book iii. c. 3, speaking of the _Pavan_ as a tune, describes it as

"the height of composition made only to delight the ear: be it of 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 parts [it] doth commonly consist of three straines, each straine to be played twice over." In an old MS. collection of lessons for the virginals, there is one called "Dr. Bull's _melancholy_ pavin." Mr. Tyrwhitt, therefore, is right in supposing that a jovial blade like Sir Toby would be naturally averse to these grave dances, and the dullness of the tunes belonging to them.

SCENE 1. Page 162.

DUKE. One face, one voice, one habit and two persons; A natural _perspective_, that is, and is not.

The several kinds of perspective glasses that were used in Shakspeare's time, may be found collected together in Scot's _Discoverie of witchcraft_, 1584, 4to, book xiii. ch. 19. They cannot be exceeded in number by any modern optician's shop in England. Among these, that alluded to by the Duke is thus described: "There be glasses also wherein one man may see another man's image, and not his own." It is to be observed that a _perspective_ formerly meant a _glass_ that assisted the sight in any way.

SCENE 1. Page 169.

MAL. And made the most notorious _geck_, and gull.

Dr. Johnson rightly explains geck, a fool. It is so in all the Northern languages. In Saxon, ᵹæc is a cuckow, whence _gouk_, _gawk_, and _gawky_. Mr. Steevens's quotations seem to exhibit the word in another sense, viz. a _mock_ or _mockery_.

THE CLOWN.

The clown in this play is a domestic or hired fool, in the service of Olivia. He is specifically termed "an _allowed_ fool," and "Feste the jester, a fool that the lady Olivia's father took much delight in." Malvolio likewise speaks of him as "a set fool." Of his dress it is impossible to speak correctly. If the fool's expression, "I will _impeticoat_ thy gratility," be the original language, he must have been habited accordingly. Mr. Ritson has asserted that he has neither coxcomb nor bauble, deducing his argument from the want of any allusion to them. Yet such an omission may be a very fallacious guide in judging of the habit of this character on the stage. It must, however, be admitted, that where this happens there can be no clue as to the precise manner in which the fool was dressed.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] their.

[5] The mention of the region of Christianity is a whimsical anachronism as connected with the story of Alexander; but we must do our author the justice to admit that in _his_ time the Ethiopians were Christians.

[6] is called.

[7] to see.

[8] fairness, beauty.

MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 180.

DUKE. ... Then no more remains, But that to your _sufficiency_, as your worth is able, And let them work.

_Sufficiency_ is, no doubt, _ability_, and not _authority_, as Warburton conceives; and this shows that there is an omission in the speech of what the duke would have added concerning the authority which he meant to delegate. The most rational addition is that suggested by Mr. Tyrwhitt. It is remarkable that Dr. Johnson should contend for the introduction of a line of _thirteen_ syllables!

SCENE 1. Page 186.

DUKE. _Mortality_ and _mercy_ in Vienna Live in thy _tongue_ and _heart_.

That is, "I delegate to thy tongue the power of pronouncing sentence of death, and to thy heart the privilege of exercising mercy." These are words of great import, and ought to be made clear, as on them depends the chief incident of the play.

SCENE 2. Page 191.

LUCIO. Behold, behold, &c.

This speech should have been given to the _first gentleman_, in order to correspond with the note, which is probably right.

SCENE 2. Page 191.

LUCIO. A _French crown_ more.

The quotations already given sufficiently exemplify the meaning; yet that which follows being remarkably illustrative, is offered in addition. "More seeming friendship [is] to be had in _an house of transgression_ for a _French crown_, though it be a _bald one_, than at Belinsgate for a boxe o' th'eare." _Vox graculi, or Jack Dawe's prognostication_, 1623, 4to, p. 60.

SCENE 2. Page 192.

I. GENT. How now, which of your _hips_ has the most profound _sciatica_?

A most appropriate question to the bawd. The author of the facetious Latin comedy of _Cornelianum dolium_ has named one of Cornelius's strumpets _Sciatica_. She thus speaks of herself; "In lectulo meo ægrè me vertere potui; podagram, chiragram, et _hip_-agram (si ita dicere liceat) nocte quotidie sensi."

SCENE 2. Page 195.

BAWD. What's to do here, _Thomas_ Tapster?

Why does she call the clown by this name, when it appears from his own showing that his name was _Pompey_? Perhaps she is only quoting some old saying or ballad.

SCENE 3. Page 201.

CLAUD. ... for in her youth There is a _prone_ and speechless dialect.

One of the old significations of this word appears to have been _easily moving_, which is evidently the sense required in this place. See Cotgrave's _Dictionary_, in _prone_.

SCENE 4. Page 203.

DUKE. Where youth and cost and witless bravery _keeps_.

Mr. Reed's explanation of this word as used for _dwells_, is confirmed by another passage in this play, Act IV. Scene 1.

"... a breath thou art That dost this _habitation_ where thou _keep'st_ Hourly afflict."

SCENE 5. Page 208.

LUCIO. _For that, which_ if myself might be his judge, He should receive his punishment in thanks.

It has been conceived that there is here a transposition at the press for "that for which." The emendation is more grammatical than _harmonious_; but the expression is quite in Shakspeare's manner. A few pages further on we have this similar phraseology:

"Whether you had not sometime in your life Err'd in this point _which now you censure him_."

SCENE 5. Page 211.

LUCIO. Your brother and his _lover_.

This term was applied to the female sex not only in Shakspeare's time, but even to a very late period. Lady Wortley Montagu in a letter to her husband, speaking of a young girl who forbade the bans of marriage at Huntingdon, calls her _lover_. See her works, vol. i. p. 238.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 216.

ESCAL. Let us be keen, and rather cut a little Than _fall_ and bruise to death.

On the very plausible authority of a passage in _As you like it_, where the executioner is said to "fall his axe," the present metaphor has been supposed to refer also to the punishment of decapitation. If it be so, there is a manifest impropriety in the expression "cut a little," as we are not to imagine that Escalus would intend to chop off a criminal's hand, or to deprive him of his ears; both modes of punishment, which though frequently practised in the reign of Elizabeth, seem exclusively adapted to a community of barbarians. May not the metaphor be rather borrowed from the cutting down of timber, and Escalus mean to say, "Is it not better to lop off a few branches, than to _fall_ the whole tree?"

SCENE 1. Page 217.

ANG. The jury, passing on the prisoner's life May, in the sworn twelve, have a thief or two, &c.

We have here one of Shakspeare's trips; an English jury in a German court of justice.

SCENE 1. Page 223.

CLO. Your honours have seen such dishes; they are not _China dishes_, but very good dishes.

We must not conclude with Mr Steevens that a _China dish_ was such an uncommon thing in the age of Shakspeare. In the first act of Massinger's _Renegado_, this article is mentioned, together with crystal glasses and pictures, as composing the furniture of a broker's shop; and it appears from other authorities that China dishes were used at banquets. During the reign of Elizabeth several Spanish carracks were taken, a part of whose cargoes was _China ware of porcelaine_. The recent seizure by Philip II. of Portugal and its colonies led to this sort of commerce in the East Indies. In Minsheu's _Spanish dialogues_, 1623, folio, p. 12, _China mettall_ is explained to be "the fine dishes of earth painted, such as are brought from Venice." It is very probable that we had this commodity by means of our traffic with Italy, which also supplied the term _porcelaine_. China ware was so called from its resemblance to the polished exterior of the _concha Veneris_ or some other similar shell, which, for reasons that cannot here be given, was called _porcellana_. The curious reader may find a clue by consulting Florio's Italian dictionary, 1598, under the word _porcile_. In the time of Cromwell a duty of twenty shillings was paid on every dozen _China dishes_ under a quart, and of sixty on those of a quart and upwards. See _Oliverian acts_, A. D. 1657.

SCENE 2. Page 238.

ISAB. ... spare him, spare him; He's not prepar'd for death! Even for our kitchens We kill the fowl _of season_.

She means "not _before_ it is in season; not _prematurely_, as you would kill my brother."

SCENE 2. Page 240.

ISAB. Could great men thunder As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet, For ev'ry pelting petty officer Would use his heaven for thunder; nothing but thunder.

This fine sentiment, which nevertheless contains a very obvious fault in the mode of expressing it, appears to have been suggested by the following lines in Ovid's _Tristia_, lib. ii., that Shakspeare might have read in Churchyard's translation:

"Si quoties peccant homines sua fulmina mittat Jupiter, exiguo tempore inermis erit."

SCENE 2. Page 240.

ISAB.. Merciful heaven! Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak, Than the soft myrtle.

There is much affinity between the above lines and these in Persius, sat. ii.:

"Ignovisse putas, quia, cum tonat, ocyus ilex Sulfure discutitur sacro, quam tuque domusque?"

But although there were two or three editions of that author published in England in the reign of Elizabeth, he does not appear to have been then translated.

SCENE 2. Page 243.

ISAB. ... prayers from _preserved_ souls, From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate To nothing temporal.

Here is no metaphor from _preserved fruits_, as Warburton fancifully conceives. _Preserved_ is used in its common and obvious acceptation. Isabella alludes to the prayers of her fellow nuns in addition to her own.

SCENE 2. Page 246.

ANG. O cunning _enemy_, that, to catch a saint, With saints dost bait thy hook!

_Enemy_ is here used for the _Devil_. See before in p. 62, 63.

SCENE 4. Page 260.

ISAB. ... Sir, believe this, I had rather give my body than my soul.

It is Isabella's purpose to give an evasive or ambiguous answer to Angelo's strange question, and she accordingly does so. Or, if it have any meaning, it may be "I would even consent to your terms if I could save my soul, or if my soul did not thereby incur perdition."

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 272.

DUKE. ... merely thou art _Death's fool_; For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun, And yet run'st toward him still.

And in _Pericles_, Act III. Scene 2, "to please the _fool and death_." One note may serve for both these passages.

Dr. Warburton had conceived an allusion in the first speech to certain characters of _death and the fool_ in the old _moralities_, in which, most unquestionably, they are not to be found, at least, in any which now remain. It is in this place that the latter part of Mr. Steevens's note on the passage in _Pericles_ should have been introduced, with the following additional circumstances that had probably escaped the learned commentator's recollection; that his informant concerning the skeleton character at the fair remembered also to have seen another personage in the habit of a fool: and that arriving when the performances at the booth were finished for the evening, he could not succeed in procuring a repetition of the piece, losing thereby the means of all further information on the subject. It is therefore probable that the remainder of Dr. Warburton's note is correct, although he may have erred in his designation of this mummery. What connection the subject in question has with the old initial letter of _death and the fool_, and the _dance of death_, is shown in a note to _Love's labour lost_, vol. v. p. 316, and in another on the passage in _Pericles_, both of which should have been incorporated with the present.

Mr. Ritson, in correcting a remark made by the ingenious continuator of Ben Jonson's _Sad shepherd_, has inaccurately stated that the figures in the initial letter were "actually copied from the margin of an old missal." The letter that occurs in Stowe's _Survey of London_, edit. 1618, 4to, is only an enlarged but imperfect copy from another belonging to a regular dance of death used as initials by some of the Basil printers in the sixteenth century, and which, from the extraordinary skill that accompanies their execution, will ever rank amongst the finest efforts in the art of engraving on blocks of wood or metal. Most of the subjects in this dance of death have undoubtedly been supplied by that curious pageant of mortality which, during the middle ages, was so great a favourite as to be perpetually exhibited to the people either in the sculpture and painting of ecclesiastical buildings, or in the books adapted to the service of the church: yet some of them but ill accord with those serious ideas which the nature of the subject is calculated to inspire. In these the artist has indulged a vein of broad and satirical humour which was not wholly reserved for the caricaturists of modern times; and in one or two instances he has even overleaped the bounds of decency. The letter in Stowe's _Survey_ is the only one that appears to have been imitated from the above alphabet; and as it throws some light on that part of the Duke's speech which occasioned the present note, it is here very accurately copied. It is to be remembered that in most of the old _dances of death_ the subject of the fool is introduced: and it is, on the whole, extremely probable that some such representation might have suggested the image before us.

[Illustration]

SCENE 1. Page 285.

CLAUD. ... and the delighted spirit To bathe in _fiery floods_, or to reside In thrilling regions of _thick-ribbed ice_; To be imprison'd in the viewless winds, And _blown with restless violence_ round about The pendant world; or to be worse than worst Of those that lawless and incertain thoughts Imagine _howling_!----

It is difficult to decide whether Shakspeare is here alluding to the pains of hell or purgatory. May not the whole be a mere poetical rhapsody originating in the recollection of what he had read in books of Catholic divinity? for it is very certain that some of these were extremely familiar to him. Among them he might have seen a compilation on the pains of hell, entitled _Examples howe mortall synne maketh the synners inobedyentes to have many paynes and dolours within the fyre of hell_; black letter, no date, 12mo, and chiefly extracted from that once popular work, the _Sermones discipuli_, which contains at the end a promptuary of examples for the use of preachers. From this little volume it may be worth while to select the following passage, as according in some degree with the matter of Claudio's speech:--"he tolde that he sawe in hell a torment of an _yzye ponde_ where the soules the whiche therin were tormented cryed so horryble that they were herde unto heven," sign. B. iij. "And the sayde beest was upon a ponde full of _strong yse_, the which beest devoured the soules within his wombe in suche maner that they became as unto nothynge by the tormentes that they suffred. Afterwarde he put them out of his wombe _within the yse of the sayde ponde_," sign. G. iij. "The caytyve was in syke wyse, for she myght not helpe herself, the whiche herde terryble cryes and _howlynges of soules_," sign. H. And again, "And the devyll was bounde by every joynture of all his membres with great chaynes of yron and of copre brennyng. And of great torment and vehement woodnes whereof he was full he turned hym from the one syde unto the other, and stretched out his handes in the multytude of the sayde soules, and toke them, and strayned them in lykewyse as men may do a clustre of grapes in theyr handes for to make the wyne come forth. And in such maner he strayned them that he eyther brake theyr heedes, or theyr fete, or handes, or some other membres. Afterward _he syghed and blewe and dysperpeled the sayde soules_ into many of the tormentes of the fyre of hell," sign. H. iiij.

The following lines from the sixth book of Phaer's Virgil might have furnished some materials on the occasion:

"... some _hie in ayer_ doth hang in pinnes Some fleeting ben in _floods_, and deepe in gulfes themselves they tier Till sinnes away be _washt, or clensed cleer with purgin fire_."

In the old legend of _Saint Patrick's purgatory_ mention is made of a lake of ice and snow, into which persons were plunged up to their necks; and in the _Shepherd's calendar_, chap, xviii. there is a description of hell as "the rewarde of them that kepen the X comaundements of the Devyll," in in which these lines occur:

"... a _great froste_ in a water rounes And after a _bytter wynde_ comes Whiche gothe through the soules with yre; Fendes with pokes pulle theyr flesshe ysondre, They fyght and curse, and eche on other wonder."

Chaucer, in his _Assemblie of foules_, has given an abridgement of Cicero's dream of Scipio; and speaking of souls in hell, he says:

"And breakers of the lawe, sothe to saine And likerous folke, after that they been dede _Shull whirle about the world_ alway in paine Till many a world be passed."

It was not until the seventh century that the doctrine of purgatory was confirmed, when "they held that departed souls expiated their sins by _baths_, _ice_, _hanging in the air_, &c.," says a curious writer on this subject. See Douglas's _Vitis degeneris_, 1668, 12mo, p. 77.

With respect to the much contested and obscure expression of _bathing the delighted spirit in fiery floods_, Milton appears to have felt less difficulty in its construction than we do at present; for he certainly remembered it when he made Comus say,

"... one sip of this Will _bathe_ the drooping _spirits in delight_ Beyond the bliss of dreams."

SCENE 2. Page 295.

ELB. Bless you good _father friar_.

DUKE. And you good _brother father_.

Mr. Tyrwhitt remarks that _father friar_ is a blunder, and so indeed the Duke from his answer seems to consider it. Yet friars have often been addressed in this way; and a few pages further Escalus calls the Duke _father_, who had just been introduced to him as a _friar_. The Duke, indeed, soon after uses the term _brother_ when speaking of himself. Whilst the passage quoted by Mr. Steevens gives support to Mr. Tyrwhitt's observation that _friar_ is a corruption of the French _frere_, it seems to disprove his assertion that Elbow's phrase is erroneous.

SCENE 2. Page 298.

LUCIO. What, is there none of _Pygmalion's images, newly made woman_, to be had now, for putting the hand in the pocket, and extracting it clutch'd?

None of the explanations of this speech are satisfactory, but least of all such part of a note by the author of these remarks, as refers to the _picklock_, which has been better accounted for by Mr. Ritson. It is probable, after all, that Lucio simply means to ask the clown if _he has no newly-coined money wherewith to bribe_ the officers of justice, alluding to the portrait of the queen.

SCENE 2. Page 308.

ESCAL. This would make mercy _swear and play the tyrant_.

The old belief certainly was that tyrants in general swore lustily; but here seems to be a particular allusion to the character of Herod, in the mystery of _The slaughter of the innocents_, formerly acted by the city companies in their pageants, and of which those for Chester and Coventry are still preserved in the British Museum. In this curious specimen of our early drama, Herod is made to swear by Mahound, by cockes blood, &c. He is uniformly in a passion throughout the piece; and this, according to the stage direction, "Here Erode ragis," is exemplified by some extraordinary gesticulation. See the notes of Messrs. Steevens and Malone on a passage in _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 2.

SCENE 2. Page 310.

DUKE. ... and now is he _resolved_ to die.

Mr. Reed has certainly adduced an instance which proves that _resolved_ occasionally means _satisfied_, and we still talk of resolving difficulties, or a question in arithmetic; but in the passage before us it seems rather to signify _resolute_, _firm_, _determined_. Thus the allegorical romance of _Le chevalier deliberé_ was translated into English in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, under the title of _The resolved gentleman_; and into Spanish by that of _Il cavalero determinado_.

ACT IV.

SCENE 1. Page 318.

ISAB. And that I have _possess'd_ him.

In the same sense Shylock says

"I have _possess'd_ your grace of what I purpose."

It were better that Shakspeare should be thus made his own commentator where it can be done, than that he should be explained by quotations from other authors.

SCENE 1. Page 319.

DUKE. ... volumes of report Run with these false and most contrarious _quests_ Upon thy doings.

It is presumed that the sense of _messengers_ annexed to this word by Mr. Ritson cannot be maintained, but that the very line he refers to establishes it to be _searches_, _inquiries_. Mr. Malone's note is, of the others, the most satisfactory. The Duke alludes to the false and various conclusions that result from investigating the actions of men high in office. There is an old pamphlet with the whimsical title of _Jacke of Dover, his quest of inquiry, or his privy search for the veriest foole in England_, 1604, 4to.

SCENE 1. Page 321.

DUKE. Sith that the justice of your title to him Doth _flourish_ the deceit.

That is, _decorate an action that would otherwise seem ugly_. Two metaphors have already been suggested; a third remains to be stated. _Flourish_ may, perhaps, allude to the ornaments that embellish the _ancient_ as well as modern books of penmanship. There are no finer specimens of beautiful writing extant than some of the reign of Elizabeth, who herself wrote a very elegant Italian hand in the early part of her life.

SCENE 2. Page 322.

PROV. ... and your deliverance with an _unpitied_ whipping; for you have been a notorious bawd.

Mr. Steevens makes _unpitied_, _unmerciful_; it is rather _a whipping that none shall pity_, for the reason that immediately follows.

SCENE 2. Page 334.

PROV. Pardon me, good father, it is against my oath.

This is a very different provost from one of whom Fabian in his _Chronicle_, p. 187, relates the following story: "In the thyrde yere of the reigne of this Philip, _the provost of Paris_, having in his prison a Picard, a man of greate riches, whiche for felony or like crime, was judged to be hanged. The sayde provost for great benefit to him done and payment of great summes by the sayd Pycard, tooke an other poore innocent man, and put him to death, in steede of the sayd Pycarde. Of the whiche offence whan due proofe of it was made before the kynges counsayle, the sayde provoste for the same dede was put unto like judgement."

SCENE 3. Page 335.

CLO. First, here's young master Rash, he's in for _a commodity of brown paper and old ginger_.

The nefarious practice of lending young men money in the shape of goods which are afterwards sold at a great loss, appears to have been more prevalent in the reign of Elizabeth than even at present. It is very strongly marked in Lodge's _Looking glasse for London and Englande_, 1598, where a usurer being very urgent for the repayment of his debt is thus answered, "I pray you, sir, consider that my losse was great by the commoditie I tooke up; you know, sir, I borrowed of you forty pounds, whereof I had ten pounds in money, and thirtie pounds in _lute strings_, which when I came to sell againe, I could get but five pounds for them, so had I, sir, but fifteene pounds for my fortie: In consideration of this ill bargaine, I pray you, sir, give me a month longer." But this sort of usury is much older than Shakspeare's time, and is thus curiously described in one of the sermons of Father Maillard, a celebrated preacher at Paris at the end of the fifteenth century, and whose style very much resembles that of John Whitfield. "Quidam indigens pecunia venit ad thesaurarium supra quem fuerunt assignata mille scuta; dicit thesaurarius, Ego dabo tibi, sed pro nunc non habeo argentum; sed expectes usque ad quindecim dies. Pauper dicit, Non possum expectare; respondet thesaurarius, Dabo tibi unam partem in argento et alia in mercantiis: et illud quod valebit centum scuta, faciet valere ducenta. Hic est usura palliata." _Sermo in feriam_, iiii. _de passione_.

SCENE 3. Page 337.

CLO. ... _ginger_ was not much in request, for the old women were all dead.

This spice was formerly held in very great repute, and especially among elderly persons. Sir Thomas Elyot in his _Castle of health_, 1580, 12mo, says, it comforts the head and stomach, and being green and well confectioned, quickens remembrance, if it be taken in a morning fasting. Henry Buttes, who wrote a whimsical book entitled _Dyet's dry dinner_, 1599, 12mo, speaks much in its praise, and says that being condite with honey it "warmes olde mens bellyes." In Ben Jonson's masque of _The metamorphosed gipsies_, a country wench laments the being robbed of "a dainty race of _ginger_;" and in the old play of _The famous victories of Henry the fifth_, a clown charges a thief with having "taken the great race of ginger, that bouncing _Besse_ with the jolly buttocks should have had." In Beaumont and Fletcher's _Knight of the burning pestle_, the citizen's wife gives a man who had been soundly beaten some _green ginger_ to comfort him. Ginger was used likewise to spice ale. In Lodge's _Looking glasse for London and England_, the clown says, "Ile tell you, sir, if you did taste of the ale, all _Ninivie_ hath not such a cup of ale, it floures in the cup, sir, by my troth I spent eleven pence, besides _three rases of ginger_." The numerous virtues of this root are likewise detailed in Vennor's _Via recta ad vitam longam_.

SCENE 3. Page 342.

PROV. One _Ragozine_, a most notorious pirate.

Some attempt to elucidate this name has been made in the first note to the Merchant of Venice, into which it is rather improperly introduced. Mr. Heath had supposed that _Ragozine_ was put for _Ragusan_, _i. e._ a native of the city of _Ragusa_ on the gulf of Venice, famous for its trading vessels; but it was incumbent on that gentleman to have shown that the inhabitants of the above city were _pirates_. This however would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible; for, on the contrary, Rycaut, in his _State of the Ottoman empire_, has expressly declared that the _Ragusans_ never offered injury; but that, on receiving any, they very patiently supported it. Wherever Shakspeare met with the name of _Ragozine_, it should seem to be a _metathesis_ of the French _Argousin_, or the Italian _Argosino_, _i. e._ an officer or lieutenant on board a galley; and, as Menage conjectures, a corruption of the Spanish _Alguasil_. See Carpentier, _Suppl. ad gloss. Dufresne_, under the word _Argoisillo_.

ACT V.

SCENE 1. Page 358.

ISAB. ... but let your reason serve To make the truth appear, where it seems hid; _And hide the false, seems true_.

The apparent difficulty in the last line proceeds from its elliptical construction; yet the meaning is sufficiently obvious. Isabella requests of the Duke to exert his reason _to discover_ truth where it seems hid, and _to suppress_ falsehood _where it_ has the semblance of truth. _Hide_ is, doubtless, a licentious word, but was used for the reason suggested by Mr. Malone.

SCENE 1. Page 375.

LUCIO. Show your sheep-biting face, and be _hang'd an hour_.

There would have been little reason for dissenting from Mr. Henley's ingenious note, in which he supposes that this expression refers to the _pillory_, but for the subsequent remark by Lucio, "this may prove worse than _hanging_." It seems therefore more probable that "hang'd an hour" alludes to the _time_ usually allotted for torturing the miserable object of the barbarous punishment by suspension, which is justly execrated by Randle Holme as "a dog's death," and always excites in the spectator a strange mixture of ludicrous and shocking sensations. It dishonours the living more than it degrades the criminal. The Turkish bowstring were much less offensive to the feelings of humanity: but the more solemn and decorous infliction of death, (if inflicted it must be,) would, as in military cases, be the stroke of the bullet, provided such a measure could be adopted without offending the soldier's honour. The pre-eminent mercy of the English law disdains to augment the horrors of premature dissolution by personal pain and torture; its object is to prevent or diminish the commission of the crime. On this principle, one could wish that, on the close of the usual necessary and consolatory preparation for death, some mode of stupefying the offender were adopted; that no sensation of torture on his part might be felt, nor any other on that of the spectator, than a satisfaction that the sentence of the law had been fulfilled. For this digression no apology can be necessary. As to Mr. Daines Barrington's supposition, that "the criminal was _suspended in the air by the collistrigium or stretch-neck_," a very little reflection will suffice to show that it is founded in error. Such a process would in _half an hour's_ time most effectually prevent a repetition of the ceremony. The _collistrigium_ was so called from the _stretching out or projection of the neck_ through a hole made in the pillory for that purpose, or through an iron collar or _carcan_ that was sometimes attached to the _pillar_ itself. No punishment has been inflicted in so many different ways as that of the pillory; and therefore the following varieties of it have been thought worth exhibiting.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

The first is from a manuscript of the Chronicle of Saint Denis, in the British Museum, Bibl. Reg. 16. G. vi. It was written in the thirteenth century. The second occurs in a manuscript of Froissart, preserved in the same collection. The third is copied from a print in Comenius's _Orbis pictus_, and furnishes a specimen of the _carcan_, the woman being confined to the pillar by an iron ring or collar. The fourth is from a table of the standard of ancient weights and measures in the exchequer, and shows the mode of punishing a forestaller or regrator in the time of Henry the Seventh. The fifth exhibits Robert Ockam in the pillory for perjury. The fact happened in the reign of Henry the Eighth, but the cut is copied from Fox's _Martyrs_, published long afterwards. The sixth and last figure represents an ancient pillory that formerly stood in the market-place of the village of Paulmy in Touraine. It is copied from a view of the castle of Paulmy in Belleforest's _Cosmographie universelle_, 1575, folio. Not long since there was remaining in the Section des halles at Paris an old hexangular building of stone, with open Gothic windows, through which appeared an iron circle or _carcan_, with holes for placing the hands and necks of several persons at the same time, in like manner as in the first and last figures. There is an engraving of it in Millin's _Antiquités nationales_, tom. iii. no. 34.

SCENE 1. Page 378.

DUKE. Being criminal in _double_ violation Of sacred chastity, and of promise-breach.

Mr. Malone thinks _double_ refers to Angelo's conduct to _Mariana_ and Isabel; but surely, however inaccurate the expression, it alludes to Angelo's _double_ misconduct to _Isabella_, in having attempted _her_ chastity, and violated his promise with respect to her brother. Thus in _Promos and Cassandra_:

"Thou wycked man, might it not thee suffice By worse than force to spoyle her chastitie, But heaping sinne on sinne against thy othe, Hast cruelly her brother done to death."

In Cinthio Giraldi's novel, it is "Vous avez commis _deux crimes_ fort grans, l'un d'avoir diffamé cette jeune femme, par telle tromperie que l'on peut dire que vous l'avez forcée: l'autre d'avoir fait mourir son frere contre la foy à elle donnée." Transl. by Chappuys, 1584.

SCENE 1. Page 385.

DUKE. Thy slanders I forgive; and therewithal Remit thy other _forfeits_: Take him to prison.

Mr. Steevens has refined too much in supposing this word to mean _carnal offences_. It is simply _penalties_. The Duke remits all Lucio's offences except the injury done to the woman, and he is ordered to remain in prison until he marry her. _Forfeit_ was also used in the French sense of the word, _crime_, _transgression_.

THE CLOWN.

The clown in this play officiates as the tapster of a brothel; whence it has been concluded that he is not a domestic fool, nor ought to appear in the dress of that character. A little consideration will serve to show that the opinion is erroneous, that _this_ clown is _altogether_ a domestic fool, and that he should be habited accordingly. In Act II. Scene 1, Escalus calls him a _tedious fool_, and _Iniquity_, a name for one of the old stage buffoons. He tells him that he will have him _whipt_, a punishment that was very often inflicted on fools. In _Timon of Athens_ we have a _strumpet's fool_, and a similar character is mentioned in the first speech in _Antony and Cleopatra_. But if any one should still entertain a doubt on the subject, he may receive the most complete satisfaction by an attentive examination of ancient prints, many of which will furnish instances of the common use of the domestic fool in brothels. In _Twelfth Night_, Act IV. Scene 1, Sebastian mistakes the clown for such a character as that before us, and calls him a _foolish Greek_, a term that is very happily explained by Dr. Warburton, whose note both communicates and receives support on the present occasion.

ON THE STORY AND CONSTRUCTION OF MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

Three sources whence the plot of this play might have been extracted, have already been mentioned, viz. Whetstone's _Heptameron_, 1582, 4to; his _Promos and Cassandra_, 1578, 4to; and novel 5, decad. 8, in Cinthio Giraldi. It is probable that the general outline of the story is founded on fact, as it is related, with some variety of circumstance, by several writers, and appears to have been very popular. It has therefore been thought worth while to point out the following works in which it occurs.

In Lipsii _Monita et exempla politica_, Antverp. 1613, 4to, cap. viii. Charles the bold duke of Burgundy causes one of his noblemen to be put to death for offending in the manner that Angelo would have done; but he is first compelled to marry the lady. This story has been copied from Lipsius into Wanley's _Wonders of the little world_, book iii. ch. 29, edit. 1678, folio; and from Wanley into that favourite little chap book, Burton's _Unparalleled varieties_, p. 42. See likewise _The spectator_, No. 491. This event was made the subject of a French play by Antoine Maréchal, called _Le jugement équitable de Charles le hardy_, 1646, 4to. Here the offender is called Rodolph governor of Maestrick, and by theatrical licence turns out to be the duke's own son. Another similar story of Charles's upright judgment may be found in the third volume of Goulart's _Thrésor d'histoires admirables_, 1628, 8vo, p. 373.

