Part 5

The tree in Windsor forest referred to in Mr. Steevens's note, was said, on newspaper authority in 1795, to have been cut down by his majesty's order, on account of its being totally decayed.

SCENE 5. Page 490.

PIST. _Vile_ worm!

Old copy _vild_, which Mr. Malone shows to have been the _old_ pronunciation. It may be added that it is likewise the _modern_ in some of the provinces.

SCENE 5. Page 492.

[_Stage direction._] "During this song, the fairies _pinch_ Falstaff."

In the old collection of songs already cited in p. 7, there is one entitled "The fayries daunce," which bearing some resemblance to that by Shakspeare, may be entitled to the reader's notice:

"Dare you haunt our hallowed greene? None but fayries here are seene. Downe and sleepe, Wake and weepe, Pinch him black, and pinch him blew, That seekes to steale a lover true. When you come to heare us sing, Or to tread our fayrie ring, Pinch him black, and pinch him blew, O thus our nayles shall handle you."

SCENE 5. Page 500.

PAGE. What cannot be eschew'd must be embrac'd.

This is either a proverbial saying now lost, or borrowed from one of the following, "What cannot be altered must be borne not blamed;" "What cannot be cured must be endured."

TWELFTH NIGHT.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 8.

DUKE. How will she love, when the rich _golden shaft_ Hath kill'd the flock of all affections else That live in her.

This _golden shaft_ was supplied either from a description of Cupid in Sidney's _Arcadia_, book ii., or from Ovid's _Metamorphoses_, translated by Golding, 4to, fo. 8, where, speaking of Cupid's arrows, he says,

"_That causeth love_ is all of _golde_ with point full sharp and bright. That chaseth love, is blunt, whose steele with leaden head is dight."

Milton seems to have forgotten that Love had only _one_ shaft of _gold_. See _Parad. Lost_, iv. 1. 763.

SCENE 2. Page 11.

CAP. ... she hath abjur'd the company And sight of men.

This necessary and justifiable change in the _ordo verborum_ from the reading in the old copy, and to which Mr. Steevens lays claim, had been already made by Sir Thomas Hanmer.

SCENE 3. Page 21.

SIR TO. ... Wherefore have these gifts a _curtain_ before them? are they like to take dust, like mistress Mall's picture?

Mr. Malone's conjecture that curtains were at this time frequently hung before pictures of value, is further supported in Scene 5 of this Act, where Olivia, in unveiling her face, mentions the practice. In Deloney's _Pleasant history of Jack of Newbery_, printed before 1597, it is recorded that "in a faire large parlour, which was wainscotted round about, Jacke of Newbery had fifteene faire pictures hanging, _which were covered with curtaines of greene silke_, frienged with gold, which he would often shew to his friends and servants."

SCENE 3. Page 23.

SIR AND. Taurus? that's _sides and heart_.

SIR TO. No, sir, it is _legs and thighs_.

Both the knights are wrong in their astrology, according to the almanacs of the time, which make Taurus govern _the neck and throat_. Their ignorance is perhaps intentional.

SCENE 5. Page 31.

SIR TO. ... How now, _sot_?

There is great humour in this ambiguous word, which applies equally to the fool and the knight himself, in his _drunken condition_.

ACT II.

SCENE 3. Page 51.

CLOWN. How now, my hearts? Did you never see _the picture of we three_?

The original picture, or sign as it sometimes was, seems to have been two _fools_. Thus in Shirley's _Bird in cage_, Morello, who counterfeits a _fool_, says, "_We be three of old_, without exception to your lordship, only with this difference, I am the wisest fool." In Day's comedy of _Law tricks_, 1608, Jul. says, "appoint the place prest." To which Em. answers, "At the _three fools_." Sometimes, as Mr. Henley has stated, it was two asses. Thus in Beaumont and Fletcher's _Queen of Corinth_, Act III. Scene 1,

"NEAN. He is another _ass_, he says, I believe him.

UNCLE. _We be three_, heroical prince.

NEAN. Nay then we must have the _picture_ of 'em, and the word _nos sumus_."

SCENE 3. Page. 53.

CLO. I did impeticos thy gratility.

