Chapter VIII: Part V: Holidays, Festivals, Fairs, Etc (2)

The semi-annual Fair was a market on a grander scale. The increased crowd of dealers called for certain police regulations, and these were strictly enforced. The town council appointed to each trade a particular station in the streets. Thus, raw hides were to be exposed for sale in the Rother Market. Sellers of butter, cheese, wick-yarn, and fruits were to set up their stalls by the cross at the Guild Chapel. A part of the High Street was assigned to country butchers. Pewterers were ordered to "pitch" their wares in Wood Street, and to pay fourpence a square yard for the ground they occupied. Salt-wagons, whose owners did a large business when salted meats formed the staple supply of food, were permitted to stand about the cross in the Rother Market. At various points victuallers could erect booths. These regulations were necessary to prevent strife concerning locations, and violations were punished by heavy fines.

Mr. Knight remarks: "At the joyous Fair-season it would seem that the wealth of a world was emptied into Stratford; not only the substantial things, the wine, the wax, the wheat, the wool, the malt, the cheese, the clothes, the napery, such as even great lords sent their stewards to the Fairs to buy, but every possible variety of such trumpery as fills the pedler's pack,--ribbons, inkles, caddises, coifs, stomachers, pomanders, brooches, tapes, shoe-ties. Great dealings were there on these occasions in beeves and horses, tedious chafferings, stout affirmations, saints profanely invoked to ratify a bargain. A mighty man rides into the Fair who scatters consternation around. It is the Queen's Purveyor. The best horses are taken up for her Majesty's use, at her Majesty's price; and they probably find their way to the Earl of Leicester's or the Earl of Warwick's stables at a considerable profit to Master Purveyor. The country buyers and sellers look blank; but there is no remedy. There is solace, however, if there is not redress. The ivy-bush is at many a door, and the sounds of merriment are within, as the ale and the sack are quaffed to friendly greetings. In the streets there are morris-dancers, the juggler with his ape, and the minstrel with his ballads. We may imagine the foremost in a group of boys listening to the 'small popular musics sung by these _cantabanqui_ upon benches and barrels' heads,' or more earnestly to some one of the 'blind harpers, or such-like tavern minstrels, that give a fit of mirth for a groat; their matters being for the most part stories of old time as _The Tale of Sir Topas_, _Bevis of Southampton_, _Guy of Warwick_, _Adam Bell and Clymme of the Clough_, and such other old romances or historical rhymes, made purposely for the recreation of the common people.' A bold fellow, who is full of queer stories and cant phrases, strikes a few notes upon his gittern, and the lads and lasses are around him ready to dance their country measures....

"The Fair is over; the booths are taken down; the woolen statute-caps, which the commonest people refuse to wear because there is a penalty for not wearing them, are packed up again; the prohibited felt hats are all sold; the millinery has found a ready market among the sturdy yeomen, who are careful to propitiate their home-staying wives after the fashion of the Wife of Bath's husbands.... The juggler has packed up his cup and balls; the last cudgel-play has been fought out:--

"'Near the dying of the day
There will be a cudgel-play,
Where a coxcomb will be broke
Ere a good word can be spoke:
But the anger ends all here,
Drench'd in ale, or drown'd in beer.'

Morning comes, and Stratford hears only the quiet steps of its native population."

There are many allusions, literal and figurative, to these fairs in Shakespeare's plays, a few of which may be cited here as specimens.

In _Love's Labour's Lost_, besides the one quoted above (page 199), we find the following simile in Biron's eulogy of Rosaline (iv. 3. 235):--

"Of all complexions the cull'd soverignty
Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek."

In the same play (v. 2. 2), the Princess says to her ladies, referring to the presents they have received:--

"Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart
If fairings come thus plentifully in."

It was so common a practice to buy presents at fairs that the word _fairing_, which originally meant presents thus bought, came to be used in a more general sense, as in this passage and many others that might be quoted.

In _The Winters Tale_ (iv. 3. 109) the Clown says of the merry peddler Autolycus that "he haunts wakes, fairs, and bear-baitings." Later (iv. 4) we meet the rogue at the sheep-shearing, where he finds a good market for ribbons, gloves, and other "fairings," which the swains buy for their sweethearts; and when the festival is over he says: "I have sold all my trumpery; not a counterfeit stone, not a ribbon, glass, pomander, brooch, table-book, ballad, knife, tape, glove, shoe-tie, bracelet, horn-ring, to keep my pack from fasting; they throng who should buy first, as if my trinkets had been hallowed and brought a benediction to the buyer."

In _2 Henry IV._ (iii. 2. 43) Shallow asks his cousin Silence, "How a good yoke of bullocks now at Stamford fair?" and Silence replies, "By my troth, I was not there." Later (v. 1. 26) Davy asks Shallow: "Sir, do you mean to stop any of William's wages, about the sack he lost the other day at Hinckley fair?"

In _Henry VIII._ (v. 4. 73) the Chamberlain, seeing the crowd gathered to get a sight of the royal procession, exclaims:--

"Mercy o' me, what a multitude are here!
They grow still too; from all parts they are coming,
As if we kept a fair here."

In _Lear_ (iii. 6. 78) Edgar, in his random talk while pretending to be insane, cries: "Come, march to wakes and fairs and market-towns!"

The "wakes," mentioned so often in connection with fairs, were annual feasts kept to commemorate the dedication of a church; called so, as an old writer tells us, "because the night before they were used to watch till morning in the church." The next day was given up to feasting and all sorts of rural merriment. In the churchwardens' accounts of the time we find charges for "wine and sugar," for "bread, wine, and ale," and the like, for "certain of the parish," for "the singing men and singing children," and others, on these occasions.

At these wakes, as at the fairs and other large gatherings, whether festal or commercial, hawkers and peddlers came to sell their wares and merchants set up their stalls and booths, often in the very churchyard and even on a Sunday. The clergy naturally denounced this profanation of the Sabbath, but it was not entirely suppressed until the reign of Henry VI.

Stubbes, in his _Anatomy of Abuses_ (1583), inveighed against these wakes, as against the May-day sports (page 176 above), especially on account of the money wasted at them, "insomuch as the poor men that bear the charges of these feasts and wakes are the poorer and keep the worser houses a long time after: and no marvel, for many spend more at one of these wakes than in all the whole year besides."

