14 SCENE IV.-"We'll have no Cupid hoodwink'd with a scarf," &c. The masque of ladies, or amazons, in Shakspere's 'Timon,' is preceded by a Cupid, who addresses the company in a speech. This "device" was a practice of courtly life, before and during the time of Shakspere. But here he says, "The date is out of such prolixity." The "Tartar's painted bow of lath" is the bow of the Asiatic nations, with a double curve; and Shakspere employed the epithet to distinguish the bow of Cupid from the old English long bow. The "crow-keeper," who scares the ladies, had also a bow:-he is the shuffle or mawkin-the scarecrow of rags and straw, with a bow and arrow in his hand. "That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper," says Lear. The "without-book prologue faintly spoke after the prompter," is supposed by Warton to allude to the boy-actors that we afterwards find so fully noticed in Hamlet. 15 SCENE IV.-" We'll measure them a measure." The "measure was the courtly dance of the days of Elizabeth; not so solemn as the pavanthe "doleful pavan," as Davenant calls it, in which princes in their mantles, and lawyers in their long robes, and courtly dames with enormous trains, swept the rushes like the tails of peacocks. From this circumstance came its name, the pavan-the dance of the peacock. The "measure" may be best described in Shakspere's own words, in the mouth of the lively Beatrice, in Much Ado about Nothing':"The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not woo'd in good time; if the prince be too important, tell him there is measure in every thing, and so dance out the answer. hear me, Hero: wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinquepace: the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical: the wedding, mannerly-modest, as a measure full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance, and, with his bad legs, falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave." For waxen torches borne in the hands of attendants. | tricated, of course; and the merriment arises Froissart thus describes the feasting of Gaston de Foix :-"At midnight when he came out of his chamber into the hall to supper, he had ever before him twelve torches brennyng, borne by twelve varlettes standing before his table all supper." To hold the torch was not, however, a degrading office in England; for the gentlemen pensioners of Elizabeth held torches while a play was acted before her in the chapel of King's College, Cambridge. 17 SCENE IV.-" Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels." Carpets, though known in Italy, were not adapted to the English habits in the time of Elizabeth; and even the presence-chamber of that Queen was, according to Hentzner, strewed with hay, by which he meant rushes. The impurities which gathered on the floor were easily removed with the rushes. But the custom of from the awkward and affected efforts of the rustics to lift the log, and from sundry arch contrivances to let the ends of it fall on one another's toes. This will not be thought a very exquisite amusement; and yet I have seen much honest mirth at it, and have been far more entertained with the ludicrous contortions of pretended struggles, than with the real writhing, the dark scowl of avarice and envy, exhibited by the same description of persons, in the genteeler amusement of cards, the universal substitute for all our ancient sports."-(Ben Jonson's Works, vol. vii. page 282.) 19 SCENE IV.-" Sir reverence." This was the old mode of apology for the introduction of a free expression. Mercutio says, he will draw Romeo from "the mire of this love," and uses, parenthetically, the ordi strewing rushes, although very general in Eng-nary form of apology for speaking so profanely land, was not peculiar to it. Mr. Brown, in his work on Shakspere's auto-biographical poems, has this observation: "An objection has been made, imputing an error, in Grumio's question, 'Are the rushes strewed?' But the custom of strewing rushes in England belonged also to Italy; this may be seen in old authors, and their very word giuncare, now out of use, is a proof of it." 18 SCENE IV.-"Tut! dun's the mouse." We have a string of sayings here which have much puzzled the commentators. When Romeo exclaims, "I am done," Mercutio, playing upon the word, cries "dun 's the mouse." This is a proverbial phrase, constantly occurring in the old comedies. It is probably something like the other cant phrase that occurs in Lear, "the cat is grey." The following line "If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire," was fully as puzzling, till Gifford gave us a solution:-"Dun is in the mire! then, is a Christmas gambol, at which I have often played. A log of wood is brought into the midst of the room: this is dun (the cart horse), and a cry is raised, that he is stuck in the mire. Two of the company advance, either with or without ropes, to draw him out. After repeated attempts, they find themselves unable to do it, and call for more assistance.