'Commer goe ye before, commer goe ye,_Illustrations of Shakspeare, and of Ancient Manners: with Dissertations on the Clowns and Fools of Shakspeare; on a Collection of Popular Tales Entitled Gesta Romanorum; and on the English Morris dance.

Gif ye will not goe before, commer let me.'

At which time she confessed, that Geilles Duncane did goe before

them playing this _reill or daunce_ upon a small trump, call a Jewes

trump, untill they entered into the kerk of North Barrick."--_Newes

from Scotland declaring the damnable life and death of doctor Fian, a

notable sorcerer, who was burned at Edenbrough in January last_, 1591,

sign. B iij.

ACT III.

SCENE 6. Page 543.

CÆS. ... The wife of Antony

Should have an army for an _usher_.

An _usher_ is a person who introduces others ceremoniously, though

originally a door-keeper, from the French _huissier_, and that from

_huis_, _ostium_. This is no otherwise worth the mention, than to

mark the corrupt orthography of the word, which ought to be written

_husher_. Thus Spencer,

"A gentle _husher_, vanitie by name,

Made roome, and passage for them did prepare."

_Fairy queen_, B. i. Canto 4, st. 13.

Cavendish, the servant of Cardinal Wolsey, speaking of his master's

arrest by the Earl of Northumberland, says, "he toke the Earle by the

hande, and led him in to his bedchamber. And they being there all

alone, save onely I _who kept the dore according to my dutye, being

gentleman ussher_, &c."--_Life of Wolsey_, MS.

SCENE 6. Page 544.

CÆS. ... and have prevented

The ostent of our love.

Mr. Steevens, in claiming the merit of this necessary change from

_ostentation_, had forgotten that it had been already made by Sir

Thomas Hanmer.

SCENE 6. Page 544.

CÆS. ... Which soon he granted,

Being an _obstruct_ 'tween his lust and him.

The change was made by Dr. Warburton from _abstract_, which he declares

to be absurd; but, as an eminent critic has remarked, it has been made

very unnecessarily. The canon somewhere laid down, viz. that where the

old text is capable of a meaning, no alteration should be hazarded,

ought to have been observed in this instance. The sense is obviously,

"Octavia drew away or _abstracted_ Cleopatra from Antony," and she

might therefore be very properly called, in Shakspeare's bold language,

an _abstract_.

Another reason for retaining the old reading is, that, generally

speaking, Dr. Warburton's _emendations_ are inadmissible.

SCENE 11. Page 587.

ANT. If from the field I shall return once more

To kiss these lips, I will appear in blood--

I will be treble-sinew'd, hearted, breath'd,

And fight maliciously: for when mine hours

Were _nice_ and lucky, men did ransom lives

Of me for jests----

The word _nice_, sometimes used by Shakspeare in a sense bordering on

that of _amorous_ or _wanton_, seems in the present instance to have

precisely that meaning. Antony says that his former _luxurious_ hours

with Cleopatra were fortunate to those who asked his favours, but that

now he will appear in blood. The historian Stowe, in recording an

accident that happened to one Mary Breame in the year 1583, says that

she "had beene _accused_ by her husband to bee a _nice woman of her

body_." We have also an old play entitled _The nice wanton_.

SCENE 11. Page 589.

ENO. ... and in that mood,

The dove will peck the _estridge_.

i. e. the _falcon_. See note p. 268, &c.

ACT IV.

SCENE 9. Page 611.

1. SOLD. ... so bad a prayer

Was never yet for _sleeping_.

2. SOLD. Go we to him.

In the old copy _sleep_. The alteration is by Mr. Steevens, and, as he

says, for the sake of _measure_; but that was already complete. The

_harmony_ is certainly improved, as the accent is to be laid on _to_ in

the ensuing line.

SCENE 12. Page 624.

ANT. My good _knave_, Eros, now thy captain is

Even such a body: here I am Antony;

Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my _knave_.

I made these wars for Egypt; and the _queen_,--

Whose _heart_, I thought, I had, for she had mine;

... she, Eros, has

_Pack'd cards_ with Cæsar, and _false play'd_ my glory

Unto an enemy's _triumph_.

One should really suppose that Shakspeare had written this speech just

after having lost a game at cards, and before the manner in which it

had been played was out of his mind. Dr. Warburton's explanation is too

superficial to merit the commendation which Dr. Johnson has bestowed

on it. That of Mr. Malone is much more judicious and satisfactory; but

it has not been perceived that a marked and particular allusion is

intended. This is to the old card game of _trump_, which bore a very

strong resemblance to our modern whist. It was played by two against

two, and sometimes by three against three. It is thus mentioned in

_Gammer Gurton's needle_, Act II. Scene 2: "We be fast set at _trump_

man, hard by the fire;" and like wise in Dekkar's _Belman of London_,

among other card games. In Eliot's _Fruits for the French_, 1593, p.

53, it is called "a verie common alehouse game in England;" and Rice,

in his _Invective against vices_, 12mo, b. l. n. d. but printed before

1600, speaking of sharpers' tricks at cards, mentions "renouncyng the

_trompe_ and comming in againe." The Italians call it _triomphetto_;

see Florio's dictionary. In Capitolo's poem on Primero, another card

game, 1526, 8vo, it is called _trionfi_, and consigned to the peasants.

Minsheu, in his _Spanish dialogues_, p. 25, makes it a game for old

men. We, in all probability, received it from the French _triomphe_,

which occurs in Rabelais as one of Gargantua's games. The term

indicates a winning or _triumphant_ card; and therefore there can be no

pretence for deriving it from _tromper_, whatever Ben Jonson might have

thought to the contrary, who, in reality, seems only to indulge in a

pun upon the word.

SCENE 12. Page 627.

ANT. I will o'ertake thee, Cleopatra, and

Weep for my pardon. So it must be, for now

All _length_ is torture.

Mr. Steevens suspects that the author wrote _life_; surely without

reason. Length is _extension_ or _protraction of life_.

THE CLOWN.

He is a mere country fellow; but Shakspeare, in compliance with the

usual expectations of the audience, has bestowed on him a due portion

of wit and satire.

CYMBELINE.

ACT I.

SCENE 2. Page 18.

IMO. ... he is

A man worth any woman; overbuys me

Almost the sum he pays.

This has already been so ingeniously interpreted, that there is

considerable hazard in the offer of any other conjecture on the

subject; yet, may not Imogen mean, "the possession of me is much too

dearly bought by the _banishment_ to which you sentence him; he has

almost nothing for so large a price."

SCENE 5. Page 27.

Enter PHILARIO, IACHIMO, &c.

Mr. Malone having shown that this name is borrowed from the Italian

_Giacomo_, it should be printed _Jachimo_, in order to prevent any

mistake in the pronunciation.

ACT II.

SCENE 2. Page 65.

IMO. From fairies and the tempters of the night,

Guard me, beseech ye!

See p. 128.

SCENE 3. Page 72.

Hark, hark, the lark at heaven's gate sings.

The frequent mention of the lark, especially among our older poets, has

been already exemplified in a variety of corresponding passages with

the above, which either Shakspeare might have imitated, or which are

imitations from him. To these the following may be added:--

"On morowe tho the dai sprong

And the larke bigan her song."

Romance of _Sir Oluel_. MS.

"Even at the twelyght in the dawnynge

Whan the larke of custome gynneth synge

For to salue in her heavenly laye

The lusty goddesse of the morowe graye."

Lydgate's _Sege of Troye_, B. i.

"Whan the larke messager of day

Of custome aye Aurora doth salue,

With sondry notes hir sorowe to transmue,

Or Phebus ryse to joye and gladnesse."

Lydgate's _Sege of Troye_, B. iii.

"Upsprang the golden candle matutyne,

With cleir depurit bemys chrystallyne,

Glading the mirry fowlis in thair nest:

Or Phebus was in purpour kaip revest

Upsprang the lark, the hevene's mynstral syne

In may intill a morrow mirth fullest."

Dunbar's _Golden terge_.

"With merry note her loud salutes the mounting lark."

Spenser's _Fairy queen_, B. I. Canto xi. st. 51.

"Early, cheerful, mounting lark,

Light's gentle usher, morning's clerk,

In merry notes delighting;

Stint awhile thy song, and hark,

And learn my new inditing.

"Bear up this hymn, to heav'n it bear

E'en up to heav'n, and sing it there," &c.

Davies's _Acrostick hymns_, 1599.

"... and then my state,

(Like to the lark, at break of day arising

From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate."

Shakspeare's 29th _Sonnet_.

"The larke that left her food, her nest, her yong,

And early mounting, first with her sweet song

Saluted heaven."

Niccolls's _London Artillery_, 1616, 4to.

"And the lark from out the furrow,

Soars upright on matin wings,

And at the gate of heaven sings."

_Penshurst._ In Dodsley's collection, vol. iv.

SCENE 4. Page 88.

IACH. The roof o' the chamber

With _golden cherubims_ is fretted; her andirons

(I had forgot them) were two winking Cupids

Of silver, each on one foot standing, nicely

Depending on their brands.

Mr. Steevens calls the _golden cherubims_ a tawdry image, and proceeds,

justly enough, to ridicule an idle representation of the heavenly

choirs; but the poet must be cleared from any imputation of blame. He

is not accountable for the fashions or follies of his age, and has, in

this instance, given a faithful description of the mode in which the

rooms in great houses were sometimes ornamented. That _brands_ were

those parts of the andirons which supported the wood, according to Mr.

Whalley, remains to be proved. The Cupids would not lean or hang over

these bars, but rather stand with their faces turned from them, and

opposite to the spectator. The brands are more likely to have been the

inverted torches mentioned by Mr. Steevens.

SCENE 5. Page 94.

POST. Me of my lawful pleasure she restrain'd,

And pray'd me, oft, forbearance: did it

With a pudency so rosy, &c.

A useless note on this speech, which would make our poet equally vulgar

and obscene, when he was expressing a sentiment of the most refined

delicacy, may be well dispensed with in any future edition.

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 99.

CYM. Our ancestor was that Mulmutius, which

Ordain'd our laws ...

... Mulmutius,

Who was the first of Britain, &c.

The judicious and necessary omission of the words "made our laws,"

after the second Mulmutius, originally belongs to Sir Thomas Hanmer,

who would have deserved more thanks from his readers for his

regulations of Shakspeare's metre, if they had not been too frequently

made without a proper regard to the accuracy of the text.

SCENE 1. Page 100.

CYM. Thy Cæsar _knighted_ me.

Although our old writers frequently make mention of _Roman knights_,

that is, military chieftains, it is very much to be apprehended that

the present expression must be regarded as a downright anachronism, as

well as another similar passage, in p. 213, where Cymbeline addresses

Belarius and his sons: "Bow your knees; arise my _knights_ of the

battle, &c." The word _knight_ was formerly used with great latitude.

Dr. Bullein calls Dioscorides "that olde famous Egyptian _knyghte_."

SCENE 2. Page 105.

IMO. (Some griefs are med'cinable;) that is one of them,

For it doth physick love;----

The _whole_ of this should be included in the parenthesis, as in Mr.

Malone's edition. No reason has been assigned by Mr. Steevens for the

variation, which may be an error of the press.

SCENE 3. Page 117.

BEL. ... _Euriphile_,

Thou wast their nurse----

The above name might have been borrowed from the story of Amphiaraus

and _Eriphile_, in Pettie's _Petite palace_, 1598, 4to.

SCENE 4. Page 120.

PIS. ... whose tongue

Outvenoms all the worms of Nile.

So in the anonymous play of _Wily beguilde_,

"Whose tongue more venom than the serpent's sting."

It is difficult to say which is the imitation.

ACT IV.

SCENE 2. Page 154.

GUI. But his neat _cookery_.

This speech has exercised the talents of a certain ingenious female

_illustrator_ of Shakspeare, who has endeavoured to ridicule the

character of Imogen, and indeed the whole of the play. She degrades

our heroine into a mere kitchen wench, and adverts to what she calls

her _œconomical education_. Now what is this but to expose her own

ignorance of ancient manners? If she had missed the advantage of

qualifying herself as a commentator on Shakspeare's plots by a perusal

of our old romances, she ought at least to have remembered, what

every well informed woman of the present age is acquainted with, the

education of the princesses in Homer's _Odyssey_. It is idle to attempt

to judge of ancient simplicity by a mere knowledge of modern manners;

and such fastidious critics had better close the book of Shakspeare for

ever. In another part of her critique on this play, she condemns the

giving of the drug to Imogen which Pisanio had received from the queen,

from an idea that he was sufficiently warned of its soporific quality;

and she positively states that the physician had, by a whisper,

informed Pisanio of its property; not one word of which is to be found

in Shakspeare. So much for the criticism and accuracy of a work to

which Dr. Johnson condescended to write a dedication. He has likewise

too often confided in its opinions in the course of several of his

remarks on Shakspeare's plays.

SCENE 2. Page 156.

CLO. Know'st me not by my clothes?

GUI. _No_, nor thy tailor, rascal.

