium famulorum agmini secum trahunt, quibus

in _sinistro brachio scuta ex argento facta_ appendunt." But this

foolish extravagance was not limited to persons of high rank. Fynes

Moryson, speaking of the English apparel, informs us that "the servants

of _gentlemen_ were wont to weare _blew coates_, with their masters

badge of silver on the left sleeve, but now they most commonly weare

clokes garded with lace, all the servants of one family wearing the

same liverie for colour and ornament:" we are therefore to suppose that

the sleeve badge was left off in the reign of James I. Yet the badge

was at one time so general an accompaniment to a blue coat, that when

any thing wanted its usual appendage, it was _proverbially_ said to be

_like a blue coat without a badge_.

The custom of clothing persons in liveries and badges was not confined

to menial servants. Another class of men called _retainers_, who appear

to have been of no small importance among our ancestors, were habited

in a similar manner. They were a sort of servants, not residing in the

master's house like other menial domestics, but attending occasionally

for the purpose of ostentation, and _retained_ by the annual donation

of a livery consisting of a hat or hood, a badge, and a suit of

clothes. As they were frequently kept for the purpose of maintaining

quarrels and committing other excesses, it became necessary to impose

heavy penalties on the offenders, both masters and retainers. In

process of time they were licensed. Strype complains of the too great

indulgence of queen Mary in this respect. "She granted," says he,

"more by half in her short five years than her sister and successor

in thirteen. For in all that time there were but fifteen licenses of

retainer granted, whereas queen Mary had granted nine and thirty. She

was more liberal also in yielding the number of retainers to each

person, which sometimes amounted to two hundred. Whereas Q. Elizabeth

never yielded above an hundred to any person of the greatest quality,

and that rarely too. But Bishop Gardiner began that ill example, who

retained two hundred men: whereas under Q. Elizabeth the Duke of

Norfolk retained but an hundred; and Parker, archbishop of Canterbury,

but forty." He has added a list of the persons to whom Mary granted

licenses, and the number of persons retained. _Eccl. memorials_, iii.

479.

Nor did these retainers always consist of men of low condition. The

entertaining author of a book entitled _A health to the gentlemanly

profession of serving men, or the serving man's comfort_, 1598, 4to,

(to whom these notes have occasionally been indebted, and who with good

reason is supposed to have been Jervis Markham,) has certainly alluded

to them in the following curious passage, wherein he is consoling

the objects of his labour: "Amongst what sort of people should then

this serving man be sought for? Even the duke's sonne preferred page

to the prince, the earles seconde sonne attendant upon the duke, the

knights seconde sonne the earles servant, the esquires sonne _to weare

the knightes lyverie_, and the gentlemans sonne the esquiers serving

man: Yea I know at this day, gentlemen younger brothers, that weares

their elder brothers _blew coate_ and badge, attending him with as

reverend regard and duetifull obedience, as if he were their prince or

soveraigne." Let us congratulate ourselves that we no longer endure

such insolent aggressions, the result of family pride and ignorance,

and which had been too often permitted to degrade the natural liberties

and independence of mankind. The excellent old ballad of _Times

alteration_, has the following illustrative stanza of the coats and

badges in question:

"The nobles of our land

Were much delighted then,

To have at their command

A crew of lusty men;

Which by their coats were known

Of tawny, red or blue,

With crests on their sleeves shown,

When this old cap was new."

Before we dismiss the present subject, it will be necessary to observe

that the _badge_ occurs in all the old representations of posts or

messengers. On the latter of these characters it may be seen in the

52nd plate of Mr. Strutt's first volume of _The dress and habits of

the people of England_, where, as in the most ancient instances, the

badge is affixed to the girdle; but it is often seen on the shoulder,

and even on the hat or cap. These figures extend as far back as the

thirteenth century, and many old German engravings exhibit both the

characters with a badge that has sometimes the device or arms of the

town to which the post belongs. He has generally a spear in his

hand, not only for personal security, but for repelling any nuisance

that might interrupt his progress. Among ourselves the remains of the

ancient badge are still preserved in the dresses of porters, firemen,

and watermen, and perhaps in the shoulder-knots of footmen. The blue

coat and badge still remain with the parish and hospital boys. The

following figure of a person of a higher class with a badge, is copied

from the view of Windsor in _Braunii civitates orbis terrarum_, 1573.

[Illustration]

SCENE 1. Page 496.

PET. Where be these knaves? what no man _at door_.

Although _door_ might in the _middle_ of a line be pronounced as a

dissyllable, it is submitted that it cannot, with any propriety, at the

_end_. It were better to suppose an omission at the press, and read "at

_the_ door."

SCENE 2. Page 506.

TRA. That teacheth tricks _eleven and twenty_ long.

We have here a very uncommon and perhaps unique expression; but it

seems to mean no more than that the tricks were of an extraordinary

kind. _Eleven and twenty_ is the same as _eleven score_, which

signified a great length or number as applied to the exertions of a

few or even of a single person. Thus in the old ballad of _The low

country soldier_,

"Myself and seven more

We fought _eleven score_."

SCENE 3. Page 513.

KATH. Why then the beef, and let the mustard rest, &c.

This part of the dialogue was in all probability suggested by the

following whimsical story in _Wits, fittes and fancies_, 1595, 4to:--"A

clowne having surfeited of beefe, and being therewith extreame sicke,

vow'd never whiles he liv'd to eat beefe more, if it pleas'd God he

might escape for that once: Shortlie after having his perfect health

again, he would needs have eaten beefe, and his sister putting him in

mind of his vow, hee answered: True (sister) not without mustard (good

L.) not without mustard." This is not the only use that Shakespeare

has made of this curious book, which was, in part, translated from a

Spanish work, entitled _La floresta Spagnola_, by Anthony Copley, who

was the author of a poem printed at the end, called _Love's owle: In

dialogue-wise betweene love and an olde man_. Of this poem Copley thus

speaks in his dedication: "As for my _Loves owle_, I am content that

Momus turne it to a tennis-ball if he can, and bandy it quite away:

namelie, I desire M. _Daniel_, M. _Spencer_, and other the Prime Poets

of our time, to pardon it with as easie a frowne as they please, for

that I give them to understand, that an Universitie Muse never pend it,

though humbly devoted thereunto."

SCENE 3. Page 514.

PET. And all my pains is _sorted to no proof_.

This is explained by Dr. Johnson, "and all my labour has _proved_

nothing." It rather means, "all my labour is _adapted_ to no

_approof_," or "I have taken all this pains without _approbation_."

_Approof_ is used by Shakspeare in this sense, and should be here

printed with an apostrophe, _'proof_.

SCENE 4. Page 529.

BION. Take your assurance of her _cum privilegio ad imprimendum

solum_.

This is not the only instance in which our poet has borrowed his broad

metaphors from the typographical art.

In _The winter's tale_, Act V. Scene 1, we have, "Your mother was most

true to wedlock, prince; for she did _print_ your royal father off,

conceiving you."

* * * * *

To the stories already mentioned in the notes to this play as

resembling that of the _induction_, the following are to be added:--1.

_The sleeper awakened_, in the Arabian nights. This is probably the

original of all the rest. 2. A similar incident in the story of

_Xailoun_ in the _Continuation of the Arabian nights_. 3. In _The

apophthegms of King James, King Charles, the marquess of Worcester_,

&c., 1658, 12mo, there is the story of an old bachelor named _Thomas

Deputy_, who at the marriage of Edward Lord Herbert taking a fancy to

one of the bride's waiting-maids, was persuaded by the old Marquess

of Worcester to marry her at the same time. Thomas, being overpowered

on this occasion with the joy he felt from the liberal donations of

the noble assistants at the wedding, and also with the good wine that

was freely circulated, became altogether incapable of consummating his

marriage; and the Marquess, after relating to the company "the story of

the begger who was made to believe he did but dream of the happiness

that was really acted," determined to make the experiment in the person

of old Thomas, and accordingly ordered that he "should be disrobed

of his new wedding garment, the rest of his fine cloaths taken from

him, and himself carried unto his old lodging in the porter's lodge,

and his wife to respite the solemnization of the marriage bed untill

his comportment should deserve so fair an admission: which was done

accordingly. The next morning made the experiment to answer the height

of all their expectations; for news was brought unto the Marquesse,

all the rest of the lords and ladies standing by, that _Thom._ took

all yesterdayes work but for a dream, or at least seemed to do so, to

humour the fancy." 4. Winstanley, in his _Historical rarities_, 1684,

8vo, has a story of Aladine the Persian, called the old man of the

mountain, who built a magnificent palace near a city called _Mulebet_,

and filled it with every sort of luxury and delight. "Hither he brought

all the lusty youths he could light on, casting them into prison, where

they endured much sorrow and woe. And when he thought good, he caused a

certain drink to be given them, which cast them into a dead sleep: then

he caused them to be carried into divers chambers of the said palaces,

where they saw the things aforesaid as soon as they awaked; each of

them having those damsels to minister meats and excellent drinks, and

all varieties of pleasures to them, insomuch, that the fools thought

themselves to be in paradise indeed. Having enjoyed this happiness

a whole day, they were in a like sleep conveyed to their irons

again; after which, he caused them to be brought into his presence,

and questioned where they had been; which answered, by your grace,

in paradise, and recounted all the particulars before mentioned."

Winstanley has also given the story of Philip duke of Burgundy. 5. A

similar incident in the penny history of _The frolicksome courtier and

the jovial tinker_.

The author of the story in the Tatler might have used a novel in the

_Piacevoli notti_ of Straparola, nott. 8, fab. 2. and the outline of

the _Taming of the shrew_ may be found in a Spanish work entitled _El

conde Lucanor_, 1643, 4to, composed by Don Juan Manuel, nephew to

Ferdinand the fourth king of _Castile_.

The character of Petruchio bears some resemblance to that of Pisardo in

Straparola's _Novels_, night 8, fab. 7.

WINTER'S TALE.

ACT I.

SCENE 2. Page 27.

LEON. And his pond fish'd by his next neighbour.

This is not the only gross and offensive metaphor of the kind that our

poet has used. In _Measure for measure_, we have "groping for trouts in

a peculiar river."

SCENE 2. Page 30.

LEON. ... I have trusted thee Camillo,

With all the nearest things to my _heart_----

... wherein, priest-like thou

_Hast cleans'd my bosom_.

So in Macbeth we have,

"_Cleanse the stuff'd bosom_ of that perilous stuff,

Which weighs upon the _heart_."

SCENE 2. Page 39.

CAM. ... If I could find example

Of thousands that had struck anointed kings

And _flourish'd after_, I'd not do't.

If, as Mr. Blackstone supposes, this be an allusion to the death of

the queen of Scots, it exhibits Shakspeare in the character of a

cringing flatterer accommodating himself to existing circumstances,

and is moreover an extremely severe one. But the perpetrator of that

atrocious murder _did flourish_ many years afterwards. May it not

rather be designed as a compliment to King James on his escape from the

Gowrie conspiracy, an event often brought to the people's recollection

during his reign, from the day on which it happened being made a day of

thanksgiving? See _Osborne's traditional memoyres_, and the almanacks

of the time under the 5th of August.

SCENE 2. Page 41.

POL. In whose success we are _gentle_.

So in Act V. Scene 2, the old shepherd says, "we must be gentle now we

are gentlemen." What our ancestors conceived to be the true definition

of a gentleman may be seen at large in _The booke of honor and armes_,

1594, 4to, book iii. In Morgan's _Sphere of gentry_, the silly author

has gravely stated that _Jesus Christ_ was a _gentleman_ and bore arms.

Of the latter assertion he has given no proof, though he might have

adduced a sort of armorial bearing made up from the implements of the

passion, and often exhibited as such in some of the _horæ_ and other

service books of the church, before the reformation. Such a coat of

arms was likewise used as a stamp on the covers of old books, with the

motto REDEMPTORIS MUNDI ARMA. _Gentle gentlemen_ is an alliteration

that is very frequent in writers of the age of Shakspeare. In the

preface to Gerard Leigh's _Accedence of armorie_, 1597, 4to, three

sorts of _ungentiles_ are described, "the first whereof are _gentle

ungentle_. Such be they as wil rather sweare armes then beare armes.