-The game continues till all the company take part in it, when dun is ex TRAGEDIES.-VOL. I. of love. Gifford has given us a quotation from an old tract on the origin of tobacco, which is exactly in point:-"The time hath been when if we did speak of this loathsome stuff, tobacco, we used to put a 'Sir reverence' before, but we forget our good manners." In another note on the same word, Gifford says, "there is much filthy stuff on this simple interjection, of which neither Steevens nor Malone appears to have known the import, in the notes to Romeo and Juliet." (Ben Jonson's Works, vol. vi. page 149; vol. vii. page 337.) 20 SCENE IV.-"This is that very Mab That plats the manes of horses in the night." We extract the following amusing note from Douce's Illustrations: This line alludes to a very singular superstition, not yet forgotten in some parts of the country. It was believed that certain malignant spirits, whose delight was to wander in groves and pleasant places, assumed occasionally the likenesses of women clothed in white; that in this character they sometimes haunted stables in the night-time, carrying in their hands tapers of wax, which they dropped on the horses' manes, thereby plaiting them in inextricable knots, to the great annoyance of the poor animals, and the vexation of their masters. These hags are mentioned in the works of William Auvergne, Bishop of Paris, in the thirteenth century. There is a very uncommon old print by Hans G Burgmair, relating to this subject. A witch enters the stable with a lighted torch; and previously to the operation of entangling the horse's mane, practises her enchantments on the groom, who is lying asleep on his back, and apparently influenced by the nightmare. The belemnites, or elf-stones, were regarded as charms against the last-mentioned disease and against evil spirits of all kinds; but the cerauniæ, or botuli, and all perforated flint stones, were not only used for the same purpose, but more particularly for the protection of horses and other cattle, by suspending them in stables, or tying them round the necks of the animals." The next line, "And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs," seems to be unconnected with the preceding, and to mark a superstition, which, as Dr. Warburton has observed, may have originated from the plica Polonica, which was supposed to be the operation of the wicked elves, whence the clotted hair was called elf-locks, and elf-knots. Thus Edgar talks of "elfing all his hair in knots." 21 SCENE IV. It is desirable to exhibit the first draft of a performance so exquisitely finished as this celebrated description, in which every word is a study. And yet it is curious that in the quarto of 1609, and in the folio (from which we print), in both of which the corrections of the author are apparent, the whole speech is given as if it were in prose. The original quarto of 1597 gives the passage as follows: "Ah, then I see queen Mab hath been with you, On the forefinger of a burgomaster, That plaits the manes of horses in the night, 22 SCENE V.-" Remove the court cupboard.” The court cupboard was the ornamental sideboard, set out with salvers and beakers on days of festivity. We have in a play of 1599, "accomplished the court cupboard;" and in another by Chapman, in 1606, "Here shall stand my court cupboard with its furniture of plate." In Italy the art of Benvenuto Cellini was lavished upon the exquisite ornaments of the court cupboard. ACT II. 23 SCENE I." When king Cophetua lov'd the | beggar-maid." THE ballad of King Cophetua and the beggarmaid was amongst the most popular of old English ballads, allusions to which were familiar to Shakspere's audience. Upon the authority of learned Master "Moth" in 'Love's Labour's Lost,' it was an ancient ballad in Shakspere's day : "Armado. Is there not a ballad, boy, of the King and the Beggar? Moth. The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages since; but, I think, now 't is not to be found, or, if it were, it would neither serve for the writing nor the tune. Arm. I will have that subject newly writ o'er." We have two versions of this ballad :-the one published in A Collection of Old Ballads,' quoted by Grey, in 1754; the other in Percy's 'Reliques.' Both of these compositions appear as if they had been "newly writ o'er" not | bed, or a trundle-bed, both which words ex long before, or perhaps after, Shakspere's time: we subjoin a stanza of each : FROM PERCY'S 'RELIQUES.' "I read that once in Africa A princely wight did reign, From nature's laws he did decline, But did them all disdain. But mark, what happened on a day, He saw a beggar all in grey, The which did cause him pain. The blinded boy, that shoots so trim, He drew a dart and shot at him, FROM A COLLECTION OF OLD BALLADS.' "A king once reigned beyond the seas, As we in ancient stories find, Whom no fair face could ever please, He despis'd the sweetest beauty, And the greatest fortune too; The blind boy that shoots so trim, Did to his closet window steal, And made him soon his power feel. He that never cared for women, But did females ever hate, At length was smitten, wounded, swooned, For a beggar at his gate." 24 SCENE I.