Scene 1. Page 181.

It was the fashion in Shakspeare's time, and had been so from the thirteenth century, to ornament the tombs of eminent persons with figures and inscriptions on plates of brass: to these the allusion seems rather to be made, than to monuments that were entirely of brass, such being of very rare occurrence.

Scene 1. Page 182.

From the Latin pinguis venter non gignit sensum tenuem. See Ray's Proverbs. The rest of Longaville's speech, "and dainty bits," &c. merely repeats the same sentiment for the sake of a rhime.

Scene 1. Page 183.

Mr. Ritson would read, If study's gain be this. There is no occasion for any change. Thus means after this manner; but the poet would not write this, in order to avoid a cacophony.

Scene 1. Page 191.

The context seems to indicate that child of fancy is here used precisely in the sense in which Milton applied it to Shakspeare, from whom he probably borrowed it. The meaning of this controverted speech may be as follows: "this child of invention shall relate to us, in his bombastic language, the worthy deeds of many a Spanish knight which are now forgotten amidst those topics that engage the attention of mankind." The expression tawny Spain may refer to the Moors in that country; for although they had been expelled from thence almost a century before the time of Shakspeare, it was allowable on the present occasion to refer to the period when they flourished in Spain; or he might only copy what he found in the original story of the play.

Scene 2. Page 198.

This word, which is well explained by Mr. Ritson, was often, as in the present instance, used to pages. Thus Urquhart in his Discovery of a jewel, &c. p. 133, calls a person of this description "a hopeful youth and tender imp of great expectation."

Scene 2. Page 200.

The best account of Banks and his famous horse Morocco is to be found in the notes to a French translation of Apuleius's Golden ass by Jean de Montlyard, Sieur de Melleray, counsellor to the Prince of CondÉ. This work was first printed in 1602, 8vo, and several times afterwards. The author himself had seen the horse, whose master he calls a Scotishman, at Paris, where he was exhibited in 1601, at the Golden Lion, Rue Saint Jaques. He is described as a middle-sized bay English gelding, about 14 years old. A few quotations from the work itself may not be unacceptable. "Son maistre l'appelle Moraco.... Nous avons vu son maistre l'interroger combien de francs vaut l'escu: et luy, donner trois fois du pied en terre. Mais chose plus estrange, parce que l'escu d'or sol et de poids vaut encor maintenant au mois de Mars 1601, plus que trois francs: l'Escossois luy demanda combien de sols valoit cest escu outre les trois francs; et Moraco frappa quatre coups, pour denoter les quatre sols que vaut lescu de surcroist." In which remark the counsellor shows himself less sagacious than the horse he is describing. He proceeds: "AprÈs un infinitÉ de tours de passe-passe, il luy fait danser les Canaries avec beaucoup d'art et de dexteritÉ." The rest of the numerous tricks performed by this animal are much the same as those practised by the horses educated under the ingenious Mr. Astley. We also learn from this French work, that the magistrates, conceiving that all this could not be done without the aid of magic, had some time before imprisoned the master, and put the horse under sequestration; but having since discovered that every thing was effected by mere art and the making of signs, they had liberated the parties and permitted an exhibition. The Scotchman had undertaken to teach any horse the same tricks in a twelvemonth. It is said that both the horse and his master were afterwards burned at Rome as magicians; nor is this the only instance of the kind. In a little book entitled Le diable bossu, Nancy, 1708, 18mo, there is an obscure allusion to an English horse, whose master had taught him to know the cards, and which was burned alive at Lisbon in 1707; and Mr. Granger, in his Biographical history of England, vol. iii. p. 164, edit. 1779, has informed us that within his remembrance a horse which had been taught to perform several tricks was, with his owner, put into the Inquisition. The author of the life of Mal Cutpurse, 1662, 12mo, mentions her "fellow humourist Banks the vintner in Cheapside, who taught his horse to dance and shooed him with silver." In the eighth book of Markham's Cavalarice or the English horseman, 1607, 4to, there is a chapter "how a horse may be taught to doe and tricke done by Bankes his curtall." It is extremely curious, and towards the end throws light upon the second line of Bastard's epigram quoted by Mr. Steevens.