Who of negligence stop mustard pots with their fathers pedegrees, or

otherwise abuse them. The second sort are _ungentle gentlemen_, who

being enhaunced to honor by their fathers, on whom (though it were

to their owne worship) yet can they not keepe so much money from the

dice, as to make worshipful obsequies for their sad fathers with any

point of armory. The third sort, and worst of all, are neither _gentle

ungentle_, or _ungentle gentile_, but verie stubble curs, and be

neither doers, sufferers, or wel speakers of honors tokens."

SCENE 2. Page 42.

CAM. I am appointed _him_ to murder you.

"_i. e._" says Mr. Steevens, "I am the person appointed to murder

you." This is certainly the meaning, but the grammatical construction

is, "I am appointed the person to murder you." The lines quoted from

_King Henry VI._ are ungrammatical, and not, as is conceived, an

exemplification of the foregoing passage.

SCENE 2. Page 42.

POL. ... and my name

_Be yok'd with his that did betray the best_.

Mr. Henderson's conjecture that Judas is here meant is certainly well

founded. A clause in the sentence against excommunicated persons was,

"let them _have part with Judas that betrayed Christ_. Amen;" and this

is here imitated.

ACT II.

SCENE 3. Page 73.

LEON. And _lozel_, thou art worthy to be hang'd.

The derivation of _lozel_ cited from Verstegan is arbitrary, and

deduced from a mere resemblance of sound. The word has been apparently

corrupted from the Saxon _lorel_, used by Chaucer for a worthless

fellow. See Mr. Tyrwhitt's glossary. The corruption may have originated

in the similitude of the letters _r_ and _z_ in ancient manuscripts.

ACT III.

SCENE 2. Page 82.

HER. ... since he came,

With what encounter so uncurrent I

Have strain'd to appear thus.

Dr. Johnson, not understanding these lines, "with the licence of all

editors," pronounces them unintelligible. However strange the language

may appear in the mouth of a lady, there is hardly a doubt that it is a

metaphor taken from tilting. Hermione means to say, _I appeal to your

own conscience whether since Polixenes came, I have made any violent

or irregular encounter unlike that of a fair courser_; or, in plainer

terms, _whether I have deviated from the paths of honour and_ forcibly

_obtruded myself on this tribunal_. Those who made an encounter at

justs were called _runners_; and were said, occasionally, to _run

foul_. This may serve to explain what is meant by _uncurrent_.

ACT IV.

SCENE 2. Page 107.

AUT. When daffodils begin to peer, &c.

Mr. Steevens, to give himself an opportunity of introducing a neat

retort on an attack which his favourite author had sustained, has

quoted a remark by Dr. Burney that Autolycus "is the _true ancient

minstrel_, as described in the old fabliaux." With great deference

to this learned and elegant writer, the observation is inaccurate.

Autolycus has nothing in common with the character of a minstrel but

the singing of a song or two. He is a mere _rogue_, assuming various

shapes, and is specifically called so in the _dramatis personæ_; but it

will not surely be contended that all rogues were minstrels, because a

cruel and illiberal statute has made all minstrels rogues. It is true

that Autolycus declares he had been an _ape-bearer_; but this was no

part of the minstrel profession in Shakspeare's time, though it had

been so formerly. As this circumstance however has not been noticed,

or at least very slightly, by any of the writers on the subject of

the ancient minstrels, it may be worth while to exhibit the following

curious story from the second book of _The dialogues of Saint Gregory_,

who lived in the sixth century. At the celebration of the feast of

Saint Proculus the martyr, a nobleman named Fortunatus having prevailed

on Bishop Boniface to eat with him after celebrating the service of

the day, it happened that before the holy prelate had pronounced the

usual benediction at table, _a minstrel leading an ape and playing on

a cymbal_ arrived. This very much discomposed the good bishop, who

exclaimed, Alas! alas! the wretched man is dead; behold, I have not yet

opened my lips to praise God, and he is here with his ape and playing

on his instrument. He then desired the servants to carry some victuals

to the unhappy man, which when he had eaten, a stone fell from the

house top and killed him.

SCENE 2. Page 109.

AUT. The lark that _tirra-lirra_ chants.

The tire-lire was not, it seems, peculiar to the lark. In Skelton's

_Colin Cloute_ we have,

"... howe Cupide shaked

His darte and bente hys bowe,

For to shote a _crowe_,

At her _tyrly tyrlowe_."

And in one of the Coventry pageants there is the following old song

sung by the shepherds at the birth of Christ, which is further

remarkable for its use of the very uncommon word _endenes_, from the

Saxon enꝺenehꞅꞇ, _the last_.

"As I out rode this endenes night,

Of three joli shepherds I sawe a syght,

And all aboute there fold a stare shone bright:

They sang _terli terlow_,

So mereli the sheppards there pipes can blow."

SCENE 2. Page 111.

AUT. My father named me Autolycus, &c.

It is necessary on this occasion to lay before the reader Dr.

Warburton's own words. "Mr. Theobald says, _the allusion is

unquestionably to Ovid_. He is mistaken. Not only the allusion, but

the whole speech is taken from Lucian, who appears to have been one of

our poet's favourite authors, as may be collected from several places

of his works. It is from _his discourse on judicial astrology_, where

Autolycus talks much in the same manner, &c."

Now if any one will take the trouble of comparing what Ovid and Lucian

have respectively said concerning Autolycus, he will, it is presumed,

be altogether disposed to give the preference to Theobald's opinion.

Dr. Warburton must have been exclusively fortunate in discovering that

_the whole speech is taken from Lucian_; that he was _one of our poet's

favourite authors_; and that, in the _dialogue_ alluded to, _Autolycus

talks much in the same manner_. He must have used some edition of

Lucian's works vastly preferable to those which now remain. The reader

will be pleased to consult the eleventh book of Ovid's _Metamorphoses_,

in the translation (if he have it) by Golding.

SCENE 2. Page 113.

CLOWN. ... _three-man_ songmen all.

"They have also _Cornish three-mens_ songs, cunningly contrived for the

ditty, and pleasantly for the note." Carew's _Survey of Cornwall_, fo.

72.

SCENE 2. Page 113.

CLOWN. ... but one Puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to

hornpipes.

An allusion to a practice, common at this time among the Puritans, of

burlesquing the _plein chant_ of the Papists, by adapting vulgar and

ludicrous music to psalms and pious compositions.

SCENE 3. Page 123.

PER. For you there's _rosemary_, and rue;

_Grace_ and _remembrance_ be to you both.

The following lines are from a song entitled, _A nosegaie alwaies

sweet for lovers to send for tokens of love at newyere's tide, or for

fairings, as they in their minds shall be disposed to write_, printed

in Robinson's _Handefull of pleasant delites_, 1584, 16mo:--

"Rosemarie is for remembrance,

Betweene us daie and night,

Wishing that I might alwaies have

You present in my sight."

This plant, as being thought to strengthen the memory, was therefore

_given to friends_, as in the present instance. See Parkinson's _Flower

garden_, p. 426. Thus Ophelia says to her brother, "There's rosemary;

that's for remembrance, _pray you, love, remember_." The reason for

calling rue _herb of grace_ is best explained in the notes on a

subsequent speech of Ophelia. See vol. xv. p. 276.

SCENE 3. Page 124.

PER. ... and streak'd gilliflowers,

Which some call nature's bastards: of that kind

Our rustick garden's barren; and I care not

To get slips of them.

POL. Wherefore, gentle maiden,

Do you neglect them?

PER. For I have heard it said,

There is an art which in their piedness, shares

With great creating nature.

The solution of the riddle in these lines that has embarrassed Mr.

Steevens is probably this: the gilly-flower or carnation is streaked,

as every one knows, with white and red. In this respect it is a proper

emblem of a _painted_ or immodest woman, and therefore Perdita declines

to meddle with it. She connects the gardener's _art_ of varying the

colours of the above flowers with the art of painting the face, a

fashion very prevalent in Shakspeare's time. This conclusion is

justified by what she says in her next speech but one.

SCENE 3. Page 126.

PER. The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun

And with him rises weeping.

"So upon occasions past, David found it true that he should not have

bene heretofore at any time, and therefore professeth, that, for the

time to come, he would be no _marigold-servant of God, to open with

the sun, and shut with the dewe_."--Prime's _Consolations of David

applied to Queene Elizabeth: in a sermon preached in Oxford the 17 of

November_, 1588, 12mo. Lord Howard, in his _Defensative against the

poyson of supposed prophecies_, 1583, 4to, says that "_the marie-golde_

dooth close and open with the sunne, &c."

SCENE 3. Page 131.

PER. ... I'll swear for 'em.

Dr. Johnson would transfer this speech to the king, and Mr. Ritson

would read "swear for _one_," or at least have some alteration; but in

reality no change is necessary. Florizel had just said, "so _turtles_

pair that never mean to part," on which Perdita very naturally

observes, "I'll swear for 'em." This is no more than a common phrase of

acquiescence, as we likewise say, "I'll _warrant_ you."

SCENE 3. Page 137.

AUT. ... poking-sticks of steel.

To Mr. Steevens's curious note on these implements for stiffening

the ruffs formerly worn by persons of both sexes, it may be worth

adding that this fashion being carried to a great extremity, became

the subject of many satirical prints. One of the oldest was engraved

in 1580, by Matthias Quad, and represents the Devil's ruff-shop, he

being called the _kragen-setzer_ or _ruff-setter_. A young gallant has

brought his mistress to have her ruff set. The Devil is engaged in

this operation whilst an assistant is heating fresh poking-sticks in a

brasier. Another print of this sort by Galle, is copied from a design

by Martin de Vos, and entitled _Diaboli partus superbia_. It has this

inscription relating to the _poking-sticks_: "Avec ces fers chauds

qu'on vous icy appreste, En enfer puny seras, O layde beste." Other

prints represent several monkeys habited in ruffs, and busily employed

in poking and starching them, &c.

SCENE 3. Page 138.

CLOWN. _Clamour_ your tongues, and not a word more.

The word is difficult, and, it is feared, likely to afford nothing but

conjecture.

Dr. Warburton asserts that the phrase is from ringing; that to clamour

bells is to repeat the stroke quicker than before, previously to

_ceasing_ them. On the contrary, Dr. Grey maintains that to clamour

bells is a _continued_ ringing, and Mr. Malone, with great probability,

suspects that what Warburton has said is _gratis dictum_. Dr. Johnson

says that "to clam a bell is to cover the clapper with felt, which

drowns the blow, and hinders the sound;" and Mr. Nicholls, that _a good

clam_ is a peal of all the bells at once. According to the treatise

on ringing in _The school of recreation_, 1684, 12mo, "_clamming_ is

when each concord strikes together, which being done true, the 8 will

strike but as four bells, and make a melodious harmony." The accounts

of bell-clamming are therefore so discordant that it seems but fair to

give up entirely this sense of the word.

The clown evidently wishes to keep the damsels' tongues from wagging.

Now to _clam_, _clem_, or _cleam_ are provincial words, signifying to

glue together or fasten with glue, and, metonymically, to starve by

contraction. Thus,

"... my entrails

Are _clam'd_ with keeping a continual fast."

Massinger's _Roman actor_.

And we still use _clammy_, for sticking together. All the Northern

languages have an equivalent term. The Germans have _klemmen_, to tie,

and in the old Icelandic we find _klæmman_ in the same sense. Ihre,

_Lexicon Suio-Goth_. In Saxon clam, ligamen, clæmɩnᵹ, a stiffening.

Somner _Gloss_. Littelton has _to clamm_, or hunger-starve, and Rider

to _clamme_, to _stop_. The latter is indeed more to the present

purpose than any or all of the others: because by supposing, what is

extremely probable, an error of the press, all will be set right. On

the other hand, _clamour_ is the reverse of what is required. Thus in

_Macbeth_, Act II. Scene 3, we have, "The obscure bird _clamour'd_ the

live-long night," and we are not to suppose that Shakspeare could have

used the same word in senses so extremely opposite.

SCENE 3. Page 148.

Re-enter servant, with twelve rusticks habited like _satyrs_. They

_dance_, and then exeunt.

