For I am kinge of all mankinde, "I ame the greatest above degree, "No raine to fall shall now be free, See The Vintner's Play, p. 67. Chaucer, describing a parish clerk, in his Miller's Tale, says: "He plaieth Herode on a skaffold high." The parish clerks and other subordinate ecclesiasticks appear to have been our first actors, and to have represented their characters on distinct pulpits or scaffolds. Thus, in one of the stage-directions to the 27th pageant in the Coventry collection already mentioned: "What tyme that processyon is entered into y place, and the Herowdys taken his schaffalde, and Annas and Cayphas their schaffaldys," &c. STEEVENS. "Of bewte and of boldnes I ber evermore the belle, "Of mayn and of myght I master every man ; "I dynge with my dowtiness the devyl down to helle, "For bothe of hevyn and of earth I am kynge certayn.' Coventry's Plays, Cotton MSS. p. 92. MALONE. And in The Unluckie Firmentie, by G. Kyttes, 4to. bl. 1.: "But he was in such a rage "As one that shulde on a stage · "The part of Herode playe." RITSON. See Douce's Illustrat. II. 241. (22) in your allowance, o'erweigh a whole theatre of others] By your admission preponderate, &c. The text is in the spelling of the quartos. The folio of 1632 reads ore-sway. Mr. Malone observes, Ben Jonson seems to have imitated this passage in his Poetaster, 1601: (23) not to speak it profanely, that, neither having accent nor gait, &c. &c.] Entering his protest that he did not mean to speak profanely by saying, that there could be any such thing as a journeyman Creator, he says" the voice and carriage of these execrable mimics is so unnatural, so vile a copy of their original; that, not to speak it profanely, I have thought in what they exhibited, from the sample they gave, so far as these were specimens of their workmanship, that Nature's journeymen had been making men; inasmuch as such as these could not have been the handywork of God." But profane was certainly at that time very generally used for any thing gross, licentious, or indelicate. See Braban. to Iago. Othel. I. 1. "Take licence to yourself to add unto 66 66 Ib. Brome's Antipodes, 1638. That is a way, my lord, has been allow'd "On elder stages, to move mirth and laughter." Ib. Yes, in the days of Tarlton, and of Kempe, "Before the stage was purg'd from barbarism.” Stowe informs us, that among the twelve players who were sworn the queen's servants in 1583," were two rare men, viz. Thomas Wilson, for a quick delicate refined extemporall witte; and Richard Tarleton, for a wondrous plentifull, pleasant extemporall witt." 1615. p. 697. 66 I absented myself from all plaies, as wanting that merrye Roscius of plaiers, that famosed all comedies so with his pleasant and extemporall invention," Tarleton's Newes from Purgatory. STEEVENS. The clown very often addressed the audience in the middle of the play, and entered into a contest of raillery and sarcasm with such of the audience as chose to engage with him. It is to this absurd practice that Shakespeare alludes. See Historical Account of our Old English Theatres. MALONE. (25) some quantity of barren spectators] Dull, unapprehensive, unpregnant. "Why laugh you at such a barren rascal.” Tw. N. I. 5. Malv. "The shallowest thickskin of that barren sort." See Tw. N. I. 3. Maria. Mids. N. Dr. III. 2. Puck. (26) For what advancement may I hope from thee, That no revenue hast, &c.] "What shalt thou expect, "To be depender on a thing that leans?" Cymb. I. 6. Queen. (27) Crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, Where thrift may follow fauning.] Kneel, bend the projection of the knee, where thriving or emolument may follow sycophancy. Pregnant is bowed, swelled out, presenting themselves, as the form of pregnant animals. "Hath the pregnant instruments of wrath, "Prest for this blow." Pericl. IV. Chor. See II. 2. Polon. & Tw. N. II. 2. Viola. Fauning is the reading of the quartos. (28) Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice, And could of men distinguish, her election Hath seal'd thee for herself] Dear is out of which arises "And could of men distinguish her election, (29) Whose blood and judgment are so well co-mingled] In whom the passions and reason hold so mixed and divided a mastery and empire: as Antony of Brutus : "The elements so mix'd in him." Jul. Cæs. V. 1. And Dr. Johnson says, according to the doctrine of the four humours, desire and confidence were seated in the blood, and judgment in the phlegm, and the due mixture of the humours "made a perfect character. (30) In my heart's core] Cœur, Fr. my very heart; its inmost folds. Mr. Steevens cites Chapman II. VI. "Fed upon the core of his sad bosom." "Ov Juμov naтedwv" is the orig. v. 202. (31) damned ghost] "What voice of damned ghost from Limbo lake, (32) As Vulcan's stithe] Stithe is to be pronounced as a dissyllable. It is written stithy in the quartos. The folio of 1632 reads stith. The words stithy, stithe, and stith, were the and used indifferently to express either the iron used to work upon, or the workshop; though in later times stith has same, been confined to the sense of " anvil," and stithy to that of "the shop." Baret, in his Alvearie, fo. 1580, writes stithie, and refers to anvile, which he renders "Incus, axuwv, without bellowes, anvils, and stithées, sans enclumes et soufflets." In Arth. Golding's Jul. Solinus, 4to. 1587, ch. 64, stythes is his translation of incudibus: and such must be the sense of the verb in our author. Tr. & Cress. IV. 5. "Now, by the forge that stithied Mars's helm." Hector. The word itself was written any way. Huloet has stith. Junius, Skinner, Holyoke, Littleton, have stithy. The Promptuar. parvulor. "Stythe, incus." The Ortus Vocabulor. “Incus, an anvelde or stedy." 