Saxony with several others of her countrymen on account of hunger, and,
arriving in Britain, obtained of the king as much land as she should be
able to cover with a bull's hide. She afterwards invited the king and
his nobles to a feast, and _giving him wassel_, treacherously slew him,
her companions following the example by murdering the nobles. By these
means she obtained possession of the whole kingdom, which was from her
afterwards called _Yngland_. This statement is unworthy of notice in
an historical point of view, being manifestly a corrupt account of the
arrival of Hengist as related by Geoffrey of Monmouth. But the story of
Vortigern is not improbable, and has at least furnished the origin of
the words _wæs hæl_ and _drinc hæl_, as used at convivial meetings in
this country; for whatever may have been said or imagined concerning
any previous custom of health-drinking among the Saxons or other German
nations, it is certain that no equivalent term with our _wassel_ is to
be found in any of the Teutonic dialects.
Among other valuable remarks that have already been made in some notes
on this word by Messrs. Steevens and Malone, it has been observed that
the _wassel_ bowl was particularly used at the season of Christmas,
and that in process of time _wassel_ came to signify not only meetings
of rustic mirth, but also general riot, intemperance, and festivity.
In the eleventh volume of _Archæologia_, the learned Dr. Milner has
exhibited and described an ancient oaken cup, formerly belonging to
the abbey of Glastonbury, which with great probability he supposes
to be of Saxon times, and to have been used for wasselling. In
_The antiquarian repertory_, vol. i. p. 217, there is an account,
accompanied with an engraving, of an oaken chimney-piece in a very old
house at Berlen near Snodland in Kent, on which is carved a wassel bowl
resting on the branches of an apple-tree, alluding, probably, to part
of the materials of which the liquor was composed. On one side is the
word ~was̀s̀heíl~, and on the other ~dríncheíle~. This is certainly a
very great curiosity of its kind, and at least as old as the fourteenth
century. Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, in his will gave to Sir John
Briddlewood a silver cup called _wassail_; and it appears that John
Duke of Bedford, the regent, by his first will bequeathed to John
Barton, his maitre d'hotel, a silver cup and cover, on which was
inscribed WASHAYL. During the Christmas holidays these wassel-bowls
were often carried from house to house by the common people with a
view to collect money. There are, besides, other significations of the
word _wassel_ that deserve to be noticed. These are, 1. A drinking
song sung on the eve of Twelfth-day. 2. A custom of throwing toast to
apple-trees for the purpose of procuring a fruitful year; which, says
Mr. Grose, who has mentioned this practice in his provincial glossary,
seems to be a relic of the heathen sacrifice to Pomona. 3. The contents
of the wassel-cup, which were of different materials, as spiced wine or
ale, with roasted apples and sugar, mead, or metheglin, &c. There was
also what was called _wassel_, or more properly _wastel-bread_, which
may be deserving of particular notice, as there is much diversity of
opinion among those who have mentioned it. Bishop Lowth, in his Life
of William Wykeham, had supposed that the term was derived from the
_wastell_, _vessell or basket in which the bread was made, or carried
or weighed_; an etymology which is with great reason contested by Dr.
Milner in his paper on the Glastonbury cup. The latter writer is of
opinion, that during the times of wasselling a finer sort of bread was
provided, which on that account was called _wassel-bread_; and other
persons had already conceived that the bread in question took its name
from being dipped in the wassel-bowl. As a preliminary objection to
these conjectures, it must be observed that the genuine orthography
of the word is _wastel_, and not _wassel_, which is undoubtedly a
corruption, and has led to much misconception. The earliest instance
in which mention is made of wastel-bread is the statute 51 Henry
III., entitled _Assisa panis et cerevisiæ_; where it is coupled with
the _simnel bread_, which was made of the very finest flour, and
twice baked. It appears from the same statute that _wastel-bread_
was next in fineness to the simnel, and is described as _white bread
well baked_. There does not seem therefore any reason for concluding
that the wastel-bread was in _particular_, but in _general use at all
seasons_. We are told by Hoveden the historian, that at an interview
which took place between William king of Scotland and Richard the
First, at Northampton, a charter was granted to the Scotish monarch,
in which it was agreed, that, whenever he should be summoned to the
English court for the performance of homage, his daily allowance, among
other things, should consist of twelve simnels and as many _wastels_.
In Matthew Paris's history of the abbots of Saint Alban's, p. 141,
it is said of the abbot; "Solus in refectorio prandebit supremus,
habens _vastellum_." It is surprising how Mr. Watts the editor should
misconceive the meaning of this word so much as to call it a _canopy_;
nor is it indeed much less extraordinary that Dr. Milner, who is so
well skilled in ecclesiastical antiquities, should have supposed it
to signify a _wassel-bowl_. The regulation is general, and it had
escaped the learned writer's recollection that wasselling was of a
particular season; for it could not be applied in its subordinate sense
of revelling or rioting, to so grave a person as an abbot. The Doctor
might have been misled by the authority of Mr. Blount in his edition
of Cowel's law dictionary, where the conjecture on the part of Mr.
Somner, that the wastel bread might have been derived from _pastillus_,
is termed _unlucky_; but, as it is presumed, without sufficient reason,
although it may not be the exact origin of the expression. Chaucer,
speaking of his Prioress, says,
"Of smale houndes hadde she, that she fedde
With rosted flesh, and milk, and _wastel-brede_."
We cannot suppose that these animals would have been regaled with a
food which was set apart for particular festivities, but rather with
what was to be procured at all times, though of a more delicate and
expensive nature. In short, what seems to be the most probable original
of this much disputed word is the French _gasteau_, anciently written
_gastel_, in the Picard language _ouastel_ or _watel_, and signifying
_a cake_; a name which might with great propriety have been applied to
this sort of bread on account of its superior quality, in like manner
as the _simnel_ bread was so termed from the Latin _simila_, the finest
part of the flour. The cake-like form, too, of this kind of bread
seems to be alluded to in the following extract from the register of
William of Wykeham, which has been quoted by Bishop Lowth for a very
different, but, as it is submitted, inapplicable purpose: "Octo panes
_in wastellis_, ponderis cujuslibet wastelli unius miche conventualis,"
i. e. eight loaves in the form of _wastels_ or cakes, the weight of
each being that of a conventual manchet. And to conclude this part of
the subject, in the old French language the term _wastelier_ is used
for a pastry-cook or maker of _wastiaux_, where it is not likely that
there could have been any connection with our _wassel_ in its Saxon and
legitimate construction. What the heralds call _torteauxes_, in reality
little cakes, from the French _tourte_, were likewise termed _wastels_,
as we learn from the old book on coat armour ascribed to Dame Juliana
Bernes, the celebrated abbess of Sopewell near Saint Albans.
The _wassel songs_ were sung during the festivities of Christmas,
and, in earlier times, principally by those itinerant minstrels who
frequented the houses of the gentry, where they were always certain of
the most welcome reception. It has indeed been the chief purpose in
discussing the present subject, to introduce to the reader's notice
a composition of this kind, which is perhaps at the same time to be
regarded as the most ancient drinking song, composed in England, that
is extant. This singular curiosity has been written on a spare leaf in
the middle of a valuable miscellaneous manuscript of the fourteenth
century, preserved in the British Museum, Bibl. Reg. 16, E. viii. It is
probably more than a century older than the manuscript itself, and must
have been composed at a time when the Norman language was very familiar
in England. In the endeavour to translate it, some difficulties were
to be encountered; but it has been an object to preserve the whole and
sometimes literal sense of the original, whilst from the nature of the
English stanza it was impossible to dispense with amplification.
AN ANGLO-NORMAN SONG.
Seignors ore entendez a nus,
De loinz sumes venuz a wous,
Pur quere NOEL;
Car lem nus dit que en cest hostel
Soleit tenir sa feste anuel
A hi cest jur.
Deu doint a tus icels joie d'amurs
Qi a DANZ NOEL ferunt honors.
Seignors jo vus di por veir
Ke DANZ NOEL ne velt aveir
Si joie non;
E repleni sa maison,
De payn, de char & de peison,
Por faire honor
Deu doint a tuz ces joie damur.
Seignors il est crié en lost,
Qe cil qui despent bien et tost,
E largement;
E fet les granz honors sovent
Deu li duble quanque il despent
Por faire honor.
Deu doint a.
Seignors escriez les malveis,
Car vus nel les troverez jameis
De bone part:
Botun, batun, ferun gruinard,
Car tot dis a le quer cuuard
Por faire honor.
Deu doint.
NOEL beyt bien li vin Engleis
E li Gascoin & li Franceys
E l'Angevin:
NOEL fait beivre son veisin,
Si quil se dort, le chief enclin,
Sovent le jor.
Deu doint a tuz cels.
Seignors jo vus di par NOEL,
E par li sires de cest hostel,
Car bevez ben:
E jo primes beurai le men,
Et pois apres chescon le soen,
Par mon conseil,
Si jo vus di trestoz _Wesseyl_
Dehaiz eit qui ne dirra _Drincheyl_!
TRANSLATION.
Lordings, from a distant home,
To seek old CHRISTMAS we are come,
Who loves our minstrelsy:
And here, unless report mis-say,
The grey-beard dwells; and on this day
Keeps yearly wassel, ever gay,
With festive mirth and glee.
To all who honour CHRISTMAS, and commend our lays,
Love will his blessings send, and crown with joy their days.[23]
Lordings list, for we tell you true;
CHRISTMAS loves the jolly crew
That cloudy care defy:
His liberal board is deftly spread
With manchet loaves and wastel-bread;
His guests with fish and flesh are fed,
Nor lack the stately pye.[24]
Lordings, you know that far and near
The saying is, "Who gives good cheer,
And freely spends his treasure;
On him will bounteous heaven bestow
Twice treble blessings here below,
His happy hours shall sweetly flow
In never-ceasing pleasure."
Lordings, believe us, knaves abound;
In every place are flatterers found;
May all their arts be vain!
But chiefly from these scenes of joy
Chase sordid souls that mirth annoy,
And all who with their base alloy
Turn pleasure into pain.
CHRISTMAS quaffs our English wines,[25]
Nor Gascoigne juice, nor French declines,
Nor liquor of Anjou:
He puts th' insidious goblet round,
Till all the guests in sleep are drown'd,
Then wakes 'em with the tabor's sound,
And plays the prank anew.
Lordings, it is our host's command,
And CHRISTMAS joins him hand in hand,
To drain the brimming bowl:
And I'll be foremost to obey;
Then pledge me sirs, and drink away,
For CHRISTMAS revels here to day,
And sways without control.
Now WASSEL to you all! and merry may ye be!
But foul that wight befall, who DRINKS not HEALTH to me!
SCENE 4. Page 60.
HAM. This heavy-headed revel, east and west,
Makes us traduc'd, and tax'd of other nations:
_They clepe us drunkards_.
Dr. Johnson has noticed the frequent allusions in this play to the
king's intemperance, a failing that seems to have been too common
among the Danish sovereigns as well as their subjects. A lively
French traveller being asked what he had seen in Denmark, replied,
"rien de singulier, sinon qu'on y chante tous les jours, _le roy
boit_;" alluding to the French mode of celebrating Twelfth-day. See
De Brieux, _Origines de quelques coutûmes_, p. 56. Heywood in his
_Philocothonista, or The drunkard opened, dissected, and anatomized_,
1635, 4to, speaking of what he calls the _vinosity of nations_, says of
the Danes, that "they have made a profession thereof from antiquity,
and are the first upon record that brought their wassell-bowles and
elbowe-deep healthes into this land."
SCENE 4. Page 68.
HAM. That thou, dead corse, again, in _cómplete_ steel----
This word is accented in both ways by our old poets as suited the
metre. Thus in Sylvester's _Du Bartas_, edit. folio, 1621, p. 120:
"Who arms himself so cómplete every way."
But in _King John_, Act II., we have,
"Such as she is, in beauty, virtue, birth,
Is the young Dauphin, every way compléte:
If not compléte, oh say, he is not she."
SCENE 4. Page 68.
HAM. Say why is this, wherefore, _what should we do_?
This interrogation is perfectly consistent with the opinions
entertained by our forefathers concerning ghosts, which they believed
had some particular motive for quitting the mansions of the dead; such
as a desire that their bodies, if unburied, should receive Christian
rites of sepulture; that a murderer might be brought to due punishment,
as in the present instance; with various other reasons. On this account
Horatio had already thus invoked the ghost:
"If there be any good thing to be done,
That may _do ease to thee_ and grace to me,
Speak to me."
Some of the superstitions have been transmitted from the earliest
times. It was the established opinion among the ancient Greeks, that
such as had not received the funeral rites would be excluded from
Elysium, and that on this account the departed spirits continued in a
restless state until their bodies underwent the usual ceremony. Thus
the wandering and rejected shade of Patroclus appears to Achilles in
his sleep, and demands the performance of his funeral. The Hecuba
of Euripides supplies another instance of a troubled ghost. In like
manner the unburied Palinurus complains to Æneas.[26] In Plautus's
_Mostellaria_, the cunning servant endeavours to persuade his master
that the house is haunted by the ghost of a man who had been murdered,
and whose body remained without sepulture. The younger Pliny has a
story of a haunted house at Athens, in which a ghost played many
pranks on account of his funeral rites being neglected. Nor were
ghosts supposed to be less turbulent, even after burial, whenever the
party had died a premature death, as we learn from Tertullian, in his
treatise _De anima_, cap. 56, where he says, "Aiunt et immatura morte
præventos eousque vagari isthic, donec reliquatio compleatur ætatis qua
cum pervixissent si non intempestivé obiissent."
SCENE 5. Page 72.
HAM. Speak, I am bound to hear.
GHOST. So art thou to revenge when thou shalt hear.
These words have been turned into ridicule by Fletcher in his
_Woman-hater_, Act II.;
"LAZ. Speak, I am bound.
"COUNT. So art thou to revenge when thou shalt hear the fish-head
is gone, and we know not whither." #/
SCENE 5. Page 72.
GHOST. And for the day, confin'd _to fast in fires_.
'Till the foul crimes, &c.
A member of the church of Rome might be disposed to regard this
expression as simply referring to a _mental_ privation of all
intercourse with the Deity. Such an idea would remove the inconsistency
of ascribing corporeal sensations to the ghost, and might derive
support from these lines in an ancient Christian hymn. See _Expositio
hymnorum_, sec. usum Sarum.