Much about the time when the above events are supposed to have happened, Olivier le Dain, for his wickedness surnamed the Devil, originally the barber, and afterwards the favourite of Louis XI., is said to have committed a similar offence, for which he was deservedly hanged. See Godefroy's edition of the _Memoirs of Philip de Comines_, Brussels, 1723, 8vo, tom. v. p. 55.

At the end of Belleforest's translation of Bandello's novels, there are three additional of his own invention. The first of these relates to a captain, who, having seduced the wife of one of his soldiers under a promise to save the life of her husband, exhibited him soon afterwards _through the window of his apartment_ suspended on a gibbet. His commander, the marshal de Brissac, after compelling him to marry the widow, adjudges him to death. The striking similitude of a part of this story to what Mr. Hume has related of colonel Kirke, will present itself to every reader, and perhaps induce some to think with Mr. Ritson, (however they will differ in _his mode_ of expressing the sentiment,) that Mr. Hume's narration is "an impudent and barefaced lie." See _The quip modest_, p. 30. A defence also of Kirke may be seen in the _Monthly magazine_, vol. ii. p. 544. Yet though we may be inclined to adopt this side of the question, it will only serve to diminish, in a single instance, the atrocities of that sanguinary monster.

In Lupton's _Siuqila. Too good to be true_, 1580, 4to, there is a long story of a woman, who, her husband having slain his adversary in a duel, goes to the judge for the purpose of prevailing on him to remit the sentence of the law. He obtains of her, in the first place, a large sum of money, and afterwards the reluctant prostitution of her person, under a solemn promise to save her husband. The rest, as in Belleforest's novel.

In vol. i. of Goulart's _Thrésor d'histoires admirables_, above cited, there are two stories on this subject. The first, in p. 300, is of a citizen of Como in Italy, who in 1547 was detained prisoner by a Spanish _captain_ on a charge of murder. The wife pleads for him as before, and obtains a promise of favour on the same terms. The husband recommends her compliance, after which the Spaniard beheads him. Complaint is made to the _Duke of Ferrara_, who compels the captain to marry the widow, and then orders him to be hanged. The other, in p. 304, is of a provost named _La Vouste_, whose conduct resembles that of the other villain's, with this addition; he says to the woman, "I promised to restore your husband; I have not kept him, here he is." No punishment is inflicted on this fellow.

The last example to be mentioned on this occasion occurs in Cooke's _Vindication of the professors and profession of the law_, 1646, 4to, p. 61. During the wars between Charles the Fifth and Francis the First, one Raynucio had been imprisoned at Milan for betraying a fort to the French. His wife petitions the governor Don Garcias in his favour, who refuses to listen but on dishonourable terms, which are indignantly rejected. The husband, like Claudio in _Measure for measure_, at first commends the magnanimity of his wife, and submits to his sentence; but when the time for his execution approaches, his courage fails him, and he prevails on his wife to acquiesce in the governor's demands. A sum of ten thousand crowns is likewise extorted from the unhappy woman, and she receives in return the dead body of her husband. The Duke of Ferrara, Hercules of Este, who was general for the Emperor, is informed of the circumstance. He first persuades the governor to marry the lady, and then orders him to be beheaded.

Towards the conclusion of this play Dr. Johnson has observed, that "every reader feels some indignation when he finds Angelo spared." This remark is rigorously just, and calculated to satisfy those moralists who would have preferred the catastrophe in some of the preceding stories. But in the construction of a play theatrical effect was to be attended to; on which ground alone the poet may be defended. The other charge against him in Dr. Johnson's note is doubtless unfounded, and even laboriously strained. Shakspeare has been likewise hastily censured by a female writer of great ingenuity, for almost every supposed deviation from the plot of Cinthio's novel, and even for adhering to it in sparing Angelo.[9] It might however be contended, that, if our author really used this novel,[10] he has, with some exceptions, exerted a considerable degree of skill and contrivance in his alterations; and that he has consequently furnished a rich and diversified repast for his readers, instead of serving up the simple story in the shape of such a tragedy as might have suited a Greek audience, but certainly would not have pleased an English one in his time. In the novel, the sister, when she solicits mercy for her brother's murderer and her own seducer, (in the play Angelo is neither but in intention,) justly urges that _excess of justice becomes cruelty_. He therefore who would refuse mercy to Angelo for an intentional offence, has no right to censure him for severity to Claudio who had committed a real one. In the novel, the sister is actually seduced, and her brother murdered; and yet she pleads for the offender. In the play, though Isabella believes her brother to be dead, she reconciles herself to the sad event, inasmuch as she knows that he suffered by course of law, as well as by the cruelty of Angelo, from whose iniquity she herself has happily escaped. She is stimulated to solicit this man's life, from the suggestion and situation of her friend the innocent Mariana, who would have felt more distress from the death of Angelo, than the other parties discontent from his acquittal. The female critic has likewise observed that "_Measure for measure_ ought not to be the title, since justice is not the virtue it inculcates." But surely, if Angelo had died, it would have been _outmeasuring measure_; as it is, the administration of justice is duly balanced, and both he and Claudio are equally punished in imagination. The Duke too, who knew all the circumstances, deserves credit for some ingenuity in his arrangements to protect the innocent, and, if not rigidly to punish the guilty, at least to save a sinner. Nor will any one contend that Angelo has escaped punishment: the agonizing state of uncertainty in which he long remained after the mock sentence, the bitter reproof of his colleague, and the still severer language of the Duke, will, it is to be hoped, conduce to satisfy every feeling and humane spectator of this fine play, that the poet has done enough to content even the rigorous moralist, and to exemplify, in his own divine words, that "earthly power doth then seem likest heaven's, when mercy seasons justice."

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Dr. Johnson in his dedication to the above lady's work, speaking of Shakspeare, says, "he lived in an age when the minds of his auditors were not accustomed to balance probabilities, or to examine nicely the proportion between causes and effects. It was sufficient to recommend a story that it was far removed from common life, that its changes were frequent, and its close pathetic." How much at variance is all this with the sentiments that follow on our play, and how it serves to mark the folly and absurdity of hireling dedications!

[10] It may well be doubted whether Shakspeare ever saw the story as related by Cinthio. There was not, as far as we know at present, any English translation of it in his time. He might indeed have seen the French version by Gabriel Chappuys, printed at Paris, 1583, 8vo; but it is certain that his chief model for the plot was the old play of _Promos and Cassandra_, a circumstance unknown to Mrs. Lenox. All must admit that the mode of saving the deputy's life is much better managed by Shakspeare than by Whetstone.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 395.

Enter LEONATO....

This is the name of the injured lady's father in the novel of Belleforest which Mr. Steevens supposes to have furnished the plot of the play; a circumstance that tends very much to prove the justness of that gentleman's opinion.

SCENE 1. Page 396.

MESS. Without a _badge_ of bitterness.

See a future note on _The taming of the shrew_, Act IV. Scene 1.

SCENE 1. Page 397.

BEAT. He _set up his bills_ here in Messina.

This mode of expression will admit of a little more illustration than it has already received. The practice to which it refers was calculated to advertise the public of any matters which concerned itself or the party whose bills were set up; and it is the more necessary to state this, because the passages which have been used in explanation might induce the reader to suppose that challenges and prize-fightings were the exclusive objects of these bills. This however was not the case. In Northbrooke's _Treatise against dicing, dauncing, vaine plaies, &c._, 1579, 4to, a work much resembling that extremely curious volume Stubbes's _Anatomie of abuses_, we are told that they used "to _set up their billes_ upon postes certain dayes before, to admonish the people to make resort unto their _theatres_, that they may thereby be the better furnished, and the people prepared to fill their purses with their treasures." In the play of _Histriomastix_, a man is introduced setting up _text billes for playes_; and William Rankins, another puritanical writer against plays, which he calls _the instruments of Satan_, in his _Mirrour of monsters_, 1587, 4to, p. 6, says, that "players by _sticking of their bils_ in London, defile the streetes with their infectious filthines." Mountebanks likewise set up their bills. "Upon this scaffold also might bee mounted a number of _quacksalving emperickes_, who arriving in some country towne, clap up their _terrible billes_ in the market place, and filling the paper with such horrible names of diseases, as if every disease were a divell, and that they could conjure them out of any towne at their pleasure." Dekkar's _Villanies discovered by lanthorne and candle-light, &c._, 1616, 4to, sign. H. Again, in _Tales and quick answeres_, printed by Berthelette, b. l. n. d. 4to, a man having lost his purse in London "_sette up bylles_ in divers places that if any man of the cyte had founde the purse and woulde brynge it agayn to him he shulde have welle for his laboure. A gentyllman of the Temple _wrote under one of the byls_ howe the man shulde come to his chambers and told where." It appears from a very rare little piece entitled _Questions of profitable and pleasant concernings talked of by two olde seniors, &c._, 1594, 4to, that Saint Paul's was a place in which these bills or advertisements were posted up. Thomas Nashe in his _Pierce Pennilesse his supplication to the divell_, 1595, 4to, sign. E. speaks of the "maisterlessemen that _set up theyr bills in Paules for services_, and such as paste up their papers on every post, for arithmetique and writing schooles:" we may therefore suppose that several of the walks about Saint Paul's cathedral then resembled the present Royal Exchange with respect to the business that was there transacted; and it appears indeed, from many allusions in our old plays, to have been as well the resort of the idle, as the busy. The phrase of _setting up bills_ continued long after the time of Shakspeare and is used in a translation of Suetonius published in 1677, 8vo, p. 227.

SCENE 1. Page 399.

BEAT. ... challenged him at the _bird-bolt_.

In further exemplification of this sort of arrow, the following representations have been collected. A very sagacious _modern_ editor of King James's _Christ's kirk on the green_ has stated that the line "the bolt flew o'er the bire" is a metaphor of a _thunderbolt_ flying over the cowhouse!

[Illustration]

SCENE 1. Page 412.

BENE. Prove that ever I lose more blood with love, &c.

There is a covert allusion in this speech that will not admit of a particular explanation. Debauchees imagine that wine recruits the loss of animal spirits. _Love_ is used here in its very worst sense, and the whole is extremely gross and indelicate.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 429.

BEAT. ... that I had my good wit out of _the hundred merry tales_.

From the unfortunate loss of these _Merry tales_, a doubt has arisen from whence they were translated, it being pretty clear that they were not originally written in English. Two authorities have been produced on this occasion, the _Cent nouvelles nouvelles_, and the _Decameron_ of Boccaccio.

Mr. Steevens is an advocate for the first of these, and refers to an edition of them mentioned by Ames. This, it is to be presumed, is the _Hundred merry tales_ noticed under the article for James Roberts. To this opinion an objection has been taken by Mr. Ritson, on the ground that _many_ of the tales in the _Cent nouvelles nouvelles_ are "very tragical, and none of them calculated to furnish a lady with good wit." Now it appears that out of these hundred stories _only five are tragical_, viz. novels 32, 47, 55, 56, and 98. In the old editions they are entitled _Comptes plaisans et recreatiz pour deviser en toutes compaignies_, and _Moult plaisans á raconter par maniere de joyeuseté_.

Mr. Reed has "but little doubt that Boccace's _Decameron_ was the book here alluded to." If this gentleman's quotation from Guazzo's _Civile conversation_, 1586, be meant to establish the existence of the above work in an English dress it certainly falls short of the purpose; because it is no more than a translation of an author, who is speaking of the _original Decameron_. But there is a more forcible objection to Mr. Reed's opinion, which is, that the first _complete_ English translation of Boccaccio's novels was not published till 1620, and after Shakspeare's death. The dedication states indeed, that _many_ of the tales had long since been published; but this may allude to those which had appeared in Painter's _Palace of pleasure_, or in some other similar work not now remaining. There are likewise two or three of Boccaccio's novels in Tarlton's _Newes out of purgatory_, which might be alluded to in the above dedication, if the work which now remains under the date of 1630 was really printed in 1589, as may be suspected from a license granted to Thomas Gubbin. There seems to have been some prior attempt to publish the _Decameron_ in English, but it was "recalled by my Lord of Canterbury's commands." See a note by Mr. Steevens prefixed to _The two gentlemen of Verona_. There is a remarkable fact however that deserves to be mentioned in this place, which is, that in the proem to Sacchetti's _Novelle_, written about the year 1360, it appears that Boccaccio's novels had been _then_ translated into English, not a single vestige of which translation is elsewhere to be traced.

A third work that may appear to possess some right to assert its claim on the present occasion is the _Cento novelle antiche_, which might have been translated before or in Shakspeare's time, as it has been already shown in a note on the story of _Twelfth night_ that he had probably seen the 13th novel in that collection. It may likewise be worth mentioning that Nashe in his _Pappe with an hatchet_, speaks of a book then coming out under the title of _A hundred merrie tales_, in which Martin Marprelate, _i. e._ John Penry, and his friends were to be satirized.

On the whole, the evidence seems to preponderate in favour of the _Cent nouvelles nouvelles_. As the _greatest portion_ of this work consists of _merry stories_, there is no impropriety in calling it _The hundred merry tales_; the term _hundred_ being part of the original title, and the epithet _merry_ in all probability an addition for the purpose of designating the _general quality_ of the stories. The _Decameron_ of Boccaccio, which contains more tragical subjects than the other, is called in the English translation _A hundred_ PLEASANT _novels_.

Whatever the _hundred merry tales_ really were, we find them in existence so late as 1659, and the entire loss of them to the present age might have been occasioned by the devastation in the great fire of London.

SCENE 1. Page 432.

BENE. Come, will you go with me?

CLAUD. Whither?

BENE. Even to _the next willow_, about your own business, Count. What fashion will you wear the _garland_ of?

It was the custom for those who were _forsaken in love_ to wear willow garlands. This tree might have been chosen as the symbol of sadness from the verse in psalm 137, "We hanged our harps upon the willows, in the midst thereof;" or else from a coincidence between the _weeping_ willow and falling _tears_. Another reason has been assigned. The _Agnus castus_ or _vitex_, was supposed by the ancients to promote chastity, "and the willow being of a much like nature," says an old writer, "it is yet a custom that he which is deprived of his love must wear a willow garland." Swan's _Speculum mundi_, chap. 6. sect. 4. edit. 1635. Bona, the sister of the king of France, on receiving news of Edward the Fourth's marriage with Elizabeth Grey, exclaims, "In hope he'll prove a widower shortly, I'll wear a _willow garland_ for his sake." See _Henry the Sixth_, part iii. and Desdemona's willow song in _Othello_, Act IV. Two more ballads of a similar nature may be found in Playford's _Select ayres_, 1659, folio, pp. 19, 21.

SCENE 1. Page 438.

BEAT. Civil as an _orange_, and something of _that_ jealous complexion.

This reading of the older copy has been judiciously preferred to _a_ jealous complexion. _Yellow_ is an epithet often applied to jealousy by the old writers. In _The merry wives of Windsor_, Nym says he will possess Ford with _yellowness_. Shakspeare more usually terms it _green-eyed_.

SCENE 3. Page 447.

BENE. ... now will he lie ten nights awake, _carving the fashion of a new doublet_.

The print in Borde of the Englishman with a pair of shears, seems to have been borrowed from some Italian or other foreign picture in ridicule of our countrymen's folly. Coryat, in his _Crudities_, p. 260, has this remark; "we weare more phantasticall fashions than any nation under the sunne doth, the French onely excepted; which hath given occasion both to the Venetian and other Italians to brand the Englishman with a notable marke of levity, by painting him starke naked with a paire of shears in his hand, _making his fashion of attire_ according to the vaine invention of his braine-sicke head, not to comelinesse and decorum." Purchas, in his _Pilgrim_, 1619, 8vo, speaks of "a naked man with sheeres in one hand and cloth in the other," as a general emblem of fashion. Many other allusions to such a figure might be cited, but it was not peculiar to the English. In _La geographie Françoise_, by P. Du Val d'Abbeville, 1663, 12mo, the author, speaking of the _Frenchman's_ versatility in dress, adds, "dans la peinture des nations on met pres de luy _le cizeau_."

The inconstancy of our own countrymen in the article of dress is described in the following verses from John Halle's _Courte of vertue_, 1565, 12mo.

"As fast as God's word one synne doth blame They devyse other as yll as the same, And this varietie of Englyshe folke, Dothe cause all wyse people us for to mocke.

For all discrete nations under the sonne, Do use at thys day as they fyrst begonne: And never doo change, but styll do frequent, Theyr old guyse, what ever fond folkes do invent.

But we here in England lyke fooles and apes, Do by our vayne fangles deserve mocks and japes, For all kynde of countreys dooe us deryde, In no constant custome sythe we abyde For we never knowe howe in our aray, We may in fyrme fashion stedfastly stay."

Randle Holme complained that in his time (1680) Englishmen were as changeable as the moon in their dress, "in which respect," says he, "we are termed the Frenchmen's apes, imitating them in all their fantastick devised fashions of garbs." _Acad. of armory_, book iii. ch. 5.

SCENE 3. Page 452.

CLAUD. _Stalk on, stalk on_, the fowl sits.

It has been already shown that the _stalking bull_ was equally common with the stalking _horse_. It was sometimes used for decoying partridges into a _tunnelling net_, or cage of net work, in the form of a tun, with doors. The process is described at large, with a print, in Willughby's _Ornithology_, 1678, folio, p. 34, where an account is also given of the _stalking-horse_, _ox_, _stag_, &c.

Howel in his _Vocabulary_, sect. xxxv. seems to have mistaken the _tun_ or net into which the birds were driven, for the stalking bull itself. Sometimes, as in hunting the wolf, an artificial bush and a wooden screen were used to stalk with. See Clamorgan, _Chasse du loup_, 1595, 4to, p. 29.

SCENE 3. Page 455.

LEON. She tore the letter into a thousand _halfpence_.

Mr. Theobald explains this "into a thousand pieces of the same bigness," as if Beatrice had torn the letter by rule and compass. Mr. Steevens more properly supposes halfpence to mean _small pieces_; but his note would have been less imperfect if he had added that the halfpence of Elizabeth were of _silver_, and about the size of a modern silver penny.

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 469.

D. PEDRO. ... the little _hangman_ dare not shoot at him.

Dr. Farmer has illustrated this term by citing a passage from Sidney's _Arcadia_; but he has omitted a previous description in which Cupid is metamorphosed into a strange old monster, sitting on a _gallows_ with a crown of laurel in one hand, and a purse of money in the other, as if he would persuade folks by these allurements _to hang_ themselves. It is certainly possible that this might have been Shakspeare's prototype; we should otherwise have supposed that he had called Cupid a hangman metaphorically, from the remedy sometimes adopted by desparing lovers.

SCENE 4. Page 488.

MARG. Clap us into _light o'love_.

When Margaret adds that this tune "goes without a burden," she does not mean that it never had words to it, but only that it wanted a very common appendage to the ballads of that time. The name itself may be illustrated by the following extract from _The glasse of man's follie_, 1615, 4to. "There be wealthy houswives, and good house-keepers that use no starch, but faire water: their linnen is white, and they looke more Christian-like in small ruffes, then _Light of love_ lookes in her great starched ruffs, looke she never so hie, with eye-lids awrye." This anonymous work is written much in the manner of Stubbes's _Anatomie of abuses_, and for the same purpose.

ACT IV.

SCENE 1. Page 510.

BENE. Tarry, sweet Beatrice.

BEAT. _I am gone, though I am here._ There is no love in you--Nay, I pray you let me go.

Though three explanations have been already offered, there is room for further conjecture. From the latter words of Beatrice it is clear that Benedick had stopped her from going. She may therefore intend to say that notwithstanding she is detained by force, she is in reality absent; her heart is no longer Benedick's.

ACT V.

SCENE 1. Page 524.

LEON. His _May of youth_, and bloom of _lustyhood_.

An allusion to these lines in the old calendars that describe the state of man:

"As in the month of _Maye_ all thyng is in myght So at xxx yeres man is in chyef lykyng. Pleasaunt and _lusty_, to every mannes syght In beaute and strength, to women pleasyng."

In the _Notbrowne mayde_ we have the expression _lusty May_. Capel's edit. p. 6. Roger Ascham, speaking of young men, says; "It availeth not to see them well taught in yong yeares, and after when they come to _lust and youthfull dayes_, to give them licence to live as they _lust_ themselves." _Scholemaster_, 1571, fo. 13. See a former note in p. 45.

SCENE 1. Page 529.

CLAUD. If he be, [angry] he knows how to turn his girdle.

Mr. Holt White's ingenious note may be supported by the following passage in Carew's _Survey of Cornwall_, 1602, 4to. p. 76: the author is speaking of wrestling. "This hath also his lawes, of taking hold onely above girdle, wearing a girdle to take hold by, playing three pulles, for tryall of the mastery, &c."

SCENE 4. Page 554.

BENE. Prince, thou art sad; get thee a wife, get thee a wife; there is no _staff_ more reverend than one _tipp'd with horn_.

In this comparison the prince is the staff, and the question is what sort of a one is here alluded to. Messrs. Steevens, Reed, and Malone, conceive it to be the staff used in the ancient trial by wager of battle; but this seems to have but small claim to be entitled _reverend_. On the contrary, as the combatants were of the meaner class of people, who were not allowed to make use of edged weapons, the higher ranks usually deciding the business by hired champions, it cannot well be maintained that much, if any, reverence belongs to such a staff. It is possible, therefore, that Shakspeare, whose allusions to _archery_ are almost as frequent as they are to cuckoldom, might refer to the _bowstaff_, which was usually tipped with a piece of horn at each end, to make such a notch for the string as would not wear, and at the same time to strengthen the bow, and prevent the extremities from breaking. It is equally possible that the walking-sticks or staves used by _elderly_ people might be intended, which were often headed or _tipped_ with a cross piece of _horn_, or sometimes amber. They seem to have been imitated from the _crutched_ sticks, or _potences_, as they were called, used by the friars, and by them borrowed from the celebrated _tau_ of St. Anthony. Thus in _The Canterbury tales_, the Sompnour describes one of his friars as having "a scrippe and _tipped staf_," and he adds that

"His felaw had _a staf tipped with horn_."

In these instances the epithet _reverend_ is much more appropriate than in the others.

* * * * *

Mrs. Lenox, assuming, with the same inaccuracy as had been manifested in her critique on _Measure for measure_, that Shakspeare borrowed his plot from Ariosto, proceeds to censure him for "poverty of invention, want of judgment, and wild conceits," deducing all her reasoning from false premises. This is certainly but a bad method of _illustrating_ Shakspeare.

MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 6.

EGE. Happy be Theseus, our renowned _duke_.

This is in reality no "misapplication of a modern title," as Mr. Steevens conceived, but a legitimate use of the word in its primitive Latin sense of _leader_; and so it is often used in the Bible. Not so the instance adduced of _sheriffs of the provinces_, which might have been avoided in our printed bibles. Wicliffe had most properly used _prefectis_. Shakspeare might have found _Duke_ Theseus in the _book of Troy_, or in Turbervile's _Ovid's Epistles_. See the argument to that of Phædra to Hippolytus.

SCENE 1. Page 9.

THE. You can endure the livery of a _nun_, For aye to be in shady _cloister_ mew'd.

The threatening to make a nun of poor Hermia is as whimsical an anachronism as any in Shakspeare.

SCENE 1. Page 13.

LYS. Making it _momentany_ as a sound.

_Momentany_ and _momentary_ were indiscriminately used in Shakspeare's time. The former corresponds with the French _momentaine_.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 30.

FAI. And I serve the fairy queen, _To dew her orbs upon the green_.

Mr. Steevens in the happy and elegant remark at the end of his note on the last line, has made a slight mistake in substituting _Puck_ for the _fairy_. When the damsels of old gathered the May dew on the grass, and which they made use of to improve their complexions, they left undisturbed such of it as they perceived on the fairy-rings; apprehensive that the fairies should in revenge destroy their beauty. Nor was it reckoned safe to put the foot within the rings, lest they should be liable to the fairies' power.

SCENE 1. Page 32.

_Puck._ But they do _square_.

Dr. Johnson has very justly observed that to _square_ here is to quarrel. In investigating the reason, we must previously take it for granted that our verb _to quarrel_ is from the French _quereller_, or perhaps both from the common source, the Latin _querela_. Blackstone has remarked that the glaziers use the words _square_ and _quarrel_ as synonymous terms for a pane of glass, and he might have added for the instrument with which they cut it. This, he says, is somewhat whimsical; but had he been acquainted with the reason, he might have been disposed to waive his opinion, at least on the present occasion. The glazier's instrument is a _diamond_, usually cut into such a _square_ form as the _supposed diamonds_ on the French and English cards, in the former of which it is still properly called _carreau_, from its _original_. This was the _square_ iron head of the arrow used for the cross-bow. In English it was called a _quarrel_, and hence the glazier's diamond and the pane of glass have received their names of _square_ and _quarrel_. Now we may suppose without straining the point very violently, that these words being evidently synonymous in one sense, have corruptedly become so in another; and that the verb _to square_, which correctly and metaphorically, even at this time, signifies _to agree_ or _accord_, has been carelessly and ignorantly wrested from its true sense, and from frequent use become a legitimate word. The French have avoided this error, and to express a meaning very similar to that of _to quarrel_ or _dispute_, make use of the word _contrecarrer_.

SCENE 1. Page 37.

PUCK. The wisest aunt telling the saddest tale, Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me; Then slip I from her bum, down-topples she.

The celebrated duchess of Newcastle, in a poem of some fancy, entitled _The queen of fairies_, makes Puck or hobgoblin the queen of fairies' fool, and alludes to the above prank in the following lines:

"The goodwife sad squats down upon a stool, Not at all thinking it was Hob the fool, And frowning sits, then Hob gives her a slip, And down she falls, whereby she hurts her hip."

The above dame is a farmer's wife who has been scolding because she was unable to procure any butter or cheese, and at Puck's holding up the hens' rumps to prevent their laying eggs too fast.

With respect to the word _aunt_, it has been usually derived from the French _tante_; but the original Norman term is _ante_. See examples in Carpentier _Suppl._ ad Ducang. v. _avuncula_. So the author of the old and excellent farce of _Maistre Patelin_,

"Vostre belle ante, mourut-elle?"

SCENE 2. Page 39.

Enter OBERON and TITANIA.

Mr. Tyrwhitt's remark that the Pluto and Proserpine of Chaucer were the true progenitors of Oberon and Titania, may be perfectly true; but the name of Oberon as king of the fairies, must have been exceedingly well known from the romance of Huon of Bourdeaux, in which this Oberon makes a very conspicuous figure.

SCENE 2. Page 41.

TITA. Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead, By paved fountain.

Milton, doubtless, had these lines in recollection when he wrote,

"To hill or valley, fountain or fresh shade."

_Par. lost_, b. v. l. 203.

SCENE 2. Page 41.

TITA. _To dance our ringlets_ to the whistling wind.

An allusion to what the country people call _fairy rings_, which they suppose to be the tracks of the dances of those diminutive beings.

SCENE 2. Page 43.

TITA. The _nine mens morris_ is fill'd up with mud.

This game was sometimes called _the nine mens merrils_, from _merelles_ or _mereaux_, an ancient French word for the jettons or counters, with which it was played. The other term _morris_ is probably a corruption suggested by the sort of _dance_ which in the progress of the game the counters performed. In the French _merelles_ each party had three counters only, which were to be placed in a line in order to win the game. It appears to have been the _Tremerel_ mentioned in an old fabliau. See Le Grand _Fabliaux et contes_, tom. ii. p. 208.

Dr. Hyde thinks the morris or merrils was known during the time that the Normans continued in possession of England, and that the name was afterwards corrupted into _three mens morals_, or _nine mens morals_. If this be true, the conversion of _morals_ into _morris_, a term so very familiar to the country people, was extremely natural. The doctor adds, that it was likewise called _nine-penny_, or _nine-pin miracle_, _three-penny morris_, _five-penny morris_, _nine-penny morris_, or _three-pin_, _five-pin_, and _nine-pin morris_, all corruptions of _three-pin_, &c. _merels_. Hyde _Hist. Nerdiludii_, p. 202.

SCENE 2. Page 44.

TITA. The _human mortals_ want their winter here.

In the controversy respecting the immortality of fairies, Mr. Ritson's ingenious and _decisive_ reply in his _Quip modest_ ought on every account to have been introduced. A few pages further Titania evidently alludes to the _immortality_ of fairies, when, speaking of the changeling's mother, she says, "but she, _being mortal_, of that boy did die." Spenser's fairy system and his pedigree were allegorical, invented by himself, and not coinciding with the popular superstitions on the subject. _Human mortals_ is merely a pleonasm, and neither put in opposition to _fairy mortals_, according to Mr. Steevens, nor to _human immortals_, according to Ritson; it is simply the language of a fairy speaking of men.

A posthumous note by Mr. Steevens has not contributed to strengthen his former arguments, as the authors therein mentioned do not, strictly speaking, allude to the sort of fairies in question, but to spirits, devils, and angels. Shakspeare, however, would certainly be more influenced by popular opinion than by the dreams of the casuists. There is a curious instance of the nature of fairies, according to the belief of more ancient times, in the romance of Lancelot of the lake. "En celui temps," (the author is speaking of the days of king Arthur,) "estoient appellees faees toutes selles qui sentremettoient denchantemens et de charmes, et moult en estoit pour lors principalement en la Grande Bretaigne, et savoient la force et la vertu des paroles, des pierres, et des herbes, parquoy _elles estoient tenues en jeunesse et en beaulte_, et en grandes richesses comme elles devisoient." This perpetual youth and beauty cannot well be separated from a state of immortality. Nor would it be difficult to controvert the sentiments of those who have maintained the mortality of _devils_, by means of authorities as valid as their own. The above interesting romance will furnish one at least that may not be unacceptable. Speaking of the birth of the prophet and enchanter Merlin, it informs us that his mother would not consent to the embraces of any man who should be visible; and therefore it was by some means ordained that a _devil_ should be her lover. When he approached her, to use the words of the romance, "la damoiselle le tasta et sentit quil avoit le corps moult bien fait; non pourtant les dyables n'ont ne corps ne membres que l'en puisse veoir ne toucher, _car spirituelle chose ne peut estre touchée, et tous diables sont choses spirituelles_." The fruit of this amour was Merlin; but he, being born of woman, was but a semi-devil, and subject to mortality. A damsel with whom he had fallen in love, prevailed on him to disclose some of his magical arts to her, by means of which she deceived him, and preserved her chastity by casting him into a deep sleep whenever he importuned her. The romance adds, "si le decevoit ainsi _pource qu'il estoit mortel_; mais s'il eust este _du tout dyable_, elle ne l'eust peu decepvoir; car ung dyable ne peut dormir."

SCENE 2. Page 45.

TITA. Therefore the moon, _the governess of floods_, _Pale_ in her anger, _washes all the air_, That rheumatic diseases do abound.

