Chapter CXLI: Act IV: SCENE 2. Page 601 (1)

OTH. The bawdy wind, that kisses all it meets.

The same image occurs more delicately, but less strongly, in a beautiful "Song to a forsaken mistresse," written by an anonymous author, about the time of Charles the First, and published in Playford's _Select ayres_, 1659, folio. As most persons of taste already possess the whole of it in Mr Ellis's _Specimens of the early English poets_, it is unnecessary to give more in this place than the stanza in which the above image occurs:

"I do confess thou'rt sweet, yet find
Thee such an unthrift of thy sweets;
Thy favours are but _like the wind,
Which kisseth every thing it meets_:
And since thou can'st with more than one,
Th'art worthy to be kiss'd by none."

SCENE 2. Page 635.

OTH. Had all his hairs been lives, my great revenge
Had stomach for them all.

The same sentiment occurs in the third part of _King Henry the Sixth_, where Clifford says,

"Had I thy brethren here, their lives and thine,
Were not revenge sufficient for me."

SCENE 2. Page 653.

OTH. _Blow me about in winds!_ roast me in sulphur!

Again, in _Measure for measure_,

"To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world."

THE CLOWN.

He appears but twice in the play, and was certainly intended to be an allowed or domestic _fool_ in the service of Othello and Desdemona.

ADDITIONS TO THE NOTES.

Page 37. The _tune_ of the old ballad of _Green sleeves_ may be seen in Sir John Hawkins's _Hist. of musick_, vol. v. Append., and is still used in _The beggar's opera_, in the song of "Since laws were made for every degree."

Page 53. Cupid's _golden shaft_ is again mentioned in the _Midsummer night's dream_, Act I. Scene 1:

"HERM. by his _best_ arrow with the _golden_ head."

Page 96. To the list of imitations, &c. of the story of _Measure for measure_, add the novel of _Waldburgh and Belanca_, in Reynolds's _God's revenge against adultery_. This is the substance of it: In the reign of Gustavus Adolphus king of Sweden, Moruffi, a Danish general, in attacking the castle of Colmar, was taken prisoner by the governor count Waldbourg. Belanca, the wife of Moruffi, obtained a promise from the count to liberate her husband on the terms of her submitting to his unlawful desires. The unfortunate woman was afterwards inhumanly presented with the head of her husband. When Gustavus heard of the fact, he compelled the count to marry the injured lady, and then condemned him to death. Reynolds pretended that all his stories in this and his other once celebrated work, _God's revenge against murder_, were originals, and that he had collected the materials for them in the course of his travels.

Page 119. The recipe here given for making men seem like horses or asses, from Scot's _Discoverie of witchcraft_, where Shakspeare might have seen it, is the real property of Baptista Porta, in the serious refutation of whom the Jesuit Kircher has wasted too much time. See his treatise _De luce et umbra_.

In the _Prodromo apologetico alii studi Chircheriani_ of Petrucci, there are similar receipts, and especially one in which an oil is directed to be made from the semen of a horse, which being used in a lamp, the company present will appear to have horses' heads. It is accompanied with a curious engraving of a Houyhnhnm party engaged in conversation, among whom there is the figure of an _equus togatus_, that will not fail to make a due impression on such readers as are acquainted with the trick put by Mr. Spence, the author of _Polymetis_; on Dr. Cooke, the provost of King's College Cambridge, a sour pedant who had offended him. See the tail-piece to the 17th dialogue in the _first_ edition of the above work.

Page 123. The blessing of the bridal bed had doubtless, during the dark ages that preceded the promulgation of the gospel in many parts of Europe, been deemed the immediate office of fairies and other supernatural beings. The object of it was to make the issue of the marriage happy, and to avert deformity. In this, as in numerous other instances, the priests felt themselves obliged, in their attempt to do away a Pagan superstition, which, as we see, continued notwithstanding to maintain its influence, to substitute some congenial ceremony that should console the deluded people; but their particular enmity to fairies on the present occasion seems manifest in the passage cited from the Salisbury manual, in the words "ab omnibus fantasmaticis demonum illusionibus;" unless they should be thought rather to allude to the subject which is particularly noticed in the subsequent remarks on the night-spells.

The above ceremony is thus mentioned by Chaucer in his description of the marriage of January and May:

"The bride is brought a-bed as stil as ston;
And whan the bed was with the preest yblessed,
Out of the chambre hath every wight him dressed."

_Marchantes tale_, v. 9692.

On the evidence relating to the consummation of the marriage between prince Arthur and the Lady Catharine, Robert Viscount Fitzwater deposed that "the prince was then about fifteen, and queen Katherine elder, and that the next day after being in bed together (_which he remembred after they entered to have been solemnly bless'd_), he waited at breakfast on prince Arthur, &c."--Lord Herbert's _Life of Henry the Eighth_, p. 243. It is said that some vestiges of this custom still remain among the Presbyterians in Scotland.

Page 169. There is a story of _two_ caskets, &c., in Morlini _novellæ_, nov. 5.

Quære if the general construction of all these stories have not been borrowed from the trick related to have been put by Prometheus on Jupiter with the two bull-skins filled with flesh and bones?

Page 178 (note). Dr. Taylor, in his treatise _De inope debitore in partes dissecando_, has offered some strong arguments against the supposed mutilation of the debtor's body, and endeavoured to show that the law in question demanded nothing more than that the produce of his servitude should be divided among the creditors. Yet Aulus Gellius was of a different opinion. At a very early period, among the Jews, the creditor had a right to make a slave of the debtor. See 2 Kings, chap. iv. ver. 1.

