Part 8

Mr. Steevens has refined too much in supposing this word to mean _carnal offences_. It is simply _penalties_. The Duke remits all Lucio's offences except the injury done to the woman, and he is ordered to remain in prison until he marry her. _Forfeit_ was also used in the French sense of the word, _crime_, _transgression_.

THE CLOWN.

The clown in this play officiates as the tapster of a brothel; whence it has been concluded that he is not a domestic fool, nor ought to appear in the dress of that character. A little consideration will serve to show that the opinion is erroneous, that _this_ clown is _altogether_ a domestic fool, and that he should be habited accordingly. In Act II. Scene 1, Escalus calls him a _tedious fool_, and _Iniquity_, a name for one of the old stage buffoons. He tells him that he will have him _whipt_, a punishment that was very often inflicted on fools. In _Timon of Athens_ we have a _strumpet's fool_, and a similar character is mentioned in the first speech in _Antony and Cleopatra_. But if any one should still entertain a doubt on the subject, he may receive the most complete satisfaction by an attentive examination of ancient prints, many of which will furnish instances of the common use of the domestic fool in brothels. In _Twelfth Night_, Act IV. Scene 1, Sebastian mistakes the clown for such a character as that before us, and calls him a _foolish Greek_, a term that is very happily explained by Dr. Warburton, whose note both communicates and receives support on the present occasion.

ON THE STORY AND CONSTRUCTION OF MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

Three sources whence the plot of this play might have been extracted, have already been mentioned, viz. Whetstone's _Heptameron_, 1582, 4to; his _Promos and Cassandra_, 1578, 4to; and novel 5, decad. 8, in Cinthio Giraldi. It is probable that the general outline of the story is founded on fact, as it is related, with some variety of circumstance, by several writers, and appears to have been very popular. It has therefore been thought worth while to point out the following works in which it occurs.

In Lipsii _Monita et exempla politica_, Antverp. 1613, 4to, cap. viii. Charles the bold duke of Burgundy causes one of his noblemen to be put to death for offending in the manner that Angelo would have done; but he is first compelled to marry the lady. This story has been copied from Lipsius into Wanley's _Wonders of the little world_, book iii. ch. 29, edit. 1678, folio; and from Wanley into that favourite little chap book, Burton's _Unparalleled varieties_, p. 42. See likewise _The spectator_, No. 491. This event was made the subject of a French play by Antoine Maréchal, called _Le jugement équitable de Charles le hardy_, 1646, 4to. Here the offender is called Rodolph governor of Maestrick, and by theatrical licence turns out to be the duke's own son. Another similar story of Charles's upright judgment may be found in the third volume of Goulart's _Thrésor d'histoires admirables_, 1628, 8vo, p. 373.

Much about the time when the above events are supposed to have happened, Olivier le Dain, for his wickedness surnamed the Devil, originally the barber, and afterwards the favourite of Louis XI., is said to have committed a similar offence, for which he was deservedly hanged. See Godefroy's edition of the _Memoirs of Philip de Comines_, Brussels, 1723, 8vo, tom. v. p. 55.

At the end of Belleforest's translation of Bandello's novels, there are three additional of his own invention. The first of these relates to a captain, who, having seduced the wife of one of his soldiers under a promise to save the life of her husband, exhibited him soon afterwards _through the window of his apartment_ suspended on a gibbet. His commander, the marshal de Brissac, after compelling him to marry the widow, adjudges him to death. The striking similitude of a part of this story to what Mr. Hume has related of colonel Kirke, will present itself to every reader, and perhaps induce some to think with Mr. Ritson, (however they will differ in _his mode_ of expressing the sentiment,) that Mr. Hume's narration is "an impudent and barefaced lie." See _The quip modest_, p. 30. A defence also of Kirke may be seen in the _Monthly magazine_, vol. ii. p. 544. Yet though we may be inclined to adopt this side of the question, it will only serve to diminish, in a single instance, the atrocities of that sanguinary monster.

In Lupton's _Siuqila. Too good to be true_, 1580, 4to, there is a long story of a woman, who, her husband having slain his adversary in a duel, goes to the judge for the purpose of prevailing on him to remit the sentence of the law. He obtains of her, in the first place, a large sum of money, and afterwards the reluctant prostitution of her person, under a solemn promise to save her husband. The rest, as in Belleforest's novel.

