Part 25

Shakspeare, who in many instances has proved himself to have been well acquainted with the forms and ceremonies of the Romish church, has, without doubt, on the present occasion availed himself of the above opinion. Whether this had happened to that pre-eminent painter, who, among the numerous monuments of his excellence that have immortalized himself and done honour to his country, has depicted the last moments of Cardinal Beaufort with all the powers of his art, cannot now be easily ascertained. He has been censured for personifying the fiend, on the supposition that the poet's language is merely figurative; with what justice this note may perhaps assist in deciding. Some might disapprove the renovation of Popish ideas; whilst others, more attentive to ancient costume, and regardless of popular or other prejudices, might be disposed to defend the painter on the ground of strict adherence to the manners of the times.

The reader may not be displeased at being introduced to a more intimate acquaintance with the _ancient_ mode of representing a dying man as above referred to. It is copied from a print in a later edition of the _Ars moriendi_, one of those books on which the citizens of Haarlem found their claim to the invention of printing; whereas it is in fact no more than a collection of wooden engravings made for pious purposes, and explained by writing cut on the same blocks, and by no means a real specimen of the above art. To this is added another exhibition of the same subject, but very superior in point of art. It is copied from an engraving in wood by an unknown artist of considerable merit; and from the striking resemblance which it bears to the picture of our great painter above alluded to, much cannot be hazarded in supposing that he might have taken some hints from it, as it is well known that he collected many prints with the view of making such use of preceding excellence as the most exalted genius will ever condescend to do.

The Greeks, when persons were dying, drove away evil spirits by placing at the door branches of bramble or buckthorn. They likewise made a noise by beating brazen vessels for the same purpose.

ACT IV.

SCENE 2. Page 139.

CADE. ... the _three-hoop'd_ pot shall have ten hoops.

The note here is not sufficiently explanatory. The old drinking pots, being of wood, were bound together, as barrels are, with hoops; whence they were called _hoops_. Cade promises that every can which now had three hoops shall be increased in size so as to require ten. What follows in the notes about "burning of cans," does not appear to relate to the subject.

SCENE 2. Page 140.

SMITH. The clerk of Chatham.

This person is a nonentity in history, and in all probability a character invented by the writer of the play. It is presumed that few will be inclined to agree with Mr. Ritson in supposing him to have been Thomas Bayly, _a necromancer at Whitechapel_, and Cade's bosom friend.

SCENE 7. Page 161.

CADE. Then break into his son in law's house, Sir _James_ Cromer.

Mr. Ritson cites William of Worcester to show that this sheriff's name was _William_. The author of the play, if wrong, may be justified by the examples of Halle, Grafton, Stowe, in his early editions, and Holinshed, who call him _James_. Fabian, as if doubtful, leaves a blank for Crowmer's Christian name. As to the fact itself, the evidence of William of Worcester, a contemporary writer, is entitled to the preference. Fuller's list of the sheriffs of Kent likewise makes the name _William_.

SCENE 10. Page 173.

CADE. I think this word sallet was born to do me good: for many a time, but for a _sallet_, my brain-pan had been cleft with a brown bill.

The notes on this occasion may admit of correction as well as curtailment. It is possible that we have borrowed _sallet_ from the French _salade_, in the sense of a helmet: but the original word is the old Teutonic _schale_, which signifies generally _a covering_. Hence _shell_, _scale_, _scull_, _shield_, &c. Wicliffe does not use _brain-pan_ for scull, in Judges ix. 53, as Mr. Whalley supposes, but _brain_, simply.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] One should almost suppose that the historian had recollected Cyrano de Bergerac's dream of a visit to the infernal regions, where he saw the Duke of Clarence, "who," says he, "_voluntarily drowned himself in a barrel of Malmsey_, seeking for Diogenes, in hopes of getting half his tub to lodge in."

KING HENRY VI.

PART III.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 223.

EXE. Here comes the queen whose looks _bewray_ her anger.

Although the word _bewray_ has received very proper illustration on the present and other occasions, it remains to observe that its simple and original meaning was to _discover_ or _disclose_; that it has been confounded with _betray_, which is used, though not exclusively, for _to discover for bad or treacherous purposes_, a sense in which bewray is never _properly_ found. Of this position take the following proof: "If you do so, saide the other, then you ought to let me knowe what so ever you know your selfe: unlesse you thinke that yourself will _bewray_ yourself, except you doubt yourself will deceive yourself, and unlesse you thinke that yourself will _betray_ your self."--Lupton's _Siuqila_, 1580, 4to, sign. L 4. b.