Page 185. To the explanation of _sans_, add that in the early editions of the dictionaries of Coles and Littelton the word is printed _sance_.

Page 214. Morgan the herald must be acquitted of having conveyed to us the _original_ information that "Jesus Christ was a gentleman and bore arms." He was indebted for it to Dame Julian Berners, who, in her treatise on coat armour, speaks of "the gentyl Jesus," and states that "Cryst [was] a gentylman of his mother's behalf and bare cote armure." She also tells us that "Cain became a churl from the curse of God, and Seth a _gentleman_ through his father and mother's blessing." So that we find J. C. was not the _first_ gentleman.

Page 317. In further confirmation of the opinion here expressed, the curious reader is referred to Wlson de Colombiere's _Vray theatre d'honneur_, vol. ii. p. 313, for the account of a duel on appeal for murder which was fought at Valenciennes in the year 1454, where the dead body of the vanquished party was adjudged to be hanged on a gallows as a convicted murderer.

The frequent use which has been made in the course of these remarks of a work cited under the title of Bartholomæus _de proprietatibus rerum_, may require that a more particular description of it should be given. It is a general history of nature, composed in Latin by Bartholomew Glanvile, an English Minorite or Franciscan, of the family of the earls of Suffolk. He flourished about the year 1360, and appears to have been the Pliny of his time. It was several times printed abroad in the infancy of the typographic art, and translated into the English, French, Dutch, and Spanish languages. The English version was made by John Trevisa, a Cornish man, and vicar of Barkley in Gloucestershire, at the request of his patron Thomas Lord Barkley, in the year 1398, and originally printed by Wynkyn de Worde; for there is no evidence that it came from Caxton's press in English, though it has been so asserted. Neither is the date of Wynkyn de Worde's edition, if it ever had any, been ascertained. The next edition was printed in 1535, by Thomas Berthelette, in folio. The last was published under the title of _Batman uppon Bartholome_, his _Booke de proprietatibus rerum_, &c. Printed by Thomas East, 1582, in folio. Stephen Batman appears to have been a worthy and pious character, and was chaplain to Lord Hunsdon. His additions were compiled from Gesner and other writers of his own time. In a manuscript diary of expenses in the reign of Elizabeth, the price of this book is stated to have been eight shillings.

ON

THE ANACHRONISMS

AND

SOME OTHER INCONGRUITIES

OF

SHAKSPEARE.

The transgressions against the rules of chronology committed by those who, in recording the events of preceding ages, introduce matters which have originated in subsequent periods, seem almost exclusively to belong to authors whose works, in point of date, are to be separated from those admirable compositions which are usually styled the Classics. In the latter, such instances seldom, if ever, occur; whilst in the writers, as well as the artists, of the middle ages, they are innumerable. Nor do these absurdities diminish as we approach periods more enlightened as to general science. From the time of Chaucer to that of Shakspeare, there is scarcely an author to be found who is not implicated in this accusation; and about the age of Elizabeth, the dramatists in particular seem to have been remarkably inattentive to the unities of time and place. It has been observed that Ben Jonson is almost the only writer against whom the charge of uniting dissimilar manners and discordant periods is not to be laid; and though the poets of the ensuing century are not wholly free from the imputation in question, it is certain that from about the reign of king James the First more care was taken to preserve a due attention to the manners and customs of particular ages, or at least to avoid any very palpable anachronisms, than had already been done. But whilst the compositions of dramatic writers remained pretty free from these blemishes, the directors of the theatres continued to practise their, perhaps innocent, impostures on the public; and every absurdity that could be devised, or distortion of reality in costume, still continued to disgrace the stage. We were not indeed more absurd in this respect than other European nations, nor was it until a short time before the late revolution that the French theatre had reformed itself in this respect. Many persons now recollect the state of the English stage in Garrick's time, when that excellent performer used to exhibit his Hamlet in a common French suit of black velvet and a cocked hat, and his Macbeth in a scarlet coat with broad gold lace like the uniform of a modern general. Quin is said to have played Othello in a flowing powdered periwig. How Shakspeare's characters were habited on the stage in his time, would be difficult or even impossible to ascertain with accuracy at present, except in a few instances; but we have no reason to suppose that much propriety was manifested on the occasion. Unluckily for us it was not then the practice to decorate the printed plays with frontispieces; and the theatrical prints and pictures even of succeeding times are not very commonly to be met with. It is on this account that the cuts to Mr. Rowe's edition of Shakspeare, and those to the first octavo edition of the works of Beaumont and Fletcher, are at present extremely valuable, as they serve to record many pleasant absurdities that will not fail to excite a smile in the beholder.

It was reserved for the great actor who to the scenic talents of a Garrick unites that managerial skill and judgment in the costume of nations which the other wanted, to reform these follies; and, by exhibiting to us times as they were, to render the stage what it should be, a true and perfect mirror of history and manners.

The above very slight notice of the subject before us may perhaps be sufficient for the purpose of introducing the mention of those anachronisms that are ascribable to Shakspeare: and this has not been done with any view to exhibit him as more culpable in this respect than most of his contemporaries, but solely for the purpose of collecting them together as an object of amusement: nothing however could have been less judicious than the conduct of Mr. Pope when he placed them to the account of the publishers. Nor is the catalogue offered as a complete one; the diligent and critical reader will discover some that are here unnoticed.