In vol. i. of Goulart's _Thrésor d'histoires admirables_, above cited, there are two stories on this subject. The first, in p. 300, is of a citizen of Como in Italy, who in 1547 was detained prisoner by a Spanish _captain_ on a charge of murder. The wife pleads for him as before, and obtains a promise of favour on the same terms. The husband recommends her compliance, after which the Spaniard beheads him. Complaint is made to the _Duke of Ferrara_, who compels the captain to marry the widow, and then orders him to be hanged. The other, in p. 304, is of a provost named _La Vouste_, whose conduct resembles that of the other villain's, with this addition; he says to the woman, "I promised to restore your husband; I have not kept him, here he is." No punishment is inflicted on this fellow.

The last example to be mentioned on this occasion occurs in Cooke's _Vindication of the professors and profession of the law_, 1646, 4to, p. 61. During the wars between Charles the Fifth and Francis the First, one Raynucio had been imprisoned at Milan for betraying a fort to the French. His wife petitions the governor Don Garcias in his favour, who refuses to listen but on dishonourable terms, which are indignantly rejected. The husband, like Claudio in _Measure for measure_, at first commends the magnanimity of his wife, and submits to his sentence; but when the time for his execution approaches, his courage fails him, and he prevails on his wife to acquiesce in the governor's demands. A sum of ten thousand crowns is likewise extorted from the unhappy woman, and she receives in return the dead body of her husband. The Duke of Ferrara, Hercules of Este, who was general for the Emperor, is informed of the circumstance. He first persuades the governor to marry the lady, and then orders him to be beheaded.

Towards the conclusion of this play Dr. Johnson has observed, that "every reader feels some indignation when he finds Angelo spared." This remark is rigorously just, and calculated to satisfy those moralists who would have preferred the catastrophe in some of the preceding stories. But in the construction of a play theatrical effect was to be attended to; on which ground alone the poet may be defended. The other charge against him in Dr. Johnson's note is doubtless unfounded, and even laboriously strained. Shakspeare has been likewise hastily censured by a female writer of great ingenuity, for almost every supposed deviation from the plot of Cinthio's novel, and even for adhering to it in sparing Angelo.[9] It might however be contended, that, if our author really used this novel,[10] he has, with some exceptions, exerted a considerable degree of skill and contrivance in his alterations; and that he has consequently furnished a rich and diversified repast for his readers, instead of serving up the simple story in the shape of such a tragedy as might have suited a Greek audience, but certainly would not have pleased an English one in his time. In the novel, the sister, when she solicits mercy for her brother's murderer and her own seducer, (in the play Angelo is neither but in intention,) justly urges that _excess of justice becomes cruelty_. He therefore who would refuse mercy to Angelo for an intentional offence, has no right to censure him for severity to Claudio who had committed a real one. In the novel, the sister is actually seduced, and her brother murdered; and yet she pleads for the offender. In the play, though Isabella believes her brother to be dead, she reconciles herself to the sad event, inasmuch as she knows that he suffered by course of law, as well as by the cruelty of Angelo, from whose iniquity she herself has happily escaped. She is stimulated to solicit this man's life, from the suggestion and situation of her friend the innocent Mariana, who would have felt more distress from the death of Angelo, than the other parties discontent from his acquittal. The female critic has likewise observed that "_Measure for measure_ ought not to be the title, since justice is not the virtue it inculcates." But surely, if Angelo had died, it would have been _outmeasuring measure_; as it is, the administration of justice is duly balanced, and both he and Claudio are equally punished in imagination. The Duke too, who knew all the circumstances, deserves credit for some ingenuity in his arrangements to protect the innocent, and, if not rigidly to punish the guilty, at least to save a sinner. Nor will any one contend that Angelo has escaped punishment: the agonizing state of uncertainty in which he long remained after the mock sentence, the bitter reproof of his colleague, and the still severer language of the Duke, will, it is to be hoped, conduce to satisfy every feeling and humane spectator of this fine play, that the poet has done enough to content even the rigorous moralist, and to exemplify, in his own divine words, that "earthly power doth then seem likest heaven's, when mercy seasons justice."