Thus in Newton's _Direction for the health of magistrates and studentes_, 1574, 12mo, we are told that "the moone is _ladie of moysture_;" and in Hamlet, Act I. Scene 1, she is called "the _moist_ star." In Bartholomæus _De propriet. rerum_, by Batman, lib. 8. c. 29, the moon is described to be "mother of all _humours_, minister and _lady of the sea_." But in Lydgate's prologue to his _Storie of Thebes_, there are two lines which Shakspeare seems closely to have imitated;

"Of Lucina the moone, _moist and pale_, That many _showre fro heaven_ made availe."

The same mode of expression occurs in Parkes's _Curtaine drawer of the world_, 1612, 4to, p. 48: "the centinels of the season ordained to marke the _queen of floods_ how she lends her borrowed light." This book deserves to be noticed for the good sense which it contains, and the merit of some occasional pieces of poetry.

SCENE 2. Page 50.

OBE. I do but beg a little changeling boy To be my _henchman_.

Of all the opinions concerning the origin of this word, that of Sir William Spelman alone can be maintained. If instead of deriving it from the _German_, he had stated that it came to us through the _Saxon_ Henᵹeꞅꞇ, a _horse_, his information had been more correct. Although in more modern times the pages or henchmen might have walked on foot, it is very certain that they were originally _horsemen_, according to the term. Thus in Chaucer's _Floure and the leafe_:

"And every knight had after him _riding_ Three _henshmen_, on him awaiting."

If the old orthography _henxmen_ had not been unfortunately disturbed, we should have heard nothing of the conjectures about _haunch_ and _haunch_-men.

SCENE 2. Page 58.

Enter DEMETRIUS, _Helena following him_.

However forward and indecorous the conduct of Helena in pursuing Demetrius may appear to modern readers, such examples are very frequent in old romances of chivalry, wherein Shakspeare was undoubtedly well read. The beautiful ballad of the Nut-brown maid might have been more immediately in his recollection, many parts of this scene having a very strong resemblance to it.

SCENE 2. Page 61.

HEL. I'll follow thee, and _make a heaven of hell_.

Imitated by Milton:

"The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a _heav'n of hell_, a hell of heaven."

_Par. lost_, b. i. l. 254.

SCENE 2. Page 62.

OBE. Quite overcanopied with _lush_ woodbine.

See what has been already said on this word in p. 8; the meaning is the same as there. Theobald's amendment from _luscious_ was probably in conformity with that passage; and the printers of the old editions not comprehending the meaning of _lush_, which even in their time was an antiquated word, ignorantly, as well as unharmoniously, substituted _luscious_.

SCENE 3. Page 68.

HER. ... in human modesty Such separation, as, may well be said, Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid.

That is, "_let there be_ such separation," &c. A comma should be placed after _modesty_.

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 77.

QUIN. When you have spoken your speech, enter into that _brake_.

It is submitted that _brake_ cannot _in this instance_ signify _a large extent of ground, overgrown with furze_, but merely the hawthorn bush or _tyring-house_ as Quince had already called it.

SCENE 1. Page 83.

BOT. Nay I can _gleek_ upon occasion.

Again, in _Romeo and Juliet_, Act IV. Scene 5:

"1. MUS. What will you _give us_?

_Pet._ No money, on my faith; but the _gleek_."

On which consult Mr. Steevens's posthumous note in Mr. Reed's last edition.

Mr. Pope had justly remarked that to _gleek_ is to _scoff_. In some of the notes on this word it has been supposed to be connected with the card game of _gleek_; but it was not recollected that the Saxon language supplied the term Glɩᵹ, _ludibrium_, and doubtless a corresponding verb. Thus _glee_ signifies _mirth_ and _jocularity_; and _gleeman_ or _gligman_, a minstrel or _joculator_. _Gleek_ was therefore used to express a stronger sort of joke, a _scoffing_. It does not appear that the phrase _to give the gleek_ was ever introduced in the above game, which was borrowed by us from the French, and derived from an original of very different import from the word in question.

SCENE 1. Page 84.

TITA. And light them at the fiery glow-worms _eyes_.

Dr. Johnson's objection to the word eyes, has been very skilfully removed by Mr. Monck Mason; but this gentleman appears to have misconceived the meaning of Shakspeare's most appropriate epithet of _ineffectual_, in the passage from _Hamlet_. The glow-worm's fire was _ineffectual_ only at the approach of morn, in like manner as the light of a candle would be at mid-day.

SCENE 1. Page 88.

OBE. What night-_rule_ now about this haunted grove?

Mr. Steevens has properly explained _night-rule_. _Rule_ in this word has the same meaning as in the Christmas lord of mis-_rule_, and is a corruption of _revel_, formerly written _reuel_.

SCENE 2. Page 89.

PUCK. An _ass's nowl_ I fixed on his head.

The receipt for making a man resemble an ass, already given in a former note, must give place to the following in Scot's _Discoverie of witchcraft_, b. 13. c. xix. "Cutt off the head of a horsse or an asse (before they be dead), otherwise the vertue or strength thereof will be the lesse effectuall, and make an earthern vessell of fit capacitie to conteine the same, and let it be filled with the oile and fat thereof; cover it close, and dawbe it over with lome: let it boile over a soft fier three daies continuallie, that the flesh boiled may run into oile, so as the bare bones may be seene: beate the haire into powder, and mingle the same with the oile; and annoint the _heads of the standers by_, and they shall seem to have horsses or _asses_ heads."

SCENE 2. Page 95.

OBE. All fancy-sick she is, and pale of _cheer_.

Mr. Steevens deduces this word from the Italian _cara_; but it is from the old French _chere_, face. Lydgate finishes the prologue to his _Storie of Thebes_ with these lines:

"And as I coud, with a pale _cheare_, My tale I gan anone, as ye shall heare."

SCENE 2. Page 103.

HEL. So with two seeming _bodies_, but one _heart_; Two of the _first_, like coats in heraldry, Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.

It may be doubted whether this passage has been rightly explained, and whether the commentators have not given Shakspeare credit for more skill in heraldry than he really possessed, or at least than he intended to exhibit on the present occasion. Helen says, "we had two seeming bodies, but only one heart." She then exemplifies her position by a simile--"we had _two of the first_, i. e. _bodies_, like the double coats in heraldry that belong to man and wife as _one person_, but which, like our _single heart_, have but _one crest_."

SCENE 2. Page 112.

PUCK. And yonder shines _Aurora's harbinger_, At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there, Troop home to church-yards.

Aurora's harbinger is Lucifer, the morning star.

"Now the bright morning star, _day's harbinger_, Comes dancing from the East----"[11]

It was the popular belief that ghosts retired at the approach of day. Thus the spirit of Hamlet's father exclaims,

"But soft, methinks I scent the morning air."

In further illustration see a subsequent note on _Hamlet_, Act I. Scene 1.

SCENE 2. Page 117.

HEL. And, sleep, that sometime shuts up sorrow's eye.

Again, in Macbeth:

"Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care." #/

ACT V.

SCENE 1. Page 145.

PHILOST. ... I have heard _it_ over, And it is nothing, nothing in the world; Unless you can find sport in their _intents_, Extremely stretch'd, and conn'd with cruel pain, To do you service.

Dr. Johnson suspects a line to be lost, as he "knows not what it is to _stretch_ and _con_ an _intent_;" but it is surely not _intents_ that are _stretch'd and conn'd_ but the _play_, of which Philostrate is speaking. If the line

"Unless you can find sport, &c."

were printed in a parenthesis, all would be right. Mr. Steevens, not perceiving this, has endeavoured to wrest from the word _intents_, its plain and usual meaning, and would unnecessarily convert it to _attention_, which might undoubtedly be _stretch'd_, but could not well be _conn'd_.

SCENE 1. Page 148.

PHILOST. The prologue is _addrest_.

We have borrowed this sense of the word (_ready_) from the French _adressé_.

SCENE 1. Page 157.

MOON. This lantern doth the _horned_ moon present.

But why _horned_? He evidently refers to the _materials_ of which the _lantern_ was made.

SCENE 2. Page 168.

PUCK. By the triple _Hecat's team_.

By this team is meant the chariot of the moon, said to be drawn by two horses, the one black, the other white. It is probable that Shakspeare might have consulted some translation of Boccaccio's _Genealogy of the gods_, which, as has been already remarked, appears to have occasionally supplied him with his mythological information. As this is the first time we meet with the name of _Hecate_ in our author, it may be proper to notice the error he has committed in making it a word of two syllables, which he has done in several other places, though in one (viz. I. _Henry Sixth_, if he wrote that play) it is rightly made a trisyllable:

"I speak not to that railing Hĕcătē."

Act III. Scene 2.

His contemporaries have usually given it properly. Thus Spenser in the _Fairy queen_,

"As Hĕcătē, in whose almighty hand."

B. vii. Canto 6.

Ben Jonson has, of course, always been correct. Mr. Malone observes, in a note on _Macbeth_, Act III. Scene 5, that Marlowe, though a scholar, has used the word _Hecate_ as a dissyllable. It may be added that Middelton and Golding have done the same; the latter in his translation of Ovid, book vii. has used it in both ways.

SCENE 2. Page 168.

PUCK. I am sent with broom before, To sweep the dust behind the door.

In confirmation of Dr. Johnson's remark that fairies delight in cleanliness, two other poems shall be quoted. The first is the _Fairy queen_, printed in Percy's Ancient Ballads, iii. 207, edit. 1775.

"But if the house be swept, And from uncleanness kept, We praise the household maid," &c.

The other is the _Fairies farewell_, by Bishop Corbet, printed also in Percy's collection, iii. 210, from his _Poetica stromata_, 1648, 18mo. It is also in a preceding edition of the bishop's poems, 1647, 18mo.

"Farewell rewards and fairies! Good housewives now may say; For now foule sluts in dairies Doe fare as well as they: And though they sweepe their hearths no less Than mayds were wont to doe, Yet who of late for cleanliness Finds sixepence in her shoe?"

SCENE 2. Page 170.

OBE. To the best _bride bed_ will we, Which by us shall _blessed_ be.

Mr. Steevens remarks that the ceremony of blessing the bed was observed at the marriage of a _princess_. It was used at _all_ marriages. This was the form, copied from the Manual for the use of Salisbury. "Nocte vero sequente cum sponsus et sponsa _ad lectum pervenerint_, accedat sacerdos et benedicat thalamum, dicens: Benedic, Domine, thalamum istum et omnes habitantes in eo; ut in tua pace consistant, et in tua voluntate permaneant: et in amore tuo vivant et senescant et multiplicentur in longitudine dierum. Per Dominum.--Item _benedictio super lectum_. Benedic, Domine, hoc _cubiculum_, respice, quinon dormis neque dormitas. Qui custodis Israel, custodi famulos tuos in hoc lecto quiescentes _ab omnibus fantasmaticis demonum illusionibus_: custodi eos vigilantes ut in preceptis tuis meditentur dormientes, et te per soporem sentiant: ut hic et ubique defensionis tuæ muniantur auxilio. Per Dominum.--Deinde fiat benedictio _super eos in lecto_ tantum cum Oremus. Benedicat Deus corpora vestra et animas vestras; et det super vos benedictionem sicut benedixit Abraham, Isaac, et Jacob, Amen.--His peractis _aspergat eos aqua benedicta_, et sic discedat et dimittat eos in pace." We may observe on this strange ceremony, that the purity of modern times stands not in need of these holy aspersions to lull the senses and dissipate the illusions of the Devil. The married couple would, no doubt, rejoice when the benediction was ended. In the French romance of _Melusine_, the bishop who marries her to Raymondin blesses the nuptial bed. The ceremony is there represented in a very ancient cut, of which a copy is subjoined. The good prelate is sprinkling the parties with holy water. Sometimes during the benediction the married couple only _sat_ upon the bed; but they generally received a portion of consecrated bread and wine. It is recorded in France, that on frequent occasions the priest was improperly detained till the hour of midnight, whilst the wedding guests rioted in the luxuries of the table, and made use of language that was extremely offensive to the clergy, and injurious to the salvation of the parties. It was therefore, in the year 1577, ordained by Pierre de Gondi, archbishop of Paris, that the ceremony of blessing the nuptial bed should for the future be performed in the day time, or at least _before supper_, and in the presence only of the bride and bridegroom, and of their nearest relations.

[Illustration]

There is a singularity in this cut which may well excuse a short digression. This is the _horned_ head-dress of the bride, a fashion that prevailed in England during the reign of Henry the Sixth, and for a short time afterwards. Lydgate has left us an unpublished ditty, in which he complains of it. As it is, like most of his other poetry, very dull and very tedious, a couple of stanzas may suffice; each concludes with a line to recommend the _casting away of these horns_.

"Clerkys recorde by gret auctorite, Hornys were yove to beestys for diffence; A thyng contrary to femynyte To be made sturdy of resistence. But arche wyves egre in ther violence, Fers as tygre for to make affray, They have despyt and ageyn conscience Lyst nat of pryde ther _hornys cast away_.

Noble pryncessys, this litel shoort ditee Rewdly compiled lat it be noon offence To your womanly merciful pitie, Thouh it be rad in your audience; Peysed ech thyng in your just advertence, So it be no displesaunce to your pay, Undir support of your patience Yevyth example _hornys to cast away_."

_Harl. MS._ No. 2255.

In France, this part of female dress was a frequent subject of clerical reprehension. Nicholas de Claminges, a doctor of the Sorbonne, and contemporary with Lydgate, compares it to the horns of oxen. "Tenduntur hinc et inde mira et inaudita deformitate gemina cornua bipedali prope intervallo à se distantia, majorique latitudine caput fœmineum diffundunt quam bubalinum longitudine distenditur. Auro ac gemmis omnia rutilant. Stibio et cerusa pinguntur facies; patent colla; nudantur pectora." Nicolai de Clemangiis _opera_, Lugd. Batavor. 1613, 4to, p. 144. And again, in his letters, "quid de _cornibus_ et caudis loquar, quas illic jam vulgo matronæ gestant, qua in re naturam videntur humanam reliquisse, bestialemque sibi ultro adscivisse. Adde quod _in effigie cornutæ fœminæ Diabolus plerumque pingitur_." We cannot but admire the pious writer's ingenuity in the latter declaration, and how well it was calculated to terrify the ladies out of this preposterous fashion.

SCENE 2. Page 171.

OBE. With this field-dew _consecrate_ Every fairy take his gait; And _each several chamber bless_, Through this palace with sweet peace.

Thus in the _Merry wives of Windsor_, Act V. Scene 5:

"Search Windsor castle, elves, within and out: Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room."

In the first line of Oberon's speech there seems to be a covert satire against holy water. Whilst the popular confidence in the power of fairies existed, they had obtained the credit of occasionally performing much good service to mankind; and the great influence which they possessed gave so much offence to the holy monks and friars, that they determined to exert all their power to expel the above imaginary beings from the minds of the people, by taking the office of the fairies' benedictions entirely into their own hands. Of this we have a curious proof in the beginning of Chaucer's admirable tale of the _Wife of Bath_:

"I speke of many hundred yeres ago; But now can no man see non elves mo, For now the grete charitee and prayeres Of limitoures and other holy freres That serchen every land and every streme. As thikke as motes in the sonne beme, _Blissing halles, chambres, kichenes, and boures, Citees and burghes, castles highe and toures, Thropes and bernes, shepenes and dairies, This maketh that ther ben no faeries: For ther as wont to walken was an elf, Ther walketh now the limitour himself_."

The other quotation from Chaucer, which Mr. Steevens has given, is not to the present purpose. The _fairies' blessing_ was to bring _peace_ upon the house of Theseus; the _night-spell_ in the _Miller's tale_, is pronounced _against the influence of elves_, and those demons, or evil spirits, that were supposed to occasion the night-mare, and other nocturnal illusions. As this is a subject that has never been professedly handled, it may be worth while to bring together a few facts that relate to it; to do it ample justice would require an express dissertation.

A belief in the influence of evil spirits has been common to all nations, and in the remotest periods of the human history. The gross superstitions of the middle ages, which even exceeded those in Pagan times, had given birth to a variety of imaginary beings, who were supposed to be perpetually occupied in doing mischief to mankind. The chief of these were the _Incubus_, or _night-mare_, and certain _fairies of a malignant nature_. It therefore became necessary to check and counteract their operations by spells, charms, and invocations to saints. Some of these have been preserved. The lines given to Mad Tom in _Lear_, beginning

"Saint Withold footed thrice the wold,"

is one of them; and in the notes belonging to it, as well as in those by Mr. Tyrwhitt on the _Canterbury tales_, vol. iv. 242, others have been collected. To these may be added the following in Cartwright's play of _The Ordinary_, Act III. Scene 1:

"Saint Francis, and Saint Benedight, Blesse this house from wicked wight, From the night-mare and the goblin, That is hight _good fellow Robin_. Keep it from all evil spirits, Fayries, weezels, rats and ferrets, From curfew time To the next prime."

This indeed may be rather considered as satirical, but it is a parody on those which were genuine. Sinclair, in his _Satan's invisible world discovered_, informs us that "At night, in the time of popery, when folks went to bed, they believed the repetition of this following prayer was effectual to preserve them from danger, and the house too."

"Who sains the house the night, They that sains it ilka night. Saint Bryde and her brate, Saint Colme and his hat, Saint Michael and his spear, Keep this house from the weir; From running thief, And burning thief; And from an ill Rea, That be the gate can gae; And from an ill weight, That be the gate can light Nine reeds about the house; Keep it all the night, What is that, what I see So red, so bright, beyond the sea? 'Tis he was pierc'd through the hands, Through the feet, through the throat, Through the tongue; Through the liver and the lung. Well is them that well may Fast on Good-friday."

As darkness was supposed to be more immediately adapted to the machinations of these malicious spirits, it was natural that, on retiring to rest, certain prayers should be chosen to deprecate their influence, which was often regarded as of a _particular kind_. To this Imogen alludes when she exclaims,

"To your protection I commend me, Gods! From fairies, and the _tempters of the night_ Guard me, beseech ye!"

_Cymbeline_, Act II. Scene 2.

So Banquo in _Macbeth_:

"Restrain in me the _cursed thoughts that nature Gives way to in repose_."

An ancient hymn by Saint Ambrose goes to the same point:

"Procul recedant somnia Et noctium phantasmata: Hostemque nostrum comprime Ne _polluantur corpora_."

The demon who was supposed to have particular influence in these nocturnal illusions, was Asmodeus, the lame devil of whom Mons. Le Sage has made such admirable use. In expelling him, the sign of the cross was most efficacious; a very old practice on similar occasions, as we learn from the following lines in Prudentius:--

"Fac, cum _vocante somno Castum petis cubile_ Frontem, locumque cordis _Crucis_ figura signes. Crux pellit omne crimen, Fugunt crucem tenebræ: Tali dicata signo Mens fluctuare nescit. Procul, ô procul _vagantum Portenta somniorum_, Procul esto pervicaci Præstigiator astu."

Relics of saints, images of the holy Virgin, sanctified girdles, and a variety of other amulets were resorted to on the same occasion, exhibiting a lamentable proof of the imbecility of human nature.

SCENE 2. Page 172.

PUCK. _Give me your hands_, if we be friends.

Thus in the _epilogue_ to Stubbes's excellent play of _Senile odium_,

"... jam _vestræ quid valeant manus_ Nimis velim experiri: ab illis enim vapulare, munus erit."

FOOTNOTES:

[11] It has not been recollected to what poet these lines belong.

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 181.

KING. Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives, Live register'd upon our _brazen tombs_.

It was the fashion in Shakspeare's time, and had been so from the thirteenth century, to ornament the tombs of eminent persons with figures and inscriptions on _plates of brass_: to these the allusion seems rather to be made, than to monuments that were entirely of brass, such being of very rare occurrence.

SCENE 1. Page 182.

_Long._ Fat paunches have lean pates.

From the Latin _pinguis venter non gignit sensum tenuem_. See Ray's _Proverbs_. The rest of Longaville's speech, "and dainty bits," &c. merely repeats the same sentiment for the sake of a rhime.

SCENE 1. Page 183.

BIRON. If study's gain be _thus_, and this be so.

Mr. Ritson would read, _If study's gain be this_. There is no occasion for any change. _Thus_ means _after this manner_; but the poet would not write _this_, in order to avoid a cacophony.

SCENE 1. Page 191.

KING. This _child of fancy_, that Armado hight, For interim to our studies shall relate, In high-horn words, the worth of many a knight From _tawny_ Spain, lost in the world's debate.

The context seems to indicate that _child of fancy_ is here used precisely in the sense in which Milton applied it to Shakspeare, from whom he probably borrowed it. The meaning of this controverted speech may be as follows: "this child of _invention_ shall relate to us, in his bombastic language, the worthy deeds of many a Spanish knight which are now forgotten amidst those topics that engage the attention of mankind." The expression _tawny Spain_ may refer to the Moors in that country; for although they had been expelled from thence almost a century before the time of Shakspeare, it was allowable on the present occasion to refer to the period when they flourished in Spain; or he might only copy what he found in the original story of the play.

SCENE 2. Page 198.

ARM. Why, sadness is one and the self same thing, dear _imp_.

This word, which is well explained by Mr. Ritson, was often, as in the present instance, used to _pages_. Thus Urquhart in his _Discovery of a jewel_, &c. p. 133, calls a person of this description "a hopeful youth and tender _imp_ of great expectation."

SCENE 2. Page 200.

MOTH ... the _dancing horse_ will tell you.

The best account of Banks and his famous horse Morocco is to be found in the notes to a French translation of Apuleius's _Golden ass_ by Jean de Montlyard, Sieur de Melleray, counsellor to the Prince of Condé. This work was first printed in 1602, 8vo, and several times afterwards. The author himself had seen the horse, whose master he calls a _Scotishman_, at Paris, where he was exhibited in 1601, at the Golden Lion, Rue Saint Jaques. He is described as a _middle-sized bay English gelding, about 14 years old_. A few quotations from the work itself may not be unacceptable. "Son maistre l'appelle _Moraco_.... Nous avons vu son maistre l'interroger combien de francs vaut l'escu: et luy, donner trois fois du pied en terre. Mais chose plus estrange, parce que l'escu d'or sol et de poids vaut encor maintenant au mois de Mars 1601, plus que trois francs: l'Escossois luy demanda combien de sols valoit cest escu _outre_ les trois francs; et Moraco frappa quatre coups, pour denoter les quatre sols que vaut lescu de surcroist." In which remark the counsellor shows himself less sagacious than the horse he is describing. He proceeds: "Après un infinité de tours de passe-passe, il luy fait danser les _Canaries_ avec beaucoup d'art et de dexterité." The rest of the numerous tricks performed by this animal are much the same as those practised by the horses educated under the ingenious Mr. Astley. We also learn from this French work, that the magistrates, conceiving that all this could not be done without the aid of magic, had some time before imprisoned the master, and put the horse under sequestration; but having since discovered that every thing was effected by mere art and the making of signs, they had liberated the parties and permitted an exhibition. The Scotchman had undertaken to teach any horse the same tricks in a twelvemonth. It is said that both the horse and his master were afterwards burned at Rome as magicians; nor is this the only instance of the kind. In a little book entitled _Le diable bossu_, Nancy, 1708, 18mo, there is an obscure allusion to an English horse, whose master had taught him to know the cards, and which was burned alive at Lisbon in 1707; and Mr. Granger, in his _Biographical history of England_, vol. iii. p. 164, edit. 1779, has informed us that within his remembrance a horse which had been taught to perform several tricks was, with his owner, put into the Inquisition. The author of the life of Mal Cutpurse, 1662, 12mo, mentions her "fellow humourist _Banks the vintner in Cheapside_, who taught his horse to dance and shooed him with silver." In the eighth book of Markham's _Cavalarice or the English horseman_, 1607, 4to, there is a chapter "how a horse may be taught to doe and tricke done by _Bankes his curtall_." It is extremely curious, and towards the end throws light upon the second line of Bastard's epigram quoted by Mr. Steevens.

SCENE 2. Page 203.

ARM. _Green_, indeed, is the colour of _lovers_.

_Green eyes_, _jealousy_, and _the willow_, have been mentioned as the subjects of this allusion; but it is, perhaps, to _melancholy_, the frequent concomitant of love. Thus in _Twelfth night_, "And with a _green_ and yellow _melancholy_;" certainly in that instance, the effect of love.

SCENE 2. Page 206.

DULL. She is allowed for the _day_-woman.

See more on the word _dey_ in Mr. Tyrwhitt's edition of _The Canterbury tales_, iii. 287, who supposes that a _dey_ originally meant a day labourer, however it came afterwards to be applied to the _dairy_: yet this conjecture must give way to Dr. Johnson's statement that _day_ is an old word for milk. The doctor has not indeed produced any authority, and the original Saxon word seems lost; but in the Swedish language, which bears the greatest affinity to our own of any other, as far as regards the Teutonic part of it, _dia_ signifies _to milk_, and _deie_, in Polish, the same. _Die_, in Danish, is _the breast_. The nearest Saxon word that remains is _diende_, _sucklings_; and there can be no doubt that we have the term in question from some of our northern ancestors. The _dey_ or dairy maid is mentioned in the old statutes that relate to working people; and in that of 12 Ric. II. the annual wages of this person are settled at six shillings.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 221.

PRIN. Good wits will be jangling: but gentles agree.

These alliterative and anapæstic lines are in the manner of Tusser, who has many such; for example,

"At Christmas of Christ many carols we sing."

It will be admitted that the construction of this sort of verse is rather less adapted to a court than a cottage; but it is presumed that none will be inclined to find Shakspeare guilty of such poetry, which a good deal resembles the halfpenny book style of

"Here's N. with a nag that is prancing with pride, And O. with an owl hooping close by his side."

SCENE 1. Page 222.

BOVET. His heart like an agate with your print impressed.

An allusion either to the figures of the human face often found in agates and other stones, or to an engraved gem.

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 225.

MOTH. Master, will you win your love with a French _brawl_.

The word _brawl_ in its signification of a dance is from the French _branle_, indicating a shaking or swinging motion. The following accounts of this dance may be found more intelligible than that cited from Marston. It was performed by several persons uniting hands in a circle, and giving each other continual shakes, the steps changing with the tune. It usually consisted of three _pas_ and a _pied-joint_, to the time of four strokes of the bow; which being repeated was termed a _double brawl_. With this dance balls were usually opened. _Le branle du bouquet_ is thus described in _Deux dialogues du nouveau langage François, Italianizé_, &c. Anvers, 1579, 24mo:--"Un des gentilhommes et une des dames, estans les premiers en la danse, laissent les autres (qui cependant continuent la danse) et se mettans dedans la dicte compagnie, _vont baisans par ordre toutes les personnes qui y sont_: à sçavoir le gentil-homme les dames, et la dame les gentils-hommes. Puis ayans achevé leurs baisemens, au lieu qu'ils estoyent les premiers en la danse, se mettent les derniers. Et ceste façon de faire se continue par le gentilhomme et la dame qui sont les plus prochains, jusques à ce qu'on vienne aux derniers."--P. 385. It is probably to this dance that the puritan Stubbes alludes in the following words: "for what clipping, what culling, what _kissing and bussing, what smouching and slabbering one of another_: what filthy groping and unclean handling is not practised every where in these dauncings? Yea the very deed and action itselfe which I will not name for offending chaste eares, shall bee purtrayed and shadowed foorth in their bawdy gestures of one to another."--_Anatomie of abuses_, p. 114, edit. 1595, 4to. And John Northbrooke, another writer _ejusdem farinæ_, in his invective called _A treatise wherein dicing, dauncing, vaine plaies or enterludes_, &c. 1579, 4to, exclaims that "the Pagans were better and more sad than wee be, they never knewe this newe fashion of dauncing of ours, and uncleanely handling and groping, and _kissings_, and a very kindling of lechery: whereto serveth all that _bassing_, as were pigeons the birdes of Venus?" And again; "they daunce with disordinate gestures, and with monstrous thumping of the feete, to pleasant soundes, to wanton songues, to dishonest verses, maidens and matrons are groped and handled with unchaste hands, _and kissed and dishonestly embraced_," fo. 64, 66. Amidst a great variety of _brawls_ mentioned in the very curious treatise on dancing by Thoinot Arbeau, entitled _Orchesographie_, Lengres, 1588, 4to, there is a _Scotish brawl_, with the music, which is here given as a specimen of an old Scotish tune.

[Music]

The facetious macaronic poet Antony Sablon, or de Arena, whose work Camden says he "kept as a jewel," has left the following description of a brawl:--

_Modus dansandi branlos._

"Ipse modis branlos debes dansare duobus, Simplos et duplos usus habere solet. Sed branlos duplos, passus tibi quinque laborent. Tres fac avantum, sed reculando duos, Quattuor in mensura ictus marchabis eundo, Atque retornando quattuor ipse dabis."

This dance continued in fashion in our own country so late as the year 1693, when Playford published a book of tunes in which a _brawl_ composed by Mons. Paisable occurs; and see many of the little French pieces in the _Theatre de la foire_, 1721.

SCENE 1. Page 225.

MOTH. _Canary_ it with your feet.

The _canary_ was another very favourite dance. In the translation of Leo's _Description of Africa_, by Pory, 1600, folio, there is an additional account of the _Canary islands_, in which the author, speaking of the inhabitants, says, "They were and are at this day delighted with a kind of dance which they use also in Spain, and in other places, and because it took originall from thence, it is called _the Canaries_." Thoinot Arbeau likewise mentions this opinion, but is himself, in common with some others, inclined to think that the dance originated from a ballet composed for a masquerade, in which the performers were habited as kings and queens of Morocco, or as savages with feathers of different colours. He then describes it as follows:--A lady is taken out by a gentleman, and after dancing together to the cadences of the proper air, he leads her to the end of the hall; this done he retreats back to the original spot, always looking at the lady. Then he makes up to her again, with certain steps, and retreats as before. His partner performs the same ceremony, which is several times repeated by both parties, with various strange fantastic steps, very much in the savage style. This dance was sometimes accompanied by the castagnets. The following _Canary_ tune is from Arbeau.

[Music]

SCENE 1. Page 236.

COST. Guerdon,--O sweet guerdon!

Mr. Steevens deduces this word from the middle age Latin _regardum_. It is presumed that few, if any, words are derived from the Latin of that period, which itself was rather corrupted by the introduction of terms from the living languages of Europe Latinized by the Monkish writers. _Guerdon_, as used by us, is immediately from the French: not equivalent, as some have imagined, with _don_ de _guerre_, but formed from the Teutonic _werd_ or _wurth_, i. e. _price_, _value_.

SCENE 1. Page 237.

BIRON. This _wimpled_, whining, purblind, wayward boy.