Herrick, in his _Hesperides_ (page 196 above) took a more cheerful view of such rural holidays:--

"Come, Anthea, let us two
Go to feast, as others do.
Tarts and custards, creams and cakes,
Are the junkets still at wakes;
Unto which the tribes resort,
Where the business is the sport.
Morris-dancers thou shalt see,
Marian too in pageantry;
And a mimic to devise
Many grinning properties.
Players there will be, and those
Base in action as in clothes;
Yet with strutting they will please
The incurious villages.

* * * * *

Happy rustics, best content
With the cheapest merriment;
And possess no other fear
Than to want the wake next year;"

that is, to miss or lack it.

RURAL OUTINGS.

Much of the recreation, as of the education, of William Shakespeare was in the fields. "He is rarely a descriptive poet, distinctively so called; but images of mead and grove, of dale and upland, of forest depths, of quiet walks by gentle rivers,--reflections of his own native scenery,--spread themselves without an effort over all his writings. All the occupations of a rural life are glanced at or embodied in his characters. He wreathes all the flowers of the field in his delicate chaplets; and even the nicest mysteries of the gardener's art can be expounded by him. His poetry in this, as in all other great essentials, is like the operations of nature itself; we see not its workings. But we may be assured, from the very circumstance of its appearing so accidental, so spontaneous in its relations to all external nature and to the country life, that it had its foundation in very early and very accurate observation. Stratford was especially fitted to have been the 'green lap' in which the boy-poet was 'laid.' The whole face of creation here wore an aspect of quiet loveliness."

The surrounding country was no less beautiful; and William would naturally become familiar with it in his boyish rambles and in his visits to his relatives. The village of Wilmcote, the home of his mother, was within walking distance; and so was Snitterfield, where his father lived before he came to Stratford, and where his uncle Henry still resided. All through the wooded district of Arden the name of Shakespeare was very common, and among those who bore it were probably other families more or less closely related to John Shakespeare's.

However that may have been, the enterprising glover and wool-merchant must have had large dealings with the neighboring farmers; and William must have seen much of rural life and employments in the company of his father, or when wandering at his own free will in the country about Stratford. In no other way could he have gained the intimate acquaintance with farming and gardening operations of which his works bear evidence. He went to London before his literary career began, and lived there until it closed, with only brief occasional visits to Warwickshire. In the metropolis he could not have added much to his early lessons in the country life and character of which he has given us such graphic and faithful delineations. These are thoroughly fresh and real; they tell of the outdoor life he loved, and never smell of the study-lamp, as Milton's and Spenser's allusions to plants, flowers, and other natural objects often do.

Volumes have been written on the plant-lore and garden-craft of Shakespeare; and the authors dwell equally on the poet's ingrained love of the country and his keen observation of natural phenomena and the agricultural practice of the time.

In _Richard II._ (iii. 4. 29-66) the Gardener and his Servant draw lessons of political wisdom from the details of their occupation:--

"_Gardener._ Go, bind thou up yon dangling apricocks,
Which, like unruly children, make their sire
Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight;
Give some supportance to the bending twigs.
Go thou, and like an executioner
Cut off the heads of too-fast-growing sprays,
That look too lofty in our commonwealth;
All must be even in our government.
You thus employ'd, I will go root away
The noisome weeds, that without profit suck
The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.

_Servant._ Why should we, in the compass of a pale,
Keep law, and form, and due proportion,
Showing, as in a model, our firm estate,
When our sea-walled garden, the whole land,
Is full of weeds; her fairest flowers chok'd up,
Her fruit-trees all unprun'd, her hedges ruin'd,
Her knots disorder'd, and her wholesome herbs
Swarming with caterpillars?

_Gardener._ Hold thy peace!
He that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring
Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf.
The weeds that his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,
That seem'd in eating him to hold him up,
Are pluck'd up, root and all, by Bolingbroke;
I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.

_Servant._ What, are they dead?

_Gardener._ They are; and Bolingbroke
Hath seiz'd the wasteful king.--O, what pity is it,
That he hath not so trimm'd and dress'd his land
As we this garden! We at time of year
Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit-trees,
Lest, being over-proud with sap and blood,
With too much riches it confound itself:
Had he done so to great and growing men,
They might have liv'd to bear, and he to taste
Their fruits of duty. All superfluous branches
We lop away, that bearing boughs may live:
Had he done so, himself had borne the crown,
Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down."

Mr. Ellacombe, commenting upon this dialogue, remarks: "This most interesting passage would almost tempt us to say that Shakespeare was a gardener by profession; certainly no other passages that have been brought to prove his real profession are more minute than this. It proves him to have had practical experience in the work, and I think we may safely say that he was no mere 'prentice hand in the use of the pruning-knife." But this play was written in London, when he could hardly have known anything more of practical gardening than he had learned in his boyhood and youth at Stratford.

Grafting and the various ways of propagating plants by cuttings, slips, etc., are described or alluded to with equal accuracy; also the mischief done by weeds, blights, frosts, and other enemies of the husbandman and horticulturist. He writes on all these matters as we might expect him to have done in his last years at Stratford, after he had had actual experience in the management of a large garden at New Place and in farming operations on other lands he had bought in the neighborhood; but all these passages, like the one quoted from _Richard II._, were written long before he had a garden of his own. They were reminiscences of his observation as a boy, not the results of his experience as a country gentleman.

NOTES

Abbreviations, except a few of the most familiar, have been
avoided in the Notes, as in other parts of the book. The
references to act, scene, and line in the quotations from
Shakespeare are added for the convenience of the reader or
student, who may sometimes wish to refer to the context. The
line-numbers are those of the "Globe" edition, which vary from
those of my edition only in scenes that are wholly or partly in
_prose_.

The numbers appended to names of authors (as in the note on
page 22, for example) are the dates of their birth and death.
An interrogation-mark after a date (as in the note on page 114)
indicates that it is uncertain. I have not thought it necessary
to insert biographical notes concerning well-known authors, like
Spenser, Milton, etc.