Scene 2. Page 203.

Green eyes, jealousy, and the willow, have been mentioned as the subjects of this allusion; but it is, perhaps, to melancholy, the frequent concomitant of love. Thus in Twelfth night, "And with a green and yellow melancholy;" certainly in that instance, the effect of love.

Scene 2. Page 206.

See more on the word dey in Mr. Tyrwhitt's edition of The Canterbury tales, iii. 287, who supposes that a dey originally meant a day labourer, however it came afterwards to be applied to the dairy: yet this conjecture must give way to Dr. Johnson's statement that day is an old word for milk. The doctor has not indeed produced any authority, and the original Saxon word seems lost; but in the Swedish language, which bears the greatest affinity to our own of any other, as far as regards the Teutonic part of it, dia signifies to milk, and deie, in Polish, the same. Die, in Danish, is the breast. The nearest Saxon word that remains is diende, sucklings; and there can be no doubt that we have the term in question from some of our northern ancestors. The dey or dairy maid is mentioned in the old statutes that relate to working people; and in that of 12 Ric. II. the annual wages of this person are settled at six shillings.

ACT II.

Scene 1. Page 221.

These alliterative and anapÆstic lines are in the manner of Tusser, who has many such; for example,

It will be admitted that the construction of this sort of verse is rather less adapted to a court than a cottage; but it is presumed that none will be inclined to find Shakspeare guilty of such poetry, which a good deal resembles the halfpenny book style of

Scene 1. Page 222.

An allusion either to the figures of the human face often found in agates and other stones, or to an engraved gem.

ACT III.

Scene 1. Page 225.

The word brawl in its signification of a dance is from the French branle, indicating a shaking or swinging motion. The following accounts of this dance may be found more intelligible than that cited from Marston. It was performed by several persons uniting hands in a circle, and giving each other continual shakes, the steps changing with the tune. It usually consisted of three pas and a pied-joint, to the time of four strokes of the bow; which being repeated was termed a double brawl. With this dance balls were usually opened. Le branle du bouquet is thus described in Deux dialogues du nouveau langage FranÇois, ItalianizÉ, &c. Anvers, 1579, 24mo:—"Un des gentilhommes et une des dames, estans les premiers en la danse, laissent les autres (qui cependant continuent la danse) et se mettans dedans la dicte compagnie, vont baisans par ordre toutes les personnes qui y sont: À sÇavoir le gentil-homme les dames, et la dame les gentils-hommes. Puis ayans achevÉ leurs baisemens, au lieu qu'ils estoyent les premiers en la danse, se mettent les derniers. Et ceste faÇon de faire se continue par le gentilhomme et la dame qui sont les plus prochains, jusques À ce qu'on vienne aux derniers."—P. 385. It is probably to this dance that the puritan Stubbes alludes in the following words: "for what clipping, what culling, what kissing and bussing, what smouching and slabbering one of another: what filthy groping and unclean handling is not practised every where in these dauncings? Yea the very deed and action itselfe which I will not name for offending chaste eares, shall bee purtrayed and shadowed foorth in their bawdy gestures of one to another."—Anatomie of abuses, p. 114, edit. 1595, 4to. And John Northbrooke, another writer ejusdem farinÆ, in his invective called A treatise wherein dicing, dauncing, vaine plaies or enterludes, &c. 1579, 4to, exclaims that "the Pagans were better and more sad than wee be, they never knewe this newe fashion of dauncing of ours, and uncleanely handling and groping, and kissings, and a very kindling of lechery: whereto serveth all that bassing, as were pigeons the birdes of Venus?" And again; "they daunce with disordinate gestures, and with monstrous thumping of the feete, to pleasant soundes, to wanton songues, to dishonest verses, maidens and matrons are groped and handled with unchaste hands, and kissed and dishonestly embraced," fo. 64, 66. Amidst a great variety of brawls mentioned in the very curious treatise on dancing by Thoinot Arbeau, entitled Orchesographie, Lengres, 1588, 4to, there is a Scotish brawl, with the music, which is here given as a specimen of an old Scotish tune.

