One. Yea, my lord. Lord. Then sound the music, and I'll wake him straight; And see you do as erst I gave in charge. My lord! my lord! (he sleeps soundly,) my lord! Slie. Tapster, give 's a little small ale: heigh-ho. Lord. For your honour, my lord. with some of his favourites, he found lying upon the stones a certain artisan that was very drunk, and that slept soundly. It pleased the prince, in this artisan, to make trial of the vanity of our life, whereof he had before discoursed with his familiar friends. He, therefore, caused this Slie. Who, 1? Am I a lord? Jesus, what fine apparel sleeper to be taken up, and carried into his have I got ! Lord. More richer far your honour hath to wear, And if it please you I will fetch them straight. Wil. And if your honour please to ride abroad, I'll fetch your lusty steeds, more swift of pace Than winged Pegasus in all his pride, That ran so swiftly over Persian plains. Tom. And if your honour please to hunt the deer, And make the long-breathed tiger broken-winded. Lord. Simon, an if it please your honour. Slie. Sim, that's much to say Simion, or Simon; Put forth thy hand, and fill the pot, Give me thy hand, Sim; am I a lord indeed? Lord. Ay, my gracious lord, and your lovely lady Long time hath mourned for your absence here, And now with joy behold where she doth come To gratulate your honour's safe return. 2 SCENE I." What think you, if he were conveyed to bed?" The story upon which this Induction is founded in all probability had an Eastern origin. The Sleeper Awakened,' of the 'Thousand and One Nights,' is conjectured by Mr. Lane, in the notes to his admirable translation, not to be a genuine tale, its chief and best portion being an historical anecdote related as a fact." Mr. Lane adds,-"The author by whom I have found the chief portion of this tale related as an historical anecdote is El-Is-hakee, who finished his history shortly before the close of the reign of the 'Osmánlee Sultán Mustafa, apparently in the year of the Flight 1032 (A.D. | 1623). He does not mention his authority; and whether it is related by an older historian, I do not know; but perhaps it is founded upon fact." The following story, which has been extracted by Malone from Goulart's 'Admirable and Memorable Histories,' translated by E. Grimestone, 1607, is to be found in Heuterus, 'Rerum Burgund.,' lib. iv. Malone thinks that it had appeared in English before the old 'Taming of a Shrew :' "Philip, called the Good, Duke of Burgundy, in the memory of our ancestors, being at Bruxelles with his court, and walking one night after supper through the streets, accompanied palace he commands him to be laid in one of the richest beds; a rich night-cap to be given him; his foul shirt to be taken off, and to have another put on him of fine holland. When as this drunkard had digested his wine, and began to awake, behold there comes about his bed pages and grooms of the Duke's chamber, who draw the curtains, and make many courtesies, and, being bareheaded, ask him if it please him to rise, and what apparel it would please him to put on that day.-They bring him rich apparel. This new Monsieur, amazed at such courtesy, and doubting whether he dreamed or waked, suffered himself to be dressed, and led out of the chamber. There came noblemen which saluted him with all honour, and conduct him to the mass, where with great ceremony they gave him the book of the Gospel and Pixe to kiss, as they did usually to the Duke. From the mass, they bring him back unto the palace; he washes his hands, and sits down at the table well furnished. After dinner, the Great Chamberlain commands cards to be brought, with a great sum of money. This Duke in imagina tion plays with the chief of the court. Then they carry him to walk in the garden, and to hunt the hare, and to hawk. They bring him back unto the palace, where he sups in state. Candles being lighted, the musicians begin to play; and, the tables taken away, the gentlemen and gentlewomen fell to dancing. Then they played a pleasant comedy, after which followed a banquet, whereat they had presently store of ipocras and precious wine, with all sorts of confitures, to this prince of the new impression, so as he was drunk, and fell soundly asleep. Thereupon the Duke commanded that he should be disrobed of all his rich attire. He was put into his old rags, and carried into the same place where he had been found the night before; where he spent that night. Being awake in the morning, he began to remember what had happened before;-he knew not whether it were true indeed, or a dream that had troubled his brain. But in the end, after many discourses, he concludes that all was but a dream that had happened unto him; and so entertained his wife, his children, and his neighbours, with- | lanes, and in its general aspect it is solitary and out any other apprehension." The Shakspere Society, in their 'Papers,' vol. ii., have printed a much longer version of this story, furnished from a fragment of a book containing 'The Waking Man's Dreame.' * SCENE II.