"Sic corpus extra conteri,
Dona per abstinentiam,
_Jejunet ut mens sobria
A labe prorsus criminum_."
The whole of the ghost's speech is remarkable for its terrific grandeur.
SCENE 5. Page 75.
GHOST. And _duller_ should'st thou be than the fat weed
That rots itself in ease on _Lethe's_ wharf.
The plant here alluded to might have been _henbane_, of which Gerarde
says that it causes drowsiness, and stupefies and _dulls_ the senses.
SCENE 5. Page 76.
HAM. O, my prophetick soul! my uncle!
Copied, perhaps maliciously, in Beaumont and Fletcher's _Double
marriage_, Act II.
"SES. Oh my prophetique soul!"
SCENE 5. Page 77
GHOST. But soft, methinks I scent the morning air--
The glow-worm shows the matin to be near.
It was the popular belief that ghosts could not endure the light, and
consequently disappeared at the dawn of day. This superstition is
derived from our northern ancestors, who held that the sun and every
thing containing _light or fire_ had the property of expelling demons
and spirits of all kinds. With them it seems to have originated in
the stories that are related in the Edda concerning the battles of
Thor against the giants and evil demons, wherein he made use of his
dreadful mallet of iron, which he hurled against them as Jupiter did
his thunderbolts against the Titans. Many of the _transparent_ precious
stones were supposed to have the power of expelling evil spirits; and
the flint and other stones found in the tombs of the northern nations,
and from which fire might be extracted, were imagined, in like manner,
to be efficacious in confining the manes of the dead to their proper
habitations. They were called Thor's hammers.
SCENE 5. Page 77.
GHOST. With juice of cursed _hebenon_ in a vial,
And in the porches of mine ear did pour, &c.
Dr. Grey had ingeniously supposed this word to be a _metathesis_ for
_henebon_ or _henbane_; but the best part of his note on the subject
has been omitted, which is his reference to Pliny, who says that the
oil of henbane _dropped into the ears_ disturbs the brain. Yet it does
not appear that henbane was ever called _henebon_. The line cited by
Mr. Steevens from Marlow's _Jew of Malta_, shows that the _juice_ of
_hebon_, i. e. _ebony_, was accounted poisonous; and in the English
edition by Batman, of _Bartholomæus de proprietatibus rerum_, so often
cited in these observations as a Shakspearean book, the article for
the wood ebony is entitled, "Of _Ebeno_, chap. 52." This comes so near
to the text, that it is presumed very little doubt will now remain on
the occasion. It is not surprising that the _dropping into the ears_
should occur, because Shakspeare was perfectly well acquainted with the
supposed properties of henbane as recorded in Holland's translation
of Pliny and elsewhere, and might apply this mode of use to any other
poison.
SCENE 5. Page 77.
GHOST. ... it doth posset
And curd, like _eager_ droppings into milk.
Many readers may require to be told that _eager_ means _sour_, from
the French _aigre_. In the preceding Scene it is used in the sense of
_sharp_, and is there properly so explained; but the quotation of the
present passage on that occasion seems misapplied.
SCENE 5. Page 79.
GHOST. ... and sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head.
Heywood, a contemporary writer, has imitated this in his play of _A
woman kill'd with kindness_;
"... and send them, laden
With all their scarlet sins upon their backs
Unto a fearful judgment."
SCENE 5. Page 81.
HAM. My tables,--meet it is, I set it down.
[Illustration]
It is remarkable that neither public nor private museums should furnish
any specimens of these table-books, which seem to have been very common
in the time of Shakspeare; nor does any attempt appear to have been
made towards ascertaining exactly the materials of which they were
composed. Certain it is, however, that they were sometimes made of
slate in the form of a small portable book with leaves and clasps. Such
a one is fortunately engraved in Gesner's treatise _De rerum fossilium
figuris_, &c. Tigur. 1565, 12mo, which is not to be found in the folio
collection of his works on natural history. The learned author thus
describes it: "Pugillaris è laminis saxi nigri fissilis, cum stylo ex
eodem." His figure of it is here copied.
To such a table-book the Archbishop of York seems thus to allude in
_The second part of King Henry IV._, Act IV. Scene 1:
"And therefore will he _wipe his tables clean_
And keep no tell-tale to his memory----"
In the middle ages the leaves of these table-books were made of
ivory. Montfaucon has engraved one of them in the third volume of his
"Antiquities," plate cxciv., the subject of which clearly shows that
the learned writer has committed an error in ascribing them to remoter
times. In Chaucer's _Sompnour's tale_ one of the friars is provided with
"A pair of tables all of _ivory_,
And a pointel ypolished fetishly,
And wrote alway the names, as he stood,
Of alle folk that yave hem any good."
The Roman practice of writing on wax tablets with a stile was continued
also during the middle-ages. In several of the monastic libraries in
France specimens of wooden tables filled with wax and constructed in
the fourteenth century were preserved. Some of these contained the
household expenses of the sovereigns, &c., and consisted of as many
as twenty pages, formed into a book by means of parchment bands glued
to the backs of the leaves. One remaining in the abbey of St. Germain
des préz at Paris, recorded the expenses of Philip le Bel, during a
journey that he made in the year 1307, on a visit to Pope Clement V. A
single leaf of this table-book is exhibited in the _Nouveau traité de
diplomatique_, tom. i. p. 468.
SCENE 5. Page 85.
HAM. Swear by my sword.
In consequence of the practice of occasionally swearing by a sword,
or rather by the cross or upper end of it, the name of _Jesus_ was
sometimes inscribed on the handle or some other part. Such an instance
occurs on the monument of a crusader in the vestry of the church at
Winchelsea. See likewise the tomb of John duke of Somerset engraved
in Sandford's _Genealogical history_, p. 314, and Gough's _Sepulchral
monuments_, Pref. ccxiii. Introd. cxlviii. vol. i. p. 171, vol. ii. p.
362.
ACT II.
SCENE 2. Page 115.
POL. Though this be madness, yet there's method in it.
This is precisely Horace's,
"Insanire paret certo ratione modoque."
SCENE 2. Page 121.
HAM. The clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are _tickled o'
the sere_.
_Sere_ is _dry_. Thus in _Macbeth_,
"He is deformed, crooked, old and _sere_."
Among the Saxons June was called the _sere_ month. In the present
instance _sere_ appears to be used as a substantive. The same
expression occurs in Howard's _Defensative against the poyson of
supposed prophecies_, 1620, folio: "Discovering the moods and humors
of the vulgar sort to be so loose and _tickle of the seare_," &c., fo.
31. Every one has felt that dry tickling in the throat and lungs which
excites coughing. Hamlet's meaning may therefore be, _the clown by his
merriment shall convert even their coughing into laughter_.
SCENE 2. Page 131.
HAM. Buz, Buz.
Minsheu says, "To _buzze_, or hum as bees, _buzze, buzze_;" and again,
in his Spanish dictionary, "when two standing or kneeling together,
holding their hands upon their cheekes and ears, and so cry, _buzze
buzze_, and hitting one another a good box on the eare, if he pull
not his head away quickly." Selden in his _Table talk_, speaking
of witches, says, "If any should profess that by turning his hat
thrice, and crying _buz_, he could take away a man's life, (though in
truth he could do no such thing) yet this were a just law made by the
state, that whosoever should turn his hat thrice, and cry _buz_, with
an intention to take away a man's life, shall be put to death." The
expression has already exercised the skill of the critics, and may
continue to do so, if they are disposed to pursue the game through the
following mazes: "Anno DCCCXL Ludovicus imperator ad mortem infirmatur,
cujus cibus per XL dies solummodo die dominica dominicum corpus fecit.
Cum vidisset dæmonem astare, dixit _buez, buez_, quod significat
_foras, foras_."--Alberici monachi trium fontium _chronicon_, Leips.
1698. Ducange under the article _Buzi_, says, "Interpretatur despectus
vel contemptus. Papias. [Ab Hebraico _Bus_ vel _bouz_, sprevit.]"
SCENE 2. Page 135.
HAM. Your ladyship is nearer to heaven, than when I saw you last,
by the altitude of a _chopine_.
In Raymond's _Voyage through Italy_, 1648, 12mo, a work which is said
to have been partly written by Dr. Bargrave, prebendary of Canterbury,
the following curious account of the _chopine_ occurs: "This place
[Venice] is much frequented by the walking may poles, I meane the
women. They weare their coats halfe too long for their bodies, being
mounted on their _chippeens_, (which are as high as a man's leg)
they walke between two handmaids, majestickly deliberating of every
step they take. This fashion was invented and appropriated to the
noble Venetians wives, to bee constant to distinguish them from the
courtesans, who goe covered in a vaile of white taffety."
James Howell, speaking of the Venetian women, says, "They are low and
of small statures for the most part, which makes them to rayse their
bodies upon high shoes called _chapins_, which gave one occasion to
say that the Venetian ladies were made of three things, one part of
them was wood, meaning their chapins, another part was their apparrell,
and the third part was a woman; The Senat hath often endeavour'd to
take away the wearing of those high shooes, but all women are so
passionately delighted with this kind of state that no law can weane
them from it."
Some have supposed that the jealousy of Italian husbands gave rise
to the invention of the _chopine_. Limojon de Saint Didier, a lively
French writer on the republic of Venice, mentions a conversation with
some of the doge's counsellors of state on this subject, in which
it was remarked that smaller shoes would certainly be found more
convenient; which induced one of the counsellors to say, putting on at
the same time a very austere look, _pur troppo commodi, pur troppo_.
The first ladies who rejected the use of the chopine were the daughters
of the Doge Dominico Contareno, about the year 1670. It was impossible
to set one foot before the other without leaning on the shoulders of
two waiting women, and those who used them must have stalked along like
boys in stilts.
The choppine or some kind of high shoe was occasionally used in
England. Bulwer in his _Artificial changeling_, p. 550, complains of
this fashion as a monstrous affectation, and says that his countrywomen
therein imitated the Venetian and Persian ladies. In Sandys's travels,
1615, there is a figure of a Turkish lady with chopines; and it is not
improbable that the Venetians might have borrowed them from the _Greek_
islands in the Archipelago. We know that something similar was in use
among the ancient Greeks. Xenophon in his œconomics, introduces the
wife of Ischomachus, as having high shoes for the purpose of increasing
her stature. They are still worn by the women in many parts of Turkey,
but more particularly at Aleppo. As the figure of an object is often
better than twenty pages of description, one is here given from a real
Venetian chopine.
[Illustration]
SCENE 2. Page 135.
HAM. Pray God, your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not
_crack'd within the ring_.
It is to be observed, that there was a ring or circle on the coin,
within which the sovereign's head was placed; if the crack extended
from the edge beyond this ring, the coin was rendered unfit for
currency. Such pieces were hoarded by the usurers of the time, and
lent out as lawful money. Of this we are informed by Roger Fenton
in his _Treatise of usury_, 1611, 4to, p. 23. "A poore man desireth
a goldsmith to lend him such a summe, but he is not able to pay him
interest. If such as I can spare (saith the goldsmith) will pleasure
you, you shall have it for three or foure moneths. Now, hee hath a
number of light, clipt, _crackt_ peeces (for such he useth to take
in change with consideration for their defects:) this summe of money
is repaid by the poore man at the time appointed in good and lawfull
money. This is usurie." And again, "It is a common custome of his [the
usurer's] to buy up _crackt angels_ at nine shillings the piece. Now
sir, if a gentleman (on good assurance) request him of mony, Good sir
(saith hee, with a counterfait sigh) I would be glad to please your
worship, but my _good_ mony is abroad, and that I have, I dare not
put in your hands. The gentleman thinking this conscience, where it
is subtilty, and being beside that in some necessity, ventures on the
_crackt angels_, some of which cannot flie, for soldering, and paies
double interest to the miser under the cloake of honesty."--Lodge's
_Wit's miserie_, 1596, 4to, p. 28. So much for the cracked gold. The
cracking of the _human voice_ proceeded from some alteration in the
larynx, which is here compared to a ring.
As metaphors are sometimes double, the present may be of that kind. A
piece of cracked metal is spoiled for the _ringing of it_; so the human
voice, when cracked, may be said to lose the clearness of its _tone_.
All Mr. Steevens's quotations, except the last, are obscene, and none
of them apply to Hamlet's simile.
SCENE 2. Page 137.
HAM. 't was _caviare_ to the general.
This word has been frequently mispronounced _caveer_ on the stage. The
other mode of spelling it in Mr. Reed's note, viz. _caveary_, as well
as the Italian term in the text, which should rather be _caviaro_,
would have been sufficient for the purpose of demonstrating how it
should be accented; but the following line from Sir J. Harrington's
33rd epigram of the third book leaves no uncertainty in the matter:
"And căvĕārĕ, but it little boots."
Dr. Ramsey, physician to King Charles the Second, wrote a curious
treatise on the worms of the human body, in which he says, "_Caviale_
also is a fond dish of the Italians, made of the roes of sturgion, and
altogether as unwholsome, if not much worse; invented by idle brains,
and fansied by none but such as are ignorant what it is; wherefore I
would have them consider the Italian proverb,
Chi mangia di _Caviale_,
Mangia moschi, merdi, & sale.
Which may be Englished thus,
He that eats Cavialies,
Eats salt, dung, and flies.
For it is only (as was said) the roes of sturgion powdred, pickled,
and finely denominated _Caviale_, to be a bait for such woodcocks and
dotrils that account every exotick fansie a real good." This commodity
is still common in the North of Europe, and was formerly a considerable
article of commerce between England and Russia.
SCENE 2. Page 145.
1 PLAY. Would have made _milch_ the burning eyes of heaven.
i. e. would have drawn tears from them. _Milche-hearted_, in Hulæt's
_Abcedarium_, 1552, is rendered _lemosus_; and in _Bibliotheca Eliotæ_,
1545, we find "_lemosi_, they that _wepe_ lyghtly." The word is from
the Saxon melce, milky.
ACT III.
SCENE 1. Page 158.