The facetious macaronic poet Antony Sablon, or de Arena, whose work Camden says he "kept as a jewel," has left the following description of a brawl:—

This dance continued in fashion in our own country so late as the year 1693, when Playford published a book of tunes in which a brawl composed by Mons. Paisable occurs; and see many of the little French pieces in the Theatre de la foire, 1721.

Scene 1. Page 225.

The canary was another very favourite dance. In the translation of Leo's Description of Africa, by Pory, 1600, folio, there is an additional account of the Canary islands, in which the author, speaking of the inhabitants, says, "They were and are at this day delighted with a kind of dance which they use also in Spain, and in other places, and because it took originall from thence, it is called the Canaries." Thoinot Arbeau likewise mentions this opinion, but is himself, in common with some others, inclined to think that the dance originated from a ballet composed for a masquerade, in which the performers were habited as kings and queens of Morocco, or as savages with feathers of different colours. He then describes it as follows:—A lady is taken out by a gentleman, and after dancing together to the cadences of the proper air, he leads her to the end of the hall; this done he retreats back to the original spot, always looking at the lady. Then he makes up to her again, with certain steps, and retreats as before. His partner performs the same ceremony, which is several times repeated by both parties, with various strange fantastic steps, very much in the savage style. This dance was sometimes accompanied by the castagnets. The following Canary tune is from Arbeau.

Scene 1. Page 236.

Cost. Guerdon,—O sweet guerdon!

Mr. Steevens deduces this word from the middle age Latin regardum. It is presumed that few, if any, words are derived from the Latin of that period, which itself was rather corrupted by the introduction of terms from the living languages of Europe Latinized by the Monkish writers. Guerdon, as used by us, is immediately from the French: not equivalent, as some have imagined, with don de guerre, but formed from the Teutonic werd or wurth, i. e. price, value.

Scene 1. Page 237.

Biron. This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy.

If, as Mr. Steevens observes, the advocates for Shakspeare's learning, on a presumption that he might have been acquainted with the Roman flammeum, or seen the celebrated gem of the marriage of Cupid and Psyche, had applauded the choice of his epithet, it is certain they would have shown very little skill or critical judgment on the occasion. By wimpled, Shakspeare means no more than that Cupid was hood-winked, alluding to the usual representation in paintings where he is exhibited with a bandage over his eyes. It may be observed here that the blindness of the God of love is not warranted by the authority of any ancient classic author, but appears to have been the invention of some writer of the middle ages; not improbably Boccaccio, who in his Genealogy of the Gods gives the following account: "Oculos autem illi fascia tegunt, ut advertamus amantes ignorare quo tendant; nulla eorum esse indicia, nullÆ rerum distinctiones, sed sola passione duci."—Lib. ix. c. 4.

The oldest English writer who has noticed the blindness of love is Chaucer, in his translation of the Roman de la rose:

But this line is not in the French original. Shakspeare himself has well accounted for Cupid's blindness:

Scene 1. Page 240.

Dr. Farmer's quotation of the line from Ben Jonson, "As corporal of the field, maestro del campo," has the appearance, without perhaps the intention, of suggesting that these officers were the same: this, however, was not the fact. In Styward's Pathway to martiall discipline, 1581, 4to, there is a chapter on the office of maister of the campe, and another on the electing and office of the foure corporalls of the fields; from which it appears that "two of the latter were appointed for placing and ordering of shot, and the other two for embattailing of the pikes and billes, who according to their worthinesse, if death hapneth, are to succeede the great sergeant or sergeant major."

Scene 1. Page 241.

Such part of Mr. Steevens's note as relates to the invention of clocks may, in a future edition, be rendered more correct by consulting Beckman's History of inventions. It is certain that we had clocks in England before the reign of Elizabeth; but they were not in general use till that time, when most, if not all, of them were imported from Germany. These clocks resembled what are still made for the use of the lower classes of people by several ingenious Germans established in London.

