ACT II. (1) SCENE III.-Did you never see the picture of we three?] The Clown roguishly refers to a once common sign, which represented two fools drinking, with an inscription beneath of "We three loggerheads be." "Plain home-spun stuffe shall now proceed from me, TAYLOR'S Farewell to the Tower-Bottles, 1622. There is a marginal note to this passage,- -"The picture of two fooles and the third looking on, I doe fitly compare with the two black bottles and myselfe." (2) SCENE III.-In sooth, thou wast in very gracious fooling last night, when thou spok'st of Pigrogromitus, of the Vapians passing the equinoctial of Queubus.] Sir Andrew's commendation calls to mind one of the most characteristic accomplishments of the wittiest domestic jesters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. We say the wittiest, for, without distributing the Clowns of the period according to the careful classification adopted by Mr. Douce, it is evident that, in the Fool's calling, as in others, there were various degrees, and that the first-class jester of a royal or noble family ranked as much above his brother clown of the cominon sort, as the leading histrion of a London theatre tops the poor varlet who struts and frets his hour upon the stage at a country fair; "I marvel," says Malvolio, "that your ladyship takes delight in such a barren rascal; I saw him put down the other day with an ordinary fool, that has no more brains than a stone." All clowns were capable, more or less, of the biting sarcasms and coarse practical merriment which their vocation licensed; but few, probably, had sufficient information, not to say learning, to garnish their discourse with the mock erudition and the snatches of axiomatical philosophy exhibited by the jesters of "Twelfth Night" and "As You Like It;" and from them any reasoning admitting a sensible interpretation must not, of course, be looked for; though something may be traced in them which bears a close affinity to the fantastic extravagance and wild conceits of Rabelais. The source, however, of their sham sententiousness is of an earlier date than the romance of the great French satirist. The first known edition of that work is dated 1532; but in the library of M. de Bure were found two more ancient though undated books, entitled "Les Chroniques de Gargantua,” which have much of this peculiar humour. The history of Gargantua, as an enormous giant, was well known too in England during the sixteenth century, though the romance relating to him contains nothing of the amusing rhodomontade indulged in by Rabelais and the humorists in question. A remote resemblance to it may be detected in some parts of the poems of Robert Longland, "The Vision and Creed of Pierce Ploughman;' and there is extant a genuine specimen of the "excellent fooling" for which the clowns of Shakespeare stand unrivalled, in the form of a mock sermon, in a manuscript of the fifteenth century, preserved in the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh, which, with other burlesques of the same date, was printed in 1841 by Mr. T. Wright, in the Reliquia Antiquæ, Vol. I. pp. 82-84. One extract from this effusion, with the orthography partly modernised, will convey no very imperfect notion of the clown's "gracious fooling" with Sir Toby and his companion knight" Why hopest thou not, for sooth, that there stood once a cook on St. Paul steeple top, and drew up the strapuls of his breech? How provest thou that? By all the four doctors of Wynebere hylles; that is to say, Vertas, Gadatryme, Trumpas, and Dadyl Trymsert; the which four doctors say, that there was once an old wife had a cook to her son; and he looked out of an old dove-cote, and warned and charged that no man should be so hardy neither to ride nor to go on St. Paul steeple top but if he rode on a three-footed stool, or else that he brought with him a warrant of his neck, and yet the lewd letherand lurdon went forth, and met seven acres of land betwixt Dover and Quicksand, and he brought an acre in his recke [hand-basket] from the Tower of London unto the Tower of Babilon; and, as he went by the way, he had a foul fall, and he fell down at the castle of Dover into a gruel pot, and brake both his shins. Thereof came tripping to the king of Hongre, that all people which might not lightly come to the Plain of Salisbury, but the fox and the grey convent, should pray for all the old shoe-soles that ben roasted in the king's dish on Saturday." (3) SCENE III.