-" Old Sly's son of Burton-heath." Barton-on-the-Heath is a small village on the borders of Warwickshire and Oxfordshire. In Domesday-Book, according to Dugdale, it is written Bertone, so that the Burton of the text may be correct. It consists of some twenty or thirty cottages, intermixed with a few small farm-houses, making together one short irregu- | lar street. The church is small and peculiar in its architectural arrangements; an old mansion near it of the Elizabethan era is the rectory. The village is situated two miles from Long Compton, on the road to Stratford from Oxford, and the approaches on all sides are by lonely neglected. Of the "heath," however, from which it partly takes its name, no traces remain, the land being wholly enclosed. SCENE II." The fat ale-wife of Wincot." We believe that in this passage, as in 'Henry IV., Part II.,' the place to which Shakspere alludes is the hamlet of Wilmecote, anciently Wylmyncote, about three miles to the north of Stratford, in the parish of Aston-Cantlow. Here lived Robert Arden, our poet's maternal grandfather; and his youngest daughter, the mother of Shakspere, inherited a house and lands here situate. It is most probable, therefore, that this hamlet, which Malone says (though he gives no authority) was also called Wyncote, was in Shakspere's thoughts. Wilmecote is a straggling village with a few old houses, amongst whose secluded fields our poet no doubt passed many of his boyish hours. ACT I. SCENE L.-" Fair Padua, nursery of arts." DURING the ages when books were scarce and seminaries of learning few, men of accomplish ment in literature, science, and art, crowded into cities which were graced by universities. Nothing could be more natural and probable than that a tutor, like Licio, should repair to Padua from Mantua; "His name is Licio, born in Mantua;" or a student, like Lucentio from Pisa, "As he that leaves dents who meet and accost in the "public places," and the servants who buy in the market: Bianca among the citizens' daughters who take while there may be many an accomplished their walks along the arcades of the venerable streets. Influences of learning, love, and mirth, are still abroad in the place, breathing as they do from the play. The university of Padua was founded by Frederick Barbarossa, early in the thirteenth century, and was, for several hundred years, a favourite resort of learned men. Among other great personages, Petrarch, Galileo, and Christopher Columbus studied there. The number of students was once (we believe in Shakspere's age) eighteen thousand. Now that universities have multiplied, none are so thronged; but that of Padua still numbers from fifteen hundred to twenty-three hundred. Most of the educated youth of Lombardy pursue their studies there, and numbers from a greater distance. A shallow plash to plunge him in the deep; " or "a pedant," (Act IV. Sc. 2.) turning aside from the road to Rome and Tripoli, to spend "a week or two" in the great "nursery of arts" of the Italian peninsula. The university of Padua was in all its glory in Shakspere's day; and it is difficult to those who have explored the city to resist the persuasion that the poet himself had been one of the travellers who had come from afar to look upon its seats of learning, if mathematics" are still a favourite branch of not to partake of its "ingenious studies." | learning, with some Greek, Latin, and other There is a pure Paduan atmosphere hanging languages;" also natural philosophy and mediabout this play; and the visitor of to-day sees cine. History and morals, and consequently other Lucentios and Tranios in the knots of stu- | politics, seem to be discouraged, if not omitted "The VOL. I. D D The pleasant garden of great Italy.” The rich plain of Lombardy is still like "a pleasant garden,” and appears as if it must ever continue to be so, sheltered as it is by the vast barrier of the Alps, and fertilised by the streams which descend from their glaciers. From the walls of the Lombard cities, which are usually reared on rising grounds, the prospects are enchanting, presenting a fertile expanse, rarely disfigured by fences, intersected by the great Via Emilia-one long avenue of mulberry trees; gleaming here and there with transparent lakes, and adorned with scattered towns, villas, and churches, rising from among the vines. Corn, oil, and wine, are everywhere ripening together; and not a speck of barrenness is visible, from the northern Alps and eastern Adriatic, to the unobstructed southern horizon, where the plain melts away in sunshine.