In the old collection of songs set by Thomas Ravenscroft and others,

already quoted in p. 11, there is one called _The satyres daunce_. It

is for four voices, and as follows:--

"Round a round, a rounda, keepe your ring

To the glorious sunne we sing;

Hoe, hoe!

He that weares the flaming rayes,

And the imperiall crowne of bayes,

Him, with him, with shoutes and songs we praise.

Hoe, hoe!

That in his bountee would vouchsafe to grace

The humble sylvanes and their shaggy race."

SCENE 3. Page 154.

SHEP. Some hangman must put on my shroud, and lay me

_Where no priest shovels in dust_.

i. e. _I must be buried as a common malefactor, out of the pale of

consecrated ground, and without the usual rites of the dead_; a

whimsical anachronism, when it is considered that the old shepherd was

a Pagan, a worshipper of Jupiter and Apollo. But Shakspeare seldom

cares about blending the manners of distant ages.

Dr. Farmer has remarked that the _priest's_ office above mentioned

might be remembered in Shakspeare's time, which is very probable: the

mention of it here is one of the numerous instances of his intimate

acquaintance with the ceremonies of the Romish church. Before the

introduction of the new form of burial service by Edward the Sixth, it

was the custom for the priest to throw earth on the body in the form of

a cross, and then to sprinkle it with holy water; but this was not done

_in pronouncing_ the words _earth to earth_, according to a learned

commentator: that part of the ceremony was postponed till after a psalm

had been sung, the body being previously covered up. An antiphone next

followed; and then the priest said these words: "I commend thy soul

to God the father omnipotent: earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to

dust," &c.

ACT V.

SCENE 1. Page 182.

FLO. ... Good my lord,

She came from _Libya_.

_Perdita_ is here transformed into a _Moor_; and although this play

among others affords the most unequivocal proofs of Shakspeare's want

of skill in the science of geography, it is at least possible that an

error of the press has substituted _Libya_ for _Lydia_ or _Lycia_.

SCENE 2. Page 194.

CLOWN. _Give me the lie_, do; and try whether I am not now a

_gentleman born_.

This is a satire on certain ridiculous punctilios very much in use

at this time. Thus in _The booke of honor and armes_, 1590, 4to, "In

saying _a gentleman borne_, we meane he must be descended from three

degrees of gentry, both on the mother's and father's side." The same

work has many particulars relating to the circumstances in which _the

giving the lie_ is to be resented. See likewise Vincent Saviolo _On

honor and honorable quarrels_, book ii.

THE CLOWN.

He is a mere country booby.

* * * * *

The observation by Dr. Warburton, that _The winter's tale_ with all

its absurdities is very entertaining, though stated by Dr. Johnson to

be just, must be allowed at the same time to be extremely frigid. In

point of fine writing it may be ranked among Shakspeare's best efforts.

The absurdities pointed at by Warburton, together with the whimsical

anachronisms of Whitson pastorals, Christian burial, an emperor of

Russia, and an Italian painter of the fifteenth century, are no real

drawbacks on the superlative merits of this charming drama. The

character of Perdita will remain for ages unrivalled; for where shall

such language be found as she is made to utter?

COMEDY OF ERRORS.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 228.

DRO. E. Will you come _home_? quoth I; my gold, quoth he.

The word _home_, which the metre requires, is said to have been

suggested by Capell, but it had been already adopted by Sir Thomas

Hanmer.

SCENE 2. Page 234.

ANT. S. If you will jest with me, know my _aspéct_.

Mr. Steevens explains this, _study my countenance_. It seems rather to

be an astrological phrase, and to mean, _ascertain whether my aspect be

malignant or benign_. He had just before mentioned the sun. Thus in _1

Henry IV._ Act I. Scene 1, "Malevolent to you in all _aspécts_."

SCENE 2. Page 241.

ADR. Thou art an _elm_ my husband, I a _vine_;

If aught possess thee from me, it is dross,

Usurping Ivy, briar or idle moss.

So in _A midsummer night's dream_, Act IV. Scene 1, "The female

_ivy_ so enrings the barky fingers of the _elm_." There is something

extremely beautiful in making the vine the lawful spouse of the elm,

and the _parasite_ plants here named its _concubines_.

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 248.

DRO. S. _Mome_, malthorse, capon, coxcomb, idiot, patch!

Sir J. Hawkins would derive _mome_ from the French _momon_, the

challenge at dice made by a mummer or silent person disguised in

masquerade. It more probably came to us from one of those similar words

that are found in many languages signifying something foolish. _Momar_

is used by Plautus for a fool, whence the French _mommeur_. The Greeks

too had μομος and μορμος in the same sense.

SCENE 2. Page 257.

ANT. S. Less in your knowledge and your grace, you show not,

Than _our earth's wonder, more than earth divine_.

This play abounds so much in anachronisms, that there will be no

impropriety in supposing the above simile to have been designed as a

compliment to the reigning sovereign. Pronounced with emphasis, it

would not fail to make a due impression on the audience.

ACT IV.

SCENE 3. Page 280.

DRO. S. What, have you got _the picture of old Adam new apparell'd_?

Here seems to be an allusion to some well-known contemporary painting,

perhaps of a sign. "Adam whom God dyd fyrst create, made the fyrst

_lether coates_ for himself and his wyfe Eve our old mother, leavyng

thereby a patron to al his posterite of that crafte." Polydore Vergil

_de rer. invent._ translated by Langley, fo. lxix. Similar instances

had before occurred in _the picture of we three_, and _Mistress Mall_.

MACBETH.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 327.

ALL. _Paddock_ calls.

Mr. Steevens has remarked that "in Shakspeare a paddock certainly means

a toad." Indeed it _properly_ does everywhere; and when applied to the

frog, seems either to have been mistakenly used, or to have signified

the _rubeta_ or _rana bufo_, a frog of a venomous kind. The word comes

to us from the Saxon Paꝺa, and a toad is still called by a similar

term in most of the Teutonic languages. It may be likewise observed

that witches have nothing to do with frogs, an animal always regarded

as perfectly harmless, though perhaps not more so in reality than the

unjustly persecuted toad.

SCENE 2. Page 331.

SOLD. And fortune on his damned _quarrel_ smiling.

The old copy has _quarry_, which Dr. Johnson has changed to _quarrel_,

a reading that had already been adopted by Hanmer. Chance may hereafter

determine that _quarry_ was an _occasional_ mode of orthography,

_euphoniæ gratiâ_, as we find _perrie_ for _perril_. See Howard's

_Defensative against the poyson of supposed prophesies_, 1583, 4to,

sig. A iij. The word too which expresses a square-headed arrow and a

pane of glass is written both _quarry_ and _quarrel_.

SCENE 2. Page 335.

DUN. Dismay'd not this

Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo?

SOLD. Yes.

Mr. Steevens, adverting to the apparent defect of metre in the last

line, concludes that some word has been omitted in the old copy; and

Hanmer reads, _brave_ Macbeth, &c. No other change is necessary than

in orthography; for Shakspeare had, no doubt, written _capitaynes_, a

common mode of spelling the word in his time; and the fault lay either

in the printer or transcriber for the press.

SCENE 2. Page 339.

ROSSE. Till that Bellona's _bridegroom_, lapt in proof.

Shakspeare is here accused of ignorantly making Bellona wife to the

_God of war_; but, strictly speaking, this is not the case. He has

not called Macbeth, to whom he alludes, the _God of war_; and there

seems no great impropriety in _poetically_ supposing that a warlike

hero might be _newly married_ to the Goddess of war. Mr. Steevens's

objection appears to have been founded on a conclusion that Shakspeare

meant to compare Macbeth to Mars, and that of the other learned and

ingenious critic, on the impropriety of considering Bellona as a

married goddess.

SCENE 3. Page 341.

1. WITCH. _Aroint_ thee witch!

The reference to Hearne's print from an old calendar, in his edition of

Fordun, is very appositely introduced by Dr. Johnson in illustration

of _aroint_; but his explanation of the print is in many respects

erroneous. He is particularly mistaken in supposing it to represent

_Saint Patrick visiting hell_; for it is manifestly the very trite

subject of Christ delivering souls from purgatory, often painted by

Albert Durer and other ancient artists. The Doctor neglected to examine

not only the inscription on the print, but Hearne's own account of it;

and his eye having accidentally caught the name of Saint Patrick, of

whom Hearne had been speaking, his imagination suggested the common

story of the visit to purgatory (not hell). There is no doubt that

_aroint_ signifies _away_! _run_! and that it is of Saxon origin. The

original Saxon verb has not been preserved in any other way, but the

glossaries supply _ryne_ for running; and in the old Islandic, _runka_

signifies _to agitate_, _to move_. Mr. Grose is certainly wrong in his

explanation of the proverb, "_Rynt_ you witch! quoth Besse Locket to

her mother," when he says it means "by your leave, stand handsomely."

See his _Provincial glossary_.

SCENE 3. Page 353.

BAN. Or have we eaten of the _insane_ root,

That takes the _reason_ prisoner?

Mr. Steevens conceives that _hemlock_ is the root in question; whilst

Mr. Malone, after noticing the trouble which the commentators have

given themselves, introduces a quotation from Plutarch's life of

Antony, ("which," says he, "our author must have diligently read,")

that leads him to conclude the name to have been unknown even to

Shakspeare himself. There is however another book which has in the

course of these notes been shown to have been also read and even

studied by the poet, and wherein, it is presumed, he actually found

the _name_ of the above root. This will appear from the following

passage: "_Henbane_ ... is called _Insana_, mad, for the use thereof

is perillous; for if it be eate or dronke, it breedeth madnesse, or

slow lykenesse of sleepe. Therefore this hearb is called commonly

_Mirilidium_, for it taketh away wit and _reason_." Batman _Uppon

Bartholome de propriet. rerum_, lib. xvii. ch. 87.

SCENE 5. Page 373.

ATTEN. One of my fellows had the speed of him;

Who _almost dead for breath_, had scarcely more

Than would make up his message.

LADY M. Give him tending,

He brings great news. _The raven himself is hoarse

That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan._

The last lines may appear less difficult, if the reader will suppose

that at the moment in which the attendant finishes his speech, the

raven's voice is heard on the battlements of the castle; when Lady

Macbeth, adverting to the situation in which the messenger had just

been described, most naturally exclaims, "the raven _himself_ is

hoarse," &c. _Entrance_ must be here pronounced as a trisyllable, which

is better than to read Dŭncān.

SCENE 5. Page 374.

LADY M. Under my battlements. Come _come_ you spirits.

The second _come_ has been added by Mr. Steevens. On this it may be

permitted to remark, that although Shakspeare's versification is

unquestionably more smooth and melodious than that of most of his

contemporaries, he has on many occasions exhibited more carelessness

in this respect than can well be accounted for, unless by supposing

the errors to belong to the printers or editors. If the above line was

defective, many others of similar construction are still equally so; as

for example, this in p. 378,

"This ignorant present, and I feel now,"

which Mr. Steevens strangely maintains to be complete, though

undoubtedly as discordant to the ear as the other. Both, strictly

speaking, have the full number of syllables; a mode of construction

which it is to be feared our elder poets regarded as sufficient in

general to give perfection to a line.

SCENE 6. Page 384.

DUN. We cours'd him at the heels, and had a purpose

To be his _purveyor_.

The duty of the purveyor, an officer belonging to the court, was to

make a general provision for the royal household. It was the office

also of this person to travel before the king whenever he made his

progresses to different parts of the realm, and to see that every thing

was duly provided. The right of purveyance and pre-emption having

become extremely oppressive to the subject, was included, among other

objects of regulation, under the stat. of 12 Car. II.

SCENE 7. Page 395.

LADY M. But screw your courage to the _sticking-place_.

Mr. Steevens has suggested two metaphors, neither of which seems

to advance the explanation. If it could be shown that the stop

of a pile-driver, or the bed of a violin peg were ever called

_sticking-places_, one might indeed suspect a miserable pun: but it is

submitted that all the metaphor lies in the _screwing_. Another learned

commentator states that Davenant misunderstood the sense when he

supposed that _stabbing_ is alluded to; and yet there are grounds for

thinking his opinion correct. Lady Macbeth, after remarking that the

enterprise would not fail if her husband would but exert his courage

to the commission of the _murder_, proceeds to suggest the particular

manner in which it was to be accomplished. In short, if there be a

metaphor, abstractedly considered, it signifies nothing; for what would

be the use of Macbeth's courage, if, according to Mr. Steevens, _it

were to remain fast in that sticking-place from which it was not to

move_? The Scots have a proverb, "_Sticking_ goes not by strength, but

by guiding of the gooly," _i. e._ the knife.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 401.

