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p. 79.

p. 80.

to the chief of the gods; but there is no reason for such a limitation. Diana says,

“What is not holy that we swear not by,

It

But take the highest [i. e., the most sacred] to witness,” and Bertram, in his reply, says "love is holy," showing plainly that the supposed oath was in Love's name. will be seen that the setting up of I for l, an error which occurs continually at this day, and the mistake of whom for when,' an error almost equally common, have caused the trouble. This is made the surer by the fact that in Act II. Sc. 3 of this very play, in the passage

"Now, Dian, from thy altar do I fly;

And to imperial Love, that god most high," the second folio prints "imperiall Ioue." Note also here the application of most high' [highest] to Love: the epithet, quite surely, having led in both passages to the easy misprint of Ioue' for 'loue.' This misprint was not uncommon. See it in the following lines from Shirley's Schoole of Complement :

"Lie there usurper of Alcides name

Bold Centaure: so he's dead, by this I prove I am love borne." Act III. p. 36, ed. 1637. Where, of course, the true reading is Jove-born.' In the passage under consideration, him' in both cases refers to Love. Diana may well say, and evidently means to say, that there is no holding [consistency] in swearing by Love, when she protests to Love that she will work against him.

“I see that men make rope's in such a scarre" :— -Thus the original and the three succeeding folios; the passage being almost universally thought to be much corrupted. No emendation worthy of consideration has been proposed, the editor has none to offer, and therefore the text is left as it is found in the folio. It is just worth while to state that Rowe read "hopes in such affairs," Malone, "hopes in such a scene, and Mr. Collier's folio of 1632, "hopes in such a suit," and that Mr. Singer read at first, "hopes in such a war, " which he has abandoned for "hopes in such a scarre explaining scarre' as any surprise or alarm. Henley had previously proposed to read 'scare.' The only meaning discovered for scarre' is a rocky cliff.' See Supplementary Notes.

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The folio has "He He has sworn to marry me" :had sworn," &c.; a palpable misprint hitherto retained. "Since Frenchmen are so braid" :— Why Frenchmen ? Would Diana deny herself a husband of any nation because Frenchmen were so braid-i. e., so deceitful? Han

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mer read, without comment, "Since men are so braid." It is quite probable that he was right in so doing; for the line has here a superfluous syllable, and French' may be the result of a repetition in the MS. of since.' Richardson and Mr. Dyce regard braid as from the Anglo Saxon braegan diripere, and as meaning 'violent' according to Mr. Dyce-in desire; but it seems rather from the Anglo Saxon bred deceitful. This etymology of the word is confirmed, in the present instance, by the next two lines of Diana's speech. She thinks it "no sin to cozen him that would unjustly win:" she pays him in his own coin deceit. See Note on "unbraided wares." Winter's Tale, Act IV. Sc. 3.

SCENE III.

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"Is it not most damnable in us : This is Malone's reading. The folio has "meant damnable" from which no sense accordant with the context can be extracted. The corruption of most' into 'meant' is an easy one, and the former word is just what is wanted. Mr. Verplanck suggests "Is it not mean, damnable," &c.

his company anatomiz'd": The folio prints "anathomiz'd." See Note on See Note on "which to annotanize,” Love's Labour's Lost, Act IV. Sc. 1, and the Introduction to Much Ado about Nothing.

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"The stranger part of it The original has "stronger - a manifest misprint for the word in the text, which was found in Mr. Collier's folio of 1632.

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this counterfeit module, h' as deceived me : 'Module' is but another form of model one coming through the Latin modulus, the other through the French modelle. The folio prints "ha s deceived me," for which most editors, following the Variorum, give "he has," and others has,' without a nominative. That it is a contracted form, from which the mark of elision fell out, the next speech, which is correctly given by all the editors, shows. Bring him forth, h' as fate i' th' stockes all night," &c. The verb has' with a nominative pronoun is very frequently printed h' as. This practice of omitting the pronoun obtained even in the early part of the Augustan Age" of English literature. As for instance: "Lady Wishfor't. Foible's a lost thing: has been abroad since morning, and never heard of since." Congreve's Way of the World, (1700,) Act III. Sc. 1.

"All's one to him": In the original this forms part of Parolles' previous speech, to which it manifestly cannot belong, unless "him him" is a misprint for me,' which

p. 84.

p. 85.

p. 86.

is quite improbable. It was with great propriety assigned by Steevens to Bertram, who enters thoroughly convinced of his companion's poltroonery.

- In the hook or

in the chape of his dagger": button of his dagger. See Note on "a broken hilt and chapeless." Taming of the Shrew, Act III. Sc. 2. Steevens says

"But I con him no thanks for 't": that "to con thanks exactly answers the French scavoir gré. To con is to know." The phrase 'to con thanks' occurs in various authors from the time of Chaucer to Shakespeare. Its idiomatic force is probably altogether inappreciable by us. Steevens' explanation is far from being satisfactory.

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if I were to live [but] this present hour": The original omits but,' which is now for the first time restored. It is absolutely required, unless 'live' is a misprint, or a slip of the pen, for 'die.'

