Let him not seek't of us: By day and night,3 SCENE III. A Room in the Palace, [Exeunt. Enter the Lord Chamberlain 4 and Lord SANDS. 5 CHAM. Is it possible, the spells of France should juggle Men into such strange mysteries ? 3 By day and night,] This, I believe, was a phrase an ciently fignifying-at all times, every way, completely. In The Merry Wives of Windfor, Falstaff, at the end of his letter to Mrs. Ford, styles himself: "Thine own true knight, " By day or night," &c. Again, (1 must repeat a quotation I have elsewhere employed) in the third book of Gower, De Confeffione Amantis : The foune cleped was Machayre, The daughter eke Canace hight, "By daie bothe and eke by night." The King's words, however, by fome criticks, have been confidered as an adjuration. I do not pretend to have determined the exact force of them. STEEVENS. 4 Lord Chamberlain-] Shakspeare has placed this scene in 1521. Charles Earl of Worcester was then Lord Chamberlain; but when the king in fact went in masquerade to Cardinal Wolfey's house, Lord Sands, who is here introduced as going thither with the Chamberlain, himself poffefsed that office. MALONE. Lord Chamberlain-] Charles Somerset, created Earl of Worcefter 5 Henry VIII. He was Lord Chamberlain both to Henry VII, and Henry VIII. and continued in the office until his death, 1526. * Lord Sands,] Sir William Sands, of the Vine near Bafingstoke in Hants, was created a peer 1524. He became Lord Chamberlain upon the death of the Earl of Worcester in 1526. REED. Is it possible, the spells of France should juggle Men into fuch Strange myfteries?] Mysteries were allogorical Though they be never so ridiculous, CHAM. As far as I fee, all the good our English Have got by the late voyage, is but merely A fit or two o'the face; but they are shrewd ones; For when they hold them, you would swear di rectly, Their very noses had been counsellors That never saw them pace before, the spavin, shows, which the mummers of those times exhibited in odd fantaftick habits. Mysteries are used, by an easy figure, for those that exhibited mysteries; and the sense is only, that the travelled Englishmen were metamorphosed, by foreign fashions, into fuch an uncouth appearance, that they looked like mummers in a mystery. JOHNSON. That mysteries is the genuine reading, Dr. Warburton would read-mockeries) and that it is used in a different sense from the one here given, will appear in the following instance from Drayton's Shepherd's Garland: even so it fareth now with thee, " And with these wisards of thy mysterie." The context of which shows, that by wisards are meant poets, and by mysterie their poetic skill, which was before called " mister artes." Hence the mysteries in Shakspeare fignify those fantastick manners and fashions of the French, which had operated as fpells or enchantments. HENLEY. A fit or two o' the face; A fit of the face seems to be what we now term a grimace, an artificial caft of the countenance. JOHNSON. Fletcher has more plainly expressed the same thought in The Elder Brother: "-learnt new tongues "To vary his face as seamen do their compass." STEEVENS. 8 That never faw them - ] Old copy-fte 'em. Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE. A fpringhalt reign'd among them. Death! my lord, 2 Their clothes are after such a pagan cut too, now? What news, fir Thomas Lovell ? Lov. Enter Sir THOMAS LOVELL. 'Faith, my lord, I hear of none, but the new proclamation 'That's clapp'd upon the court-gate. What is't for? CHAM. Lov. The reformation of our travell'd gallants, That fill the court with quarrels, talk, and tailors. CHAM. I am glad, 'tis there; now I would pray our monfieurs To think an English courtier may be wife, And never fee the Louvre. Lov. They must either (For fo run the conditions,) leave these remnants • A springhalt reign'd among them.] The stringhalt, or springhalt, (as the old copy reads.) is a disease incident to horses, which gives them a convullive motion in their paces. So, in Muleaffes the Turk, 1610; spring-halt and debility in their hams." Again, in Beu Jonson's Bartholomew Fair: by reason of a general "Poor foul, she has had a stringhalt." STEEVENS. Mr. Pope and the subsequent editors, without any neceffity, I think, for a springhalt, read - And springhalt. MALONE. 2 cut too,] Old copy-cut to't. Corrected in the fourth folio. MALONE. Both the firft and second folio read - cut too't, so that for part of this correction we are not indebted to the fourth folio. STELVENS Of fool, and feather, that they got in France, 2 Of fool, and feather, This does not allude to the feathers anciently worn in the hats and caps of our countrymen, (a circumftance to which no ridicule could justly belong.) but to an effeminate fashion recorded in Greene's Farewell to Folly, 1617; from whence it appears that even young gentlemen carried fans of feathers in their hands: " we strive to be counted womanish, by keeping of beauty, by curling the hair, by wearing plumes of feathers in our hands, which in wars, our ancestors wore on their heads." Again, in bis Quip for an upstart Courtier, 1620: our young courtiers ftrove to exceed one another in vertue, not in bravery; they rode not with fannes to ward their faces from the wind," &c. Again, in Lingua, &c. 1607, Phantastes, who is a male character, is equipped with a fan. STEEVENS. "Then The text may receive illustration from a passage in Nashe's Life of lacke Wilton, 1594: "At that time { viz, in the court of King Henry VIII] I was no common squire, no undertroden torchbearer, I had my feather in my cap as big as a flag in the foretop, my French doublet gelte in the belly, as though (lyke a pig readie to be spitted) all my guts had been pluckt out, a paire of fide paned hose that hung down like two scales filled with Holland cheeses, my long stock that fate close to my dock,-my rapier pendant like a round sticke, &c. my blacke cloake of black cloth, ouerfpreading my backe lyke a thornbacke or an elephantes eare; - and in confummation of my curiositie, my handes without gloves, all a more French," &c. RITSON. In Rowley's Match at Midnight, A& I. fc. i. Sim says: "Yes, yes, she that dwells in Blackfryers next to the fign of the fool laughing at a feather." But Sir Thomas Lovell's is rather an allusion to the feathers which were formerly worn by fools in their caps. See a print on this subject from a painting of Jordaens, engraved by Voert; and again, in the ballad of News and no News : 3 "And feathers wagging in a fool's cap." DOUCE. --fireworks;) We learn from a French writer quoted in Montfaucon's Monuments de la Monarchie Françoise, Vol. IV. that some very extraordinary fireworks were played off on the evening of the last day of the royal interview between Guynes and Ardres. Hence, our "travelled gallants," who were present at this exhibition, might have imbibed their fondness for the руго technic art, STEEVENS. J Abusing better men than they can be, And understand again like honest men; Or pack to their old playfellows: there, I take it, diseases Are grown so catching. CHAM. What a lofs our ladies Will have of these trim vanities! SANDS. The devil fiddle them! I am glad, they're going; (For, sure, there's no converting of them;) now An honeft country lord, as I am, beaten A long time out of play, may bring his plain-fong, And have an hour of hearing; and, by'r-lady, Held current musick too. CHAM. Well faid, lord Sands; Your colt's tooth is not caft yet. No, my lord; Nor shall not, while I have a stump. Whither were you a going? 2 --blifter'd breeches,] Sir Thomas, Thus the old copy; i. e. breeches puff'd, swell'd out like blifters The modern editors read-bolster'd breeches, which has the fame meaning. STEFVENS. 3 wear away] Old copy-wee away. Corrected in the second folio. MALONE. |