Scene 1. Page 242.

Alluding to the homely proverb, "Joan's as good as my lady in the dark:" and in Markham's Health to the gentlemanly profession of serving men, sign. I. 3, we have, "What hath Joan to do with my lady?"

ACT IV.

Scene 1. Page 243.

The practice of ladies shooting at deer in this passage alluded to, is of great antiquity, as may be collected from Strutt's Sports and pastimes of the people of England, p. 9. The old romances abound with such incidents; but one of the most diverting is recorded in The history of prince Arthur, part 3, chap. cxxiv. where a lady huntress wounds Sir Lancelot of the Lake, instead of a deer, in a manner most "comically tragical."

Scene 1. Page 246.

"A corruption," says Mr. Malone very justly, "of God give you good even." Howel, at the end of his Parley of the beasts, has an advertisement relating to orthography, in which, after giving several examples that the French do not speak as they write, he observes that "the English come not short of him (the Frenchman); for whereas he writes, God give you good evening, he often saies, Godi, godin." But the whole of what Howel has said on this subject is unfairly pillaged from Claude de Sainliens, or, as he chose to call himself in this country, Hollyband; who after very successfully retorting a charge made by the English, that Frenchmen do not sound their words as they spell them, is nevertheless content to admit that his countrymen do sometimes err, as when they say avoo disnÉ, for avez vous disnÉ? See his treatise De pronuntiatione linguÆ GallicÆ, Lond. 1580, 12mo, p. 81. This person was a teacher of languages in London, and wrote several ingenious works, among which is the first French and English dictionary, 1580, and 1593, 4to; afterwards much amplified by Randle Cotgrave, and by him rendered the best repertory of old French that is extant. It is in other respects an extremely valuable work.

Scene 1. Page 49.

Another trait of this person's character is preserved in Scot's Discoverie of witchcraft, edit. 1584, p. 54, where, speaking of the influence of melancholy on the imagination, he says, "the Italian, whom we call here in England the Monarch, was possessed of the like spirit or conceipt." This conceit was, that all the ships which came into port belonged to him.

Scene 2. Page 526.

A part of Mr. Steevens's note requires the following correction:—Florio's First fruites were printed in 1578, 4to, by Thomas Dawson. In 1598 he dedicated his Italian and English dictionary to Roger Earl of Rutland, Henry Earl of Southampton, and Lucy Countess of Bedford. As to the edition of 1595, mentioned by Mr. Steevens, does it really exist, or has not too much confidence been placed in the elegant but inaccurate historian of English poetry? See vol. iii. p. 465, note (h).

Scene 2. Page 262.

It is possible, as Mr. Steevens has remarked, that Shakspeare might have found Diana's title of Dictynna in Golding's Ovid; but there is reason for supposing that he had seen an English translation of Boccaccio's Genealogy of the Gods, though we have it not at present. E. Kerke, in his notes on Spenser's Shepherd's calendar, quotes this work; yet he might have used the original. From the same source it was possible for Shakspeare to have acquired the present information, as well as what other mythology he stood in need of. The Latin dictionaries of Eliot and Cooper would likewise supply him with similar materials.

Scene 3. Page 274.

An allusion to the gallows of the time, which was occasionally triangular. Such a one is seen in some of the cuts to the first edition of Holinshed's Chronicle, and in other ancient prints.

Scene 3. Page 276.

This is Theobald's alteration from the old reading, which was, "She is not, Corporal, there you lie," and has been adopted by the modern editors from its apparent ingenuity. A little attention may serve to show that no change was necessary, and that the original text should be restored. Theobald says that Dumain had no post in the army, and asks what wit there is in calling him corporal. The answer is, As much as there had already been in Biron's calling himself a corporal of Cupid's field; a title equally appropriate to Dumain on the present occasion. To render the matter still clearer, it may be observed that Biron does not give the lie to Dumain's assertion that his mistress was a divinity, as presumed by the amended reading, but to that of her being the wonder of a mortal eye. Dumain is answered sentence by sentence.