But the negligence of writers in the due observance of costume is but trifling, when compared with what is to be laid to the charge of painters and other artists. Volumes have been professedly filled, and the number might still be augmented, with the errors of even the best of the old painters. Nor are the modern by any means to be acquitted on this score. We too frequently see works of the greatest intrinsic worth, both in composition and execution, depreciated by the most absurd violations of historical accuracy and a want of adherence to the manners of the times they refer to. In this case they are not what they profess to be; and whilst they delight the eye, they delude the understanding. It is extremely pleasing to observe the zeal which manifests itself among the leading artists of the present day to obtain correct notions of the manners of former times whenever they have occasion to depict them. The works of many of our best painters will not only excite the admiration but the gratitude of posterity for the faithful delineation of their subjects, and the labours of future antiquaries will be reduced in proportion as pictures of this kind shall increase.[44]

To return to Shakspeare. In the _dramatis personæ_ of many of his plays we find a medley of ancient and modern names that is often extremely ridiculous. At Ephesus we meet with _Pinch_, a schoolmaster; at Mitylene with _Boult_, a clown; and at Athens with _Snug_, _Bottom_, _Snout_, _Quince_, &c. In his later stories English names are given to foreigners. Thus at Vienna we have _Froth_ and _Elbow_; in Navarre, _Dull_, _Costard_, and _Moth_; and in Illyria, _Sir Toby Belch_ and _Sir Andrew Aguecheek_. But these, strictly speaking, are not anachronisms, but, on the whole, justifiable licences; for it would have been impossible to transmit the humour of such characters as the above to an English audience under the disguise of foreign names, though it must be admitted that mere English characters as well as names are sometimes introduced. Nor is Shakspeare always responsible for such whimsicalities, for they are occasionally to be traced in the materials whereof his plays were constructed; and others belong to those authors whom he had only assisted in dramas the whole composition of which had been improperly ascribed to him.

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

The incidents in this play are supposed to belong to the reign of Henry the Fourth, and consequently the introduction of the _shillings of Edward the Sixth_, and the mention of _Machiavel_, are improper; as well as the then newly-introduced terms of the fencing-school ridiculed by Shallow. Perhaps _Ancient_ Pistol and _Corporal_ Nym are objectionable titles. The allusions to _Guiana_ and the _West Indies_ by Falstaff are obvious anachronisms.

TWELFTH NIGHT.

The introduction of the _bed of Ware_ may be justified, because it is referred to as in England; but the same defence cannot be made for _the bells of Saint Bennet_, as they are specifically alluded to.

MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

We have here an English jury in a German court of justice.

MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

The scene of this play lies at Athens, in the time of Theseus, but we find the mention of _guns_; of _French-crowns_ and _French-crown-coloured beards_; of _church-yards_ and _coats in heraldry_; of clean _linen_, new _ribbons to pumps_, and _masks_; of _Jack and Gill_, the _nine-mens morris_, and _blessing the bridal bed_. _Carols_, inasmuch as they are applicable to songs in general, and, in an antiquated sense, to dances, may be doubtful, though the allusion was in all probability to Christmas carols. Hermia is made to speak of the fire which burned the _Carthage queen_.

MERCHANT OF VENICE.

English juries are introduced into the Venetian republic.

WINTER'S TALE.

The transactions of this play arise in Sicily and Bohemia; and though the characters are imaginary, they are supposed to exist in Pagan times. Notwithstanding this we have _Whitson_ pastorals, _Christian_ burial, a _hobby-horse_, an emperor of _Russia_, and an Italian printer of the _fifteenth century_.

COMEDY OF ERRORS.

In the _ancient_ city of Ephesus we have _ducats_, _marks_, and _guilders_, and the _abbess of a nunnery_. Mention is also made of several _modern_ European kingdoms, and of _America_; of _Henry the Fourth of France_, of _Turkish_ tapestry, a _rapier_, and a _striking clock_; of _Lapland_ sorcerers, _Satan_, and even of _Adam_ and _Noah_. In one place Antipholis calls himself a _Christian_. As we are unacquainted with the immediate source whence this play was derived, it is impossible to ascertain whether Shakspeare is responsible for these anachronisms.

MACBETH.

The errors here are confined to the introduction of _cannon_ and of _dollars_.

KING JOHN.

In this play we also find _cannon_, with _angels_, _half-fac'd groats_, and _three-farthing pieces_. _Cards_ too are introduced, and _Basilisco_, a character of the time of Shakspeare.

KING HENRY THE FOURTH.

The anachronisms are very numerous in the plays on this reign. We have _pistols_ and _silk_ stockings; _gilt two-pences_, and _ten-shilling-pieces_; a ballad with a _picture_ on it, evidently alluding to the wood-cuts on those compositions; the game of _shove-groat_ or _slide shrift_, which was not invented before the reign of Henry the Eighth. Mention is also made of _John_ Scogan jester to Edward the Fourth, and of _Arthur's show_, though not introduced till a long time afterwards.

KING HENRY THE FIFTH.

The Turks are put into possession of Constantinople, which did not fall into their hands till upwards of thirty years after Henry's death.

KING HENRY THE SIXTH.

Machiavel, who was not born till 1469, is twice introduced in these plays. Printing is also prematurely mentioned.

KING HENRY THE EIGHTH.

An old woman is made to talk of bow'd _three-pences_; but these pieces were not known in England till the reign of Edward the Sixth, though some are said to have been coined in Ireland during that of Edward the Fourth.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

Hector quotes _Aristotle_; Ulysses speaks of the bull-bearing _Milo_, and Pandarus of a man born in _April_. _Friday_ and _Sunday_, and even _minced-pies_ with dates in them are introduced.

TIMON OF ATHENS.

_Paper_ is mentioned in this play. In a Roman drama it might have passed; but we have no evidence that the Greeks used the papyrus plant at this early period.

CORIOLANUS.