SCENE 1. Page 224.

Q. MAR. _Rather_ than made that savage duke thine heir.

The note which follows Mr. Steevens's was _not_ inadvertently introduced by that gentleman, though it certainly should not have been retained _as the text now stands_.

SCENE 4. Page 242.

Q. MAR. [Putting a _paper_ crown on his head.]

Mr. Ritson has not shown, as he conceived he had, that the preceding commentator was _certainly mistaken_: for the author of the play, if he be accountable for the stage direction, could not have "followed history with the utmost precision," when he makes _queen Margaret_ put a _paper_ crown on York's head; whereas Holinshed, the black-letter chronicler whom Mr. Ritson should have first consulted, and who only follows Whethamstede, relates that a garland of _bulrushes_ was placed on York's head; which was afterwards stricken off and presented to the queen. Nor is there historical evidence that the queen herself put on the crown. Shakspeare has continued the same error in _King Richard the Third_, where he makes Gloucester say to queen Margaret,

"The curse my noble father laid on thee When thou didst crown his noble brows with _paper_."

He was therefore, in this instance, misled by the author of _King Henry the Sixth_; or he must have written the queen's speech himself.

SCENE 4. Page 244.

YORK. Whose tongue more poisons than the adder's tooth.

Again in _Cymbeline_, Act III. Scene 4;

"Whose tongue outvenoms all the worms of Nile."

ACT III.

SCENE 2. Page 310.

L. GREY. But, mighty lord, this merry inclination Accords not with the _sadness_ of my suit.

The following is offered as a very select instance of the use of _sadness_ for _seriousness_. It is from Tom Coriat's speech that he made to a Mahometan who had called him an infidel. "But I pray thee tell me thou Mahometan, dost thou in _sadness_ call me _Giaur_? That I doe, quoth he. Then quoth I, in very _sober sadness_ I retort that shameful word in thy throate."

SCENE 2. Page 314.

GLO. Like to a chaos, or an _unlick'd bear-whelp_.

The common opinion which Dr. Johnson mentions of the bear bringing forth unformed lumps of animated flesh, and afterwards licking them into proper shape, has been very properly exposed and confuted by Sir Thomas Brown in his _Enquiries into vulgar errors_, book iii. ch. 6. His adversary Ross, in his _Arcana microcosmi_, p. 115, has attempted a solution of this matter, by stating it as a fact that bears bring forth their young deformed and mis-shapen, by reason of the thick membrane in which they are wrapped, that is, covered over with a mucous and phlegmatick matter. This, he says, the dam contracts in the winter time, by lying in hollow caves without motion, so that to the eye the cub appears like an unformed lump. The above mucilage is afterwards licked away by the dam, and the membrane broken, whereby that which before seemed to be unformed appears now in its right shape. And this, he contends, against Dr. Brown, is all that the ancients meant. See more on the subject of the old opinion in Bartholomæus _De proprietat. rerum_, lib. xviii. c. 112.

ACT IV.

SCENE 7. Page 359.

GLO. For many men that _stumble at the threshold_.

To understand this phrase rightly, it must be remembered that some of the old thresholds or steps under the door, were, like the hearths, raised a little, so that a person might stumble over them unless proper care was taken. A very whimsical reason for this practice is given in a curious little tract by Sir Balthazar Gerbier, entitled, _Councel and advice to all builders_, 1663, 24mo, in these words, "A good surveyour shuns also the ordering of doores with _stumbling-block-thresholds_, though our forefathers affected them, perchance to perpetuate the antient custome of bridegroomes, when formerly at their return from church [they] did use to lift up their bride, and to knock their head against that of the doore, for a remembrance, that they were not to passe the threshold of their house without their leave."

ACT V.

SCENE 7. Page 403.

CLAR. What will your grace have done with Margaret? Reignier her father, to the king of France Hath pawn'd the Sicils and Jerusalem, And hither have they sent _it_ for her ransom.

Unless there be some omission in this speech, it must either be regarded as improperly elliptical, or as ungrammatical. _It_ refers to the sum of money borrowed by Margaret's father, which is mentioned by the French historians to have been fifty thousand crowns. The author of the play followed Holinshed.