BAN. This diamond he greets your wife withal,

By the name of most kind hostess; _and shut up

In measureless content_.

As the last sentence stands, it is at once ungrammatical and obscure;

and neither Mr. Steevens's construction of _shut up_ in the sense of

_to conclude_, as referring to the speaker, nor Hanmer's reading _and

is shut up_, as connected with Duncan, will render it intelligible.

It should seem as if Banquo meant to say that the king was immured in

happiness; but then it is obvious that some preceding words have been

lost.

SCENE 3. Page 428.

Enter MACDUFF.

_Duff_ in the Erse language signifies a captain; _Macduff_, the son of

a captain.

SCENE 3. Page 433.

MACD. Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit.

This simile has been elsewhere used by Shakspeare. Thus in _Cymbeline_,

he calls sleep _the ape of death_. In _A midsummer night's dream_, he

has _death counterfeiting sleep_. It might indeed from its extreme

obviousness have occurred to writers of weaker imagination than our

poet; yet as he is known to have borrowed so much, it is not impossible

that he might in this instance have been indebted to Marlow's

translation of a line in Ovid's _Elegies_, book ii. el. 9:

"Foole what is sleepe, but image of cold death?"

or to another version of the same line in Cardanus's _Comfort_:

"Is not our sleepe (O foole) of death an image playne?"

Whoever will take the trouble of reading over the whole of Cardanus's

second book as translated by Bedingfield, and printed by T. Marshe,

1576, 4to, will soon be convinced that it had been perused by

Shakspeare.

SCENE 3. Page 438.

MACB. ... _their daggers

Unmannerly breech'd_ with gore.

Mr. Steevens's explanation must be objected to. Finding that the

_lower end_ of a cannon is called its _breech_, he concludes that

the _hilt_ or _handle_ of a dagger must be here intended by the like

appellation. But is not this literally to mistake the _top_ for the

_bottom_? It is conceived that the present expression, though in itself

something _unmannerly_, simply means _covered as with breeches_.

The idea, uncouth and perhaps inaccurate as it is, might have been

suggested from the resemblance of daggers to the legs and thighs of

a man. The sentiments of Dr. Farmer on this, as on all occasions,

are ingenious, and deserving of the highest respect; but it is hardly

possible that Shakspeare could have been deceived in the way he states.

To give colour to his opinion, he is obliged in his quotation from

Erondell's _French garden_ to print the word _master's_ as a genitive

case singular, in order to apply the pronoun _their_ to _daggers_;

but without the aid of the French text, the word _their_ is _in the

original_ equally applicable to _masters_. Indeed the subsequent

mention of stockings, hose and garters, would have satisfied a person

of much less penetration than Shakspeare, that _breeches_ were there

intended as an article of dress.

The above conjecture that the term _breech'd_ might signify _cover'd_,

suggests the mention of a circumstance from which it may on the whole

be thought to derive support.

It is well known that some ridicule has been cast on one of our

translations of the Bible from the Genevan French edition, on account

of the following words, "And they sewed fig-tree leaves together and

made themselves _breeches_," Gen. iii. 7; whence it has been called the

_Breeches Bible_, and sometimes sold for a high price. It is generally

conceived that this peculiarity belongs exclusively to the above

Bible, but it is a mistake. The Saxon version by Ælfric has ⁊ ꞅɩƿoꝺon

ꝼɩcleaꝼ ⁊ ƿoꞃhꞇon hɩm ƿæꝺbꞃec, _and sewed fig-leaves and worked them_

WEED-BREECH_, or cloaths for the breech_. Wicliffe also translates

"and maden hem _breechis_;" and it is singular that Littelton in his

excellent dictionary explains _perizomata_, the word used in the

Vulgate, by _breeches_. In the manuscript French translation of Petrus

Comestor's commentary on the Bible, made by Guiars des Moulins in the

thirteenth century, we have "couvertures tout autressint comme unnes

petites _braies_."

ACT III.

SCENE 4. Page 476.

MACB. ... Get thee gone; to-morrow

We'll hear, _ourselves again_.

i. e. _when I have recovered from my fit, and am once more myself._ It

is an ablative absolute. _Ourselves_ is much more properly used than

_ourself_, the modern language of royalty.

SCENE 4. Page 482.

MACB. If trembling I _inhibit_ thee, protest me

The baby of girl.

Every partaker of the rational _Diversions of Purley_ will here call

to mind what has been advanced on the subject of this difficult and

much contested passage; but with all the respect and admiration that

are due to their profound and ingenious writer, will he feel himself

altogether satisfied? It were to be wished that not only the above

grammarian but another gentleman not less eminently qualified to

illustrate any subject he undertakes, had favoured us with some example

of the _neutral_ use of _inhabit_ in the sense of _to house_ or _remain

at home_. Until this be done, or even then, it may be boldly said,

and without much difficulty maintained, that _inhibit_, in point of

meaning, was Shakspeare's word. Nor is it a paradox to affirm that

_inhabit_, the _original_ reading, is also right; because this may be

only one of the numerous instances during the former unsettled state of

orthography, where the same word has been spelled in different ways.

Mr. Malone has already supplied instances of _inhabit_ for _inhibit_

in a passage from _All's well that ends well_, in all the folios

except the first, and another from Stowe's _Survey of London_. In the

edition of the _Shepherd's calendar_, printed without date by Wynkyn

de Worde in 4to, there is this sentence in chap. xxi.: "Correccyon is

for to _inhabyte_ & defende by the bridle of reason all errowres," &c.

Later editions have _inhibit_. Are we then to suppose that _all_ these

examples are typographical mistakes, rather than a varied orthography?

The difficulty remains to extract a sense from _inhibit_ adapted to the

occasion. Mr. Steevens has justly said, "to inhibit is to _forbid_;"

but this cannot be the present signification. A man cannot well be

said to _forbid_ another who has challenged him. He might indeed _keep

back or hesitate_ in such a case, which is the _neutral_ sense now

offered, but it must be confessed with nearly the same diffidence in

its accuracy which has been expressed as to that of the others.

With respect to the punctuation, it is conceived, that considering the

mode in which these plays were published, the authority of Shakspeare

is almost out of the question; and therefore a judicious modern editor

is entitled to use a great deal of discretion in corrections of this

kind. In the present instance there is no great objection to the old

pointing, though the comma should seem better _after_ "inhibit," and

may render the line more emphatic. "If trembling, I keep back, _then_

protest me," &c. After all, this is one of the many instances in which

the real meaning of the author cannot be satisfactorily obtained.

SCENE 5. Page 490.

Enter HECATE.

Mr. Tollett has already vindicated Shakspeare from the supposed

impropriety of introducing Hecate among _modern_ witches. The fact

seems to be, that acquainted, as he has elsewhere shown himself to

have been, with the classical connection which this deity had with

witchcraft, but knowing also, as Mr. Tollett's quotation from Scot

indicates, that _Diana_ was the name by which she was invoked in modern

times, he has preferred the former rather than the latter name of the

goddess, for reasons that were best known to himself.

That there existed during the middle ages numerous superstitions

relating to a connection that witches were imagined to have had with

Diana, it will be no difficult task to prove. From an ecclesiastical

statute, promulgated during the reign of Louis II., king of France, it

appears that certain mischievous women professed their belief in that

goddess, obeying her as their mistress; and that accompanied by her

and a great multitude of other females, they travelled over immense

spaces of the earth at midnight, mounted upon various animals. Many

other ecclesiastical regulations, and some of the councils, notice

these superstitions, and denounce very severe vengeance against those

persons who were thought to practise them. In one we find the following

declaration: "Nulla mulier se nocturnis equitare cum _Diana_ dea

Paganorum, vel cum _Herodiade_ seu _Benzoria_ et innumera mulierum

multitudine profiteatur; hæc enim dæmoniaca est illusio."--Ducange,

_Gloss._ v. Diana. These witches sometimes assembled at the river

Jordan, the favourite spot of Diana or Herodias. The Jesuit Delrio very

gravely denies the possibility of the above pranks, remarking that

there is in reality no Diana, and that Herodias the dancer, whom he

here confounds with her daughter, is at present in hell. _Disquisit.

magic._ lib. ii. quæst. 16. Eccard, in his preface to Leibnitz's

_Collectanea etymologica_, relates that in a journey through Misnia

in Saxony, he discovered traces of the German _Hecate_ among the

peasants in their _frauholde_ or _frau faute_, i. e. _lady fate_. John

Herold or Herolt, a German friar of the fifteenth century, in one of

his Sermons exclaims against those "qui deam, quam quidam _Dianam_

nominant, in vulgari _die fraurve unhold_ dicunt cum suo exercitu

ambulare."--_Sermones discipuli_, serm. xi. He states this practice to

have taken place at Christmas time. See likewise Carpentier _Suppl. ad

Ducangii glossar_. v. holda. His majesty King James the First, author

of that most sapient work entitled _Dæmonologie_, informs his readers

that the spirits whom the gentiles called _Diana and her wandering

court_, were known among his countrymen by the name of _pharie_. Other

appellations of this personage are likewise to be met with, as _Hera_,

_Nicneven_, and _Dame Habunde_; all as the chief or queen of the

witches, whom she generally accompanied in their nocturnal dances and

excursions through the air.

For the name of _Herodias_ it is not easy to account. It may not be

deemed a very extravagant conjecture, that the common people had

converted Herod's wife into a witch from their abhorrence of her

cruelty towards Saint John the Baptist; for the old mysteries have

preserved to us the indignant manner in which they treated Pontius

Pilate. The circumstance too of her daughter's dancing, compared with

the predilection of witches for that amusement, might contribute to

the idea. The learned Schiller thinks that _Herodias_ was the same as

_Juno_. He founds this opinion on the testimony of Gobelinus Persona,

a Monk of Paderborn in the fifteenth century, who in his general

history of the world had asserted that the Saxons worshipped Juno under

the Greek name of _Hera_, and that the common people still believed

in the flight of the _lady Hera_ through the air about the time of

Christmas; a superstition which seems to have been derived from an

older notion, that Juno presided over that element. Ducange imagined he

had found the name in _Hera Diana_; but he has not brought forward any

instance of the use of such an expression. With respect to _Benzoria_

or _Bensozia_, very little is known. Carpentier, in his Supplement to

Ducange's glossary, conjectures that she was designed for the daughter

of Herodias, and to assist in the magic dances. It is not improbable

that this character is in some way or other connected with the Irish

_Banshee_ or _Benshi_, a kind of fairy. In these subjects we can

perceive many corruptions which it is impossible to account for.

Dr. Leyden, in p. 318 of the glossary to his edition of _The complaynt

of Scotland_, mentions the "gyre carling, the queen of fairies, the

great hag _Hecate_, or mother witch of peasants," and cites Polwart's

_Flyting of Montgomery_ for "_Nicneven_ and her nymphs." In the

fragment of an old Scotish poem in Lord Hyndford's manuscript, in

strict conformity with what has been just advanced concerning _Juno_,

she is termed "quene of Jowis." See _Ancient Scot. poems_, 1768, p. 231.

As _Dame Habunde_ or _Abunde_ has been classed among the names given

to the president of the witches, it becomes necessary to take some

further notice of her, though a character of an opposite description

to those already mentioned. She appears to have been _the genuine

queen of fairies_, and of a most innocuous and benevolent disposition,

bestowing happiness and _abundance_ on all her votaries. In the

passage before mentioned in Gobelinus Persona, _Hera_ is spoken of

as conferring temporal abundance; and although she is represented as

flying through the air, it is not by night, nor accompanied by others.

Ducange has therefore improperly assimilated her to Diana and her tribe

of mischief, and of course his etymology of _Herodias_ is rendered very

improbable. In an ancient fabliau by Haisiau, never _entirely_ printed,

_Dame Abunde_ is thus introduced:

"Ceste richesce nus abonde

Nos lavon de par _Dame Avonde_."