Mr. Steevens's correct ear has on this, perhaps single, occasion been

deceived. He objects to the negation _no_, as "at once superfluous

and injurious to the metre;" yet it is impossible to read the line

harmoniously without it. Nor does it constitute the superfluity of

the metre, which has, exclusively, two redundant syllables. If any

alteration were allowable, it might be the following:--

"Know'st not my clothes? No, nor thy tailor, rascal."

SCENE 2. Page 164.

BEL. O thou goddess,

Thou divine nature, _how_ thyself thou blazon'st----

This judicious emendation from _thou_ thyself, &c., claimed by one

learned gentleman and adopted by another, is the original property of

Sir Thomas Hanmer.

SCENE 2. Page 168.

GUI. With _female_ fairies will his tomb be haunted.

i. e. harmless and protecting spirits, not fairies of a mischievous

nature.

SCENE 2. Page 169.

GUI. And worms will not come to _thee_.

Mr. Steevens imputes _great violence_ to this change of person, and

would read "come to _him_;" but there is no impropriety in Guiderius's

sudden address to the _body itself_. It might indeed be ascribed to our

author's careless manner, of which an instance like the present occurs

at the beginning of the next act, where Posthumus says,

"... _you_ married ones,

If each of _you_ would take this course, how many

Must murder wives much better than _themselves_."

SCENE 2. Page 169.

ARV. ... the ruddock would,

With charitable bill,--bring thee all this;

Yea and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none

To _winter-ground_ thy corse.

The question made by Dr. Percy, whether the notion of the redbreast

covering dead bodies be older than the celebrated ballad of the babes

of the wood, has been satisfactorily answered in the affirmative by

Mr. Reed's note. In Dekker's _Villanies discovered by lanthorn and

candle light_, 1616, 4to, it is said, "They that cheere up a prisoner

but with their sight, are Robin red breasts that bring strawes in their

bils to cover a dead man in extremitie." See chap. xv.

With respect to _winter-ground_; until some other example of the use

of this word be produced, there will be no impropriety in offering a

substitute in _winter-green_, that is, "to preserve thy tomb green with

moss in the winter season, when there will be no flowers wherewith to

deck it." Such a verb might have been suggested to Shakspeare, who

often coins in this way, by the plant _winter-green_, the _pyrola_.

_Ruddock_ was the Saxon name ꞃuꝺꝺuc, for the redbreast, and long

continued to be so. In Bullokar's _Æsop_, 1585, 12mo, there is a fable

"Of a fowlor and the bird cale'd Robin-red-brest," which concludes

in these words: "Then the fowlor, hop of-taking many being lost,

when it waz now tym too-rest, drawing the netz, he cauht only on

_Robin-ruddok_, which being unhappy [unlucky] had abydd stil in the

shrap."

SCENE 2. Page 175.

IMO. 'Od's pittikins!

Mr. Steevens's derivation from God's _my_ pity, is not quite correct.

It is rather from _God's pity_, diminutively used by the addition of

_kin_. In this manner we have _'od's bodikins_.

ON THE STORY OF THIS PLAY.

For the plot of Cymbeline, Shakspeare has been almost exclusively

indebted to Boccaccio's novel of Bernabo Lomellin, Day 2, novel 9,

as Mr. Malone has proved beyond the possibility of doubt. Unless we

suppose, what is not probable, that Shakspeare was acquainted with the

Italian language, or that he had heard the above novel read by some

person in English, a difficulty arises in accounting for the manner

in which he got access to it. The earliest English translation of the

_whole of the Decameron_ was first printed in 1620, by Isaac Jaggard,

in folio, and in two parts, the first of which was republished under

the title of _The modell of wit, mirth, eloquence, and conversation,

framed in ten days of an hundred curious pieces, by seven honourable

ladies, and three noble gentlemen, preserved to posterity by the

renowned John Boccacio, the first refiner of Italian prose, and now

translated into English_, 1625, in folio. See more on this subject in

a preceding note, p. 102. Had Shakspeare been intimately acquainted

with Boccaccio's _Decameron_, one should have expected that he would

have made considerable use of that work; but this is the only play in

which the most material part of the plot has been extracted from it.

There are indeed one or two instances in which a very slight use has

been made of it, but then evidently through the medium of an English

translation. Is it not possible that our author might have known French

enough to have occasionally read the Decameron in that language?

TITUS ANDRONICUS.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 276.

AAR. And faster bound to Aaron's _charming_ eyes.

He is not here commending the _beauty_ of his eyes, but adverting to

their power of _fascination_. This was anciently supposed a peculiar

quality of the eye, and many remedies or amulets were used to charm

away its power.

SCENE 3. Page 287.

TAM. While hounds, and horns, and sweet melodious birds,

Be unto us, as is a nurse's song

Of _lullaby_, to bring her babe asleep.

We have here a curious lullaby note, which, as well as the present, may

possibly have a drowsy effect on all readers but staunch antiquaries

and etymologists. For the benefit therefore of the latter it may be

observed, that Dr. Johnson is probably mistaken in supposing that the

nurse's word _by_ signifies sleep, otherwise than as a contraction of

_lullaby_. It is to be wished that Mr. Holt White had favoured us with

some proof that to _lull_ originally signified to _sleep_, and that

its present sense, _to compose to sleep by a pleasing sound_, is but a

secondary one, retained after the primitive import had become obsolete.

The same ingenious critic proceeds to state that _by_ means _house_,

and therefore _lullaby_ is to _go to house or cradle_. There is so much

plausibility in this conjecture that it is almost a pity to be obliged

to dissent from it. Though it cannot be disputed that _by_ signifies

a _dwelling_, it is presumed that this sense is as unconnected with

the word in question as Dr. Johnson's _sleep_. It would be a hopeless

task to trace the origin of the northern verb _to lull_, which means

_to sing gently_; but it is evidently connected with the Greek λαλεω,

loquor, or λαλλη, the sound made by the beach at sea. Thus much is

certain, that the Roman nurses used the word _lalla_ to quiet their

children, and that they feigned a deity called _Lallus_, whom they

invoked on that occasion; the lullaby or tune itself was called by the

same name. As _lallare_ meant to _sing lalla_, to _lull_ might in like

manner denote the singing of the nurse's lullaby to induce the child to

sleep. Thus in an ancient carol composed in the fifteenth century, and

preserved among the Sloane MSS. No. 2593:

"che song a slepe wᵗ. her _lullynge_

here dere sone our savyoure."

In another old ballad printed by Mr. Ritson in his _Ancient songs_, p.

198, the burden is "lully, lully, lullaby, lullyby, sweete baby, &c.;"

from which it seems probable that _lullaby_ is only a comparatively

modern contraction of _lully baby_, the first word being the legitimate

offspring of the Roman _lalla_. In another of these pieces still more

ancient, and printed in the same collection, we have, "lullay, lullow,

lully, _bewy_, lulla baw baw." The welsh appear to have been famous

for their lullaby songs. Jones, in his _Arte and science of preserving

bodie and soule_, 1579, 4to, says, "The best nurses, but especially

the trim and skilfull Welch women, doe use to sing some preaty sonets,

wherwith their copious tong is plentifully stoared of divers pretie

tunes and pleasaunt ditties, that the children disquieted might be

brought to reste: but translated never so well, they want their grace

in Englishe, for lacke of proper words: so that I will omit them, as

I wishe they would theyr lascivious _Dymes_, wanton _Lullies_, and

amorous _Englins_."

Mr. White, in reviewing his opinion of the etymology of _good-by_, will

perhaps incline to think it a contraction, when properly written _good

b'ye_, of _God be with you_, and not "may your _house_ prosper!"

To add to the stock of our old lullaby songs, two are here subjoined.

The first is from a pageant of _The slaughter of the innocents_, acted

at Coventry in the reign of Henry the Eighth, by the taylors and

shearers of that city, and most obligingly communicated by Mr. Sharpe.

The other is from the curious volume of songs mentioned before in p.

262. Both exhibit the simplicity of ancient manners.

"Lully, lulla, thou littell tine childe,

By by lully lullay,

Lully lullay thou littell tyne child,

By by lully lullay.

O sisters too, how may we do,

For to preserve this day

This pore yongling, for whom we do singe

By by lully lullay.

Herod the king, in his raging,

Chargid he hath this day;

His men of might, in his owne sight,

All yonge children to slay.

That wo is me, pore child for thee,

And ever morne and say;

For thi parting, nether say nor sing,

By by lully lullay."

* * * * *

"By by lullaby

Rockyd I my chyld

In a drē late as I lay

Me thought I hard a maydyn say

And spak thes wordys mylde,

My lytil sone with the I play

And ever she song by lullay.

Thus rockyd she hyr chyld

By by lullabi,

Rockid I my child by by.

Then merveld I ryght sore of thys

A mayde to have a chyld I wys,

By by lullay.

Thus rockyd she her chyld

By by lullaby, rockyd I my chyld."

Finis.

SCENE 3. Page 290.

TAM. O'ercome with moss and _baleful_ misletoe.

This epithet is extremely appropriate either conformably to an

ancient, but erroneous, opinion, that the berries of the misletoe were

poisonous; or on account of the use made of this plant by the Druids

during their detestable human sacrifices.

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 305.

TIT. Speak my Lavinia, what accursed hand

Hath made thee handless in thy father's _sight_?

Dr. Warburton says, "we should read _spight_;" but there is no reason

for a change for the worse. Titus had made no attempt to _prevent_

the mutilation of his unhappy daughter, nor had it taken place in

_despite_, i. e. contempt or hatred of him.

ACT IV.

SCENE 3. Page 338.

TIT. And sith there is no justice in earth nor hell,

We will solicit heaven, and move the Gods.

Notwithstanding the difference in arrangement, it will hardly be

questioned that the author is here indebted to Virgil's

"Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo."

This may be added to the list of classical allusions at the end of the

play.

ACT V.

SCENE 1. Page 351.

AAR. An idiot holds his _bauble_ for a God,

And keeps the oath which by that God he swears.

Even though the bauble here mentioned had been actually of that kind

which is alluded to in the course of a note in _All's well that ends

well_, Act IV., his imagination would be deemed not a little fanciful,

who would connect it with the object of the singular oath in _Genesis_

xxiv. 9. There cannot however be a doubt that Aaron refers to that sort

of bauble or sceptre which was usually carried in the hand by natural

idiots and allowed jesters, and by which, it may be supposed, they

would sometimes swear. The resemblance which it bore to an image or

idol suggested the poet's comparison.

SCENE 2. Page 363.

TIT. So, now bring them in, for I will play the cook.

This redundant line ought to be thus arranged and printed:

So,

Now bring them in, for I will play the cook.

SCENE 3. Page 364.

MAR. Rome's emperor, and nephew, _break_ the parle.

Dr. Johnson makes the sense "_begin_ the parley." Is it not rather

"_break off_ this sort of discourse!"? for Lucius and Saturninus

had already _begun_ the parley by sparring language: to prevent the

continuance of it Marcus interferes, by declaring that their quarrels

must be adjusted by gentle _words_.

Throughout this play the name _Andrŏnĭcus_ is improperly accented. It

should have been _Andronīcus_.

THE CLOWN.

He is nothing more than a shrewd rustic, performing the office of a

messenger.

PERICLES.

Page 388.

_Pentapolis._]

"This," says Mr. Steevens, "is an imaginary _city_, and its name might

have been borrowed from some romance. We meet, indeed, in history with

_Pentapolitana regio_, a country in Africa, and from thence perhaps

some novelist furnished the sounding title of _Pentapolis_," &c. But

there was no absolute reason for supposing it a _city_ in this play,

as Gower in the _Confessio amantis_ had done, a circumstance which

had probably misled Mr. Steevens. In the original Latin romance of

Apollonius Tyrius, it is most accurately called _Pentapolis Cyrenorum_,

and was, as both Strabo and Ptolemy inform us, a _district_ of

Cyrenaica in Africa, comprising _five cities_, of which Cyrene was one.

ACT I.

GOWER. To sing a song _of old_ was sung.

The editor, having very properly adopted Mr. Malone's amendment in the

text, has forgotten to mention that the former reading was _that old_,

and the note is consequently rendered obscure.

SCENE 1. Page 397.

PER. See where she comes, apparell'd like the spring,

Graces her subjects, and her thoughts the king

Of every virtue----

A transposition of _spring_ and _king_ has been suggested, but on no

solid foundation; nor, it is presumed, is the passage _incurably

depraved_, or even any change necessary. Mr. Steevens asks, "With what

propriety can a lady's thoughts be styled the king of every virtue?"

For this the poet must answer, who evidently designed an antithesis in

_king_ and _subjects_.

SCENE 1. Page 402.

ANT. Read the _conclusion_ then;

Which read and not expounded, 'tis decreed,

As these before thee, thou thyself shalt bleed.

_Conclusion_, which formerly signified a trial or _experiment_, is here

put for _riddle_, itself a trial of skill. The practice of proposing

such riddles, with the penalty for not expounding them, is borrowed

from ancient romances. In that of _Tristan de Leonnois_, there is a

giant who detains all passengers that he meets, and puts them to the

test of unfolding a riddle. If they fail, he kills them. A hero at

length presents himself, who, after explaining the riddle, proposes one

in his turn; the giant not being able to expound it, is himself put to

death. The construction of these riddles is the same as that in the

play, as will appear from the following specimen:--

"Je d'un arbre jouy jadis

Que j'aimois mieux que paradis;

C'est arbre bel fruict m'apporta

Que sa grand' beauté m'entorta

Tellement que la fleur en pris:

Et puis du fruist tant je mespris

Qu'a le manger fu irrité.

