Chapter CXXVI: Act II: SCENE 2. Page 92

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

It is certain that an equivoque is here intended by an allusion to the old dish of _eggs in moonshine_, which was eggs broken and boiled in salad oil till the yolks became hard. They were eaten with _slices_ of onions fried in oil, butter, verjuice, nutmeg and salt.

SCENE 3. Page 109.

EDG. Pins, _wooden pricks_, &c.

Rightly explained _skewers_. Greene, in his admirable satire, _A quip for an upstart courtier_, speaking of the tricks played by the butchers in his time, makes one of his characters exclaim, "I pray you, goodman Kilcalfe, have you not your artificial knaveries to set out your meate with _pricks_?" The brewers and bakers come in also for their share of abuse.

SCENE 3. Page 110.

EDGAR. Poor Turlygood!

Warburton would read _Turlupin_, and Hanmer _Turluru_; but there is a better reason for rejecting both these terms than for preferring either; viz. that _Turlygood_ is the _corrupted_ word in _our_ language. The Turlupins were a fanatical sect that overran France, Italy, and Germany, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They were at first known by the names of _Beghards_ or _Beghins_, and brethren and sisters of the free spirit. Their manners and appearance exhibited the strongest indications of lunacy and distraction. The common people alone called them _Turlupins_; a name which, though it has excited much doubt and controversy, seems obviously to be connected with the _wolvish howlings_ which these people in all probability would make when influenced by their religious ravings. Their subsequent appellation of _the fraternity of poor men_ might have been the cause why the wandering rogues called _Bedlam beggars_, and one of whom Edgar personates, assumed or obtained the title of _Turlupins_ or _Turlygoods_, especially if their mode of asking alms was accompanied by the gesticulations of madmen. _Turlupino_ and _Turluru_ are old Italian terms for a fool or madman; and the Flemings had a proverb, _As unfortunate as Turlupin and his children_.

SCENE 4. Page 113.

LEAR. To do upon respect such violent outrage.

Explained by Dr. Johnson, "to violate the character of a messenger from the king." It is rather "to do outrage to that respect which is due to the king." This, in part, agrees with the ensuing note.

SCENE 4. Page 114.

KENT. They summon'd up their _meiny_.

_Meiny_, signifying _a family_, _household_, or _retinue of servants_, is certainly from the French _meinie_, or, as it was anciently and more properly written, _mesnie_; which word has been regarded, with great probability, by a celebrated French glossarist and antiquary, as equivalent with _mesonie_ or _maisonie_, from _maison_: in modern French _ménage_. See glossary to Villehardouin, edit. 1657, folio.

Mr. Holt White has cited Dryden's line,

"The _many_ rend the skies with loud applause,"

as supplying the use of _many_ in Kent's sense of _train_ or _retinue_. With great deference, the word is quite unconnected with _meiny_, and simply denotes any _multitude_ or collection of people. It is not only used at present in its common adjective form for _several_, _divers_, _multi_, but even substantively: for in the Northern parts of England they still say _a many_, and _a many people_, i. e. _of_ people. In this sense it is never found in the French language; but we have received it directly, as an adjective, from the Saxon manɩ manɩᵹ, and as a substantive from menɩu, mænɩᵹeo, menɩᵹo, &c. &c.; for in that language the word is found written not less than twenty different ways. It is the same as the Latin _manus_. Horace uses _manus poetarum_; and Quintilian _oratorum ingens manus_. It does not appear that the Saxons used _many_ for a _family_ or household.

SCENE 4. Page 121.

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

The difficulties that have attended all inquiries concerning this term, have been not a little augmented by an expectation of finding an uniformity which it does not possess, and by not reflecting that it is in reality susceptible of very different explanations.

There is hardly a doubt that it originates in an Utopian region of indolence and luxury, formerly denominated the country of _cocaigne_,[21] which, as some have thought, was intimately connected with the art of _cookery_; whilst others, with equal plausibility, relate that the little pellets of woad, a commodity in which Languedoc was remarkably fertile, being called by the above name, the province itself acquired the appellation of the kingdom of _cocaigne_ or of plenty, where the inhabitants lived in the utmost happiness, and exempt from every sort of care and anxiety. Hence the name came to be applied to any rich country. Boileau calls Paris _un pays de cocagne_. The French have likewise some theatrical pieces under this title. The Italians have many allusions to it; and there is said to be a small district between Rome and Loretto so called from its cheapness and fertility. With us the lines cited by Camden in his _Britannia_, vol. i. col. 451,

"Were I in my castle of Bungey
Upon the river of Waveney
I would ne care for the king of _Cockeney_,"

whencesoever they come, indicate that London was formerly known by this satirical name; _and hence a Londoner came to be called a cockney_. The French have an equivalent word, _coqueliner_, to pamper, cherish, or dandle, whence our _cocker_.

From the above circumstances it is probable that a cockney became at length a term of contempt; one of the earliest proofs of which is Chaucer's use of it in the _Reve's tale_, v. 4206: "I shall be halden a daffe or a _cokenay_." In the _Promptuarium parvulorum_, 1516, 4to, it is explained to be a term of derision. In Shakspeare's time it signified a child tenderly brought up, a dearling, a wanton. See Barret's _Alvearie_; and a little before it had been used in a bad sense, from an obvious corruption. See Hulæt's _Abcedarium_, 1552, folio. In this place too Mr. Steevens's quotations from Meres and Deckar might be introduced.