She is also mentioned in the works of William Auvergne, bishop of

Paris, in the fourteenth century, as a spirit enriching the houses

that she visited. Delrio adds, that on her coming with the rest of the

_good ladies_, the superstitious old women used to provide plenty of

victuals for them, leaving all the dishes and wine-vessels uncovered to

prevent any obstruction to their getting at the food, and expecting on

the occasion nothing but plenty and prosperity. See _Disquisit. magic._

1. ii. quæst. 27. sect. 2. In the life of Saint Germain, bishop of

Auxerre, we find these dames paying their respects to the holy man; and

as the story is misrepresented in its most material part by Caxton's

translation of the _Golden legend_, it shall be given from a valuable

manuscript of the same work much older than his time. "Narratio. In a

tyme he was herboured in a place wher men made redy the borde for to go

to dyner aftir he had soupid, and he was gretli merveiled, and asked

for whom the borde was sette aᵹen; and thei seide for _the good women

that walke by nyᵹte_; and than Seinte Germayne ordeyned that nyᵹte to

be waked. And than at a certeyn hour gret multitude of feendis come to

the borde in liknesse of men and of women. And than Germayn comaundid

him that thei shold not passe thens, and than he awoke al the meyne,

and asked yf thei knewe eny of thoo persones, and they seide that thei

wer her neyᵹebores, and than he sente to her housis, and thei wer alle

founde in bedde, and than thei alle had gret merveile and thouᵹte wel

that thei were feendis that had so longe scorned hem."

The _Samogitæ_, a people formerly inhabiting the shores of the Baltic,

and who remained idolaters so late as the fifteenth century, believed

in the existence of a sort of demi-fairies about a palm high, with

beards, whom they called _Kaukie_. To these little beings they made an

offering of all kinds of food to avert their displeasure. They likewise

invoked a deity called _Putscet_ to send them the _Barstuccæ_ to live

with them and make them fortunate. To effect this, they placed every

night in the barn a table covered with bread, butter, cheese, and ale;

and if these were taken away before morning, they looked for good

fortune, but if left, for nothing but ill luck. See Lasicius _De diis

Samagitarum_, 1615, 4to, pp. 51, 55. A similar superstition prevailed

in England, and is thus recorded in Browne's _Britannia's pastorals_,

book i. song 2.

"Within one of these rounds was to be seene

A hillocke rise, where oft the _Fairie queene_

At twy-light sate, and did command her elves

To pinch those maids that had not swept their shelves:

And further, if by maidens oversight,

_Within doores water were not brought at night_;

_Or if they spread no table, set no bread_,

They should have nips from toe unto the head:

And for the maid that had perform'd each thing,

She in the water-paile bad leave a ring."

Mr. Bell, in his _Description of the condition and manners of the Irish

peasantry_, relates that the fairies or _good people_ were supposed

to enter habitations after the family retired to rest, to indulge in

sportive gambols, and particularly to wash themselves in clean water;

but if there were no water in the house, to play some mischievous

tricks in revenge.

Fairies were also, from their supposed place of residence, denominated

_waternymphs_, in the Teutonic languages, _wasserfrauwen_,

_wassernixen_, _nocka_, _necker_, and _nicker_, terms, excepting the

first, manifestly connected with the Scotish _nicneven_, and most

probably with our _old nick_. Very great confusion seems to have arisen

in the change of sex and appellation among these supernatural beings.

This may have been occasioned by the numerous Pagan superstitions to

which the common people were still attached long after the promulgation

of Christianity, as well as from their excessive ignorance and

credulity, which led them to convert the deities of the heathens into

phantoms of their own creation. Thus Diana and Minerva were degraded

into witches, and Mercury became the prince of fairies. Neptune was

metamorphosed into a _water-fairy_, of whom a most curious account

is preserved in the _Otia imperii_ of Gervase of Tilbury, published

in Leibnitz's _Scriptores rerum Brunsvic._ p. 980, and partly copied

into Mr. Tyrwhitt's edition of Chaucer's Canterbury tales, vol. iv.

268. It seems probable that the name of Neptune is merely disguised

in the Scotish _Nicneven_. Some of the Teutonic glossaries render

the word _necker_ by _dæmon aquaticus, Neptunus_. A further account

of him may be found in Wormii _Monumenta Danica_, p. 17, and in

Keysler _Antiquitat. select. septentr._ p. 261, where the etymology

of _necker_, viz. from the Latin _necare_, strengthens the preceding

conjecture as to that of _Nicneven_, and resolves it into the

_destroying or dæmoniacal Neptune_. The reader may likewise consult

Wachter's _German glossary_ under the word _necker_, where it would

have been of some use to the learned author to have known that this

mischievous fairy was remarkable for drowning people, and was called

_Nocka_, the Danish term, as he states on another occasion, for

_suffocating_. Nor would the contrast of character between this being

and the _beneficent queen of fairy_ amount to any solid objection

against the proposed etymology. Whoever may attempt an investigation

of the fairy system will be sure of finding the greatest disorder and

confusion; nor is it possible at this time to offer any reason that

will be quite satisfactory why different qualities were ascribed to

beings of similar names by different people. We must rest contented

with possession of the fact. Thus _Dame Abunde_ has been made to

preside over the _white nymphs_, _white ladies_, or _witte wyven_,

who all appear to have been of a mischievous disposition, committing

nocturnal depredations on men and cattle, but more particularly on

pregnant women and infants, whom they shut up in their subterraneous

abodes, from which groans and lamentations, and occasionally melodious

sounds were often heard to issue. See Kempius _De orig. Frisiæ_, p.

341. Ben Jonson in his _Sad shepherd_ makes the _white faies_ to reside

in stocks of trees.

But let us now return from this digression to the subject of Hecate

or Diana. Under the reign of Hadrian, Saint Taurinus is said to have

converted the inhabitants of Evreux in Normandy to the Christian

faith, but this was not accomplished until the Devil had been fairly

expelled from Diana's temple in the above city. For this purpose, he

was with great solemnity enjoined to appear in the presence of all the

people, who, as heathens, were extremely terrified, especially as the

evil spirit came forth under the form of an Ethiopian, dark as soot,

with a long beard, and fire issuing from his mouth. An angel then

tied his hands behind him and led him away. This dæmon is believed

still to remain at Evreux, frequently appearing to the inhabitants,

but is said to be perfectly harmless. He is called _Goblin_ by the

common people, who believe that he is restrained from mischief by the

merits of Saint Taurinus. The reason why he was not at once consigned

to the infernal regions, is, that at the command of the holy bishop

he assisted in destroying the idols of the city; but he is supposed

to have received sufficient punishment in beholding those persons

in a state of salvation, whom during his power he had insultingly

regarded as his victims. See Ordericus Vitalis, p. 555. In England

it appears that the common people not only feared Diana as a witch,

but that they had on many occasions paid her reverential honours as

a goddess. This is confirmed by the remains of such animals as were

used in her sacrifices, and also by her own images found on rebuilding

Saint Paul's cathedral. These have been particularly described in Dr.

Woodward's letter to Sir Christopher Wren in the eighth volume of

Leland's _Itinerary_; from which circumstance the doctor very plausibly

inferred that a Roman temple of Diana had been formerly erected on

this spot. There is preserved a most curious sermon by Saint Maximus

bishop of Turin in the fifth century, replete with the superstitions

that existed in his time relating to the worship of Diana; nor can

it be controverted that she was equally reverenced in this country

long after the introduction of Christianity, when we find from the

testimony of Richard Sporling, a Monk of Westminster in 1450, and a

diligent collector of ancient materials, that during the persecution

of Diocletian the inhabitants of London sacrificed to Diana, whilst

those of Thorney, now Westminster, were offering incense to Apollo. Sir

William Dugdale records that a commutation grant was made in the reign

of Edward I., by Sir William Le Baud, to the dean and canons of Saint

Paul, of a doe in winter on the day of the saint's conversion, and of a

fat buck in summer on that of his commemoration, to be offered at the

high altar, and distributed among the canons. To this ceremony Erasmus

has alluded in his book _De ratione concionandi_, when he describes

the custom which the Londoners had of going in procession to St. Paul's

cathedral with a deer's head fixed upon a spear, accompanied with men

blowing hunting-horns. Mr. Strype likewise, in his _Ecclesiastical

memorials_, vol. iii. p. 378, has preserved a notice of the custom as

practised in Queen Mary's time, with this addition, that the priest of

every parish in the city arrayed in his cope, and the bishop of London

in his mitre, assisted on the occasion. Camden had likewise seen it

when a boy, and had heard that the canons of the cathedral attended in

their sacred vestments, wearing garlands of flowers on their heads. As

to Mr. Selden's _witty conceit_ on the subject, which bishop Gibson

inclines to adopt, it is enough to allude to it, being most certainly

unworthy of a serious confutation.

Some of the above remarks have been offered as hints only for a more

ample investigation of the fairy superstitions of the middle ages, _so

far as they are connected with the religion of the ancient Romans_; a

subject of intrinsic curiosity, and well deserving the attention of

those who may feel interest in the history of the human mind.

ACT IV.

SCENE 1. Page 497.

1. WITCH. Thrice the _brinded cat_ hath mew'd.

Dr. Warburton has adduced classical authority for the connexion between

Hecate and this animal, with a view to trace the reason why it was the

agent and favourite of modern witches. It may be added, that among

the Egyptians the cat was sacred to Isis or the Moon, their Hecate or

Diana, and accordingly worshipped with great honour. Many cat idols

are still preserved in the cabinets of the curious, and the sistrum

or rattle used by the priests of Isis is generally ornamented with

the figure of a cat with a crescent on its head. We know also that the

Egyptians typified the Moon by this animal, as the Chinese and some of

the people of India do now by the rabbit; but the cause is as likely

to remain a mystery as their hieroglyphic mode of writing. Some of the

ancients have amused themselves with guessing at the reason. They have

supposed that the cat became fat or lean with the increase or wane of

the Moon; that it usually brought forth as many young as there are

days in a lunar period; and that the pupils of its eyes dilated or

contracted according to the changes of the planet.

SCENE 1. Page 503.

3. WITCH. ... slips of yew.

The reason for introducing this tree is, that it was reckoned

poisonous. See Batman _Uppon Bartholome_, 1. xvii. c. 161.

SCENE 1. Page 505.

MACB. Though you untie the winds, and let them fight

Against the churches.

The influence of witches over the winds had been already discussed by

Mr. Steevens in a former note on Act I. Scene 3, and it might be well

supposed that their formidable power would be occasionally directed by

these mischievous beings against _religious edifices_. It is therefore

by no means improbable that in order to counteract this imaginary

danger, the superstitious caution of our ancestors might have planted

the yew-tree in their church-yards, preferring this tree not only on

account of its vigour as an evergreen, but as independently connected,

in some now forgotten manner, with the influence of evil powers.

Accordingly in a statute made in the latter part of the reign of Edward

I., to prevent rectors from cutting down trees in church-yards, we find

the following passage: "verum arbores ipsæ, _propter ventorum impetus

ne ecclesiis noceant_, sæpe plantantur." This is at least sufficient

for the purpose of disproving what has been so often asserted

respecting the plantation of yews in church-yards for the purpose of

making bows; for although these weapons were sometimes made of English

yew, the more common materials employed were elm and hazel, either on

account of the comparative scarcity of English yew, or more probably

from its inadequacy, in point of toughness, for constructing such

bows as our robust and skilful archers were famed for using. Indeed

modern experience has proved the truth of the latter supposition; and

therefore, whenever yew was used for making the best sort of bows, it

was of foreign growth: many of our ancient statutes very carefully

provide for the importation of that commodity, which appears to have

been chiefly Italian, with other merchandise.

SCENE 1. Page 506.

1. WITCH. ... grease that's sweaten

From the murderer's gibbet.

Apuleius in describing the process used by the witch, Milo's wife, for

transforming herself into a bird, says that "she cut the lumps of flesh

of such as were hanged." See Adlington's translation, p. 49, edit.

1596, 4to, a book certainly used by Shakspeare on other occasions.

SCENE 3. Page 540.