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Dr. Johnson in his dedication to the above lady's work, speaking of Shakspeare, says, "he lived in an age when the minds of his auditors were not accustomed to balance probabilities, or to examine nicely the proportion between causes and effects. It was sufficient to recommend a story that it was far removed from common life, that its changes were frequent, and its close pathetic." How much at variance is all this with the sentiments that follow on our play, and how it serves to mark the folly and absurdity of hireling dedications!

[10] It may well be doubted whether Shakspeare ever saw the story as related by Cinthio. There was not, as far as we know at present, any English translation of it in his time. He might indeed have seen the French version by Gabriel Chappuys, printed at Paris, 1583, 8vo; but it is certain that his chief model for the plot was the old play of _Promos and Cassandra_, a circumstance unknown to Mrs. Lenox. All must admit that the mode of saving the deputy's life is much better managed by Shakspeare than by Whetstone.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 395.

Enter LEONATO....

This is the name of the injured lady's father in the novel of Belleforest which Mr. Steevens supposes to have furnished the plot of the play; a circumstance that tends very much to prove the justness of that gentleman's opinion.

SCENE 1. Page 396.

MESS. Without a _badge_ of bitterness.

See a future note on _The taming of the shrew_, Act IV. Scene 1.

SCENE 1. Page 397.

BEAT. He _set up his bills_ here in Messina.

This mode of expression will admit of a little more illustration than it has already received. The practice to which it refers was calculated to advertise the public of any matters which concerned itself or the party whose bills were set up; and it is the more necessary to state this, because the passages which have been used in explanation might induce the reader to suppose that challenges and prize-fightings were the exclusive objects of these bills. This however was not the case. In Northbrooke's _Treatise against dicing, dauncing, vaine plaies, &c._, 1579, 4to, a work much resembling that extremely curious volume Stubbes's _Anatomie of abuses_, we are told that they used "to _set up their billes_ upon postes certain dayes before, to admonish the people to make resort unto their _theatres_, that they may thereby be the better furnished, and the people prepared to fill their purses with their treasures." In the play of _Histriomastix_, a man is introduced setting up _text billes for playes_; and William Rankins, another puritanical writer against plays, which he calls _the instruments of Satan_, in his _Mirrour of monsters_, 1587, 4to, p. 6, says, that "players by _sticking of their bils_ in London, defile the streetes with their infectious filthines." Mountebanks likewise set up their bills. "Upon this scaffold also might bee mounted a number of _quacksalving emperickes_, who arriving in some country towne, clap up their _terrible billes_ in the market place, and filling the paper with such horrible names of diseases, as if every disease were a divell, and that they could conjure them out of any towne at their pleasure." Dekkar's _Villanies discovered by lanthorne and candle-light, &c._, 1616, 4to, sign. H. Again, in _Tales and quick answeres_, printed by Berthelette, b. l. n. d. 4to, a man having lost his purse in London "_sette up bylles_ in divers places that if any man of the cyte had founde the purse and woulde brynge it agayn to him he shulde have welle for his laboure. A gentyllman of the Temple _wrote under one of the byls_ howe the man shulde come to his chambers and told where." It appears from a very rare little piece entitled _Questions of profitable and pleasant concernings talked of by two olde seniors, &c._, 1594, 4to, that Saint Paul's was a place in which these bills or advertisements were posted up. Thomas Nashe in his _Pierce Pennilesse his supplication to the divell_, 1595, 4to, sign. E. speaks of the "maisterlessemen that _set up theyr bills in Paules for services_, and such as paste up their papers on every post, for arithmetique and writing schooles:" we may therefore suppose that several of the walks about Saint Paul's cathedral then resembled the present Royal Exchange with respect to the business that was there transacted; and it appears indeed, from many allusions in our old plays, to have been as well the resort of the idle, as the busy. The phrase of _setting up bills_ continued long after the time of Shakspeare and is used in a translation of Suetonius published in 1677, 8vo, p. 227.

SCENE 1. Page 399.

BEAT. ... challenged him at the _bird-bolt_.