Dy moy du cas la verité,

La me disant la vie auras;

Si non sois seur que tu mourras."

SCENE 1. Page 402.

DAUGH. _In all save that_, may'st thou prove prosperous!

This reading has been adopted in preference to that of the old copy,

which was, _of all said yet_; and in support of it Mr. Mason has

offered the following argument.

_She cannot wish him more prosperous in expounding the riddle than

those who had preceded him; because his success would cause the

publication of her own shame. Feeling a regard for the prince,

she deprecates his fate, and wishes he may not succeed in solving

the riddle; but that his failure may be attended with prosperous

consequences._ Now she must have very well known that the failure

in question could be attended with no other consequences than the

forfeiture of his life, a condition that had been just before expressly

declared. Nor was such a wish on the part of the lady likely to operate

as an inducement to the prince to try his chance. The words "save that"

appear to have no regular antecedent. Would it not therefore be more

charitable towards the lady to suppose that her mind revolted at the

guilty situation she was placed in; and that a sudden affection for the

prince, and a desire to be honourably united to such a man, might take

possession of her mind, and induce her to wish, according to a sense

which may be extracted from the old reading, that, _as to all which had

been uttered_, he might prove successful? It should be remembered too,

that this idea corresponds entirely with the character of the princess

in Gower. Should this interpretation be thought just, the present

speech must be supposed to be _privately_ addressed to the prince.

SCENE 1. Page 410.

PER. ... for wisdom sees, those men

Blush not in actions blacker than the night,

Will _shun_ no course to keep them from the light.

The old reading was _show_ no course, which is equivalent with _take no

means_; and the construction is, "they who blush not for bad actions

will take no means to conceal them."

SCENE 2. Page 413.

PER. Let none disturb us: why this _charge_ of thoughts?

Both the old editions have _change_, which, as Mr. Mason has shown,

may very well stand; and even the redundant word _should_, in the old

copies, might be retained without diminishing the harmony of the line.

The sense would then be, "Let none disturb us: why should this change

of sentiment [disturb us]?"

SCENE 4. Page 426.

CLE. If _heaven_ slumber while _their_ creatures want,

They may awake _their_ helps to comfort them.

As these lines stand they are ungrammatical. The original reading was,

no doubt, _if the Gods slumber_, which was altered by the licencer

of the press. This should either be restored, or the whole rendered

correct.

ACT II.

Page 438.

GOW. ... what shall be next,

Pardon old Gower; this _longs_ the text.

Which Mr. Steevens thus explains: "Excuse old Gower from telling you

what follows. The very text to it has proved of too considerable a

length already." But has he not missed the meaning of this elliptical

mode of expression, which seems to be, "Excuse old Gower from relating

what follows; this _belongs_ to the text, i. e. the play itself, not to

me the commentator?" In the third Act he uses a similar speech,

"I will relate; action may

Conveniently the rest convey."

_Longs_ should be printed _'longs_, as we have _'lated_ for _belated_

in _Macbeth_, Act. III. Scene 3.

SCENE 1. Page 450.

PER. ... I yet am unprovided

Of a pair of _bases_.

These were a sort of petticoat that hung down to the knees, and were

suggested by the Roman military dress, in which they seem to have

been separate and parallel slips of cloth or leather. Gayton in his

_Festivous notes on Don Quixote_, p. 218, says, that "all heroick

persons are _pictured_ in _bases_ and buskins." In the celebrated

story of _Friar John and Friar Richard_, as related in Heywood's

_History of women_, p. 253, the skirts of the _armed_ friar's gown are

made to serve as _bases_. At the justs that were held in honour of

Queen Catherine in the second year of Henry VIII., some of the knights

had "their _basses_ and trappers of cloth of golde, every of them his

name embroudered on his _basse_ and trapper."--Halle's _Chronicle_. But

here the term seems applied to the furniture of the horses. The bases

appear to have been made of various materials. If in tilting they fell

to the ground, the heralds claimed them as a fee, unless redeemed by

money; this indeed was the case with respect to any piece of armour

that happened to be detached from the owner. Sometimes _bases_ denoted

the hose merely; as in the comedy of _Lingua_, 1607, where _Auditus_,

one of the characters, is dressed in "a cloth of silver mantle upon a

pair of sattin _bases_." In Rider's Latin Dictionary, 1659, _bases_

are rendered _palliolum curtum_. The term seems to have been borrowed

from the French, who at a very early period used _bache_ for a woman's

petticoat.--See Carpentier _Glossar. medii ævi_.

SCENE 2. Page 454.

THAISA. And his device, a _wreath_ of chivalry

The word, _Me pompæ provexit apex_.

_Pompæ_, and not _Pompei_, is undoubtedly the true word; and the

whole of Mr. Steevens's reasoning in favour of the latter is at once

disposed of by referring to the work which appears to have furnished

the author of the play with this and the two subsequent devices of the

knights. It is a scarce little volume entitled, _The heroicall devises

of M. Claudius Paradin canon of Beaujeu, whereunto are added the lord

Gabriel Symeon's and others. Translated out of Latin into English, by

P. S._ 1591, 24mo. The _sixth_ device, from its peculiar reference to

the situation of Pericles, may perhaps have been altered from one in

the same collection used by Diana of Poictiers. It is a green branch

issuing from a tomb with the motto SOLA VIVIT IN ILLO. The following

are what have been immediately borrowed from Paradin; but it is also

proper to state that the torch and the hand issuing from a cloud are

to be found in Whitney's _Emblems_, 1586, 4to. As they are all more

elegantly engraved in the original editions of Paradin and Symeon than

in the English book above mentioned, the copies here given have been

made from the former.

[Illustration]

ACT III.

SCENE 2. Page 498.

1. GENT. Or tie my treasure up in silken bags,

To please the _fool and death_.

The notes on this passage having got into some little confusion by the

introduction of the lines in _Measure for measure_ which relate to

the _fool and death_ and the supplemental remarks on it, it will be

necessary in all future editions to keep them separate, as it seems

almost certain that they have no connection with each other.

Cerimon in most express terms declares that he feels more real

satisfaction in his liberal employment as a physician, than he should

in the uncertain pursuit of honour, or in the mere accumulation of

wealth; which would assimilate him to a miser, the result of whose

labour is merely to entertain the fool and death. But how was such

amusement as this to affect those personages in the _other_ instance,

where the vain attempts of a fool to escape the jaws of his adversary

form the whole of the subject? The allusion therefore is to some such

print as Mr. Steevens happily remembered to have seen, in which death

plunders the miser of his money bags, whilst the fool is grinning at

the process. It may be presumed that these subjects were common in

Shakspeare's time. They might have ornamented the poor man's cottage

in the shape of rude prints, or have been introduced into halfpenny

ballads long since consigned to oblivion. The miser is at all times

fair game; and to prove that this is not a chimerical opinion, and at

the same time to show the extensive range of this popular subject, a

few prints of the kind shall be mentioned. 1. Death and the two misers,

by Michael Pregel. 2. An old couple counting their money, death and two

devils attending, a mezzotint by Vander Bruggen. 3. A similar mezzotint

by Meheux without the devils. 4. An old print on a _single sheet_ of a

dance of death, on which both the _miser_ and the _fool_ are exhibited

in the clutches of the grim monarch.

The rear may be closed with the same subject as represented in the

various _dances of death_ that still remain. Nor should it be concluded

that because these prints exhibit no fool to grin at the impending

scene, others might not have done so. The satirical introduction of

this character on many occasions supports the probability that they

did. Thus in a painting of the school of Holbein, an old man makes

love to a girl, attended by a fool and death, to show, in the first

instance, the folly of the thing, and in the next, its consequences. It

is unnecessary to pursue the argument, as every print of the above kind

that may in future occur, will itself speak much more forcibly than any

thing which can here be added.

ACT IV.

SCENE 3. Page 539.

The two last lines in the quotation from _The wife for a month_ should

be printed thus:

Hung up _my_ picture in a market place,

And sold _me_ to vile bawds.

SCENE 3. Page 540.

BAWD. ... to scatter his _crowns in the sun_.

"There is here," says Mr. Malone, "perhaps, some allusion to the _lues

venerea_, though the words _French crowns_ in their literal acceptation

were certainly also in Boult's thoughts." Mr. Mason sees no allusion

whatever to the above disease. That a French crown did signify the

_lues venerea_ cannot be doubted; but Mr. Mason's difference of opinion

might be further supported by reflecting that if the Frenchman came to

_renovate_[18] his malady, he could not well be said to scatter it.

It must therefore be inferred that he was to scatter nothing but his

money. As Mr. Mason has not favoured us with an explanation of the

coins in question, it is necessary to state that they were _crowns

of the sun_ specifically so called, _écus du soleil_; and in this

instance, for the sake of antithesis, termed crowns _in_ the sun. They

were of gold, originally coined by Louis XI. Their name was derived

from the mint mark of a sun; and they were current in this kingdom by

weight, in the same manner as certain English coins were in France.

SCENE 3. Page 541.

BOULT. ... we should lodge them with _this sign_.

_This sign_ is properly referred by Mr. Malone to the person of Marina,

and cannot, for the reasons in the last note, allude to the _sun_,

according to Mr. Mason's second explanation. Nor is this gentleman's

argument supported by the instance adduced of the sun having been

used as the sign of a brothel. It was by no means exclusively, or

even particularly so. The following passage from Dekker's _Villanies

discovered, or the belman's night walks_, may throw some light on the

subject before us. "He saw the doores of notorious _carted bawdes_

(like hell gates) stand night and day wide open, with a _paire of

harlots_ in taffata gownes (like two painted posts) garnishing out

those doores, being better to the house then a _double signe_."

SCENE 6. Page 567.

MAR. Thou 'rt the damn'd door-keeper to every coystrel

That hither comes enquiring for his _tib_.

Mr. Malone thinks _Tib_ a contraction of Tabitha; but quære if not

of Isabel? In all events it was a name given to any lewd woman. In

_Pasquil's mad cappe_, 1626, 4to, an excellent satire, mention is made

of _a tinker and his tibbe_. Why this name was exclusively applied to a

loose woman, or how it got into the game of gleek, does not appear.

ACT V.

SCENE 3. Page 607.

PER. Heav'ns make a _star_ of him!

So in 1 _Henry VI._ Act I.

"A far more glorious star thy soul will make

Than Julius Cæsar----"

This notion is borrowed from the ancients, who expressed their mode

of conferring divine honours and immortality on men, by placing them

among the stars. Thus on a medal of Hadrian the adopted son of Trajan

and Plotina, the divinity of his parents is expressed by placing a

star over their heads; and in like manner the consecration medals

of Faustina the elder exhibit her on an eagle, her head surrounded

with stars. Other similar medals have the moon and stars; and some of

Faustina the younger the inscription SIDERIBVS RECEPTA.

THE CLOWN.

Although Boult, the servant to the pandar and his wife, is not termed a

_clown_ in the _dramatis personæ_, it should seem that he has an equal

claim to the appellation with several other low characters that have

been introduced into plays for the purpose of amusing the audience. He

bears some affinity to the tapster in _Measure for measure_; but there

is nothing that immediately constitutes him the jester to a brothel.

See what has been said on such a character in the article relating to

the clown in _Measure for measure_.

ON THE STORY OF PERICLES.

As the very great popularity of this play in former times may be

supposed to have originated rather from the interest which the _story_,

replete with incident, must have excited, than from any intrinsic

merit as _a dramatic composition_, it may be worth while, and even

interesting to many, to give the subject more ample discussion.

To trace it beyond the period in which the favourite romance of

_Apollonius Tyrius_ was composed, would be a vain attempt. That

was the probable original; but of its author nothing decisive has

been discovered. The following circumstance, however, has led to a

conjecture concerning him, which shall be stated with as much brevity

as possible. When Tarsia, the Marina of Pericles, has finished the song

which she addresses to her unknown father Apollonius, she receives

from him a hundred pieces of gold, with a command to leave him.

Athenagoras, the Lysimachus of Pericles, afterwards meets her, gives

her two hundred pieces, and prevails on her to make another effort

to sooth the melancholy of Apollonius. She returns to him, requests

permission to renew their conversation, and insists on his taking back

his money, unless he can expound certain riddles which she proceeds

to state. Now these riddles, three in number, are to be found in a

work entitled _Symposii ænigmata_. The original editor of this book,

Pierre Pithou, thought fit, without the smallest authority, to entitle

the supposed author Cælius Firmianus Symposius. Heuman, a subsequent

editor, placing implicit confidence in this name, maintained that this

person could be no other than the celebrated father of the church

Cælius Firmianus Lactantius; for having found that he had written a

work, now lost, under the title of _Symposium_, he concluded that the

name of _Symposius_, which occurs at the beginning of the ænigmas, was

a mistake, and that he had therefore proved his point. But this futile

reasoning was easily subverted by the superior critical talents of the

truly learned Fabricius, who demonstrated the impossibility of such an

error, and that Heuman had even misconceived the meaning of the word

_Symposium_, which could not apply to a work like the ænigmas. Besides,

the evidence of Saint Jerome remained to show that the symposium was

not written, like the ænigmas, in hexameter verses. Lactantius is

therefore out of the question; and though there is no immediate proof

respecting the time in which Symposius lived, it appears that it must

have been before the eighth century, as bishop Aldhelm, who died in

709, quotes the ænigmas _as composed by Symposius the poet_. This,

and many other circumstances, sufficiently identify him against the

ill-founded assertions of Heuman, who regarded him as a nonentity.