NOTES

=Page 3.=--_Michael Drayton._ He was born in Warwickshire in 1563. Of his personal history very little is known. His most famous work, the _Poly-Olbion_ (or _Polyolbion_, as it is often printed), is a poem of about 30,000 lines, the subject of which, as he himself states it, is "a chorographical description of all the tracts, rivers, mountains, forests, and other parts of this renowned Isle of Great Britain; with intermixture of the most remarkable stories, antiquities, wonders, etc., of the same." His _Ballad of Agincourt_ (see _Tales from English History_, p. 39) has been called "the most perfect and patriotic of English ballads." Drayton was made poet-laureate in 1626. He died in 1631, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

=Page 4.=--_Her Bear._ The badge of the Earls of Warwick.

_Wilmcote._ A small village about three miles from Stratford-on-Avon. The name is also written _Wilmecote_, and _Wilnecote_; and in old documents, _Wilmcott_, _Wincott_, etc. It is probably the _Wincot_ of _The Taming of the Shrew_ (ind. 2. 23) and the _Woncot_ of _2 Henry IV._ (v. 1. 42).

_Dugdale._ Sir William Dugdale (1605-1686), one of the most learned of English antiquaries. His _Antiquities of Warwickshire_ (1656) is said to have been the result of twenty years' laborious research.

=Page 7.=--_Beauchamp._ Pronounced _Beech'-am_.

_The herse of brass hoops._ The word _herse_ (the same as _hearse_) originally meant a harrow; then a temporary framework, often shaped like a harrow, used for supporting candles at a funeral service, and placed over the coffin; then a kind of frame or cage over an effigy on a tomb; and finally a carriage for bearing a corpse to the grave. For the third meaning (which we have here), compare Ben Jonson's _Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke_:--

"Underneath this sable herse
Lies the subject of all verse," etc.

_The garter._ Showing that he was a Knight of the Garter.

_The noble Impe._ The word _imp_ originally meant a scion, shoot, or slip of a tree or plant; then, figuratively, human offspring or progeny, as here and in many passages in writers of the time. Holinshed the chronicler speaks of "Prince Edward, that goodlie impe," and Churchyard calls Edward VI. "that impe of grace." Fulwell, addressing Anne Boleyn, refers to Elizabeth as "thy royal impe." As first applied to a young or small devil, the word had this same meaning of offspring, "an imp of Satan" being a child of Satan. How it came later to mean a mischievous urchin I leave the small folk themselves to guess.

=Page 10.=--_The famous "dun cow."_ This, according to the legend, was "a monstrous wild and cruel beast" which ravaged the country about Dunsmore. Guy also slew a wild boar of "passing might and strength," and a dragon "black as any coal" which was long the terror of Northumberland. Compare the old ballad of _Sir Guy_:--

"On Dunsmore heath I also slew
A monstrous wild and cruel beast,
Call'd the Dun-cow of Dunsmore heath,
Which many people had opprest.

"Some of her bones in Warwick yet
Still for a monument do lie;
And there exposed to lookers' view
As wondrous strange they may espy.

"A dragon in Northumberland
I also did in fight destroy,
Which did both man and beast oppress,
And all the country sore annoy."

=Page 13.=--_Master Robert Laneham._ He was an English merchant who became "doorkeeper of the council-chamber" to the Earl of Leicester. He wrote an account, in the form of a letter, of the festivities in honor of this visit of Elizabeth to Kenilworth, which was afterwards printed. He is one of the characters in Scott's _Kenilworth_.

=Page 14.=--_Theatres_, etc. The cut facing page 14 shows one of the movable stages referred to by Dugdale; also two of "the three tall spires" mentioned by Tennyson in the poem of _Godiva_. The nearer church is St. Michael's, said to be the largest parish church in England, with a steeple 303 feet high. Beyond it is Trinity Church, with a spire 237 feet high.

=Page 15.=--_The most beautiful in the kingdom._ There is a familiar story of two Englishmen who laid a wager as to which was the finest walk in England. After the money was put up, one named the walk from Stratford to Coventry, and the other that from Coventry to Stratford. How the umpire decided the case is not recorded.

=Page 16.=--_The Cappers._ The makers of caps.

=Page 17.=--_King Herod._ Longfellow, in his _Golden Legend_, introduces a miracle-play, _The Nativity_, which is supposed to be acted at Strasburg. Herod figures in it after the blustering fashion of the ancient dramas. Young readers will get a good idea of these plays from this imitation of them.

=Page 18.=--_Other allusions to these old plays._ See, for instance, _Twelfth Night_, iv. 2. 134, _2 Henry IV._ iii. 2. 343, _Richard III._ iii. 1. 82, _Hamlet_, iii. 4. 98, etc., and the notes in my edition.

=Page 19.=--_The legend of Godiva._ See Tennyson's _Godiva_.

=Page 22.=--_Dr. Forman._ Simon Forman (1552-1611), a noted astrologer and quack, who wrote several books, and left a diary, in which he describes at considerable length the plot of Shakespeare's _Macbeth_, which he saw performed "at the Globe, 1610, the 20th of April, Saturday." See my edition of _Macbeth_, p. 9.

=Page 23.=--The head of Sir Thomas Lucy is from his monument in Charlecote church.

=Page 24.=--_A willow grows aslant a brook._ See _Hamlet_, iv. 7. 165. Some editions of Shakespeare follow the reading of the early quartos, "ascaunt the brook," which means the same. This willow (the _Salix alba_) grows on the banks of the Avon, and from the looseness of the soil the trees often partly lose their hold, and bend "aslant" the stream.

=Page 26.=--_The banished Duke in As You Like It, etc._ See the play, ii. 1. 1-18.

_His maidens ever sing of "blue-veined violets," etc._ The "blue-vein'd violets" are mentioned in _Venus and Adonis_, 125; the "daisies pied" (variegated), and the "lady-smocks all silver-white," in _Love's Labour's Lost_, v. 2. 904, 905; and the "pansies" in _Hamlet_, iv. 5. 176.