This is undoubtedly the true reading, for the reason assigned by Mr. Malone. From the discordant notes on the passage, a question has arisen whether the fool means to say that he had put the six-pence into his own petticoats, or given it to his petticoat companion, his _leman_. Mr. Steevens has observed that "petticoats were not _always_ a part of the dress of fools, though they were of idiots;" and on this assertion, coupled with another by Dr. Johnson, that "fools were kept in long coats to which the allusion is made," Mr. Ritson maintains that "it is a very gross mistake to imagine that this character (_i. e._ our clown's) was habited like an _idiot_." Now it is very certain, that although the idiot fools were generally dressed in petticoats, the allowed fool was occasionally habited in like manner, as is shown more at large in another part of this volume; which circumstance, though it may strengthen the opinion that the clown has alluded to his own dress, by no means decides the above question, which remains very equally balanced.

SCENE 3. Page 63.

SIR TO. Dost thou think because thou art virtuous, there shall beno more _cakes and ale_?

The holiday cakes referred to in Mr. Letherland's note were the yule or Christmas cakes; those on the lying-in of the Virgin; cross-buns, and twelfth cakes. Mr. Lysons, in his account of Twickenham, mentions an ancient custom of dividing two great cakes in the church on Easter-day among the young people. This was regarded as a superstitious relic; and it was ordered by the parliament in 1645, that the parishioners should forbear that custom, and instead thereof buy loaves of bread for the poor of the parish.

SCENE 4. Page 70.

DUKE. And the _free_ maids that weave their threads with bones.

The private memoirs of Peter the wild boy, if they could be disclosed, would afford the best comment on the above disputed epithet, as applied to the _websters_ in question.

SCENE 4. Page 71.

CLO. And in _sad cypress_ let me be laid.

Mr. Steevens has in this edition cancelled a brother commentator's note, which ought on every account to have been retained, and has himself attempted to show that a _shroud_ and not a _coffin_ of cypress or cyprus is intended. It is no easy matter, from the ambiguity of the word, to decide the question. The cypress tree was used by the ancients for funeral purposes, and dedicated to Pluto. As it was not liable to perish from rottenness, it appears to have been used for coffins. See Mr. Gough's Introduction to _Sepulchral monuments_, p. lxvi. In Quarles's _Argalus and Parthenia_, book iii., a knight is introduced, whose

"... horse was black as jet, His furniture was round about beset With branches, slipt from the _sad cypresse tree_."

In further behalf of the wood, it may be worth remarking that the expression _laid_ seems more applicable to a coffin than to a shroud, in which a party may with greater propriety be said to be _wrapped_; and also that the shroud is afterwards expressly mentioned by itself. It is nevertheless very certain that the fine linen called Cyprus, perhaps from being originally manufactured in the island of that name, was used for shrouds. In the churchwardens' accounts of St. Mary's, Cambridge, mention is made of _a sypyrs kyrcher belonging to the cross_. In this instance there being the figure of a dead body on the cross, the cyprus was designed as a shroud.

SCENE 5. Page 88.

MAL. By my life, this is my lady's hand: these be her very C's, her U's, and her T's, and thus makes she her great P's.

Mr. Ritson having with great probability supplied the _whole_ direction of the letter, there seems to be no foundation left for Blackstone's conjecture. Malvolio had no motive for any _coarse_ allusion. With respect to the instance of the letter in _All's well that ends well_ not being recited literally by Helen, it must be recollected that there was no reason for making her do so, as she talks in _blank verse_; and it would therefore have been improper that she should have given more than the _substance_ of the letter.

SCENE 5. Page 93.

MAL. ... and wish'd to see thee _cross-gartered_.

Of this fashion but few vestiges remain; a circumstance the more remarkable, as it must have been at one time extremely common among the beaux in Elizabeth's reign. In the English edition of Junius's _Nomenclator_, 1585, 12mo, mention is made of "hose garters, going _acrosse_, or over-thwart, both above and below the knee." In the old comedy of _The two angrie women of Abingdon_, 1599, 4to, a _serving-man_ is thus described:

"... hee's a fine neate fellow, A spruce slave, I warrant ye, he'ele have His cruell _garters crosse about the knee_."

SCENE 5. Page 94.

MAL. I will be _point-de-vice_ [_device_].