HAM. ... To die,--to sleep,--
No more;----
There is a good deal on this subject in Cardanus's _Comforte_, 1576,
4to, a book which Shakspeare had certainly read. In fo. 30, it is said,
"In the holy scripture, death is not accompted other than sleape, and
to dye is sayde to sleape."
SCENE 1. Page 162.
HAM. The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns.
The resemblance of this passage to the lines cited by Mr. Steevens
from Catullus is very remarkable, yet no translation of that author
into English is known to have been made. It is true, they might have
occurred to our poet in his native language through the medium of
some quotation; yet it is equally possible that both the writers have
casually adopted the same sentiment. This is a circumstance that more
frequently happens than they are aware of who hunt after imitations
even in writers of the most original genius. Many of Shakspeare's
commentators might seem to be implicated in this charge, if it were not
that they have rather designed to mark coincidence than imitation. On
the present occasion our author alludes to a country altogether unknown
to mortals. That of the Pagan poet is happily illustrated by Seneca,
who cites the lines from Catullus, when he causes Mercury to drag the
emperor Claudius into the _infernal regions_. "Nec mora, Cyllenius
illum collo obtorto trahit _ad inferos_."--_Lud. de morte Claudii._
Dekker, in his _Seven deadlie sinns of London_, 1606, 4to,
apostrophizing that city, exclaims, "Art thou now not cruell against
thyselfe, in not providing (before the land-waters of affliction come
downe againe upon thee) more and more convenient cabins to lay those
in, _that are to goe into such farre countries, who never looke to come
back againe_? If thou should'st deny it, the graves when they open,
will be witnesses against thee."
In the _History of Valentine and Orson_, p. 63, edit. 1694, 4to, is
this passage: "I shall send some of you here present _into such a
country, that you shall scarcely ever return again_ to bring tydings
of your valour." As Watson, the translator of this romance, translated
also _The ship of fools_ into prose, which was printed by Wynkyn de
Worde, it is probable that there was an edition of _Valentine and
Orson_ in Shakspeare's time, though none such is supposed now to
remain. Perhaps the oldest we know of is that of 1649, printed by
Robert Ibbitson. In 1586, _The old book of Valentine and Orson_ was
licensed to T. Purfoot.
SCENE 1. Page 166.
HAM. I have heard of your _paintings_ too, well enough; God hath
given you one _face_, and you make yourselves another; you jig, you
amble, and you lisp and nickname God's creatures, and make your
wantonness your ignorance.
The folio reads _prattlings_, and _pace_; the quarto as in the text,
which Dr. Johnson thinks best, though he admits that Shakspeare
might have written both. Other very good reasons have been given
for preferring the present reading; yet whoever will reflect on the
typographical errors for which the quarto plays of Shakspeare are
remarkable, may be disposed to think that the folio editors had good
reason for their variation. Our author's bible might here, as in many
other instances, have furnished his materials. "Moreover thus saith
the Lorde: seyng the daughters of Sion are become so proude and come
in with stretched oute neckes, and with vayne wanton eyes; seynge they
come in trippynge so nicely with their fete; therefore, &c."--Isaiah,
ch. iii. ver. 16. It has not been observed that _lisp_ seems to refer
to _prattling_, as _jig_ and _amble_ do to _pace_.
SCENE 2. Page 173.
HAM. ... it out-herods Herod.
The violence of Herod in the old mysteries has been already exemplified
by some extracts from the Chester and Coventry plays. One of the
latter, of which some account has been given in the preceding pages,
may truly be said on the present occasion to completely _out-herod_ the
others. It exhibits the fury of the monarch to so much advantage, that
every zealous amateur of theatrical manners must be gratified with the
following extracts.
His majesty's entrance is announced by a herald in the vilest French
jargon that can be conceived. He commences by enjoining silence on the
part of the spectators, and ends with sending them all to the devil.
"La gran deaboly vos umport." He then makes a speech, which begins in
bad Latin, and thus proceeds:
"[I am] the myghtyst conquerowre that ever walkid on grownd,
For I am evyn he that made bothe hevin and hell,
And of my myghte power holdith up the world rownd;
_Magog_ and _Madroke_ bothe thes did I confownde,
And in this bryght bronde[27] there bonis I brak on sunder,
That all the wyde worlde on those rappis[28] did wonder.
I am the cawse of this grett lyght and thunder;
Yt ys throgh my fure[29] that the[30] soche noyse doth make;
My feyrefull contenance the cloudis so doth incumber,
That oftymes for drede therof the verre[31] yerth doth quake.
Loke when I with males[32] this bryght brond doth shake,
All the whole world from the north to the sowthe,
I ma them dystroie with won worde of my mouthe.
To recownt unto you myn inewmerabull substance,
Thatt were to moche for any tong to tell;
For all the whole orent[33] ys under myn obbeydeance,
And prince am I of purgatorre and chef capten of hell;
And thase tyranees trayturs be force ma I compell
Myne enemys to vanquese, and evyn to duste them dryve,
And with a twynke of myn iee not won to be left alyve.
Behald my contenance and my colur,
Bryghter than the sun in the meddis of the dey.
Where can you have a more grettur succur
Then to behold my person that ys so gaye?
My fawcun[34] and my fassion with my gorgis[35] araye?
He that had the grace allwey theron to thynke,
Lyve the myght allwey withowt othur meyte or drynke;
And thys my tryomfande fame most hylist doth abownde
Throgh owt this world in all reygeons abrod,
Reysemelyng the favour of that most myght _Mahownd_.
From _Jubytor_ be desent[36] and cosyn to the grett God,
And namyd the most reydowndid[37] kyng _Eyrodde_,
Wycche that all pryncis hath undr subjeccion,
And all their whole powar undur my proteccion;
And therefore my hareode[38], here called _Calcas_,
Warne thow eyvyry porte that noo schyppis aryve;
Nor also aloond[39] stranger throgh my realme pas,
But the for there truage do pay markis fyve.
Now spede the forthe hastele,
For the that wyll the contrare,
Upon a galowse hangid schal be,
And be _Mahownde_ of me they gett noo grace."
When he hears of the flight of the messengers, he exclaims,
"I stampe, I stare, I loke all abowt,
Myght I them take I schuld them bren at a glede[40],
I ren, I rawe[41], and now I am wode[42],
A that these velen trayturs hath mard this my mode
The schal be hangid yf I ma cum them to."
The stage direction is, "Here _Erode_ ragis in the pagond and in the
strete also." He consults with his knights on putting the children
to death; and on their dissuading him from it as likely to excite an
insurrection, he says,
"A rysyng, owt, owt, owt."
There _Erode_ ragis ageyne and then seyth thus:
"Out velen wrychis har apon[43] you I cry,
My wyll utturly loke that yt be wroght,
Or apon a gallowse bothe you schall dye
Be _Mahownde_ most myghtyst that me dere hath boght."
At length the knights consent to slay the children, and _Herod_ says,
"And then wyll I for fayne trypp lyke a doo."
The bodies of the children are brought to him in carts; but he is
told that all his deeds are come to nothing, as the child whom he
particularly sought after had escaped into Egypt. He once more falls
into a violent passion, orders his palfrey to be saddled, and hurries
away in pursuit of the infant. Here the piece ends. It was performed by
the taylors and shearmen in the year 1534; but the composition is of
much greater antiquity.
SCENE 2. Page 179.
HAM. ... Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay in my heart of heart.
From this speech Anthony Scoloker, in his _Daiphantus, or The passions
of love_, 1604, 4to, has stolen the following line:
"Oh, I would weare her in my heart's-heart-gore."
SCENE 2. Page 179.
HAM. It is a _damned ghost_ that we have seen.
i. e. the ghost of a person sentenced for his wickedness to damnation,
and which has in this instance deceived us. Thus Spenser,
"What voice of _damned ghost_ from Limbo lake
Or _guileful spright_ wandering in empty ayre,
Sends to my _doubtful eares_ these speeches rare?"
_Fairy Queen_, book i. canto 2, st. 32.
"He show'd him painted in a table plain
The _damned ghosts_----"
"Nor _damned ghosts_ cald up with mightie spels."
_Epithalamion_, st. 19.
SCENE 2. Page 182.
HAM. Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
[_Lying down at_ OPHELIA'S _feet_.]
Mr. Steevens has noticed the practice of lying at the feet of a
mistress during dramatic representations; yet we are not to conclude
that it prevailed at the public theatres. The instances which have
occurred seem to be confined to entertainments at the houses of the
nobility and gentry. These were plays, masques, masquerades, balls,
concerts, &c. Many old pictures and engravings furnish examples of the
above custom, the young men being often seen sitting or lying on the
ground in conversation with their mistresses, and sometimes in Hamlet's
situation. One of these shall be described more particularly. It is an
extremely neat little print, belonging to a set designed to contrast
the sufferings of Christ with the vanities of the world. The scene is
a ball-room. In the background are the musicians and torch-bearers. In
front a lady and gentleman are performing a dance before some standing
spectators. In various parts of the room pairs of young gallants and
their mistresses are seated on the floor, apparently more attentive to
their own concerns than to the dancing; and one youth is sitting on the
spread petticoat of his companion. The costume is French, and of the
time of Louis the Thirteenth.
SCENE 2. Page 198.
HAM. With two _provencial roses_ on my razed shoes.
The old copies read _provincial_, which led Mr. Warton to ask, why
provincial roses? and to conclude that roses of _Provence_ were meant,
on which conclusion the text has been _most unnecessarily_ changed;
because the old reading was certainly correct. There is no evidence to
show that _Provence_ was ever remarkable for its roses; but it is well
known that _Provins_, in _La Basse Brie_, about forty miles from Paris,
was formerly very celebrated for the growth of this flower, of which
the best cataplasms are said to have been made. It was, according to
tradition, imported into that country from Syria, by a count De Brie.
See Guillemeau _Histoire naturelle de la rose_. It is probable that
this kind of rose, which in our old herbals is called the Great Holland
or _Province_ rose, was imported into this country both from Holland
and France, from which latter country the Dutch might have first
procured it. There is an elegant cut of the Provins rose, with a good
account of it, in the first edition of Pomet _Hist. des drogues_, 1694,
folio, p. 174.
SCENE 2. Page 200.
HAM. A very, very,--_peacock_.
The word that was in the original of Hamlet's quotation would have
been too coarse to be applied to royalty; and therefore he substitutes
another, which there is good reason to suppose was _peacock_. Dr.
Farmer has given proof that this term was proverbial for a fool.
Reginald Scot, speaking of Pope Julius the Third, says that he
blasphemed Christ, and cursed his mother for a _peacock_. _Disc. of
witchcraft_, b. 2, ch. viii. The bird in question is at once _proud_
and _silly_.
SCENE 2. Page 205.
Enter the players with _recorders_.
"i. e." says Mr. Steevens, "a kind of _large_ flute." Yet the former
note, to which he refers, vol. v. p. 149, describes this instrument as
a _small_ flute. Sir J. Hawkins, in vol. iv. p. 479, of his valuable
History of music, has offered very good proofs that the recorder was
a _flagelet_, and he maintains that the flute was improperly termed
a recorder, and that the expressions have been confounded: yet his
opinion that the books of instructions entitled 'for the recorder'
belong in reality to the flute, seems rather doubtful. The confusion
is in having blended the genus with the species. In the _Promptuarium
parvulorum_, 1516, 4to, a recorder is defined to be a "lytell pype." In
_Udall's flowres for Latine spekyng selected oute of Terence_, 1532,
12mo, the line from Virgil's Bucolics,
"Nec te pæniteat _calamo_ trivisse labellum,"
is rendered, "and thynke it not a smalle thynge to have lerned to
playe on the _pype_ or the _recorder_:" and it is not a little
curious that in modern cant language the recorders of corporations
are termed _flutes_. The following story in _Wits fits and fancies_,
1595, 4to, shows that the pipe and recorder were different; such is
the uncertainty of definition among old writers: "A merrie recorder
of London mistaking the name of one _Pepper_, call'd him _Piper_:
whereunto the partie excepting, and saying: Sir, you mistake, my name
is _Pepper_, not _Piper_: hee answered: Why, what difference is there
(I pray thee) between _Piper_ in Latin, and _Pepper_ in English; is
it not all one? No, sir (reply'd the other) there is even as much
difference betweene them, as is between a _Pipe_ and a _Recorder_."
SCENE 2. Page 207.
HAM. Do you think I am easier to be play'd on than a pipe? Call me
what instrument you will, though you can _fret_ me, you cannot play
upon me.
A _fret_ is the stop or key of a musical instrument, and consequently
here is a play on words, and a double meaning. Hamlet says, _though
you can vex me, you cannot impose on me; though you can stop the
instrument, you cannot play on it_.
SCENE 3. Page 216.
HAM. ... that his soul may be as damn'd and black
As hell, whereto it goes.
To the stories collected in the notes that illustrate Hamlet's shocking
design of killing the king at his prayers, may be added one in Howel's
_Parley of the beasts_, p. 91, and another related in Chetwind's
_Historical collections_, p. 77.
SCENE 4. Page 231.
HAM. ... a _vice_ of kings.
"A low mimick of kings. The vice is the fool of a _farce_, from
whence the modern _punch_ is descended." Thus far Dr. Johnson. The
first position in his note is questionable, the others erroneous. The
_vice_ belonged to the old moralities; and the modern _Punch_ is most
certainly not descended from him, but legitimately from a character
well known in the theatres of ancient Rome. _We_ have borrowed him from
the Italian _Polichinello_. With respect to the former part of the
note, Hamlet's expression may be quite literal. Thus in _King Henry the
Fifth_, we have "this _grace_ of kings." Afterwards indeed, Shakspeare,
in his usual manner, recollecting the ambiguity of the term, takes up
another simile, and makes Hamlet call his uncle _a king of shreds and
patches_. See a former note in p. 287.
ACT IV.
SCENE 2. Page 248.
HAM. The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body.
Hamlet's riddle seems still unresolved. Can this be its meaning?
Instead of giving a direct answer to the inquiry after the body of
Polonius, he seizes the opportunity of venting his sarcasm against the
king, by saying that the body, i. e. the external appearance or person
of the monarch, is with his uncle; but that the real and lawful king
is not in that body.
SCENE 5. Page 262.
OPH. To be your _Valentine_.