Aldhelm himself wrote ænigmas so much in the manner of Symposius,

that one might reasonably enough infer there was no great difference

in their respective ages. The learned Barthius (see his _Adversaria_,

lib. lviii. c. 1.), fully persuaded of the reality of Symposius,

and acquainted with the occurrence of the riddles in the history of

_Apollonius Tyrius_, concluded, with other learned men, that Symposius

wrote the latter; and he justly terms the author _dulcis scriptor et

eruditus_, as will be evident to any one who will take the trouble

of reading it in Velser's edition, which is printed from a better

manuscript than those used in the _Gesta Romanorum_. If, as Velser

maintains, and Barthius admits, it was originally written in Greek, a

difficulty arises with respect to Symposius, unless he be regarded as

the translator. But, to say the truth, there does not appear to be any

solid reason for supposing him the author, or even translator. It is

not very probable that in either character he would have introduced his

own matter from another work; and therefore, until some more fortunate

discovery shall occur, the romance of Apollonius Tyrius must remain

anonymous.

With respect to the language in which it was composed, Velser was of

opinion, from certain Græco-Latin words which it contains, that this

was Greek, and he speaks rather obscurely of a manuscript of it in that

language at Constantinople. He seems to think that the translator was a

Christian, living about the period of the decline of the Roman empire.

Barthius conceived him to have been a monk of the sixth century. The

_Saxon_ translation mentioned in Wanley's list of manuscripts, and now

in Bennett College, Cambridge, is doubtless from the Latin, and is

alone a sufficient testimony of the antiquity of the work. At what time

it was made must be left to the decision of those who are critically

skilled in the Saxon language. One Constantine is said to have

translated it into modern Greek verse about the year 1500; and this is

probably the manuscript mentioned in Dufresne's index of authors, and

afterwards printed at Venice in 1563. Mr. Tyrwhitt has observed that

Velser was not aware of its having been already published in the _Gesta

Romanorum_; and it may be added that it had been printed separately

at Augsburg in 1471; perhaps as early as in the _Gesta Romanorum_; a

fact that cannot well be ascertained, because there are editions of

the latter without date which might have been printed before. Mr.

Warton has committed a slight mistake in supposing that Alamannus

Rinucinus made a Latin translation corrected by Beroaldus about the

year 1520.[19] Vossius, whom he had misconceived, was speaking of a

translation of Philostratus's life of Apollonius _Tyaneus_. What Mr.

Malone has said of the _English_ translations precludes the necessity

of any further notice of them; but with respect to that gentleman's

supposition, that there might have been an early prose translation

from the _Gesta Romanorum, in which the name of Apollonius was changed

to Pericles_, it becomes necessary to state that there are very good

reasons for concluding that the story of _Apollonius Tyrius_, from the

_Gesta Romanorum_, never was translated into English; and even that the

_Gesta Romanorum in question_ did not appear in our language till the

beginning of the eighteenth century, and then but a small portion of

it.[20] The name of Pericles has been very well accounted for by Mr.

Steevens.

To render this article as complete as possible, and to facilitate

the reference to a story once so celebrated, a list of the various

manuscripts and printed copies is subjoined.

MANUSCRIPTS.

Those in _Latin_ are, two in Bennett Coll. Cambridge; see Nasmith's

_Catal._ Nos. cccxviii. ccccli.--Two in the Bodleian libr. Nos. 2435,

2540; see _Catal. MSS. Angliæ_, pp. 125, 134. Mr. Warton mentions a

third, in _H. E. Poetry_, vol. i. p. 350, note h. A fourth is in the

same library among Archb. Laud's MSS. No. 1302, _Catal. MSS. Angliæ_,

p. 70; on what authority this is said to have been translated from the

Greek, remains to be examined.

In Magdal. Coll. Ox. No. 2191, _Catal. MSS. Angliæ_, p. 72.--In

Vossius's collection, No. 2409, _Catal. MSS. Angliæ_, p. 64.--In the

Norfolk collection, now in the library of the Royal Society, No.

3181, _Catal. MSS. Angliæ_, p. 80.--Two in the Sloanian library; see

Ascough's _Catal._ p. 854.--Two in the Vatican. See Montfaucon _Bibl.

bibliothecarum_, i. 20, Nos. 275, 284.--In the Medicean library,

Montfaucon _Bibl. bibl._ i. 372, No. xl.--In the royal library at

Paris; Montfaucon _Bibl. bibl._ ii. 756, No. 5251.

A _Saxon_ translation. Bennett Coll. Camb. See Nasmith's _Catal._ No.

cci. and Wanley, Libror. vett. septentrional. catal. apud Hickesij

_Thesaur._ p. 146.

A _French_ translation is among the royal MSS. in the British museum,

20 c. ii. evidently made from the Latin about the 15th century.

A fragment in old _English_ verse, probably by Thomas Vicary of Wimborn

minster in Dorsetshire, on the story of _Apollonius Tyrius_, was in the

possession of the late reverend and learned Dr. Farmer of Cambridge.

See it noticed in the present vol. of Mr. Steevens's Shakspeare, pp.

381, 609.

PRINTED COPIES.

_Apollonii Tyrii_ historia, no date, but before 1500, 8vo.

The same published by Velser, 1595, 4to.

In modern Greek verse. Venice, 1563, 1601, 1696, 8vo.

In Italian rime. Venice, 1486, and without place, 1489, 4to.

In Italian prose, _reformed_; and published for the benefit of the

common people, _per piacer del popolo_, Milan, 1492, 4to.

In Spanish, in the _Patrañas_ of Juan Timoneda, Alcala, 1576, and

Bilbao, 1580, 8vo. This translation may be presumed to have been made

from the _Gesta Romanorum_, as other stories from it are in the same

work.

In German, Augsburg, 1471, folio, and 1476, 4to.

In Dutch, Delft, 1493, 4to.

In French, b. l. Geneva, 4to, n. d. Again, transl. by Gilles

Corrozet, Paris, 1530, 8vo. Again, Amst. 1710, _Paris_, 1711, 12mo,

modernized by M. Le Brun. It is abridged in _Melanges tirées d'une

grande bibliotheque_, vol. lxiv. p. 265. It is also among the _Hist.

tragiques_ de Belleforest, tom. vii. 1604, 12mo.

In Engl. transl. by Rob. Copland from the French, and printed by Wynkyn

de Worde, 1510.

_The patterne of painful adventures &c. that befell unto Prince_

APPOLONIUS, &c. translated by T. Twine, 1607, Originally published by

W. Howe, 1576.

In Gower's _Confessio amantis_, 1483, 1532, and 1554, folio, from

Godfrey of Viterbo.

In the _Pantheon_ or _universal chronicle_ of Godfrey of Viterbo,

compiled in Latin in the 12th century. First printed at Basil, 1569,

folio, and afterwards in Pistorius's collection of German historians.

And lastly, in _most_ of the editions of the _Gesta Romanorum_, in

which it makes the 153rd chapter. In comparing this with Velser's work,

it will be perceived that it is the same, making allowance for the

usual difference of manuscripts. In short, there is but one story.

A few years after the publication of this play, there appeared on the

French stage a tragi-comedy on the same story, entitled _Les heureuses

infortunes_. It is in two parts, each of five acts, and composed by

Francois Bernier de la Brousse. It might be worth while to examine

whether he had made any use of the English Pericles.

However unworthy of Shakspeare's pen this drama, as an _entire_

composition, may be considered, many will be of opinion that it

contains more that _he might have written_ than either _Love's labour's

lost_, or _All's well that ends well_.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] It is necessary that the reader should review Mr. Malone's

preceding and satisfactory note.

[19] Hist. of Engl. poetry, III. lxiv.

[20] See the subsequent Dissertation on the Gesta Romanorum.

KING LEAR.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 11.

COR. ... I am sure, my love's

More richer than _my_ tongue.

Dr. Warburton would have it _their_ tongue, meaning her sisters', which

would be very good sense. Dr. Johnson is content with the present

reading, but gives no explanation. Cordelia means to say, "My love is

greater than my powers of language can express." In like manner she

soon afterwards says, "I cannot heave my heart into my mouth."

SCENE 1. Page 12.

LEAR. Nothing can come of nothing.

In the fourth Scene of this Act, Lear uses the same expression in

answer to the fool, who had asked him if he could "make no use

of nothing." For this ancient saying of one of the philosophers,

Shakspeare might have been indebted to the following passage in _The

prayse of nothing_, by E. D. 1585, 4to. "The prophane antiquitie

therefore, unlesse by casuall meanes, entreated little hereof, as of

that which by their rule, that _nihil ex nihilo fit_, conteined not

matter of profit or commendation: for which those philosophers hunted,

as ambicious men for dominion and empire."

SCENE 4. Page 60.

FOOL. That such a king should play _bo-peep_.

Mr. Steevens remarks that little more of this _game_ than its mere

denomination remains. He had forgotten the amusements of his nursery.

In Sherwood's _Dictionary_ it is defined, "Jeu d'enfant; ou (plustost)

des nourrices aux petits enfans; se cachans le visage et puis se

monstrant." The Italians say _far bau bau_, or _baco baco_, and

_bauccare_; which shows that there must at some time or other have been

a connexion between the nurse's _terriculamentum_, the _boggle or buggy

bo_, and the present expression. See the note in p. 202. Minsheu's

derivation of _bo-peep_ from the noise which chickens make when they

come out of the shell, is more whimsical than just.

SCENE 4. Page 65.

LEAR. Lear's shadow?

We are told that "the folio has given these words to the fool." And

so they certainly should be, without the mark of interrogation. They

are of no use whatever in Lear's speech; and without this arrangement,

the fool's next words, "which they will make an obedient father," are

unintelligible. It will likewise dispose of Mr. Steevens's subsequent

charge against Shakspeare, of inattention to the rules of grammar.

ACT II.

SCENE 2. Page 92.

KENT. I'll make a _sop o' the moonshine_ of you.

It is certain that an equivoque is here intended by an allusion to the

old dish of _eggs in moonshine_, which was eggs broken and boiled in

salad oil till the yolks became hard. They were eaten with _slices_ of

onions fried in oil, butter, verjuice, nutmeg and salt.

SCENE 3. Page 109.

EDG. Pins, _wooden pricks_, &c.

Rightly explained _skewers_. Greene, in his admirable satire, _A quip

for an upstart courtier_, speaking of the tricks played by the butchers

in his time, makes one of his characters exclaim, "I pray you, goodman

Kilcalfe, have you not your artificial knaveries to set out your meate

with _pricks_?" The brewers and bakers come in also for their share of

abuse.

SCENE 3. Page 110.

EDGAR. Poor Turlygood!

Warburton would read _Turlupin_, and Hanmer _Turluru_; but there is

a better reason for rejecting both these terms than for preferring

either; viz. that _Turlygood_ is the _corrupted_ word in _our_

language. The Turlupins were a fanatical sect that overran France,

Italy, and Germany, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They

were at first known by the names of _Beghards_ or _Beghins_, and

brethren and sisters of the free spirit. Their manners and appearance

exhibited the strongest indications of lunacy and distraction. The

common people alone called them _Turlupins_; a name which, though it

has excited much doubt and controversy, seems obviously to be connected

with the _wolvish howlings_ which these people in all probability would

make when influenced by their religious ravings. Their subsequent

appellation of _the fraternity of poor men_ might have been the cause

why the wandering rogues called _Bedlam beggars_, and one of whom

Edgar personates, assumed or obtained the title of _Turlupins_ or

_Turlygoods_, especially if their mode of asking alms was accompanied

by the gesticulations of madmen. _Turlupino_ and _Turluru_ are old

Italian terms for a fool or madman; and the Flemings had a proverb, _As

unfortunate as Turlupin and his children_.

SCENE 4. Page 113.

LEAR. To do upon respect such violent outrage.

Explained by Dr. Johnson, "to violate the character of a messenger from

the king." It is rather "to do outrage to that respect which is due to

the king." This, in part, agrees with the ensuing note.

SCENE 4. Page 114.

KENT. They summon'd up their _meiny_.

_Meiny_, signifying _a family_, _household_, or _retinue of servants_,

is certainly from the French _meinie_, or, as it was anciently and

more properly written, _mesnie_; which word has been regarded, with

great probability, by a celebrated French glossarist and antiquary,

as equivalent with _mesonie_ or _maisonie_, from _maison_: in modern

French _ménage_. See glossary to Villehardouin, edit. 1657, folio.