As the instances of this expression are of rare occurrence, those which follow are offered as likely to be useful to the author of any future work that may resemble the well-planned, but unfinished glossary of _obsolete and provincial words_ by the late Dr. Boucher. In the interlude of _The nature of the four elements_, Sensuality, one of the _dramatis personæ_, promises a banquet

"Of metys that be most delycate, Which shall be in a chamber feyre Replete with sote and fragrāt eyre Prepared _poynt-deryse_."

In _Newes from the North_, 1579, 4to, mention is made of "costly banqueting houses, galleries, bowling-allees, straunge toies of _point-devise_ and woorkmanship," sign. G. In an old and very rare satirical poem against married ladies, entitled, _The proude wyves paternoster that wold go gaye, and undyd her husbande and went her waye_, 1560, 4to, one of the gossips recommends her companion to wear

"Rybandes of sylke that be full longe and large, With tryangles _trymly made poyntdevyse_."

Some further account of this piece may not be unacceptable. It is described in Laneham's _Letter from Killingworth_ as forming part of Captain Cox the mason's curious library. In the appendix to Baker's _Biographia dramatica_, p. 433, a play under the same title is mentioned as entered on the Stationers' books in 1559; but from the correspondence in the date, it was, most likely, the present work, which cannot be regarded as a dramatic one. It describes the hypocritical behaviour of women at church, who, instead of attending to their devotions, are more anxious to show their gay apparel. One of these, observing a neighbour much better clothed than herself, begins her _paternoster_, wherein she complains of her husband's restrictions, and prays that she may be enabled to dress as gaily as the rest of her acquaintance. She afterwards enters into conversation with a female gossip, by whose mischievous instigation she is seduced to rebel against her husband's authority. In consequence of this, the poor man is first entreated, next threatened, and finally ruined. The author of this poem is not the first who has irreligiously made use of the present vehicle of his satire. One of the old Norman minstrels had preceded him in _The usurer's paternoster_, which Mons. Le Grand has inserted among his entertaining _fabliaux_, and at the same time described some other similar compositions.

But to return to _point-device_:--There was no occasion for separating the two last syllables of this term, as in the quotation from Mr. Steevens's text, nor is it done when it occurs elsewhere in his edition. It has been properly stated that _point-device_ signifies _exact, nicely finical_; but nothing has been offered concerning the etymology, except that we got the expression from the French. It has in fact been supplied from the labours of the needle. _Poinet_ in the French language denotes a _stitch_; _devisé_ any thing _invented_, _disposed_, or _arranged_. _Point-devisé_ was therefore a particular sort of patterned lace worked with the needle; and the term _point-lace_ is still familiar to every female. They had likewise their _point-coupé_, _point-compté_, _dentelle au point devant l'aiguille_, &c., &c. The various kinds of needle-work practised by our indefatigable grandmothers, if enumerated, would astonish even the most industrious of our modern ladies. Many curious books of patterns for lace and all sorts of needle-work were formerly published, some of which are worth pointing out to the curious collector. The earliest on the list is an Italian book under the title of _Esemplario di lavori: dove le tenere fanciulle & altre donne nobile potranno facilmente imparare il modo & ordine di lavorare, cusire, raccamare, & finalmente far tutte quelle gentillezze & lodevili opere, le quali pò fare una donna virtuosa con laco in mano, con li suoi compasse & misure. Vinegia, per Nicolo D'Aristotile detto Zoppino_, MDXXIX. 8vo. The next that occurs was likewise set forth by an Italian, and entitled, _Les singuliers et nouveaux pourtraicts du seigneur Federic de Vinciolo Venitien, pour toutes sortes d'ouvrages de lingerie_. Paris, 1588, 4to. It is dedicated to the queen of France, and had been already twice published. In 1599 a second part came out, which is much more difficult to be met with than the former, and sometimes contains a neat portrait, by Gaultier, of Catherine de Bourbon, the sister of Henry the Fourth. The next is _Nouveaux pourtraicts de point coupé et dantelles en petite moyenne et grande forme, nouvellement inventez et mis en lumiere. Imprimé à Montbeliard_, 1598, 4to. It has an address to the ladies, and a poem exhorting young damsels to be industrious; but the author's name does not appear. Vincentio's work was published in England, and printed by John Wolf, under the title of _New and singular patternes and workes of linnen, serving for paternes to make all sortes of lace, edginges and cut-workes. Newly invented for the profite and contentment of ladies, gentilwomen, and others that are desireous of this art._ 1591, 4to. He seems also to have printed it with a French title. We have then another English book of which this is the title: _Here foloweth certaine Patternes of Cut-workes: newly invented and never published before. Also sundry sortes of spots, as flowers, birdes and fishes, &c. and will fitly serve to be wrought, some with gould, some with silke, and some with crewell in coullers: or otherwise at your pleasure. And never but once published before. Printed by Rich. Shorleyker._ No date, in oblong 4to. And, lastly, another oblong quarto entitled _The needles excellency, a new booke wherin are divers admirable workes wrought with the needle. Newly invented and cut in copper for the pleasure and profit of the industrious._ Printed for James Boler, &c. 1640. Beneath this title is a neat engraving of three ladies in a flower garden, under the names of Wisdom, Industrie, and Follie. Prefixed to the patterns are sundry poems in commendation of the needle, and describing the characters of ladies who have been eminent for their skill in needle-work, among whom are Queen Elizabeth and the Countess of Pembroke. These poems were composed by John Taylor the water poet. It appears that the work had gone through twelve impressions, and yet a copy is now scarcely to be met with. This may be accounted for by supposing that such books were generally cut to pieces, and used by women to work upon or transfer to their samplers. From the dress of a lady and gentleman on one of the patterns in the last mentioned book, it appears to have been originally published in the reign of James the First. All the others are embellished with a multitude of patterns elegantly cut in wood, several of which are eminently conspicuous for their taste and beauty.