The custom of choosing _Valentines_ is of very long standing, and,
like many others of a popular nature, is no more than a corruption
of something similar that had prevailed in the times of paganism. It
was the practice in ancient Rome, during a great part of the month
of February, to celebrate the _Lupercalia_, which were feasts in
honour of Pan and Juno, whence the latter deity was named _februata_,
_februalis_, and _februlla_. On this occasion, amidst a variety of
ceremonies, the names of young women were put into a box, from which
they were drawn by the men as chance directed. The pastors of the early
Christian church, who by every possible means endeavoured to eradicate
the vestiges of Pagan superstitions, and chiefly by some commutation
of their forms, substituted, in the present instance, the names of
particular saints, instead of those of the women: and as the festival
of the _Lupercalia_ had commenced about the middle of February, they
appear to have chosen Saint Valentine's day for celebrating the new
feast; because it occurred nearly at the same time. This is, in part,
the opinion of a learned and rational compiler of the lives of the
saints, the Reverend Alban Butler. It should seem, however, that it was
utterly impossible to extirpate altogether any ceremony to which the
common people had been much accustomed; a fact which it were easy to
prove in tracing the origin of various other popular superstitions: and
accordingly the outline of the ancient ceremonies was preserved, but
modified by some adaptation to the Christian system. It is reasonable
to suppose that the above practice of choosing mates would gradually
become reciprocal in the sexes; and that all persons so chosen would
be called _Valentines_, from the day on which the ceremony took place.
There is another opinion on the origin of choosing _Valentines_, which
has been formed on a tradition among the common people, that at the
above season of the year birds choose their mates, a circumstance that
is frequently alluded to by poets, and particularly by Chaucer; yet
this seems to be a mere poetical idea, borrowed in all probability from
the practice in question. Again, it has been supposed that the custom
originated in the following manner: During carnival time, which usually
happens about Saint Valentine's day, great numbers of knights assembled
together in the various courts of Europe to entertain the ladies with
feasts and tournaments, when each lady made choice of a knight who
usually enlisted in her service for a whole year, during which period
he bound himself to perform, at the instance of his mistress, whatever
was consistent with propriety. One employment was the writing verses
full of tenderness; not that it was requisite for the heart to be at
all concerned in the matter. A little reflection, however, may serve to
show that even this practice is only derivative from the older one.
It is presumed that the earliest specimens remaining of poetical
_Valentines_ are those preserved in the works of Charles duke of
Orleans, a prince of high accomplishments, and the father of Louis the
Twelfth of France. He was taken prisoner at the battle of Agincourt,
and remained a captive in this country twenty-five years, during which
time he wrote several thousand lines of poetry, a few of them in
English. Many of these poems are written on Saint _Valentine's_ day,
and in some of them his mistress is called his _Valentine_. In the
Royal library of manuscripts, now in the British museum, there is a
magnificent volume containing probably all that the duke wrote whilst
in England. It belonged to King Henry the Seventh, for whom it had been
copied from some older manuscript, and is beautifully illuminated.
In one of the paintings the duke is represented in the White tower
sitting at a writing table with guards attending him. In another part
of it he is looking out of a window; and in a third he is going out
of the tower to meet some person who has just alighted from his horse.
At a distance is London bridge with the houses on it, and the curious
chapel, all very distinct, and probably faithful copies. Besides the
above work, this fine manuscript contains some compositions by the
celebrated Eloisa, and other matters of less consequence.
In one of the duke's poems, he feigns that on Saint Valentine's day
_Youth_ appears to him with an invitation to the temple of love. On the
same day he devotes himself to the service of several ladies, according
to what he states to have been the custom in England. The following
extracts from some of his poems are given, as containing allusions to
the subject immediately before us:
"A ce jour de Saint _Valentin_
Que chascun doit choisir son per,
Amours demourrai-je non per
Sans partir à vostre butin?
A mon reveillier au matin
Je n'y ay cessè de penser
A ce jour de saint _Valentin_."
It appears from the following songs, that when Ash Wednesday happened
to fall on Saint Valentine's day, the knights and their ladies
assembled only in the afternoon, the morning being necessarily devoted
to pious purposes.
"Saint _Valentin_ quant vous venez
En caresme au commencement,
Receu ne serez vrayement
Ainsi que accoustumè avez
Saint _Valentin_ dit, veez me ça,
Et apporte pers a choysir:
Viegne qui y devra venir,
C'est la coustume de pieça.
Quand le jour des cendres, hola,
Respond, auquel doit-on faillir?
Saint _Valentin_ dit, veez me ça,
Et apporte pers à choysir.
Au fort au matin convendra
En devotion se tenir,
Et après disner à loysir,
Choysisse qui choisir vouldra;
Saint _Valentin_ dit, veez me ça,
Et apporte pers à choysir."
Another French _Valentine_, composed by John Gower, is quoted by Mr.
Warton in his _History of English poetry_, add. to vol. ii. p. 31, from
a manuscript in the library of Lord Gower. In this the poet tells his
mistress that in choosing her he had followed the example of the birds.
Madame Royale, the daughter of Henry the Fourth of France, built a
palace near Turin which was called _the Valentine_, on account of the
great veneration in which the saint was held in that country. At the
first entertainment given there by the princess, who was naturally of a
gallant disposition, she directed that the ladies should choose their
lovers _for the year_ by lots. The only difference with respect to
herself was, that she should be at liberty to fix on her own partner.
At every ball during the year each lady received from her gallant
a nosegay; and at every tournament the lady furnished his horse's
trappings, the prize obtained being hers. From this circumstance
Monsieur Menage, to whom we are indebted for the above information,
infers that in Piedmont, the parties were called _Valentines_; but the
learned writer was not aware of the circumstances already stated, nor
of the antiquity of the custom in his own country. See Menage _Dict.
étymologique_, art. _Valentin_.
In an old English ballad the lasses are directed to pray _cross-legged_
to Saint _Valentine_, for good luck. For the modern ceremonies on
choosing, _Valentines_, the reader may consult Brand's _Popular
antiquities_, and No. 56 of _The connoisseur_.
SCENE 5. Page 263.
OPH. Let in the maid, that out a maid,
Never departed more.
In an Album that belonged in 1598 to a Dutch lady named Theodora Van
Wassenaer, there is the following pretty French ballad addressed to
her. The conclusion resembles the above lines in Ophelia's song:
"Au jardin de mon pere
Un oranger il y a,
Qui est si chargè d'orenges
Je croy qu'il en rompra.
Mignone tant je vous ayme,
Mais vous ne m'aymez pas.
Elle demanda à son pere
Quand on le cueillera,
Ma fille, ma fille,
Quand la saison viendra.
Mignone, &c.
La saison est venue
Le cueillerons nous pas?
Elle prend une echelle,
Un panier à son bras.
Mignone, &c.
Elle cueillit les plus meures,
Les verds elle y laissa;
Elle les alloit porter vendre
Au marcher de Damas.
Mignone, &c.
En son chemin rencontroit
Le fils d'un avocat;
Que portez vous la belle
Dans ce panier couvert?
Mignone, &c.
Monsieur ce sont des orenges
Ne vous en plait-il pas?
Il en prend une couple,
Dans son sein il les metta.
Mignone, &c.
Venez vous en la belle,
On vous les payera;
_Elle y entra pucelle
Grossette elle en sorta_.
Mignone tant je vous ayme,
Mais vous ne m'aymez pas."
SCENE 5. Page 263.
OPH. By _Gis_, and by Saint Charity.
The frequent occurrence of this adjuration sufficiently proves that Dr.
Johnson's proposed change to _Cis_ is unnecessary; nor indeed would the
name of Saint Cecilia be proper to swear by. Mr. Ritson's _Gislen_, an
obscure _Irish_ saint, is equally out of the question. In the interlude
of _Mary Magdelain_, she is made to say,
"Nay by Gis, twentie shillings I dare holde
That there is not a gentlewoman in this land
More propre than I in the waste, I dare be bolde."
In _Promos and Cassandra_, Dalia swears by _Gys_; and in _Gammer
Gurton's needle_ and some other old plays, the same expression occurs.
Mr. Ridley's conjecture that _Jesus_ is the corrupted word is the true
one; but the corruption is not in the way that he has stated. The
letters IHS would not be pronounced _Gis_, even by those who understood
them as a Greek contraction.
ACT V.
SCENE 1. Page 297.
2 CLO. ... therefore make her grave _straight_.
Dr. Johnson thought this meant "From East to West, in a direct line
parallel to the church; not from North to South, athwart the regular
line." The frequency of the above mode of expression in Shakspeare's
plays sufficiently indicates that if he had alluded to the mode of
burial contended for by Dr. Johnson, he would have adopted some other.
It has occurred upwards of a hundred times already in the sense of
_immediately_. Nor would it be easy to show that to make a grave
_straight_, or in a direct line, was to make it East and West; or that
it was the designation of Christian burial. The first clown rather
adverts to the _place_ where the grave should be made than to its
_form_. Suicides were buried on the North side of the church, in ground
purposely _unconsecrated_.
Much of this scene has been imitated in the _Valiant Welshman_, by R.
A. [q. Robert Armin] 1663. See Act IV.
SCENE 1. Page 299.
2. CLO. If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been
bury'd out of Christian burial.
We have here a manifest satire on the partial verdicts of coroners'
juries, where the suicide has been above the common condition of life.
Judge Blackstone has hinted at them in his Commentaries. Nothing,
however, but the partiality is reprehensible; the rest is an amiable
tenderness towards the living, calculated to resist a law that justly
deserves to be abhorred for a savage and impotent revenge so far as it
regards the dead.
SCENE 1. Page 299.
1 CLO. Come; my _spade_. There is no ancient gentlemen but
gardeners, ditchers and grave-makers; they hold up _Adam's_
profession.
2 CLO. Was he a _gentleman_?
1 CLO. He was the first that ever bore arms.
This is undoubtedly in ridicule of heraldry. Gerard Leigh, one of the
oldest writers on that subject, speaks of "Jesus Christ, a _gentleman_
of great linage, and king of the Jewes." And again, "For that it might
be known that even anon after the creation of Adam, there was both
_gentlenes_, and _ungentlenes_, you shall understand that the second
man that was born was a _gentleman_, whose name was Abell. I say a
gentleman both of vertue and of lignage, with whose sacrifice God was
much pleased. His brother Cain was _ungentle_, for he offered God the
worst of his fruites," &c.--_Accedence of armorie_, 1591, 4to, fo. 13.
Another morsel of satire against the above science lurks in the very
ancient proverbial saying,
"When Adam delv'd and Eve span,
Where was then the gentleman?"
which is found in almost every European language. It was the text
on which the rebel priest John Balle preached his sermon during the
insurrection of Wat Tyler. Although the first clown afterwards explains
why Adam bore arms, by means of a punning allusion to his digging with
arms, there is still a concealed piece of wit with respect to the
_spade_. Adam's spade is set down in some of the books of heraldry
as _the most ancient form of escutcheons_: nor is it improbable that
the lower part of this utensil suggested the well-known form of the
old triangular shields; whilst from the spindle of Eve might have
originated the lozenge-like escutcheon on which the arms of females are
usually emblazoned.
SCENE 1. Page 308.
HAM. ... the age is grown so _picked_, that the toe of the peasant,
&c.
Mr. Malone's note, in exclusion of the others, is sufficiently
satisfactory. The fashion of wearing pointed shoes, to which Hamlet had
been supposed to allude, had ceased long before the time of Shakspeare;
nor is it probable that he would have transferred it to the age of
Hamlet. We still say _a person treads close on the heels of another_,
in the same signification as in the text.
SCENE 1. Page 310.
1 CLO. This same scull, sir, was _Yorick's_ scull, the king's
jester.
The frequency of such names as _Eric_ and _Roric_ in the Danish
history, might have suggested that of the jester in question, but in
a manner that may not very easily be discovered. _Roric_ was the name
of the king of Denmark contemporary with Hamlet, according to Saxo
Grammaticus.
SCENE 1. Page 311.
HAM. Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint
an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at
that.----
There is good reason for supposing that Shakspeare borrowed this
thought from some print or picture that he had seen. There are several
which represent a lady at her toilet, and an old man presenting a
scull before the mirror. A print by Goltzius exhibits _Vanity_ as a
lady sitting in her chamber with jewels, &c. before her, and surprised
by the appearance of Death. In one of Henry the Eighth's wardrobe
accounts, a picture at Westminster is thus described: "Item a table
with the picture of a woman playing upon a lute, and an olde manne
holding a glasse in th'one hande and a deadde mannes headde in th'other
hande."--Harl. MS. No. 1419.
* * * * *
In a poem written by Anthony Scoloker, a printer, entitled _Daiphantus,
or The passions of love, comicall to reade, but tragicall to act, as
full of wit, as experience_, 1604, 4to, and recently quoted in p.
465, there are the following allusions to the play of _Hamlet_: In
a quaint dedication he says, "It [the epistle] should be like the
_never-too-well read Arcadia_, where the _prose_ and _verse_ (_matter_
and _words_) are like his _mistresses_ eyes, one still excelling
another and without Corivall: or to come home to the vulgars element,
like _friendly Shake-speare's tragedies_, where the _commedian_ rides,
when the _tragedian_ stands on tiptoe: _Faith it should please all,
like prince Hamlet_. But in sadnesse, then it were to be feared _he
would runne mad_. In sooth I will not be moonesicke, to please: nor out
of my wits though I displeased all."
"His breath he thinkes the smoke; his tongue a cole,
Then calls for bottell ale; to quench his thirst.
Runs to his Inke pot, drinkes, then stops the hole,
And thus growes madder, then he was at first.
Tasso he finds, by that of _Hamlet_, thinkes,
Tearmes him a _mad-man_; than of his Inkhorne drinks.
"_Calls players fooles_, the foole he judgeth wisest,
_Will learne them action_, out of Chaucers Pander:
Proves of their poets bawdes even in the highest,
Then drinkes a health; and sweares it is no slander,
Puts off his cloathes; his shirt he onely weares,
Much like _mad-Hamlet_; thus as passion teares."
FOOTNOTES:
[23] These two lines seem intended, in the original, as a kind of
burden or chorus at the end of each stanza; but as they only intrude
upon the measure, the translation were perhaps better without them.
