(3) SCENE IV.-If I had a monopoly out, they would have part on't.] In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there were three kinds of privileges issued by the king to individuals, which, from their gross abuse, were felt to be among the most intolerable of popular grievances:-Pre-Emption or Purveyance, Monopolies, and Patents. The first was the royal right of buying provisions and other articles for the king's household, first, and in preference to all other customers, and even against the will of the vendors. This was an ancient prerogative, regulated by Magna Charta, and was not finally abrogated until the restoration of Charles II. A Monopoly was a privilege "for the sole buying, selling, making, working, or using of any thing; by which other persons are restrained of any freedom or liberty that they had before, or hindered in their lawful trade." These Monopolies had been carried to an outrageous extent in the reigns of Henry VII., Henry VIII., and Queen Elizabeth; and the evil was not much abated at the period when this tragedy was written; nor was it effectually remedied until the passing of the statute of the twenty-first of James, 1623. Warburton supposes that the Fool's remark conveys a satire on the corruption of the courtiers of the time, who were sharers with the patentee, on the strength of having procured his grant from the sovereign; and other commentators would read, instead of “. - a monopoly out," ". monopoly on't." But the real meaning appears to be, that "lords and great men,' "and ladies too," were all so determinately bent on playing the fool, that, although the jester might have a monopoly for folly out,-that is, in force, and extant,-yet they would insist upon participating in the exercise of his privilege.

(4) SCENE IV.-How now, daughter! what makes that frontlet on ?] The frontlet was literally, as Malone explains it, a forehead-cloth, formerly worn by ladies at night to render that part of the countenance free from wrinkles. The very remarkable effect of this band, in the contraction of the brows, may be observed in some of the monumental effigies of the fourteenth century, and especially in those small figures usually called "Weepers," which are found standing in tabernacles, on the sides of the rich altartombs of the same period. Lear, however, may be supposed to speak metaphorically and to refer only to Goneril's cloudy looks.

ACT II.

(1) SCENE II.-I'd drive ye cackling home to Camelot.] So far as there can be any identification of a modern place with an ancient name in old romances, Camelot must be regarded as that mound which Selden has described in his notes on Drayton's "Polyolbion":"By South Cadbury is that Camelot; a hill of a mile compass at the top; four trenches encircling it; and betwixt every of them an earthen wall: the contents of it within, about twenty acres; full of ruins and reliques of old buildings.— Antique report makes this one of Arthur's places of the Round Table, as the muse here sings:

'Like Camelot what place was ever yet renown'd,

Where, as at Caerlion oft, he kept the Table Round?'”

Capell has been censured for "a mistaken theory that Camelot is a name for Winchester, one of the places where Arthur held his Round Table;" and that in which the Table itself was supposed to be preserved. The History of King Arthur was, however, so long in the completion, that, while in one chapter (xxvi.) Camelot is located in the West of England (Somersetshire); in another (xliv.) it is stated that Sir "Balins sword was put in marble ston, standing upright, as great as a milstone; and the stone hoved alwayes above the water, and did many yeares: and so, by adventure, it swam down the stream to the citie of Camelot; that is, in English, Winchester." At a still later period, when Caxton finished the printing of the "Mort d'Arthur," in 1485, he says of the hero:-"He is more spoken of beyond the sea; more books be made of his noble acts than there be in England: as well in Dutch, Italian, Spanish, and Greekish, as in French. And yet of record remain, in witness of him in Wales, in the town of Camelot, the great stones, and marvellous works of iron lying under the ground, and royal vaults, which divers now living hath seen." Warburton imagines that Kent intended an allusion to some proverbial saying in the romances of Arthur; but this is hardly required for the explanation of the text. In Chapter xlix. of Arthur's History, the Quest of the White Hart is undertaken by three knights, at the wedding-feast of the king with the princess Guenever, which was held at Camelot. This adventure was encountered by Sir Gawayne, Sir Tor, and King Pellinore; and, whenever they had overcome the knights whom they engaged, the vanquished combatants were always sent "unto King Arthur and yielded them unto his grace."