If, as Mr. Steevens observes, the advocates for Shakspeare's learning, on a presumption that he might have been acquainted with the Roman _flammeum_, or seen the celebrated gem of the marriage of Cupid and Psyche, had applauded the choice of his epithet, it is certain they would have shown very little skill or critical judgment on the occasion. By _wimpled_, Shakspeare means no more than that Cupid was hood-winked, alluding to the usual representation in paintings where he is exhibited with a bandage over his eyes. It may be observed here that the blindness of the God of love is not warranted by the authority of any ancient classic author, but appears to have been the invention of some writer of the middle ages; not improbably Boccaccio, who in his _Genealogy of the Gods_ gives the following account: "Oculos autem illi fascia tegunt, ut advertamus amantes ignorare quo tendant; nulla eorum esse indicia, nullæ rerum distinctiones, sed sola passione duci."--Lib. ix. c. 4.

The oldest English writer who has noticed the blindness of love is Chaucer, in his translation of the _Roman de la rose_:

"The God of love, _blind as stone_."

But this line is not in the French original. Shakspeare himself has well accounted for Cupid's blindness:

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind."

_M. N. Dream_, Act I. Scene 1.

SCENE 1. Page 240.

BIRON. And I to be a corporal of the field.

Dr. Farmer's quotation of the line from Ben Jonson, "As corporal of the field, maestro del campo," has the appearance, without perhaps the intention, of suggesting that these officers were the same: this, however, was not the fact. In Styward's _Pathway to martiall discipline_, 1581, 4to, there is a chapter on the office of _maister of the campe_, and another on _the electing and office of the foure corporalls of the fields_; from which it appears that "two of the latter were appointed for placing and ordering of shot, and the other two for embattailing of the pikes and billes, who according to their worthinesse, if death hapneth, are to succeede the great sergeant or sergeant major."

SCENE 1. Page 241.

BIRON. ... like a _German clock_.

Such part of Mr. Steevens's note as relates to the invention of clocks may, in a future edition, be rendered more correct by consulting Beckman's _History of inventions_. It is certain that we had clocks in England before the reign of Elizabeth; but they were not in general use till that time, when most, if not all, of them were imported from Germany. These clocks resembled what are still made for the use of the lower classes of people by several ingenious Germans established in London.

SCENE 1. Page 242.

BIRON. Some men must love my lady, and some Joan.

Alluding to the homely proverb, "Joan's as good as my lady in the dark:" and in Markham's _Health to the gentlemanly profession of serving men_, sign. I. 3, we have, "What hath Joan to do with my lady?"

ACT IV.

SCENE 1. Page 243.

PRIN. ... my friend, where is the bush That we must stand and play the murderer in?

The practice of ladies shooting at deer in this passage alluded to, is of great antiquity, as may be collected from Strutt's _Sports and pastimes of the people of England_, p. 9. The old romances abound with such incidents; but one of the most diverting is recorded in _The history of prince Arthur_, part 3, chap. cxxiv. where a lady huntress wounds Sir Lancelot of the Lake, instead of a deer, in a manner most "comically tragical."

SCENE 1. Page 246.

COST. God-dig-you-den all.

"A corruption," says Mr. Malone very justly, "of God give you good even." Howel, at the end of his _Parley of the beasts_, has an advertisement relating to orthography, in which, after giving several examples that the French do not speak as they write, he observes that "the English come not short of him (the Frenchman); for whereas he writes, _God give you good evening_, he often saies, _Godi_, _godin_." But the whole of what Howel has said on this subject is unfairly pillaged from _Claude de Sainliens_, or, as he chose to call himself in this country, _Hollyband_; who after very successfully retorting a charge made by the English, that Frenchmen do not sound their words as they spell them, is nevertheless content to admit that his countrymen do _sometimes_ err, as when they say _avoo disné_, for _avez vous disné_? See his treatise _De pronuntiatione linguæ Gallicæ_, Lond. 1580, 12mo, p. 81. This person was a teacher of languages in London, and wrote several ingenious works, among which is the _first_ French and English dictionary, 1580, and 1593, 4to; afterwards much amplified by Randle Cotgrave, and by him rendered the best repertory of old French that is extant. It is in other respects an extremely valuable work.

SCENE 1. Page 49.

BOVET. A phantasm, a _Monarcho_.

Another trait of this person's character is preserved in Scot's _Discoverie of witchcraft_, edit. 1584, p. 54, where, speaking of the influence of melancholy on the imagination, he says, "the Italian, whom we call here in England _the Monarch_, was possessed of the like spirit or conceipt." This conceit was, that all the ships which came into port belonged to him.

SCENE 2. Page 526.

Enter HOLOFERNES.

A part of Mr. Steevens's note requires the following correction:--Florio's _First fruites_ were _printed_ in 1578, 4to, by Thomas Dawson. In 1598 he dedicated his Italian and English dictionary to Roger Earl of Rutland, Henry Earl of Southampton, and Lucy Countess of Bedford. As to the edition of 1595, mentioned by Mr. Steevens, does it really exist, or has not too much confidence been placed in the elegant but inaccurate historian of English poetry? See vol. iii. p. 465, note (h).

SCENE 2. Page 262.

HOL. _Dictynna_, goodman Dull; _Dictynna_, goodman Dull.

It is possible, as Mr. Steevens has remarked, that Shakspeare might have found Diana's title of _Dictynna_ in Golding's Ovid; but there is reason for supposing that he had seen an English translation of Boccaccio's _Genealogy of the Gods_, though we have it not at present. E. Kerke, in his notes on Spenser's _Shepherd's calendar_, quotes this work; yet he might have used the original. From the same source it was possible for Shakspeare to have acquired the present information, as well as what other mythology he stood in need of. The Latin dictionaries of Eliot and Cooper would likewise supply him with similar materials.

SCENE 3. Page 274.

BIRON. Thou mak'st the _triumviry_, the corner-cap of society, _The shape of love's Tyburn_ that hangs up simplicity.

An allusion to the gallows of the time, which was occasionally _triangular_. Such a one is seen in some of the cuts to the first edition of Holinshed's _Chronicle_, and in other ancient prints.

SCENE 3. Page 276.

BIRON. By earth she is _but corporal_; there you lie.

This is Theobald's alteration from the old reading, which was, "She is not, Corporal, there you lie," and has been adopted by the modern editors from its apparent ingenuity. A little attention may serve to show that no change was necessary, and that the original text should be restored. Theobald says that Dumain had _no post in the army_, and asks what wit there is in calling him corporal. The answer is, As much as there had already been in Biron's calling himself _a corporal of Cupid's field_; a title equally appropriate to Dumain on the present occasion. To render the matter still clearer, it may be observed that Biron does not give the lie to Dumain's assertion that his mistress was a _divinity_, as presumed by the amended reading, but to that of her being _the wonder of a mortal eye_. Dumain is answered sentence by sentence.

SCENE 3. Page 276.

DUM. Her amber hairs for foul have amber _coted_.

Mr. Steevens's explanation of _coted_, and of the whole line, is inadmissible. _Foulness_ or _cloudiness_ is no criterion of the _beauty_ of amber. Mr. Malone has partly explained _coted_, by _marked_, but has apparently missed the sense of it here when he adds _written down_. Mr. Mason has given the true construction of the line, but he mistakes the meaning of _coted_, which, after all, merely signifies to _mark_ or _note_. The word is from the French _coter_, which, in like manner as Mr. Malone has well observed of the English term, is the old orthography of _quoter_. The grammatical construction is, "her amber hairs have marked or shown that [real] amber is foul in comparison of themselves."

SCENE. 3. Page 291.

LONG. Some tricks, some _quillets_, how to cheat the Devil.

The objection to Warburton's derivation of _quillet_ from the _French_ is, that there is no such term in the language: nor is it exclusively applicable to law-chicane, though generally so used by Shakspeare. It strictly means a _subtilty_, and seems to have originated among the schoolmen of the middle ages, by whom it was called a _quidlibet_. They had likewise their _quodlibets_ and their _quiddities_. From the schoolmen these terms were properly enough transferred to the lawyers. Hamlet says, "Why may not that be the scull of a lawyer? where be his _quiddits_ now, his _quillets_, his cases, his tenures and his tricks?" The conjectures of Peck, and after him of Dr. Grey in a note to Hudibras, seem to merit but little attention.

SCENE 3. Page 294.

BIRON. Still climbing trees in the _Hesperides_.

An error is here laid to Shakspeare's charge, of which he is not perhaps guilty. The expression _trees in the Hesperides_ must be regarded as elliptical, and signifies _trees in the gardens of the Hesperides_. Shakspeare is seldom wrong in his mythology, and, if he had doubted on the present occasion, the dictionaries of Eliot or Cooper would have supplied him with the necessary information. The first quotation in the note from Greene, is equally elliptical; for this writer was too good a scholar to have committed the mistake ascribed to Shakspeare: so that the passage, instead of convicting the latter, does in reality support him. As to the other quotation from _Orpheus and Eurydice_, the learned critic himself lays but little stress on it; or indeed might, on reconsideration, be disposed to think the expression correct. It would not be difficult to trace instances in modern authors of the use of _Hesperides_ for _gardens of the Hesperides_. See Lempriere's excellent classical dictionary, edit. 1792, 8vo.

ACT V.

SCENE 1. Page 302.

HOL. His humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his _tongue filed_.--

Mr Steevens has remarked that Chaucer, Skelton, and Spenser are frequent in their use of this phrase, but he has offered no explanation. It signifies _polished language_; thus Turbervile, in his translation of _Ovid's epistles_, makes Phyllis say to her lover--

"Thy many smooth and _filed_ wordes Did purchase credites place."

SCENE 1. Page 306.

ARM. ... a sweet touch, a quick _venew_ of wit.

The _cut and thrust_ notes on this occasion exhibit a complete _match_ between the two great Shakspearean _maisters of defence_. "A venew," says Mr. Steevens, "is the technical term for a _bout_ (or _set-to_, as he had before called it in vol. iii. p. 317,) at the fencing school." On the other hand, Mr. Malone maintains that "a venue is _not_ a _bout_ at fencing, but a _hit_;" and his opponent retorts on the ground of _positiveness_ of denial. As the present writer has himself been an amateur and practitioner of the noble science of defence, he undertakes on this occasion the office of umpire between the sturdy combatants.

The quotations adduced on either side are not calculated to ascertain the clear and genuine sense of the word _venew_, and it is therefore necessary to seek for more decisive evidence respecting its meaning. Howel in his _Lexicon tetraglotton_, 1660, mentions "a veny in fencing; venue, _touche_, toca;" and afterwards more fully in his vocabulary, sect. xxxii. "A foin, _veny_, or stoccado; la botta; la _touche_, le _coup_." In Sir John Harrington's _Life of Dr. Still_, is the following expression, "he would not sticke to warne them in the arguments to take heede to their answers, like a perfect fencer that will tell afore-hand in which button he will give the _venew_." _Nugæ antiquæ_, vol. ii. p. 158, edit. 1804, by Park. In Ben Jonson's _Every man in his humour_, Act I. Scene 5, Bobadil, in answer to Master Matthew's request for _one venue_, says, "Venue! fie: most gross denomination as ever I heard; O, the _stoccata_, while you live, sir, note that." On this passage, Mr. Reed, in a note on the play of _The widow's tears_, Dodsley's _Old plays_, vol. vi. 152, observes that "the word appears to have been out of fashion with the fantastic gallants of the time very early." Its occurrence however so late as the time in which Howel's dictionary was published seems to render this ingenious remark very questionable, and suggests another explanation of Bobadil's wish to change the word, namely, his coxcombly preference of the terms of the Spanish and Italian schools of fencing to those used in the English, which, it is presumed, were more immediately borrowed from our Gallic neighbours. That the terms _stoccado_ and _imbrocato_ denoted a _hit_ or thrust, may be collected from many passages in Vincent Saviolo's _Use of the rapier and dagger_, 1595, 4to; and in Florio's Italian dictionary, 1598, folio, _stoccata_ is rendered, _a foyne, a thrust given in fence_; and _tocco, a venie at fence, a hit_. All the above circumstances considered, one should feel inclined to adjudge the palm of victory to Mr. Malone.

It is however remarkable enough that Mr. Steevens is accidentally right in defining a _venew_ a _bout_, without being aware of the signification of the latter word. Florio renders _botta_, a _blowe_, a _stroake_. In the best of all the ancient French treatises on the art of fencing, entitled _Traicté sur l'espée seule, mere de toutes armes_, &c., by Henry De Sainct Didier, Paris, 1573, 4to, it is said, "_bottes_ en Napollitain, vaut autant à dire, que _coups_ en François." He then mentions five sorts of _bottes_, viz. _maindrette_, _renverse_, _fendante_, _estoccade_, and _imbroucade_. Nevertheless the word _bout_ had been used in the sense of a _set-to_ in Shakspeare's time. In _The first part of King Henry the Sixth_, Act I. Scene 5, Talbot says to the Pucelle, "I'll have a _bout_ with thee." It retained, however, its original meaning long afterwards. Howel, and Sherwood likewise in his English dictionary at the end of Cotgrave have "a boute, coup," and so it is defined by Skinner: but the following passage from the account given by Sir Thomas Urquhart in his singular book entitled _A discovery of a most exquisite jewel found in the kennel of Worcester streets_, &c. 1652, 12mo, of the combat between the admirable Crichton and the celebrated Mantuan duellist, will put the matter beyond all doubt. "Then was it that to vindicate the reputation of the duke's family and to expiate the blood of the three vanquished gentlemen, he alonged a _stoccade de pied ferme_; then recoyling, he advanced another thrust, and lodged it home; after which retiring again, his right foot did beat the cadence of the blow that pierced the belly of this Italian, whose heart and throat being hit with the two former stroaks, these _three franch bouts_ given in upon the back of other ... by them he was to be made a sacrifice of atonement for the slaughter of the three aforesaid gentlemen who were wounded in the very same parts of their bodies by other such _three venees_ as these." The same mode of expression is also used by the same writer in a subsequent account of a duel between Francis Sinclair, a natural son of the Earl of Caithness, and a German, at Vienna; where it was agreed that he who should give the other the first _three bouts_, should have a pair of golden spurs, in the event of which combat Sinclair "gave in two _venees_ more than he was obliged to."

On the whole therefore it appears that _venew_ and _bout_ equally denote a _hit_ in fencing; that both Mr. Steevens and Mr. Malone are right in this respect; but that the former gentleman is inaccurate in supposing a _venew_ to mean a _set-to_, and the latter equally so in asserting that "a _venew_ is _not_ a _bout_."

SCENE 1. Page 311.

DULL. I will play on the tabor to the worthies, and let them dance the _hay_.

This dance was borrowed by us from the French. It is classed among the _brawls_ in Thoinot Arbeau's _Orchesographie_, already mentioned in page 135.

SCENE 2. Page 312.

ROS. For he hath been five thousand years a boy.

KATH. Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too.

This description of Cupid is borrowed from some lines in Sidney's _Arcadia_, B. ii. See them already quoted on another occasion by Dr. Farmer in _Much ado about nothing_, Act III. Scene 2.

SCENE 2. Page 316.

ROS. That he should be my _fool_, and I his _fate_.

Dr. Warburton's conclusion that _fate_ here signifies _death_ is not satisfactory. Death would be an awkward character for Rosaline to assume, but that of _dame fortune_ infinitely more natural.

It must be owned that destiny and fortune are, strictly speaking, very different characters; yet they have sometimes been confounded. Even Pindar, as Pausanias observes, has made fortune one of the _Parcæ_. In _Julius Cæsar_, the expression, "he is but fortune's _knave_," seems to resemble the present, and to mean, "he is the servant of fortune and _bound to obey her_." Shakspeare is very fond of alluding to the _mockery_ of fortune. Thus we have

"O I am fortune's fool."

_Romeo and Juliet._

"Ye fools of fortune."

_Timon of Athens._

"I am the natural fool of fortune."

_King Lear._

In the last of which passages a pointed allusion is made to the _idiot fool_. Sir J. Suckling uses the same expression in his play of _The goblins_; and Hamlet speaks of "the fools of nature," precisely in the same sense.

SCENE 2. Page 327.

BOVET. Fleeter than arrows, _bullets_, wind, thought, swifter things.

The word _bullets_ is doubtless an interpolation in the manuscript by some ignorant person who thought it more appropriate than _arrows_, on account of the substitution of fire-arms for archery. It might very properly be omitted in the text, without any diminution of editorial accuracy.

SCENE 2. Page 330.

BOVET. Fair ladies mask'd are roses in their bud; Dismask'd their damask sweet commixture shown, Are _angels vailing clouds_, or roses blown.

Of the several explanations here offered of _vailing_, Dr. Johnson's is the best. The poet compares a lady unmasking to an angel dispelling the clouds in his descent from heaven to earth. The term is from the old French _avaler_ to _put_ or _let down_; the true etymology of which appears in the phrase _à mont et à val_, from top to bottom, from _mountain_ to _valley_, which very often occurs in old romances. In that of the _Saint Graal_, MS. we have "et avalerent aval le vessel." In Spenser's _Shepherd's calendar_, under January, "By that the welked Phœbus gan _availe_."

SCENE 2. Page 339.

BIRON. _Three pil'd_ hyperboles.

So in Fennor's _Compter's commonwealth_, 1617, 4to, p. 14, we have "_three pil'd_, huge Basilisco oaths, that would have torne a roring-boyes eares in a thousand shatters."

SCENE 2. Page 345.

COST. You cannot _beg us_, sir.

It has been already stated that it was not the next relation only who begged the wardship of _idiots_ in order to obtain possession of their property, but any person who could make interest with the sovereign to whom the legal guardianship belongs. Frequent allusions to this practice occur in the old comedies. In illustration of it, Mr. Ritson has given a curious story, which, as it is mutilated in the authority which he has used, is here subjoined from a more original source, a collection of tales, &c., compiled about the time of Charles the First, preserved among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum, No. 6395. "The Lord North begg'd old Bladwell for a foole (though he could never prove him so), and having him in his custodie as a lunaticke, he carried him to a gentleman's house, one day, that was his neighbour. The L. North and the gentleman retir'd awhile to private discourse, and left Bladwell in the dining roome, which was hung with a faire hanging; Bladwell walking up and downe, and viewing the imagerie, spyed a foole at last in the hanging, and without delay drawes his knife, flyes at the foole, cutts him cleane out, and layes him on the floore; my L. and the gentl. coming in againe, and finding the tapestrie thus defac'd, he ask'd Bladwell what he meant by such a rude uncivill act; he answered Sʳ. be content, I have rather done you a courtesie than a wrong, for if ever my L. N. had seene the foole there, he would have begg'd him, and so you might have lost your whole suite." The same story, but without the parties' names, is related in Fuller's _Holy state_, p. 182. Powel, in his _Attourney's academy_, 1630, 4to, says, "I shall neede to give you this monitorie instruction touching an _ideot_; that you be assured that yourselfe is somewhat the wiser man before you goe about to _beg him_, or else never meddle with him at all, lest you chance to play at handy-dandy, which is the guardian or which is the foole? and the case alter, _è converso_, _ad conversum_." In _A treatise of taxes_, 1667, 4to, p. 43, there is the following passage: "Now because the world abounds with this kind of fools, (Lottery fools,) it is not fit that every man that will may cheat every man that would be cheated; but it is rather ordained that the sovereign should have the guardianship of these fools, _or that some favourite should beg the sovereign's right of taking advantage of such men's folly, even as in the case of lunatics and ideots_." To this practice too, Butler alludes, in _Hudibras_, part iii. canto I, l. 590.

"Beg one another idiot To guardians, ere they are begot."

Mr. Justice Blackstone, in treating of idiots, has spoken of it; and adds in a note, that the king's power of delegating the custody of them to some subject who has interest enough on the occasion, has of late been very rarely exerted.

SCENE 2. Page 350.

BIRON. The Pedant, the Braggart, the Hedge-priest, the Fool And the boy:-- Abate a throw at _novum_; and the whole world again, Cannot prick out _five_ such, take each one in his vein.

The game of _novum_ or _novem_, here alluded to, requires further illustration to render the _whole_ of the above passage intelligible. It is therefore necessary to state that it was _properly_ called _novum quinque_, from the two principal throws of the dice, nine and five; and then Biron's meaning becomes perfectly clear, according to the reading of the old editions. The above game was called in French _quinquenove_, and is said to have been invented in Flanders.

SCENE 2. Page 351.

Pageant of the nine worthies.

The _genuine_ worthies were Joshua, David, Judas Maccabeus, Hector, Alexander, Julius Cæsar, Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey of Bulloigne, or sometimes in his room Guy of Warwick. Why Shakspeare, in the _five_ of them only whom he has introduced by name, has included Hercules and Pompey, remains to be accounted for. It was a great pity to omit, on this occasion, the very curious specimen of an ancient pageant given by Mr. Ritson, who, in stating that nothing of the kind had ever appeared in print, seems to have forgotten the pageants of Dekker, Middleton, and others, a list of which may be found in Baker's _Biographia dramatica_, vol. ii. 270.

SCENE 2. Page 353.

BIRON. Your nose _smells_ no, in this, most _tender smelling_ knight.

He is addressing, or rather ridiculing Alexander. Plutarch in his life of that hero relates, on the authority of Aristoxenus, that his skin "had a marvellous good savour, and that his breath was very sweet, in so much that _his body had so sweet a smell_ of itselfe that all the apparell he wore next unto his body, tooke thereof a passing delightfull savour, as if it had been perfumed." This Shakspeare had read in Sir Thomas North's translation.

SCENE 2. Page 353.

COST. Your lion, that holds his _poll-ax_ sitting, &c.

The clown's Cloacinian allusion to the arms of Alexander is a wilful _blunder_, for the purpose of introducing his subsequent joke about Ajax. These are the arms themselves copied from the _Roman des neuf preux_, Abbeville, 1487, folio, showing that the chair is not a chaise-perçée.

[Illustration]

The modern _patent Bramahs_ were in Shakspeare's time called _Ajaxes_. Thus in _The hospitall of incurable fooles_, 1600, 4to, fo. 7: "Whoever saw so many odd mechanicks as are at this day, who not with a geometricall spirite like Archimedes, but even with arte surpassing the profoundest Cabalistes, who instead of a pigeon loft, place in the garrets of houses, _portable_ and commodious _Ajaxes_." The marginal explanation comes _closer_ to the point. Again, "the Romans might well be numbered amongst those three-elbowed fooles in adoring Stercutio for a God, shamefully constituting him a patron and protector of _Ajax_ and his commodities," fo. 6.

SCENE 2. Page 360.

COST. I will not fight with a _pole_, like a _northern man_.

On this passage Dr. Farmer says, "_Vir borealis_, a clown, See glossary to Urry's Chaucer." The Doctor's notes are generally clear and instructive, but in this instance he is obscure. It is presumed that he intends to refer the reader to the word _borel_ in Urry's glossary, where it is properly explained _a clown_. Whether _borel_ be derived from _borealis_ may be questioned; but Shakspeare in all probability was unacquainted with this word and its etymology. Does he not refer to the particular use of the quarter staff in the Northern counties?

SCENE 2. Page 367.

PRIN. As _bombast_, and as lining to the time.

_Bombast_ is from the Italian _bombagia_, which signifies all sorts of cotton wool. Hence the stuff called _bombasine_. The cotton put into ink was called _bombase_. "Need you any inke and _bombase_?" Hollyband's _Italian schole-maister_, 1579, 12mo, sign. E. 3.

THE CLOWN.

The clown in this play is a mere country fellow. The term _fool_ applied to him in Act V. Scene 2, means nothing more than a _silly fellow_. He has not sufficient simplicity for a natural fool, nor wit enough for an artificial one.

It will probably be discovered at some future time that this play was borrowed from a French novel. The _dramatis personæ_ in a great measure demonstrate this, as well as a palpable Gallicism in Act IV. Scene 1, viz. the terming a _letter_ a _capon_.

MERCHANT OF VENICE.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 397.

SALAR. There, where your _argosies_, with portly sail Like signiors and rich burghers _of_ the flood, Or as it were the _Pageants_ of the sea, Do overpeer the petty traffickers.

Argosies are properly defined to be "ships of great burthen," and so they are described almost wherever they are mentioned. Mr. Steevens has quoted Rycaut's _Maxims of Turkish polity_, to show that the term originated in a corruption of _Ragosies_, i. e. ships of _Ragusa_. However specious this may appear, it is to be observed that Rycaut, a writer at the end of the seventeenth century, only states it as _a matter of report_, not as a _fact_; and he seems to have followed the slight authority of Roberts's _Marchant's map of commerce_. If any instance shall be produced of the use of such a word as _ragosie_, the objection must be given up. In the mean time it may be permitted to hazard another opinion, which is, that the word in question derives its origin from the famous ship _Argo_: and indeed Shakspeare himself appears to have hinted as much; for the story of Jason is twice adverted to in the course of this play. On one of these occasions Gratiano certainly alludes to Antonio's argosie when he says,

"We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece."

Act III. Scene 2.

Gregory of Tours has more than once made use of _Argis_ to express a ship generally. With respect to _Ragozine_, it has been contended in a former note, page 89, that this name ought not to have been introduced in the discussion of the present subject.

Mr. Steevens remarks that both ancient and modern editors have hitherto been content to read "burghers _on_ the flood;" and, on the authority of a line in which we have "burghers _of a city_," he has substituted "burghers _of_ the flood." He might have been less inclined to this new reading, had he recollected that the "signiors and rich burghers _on_ the flood" are the Venetians, who may well be said to live _on_ the sea. It would be difficult to discover who are the signiors and burghers _of_ the flood, unless they be whales and porpoises.

In calling argosies _the pageants of the sea_, Shakspeare alludes to those enormous machines, in the shapes of castles, dragons, ships, giants, &c., that were drawn about the streets in the ancient shows or pageants, and which often constituted the most important part of them.

SCENE 1. Page 399.

SALAN. Now, by _two-headed Janus_.

Dr. Warburton's note may well be spared in all future editions. If Shakspeare have shown a knowledge of the antique, which he might have obtained from his dictionary at school, the Doctor has, unluckily, on this occasion proved himself less profound in it than Shakspeare, or he would not have ventured to assert that the heads of Janus were those of Pan and Bacchus, Saturn and Apollo, &c. It is presumed that these heads will continue to perplex the learned for many generations.

SCENE 2. Page 410.

POR. If a _throstle_ sing.

Notwithstanding the apparent difference in opinion between Messrs. Steevens and Malone respecting this bird, they are both right. The throstle is only a variety of the thrush, as will be seen by consulting Mr. Pennant's Account of English birds. In _The new general history of birds_, 1745, 12mo, there is an account of "the song-thrush, or throstle;" and see Randle Holme's _Academy of armory_, book ii. ch. 12, no. lxxiii.

SCENE 3. Page 413.

Enter SHYLOCK.

His stage dress should be _a scarlet hat lined with black taffeta_. This is the manner in which the Jews of Venice were formerly distinguished. See Saint Didier _Histoire de Venise_. In the year 1581 they wore _red caps_ for distinction's sake, as appears from Hakluyt's _Voyages_, p. 179, edit. 1589. Lord Verulam, in his Essay on usury, speaking of the witty invectives that men have made against usury, states one of them to be "that usurers should have _orange-tawny bonnets_, because they do _Judaize_."

SCENE 3. Page 414.

SHY. He lends out money gratis, and brings down The rate of usance here with us in Venice.

"It is almost incredyble what gaine the Venetians receive by the usury of the Jewes, both pryvately and in common. For in everye citee the Jewes kepe open shops of usurie, taking gaiges of ordinarie for xv in the hundred by the yere; and if at the yeres ende the gaige be not redemed, it is forfeite, or at the least dooen away to a great disadvantage: by reason whereof the Jewes are out of measure wealthie in those parties."--Thomas's _Historye of Italye_, 1561, 4to, fo. 77.

SCENE 3. Page 416.

SHY. He stuck them up before the _fulsome_ ewes.

_Fulsome_ has, doubtless, the same signification as the preceding epithet _rank_, the physical reason for its application being very generally known. "Ικτιδος _pellis_. Proverbium apud Germanos in vilissimum quodque et maxime _fœtidum_ scortum. Nam Ictis, id est sylvestris mustela cum graviter exarserit, male olet." Erasmi _Adagia_. Spenser makes one of his shepherds speak thus of a kid:

"The blossoms of lust to bud did beginne And spring forth _ranckly_ under his chinne."

_Fulsome_ is from the Gothic _fuls_, i. e. _foul_, _fœtid_. That it sometimes had another root, viz. _full_, is manifest from the line in Golding's _Ovid_, whose expression "fulsome dugs" is in the original "_pleno_ ubere," but is of no service on the present occasion, though quoted by Mr. Steevens.

SCENE 3. Page 418.

SHY. About my money and my _usances_.

Mr. Steevens asserts that _use_ and _usance_ anciently signified _usury_, but both his quotations show the contrary. Mr. Ritson very properly asks whether Mr. Steevens is not mistaken; and Mr. Reed, maintaining that he is right, adduces a passage which _proves_ him to be _wrong_. A gentleman, says Wylson, borrowed 1000 pounds, running still upon _usury_ and _double usury_. "The merchants termyng it _usance_ and _double usance_, by _a more clenly name_," i. e. _interest_, till he owed the usurer five thousand pounds, &c. The sense was obscured by the omission of an important comma after the word _name_. Mr. Malone's note was quite adequate to the purpose of explanation.

SCENE 3. Page 421.

SHY. ... seal me there Your single bond; and in _a merry sport_, If you repay me not, &c.

Thus in the ballad of _Gernutus_:

"But we will have _a merry jeast_ For to be talked long; You shall make me _a bond_, quoth he. That shall be large and strong."

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 423.

MOR. But let us make incision for your love, To prove whose blood is _reddest_, his, or mine.

Dr. Johnson's observation that "red blood is a traditionary sign of courage" derives support from our English Pliny, Bartholomew Glantville, who says, after Isidorus, "_Reed_ clothes ben layed upon deed men in remembrance of theyr _hardynes_ and _boldnes_, whyle they were in theyr bloudde." On which his commentator Batman remarks: "It appereth in the time of the Saxons that the manner over their dead was a _red_ cloath, as we now use black. The _red_ of _valiauncie_, and that was over kings, lords, knights and valyaunt souldiours."

SCENE 2. Page 426.

LAUN. Do not run; scorn _running with thy heels_.

Mr. Steevens calls this _absurdity_, and introduces a brother critic, Sir Hugh Evans, who had maintained that "he hears with ears" was _affectations_: both the parties had forgotten their Bible. As to the proposed alteration "_withe_ thy heels," it might be asked, who ever heard of a person _binding_ his _own heels_ to prevent running? Mr. Malone has well defended the consistency of Launcelot's speech. It may be added that in _King Richard II._ Act V. Scene 3, we have "_kneel_ upon my _knees_."

SCENE 2. Page 427.