* * * * *

The right accentuation of Hĕcătē, as well as the proper description of Althea's torch, which Shakspeare, in _King Henry the Fourth_, had misrepresented, are additional arguments that he did _not_ write the whole of these plays; but that they were composed by some person who had more classical knowledge, but infinitely less genius than our author.

KING RICHARD III.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 461.

GLO. _He capers_ nimbly in a lady's chamber To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

The question with Dr. Johnson is, whether it be _war_ that capers, or _York_; and he justly remarks that if the latter, the antecedent is at an almost forgotten distance. The amorous temper of Edward the Fourth is well known; and there cannot be a doubt that by _the lascivious pleasing of a lute_, he is directly alluded to. The subsequent description likewise that Richard gives of himself is in comparison with the _king_. Dr. Johnson thought the image of _war capering_ poetical; yet it is not easy to conceive how _grimvisag'd war_ could _caper in a lady's chamber_.

SCENE 1. Page 462.

GLO. Cheated of feature by _dissembling_ nature.

The poet by this expression seems to mean no more than that nature had made for Richard features _unlike_ those of other men. To dissemble, both here and in the passage quoted from _King John_, signifies the reverse of to _resemble_, in its active sense, and is not used as _dissimulare_ in Latin.

ACT II.

SCENE 3. Page 540.

2 CIT. Ill news by'r lady; _seldom comes the better_.

Well might the author of the book quoted by Mr. Reed say "that proverb indeed is auncient," as will appear from the following curious account of its origin extracted from a manuscript collection of stories compiled about the time of king Henry the Third:--

"Quidam abbas dedit monachis suis tria fercula. Dixerunt monachi, Iste parum dat nobis. Rogemus Deum ut cito moriatur. Et sive ex hac causa, sive ex alia, mortuus est. Substitutus est alius, qui eis tamen dedit duo fercula. Irati monachi contristati dixerunt, Nunc magis est orandum, quia unum ferculum subtractum est, Deus subtrahat ei vitam suam. Tandem mortuus est. Substitutus est tertius, qui duo fercula subtraxit. Irati monachi dixerunt, Iste pessimus est inter omnes, quia fame nos interficit; rogemus Deum quod cito moriatur. Dixit unus monachus, Rogo Deum quod det ei vitam longam, et manu teneat eum nobis. Alii admirati querebant quare hoc diceret; qui ait, Vide quod primus fuit malus, secundus pejor, iste pessimus; timeo quod cum mortuus fuerit alius pejor succedet, qui penitus nos fame perimet. Unde solet dici, _Seilde comed se betere_."

SCENE 4. Page 546.

Q. ELIZ. A _parlous_ boy.

"Parlous," says Mr. Steevens, "is keen, shrewd." Mr. Ritson is of a different opinion, and thinks it a corruption of _perilous_, dangerous. Both parties are right; but it is probably used here as _perilous_, in like manner as the nurse in _Romeo and Juliet_ talks of "a _parlous_ knock," and as it is also to be taken in _A midsummer night's dream_, where Mr. Steevens had properly explained it; and the instance which he has given on the present occasion does, in fact, corroborate his former note. _Parlous_ is likewise made synonymous with _shrewd_ by Littelton. See his Latin dict. v. _importunus_. In Middleton's play of _The changeling_, we have "a _parlous_ fool," i. e. _shrewd_, "he must sit in the fourth form at least." Yet a few pages further the same word is as clearly used for _perilous_. After all there is little or no difference in the senses of it, for in shrewdness there is certainly peril. He that meets with a _shrew_, may well be said to be _in danger_. Some might think that this word is the same as _talkative_, in which case it must have been borrowed from the French; but that language does not furnish an adjective of the kind. The original corruption was _perlious_. Thus in an unpublished work by William of Nassyngton, a poet of the fifteenth century, who wrote on the Lord's prayer, &c., we have, "Methinks this maner is _perlious_."

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 561.

YORK. Uncle, my brother mocks both you and me; Because that I am little, like an _ape_, He thinks that you should _bear me on your shoulders_.