(2) SCENE III.-Bedlam beggars.] The Bedlam beggars proper, were such lunatics as had really been confined in Bethlem Hospital, but, owing to the want of funds to support them there longer, or from their being partially restored to their senses, were dismissed into the world, with a licence to beg. The sympathy excited by these unfortunates, occasioned many sturdy vagabonds to counterfeit and exaggerate their dress and peculiarities. Of the soi-disant madmen, who were distinguished among the vast community of rascaldom as Abraham-Men, Decker gives an animated description in his "O per se 0," 1612, and the " Bell-man of London," 1608:

66

"The Abram Cove is a lustie strong Roague, who walketh with a Slade about his Quarrons, (a sheete about his body,) Trining, (hanging) to his hammes, bandeliere-wise, for all the world as Cutpurses and Theeves weare their sheetes to the Gallowes, in which their Truls are to bury them: oftentimes (because hee scornes to follow any fashions of Hose) he goes without breeches, a cut Jerkin with hanging sleeves (in imitation of our Gallants) but no Sattin or Chamblet elbowes, for both his legges and armes are bare, having no Commission to cover his body, that is to say, no shirt: A face staring like a Sarasin, his hayre long and filthily knotted, for he keepes no Barber: a good Filch (or Staffe) of growne Ash, or else Hazell, in his Famble (in his Hand) and sometimes a sharpe sticke, on which hee hangeth Ruffe-pecke (Bacon). These, walking up and downe the countrey, are more terrible to women and children, then the name of Raw-head and Bloudy-bones, Robin Good-fellow or any other Hobgobling. Crackers, tyed to a Dogges tayle, make not the poore Curre runne faster, then these Abram Ninnies doe the silly Villagers of the Country, so that when they come to any doore a begging, nothing is denyed them.

"Their Markes.-Some of these Abrams have the letters E and R upon their armes, some have Crosses, and some other marke, all of them carrying a blew colour; some wear an iron ring, &c. which markes are printed upon their flesh, by tying their arme hard with two strings three or foure inches asunder, and then with a sharpe Awle pricking or raizing the skinne, to such a figure or print as they best fancy, they rub that place with burnt paper **** and Gunpowder, which being hard rubd in, and suffered to dry, stickes in the flesh a long time after; when these markes faile, they renew them at pleasure. If you examine how these letters or figures are printed upon their armes, they will tell you it is the Marke of Bedlam,* but the truth is, they are made as I have reported.

"And to color their villanie the better, every one of these Abrams hath a severall gesture in playing his part: some make an horrid noyse, hollowly sounding: some whoope, some hollow, some shew onely a kind of wilde distracted ugly looke, uttering a simple kinde of Mawnding, with these addition of words (Well and Wisely). Some daunce, (but keepe no measure) others leape up and downe, and fetch gambals; all their actions shew them to be as drunke as Beggers: for not to belye them, what are they but drunken Beggers? All that they begge being either Loure or Bouse (money or drinke).

"Their Mawnd or Begging.-The first beginnes; Good Urship, Maister, or Good Urships Rulers of this place, bestow your reward on a poore man that hath lyen in Bedlam without Bishopsgate three yeeres, four moneths and nine dayes; And bestow one piece of your small silver towards his fees, which he is indebted there, the summe of three poundes, thirteene shillings, seaven pence, halfpenny, (or to such effect) and hath not wherewith to pay the same, but by the good help of Urshipfull and well disposed people, and God to reward them for it.

"The second beginnes: Now Dame, well and wisely, what will you give poore Tom now? one pound of your sheepes feathers to make poore Tom a blanket: or one cutting of your Sow side, no bigger than my arme, or one piece of your Salt meate to make poore Tom a sharing home: or one crosse of your small silver towards the buying a paire of Shooes, (well and wisely :) Ah, God blesse my good Dame, (well and wisely) give poore Tom an old sheete to keepe him from the cold, or an old dublet, or Jerkin of my Maisters, God save his life.

"Then will he daunce and sing, or use some other Anticke and ridiculous gesture, shutting up his counterfeite Puppet-play with this Epilogue or Conclusion, Good Dame give poore Tom one cup of the best drinke, (well and wisely) God save the King and his Counsell, and the Governour of this place," -"O per se 0," 1612.

In his" Bell-man of London," he says of an Abraham-Man; "he sweares he hath been in Bedlam, and will talk frantickely of purpose: you see pinnes stuck in sundry places of his naked flesh, especially of his armes, which paine he gladly puts himselfe to, only to make you believe he is out of his wits. He calls himselfe by the name of poore Tom, and comming neere any body cries out Poore Tom is a-cold. Of these Abraham-Men some be exceeding merry, and doe nothing but sing songs fashioned out of

The real Toм o' BEDLAMS, Aubrey tells us, when they were licentiated to go a begging, had on their left arm an armilla, an iron ring for the arm, about four inches long

their own braines; some will dance, others will doe nothing but laugh or wecpe; others are dogged and so sullen both in looke and speech, that, spying but a small companie in a house, they boldy and bluntly enter," &c.