-Let our catch be, Thou knave.] In this catch, the notes of which we append, the fun consists in the parts being so contrived that each singer in turn calls his fellow knave. (4) SCENE III.-Malvolio's a Peg a-Ramsey.] The words of the old ballad of Peg-a-Ramsey are lost, but Mr. Chappell informs us that there are two tunes under the name, and both as old as Shakespeare's time. The first is called Peg-a-Rumsey in William Ballet's Lute Book, and is given by Sir John Hawkins as the tune quoted in the text. (See the Variorum edition.) 'Little Pegge of Ramsie' is one of the tunes in a manuscript by Dr. Bull, which formed a part of Dr. Pepusch's, and afterwards of Dr. Kitchener's library." (5) SCENE III.-Three merry men be we.] This song is mentioned in Peele's "Old Wives' Tale," 1595. Anticke, Frolicke, and Fantasticke, three adventurers, are lost in a wood in the night, and Anticke says, "Let us rehearse the old proverb: "Three merrie men, and three merrie men, I in the wood and thou on the ground, The burden being a jovial and popular one, is continually quoted by the old play-wrights. For the tune the reader is referred to Chappell's Popular Music of the Olden Time, Vol. I. p. 216. (6) SCENE III.-There dwelt a man in Babylon, lady, lady!] Of this long and wearisome ballad we have already given a sufficient sample (Vol. I. p. 217) in illustration of the familiar burden, lady, lady." In a broadside preserved in the Roxburghe collection, it is headed, "An excellent Ballad, Intituled, The constancy of Susanna. To an excellent new tune.' A "ballette of the godly constante wyse Susanna," was entered on the books of the Stationers' Company so early as 1562-3, and a play on the same subject was printed in 1578. (7) SCENE III.-Farewell, dear heart, since I must needs be gone.] The ballad referred to in the note at p. 247, is printed by Percy, (Reliques, i. 205,) from an ancient miscellany, entitled "The golden Garland of princely delights.' To weep there!] On comparing the Duke's description of that "antique song" he heard last night, with this ballad, the difference is so striking, as to beget suspicion that the latter was an interpolation and not the original song intended by the poet. It appears, indeed, to have been the privilege of the singer formerly, whenever the business of the scene required a song, to introduce one of his own choice; hence we frequently find in our old dramas, instead of the words of a ballad, merely a stage direction, "A Song," or "He sings." (9) SCENE V.-O, for a stone-bow, to hit him in the eye!] "A stone-bow was a cross-bow made for propelling stones, or rather bullets, merely in contradistinction to a bow that shot arrows. 'Litle more then a yeare after I maried, 1 and my wife being at Skreenes with my father, (the plague being soe in London, and my building not finished,) I had exercised my-selfe with a stone-bow and a spar-hawke at the bush.'-Autobiography of SIR JOHN BRAMSTON, p. 108."-HALLIWELL. (10) SCENE V.-M, O, A, I, doth sway my life.] Fustian riddles of this kind were not uncommon in Shakespeare's time, and several examples are quoted by Mr. Halliwell. Thus, in the "Squyr of Lowe Degre" In the myddes of your sheld ther shal be set ACT III. (1) SCENE I.-Enter Clown with a tabor.] The tabor was a favourite instrument with the professional fools. Most people are familiar with the print prefixed to Tarlton's Jests, 1611, in which that famous comedian is represented playing on a pipe and beating a small drum or tabor. Mr. Knight, in his "Pictorial Shakspere," has given an earlier portrait of Tarlton, (the original, apparently, of that attached to the "Jests,") which is taken from the Harleian MS. No. 3885. It is to this representation, probably, that allusion is made in "The pleasant and Stately Morall of the three Lordes and three Ladies of London." By Robert Wilson, 1590. The dialogue is between Wil, Wit, Wealth (pages of the three Lords), and Simplicitie ("a poore Free man of London"). Simplicitie. "This is Tarlton's picture. Didst thou neuer know Tarlton?" Wil. "No: what was that Tarlton? I neuer knew him." Simplicitie. "What was he? A prentice in his youth of this honourable city, God be with him. When he was young, he was leaning to the trade that my wife vseth nowe, and I haue vsed, vide lice shirt, water bearing. I