It is therefore apparent that the expression _point-devise_ became applicable, in a secondary sense, to whatever was uncommonly exact, or constructed with the nicety and precision of _stitches made or devised by the needle_.

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 97.

VIO. Dost thou live by thy _tabor_?

This instrument is found in the hands of fools long before the time of Shakspeare. With respect to _the sign of the tabor_ mentioned in the notes, it might, as stated, have been _the designation of a musick shop_; but that it was _the sign of an eating-house kept by Tarleton_ is a mistake into which a learned commentator has been inadvertently betrayed. It appears from Tarleton's _Jests_, 1611, 4to, that he kept a tavern in Gracious [Gracechurch] street, at the sign of the _Saba_. This is the person who in our _modern_ bibles is called the _queen of Sheba_, and the sign has been corrupted into that of the _bell-savage_, as may be gathered from the inedited metrical _romance of Alexander_, supposed to have been written at the beginning of the fourteenth century by Adam Davie, who, in describing the countries visited by his hero, mentions that of _Macropy_ (the _Macropii_ of Pliny), and adds,

"In heore[4] lond is a cité On of the noblest in Christianté[5]; Hit hotith[6] _Sabba_ in langage. Thennes cam _Sibely savage_, Of al theo world theo fairest quene, To Jerusalem, Salamon to seone[7] For hire fairhed[8], and for hire love, Salamon forsok his God above."

_Sibely savage_, as a proper name, is another perversion of _si belle sauvage_; and though the lady was supposed to have come from the remotest parts of Africa, and might have been as black as a Negro, we are not now to dispute the superlative beauty of the mistress of Salomon, here converted into a Savage. It must be admitted that the queen of Sheba was as well adapted to a sign as the wise men of the East, afterwards metamorphosed into the three kings of Cologne.

Mr. Pegge, in his _Anecdotes of the English language_, p. 291, informs us that a friend had seen a lease of the Bell Savage inn to _Isabella Savage_; "which," says he, "overthrows the conjectures about a bell and a savage, _la belle sauvage_, &c." It is probable that the learned writer's friend was in some way or other deceived. The date of the instrument is not mentioned; and if the above name really appeared in the lease, it might have been an accidental circumstance at a period not very distant. Mr. Pegge was likewise not aware that the same sign, corrupted in like manner, was used on the continent.

SCENE 2. Page 109.

SIR TO. Go write it in a martial hand; be _curst_ and _brief_.

Of the latter sentence Dr. Johnson has not given the exact explanation. It alludes to the proverb, "A curst _cur_ must be tied _short_."

SCENE 4. Page 120.

SIR TO. What, man! defy the Devil: consider, he's an _enemy_ to mankind.