-(M.) 7 SCENE I. "O yes, I saw sweet beauty in her face, Such as the daughter of Agenor had," &c. There are in this play a few delicate touches of mythological images, as in the passage before us. But the old "Taming of a Shrew' is crammed full of the learning of a university student, paraded with an ostentation totally inconsistent with dramatic propriety. The classical allusions introduced by Shakspere in this and other comedies are just such as a gentleman might use without pedantry. But the following passage from the old play (and there are many of a similar character) is as far removed from the language of nature as it is from that of high scholarship. It is nothing beyond a schoolboy's exercise: Philema. Not for great Neptune, no, nor Jove himself, Will Philema leave Aurelius' love: Could he instal me empress of the world, Yet would I not exchange my love for his: Thy company is poor Philema's heaven, And without thee heaven were hell to me. Emelia. And should my love, as erst did Hercules, Attempt the burning vaults of hell, I would, with piteous looks and pleasing words, For Hero's love, no towers of brass should hold, Who foil'd the bloody Pyrrhus, murd'rous Greek, SCENE I.-"The Presenters above speak." In the second scene of the Induction, the Enter aloft the original stage-direction is " drunkard with attendants," &c. In the same way, in the parting scene of Romeo and Juliet, we have a similar direction,- "Enter Romeo and Juliet aloft." In the illustrations of the third act of Romeo and Juliet will be found a description and representation of the construction of the balcony, or upper stage, of our old theatres, to which these directions refer. SCENE II.-"Nay, 't is no matter what he 'leges in Latin." "Petrucio," says Steevens, "has been just speaking Italian to Hortensio, which Grumio mistakes for the other language." Monck Mason has a delicious remark on this :-" Mr. Steevens appears to have been a little absent when he wrote his note. He forgot that Italian was Grumio's native language, and that therefore he could not possibly mistake it for Latin." To this Steevens rejoins, "I was well aware that Italian was Grumio's native language, but was not, nor am now, certain of our author's attention to this circumstance, because his Italians necessarily speak English throughout the play, with the exception of a few colloquial sentences." But if our author did attend "to this circumstance," he could not have made Grumio blunder more naturally. The "Italians neces sarily speak English throughout the play;"and when they speak "a few colloquial sentences" of Italian, they speak them as an Englishman would speak that or any other foreign language. To make the citizens and scholars of Padua speak English at all is-to test poetry by laws which do not apply to it—a violation of propriety. But that violation admitted, the mistake of Grumio is perfectly in keeping. provided she gave him the key to a riddle, upon As are the swelling Adriatic seas." 1o SCENE II.—“Be she as foul as was Florentius' where it is best sheltered and supported by the love." In Gower, 'De Confessione Amantis,' we have the description of a deformed hag whom Florent, a young knight, had bound himself to marry, islands, is, for the three miles abreast of Palestrina, a vast work for width and loftiness; yet it is frequently surmounted in winter by "the swelling Adriatic seas," which pour over it into the Lagunes.-(M.) ACT II. 12 SCENE I.-"And this small packet of Greek and Latin books." Fer. Twenty good morrows to my lovely Kate. It is not to be supposed that the daughters of Under the walls of universities, then the only centres of intellectual light, knowledge was shed abroad like sunshine at noon, and was naturally more or less enjoyed by all. At the time when Shakspere and the university of Padua flourished, the higher classes of women were not deemed unfitted for a learned education. Queen Elizabeth, Lady Jane Grey, the daughters of Sir Thomas More, and others, will at once occur to the reader's recollection in proof of this. "Greek, Latin, and other languages," "the mathematics," and "to read philosophy," then came as naturally as "music" within the scope of female education. Any association of pedantry with the training of the young ladies of this play is in the prejudices of the reader, not in the mind of the poet.