Mr. Holt White has cited Dryden's line,

"The _many_ rend the skies with loud applause,"

as supplying the use of _many_ in Kent's sense of _train_ or _retinue_.

With great deference, the word is quite unconnected with _meiny_, and

simply denotes any _multitude_ or collection of people. It is not only

used at present in its common adjective form for _several_, _divers_,

_multi_, but even substantively: for in the Northern parts of England

they still say _a many_, and _a many people_, i. e. _of_ people. In

this sense it is never found in the French language; but we have

received it directly, as an adjective, from the Saxon manɩ manɩᵹ, and

as a substantive from menɩu, mænɩᵹeo, menɩᵹo, &c. &c.; for in that

language the word is found written not less than twenty different ways.

It is the same as the Latin _manus_. Horace uses _manus poetarum_; and

Quintilian _oratorum ingens manus_. It does not appear that the Saxons

used _many_ for a _family_ or household.

SCENE 4. Page 121.

FOOL. Cry to it nuncle, as the _cockney_ did to the eels.

The difficulties that have attended all inquiries concerning this

term, have been not a little augmented by an expectation of finding an

uniformity which it does not possess, and by not reflecting that it is

in reality susceptible of very different explanations.

There is hardly a doubt that it originates in an Utopian region

of indolence and luxury, formerly denominated the country of

_cocaigne_,[21] which, as some have thought, was intimately connected

with the art of _cookery_; whilst others, with equal plausibility,

relate that the little pellets of woad, a commodity in which Languedoc

was remarkably fertile, being called by the above name, the province

itself acquired the appellation of the kingdom of _cocaigne_ or of

plenty, where the inhabitants lived in the utmost happiness, and

exempt from every sort of care and anxiety. Hence the name came to be

applied to any rich country. Boileau calls Paris _un pays de cocagne_.

The French have likewise some theatrical pieces under this title. The

Italians have many allusions to it; and there is said to be a small

district between Rome and Loretto so called from its cheapness and

fertility. With us the lines cited by Camden in his _Britannia_, vol.

i. col. 451,

"Were I in my castle of Bungey

Upon the river of Waveney

I would ne care for the king of _Cockeney_,"

whencesoever they come, indicate that London was formerly known by this

satirical name; _and hence a Londoner came to be called a cockney_. The

French have an equivalent word, _coqueliner_, to pamper, cherish, or

dandle, whence our _cocker_.

From the above circumstances it is probable that a cockney became at

length a term of contempt; one of the earliest proofs of which is

Chaucer's use of it in the _Reve's tale_, v. 4206: "I shall be halden

a daffe or a _cokenay_." In the _Promptuarium parvulorum_, 1516,

4to, it is explained to be a term of derision. In Shakspeare's time

it signified a child tenderly brought up, a dearling, a wanton. See

Barret's _Alvearie_; and a little before it had been used in a bad

sense, from an obvious corruption. See Hulæt's _Abcedarium_, 1552,

folio. In this place too Mr. Steevens's quotations from Meres and

Deckar might be introduced.

The next sense in which _cockney_ was used seems to be conveyed in the

line cited by Mr. Tyrwhitt from _Pierce Plowman's Visions_:

"And yet I say by my soule I have no salt bacon,

Ne no _cokeney_ by Christe coloppes to make:"

as well as in those from the tournament of Tottenham;

"At that feast were they served in rich array,

Every five and five had a _cokeney_:"

where in both instances, with deference to the respectable authorities

of Dr. Percy and Mr. Tyrwhitt, it signifies a _little cock_. In the

latter quotation it might mean a peacock, a favourite dish among our

ancestors; and this conjecture is countenanced by the words _served

in rich array_. This mode of forming a diminutive with respect to

animals is not unfrequent. Thus in the _Canterbury tales_, l. 3267:

"She was a primerole, a _piggesnie_." And here again some apology may

be necessary for differing from Mr. Tyrwhitt, who supposes that Chaucer

"meant no more than _ocellus_, the eyes of that animal being remarkably

small, and the Romans using _oculus_ as a term of endearment." But

the objection to this ingenious explanation is, that _nie_ cannot

well be put for _eye_; that in this case the word would have been

_pigseye_, and that it is rather formed from the A. S. pɩᵹa, a girl.

See Lye's _Saxon dict._ Similar words were afterwards constructed,

but without due regard to the above etymology. For example, "Prythee

sweet _birdsnye_, be content."--Davenport's _City night cap_, Act III.

Scene 1. "Jella, why frownst thou? say sweet _biddiesnie_?"--Davies's

_Scourge of folly_. "Ay _birdsneys_, she's a quean."--Shadwell's

_Virtuoso_, Act III. And in Congreve's _Old bachelor_, Fondlewife calls

his mate _cockey_.

It is observable that in all the above instances these appellations

are only used to females. It is not improbable therefore, that, in an

abstract sense, _cockney_ might sometimes be used in speaking to male

children as a term of endearment; and it may be necessary to make this

remark here, for the purpose of anticipating any suggestion that it is

connected with the present subject.

It remains only to notice the _cockneys_ or _sugar pellet_ which

Mr. Steevens's old lady remembered to have eaten in her childhood.

The French formerly used a kind of perfumed pastry made of the

powdered Iris flower, sugar, musk, and rose-water; these were called

_pastilles_; and from the similitude of the word to _pastel_, or

the Languedoc woad mentioned at the beginning of this note as the

produce of the _pays de cocagne_, it is not improbable that some

latent affinity may exist. The animal involved in the English term

might indeed be thought sufficient to indicate the form. Had the old

lady, happily for us, described the shape of these comfits, and which

motives of delicacy might have prevented, we could possibly have traced

them from our Gallic neighbours in another descent of a very singular

nature. The following extract from _Legrand's Vie privée des Francois_,

tom. ii. p. 268, will explain this: "Croira-t-on qu'il a existé en

France un tems ou l'on a donné aux menues pâtisseries de table les

formes les plus obscenes, et les noms les plus infâmes? Croira-t-on que

cet incroyable excés de depravation a duré plus de deux siécles? Aussi

sont ce moins les noms de ces pâtisseries qu'il faut blâmer que les

formes qu'on leur donnait. Champier, apres avoir décrit les differentes

pâtisseries usitées de son temps, dit, _Quædam pudenda muliebria, aliæ

virilia (si diis placet) representant. Sunt quos c... saccharatos

appellitent. Adeò degeneravere boni mores, ut etiam Christianis obscœna

et pudenda in cibis placeant._"

Minsheu's tale of the cock neighing, and Casaubon's derivation of

cockney from οικογενης, i. e. domi natus, may serve to increase those

smiles of compassion which it is to be feared some of the present

remarks may have already excited.

It is worth remarking, although not immediately connected with the

present subject, that in the Celtic languages _coeg_, and _kok_,

signified anything foolish or good for nothing. They seem connected

with the radical word for a _cuckow_, a silly bird, which has thus

transmitted its appellation to persons of a similar nature. See the

words _cog_ in the Welsh dictionaries, and _cok_ in Pryce's Cornish

vocabulary. In the North they call the cuckow a gowk, whence _genkit_,

foolish, and _gawky_. Our term _cokes_, for a fool, is of the same

family, and, perhaps, _cuckold_.

SCENE 4. Page 132.

LEAR. Thou art a _boil_.

The note on this word states that it was written _byle_ in the old

copies, which all the modern editors have too strictly followed; that

the mistake arose from the word _boil_ being often pronounced as if

written _bile_; and that in the folio we find in _Coriolanus_ the same

_false_ spelling as here.--But this charge against the editors seems to

have originated in a misconception. The ancient and true orthography

is _byle_ and _bile_, and such was the common pronunciation. The

modern _boyl_ and _boil_ are corruptions. Thus in the _Promptuarium

parvulorum_, 1516, we have "_Byle_ sore,--Pustula." In Mathews's bible,

1551, "Satan smote Job with marvelous soore _byles_." In Whetstone's

_Mirour for magestrates of cyties_, 1584, 4to, "Dicyng houses are of

the substance of other buildinges, but within are the botches and

_byles_ of abhomination." _Bile_ is pure Saxon, and is so given in most

of the old dictionaries.

SCENE 4. Page 135.

LEAR. ... but this heart

Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws.

On the word _flaws_ we have the following note: "A _flaw_, signifying

a crack or other similar imperfection; our author, with his accustomed

license, uses the word here for a _small broken particle_. So again in

the fifth Act,

'... but his _flaw'd_ heart

Burst smilingly.'"

Now there is some reason for supposing that _flaw_ might signify a

_fragment_ in Shakspeare's time, as well as a mere crack; because among

the Saxons it certainly had that meaning, as may be seen in Somner's

_Diction. Saxon._ voce ꝼloh. It is to be observed that the quartos read

_flowes_, approaching nearer to the original. In the above quotation

_flaw'd_ seems to be used in the _modern_ sense.

ACT III.

SCENE 2. Page 147.

FOOL. Marry, here's grace, and a _cod-piece_; that's a wise man and

a _fool_.

Shakspeare has with some humour applied the above name to the fool,

who, for obvious reasons, was usually provided with this unseemly part

of dress in a more remarkable manner than other persons. To the custom

Gayton thus alludes, when speaking of the decline of the stage: "No

fooles with _Harry codpieces appeare_."--_Festivous notes upon Don

Quixote_, p. 270.

SCENE 2. Page 150.

FOOL. No hereticks _burn'd_ but wenches suitors.

Dr. Johnson has very well explained why _wenches suitors_ were

_burned_; but Mr. Steevens's quotation from Isaiah iii. 24, "--and

_burning_ instead of beauty," has not been applied on this occasion

with his usual discernment. Not to mention the improbability that

the _burning_ in question should have existed in the time of Isaiah,

the expression itself is involved in the deepest obscurity. Saint

Jerome has entirely omitted it; and if the Hebrew word, which in

some translations has been rendered _adustio_, be susceptible of any

fair meaning, it is that of _shrivelled_ or _dried up by heat_. It

is, therefore, in the bishop's bible and some foreign translations

paraphrastically given, "and for their bewty witherednesse and _sunne

burning_." The manuscript regulations for the stews in Southwark,

printed but abridged in Stowe's Annals, would have furnished the

learned commentator with a far more apposite illustration. In these it

is said, "no stewholder shall keep any woman that hath the perilous

infirmity of _burning_."

SCENE 4. Page 160.

EDG. _Pillicock_ sat on pillicock's hill.

In the metrical romance of _Sir Gawain and Sir Galaron_, there is this

line,

"His polemous with _pelicocus_ were poudred to pay."

Pinkerton's _Scotish poems_, vol. iii. 214.

In the comedy of _Ignoramus_ by Ruggles, Act III. Scene 6, Cupes talks

of "quimbiblos, indenturas, _pilicoccos_, calimancas;" where it is

perhaps a new-fangled term for any kind of stuff or cloth. There is an

attempt to explain the word in Warner's _Letter to Garrick_, p. 30; but

whoever would be certain of finding the exact meaning, may consult,

besides the article in Minsheu, 9299, the following books: Durfey's

_Pills to purge melancholy_, iv. 311.--The _Nightingale_, (a collection

of songs) 1738, p. 380.--Lyndsay's _Works_, as edited by Mr. Chalmers,

ii. 145, and the excellent glossary.--Florio's _Italian dictionary_,

1611, under the articles _piviolo_, and _rozzone_.

SCENE 4. Page 162.

EDG. Keep thy pen from _lenders books_.

When spendthrifts and distressed persons resorted to usurers or

tradesmen for the purpose of raising money by means of shop-goods or

_brown paper commodities_, they usually entered their promissory notes

or other similar obligations in books kept for that purpose. It is to

this practice that Edgar alludes.

In Lodge's _Looking-glasse for London and Englande_, 1598, 4to, a

usurer says to a gentleman, "I have thy hand set to my book that thou

received'st fortie pounds of me in money." To which the other answers,

"It was your device, to colour the statute, but your conscience knowes

what I had." Parke, in his _Curtaine-drawer of the world_, speaking of

a country gentleman, alludes to the extravagance of his back, which had

got him into _the mercer's book_.

SCENE 4. Page 163.

EDG. ... ha, no nonny.

This was the burden of many old songs. One of these, being connected

with Mr. Henley's curious note, is here presented to the reader. It is

taken from a scarce collection, entitled _Melismata. Musicall phansies,

fitting the court, citie and countrey humours, To 3, 4, and 5 voyces_,

1611, 4to. In Playford's _Musical companion_, p. 55, the words are set

to a different tune.

[Music:

E that will an Ale-house keepe must have three things in store,

a Chamber and a feather Bed, a Chimney and a hey no-ny no-ny

hay no-ny no-ny, hey nony no, hey nony no, hey nony no.]

SCENE 4. Page 164.

LEAR. ... unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare,

_forked_ animal as thou art.

_Forked_ is a very strange epithet, but must be taken literally. See a

note by Mr. Steevens in Act IV. Scene 6, of this play. The Chinese in

their _written_ language represent a man by the following character.

[Illustration]

SCENE 6. Page 176.

FOOL. He's mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse's

_health_, a boy's love, or a whore's oath.

Though _health_ will certainly do, it has probably been substituted

for _heels_, by some person who regarded it as an improved reading.