[24] It was the custom at this time to serve up at entertainments
peacock and pheasant pies, the forms of those elegant birds being
externally preserved, and much pomp bestowed on their appearance. See
what has been already said on this subject in p. 291.
[25] This is a stubborn fact against the opinion of those who maintain
that wine was not made in England. See the controversy on this subject
in _Archæologia_, vol. iii.
[26] The late Rev. Mr. Hole of Faringdon in Devonshire, whose loss is
deplored by all who knew him, has left an essay on the character of
Ulysses, which has been recently published by some kind and grateful
friends. In this elegant morsel the learned author has noticed the
anxiety which Homer's favourite heroes constantly manifest to give
their enemies a prey to dogs, and thereby prevent the advantage of
obtaining admission into the regions of happiness.
[27] sword.
[28] raps, blows.
[29] fury.
[30] they.
[31] very.
[32] malice.
[33] orient.
[34] falcon, or perhaps falchion.
[35] gorgeous.
[36] I am descended.
[37] renowned.
[38] herald.
[39] allow.
[40] burn on live coals.
[41] rave.
[42] mad.
[43] here upon, or perhaps _haro_!
OTHELLO.
ACT I.
SCENE 3. Page 422.
OTH. Wherein of antres vast and desarts _idle_.
Dr. Johnson has very properly taken notice of Mr. Pope's _inadvertency_
in substituting _wild_ for _idle_; but whether he is strictly right
in regarding this word as "poetically beautiful," according to
Shakspeare's use of it, may admit of some doubt. Perhaps in a modern
writer it would be poetical, where designed to express _infertility_.
It may be worth while to examine how it was originally used.
In Ælfric's version of Genesis, ch. i. ver. 1, the _inanis et vacua_ of
the Vulgate is rendered ẏꝺel ⁊ æmꞇɩᵹ. Now it is conceived that _inanis_
never signified _infertile_, but _useless_, _unprofitable_; and such
appears to be the meaning of _idle_. In two or three of the early Latin
and English dictionaries, _inanis_ is rendered _idle_; and in this
sense the latter word is used by Shakspeare in _Richard the third_, Act
III.:
"You said that _idle weeds_ were fast in growth."
It is clear that in the last instance _infertility_ is out of the
question: but _useless_ and _unprofitable_ well denote the poet's
meaning, or rather that of the inventor of the proverb, which was
afterwards corrupted into "_ill_ weeds," &c.
It is conceived therefore that Dr. Johnson is not accurate in his
opinion, that _idle_ in the before-cited Saxon translation is an
epithet expressive of the _infertility_ of the chaotic state. Wicliffe
has not adopted this term; he has preferred _vain_: but in the first
page of the English _Golden legend_, which contains a part of the first
chapter of Genesis, we have--"the erth was _ydle_ and voyde." Here
Caxton the translator must have followed the _Vulgate_, corroborating
what is already stated on the construction of _idle_. The learned
reader will not want to be informed why this term could not occur in
any of the subsequent English versions of the Bible.
SCENE 3. Page 447.
IAGO. ... the food that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall
be to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida.
There is another phrase of this kind, viz. _to exchange Herb John for
coloquintida_. It is used in Osborne's _Memoirs of James I._, and
elsewhere. The pedantic Tomlinson, in his translation of Renodæus's
_Dispensatory_, says, that many superstitious persons call mugwort
Saint John's herb, "wherewith he circumcinged his loyns on holidays,"
p. 317. Shakspeare, who was extremely well acquainted with popular
superstitions, might have recollected this circumstance, when,
for reasons best known to himself, he chose to vary the phrase by
substituting the _luscious locusts_ of the Baptist. Whether these were
the fruit of the tree so called, or the well known insect, is not
likely to be determined.
ACT III.
SCENE 4. Page 556.
DES. ... I had rather have lost my purse
Full of _cruzadoes_.
The following account of this Portuguese coin is presumed to be more
correct than that already given. The cruzado was not current, as it
should seem, at Venice, though it certainly was in England in the time
of Shakspeare, who has here indulged his usual practice of departing
from national costume. It was of gold, and weighed two penny-weights
six grains, or nine shillings English. The following varieties of it as
to type, are given from an English almanac of the year 1586, whence
also the weight has been taken. The sovereigns who struck this coin
were Emanuel and his son John.
[Illustration]
SCENE 4. Page 558.
OTH. ... The hearts, of old, gave hands;
But now new heraldry is--hands, not hearts.
There cannot be a doubt that the text is right, and that there is
a punning allusion to the _new heraldry of hands_ in the baronets'
arms. The plain meaning is--_formerly the heart gave away the hand
in marriage; but now, as in the new heraldry, we have hands only: no
cordiality nor affection_. In _The tempest_, Ferdinand says to Miranda,
"Here's my hand;" to which she answers, "And mine _with my heart in
it_." In this latter instance, Shakspeare, not Miranda, might recollect
the gemmel rings, some of which had engraven on them a hand with a
heart in it.
ACT IV.
SCENE 2. Page 601.
OTH. The bawdy wind, that kisses all it meets.
The same image occurs more delicately, but less strongly, in a
beautiful "Song to a forsaken mistresse," written by an anonymous
author, about the time of Charles the First, and published in
Playford's _Select ayres_, 1659, folio. As most persons of taste
already possess the whole of it in Mr Ellis's _Specimens of the early
English poets_, it is unnecessary to give more in this place than the
stanza in which the above image occurs:
"I do confess thou'rt sweet, yet find
Thee such an unthrift of thy sweets;
Thy favours are but _like the wind,
Which kisseth every thing it meets_:
And since thou can'st with more than one,
Th'art worthy to be kiss'd by none."
SCENE 2. Page 635.
OTH. Had all his hairs been lives, my great revenge
Had stomach for them all.
The same sentiment occurs in the third part of _King Henry the Sixth_,
where Clifford says,
"Had I thy brethren here, their lives and thine,
Were not revenge sufficient for me."
SCENE 2. Page 653.
OTH. _Blow me about in winds!_ roast me in sulphur!
Again, in _Measure for measure_,
"To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world."
THE CLOWN.
He appears but twice in the play, and was certainly intended to be an
allowed or domestic _fool_ in the service of Othello and Desdemona.
ADDITIONS TO THE NOTES.
Page 37. The _tune_ of the old ballad of _Green sleeves_ may be seen
in Sir John Hawkins's _Hist. of musick_, vol. v. Append., and is still
used in _The beggar's opera_, in the song of "Since laws were made for
every degree."
Page 53. Cupid's _golden shaft_ is again mentioned in the _Midsummer
night's dream_, Act I. Scene 1:
"HERM. by his _best_ arrow with the _golden_ head."
Page 96. To the list of imitations, &c. of the story of _Measure for
measure_, add the novel of _Waldburgh and Belanca_, in Reynolds's
_God's revenge against adultery_. This is the substance of it: In the
reign of Gustavus Adolphus king of Sweden, Moruffi, a Danish general,
in attacking the castle of Colmar, was taken prisoner by the governor
count Waldbourg. Belanca, the wife of Moruffi, obtained a promise from
the count to liberate her husband on the terms of her submitting to
his unlawful desires. The unfortunate woman was afterwards inhumanly
presented with the head of her husband. When Gustavus heard of the
fact, he compelled the count to marry the injured lady, and then
condemned him to death. Reynolds pretended that all his stories in this
and his other once celebrated work, _God's revenge against murder_,
were originals, and that he had collected the materials for them in the
course of his travels.
Page 119. The recipe here given for making men seem like horses or
asses, from Scot's _Discoverie of witchcraft_, where Shakspeare might
have seen it, is the real property of Baptista Porta, in the serious
refutation of whom the Jesuit Kircher has wasted too much time. See
his treatise _De luce et umbra_.
In the _Prodromo apologetico alii studi Chircheriani_ of Petrucci,
there are similar receipts, and especially one in which an oil is
directed to be made from the semen of a horse, which being used in a
lamp, the company present will appear to have horses' heads. It is
accompanied with a curious engraving of a Houyhnhnm party engaged in
conversation, among whom there is the figure of an _equus togatus_,
that will not fail to make a due impression on such readers as are
acquainted with the trick put by Mr. Spence, the author of _Polymetis_;
on Dr. Cooke, the provost of King's College Cambridge, a sour pedant
who had offended him. See the tail-piece to the 17th dialogue in the
_first_ edition of the above work.
Page 123. The blessing of the bridal bed had doubtless, during the
dark ages that preceded the promulgation of the gospel in many parts
of Europe, been deemed the immediate office of fairies and other
supernatural beings. The object of it was to make the issue of the
marriage happy, and to avert deformity. In this, as in numerous other
instances, the priests felt themselves obliged, in their attempt to do
away a Pagan superstition, which, as we see, continued notwithstanding
to maintain its influence, to substitute some congenial ceremony that
should console the deluded people; but their particular enmity to
fairies on the present occasion seems manifest in the passage cited
from the Salisbury manual, in the words "ab omnibus fantasmaticis
demonum illusionibus;" unless they should be thought rather to allude
to the subject which is particularly noticed in the subsequent remarks
on the night-spells.
The above ceremony is thus mentioned by Chaucer in his description of
the marriage of January and May:
"The bride is brought a-bed as stil as ston;
And whan the bed was with the preest yblessed,
Out of the chambre hath every wight him dressed."
_Marchantes tale_, v. 9692.
On the evidence relating to the consummation of the marriage between
prince Arthur and the Lady Catharine, Robert Viscount Fitzwater deposed
that "the prince was then about fifteen, and queen Katherine elder,
and that the next day after being in bed together (_which he remembred
after they entered to have been solemnly bless'd_), he waited at
breakfast on prince Arthur, &c."--Lord Herbert's _Life of Henry the
Eighth_, p. 243. It is said that some vestiges of this custom still
remain among the Presbyterians in Scotland.
Page 169. There is a story of _two_ caskets, &c., in Morlini _novellæ_,
nov. 5.
Quære if the general construction of all these stories have not been
borrowed from the trick related to have been put by Prometheus on
Jupiter with the two bull-skins filled with flesh and bones?
Page 178 (note). Dr. Taylor, in his treatise _De inope debitore in
partes dissecando_, has offered some strong arguments against the
supposed mutilation of the debtor's body, and endeavoured to show that
the law in question demanded nothing more than that the produce of his
servitude should be divided among the creditors. Yet Aulus Gellius was
of a different opinion. At a very early period, among the Jews, the
creditor had a right to make a slave of the debtor. See 2 Kings, chap.
iv. ver. 1.
Page 185. To the explanation of _sans_, add that in the early editions
of the dictionaries of Coles and Littelton the word is printed _sance_.
Page 214. Morgan the herald must be acquitted of having conveyed to
us the _original_ information that "Jesus Christ was a gentleman and
bore arms." He was indebted for it to Dame Julian Berners, who, in her
treatise on coat armour, speaks of "the gentyl Jesus," and states that
"Cryst [was] a gentylman of his mother's behalf and bare cote armure."
She also tells us that "Cain became a churl from the curse of God, and
Seth a _gentleman_ through his father and mother's blessing." So that
we find J. C. was not the _first_ gentleman.
Page 317. In further confirmation of the opinion here expressed, the
curious reader is referred to Wlson de Colombiere's _Vray theatre
d'honneur_, vol. ii. p. 313, for the account of a duel on appeal for
murder which was fought at Valenciennes in the year 1454, where the
dead body of the vanquished party was adjudged to be hanged on a
gallows as a convicted murderer.
The frequent use which has been made in the course of these remarks of
a work cited under the title of Bartholomæus _de proprietatibus rerum_,
may require that a more particular description of it should be given.
It is a general history of nature, composed in Latin by Bartholomew
Glanvile, an English Minorite or Franciscan, of the family of the earls
of Suffolk. He flourished about the year 1360, and appears to have
been the Pliny of his time. It was several times printed abroad in
the infancy of the typographic art, and translated into the English,
French, Dutch, and Spanish languages. The English version was made by
John Trevisa, a Cornish man, and vicar of Barkley in Gloucestershire,
at the request of his patron Thomas Lord Barkley, in the year 1398,
and originally printed by Wynkyn de Worde; for there is no evidence
that it came from Caxton's press in English, though it has been so
asserted. Neither is the date of Wynkyn de Worde's edition, if it ever
had any, been ascertained. The next edition was printed in 1535, by
Thomas Berthelette, in folio. The last was published under the title
of _Batman uppon Bartholome_, his _Booke de proprietatibus rerum_, &c.
Printed by Thomas East, 1582, in folio. Stephen Batman appears to have
been a worthy and pious character, and was chaplain to Lord Hunsdon.
His additions were compiled from Gesner and other writers of his own
time. In a manuscript diary of expenses in the reign of Elizabeth, the
price of this book is stated to have been eight shillings.
ON
THE ANACHRONISMS
AND
SOME OTHER INCONGRUITIES
OF
SHAKSPEARE.
The transgressions against the rules of chronology committed by
those who, in recording the events of preceding ages, introduce
matters which have originated in subsequent periods, seem almost
exclusively to belong to authors whose works, in point of date, are
to be separated from those admirable compositions which are usually
styled the Classics. In the latter, such instances seldom, if ever,
occur; whilst in the writers, as well as the artists, of the middle
ages, they are innumerable. Nor do these absurdities diminish as we
approach periods more enlightened as to general science. From the time
of Chaucer to that of Shakspeare, there is scarcely an author to be
found who is not implicated in this accusation; and about the age of
Elizabeth, the dramatists in particular seem to have been remarkably
inattentive to the unities of time and place. It has been observed
that Ben Jonson is almost the only writer against whom the charge of
uniting dissimilar manners and discordant periods is not to be laid;
and though the poets of the ensuing century are not wholly free from
the imputation in question, it is certain that from about the reign of
king James the First more care was taken to preserve a due attention
to the manners and customs of particular ages, or at least to avoid
any very palpable anachronisms, than had already been done. But whilst
the compositions of dramatic writers remained pretty free from these
blemishes, the directors of the theatres continued to practise their,
perhaps innocent, impostures on the public; and every absurdity that
could be devised, or distortion of reality in costume, still continued
to disgrace the stage. We were not indeed more absurd in this respect
than other European nations, nor was it until a short time before the
late revolution that the French theatre had reformed itself in this
respect. Many persons now recollect the state of the English stage
in Garrick's time, when that excellent performer used to exhibit his
Hamlet in a common French suit of black velvet and a cocked hat, and
his Macbeth in a scarlet coat with broad gold lace like the uniform
of a modern general. Quin is said to have played Othello in a flowing
powdered periwig. How Shakspeare's characters were habited on the
stage in his time, would be difficult or even impossible to ascertain
with accuracy at present, except in a few instances; but we have no
reason to suppose that much propriety was manifested on the occasion.