=Page 27.=--_A manor of the Bishop of Worcester._ Under the feudal system, a _manor_ was a landed estate, with a village or villages upon it the inhabitants of which were generally _villeins_, or serfs of the owner or lord. These _villeins_ were either _regardant_ or _in gross_. The former "belonged to the manor as fixtures, passing with it when it was conveyed or inherited, and they could not be sold or transferred as persons separate from the land"; the latter "belonged personally to their lord, who could sell or transfer them at will." The _bordarii_, _bordars_, or _cottagers_, "seem to have been distinguished from the _villeins_ simply by their smaller holdings." For the menial services rendered by the villeins, and their condition generally, see the following pages.

=Page 32.=--_A chantry._ A church or a chapel (as here) endowed with lands or other revenues for the maintenance of one or more priests to sing or say mass daily for the soul of the donor or the souls of persons named by him. Cf. _Henry V._ iv. 1. 318:--

"I have built
Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests
Sing still for Richard's soul."

=Page 40.=--_Present her at the leet, etc._ Complain of her for using common stone jugs instead of the quart-pots duly sealed or stamped as being of legal size.

_A substantial ducking-stool, etc._ The _ducking-stool_ was kept up as a punishment for scolds in some parts of England until late in the 18th century. An antiquary, writing about 1780, tells of seeing it used at Magdalen bridge in Cambridge. He says: "The chair hung by a pulley fastened to a beam about the middle of the bridge; and the woman having been fastened in the chair, she was let under water three times successively, and then taken out.... The ducking-stool was constantly hanging in its place, and on the back panel of it was an engraving representing devils laying hold of scolds. Some time after, a new chair was erected in the place of the old one, having the same device carved on it, and well painted and ornamented."

=Page 41.=--_Butts._ Places for the practice of archery, the _butts_ being properly the targets.

=Page 45.=--_Pinfold._ Shakespeare uses the word in _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_ (i. 1. 114): "I mean the pound--a pinfold"; and in _Lear_ (ii. 2. 9): "in Lipsbury pinfold." It was so called because stray beasts were _pinned_ or shut up in it.

=Page 46.=--_One wagon tract._ That is, track. _Tract_ in this sense is obsolete.

=Page 49.=--_In which William Shakespeare was probably born._ We have no positive information on this point; but we know that John Shakespeare resided in Henley Street in 1552, and that he became the owner of this house at some time before 1590. The tradition that this was the poet's birthplace is ancient and has never been disproved. Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, one of the most careful and conservative of critics, says: "There can be no doubt that from the earliest period at which we have, or are likely to have, a record of the fact, it was the tradition of Stratford that the birthplace is correctly so designated"; and he himself accepts the tradition as almost certainly founded upon fact.

The cut facing page 50, like that facing page 56, gives an idea of the interior appearance of these old houses. The room in which tradition says that Shakespeare was born is the front room on the second floor (what English people call the "first floor"), at the left-hand side of the house as seen in the cut on page 49.

In the other cut (the interior of the cottage in which Anne Hathaway, whom Shakespeare married, is said to have lived at Shottery) the very large old-fashioned fire-place is to be noted. Persons could actually sit "in the chimney corner," like the woman in the picture. The grate is a modern addition.

=Page 51.=--_New Place._ Sir Hugh Clopton, for whom this mansion was erected, speaks of it in 1496 as his "great house," a title by which it was commonly known at Stratford for more than two centuries. Shakespeare bought it in 1597 for £60, a moderate price for so large a property; but in a document of the time of Edward VI. it is described as having been for some time "in great ruin and decay and unrepaired," and it was probably in a dilapidated condition when it was transferred to Shakespeare. It had been sold by the Clopton family in 1563, and in 1567 came into the possession of William Underhill, whose family continued to hold it until Shakespeare bought it. He left it by his will to his daughter Susanna, who had married Dr. John Hall, and who probably occupied it until her death in 1649, when she had been a widow for fourteen years. The estate descended to her daughter Elizabeth, who was first married to Thomas Nash, and afterwards to Sir Thomas Barnard. In 1675 it was sold again, and was ultimately re-purchased by the Clopton family. Sir John Clopton rebuilt the house early in the next century, and it was subsequently occupied by another Hugh Clopton. He died in 1751, and in 1756 the estate was sold to Rev. Francis Gastrell, who pulled the house down in 1759, on account of a quarrel with the town authorities concerning the taxes levied upon it. The year before (1758) he had cut down Shakespeare's mulberry-tree, in order, as tradition says, to save himself the trouble of showing it to visitors. The Stratford people were indignant at this act of vandalism. Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps says that an old inhabitant of the town told him that his father, when a boy, "assisted in breaking Gastrell's windows in revenge for the fall of the tree." It is possible, however, that some injustice has been done the reverend gentleman. Davies, in his _Life of Garrick_ (1780), asserts that Gastrell disliked the tree "because it overshadowed his window, and rendered the house, as he thought, subject to damps and moisture." There is also some evidence that the trunk of the tree, which was now a hundred and fifty years old and grown to a great size, had begun to decay. That Gastrell was not indifferent to the poetical associations of the tree is evident from the fact that he kept relics of it, his widow having presented one to the Lichfield Museum in 1778. It is described in a catalogue (1786) of the museum as "an horizontal section of the stock of the mulberry-tree planted by Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon."

=Page 52.=--_William Harrison._ An English clergyman, of whose history we know little except that he was born in London, became rector of Radwinter, Essex, and canon of Windsor, wrote a _Description of Britaine and England_ and other historical books, and probably died in 1592. His detailed account of the state of England and the manners and customs of the people in the 16th century is particularly valuable.

=Page 54.=--_Strewn with rushes._ There are many allusions to this in Shakespeare. In _The Taming of the Shrew_ (iv. 1. 48), when Petruchio is coming home, Grumio asks: "Is supper ready, the house trimmed, rushes strewed, cobwebs swept?" Compare _Romeo and Juliet_, i. 4. 36: "Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels" (that is, in dancing); _Cymbeline_, ii. 2. 13:--

"Our Tarquin thus
Did softly press the rushes," etc.