1514. (33) you played once in the university, you say?] It should seem from the following passage in Vice Chancellor Hatcher's Letters to Lord Burghley, on June 21, 1580, that the common players were likewise occasionally admitted to perform there : "Whereas it has pleased your honour to recommend my lorde of Oxenford his players, that they might show their cunning in several plays already practised by 'em before the Queen's majesty"(denied on account of the pestilence and commencement:)" of late we denied the like to the Right Honourable the Lord of Leicester his servants." FARMER. As far as this extract goes, no more is shewn, than that applications of this sort were occasionally made by great men, who had retainers of this description, to the Universities; but there were most probably grounds, and those founded upon their ideas of academical discipline, that disposed their governors always to find reasons for rejecting them. Mr. Malone adds, "the practice of acting Latin plays in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge is very ancient, and continued to near the middle of the last century. They were performed occasionally for the entertainment of princes and other great personages; and regularly at Christmas, at which time a Lord of misrule was appointed at Oxford to regulate the exhibitions, and a similar officer with the title of Imperator at Cambridge. The most celebrated actors at Cambridge were the students of St. John's and King's colleges: at Oxford those of Christ-Church. In the hall of that college a Latin comedy called Marcus Geminus, and the Latin tragedy of Progne, were performed before Queen Elizabeth in the year 1566; and in 1564, the Latin tragedy of Dido was played before her majesty when she visited the university of Cambridge. The exhibition was in the body or nave of the chapel of King's college, which was lighted by the royal guards, each of whom bore a staff-torch in his hand. See Peck's Desider. Cur. p. 36, n. x. The actors of this piece were all of that college. The author of the tragedy, who in the Latin account of this royal visit, in the Museum, [MSS. Baker, 7037, p. 203,] is said to have been Regalis Collegii olim socius, was, I believe, John Rightwise, who was elected a fellow of King's college, in 1507, and according to Anthony Wood, "made the tragedy of Dido out of Virgil, and acted the same with the scholars of his school [St. Paul's, of which he was appointed master in 1522,] before Cardinal Wolsey, with great applause." In 1583 the same play was performed at Oxford, in Christ-Church hall, before Albertus de Alasco, a Polish prince Palatine, as was William Gager's Latin comedy, entitled Rivales. On Elizabeth's second visit to Oxford, in 1592, a few years before the writing of the present play, she was entertained on the 24th and 26th of September, with the representation of the last-mentioned play, and another Latin comedy, called Bellum Grammaticale." The frequent notices of exhibitions of this sort by the students themselves, in addition to the absence of all direct evidence of any such having been allowed by common players, together with the academical principle alluded to, seem very strongly to negative the probability of stage plays having been performed in the universities by professed actors. (34) I did enact Julius Cæsar: I was killed i'the Capitol] A Latin play on the subject of Cæsar's death was performed at Christ-Church in Oxford, in 1582; and several years before, a Latin play on the same subject, written by Jacques Grevin, was acted in the college of Beauvais, at Paris. The notion that Julius Cæsar was killed in the Capitol is as old as the time of Chaucer: "This Julius to the capitolie wente "And sticked him with bodekins anon "With many a wound," &c. The Monkes Tale. Tyrwhitt's edit. Vol. II. p. 31. MALONE. (35) It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there] In each instance of this play upon words, we have earlier examples. For the first Mr. Steevens cites Harrington's Metamorphosis of Ajax, 1596. "O brave-minded Brutus ! but this I must truly say, they were two brutish parts both of him and you; one to kill his son for treason, the other to kill his father in treason.' And the other we have in an early period of the Roman stage." Capiti fraudem capitalem hinc creas." Plaut. Mil. Glorios. II. 3. Palæstrio. (36) they stay upon your patience] Await your slowest and tardiest convenience. "Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure." I. 3. Banq. (37) at Ophelia's feet.] To lie at the feet of a mistress during any dramatick representation, seems to have been a common act of gallantry. So, in B. and Fl. Queen of Corinth. |