Unluckily for us it was not then the practice to decorate the printed
plays with frontispieces; and the theatrical prints and pictures even
of succeeding times are not very commonly to be met with. It is on this
account that the cuts to Mr. Rowe's edition of Shakspeare, and those
to the first octavo edition of the works of Beaumont and Fletcher, are
at present extremely valuable, as they serve to record many pleasant
absurdities that will not fail to excite a smile in the beholder.
It was reserved for the great actor who to the scenic talents of a
Garrick unites that managerial skill and judgment in the costume of
nations which the other wanted, to reform these follies; and, by
exhibiting to us times as they were, to render the stage what it should
be, a true and perfect mirror of history and manners.
The above very slight notice of the subject before us may perhaps
be sufficient for the purpose of introducing the mention of those
anachronisms that are ascribable to Shakspeare: and this has not been
done with any view to exhibit him as more culpable in this respect than
most of his contemporaries, but solely for the purpose of collecting
them together as an object of amusement: nothing however could have
been less judicious than the conduct of Mr. Pope when he placed them
to the account of the publishers. Nor is the catalogue offered as a
complete one; the diligent and critical reader will discover some that
are here unnoticed.
But the negligence of writers in the due observance of costume is
but trifling, when compared with what is to be laid to the charge of
painters and other artists. Volumes have been professedly filled, and
the number might still be augmented, with the errors of even the best
of the old painters. Nor are the modern by any means to be acquitted
on this score. We too frequently see works of the greatest intrinsic
worth, both in composition and execution, depreciated by the most
absurd violations of historical accuracy and a want of adherence to
the manners of the times they refer to. In this case they are not
what they profess to be; and whilst they delight the eye, they delude
the understanding. It is extremely pleasing to observe the zeal which
manifests itself among the leading artists of the present day to
obtain correct notions of the manners of former times whenever they
have occasion to depict them. The works of many of our best painters
will not only excite the admiration but the gratitude of posterity for
the faithful delineation of their subjects, and the labours of future
antiquaries will be reduced in proportion as pictures of this kind
shall increase.[44]
To return to Shakspeare. In the _dramatis personæ_ of many of his
plays we find a medley of ancient and modern names that is often
extremely ridiculous. At Ephesus we meet with _Pinch_, a schoolmaster;
at Mitylene with _Boult_, a clown; and at Athens with _Snug_, _Bottom_,
_Snout_, _Quince_, &c. In his later stories English names are given to
foreigners. Thus at Vienna we have _Froth_ and _Elbow_; in Navarre,
_Dull_, _Costard_, and _Moth_; and in Illyria, _Sir Toby Belch_
and _Sir Andrew Aguecheek_. But these, strictly speaking, are not
anachronisms, but, on the whole, justifiable licences; for it would
have been impossible to transmit the humour of such characters as the
above to an English audience under the disguise of foreign names,
though it must be admitted that mere English characters as well as
names are sometimes introduced. Nor is Shakspeare always responsible
for such whimsicalities, for they are occasionally to be traced in the
materials whereof his plays were constructed; and others belong to
those authors whom he had only assisted in dramas the whole composition
of which had been improperly ascribed to him.
MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
The incidents in this play are supposed to belong to the reign of
Henry the Fourth, and consequently the introduction of the _shillings
of Edward the Sixth_, and the mention of _Machiavel_, are improper;
as well as the then newly-introduced terms of the fencing-school
ridiculed by Shallow. Perhaps _Ancient_ Pistol and _Corporal_ Nym are
objectionable titles. The allusions to _Guiana_ and the _West Indies_
by Falstaff are obvious anachronisms.
TWELFTH NIGHT.
The introduction of the _bed of Ware_ may be justified, because it is
referred to as in England; but the same defence cannot be made for
_the bells of Saint Bennet_, as they are specifically alluded to.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE.
We have here an English jury in a German court of justice.
MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.
The scene of this play lies at Athens, in the time of Theseus,
but we find the mention of _guns_; of _French-crowns_ and
_French-crown-coloured beards_; of _church-yards_ and _coats in
heraldry_; of clean _linen_, new _ribbons to pumps_, and _masks_; of
_Jack and Gill_, the _nine-mens morris_, and _blessing the bridal bed_.
_Carols_, inasmuch as they are applicable to songs in general, and, in
an antiquated sense, to dances, may be doubtful, though the allusion
was in all probability to Christmas carols. Hermia is made to speak of
the fire which burned the _Carthage queen_.
MERCHANT OF VENICE.
English juries are introduced into the Venetian republic.
WINTER'S TALE.
The transactions of this play arise in Sicily and Bohemia; and though
the characters are imaginary, they are supposed to exist in Pagan
times. Notwithstanding this we have _Whitson_ pastorals, _Christian_
burial, a _hobby-horse_, an emperor of _Russia_, and an Italian printer
of the _fifteenth century_.
COMEDY OF ERRORS.
In the _ancient_ city of Ephesus we have _ducats_, _marks_, and
_guilders_, and the _abbess of a nunnery_. Mention is also made of
several _modern_ European kingdoms, and of _America_; of _Henry the
Fourth of France_, of _Turkish_ tapestry, a _rapier_, and a _striking
clock_; of _Lapland_ sorcerers, _Satan_, and even of _Adam_ and
_Noah_. In one place Antipholis calls himself a _Christian_. As we are
unacquainted with the immediate source whence this play was derived, it
is impossible to ascertain whether Shakspeare is responsible for these
anachronisms.
MACBETH.
The errors here are confined to the introduction of _cannon_ and of
_dollars_.
KING JOHN.
In this play we also find _cannon_, with _angels_, _half-fac'd
groats_, and _three-farthing pieces_. _Cards_ too are introduced, and
_Basilisco_, a character of the time of Shakspeare.
KING HENRY THE FOURTH.
The anachronisms are very numerous in the plays on this reign.
We have _pistols_ and _silk_ stockings; _gilt two-pences_, and
_ten-shilling-pieces_; a ballad with a _picture_ on it, evidently
alluding to the wood-cuts on those compositions; the game of
_shove-groat_ or _slide shrift_, which was not invented before the
reign of Henry the Eighth. Mention is also made of _John_ Scogan jester
to Edward the Fourth, and of _Arthur's show_, though not introduced
till a long time afterwards.
KING HENRY THE FIFTH.
The Turks are put into possession of Constantinople, which did not fall
into their hands till upwards of thirty years after Henry's death.
KING HENRY THE SIXTH.
Machiavel, who was not born till 1469, is twice introduced in these
plays. Printing is also prematurely mentioned.
KING HENRY THE EIGHTH.
An old woman is made to talk of bow'd _three-pences_; but these pieces
were not known in England till the reign of Edward the Sixth, though
some are said to have been coined in Ireland during that of Edward the
Fourth.
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.
Hector quotes _Aristotle_; Ulysses speaks of the bull-bearing _Milo_,
and Pandarus of a man born in _April_. _Friday_ and _Sunday_, and even
_minced-pies_ with dates in them are introduced.
TIMON OF ATHENS.
_Paper_ is mentioned in this play. In a Roman drama it might have
passed; but we have no evidence that the Greeks used the papyrus plant
at this early period.
CORIOLANUS.
_Alexander_, _Cato_, and _Galen_, are improperly alluded to, all being
posterior to the time of Coriolanus. Other anachronisms are--the
mention of graves in a holy _church-yard_; _groats_, _mummers_,
_lockram_, and a kitchen _malkin_. Coriolanus describes the populace by
the names of _Hob and Dick_.
JULIUS CÆSAR.
Cassius speaks of a _masker_ and _reveller_, and of the _clock striking
three_.
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.
Antony talks of _packing cards_, and deals out his _knaves_, _queens_,
_hearts_, and _trumps_, as if he were a whist-player. His bestowing the
epithet of _gipsy_ on Cleopatra is whimsical, but may perhaps admit of
defence.
CYMBELINE.
The British tribute being estimated at three thousand pounds, strikes
on the ear as a modern computation. Imogen calls her supposed master,
a valiant ancient Briton, by the name of _Richard Du Champ_. We find
mention of the recreation of _bowling_; of _paper_; of _rushes_ strewed
in apartments; of a _striking clock_; of _cherubims_, and a _chapel_ as
a _burial place_. Cymbeline is made to knight Bellario and his sons on
the field of battle by _dubbing_ them according to the fashion of the
middle ages.
TITUS ANDRONICUS.
The period in which the incidents in this play are supposed to have
happened (for they are all fictitious) is difficult to ascertain.
There was an usurper called Saturninus during the reigns of Gallien
and Aurelian, but he was not the son of any Roman emperor, as stated
in the _dramatis personæ_. From the introduction of the Goths, the
author perhaps adverted to the time of the above sovereigns. In all
events the play has many absurdities to answer for. A child is sent
to Aaron the Moor to be _christened_ by him. He accuses Lucius of
twenty _Popish_ tricks; talks of an _idiot's bauble_; and says he can
blush "like a black dog, as the saying is." A clown invokes "God and
_Saint Stephen_." Aaron calls for _clubs_, as if addressing the _London
'prentices_; and Demetrius speaks of a _dancing rapier_. _Cards_ and a
_monastery_ are also introduced.
PERICLES.
The story, though altogether fabulous, belongs to a period a little
antecedent to the Christian æra; and therefore it is a manifest
inconsistency to introduce _crowns of the sun_; _sequins_; a _pistol_;
_cambrick_; a _Spanish ruff_; _signs_ of inns; _Monsieur Veroles a
French knight_; a _Spanish_ name and motto, and the _lues Venerea_.
Amidst numerous invocations to Heathen Gods, there is an immediate
allusion to the unity of the Deity.
KING LEAR.
We have here a plentiful crop of blunders. Kent talks, like a good
Protestant, of _eating no fish_; and Gloster, of not standing in need
of _spectacles_. We have _Turks_, _Bedlam_ beggars, _child Roland_,
_Saint Withold_, a _Marshal of France_, _steeples_, _dollars_, _paper_,
_holy water_, and the _French disease_. There is an allusion to the
old theatrical _moralities_; and _Nero_, who did not live till several
hundred years after Lear, is mentioned by Edgar as an angler in the
lake of darkness.
HAMLET.
The Danish history has placed Hamlet in fabulous times, long before
the introduction of Christianity into the North of Europe; and
therefore there is great impropriety in the frequent allusion to
Christian customs. Hamlet swears by _Saint Patrick_; and converses
with Guildenstern on the _children of the chapel of Saint Paul's_.
In several places _cannon_ are introduced, and a good deal of the
theatrical manners of Shakspeare's own time. We have a Danish _seal
royal_ long before seals were used; a _university_ at Wittemberg;
_Swiss_ guards; _serjeants_ or _bailiffs_; _bells_; _ducats_;
_crown-pieces_; _modern heraldry_; _rapiers_, and terms of _modern
fencing_.
[Illustration: _Published by T. Tegg Cheapside, Sept.ʳ 1839._]
FOOTNOTES:
[44] Mr. Stothard, the most unassuming of men, but with every claim to
superior talent, has recently finished a painting of the procession of
Chaucer's Canterbury pilgrims, which may be classed among the choicest
morsels of its kind. The attention to accuracy of costume which it
displays has never been exceeded, and but very seldom so well directed.
DISSERTATION I.
ON THE CLOWNS AND FOOLS OF SHAKSPEARE.
The ensuing dissertation originated from the opinion of a late eminent
critic and antiquary that the subject was deserving of particular
consideration. How imperfectly it must be executed will best be felt
by those who are already accustomed to obscure inquiries; and little
more can here be offered, or reasonably expected, than some attempt to
arrange a few materials that have occurred during a course of reading
immediately connected with the history of ancient manners. The critic
above alluded to had remarked, that Shakspeare has most judiciously
varied and discriminated his fools.[45] Without doubting that great
writer's capacity to have done so, it certainly remains to be proved
that he has; or it might even be maintained that on some occasions he
has left his sketches so imperfect as to render it by no means an easy
matter to comprehend them. It has already been thought better to make
the attempt in a separate note to the plays in which a clown or fool is
introduced, and to direct what is now offered to a more general view of
the subject.
It is so exceedingly clear that the terms _clown_ and _fool_ were used,
however improperly, as synonymous by our old writers, that it would
be an unnecessary occupation of the reader's time to adduce examples.
Their confused introduction in the dramatis personæ might indeed
render this position doubtful to any one who had not well considered
the matter; but although the _fool_ of our old plays denoted either
a mere idiot or natural, or else a witty hireling or artificial fool,
both retained for the purpose of making sport for their employers,
the _clown_ was certainly a character of much greater variety. He
occasionally represented one of the above personages; sometimes he was
a mere rustic, and very often no more than a shrewd and witty domestic.
There are some instances in which any low character in a play served
to amuse the audience with his sallies of coarse buffoonery, and thus
became the _clown_ of the piece. In short, the theatrical clown or
fool seems to have been a kind of heterogeneous character, drawn in
part from real life, but very considerably heightened in order to
produce stage effect; an opinion that derives considerable support from
what Shakspeare has put into the mouth of Hamlet, when he makes him
admonish those who play the clowns to speak no more than is set down
for them. Indeed, the great dramatist himself cannot be absolved from
the imputation of having given too high a colouring to the characters
in question, unless we suppose, what is extremely probable, that his
plays have been very much interpolated with the extemporaneous nonsense
of the players. To this licentious practice the author of an excellent
and well written satire, entitled _Pasquil's mad-cappe, throwne at the
corruptions of these times_, 1626, 4to, alludes in the following lines:
"Tell country players, that old paltry jests
Pronounced in a painted motley coate,
Filles all the world so full of cuckoes nests,
That nightingales can scarcely sing a note:
Oh bid them turne their minds to better meanings;
Fields are ill sowne that give no better gleanings."