In further exemplification of this sort of arrow, the following representations have been collected. A very sagacious _modern_ editor of King James's _Christ's kirk on the green_ has stated that the line "the bolt flew o'er the bire" is a metaphor of a _thunderbolt_ flying over the cowhouse!

SCENE 1. Page 412.

BENE. Prove that ever I lose more blood with love, &c.

There is a covert allusion in this speech that will not admit of a particular explanation. Debauchees imagine that wine recruits the loss of animal spirits. _Love_ is used here in its very worst sense, and the whole is extremely gross and indelicate.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 429.

BEAT. ... that I had my good wit out of _the hundred merry tales_.

From the unfortunate loss of these _Merry tales_, a doubt has arisen from whence they were translated, it being pretty clear that they were not originally written in English. Two authorities have been produced on this occasion, the _Cent nouvelles nouvelles_, and the _Decameron_ of Boccaccio.

Mr. Steevens is an advocate for the first of these, and refers to an edition of them mentioned by Ames. This, it is to be presumed, is the _Hundred merry tales_ noticed under the article for James Roberts. To this opinion an objection has been taken by Mr. Ritson, on the ground that _many_ of the tales in the _Cent nouvelles nouvelles_ are "very tragical, and none of them calculated to furnish a lady with good wit." Now it appears that out of these hundred stories _only five are tragical_, viz. novels 32, 47, 55, 56, and 98. In the old editions they are entitled _Comptes plaisans et recreatiz pour deviser en toutes compaignies_, and _Moult plaisans á raconter par maniere de joyeuseté_.

Mr. Reed has "but little doubt that Boccace's _Decameron_ was the book here alluded to." If this gentleman's quotation from Guazzo's _Civile conversation_, 1586, be meant to establish the existence of the above work in an English dress it certainly falls short of the purpose; because it is no more than a translation of an author, who is speaking of the _original Decameron_. But there is a more forcible objection to Mr. Reed's opinion, which is, that the first _complete_ English translation of Boccaccio's novels was not published till 1620, and after Shakspeare's death. The dedication states indeed, that _many_ of the tales had long since been published; but this may allude to those which had appeared in Painter's _Palace of pleasure_, or in some other similar work not now remaining. There are likewise two or three of Boccaccio's novels in Tarlton's _Newes out of purgatory_, which might be alluded to in the above dedication, if the work which now remains under the date of 1630 was really printed in 1589, as may be suspected from a license granted to Thomas Gubbin. There seems to have been some prior attempt to publish the _Decameron_ in English, but it was "recalled by my Lord of Canterbury's commands." See a note by Mr. Steevens prefixed to _The two gentlemen of Verona_. There is a remarkable fact however that deserves to be mentioned in this place, which is, that in the proem to Sacchetti's _Novelle_, written about the year 1360, it appears that Boccaccio's novels had been _then_ translated into English, not a single vestige of which translation is elsewhere to be traced.

A third work that may appear to possess some right to assert its claim on the present occasion is the _Cento novelle antiche_, which might have been translated before or in Shakspeare's time, as it has been already shown in a note on the story of _Twelfth night_ that he had probably seen the 13th novel in that collection. It may likewise be worth mentioning that Nashe in his _Pappe with an hatchet_, speaks of a book then coming out under the title of _A hundred merrie tales_, in which Martin Marprelate, _i. e._ John Penry, and his friends were to be satirized.

On the whole, the evidence seems to preponderate in favour of the _Cent nouvelles nouvelles_. As the _greatest portion_ of this work consists of _merry stories_, there is no impropriety in calling it _The hundred merry tales_; the term _hundred_ being part of the original title, and the epithet _merry_ in all probability an addition for the purpose of designating the _general quality_ of the stories. The _Decameron_ of Boccaccio, which contains more tragical subjects than the other, is called in the English translation _A hundred_ PLEASANT _novels_.

Whatever the _hundred merry tales_ really were, we find them in existence so late as 1659, and the entire loss of them to the present age might have been occasioned by the devastation in the great fire of London.

SCENE 1. Page 432.

BENE. Come, will you go with me?

CLAUD. Whither?

BENE. Even to _the next willow_, about your own business, Count. What fashion will you wear the _garland_ of?