Mr. M. Mason contends that this is simply an allusion to Richard's deformity, and is not inclined to admit the propriety of Dr. Johnson's supposition that York means to call his uncle a _bear_. From a quotation given by the former gentleman, it is clear that Shakspeare, when alluding to Richard's deformity, mentions his _back_; and it is therefore probable that he would have used the same term in the present instance, had he adverted to the duke's shape. For this reason Dr. Johnson's opinion seems preferable; yet something more might have been intended. The practice of keeping apes or domestic monkeys was formerly much more common than at present. Many old prints and paintings corroborate this observation,[17] and in some the monkey appears chained to a large globe or roller of wood, which, whilst it permitted the animal to shift his situation, prevented him from making his escape. It is almost unnecessary to add that the monkey, as the intimate companion of the domestic fool, would often get upon his shoulders. There is a fine picture, by Holbein, of Henry the Eighth and some of his family, which by favour of his majesty now decorates the meeting room of the Society of Antiquaries. In it is an admirable portrait of Will Somers, the king's fool, with a monkey clinging to his neck, and apparently occupied in rendering his friend William a very essential piece of service, wherein this animal is remarkably dexterous, the fool reclining his head in a manner that indicates his sense of the obligation. York may therefore mean to call his uncle a fool, and this, after all, may be the _scorn_ that Buckingham afterwards refers to.

Every one is acquainted with the propensity of the monkey to climbing upon other animals. Gervase Markham in his _Cavalerice_, a treatise on horsemanship, already referred to, devotes a chapter to inform his readers "how a horse may be taught to doe any tricke done by _Bankes_ his curtall," in which he says, "I will shew you by the example of two or three trickes, how you shall make your horse to doe any other action as well as any dog or _ape_ whatsoever, except it be _leaping upon your shoulders_." The curious reader may find more illustration of the subject in the specimen of Dr. Boucher's _Supplement to Johnson's dictionary_, article _ape_; but the learned and ingenious author was certainly mistaken in supposing that fools carried the _representations of apes on their shoulders_, and probably in what he says concerning the origin of the phrase of putting an _ape_ in a man's hood.

ACT IV.

SCENE 2. Page 621.

K. RICH. Because that like a _Jack_, thou keep'st the _stroke_.

At Horsham church, in Sussex, there was a figure dressed in scarlet and gold, that struck the quarters. He was called _Jack o' the clock-house_. The French term for this kind of automaton is _jaquemar_, the etymology of which is very fanciful and uncertain.

ACT V.

SCENE 1. Page 660.

BUCK. _Holy_ king Henry----

This epithet is not applied without good reason. King Henry the Sixth, though never actually canonized, was regarded as a saint, and miracles were supposed to have been performed by him. In some of our church service-books before the Reformation, there are prayers which are said to have been of his composition, and one in particular that is addressed to him is entitled, "A prayer to _holy_ king Henry."

SCENE 3. Page 665.

K. RICH. Besides, the king's name is a tower of strength.

Borrowed from _Proverbs_, xviii. v. 10. "The _name_ of the Lord is _a strong tower_."

SCENE 3. Page 667.

CATE. ... It's supper time, my lord; It's _nine_ o'clock.

"A supper at so late an hour as nine o'clock in the year 1485," says Mr. Steevens, "would have been a prodigy." It certainly would, and even at the time when this play was written, the period to which the criticism more justly belongs. In either instance there was a reason for preferring the text of the quarto copy, and yet the unnecessary alteration is retained.

SCENE 3. Page 688.

K. RICH. This and Saint George _to boot_.

Dr. Johnson is undoubtedly right against both his opponents, one of whom has adduced the phrase _St. George to borrow_, unintentionally in support of him. _To borrow_ is no more a verb than _to boot_; it means _as a pledge or security_, _borrow_ being the Saxon term for _a pledge_. The phrase is an invocation to the saint to act as a protector. _Saint George to thrive_ is evidently a misconceived paraphrase of the old mode of expression, by improperly changing the substantive to a verb. Holinshed, in the speech of Richard before the battle, introduces "_St. George to borrowe_."

SCENE 3. Page 690.

K. RICH. Long kept in Bretagne at our _mother's_ cost.

It has already been stated by Dr. Farmer that the mistake here of _mother_ for _brother_ must be placed to the account of the book which Shakspeare followed, viz. Holinshed's chronicle; but the doctor has omitted to notice that in the _first edition_ of Holinshed the word is rightly printed _brother_. It is no otherwise worth while to mention this fact, than that it points out the particular edition of the above historian which Shakspeare used. Nothing can be more judicious nor decisive than Mr. Malone's argument for retaining the historical errors of Shakspeare, and Mr. Ritson's desire of changing the text does not correspond with those principles of accuracy on which he laid so much stress.