The next sense in which _cockney_ was used seems to be conveyed in the line cited by Mr. Tyrwhitt from _Pierce Plowman's Visions_:

"And yet I say by my soule I have no salt bacon,
Ne no _cokeney_ by Christe coloppes to make:"

as well as in those from the tournament of Tottenham;

"At that feast were they served in rich array,
Every five and five had a _cokeney_:"

where in both instances, with deference to the respectable authorities of Dr. Percy and Mr. Tyrwhitt, it signifies a _little cock_. In the latter quotation it might mean a peacock, a favourite dish among our ancestors; and this conjecture is countenanced by the words _served in rich array_. This mode of forming a diminutive with respect to animals is not unfrequent. Thus in the _Canterbury tales_, l. 3267: "She was a primerole, a _piggesnie_." And here again some apology may be necessary for differing from Mr. Tyrwhitt, who supposes that Chaucer "meant no more than _ocellus_, the eyes of that animal being remarkably small, and the Romans using _oculus_ as a term of endearment." But the objection to this ingenious explanation is, that _nie_ cannot well be put for _eye_; that in this case the word would have been _pigseye_, and that it is rather formed from the A. S. pɩᵹa, a girl. See Lye's _Saxon dict._ Similar words were afterwards constructed, but without due regard to the above etymology. For example, "Prythee sweet _birdsnye_, be content."--Davenport's _City night cap_, Act III. Scene 1. "Jella, why frownst thou? say sweet _biddiesnie_?"--Davies's _Scourge of folly_. "Ay _birdsneys_, she's a quean."--Shadwell's _Virtuoso_, Act III. And in Congreve's _Old bachelor_, Fondlewife calls his mate _cockey_.

It is observable that in all the above instances these appellations are only used to females. It is not improbable therefore, that, in an abstract sense, _cockney_ might sometimes be used in speaking to male children as a term of endearment; and it may be necessary to make this remark here, for the purpose of anticipating any suggestion that it is connected with the present subject.

It remains only to notice the _cockneys_ or _sugar pellet_ which Mr. Steevens's old lady remembered to have eaten in her childhood. The French formerly used a kind of perfumed pastry made of the powdered Iris flower, sugar, musk, and rose-water; these were called _pastilles_; and from the similitude of the word to _pastel_, or the Languedoc woad mentioned at the beginning of this note as the produce of the _pays de cocagne_, it is not improbable that some latent affinity may exist. The animal involved in the English term might indeed be thought sufficient to indicate the form. Had the old lady, happily for us, described the shape of these comfits, and which motives of delicacy might have prevented, we could possibly have traced them from our Gallic neighbours in another descent of a very singular nature. The following extract from _Legrand's Vie privée des Francois_, tom. ii. p. 268, will explain this: "Croira-t-on qu'il a existé en France un tems ou l'on a donné aux menues pâtisseries de table les formes les plus obscenes, et les noms les plus infâmes? Croira-t-on que cet incroyable excés de depravation a duré plus de deux siécles? Aussi sont ce moins les noms de ces pâtisseries qu'il faut blâmer que les formes qu'on leur donnait. Champier, apres avoir décrit les differentes pâtisseries usitées de son temps, dit, _Quædam pudenda muliebria, aliæ virilia (si diis placet) representant. Sunt quos c... saccharatos appellitent. Adeò degeneravere boni mores, ut etiam Christianis obscœna et pudenda in cibis placeant._"

Minsheu's tale of the cock neighing, and Casaubon's derivation of cockney from οικογενης, i. e. domi natus, may serve to increase those smiles of compassion which it is to be feared some of the present remarks may have already excited.

It is worth remarking, although not immediately connected with the present subject, that in the Celtic languages _coeg_, and _kok_, signified anything foolish or good for nothing. They seem connected with the radical word for a _cuckow_, a silly bird, which has thus transmitted its appellation to persons of a similar nature. See the words _cog_ in the Welsh dictionaries, and _cok_ in Pryce's Cornish vocabulary. In the North they call the cuckow a gowk, whence _genkit_, foolish, and _gawky_. Our term _cokes_, for a fool, is of the same family, and, perhaps, _cuckold_.

SCENE 4. Page 132.

LEAR. Thou art a _boil_.

The note on this word states that it was written _byle_ in the old copies, which all the modern editors have too strictly followed; that the mistake arose from the word _boil_ being often pronounced as if written _bile_; and that in the folio we find in _Coriolanus_ the same _false_ spelling as here.--But this charge against the editors seems to have originated in a misconception. The ancient and true orthography is _byle_ and _bile_, and such was the common pronunciation. The modern _boyl_ and _boil_ are corruptions. Thus in the _Promptuarium parvulorum_, 1516, we have "_Byle_ sore,--Pustula." In Mathews's bible, 1551, "Satan smote Job with marvelous soore _byles_." In Whetstone's _Mirour for magestrates of cyties_, 1584, 4to, "Dicyng houses are of the substance of other buildinges, but within are the botches and _byles_ of abhomination." _Bile_ is pure Saxon, and is so given in most of the old dictionaries.

SCENE 4. Page 135.

LEAR. ... but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws.

On the word _flaws_ we have the following note: "A _flaw_, signifying a crack or other similar imperfection; our author, with his accustomed license, uses the word here for a _small broken particle_. So again in the fifth Act,

'... but his _flaw'd_ heart
Burst smilingly.'"

Now there is some reason for supposing that _flaw_ might signify a _fragment_ in Shakspeare's time, as well as a mere crack; because among the Saxons it certainly had that meaning, as may be seen in Somner's _Diction. Saxon._ voce ꝼloh. It is to be observed that the quartos read _flowes_, approaching nearer to the original. In the above quotation _flaw'd_ seems to be used in the _modern_ sense.