_Alexander_, _Cato_, and _Galen_, are improperly alluded to, all being posterior to the time of Coriolanus. Other anachronisms are--the mention of graves in a holy _church-yard_; _groats_, _mummers_, _lockram_, and a kitchen _malkin_. Coriolanus describes the populace by the names of _Hob and Dick_.

JULIUS CÆSAR.

Cassius speaks of a _masker_ and _reveller_, and of the _clock striking three_.

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

Antony talks of _packing cards_, and deals out his _knaves_, _queens_, _hearts_, and _trumps_, as if he were a whist-player. His bestowing the epithet of _gipsy_ on Cleopatra is whimsical, but may perhaps admit of defence.

CYMBELINE.

The British tribute being estimated at three thousand pounds, strikes on the ear as a modern computation. Imogen calls her supposed master, a valiant ancient Briton, by the name of _Richard Du Champ_. We find mention of the recreation of _bowling_; of _paper_; of _rushes_ strewed in apartments; of a _striking clock_; of _cherubims_, and a _chapel_ as a _burial place_. Cymbeline is made to knight Bellario and his sons on the field of battle by _dubbing_ them according to the fashion of the middle ages.

TITUS ANDRONICUS.

The period in which the incidents in this play are supposed to have happened (for they are all fictitious) is difficult to ascertain. There was an usurper called Saturninus during the reigns of Gallien and Aurelian, but he was not the son of any Roman emperor, as stated in the _dramatis personæ_. From the introduction of the Goths, the author perhaps adverted to the time of the above sovereigns. In all events the play has many absurdities to answer for. A child is sent to Aaron the Moor to be _christened_ by him. He accuses Lucius of twenty _Popish_ tricks; talks of an _idiot's bauble_; and says he can blush "like a black dog, as the saying is." A clown invokes "God and _Saint Stephen_." Aaron calls for _clubs_, as if addressing the _London 'prentices_; and Demetrius speaks of a _dancing rapier_. _Cards_ and a _monastery_ are also introduced.

PERICLES.

The story, though altogether fabulous, belongs to a period a little antecedent to the Christian æra; and therefore it is a manifest inconsistency to introduce _crowns of the sun_; _sequins_; a _pistol_; _cambrick_; a _Spanish ruff_; _signs_ of inns; _Monsieur Veroles a French knight_; a _Spanish_ name and motto, and the _lues Venerea_. Amidst numerous invocations to Heathen Gods, there is an immediate allusion to the unity of the Deity.

KING LEAR.

We have here a plentiful crop of blunders. Kent talks, like a good Protestant, of _eating no fish_; and Gloster, of not standing in need of _spectacles_. We have _Turks_, _Bedlam_ beggars, _child Roland_, _Saint Withold_, a _Marshal of France_, _steeples_, _dollars_, _paper_, _holy water_, and the _French disease_. There is an allusion to the old theatrical _moralities_; and _Nero_, who did not live till several hundred years after Lear, is mentioned by Edgar as an angler in the lake of darkness.

HAMLET.

The Danish history has placed Hamlet in fabulous times, long before the introduction of Christianity into the North of Europe; and therefore there is great impropriety in the frequent allusion to Christian customs. Hamlet swears by _Saint Patrick_; and converses with Guildenstern on the _children of the chapel of Saint Paul's_. In several places _cannon_ are introduced, and a good deal of the theatrical manners of Shakspeare's own time. We have a Danish _seal royal_ long before seals were used; a _university_ at Wittemberg; _Swiss_ guards; _serjeants_ or _bailiffs_; _bells_; _ducats_; _crown-pieces_; _modern heraldry_; _rapiers_, and terms of _modern fencing_.

FOOTNOTES:

[44] Mr. Stothard, the most unassuming of men, but with every claim to superior talent, has recently finished a painting of the procession of Chaucer's Canterbury pilgrims, which may be classed among the choicest morsels of its kind. The attention to accuracy of costume which it displays has never been exceeded, and but very seldom so well directed.

DISSERTATION I.

ON THE CLOWNS AND FOOLS OF SHAKSPEARE.

The ensuing dissertation originated from the opinion of a late eminent critic and antiquary that the subject was deserving of particular consideration. How imperfectly it must be executed will best be felt by those who are already accustomed to obscure inquiries; and little more can here be offered, or reasonably expected, than some attempt to arrange a few materials that have occurred during a course of reading immediately connected with the history of ancient manners. The critic above alluded to had remarked, that Shakspeare has most judiciously varied and discriminated his fools.[45] Without doubting that great writer's capacity to have done so, it certainly remains to be proved that he has; or it might even be maintained that on some occasions he has left his sketches so imperfect as to render it by no means an easy matter to comprehend them. It has already been thought better to make the attempt in a separate note to the plays in which a clown or fool is introduced, and to direct what is now offered to a more general view of the subject.

It is so exceedingly clear that the terms _clown_ and _fool_ were used, however improperly, as synonymous by our old writers, that it would be an unnecessary occupation of the reader's time to adduce examples. Their confused introduction in the dramatis personæ might indeed render this position doubtful to any one who had not well considered the matter; but although the _fool_ of our old plays denoted either a mere idiot or natural, or else a witty hireling or artificial fool, both retained for the purpose of making sport for their employers, the _clown_ was certainly a character of much greater variety. He occasionally represented one of the above personages; sometimes he was a mere rustic, and very often no more than a shrewd and witty domestic. There are some instances in which any low character in a play served to amuse the audience with his sallies of coarse buffoonery, and thus became the _clown_ of the piece. In short, the theatrical clown or fool seems to have been a kind of heterogeneous character, drawn in part from real life, but very considerably heightened in order to produce stage effect; an opinion that derives considerable support from what Shakspeare has put into the mouth of Hamlet, when he makes him admonish those who play the clowns to speak no more than is set down for them. Indeed, the great dramatist himself cannot be absolved from the imputation of having given too high a colouring to the characters in question, unless we suppose, what is extremely probable, that his plays have been very much interpolated with the extemporaneous nonsense of the players. To this licentious practice the author of an excellent and well written satire, entitled _Pasquil's mad-cappe, throwne at the corruptions of these times_, 1626, 4to, alludes in the following lines:

"Tell country players, that old paltry jests
Pronounced in a painted motley coate,
Filles all the world so full of cuckoes nests,
That nightingales can scarcely sing a note:
Oh bid them turne their minds to better meanings;
Fields are ill sowne that give no better gleanings."