(3) SCENE III.-Poor Turlygood!] "Warburton would read Turlupin, and Hanmer Turluru; but there is a better reason for rejecting both these terms than for preferring either; viz. that Turlygood is the corrupted word in our language. The Turlupins were a fanatical sect that overran France, Italy, and Germany, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They were at first known by the name of Beghards, or Beghins, and brethren and sisters of the free spirit. Their manners and appearance exhibited the strongest indications of lunacy and distraction. The common people alone called them Turlupins; a name which, though it has excited much doubt and controversy, seems obviously to be connected with the wolvish howlings, which these people in all probability would make when influenced by their religious ravings. Their subsequent appellation of the fraternity of poor men, might have been the cause why the wandering rogues, called Bedlam beggars, and one of whom Edgar personates, assumed or obtained the title of Turlupins or Turlygoods, especially if their mode of asking alms was accompanied by the gesticulations of madmen. Turlupino and Turluru are old Italian terms for a fool or madman; and the Flemings had a proverb, As unfortunate as Turlupin and his children.'"-DOUCE.

(4) SCENE IV.-Hysterica passio.] The disease, called the Mother or Hysterica Passio, was not thought peculiar to females only in Shakespeare's time, and Percy thinks it probable that the poet was led to make the poor king pass off the indignant swelling of his heart for this complaint, from a passage in Harsnet's "Declaration of Popish Impostures," which he might have met with when selecting other particulars to furnish his character of Tom of Bedlam. The passage referred to occurs at p. 263, in the deposition of Richard Mainy:-"The disease I spake of was a spice of the Mother, wherewith I had beene troubled before my going into Fraunce." In an early part of the pamphlet, p. 25, it is said,-"Ma. : Maynie had a spice of the Hysterica passio, as seems from his youth, hee himselfe termes it the Moother, and saith that hee was much troubled with it in Fraunce, and that it was one of the causes that mooved him to leave his holy order whereinto he was initiated, and to returne into England."

(5) SCENE IV.-Do you but mark how this becomes the house.] Warburton explains "the house" to mean the order of families and duties of relationship; other commentators regard it as signifying a household establishment; and Capell conceives the phrase to imply fathers, as emphatically "the house," and not the heads merely of a family, but the especial representatives. Shakespeare, however, more than once, employs the word "house" in a genealogical sense, for the paternal line, or first house, in contradistinction to the persons descended from it, and that may possibly be its import in this instance. See note (6), p. 299, Vol. I.

ACT III.

(1) SCENE IV.-Hath laid knives under his pillow, and halters in his pow.] In the temptations to suicide by which Edgar pretends to have been beset by the foul fiend," Shakespeare seems to have had in view the following passage in Harsnet's "Declara tion," &c. :

"This examinant further saith, that one Alexander an apothecarie, having brought with him from London to Denham on a time a new halter, and two blades of knives,

See note (), p. 53.

As the poet was doubtless indebted to this curious work for the names of poor Tom's evil spirits, and it has now become rarissimus, we append the exact title of the book, from a copy in the library of the British Museum :

"A Declaration of egregious Popish Impostures, to withdraw the harts of her Majesties Subjects from their allegeance, and from the truth of Christian Religion professed in England, under the pretence of casting out devils. Practised by Edmunds, alias Weston a Jesuit, and divers Romish priests his wicked associates. Whereunto are annexed the Copies of the Confessions, and Examinations of the parties themselves, which were pretended to be possessed, and dispossessed, taken upon oath before her Majesties Commissioners for causes Ecclesiasticall. At London Printed by James Roberts, dwelling in Barbican 1603."-4to.

did leave the same upon the gallerie floare in her Maisters house. The next morning he tooke occasion to goe with this examinant into the said gallerie, where she espying the said halter and blades, asked Ma: Alexander what they did there: Hee making the matter strange, aunswered, that he saw them not, though hee looked fully upon them: she her selfe pointing to them with her finger, where they lay within a yard of them, where they stoode both together. Now (quoth this examinant) doe you not see them? and so taking them up, said, looke you heere: Ah (quoth hee) now I see them indeed, but before I could not see them: And therefore saith he, I perceave that the devil hath layd them heere, to worke some mischiefe upon you, that are possessed. "Hereupon a great search was made in the house, to know how the said halter and knife blades came thether but it could not in any wise be found out, as it was pretended, till Ma: Mainy in his next fit said, as it was reported, that the devil layd them in the Gallery, that some of those that were possessed, might either hang themselves with the halter, or kil themselves with the blades."-Examination of Friswood Williams, p. 219.