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the Shrieve's Fool":

Ritson remarked upon this passage, "We are not to suppose that this was a fool kept by the sheriff for his diversion," and rested this opinion upon the fact that the custody of idiots possessed of landed property, and the use of their revenue, belonged of old to the King, but that "where the land was of inconsiderable value, the natural was maintained out of the profits by the sheriff, who accounted for them to the crown." This opinion has been adopted without question by subsequent editors, in spite of its inconclusiveness, and in spite of the complete refutation of it by Mr. Douce, at once the most acute and learned of Shakespeare's antiquarian commentators. Mr. Douce remarks, "Now if this was the law, the sheriff must have usually had more than one idiot in his custody; and had Shakespeare alluded to one of these persons, he would not have chosen so definite an expression as that in question; he would rather have said a sheriff's fool.' Female idiots were retained in families for diversion, as well as male; and there would be as much reason to expect one of the former in the sheriff's household as in that of any other person." The present editor has in his possession several old prints in which household fools are represented, some of which are women. He is also cognizant of a case, that occurred not long ago in New York, in all respects correspondent to that stated by Parolles, which, not improbably, was founded upon a fact within Shakespeare's knowledge.

The reader will find in Douce's Illustrations of Shakespeare, &c., a dissertation upon Clowns and Fools sufficiently learned and minute to satisfy the most exacting

curiosity; but as the Fool in this comedy is called a Clown, here seems to be as proper a place as any for a few remarks upon this character, based partly upon Mr. Douce's dissertation, but chiefly upon a consideration of the Fools and Clowns which figure so prominently in these plays. Mr. Douce's opinion that "it remains to be proved" that Shakespeare "has most judiciously varied and discriminated his fools" (and Mr. Douce includes the Clowns among the Fools) does not seem to be well founded. The contrary, indeed, appears to be quite obvious. Who, for instance, could confound the courtly and sententious Touchstone, or the heroic, ideal Fool in Lear, with the shrewd lout who is the Clown of Love's Labour's Lost, the garrulous vagabond Clown of Measure for Measure, the impudent wag of this play, or even the whimsical, good-natured Trinculo! The Clown or Fool of the Shakespearian stage was a successor to the Vice of the old Moralities, and was forced upon the playwright as one of his dramatis personæ by the necessity of providing amusement for the less intelligent part of his audience. (See Account of the Rise and Progress of the English Drama, Vol. I.) The Clown and the Fool were not identical: but both fulfilled the same dramatic, and, in a measure, the same domestic function. Douce considers them, with his usual discrimination, as of nine sorts: 1. 1. The general domestic Fool, who was either a mere natural or idiot, silly, yet cunning and sarcastic, or merely professional; 2. The Clown, either a mere country booby, a witty rustic, or a shrewd, presuming, and tolerated servant; 3. The female Fool, who was generally an idiot; 4. The city or corporation Fool, (such as leaped into the custard See Note, Act II. Sc. 5;) 5. Tavern Fools, retained to amuse customers; 6. The Fool of the ancient theatrical Mysteries and Moralities, who was not strictly a Fool, but the Vice, above alluded to, and who gradually passed into the allowed Fool or Clown; 7. The Fool in the old Dumb Shows, in which he was generally engaged in a struggle with Death; (See "thou art Death's Fool," Measure for Measure, Act III. Sc. 1;) 8. The Fool in the Whitsun ales and Morris dance; and 9. The mountebank's Fool or Merry Andrew.

The practice of having Fools, as Mr. Douce remarks, "prevailed from the palace to the brothel. The Pope had his fool and the bawd had hers," (the Clown in Measure for Measure is one of the latter kind;) "and ladies entertained them of both sexes." Among the ancient prints, before mentioned, in the possession of the present editor, is one representing Daniel in the Lion's Den. The time chosen by the artist is that of the visit of King Darius to the Den; and of all the attendants

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upon the royal Mede, his Fool, in full feather of cockscomb and bawble, is most prominent.

The general conduct of the Fool is thus described in Wit's Miserie, a tract published in 1599:

"Immoderate and disordinate joy became incorporate in the bodie of a jeaster; this fellow in person is comely, in apparell courtly, but in behaviour a very ape, and no man; his studie is to coine bitter jeasts, or to shew antique motions, or to sing baudie sonnets and ballads; give him a little wine in his head, he is continually flearing and making of mouthes: he laughs intemperately at every little occasion, and dances about the house, leaps over tables, out-skips mens heads, trips up his companions heeles, burns sack with a candle, and hath all the feats of a lord of misrule in the countrie: feed him in his humor, you shall have his heart, in meere kindness he will hug you in his armes, kisse you on the cheeke, and rapping out an horrible oth, crie God's soule zum, I love you, you know my poore heart, come to my chamber for a pipe of tabacco, there lives not a man in this world that I more honor. In these ceremonies you shall know his courting, and it is a speciall mark of him at the table, he sits and makes faces: keep not this fellow company, for in jugling with him, your wardropes shall be wasted, your credits crackt, your crownes consumed, and time (the most precious riches of the world) utterly lost."

The costume of the Fool was generally a coat or doublet, with tight hose, and a cap or hood surmounted with a cockscomb and having ass's ears. The dress was generally more or less party-colored. Sometimes the right side was of one color and the left of another; sometimes the person of the Fool was quartered in colors; and sometimes he was a thing of shreds and patches whence his name 'patch.' Yellow was a favorite color for Fools' dresses. The Fool carried sometimes a wooden dagger; but generally a bawble, which was a short wand with a Fool's or puppet's head carved upon one end; at the other often hung a bladder, with which he was allowed to beat almost whom he pleased. But he himself, if he presumed too far, was often beaten with something more substantial.

of the intergatories atories' in common use of old.

66

a form of interrog

he was a botcher's prentice": — The original has "'a was," which the editors have hitherto retained, although they give he' in the next line. See Note on "if he could get her good will." Much Ado about Nothing, Act II. Sc. 1.

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