It was very much the practice with old writers, both French and English, to call the Devil, _the enemy_, by way of pre-eminence, founded perhaps on the words of Christ in _Luke_ x. 19. Thus at the beginning of the _Roman de Merlin, MS._ "Mult fu iriez _li anemis_ quant nre sires ot este en anfer;" and see other examples in Barbasan's glossary to the _Ordene de chevalerie_, 1759, 12mo, in v. _Anemi_. The cause of the Devil's wrath in the above instance, was the liberation of Adam, Noah, and many other saints and patriarchs from the purgatorial torments which they had endured. In a most curious description of hell in _Examples howe mortall synne maketh the synners inobedyentes to have many paynes and doloures within the fyre of hell_, b. l. no date, 12mo, the Devil is thus referred to: "Come than after me, and I shal shewe unto the _the ryght cursed enemye_ of humayne lygnage." And again, "About _the enemy_ there were so many devyls and of cursed and myserable soules that no man myght beleve that of all the worlde from the begynnynge myght be yssued and brought forth so many soules." Sometimes he was called the _enemy of hell_, as in Larke's _Boke of wisdome_, b. l. no date, 12mo, where it is said that "_the enemye of hell_ ought to be doubted of every wise man." This note may serve also in further explanation of the line in _Macbeth_, Act III. Scene 1,

"Given to the common _enemy_ of man."

It is remarkable that the Devil should be likewise called _the enemy of mankind_ in the East. See Gladwin's _Persian moon-shee_, part ii. p. 23.

SCENE 4. Page 120.

FAB. Carry his water to _the wise woman_.

Here may be a direct allusion to one of the two ladies of this description mentioned in the following passage from Heywood's play of _The wise woman of Hogsdon_; "You have heard of _Mother Notingham_, who for her time was prettily well skill'd in _casting of waters_: and after her, _Mother Bombye_." The latter is sometimes alluded to by Gerarde the Herbalist, who, speaking of the properties of vervain, says, "you must observe _mother Bumbies_ rules to take just so many knots or sprigs, and no more, least it fall out so that it do you no good, if you catch no harme by it." _Historie of plants_, p. 581.

Lilly's comedy of _Mother Bombie_ is well known. The several occupations of these impostors are thus described in the above play by Heywood: "Let me see how many trades have I to live by: First, I am _a wise-woman_, and a fortuneteller, and under that I deale in physicke and forespeaking, in palmistry, and recovering of things lost. Next, I undertake to cure madd folkes. Then I keepe gentlewomen lodgers, to furnish such chambers as I let out by the night: Then I am provided for bringing young wenches to bed; and, for a need, you see I can play the match-maker. Shee that is but one, and professeth so many, may well be tearmed _a wise-woman_, if there bee any." Such another character was _Julian of Brentford_, mentioned in the _Merry wives of Windsor_. These persons were sometimes called _cunning_ and _looming_ women.

SCENE 4. Page 121.

SIR TO. Come, we'll have him in a _dark room_, and bound. My niece is already in the belief that he is _mad_.

The reason for putting Malvolio into a _dark room_ was to make _him_ believe that he was _mad_; for a _madhouse_ seems formerly to have been called a _dark-house_. In the next act Malvolio says, "Good Sir Topas, do not think I am _mad_, they have laid me here in _hideous darkness_." And again, "I say this _house is dark_." In Act V. he asks, "Why have you suffer'd me to be imprison'd, kept in _a dark-house_?" In _As you like it_, Act III. Scene 1, Rosalind says that "love is a _madness_, and deserves as well _a dark-house_ and a whip, as madmen do." Edward Blount, in the second dedication to his _Hospitall of incurable fooles_, 1600, 4to, a translation from the Italian, requests of the person whom he addresses to take on him the office of patron or treasurer to the hospital; and that if any desperate censurer shall stab him for assigning his office or place, he presently take him into _the dark ward_: and in the same work, certain idle fools are consigned to the _darksome guesthouse of their madness_.

SCENE 4. Page 124.

OLI. I have said too much unto a heart of stone, and laid mine honour too unchary _on't_.

This is the reading of the old copy, which has been unnecessarily disturbed at Theobald's suggestion by substituting _out_. It might be urged that _laying honour out_ is but an awkward phrase. The old text simply means, I have _placed_ my honour too incautiously _upon_ a heart of stone. The preceding note had shown that adjectives are often used adverbially by Shakspeare.

SCENE 4. Page 127.

SIR TO. He is a knight, dubb'd with _unhack'd rapier_, and on _carpet_ consideration.