There are several proverbs of this kind. That in the text has not been

found elsewhere, and may be the invention of Shakspeare. The Italians

say, _Of a woman beware before, of a mule beware behind, and of a monk

beware on all sides_; the French, _Beware of a bull's front, of a

mule's hinder parts, and of all sides of a woman_. In Samuel Rowland's

excellent and amusing work, entitled _The choice of change, containing

the triplicity of divinitie, philosophie, and poetrie_, 1585, 4to, we

meet with this proverbial saying, "Trust not 3 thinges, dogs teeth,

horses feete, womens protestations."

SCENE 6. Page 184.

EDG. Poor Tom, _thy horn is dry_.

On this speech Dr. Johnson has remarked that men who begged under

pretence of lunacy, used formerly to carry a horn and blow it through

the streets. To account for Edgar's horn being _dry_, we must likewise

suppose that the lunatics in question made use of this utensil to

drink out of, which seems preferable to the opinion of Mr. Steevens,

that these words are "a proverbial expression, introduced when a man

has nothing further to offer, when he has said all he has to say,"

the learned commentator not having adduced any example of its use. An

opportunity here presents itself of suggesting a more correct mode

of exhibiting the theatrical dress of Poor Tom than we usually see,

on the authority of Randle Holme in his most curious and useful work

_The academy of armory_, book III. ch. iii. p. 161, where he says that

the _Bedlam_ has "a long staff and a cow or ox-horn by his side; his

cloathing fantastic and ridiculous; for being a madman, he is madly

decked and dressed all over with rubins, feathers, cuttings of cloth,

and what not, to make him seem a madman or one distracted, when he is

no other than a dissembling knave." It is said that about the year 1760

a poor idiot called _Cude Yeddy_, went about the streets of Hawick in

Scotland habited much in the above manner, and rattling a cow's horn

against his teeth. Something like this costume may be seen in the

portrait of that precious knave _Mull'd Sack_, who carries a _drinking

horn_ on his staff. See Caulfield's _Portraits, memoirs, and characters

of remarkable persons_, vol. ii.

ACT IV.

SCENE 2. Page 209.

ALE. Humanity must perforce _prey on itself_,

Like monsters of the deep.

"Fishes," says Dr. Johnson, "are the _only_ animals that are known to

prey upon their own species." But Shakspeare did not mean to insinuate

this; for he has elsewhere spoken of "cannibals that each other eat."

He only wanted a comparison. Many of the insect tribes prey on their

own species, as spiders, scorpions, beetles, earwigs, blattæ, &c.

SCENE 4. Page 233.

LEAR. That fellow handles his bow like a _crow keeper_.

The notes on this passage serve only to _identify the character_ of a

crow-keeper; but the _comparison_ still remains to be explained. On

this occasion we must consult our sole preceptor in the manly and too

much neglected science of archery, the venerable Ascham. In speaking

of awkward shooters he says, "Another coureth downe and layeth out his

buttockes, as thoughe hee should _shoote at crowes_."

SCENE 4. Page 234.

LEAR. O well-flown bird!

The notes are at variance as to whether Lear allude to archery or

falconry. Certainly to the latter. In an old song on hawking, set for

four voices by Thomas Ravenscroft, _O well flown_ is a frequent address

to the hawk.

SCENE 4. Page 239.

LEAR. Hark, in thine ear: change places: and _handy-dandy_, which

is the justice, which is the thief?

Mr. Malone's explanation of this children's sport is confirmed by the

following extract from _A free discourse touching the murmurers of

the tymes_, MS. "They hould safe your childrens patrymony, and play

with your majestie as men play with little children at _handye dandye,

which hand will you have_, when they are disposed to keep any thinge

from them." The above _discourse_ is a very bold and libellous address

to King James I. on his pacific character, written, anonymously, with

great powers of composition.

SCENE 4. Page 240.

LEAR. There thou might'st behold the great image of authority: a dog's

obey'd in office.----

Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand:

Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back;

Thou hotly lust'st to use her in that kind,

For which thou whip'st her. The usurer hangs the cozener.

Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear:

Robes and furr'd gowns hide all.

This admirable speech has a remarkable coincidence with the following

passage from "Parke's _Curtaine-drawer of the world_," 1612, 4to,

p. 16, a work of very considerable merit. "The potency and power of

magnificence and greatnesse dare looke sinne openly in the face in

the very market place, and the eye of authority never takes notice

thereof: the poore harlot must be stript and whipt for the crime that

the courtly wanton and the citie-sinner ruffle out, and passe over

and glory in, and account as nothing. The poore thiefe is hanged many

times that hath stolne but the prise of a dinner, when sometimes hee

that robbes both church and commonwealth is seene to ride on his

footecloth." If this book was written according to its date, and Mr.

Malone be right as to that of Lear, a fact which is not meant to be

controverted, the merit of originality will rest with Shakspeare.

SCENE 4. Page 241.

EDG. O, matter and _impertinency_ mix'd.

This word was not used in its modern and corrupted sense of _sauciness_

or _intrusion_, but merely to express _something not belonging to the

subject_. Thus, an old collection of domestic recipes, &c., entitled,

_The treasurie of commodious conceits_, 1594, is said to be "not

_impertinent_ for every good huswife to use in her house amongst her

own familie." It does not seem to have been used in the sense of _rude_

or _unmannerly_ till the middle of the seventeenth century; nor in that

of _saucy_ till a considerable time afterwards.

SCENE 4. Page 241.

LEAR. ... we came crying hither.

Thou know'st, the first time that we smell the air,

We _wawl and cry_:----

Evidently taken from Pliny as translated by Philemon Holland. "Man

alone, poor wretch [nature] hath laid all naked upon the bare earth,

even on his birth day _to cry and wrawle_ presently from the very first

houre that he is borne into this world."--_Proeme_ to book 7.

THE FOOL.

The fool in this play is the genuine domestic buffoon: but

notwithstanding his sarcastical flashes of wit, for which we must

give the poet credit, and ascribe them in some degree to what is

called stage effect, he is a mere _natural_ with a considerable share

of cunning. Thus Edgar calls him _an innocent_, and every one will

immediately distinguish him from such a character as Touchstone. His

dress on the stage should be parti-coloured; his hood crested either

with a cock's comb, to which he often alludes, or with the cock's head

and neck. His bauble should have a head like his own with a grinning

countenance, for the purpose of exciting mirth in those to whom he

occasionally presents it.

The kindness which Lear manifests towards his fool, and the latter's

extreme familiarity with his master in the midst of the most poignant

grief and affliction, may excite surprise in those who are not

intimately acquainted with the simple manners of our forefathers. An

almost contemporary writer has preserved to us a curious anecdote of

William duke of Normandy, afterwards William I. of England, whose

life was saved by the attachment and address of his fool. An ancient

Flemish chronicle among the royal MSS. in the British Museum, 16, F.

iii., commences with the exile of Salvard lord of Roussillon and his

family from Burgundy. In passing through a forest they are attacked by

a cruel giant, who kills Salvard and several of his people; his wife

Emergard and a few others only escaping. This scene the illuminator

of the manuscript, which is of the fifteenth century, has chosen to

exhibit. He has represented Emergard as driven away in a covered cart

or waggon by one of the servants. She is attended by a female, and in

the front of the cart is placed her fool, with a countenance expressive

of the utmost alarm at the impending danger. Nor would it be difficult

to adduce, if necessary, similar instances of the reciprocal affection

between these singular personages and those who retained them.

ON THE STORY OF THIS PLAY.

To the account already given of the materials which Shakspeare used,

nothing perhaps of any moment can be added; but for the sake of

rendering this article more complete, it may be worth while to add that

the _unpublished Latin Gesta Romanorum_ contains the history of Lear

and his daughters under different names, and with some little variety

of circumstance. As it is not tedious, and has never been printed, at

least as far as we know at present, it is here subjoined in its English

form. The manuscript used on this occasion is No. 7333, in the Harleian

collection.

"Theodosius regned, a wys emperour in the cite of Rome and myghti he

was of power; the whiche emperour had thre doughters. So hit liked to

this emperour to knowe which of his doughters lovid him best. And tho

he seid to the eldest doughter, how moche lovist thou me? fforsoth,

quod she, more than I do myself, therfore, quod he, thou shalt be

hily avaunsed, and maried her to a riche and myghti kyng. Tho he cam

to the secund, and seid to her, doughter, how moche lovist thou me?

As moche forsoth, she seid, as I do myself. So the emperour maried

her to a duc. And tho he seid to the thrid doughter, how moche lovist

thou me? fforsoth, quod she, as moche as ye beth worthi, and no more.

Tho seid the emperour, doughter, sith thou lovist me no more, thou

shalt not be maried so richely as thi susters beth. And tho he maried

her to an erle. Aftir this it happid that the emperour held bataile

ayend the king of Egypt. And the kyng drove the emperour oute of the

empire, in so moche that the emperour had no place to abide ynne. So he

wrote lettres ensealed with his ryng to his first doughter that seid

that she lovid him more than herself, for to pray her of socouryng in

that grete nede, bycause he was put oute of his empire. And when the

doughter had red thes lettres, she told hit to the kyng her husbond.

Tho, quod the kyng, it is good that we socour him in this nede. I shal,

quod he, gadern an host and help him in all that I can or may, and

that will not he do withoute grete costage. Yee, quod she, hit were

sufficiant if that we wold graunt him V knyghts to be in felashyp wᵗ

him while he is oute of his empire. And so hit was ydo indede. And the

doughter wrote ayen to the fader, that other help myght he not have but

V knyghts of the kyng to be in his felashyp at the cost of the kyng her

husbond. And when the emperour herd this, he was hevy in his hert, and

seid, alas! alas! all my trust was in her, for she seid she lovid me

more than herself, and therfore I avaunced her so hye.

"Then he wrote to the seconde that seid she lovid him as moche as

hirself, and when she had herd his lettres, she shewid his erand to

hir husbond, and yaf him in counseil that he shuld fynde him mete and

drink and clothing honestly, as for the state of such a lorde during

tyme of his nede. And when this was graunted, she wrote lettres agein

to hir fadir. The emperour was hevy wᵗ this answere, and seid, sith my

two doughters have thus yhevid me, sothely I shal preve the third. And

so he wrote to the thrid that seid she lovid him as moche as he was

worthi, and praied her of socour in his nede, and tolde her the answere

of her two sustris. So the thrid doughter when she had considered

the myschief of her ffader, she told her husbond in this fourme: my

worshipfull lord do socour me now in this grete nede, my fadir is put

oute of his empire and his heritage. Then spake he, what were thi will

I did therto. That ye gadre a grete oste, quod she, and helpe him to

fight ayens his enemys. I shal fulfill thi will, seide the erle, and

gaderid a grete oste and yede with the emperoure at his owne costage

to the bataile, and had the victorye, and set the emperour ayen in

his heritage. And then seid the emperour, blessed be the hour I gate

my yongist doughter: I lovid her lesse than eni of the othir, and now

in my nede she hath socoured me, and the othir have yfailed me; and

therefore aftir my deth she shal have myn empire. And so hit was ydo in

dede; for aftir the deth of the emperour, the yongist doughter regned

in his sted and ended pesibly."

The same story is to be found in the formerly celebrated English

chronicle erroneously supposed to have been written by Caxton,

the early part of which was copied from Geoffrey of Monmouth. The

circumstance of its having been printed by Caxton more than once, with

a continuation to his own time, probably by himself, seems to have

occasioned the mistake. See what has been said of it before, p. 261.

FOOTNOTES:

[21] This country has been humorously described by an old French

fablier, from whose work an extract may be found in Mons. Legrand's

entertaining collection of _Fabliaux_, tom. i. p. 251; and which

verifies Mr. Tyrwhitt's conjecture, that the old English poem first

published by Hickes, _G. A. Sax_. p. 231, was a translation from the

French. See _Cant. tales_, vol. iv. p. 254.

ROMEO AND JULIET.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 325.

SAM. Gregory, o' my word, we'll not _carry coals_.

GRE. No, for then we should be colliers.

Of the various conjectures on the origin and real meaning of this

phrase, that by Mr. Steevens seems deserving of the preference. In a

rare little pamphlet entitled _The cold yeare_, 1614, 4to, being a

dialogue in which the casualties that happened in the great fall of

snow are enumerated, one of the interlocutors, a North-country man,

relates that on his approach to London he overtooke a collier and his

team, "walking as stately as if they scorned to _carry coales_." It was

therefore a term of reproach to be called a collier; and thence, to

_carry coals_ was metaphorically used for any low or servile action.

Barnaby Googe, in his _New yeares gift to the Pope's holinesse_, 1579,

4to, says he "had rather be a _collyer at Croydon_ than a Pope at Rome."

A hint had been given, by a gentleman whose opinions are on all

occasions entitled to the highest respect and attention, that the

phrase in question might have originated from Proverbs xxv. 22. "If

thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty,

give him water to drink; for thou shalt _heap coals_ of fire upon his

head." But this is a metaphor expressive of the pain which a man shall

suffer from the reproaches of his conscience, and as such, has been

adopted into our language. Thus, in _Newes from the North, otherwise

called The conference between Simon Certain and Pierce Plowman_, 1579,

4to, "Now God forbid that ever a lawyer should _heap coales upon a

merchant's head_, or that a merchant should not be as willing and as

ready to doo a goodly deed as a lawyer."