SCENE 3. Page 691.

K. RICH. A _milksop_, &c.

This is from Holinshed, "To begyn with the earle of Richmonde capitayne of this rebellion, he is a _Welsh milksoppe_," &c.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] See the fine frontispiece by Coriolano to Vesalius's Anatomy.

KING HENRY VIII.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 21.

BUCK. ... but this top-proud fellow (Whom from the flow of gall I _name not_, but From _sincere motions_)

Dr. Johnson explains _sincere motions_ to be _honest indignation_; and, for _name not_, would substitute _blame not_. But is not the following the plain sense, without any alteration? "this top-proud fellow, whom I call so, not from an excess of bitterness, but from a genuine _impulse_ of the mind."

SCENE 1. Page 26.

BUCK. I am the shadow of poor Buckingham, Whose figure even this instant cloud puts on, By dark'ning my clear sun.

It is no easy matter on some occasions to comprehend the precise meaning of Shakspeare's metaphors, which are often careless and confused; and of this position the present lines are, doubtless, an example. We have here a double comparison. Buckingham is first made to say that he is but a shadow; in other terms, a dead man. He then adverts to the _sudden_ cloud of misfortune that overwhelms him, and, like a shadow, obscures his prosperity.

SCENE 3. Page 42.

CHAM. Is it possible the spells of France should juggle Men into such strange _mysteries_?

Dr. Johnson's explanation is much too fanciful. Mysteries are _arts_, and here _artificial fashions_.

ACT II.

SCENE 2. Page 71.

NOR. I'll venture one _heave_ at him.

The first folio reads "I'll venture one; _have_ at him," and this, except as to the punctuation, is right. _Have at you_ was a common phrase; it is used by Surrey in the ensuing act, and afterwards by Cromwell.

SCENE 2. Page 73.

CAM. ... which so griev'd him, [Doctor Pace] That he ran mad and died.

This is from Holinshed. "Aboute this time the king received into favor doctor Stephen Gardiner, whose service he used in matters of great secrecie and weighte, admitting him in the room of Doctor Pace, the which being continually abrode in ambassades, and the same oftentymes not much necessarie, by the Cardinalles appointment, at length he toke such greefe therwith, that he fell out of his right wittes."

SCENE 3. Page 75.

ANNE. ... 'tis a sufferance panging As soul and body's severing.

Of the parallel passages already cited, this is not the least so, from _Measure for measure_;

"... in _corporal sufferance_ feels a _pang_ as great As when a giant dies."

SCENE 4. Page 98.

[_they rise to depart._

Mr. Ridley's note is very judiciously introduced to get rid of the interpolated stage direction inserted by some of the editors, and to account for the king's apostrophe to Cranmer. He might have adduced an earlier exemplification of his remark from the ensuing scene, where Norfolk asks, _when Cranmer returns_? The archbishop of Canterbury, who attends the procession to Blackfriars, was William Warham.

ACT III.

SCENE 2. Page 112.

SUF. ... I persuade me, from her Will fall some blessing to this land, which shall In it be memoriz'd.

This is, no doubt, a compliment to queen Elizabeth.

SCENE 2. Page 126.

SUR. ... I'll startle you Worse than the sacring bell, when the brown wench Lay kissing in your arms, lord cardinal.

Was there any Skeltonical tradition to this effect in Shakspeare's time, or has he only taken a hint from one of the articles against Wolsey, which is conceived in the following terms? "Also the said Lord Cardinall did call before him Sir John Stanly knight which had taken a farm by Covent seal of the Abbot of Chester and afterwards by his power and might contrary to right committed the said Sir John Stanly to the prison of Fleet by the space of a year unto such time as he compelled the said Sir John to release his Covent seal to one Leghe of Adlington, which married one Lark's daughter, _which woman the said Lord Cardinall kept, and had with her two children_," &c.

SCENE 2. Page 127.

SUR. First, that, without the king's assent, or knowledge, You wrought to be a legate; by which power You maim'd the jurisdiction of all bishops.