Among other grave writers of the age, Sir Philip Sidney has reprobated the practice of introducing fools on the theatre. He remarks that the plays of his time were neither right tragedies nor right comedies, but that the authors mingled kings and clowns, "not," says he, "because the matter so carieth it, but thrust in the _clowne_ by head and shoulders to play a part in majestical matters, with neither decencie nor discretion: so as neither the admiration and commiseration, nor the right sportfulnesse is by their mongrell tragi-comedie obtained."[46] William Rankin, a puritan, and contemporary with Shakspeare, has left us a most virulent attack on plays, and players, whom he calls monsters: "And whie monsters," says he, "Bicause under colour of humanitie they present nothing but prodigious vanitie. These are wels without water, dead branches fit for fuell, cockle amongst corne, unwholesome weedes amongst sweete hearbes, and finallie, feends that are crept into the worlde by stealth, and holde possession by subtill invasion." In another place, describing the performers at a fictitious banquet in Terralbon, [England] he says, "Some transformed themselves to roges, other to ruffians, some other to _clownes_, a fourth to _fooles_ ... the roges were ready, the ruffians were rude, _theyr clownes cladde_ as well with country condition, as in ruffe russet; theyr _fooles as fonde as might be_," &c.[47] The latter passage is interesting, because the clown is properly distinguished from the fool, as he always should have been.

It may be the means of affording a clearer view of the present subject, if something like a classification of the different sorts of fools and clowns be given. The following is therefore offered as a substitute for a better.

I. _The general domestic fool_, often, but as it should seem improperly, termed a clown. He was, 1. a mere natural, or idiot. 2. Silly by nature, yet cunning and sarcastical. 3. Artificial. Puttenham, speaking of the latter, says, "A buffoune or counterfet foole, to here him speake wisely which is like himselfe, it is no sport at all; but for such a counterfait to talke and looke foolishly it maketh us laugh, because it is no part of his naturall."[48] All these officiated occasionally as menial servants.

II. _The clown_, who was, 1. a mere country booby. 2. A witty rustic. 3. Any servant of a shrewd and witty disposition, and who, like a similar character in our modern plays, was made to treat his master with great familiarity in order to produce stage effect.

III. _The female fool_, who was generally an idiot.

IV. _The city or corporation fool_, whose office was to assist at public entertainments and in pageants. To this class belong perhaps the Lord Mayor's state fool, and those employed by the companies of trades, &c.

V. _Tavern fools._ These seem to have been retained to amuse the customers. We learn from one of Ben Jonson's plays that they exhibited with a Jew's harp, mounted on a joint-stool,[49] and in another of them he has preserved the name of such a character:[50] they were sometimes qualified to sing after the Italian manner.[51] Fools were also employed in the common brothels.[52]

VI. _The fool of the ancient theatrical mysteries and moralities._ He was, more properly speaking, the _Vice_, a singular character, that would afford sufficient matter for much better dissertations than those of Warburton or Upton. Being generally dressed in a fool's habit, he appears to have been gradually and undistinguishably blended with the domestic fool; yet he was certainly a buffoon of a different sort. He was always a bitter enemy to the Devil, and a part of his employment consisted in teazing and tormenting the poor fiend on every occasion. He ceased to be in fashion at the end of the sixteenth century.[53]

VII. _The fool in the old dumb shows exhibited at fairs and perhaps at inns_, in which he was generally engaged in a struggle with Death; a fact that seems alluded to more than once in Shakspeare's plays. It is possible that some casual vestiges of this species of entertainment might have suggested the modern English pantomimes.

VIII. _The fool in the Whitsun ales and Morris dance._

IX. _The mountebank's fool, or merry Andrew._

There may be others introduced into our old dramas of an indefinite and irregular kind, and not reducible to any of the above classes; but to exemplify these or many of the above by a specific reference to authorities is not within the scope of the present essay. It is hoped that what has been just stated may contribute to assist the readers of old plays in forming some judgment of their own whenever the necessity shall arise.

A general investigation of that most singular and eccentric character, the real domestic fool, would occupy more space than could here have been spared. It would indeed extend to a length that few will conceive; but should the same laudable spirit of curiosity respecting the manners of former times which at present constitutes much of the amusement of an enlightened public continue to maintain its influence, encouragement would not be wanting to resume the subject more at large. In the mean time it may be sufficient to remark that the practice of retaining fools can be traced in very remote times throughout almost all civilized and even among some barbarous nations. It prevailed from the palace to the brothel. The pope had his fool, and the bawd her's; and ladies entertained them of both sexes. With respect to the antiquity of this custom in our own country, there is reason to suppose that it existed even during the period of our Saxon history; but we are quite certain of the fact in the reign of William the Conqueror. An almost contemporary historian, Maitre Wace, has left us a curious account of the preservation of William's life when he was only duke of Normandy by his fool _Goles_.[54] Mention is made in Domesday of _Berdic joculator regis_; and although this term was unquestionably applied in numerous instances to denote a minstrel, much evidence might be adduced to show that on this occasion it signified a buffoon. Latin terms were used by the middle-age writers so licentiously and with such extreme carelessness, that in many cases it is difficult to obtain a precise idea of their meaning. Thus the jesters and minstrels were indefinitely expressed by the words _joculator_, _scurra_, _mimus_, _ministrallus_, &c., a practice that may admit of justification when we consider that in early times the minstrel and buffoon characters were sometimes united in one person. It must be allowed, however, that in an etymological point of view the term _joculator_ is much better adapted to the jester than the minstrel.

