Part 12

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

SCENE 2. Page 350.

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

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

SCENE 2. Page 351.

Pageant of the nine worthies.

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

SCENE 2. Page 353.

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

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

SCENE 2. Page 353.

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

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

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

SCENE 2. Page 360.

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

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

SCENE 2. Page 367.

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

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

THE CLOWN.

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

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

MERCHANT OF VENICE.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 397.

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

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

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

Act III. Scene 2.

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

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

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

SCENE 1. Page 399.

SALAN. Now, by _two-headed Janus_.

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

SCENE 2. Page 410.

POR. If a _throstle_ sing.

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

SCENE 3. Page 413.

Enter SHYLOCK.

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

SCENE 3. Page 414.

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

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

SCENE 3. Page 416.

SHY. He stuck them up before the _fulsome_ ewes.

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

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

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

SCENE 3. Page 418.

SHY. About my money and my _usances_.

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

SCENE 3. Page 421.

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

Thus in the ballad of _Gernutus_:

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

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 423.

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

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

SCENE 2. Page 426.

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

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

SCENE 2. Page 427.

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

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

SCENE 5. Page 443.

SHY. The _patch_ is kind enough.

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

SCENE 7. Page 450.

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

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

SCENE 7. Page 450.

MOR. _Gilded tombs_ do worms infold.

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

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

SCENE 8. Page 453.

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

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

SCENE 9. Page 458.

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

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

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 465.

SHY. It was my _turquoise_.

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

SCENE 2. Page 469.

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

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

SCENE 2. Page 472.

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

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

SCENE 2. Page 472.

BASS. Thy _plainness_ moves me more than eloquence.

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

SCENE 2. Page 474.

BASS. Fair Portia's _counterfeit_?

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

SCENE 2. Page 480.

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

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

SCENE 2. Page 480.

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

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

ACT IV.

SCENE 1. Page 501.

SHY. Why he a _swollen_ bagpipe.

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

SCENE 1. Page 506.

BASS. Why dost thou _whet thy knife_ so earnestly?

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

SCENE 1. Page 507.

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

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

SCENE 1. Page 509.

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