wis he hath tost a tankard in Cornehil er nowe: If thou knewst him not, I will not call thee ingram; but if thou knewest not him, thou knewest nobody. I warrant, her's two crack ropes knew him." Wit. "I dwelt with him." Simplicitie. "Didst thou? now giue me thy hand: I loue thee the better." Wit. "And I, too, sometime." Simplicitie. "You, child! did you dwell with him sometime?" Wit dwelt with him, indeed, as appeared by his rime, and served him well; and Wil was with him now and then. But soft: thy name is Wealth: I think in earnest he was litle acquainted with thee. O, it was a fine fellow, as ere was borne: There will neuer come his like while the earth can corne. free. The finenes was within, for without he was plaine; (2) SCENE I.-Then westward-ho!] In our poet's time the Thames formed the great highway of traffic, and "Westward, ho!" "Eastward, ho!" equivalent to the modern omnibus conductor's "West-end!" "City!" were the cries with which the watermen made its shores resound from morn till night. At that period, before the general introduction of coaches, there were not less, according to Taylor, than forty thousand of these clamorous Tritons plying their calling on the river in and near to the metropolis; and their desperate contentions to secure custom sometimes led to scenes of scandalous riot and confusion. Westward, ho!" for the Decker took the exclamation title of a comedy, and Jonson, Chapman, and Marston adopted that of "Eastward, ho!" for one jointly written by them a few years afterwards. (3) SCENE II.-A Brownist.] The Brownists were a sect who derived their name from Robert Browne, a gentleman of good family, and who had been educated at Cambridge. He separated from the Church, and gave great offence about 1580 by maintaining that her discipline was Popish and Antichristian, and her ministers not rightly ordained. Strype, in his life of Whitgift, relates, however, that in the year 1589 he "went off from the separation, and came into the communion of the Church." (4) SCENE II.-If thou thou'st him some thrice, it shall not be amiss.] Theobald's conjecture that this passage was levelled at the Attorney-General Coke for his thouing Sir Walter Raleigh is at once put out of court since "Twelfth Night" is discovered to have been acted nearly two years before Sir Walter's trial took place. But if Theobald were ignorant of the fact, subsequent editors who have adopted his supposition ought to have known that to thou any body was once thought a direct mark of insult, as might be shown by a hundred examples. Mr. Singer has adduced one pertinent illustration from "The Enimie of Idlenesse," by William Fulwood, 1568: "A merchaunt having many servantes, to his chiefest may speake or wryte by this terme you but to them whome he lesse esteemeth, and are more subject to correction, he may use thys terme thou.' The following, from the "Galateo of Maister John Della Casa, Archebishop of Beneventa," 4to. Lond. 1576, pp. 45-6, is even still more to the purpose : "Many times it chaunceth that men come to daggers drawing, even for this occasion alone, that one man hath not done the other, that worship and honour uppon the way, that he ought. For to saye a trueth, the power of custome is great and of much force, and would be taken for a lawe, in these cases. And that is the cause we say: You: to every one, that is not a man of very base calling, and in suche kinde of speach wee yealde such a one, no maner of courtesie of our owne. But if wee say: Thou: to suche a one, then wee disgrace him and offer him outrage and wronge: and by suche speach, seeme to make no better reconing of him, then of a knave and a clowne. **** So that it behoves us, hedefully to marke the doings and speache, wherewith daily practise and custome, wonteth to receave, salute, and name in our owne country, all sortes and kinds of people, and in all our familiar communication with men, let us use the same. And notwithstanding the Admerall (as, peradventure, the maner of his time was such) in his talke with Peter the king of Aragon, did many times Thou him: Let us yet saye to our King, Your majestie: and your highnes as well in speache as in writing.' *Bocc. Novel. 6. Gior. 5. 279 (6) SCENE IV.