=Page 55.=--_Thomas Coryat_, born in 1577 and educated at Oxford, was celebrated for his pedestrian journeys on the Continent of Europe. In 1608 he travelled through France, Germany, and Italy, "walking 1975 miles, more than half of which were accomplished in one pair of shoes, which were only once mended, and on his return were hung up in the Church of Odcombe." Of this tour he wrote an account entitled "Coryat's Crudities hastily gobled up in five months' Travels in France," etc. He died at Surat in 1617, after explorations in Greece, Egypt, and India.

=Page 56.=--_Bullein._ William Bullein, or Bulleyn, born about 1500, was a learned physician and botanist. His _Government of Health_ was very popular in its day. He wrote several other books of medicine. He died in 1576.

=Page 57.=--_His Anatomy of Melancholy._ Of this famous work, written by Robert Burton (1577-1640), Dr. Johnson said that it was "the only book that ever took me out of bed two hours sooner than I wished to rise."

=Page 60.=--_Francis Seager._ Of his personal history, as of that of _Hugh Rhodes_, nothing of importance is known.

=Page 61.=--_He is then to make low curtsy._ This form of obeisance was used by both sexes in Shakespeare's day. Cf. _2 Henry IV._ ii. 1. 135: "if a man will make courtesy and say nothing, he is virtuous"; and the epilogue to the same play: "First my fear, then my courtesy, last my speech." _Curtsy_ is a modern spelling of the word in this sense.

=Page 62.=--_Caraways._ The word occurs once in Shakespeare (_2 Henry IV._ v. 3. 3: "a dish of caraways"), where it probably has the same meaning as here; but some have thought that the reference is to a variety of apple.

=Page 63.=--_Treatably._ Tractably, smoothly. Cf. Marston, _What You Will_, ii. 1: "Not too fast; say [recite] treatably."

_Much forder._ We find _d_ and _th_ used interchangeably in many words in old writers; as _fadom_ and _fathom_, _murder_ and _murther_, etc.

=Page 64.=--_To charge thee with than._ We find _than_ for _then_ in Shakespeare, _Lucrece_, 1440:--

"To Simois' reedy banks the red blood ran,
Whose waves to imitate the battle sought
With swelling ridges; and their ranks began
To break upon the galled shore, and than
Retire again," etc.

Here, it will be seen, the word rhymes with _ran_ and _began_. On the other hand, _than_ in the early eds. of Shakespeare and other writers of the time is generally _then_.

=Page 65.=--_Utterly detest._ That is, _detested_. The omission of -_ed_ in the participles of verbs ending in _d_ and _t_ (or _te_) was formerly not uncommon in prose as well as poetry. Cf. Bacon, _Essay 16_: "Their means are less exhaust"; and _Essay 38_: "They have degenerate." See also _Richard III._, iii. 7. 179: "For first was he contract to Lady Lucy," etc.

=Page 66.=--_To enter children._ To begin their training. The word is now obsolete in this sense of introducing to, or initiating into, anything. Cf. Ben Jonson, _Epicœne_, iii. 1: "I am bold to enter these gentlemen in your acquaintance"; Walton, _Complete Angler_: "to enter you into the art of fishing," etc.

_Thorow._ _Thorough_ and _through_ were originally the same word, and we find them and their derivatives used interchangeably in Shakespeare and other old writers. Cf. _A Midsummer-Night's Dream_, ii. 1. 3:--

"Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire."

So we find _thoroughly_ and _throughly_ (_Hamlet_, iv. 5. 36, etc.), _thoroughfares_ and _throughfares_ (_Merchant of Venice_, ii. 7. 42, etc.).

=Page 67.=--_The Ship of Fools._ A translation (with original modifications) of the _Narrenschiff_ of Sebastian Brandt (or Brant), a German satire (1494) upon the follies of different classes of men. It was made in 1508 by Alexander Barclay, who died at an advanced age in 1552. He was educated at Oxford, became a priest, and was vicar of several parishes in England before he was promoted to that of All Saints, Lombard Street, London, a few weeks previous to his death. _The Ship of Fools_ was the first English book in which any mention is made of the New World.

_Strutt._ Joseph Strutt (1742-1802) was an eminent English antiquarian, who wrote several valuable works in that line of literature and others. The first edition of his _Sports and Pastimes of the People of England_ appeared in 1801.

=Page 69.=--_Taylor the Water Poet._ John Taylor (1580-1654), a waterman who afterwards became a collector of wine duties in London. He wrote much in prose and verse, and was very popular in his day.

=Page 70.=--_Dr. John Jones._ A physician, who practised at Bath and Buxton, England, and wrote a number of medical works between 1556 and 1579.

=Page 71.=--_No other clear allusion to the game, etc._ Some critics have thought there may be a punning allusion to the _stale-mate_ of chess in _The Taming of the Shrew_, i. 1. 58: "To make a stale of me among these mates"; but this is doubtful.

=Page 73.=--_She was pinch'd._ The _she_ is used in a demonstrative sense, referring to one of the company (this maid), as _he_ (that man) is in the next line. The _Friar_ is the Friar Rush of the fairy mythology, whom Milton seems here to identify with Jack-o'-the-Lantern, or Will-o'-the-Wisp, the luminous appearance sometimes seen in marshy places; but Friar Rush, according to Keightley, "haunted houses, not fields, and was never the same with Jack-o'-the-Lantern."

=Page 74.=--_The drudging goblin._ Robin Goodfellow, the Puck of Shakespeare. Cf. _A Midsummer-Night's Dream_, ii, 1. 40:--

"They that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck,
You do their work, and they shall have good luck."

_To bed they creep._ Somewhat reluctantly and timidly after the stories of fairies and goblins.

_Charles Knight._ An English publisher and author (1791-1873), one of the leading editors and biographers of Shakespeare.

=Page 75.=--_William Painter._ He was born in England about 1537, and died about 1594. He studied at Cambridge in 1554, and in 1561 was made clerk of the ordnance in the Tower of London. In 1566 he published the first volume of _The Palace of Pleasure_, containing sixty tales from Latin, French, and Italian authors. The second volume (1567) contained thirty-four tales. In later editions six more were added, making a hundred in all. The collection is the source from which Shakespeare and other Elizabethan dramatists drew many of their plots.