The accounts of the household expenses of our sovereigns contain many payments and rewards to fools both foreign and domestic, the motives for which do not appear, but might perhaps have been some witty speech or comic action that had pleased the donors. Some of these payments are annual gifts at Christmas. Dr. Fuller, speaking of the court jester, whom he says some count a necessary evil, remarks, in his usual quaint manner, that it is an office which none but he that hath wit can perform, and none but he that wants it will perform.[55] A great many names of these buffoons have been preserved; and sufficient materials remain to furnish a separate biography of them, which might afford even more amusement than can be found in the lives of many of their betters. They continued an appurtenance to the English court to a late period. Muckle John, the fool of Charles the First, and the successor of Archee Armstrong, is perhaps the last regular personage of the kind.[56] The national troubles that produced the downfall of regal power, and the puritanical manners that ensued, at once determined the existence of an office that had so long maintained its ground at court: and when Charles the Second resumed the throne, it was probably deemed a matter of no moment to restore it. The common stories that relate to Killigrew as jester to Charles, rest on no sufficient authority; and although he might have contributed to amuse the witty monarch with his jokes, it is certain that he had no regular appointment to such an office. Mr. Granger has justly observed that the wit of the buffoons became the highest recommendation of a courtier in the time of Charles the Second.[57]

The discontinuance of the court fool had a considerable influence on the manners of private life; and we learn from one of Shadwell's plays, that it was then "out of fashion for great men to keep fools."[58] But the practice was by no means abolished; it maintained its ground in this country so late as the beginning of the last century; and we have an epitaph, written by Dean Swift, on Dicky Pearce the Earl of Suffolk's fool, who was buried in Berkley church-yard, June 18, 1728.[59] This person was an idiot. Lord Chancellor Talbot kept a Welsh jester named Rees Pengelding. He was a very shrewd fellow, and rented a farm of his master. Being distrained on for his rent by an oppressive steward, who had been a tailor and bore him a grudge, the surly fellow said to him on this occasion, "I'll fit you, sirrah."

"Then," replied Rees, "it will be the first time in your life that you ever fitted any one." Another Welshman called Will the taborer was retained in a similar capacity, about the beginning of the last century, by Sir Edward Stradling, of St. Donat's castle, in Glamorganshire. He is said to have been a very witty fellow, and man of strong intellects. Lord Bussy Mansel, of Margam, had likewise in his service one Robin Rush, an idiot by nature, but who often said very witty things. There are people now alive in Wales, or lately were, who well remembered him.

The sort of entertainment that fools were expected to afford, may be collected in great variety from our old plays, and particularly from those of Shakspeare; but perhaps no better idea can be formed of their general mode of conduct than from the following passage in a singular tract by Lodge, entitled _Wit's miserie_, 1599, 4to: "Immoderate and disordinate joy became incorporate in the bodie of a jeaster; this fellow in person is comely, in apparell courtly, but in behaviour a very ape, and no man; his studie is to coine bitter jeasts, or to shew antique motions, or to sing baudie sonnets and ballads: give him a little wine in his head, he is continually flearing and making of mouthes: he laughs intemperately at every little occasion, and dances about the house, leaps over tables, out-skips mens heads, trips up his companions heeles, burns sack with a candle, and hath all the feats of a lord of misrule in the countrie: feed him in his humor, you shall have his heart, in meere kindness he will hug you in his armes, kisse you on the cheeke, and rapping out an horrible oth, crie God's soule Tum, I love you, you know my poore heart, come to my chamber for a pipe of tabacco, there lives not a man in this world that I more honor. In these ceremonies you shall know his courting, and it is a speciall mark of him at the table, he sits and makes faces: keep not this fellow company, for in _jugling_ with him, your wardropes shall be wasted, your credits crackt, your crownes consumed, and time (the most precious riches of the world) utterly lost." This is the picture of a real hireling or artificial fool.

As the profession of these hirelings required a considerable degree of skill and dexterity to amuse their employers, so it would in some instances fail of success, and the want of the above talents would excite considerable disgust and dissatisfaction. Cardinal Perron being one day in company with the duke of Mantua, the latter, speaking of his fool, said that he was _un magro buffone & non haver spirito_. The cardinal remarked that nevertheless he had wit. "Why so?" demanded the duke. "Because," replied the other, "he lives by a trade which he does not understand."[60] The liberties allowed them were necessarily very great; but this was not always a protection to them. Every one knows the disgracefully severe conduct of archbishop Laud to poor Archee. The duke d'Espernon, though a man of great haughtiness of spirit, conducted himself on a similar occasion with much more discretion. His Gascon accent was a constant subject of raillery on the part of Maret, the fool of Louis XIII., whose great talent lay in mimicry. Cardinal Richelieu, who took upon him to give the duke some pointed admonitions, ordered him among other things to endeavour to get rid of his provincial tones, at the same time counterfeiting his speech, and sarcastically intreating him not to take his advice in bad part. "But why should I," replied the duke, "when I bear as much every day from the king's fool, who mocks me in your presence?"[61] Selden has remarked, on a similar occasion, that a gallant man is above ill words, and has left us a story of the forbearance of the old lord Salisbury, whom he calls a great wise man, towards Stone, a celebrated fool in the reign of James the First.[62] Fools, however, did not always escape with impunity; they were liable to, and often experienced, very severe domestic castigation. Whipping was the punishment generally inflicted.[63] On the other hand they appear to have been sometimes used with great tenderness. This is very feelingly exemplified in the conduct of Lear. Stafford in his _Guide of honour_, 1634, 18mo, tells us, that he "had knowne a great and competently wise man who would much respect any man that was good to his foole." An opportunity here presents itself of explaining the old proverb of "five pounds; you've bled a fool," which, adverting to the usual privilege or allowance belonging to this character, seems to demand a forfeit from whoever had infringed it by inflicting an improper and unlawful chastisement. This exposition derives support from a passage in Ben Jonson's _Fox_, and also contributes to its illustration. In the second Act there is a song describing a fool, in which it is said that he "speaks truth free from slaughter." This has been with some ingenuity supposed to mean "_free_ from hurting any one." The other construction may perhaps be thought as plausible.