LAUN. Well, my _conscience_ says--Launcelot, budge not; budge, says the _fiend_; budge not, says my _conscience_.

It is not improbable that this curious struggle between Launcelot's conscience and the fiend might have been suggested by some well-known story in Shakspeare's time, grafted on the following Monkish fable. It occurs in a collection of apologues that remain only in manuscript, and have been severally ascribed to Hugo of Saint Victor, and Odo de Sheriton or Shirton, an English Cistercian Monk of the 12th century. "Multi sunt sicut mulier delicata et pigra. Talis vero mulier dum jacet mane in lecto et audit pulsari ad missam, cogitat secum quod vadat ad missam. Et cum _caro_, quæ pigra est, timet frigus, respondet et dicit, Quare ires ita mane, nonne scis quod clerici pulsant campanas propter oblationes? dormi adhuc; et sic transit pars diei. Postea iterum _conscientia pungit eam_ quod vadat ad missam. Sed _caro_ respondet, et dicit, Quare ires tu tam cito ad ecclesiam? certè tu destrueres corpus tuum si ita manè surrexeris, et hoc Deus non vult ut homo destruat seipsum; ergo quiesce et dormi. Et transit alia pars diei. Iterum _conscientia pungit eam_ quod vadat ad ecclesiam; sed _caro_ dicit, Ut quid ires tam cito? Ego bene scio quod talis vicina tua nondum vadit ad ecclesiam; dormi parum adhuc. Et sic transit alia pars diei. Postea _pungit eam conscientia_; sed _caro_ dicit, Non oportet quod adhuc vadas, quia sacerdos est curialis et bene expectabit te; attende et dormi. Et sic dormiendo transit tempus. Et tamen ad ultimum verecundia tacita atque coacta, surgit et vadit ad ecclesiam, et invenit portas clausas." Then follows the moral of the fable, in which the church is repentance, the bells the preachers. The lazy flesh prevails over conscience, till, on the approach of death, fear dictates the sending for the priest. An imperfect confession of sins takes place; the party dies, and the miserable soul finds the gates of heaven shut.

SCENE 5. Page 443.

SHY. The _patch_ is kind enough.

It has been supposed that this term originated from the name of a fool belonging to Cardinal Wolsey, and that his parti-coloured dress was given to him in allusion to his name. The objection to this is, that the motley habit worn by fools is much older than the time of Wolsey. Again, it appears that _Patch_ was an appellation given not to one fool only that belonged to Wolsey. There is an epigram by Heywood, entitled _A saying of Patch my Lord Cardinal's foole_; but in the epigram itself he is twice called _Sexten_, which was his real name. In a manuscript life of Wolsey, by his gentleman usher Cavendish, there is a story of another fool belonging to the Cardinal, and presented by him to the King. A marginal note states that "this foole was callid _Master Williames_, owtherwise called _Patch_."[12] In Heylin's _History of the reformation_, mention is made of another fool called _Patch_, belonging to Elizabeth. But the name is even older than Wolsey's time; for in some household accounts of Henry the Seventh, there are payments to a fool who is named _Pechie_, and _Packye_. It seems therefore more probable on the whole that fools were nick-named _Patch_ from their dress; unless there happen to be a nearer affinity to the Italian _pazzo_, a word that has all the appearance of a descent from _fatuus_. This was the opinion of Mr. Tyrwhitt in a note on _A midsummer night's dream_, Act III. Scene 2. But although in the above instance, as well as in a multitude of others, a _patch_ denotes a fool or simpleton, and, by corruption, a clown, it seems to have been occasionally used in the sense of _any low or mean person_. Thus in the passage in _A midsummer night's dream_ just referred to, Puck calls Bottom and his companions _a crew of patches_, _rude mechanicals_, certainly not meaning to compare them to pampered and sleek buffoons. Whether in this sense the term have a simple reference to that class of people whose clothes might be pieced or _patched_ with rags; or whether it is derived from the Saxon verb pæcan, to deceive by false appearances, as suggested by the acute and ingenious author of _The diversions of Purley_, must be left to the reader's own discernment.

SCENE 7. Page 450.

MOR. ... They have in England A coin that bears the figure of an Angel Stamped in gold; but that's _insculp'd upon_; But here an angel in a golden bed Lies all _within_.

To _insculp_, as Mr. Steevens has observed, means _to engrave_, but is here put in opposition to it, and simply denotes to _carve in relief_. The angel on the coin was _raised_; on the casket _indented_. The word _insculp_ was however formerly used with great latitude of meaning. Shakspeare might have caught it from the casket story in the _Gesta Romanorum_, where it is rightly used: "the third vessell was made of lead, and thereupon was _insculpt_ this posey, &c."

SCENE 7. Page 450.

MOR. _Gilded tombs_ do worms infold.

The old editions read _gilded timber_; and however specious the alteration in the text, on the ground of redundancy of measure or defect in grammar, it might have been dispensed with. _To infold_ is _to inwrap or contain any thing_; and therefore, unless we conclude that _do_ is an error of the press for _doth_, we must adopt the other sense, however ungrammatically expressed, and suppose the sentiment to be, that _timber though fenced or protected with gilding in still liable to the worm's invasion_. The lines cited by Mr. Steevens from the _Arcadia_ supports the original reading, as do the following from Silvester's _Works_, edit. 1633, p. 649:

"Wealth on a cottage can a palace build, New paint old walls, and _rotten timber guild_."

SCENE 8. Page 453.

SALAR. And for the Jew's bond, which he hath of me, Let it not enter in your _mind of love_.

Dr. Johnson suspects a corruption. Mr. Langton would place a comma after _mind_. The expression seems equivalent to a _loving_ or affectionate _mind_, a mind made up of love.

SCENE 9. Page 458.

AR. What's here? the portrait of a blinking ideot, Presenting me a schedule.

This idea suggests the story of a Jew apothecary, who, to ridicule the Mayersbachs of his time, placed in the front of his shop the figure of a grinning fool holding out an urinal. See Pancirollus _De rebus deperditis_, lib. ii. tit. 1.

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 465.

SHY. It was my _turquoise_.

If the reason last assigned in Mr. Steevens's note for the value which Shylock professes for the turquoise be entitled to any preference, the information whereon it rests must be referred to the right owner, who is Anselm de Boot, Nicols being only the translator of his work.

SCENE 2. Page 469.

POR. ... he makes a _swan-like_ end. Fading in musick.

That the swan uttered musical sounds at the approach of death was credited by Plato, Chrysippus, Aristotle, Euripides, Philostratus, Cicero, Seneca, and Martial. Pliny, Ælian, and Athenæus, among the ancients, and Sir Thomas More, among the moderns, treat this opinion as a vulgar error. Luther believed in it. See his _Colloquia_, par. 2, p. 125, edit. 1571, 8vo. Our countryman Bartholomew Glantville thus mentions the singing of the swan: "And whan she shal dye and that a fether is pyght in the brayn, then she syngethe, as Ambrose sayth," _De propr. rer._ 1. xii. c. 11. Monsieur Morin has written a dissertation on this subject in vol. v. of the _Mem. de l'acad. des inscript._ There are likewise some curious remarks on it in Weston's _Specimens of the conformity of the European languages with the Oriental_, p. 135; in Seelen _Miscellanea_, tom. i. 298; and in Pinkerton's _Recollections of Paris_, ii. 336.

SCENE 2. Page 472.

BASS. Nor none of thee, thou _pale and common drudge_ 'Tween man and man.

The greatest part of the current coin being of _silver_, this metal is here emphatically called the common drudge in the more frequent transactions among men.

SCENE 2. Page 472.

BASS. Thy _plainness_ moves me more than eloquence.

However elegant this emendation by Dr. Warburton, it must yield to the decisive reasoning of Dr. Farmer and Mr. Malone, in favour of _paleness_, which ought to have been adopted in the text.

SCENE 2. Page 474.

BASS. Fair Portia's _counterfeit_?

A further illustration occurs in the beginning of Lilie's dedication to his _Euphues_, "Parasius drawing the _counterfeit_ of Hellen, made the attire of her head loose." In Littelton's _English and Latin dictionary_, we have "A counterfeit of a picture, _ectypum_."

SCENE 2. Page 480.

GRA. We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece.

The meaning is "Antonio with his _argosie_ is not the successful Jason; we are the persons who have won the fleece." See the note in p. 153.

SCENE 2. Page 480.

POR. ... else nothing in the world Could turn so much the constitution Of any _constant_ man.

This word occasionally signified _grave_, as in the present instance. In Withall's _Shorte dictionarie_, 1599, 4to, fo. 105, we have "sadde, _grave_, constant,--_gravis_." So in _Twelfth night_, when Malvolio is under confinement, he says, "I am no more mad than you are; make the trial of it in any _constant question_."

ACT IV.

SCENE 1. Page 501.

SHY. Why he a _swollen_ bagpipe.

We have here one of the too frequent instances of _conjectural_ readings; but it is to be hoped that all future editors will restore the original _woollen_, after weighing not only what has been already urged in its support, but the additional and accurate testimony of Dr. Leyden, who in his edition of _The complaynt of Scotland_, p. 149, informs us that the Lowland bagpipe commonly had the bag or sack covered with _woollen cloth_ of a green colour, a practice which, he adds, prevailed in the northern counties of England.

SCENE 1. Page 506.

BASS. Why dost thou _whet thy knife_ so earnestly?

This incident occurs in the ballad of _Gernutus_, whence there is reason to suppose it was borrowed. In 1597 was acted at Cambridge a Latin play called _Machiavellus_, in which there is a Jew, but very unlike Shylock. He is a shrewd intriguing fellow of considerable humour, who, to obtain possession of a girl, puts a number of tricks on the Machiavel of the piece, and generally outwits him. In one scene he overhears his rival despairing of success with the father of his mistress, and expressing a wish that he had some instrument wherewith to put an end to his misery. On this he lays a _knife_ in his way, but first takes care _to whet it_. To _The merchant of Venice_ or to _Gernutus_ the Latin play was indebted. If to the former, then Shakspeare's play must have been acted before 1597; if to the latter, it strengthens the above conjecture that he borrowed from the ballad. Should Gosson's _Jew shown at the Bull_ ever make its appearance, all would be set right.

SCENE 1. Page 507.

GRA. And, whilst thou _lay'st_ in thy unhallow'd dam.

Is not this a very common misprint for _lay'dst_, where the preterite is intended?

SCENE 1. Page 509.

POR. But mercy is above this scepter'd sway, It is enthroned in the hearts of _kings_, It is _an attribute to God_ himself, And earthly power doth then show likest God's When _mercy_ seasons justice.

This beautiful sentiment accords very much with the following speech made by Sir James Melvil to the queen of Scots, and printed in his _Memoirs_, p. 149, edit. 1752, 8vo. These, however, were not published till a considerable time after his death. "For as princes are called divine persons, so no _prince_ can pretend to this title, but he who _draws near the nature of God_ by godliness and good government, being slow to vengeance, and _ready to forgive_."

SCENE 1. Page 518.

GRA. Had I been judge thou should'st have had _ten_ more To bring thee to the gallows.

We had already had an English trial by jury at Vienna. See p. 78. Here we have one at Venice.

ACT V.

SCENE 1. Page 523.

LOR. Stood Dido with a willow in her hand.

On this passage Mr. Steevens founds an argument that Shakspeare _was no reader of the classics_. It is true that no classical authority for the above circumstance relating to Dido can be found, and that other instances of our poet's errors in classical matters might be adduced; but this will not prove his ignorance of Greek and Roman writers. On the contrary, do not the numerous quotations from them in the notes of his commentators afford sufficient testimony that he had read many ancient authors through the medium of English translations? If this had not been the case, to what end has the useful and interesting list of such translations been drawn up and published by the above learned critic? Wherever Shakspeare met with the image in question, it has reference to the popular superstitions relating to the willow, which will be more fully illustrated in some remarks on a passage in Othello.

SCENE 1. Page 529.

LOR. You shall perceive them make a mutual _stand_, Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest _gaze_.

This is spoken of young _colts_, but the speech is only a poetical amplification of a phrase that seems more properly to belong to _deer_. In the _Noble arte of venerie or hunting_, ascribed to Turbervile, the author or translator, speaking of the hart, says, "when he stayeth to looke at any thing, then he _standeth at gaze_;" and again, "he loveth to hear instruments and assureth himselfe when he heareth a flute or any other sweete noyse. He marvelleth at all things, and taketh pleasure to _gaze_ at them." See likewise Holland's translation of _Pliny_, tom. i. p. 213.

SCENE 1. Page 530.

LOR. The man that hath no musick in himself, Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; The motions of his spirit, &c.

Had the sentiments in the note on this passage been expressed by Dr. Johnson, disorganized as he was for the enjoyment of music, it would not have been matter to wonder at: but that such a man as Mr. Steevens, whose ordinary speech was melody, and whose correct and elegant ear for poetical concord is so frequently manifested in the course of his Shakspearean labours, should have shown himself a very Timon in music, can only be accounted for by supposing that he regarded the speech in question as a libel on his great colleague's organization. He has here assumed a task, which Dr. Johnson would for obvious reasons have declined; and with the feeble aid of an illiberal passage from Lord Chesterfield's _Letters_, has most disingenuously endeavoured to cast an odium on a science which from its intimate and natural connexion with poetry and painting, deserves the highest attention and respect. He that is happily qualified to appreciate the _better parts_ of music, will never seek them in the society so emphatically reprobated by the noble lord, nor altogether in the way he recommends. He will not lend an ear to the vulgarity and tumultuous roar of the tavern catch, or the delusive sounds of martial clangour; but he will enjoy this heavenly gift, this exquisite and soul-delighting sensation, in the temples of his God, or in the peaceful circles of domestic happiness: he will pursue the blessings and advantages of it with ardour, and turn aside from its abuses.

The quotation which Mr. Steevens has given from Peacham, is in reality an _encomium_ on music as practised in the time of Shakspeare. It indicates that gentlemen then associated with their equals only in the pursuit of this innocent recreation; and the same writer would have furnished many other observations that tend to place the science of music in an amiable, or at least in a harmless point of view. Mr. Steevens might have also recollected that Cicero has called it "Stabilem thesaurum, qui _mores_ instituit, componitque, ac mollit irarum ardores." It will be readily conceded that Shakspeare has overcharged the speech before us, and that it by no means follows that a man who is unmusical must be a traitor, a Machiavel, a robber; or that he is deserving of no confidence. This, however, is all that should have occupied the commentator's notice; and herein his castigation would have been really meritorious. The Italians too have a proverb that is equally reprehensible: "Whom God loves not, that man loves not music." Let such extravagancies be consigned to the censure they deserve!

SCENE 1. Page 542.

GRA. ... The first _intergatory_ That my Nerissa shall besworn on----

This word being nothing more than a contraction of _interrogatory_, should be elliptically printed, _inter'gatory_.

THE CLOWN.

There is not a single circumstance through the whole of this play which constitutes Lancelot an _allowed fool or jester_; and yet there is some reason for supposing that Shakspeare intended him as such, from his being called _a patch_, a _fool_ of Hagar's offspring, and in one place _the_ fool. It is not reasonable, however, to conclude that a person like Shylock would entertain a domestic of this description; and it is possible that the foregoing terms may be merely designed as synonymous with the appellation of _clown_, as in _Love's labour's lost_. On the whole, we have here a proof that Shakspeare has not observed that nice discrimination of character in his clowns for which some have given him credit.

ON THE SOURCES FROM WHICH THE STORY OF THIS PLAY HAS BEEN DERIVED.

The present subject, notwithstanding it has been already discussed with considerable labour and ingenuity, may still be said to rest in much obscurity. This has partly arisen from some confusion in the mode of stating the information conveyed in the several notes wherein it has been discussed. To render this position the more intelligible, it will be necessary to say a few words on each commentator's opinion: and first on that of Dr. Farmer. He states that the _story_ was taken from an old translation of the _Gesta Romanorum, first printed_ by Wynkyn de Worde; and that Shakspeare has closely copied some of the language. The Doctor's use of the word _story_ is not consistent with his usual accuracy, because, in what follows, he speaks only of the incident of the caskets, which forms in reality but _a part of the story_. It is much to be wished, for reasons which will hereafter appear, that Dr. Farmer had been more particular in his account of the edition of the _Gesta Romanorum_ which he says was printed by Wynkyn de Worde, none such having, after much inquiry, been discovered; and it is to be feared that he had trusted to a previous statement of his friend the accomplished and elegant historian of English poetry, whose accuracy is unhappily known to have been by no means commensurate with his taste. The Doctor's assertion, that Shakspeare "closely copied some of the language," cannot be maintained until it be first ascertained if any use had been made of the _Gesta Romanorum_ by the author of the old play of the _Jew_, mentioned by Gosson, and also in what particulars Shakspeare followed him. It is proper to take notice in this place of the mistake that has been committed by those who speak of Shakspeare's _imitations_ of the sources of this play, and who forget that one on the same subject had already appeared, and which might have furnished him with the _whole_ of the plot. It is however probable that he improved it by means of other novels, as will be seen hereafter.

The next critic to be noticed is the truly learned and judicious Mr. Tyrwhitt. He informs us that the _two principal incidents_ of this play occur in the _Gesta Romanorum_, and produces some extracts from a _Latin manuscript_ of that work in the British museum. Admitting that the incident of the _caskets_ might have been taken from the _English Gesta Romanorum_, as mentioned by Dr. Farmer, he cautiously gives it as his opinion that both the stories in the _Gesta Romanorum_ quoted by himself are the remote originals of Shakspeare's play; for he had also forgotten the elder drama mentioned by Gosson. He thinks, however, that the bond story might have come to Shakspeare from the _Pecorone_, but suspects on the whole that he followed some hitherto unknown novelist, who had saved him the trouble of working up the two stories into one. Aware also that Shakspeare's small acquaintance with the Latin language would scarcely enable him to consult the manuscript _Gesta Romanorum_, he has very properly used the expression _remote originals_; and the rather, because he had probably examined the printed English editions without finding the story of the bond, which would hardly have escaped the diligent researches of Dr. Farmer, had it really been there. The fact however is, that the bond story did exist in English long before Shakspeare's time, and it is extremely probable that the original author of the _Jew_ used some English _Gesta Romanorum_ for the _whole_ of his plot. There is more stress to be laid on this opinion so far as it regards the original dramatist, because it seems most probable that Shakspeare, on account of the closer resemblance of the story in the _Pecorone_ to _his_ incident of the bond, had, with great advantage, made use of some translation of it now irrecoverably lost. For this reason, with all due respect for Mr. Tyrwhitt's opinion, it is improbable that Shakspeare followed some unknown novelist _who had saved him the trouble of working up the two stories into one_; unless it be conceded that such person was the author of the elder play.

The last opinion to be noticed is that of Dr. Johnson; and he remarks that the modern translator of the _Pecorone_ thought the incident of the caskets was borrowed from Boccaccio. This shall be examined presently. The Doctor thinks, however, that Shakspeare had some other novel in view, a conjecture which Mr. Malone very properly supports by a reference to Dr. Farmer's note.

In offering some additional observations on the stories that are connected with the _Merchant of Venice_, it will be necessary, for the purpose of avoiding confusion, to speak separately of the two main incidents on which that play is constructed.

STORY OF THE CASKETS.

The novel of Boccaccio that has been cited on this occasion, together with some other tales that resemble it, have, it is conceived, no manner of connexion with the play. The curious reader will find one of these stories, and perhaps the most ancient of them, in the lives of Barlaam and Josaphat, as related in the Golden legend, though compiled at a period much anterior to that amusing work. Another is in Gower's _Confessio amantis_, fo. 96, edit. 1532; and a third in the same work, fo. 96, verso. The latter has been related in a more ample and ingenious manner in the _Cento novelle antiche_, nov. 65.

In chap. 109 of _the Latin printed copy_ of the _Gesta Romanorum_, a very different work from that referred to by Dr. Farmer and Mr. Tyrwhitt, there is the following story: A smith had lost a chest of money, which being carried by the sea to the shores of a distant country, was taken up by an inn-keeper, who, not suspecting that it contained any thing, threw it carelessly aside. Having occasion one day for some fuel to warm his guests, he broke up the chest, and finding the money, laid it by safely, till some one should arrive to claim it. The smith soon afterwards appeared; and having publicly declared his loss, the inn-keeper resolved to ascertain if it were the will of Providence that he should make restitution. He therefore caused three pasties to be made; the first he filled with earth, the second with dead men's bones, and the third with money. He then invited the smith to dinner, and gave him the choice of the pasties. The smith fixed on those with the earth and bones, and relinquished the other. The host now concluded that it was not the will of Heaven that he should restore the money; he therefore called in the blind and the lame, opened the other pasty in their presence, and divided the treasure between them.

But the work to which the play stands immediately indebted, is a _Gesta Romanorum_ in English, _never printed in Latin_, and of which the earliest edition that could be procured on the present occasion was printed by Thomas Est, in 1595, 12mo, and several times afterwards. The latter part only of the 32nd history has been used. This has already been given in English by Dr. Farmer, and in Latin by Mr. Tyrwhitt. It has undoubtedly furnished the author of the play with the incident of the caskets; but he has transposed the mottoes of the gold and silver ones, and substituted another for that of lead.

THE BOND STORY.

The character of Leti as an historian warrants an opinion that _his_ story is a mere fabrication, grafted on one of those that he had met with on the same subject. The tale itself is most probably of Eastern origin. Besides that given by Mr. Malone from Ensign Munro's manuscript, a similar one is related in Gladwin's _Persian Moonshee_, story 13; and another likewise from an oriental source, in the _British magazine_ for 1800, page 159.

In Tyron, _Recueil de plusieures plaisantes nouvelles_, &c., Anvers, 1590, 18mo, a Christian borrows 500 ducats of a Jew at Constantinople, on condition of paying two ounces of flesh for usury. At the expiration of the term the Christian refuses to pay more than the principal. The matter is brought before the Emperor Solyman, who orders a razor to be brought, and admonishes the Jew not to cut off more or less than the two ounces on pain of death. The Jew gives up the point. The same story occurs in _Roger Bontemps en belle humeur_; in the _Tresor des recreations_, Douay, 1625, 18mo, p. 27; in _Doctæ nugæ Gaudensij Jocosi_, 1713, 12mo, p. 23; in the _Courier facetieux_, Lyon, 1650, 8vo, p. 109; in the _Chasse ennuy_, Paris, 1645, 18mo, p. 49; in Corrozet _Divers propos memorables_, &c., 1557, 12mo, p. 77, of which work there is an English translation under the title of _Memorable conceits of divers noble and famous personages of Christendome_, &c., 1602, 24mo; in _Apophthegmes, ou La recreation de la jeunesse_, p. 155. It agrees also with the story related by Gracian in his _Hero_. See Steevens's _Shakspeare_, V. 515.

It has been imitated by Antony Munday in his _Astræpho, being the third part of Zelauto, or The fountaine of fame_, 1580, 4to. This writer had found it in Silvayn's _Orator_, which, as we have already seen, he translated. Instead of the cutting off a pound of flesh, it is agreed that one of the party's eyes shall be pulled out. Besides the ballad of _Gernutus the Jew of Venice_, printed in Dr. Percy's Reliques, there is another less ancient, under the title of _The cruel Jew's garland_, in which the story is varied, and with some ingenuity.

A part of the novel in the _Pecorone_ is most likely of Oriental origin, and might have been transmitted to Ser Giovanni from the same source that supplied Boccaccio and many of the French minstrels with their stories, viz. the crusades.

As the Bond Story in the _Gesta Romanorum_ is not known to exist at present in any printed edition, though it might in Shakspeare's time, and as the Latin original mentioned by Mr. Tyrwhitt _has never been printed_, it is therefore offered to the reader's notice, and will afford besides an interesting specimen of ancient English. It occurs in a manuscript preserved in the Harleian collection, No. 7333, written in the reign of Henry the Sixth. The language is of the same period.

"Selestinus reignid a wyse emperoure in Rome, and he had a faire dowter; and in his tyme ther was a knyᵹte that lovid this dowter, but he thowte in himselfe that he dud al in veyne, for he thouᵹt as forsothe that the emperoure wolde not late him to have hir, for he was unworthi therto; nevertheles he thought yf he myght be any wey have love of the damiselle it were inowe to me. He yede ofte tyme to the damisell and aspied hir wille; and she said to him ayene that he travaylid al in veyne, for trowist thow, quod she, with thi deseyvable of faire wordes to begile me? Nay sir, be my soule, hit shal not be so. Thenne saide the kniᵹte, What shal I yeve to the and late me lye by the a nyght? Not thowh thou woldest yeve me an C marke of florens, quod she, thou shalt not lye by me a nyght. Then hit shal be as thou wilte, quod he. What dude he but purveyde him of so muche mony, s. an C. marke of floreyns, and yaf hir. Whenne nyght come the kniᵹte enterid into the bed of the mayde, and anoon he was aslepe, and she dude of hir harnes, and come and laye downe by him. So the kniᵹte laye slepynge al the nyght. On the morow she ros, and did on hir clothis, and wishe hir hondes. And the kniᵹte awoke of his slepe, and thenne he said, Come hedir to me that I may do my wille with the. Nay, by the helth of my fadir, that wolle I not, quod she; for frende, I do the no wronge. Thow accordiste with me that I shulde lye with the al nyght, and so it is idon; for I lay by the al nyght, and thou sleptest and preferdest me no solace, and therrfore blame thi selfe, and not me. And the kniᵹte was hevy, and seide, What shal I yeve to the and lete me lygge by the another nyght? As much, quod she, as thou did afor, and no lesse. I assente, seide he. And the kniᵹte yede and solde alle his movable goodes, and made redy an C. marke of floreynse. But se now a marvelouse case; for right as hit was the furste nyght, so hit was in the secounde. Thenne the kniᵹte mervaylid mor thanne man may suppose, and hevy he was, and saide, Allas, for now have I spend al my godes withoute spede; and therfore thow I shulle dye therefor I woll make another ende, how moch shall I yeve the, and late us be togeder the thirde nyght, quod the kniᵹte to the damisell. Sothely, she saide, yf thou have me, as thou paide afore, _fiat voluntas tua_. I assent, quod he, thou shalte have thin askynge and thi wille. The kniᵹte yede into fer contree, til he come to a grete citee, in the whiche wer many marchaunts and many philesophers, amonge the wiche was master Virgile the philesopher. Then the kniᵹte yede to a grete marchaunt, and saide, I have [nede] of monye, and yf thou wolt lende me an C marke unto a certeyne day, I wolle ley to the al my londes undir this conducion that if I holde not my day thow shalt have my londes for evere. Thenne seyde the marchaunt, Der frend, I sette not so muche be thi londes, but yf thow wolt make this covenaunt, that I shal sey to the, I wolle fulfill thi wille. This saide he I am redy to do thi wille, yf thou wolt do my petucion. Thenne, seide he, when this covenaunt is made that I shalle seye unto the, thenne I shalle fulfille thyne askynge; and the covenaunt shalle be this, that thou make to me a charter of thine owne blood, in conducion that yf thowe kepe not thi day of payment, hit shalle be lefulle to me for to draw awey alle the flesh of thi body froo the bone with a sharp swerde, and yf thow wolt assent herto, I shalle fulfille thi wille. The kniᵹte lovid the damisell so moch that he grauntid al this, and made a charter of his owne bloode, and selid it, and after the selyng this marchaunt toke him the money that he askid. When he had the moneye, he thoute to him selfe, yf I gete my wylle by this moneye, I am but dede; nay, nay, it may not be so. When he harde tell of the grete name of maister Virgile, he yede to him, and seide, Gode sir, I have previ counseill to speke a twene us too, and I beseche yow of your wise counseill in this cas. Sey on, quod Virgile, and I shalle telle the aftir my discrecion. Sir, I love the dowter of the emperoure more than ye wolle trowe, and I accordid with her for a certen sum of money. I have be disceyvid two nyghts in swiche maner; and tolde alle the cas as welle as he coude, and sir nowe I have borowed of a marchaunt so much moneye for the same cas to be fulfillid, and undir this conducion, that yf I holde not my day of payment, hit shalle thenne be lefulle to him to helde of alle the skynne of my body with his swerde, and then I am but dede, and therfor sir, I am com to you to have counsaill and wyt how I may bothe have helpe ayenste swiche a parill, and also to have the love of that lovely lady. Thou hast made a lewde covenaunt, seide Virgile, for as a man bindithe him with his owne wille, right so he shall be servid be lawe of the emperoure; and therefore thou shalt do wysely for to kepe the day of thi payment alle things lefte. And towchinge the damesell I shall yeve the a tale of truthe. Bitwene her shete and her coverlyte of hir bed is a letter of swiche vertu, that whoso ever gothe with hir to bed, he shall anon falle into a dede slepe; and he shalle not wake til time that hit be put awey: and therfor when thou comest to hir bed, seche a twene the shete and the coverlyte, and thow shalt fynde the letter; and when thow hast founde hit caste hit fer from the bedde, and then entre into the bed, for thou shalte not slepe til tyme that thow haste doon thi wille with the damiselle, and that shalle torne to the gret honour and joye. The kniᵹte toke his leve at Virgile, and thonkid him moche of his hie counseill and yede to the damysell, and yafe hir the monye. When nyᵹt come the kniᵹt enterid the chaumber, and preveli putte his honde bitwene the coverlite and the shete, and there he fonde the letter; and whenne he hadde hit he caste hit fer fro the bedde, and lay downe and feynid as he hadde islepte, and thenne the damiselle knowing that he had yslepte as he dude afor, she caste of hir clothis, and went to bedde. Anon the kniᵹte sette hande to hir as is the maner of bed, and she perceyved that, and prayd him of grace, and to save hir maydinhede, and I shall dobble al the monye that thow hast yevin to me and yeve it to the.... And aftur he lovid hir so muche that he drow so moche to hir compane that he forᵹate the marchaunt and the day of payment was passid by the space of xiiii dayes. And as he lay in a certen nyght in his bed, hit come to his mynde the day that he made to the marchaunt, and alle his bowells wer storid therewithe, and thenne said to her, Alas woman that ever I saw the, for I am but dede. I borowed for thi love swiche a some of mony for to pay at a certeyne day bi this conducion, that yf I pay not at my day he shall have full power for to hilde of the fleshe of my body without contradiccion; and now my day is passid fourtenyte ago, so hih I sette myn hert in the. Then seide she, Sorowithe not so moche, gothe to him, and debbelithe the mony to him, and yf he wolle not, aske howe moche he wolle have, and I shalle paye it. Tho was the kniᵹte comfortid. He yede to the citee, and there he mette with the marchaunt in the stret, and lowly he saluid him. Tho saide the marchaunt, So sey I not to the. Thenne seyde the kniᵹte, Sir, for the trespas that I have made ayenste youre convencion I wolle dowble the payment. Naye seide the marchaunt, that spake we not of, I wolle have right as thou dudest bynde the to me. Aske of me, quod the knight, as much mony as thou wolte, and thowe shalt be paide for my trespas. It is veyne that thow spekist, quod the marchaunt, for thowhe thou geve to me al the gode of thi citee, I wolle have the covenaunt I holde, and non othere wolle I have of the than as the charter asselid makith mencioun of; and anon he made the kniᵹt to be itake and lad to the castell, and sette him in a safe ward, abyding the justice. When the juge was come and satte in the dome, the kniᵹt come to barr among other prisoners, and the marchaunt shewid his lettire afor the juge. Anoon as the juge sawe there his owne dede, he said to alle that stode aboute, Sirs, ye know welle it is the law of the emperour that yf enye man bynde him by his owne freewille he shal resseyve as he servithe, and therefore this marchaunt shalle have covenaunt as lawe wolle. Now in al this tyme the damysell his love had sent kniᵹts for to aspie and enquer how the law was pursued ayenst him, and whenne she harde telle that the lawe passid ayenst him, she kytte of al the longe her of hir hede, and cladde hir in precious clothing like to a man, and yede to the palys there as hir lemon was to be demyd, and saluyd the justice, and all they trowid that she had be a kniᵹte; and the juge enquerid of what contree she was, and what she had to do ther. She said, I am a kniᵹte, and come of fer contree, and her tithings that there is a kniᵹte amonge yowe that shuld be demid to dethe for an obligacion that he made to a marchaunt, and therefor I am come to deliver him. Thenne the juge said, It is lawe of the emperoure that who so ever byndethe him with his owne propre wille and consent withoute enye constraynynge he shulde be servid so ayene. When the damisell harde this she turnid to the marchaunt and saide, Der frende, what profite is it to the that this kniᵹte that stondithe her redy to the dome be slayne? it wer [better] to the to have monye than to have him slayne. Thou spekest al in veyne, quod the marchaunt, for withoute doute I wolle have the lawe sithe he bonde him so frely, and therefor he shalle have noon other grace than lawe wolle, for he come to me, and I not to him. I desirid him not thereto ayenste his wille. Thenne saide she, I praye the howe moche shall I yeve to have my petucion? I shalle yeve the thi monye double, and yf that be not plesynge to the, aske of me what thou wolte, and Thou shalt have. Then saide he, thow harde me never seye but that I wolde have my covenaunte kept. Sothely, seyde she, and thou shalt trowe me afor your [you] sir juge, and afor yowe alle, I sey now sir juge ywithe a right wisdome of that that I shal seye to yowe; ye have ihard howe moche I have proferid this marchaunt for the lyf of this kniᵹte, and he forsakithe all, and askithe the lawe, and that likith me moche; and therfore lordinges that beye her, herithe me what I shalle seye. Ye knowithe welle that the kniᵹt bonde him never by letter but that the marchaunt shulde have power to kutte his fleshe fro the boons, but there was no covenaunt made of sheding of blode, thereof was nothing ispoke, and therefor late him set hond on him anoon, and yf he shede ony bloode with his shavinge of the fleshe forsothe then shalle the kynge have goode lawe upon him. And when the marchaunt harde this he said, Yef me my monye, and I foryeve my accion. Fforsothe, quod she, thou shalt not have oo penye, for afor al this companye I proferid to the al that I myght, and thou forsoke hit, and saydist with a lowde wyse, I shalle have my covenaunte; and therfor do thi beste with him, but loke that thow shede no blode I charge the; for it is not thin, ne no covenaunt was thereof. Thenne the marchaunt seynge this yede away confus. And so was the Kniᵹt's lyf savid, and no penye ipayde. And she yede home ayene, and dude of that clothinge, and clothid hit as she was afor like to a woman. And the kniᵹte yede home ayene, and the damisell turnid and met him, and askid howe he had ispedde, as thowhe she had not knowen therof. A, lady, quod he, this day was I in poynt to be dede for thy love, but as I was in point to be dampned, there come in sodeynlye a knite, a fair and well ishape, the whiche I saw never afor, and he delivirid me by his exellent wisdom bothe from dethe and eke from payment of moneye. Thenne were thowhe, quod she, unkynde that woldest nat bidde that kniᵹte to mete, that so faire had savid the. He aunswerde therto, and saide that he come sodeinly and sodenly yede. Thenne seide she, Knowiste thow him if thou seye him? Yee, quod he, right wele. She yede up and cladde hir as she dide afore, and then she yede forthe. And the kniᵹte knew her thenne wele, and for joye fel doune upon hire, and said, Blessid be thow, and the houre in the whiche I fyrste knew the. And he wepte, and aftir he weddid hir and livid and deyde in the service of God, and yelde to God goode sowlis."