It was the custom for those who were _forsaken in love_ to wear willow garlands. This tree might have been chosen as the symbol of sadness from the verse in psalm 137, "We hanged our harps upon the willows, in the midst thereof;" or else from a coincidence between the _weeping_ willow and falling _tears_. Another reason has been assigned. The _Agnus castus_ or _vitex_, was supposed by the ancients to promote chastity, "and the willow being of a much like nature," says an old writer, "it is yet a custom that he which is deprived of his love must wear a willow garland." Swan's _Speculum mundi_, chap. 6. sect. 4. edit. 1635. Bona, the sister of the king of France, on receiving news of Edward the Fourth's marriage with Elizabeth Grey, exclaims, "In hope he'll prove a widower shortly, I'll wear a _willow garland_ for his sake." See _Henry the Sixth_, part iii. and Desdemona's willow song in _Othello_, Act IV. Two more ballads of a similar nature may be found in Playford's _Select ayres_, 1659, folio, pp. 19, 21.

SCENE 1. Page 438.

BEAT. Civil as an _orange_, and something of _that_ jealous complexion.

This reading of the older copy has been judiciously preferred to _a_ jealous complexion. _Yellow_ is an epithet often applied to jealousy by the old writers. In _The merry wives of Windsor_, Nym says he will possess Ford with _yellowness_. Shakspeare more usually terms it _green-eyed_.

SCENE 3. Page 447.

BENE. ... now will he lie ten nights awake, _carving the fashion of a new doublet_.

The print in Borde of the Englishman with a pair of shears, seems to have been borrowed from some Italian or other foreign picture in ridicule of our countrymen's folly. Coryat, in his _Crudities_, p. 260, has this remark; "we weare more phantasticall fashions than any nation under the sunne doth, the French onely excepted; which hath given occasion both to the Venetian and other Italians to brand the Englishman with a notable marke of levity, by painting him starke naked with a paire of shears in his hand, _making his fashion of attire_ according to the vaine invention of his braine-sicke head, not to comelinesse and decorum." Purchas, in his _Pilgrim_, 1619, 8vo, speaks of "a naked man with sheeres in one hand and cloth in the other," as a general emblem of fashion. Many other allusions to such a figure might be cited, but it was not peculiar to the English. In _La geographie Françoise_, by P. Du Val d'Abbeville, 1663, 12mo, the author, speaking of the _Frenchman's_ versatility in dress, adds, "dans la peinture des nations on met pres de luy _le cizeau_."

The inconstancy of our own countrymen in the article of dress is described in the following verses from John Halle's _Courte of vertue_, 1565, 12mo.

"As fast as God's word one synne doth blame They devyse other as yll as the same, And this varietie of Englyshe folke, Dothe cause all wyse people us for to mocke.

For all discrete nations under the sonne, Do use at thys day as they fyrst begonne: And never doo change, but styll do frequent, Theyr old guyse, what ever fond folkes do invent.

But we here in England lyke fooles and apes, Do by our vayne fangles deserve mocks and japes, For all kynde of countreys dooe us deryde, In no constant custome sythe we abyde For we never knowe howe in our aray, We may in fyrme fashion stedfastly stay."

Randle Holme complained that in his time (1680) Englishmen were as changeable as the moon in their dress, "in which respect," says he, "we are termed the Frenchmen's apes, imitating them in all their fantastick devised fashions of garbs." _Acad. of armory_, book iii. ch. 5.

SCENE 3. Page 452.

CLAUD. _Stalk on, stalk on_, the fowl sits.

It has been already shown that the _stalking bull_ was equally common with the stalking _horse_. It was sometimes used for decoying partridges into a _tunnelling net_, or cage of net work, in the form of a tun, with doors. The process is described at large, with a print, in Willughby's _Ornithology_, 1678, folio, p. 34, where an account is also given of the _stalking-horse_, _ox_, _stag_, &c.

Howel in his _Vocabulary_, sect. xxxv. seems to have mistaken the _tun_ or net into which the birds were driven, for the stalking bull itself. Sometimes, as in hunting the wolf, an artificial bush and a wooden screen were used to stalk with. See Clamorgan, _Chasse du loup_, 1595, 4to, p. 29.

SCENE 3. Page 455.

LEON. She tore the letter into a thousand _halfpence_.