Among other grave writers of the age, Sir Philip Sidney has reprobated
the practice of introducing fools on the theatre. He remarks that the
plays of his time were neither right tragedies nor right comedies, but
that the authors mingled kings and clowns, "not," says he, "because
the matter so carieth it, but thrust in the _clowne_ by head and
shoulders to play a part in majestical matters, with neither decencie
nor discretion: so as neither the admiration and commiseration, nor the
right sportfulnesse is by their mongrell tragi-comedie obtained."[46]
William Rankin, a puritan, and contemporary with Shakspeare, has
left us a most virulent attack on plays, and players, whom he calls
monsters: "And whie monsters," says he, "Bicause under colour of
humanitie they present nothing but prodigious vanitie. These are wels
without water, dead branches fit for fuell, cockle amongst corne,
unwholesome weedes amongst sweete hearbes, and finallie, feends that
are crept into the worlde by stealth, and holde possession by subtill
invasion." In another place, describing the performers at a fictitious
banquet in Terralbon, [England] he says, "Some transformed themselves
to roges, other to ruffians, some other to _clownes_, a fourth to
_fooles_ ... the roges were ready, the ruffians were rude, _theyr
clownes cladde_ as well with country condition, as in ruffe russet;
theyr _fooles as fonde as might be_," &c.[47] The latter passage is
interesting, because the clown is properly distinguished from the fool,
as he always should have been.
It may be the means of affording a clearer view of the present subject,
if something like a classification of the different sorts of fools and
clowns be given. The following is therefore offered as a substitute for
a better.
I. _The general domestic fool_, often, but as it should seem
improperly, termed a clown. He was, 1. a mere natural, or idiot. 2.
Silly by nature, yet cunning and sarcastical. 3. Artificial. Puttenham,
speaking of the latter, says, "A buffoune or counterfet foole, to here
him speake wisely which is like himselfe, it is no sport at all; but
for such a counterfait to talke and looke foolishly it maketh us laugh,
because it is no part of his naturall."[48] All these officiated
occasionally as menial servants.
II. _The clown_, who was, 1. a mere country booby. 2. A witty rustic.
3. Any servant of a shrewd and witty disposition, and who, like a
similar character in our modern plays, was made to treat his master
with great familiarity in order to produce stage effect.
III. _The female fool_, who was generally an idiot.
IV. _The city or corporation fool_, whose office was to assist at
public entertainments and in pageants. To this class belong perhaps the
Lord Mayor's state fool, and those employed by the companies of trades,
&c.
V. _Tavern fools._ These seem to have been retained to amuse the
customers. We learn from one of Ben Jonson's plays that they exhibited
with a Jew's harp, mounted on a joint-stool,[49] and in another of them
he has preserved the name of such a character:[50] they were sometimes
qualified to sing after the Italian manner.[51] Fools were also
employed in the common brothels.[52]
VI. _The fool of the ancient theatrical mysteries and moralities._ He
was, more properly speaking, the _Vice_, a singular character, that
would afford sufficient matter for much better dissertations than those
of Warburton or Upton. Being generally dressed in a fool's habit, he
appears to have been gradually and undistinguishably blended with the
domestic fool; yet he was certainly a buffoon of a different sort. He
was always a bitter enemy to the Devil, and a part of his employment
consisted in teazing and tormenting the poor fiend on every occasion.
He ceased to be in fashion at the end of the sixteenth century.[53]
VII. _The fool in the old dumb shows exhibited at fairs and perhaps
at inns_, in which he was generally engaged in a struggle with Death;
a fact that seems alluded to more than once in Shakspeare's plays. It
is possible that some casual vestiges of this species of entertainment
might have suggested the modern English pantomimes.
VIII. _The fool in the Whitsun ales and Morris dance._
IX. _The mountebank's fool, or merry Andrew._
There may be others introduced into our old dramas of an indefinite
and irregular kind, and not reducible to any of the above classes; but
to exemplify these or many of the above by a specific reference to
authorities is not within the scope of the present essay. It is hoped
that what has been just stated may contribute to assist the readers of
old plays in forming some judgment of their own whenever the necessity
shall arise.
A general investigation of that most singular and eccentric character,
the real domestic fool, would occupy more space than could here
have been spared. It would indeed extend to a length that few will
conceive; but should the same laudable spirit of curiosity respecting
the manners of former times which at present constitutes much of the
amusement of an enlightened public continue to maintain its influence,
encouragement would not be wanting to resume the subject more at large.
In the mean time it may be sufficient to remark that the practice of
retaining fools can be traced in very remote times throughout almost
all civilized and even among some barbarous nations. It prevailed
from the palace to the brothel. The pope had his fool, and the bawd
her's; and ladies entertained them of both sexes. With respect to the
antiquity of this custom in our own country, there is reason to suppose
that it existed even during the period of our Saxon history; but we
are quite certain of the fact in the reign of William the Conqueror.
An almost contemporary historian, Maitre Wace, has left us a curious
account of the preservation of William's life when he was only duke
of Normandy by his fool _Goles_.[54] Mention is made in Domesday of
_Berdic joculator regis_; and although this term was unquestionably
applied in numerous instances to denote a minstrel, much evidence might
be adduced to show that on this occasion it signified a buffoon. Latin
terms were used by the middle-age writers so licentiously and with such
extreme carelessness, that in many cases it is difficult to obtain a
precise idea of their meaning. Thus the jesters and minstrels were
indefinitely expressed by the words _joculator_, _scurra_, _mimus_,
_ministrallus_, &c., a practice that may admit of justification when we
consider that in early times the minstrel and buffoon characters were
sometimes united in one person. It must be allowed, however, that in an
etymological point of view the term _joculator_ is much better adapted
to the jester than the minstrel.
The accounts of the household expenses of our sovereigns contain many
payments and rewards to fools both foreign and domestic, the motives
for which do not appear, but might perhaps have been some witty speech
or comic action that had pleased the donors. Some of these payments are
annual gifts at Christmas. Dr. Fuller, speaking of the court jester,
whom he says some count a necessary evil, remarks, in his usual quaint
manner, that it is an office which none but he that hath wit can
perform, and none but he that wants it will perform.[55] A great many
names of these buffoons have been preserved; and sufficient materials
remain to furnish a separate biography of them, which might afford even
more amusement than can be found in the lives of many of their betters.
They continued an appurtenance to the English court to a late period.
Muckle John, the fool of Charles the First, and the successor of Archee
Armstrong, is perhaps the last regular personage of the kind.[56] The
national troubles that produced the downfall of regal power, and the
puritanical manners that ensued, at once determined the existence of
an office that had so long maintained its ground at court: and when
Charles the Second resumed the throne, it was probably deemed a matter
of no moment to restore it. The common stories that relate to Killigrew
as jester to Charles, rest on no sufficient authority; and although
he might have contributed to amuse the witty monarch with his jokes,
it is certain that he had no regular appointment to such an office.
Mr. Granger has justly observed that the wit of the buffoons became
the highest recommendation of a courtier in the time of Charles the
Second.[57]
The discontinuance of the court fool had a considerable influence on
the manners of private life; and we learn from one of Shadwell's plays,
that it was then "out of fashion for great men to keep fools."[58]
But the practice was by no means abolished; it maintained its ground
in this country so late as the beginning of the last century; and
we have an epitaph, written by Dean Swift, on Dicky Pearce the Earl
of Suffolk's fool, who was buried in Berkley church-yard, June 18,
1728.[59] This person was an idiot. Lord Chancellor Talbot kept a Welsh
jester named Rees Pengelding. He was a very shrewd fellow, and rented a
farm of his master. Being distrained on for his rent by an oppressive
steward, who had been a tailor and bore him a grudge, the surly fellow
said to him on this occasion, "I'll fit you, sirrah."
"Then," replied Rees, "it will be the first time in your life that
you ever fitted any one." Another Welshman called Will the taborer
was retained in a similar capacity, about the beginning of the
last century, by Sir Edward Stradling, of St. Donat's castle, in
Glamorganshire. He is said to have been a very witty fellow, and man of
strong intellects. Lord Bussy Mansel, of Margam, had likewise in his
service one Robin Rush, an idiot by nature, but who often said very
witty things. There are people now alive in Wales, or lately were, who
well remembered him.
The sort of entertainment that fools were expected to afford, may be
collected in great variety from our old plays, and particularly from
those of Shakspeare; but perhaps no better idea can be formed of their
general mode of conduct than from the following passage in a singular
tract by Lodge, entitled _Wit's miserie_, 1599, 4to: "Immoderate and
disordinate joy became incorporate in the bodie of a jeaster; this
fellow in person is comely, in apparell courtly, but in behaviour a
very ape, and no man; his studie is to coine bitter jeasts, or to
shew antique motions, or to sing baudie sonnets and ballads: give him
a little wine in his head, he is continually flearing and making of
mouthes: he laughs intemperately at every little occasion, and dances
about the house, leaps over tables, out-skips mens heads, trips up
his companions heeles, burns sack with a candle, and hath all the
feats of a lord of misrule in the countrie: feed him in his humor, you
shall have his heart, in meere kindness he will hug you in his armes,
kisse you on the cheeke, and rapping out an horrible oth, crie God's
soule Tum, I love you, you know my poore heart, come to my chamber for
a pipe of tabacco, there lives not a man in this world that I more
honor. In these ceremonies you shall know his courting, and it is a
speciall mark of him at the table, he sits and makes faces: keep not
this fellow company, for in _jugling_ with him, your wardropes shall be
wasted, your credits crackt, your crownes consumed, and time (the most
precious riches of the world) utterly lost." This is the picture of a
real hireling or artificial fool.
As the profession of these hirelings required a considerable degree
of skill and dexterity to amuse their employers, so it would in some
instances fail of success, and the want of the above talents would
excite considerable disgust and dissatisfaction. Cardinal Perron being
one day in company with the duke of Mantua, the latter, speaking of
his fool, said that he was _un magro buffone & non haver spirito_. The
cardinal remarked that nevertheless he had wit. "Why so?" demanded the
duke. "Because," replied the other, "he lives by a trade which he does
not understand."[60] The liberties allowed them were necessarily very
great; but this was not always a protection to them. Every one knows
the disgracefully severe conduct of archbishop Laud to poor Archee.
The duke d'Espernon, though a man of great haughtiness of spirit,
conducted himself on a similar occasion with much more discretion.
His Gascon accent was a constant subject of raillery on the part of
Maret, the fool of Louis XIII., whose great talent lay in mimicry.
Cardinal Richelieu, who took upon him to give the duke some pointed
admonitions, ordered him among other things to endeavour to get rid
of his provincial tones, at the same time counterfeiting his speech,
and sarcastically intreating him not to take his advice in bad part.
"But why should I," replied the duke, "when I bear as much every day
from the king's fool, who mocks me in your presence?"[61] Selden has
remarked, on a similar occasion, that a gallant man is above ill words,
and has left us a story of the forbearance of the old lord Salisbury,
whom he calls a great wise man, towards Stone, a celebrated fool in the
reign of James the First.[62] Fools, however, did not always escape
with impunity; they were liable to, and often experienced, very
severe domestic castigation. Whipping was the punishment generally
inflicted.[63] On the other hand they appear to have been sometimes
used with great tenderness. This is very feelingly exemplified in the
conduct of Lear. Stafford in his _Guide of honour_, 1634, 18mo, tells
us, that he "had knowne a great and competently wise man who would
much respect any man that was good to his foole." An opportunity here
presents itself of explaining the old proverb of "five pounds; you've
bled a fool," which, adverting to the usual privilege or allowance
belonging to this character, seems to demand a forfeit from whoever had
infringed it by inflicting an improper and unlawful chastisement. This
exposition derives support from a passage in Ben Jonson's _Fox_, and
also contributes to its illustration. In the second Act there is a song
describing a fool, in which it is said that he "speaks truth free from
slaughter." This has been with some ingenuity supposed to mean "_free_
from hurting any one." The other construction may perhaps be thought as
plausible.
With respect to his office on the stage, we may suppose it would be
nearly the same as in reality; the difference might be that his wit
was more highly seasoned. Mr. Malone has already cited a very curious
passage on this subject from the play of _The careless shepherdess_,
1656.[64] In Middleton's _Mayor of Quinborough_, a company of actors
with a clown make their appearance, and the following dialogue ensues:
FIRST CHEATER.
This is our clown, sir.
SIMON.
Fye, fye, your company
Must fall upon him and beat him; he's too fair, i' faith
To make the people laugh.
FIRST CHEATER.
Not as he may be dress'd sir.
SIMON.
'Faith, dress him how you will, I'll give him
That gift, he will never look half scurvily enough.
Oh, the clowns that I have seen in my time.
The very peeping out of one of them would have
Made a young heir laugh, though his father lay a dying;
A man undone in law the day before
(The saddest case that can be) might for his second
Have burst himself with laughing, and ended all
His miseries. Here was a merry world, my masters!
Some talk of things of state, of puling stuff;
There's nothing in a play like to a clown,
If he have the grace to hit on it, that's the thing indeed.
SIMON.
Away then, shift; clown to thy _motley_ crupper.
Whoever is desirous of obtaining general and accurate information
concerning the great variety of dresses that belong to some of the
characters in question at different periods, must study ancient
prints and paintings, and especially the miniatures that embellish
manuscripts. These will afford sufficient specimens; but the difficulty
of ascertaining how the _theatrical fools and clowns_ of Shakspeare's
time were _always_ habited, is insuperable. In some instances the
plays themselves assist by peculiar references that leave but little
doubt; but this is not the case in general. It is to be lamented
that our artists did not appropriate more of their labours to the
representation of theatrical subjects, and the fortunate discovery of
a single ancient painting of this kind would be of more importance
than a volume of conjectural dissertations. As it may be presumed that
former theatrical managers exhibited with fidelity on the stage, the
manners of their own times, a reference to the materials which remain
to illustrate the dress of the real fools, may supply the defect before
alluded to.