On the whole, then, it is conceived that the outline of the _bond story_ is of Oriental origin;[13] that the author of the old play of _The Jew_, and Shakspeare in his Merchant of Venice, have not confined themselves to one source only in the construction of their plot; but that the _Pecorone_, the _Gesta Romanorum_, and perhaps the old _Ballad of Gernutus_, have been respectively resorted to. It is however most probable that the original play was indebted chiefly, if not altogether, to the _Gesta Romanorum_, which contained both the main incidents; and that Shakspeare expanded and improved them, partly from his own genius, and partly, as to the bond, from the _Pecorone_, where the coincidences are too manifest to leave any doubt. Thus, the scene being laid at Venice; the residence of the lady at Belmont; the introduction of a person bound for the principal; the double infraction of the bond, viz., the taking more or less than a pound of flesh and the shedding of blood, together with the after-incident of the ring, are common to the novel and the play. The whetting of the knife might perhaps have been taken from the _Ballad of Gernutus_. Shakspeare was likewise indebted to an authority that could not have occurred to the original author of the play in an English form; this was, Silvayn's _Orator_, as translated by Munday. From that work Shylock's reasoning before the senate is evidently borrowed; but at the same time it has been most skilfully improved.

The frequent allusions to the _different Gesta Romanorum_ may have excited a wish to be more familiarly acquainted with that singular and interesting work; but as the discussion of the subject in this place would have augmented the tediousness of the note, it has been thought better to make the attempt in a separate dissertation, where it is hoped that any obscurity in the preceding remarks will be removed.

It is much to be lamented that this exquisitely beautiful drama can neither be read nor performed, without exciting in every humane and liberal mind an abhorrence of its professed design to vilify an ancient and respectable, but persecuted, nation. It should be remembered that contempt and intolerance must naturally excite hatred; that to provoke revenge is, in fact, to become responsible for the crimes it may occasion; that to those who would degrade and oppress us, it is but justice to oppose craft; and that nature has supplied even the brute creation with the means of resisting persecution. It will be readily conceded that there happily exist in the present moment but few remains of the illiberal prejudices complained of, the asperity of which has been greatly mitigated by the laudable and successful exertions of a modern dramatic writer, to whom the Jewish people are under the highest obligations.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] It may be worth remarking that the historian Stowe has made great use of this curious and valuable Life of Wolsey, without naming the author. It has been several times printed, but the manuscript copies have greatly the advantage in fullness and accuracy.

[13] If the horrible incident of the cutting off the flesh had not occurred in the several Oriental stories that have been mentioned, one should have supposed that it had been suggested by that atrocious decemviral law of the Twelve Tables, which empowered a creditor to mangle the living body of his debtor without fear of punishment for cutting more or less than the magistrate allowed. For the honour of the Roman law, it is not recorded that the above inhuman decree was ever enforced.

AS YOU LIKE IT.

ACT I.

SCENE 2. Page 16.

CEL. This is not fortune's work neither, but _nature's_, who perceiving our _natural_ wits too dull to reason of such Goddesses, hath sent this _natural_ for our whetstone.

It must be observed that Touchstone is here called a _natural_ merely for the sake of alliteration and a punning jingle of words; for he is undoubtedly an artificial fool.

SCENE 2. Page 29.

LE BEAU. More suits you to conceive, _than me_ to speak of.

The old copy had, _than I_. These grammatical errors in the use of the personal pronoun should either be _uniformly_ corrected or left entirely to themselves. Mr. Steevens in p. 9, note 7, seems to regard them as the anomalies of the play-house editors; but Mr. Malone, probably with more reason, is inclined to place them to the author's own account. If the present correction by Mr. Rowe be retained in future editions, we ought not to find such expressions as "hates nothing more than _he_," p. 14; "no child but _I_," p. 15, and _who_ for _whom_ perpetually.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 37.

DUKE S. Which like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious _jewel_ in his head.

What that stone which many people suppose to come from the head of a toad really was, would be no easy task at present to determine. Various conjectures have made it the _bsatrachites_, _chelonites_, _brontia_, _ceraunia_, _glossopetra_, &c. Neither is it certain that the text alludes to a _stone_; for Gesner informs us that in his time, and _in England more particularly_, the common people made superstitious uses of a _real jewel_ that always could be found in a toad's head, viz., its _forehead bone_. To obtain this they severed the animal in two parts, and exposed it to be devoured by ants; by which means it presently became a skeleton. The above author carefully distinguishes this bone from the toadstone, and from Pliny's bone mentioned in Mr. Steevens's note. He has likewise with great industry, as on all occasions, collected much that relates to the subject of the toadstone. See his work _De quadrup. ovipar._ p. 65. It must be owned that better naturalists than Shakspeare believed in the common accounts of the toadstone. Batman in his edition to the article relating to the _botrax_ or _rubeta_ in Bartholomæus _De propr. rerum_, informs us that "some toads that breed in Italy and about Naples, have in their heads a stone called a _crapo_, of bignes like a big peach, but flat, of colour gray, with a browne spot in the midst _said to be of vertue_. In times past they were much worne, and used in ringes, as the forewarning against venime." Another learned divine who is often very witty, but on this occasion perfectly grave, has told us that "some report that the toad before her death sucks up (if not prevented with sudden surprisal) the precious stone (as yet but a jelly) in her head, grudging mankind the good thereof."--Fuller's _Church history_, p. 151. In a medical work too we are informed that "in the head of a greate tode there is a stone, which stone being stampt and geven to the pacyent to drinke in warme wine, maketh him to pise the stone out incontinent," &c.--Lloyd's _Treasure of helth_, pr. by Copland, n. d. 12mo. The notion of jewels in the heads of animals is very widely spread. Mr. Wilkins has informed us that it is a vulgar notion in India that some species of serpents have precious stones in their heads. _Hectopades_, p. 302. The best account of the different sorts of toadstones, so far as regards the illustration of the above superstitious notions, is in Topsell's _History of serpents_, 1608, folio, p. 188.

SCENE 1. Page 39.

1. LORD. To the which place a poor sequester'd stag Did come to languish ... ... and _the big round tears_ Cours'd one another down his innocent nose In piteous chase.

The stag is said to possess a very large secretion of tears. "When the hart is arered, he fleethe to a ryver or ponde, and roreth cryeth and _wepeth_ when he is take."--Bartholomæus _De propriet. rerum_, 1. xviii. c. 30. Batman, in his commentary on that work, adds, from Gesner, that "when the hart is sick and hath eaten many serpents for his recoverie, he is brought unto so great a heate, that he hasteth to the water, and their covereth his body unto the very eares and eyes, at which time _distilleth many teares_ from which the [Bezoar] stone is gendered," &c. The translator of _The noble arte of Venerie_ makes the hart thus address the hunter:

"O cruell, be content, to take in worth my _teares_, Which growe to gumme, and fall from me; content thee with my heares, Content thee with my hornes, which every yeare I mew, Since all these three make medicines, some sicknesse to eschew. My _teares_ congeal'd to gumme, by peeces from me fall, And thee preserve from pestilence, in pomander or ball. Such wholesome _teares_ shedde I, when thou pursewest me so."

Compare also Virgil's description of the wounded stag in the seventh book of the Æneid.

SCENE 2. Page 43.

DUKE. And let not search and inquisition _quail_ To bring again these foolish runaways.

"To _quail_," says Mr. Steevens, "is to _faint_, to sink into dejection;" and so it certainly is, but not in this instance; for neither search nor inquisition could very well faint or become dejected. They might indeed _slacken_, _relax_, or _diminish_, and such is really the present meaning of the word. Thus "Hunger cureth love, for love _quaileth_ when good cheare faileth."--_The choise of change_, 1585, 4to, sign. L. i. _To quail_ is also used in the several senses of to _sink_, _abate_, _deaden_, _enfeeble_, _press down_, and _oppress_; all of which might be exemplified from the writings of authors contemporary with Shakspeare, and some of them from his own. It seems to be a modification of to quell, i. e. to destroy altogether, to kill, from the Saxon cƿellan.

SCENE 2. Page 54.

JAQ. But that they call compliment, is like the encounter of two _dog-apes_.

Bartholomæus, speaking of apes, says, "some be called _cenophe_; and be lyke to an _hounde_ in the face, and in the body lyke to an _ape_."--Lib. xviii. c. 96.

SCENE 5. Page 55.

JAQ. Ducdáme, ducdáme, ducdáme.

The stanza which the facetious old squire sang before Dr. Farmer has occurred in the following shape; but where is the Œdipus who shall unfold the connexion of either with Jaques's song?

"O _damy_ what makes my _ducks_ to die? What can ail them, Oh! They eat their victuals and down they lie, What can ail them, Oh!"

SCENE 7. Page 66.

JAQ. ... All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players.

Mr. Steevens refers to the _totus mundus exerceat histrioniam_ of Petronius, with whom probably the sentiment originated; but this author had not been translated in Shakspeare's time. The play of _Damon and Pythias_, which Mr. Malone has cited, might have furnished the observation. There are likewise two other probable sources that are worthy of notice on this occasion. The first is Withal's _Short dictionarie in Latine and English_, several times printed in the reign of Elizabeth, where in fo. 69 of the edit. 1599, is the following passage: "This life is a certain enterlude or _plaie_. _The world is a stage_ full of chang everie way, _everie man is a plaier_." The other is Pettie's translation of Guazzo's _Civile conversation_, 1586, 4to, where one of the parties introduces the saying of some philosopher "that this _world_ was a _stage_, we the _players_ which present the comedie." Shakspeare had himself used nearly the same language in the first act of _The merchant of Venice_:

"I hold the world, but as the world, Gratiano, A stage, where every man must play a part."

A portion of Jaques's speech has been imitated in some lines by Thomas Heywood among the commendatory verses prefixed to his _Actors vindication_, 1658, 4to:

"The world 's a theater, the earth a stage, Which God and nature doth with actors fill; All men have parts, and each man acts his own," &c.

SCENE 7. Page 66.

JAQ. And one man in his time plays many parts, _His acts being seven ages_.

A print of the seven ages of men like those referred to by Messrs. Henley and Steevens may be seen in Comenius's _Orbis pictus_, tit. xxxvii., in which are found _the infant_, _the boy_, and _the decrepid old man_: the rest of Shakspeare's characters seem to be of his own invention. There is a division of the seven ages of man in Arnolde's _Chronicle_, fo. lix. verso, agreeing, except in the arrangement of years, with that given by Mr. Malone from _The treasury of ancient and modern times_.

SCENE 7. Page 69.

JAQ. _Sans_ teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.

This word, introduced into our language as early as the time of Chaucer, has sometimes received on the stage a French pronunciation, which in the time of Shakspeare it certainly had not. The old orthography will serve to verify this position:

"I none dislike, I fancie some, But yet of all the rest, _Sance_ envie, let my verdite passe, Lord Buckhurst is the best."

Turbervile's verses before his _Tragical tales_, 1587, 4to.

ACT III.

SCENE 2. Page 82.

ROS. I'll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it with a medlar: then it will be the _earliest_ fruit in the country, for you'll be rotten ere you be half ripe, and that's the right virtue of the medlar.

On this Mr. Steevens observes that Shakspeare had little knowledge of gardening, the medlar being one of the latest fruits, and uneatable till the end of November. But is not the charge, at least in this instance, unfounded; and has not the learned commentator misunderstood the poet's meaning? It is well known that the medlar is only edible when _apparently_ rotten. This is what Shakspeare calls its _right virtue_. If a fruit be fit to be eaten when rotten and _before it be ripe_, it may in one sense be termed _the earliest_. The inaccuracy seems to be in making the medlar rotten before it is ripe, the rottenness being, as it is conceived, the ripeness.

SCENE 2. Page 93.

ORL. I pray you, mar no more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly.

This very much resembles the _sed male cum recitas, incipit esse tuum_, in one of Martial's epigrams, lib. i. ep. 39, of which the following translation was made by Timothy Kendall, in his _Flowers of epigrammes_, 1577, 12mo:

"The booke which thou doest read, it is Frende Fidentinus myne; _But when thou ill doest read it, then Beginns it to bee thyne_."

SCENE 4. Page 111.

CEL. He hath bought a pair of _cast_ lips of Diana: a nun of winter's sisterhood kisses not more religiously; the very ice of chastity is in them.

Theobald explains _cast_ lips "a pair _left off_ by Diana." It is not easy to conceive how the goddess could _leave off_ her lips; or how, being left off, Orlando could purchase them. Celia seems rather to allude to a statue _cast in plaister or metal_, the lips of which might well be said to possess _the ice_ of chastity.

As to the "nun of winter's sisterhood," Warburton might have contented himself with censuring the dullness of Theobald. His own _sisterhoods of the seasons_ are by much too refined and pedantic, and in every respect objectionable. Shakspeare poetically feigns a new order of nuns, most appropriate to his subject, and wholly devoid of obscurity.

SCENE 5. Page 115.

SIL. ... The common executioner _Falls not the axe_ upon the humbled neck.

There is no doubt that the expression _to fall the axe_ may with propriety refer to the usual mode of decapitation; but if it could be shown that in the reign of Elizabeth this punishment was inflicted in England by an instrument resembling the French guillotine, which though merciful in the discharge of its office, has justly excited abhorrence from the number of innocent victims that have suffered by it, the expression would perhaps seem rather more appropriate. Among the cuts to the first edition of Holinshed's chronicle such a machine is twice introduced; and as it does not appear that in either instance there was any cause for the particular use of it, we may reasonably infer that it was at least sometimes adopted. Every one has heard of the _Halifax gibbet_, which was just such another instrument, and certainly introduced into that town, for reasons that do not appear, long before the time in which Holinshed was printed. It is said that the Earl of Morton, the Scotish regent, saw it at Halifax, and that he introduced it into Scotland, where it was used for a considerable time afterwards.[14] In that country it was called _the maiden_, and Morton himself actually suffered by it, when condemned as an accomplice in the murder of Lord Darnley. In the best edition of Holinshed, Thynne's continuation of Hector Boethius's history is printed, in which there is an account of the conference between the Earl and the Ministers of Edinburgh, under the title of _The examination and answers of the Earl of Morton before his death, but after his condemnation_. Thynne seems to say that the above account was delivered over to him, but he has omitted to state the particulars. In a manuscript of this conference, written at the time, and in the possession of the author of these observations, it is called _The some of all the conferrence that was betweene the Earle Morton and John Dury and Mr. Walker the same daye that he suffered which was the 2 June 1581_, and differs in several places from the other. In both, at the end, there is an account of the Earl's last moments, in which it is stated (the MS. being here quoted) that he "layde his head _under the axe_, his handes being unbounde, Mr. Walker cried in his eare, Lord Jesus receive thy spirite, he saide Jesus receive my sowle, which wordes he was speaking while _the axe fell on his necke_." This extract would alone be sufficient to decide on the mode in which Morton was beheaded; but in the MS. there is a neat drawing of the machine itself, resembling the cut in the earliest edition of Holinshed, except that in the latter the axe is suspended to the top of the frame by a string which the executioner cuts with a knife, whilst in the other, a peg, to which the string is attached, is drawn out of one of the sides.

It may be worth adding that in _King Henry VI. part 2_, Eleanor says to her husband the duke of Gloucester,

"But be thou mild, and blush not at my shame, Nor stir at nothing, till the axe of death _Hang over thee_----"

SCENE 5. Page 118.

ROS. ... What though you have _more_ beauty (As by my faith, I see no more in you Than without candle may go dark to bed)

The old copy reads _no beauty_. Mr. Malone substitutes _mo_, i. e. _more_, and supports his alteration by making Rosalind allow that Phœbe had _more_ beauty than her lover; but she soon afterwards asserts the contrary in the most positive terms. The omission of the disputed monosyllable, which in the old copy might have caught the compositor's eye in the ensuing line and occasioned the mistake, will certainly correct the present redundancy in the line, and perhaps restore the author's original language. _As_ in the next line appears to have the power of _though_; a word that could not be used on account of its introduction in the preceding line.

ACT IV.

SCENE 1. Page 130.

ROS. I will laugh like a _hyen_, and that when thou art inclined to _sleep_.

"He commeth to houses _by night_, and feineth _mannes voyce_ as he maye," &c.--Bartholomæus _De propriet. rer._ lib. xviii. c. 61. _De Hiena_.

SCENE 3. Page 142.

OLI ... for 'tis The royal disposition of that beast, To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead.

This property of the lion, whether true or false, was acknowledged by our forefathers. Thus in "_The choise of change containing the divinitie, philosophie, and poetrie_," &c., 1585, 4to, a work evidently constructed on the model of the Welsh triads, we find the following passage: "three things shew that there is a great clemencie in lions; _they will not hurt them that lie groveling_," &c. Bartholomæus says, "their mercie is known by many and oft ensamples: _for they spare them that lye on the ground_." Shakspeare again alludes to the lion's generosity in _Troilus and Cressida_, Act V. Scene 3:

"Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you Which better fits a lion than a man."

ACT V.

SCENE 2. Page 152.

ROS. By my life, I do; which I tender dearly, though I say I am a magician.

Of the two constructions of this speech, that by Mr. Steevens seems deserving of the preference; but the grounds on which it stands require examination. A statute against witchcraft was made in the first year of king James. Now if, as Dr. Warburton conceives, it is to this that Rosalind alludes, the play must have been written after 1603. Mr. Malone, whose opinion is supported by very solid reasons, thinks it was written in 1600; and therefore to reconcile the explanation given by Mr. Steevens, we must suppose that the foregoing allusion is to some prior statutes of Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth, which punished those who practised witchcraft with death.

SCENE 2. Page 154.

ROS. I will satisfy you if ever I _satisfy'd_ man.

The context seems to require that we should read _satisfy_; and it was the genius of Shakspeare's age to write so.

THE CLOWN.

Touchstone is the domestic fool of Frederick the duke's brother, and belongs to the class of witty or allowed fools. He is threatened with the whip, a mode of chastisement which was often inflicted on this motley personage. His dress should be a party-coloured garment. He should occasionally carry a bauble in his hand, and wear asses' ears to his hood, which is probably the head dress intended by Shakspeare, there being no allusion whatever to a cock's head or comb. The three-cornered hat which Touchstone is made to wear on the modern stage is an innovation, and totally unconnected with the genuine costume of the domestic fool.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] See Hume's hist. of the houses of Douglas and Angus, 1644, folio, p. 356. There are good reasons for supposing that the instrument in question was invented in Germany.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

In the _dramatis personæ_ of this play the "gentle astringer" is omitted, who, though he says but little, has a better claim to be inserted than Violenta, who says nothing. Mr. Steevens remarks that her name was borrowed from an old _metrical history_ entitled _Didaco and Violenta_; but Shakspeare more probably saw it in the running title of Painter's _Palace of pleasure_, whence he got his plot of this play, and where the above history occurs in _prose_. The title is borrowed from a proverbial saying much older than the time of Shakspeare. Knyghton has preserved some of the speeches of Jack Straw and his brother insurgents; and in that of Jack Carter we have this expression: _for if the ende be wele than is alle wele_. The orations of these heroes were made up of proverbial saws, a proof of the great influence they must have had with the common people. See the _Decem scriptores_ by Twysden, col. 2637.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 187.

LAF. A fistula, my Lord.

What Mr. Steevens calls the _inelegance_ of the king's disorder is not to be placed to Shakspeare's account; for it is specifically mentioned both in Painter's story of _Giletta_, and in Boccaccio himself. It is singular that the learned critic should not have remembered this.

SCENE 1. Page 188.

COUNT. Where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there commendations go with pity; they are virtues and traitors too.

The explanations of this speech appear to be too refined; and Dr. Warburton's, as usual, particularly so. The meaning is simply this:--_where strong and useful talents are combined with an evil disposition, we feel regret even in commending them; because, in such a mind, however good in themselves, their use and application are always to be suspected_.

SCENE 3. Page 217.

CLO. A _prophet_ I madam.

A reconsideration of these words have suggested the necessity of cancelling _both_ the notes, for the clown is not a _natural_, but an _artificial_ fool.

SCENE 3. Page 224.

HEL. Indeed, my mother! or were you _both our mothers_.

This strange and faulty language deserved notice. It should have been, _or were you so to both_.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 234.

BER. I shall stay here the _forehorse to a smock_ Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry Till honour be brought up, and _no sword worn, But one to dance with_.

He means that he shall remain at home to _lead out ladies_ in the dance, till honour, &c. In _Titus Andronicus_, Act II. Scene 1, Demetrius speaks of _a dancing rapier_. The custom of wearing swords in the dancing schools is exemplified in a curious story related in _Newes from the North_, 1579, 4to, where "Pierce Plowman sheweth how his neighbour and hee went to the tavern and to _the dauncing schoole_ and what hapned there," in these words: "Now was there one man of our company that was as deaf as a doore naile. When we were come into the schoole; the musitions were playing and one dauncing of a galiard, and even at our entring hee was beginning a trick as I remember of sixteens or seventeens, I doo not very wel remember, but wunderfully hee leaped, flung and took on, which the deaf man beholding, and not hearing any noyse of the musick, thought verily that hee had been stark mad and out of his wit, and of pure pittie and compassion ran to him and caught him in his armes and held him hard and fast. The dauncer not knowing his good meaning, and taking it to the wurst, and having _a dagger_ drew it out, and smot the man a great blowe upon the hed, and brake his hed very sore." Another illustration of the subject is too interesting from the picture of ancient manners which it exhibits to stand in need of any apology for its insertion. It is from Stafforde's _Briefe conceipt of English pollicy_, 1581, 4to. "I thinke wee were as much dread or more of our enemies, when our gentlemen went simply and our serving men plainely, without cuts or gards, bearing their heavy swordes and buckelers on their thighes insted of cuts and gardes and _light daunsing swordes_; and when they rode carrying good speares in theyr hands in stede of white rods, which they cary now more like ladies or gentlewomen then men; all which delicacyes maketh our men cleane effeminate and without strength."

SCENE 2. Page 249.

CLO. As Tib's rush for Tom's forefinger.

The covert allusion mentioned by Mr. Ritson is, in all probability, the right solution of this passage; but the practice of marrying with a rush ring may admit of some additional remarks. Sir John Hawkins had already, in a very curious and interesting note, illustrated the subject; and it must appear very extraordinary that _one of the subsequent notes_ should question the practice of marrying with a rush ring, on the grounds that _no authority_ had been produced in support of it. This must therefore be explained. The fact is, that the author of the doubts had never seen Sir John Hawkins's _entire_ note, which had originally appeared in the edition of 1778, but was injudiciously suppressed in that of 1785. In the edition of 1790 there is only a brief and general statement of Sir John's opinion, and this led to the doubts expressed. In 1793 Mr. Steevens restores a note which he had already cancelled, and _with all its authorities before him_, permits them to be questioned; but there are many who will comprehend his motive.

The information from Du Breul (not Breval, as misprinted) _Theâtre des antiquitez de Paris_. 1612. 4to, is worth stating more at large. The author tells us that in the official court of the church of Saint Marinus, those who have lived unchastely are conducted to the church by two officers, in case they refuse to go of their own accord, and there married by the curate with a _rush ring_. They are likewise enjoined to live in peace and friendship, thereby to preserve the honour of their friends and relations, and their own souls from the danger they had incurred. This is only practised where no other method of saving the honour of the parties and their connexions can be devised. A modern French writer remarks on this ceremony; "pour faire observer, sans doute, au mari, combien etoit _fragile la vertu_ de celle qu'il choisissait."

With respect to the constitutions of the bishop of Salisbury in 1217, which forbid the putting of _rush rings_ on women's fingers, there seems to be an _error_ in the reason for this prohibition as stated by Sir John Hawkins, but for which he is not perhaps responsible. He says it is insinuated by the bishop, "that there were some people weak enough to believe, that what was thus done in jest, was a real marriage." The original words, as in Spelman's _councils_, are these: "ne dum jocari se putat, honoribus matrimonialibus se _abstringat_." Now unless we read "_adstringat_" there is a difficulty in making sense of the passage, which seems to mean, _least, whilst he thinks he is only practising a joke, he may be tying himself in the matrimonial noose_. It is to be observed that this consequence was not limited to the deception of putting _a rush ring only_ on the woman's finger, but any ring whatever, whether of vile or of precious materials.

In Greene's _Menaphon_ is this passage: "Well, 'twas a good worlde when such simplicitie was used, sayes the old women of our time, when a _ring of a rush_ would tie as much love together as a gimmon of golde." But _rush rings_ were sometimes innocently used. Thus in Spenser's _Shepherds calendar_, eclog. xi. mention is made of "the knotted _rush rings_, and gilt rosemaree" of the deceased shepherdess. Again in Fletcher's _Two noble kinsmen_, Act iv.;

"... _Rings_ she made Of _rushes_ that grew by, and to 'em spoke The prettiest posies: _thus our true love's ty'd; This you may loose, not me_; and many a one."

_Tib_ and _Tom_ were names for any low or vulgar persons, and they are usually mentioned together in the same manner as _Jack_ and _Gill_, &c. In the morality of _Like will to like quoth the devil to the collier_, Nicholas Newfangle says,

"By the mas for thee he is so fit a mate As _Tom_ and _Tib_ for Kit and Kate."

In the old song of _The shepheard's holyday_, we have,

"Jetting Gill, Jumping Will, O'r the floore will have their measure; Kit and Kate There will waite, _Tib_ and _Tom_ will take their pleasure."

Thomas Drant in his translation of Horace's _Arte of poetrye_, 1567, 4to, has Englished _fricti ciceris et nucis emptor_, by _Tom and Tib_, &c.; and in _A satyr against Satyrs, or St. Peter's vision transubstantiated_, 1680, 4to, are these lines:

"O' th same bead-string with fryar hang'd a nun, What, would not you have _Tib_ to follow _Tom_?"

SCENE 3. Page 257.

HEL. To each of you one fair and virtuous mistress Fall, when love please! _marry to each, but one!_

Mr. Tyrwhitt regards the latter exclamation as ludicrous, in consequence of Helena's limitation of _one_ mistress to each lord, and would therefore give it to Parolles. Mr. Mason, on the contrary, is of opinion that the words _but one_, mean _except one_; that the person excepted is Bertram, whose mistress Helena hoped she herself should be; and that she makes the exception out of modesty, as otherwise it would extend to herself. Of these two opinions the first is the most probable, deriving considerable support from the _one_ in the preceding line; for if Shakspeare had meant _except one_, he would have written "_a_ fair and virtuous mistress." Helena's exception as stated by Mr. Mason might indeed have been made on the score of modesty so far as regarded her beauty; but she could not with propriety admit that she had no _virtue_.