ROSSE. ... to relate the manner,

Were, on the _quarry_ of these murder'd deer,

To add the death of you.

"_Quarry_," says Mr. Steevens, "is a term used both in hunting and

falconry. In both sports it means the game after it is killed." So far

this is just, and serves _partly_ to explain the passage before us, as

well as this in _Coriolanus_, Act I. Scene 1:

"And let me use my sword, I'd make a _quarry_

With thousands of these quarter'd slaves, as high

As I could pitch my lance."

What follows respecting the etymology of the word may not appear quite

so correct. Mr. Steevens cites the MS. _Mayster of game_, in which

the old English term _querre_ is used for the _square_ spot wherein

the dead game was deposited. It is simply the French _carré_, but not,

as Mr. Steevens conceived, the origin of _quarry_. It is necessary to

state that _quarry_ not only signified the game that was killed, but,

in falconry, the bird that was pursued or sought after. The same term

is used to express the flight of the hawk after its prey. In these

senses it is probable that the word has been formed from the French

_querir_, _to seek after_, and that the game sought after would be

called in that language _querie_, whence our English _quarrie_, the

old and correct orthography. The more modern French term in falconry

for pursuing the game is _charrier_. See René François, _Essay des

merveilles de nature_, 1626, 4to, p. 48.

It is conceived therefore that in both the passages in Shakspeare

_quarry_ signifies the spot or _square_ in which the heaps of dead game

were placed. Not so in the quotation from Massinger's _Guardian_; for

there _quarry_ is evidently the bird pursued to death.

ACT V.

SCENE 5. Page 570.

MACB. The way to _dusty_ death.

Perhaps no quotation can be better calculated to show the propriety of

this epithet than the following grand lines in _The vision of Pierce

Plowman_, a work which Shakspeare might have seen:

"_Death_ came drivynge after, and all to _dust_ pashed

Kynges and kaysers, knightes and popes."

Scriptural language and a passage in the burial service might have

likewise suggested the epithet.

KING JOHN.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 19.

BAST. _Good den_, sir Richard.

SEE former note, p. 139.

SCENE 1. Page 26.

BAST. ... _Basilisco_ like.

This braggadocio character must have been very popular, as his oaths

became proverbial. Thus in Fennor's _Compter's commonwealth_, 1617,

4to, we have, "three-pil'd, huge _Basilisco_ oaths that would have torn

a roring-boyes eares in a thousand shatters."

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 39.

ELL. His mother shames him so, poor boy, he weeps.

CONST. Now shame upon you, whether _she_ does, or no!

Mr. Ritson proposes to read, _whether_ he _does or no_! i. e. _whether

he weeps or not_; and he adds that Constance, so far from admitting,

expressly denies that she shames him. It may be answered, that this

reading is _equally_ objectionable; for Constance admits also that her

son wept. In either case there is ambiguity; but the words as they

stand are infinitely more natural, and even defensible, according to

common usage.

SCENE 1. Page 44.

K. JOHN. Have brought a _countercheck_ before your gates.

Mr. Steevens thinks this one of the _old_ terms used at chess, but none

such occurs in any of the treatises on that game. It is presumed to

be simply a military word. Thus the Bastard afterwards asks, "shall a

silken wanton brave our fields and find no _check_?" and we still say,

"the enemy has received a _check_."

SCENE 1. Page 47.

K. PHI. Command the rest to stand.--_God, and our right_!

An English motto is here improperly put into the mouth of a Frenchman.

Richard the First is said to have originally used DIEU ET MON DROIT.

SCENE 2. Page 64.

K. PHI. ... Young princes close your hands

AUST. _And your lips too_; for, I am well assur'd,

That I did so, when I was first assur'd.

The kiss was a part of the ceremony of affiancing. Thus in _Twelfth

night_:

"A contract of eternal bond of love,

Attested by the _holy close of lips_."

See the note in page 67.

ACT III.

SCENE 4. Page 107.

CONST. And _buss_ thee as thy wife.

In former times there was no vulgarity in this word, as the two first

quotations by Mr Steevens demonstrate; but he is peculiarly unfortunate

in his last example, which may without detriment be omitted in future

editions. The singular vulgarity of Stanihurst's language cannot with

propriety be used to exemplify the undegraded use of any word whatever.

No further proof of the justice of this remark is necessary than

the mention of his "dandiprat cockney Cupido," or the "_blubbering_

Andromache," whom he describes as "stuttering and stammering to

_fumble_ out an answer to her sweeting delicat Hector;" and numerous

expressions of a similar nature occur in his eccentric translation

of the pure and elegant Virgil. _To buss_ is either from the French

_baiser_, or from some radical word common to both languages, and was

formerly written _bass_. Thus Stanihurst, whom it may be allowable to

quote on this occasion;

"That when Queen Dido shall col thee and smacklye _bebasse_ thee:"

And the duke of Orleans, in one of his love poems written in the time

of King Henry the Fifth;

"Lend me your praty mouth madame

I wis dere hart to _basse_ it swete."

SCENE 4. Page 115.

PAND. No natural exhalation in the sky,

No _scape_ of nature, no distempered day,

No common wind, no customed event,

But they will pluck away his natural cause,

And call them meteors, prodigies and signs,

Abortives, presages, and tongues of heaven.

The old copy reads _scope_ of nature. The alteration was made by Pope,

and plausibly commented on by Warburton, who seems to have influenced

Mr. Malone to adopt it. The speaker's design is to show that all the

_common effects of nature_ which he mentions would be _perverted_ by

the people; but an _escape_ of nature would be very _properly_ deemed

_an abortive_. The original reading is therefore correct; nor could an

apter word have been selected. Thus in _King Henry the Fourth, Part I._:

"And curbs himself even of his _natural scope_."

ACT IV.

SCENE 2. Page 128.

PEMB. If what in _rest_ you have, in right you hold.

Mr. Steevens would read _wrest_, which he explains to be _violence_.

But surely "the murmuring lips of discontent" would not insinuate that

John was an usurper; because the subsequent words, "in right you hold,"

would then be contradictory. One could not say, "if, being an usurper,

you reign by right." The construction may therefore be more simple: "If

the power you now possess in _quiet_ be held by right, why should your

fears," &c. The explanation given by Mr. Malone might have sufficed.

SCENE 2. Page 137.

K. JOHN. It is the curse of kings to be attended

By slaves that take their humours for a warrant

To break within the bloody house of life.

Mr. Malone ingeniously conceives this to be a covert apology for

Elizabeth's conduct to the queen of Scots; yet it may be doubted

whether any such apology would be thought necessary during the life of

Elizabeth. May it not rather allude to the death of the earl of Essex?

If this conjecture be well founded, it will serve to ascertain the date

of the composition of the play, and to show that Meres had mistaken the

older piece for Shakspeare's.

SCENE 2. Page 139.

K. JOHN. Or turn'd an eye of doubt upon my face,

_As_ bid me tell my tale in express words.

_And_, and _or_, have been proposed instead of _as_, but without

necessity. The words are elliptical in Shakspeare's manner, and only

mean, "or turn'd _such_ an eye of doubt _as_ bid me," &c.

SCENE 3. Page 142.

SAL. Two long days journey lords, _or e'er_ we meet.

Dr. Percy has judiciously remarked that _ever_ or _e'er_ in this

phrase is a useless augmentative, _or_ being of itself equivalent to

_before_. The corruption is not much older than Shakspeare's time.

In some of the editions of Cranmer's Bible, _Ecclesiastes_ xii. 6 is

rendered, "_Or ever_ the silver lace be taken away, and _or ever_

the golden well be broken." In others the second _ever_ is omitted.

Wicliffe's translation, an invaluable monument of our language, has it,

"_er_ be to broke the silveren corde," &c. This is pure Saxon æꞃ or

eꞃ; and so is our modern _ere_, often erroneously spelled _e'er_, as

a supposed contraction of _ever_. Yet in Chaucer's time it had become

_or_;

"For, par amour, I loved hir first _or_ thou."

Knight's tale, v. 1155.

though some copies, both manuscript and printed, read _er_ in this

place as well as in others. Mr. Steevens seems properly to object to

the orthography of _ore_.

ACT V.

SCENE 1. Page 155.

BAST. Away then, with good courage; yet I know,

Our party may well meet a _prouder_ foe.

Mr. Steevens has noticed Dr. Johnson's misconception of this passage;

yet it may be doubted whether he has sufficiently simplified the

meaning, which is, "yet I know that our party is fully competent

to engage a more _valiant_ foe." _Prouder_ has in this place the

signification of the old French word _preux_.

KING RICHARD II.

ACT III.

SCENE 2. Page 272.

K. RICH. That when the searching eye of heaven is hid

Behind the globe, _and_ lights _the lower world_.

The slight but necessary emendation of _and_ for _that_ ascribed to

Johnson, had already been made by Hanmer. _Lower world_ simply means

_lower hemisphere_.

SCENE 2. Page 279.

K. RICH. Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's,

And nothing can we call our own, but death.

This resembles Wolsey's speech;

"To the last penny 'tis the king's; my robe

And my integrity to heav'n, is all

I dare now call my own."

SCENE 2. Page 279.

K. RICH. And that small _model_ of the barren earth.

_Model_ or _module_, for they were the same in Shakspeare's time, seems

to mean in this place, a _measure_, _portion_, or _quantity_.

SCENE 2. Page 280.

K. RICH. ... For within the hollow crown

That rounds the mortal temples of a king

Keeps death his court; and there the antick sits,

Scoffing his state, and _grinning_ at his pomp.

Some part of this fine description might have been suggested from the

seventh print in the _Imagines mortis_, a celebrated series of wooden

cuts which have been improperly attributed to Holbein. It is probable

that Shakspeare might have seen some spurious edition of this work;

for the great scarcity of the original in this country in former times

is apparent, when Hollar could not procure the use of it for his _copy_

of the dance of death. This note, which more properly belongs to the

present place, had been inadvertently inserted in the first part of

_Henry the Sixth_. See Act IV. Scene 7, in Mr. Steevens's edition.

SCENE 3. Page 283.

NORTH. Your grace mistakes me; only to be brief

Left I his _title_ out.

YORK. The time hath been,

Would you have been so brief with him, he would

Have been so brief with you, to shorten you,

For _taking so the head_, your whole head's length.

"_To take the head_," says Dr. Johnson, "is to act without restraint;

to take undue liberties." It is presumed it rather means to take away

or omit the sovereign's _chief_ and usual _title_; a construction which

considerably augments the play on words that is here intended.

KING HENRY IV.

PART I.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 357.

K. HEN. To be commenced in _stronds_ afar remote.

This antiquated word, signifying _shores_, seems to have been entitled

to some notice by the editors, as it cannot be familiar to every

reader. We have now, perhaps accidentally, restored the original Saxon

ꞅꞇꞃanꝺ.

SCENE 1. Page 357.

K. HEN. No more the thirsty _Erinnys_ of this soil

Shall daub her lips with her own childrens blood.

The original reads _entrance_, which is supported by Mr. Malone and

also by Mr. Ritson, to whose authorities might be added the line in

Spenser's _Shepherds calendar_;

"Quenching the _gasping furrowes thirst_ with rayne."

The present reading was ingeniously suggested by Mr. Mason, and

has been adopted by Mr. Steevens, who, vigorously maintaining its

propriety, throws the gauntlet of defiance to all adversaries: but let

us not be appalled!

To the assertion that a just and striking personification is all that

is wanted on this emergency, the answer is, that we have it already.

_Soil_ is personified; they are _her_ lips, and _her_ children that are

alluded to. With respect to _Erinnys_, notwithstanding the examples

of typographical errors that are adduced, it is highly improbable

that it should have been mistaken for _entrance_, a word which has

three letters that are wanting in the other. Again, are the instances

common, or rather do they exist at all, where the _capital letter_

of a proper name has been lost in a corruption? And, lastly, to turn

in part Mr. Steevens's own words against himself, it is not probable

that Shakspeare would have "opened his play with a speech, the fifth

line of which is obscure enough to demand a series of comments thrice

as long as the dialogue to which it is appended;" or, it may be added,

which contained a name of such unfrequent occurrence, and certainly

unintelligible to the greatest part of the audience.