Scene 3. Page 276.

Mr. Steevens's explanation of coted, and of the whole line, is inadmissible. Foulness or cloudiness is no criterion of the beauty of amber. Mr. Malone has partly explained coted, by marked, but has apparently missed the sense of it here when he adds written down. Mr. Mason has given the true construction of the line, but he mistakes the meaning of coted, which, after all, merely signifies to mark or note. The word is from the French coter, which, in like manner as Mr. Malone has well observed of the English term, is the old orthography of quoter. The grammatical construction is, "her amber hairs have marked or shown that [real] amber is foul in comparison of themselves."

Scene. 3. Page 291.

The objection to Warburton's derivation of quillet from the French is, that there is no such term in the language: nor is it exclusively applicable to law-chicane, though generally so used by Shakspeare. It strictly means a subtilty, and seems to have originated among the schoolmen of the middle ages, by whom it was called a quidlibet. They had likewise their quodlibets and their quiddities. From the schoolmen these terms were properly enough transferred to the lawyers. Hamlet says, "Why may not that be the scull of a lawyer? where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures and his tricks?" The conjectures of Peck, and after him of Dr. Grey in a note to Hudibras, seem to merit but little attention.

Scene 3. Page 294.

An error is here laid to Shakspeare's charge, of which he is not perhaps guilty. The expression trees in the Hesperides must be regarded as elliptical, and signifies trees in the gardens of the Hesperides. Shakspeare is seldom wrong in his mythology, and, if he had doubted on the present occasion, the dictionaries of Eliot or Cooper would have supplied him with the necessary information. The first quotation in the note from Greene, is equally elliptical; for this writer was too good a scholar to have committed the mistake ascribed to Shakspeare: so that the passage, instead of convicting the latter, does in reality support him. As to the other quotation from Orpheus and Eurydice, the learned critic himself lays but little stress on it; or indeed might, on reconsideration, be disposed to think the expression correct. It would not be difficult to trace instances in modern authors of the use of Hesperides for gardens of the Hesperides. See Lempriere's excellent classical dictionary, edit. 1792, 8vo.

ACT V.

Scene 1. Page 302.

Mr Steevens has remarked that Chaucer, Skelton, and Spenser are frequent in their use of this phrase, but he has offered no explanation. It signifies polished language; thus Turbervile, in his translation of Ovid's epistles, makes Phyllis say to her lover—

Scene 1. Page 306.

The cut and thrust notes on this occasion exhibit a complete match between the two great Shakspearean maisters of defence. "A venew," says Mr. Steevens, "is the technical term for a bout (or set-to, as he had before called it in vol. iii. p. 317,) at the fencing school." On the other hand, Mr. Malone maintains that "a venue is not a bout at fencing, but a hit;" and his opponent retorts on the ground of positiveness of denial. As the present writer has himself been an amateur and practitioner of the noble science of defence, he undertakes on this occasion the office of umpire between the sturdy combatants.

The quotations adduced on either side are not calculated to ascertain the clear and genuine sense of the word venew, and it is therefore necessary to seek for more decisive evidence respecting its meaning. Howel in his Lexicon tetraglotton, 1660, mentions "a veny in fencing; venue, touche, toca;" and afterwards more fully in his vocabulary, sect. xxxii. "A foin, veny, or stoccado; la botta; la touche, le coup." In Sir John Harrington's Life of Dr. Still, is the following expression, "he would not sticke to warne them in the arguments to take heede to their answers, like a perfect fencer that will tell afore-hand in which button he will give the venew." NugÆ antiquÆ, vol. ii. p. 158, edit. 1804, by Park. In Ben Jonson's Every man in his humour, Act I. Scene 5, Bobadil, in answer to Master Matthew's request for one venue, says, "Venue! fie: most gross denomination as ever I heard; O, the stoccata, while you live, sir, note that." On this passage, Mr. Reed, in a note on the play of The widow's tears, Dodsley's Old plays, vol. vi. 152, observes that "the word appears to have been out of fashion with the fantastic gallants of the time very early." Its occurrence however so late as the time in which Howel's dictionary was published seems to render this ingenious remark very questionable, and suggests another explanation of Bobadil's wish to change the word, namely, his coxcombly preference of the terms of the Spanish and Italian schools of fencing to those used in the English, which, it is presumed, were more immediately borrowed from our Gallic neighbours. That the terms stoccado and imbrocato denoted a hit or thrust, may be collected from many passages in Vincent Saviolo's Use of the rapier and dagger, 1595, 4to; and in Florio's Italian dictionary, 1598, folio, stoccata is rendered, a foyne, a thrust given in fence; and tocco, a venie at fence, a hit. All the above circumstances considered, one should feel inclined to adjudge the palm of victory to Mr. Malone.