SCENE 3. Page 257.

LAF. I'd give bay _Curtal_.

Mr. Steevens should have added that this was a proper name for a horse, as well as an appellation for a dock'd one. "Their knavery is on this manner; they have always good geldings and trusty, which they can make _curtailes_ when they list, and againe set too large tailes, hanging to the fetlockes at their pleasure."--_Martin Marhall's apologie to the belman of London_, 1610, sign. G. _Curtail_ is not from _cur_ and _tail_, as stated in some dictionaries, but from the French _tailler court_.

ACT III.

SCENE 6. Page 298.

2. LORD. If you give him not _John Drum's entertainment_.

The meaning of this phrase has been very well ascertained, but its origin remains to be traced. Is it a metaphor borrowed from the _beating_ of a drum, or does it allude to the drumming a person out of a regiment? There can be no reference to a real person, because in many old writers we find both _Jack_ and _Tom_ Drum.

ACT IV.

SCENE 3. Page 323.

1. LORD. _Hoodman_ comes!

An allusion to the game of blindman's buff, formerly called _hoodman blind_.

SCENE 3. Page 326.

PAR. He was whipp'd for getting the _sheriff's fool_ with child.

Mr. Ritson will not admit this to be a fool kept by the sheriff for diversion, but supposes her one of those idiots whose care, as he says, devolved on the sheriff when they had not been begged of the king on account of the value of their lands. Now if this was the law, the sheriff must have usually had more than one idiot in his custody; and had Shakspeare alluded to one of these persons, he would not have chosen so definite an expression as that in question; he would rather have said, "_a_ sheriff's fool." Female idiots were retained in families for diversion as well as male, though not so commonly; and there would be as much reason to expect one of the former in the sheriffs household as in that of any other person. It is not impossible that our author might have in view some real event that had just happened.

SCENE 3. Page 327.

BER. I know his brains are forfeit to the next _tile_ that falls.

In Whitney's _Emblems_, a book certainly known to Shakspeare, there is a story of three women who threw dice to ascertain which of them should first die. She who lost affected to laugh at the decrees of fate, when _a tile suddenly falling_, put an end to her existence.

SCENE 3. Page 329.

PAR. ... a dangerous and lascivious boy, who is _a whale to virginity_.

This is an allusion to the story of _Andromeda_ in old prints, where the monster is very frequently represented as a _whale_.

SCENE 3. Page 333.

PAR. For a _quart d'ecu_ he will sell the fee simple of his salvation.

The quart d'ecu, or as it was sometimes written _cardecue_, was a French piece of money first coined in the reign of Henry III. It was the fourth part of the _gold_ crown, and worth fifteen sols. It is a fact not generally known, that many foreign coins were current at this time in England; some English coins were likewise circulated on the continent. The French crown and its parts passed by weight only.

SCENE 4. Page 339.

HEL. All's well that ends well: still _the fine's a crown_.

In _King Henry VI. part 2._ Act V. we have "la fin couronne les œuvres." Both phrases are from the Latin _finis coronat opus_. In this sense we still use the expression to _crown_, for to _finish_ or _make perfect_. _Coronidem imponere_ is a metaphor well known to the ancients, and supposed to have originated from the practice of finishing buildings by placing a crown at their top as an ornament; and for this reason the words _crown_, _top_ and _head_ are become synonymous in most languages.

There is reason for believing that the ancients placed a crescent at the beginning, and a crown, or some ornament that resembled it, at the end of their books. In support of the first usage we have a poem by Ausonius entitled CORONIS which begins in this manner:

"Quos legis à prima deductos _menide_ libri."

And of the other, these lines in Martial, lib. x. ep. 1:

"Si nimius videor, seraque _coronide_ longus Esse liber: legito pauca, libellus ero."

The mark which was used in later times for the _coronis_ has been preserved in the etymologies of Isidore, lib. i. c. 20. It is this, [Illustration]; and in some manuscripts of that writer [Illustration] and [Illustration]. In other places it has these forms, [Illustration].

SCENE 5. Page 343.

CLO. But sure, he is _the prince of the world_.

The Devil is often called so by Saint John.

ACT V.

SCENE 2. Page 349.

PAR. Good Monsieur _Lavatch_.

"This," says Mr Steevens, "is an undoubted and perhaps _irremediable_ corruption of some French word." Yet the name is obviously _La vache_, which, whether really belonging to the clown or not, seems well adapted to such a character.

SCENE 2. Page 351.

CLO. Here is a _pur_ of fortune's sir, or of fortune's cat.

The text is perfectly intelligible, and requires no conjectural amendment. The clown calls Parolles's letter a _pur_; because, like the purring of the sycophant cat, it was calculated to procure favour and protection.

THE CLOWN.

He is a domestic fool of the same kind as Touchstone.

TAMING OF THE SHREW.

INDUCTION.

SCENE 1. Page 386.

SLY. Therefore, _paucas pallabris_.

Perhaps these words are part of an old Spanish proverb, corresponding with the Portuguese, "A o hom entendedor _poucas palavras_," i. e. to an intelligent man, few words. Most of the modern European languages have a proverb like our "word to the wise." In Ben Jonson's _Masque of Augures_, Vangoose is made to exclaim "hochos-pochos, _paucos palabros_."

SCENE 1. Page 394.

LORD. And when he says he is ----, say that he dreams.

Of the various modes of filling up this blank suggested in the notes, that of Dr. Johnson, who would insert _sly_, is the most probable. Mr. Steevens asks, "how should the Lord know the beggar's name to be Sly?" This is very true; yet Shakspeare might as well forget himself in this place as he certainly did a few pages afterwards, where he makes the Lord's servant talk of _Cicely_ Hacket, &c.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 414.

KATH. I pray you, sir, is it your will To make a _stale_ of me amongst these _mates_.

She means to say, "do you intend to make a strumpet of me among these companions?" but the expression seems to have been suggested by the chess-term of _stale mate_, which is used when the game is ended by the king being alone and unchecked, and then forced into a situation from which he is unable to move without going into check. This is a dishonourable termination to the adversary, who thereby loses the game. Thus in Lord Verulam's twelfth essay, "They stand still like a _stale_ at chess, where it is no _mate_, but yet the game cannot stir."

SCENE 2. Page 427.

PET. Be she as foul as was Florentius' love.

Dr. Farmer's note might have been omitted, as it refers to a story which has no manner of connection with that to which Petruchio alludes.

SCENE 2. Page 436.

PET. Tush, tush, _fear_ boys with _bugs_.

To _fear_ is to frighten. In Mathews's _Bible_, psalm xci. v. 5, is thus rendered: "Thou shalt not nede to be afraied for any _bugs_ by night." In the Hebrew it is "_terror_ of the night;" a curious passage, evidently alluding to that horrible sensation the night-mare, which in all ages has been regarded as the operation of evil spirits. Thus much seemed necessary in explanation or defence of the above most excellent old translation, which we have retained with very little change in the language; for the expression, from its influence on a modern ear, might have been liable to a very ludicrous construction. The word _bug_ is originally Celtic, _bŵg_, a ghost or goblin, and hence _bug-bear_, _boggerd_, _bogle_, _boggy-bo_, and perhaps _pug_, an old name for the Devil. _Boggy-bo_ seems to signify the _spirit_ Bo, and has been thought, with some probability, to refer to a warrior of that name, the son of Odin, and of great celebrity among the ancient Danes and Norwegians. His name is said to have struck his enemies with terror, and might have been used by the nurses of those times to frighten children, as that of Marlborough was in France on the same occasion. It is remarkable that the Italian women use _bau bau_, for this purpose, and the French _ba-bo_. It should seem as if _bug_ had been metaphorically applied to the _cimex_, that insect being in all respects _a terror of the night_. Nor was the word used in this sense till late in the seventeenth century, the old names for the house bug being, _wall-louse_, _wig-louse_, _chinch_, _punie_, and _puneez_; the two last from the French.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 442.

KATH. And, for your love to her, _lead apes in hell_.

It is perhaps an ill-natured, though a very common, presumption, that the single state of old maids originates either in prudery or in real aversion to the male sex, and that consequently they deserve some kind of punishment in the next world. It is therefore not a matter of wonder that some of our waggish forefathers, impressed with this idea, should have maintained that these obdurate damsels would be condemned to lead apes in the inferior regions, instead, as Mr. Steevens has ingeniously suggested, of children; or perhaps with a view to compel them to bestow such attention on these deformed animals as they had formerly denied to men. So in Rabelais' hell, Alexander the great is condemned, for his ambition, to mend old stockings, and Cleopatra, for her pride, to cry onions.

It is said that homicides and adulterers were in ancient times compelled by way of punishment to lead an ape by the neck, with their mouths affixed in a very unseemly manner to the animal's tail. The fact is mentioned in the early Latin dictionary entitled _Vocabularius breviloquus_, and in the _Catholicon_ of Johannes Januensis, both printed at the end of the fifteenth century, under the article _anulus_. It is added, that the above punishment being found too opprobrious was commuted for wearing a ring on the finger, which the higher classes caused to be made of gold or silver; and this is further stated to have been the reason why the general practice of wearing rings declined. After all it may be a mere fabrication for the purpose of introducing an etymology of the word _annulus_, that cannot here be repeated.

SCENE 1. Page 450.

HOR. And, _twangling Jack_.

It is the author's desire to withdraw a former note on this passage, which, as well as a few others of a confidential nature, was not intended for publication. To _twangle_ means to make any sharp shrill noise on a stringed instrument, as a bad player would do. A _Jack_ denotes a low or mean person, and is occasionally used as a term of reproach. Thus Horatio is afterwards called "swearing _Jack_." _Twangling Jack_ may sometimes allude to that little machine in harpsichords and spinnets in which the quill is placed that strikes the wires. The _jangling Jack_ mentioned in Mr. Steevens's note is not connected with the other. He is a mere _prating fellow_. Thus in Drant's translation of Horace's ninth satire, 1567, 4to:

"A _prater_ shal becom his death, Therefore, let him alwayes, If he be wise, shun _jangling jackes_, After his youthful dayes."

SCENE 1. Page 461.

GRE. My hangings all of _Tyrian tapestry_.

Whether the purple of Tyre be here alluded to is doubtful. There is a Turkish city of some celebrity in Natolia called Tiria, where, according to the account of Paul Lucas, carpets are manufactured; and in the _Comedy of errors_, Act IV. Scene 1, mention is made of _Turkish tapestry_.

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 470.

LUC. ... for, _but_ I be deceiv'd.

Mr. Malone has well explained this word as meaning _unless_, in which sense it is often used by Shakspeare. It is the Saxon buꞇon, _nisi_. Sometimes it was used with _if_, as "I wol breake thy heed _but if_ thou get the hense;" from Terence's "Diminuam ego tibi caput, _nisi_ abis," Udall's _Floures from Latine_, 1533, 12mo.

SCENE 2. Page 487.

PET. Go to the feast, revel and _domineer_.

So in Tarlton's _Jests_, "T. having been _domineering_ very late at night with two of his friends." In these instances to _domineer_ is to _bluster_.

SCENE 2. Page 487.

PET. She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house, My houshold stuff, my field, my barn, My horse, my ox, my ass, my any thing.

In the anonymous play of _A knacke to knowe a knave_, 1594, one of the old men says, "My house? why, 'tis my goods, my wyfe, my land, my horse, my ass, or any thing that is his." If Mr. Malone's conjecture respecting the date of _The taming of the shrew_ be well founded, it is difficult to say whether Shakspeare is the borrower, in this instance, or not.

ACT IV.

SCENE 1. Page 494.

CRU. ... their _blue coats_ brushed----

Thus in Nashe's _Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriell Harvey's hunt is up_, when this foul-mouth'd writer has accused his adversary Harvey of defrauding Wolfe his printer of thirty-six pounds, he adds, that he borrowed of him a _blue coat_ for his man; "and yet Wolfe did not so much as _brush_ it, when he lent it him, or presse out the print where the _badge_ had been." In another place, alluding to the same transaction, he states that Wolfe "lent him one of his prentises for a serving creature to grace him, clapping an old _blue coate_ on his backe, which was one of my Lord of Harford's liveries (he pulling the _badge_ off)."

The practice of giving liveries to menial servants has not originated in modern times. It is mentioned in some of the statutes made in the reign of Richard the Second. In that of Edward the Fourth the terms _livery_ and _badge_ appear to have been synonymous, the former having no doubt been borrowed from the French language, and signifying a thing _delivered_. The badge consisted of the master's device, crest, or arms, on a separate piece of cloth, or sometimes silver, in the form of a shield, fastened to the left sleeve. Greene, in his _Quip for an upstart courtier_, speaking of some serving men, says, "their cognizance, as I remember, was a peacocke without a tayle." In queen Elizabeth's time the nobility gave silver badges, as appears from Hentzner's _Travels_, p. 156, edit. Norimb. 1612, 4to. "Angli magnifici domi forisque magna assectantium famulorum agmini secum trahunt, quibus in _sinistro brachio scuta ex argento facta_ appendunt." But this foolish extravagance was not limited to persons of high rank. Fynes Moryson, speaking of the English apparel, informs us that "the servants of _gentlemen_ were wont to weare _blew coates_, with their masters badge of silver on the left sleeve, but now they most commonly weare clokes garded with lace, all the servants of one family wearing the same liverie for colour and ornament:" we are therefore to suppose that the sleeve badge was left off in the reign of James I. Yet the badge was at one time so general an accompaniment to a blue coat, that when any thing wanted its usual appendage, it was _proverbially_ said to be _like a blue coat without a badge_.

The custom of clothing persons in liveries and badges was not confined to menial servants. Another class of men called _retainers_, who appear to have been of no small importance among our ancestors, were habited in a similar manner. They were a sort of servants, not residing in the master's house like other menial domestics, but attending occasionally for the purpose of ostentation, and _retained_ by the annual donation of a livery consisting of a hat or hood, a badge, and a suit of clothes. As they were frequently kept for the purpose of maintaining quarrels and committing other excesses, it became necessary to impose heavy penalties on the offenders, both masters and retainers. In process of time they were licensed. Strype complains of the too great indulgence of queen Mary in this respect. "She granted," says he, "more by half in her short five years than her sister and successor in thirteen. For in all that time there were but fifteen licenses of retainer granted, whereas queen Mary had granted nine and thirty. She was more liberal also in yielding the number of retainers to each person, which sometimes amounted to two hundred. Whereas Q. Elizabeth never yielded above an hundred to any person of the greatest quality, and that rarely too. But Bishop Gardiner began that ill example, who retained two hundred men: whereas under Q. Elizabeth the Duke of Norfolk retained but an hundred; and Parker, archbishop of Canterbury, but forty." He has added a list of the persons to whom Mary granted licenses, and the number of persons retained. _Eccl. memorials_, iii. 479.

Nor did these retainers always consist of men of low condition. The entertaining author of a book entitled _A health to the gentlemanly profession of serving men, or the serving man's comfort_, 1598, 4to, (to whom these notes have occasionally been indebted, and who with good reason is supposed to have been Jervis Markham,) has certainly alluded to them in the following curious passage, wherein he is consoling the objects of his labour: "Amongst what sort of people should then this serving man be sought for? Even the duke's sonne preferred page to the prince, the earles seconde sonne attendant upon the duke, the knights seconde sonne the earles servant, the esquires sonne _to weare the knightes lyverie_, and the gentlemans sonne the esquiers serving man: Yea I know at this day, gentlemen younger brothers, that weares their elder brothers _blew coate_ and badge, attending him with as reverend regard and duetifull obedience, as if he were their prince or soveraigne." Let us congratulate ourselves that we no longer endure such insolent aggressions, the result of family pride and ignorance, and which had been too often permitted to degrade the natural liberties and independence of mankind. The excellent old ballad of _Times alteration_, has the following illustrative stanza of the coats and badges in question:

"The nobles of our land Were much delighted then, To have at their command A crew of lusty men; Which by their coats were known Of tawny, red or blue, With crests on their sleeves shown, When this old cap was new."

Before we dismiss the present subject, it will be necessary to observe that the _badge_ occurs in all the old representations of posts or messengers. On the latter of these characters it may be seen in the 52nd plate of Mr. Strutt's first volume of _The dress and habits of the people of England_, where, as in the most ancient instances, the badge is affixed to the girdle; but it is often seen on the shoulder, and even on the hat or cap. These figures extend as far back as the thirteenth century, and many old German engravings exhibit both the characters with a badge that has sometimes the device or arms of the town to which the post belongs. He has generally a spear in his hand, not only for personal security, but for repelling any nuisance that might interrupt his progress. Among ourselves the remains of the ancient badge are still preserved in the dresses of porters, firemen, and watermen, and perhaps in the shoulder-knots of footmen. The blue coat and badge still remain with the parish and hospital boys. The following figure of a person of a higher class with a badge, is copied from the view of Windsor in _Braunii civitates orbis terrarum_, 1573.

[Illustration]

SCENE 1. Page 496.

PET. Where be these knaves? what no man _at door_.

Although _door_ might in the _middle_ of a line be pronounced as a dissyllable, it is submitted that it cannot, with any propriety, at the _end_. It were better to suppose an omission at the press, and read "at _the_ door."

SCENE 2. Page 506.

TRA. That teacheth tricks _eleven and twenty_ long.

We have here a very uncommon and perhaps unique expression; but it seems to mean no more than that the tricks were of an extraordinary kind. _Eleven and twenty_ is the same as _eleven score_, which signified a great length or number as applied to the exertions of a few or even of a single person. Thus in the old ballad of _The low country soldier_,

"Myself and seven more We fought _eleven score_."

SCENE 3. Page 513.

KATH. Why then the beef, and let the mustard rest, &c.

This part of the dialogue was in all probability suggested by the following whimsical story in _Wits, fittes and fancies_, 1595, 4to:--"A clowne having surfeited of beefe, and being therewith extreame sicke, vow'd never whiles he liv'd to eat beefe more, if it pleas'd God he might escape for that once: Shortlie after having his perfect health again, he would needs have eaten beefe, and his sister putting him in mind of his vow, hee answered: True (sister) not without mustard (good L.) not without mustard." This is not the only use that Shakespeare has made of this curious book, which was, in part, translated from a Spanish work, entitled _La floresta Spagnola_, by Anthony Copley, who was the author of a poem printed at the end, called _Love's owle: In dialogue-wise betweene love and an olde man_. Of this poem Copley thus speaks in his dedication: "As for my _Loves owle_, I am content that Momus turne it to a tennis-ball if he can, and bandy it quite away: namelie, I desire M. _Daniel_, M. _Spencer_, and other the Prime Poets of our time, to pardon it with as easie a frowne as they please, for that I give them to understand, that an Universitie Muse never pend it, though humbly devoted thereunto."

SCENE 3. Page 514.

PET. And all my pains is _sorted to no proof_.

This is explained by Dr. Johnson, "and all my labour has _proved_ nothing." It rather means, "all my labour is _adapted_ to no _approof_," or "I have taken all this pains without _approbation_." _Approof_ is used by Shakspeare in this sense, and should be here printed with an apostrophe, _'proof_.

SCENE 4. Page 529.

BION. Take your assurance of her _cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum_.

This is not the only instance in which our poet has borrowed his broad metaphors from the typographical art.

In _The winter's tale_, Act V. Scene 1, we have, "Your mother was most true to wedlock, prince; for she did _print_ your royal father off, conceiving you."

* * * * *

To the stories already mentioned in the notes to this play as resembling that of the _induction_, the following are to be added:--1. _The sleeper awakened_, in the Arabian nights. This is probably the original of all the rest. 2. A similar incident in the story of _Xailoun_ in the _Continuation of the Arabian nights_. 3. In _The apophthegms of King James, King Charles, the marquess of Worcester_, &c., 1658, 12mo, there is the story of an old bachelor named _Thomas Deputy_, who at the marriage of Edward Lord Herbert taking a fancy to one of the bride's waiting-maids, was persuaded by the old Marquess of Worcester to marry her at the same time. Thomas, being overpowered on this occasion with the joy he felt from the liberal donations of the noble assistants at the wedding, and also with the good wine that was freely circulated, became altogether incapable of consummating his marriage; and the Marquess, after relating to the company "the story of the begger who was made to believe he did but dream of the happiness that was really acted," determined to make the experiment in the person of old Thomas, and accordingly ordered that he "should be disrobed of his new wedding garment, the rest of his fine cloaths taken from him, and himself carried unto his old lodging in the porter's lodge, and his wife to respite the solemnization of the marriage bed untill his comportment should deserve so fair an admission: which was done accordingly. The next morning made the experiment to answer the height of all their expectations; for news was brought unto the Marquesse, all the rest of the lords and ladies standing by, that _Thom._ took all yesterdayes work but for a dream, or at least seemed to do so, to humour the fancy." 4. Winstanley, in his _Historical rarities_, 1684, 8vo, has a story of Aladine the Persian, called the old man of the mountain, who built a magnificent palace near a city called _Mulebet_, and filled it with every sort of luxury and delight. "Hither he brought all the lusty youths he could light on, casting them into prison, where they endured much sorrow and woe. And when he thought good, he caused a certain drink to be given them, which cast them into a dead sleep: then he caused them to be carried into divers chambers of the said palaces, where they saw the things aforesaid as soon as they awaked; each of them having those damsels to minister meats and excellent drinks, and all varieties of pleasures to them, insomuch, that the fools thought themselves to be in paradise indeed. Having enjoyed this happiness a whole day, they were in a like sleep conveyed to their irons again; after which, he caused them to be brought into his presence, and questioned where they had been; which answered, by your grace, in paradise, and recounted all the particulars before mentioned." Winstanley has also given the story of Philip duke of Burgundy. 5. A similar incident in the penny history of _The frolicksome courtier and the jovial tinker_.

The author of the story in the Tatler might have used a novel in the _Piacevoli notti_ of Straparola, nott. 8, fab. 2. and the outline of the _Taming of the shrew_ may be found in a Spanish work entitled _El conde Lucanor_, 1643, 4to, composed by Don Juan Manuel, nephew to Ferdinand the fourth king of _Castile_.

The character of Petruchio bears some resemblance to that of Pisardo in Straparola's _Novels_, night 8, fab. 7.

WINTER'S TALE.

ACT I.

SCENE 2. Page 27.

LEON. And his pond fish'd by his next neighbour.

This is not the only gross and offensive metaphor of the kind that our poet has used. In _Measure for measure_, we have "groping for trouts in a peculiar river."

SCENE 2. Page 30.

LEON. ... I have trusted thee Camillo, With all the nearest things to my _heart_---- ... wherein, priest-like thou _Hast cleans'd my bosom_.

So in Macbeth we have,

"_Cleanse the stuff'd bosom_ of that perilous stuff, Which weighs upon the _heart_."

SCENE 2. Page 39.

CAM. ... If I could find example Of thousands that had struck anointed kings And _flourish'd after_, I'd not do't.

If, as Mr. Blackstone supposes, this be an allusion to the death of the queen of Scots, it exhibits Shakspeare in the character of a cringing flatterer accommodating himself to existing circumstances, and is moreover an extremely severe one. But the perpetrator of that atrocious murder _did flourish_ many years afterwards. May it not rather be designed as a compliment to King James on his escape from the Gowrie conspiracy, an event often brought to the people's recollection during his reign, from the day on which it happened being made a day of thanksgiving? See _Osborne's traditional memoyres_, and the almanacks of the time under the 5th of August.

SCENE 2. Page 41.

POL. In whose success we are _gentle_.

So in Act V. Scene 2, the old shepherd says, "we must be gentle now we are gentlemen." What our ancestors conceived to be the true definition of a gentleman may be seen at large in _The booke of honor and armes_, 1594, 4to, book iii. In Morgan's _Sphere of gentry_, the silly author has gravely stated that _Jesus Christ_ was a _gentleman_ and bore arms. Of the latter assertion he has given no proof, though he might have adduced a sort of armorial bearing made up from the implements of the passion, and often exhibited as such in some of the _horæ_ and other service books of the church, before the reformation. Such a coat of arms was likewise used as a stamp on the covers of old books, with the motto REDEMPTORIS MUNDI ARMA. _Gentle gentlemen_ is an alliteration that is very frequent in writers of the age of Shakspeare. In the preface to Gerard Leigh's _Accedence of armorie_, 1597, 4to, three sorts of _ungentiles_ are described, "the first whereof are _gentle ungentle_. Such be they as wil rather sweare armes then beare armes. Who of negligence stop mustard pots with their fathers pedegrees, or otherwise abuse them. The second sort are _ungentle gentlemen_, who being enhaunced to honor by their fathers, on whom (though it were to their owne worship) yet can they not keepe so much money from the dice, as to make worshipful obsequies for their sad fathers with any point of armory. The third sort, and worst of all, are neither _gentle ungentle_, or _ungentle gentile_, but verie stubble curs, and be neither doers, sufferers, or wel speakers of honors tokens."

SCENE 2. Page 42.

CAM. I am appointed _him_ to murder you.

"_i. e._" says Mr. Steevens, "I am the person appointed to murder you." This is certainly the meaning, but the grammatical construction is, "I am appointed the person to murder you." The lines quoted from _King Henry VI._ are ungrammatical, and not, as is conceived, an exemplification of the foregoing passage.

SCENE 2. Page 42.

POL. ... and my name _Be yok'd with his that did betray the best_.

Mr. Henderson's conjecture that Judas is here meant is certainly well founded. A clause in the sentence against excommunicated persons was, "let them _have part with Judas that betrayed Christ_. Amen;" and this is here imitated.

ACT II.

SCENE 3. Page 73.

LEON. And _lozel_, thou art worthy to be hang'd.

The derivation of _lozel_ cited from Verstegan is arbitrary, and deduced from a mere resemblance of sound. The word has been apparently corrupted from the Saxon _lorel_, used by Chaucer for a worthless fellow. See Mr. Tyrwhitt's glossary. The corruption may have originated in the similitude of the letters _r_ and _z_ in ancient manuscripts.

ACT III.

SCENE 2. Page 82.

HER. ... since he came, With what encounter so uncurrent I Have strain'd to appear thus.

Dr. Johnson, not understanding these lines, "with the licence of all editors," pronounces them unintelligible. However strange the language may appear in the mouth of a lady, there is hardly a doubt that it is a metaphor taken from tilting. Hermione means to say, _I appeal to your own conscience whether since Polixenes came, I have made any violent or irregular encounter unlike that of a fair courser_; or, in plainer terms, _whether I have deviated from the paths of honour and_ forcibly _obtruded myself on this tribunal_. Those who made an encounter at justs were called _runners_; and were said, occasionally, to _run foul_. This may serve to explain what is meant by _uncurrent_.

ACT IV.

SCENE 2. Page 107.

AUT. When daffodils begin to peer, &c.

Mr. Steevens, to give himself an opportunity of introducing a neat retort on an attack which his favourite author had sustained, has quoted a remark by Dr. Burney that Autolycus "is the _true ancient minstrel_, as described in the old fabliaux." With great deference to this learned and elegant writer, the observation is inaccurate. Autolycus has nothing in common with the character of a minstrel but the singing of a song or two. He is a mere _rogue_, assuming various shapes, and is specifically called so in the _dramatis personæ_; but it will not surely be contended that all rogues were minstrels, because a cruel and illiberal statute has made all minstrels rogues. It is true that Autolycus declares he had been an _ape-bearer_; but this was no part of the minstrel profession in Shakspeare's time, though it had been so formerly. As this circumstance however has not been noticed, or at least very slightly, by any of the writers on the subject of the ancient minstrels, it may be worth while to exhibit the following curious story from the second book of _The dialogues of Saint Gregory_, who lived in the sixth century. At the celebration of the feast of Saint Proculus the martyr, a nobleman named Fortunatus having prevailed on Bishop Boniface to eat with him after celebrating the service of the day, it happened that before the holy prelate had pronounced the usual benediction at table, _a minstrel leading an ape and playing on a cymbal_ arrived. This very much discomposed the good bishop, who exclaimed, Alas! alas! the wretched man is dead; behold, I have not yet opened my lips to praise God, and he is here with his ape and playing on his instrument. He then desired the servants to carry some victuals to the unhappy man, which when he had eaten, a stone fell from the house top and killed him.

SCENE 2. Page 109.

AUT. The lark that _tirra-lirra_ chants.

The tire-lire was not, it seems, peculiar to the lark. In Skelton's _Colin Cloute_ we have,

"... howe Cupide shaked His darte and bente hys bowe, For to shote a _crowe_, At her _tyrly tyrlowe_."

And in one of the Coventry pageants there is the following old song sung by the shepherds at the birth of Christ, which is further remarkable for its use of the very uncommon word _endenes_, from the Saxon enꝺenehꞅꞇ, _the last_.

"As I out rode this endenes night, Of three joli shepherds I sawe a syght, And all aboute there fold a stare shone bright: They sang _terli terlow_, So mereli the sheppards there pipes can blow."

SCENE 2. Page 111.

AUT. My father named me Autolycus, &c.

It is necessary on this occasion to lay before the reader Dr. Warburton's own words. "Mr. Theobald says, _the allusion is unquestionably to Ovid_. He is mistaken. Not only the allusion, but the whole speech is taken from Lucian, who appears to have been one of our poet's favourite authors, as may be collected from several places of his works. It is from _his discourse on judicial astrology_, where Autolycus talks much in the same manner, &c."

Now if any one will take the trouble of comparing what Ovid and Lucian have respectively said concerning Autolycus, he will, it is presumed, be altogether disposed to give the preference to Theobald's opinion. Dr. Warburton must have been exclusively fortunate in discovering that _the whole speech is taken from Lucian_; that he was _one of our poet's favourite authors_; and that, in the _dialogue_ alluded to, _Autolycus talks much in the same manner_. He must have used some edition of Lucian's works vastly preferable to those which now remain. The reader will be pleased to consult the eleventh book of Ovid's _Metamorphoses_, in the translation (if he have it) by Golding.

SCENE 2. Page 113.

CLOWN. ... _three-man_ songmen all.

"They have also _Cornish three-mens_ songs, cunningly contrived for the ditty, and pleasantly for the note." Carew's _Survey of Cornwall_, fo. 72.

SCENE 2. Page 113.

CLOWN. ... but one Puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes.

An allusion to a practice, common at this time among the Puritans, of burlesquing the _plein chant_ of the Papists, by adapting vulgar and ludicrous music to psalms and pious compositions.

SCENE 3. Page 123.

PER. For you there's _rosemary_, and rue; _Grace_ and _remembrance_ be to you both.