It is often expected, though perhaps rather unreasonably, that where an

opinion is controverted, a _better_ should be substituted; yet it does

seem just that something at least, in value equal or nearly so, should

be produced, and on this ground the following new reading is very

diffidently offered:

"No more the thirsty _entrails_ of this soil."

In _Titus Andronicus_ we have the expression, "the ragged _entrails of

this pit_." And in the _Third part of King Henry VI._,

"What, hath thy fiery heart so _parch'd_ thine _entrails_?"

Nothing that has been here advanced is calculated to maintain that the

name of _Erinnys_ must have been obscure to Shakspeare. One or two

quotations have been already given from authorities that might have

supplied him, to which the following shall now be added:

"_Erinnis_ rage is growen so fel and fearce."

_Last part of the mirour for magistrates_,

1578, fo. 153.

"On me, ye swarth _Erinnyes_, fling the flames."

Turbervile's _Ovid's epistles_,

sign. K. ij.

SCENE 2. Page 367.

FAL. ... not by Phœbus,--he, _that wandering knight so fair_.

Falstaff, with great propriety, according to vulgar astronomy, calls

the sun _a wandering knight_, and by this expression evidently alludes

to some hero of romance. Now though the _knight of the sun_ mentioned

by Mr. Steevens, was doubtless a great wanderer, he was not more

so than others of his profession; and therefore it is possible that

Falstaff may refer to another person particularly known by the name of

_the wandering knight_, and the hero of a spiritual romance translated

in Shakspeare's time from the French by William Goodyeare, under the

last-named title. It may be worth mentioning that in all probability

John Bunyan used this work in the composition of his _Pilgrim's

progress_.

SCENE 2. Page 376.

FAL. 'S blood, I am as melancholy as a _gib cat_.

Captain Grose in his _Dictionary of the vulgar tongue_ informs us that

a _gib cat_ is so called from _Gilbert_, the northern name for a _he

cat_; and this is corroborated by the manner in which Chaucer has used

the word in question;

"I mean but gyle, and follow that,

For right no more than _Gibbe our cat_

That awaiteth mice and rattes to killen."

_Rom. of the rose._

The original French has "dam _Thibert_ le chas," which proves that

_Gib_ was a proper name in Chaucer's time, whatever change it may

have since undergone in its feline application. We see too the reason

why a _gib_ is a _male_ cat. The melancholy of this animal has been

sufficiently explained. Another quality belonging to him is thus

ironically mentioned in the anonymous play of _The politick whore_,

1680; "as _modest_ as a _gib-cat_ at midnight."

SCENE 2. Page 381.

POINS. What says sir John _Sack-and-sugar_?

In aid of Mr. Malone's conjecture that sack was so called as being a

_dry_ wine, _vin sec_, it may be remarked that the old orthography was

_secke_ and not _sack_. Dr. Boorde in his _Regimente of health_, 1562,

12mo, calls it so. In Hollyband's _French schoolemaister_, 1619, 12mo,

we have "_secke_, du vin sec." Again, "Some of you chaplaines, get my

lorde a cup of _secke_, to comfort his spirites." Ponet's _Treatise

of politike power_, 1556, 12mo; and Cotgrave in his _Dictionary_,

makes _sack_ to be _vin sec_. This plausible etymology might have been

wholly relied on, if an ingenious female traveller in speaking of the

Tatar _koumis_, a preparation of mare's milk, had not informed us that

she could not choose to partake of it out of the goatskin _sacks_ in

which it is carried "as the Spaniards," says she, "do their wine;

which, by the by, is a practice so common in Spain, _as to give the

name of sack_ to a species of sweet wine once highly prized in Great

Britain."--Guthrie's _Tour through the Crimea_, 1802, 4to, page 229.

More stress is to be laid on this matter from a remarkable coincidence

mentioned by Isidore of Seville, in his _Etymologies_, book iii. ch. 4,

where he states _saccatum_ to be a liquor made from water and the dregs

of wine passed through a sack. See also Ducange _Gloss._ v. _Saccatum_,

and Carpentier's supplement, v. _Saquatum_.

Whatever has been said in the course of the scattered notes concerning

Falstaff's _sack_ is so confused and contradictory, that it will be the

duty of a future editor, either to concentrate them for the purpose

of enabling the reader to deduce his own inference; or, rejecting

them altogether in their present form, to extract from the materials

they supply, the best opinion he may be able to form. There are two

principal questions on the subject: 1. Whether sack was known in this

country in the time of Henry the Fourth? 2. Whether it was a dry or a

sweet wine when this play was written? The first is very easily solved;

for there appears to be no mention of it till the 23rd year of Henry

the Eighth, when a regulation was made that no malmseys, romineis,

_sackes_ nor _other sweet_ wines, should be sold for more than

three-pence a quart. The other question is full of difficulties, and

the evidence relating to it very contradictory. We see it was a _sweet_

wine before Shakspeare's time, a circumstance that may be noticed as

adverse to the etymology of _sec_. But if it was sweet, whence the

use of sugar, which we do not find to have been added to other sweet

wines? The testimony of Dr. Venner proves that sack was drunk either

with or without sugar, _according to the palate_. The quality of this

wine, originally sweet and luscious, might have undergone a change, or

else some other _Spanish_ wine less saccharine in its nature might have

obtained the name of sack.

SCENE 2. Page 385.

POINS. ... and _sirrah_, I have cases of buckram, &c.

Mr. Malone has in this and some other places maintained that _sirrah_

was not used as a term of disrespect in Shakspeare's time; but the

learned commentator would probably have revised his opinion had he

recollected the quarrel between Vernon and Basset in the first part

of Henry the Sixth, where, in the most opprobrious manner, _sirrah_

is answered by _villain_. It seems to have been used much in the same

way as at present, sometimes expressing anger and contempt, yet more

frequently in a milder way when addressed to children and servants. It

was even applied to women.

SCENE 3. Page 399.

HOT. And if the Devil come and _roar_ for them.

This line would be highly relished by an audience accustomed in

Shakspeare's time to "Satan's chaunt," on some of the minor stages.

On the theatrical _roaring_ of the Devil, see the notes of Messrs.

Steevens and Malone in _King Henry V._ Act IV.

SCENE 3. Page 403.

WOR. As to o'er-walk a current, roaring loud,

On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.

He seems to allude to the practice of making a bridge by means of a

sword or a spear sometimes adopted by the heroes of ancient chivalry.

See _Lancelot of the lake_, and other similar romances. Such an

incident is represented on an ivory chest engraved in the first volume

of Mr. Carter's _Specimens of ancient sculpture and painting_.

SCENE 3. Page 407.

HOT. And that same _sword-and-buckler_ prince of Wales.

To convey to the reader a complete idea of a sword-and-buckler man

of Shakspeare's time, the following print of a young Englishman is

exhibited. It is taken from the collection of dresses designed by

Titian, and said to have been engraved on wood by his brother Cesar

Vecelli, the editor of which remarks that the English youths then made

great use of the sword and buckler. A similar figure occurs in the

frontispiece to Cranmer's Bible, designed by Holbein, which has been

most unfaithfully copied in Lewis's _History of the translations of the

bible_. Mr. Strutt has given more correct copies of the man with the

buckler in his _Manners and customs of the inhabitants of England_,

vol. iii. pl. xii. and in his _Dress and habits of the people of

England_, pl. cxxxviii.

[Illustration]

The subject receives much illustration from a passage in _Stowe's

chronicle_, p. 869, edit. 1634: "Untill about the twelfe or thirteenth

yeere of Queene Elizabeth the auncient English fight of sword and

buckler was onely had in use: the bucklers then being but a foote

broad, with a pike of foure or five inches long. Then they began to

make them full halfe ell broad with sharpe pikes ten or twelve inches

long wherewith they meant either to breake the swords of their enemies,

if it hit upon the pike, or els suddenly to run within them and stabbe,

and thrust their buckler with the pike, into the face, arme or body of

their adversary; but this continued not long. Every haberdasher then

sold bucklers." The above historian had, no doubt, good authority for

what he says respecting the length of the _pike_; but it is certain

that in the eighth year of Elizabeth a proclamation was issued by which

no person was permitted to wear any sword or rapier that should exceed

the length of one yard and half a quarter in the blade, nor any dagger

above the length of twelve inches in the blade, _nor any buckler with a

point or pike exceeding the length of two inches_. The mode of wearing

the buckler at the back may be seen in the cut p. 209.

SCENE 3. Page 407.

HOT. I'd have him poison'd with a pot of ale.

Mr. Steevens suggests that this speech has reference to the prince

of Wales's pot companions, and Dr. Grey to the manner of King John's

death. It will indeed suit either of those circumstances. But this

remark has been principally made for the purpose of correcting an

error of long standing with respect to what has been generally called

_Caxton's chronicle_. Dr. Grey, relying perhaps on Bale or Nicolson,

has inaccurately cited Caxton's _Fructus temporum_ for the account of

King John's death; yet this work was never printed by Caxton under

that title. It was professedly compiled by a schoolmaster of Saint

Alban's, and originally printed in that city in 1483. In this form

it is properly called _The Saint Alban's chronicle_, and is in fact a

republication of one attributed to Caxton, with some additions at the

beginning and end. The original often occurs in manuscript both in

French and English; and, from the evidence of an ancient note in one

copy preserved among the Harleian manuscripts, appears to have been

composed by a monk of Glastonbury, named Douglas, who in the early part

of it has copied Geoffrey of Monmouth. This work has been commonly

ascribed to Caxton, and is often cited, even by old writers, under the

name of _his_ chronicle, though he only made a trifling addition by

a continuation to his own time. It is likewise supposed to have been

_originally printed_ by him, but this is in all probability a mistake;

for there is an edition undoubtedly printed by William Machlinia

without date, which had escaped the observation of the correct and

industrious Herbert. The type is the same as that used in the _Speculum

Christiani_. This is presumed to be the prior edition which is spoken

of in the prologue to that which Caxton printed in 1480, and there is

no proof whatever that he printed any edition before that year.

ACT II.

SCENE 3. Page 436.

LADY PER. Of _basilisks_, of cannon, _culverin_.

In the note we are only told that "a _basilisk_ is a cannon of a

particular kind." It is well known that there was a serpent so called,

perhaps an imaginary one; and this animal with others of a like nature

being sculptured on the ancient pieces of artillery, supplied them

with the various appellations of _serpentines_, _culverines_, (from

the French _couleuvre_,) _flying dragons_, &c. Of these the _basilisk_

was the largest. It was sometimes called a _double culverine_, and

was much used about the middle of the sixteenth century, especially

by the Turks. It must have been of a prodigious size, as it carried

a ball of near two hundred pounds weight. Coryat mentions that he

saw in the citadel of Milan "an exceeding huge basiliske which was

so great that it would easily contayne the body of a very corpulent

man."--_Crudities_, p. 104, quarto edition. Father Maffei, in his

History of the Indies, relates that Badur, king of Cambay, had at the

siege of Chitor four basilisks of so large a size that each was drawn

by a hundred yoke of oxen, so that the ground trembled beneath them.

SCENE 3. Page 438.

LADY PER. In faith _I'll break thy little finger, Harry_.

This "token of amorous dalliance" is more particularly exemplified in

an ancient song, entitled _Beware my lyttyl fynger_, reprinted by Mr.

Ritson from Sir John Hawkins's History of music.

As the learned historian has not stated whence he procured this piece,

it may be worth adding that it occurs in a small oblong quarto volume

of songs with music, printed, according to appearance, by Wynkyn de

Worde, in 1530; but as it varies in some instances from the reading

in Sir John's work it is possible that he might have used some other

authority.

SCENE 4. Page 442.

P. HEN. I am no proud Jack, like Falstaff; but a _Corinthian_, a

lad of mettle.

The celebrity of Lais, the Corinthian courtezan, is said to have

occasioned the proverb cited in Mr. Steevens's note, because from the

extravagance of the lady's demands _every one could not afford to go

to Corinth_, which, says Taverner, in his _Proverbs or adagies of

Erasmus_, 1569, 12mo, is of like sense with our English proverb, _Every

man may not be a lord_. We are told by Strabo that the temple of Venus

at Corinth was furnished with a thousand young girls who performed

the rites of the goddess. In short, that city appears to have been so

notorious for its luxury, that ancient writers are full of allusions

on this subject. See particularly Aristophanes's _Plutus_, Act I. Scene

2, and Saint Paul's first epistle to the _Corinthians_, ch. v. verse 1.