SCENE 2. Page 347.

CAP. Such comfort, as do _lusty young men feel_

When well-apparell'd _April_ on the heel

Of limping winter treads.

Two of the commentators would read _lusty yeomen_, and make the passage

refer to the sensations of the farmer on the return of spring. One of

them, Dr. Johnson, to render the present text objectionable, has been

obliged to _invert_ the comparison. Capulet, in speaking of the delight

which Paris is to receive in the society of the young ladies invited

to his house, compares it to that which the month of April usually

afforded to the youth of both sexes, when assembled in the green fields

to enjoy their accustomed recreations. Independently of the frequent

allusions in the writings of our old poets to April, as the season

of youthful pleasures, and which probably occurred to Shakspeare's

recollection, he might besides have had in view the decorations which

accompany the above month in some of the manuscript and printed

calendars, where the young folks are represented as sitting together on

the grass; the men ornamenting the girls with chaplets of flowers. From

the following lines in one of these, the passage in question seems to

derive considerable illustration.

"The next VI. yere maketh foure and twenty

And fygured is to _joly Apryll_

The tyme of pleasures man hath moost plenty

Fresshe and lovyng his _lustes_ to fulfyll."

SCENE 4. Pages 364, 367.

ROM. Give me a torch----

I'll be a candle-holder, and look on.

Froissart, describing a dinner on Christmas day in the hall of the

castle of Gaston Earl of Foix, at Ortern, in the year 1388, has

these words: "At mydnyght when he came out of his chambre into the

halle to supper, he had ever before hym _twelve torches_ brennyng,

_borne by twelve varlettes_ standyng before his table all supper." In

Rankin's _Mirrour of monsters_, 1587, 4to, is the following passage:

"This _maske_ thus ended, wyth visardes accordingly appointed, there

were certain petty fellows ready, as the custome is, _in maskes to

carry torches_, &c." In the _Weiss kunig_, being a collection of wood

engravings representing the actions of Maximilian the First, there is

a very curious exhibition of a masque before the emperor, in which the

performers appear with their visards, and one of them holds a torch in

his hand. There is another print on the same subject by Albert Durer.

The practice of carrying torch lights at entertainments continued even

after the time of Shakspeare. See a future note on Hamlet, Act III.

Scene 2.

SCENE 4. Page 368.

MER. If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire.

There is no doubt that this is an allusion to some now forgotten

sport or game, which gave rise to a proverbial expression, _Dun is

in the mire_, used when a person was at a stand, or plunged into any

difficulty. We find it as early as Chaucer's time in the Manciple's

prologue:

"Ther gan our hoste to jape and to play,

And sayde; sires, what? _Dun is in the mire._"

How the above sport was practised we have still to learn. _Dun_ is, no

doubt, the name of a horse or an ass. There is an equivalent phrase,

_Nothing is bolder than blynde Bayard which falleth oft in the mire_.

See Dr. Bullein's _dialogue between soarenesse and chirurgi_, fo. 10;

and there is also a proverb, _As dull as Dun in the mire_.

SCENE 4. Page 376.

MER. ... This is that very Mab

_That plats the manes of horses in the night_.

No attempt has hitherto been made to explain this line, which

alludes to a very singular superstition not yet forgotten in some

parts of the country. It was believed that certain malignant spirits,

whose delight was to wander in groves and pleasant places, assumed

occasionally the likenesses of women clothed in white; that in this

character they sometimes haunted stables in the night time, carrying

in their hands tapers of wax, which they dropped on the horses' manes,

thereby plaiting them in inextricable knots, to the great annoyance

of the poor animals, and vexation of their masters. These hags are

mentioned in the works of William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris in the

13th century. There is a very uncommon old print by Hans Burgmair

relating to this subject. A witch enters the stable with a lighted

torch: and previously to the operation of entangling the horse's mane,

practises her enchantments on the groom, who is lying asleep on his

back, and apparently influenced by the night-mare. The _Belemnites_, or

elf-stones, were regarded as charms against the last-mentioned disease,

and against evil spirits of all kinds; but the _cerauniæ_ or _bætuli_,

and all perforated flint-stones, were not only used for the same

purpose, but more particularly for the protection of horses and other

cattle, by suspending them in stables, or tying them round the necks of

the animals.

The next line,

"And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,"

seems to be unconnected with the preceding, and to mark a superstition

which, as Dr. Warburton has observed, may have originated from the

_plica Polonica_, which was supposed to be the operation of wicked

elves; whence the clotted hair was called _elf-locks_ and _elf-knots_.

Thus Edgar talks of "_elfing_ all his hair in _knots_." Lodge, in

his _Wit's miserie_, 1599, 4to, describing a devil whom he names

_Brawling-contention_, says, "his ordinary apparell is a little

low-crown'd hat with a fether in it like a forehorse; his haires are

curld, and full of _elves locks_ and nitty for want of kembing."

ACT II.

SCENE 2. Page 398.

ROM. It is the East, and Juliet is the sun.

This line in particular, and perhaps the whole of the Scene, has been

imitated by the ingenious author of the Latin comedy of _Labyrinthus_.

In Act III. Scene 4, two lovers meet at night, and the Romeo of the

piece says to his mistress, "Quid mihi noctem commemoras, mea salus?

Splendens nunc subitò illuxit dies, ubi tu primum, mea lux, oculorum

radiis hasce dispulisti tenebras." This excellent play was acted before

King James I. at Cambridge, and for bustle and contrivance has perhaps

never been exceeded.

SCENE 2. Page 398.

JUL. Thou art thyself _though_, not a Montagu.

Dr. Johnson would have substituted _then_ for _though_; but without

necessity, because _in that sense_ the latter word was anciently

written _tho_: unskilful printers, deceived by sound, substituted

_though_; whence the ambiguity has arisen. Thus Chaucer in his

_Canterbury tales_, v. 2214,

"Yet sang the larke, and Palamon right _tho_

With holy herte and with a high corāge

He rose."

And again, v. 2392,

"For thilk sorrow that was _tho_ in thyn herte."

Thus much in explanation of _though_, if put here for _then_, which is

by no means clear. Mr. Malone's quotations on the other side of the

question carry great weight with them.

SCENE 2. Page 400.

ROM. When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds

And sails upon the bosom of the air.

On this occasion Shakspeare recollected the 104th _psalm_, "Who maketh

the clouds his charet, who walketh upon the wings of the winde."

SCENE 2. Page 405.

JUL. ... at lovers perjuries,

They say, Jove laughs.

This Shakspeare found in Ovid's _Art of love_, perhaps in Marlow's

translation, book I,

"For Jove himself sits in the azure skies,

_And laughs below at lovers perjuries_."

With the following beautiful antithesis to the above lines, every

reader of taste will be gratified. It is given _memoriter_ from some

old play, the name of which is forgotten;

"_When lovers swear true faith_, the list'ning angels

Stand on the golden battlements of heaven,

And waft their vows to the eternal throne."

SCENE 2. Page 410.

ROM. How _silver-sweet_ sound lovers tongues by night.

In _Pericles_, Act V., we have _silver-voic'd_. Perhaps these epithets

have been formed from the common notion that silver mixed with bells

softens and improves their tone. We say likewise that a person is

_silver-tongued_.

SCENE 3. Page 414.

FRI. O mickle is the powerful grace, that lies

In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:

For nought so vile that on the earth doth live,

But to the earth some special good doth give;

Nor aught so good, but strain'd from that fair use

Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse.

Thus all the copies. But in Swan's _Speculum mundi_, the first edition

of which was published in 1635, they are quoted with the following

variations;

"O mickle is the powerful _good_ that lies

In herbs, _trees_, stones, and their true qualities:

For nought so vile that on the earth doth live,

But to the earth some _secret_ good doth give.

_And nought so rich on either rock or shelf;

But, if unknown, lies uselesse to itself._"

SCENE 4. Page 427.

MER. ... for this driveling love is like a great natural, that runs

lolling up and down _to hide his bauble in a hole_.

When the physical conformation of idiots is considered, the latent but

obscene allusion which this speech conveys will be instantly perceived.

What follows is still less worthy of _particular_ illustration.

Mercutio riots in this sort of language. The epithet _driveling_ is

applied to love as a _slavering idiot_; but Sir Philip Sidney has made

Cupid an _old drivell_. See the lines quoted from the Arcadia by Dr.

Farmer, _Much ado about nothing_, Act III. Scene 2.

SCENE 4. Page 431.

NURSE. I pray you sir, what saucy merchant was this, that was so

full of his _ropery_?

Mr. Steevens has justly observed that the term _merchant_ was anciently

used in contradistinction to _gentleman_. _Whetstone_, in his _Mirour

for majestrates of cyties_, 1584, 4to, speaking of the usurious

practices of the citizens of London who attended the gaming-houses for

the purpose of supplying the gentlemen players with money, has the

following remark: "The extremity of these men's dealings hath beene

and is so cruell as there is a natural malice generally impressed in

the hearts of the gentlemen of England towards the citizens of London,

insomuch as if they odiously name a man, they foorthwith call him, a

_trimme merchaunt_. In like despight the citizen calleth every rascall

_a joly gentleman_. And truly this mortall envie betweene these two

woorthie estates, was first engendred of the cruell usage of covetous

merchaunts in hard bargaines gotten of gentlemen, and nourished with

malitious words and revenges taken of both parties."

With respect to _ropery_,--the word seems to have been deemed unworthy

of a place in our early dictionaries, and was probably coined in

the mint of the slang or canting crew. It savours strongly of the

halter, and appears to have signified a low kind of knavish waggery.

From some other words of similar import, it may derive illustration.

Thus a _rope-rype_ is defined in Hulæt's _Abcedarium_ to be "an

ungracious waghalter, _nequam_;" and in Minsheu's dictionary, "one

ripe for a rope, or for whom the gallowes grones." A _roper_ has

nearly the same definition in the English vocabulary at the end of

Thomasii _Dictionarium_, 1615, 4to; but the word occasionally denoted

a crafty fellow, or one who would practise a fraud against another

(for which he might deserve hanging). So in the book of blasing of

arms or coat armour, ascribed to Dame Juliana Bernes, the author

says, "which crosse I saw but late in tharmes of a noble man: the

whiche in very dede was somtyme _a crafty man, a roper_, as he himself

sayd," sig. Aij. b. _Roper_ had also another sense, which, though

rather foreign to the present purpose, is so quaintly expressed in

one of our old dictionaries, that the insertion of it will doubtless

be excused:--"Roper, _restio_, is he that loketh in at John Roper's

window by translation, he that hangeth himselfe."--Hulæt's _Abcedarium_

Anglico-Latinum, 1552, folio. _Rope-tricks_, elsewhere used by

Shakspeare, belongs also to this family.

SCENE 4. Page 431.

NURSE. I am none of his skains-mates.

This has been explained _cut-throat companions_, and _frequenters of

the fencing school_, from _skein_, a knife or dagger. The objection

to this interpretation is, that the nurse could not very well compare

herself with characters which it is presumed would scarcely be found

among females of any description. One commentator thinks that she

uses _skains-mates_ for _kins-mates_, and _ropery_ for _roguery_; but

the latter words have been already shown to be synonymous, and the

existence of such a term as _kins-mate_ may be questioned. Besides, the

nurse blunders only in the use of less obvious words.

The following conjecture is therefore offered, but not with entire

confidence in its propriety. It will be recollected that there

are _skains of thread_; so that the good nurse may perhaps mean

nothing more than _sempstresses_, a word not always used in the most

honourable acceptation. She had before stated that she was "none of his

flirt-gills."

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 452.

ROM. O! I am fortune's fool!

"I am always running in the way of evil fortune, _like the fool in the

play_," says Dr. Johnson. There is certainly no allusion to any _play_.

See the note in p. 146.

SCENE 2. Page 456.

JUL. That _run-away's eyes_ may wink.

A great deal of ingenious criticism has been expended in endeavouring

to ascertain the meaning of this expression. Dr. Warburton thought the

_runaway_ in question was the _sun_; but Mr. Heath has most completely

disproved this opinion. Mr. Steevens considers the passage as extremely

elliptical, and regards the _night_ as the _runaway_; making Juliet

wish that its eyes, the stars, might retire to prevent discovery. Mr.

Justice Blackstone can perceive nothing _optative_ in the lines, but

simply a _reason_ for Juliet's wish for a cloudy night; yet according

to this construction of the passage, the grammar of it is not very

easily to be discovered.