The following lines are from a song entitled, _A nosegaie alwaies sweet for lovers to send for tokens of love at newyere's tide, or for fairings, as they in their minds shall be disposed to write_, printed in Robinson's _Handefull of pleasant delites_, 1584, 16mo:--

"Rosemarie is for remembrance, Betweene us daie and night, Wishing that I might alwaies have You present in my sight."

This plant, as being thought to strengthen the memory, was therefore _given to friends_, as in the present instance. See Parkinson's _Flower garden_, p. 426. Thus Ophelia says to her brother, "There's rosemary; that's for remembrance, _pray you, love, remember_." The reason for calling rue _herb of grace_ is best explained in the notes on a subsequent speech of Ophelia. See vol. xv. p. 276.

SCENE 3. Page 124.

PER. ... and streak'd gilliflowers, Which some call nature's bastards: of that kind Our rustick garden's barren; and I care not To get slips of them.

POL. Wherefore, gentle maiden, Do you neglect them?

PER. For I have heard it said, There is an art which in their piedness, shares With great creating nature.

The solution of the riddle in these lines that has embarrassed Mr. Steevens is probably this: the gilly-flower or carnation is streaked, as every one knows, with white and red. In this respect it is a proper emblem of a _painted_ or immodest woman, and therefore Perdita declines to meddle with it. She connects the gardener's _art_ of varying the colours of the above flowers with the art of painting the face, a fashion very prevalent in Shakspeare's time. This conclusion is justified by what she says in her next speech but one.

SCENE 3. Page 126.

PER. The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun And with him rises weeping.

"So upon occasions past, David found it true that he should not have bene heretofore at any time, and therefore professeth, that, for the time to come, he would be no _marigold-servant of God, to open with the sun, and shut with the dewe_."--Prime's _Consolations of David applied to Queene Elizabeth: in a sermon preached in Oxford the 17 of November_, 1588, 12mo. Lord Howard, in his _Defensative against the poyson of supposed prophecies_, 1583, 4to, says that "_the marie-golde_ dooth close and open with the sunne, &c."

SCENE 3. Page 131.

PER. ... I'll swear for 'em.

Dr. Johnson would transfer this speech to the king, and Mr. Ritson would read "swear for _one_," or at least have some alteration; but in reality no change is necessary. Florizel had just said, "so _turtles_ pair that never mean to part," on which Perdita very naturally observes, "I'll swear for 'em." This is no more than a common phrase of acquiescence, as we likewise say, "I'll _warrant_ you."

SCENE 3. Page 137.

AUT. ... poking-sticks of steel.

To Mr. Steevens's curious note on these implements for stiffening the ruffs formerly worn by persons of both sexes, it may be worth adding that this fashion being carried to a great extremity, became the subject of many satirical prints. One of the oldest was engraved in 1580, by Matthias Quad, and represents the Devil's ruff-shop, he being called the _kragen-setzer_ or _ruff-setter_. A young gallant has brought his mistress to have her ruff set. The Devil is engaged in this operation whilst an assistant is heating fresh poking-sticks in a brasier. Another print of this sort by Galle, is copied from a design by Martin de Vos, and entitled _Diaboli partus superbia_. It has this inscription relating to the _poking-sticks_: "Avec ces fers chauds qu'on vous icy appreste, En enfer puny seras, O layde beste." Other prints represent several monkeys habited in ruffs, and busily employed in poking and starching them, &c.

SCENE 3. Page 138.

CLOWN. _Clamour_ your tongues, and not a word more.

The word is difficult, and, it is feared, likely to afford nothing but conjecture.

Dr. Warburton asserts that the phrase is from ringing; that to clamour bells is to repeat the stroke quicker than before, previously to _ceasing_ them. On the contrary, Dr. Grey maintains that to clamour bells is a _continued_ ringing, and Mr. Malone, with great probability, suspects that what Warburton has said is _gratis dictum_. Dr. Johnson says that "to clam a bell is to cover the clapper with felt, which drowns the blow, and hinders the sound;" and Mr. Nicholls, that _a good clam_ is a peal of all the bells at once. According to the treatise on ringing in _The school of recreation_, 1684, 12mo, "_clamming_ is when each concord strikes together, which being done true, the 8 will strike but as four bells, and make a melodious harmony." The accounts of bell-clamming are therefore so discordant that it seems but fair to give up entirely this sense of the word.

The clown evidently wishes to keep the damsels' tongues from wagging. Now to _clam_, _clem_, or _cleam_ are provincial words, signifying to glue together or fasten with glue, and, metonymically, to starve by contraction. Thus,

"... my entrails Are _clam'd_ with keeping a continual fast."

Massinger's _Roman actor_.

And we still use _clammy_, for sticking together. All the Northern languages have an equivalent term. The Germans have _klemmen_, to tie, and in the old Icelandic we find _klæmman_ in the same sense. Ihre, _Lexicon Suio-Goth_. In Saxon clam, ligamen, clæmɩnᵹ, a stiffening. Somner _Gloss_. Littelton has _to clamm_, or hunger-starve, and Rider to _clamme_, to _stop_. The latter is indeed more to the present purpose than any or all of the others: because by supposing, what is extremely probable, an error of the press, all will be set right. On the other hand, _clamour_ is the reverse of what is required. Thus in _Macbeth_, Act II. Scene 3, we have, "The obscure bird _clamour'd_ the live-long night," and we are not to suppose that Shakspeare could have used the same word in senses so extremely opposite.

SCENE 3. Page 148.

Re-enter servant, with twelve rusticks habited like _satyrs_. They _dance_, and then exeunt.

In the old collection of songs set by Thomas Ravenscroft and others, already quoted in p. 11, there is one called _The satyres daunce_. It is for four voices, and as follows:--

"Round a round, a rounda, keepe your ring To the glorious sunne we sing; Hoe, hoe!

He that weares the flaming rayes, And the imperiall crowne of bayes, Him, with him, with shoutes and songs we praise. Hoe, hoe!

That in his bountee would vouchsafe to grace The humble sylvanes and their shaggy race."

SCENE 3. Page 154.

SHEP. Some hangman must put on my shroud, and lay me _Where no priest shovels in dust_.

i. e. _I must be buried as a common malefactor, out of the pale of consecrated ground, and without the usual rites of the dead_; a whimsical anachronism, when it is considered that the old shepherd was a Pagan, a worshipper of Jupiter and Apollo. But Shakspeare seldom cares about blending the manners of distant ages.

Dr. Farmer has remarked that the _priest's_ office above mentioned might be remembered in Shakspeare's time, which is very probable: the mention of it here is one of the numerous instances of his intimate acquaintance with the ceremonies of the Romish church. Before the introduction of the new form of burial service by Edward the Sixth, it was the custom for the priest to throw earth on the body in the form of a cross, and then to sprinkle it with holy water; but this was not done _in pronouncing_ the words _earth to earth_, according to a learned commentator: that part of the ceremony was postponed till after a psalm had been sung, the body being previously covered up. An antiphone next followed; and then the priest said these words: "I commend thy soul to God the father omnipotent: earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," &c.

ACT V.

SCENE 1. Page 182.

FLO. ... Good my lord, She came from _Libya_.

_Perdita_ is here transformed into a _Moor_; and although this play among others affords the most unequivocal proofs of Shakspeare's want of skill in the science of geography, it is at least possible that an error of the press has substituted _Libya_ for _Lydia_ or _Lycia_.

SCENE 2. Page 194.

CLOWN. _Give me the lie_, do; and try whether I am not now a _gentleman born_.

This is a satire on certain ridiculous punctilios very much in use at this time. Thus in _The booke of honor and armes_, 1590, 4to, "In saying _a gentleman borne_, we meane he must be descended from three degrees of gentry, both on the mother's and father's side." The same work has many particulars relating to the circumstances in which _the giving the lie_ is to be resented. See likewise Vincent Saviolo _On honor and honorable quarrels_, book ii.

THE CLOWN.

He is a mere country booby.

* * * * *

The observation by Dr. Warburton, that _The winter's tale_ with all its absurdities is very entertaining, though stated by Dr. Johnson to be just, must be allowed at the same time to be extremely frigid. In point of fine writing it may be ranked among Shakspeare's best efforts. The absurdities pointed at by Warburton, together with the whimsical anachronisms of Whitson pastorals, Christian burial, an emperor of Russia, and an Italian painter of the fifteenth century, are no real drawbacks on the superlative merits of this charming drama. The character of Perdita will remain for ages unrivalled; for where shall such language be found as she is made to utter?

COMEDY OF ERRORS.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 228.

DRO. E. Will you come _home_? quoth I; my gold, quoth he.

The word _home_, which the metre requires, is said to have been suggested by Capell, but it had been already adopted by Sir Thomas Hanmer.

SCENE 2. Page 234.

ANT. S. If you will jest with me, know my _aspéct_.

Mr. Steevens explains this, _study my countenance_. It seems rather to be an astrological phrase, and to mean, _ascertain whether my aspect be malignant or benign_. He had just before mentioned the sun. Thus in _1 Henry IV._ Act I. Scene 1, "Malevolent to you in all _aspécts_."

SCENE 2. Page 241.

ADR. Thou art an _elm_ my husband, I a _vine_; If aught possess thee from me, it is dross, Usurping Ivy, briar or idle moss.

So in _A midsummer night's dream_, Act IV. Scene 1, "The female _ivy_ so enrings the barky fingers of the _elm_." There is something extremely beautiful in making the vine the lawful spouse of the elm, and the _parasite_ plants here named its _concubines_.

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 248.

DRO. S. _Mome_, malthorse, capon, coxcomb, idiot, patch!

Sir J. Hawkins would derive _mome_ from the French _momon_, the challenge at dice made by a mummer or silent person disguised in masquerade. It more probably came to us from one of those similar words that are found in many languages signifying something foolish. _Momar_ is used by Plautus for a fool, whence the French _mommeur_. The Greeks too had μομος and μορμος in the same sense.

SCENE 2. Page 257.

ANT. S. Less in your knowledge and your grace, you show not, Than _our earth's wonder, more than earth divine_.

This play abounds so much in anachronisms, that there will be no impropriety in supposing the above simile to have been designed as a compliment to the reigning sovereign. Pronounced with emphasis, it would not fail to make a due impression on the audience.

ACT IV.

SCENE 3. Page 280.

DRO. S. What, have you got _the picture of old Adam new apparell'd_?

Here seems to be an allusion to some well-known contemporary painting, perhaps of a sign. "Adam whom God dyd fyrst create, made the fyrst _lether coates_ for himself and his wyfe Eve our old mother, leavyng thereby a patron to al his posterite of that crafte." Polydore Vergil _de rer. invent._ translated by Langley, fo. lxix. Similar instances had before occurred in _the picture of we three_, and _Mistress Mall_.

MACBETH.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 327.

ALL. _Paddock_ calls.

Mr. Steevens has remarked that "in Shakspeare a paddock certainly means a toad." Indeed it _properly_ does everywhere; and when applied to the frog, seems either to have been mistakenly used, or to have signified the _rubeta_ or _rana bufo_, a frog of a venomous kind. The word comes to us from the Saxon Paꝺa, and a toad is still called by a similar term in most of the Teutonic languages. It may be likewise observed that witches have nothing to do with frogs, an animal always regarded as perfectly harmless, though perhaps not more so in reality than the unjustly persecuted toad.

SCENE 2. Page 331.

SOLD. And fortune on his damned _quarrel_ smiling.

The old copy has _quarry_, which Dr. Johnson has changed to _quarrel_, a reading that had already been adopted by Hanmer. Chance may hereafter determine that _quarry_ was an _occasional_ mode of orthography, _euphoniæ gratiâ_, as we find _perrie_ for _perril_. See Howard's _Defensative against the poyson of supposed prophesies_, 1583, 4to, sig. A iij. The word too which expresses a square-headed arrow and a pane of glass is written both _quarry_ and _quarrel_.

SCENE 2. Page 335.

DUN. Dismay'd not this Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo?

SOLD. Yes.

Mr. Steevens, adverting to the apparent defect of metre in the last line, concludes that some word has been omitted in the old copy; and Hanmer reads, _brave_ Macbeth, &c. No other change is necessary than in orthography; for Shakspeare had, no doubt, written _capitaynes_, a common mode of spelling the word in his time; and the fault lay either in the printer or transcriber for the press.

SCENE 2. Page 339.

ROSSE. Till that Bellona's _bridegroom_, lapt in proof.

Shakspeare is here accused of ignorantly making Bellona wife to the _God of war_; but, strictly speaking, this is not the case. He has not called Macbeth, to whom he alludes, the _God of war_; and there seems no great impropriety in _poetically_ supposing that a warlike hero might be _newly married_ to the Goddess of war. Mr. Steevens's objection appears to have been founded on a conclusion that Shakspeare meant to compare Macbeth to Mars, and that of the other learned and ingenious critic, on the impropriety of considering Bellona as a married goddess.

SCENE 3. Page 341.

1. WITCH. _Aroint_ thee witch!

The reference to Hearne's print from an old calendar, in his edition of Fordun, is very appositely introduced by Dr. Johnson in illustration of _aroint_; but his explanation of the print is in many respects erroneous. He is particularly mistaken in supposing it to represent _Saint Patrick visiting hell_; for it is manifestly the very trite subject of Christ delivering souls from purgatory, often painted by Albert Durer and other ancient artists. The Doctor neglected to examine not only the inscription on the print, but Hearne's own account of it; and his eye having accidentally caught the name of Saint Patrick, of whom Hearne had been speaking, his imagination suggested the common story of the visit to purgatory (not hell). There is no doubt that _aroint_ signifies _away_! _run_! and that it is of Saxon origin. The original Saxon verb has not been preserved in any other way, but the glossaries supply _ryne_ for running; and in the old Islandic, _runka_ signifies _to agitate_, _to move_. Mr. Grose is certainly wrong in his explanation of the proverb, "_Rynt_ you witch! quoth Besse Locket to her mother," when he says it means "by your leave, stand handsomely." See his _Provincial glossary_.

SCENE 3. Page 353.

BAN. Or have we eaten of the _insane_ root, That takes the _reason_ prisoner?

Mr. Steevens conceives that _hemlock_ is the root in question; whilst Mr. Malone, after noticing the trouble which the commentators have given themselves, introduces a quotation from Plutarch's life of Antony, ("which," says he, "our author must have diligently read,") that leads him to conclude the name to have been unknown even to Shakspeare himself. There is however another book which has in the course of these notes been shown to have been also read and even studied by the poet, and wherein, it is presumed, he actually found the _name_ of the above root. This will appear from the following passage: "_Henbane_ ... is called _Insana_, mad, for the use thereof is perillous; for if it be eate or dronke, it breedeth madnesse, or slow lykenesse of sleepe. Therefore this hearb is called commonly _Mirilidium_, for it taketh away wit and _reason_." Batman _Uppon Bartholome de propriet. rerum_, lib. xvii. ch. 87.

SCENE 5. Page 373.

ATTEN. One of my fellows had the speed of him; Who _almost dead for breath_, had scarcely more Than would make up his message.

LADY M. Give him tending, He brings great news. _The raven himself is hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan._

The last lines may appear less difficult, if the reader will suppose that at the moment in which the attendant finishes his speech, the raven's voice is heard on the battlements of the castle; when Lady Macbeth, adverting to the situation in which the messenger had just been described, most naturally exclaims, "the raven _himself_ is hoarse," &c. _Entrance_ must be here pronounced as a trisyllable, which is better than to read Dŭncān.

SCENE 5. Page 374.

LADY M. Under my battlements. Come _come_ you spirits.

The second _come_ has been added by Mr. Steevens. On this it may be permitted to remark, that although Shakspeare's versification is unquestionably more smooth and melodious than that of most of his contemporaries, he has on many occasions exhibited more carelessness in this respect than can well be accounted for, unless by supposing the errors to belong to the printers or editors. If the above line was defective, many others of similar construction are still equally so; as for example, this in p. 378,

"This ignorant present, and I feel now,"

which Mr. Steevens strangely maintains to be complete, though undoubtedly as discordant to the ear as the other. Both, strictly speaking, have the full number of syllables; a mode of construction which it is to be feared our elder poets regarded as sufficient in general to give perfection to a line.

SCENE 6. Page 384.

DUN. We cours'd him at the heels, and had a purpose To be his _purveyor_.

The duty of the purveyor, an officer belonging to the court, was to make a general provision for the royal household. It was the office also of this person to travel before the king whenever he made his progresses to different parts of the realm, and to see that every thing was duly provided. The right of purveyance and pre-emption having become extremely oppressive to the subject, was included, among other objects of regulation, under the stat. of 12 Car. II.

SCENE 7. Page 395.

LADY M. But screw your courage to the _sticking-place_.

Mr. Steevens has suggested two metaphors, neither of which seems to advance the explanation. If it could be shown that the stop of a pile-driver, or the bed of a violin peg were ever called _sticking-places_, one might indeed suspect a miserable pun: but it is submitted that all the metaphor lies in the _screwing_. Another learned commentator states that Davenant misunderstood the sense when he supposed that _stabbing_ is alluded to; and yet there are grounds for thinking his opinion correct. Lady Macbeth, after remarking that the enterprise would not fail if her husband would but exert his courage to the commission of the _murder_, proceeds to suggest the particular manner in which it was to be accomplished. In short, if there be a metaphor, abstractedly considered, it signifies nothing; for what would be the use of Macbeth's courage, if, according to Mr. Steevens, _it were to remain fast in that sticking-place from which it was not to move_? The Scots have a proverb, "_Sticking_ goes not by strength, but by guiding of the gooly," _i. e._ the knife.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 401.

BAN. This diamond he greets your wife withal, By the name of most kind hostess; _and shut up In measureless content_.

As the last sentence stands, it is at once ungrammatical and obscure; and neither Mr. Steevens's construction of _shut up_ in the sense of _to conclude_, as referring to the speaker, nor Hanmer's reading _and is shut up_, as connected with Duncan, will render it intelligible. It should seem as if Banquo meant to say that the king was immured in happiness; but then it is obvious that some preceding words have been lost.

SCENE 3. Page 428.

Enter MACDUFF.

_Duff_ in the Erse language signifies a captain; _Macduff_, the son of a captain.

SCENE 3. Page 433.

MACD. Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit.

This simile has been elsewhere used by Shakspeare. Thus in _Cymbeline_, he calls sleep _the ape of death_. In _A midsummer night's dream_, he has _death counterfeiting sleep_. It might indeed from its extreme obviousness have occurred to writers of weaker imagination than our poet; yet as he is known to have borrowed so much, it is not impossible that he might in this instance have been indebted to Marlow's translation of a line in Ovid's _Elegies_, book ii. el. 9:

"Foole what is sleepe, but image of cold death?"

or to another version of the same line in Cardanus's _Comfort_:

"Is not our sleepe (O foole) of death an image playne?"

Whoever will take the trouble of reading over the whole of Cardanus's second book as translated by Bedingfield, and printed by T. Marshe, 1576, 4to, will soon be convinced that it had been perused by Shakspeare.

SCENE 3. Page 438.

MACB. ... _their daggers Unmannerly breech'd_ with gore.

Mr. Steevens's explanation must be objected to. Finding that the _lower end_ of a cannon is called its _breech_, he concludes that the _hilt_ or _handle_ of a dagger must be here intended by the like appellation. But is not this literally to mistake the _top_ for the _bottom_? It is conceived that the present expression, though in itself something _unmannerly_, simply means _covered as with breeches_. The idea, uncouth and perhaps inaccurate as it is, might have been suggested from the resemblance of daggers to the legs and thighs of a man. The sentiments of Dr. Farmer on this, as on all occasions, are ingenious, and deserving of the highest respect; but it is hardly possible that Shakspeare could have been deceived in the way he states. To give colour to his opinion, he is obliged in his quotation from Erondell's _French garden_ to print the word _master's_ as a genitive case singular, in order to apply the pronoun _their_ to _daggers_; but without the aid of the French text, the word _their_ is _in the original_ equally applicable to _masters_. Indeed the subsequent mention of stockings, hose and garters, would have satisfied a person of much less penetration than Shakspeare, that _breeches_ were there intended as an article of dress.

The above conjecture that the term _breech'd_ might signify _cover'd_, suggests the mention of a circumstance from which it may on the whole be thought to derive support.

It is well known that some ridicule has been cast on one of our translations of the Bible from the Genevan French edition, on account of the following words, "And they sewed fig-tree leaves together and made themselves _breeches_," Gen. iii. 7; whence it has been called the _Breeches Bible_, and sometimes sold for a high price. It is generally conceived that this peculiarity belongs exclusively to the above Bible, but it is a mistake. The Saxon version by Ælfric has ⁊ ꞅɩƿoꝺon ꝼɩcleaꝼ ⁊ ƿoꞃhꞇon hɩm ƿæꝺbꞃec, _and sewed fig-leaves and worked them_ WEED-BREECH_, or cloaths for the breech_. Wicliffe also translates "and maden hem _breechis_;" and it is singular that Littelton in his excellent dictionary explains _perizomata_, the word used in the Vulgate, by _breeches_. In the manuscript French translation of Petrus Comestor's commentary on the Bible, made by Guiars des Moulins in the thirteenth century, we have "couvertures tout autressint comme unnes petites _braies_."

ACT III.

SCENE 4. Page 476.

MACB. ... Get thee gone; to-morrow We'll hear, _ourselves again_.

i. e. _when I have recovered from my fit, and am once more myself._ It is an ablative absolute. _Ourselves_ is much more properly used than _ourself_, the modern language of royalty.

SCENE 4. Page 482.

MACB. If trembling I _inhibit_ thee, protest me The baby of girl.

Every partaker of the rational _Diversions of Purley_ will here call to mind what has been advanced on the subject of this difficult and much contested passage; but with all the respect and admiration that are due to their profound and ingenious writer, will he feel himself altogether satisfied? It were to be wished that not only the above grammarian but another gentleman not less eminently qualified to illustrate any subject he undertakes, had favoured us with some example of the _neutral_ use of _inhabit_ in the sense of _to house_ or _remain at home_. Until this be done, or even then, it may be boldly said, and without much difficulty maintained, that _inhibit_, in point of meaning, was Shakspeare's word. Nor is it a paradox to affirm that _inhabit_, the _original_ reading, is also right; because this may be only one of the numerous instances during the former unsettled state of orthography, where the same word has been spelled in different ways. Mr. Malone has already supplied instances of _inhabit_ for _inhibit_ in a passage from _All's well that ends well_, in all the folios except the first, and another from Stowe's _Survey of London_. In the edition of the _Shepherd's calendar_, printed without date by Wynkyn de Worde in 4to, there is this sentence in chap. xxi.: "Correccyon is for to _inhabyte_ & defende by the bridle of reason all errowres," &c. Later editions have _inhibit_. Are we then to suppose that _all_ these examples are typographical mistakes, rather than a varied orthography?

The difficulty remains to extract a sense from _inhibit_ adapted to the occasion. Mr. Steevens has justly said, "to inhibit is to _forbid_;" but this cannot be the present signification. A man cannot well be said to _forbid_ another who has challenged him. He might indeed _keep back or hesitate_ in such a case, which is the _neutral_ sense now offered, but it must be confessed with nearly the same diffidence in its accuracy which has been expressed as to that of the others.

With respect to the punctuation, it is conceived, that considering the mode in which these plays were published, the authority of Shakspeare is almost out of the question; and therefore a judicious modern editor is entitled to use a great deal of discretion in corrections of this kind. In the present instance there is no great objection to the old pointing, though the comma should seem better _after_ "inhibit," and may render the line more emphatic. "If trembling, I keep back, _then_ protest me," &c. After all, this is one of the many instances in which the real meaning of the author cannot be satisfactorily obtained.

SCENE 5. Page 490.

Enter HECATE.

Mr. Tollett has already vindicated Shakspeare from the supposed impropriety of introducing Hecate among _modern_ witches. The fact seems to be, that acquainted, as he has elsewhere shown himself to have been, with the classical connection which this deity had with witchcraft, but knowing also, as Mr. Tollett's quotation from Scot indicates, that _Diana_ was the name by which she was invoked in modern times, he has preferred the former rather than the latter name of the goddess, for reasons that were best known to himself.

That there existed during the middle ages numerous superstitions relating to a connection that witches were imagined to have had with Diana, it will be no difficult task to prove. From an ecclesiastical statute, promulgated during the reign of Louis II., king of France, it appears that certain mischievous women professed their belief in that goddess, obeying her as their mistress; and that accompanied by her and a great multitude of other females, they travelled over immense spaces of the earth at midnight, mounted upon various animals. Many other ecclesiastical regulations, and some of the councils, notice these superstitions, and denounce very severe vengeance against those persons who were thought to practise them. In one we find the following declaration: "Nulla mulier se nocturnis equitare cum _Diana_ dea Paganorum, vel cum _Herodiade_ seu _Benzoria_ et innumera mulierum multitudine profiteatur; hæc enim dæmoniaca est illusio."--Ducange, _Gloss._ v. Diana. These witches sometimes assembled at the river Jordan, the favourite spot of Diana or Herodias. The Jesuit Delrio very gravely denies the possibility of the above pranks, remarking that there is in reality no Diana, and that Herodias the dancer, whom he here confounds with her daughter, is at present in hell. _Disquisit. magic._ lib. ii. quæst. 16. Eccard, in his preface to Leibnitz's _Collectanea etymologica_, relates that in a journey through Misnia in Saxony, he discovered traces of the German _Hecate_ among the peasants in their _frauholde_ or _frau faute_, i. e. _lady fate_. John Herold or Herolt, a German friar of the fifteenth century, in one of his Sermons exclaims against those "qui deam, quam quidam _Dianam_ nominant, in vulgari _die fraurve unhold_ dicunt cum suo exercitu ambulare."--_Sermones discipuli_, serm. xi. He states this practice to have taken place at Christmas time. See likewise Carpentier _Suppl. ad Ducangii glossar_. v. holda. His majesty King James the First, author of that most sapient work entitled _Dæmonologie_, informs his readers that the spirits whom the gentiles called _Diana and her wandering court_, were known among his countrymen by the name of _pharie_. Other appellations of this personage are likewise to be met with, as _Hera_, _Nicneven_, and _Dame Habunde_; all as the chief or queen of the witches, whom she generally accompanied in their nocturnal dances and excursions through the air.

For the name of _Herodias_ it is not easy to account. It may not be deemed a very extravagant conjecture, that the common people had converted Herod's wife into a witch from their abhorrence of her cruelty towards Saint John the Baptist; for the old mysteries have preserved to us the indignant manner in which they treated Pontius Pilate. The circumstance too of her daughter's dancing, compared with the predilection of witches for that amusement, might contribute to the idea. The learned Schiller thinks that _Herodias_ was the same as _Juno_. He founds this opinion on the testimony of Gobelinus Persona, a Monk of Paderborn in the fifteenth century, who in his general history of the world had asserted that the Saxons worshipped Juno under the Greek name of _Hera_, and that the common people still believed in the flight of the _lady Hera_ through the air about the time of Christmas; a superstition which seems to have been derived from an older notion, that Juno presided over that element. Ducange imagined he had found the name in _Hera Diana_; but he has not brought forward any instance of the use of such an expression. With respect to _Benzoria_ or _Bensozia_, very little is known. Carpentier, in his Supplement to Ducange's glossary, conjectures that she was designed for the daughter of Herodias, and to assist in the magic dances. It is not improbable that this character is in some way or other connected with the Irish _Banshee_ or _Benshi_, a kind of fairy. In these subjects we can perceive many corruptions which it is impossible to account for.

Dr. Leyden, in p. 318 of the glossary to his edition of _The complaynt of Scotland_, mentions the "gyre carling, the queen of fairies, the great hag _Hecate_, or mother witch of peasants," and cites Polwart's _Flyting of Montgomery_ for "_Nicneven_ and her nymphs." In the fragment of an old Scotish poem in Lord Hyndford's manuscript, in strict conformity with what has been just advanced concerning _Juno_, she is termed "quene of Jowis." See _Ancient Scot. poems_, 1768, p. 231.

As _Dame Habunde_ or _Abunde_ has been classed among the names given to the president of the witches, it becomes necessary to take some further notice of her, though a character of an opposite description to those already mentioned. She appears to have been _the genuine queen of fairies_, and of a most innocuous and benevolent disposition, bestowing happiness and _abundance_ on all her votaries. In the passage before mentioned in Gobelinus Persona, _Hera_ is spoken of as conferring temporal abundance; and although she is represented as flying through the air, it is not by night, nor accompanied by others. Ducange has therefore improperly assimilated her to Diana and her tribe of mischief, and of course his etymology of _Herodias_ is rendered very improbable. In an ancient fabliau by Haisiau, never _entirely_ printed, _Dame Abunde_ is thus introduced:

"Ceste richesce nus abonde Nos lavon de par _Dame Avonde_."

She is also mentioned in the works of William Auvergne, bishop of Paris, in the fourteenth century, as a spirit enriching the houses that she visited. Delrio adds, that on her coming with the rest of the _good ladies_, the superstitious old women used to provide plenty of victuals for them, leaving all the dishes and wine-vessels uncovered to prevent any obstruction to their getting at the food, and expecting on the occasion nothing but plenty and prosperity. See _Disquisit. magic._ 1. ii. quæst. 27. sect. 2. In the life of Saint Germain, bishop of Auxerre, we find these dames paying their respects to the holy man; and as the story is misrepresented in its most material part by Caxton's translation of the _Golden legend_, it shall be given from a valuable manuscript of the same work much older than his time. "Narratio. In a tyme he was herboured in a place wher men made redy the borde for to go to dyner aftir he had soupid, and he was gretli merveiled, and asked for whom the borde was sette aᵹen; and thei seide for _the good women that walke by nyᵹte_; and than Seinte Germayne ordeyned that nyᵹte to be waked. And than at a certeyn hour gret multitude of feendis come to the borde in liknesse of men and of women. And than Germayn comaundid him that thei shold not passe thens, and than he awoke al the meyne, and asked yf thei knewe eny of thoo persones, and they seide that thei wer her neyᵹebores, and than he sente to her housis, and thei wer alle founde in bedde, and than thei alle had gret merveile and thouᵹte wel that thei were feendis that had so longe scorned hem."

The _Samogitæ_, a people formerly inhabiting the shores of the Baltic, and who remained idolaters so late as the fifteenth century, believed in the existence of a sort of demi-fairies about a palm high, with beards, whom they called _Kaukie_. To these little beings they made an offering of all kinds of food to avert their displeasure. They likewise invoked a deity called _Putscet_ to send them the _Barstuccæ_ to live with them and make them fortunate. To effect this, they placed every night in the barn a table covered with bread, butter, cheese, and ale; and if these were taken away before morning, they looked for good fortune, but if left, for nothing but ill luck. See Lasicius _De diis Samagitarum_, 1615, 4to, pp. 51, 55. A similar superstition prevailed in England, and is thus recorded in Browne's _Britannia's pastorals_,