=Page 76.=--_Giletta of Narbonne._ The story dramatized by Shakespeare in _All's Well that Ends Well_.

=Page 77.=--_The "Gesta Romanorum."_ A popular collection of stories in Latin, compiled late in the 13th or early in the 14th century, and often reprinted and translated. The two stories (of the caskets and of the bond) combined in the _Merchant of Venice_ are found in it; and also the story of Theodosius and his daughters, which is like that of _Lear_, though Shakespeare did not take the plot of that tragedy directly from it.

=Page 78.=--_The trumpet to the morn._ The _trumpeter_ that announces the coming of day. _Trumpet_ in this sense occurs several times in Shakespeare; as in _Henry V._ iv. 2. 61: "I will the banner from a trumpet take," etc.

_Extravagant and erring._ Both words are used in their etymological sense of wandering. _Extravagant_ is, literally, _wandering beyond_ (its proper _confine_, or limit).

_Arden._ There was a Forest of Arden in Warwickshire as well as on the Continent in the northeastern part of France. Drayton, in his _Matilda_ (1594), speaks of "Sweet Arden's nightingales," etc.

_The ringlets of their dance._ The "fairy rings," so called, which were supposed to be made by their dancing on the grass. In _The Tempest_ (v. 1. 37) Prospero refers to them thus, in his apostrophe to the various classes of spirits over whom he has control:--

"You demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make
Whereof the ewe not bites."

Dr. Grey, in his _Notes on Shakespeare_, says that they are "higher, sourer, and of a deeper green than the grass which grows round them." They were long a mystery even to scientific men, but are now known to be due to the spreading of a kind of _agaricum_, or fungus, which enriches the ground by its decay.

_Who tasted the honey-bag of the bee, etc._ All these allusions to the fairies are suggested by passages in _A Midsummer-Night's Dream_. The _cankers_ are canker-worms, as often in Shakespeare.

=Page 79.=--_A laund._ An open space in a forest. See _3 Henry VI._ iii. 1. 2: "For through this laund anon the deer will come," etc. _Lawn_ is a corruption of _laund_.

=Page 80.=--_Who had command over the spirits, etc._ Like Prospero in _The Tempest_.

_Vervain and dill._ These were among the plants supposed to be used by witches in their charms; but many such plants were also believed to be efficacious as counter-charms, or means of protection against witchcraft. _Vervain_ was called "the enchanter's plant," on account of its magic potency; but Aubrey says that it "hinders witches from their wills," and Drayton refers to it as "'gainst witchcraft much availing."

=Page 81.=--The ancient font represented in the cut was in use in the Stratford Church until about the middle of the 17th century. Shakespeare was doubtless baptized at it.

=Page 82.=--_John Stow._ A noted English antiquarian and historian (1525-1604). His _Survey of London_ (1598) is the standard authority on old London.

=Page 83.=--_The calendars of their nativity._ Referring to the twin Dromios, who were born at the same time with the twin children of the Abbess, who is really Emilia, the long-lost wife of Egeus. By a similar figure Antipholus of Syracuse (i. 2. 41) says of Dromio, "Here comes the almanac of my true date."

_Caraways._ See on page 62 above. _Marmalet_ is an obsolete form of _marmalade_. _Marchpane_ was a kind of almond-cake, much esteemed in the time of Shakespeare. Compare _Romeo and Juliet_, i. 5. 9: "Good thou, save me a piece of marchpane." _Sweet-suckers_ are dried sweetmeats or sugar-plums, also called _suckets_, _succades_, etc.

=Page 85.=--_Wote._ Know; more commonly written _wot_. It is the first and third persons singular, indicative present, of the obsolete verb _wit_. _Unweeting_ (_unwitting_), unknowing or unconscious, is from the same verb.

=Page 86.=--_Thomas Lupton._ He wrote several books besides his _Thousand Notable Things_, which was a collection of medical recipes, stories, etc. Little is known of his personal history.

_Robert Heron._ He was a Scotchman (1764-1807), who wrote books of travel, geography, history, etc.

_Warlocks._ Persons supposed to be in league with the devil; sorcerers or wizards.

=Page 87.=--_Beshrew._ Originally a mild imprecation of evil, but often used playfully, as here. Compare the similar modern use of _confound_, which originally meant ruin or destroy; as in the _Merchant of Venice_, iii. 2. 271: "So keen and greedy to confound a man," etc.

=Page 88.=--_Astrologaster._ The full title was "The Astrologaster, or the Figurecaster: Rather the Arraignment of Artless Astrologers and Fortune Tellers."

=Page 89.=--_In the following form._ There were other forms, but this was regarded as one of the most potent. It will be seen that the word, as here arranged, can be read in various ways; as, for instance, following each line to the end and then up the right-hand side of the triangle, etc. An old writer, after giving directions to write the word in this triangular form, adds: "Fold the paper so as to conceal the writing, and stitch it into the form of a cross with white thread. This amulet wear in the bosom, suspended by a linen ribbon, for nine days. Then go in dead silence, before sunrise, to the bank of a stream that flows eastward, take the amulet from off the neck, and fling it backwards into the water. If you open or read it, the charm is destroyed." It was thought to be efficacious for the cure of fevers, "especially quartan and semi-tertian agues."

_Thomas Lodge._ He was born about 1556, and died in 1625, and wrote plays, novels, songs, translations, etc. His _Rosalynde_ (1590) furnished Shakespeare with the plot of _As You Like It_.

=Page 90.=--_Robert Greene_ (1560-1592) was a popular dramatist, novelist, and poet in his day. In his _Groatsworth of Wit_ (published in 1592, after his death) he attacked the rising Shakespeare as "an upstart crow," who was "in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country." Shakespeare afterwards took the story of _The Winter's Tale_ from Greene's _Pandosto_, or _Dorastus and Fawnia_, as it was subsequently entitled.

_Webster's White Devil._ John Webster, who wrote in the early part of the 17th century, was a dramatist noted for his tragedies, among which _The White Devil_ (1612) is reckoned one of the best. Of his biography nothing worth mentioning is known.

_Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy._ See on page 57 above.

_Reginald Scot_, who died in 1599, is chiefly known by his _Discoverie of Witchcraft_, the main facts concerning which are given here.