Whoever attentively reads over Juliet's speech will be inclined to

think, or even be altogether satisfied, that the _whole tenor_ of it

is _optative_. With respect to calling the night a runaway, one might

surely ask how it can possibly be so termed in _an abstract point of

view_? Is it a greater fugitive than the morning, the noon, or the

evening? Mr. Steevens lays great stress on Shakspeare's having before

called the night a runaway in _The Merchant of Venice_,

"For the close night doth play the _runaway_;"

but there it was already far advanced, and might therefore with great

propriety be said to _play the runaway_; here it was not begun. The

same remark will apply to the other passage cited by Mr. Steevens from

_The fair maid of the Exchange_. Where then is this _runaway_ to be

found? or can it be Juliet herself? She who had just been secretly

married to the enemy of her parents might with some propriety be

termed a _runaway from her duty_; but she had not abandoned her native

pudency. She therefore invokes the night to veil those rites which she

was about to perform, and to bring her Romeo to her arms in darkness

and in silence. The lines that immediately follow may be thought to

favour this interpretation; and the whole Scene may possibly bring to

the reader's recollection an interesting part in the beautiful story of

Cupid and Psyche.

SCENE 5. Page 483.

JUL. Hunting thee hence with _hunt's-up_ to the day.

Of the notes on this line, that by Mr. Malone is most to the point. He

has shown from Cotgrave, that the _hunt's-up_ was "a morning song to

a new married woman, &c.;" and it was, no doubt, an imitation of the

tune to wake the hunters, noticed by Mr. Steevens, as was that in the

celebrated Scotish _booke of godly and spirituall songs_, beginning,

"With hunts up, with huntis up,

It is now perfite day:

Jesus our king is gane in hunting,

Quha likes to speed they may."

It is not improbable that the following was the identical song composed

by the person of the name of Gray mentioned in Mr. Ritson's note. It

occurs in a collection entitled _Hunting, hawking, &c._, already cited

in the course of the remarks on _The merry wives of Windsor_. There was

likewise a country dance with a similar title.

CHO. { The hunt is up, the hunt is up,

{ Sing merrily wee, the hunt is up;

The birds they sing,

The Deare they fling,

Hey, nony nony-no:

The hounds they crye,

The hunters flye,

Hey trolilo, trololilo.

The hunt is up, _ut supra_.

The wood resounds

To heere the hounds,

Hey, nony nony-no:

The rocks report

This merry sport,

Hey, trolilo, trololilo.

CHO. { The hunt is up, the hunt is up,

{ Sing merrily wee, the hunt is up.

Then hye apace,

Unto the chase,

Hey nony, nony-no;

Whilst every thing

Doth sweetly sing,

Hey trolilo, trololilo.

CHO. { The hunt is up, the hunt is up,

{ Sing merrily wee, the hunt is up.

SCENE 5. Page 496.

NURSE. ... an eagle, madam,

Hath not so _green_, so quick, so fair an eye.

Besides the authorities already produced in favour of _green_ eyes,

and which show the impropriety of Hanmer's alteration to _keen_, a

hundred others might, if necessary, be given. The early French poets

are extremely fond of alluding to them under the title of _yeux vers_,

which Mons. Le Grand has in vain attempted to convert into _yeux

vairs_, or grey eyes.[22] It must be confessed that the scarcity, if

not total absence of such eyes in modern times, might well have excited

the doubts of the above intelligent and agreeable writer. For this

let naturalists, if they can, account. It is certain that green eyes

were found among the ancients. Plautus thus alludes to them in his

_Curculio_:

"Qui hic est homo

Cum collativo ventre, atque oculis _herbeis_?"

Lord Verulam says, "Great eyes with a _green circle_ between the

white and the white of the eye, signify long life."--_Hist. of life

and death_, p. 124. Villa Real, a Portuguese, has written a treatise

in praise of them, and they are even said to exist now among his

countrymen. See Pinkerton's _Geography_, vol. i. p. 556, and Steevens's

Shakspeare, vol. v. 164, 203.

ACT IV.

SCENE 2. Page 508.

CAP. Where have you been _gadding_?

Mr. Steevens remarks that "the primitive sense of this word was to

straggle from house to house and collect money under pretence of

singing carols to the blessed Virgin;" and he quotes a note on Milton's

Lycidas by Mr. Warton: but this derivation seems too refined. Mr.

Warton's authority is an old register at Gadderston, in these words:

"Receyvid at the _gadyng_ with Saynte Mary songe at Crismas." If the

original were attentively examined, it would perhaps turn out that the

word in question has some mark of contraction over it, which would

convert it into _gaderyng_, i. e. gathering or collecting money, and

not simply _going about from house to house_ according to Mr. Warton's

explanation.

SCENE 5. Page 525.

FRI. ... and stick your _rosemary_

On this fair corse----

This plant was used in various ways at funerals. Being an evergreen,

it was regarded as an emblem of the soul's immortality. Thus in

Cartwright's _Ordinary_, Act V. Scene 1:

"... If there be

Any so kind as to accompany

My body to the earth, let them not want

For entertainment; pr'ythee see they have

A _sprig of rosemary_ dip'd in common water

To smell to as they walk along the streets."

In an obituary kept by Mr. Smith, secondary of one of the Compters, and

preserved among the Sloanian MSS. in the British Museum, No. 886, is

the following entry: "Janʸ. 2. 1671. Mr. Cornelius Bee bookseller in

Little Britain died; buried Jan. 4. at Great St. Bartholomew's without

a sermon, without wine or wafers, only gloves and _rosmary_."

And Mr. Gay, when describing Blouzelinda's funeral, records that

"Sprigg'd rosemary the lads and lasses bore."

SCENE 5. Page 528.

PET. No money, on my faith; but the _gleek_: I will _give_ you the

_minstrel_.

From what has been said in page 118, it becomes necessary to withdraw

so much of a former note as relates to the _game_ of gleek. _To give

the minstrel_, is no more than a punning phrase for _giving the gleek_.

Minstrels and jesters were anciently called _gleekmen_ or _gligmen_.

SCENE 5. Page 529.

PET. When _griping grief_ the heart doth wound

And _doleful dumps_ the mind oppress.

The following stanza from one of Whitney's _Emblems_, 1586, 4to, is

not very dissimilar from that of Richard Edwards, communicated in the

note by Sir John Hawkins, and may serve to confirm the propriety of Mr.

Steevens's observation, that the epithet _griping_ was not calculated

to excite laughter in the time of Shakspeare.

"If griping greifes have harbour in thie breste

And pininge cares laie seige unto the same,

Or straunge conceiptes doe reave thee of thie rest,

And daie and nighte do bringe thee out of frame:

Then choose a freinde, and doe his counsaile crave,

Least secret sighes, doe bringe untimelie grave."

_Griping griefs_ and _doleful dumps_ are very thickly interspersed in

Grange's _Golden Aphroditis_, 1577, 4to, and in many other places. They

were great favourites; but griefs were not always _griping_. Thus in

Turbervile's translation of _Ovid's epistle from Hero to Leander_;

"Which if I heard, of troth

For _grunting_ griefe I die."

ACT V.

SCENE 1. Page 536.

ROM. An _alligator_ stuff'd----

Our dictionaries supply no materials towards the etymology of this

word, which was probably introduced into the language by some of our

early voyagers to the Spanish or Portuguese settlements in the newly

discovered world. They would hear the Spaniards discoursing of the

animal by the name of _el lagarto_, or the lizard; Lat. _lacerta_; and

on their return home, they would inform their countrymen that this sort

of crocodile was called an _alligator_. It would not be difficult to

trace other corrupted words in a similar manner.

STORY OF THE PLAY.

It has hitherto remained unnoticed, that one of the material incidents

in this drama is to be found in _The love adventures of Abrocomas

and Anthia_, usually called the _Ephesiacs_ of Xenophon of Ephesus.

The heroine of this romance, separated, by a series of misfortunes,

from her husband, falls into the hands of robbers, from whom she is

rescued by a young nobleman called Perilaus. He becomes enamoured of

her; and she, fearing violence, affects to consent to marry him; but

on the arrival of the appointed time, swallows a poisonous draught

which she had procured from Eudoxus, an old physician and the friend

of Perilaus, to whom she had communicated the secret of her history.

Much lamentation is made for her death, and she is conveyed with great

pomp to a sepulchre. As she had only taken a sleeping potion, she soon

awakes in the tomb, which, on account of the riches it contained,

is plundered by some thieves, who also carry her off. This work was

certainly not published nor translated in the time of Luigi da Porto,

the original narrator of the story of _Romeo and Juliet_; but there

is no reason why he might not have seen a copy of the original in

manuscript.

Two incidents in this Greek romance are likewise to be found in

_Cymbeline_; one of which is the following: Anthia having become the

slave of Manto and her husband, he is captivated with her beauty; and

this coming to the knowledge of the jealous Manto, she orders a trusty

servant to carry Anthia into a wood and put her to death. This man,

like the servant in Boccaccio, and Pisanio in Shakspeare, commiserates

the situation of Anthia, spares her life, and provides the means for

her future safety. A similar occurrence is introduced into some of the

tales of the middle ages. The other is the above-mentioned draught of

poison swallowed by Imogen, as by Anthia, though not with precisely the

same effect. As it is not to be found either in Boccaccio or in the old

story-book of _Westward for smelts_, one might suspect that some novel,

imitated from the _Ephesiacs_, was existing in the time of Shakspeare,

though now unknown.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] Fabliaux ou contes, tom. iv. p. 215.

HAMLET.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 9.

MAR. Thou art a _scholar_, speak to it, Horatio.

The reason why the common people believed that ghosts were only to

be addressed by scholars seems to have been, that the exorcisms of

troublesome spirits were usually performed in _Latin_.

SCENE 1. Page 21.

HOR. The _cock_ that is the _trumpet to the morn_,

Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat

_Awake the God of day_; and at his warning,

Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,

_The extravagant and erring spirit hies

To his confine_.

Besides the hymn of Prudentius referred to in Dr. Farmer's note, there

is another said to have been composed by Saint Ambrose, and formerly

used in the Salisbury service. It contains the following lines, which

so much resemble Horatio's speech, that one might almost suppose

Shakspeare had seen them:

"_Preco diei jam sonat_,

Noctis profundæ pervigil;

Nocturna lux viantibus,

A nocte noctem segregans.

_Hoc excitatus Lucifer,

Solvit polum caligine;

Hoc omnis errorum chorus

Viam nocendi deserit.

Gallo canente_ spes redit, &c."

See _Expositio hymnorum secundum usum Sarum_, pr. by R. Pynson, n. d.

4to, fo. vii. b. The epithets _extravagant_ and _erring_ are highly

poetical and appropriate, and seem to prove that Shakspeare was not

altogether ignorant of the Latin language.

SCENE 2. Page 35.

HAM. Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd

His _canon_ 'gainst self slaughter.

Mr. Steevens says, "there are yet those who suppose the old reading

(cannon, in the sense of artillery) to be the true one." He himself

was not of the number. It must be owned that _fixing a cannon_ is an

odd mode of vengeance on the part of the Deity; yet it is still more

difficult to conceive in what manner this instrument could operate in

avenging _suicide_. The pedants of Hierocles, who were the Gothamites

of their time, might, if now existing, be competent to explain all

this; or, indeed, we might ourselves suppose that suicides could be

blown into atoms as the seapoys sometimes are, by tying them to the

cannon's mouth, a method equally humane with the practice of driving

stakes through their bodies. Mr. Malone's happy quotation has for ever

_fixed_ the proper meaning.

SCENE 2. Page 40.

HAM. ... the _funeral bak'd meats_

Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.

The practice of making entertainments at funerals which prevailed

in this and other countries, and which is not even at present quite

disused in some of the northern counties of England, was certainly

borrowed from the _cœna feralis_ of the Romans, alluded to in Juvenal's

fifth satire, and in the laws of the twelve tables. It consisted of

an offering of a small plate of milk, honey, wine, flowers, &c., to

the ghost of the deceased. In the instances of heroes and other great

characters, the same custom appears to have prevailed among the Greeks.

With us the appetites of the living are consulted on this occasion. In

the North this feast is called an _arval_ or _arvil-supper_; and the

loaves that are sometimes distributed among the poor, _arval-bread_.

Not many years since one of these arvals was celebrated in a village

in Yorkshire at a public-house, the sign of which was the family arms

of a nobleman whose motto is VIRTUS POST FUNERA VIVIT. The undertaker,

who, though a clerk, was no scholar, requested a gentleman present to

explain to him the meaning of these Latin words, which he readily and

facetiously did in the following manner: _Virtus_, a parish clerk,

_vivit_, lives well, _post funera_, at an _arval_. The latter word

is apparently derived from some lost Teutonic term that indicated a

funeral pile on which the body was burned in times of Paganism. Thus

_ærill_ in Islandic signifies the inside of an oven. The common parent

seems to have been _ar_, fire; whence _ara_, an altar of fire, _ardeo_,

_aridus_, &c. &c. So the pile itself was called _ara_ by Virgil, Æn.

vi. 177:

"Haud mora, festinant flentes; _aramque sepulchri_

Congerere arboribus, cœloque educere certant."

SCENE 2. Page 41.

HAM. He was a man, take him for all in all,

_I_ shall not look upon his like again.

In further support of the proposed elegant emendation, "_Eye_ shall not

look, &c.," this passage in 1 Corinth. ch ii. v. 9, may be adduced,

"_Eye_ hath not seen, nor ear heard, the things which he hath prepared

for them that love him." An objection of some weight may however be

made to this change; which is, that in recitation some ambiguity might

arise, or at least the force of it would not be perceived; whereas the