This may serve to explain why _wenchers_ were called _Corinthians_.

SCENE 4. Page 444.

FRAN. Anon, anon, sir.

This was the _coming, sir_, of the waiters in Shakspeare's time. In

_Summer's last will and testament_, Harvest says, "Why, friend, I am no

_tapster_ to say, _anon, anon, sir_."

SCENE 4. Page 461.

P. HEN. Thou _knotty-pated_ fool.

Although it certainly stands thus in the old copy, the word should be

changed without scruple to _nott-pated_, _i. e._ polled or cropped. The

prince had a little before bestowed the same epithet on the drawer. In

this place it may refer to the practice of nicking or cropping naturals.

SCENE 4. Page 461.

FAL. What upon compulsion? No; were I at the _strappado_, or all

the racks in the world, I would not tell you on compulsion.

As the _strappado_ has been elsewhere improperly defined "a

chastisement by blows," under an idea that a strap was used on the

occasion, it may be necessary to take further notice of it on this

occasion. It _was_ a military punishment, by which the unfortunate

sufferer was most inhumanly tortured in the following manner:--a rope

being fastened under his arms, he was drawn up by a pulley to the top

of a high beam, and then suddenly let down with a jerk. The consequence

usually was a dislocation of the shoulder blade. Representations

of this nefarious process may be seen in Breughel's print of _The

punishments of the law_; in one of Gerini's fine _Views of Florence_,

and in Callot's _Miseries of war_. The term is evidently taken from

the Italian _strappare_, to pull or draw with violence. At Paris there

was a spot called _l'estrapade_ in the fauxbourg St. Jaques, where

soldiers received this punishment. The machine, whence the place took

its name, remained fixed like a perpetual gallows.

SCENE 4. Page 468.

FAL. ... he of Wales, that gave _Amaimon_ the bastinado.

_Amaimon_, king of the East, was one of the _principal devils_ who

might be bound or restrained from doing hurt from the third hour till

noon, and from the ninth hour till evening. See Scot's _Discovery of

witchcraft_, B. xv. ch. 3.

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 487.

GLEN. The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes

Of burning _cressets_.

A cresset light was the same as a beacon light, but occasionally

portable. It consisted of a wreathed rope smeared with pitch and placed

in a cage of iron like a trivet, which was suspended on pivots in a

kind of fork. The light sometimes issued from a hollow pan filled with

combustibles. The term is not, as Hanmer and others have stated, from

the French _croissette_, a little cross, but rather from _croiset_, a

cruet or earthen pot; yet as the French language furnishes no similar

word for the cresset itself, we might prefer a different etymology. Our

Saxon glossaries afford no equivalent term, but it may perhaps exhibit

a Teutonic origin in the German _kerze_, a light or candle, or even in

the French _cierge_, from _cereus_, because the original materials were

of wax. Stowe the historian has left us some account of the marching

watches that formerly paraded many of the streets of London, in which

he says that "the whole way ordered for this watch extended to two

thousand three hundred taylors yards of assize, for the furniture

wherof with lights there were appointed _seven hundred cressets_, five

hundred of them being found by the companies, the other two hundred

by the chamber of London. Besides the which lights every constable in

London, in number more than two hundred and forty, had his _cresset_,

the charge of every _cresset_ was in light two shillings fourepence,

and every _cresset_ had two men, one to beare or hold it, another

to beare a bagge with light, and to serve it: so that the poore men

pertaining to the _cressets_, taking wages, besides that every one had

a strawne hat, with a badge painted, and his breakfast in the morning,

amounted in number to almost two thousand."--_Survay of London_, 1618,

4to, p. 160. The following representations of _ancient cressets_ have

been collected from various prints and drawings.

[Illustration]

SCENE 1. Page 492.

HOT. And cuts me from the best of all my land,

A huge half-moon, a monstrous _cantle_.

The word in its _strict_ sense, signifies a _small_ piece of any thing,

but here a portion or parcel. The French have _chanteau_ and _chantel_,

from the Latin _quantulum_.

SCENE 1. Page 494.

GLEN. ... I framed to the harp

Many an English ditty, lovely well,

And gave _the tongue_ a helpful ornament,

A virtue that was never seen in you.

"Glendower means," says Mr. Ritson, "that he graced his _own_ tongue

with the art of singing." This is surely wrong. The meaning is, that,

by setting the English ditties to Welsh music, he had embellished the

language in a manner that Hotspur had never done, the roughness of

his speech affording neither poetry nor music. _Tongue_ was rightly

explained by Dr. Johnson, _the English language_.

SCENE 1. Page 499.

MORT. ... that pretty Welsh

Which thou pourest down from these _swelling heavens_

I am too perfect in; and but for shame,

In such a parley would I answer thee.

According to Mr. Steevens, _swelling heavens_ are prominent _lips_. Are

they not _eyes swollen with tears_? Glendower had just said that his

daughter wept; and Mortimer tells his wife that he would answer the

melting language of her eyes, if it were not _for shame_.

SCENE 2. Page 508.

P. HEN. By smiling _pick-thanks_.

A pick-thank is one who gathers or collects favour, thanks, or

applause, by means of flattery. "Cave ne _falsam gratiam_ studes

inire." Terence; which is thus Englished by Udall in his _Floures for

Latine spekynge_, 1533, 12mo, fo. 137:--"Beware that thou desire not to

_pyke_ or to have a _thanke_ of me undeserved."

SCENE 3. Page 522.

FAL. I never see thy face, but I think upon hell-fire.

Falstaff's wit at the expense of poor Bardolph's ruby face is

inexhaustible. The same subject is treated with considerable humour

in the following passage in Melton's _Astrologaster_, 1620, 4to: "But

that which most grieves me, is, most of the varlets belonging to the

citie colledges (I meane both the prodigious compters) have _fierie red

faces_, that they cannot put a cup of Nippitato to their _snowts_, but

with the extreme heat that doth glow from them, they make it cry hisse

again, as if there were a gadd of burning steele flung into the pot,"

&c.

SCENE 3. Page 528.

FAL. There's no more truth in thee, than in a _drawn fox_.

The quotation from Olaus Magnus does not support Mr. Steevens's

assertion that the fox when _drawn_ out of his hole was supposed to

counterfeit death; for it is stated by that writer, and indeed by

others, that he uses this device when hungry, to attract the birds, who

mistake him for carrion. The following passage from Turbervile's _Noble

arte of venery or hunting_ is offered, but with no great confidence, as

a possible illustration of the phrase in question: "Foxes which have

been beaten have this _subtletie_, to _drawe_ unto the largest part of

the burrow where three or foure angles meete together, and there to

stand at baye with the terriers, to the ende they may afterwardes shift

and goe to which chamber they list."

SCENE 3. Page 535.

P. HEN. Go bear this letter to lord John of Lancaster, &c.

The first seven lines of this speech are undoubtedly prose, and should

be so printed, like the preceding speeches of the Prince. No correct

ear will ever receive them as blank verse, notwithstanding the efforts

that have been or shall be made to convert them into metre.

ACT IV.

SCENE 1. Page 543.

VER. All plum'd like _estridges_, that _wing_ the wind

Bated like eagles having lately bath'd:

The evident corruption or mutilation in these lines, has rendered

any attempt to explain them a task of great difficulty. It will be

necessary in the first place to ascertain the exact sense of the

word _estridge_; and although it is admitted that the _ostrich_ was

occasionally so denominated by our old writers, it is by no means

certain that this bird is meant in the present instance. It may seem a

very obvious comparison between the feathers of a crested helmet and

those of the ostrich; and had the expression _plum'd like estridges_

stood _singly_, no doubt whatever could have arisen. It is what follows

that occasions the difficulty.

The old copies read, _with the wind_: now if the ostrich had been here

alluded to, the conjectural substitution of _wing_ would have been

absolutely requisite; but the line which follows cannot by any possible

construction be made to apply to that bird. It relates altogether

to falconry, a sport to which Shakspeare is perpetually referring.

Throughout the many observations on these difficult lines, it has been

quite overlooked that _estridge_ signifies a _goshawk_. In this sense

the word is used in _Antony and Cleopatra_, Act III. Scene 2:

"And in that mood [of fury] the dove will peck the _estridge_."

There is likewise a similar passage in the third part of _King Henry

VI._, which may serve as a commentary on the above line:

"So cowards fight, when they can fly no further;

So _doves_ do peck the _faulcon's_ piercing talons."

It would be absurd to talk of a dove pecking an ostrich; the allusion

is to the practice of flying falcons at pigeons. Thus Golding in his

translation of _Ovid's metamorphoses_, fo. 9:

"With flittering feather sielie _doves_ so from the _gosshawk_

flie."

The manor of Radeclyve in Nottinghamshire was held by the service of

"mewing a goshawk;" in the original charter, "mutandi unum _estricium_"

In the romance of _Guy earl of Warwick_ we have,

"_Estrich falcons_, of great mounde."

Falconers are often called _ostregers_ and _ostringers_ in the

old books of falconry, and elsewhere. _Estridge_ for _ostrich_ or

_ostridge_ is a corrupt spelling that crept into the language at the

commencement of Queen Elizabeth's reign, and it appears that after that

period the two words were very often confounded together, and used one

for the other.

The explanation of _to bate_, as cited from _Minsheu_ in one of the

notes, cannot apply to _ostriches_, though it does, very properly, to a

bird of prey like the falcon.

After all, there is certainly a line lost, as Mr. Malone has very

justly and ingeniously conjectured; but the place should rather seem to

have been _after_ the word _bath'd_, than _before_. The sense of the

old copies, as to what remains, will then be tolerably perspicuous:

"All plum'd like estridges, that with the wind

Bated, like eagles having lately bath'd

* * * * * * *"

_i. e._ plumed like falcons, which, their feathers being ruffled with

the wind, like eagles that have recently bathed, _make a violent

fluttering noise_; the words in Italics being here conjecturally

offered as something like the sense of the omitted line.

SCENE 1. Page 546.

VER. I saw young Harry with his _beaver on_.

There are two other passages in Shakspeare's plays that relate to

the _beaver_, which it will be best to insert here for the purpose of

avoiding confusion, and to afford likewise the means of assembling

together the various and discordant opinions of the commentators. These

are, 1. in _King Henry IV._ Part II. Act IV. Scene 1, "their beavers

_down_;" and 2. in _Hamlet_, Act I. Scene 2, "he wore his beaver _up_."

In the first of these passages Dr. Warburton would read _with his

beaver up_; and he remarks that "the _beaver_ is only the visiere of

the helmet, which, let down, covers the face. When the soldier was not

upon action, he wore it _up_, so that his face might be seen, but when

upon [in] action, it was let down to cover and secure the face." All

this is correct, except that the beaver is certainly not the visor.

Dr. Johnson says, "there is no need of all this note; for beaver may be

a helmet." This too is very just; the beaver, a part only of the helmet

strictly speaking, is frequently used to express a helmet generally.

Thus, in the first scene of the third part of _King Henry VI._, "I

cleft his _beaver_ with a downright blow." The latter part of the

doctor's note was unnecessary, and its inference apparently wrong.

Mr. Malone remarks that "Dr. Warburton seems not to have observed, that

Vernon only says, he saw _young Harry_, not that he saw his _face_."

But surely, Dr Warburton having contended for the reading _beaver up_,

could not have misconceived Vernon's meaning as above.

Dr. Lort contents himself with distinguishing and explaining the beaver

and visor. He is however wrong in stating that the beaver was _let

down_ to enable the wearer to drink.

Mr. Malone's second note relating to _Hamlet_, will be considered in

the third passage.

In the second passage, Mr. Malone remarks that the _beaver_ "is

confounded both here and in _Hamlet_ with visor, or used for _helmet_

in general," but that "Shakspeare is not answerable for any confusion

on this subject, as he used _beaver_ in the same sense in which it

was used by all his contemporaries." The latter part of this note

applies very justly to the first passage, _beaver on_, where it is used

generally for a _helmet_, but not to the present; _beavers down_ being