It is however remarkable enough that Mr. Steevens is accidentally right in defining a venew a bout, without being aware of the signification of the latter word. Florio renders botta, a blowe, a stroake. In the best of all the ancient French treatises on the art of fencing, entitled TraictÉ sur l'espÉe seule, mere de toutes armes, &c., by Henry De Sainct Didier, Paris, 1573, 4to, it is said, "bottes en Napollitain, vaut autant À dire, que coups en FranÇois." He then mentions five sorts of bottes, viz. maindrette, renverse, fendante, estoccade, and imbroucade. Nevertheless the word bout had been used in the sense of a set-to in Shakspeare's time. In The first part of King Henry the Sixth, Act I. Scene 5, Talbot says to the Pucelle, "I'll have a bout with thee." It retained, however, its original meaning long afterwards. Howel, and Sherwood likewise in his English dictionary at the end of Cotgrave have "a boute, coup," and so it is defined by Skinner: but the following passage from the account given by Sir Thomas Urquhart in his singular book entitled A discovery of a most exquisite jewel found in the kennel of Worcester streets, &c. 1652, 12mo, of the combat between the admirable Crichton and the celebrated Mantuan duellist, will put the matter beyond all doubt. "Then was it that to vindicate the reputation of the duke's family and to expiate the blood of the three vanquished gentlemen, he alonged a stoccade de pied ferme; then recoyling, he advanced another thrust, and lodged it home; after which retiring again, his right foot did beat the cadence of the blow that pierced the belly of this Italian, whose heart and throat being hit with the two former stroaks, these three franch bouts given in upon the back of other ... by them he was to be made a sacrifice of atonement for the slaughter of the three aforesaid gentlemen who were wounded in the very same parts of their bodies by other such three venees as these." The same mode of expression is also used by the same writer in a subsequent account of a duel between Francis Sinclair, a natural son of the Earl of Caithness, and a German, at Vienna; where it was agreed that he who should give the other the first three bouts, should have a pair of golden spurs, in the event of which combat Sinclair "gave in two venees more than he was obliged to."

On the whole therefore it appears that venew and bout equally denote a hit in fencing; that both Mr. Steevens and Mr. Malone are right in this respect; but that the former gentleman is inaccurate in supposing a venew to mean a set-to, and the latter equally so in asserting that "a venew is not a bout."

Scene 1. Page 311.

This dance was borrowed by us from the French. It is classed among the brawls in Thoinot Arbeau's Orchesographie, already mentioned in page 135.

Scene 2. Page 312.

This description of Cupid is borrowed from some lines in Sidney's Arcadia, B. ii. See them already quoted on another occasion by Dr. Farmer in Much ado about nothing, Act III. Scene 2.

Scene 2. Page 316.

Dr. Warburton's conclusion that fate here signifies death is not satisfactory. Death would be an awkward character for Rosaline to assume, but that of dame fortune infinitely more natural.

It must be owned that destiny and fortune are, strictly speaking, very different characters; yet they have sometimes been confounded. Even Pindar, as Pausanias observes, has made fortune one of the ParcÆ. In Julius CÆsar, the expression, "he is but fortune's knave," seems to resemble the present, and to mean, "he is the servant of fortune and bound to obey her." Shakspeare is very fond of alluding to the mockery of fortune. Thus we have

In the last of which passages a pointed allusion is made to the idiot fool. Sir J. Suckling uses the same expression in his play of The goblins; and Hamlet speaks of "the fools of nature," precisely in the same sense.