-I'll to my truckle-bed." The original quarto has, "I'll to my trundlebed." It appears somewhat strange that Mercutio should speak of sleeping in a truckle plain the sort of bed-a running-bed. The furniture of a sleeping-chamber in Shakspere's time consisted of a standing-bed, and a truckle-bed. "There's his chamber, his house, his castle, his standing-bed, and trucklebed," says mine host of the Garter, in the 'Merry Wives of Windsor.' The standing-bed was for the master; the truckle-bed, which ran under it, for the servant. It may seem strange, therefore, that Mercutio should talk of sleeping in the bed of his page; but the next words will solve the difficulty: "This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep." The field-bed, in this case, was the ground; but the field-bed,' properly so called, was the travelling bed; the lit de champ, called, in old English, the "trussyng-bedde." The bed next beyond the luxury of the trussyng-bed was the truckle-bed; and therefore Shakspere naturally takes that in preference to the standing-bed. 25 SCENE II." Well, do not swear," &c. Coleridge has a beautiful remark on this passage, and on the whole of the scene, which we extract:-" With love, pure love, there is always an anxiety for the safety of the object, a disinterestedness, by which it is distinguished from the counterfeits of its name. Compare this scene with Act III. Scene 1. of the 'Tempest.' I do not know a more wonderful instance of Shakspere's mastery in playing a distinctly rememberable variety on the same remembered air, than in the transporting love confessions of Romeo and Juliet, and Ferdinand and Miranda. There seems more passion in the one, and more dignity in the other; yet you feel that the sweet girlish lingering and busy movement of Juliet, and the calmer and more maidenly fondness of Miranda, might easily pass into each other." 26 SCENE II.-" O, for a falconer's voice, To lure this tassel-gentle back again!" The falconer's voice was the voice which the hawk was constrained by long habit to obey. Gervase Markham, in his 'Country Contentments,' has picturesquely described the process of training hawks to this obedience, "by watching and keeping them from sleep, by a continual carrying them upon your fist, and by a most familiar stroking and playing with them, with the wing of a dead fowl, or such like, and by 134181A eyas-musket, the smallest unfledged hawk. Othello fears that Desdemona is haggard-that is, the wild hawk which "checks at every feather." The sport with a tassel-gentle is spiritedly described by Massinger : "Then, for an evening flight, often gazing and looking them in the face, with | Merry Wives of Windsor,' Falstaff's page is the a loving and gentle countenance." A hawk so "manned" was brought to the lure "by easy degrees, and at last was taught to know the voice and lure so perfectly, that either upon the sound of the one, or sight of the other, she will presently come in, and be most obedient." There is a peculiar propriety in Juliet calling Romeo her tassel-gentle; for this species was amongst the most beautiful and elegant of hawks, and was especially appropriated to the use of a prince. Our poet always uses the images which have been derived from his own experience, with exquisite propriety. In the A tiercel gentle, which I call, my masters, 27 SCENE III.-" The earth, that's nature's mother, passages in which the author has sacrificed is her tomb." grammar to rhyme." Mr. Monck Mason's obMilton, in the second book of 'Paradise Lost,' servation is made in the same spirit in which has the same idea :he calls Romeo's impassioned language "quaint jargon." Before Shakspere was accused of sacri "The womb of nature, and, perhaps, her grave." The editors of Milton have given a parallel pas- ficing grammar, it ought to have been shown sage in Lucretius : that his idiom was essentially different from that of his predecessors and his cotemporaries. Dr. Percy, who brought to the elucidation of our old authors the knowledge of an antiquary and the feeling of a poet, has observed, that "in very old English the third person plural of the present tense endeth in eth as well as the singular, and often familiarly in es;" and it has been further explained by Mr. Tollet, that "the third person plural of the Anglo-Saxon |