Chapter CXXIX: Act I: SCENE 1. Page 325

SAM. Gregory, o' my word, we'll not _carry coals_.

GRE. No, for then we should be colliers.

Of the various conjectures on the origin and real meaning of this phrase, that by Mr. Steevens seems deserving of the preference. In a rare little pamphlet entitled _The cold yeare_, 1614, 4to, being a dialogue in which the casualties that happened in the great fall of snow are enumerated, one of the interlocutors, a North-country man, relates that on his approach to London he overtooke a collier and his team, "walking as stately as if they scorned to _carry coales_." It was therefore a term of reproach to be called a collier; and thence, to _carry coals_ was metaphorically used for any low or servile action. Barnaby Googe, in his _New yeares gift to the Pope's holinesse_, 1579, 4to, says he "had rather be a _collyer at Croydon_ than a Pope at Rome."

A hint had been given, by a gentleman whose opinions are on all occasions entitled to the highest respect and attention, that the phrase in question might have originated from Proverbs xxv. 22. "If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink; for thou shalt _heap coals_ of fire upon his head." But this is a metaphor expressive of the pain which a man shall suffer from the reproaches of his conscience, and as such, has been adopted into our language. Thus, in _Newes from the North, otherwise called The conference between Simon Certain and Pierce Plowman_, 1579, 4to, "Now God forbid that ever a lawyer should _heap coales upon a merchant's head_, or that a merchant should not be as willing and as ready to doo a goodly deed as a lawyer."

SCENE 2. Page 347.

CAP. Such comfort, as do _lusty young men feel_
When well-apparell'd _April_ on the heel
Of limping winter treads.

Two of the commentators would read _lusty yeomen_, and make the passage refer to the sensations of the farmer on the return of spring. One of them, Dr. Johnson, to render the present text objectionable, has been obliged to _invert_ the comparison. Capulet, in speaking of the delight which Paris is to receive in the society of the young ladies invited to his house, compares it to that which the month of April usually afforded to the youth of both sexes, when assembled in the green fields to enjoy their accustomed recreations. Independently of the frequent allusions in the writings of our old poets to April, as the season of youthful pleasures, and which probably occurred to Shakspeare's recollection, he might besides have had in view the decorations which accompany the above month in some of the manuscript and printed calendars, where the young folks are represented as sitting together on the grass; the men ornamenting the girls with chaplets of flowers. From the following lines in one of these, the passage in question seems to derive considerable illustration.

"The next VI. yere maketh foure and twenty
And fygured is to _joly Apryll_
The tyme of pleasures man hath moost plenty
Fresshe and lovyng his _lustes_ to fulfyll."

SCENE 4. Pages 364, 367.

ROM. Give me a torch----
I'll be a candle-holder, and look on.

Froissart, describing a dinner on Christmas day in the hall of the castle of Gaston Earl of Foix, at Ortern, in the year 1388, has these words: "At mydnyght when he came out of his chambre into the halle to supper, he had ever before hym _twelve torches_ brennyng, _borne by twelve varlettes_ standyng before his table all supper." In Rankin's _Mirrour of monsters_, 1587, 4to, is the following passage: "This _maske_ thus ended, wyth visardes accordingly appointed, there were certain petty fellows ready, as the custome is, _in maskes to carry torches_, &c." In the _Weiss kunig_, being a collection of wood engravings representing the actions of Maximilian the First, there is a very curious exhibition of a masque before the emperor, in which the performers appear with their visards, and one of them holds a torch in his hand. There is another print on the same subject by Albert Durer. The practice of carrying torch lights at entertainments continued even after the time of Shakspeare. See a future note on Hamlet, Act III. Scene 2.

SCENE 4. Page 368.

MER. If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire.

There is no doubt that this is an allusion to some now forgotten sport or game, which gave rise to a proverbial expression, _Dun is in the mire_, used when a person was at a stand, or plunged into any difficulty. We find it as early as Chaucer's time in the Manciple's prologue:

"Ther gan our hoste to jape and to play,
And sayde; sires, what? _Dun is in the mire._"

How the above sport was practised we have still to learn. _Dun_ is, no doubt, the name of a horse or an ass. There is an equivalent phrase, _Nothing is bolder than blynde Bayard which falleth oft in the mire_. See Dr. Bullein's _dialogue between soarenesse and chirurgi_, fo. 10; and there is also a proverb, _As dull as Dun in the mire_.

SCENE 4. Page 376.

MER. ... This is that very Mab
_That plats the manes of horses in the night_.

No attempt has hitherto been made to explain this line, which alludes to a very singular superstition not yet forgotten in some parts of the country. It was believed that certain malignant spirits, whose delight was to wander in groves and pleasant places, assumed occasionally the likenesses of women clothed in white; that in this character they sometimes haunted stables in the night time, carrying in their hands tapers of wax, which they dropped on the horses' manes, thereby plaiting them in inextricable knots, to the great annoyance of the poor animals, and vexation of their masters. These hags are mentioned in the works of William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris in the 13th century. There is a very uncommon old print by Hans Burgmair relating to this subject. A witch enters the stable with a lighted torch: and previously to the operation of entangling the horse's mane, practises her enchantments on the groom, who is lying asleep on his back, and apparently influenced by the night-mare. The _Belemnites_, or elf-stones, were regarded as charms against the last-mentioned disease, and against evil spirits of all kinds; but the _cerauniæ_ or _bætuli_, and all perforated flint-stones, were not only used for the same purpose, but more particularly for the protection of horses and other cattle, by suspending them in stables, or tying them round the necks of the animals.

The next line,

"And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,"

seems to be unconnected with the preceding, and to mark a superstition which, as Dr. Warburton has observed, may have originated from the _plica Polonica_, which was supposed to be the operation of wicked elves; whence the clotted hair was called _elf-locks_ and _elf-knots_. Thus Edgar talks of "_elfing_ all his hair in _knots_." Lodge, in his _Wit's miserie_, 1599, 4to, describing a devil whom he names _Brawling-contention_, says, "his ordinary apparell is a little low-crown'd hat with a fether in it like a forehorse; his haires are curld, and full of _elves locks_ and nitty for want of kembing."