With respect to his office on the stage, we may suppose it would be nearly the same as in reality; the difference might be that his wit was more highly seasoned. Mr. Malone has already cited a very curious passage on this subject from the play of _The careless shepherdess_, 1656.[64] In Middleton's _Mayor of Quinborough_, a company of actors with a clown make their appearance, and the following dialogue ensues:

FIRST CHEATER.

This is our clown, sir.

SIMON.

Fye, fye, your company
Must fall upon him and beat him; he's too fair, i' faith
To make the people laugh.

FIRST CHEATER.

Not as he may be dress'd sir.

SIMON.

'Faith, dress him how you will, I'll give him
That gift, he will never look half scurvily enough.
Oh, the clowns that I have seen in my time.
The very peeping out of one of them would have
Made a young heir laugh, though his father lay a dying;
A man undone in law the day before
(The saddest case that can be) might for his second
Have burst himself with laughing, and ended all
His miseries. Here was a merry world, my masters!
Some talk of things of state, of puling stuff;
There's nothing in a play like to a clown,
If he have the grace to hit on it, that's the thing indeed.

SIMON.

Away then, shift; clown to thy _motley_ crupper.

Whoever is desirous of obtaining general and accurate information concerning the great variety of dresses that belong to some of the characters in question at different periods, must study ancient prints and paintings, and especially the miniatures that embellish manuscripts. These will afford sufficient specimens; but the difficulty of ascertaining how the _theatrical fools and clowns_ of Shakspeare's time were _always_ habited, is insuperable. In some instances the plays themselves assist by peculiar references that leave but little doubt; but this is not the case in general. It is to be lamented that our artists did not appropriate more of their labours to the representation of theatrical subjects, and the fortunate discovery of a single ancient painting of this kind would be of more importance than a volume of conjectural dissertations. As it may be presumed that former theatrical managers exhibited with fidelity on the stage, the manners of their own times, a reference to the materials which remain to illustrate the dress of the real fools, may supply the defect before alluded to.

It may be collected both from the plays themselves, and from various other authorities, that the costume of the domestic fool in Shakspeare's time was of two sorts. In the first of these the coat was motley or parti-coloured, and attached to the body by a girdle, with bells at the skirts and elbows, though not always. The breeches and hose close, and sometimes each leg of a different colour. A hood resembling a monk's cowl, which, at a very early period, it was certainly designed to imitate, covered the head entirely, and fell down over part of the breast and shoulders. It was sometimes decorated with asses ears, or else terminated in the neck and head of a cock,[65] a fashion as old as the fourteenth century. It often had the comb or crest only of the animal,[66] whence the term _cockscomb_ or _coxcomb_ was afterwards used to denote any silly upstart. This fool usually carried in his hand an official scepter or bauble, which was a short stick ornamented at the end with the figure of a fool's head, or sometimes with that of a doll or puppet.[67] To this instrument there was frequently annexed an inflated skin or bladder, with which the fool belaboured those who offended him, or with whom he was inclined to make sport; this was often used by itself, in lieu, as it should seem, of a bauble.[68] The form of it varied, and in some instances was obscene in the highest degree. It was not always filled with air, but occasionally with sand, or peas. Sometimes a strong bat or club was substituted for the bauble.[69] In the second tale of the priests of Peblis, a man who counterfeits a fool is described "with _club_ and bel and partie cote with eiris;" but it afterwards appears that he had both a club and a bauble. In an inventory of the goods of the ancient company of Saint George at Norwich, mention is made of "two habits, one for the _club-bearer_, another for his man, who are now called fools;"[70] and the author of _Tarlton's newes out of purgatory_, 1630, 4to, describes a dream in which he saw "one attired in russet with a button'd cap on his head, a great bag by his side, and a _strong bat_ in his hand, so artificially attired for a clowne, as I began to call Tarlton's woonted shape to remembrance."