-(M.) 13 SCENE I." Good morrow, Kate." The first scene between Petrucio and Kate is founded upon a similar scene in 'The Taming of a Shrew.' Our readers may amuse themselves by a comparison of Shakspere and his anonymous rival :— Alf. Ha, Kate, come hither, wench, and list to me: Use this gentleman friendly as thou canst. Kate. Was ever seen so gross an ass as this? [She turns aside and speaks. Alf. Give me thy hand; Ferando loves thee well, And Sunday next shall be our wedding-day. Fer. Why so, did I not tell thee I should be the man? 14 SCENE I. "I will unto Venice, To buy apparel 'gainst the wedding-day.” "My house within the city Is richly furnished with plate and gold," &c. If Shakspere had not seen the interior of Italian houses when he wrote this play, he must have possessed some effectual means of knowing and realising in his imagination the particulars of such an interior. Every educated man might be aware that the extensive commerce of Venice must bring within the reach of the neighbouring cities a multitude of articles of foreign production and taste. But there is a particularity in his mention of these articles which strongly indicates the experience of an eyewitness. The " cypress chests," and "ivory coffers," rich in antique carving, are still existing, with some remnants of "Tyrian tapestry," to carry back the imagination of the traveller to the days of the glory of the republic. The "plate and gold" are, for the most part, gone, to supply the needs of the impoverished aristocracy, who (to their credit) will part with every thing sooner than their pictures. The "tents and canopies," and " Turkey cushions boss'd with pearl," now no longer seen, were appropriate to the days when Cyprus, Candia, and the Morea were dependencies of Venice, scattering their productions through the eastern cities of Italy, and actually establishing many of their customs in the singular capital of the Venetian dominion. After Venice, Padua was naturally first served with importations of luxury. Venice was, and is still, remarkable for its jewellery, especially its fine works in gold. "Venice gold" was wrought into "valance"tapestry-by the needle, and was used for every variety of ornament, from chains as fine as if made of woven hair, to the most massive form in which gold can be worn. At the present day, the traveller who walks round the Piazza of St. Mark's is surprised at the large proportion of jewellers' shops, and at the variety and elegance of the ornaments they contain,-the shell necklaces, the jewelled rings and tiaras, and the profusion of gold chains.—(M.) ACT 15 SCENE I.-" Gamut I am, the ground of all accord," &c. GAMUT, or, more correctly, Gammut, is, in the sense here intended, the lowest note of the musical scale, established in the eleventh century by a Benedictine monk, Guido, of Arezzo in Tuscany. To this sound (G, the first line in the base,) he gave the name of the third letter in the Greek alphabet, r (Gamma), cutting off the final vowel, and affixing the syllable ut. This, and the other syllables, re, mi, fa, &c., names assigned by Guido to the notes of the diatonic scale, were suggested to him by the following verses, which form the first stanza of a hymn, by Paulus Diaconus, to St. John the Baptist : "Ut queant laxis resonare fibris, The tune to which this hymn was anciently sung in the Catholic church, ascends by the diatonic intervals G, A, B, C, D, and E, at the syllables here printed in italics. III. 16 SCENE II.-"His horse hipped," &c. Shakspere describes the imperfections and unsoundness of a horse with as much precision as if he had been bred in a farrier's shop. In the same way, in the 'Venus and Adonis,' he is equally circumstantial in summing up the qualities of a noble courser : "Round-hoof'd, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long, Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostrils wide, High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong, Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide." 17 SCENE II.-"A health, quoth he." It was the universal custom, in our poet's time, at the marriage of the humblest as well as the highest, for a bride-cup, sometimes called a knitting-cup," to be quaffed in church. At the marriage of Philip and Mary, in Winchester cathedral, in 1554, this part of the ceremony is thus described :-"The trumpets sounded, and they both returned to their traverses in the quire, and there remained until mass was done; at which time wine and sops were hallow'd and delivered to them both." (Leland's Collectanea.) |