It may be collected both from the plays themselves, and from
various other authorities, that the costume of the domestic fool in
Shakspeare's time was of two sorts. In the first of these the coat
was motley or parti-coloured, and attached to the body by a girdle,
with bells at the skirts and elbows, though not always. The breeches
and hose close, and sometimes each leg of a different colour. A hood
resembling a monk's cowl, which, at a very early period, it was
certainly designed to imitate, covered the head entirely, and fell down
over part of the breast and shoulders. It was sometimes decorated with
asses ears, or else terminated in the neck and head of a cock,[65] a
fashion as old as the fourteenth century. It often had the comb or
crest only of the animal,[66] whence the term _cockscomb_ or _coxcomb_
was afterwards used to denote any silly upstart. This fool usually
carried in his hand an official scepter or bauble, which was a short
stick ornamented at the end with the figure of a fool's head, or
sometimes with that of a doll or puppet.[67] To this instrument there
was frequently annexed an inflated skin or bladder, with which the
fool belaboured those who offended him, or with whom he was inclined
to make sport; this was often used by itself, in lieu, as it should
seem, of a bauble.[68] The form of it varied, and in some instances
was obscene in the highest degree. It was not always filled with air,
but occasionally with sand, or peas. Sometimes a strong bat or club
was substituted for the bauble.[69] In the second tale of the priests
of Peblis, a man who counterfeits a fool is described "with _club_ and
bel and partie cote with eiris;" but it afterwards appears that he had
both a club and a bauble. In an inventory of the goods of the ancient
company of Saint George at Norwich, mention is made of "two habits,
one for the _club-bearer_, another for his man, who are now called
fools;"[70] and the author of _Tarlton's newes out of purgatory_, 1630,
4to, describes a dream in which he saw "one attired in russet with a
button'd cap on his head, a great bag by his side, and a _strong bat_
in his hand, so artificially attired for a clowne, as I began to call
Tarlton's woonted shape to remembrance."
In some old prints the fool is represented with a sort of flapper
or rattle ornamented with bells. It seems to have been constructed
of two round and flat pieces of wood or pasteboard, and is no doubt
a vestige of the crotalum used by the Roman mimes or dancers.[71]
This implement was used for the same purpose as the bladder, and
occasionally for correcting the fool himself whenever he behaved with
too much licentiousness. Such a castigation is actually exhibited in
one ancient German edition of the _Ship of fools_, by Sebastian Brandt;
but the usual punishment on this occasion was a simple whipping. In
some old plays the fool's _dagger_ is mentioned, perhaps the same
instrument as was carried by the _Vice_ or buffoon of the Moralities;
and it may be as well to observe in this place that the domestic fool
is sometimes, though it is presumed improperly, called the Vice.[72]
The dagger of the latter was made of a thin piece of lath; and the use
he generally made of it was to belabour the Devil. It appears that in
Queen Elizabeth's time the archbishop of Canterbury's fool had a wooden
dagger and coxcomb.[73] In Greene's play of _Fryer Bacon_, the fool
speaks of his dagger. In Beaumont and Fletcher's _Noble gentleman_,
a person being compared to a fool, it is added that he should wear a
guarded coat and a _great wooden dagger_. In Chapman's _Widows tears_,
an upstart governor is termed "a wooden dagger _gilded_ o'er;" and
Rabelais has made Panurge give Triboulet the fool a wooden sword. In an
old German print a fool is represented with a sword like a _saw_.[74]
The other dress, and which seems to have been more common in the time
of Shakspeare, was the long petticoat.[75] This originally appertained
to the idiot or natural fool, and was obviously adopted for the
purposes of cleanliness and concealment. Why it came to be used for the
allowed fool is not so apparent. It was, like the first, of various
colours, the materials often costly, as of velvet, and guarded or
fringed with yellow.[76] In one instance we have a _yellow leather_
doublet.[77] In Bancroft's _Epigrams_, 1639, quarto, there is one
addressed "to a giglot with her greene sicknesse," in which are these
lines,
"Thy sicknesse mocks thy pride, that's seldom seene
But in _foole's yellow_, and the lover's greene."
And a manuscript note in the time of the commonwealth states yellow
to have been the _fool's colour_. This petticoat dress continued to
a late period, and has been seen not many years since in some of the
interludes exhibited in Wales.
But the above were by no means the only modes in which the domestic
fools were habited. Many variations can be traced. The hood was not
always surmounted with the cocks comb, in lieu of which a single bell
and occasionally more appeared.[78] Sometimes a feather was added to
the comb.[79] In the old morality of _The longer thou livest the more
foole thou art_, Moros the fool says,
"By my trouth the thing that I desire most
Is in my cappe to have a _goodly feather_."
The head was frequently shaved in imitation or perhaps ridicule of a
monk's crown. This practice is very ancient, and can be traced to the
twelfth century. In one instance the hair exhibits a sort of triple or
Papal crown.[80] The tails of foxes or squirrels were often suspended
to the garment. Godfrey Gobilive, the fool in Hawes's _Pastime of
pleasure_, 1517, 4to, is described as so habited. In _The pope's
funerall_, 1605, 4to, the author says, "I shall prove him such a noddy
before I leave him that all the world will deeme him worthy to weare
in his forehead a coxcombe for his foolishness, and on his back, a
_fox tayle_ for his badge." It was likewise the dress of the fool in
the plough pageant and morris dance.[81] One might almost conclude that
this custom was designed to ridicule a fashion that prevailed among
the ladies in the reign of Edward the Third, and which is mentioned
by the author of the old chronicle of England, erroneously ascribed
to Caxton the printer, in the following terms: "And the women more
nysely yet passed the men in aray and coriouslaker, for they were so
streyt clothed that they let hange _fox tailles_ sowed bineth within
hir clothes for to hele and hide thir a--, the which disguysinges and
pride paradventure afterward brouzt forth and encaused many myshappes
and meschief in the reame of Englond." The idiot or natural was often
clothed in a calf or sheep's skin.[82]
A large purse or wallet at the girdle is a very ancient part of the
fool's dress. Tarlton, who personated the clowns in Shakspeare's time,
appears to have worn it.[83] The budget given by Panurge to Triboulet
the fool is described as made of a tortoise shell.[84]
We may suppose that the same variety of dress was observed on the stage
which we know to have actually prevailed in common life. The fools,
however, did not always appear in a discriminative habit, and some of
their portraits still remaining confirm this observation. A very fine
painting by Holbein, in Kensington palace, represents Will Somers the
fool of Henry the Eighth, in a common dress.[85] In a wardrobe account
of that sovereign, we find these articles: "For making a dubblette of
wursteede lyned with canvas and cotton, for William Som'ar oure foole.
Item for making of a coote and a cappe of grene clothe fringed with red
crule and lyned with fryse, for our saide foole. Item for making of a
dublette of fustian, lyned with cotton and canvas for oure same foole."
Yet he sometimes wore the usual hood instead of a cap; for in the same
account is an article "For making of a coote of grene clothe with a
_hoode_ to the same, fringed with white crule lyned with fryse and
bokerham, for oure foole aforesaid;"[86] and there is a print of him
after a picture by Holbein, in which he is represented in a long tunic
with a chain and horn in his hand.[87] In the celebrated picture of Sir
Thomas More's family by Holbein, Patenson the fool is not distinguished
by any peculiarity of dress, and, in one instance at least, the same
remark applies to Archy, the fool of James I.[88] In those families
where the fool acted as a menial servant, it is possible that he might
have reserved his official habit for particular occasions. The paucity
of materials that illustrate the theatrical character in question, must
necessarily leave this part of the subject still more imperfect than
the rest; but the plays of Shakspeare have furnished more information
than those of any other writer. It is surprising, on the whole, that
the character of the domestic fool is so seldom found in the old dramas
that remain; because it was not only capable of affording considerable
mirth to the unrefined part of the audience, but of giving the authors
an opportunity of displaying a great deal of ingenuity so far as
regarded extemporary wit. It is certain that the fools in Shakspeare's
plays were pre-eminent above all others. For this we have the authority
of Shadwell, who makes one of his characters say that they had more wit
than any of the wits and critics of his time.[89] Beaumont and Fletcher
have but rarely introduced them; Ben Jonson and Massinger never.
Indeed, the originals had rapidly declined at the period in which most
of their plays were written, and another character of a mixed nature
been substituted in their room. This was the witty servant or clown
(Class II. No. 3.), and of course his dress was not distinguished by
any peculiarity.
The practice of introducing the fools and clowns between the acts and
scenes, and after the play was finished, to amuse the audience with
extemporaneous wit and buffoonery, has been so well illustrated by
the able historian of the English stage, that very little can remain
to be said on the subject.[90] It has been traced from the Greek and
Roman theatres; and, as their usages were undoubtedly preserved in
those of the middle ages that belonged to the countries where Roman
influence had been spread, it would not of course be peculiar to the
early stage in England. Indeed, the records of the French theatre amply
demonstrate the truth of this position, and furnish several examples
of the practice in question. In the mystery of _Saint Barbara_ we
find this stage direction, "Pausa. Vadant, et Stultus loquitur;" and
he is several times introduced in like manner between the scenes, in
order that the amusement of the spectators might not be suspended
whilst something was in agitation for the further prosecution of
the piece.[91] Perhaps the most singular _pause_ in any dramatic
composition whatsoever is one which occurs in the very rare morality
of _La condamnation des banquetz_ in the following words: "Pause pour
pisser le fol. Il prent ung coffinet en lieu de orinal & pisse dedans,
et tout coule par bas," sign. M iiij. Nor was the English stage in
Shakspeare's time allowed to remain empty. Lupton has related a story
of the clown at the Red Bull theatre, who was suddenly called for
between the acts, and forgot his fool's cap.[92] Puttenham, speaking
of verses that rhime in the middle and end, observes that "they were
more commodiously uttered by the buffoons or vices in plays than by any
other person."[93] It was likewise part of the stage fool's office to
introduce at his own discretion a great many old songs, or at least the
fragments of them.[94]
The first symptoms of the decline of the domestic fools, and the
causes of it, have been already touched on; and the same reasons may
partly be assigned for their exile from the stage. In the præludium
to Goffe's _Careless shepherdess_, 1656, 4to, there is a panegyric on
them,[95] and some concern is manifested for the fool's absence in the
play itself. It is likewise expressly stated that "the motly coat was
banish'd with trunk-hose." Yet during the reign of Charles the Second
occasional efforts were made to restore the character. In the tragedy
of _Thorney abbey, or the London maid_, 1662, 12mo, the prologue is
spoken by a fool who uses these words, "the poet's a fool who made the
tragedy to tell a story of a king and a court and leave a fool out
on't, when in Pacy's and Sommer's and Patche's and Archee's times,
my venerable predecessours, a fool was alwaies the principal verb."
Shadwell's play of _The woman captain_, 1680, is perhaps the last in
which a regular fool is introduced, and even there his master is made
to say that the character was then exploded on the stage.
The following is some additional and necessary explanation of the cuts
belonging to this dissertation.
Plate II. fig. 1, is from _Catzii emblemata_. Fig. 2 is the duke of
Suffolk's fool in the time of Henry VIII., copied from a print in Mr.
Brydges's _Memoirs of the peers of England_. Figs. 3 and 4 are from
paintings in the author's possession. The centre fig. is from a print
by Breughel.
Plate III. All these instruments, excepting fig. 3, before described,
are taken from various Dutch and German prints.
Plate IV. fig. 1, is from an old German print by an unknown master.
[Illustration: Plate IV.
_Published by T. Tegg, Cheapside, Sept.ʳ 1839._]
[Illustration: Plate III.
_Published by T. Tegg, Cheapside, Sept.ʳ 1839._]
[Illustration: Plate II.
_Published by T. Tegg. Cheapside, Sept.ʳ 1839._]
Figs. 1 and 3 below are from _A booke of Christian prayers_, &c., 1590,
4to, being figures belonging to a dance of Death. Fig. 2 is from the
frontispiece to Heywood's comedy of _The fair maid of the exchange_.
Similar figures of the costume of fools in the time of James I., or
Charles I., may be seen in _The life of Will Summers_, compiled long
after his time. Figs. 4 and 5 are from _La grant danse Macabre_,
printed at Troyes without date, but about the year 1500, in folio, a
book of uncommon rarity and curiosity. Fig. 6 is from the _Stultarum
virginum scaphæ, seu naviculæ_ of Badius Ascensius, another work of
much rarity, and far exceeding that of the ship of fools by Sebastian
Brandt. In all the editions of the latter, a great variety of the
fools of the fifteenth century will be found. Fig. 7 is from a French
translation of St. Augustine on the city of God, printed at Abbeville
1486. It exemplifies the use of the tabor and pipe by fools; a practice
that seems to have been revived by Tarlton in the time of Elizabeth.
Figures 3, 4, and 6, have been introduced to show the costume of female
fools. Among others of this kind that might deserve notice is a very
interesting one in the picture, by Holbein, of Henry the Eighth's
family already mentioned.
[Illustration: 1]
[Illustration: 2]
[Illustration: 3]
[Illustration: 4]
[Illustration: 5]
[Illustration: 6]
[Illustration: 7]
FOOTNOTES:
[45] See a note by Mr. Ritson in _Twelfth night_, Act II. Scene 3,
edit. Steevens, vol. iv. p. 53.
[46] Defence of poesie, near the end.
[47] Mirrour of monsters, 1587, 4to, fo. 7.
[48] Arte of English poesie, 1589, 4to, fo. 243.
[49] _The devil is an ass_, Sc. 1.
[50] _The fox_, Act II. Sc. 1.
[51] Marston's Malcontent, Sc. 7.
[52] See p. 94.
[53] _The devil is an ass_, Sc. 1.
[54] Roman des ducs de Normandie, MS. Reg. 4, C. xi.
[55] Holy state, p. 182.
[56] This person was probably the subject of the following lines in
Bancroft's _Epigrams_, 1639, 4to:
"How plumpe's the libertine! how rich and trimme!
He jests with others, fortune jests with him."
Mr. Garrard, in a letter to lord Strafford, says, "There is a new fool
in his [Archee's] place, Muckle John, but he will ne'er be so rich, for
he cannot abide money."--_Strafford papers_, ii. 154.
[57] Biogr. hist. of England, i. 116.
[58] _The woman captain_, 1680, Sc. i.
[59] Bigland's _Collect. for Gloucest._
[60] Perroniana, inter Scaligerana, &c. i. 115.
[61] Vigneul de Marville, Mêlanges, ii. 50.
[62] Table talk, Art. Evil-speaking.