-It is with me as the very true sonnet is, Please one, and please all.] Of this "very true sonnet" a copy, believed to be unique, was discovered a few years ago, and is now in the possession of Mr. George Daniel. It is adorned with a rude portrait of Queen Elizabeth, with her feathered fan, starched ruff, and ample farthingale, and is said to have been the composition of her majestie's right merrie and facetious droll, Dick Tarlton. numbers of this recovered relic are not lofty, nor the expression very felicitous; but "Please One and Please All" is worth preserving, both as an illustration of Shakespeare, and as a specimen of the quaint and simple old ballad literature of our forefathers: A prettie new Ballad, intytuled; To the tune of, Please one and please all. Please one and please all, Be they great be they small, sitting upon a wall: Please one and please all, Be they white be they black, Have they a smock on their back, Be they sower be they swete, upon her head a cap or call: Be they halt be they lame, Be she Lady be she dame, If that she doo weare a pinne, and to keepe yourselfe from thrall, If the goodwife be displeased, If that you bid her do ought, If that she doo it not, And though that you be her goodman, You yourself must doo it then, be it in kitchin or in hall: please one and please all. Let her have her owne will, Thus the Crowe pypeth still, Whatsoever she command, See that you doo it out of hand, whensoever she doth call: please one and please all. The Be they wanton be they wilde,, Be they gentle be they milde: Speake she soft or speake she loud, Is she huswife is she none, Yet this Crowes words dooth try, For thus it is and ever shall please one and please all. Please one and please all, Be they great be they small, Be they little be they lowe, So pipeth the Crowe, sitting upon a wall: please one and please all, please one and please all. FINIS. RT Imprinted at London for Henry Kyrkham, dwelling at the little North doore of Paules, at the syne of the blacke Boy. (7) SCENE IV.-On carpet consideration.] By carpet consideration Shakespeare points at the carpet knights, or knights of the green cloth, as those persons were called who attained to the distinction of knighthood, not by military services, but for some real or supposed merit in their civil capacities. Of such, Francis Markham, in The Booke of Honour, folio 1625, p. 71, observes: "Next unto these (he had been speaking of Dunghill, or Truck knights) in degree, but not in qualitie (for these are truly for the most part vertuous and worthie), is that rank of Knights which are called Carpet Knights, being men who are by the prince's grace and favour made knights at home and in the time of peace, by the imposition or laying on of the king's sword, having, by some special service done to the common-wealth, or for some other particular virtues made known to the soveraigne, as also for the dignitie of their births, and in recompence of noble and famous actions done by their ancestors, deserved this great title and dignitie." Randal Holme, in much the same terms, describes the several orders of persons eligible for the title, and speaks of it as an honourable distinction. It is plain, however, from innumerable passages in the old writers, that, to the popular idea, a carpet knight was synonymous then, as it is now, with an effeminate popinjay, who gained by favour what he would never have won by deeds. So, in Harrington's epigram, "Of Merit and Demerit :" "That captaines in those days were not regarded: That only Carpet-knights were well rewarded." Whetstone, in the story of Rinaldo and Giletta, in The Rock of Regard, 1576, says: "Now he consults with carpet knights about curious masks and other delightful shewes; anon he runs unto the tailer's, to see his apparell made of the straungest and costliest fashion." And in "A Happy Husband, or Directions for a Maid to chuse her Mate, together with a Wive's Behaviour after Mariage," by Patrick Hannay, Gent. 1622, there is a full-length portrait of the character: "A carpet knight, who makes it his chiefe care Soon flees, spent so, while each irreguler haire This forenoones task perform'd, his way he takes, ACT IV. (1) SCENE II.-Clear-stories.] The clear-stories are the upper story or row of windows in a church, hall, or other erection, rising clear above the adjoining parts of the building, adopted as a means of obtaining an increase of light. Whereupon a iij thousand werkmen was werkynge iiij monethes to make it so grete in quantyté, so statly, and all with clere-story lyghtys, lyk a lantorne, the roffis garnyshed with sarsnettys and buddys of golde, and borderyd over all the aras over longe to dysturbe the rychnes therof."