=Page 91.=--_Wierus._ The Latin form of the name of _Weier_, a German physician, who in 1563 published a book (_De Præstigiis Demonum_) in which the general belief in magic and witchcraft was attacked.

_We infer that Shakespeare had read Scot's book._ However this may be, we are sure that he had read a book by Dr. Samuel Harsnet (1561-1631) entitled _Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures, etc., under the pretence of casting out devils_ (1603), from which he took the names of some of the devils in _Lear_ (iii. 4).

=Page 96.=--_Henry Peacham._ "A travelling tutor, musician, painter, and author," who wrote on drawing and painting, etiquette, education, etc. His father, whose name was the same, was also an author, and it is doubtful whether certain books were written by him or by his son.

_Roger Ascham_ (1515-1568) was a noted classical scholar and author. He was tutor to Elizabeth (1548-1550), and Latin Secretary to Mary and Elizabeth (1553-1568). His chief works were the _Toxophilus_ (1545) and the _Scholemaster_ (see page 115 below).

=Page 97.=--_Took on him as a conjurer._ Pretended to be a conjurer. Compare _2 Henry IV._ iv. 1. 60: "I take not on me here as a physician."

=Page 98.=--_Who could speak Latin, etc._ Latin, the language of the church, was used in exorcising spirits. Compare _Hamlet_ (i. 1. 42), where, on the appearance of the Ghost, Marcellus says: "Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio." So in _Much Ado About Nothing_ (ii. 1. 264), Benedick, after comparing Beatrice to "the infernal Ate," adds: "I would to God some scholar would conjure her!" See also Beaumont and Fletcher, _The Night-Walker_, ii. 1:--

"Let's call the butler up, for he speaks Latin,
And that will daunt the devil."

=Page 99.=--_Transparent horn._ Used to protect the paper, as explained in the quotation from Shenstone on page 101. The horn-book was really "of stature small," the figure on page 100 being of the exact size of the specimen described. One delineated by Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps is of about the same size. See Chambers's _Book of Days_, vol. i. p. 46.

=Page 101.=--_Shenstone._ William Shenstone (1714-1763) was educated at Pembroke College, Oxford. His best-known work is _The Schoolmistress_.

=Page 102.=--_The modern plastered ceiling, etc._ This has been removed within the past few years. Its appearance before the restoration is shown in the cut (from Knight's _Biography of Shakspere_).

=Page 103.=--_Sententiæ Pueriles._ Literally, Boyish Sentences, or Sentences for Boys.

_Sir Hugh Evans._ The title of _Sir_ (equivalent to the Latin _dominus_) was given to priests. The "hedge-priest" in _As You Like It_ (iii. 3) is called "Sir Oliver Martext." In _Twelfth Night_ (iii. 4. 298) Viola says: "I had rather go with sir priest than sir knight."

_'Od's nouns._ Probably a corruption of "God's wounds," which is also contracted into _Swounds_ and _Zounds_. So we find "od's heartlings," "od's pity," etc. Dame Quickly confounds _'od_ and _odd_.

=Page 104.=--_Articles._ Sir Hugh uses the word in the sense of "demonstratives." This shows that the _Accidence_ mentioned above as the book from which Shakespeare got his first lessons in Latin (as Halliwell-Phillipps and other authorities state) gave some of the elementary facts in precisely the same form in which they appear in the Latin Grammar written _in English_ and published in 1574 with the title, "A Short Introduction of Grammar, generally to be used: compiled and set forth for the bringing up of all those that intend to attaine to the knowledge of the Latine Tongue." I transcribe this from the edition published at Oxford in 1651 (a copy in the Harvard University library, which appears to be the one studied by President Ezra Stiles when he was a boy). In this book (page 3), under the head of "Articles," we read:--

"Articles are borrowed of the Pronoune, and be thus declined:

Singulariter.

_Nomin._ _hic_, _hæc_, _hoc_.
_Genetivo_ _hujus_.
_Dativo_ _huic_.
_Acc._ _hunc_, _hanc_, _hoc_.
_Vocativo_ _caret_.
_Ablativo_ _hoc_, _hac_, _hec_.

Pluraliter.

_Nomin._ _hi_, _hæ_, _hæc_.
_Gen._ _horum_, _harum_, _horum_.
_Dativo_ _his_.
_Accus._ _hos_, _has_, _hæc_.
_Vocativo_ _caret_.
_Ablativo_ _his_."

It will be noticed that the names of the cases are in Latin, as in Shakespeare. He may have used this very grammar.

_Hang-hog is Latin for Bacon._ Suggested by the hanging up of the pork during the process of curing. There is an old story of Sir Nicholas Bacon (father of the philosopher), who was a judge. A criminal whom he was about to sentence begged mercy on account of kinship. "Prithee, said my lord, how came that in? Why, if it please you, my lord, your name is _Bacon_ and mine is _Hog_, and in all ages Hog and Bacon are so near kindred that they are not to be separated. Ay, but, replied the judge, you and I cannot be of kindred unless you be hanged; for Hog is not Bacon till it be well hanged."

_Leave your prabbles._ That is, your _brabbles_. The word literally means quarrels or broils; as in _Twelfth Night_, v. 1. 68: "In private brabble did we apprehend him." Sir Hugh uses it loosely with reference to the Dame's interruptions and criticisms.

_O!--vocativo, O!_ The boy hesitates, trying to recall the vocative, but Sir Hugh reminds him that it is wanting--_caret_ in Latin, which suggests _carrot_ to the Dame. The _O_ is suggested by its use before the vocative case of nouns in the paradigms in the _Accidence_, which probably here also agrees with the _Short Introduction_, where in the first declension we find: "_Vocativo ô musa_"; in the second: "_Vocativo ô magister_," etc.

William Lilly (or Lily), the author of the Latin Grammar mentioned on page 105, was born about 1468 and died in 1523. He was an eminent scholar and the first master of St. Paul's School, London. His Grammar (written in Latin) was entitled "Brevissima Institutio, seu, Ratio Grammatices cognoscendæ, ad omnium puerorum utilitatem præscripta." Of this book more than three hundred editions were printed, the latest mentioned by Allibone (who, by the way, gives the title of the Grammar in an imperfect and ungrammatical form) having been issued in 1817. A copy of the 1651 edition is bound with the _Short Introduction_ of the same date in the Harvard Library. Lilly was the author of both.