In some old prints the fool is represented with a sort of flapper or rattle ornamented with bells. It seems to have been constructed of two round and flat pieces of wood or pasteboard, and is no doubt a vestige of the crotalum used by the Roman mimes or dancers.[71] This implement was used for the same purpose as the bladder, and occasionally for correcting the fool himself whenever he behaved with too much licentiousness. Such a castigation is actually exhibited in one ancient German edition of the _Ship of fools_, by Sebastian Brandt; but the usual punishment on this occasion was a simple whipping. In some old plays the fool's _dagger_ is mentioned, perhaps the same instrument as was carried by the _Vice_ or buffoon of the Moralities; and it may be as well to observe in this place that the domestic fool is sometimes, though it is presumed improperly, called the Vice.[72] The dagger of the latter was made of a thin piece of lath; and the use he generally made of it was to belabour the Devil. It appears that in Queen Elizabeth's time the archbishop of Canterbury's fool had a wooden dagger and coxcomb.[73] In Greene's play of _Fryer Bacon_, the fool speaks of his dagger. In Beaumont and Fletcher's _Noble gentleman_, a person being compared to a fool, it is added that he should wear a guarded coat and a _great wooden dagger_. In Chapman's _Widows tears_, an upstart governor is termed "a wooden dagger _gilded_ o'er;" and Rabelais has made Panurge give Triboulet the fool a wooden sword. In an old German print a fool is represented with a sword like a _saw_.[74]

The other dress, and which seems to have been more common in the time of Shakspeare, was the long petticoat.[75] This originally appertained to the idiot or natural fool, and was obviously adopted for the purposes of cleanliness and concealment. Why it came to be used for the allowed fool is not so apparent. It was, like the first, of various colours, the materials often costly, as of velvet, and guarded or fringed with yellow.[76] In one instance we have a _yellow leather_ doublet.[77] In Bancroft's _Epigrams_, 1639, quarto, there is one addressed "to a giglot with her greene sicknesse," in which are these lines,

"Thy sicknesse mocks thy pride, that's seldom seene
But in _foole's yellow_, and the lover's greene."

And a manuscript note in the time of the commonwealth states yellow to have been the _fool's colour_. This petticoat dress continued to a late period, and has been seen not many years since in some of the interludes exhibited in Wales.

But the above were by no means the only modes in which the domestic fools were habited. Many variations can be traced. The hood was not always surmounted with the cocks comb, in lieu of which a single bell and occasionally more appeared.[78] Sometimes a feather was added to the comb.[79] In the old morality of _The longer thou livest the more foole thou art_, Moros the fool says,

"By my trouth the thing that I desire most
Is in my cappe to have a _goodly feather_."

The head was frequently shaved in imitation or perhaps ridicule of a monk's crown. This practice is very ancient, and can be traced to the twelfth century. In one instance the hair exhibits a sort of triple or Papal crown.[80] The tails of foxes or squirrels were often suspended to the garment. Godfrey Gobilive, the fool in Hawes's _Pastime of pleasure_, 1517, 4to, is described as so habited. In _The pope's funerall_, 1605, 4to, the author says, "I shall prove him such a noddy before I leave him that all the world will deeme him worthy to weare in his forehead a coxcombe for his foolishness, and on his back, a _fox tayle_ for his badge." It was likewise the dress of the fool in the plough pageant and morris dance.[81] One might almost conclude that this custom was designed to ridicule a fashion that prevailed among the ladies in the reign of Edward the Third, and which is mentioned by the author of the old chronicle of England, erroneously ascribed to Caxton the printer, in the following terms: "And the women more nysely yet passed the men in aray and coriouslaker, for they were so streyt clothed that they let hange _fox tailles_ sowed bineth within hir clothes for to hele and hide thir a--, the which disguysinges and pride paradventure afterward brouzt forth and encaused many myshappes and meschief in the reame of Englond." The idiot or natural was often clothed in a calf or sheep's skin.[82]

A large purse or wallet at the girdle is a very ancient part of the fool's dress. Tarlton, who personated the clowns in Shakspeare's time, appears to have worn it.[83] The budget given by Panurge to Triboulet the fool is described as made of a tortoise shell.[84]

We may suppose that the same variety of dress was observed on the stage which we know to have actually prevailed in common life. The fools, however, did not always appear in a discriminative habit, and some of their portraits still remaining confirm this observation. A very fine painting by Holbein, in Kensington palace, represents Will Somers the fool of Henry the Eighth, in a common dress.[85] In a wardrobe account of that sovereign, we find these articles: "For making a dubblette of wursteede lyned with canvas and cotton, for William Som'ar oure foole. Item for making of a coote and a cappe of grene clothe fringed with red crule and lyned with fryse, for our saide foole. Item for making of a dublette of fustian, lyned with cotton and canvas for oure same foole." Yet he sometimes wore the usual hood instead of a cap; for in the same account is an article "For making of a coote of grene clothe with a _hoode_ to the same, fringed with white crule lyned with fryse and bokerham, for oure foole aforesaid;"[86] and there is a print of him after a picture by Holbein, in which he is represented in a long tunic with a chain and horn in his hand.[87] In the celebrated picture of Sir Thomas More's family by Holbein, Patenson the fool is not distinguished by any peculiarity of dress, and, in one instance at least, the same remark applies to Archy, the fool of James I.[88] In those families where the fool acted as a menial servant, it is possible that he might have reserved his official habit for particular occasions. The paucity of materials that illustrate the theatrical character in question, must necessarily leave this part of the subject still more imperfect than the rest; but the plays of Shakspeare have furnished more information than those of any other writer. It is surprising, on the whole, that the character of the domestic fool is so seldom found in the old dramas that remain; because it was not only capable of affording considerable mirth to the unrefined part of the audience, but of giving the authors an opportunity of displaying a great deal of ingenuity so far as regarded extemporary wit. It is certain that the fools in Shakspeare's plays were pre-eminent above all others. For this we have the authority of Shadwell, who makes one of his characters say that they had more wit than any of the wits and critics of his time.[89] Beaumont and Fletcher have but rarely introduced them; Ben Jonson and Massinger never. Indeed, the originals had rapidly declined at the period in which most of their plays were written, and another character of a mixed nature been substituted in their room. This was the witty servant or clown (Class II. No. 3.), and of course his dress was not distinguished by any peculiarity.