-ARNOLD'S Chronicle. (2) SCENE II. Hey Robin, jolly Robin, Tell me how thy lady does !] "The original of this song is preserved in a MS. containing poems by Sir Thomas Wyatt, and is entitled 'The careful Lover complaineth, and the happy Lover counselleth :' A Robyn,-Jolly Robyn, Tell me how thy leman doeth,-And thou shalt knowe of myn. My lady is unkyinde, perde.-Alack! why is she so? She loveth an other better than me:-And yet she will say, no. RESPONSE. Ifynde no such doubleness:-I fynde women true. My lady loveth me dowtles,-And will change for no newe. LE PLAINTIF. Thou art happy while that doeth last;-But I say, as I fynde, That woman's love is but a blast,-And torneth with the wynde. RESPONSE. But if thou wilt avoyde thy harme,-Lerne this lesson of me, At others fieres thy selfe to warme,-And let them warme with the. LE PLAINTIF. Suche folkes can take no harme by love,-That can abide their torn, But I, alas, can no way prove-In love but lake and morn."-HALLIWELL. ACT V. (1) SCENE I. Why should I not, had I the heart to do it, This relates, perhaps, as Theobald suggested, to a story found in the Ethiopics of Heliodorus. The Egyptian thief was Thyamis, a native of Memphis, and the chief of a band of robbers. Theagenes and Chariclea falling into their hands, Thyamis fell desperately in love with the lady, and would have married her. Soon after, a strong body of robbers coming down upon the band of Thyamis, he was under such apprehensions for his beloved that he had her shut up in a cave with his treasure. It was customary for those barbarians, "when they despaired of their own safety, first to make away with those whom they held dear," and desired for companions in the next life. Thyamis, therefore, benetted round with his enemies, raging with love, jealousy, and anger, betook himself to his cave; and calling aloud in the Egyptian tongue, so soon as he heard himself answered towards the mouth of the cave by a Grecian, making to the speaker by the direction of the voice, he caught her by the hair with his left hand, and (supposing her to be Chariclea) with his right hand plunged his sword into her breast. (2) SCENE I. A contract of eternal bond of love, Confirm'd by mutual joinder of your hands, Strengthen'd by interchangement of your rings.] The ceremony which had taken place between Olivia and Sebastian, Mr. Douce has conclusively shown, was not an actual marriage, but that which was called espousals, namely, a betrothing, affiancing, or promise of future marriage. "Vincent de Beauvais, a writer of the thirteenth century, in his Speculum historiale, lib. ix. c. 70, has defined espousals to be a contract of future marriage, made either by a simple promise, by earnest or security given, by a ring, or by an oath. During the same period, and the following centuries, we may trace several other modes of betrothing, some of which it may be worth while to describe more at large. I. The interchangement of rings. Thus in Chaucer's Troilus and Creseide, book 3: "Soon after this they spake of sondry things As fill to purpose of this aventure, And playing enterchaungeden her rings When espousals took place at church, rings were also interchanged. According to the ritual of the Greek church, the priest first placed the rings on the fingers of the parties who afterwards exchanged them. Sometimes the man only gave a ring. When this II. The kiss that was mutually given. ceremony took place at church, the lady of course withdrew the veil which was usually worn on the occasion; when in private, the drinking of healths generally followed. III. The joining of hands. This is often alluded to by Shakspeare himself. IV. The testimony of witnesses. That of the priest alone was generally sufficient, though we often find many other persons attending the ceremony. The words 'there before him,' and 'he shall conceal it,' in Olivia's speech, sufficiently demonstrate that betrothing and not marriage is intended; for in the latter the presence of the priest alone would not have sufficed. In later times, espousals in the church were often prohibited in France, because instances frequently occurred where the parties, relying on the testimony of the priest, scrupled not to live together as man and wife; which gave rise to much scandal and disorder."