_You must be preeches._ That is, you must be _breeched_, or flogged. Compare _The Taming of the Shrew_ (iii. 1. 18), where Bianca says to her teachers: "I am no breeching scholar in the schools."

_Sprag._ That is, _sprack_, which meant quick, ready. The word is Scotch, as well as Provincial English, and Scott uses it in _Waverley_ (chap, xliii.): "all this fine sprack [lively] festivity and jocularity."

=Page 105.=--_A passage from Terence._ In the play, as in the Grammar, it reads: "Redime te captum quam queas minimo." The original Latin is: "Quid agas, nisi ut te redimas captum," etc.

=Page 106.=--_Richard Mulcaster._ The poet Spenser was one of his pupils at Merchant-Taylors School in 1568 see (Church's _Spenser_ in "English Men of Letters" series). In 1596 Mulcaster became master of St. Paul's School. He died in 1611. The title of the book quoted here was _The First Part of the Elementarie ... of the Right Writing of our English Tung_. The author's theory was better than his practice, as the specimen of his "right writing" given here will suffice to show. It is to be hoped that his oral style was less clumsy and involved.

_Correctors for the print._ Whether this refers to persons correcting manuscript for the press or to proof-readers is doubtful, but probably the former. Some have denied that there was any proof-reading in the Elizabethan age; but variations in copies of the same edition of a book (the First Folio of Shakespeare, published in 1623, for instance) prove that corrections in the text were sometimes made even after the printing had begun. The author also sometimes did some proof-reading. At the end of Beeton's _Will of Wit_ (1599) we find this note: "What faults are escaped in the printing, finde by discretion, and excuse the author, by other worke that let [hindered] him from attendance to the presse."

_Rip up._ That is, analyze.

=Page 107.=--_The natural English._ That is, natives of England.

_Will not yield flat to theirs._ Will not conform exactly to theirs.

=Page 108.=--_Bewrayeth._ Shows, makes known. Cf. _Proverbs_, xxvii. 16; _Matthew_, xxvi. 73.

_Enfranchisement._ This evidently refers to the "naturalization" of foreign words taken into the language, or making their orthography conform to English usage.

_Prerogative, etc._ This paragraph is somewhat obscure at first reading; but it appears to mean that _common use_, or established usage, settles certain questions concerning which there might otherwise be some doubt.

_Likes the pen._ Suits the pen. Compare _Hamlet_ ii. 2. 80: "it likes us well"; _Henry V._ iii. prol. 32: "The offer likes not," etc.

_Particularities._ Peculiarities.

_Which either cannot understand, etc._ The relative is equivalent to _who_, and refers to the preceding _many_. This use of _which_ was common in Shakespeare's day. Compare _The Tempest_, iii. 1. 6: "The mistress which I serve," etc.

_Or cannot entend to understand, etc._ That is, cannot _intend_ (of which _entend_ is an obsolete form), but the word is here used in a sense which is not recognized in the dictionaries. The meaning seems to be that these "plain people" cannot understand a rule either at sight or after some effort to comprehend it, having neither the _time_ nor the _conceit_ (intellect) to master it. _Conceit_ in this sense is common in Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Compare _2 Henry IV._ ii. 4. 263: "He a good wit?... there's no more conceit in him than is in a mallet."

=Page 109.=--_John Brinsley_ became master of the grammar school at Ashby-de-la-Zouche in 1601, where he remained for sixteen years. The full title of his book is _Ludus Literarius, or the Grammar Schoole_ (1612). He writes much better English than Mulcaster, and young people will find no difficulty in understanding the passage quoted from him.

_Proceed in learning._ That is, pursue their studies after leaving the grammar school.

=Page 110.=--_Present correction._ Immediate correction, or punishment. For this old sense of _present_, compare _2 Henry IV._ iv. 3. 80:--

"Send Colevile with his confederates
To York, to present execution."

_Countervail._ Counterbalance, make up for.

=Page 112.=--_Willis._ All that is known of this "R. Willis" is from his autobiography, the title of which is, "Mount Tabor, or Private Exercises of a Penitent Sinner, published in the yeare of his age 75, anno Dom. 1639." He is the same person who is quoted on page 161 below.

=Page 113.=--_His references to schoolboys, etc._ Perhaps we ought not to lay much stress on these. The description of "the whining schoolboy" is from the "Seven Ages" of the cynical Jaques, who describes all these stages of human life in sneering and disparaging terms; and the other passages simply refer to the proverbial dislike of boys to go to school.

=Page 114.=--_Thomas Tusser_ (1527?-1580?) was a poet and writer on agriculture. Besides his _One Hundred Points of Good Husbandry_ (1557), he wrote _Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, United to as Many of Good Wiferie_ (1570), etc. He was educated at Oxford, spent ten years at court, and then settled on a farm, where the rest of his life was passed.

=Page 115.=--_In few of Shakespeare's references to school life, etc._ See on _You must be preeches_, page 227 above; and compare _Much Ado About Nothing_, ii. 1. 228:--

"_Don Pedro._ To be whipped? What's his fault?
_Benedick._ The flat transgression of a schoolboy," etc.

=Page 118.=--_A sanctuary against fear._ The allusion is to those sacred places in which criminals could take refuge and be exempt from arrest. There was such a sanctuary within the precincts of Westminster Abbey, which retained its privileges until the dissolution of the monastery, and for debtors until 1602. Compare _Richard III._ (ii. 4. 66), where Queen Elizabeth says: "Come, come, my boy; we will to sanctuary."

=Page 122.=--_Hoodman-blind._ In _All's Well that Ends Well_ (iv. 3. 136), when Parolles is brought in blindfolded to his companions in arms, whom he supposes to be enemies that have captured him, one of them says aside, "Hoodman comes."

_Loggats._ When I was at Amherst College, forty or more years ago, we had this same exercise under the name of "loggerheads"; but I have not seen it or heard of it anywhere else.