Let his queen mother all alone entreat him pro HAM. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I nounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus; but use all gently for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion be round with him ;] To be round with a person, is to reprimand him with freedom. So, in A Mad World, my Masters, by Middleton, 1608: "She's round with her i'faith." MALONE. See Comedy of Errors, Vol. XX. Act II. sc. i. STEEVENS. periwig-pated-] This is a ridicule on the quantity of false hair worn in Shakspeare's time, for wigs were not in common use till the reign of Charles II. In The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Julia says" I'll get me such a colour'd periwig." to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings; who, for the most part, are capable Goff, who wrote several plays in the reign of James I. and was no mean scholar, has the following lines in his Tragedy of The Courageous Turk, 1632: 66 How now, you heavens ; "Grow you so proud you must needs put on curl'd locks, "And clothe yourselves in perriwigs of fire?" Players, however, seem to have worn them most generally. So, in Every Woman in her Humour, 1609; "as none wear hoods but monks and ladies; and feathers but fore-horses, &c. -none perriwigs but players and pictures." STEEVENS. 6 the groundlings;] The meaner people then seem to 'have sat below, as they now sit in the upper gallery, who, not well understanding poetical language, were sometimes gratified by a mimical and mute representation of the drama, previous to the dialogue. JOHNSON. Before each act of the tragedy of Jocasta, translated from Euripides, by George Gascoigne and Francis Kinwelmersh, the order of these dumb shows is very minutely described. This play was presented at Gray's-Inn by them, in 1566. The mute exhibitions included in it are chiefly emblematical, nor do they display a picture of one single scene which is afterwards per formed on the stage. In some other pieces I have observed, that they serve to introduce such circumstances as the limits of a play would not admit to be represented. Thus, in Herod and Antipater, 1622: Let me now "Intreat your worthy patience to contain "Out of this DUMB SHOW tell your memories." In short, dumb shows sometimes supplied deficiencies, and, at others, filled up the space of time which was necessary to pass while business was supposed to be transacted in foreign parts, With this method of preserving one of the unities, our ancestors appear to have been satisfied. Ben Jonson mentions the groundlings with equal contempt: "The understanding gentlemen of the ground here." Again, in The Case is Alter'd, 1609: “ a rude barbarous crew that have no brains, and yet grounded judgements; they will hiss any thing that mounts above their grounded capaci、 ties." of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows, and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'er-doing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: Pray you, avoid it. Again, in Lady Alimony, 1659: " Be your stage-curtains artificially drawn, and so covertly shrowded that the squint-eyed groundling may not peep in ?" In our early play-houses the pit had neither floor nor benches. Hence the term of groundlings for those who frequented it. The groundling, in its primitive signification, means a fish which always keeps at the bottom of the water. STEEVENS. 7 who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows, and noise:] i. e. have a capacity for nothing but dumb shows; understand nothing else. So, in Heywood's History of Women, 1624: "I have therein imitated our historical and comical poets, that write to the stage; who, lest the auditory should be dulled with serious discourses, in every act present some zany, with his mimick gesture, to breed in the less capable mirth and laughter." See Vol. XIV. p. 380, n. 4. MALONE. inexplicable dumb shows,] I believe the meaning is, shows, without words to explain them. JOHNSON. Rather, I believe, shows which are too confusedly conducted to explain themselves. I meet with one of these in Heywood's play of The Four Prentices of London, 1615, where the Presenter says: "I must entreat your patience to forbear "While we do feast your eye and starve your ear. "Their infant fortunes I will soon express:" &c. Then follow the dumb shows, which well deserve the character Hamlet has already given of this species of entertainment, as may be seen from the following passage: "Enter Tancred, with Bella Franca richly attired, she somewhat affecting him, though she makes no show of it." Surely this may be called an inexplicable dumb show. STEEVENS. Termagant ;] Termagaunt (says Dr. Percy) is the name given in the old romances to the god of the Sarazens; in which he is constantly linked with Mahound, or Mohammed. Thus, in the legend of SYR GUY, the Soudan swears: 1 PLAY. I warrant your honour. HAM. Be not too tame neither, but let your own "So helpe me Mahowne of might, "And Termagaunt my God so bright." So also, in Hall's first Satire: "Nor fright the reader with the Pagan vaunt "Of mightie Mahound, and greate Termagaunt." Again, in Marston's 7th Satire: 66 let whirlwinds and confusion teare "The center of our state; let giants reare "Hill upon hill; let westerne Termagant "Shake heaven's vault" &c. Termagant is also mentioned by Spenser in his Fairy Queen, and by Chaucer in The Tale of Sir Topas; and by Beaumont and Fletcher, in King or no King, as follows: "This would make a saint swear like a soldier, and a soldier like Termagant." Again, in The Picture, by Massinger: 66 a hundred thousand Turks "Assail'd him, every one a Termagaunt." STEEvens, Again, in Bale's Acts of English Votaries: "Grennyng upon her, lyke Termagauntes in a play." RITSON — out-herods Herod :] The character of Herod in the ancient mysteries, was always a violent one. See the Coventriæ Ludus among the Cotton MSS. Vespasian D. VIII: "Now I regne lyk a kyng arrayd ful rych, Again, in The Chester Whitsun Plays, MS. Harl. 1013: "I sovraigne sir, as well is seene, "I tyrant that maye bouth take and teene "Castell, tower, and towne; "I welde this worlde withouten wene, "I beate all those unbuxome beene; "I drive the devills alby dene "Deepe in hell adowne. "For I am kinge of all mankinde, "I byd, I beate, I lose, I bynde, "I master the moone; take this in myndę discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'er-step not the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirrour up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time,' his form and pressure. Now this, over 2 "I ame the greatest above degree, 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 stagedirections to the 27th pageant in the Coventry collection already mentioned: "What tyme that processyon is entered into yt place, and the Herowdys taken his schaffalde, and Annas and Cayphas their schaffaldys," &c. STEEVENS. To the instances given by Mr. Steevens of Herod's lofty language, may be added these lines from the Coventry plays among the Cotton MSS. p. 92: 1 "Of bewte and of boldnes I ber evermore the belle, "I dynge with my dowtiness the devyl down to helle, Again, in The Unluckie Firmentie, by G. Kyttes, 4to. bl. 1: "But he was in such a rage "As one that shulde on a stage age and body of the time,] RITSON. The age of the time can hardly pass. May we not read, the face and body, or did the |