-DouCE's Illustrations of Shakspeare, I. 109-113. (3) SCENE I. When that I was and a little tiny boy.] It is to be regretted, perhaps, that this "nonsensical ditty," as Steevens terms it, has not been long since degraded to the foot-notes. It was evidently one of those jigs, with which it was the rude custom of the Clown to gratify the groundlings upon the conclusion of a play. These absurd compositions, intended only as a vehicle for buffoonery, were usually improvisations of the singer, tagged to some popular ballad-burden-or the first lines of various songs strung together in ludicrous juxtaposition, at the end of each of which, the performer indulged in hideous grimace, and a grotesque sort of "Jump Jim Crow" dance. Of these " nonsense songs," we had formerly preserved three or four specimens, but they have unfortunately got mislaid. CRITICAL OPINIONS ON TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, WHAT YOU WILL. "The Twelfth Night, or What you Will, unites the entertainment of an intrigue, contrived with great ingenuity, to a rich fund of comic characters and situations, and the beauteous colours of an ethereal poetry. In most of his plays, Shakspeare treats love more as an affair of the imagination than the heart; but here he has taken particular care to remind us that, in his language, the same word, fancy, signified both fancy and love. The love of the music-enraptured Duke for Olivia is not merely a fancy, but an imagination; Viola appears at first to fall arbitrarily in love with the Duke, whom she serves as a page, although she afterwards touches the tenderest strings of feeling; the proud Olivia is captivated by the modest and insinuating messenger of the Duke, in whoin she is far from suspecting a disguised rival, and at last, by a second deception, takes the brother for the sister. To these, which I might call ideal follies, a contrast is formed by the naked absurdities to which the entertaining tricks of the ludicrous persons of the piece give rise, under the pretext also of love: the silly and profligate knight's awkward courtship of Olivia, and her declaration of love to Viola; the imagination of the pedantic steward, Malvolio, that his mistress is secretly in love with him, which carries him so far that he is at last shut up as a lunatic, and visited by the clown in the dress of a priest. These scenes are admirably conceived, and as significant as they are laughable. If this were really, as is asserted, Shakspeare's latest work, he must have enjoyed to the last the same youthful elasticity of mind, and have carried with him to the grave the undiminished fulness of his talents."-SCHLEGEL. "The serious and the humorous scenes are alike excellent; the former -'give a very echo to the seat Where love is thron'd,' and are tinted with those romantic hues, which impart to passion the fascinations of fancy, and which stamp the poetry of Shakespeare with a character so transcendently his own, so sweetly wild, so tenderly imaginative. Of this description are the loves of Viola and Orsino, which, though involving a few improbabilities of incident, are told in a manner so true to nature, and in a strain of such melancholy enthusiasm, as instantly put to flight all petty objections, and leave the mind wrapt in a dream of the most delicious sadness. The fourth scene of the second act more particularly breathes the blended emotions of love, of hope, and of despair, opening with a highly interesting description of the soothing effects of music in allaying the pangs of unrequited affection, and in which the attachment of Shakespeare to the simple melodies of the olden time is strongly and beautifully expressed. "From the same source which has given birth to this delightful portion of the drama, appears to spring a large share of that rich and frolic humour which distinguishes its gayer incidents. The delusion of Malvolio, in supposing himself the object of Olivia's desires, and the ludicrous pretension of Sir Andrew Aguecheek to the same lady, fostered as they are by the comic manœuvres of the convivial Sir Toby and the keen-witted Maria, furnish, together with the professional drollery of Feste the jester, an ever-varying fund of pleasantry and mirth; scenes in which wit and raillery are finely blended with touches of original character, and strokes of poignant satire.”—DRAKE. |