Scene 2. Page 327.

The word bullets is doubtless an interpolation in the manuscript by some ignorant person who thought it more appropriate than arrows, on account of the substitution of fire-arms for archery. It might very properly be omitted in the text, without any diminution of editorial accuracy.

Scene 2. Page 330.

Of the several explanations here offered of vailing, Dr. Johnson's is the best. The poet compares a lady unmasking to an angel dispelling the clouds in his descent from heaven to earth. The term is from the old French avaler to put or let down; the true etymology of which appears in the phrase À mont et À val, from top to bottom, from mountain to valley, which very often occurs in old romances. In that of the Saint Graal, MS. we have "et avalerent aval le vessel." In Spenser's Shepherd's calendar, under January, "By that the welked Phoebus gan availe."

Scene 2. Page 339.

So in Fennor's Compter's commonwealth, 1617, 4to, p. 14, we have "three pil'd, huge Basilisco oaths, that would have torne a roring-boyes eares in a thousand shatters."

Scene 2. Page 345.

It has been already stated that it was not the next relation only who begged the wardship of idiots in order to obtain possession of their property, but any person who could make interest with the sovereign to whom the legal guardianship belongs. Frequent allusions to this practice occur in the old comedies. In illustration of it, Mr. Ritson has given a curious story, which, as it is mutilated in the authority which he has used, is here subjoined from a more original source, a collection of tales, &c., compiled about the time of Charles the First, preserved among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum, No. 6395. "The Lord North begg'd old Bladwell for a foole (though he could never prove him so), and having him in his custodie as a lunaticke, he carried him to a gentleman's house, one day, that was his neighbour. The L. North and the gentleman retir'd awhile to private discourse, and left Bladwell in the dining roome, which was hung with a faire hanging; Bladwell walking up and downe, and viewing the imagerie, spyed a foole at last in the hanging, and without delay drawes his knife, flyes at the foole, cutts him cleane out, and layes him on the floore; my L. and the gentl. coming in againe, and finding the tapestrie thus defac'd, he ask'd Bladwell what he meant by such a rude uncivill act; he answered S^r. be content, I have rather done you a courtesie than a wrong, for if ever my L. N. had seene the foole there, he would have begg'd him, and so you might have lost your whole suite." The same story, but without the parties' names, is related in Fuller's Holy state, p. 182. Powel, in his Attourney's academy, 1630, 4to, says, "I shall neede to give you this monitorie instruction touching an ideot; that you be assured that yourselfe is somewhat the wiser man before you goe about to beg him, or else never meddle with him at all, lest you chance to play at handy-dandy, which is the guardian or which is the foole? and the case alter, È converso, ad conversum." In A treatise of taxes, 1667, 4to, p. 43, there is the following passage: "Now because the world abounds with this kind of fools, (Lottery fools,) it is not fit that every man that will may cheat every man that would be cheated; but it is rather ordained that the sovereign should have the guardianship of these fools, or that some favourite should beg the sovereign's right of taking advantage of such men's folly, even as in the case of lunatics and ideots." To this practice too, Butler alludes, in Hudibras, part iii. canto I, l. 590.

Mr. Justice Blackstone, in treating of idiots, has spoken of it; and adds in a note, that the king's power of delegating the custody of them to some subject who has interest enough on the occasion, has of late been very rarely exerted.

Scene 2. Page 350.

The game of novum or novem, here alluded to, requires further illustration to render the whole of the above passage intelligible. It is therefore necessary to state that it was properly called novum quinque, from the two principal throws of the dice, nine and five; and then Biron's meaning becomes perfectly clear, according to the reading of the old editions. The above game was called in French quinquenove, and is said to have been invented in Flanders.

Scene 2. Page 351.

Pageant of the nine worthies.