:

The object of the impostures which form the subject of Dr. Harsnet's exposition, Warburton describes as follows:

"While the Spaniards were preparing their armada against England, the jesuits were here busy at work to promote it, by making converts: one method they employed was to dispossess pretended demoniacks, by which artifice they made several hundred converts among the common people. The principal scene of this farce was laid in the family of one Mr. Edmund Peckham, a Roman-catholick, where Marwood, a servant of Antony Babington's (who was afterwards executed for treason), Trayford, an attendant upon Mr. Peckham, and Sarah and Friswood Williams, and Anne Smith, three chambermaids in that family, came into the priests' hands for cure. But the discipline of the patients was so long and severe, and the priests so elate and careless with their success, that the plot was discovered on the confession of the parties concerned, and the contrivers of it deservedly punished."

(2) SCENE IV.-Wore gloves in my cap.] Steevens remarks, "It was anciently the custom to wear gloves in the hat on three distinct occasions, viz. as the favour of a mistress, the memorial of a friend, and as a mark to be challenged by an enemy. Prince Henry boasts that he will pluck a glove from the commonest creature, and fix it in his helmet; and Tucca says to Sir Quintilian, in Decker's Satiromastix: -Thou shalt wear her glove in thy worshipful hat, like to a leather brooch:' and Pandora, in Lyly's 'Woman in the Moon,' 1597 :

6 - he that first presents me with his head,

Shall wear my glove in favour for the deed.'

Portia, in her assumed character, asks Bassanio for his gloves, which she says she will wear for his sake: and King Henry V. gives the pretended glove of Alençon to Fluellen, which afterwards occasions his quarrel with the English soldier."

There is an interesting illustration of this practice of gallantry in the life of George Clifford, third Earl of Cumberland, which has been commemorated in the fine portrait of him in the Bodleian Picture Gallery. At an audience with Elizabeth on the return of the earl from one of his voyages, she dropped her glove, which he took up and presented to her on his knee. The queen then desired him to keep it for her sake; and he adorned it richly with diamonds, and wore it ever after in the front of his hat at public ceremonies.

(3) SCENE IV.

The prince of darkness is a gentleman ;
Modo he's call'd, and Mahu.]

If the subjoined extracts from Harsnet's "Declaration" do not prove indisputably that Shakespeare was indebted to that popular book for the titles of Tom o' Bedlam's infernal spirits, we may infer that these fantastic names were quite familiar to an auditory of his time.

"Now that I have acquainted you with the names of the Maister, and his twelve disciples, the names of the places wherein, and the names of the persons upon whom these wonders were shewed: it seemes not incongruent that I relate unto you the names of the devils whom in this glorious pageant they did dispossesse.

"First then, to marshall them in as good order, as such disorderly cattell will be brought into, you are to understand, that there were in our possessed 5 Captaines, or Commaunders above the rest: Captaine Pippin, Marwoods devil, Captaine Philpot, Trayfords devil, Captaine Maho, Saras devil, Captaine Modu, Maynies devill, and Captaine Soforce, Anne Smiths devil. These were not all of equall authoritie, and place, but some had more, some fewer under theyr commaund. * *

"The names of the punie spirits cast out of Trayford were these Hilco, Smolkin,

1

Hillio, Hiaclito, and Lustie huffe-cap: this last seemes some swaggering punie devill, dropt out of a Tinkers budget.

Modo, Master Maynies devill, was a graund Commaunder, Muster-maister over the Captaines of the seaven deadly sinnes: Cliton, Bernon, Hilo, Motubizanto, and the rest, himselfe a Generall of a kind and curteous disposition: so saith Sara Williams, touching this devils acquaintance with Mistres Plater, and her sister Fid.

"Sara Williams had in her at a bare word, all the devils in hell. The Exorcist askes Maho, Saras devil, what company he had with him, and the devil makes no bones, but tels him in flat termes, all the devils in hell. **

"And if I misse not my markes, this Dictator Modu saith, hee had beene in Sara by the space of two yeeres, then so long hell was cleere, and had not a devill to cast at a mad dogge. And sooth I cannot much blame the devils for staying so long abroade, they had taken up an Inne, much sweeter then hell: and an hostesse that wanted neither wit, nor mirth, to give them kind welcome.

"Heere, if you please, you may take a survay of the whole regiment of hell: at least the chiefe Leaders, and officers, as we finde them enrolled by theyr names. First Killico, Hob, and a third anonymos, are booked doune for three graund Commaunders, every one having under him 300 attendants.

"Frateretto, Fliberdigibbet, Hoberdidance, Tocobatto were foure devils of the round, or Morrice, whom Sara in her fits, tuned together, in measure and sweet cadence. And least you should conceive, that the devils had no musicke in hell, especially that they would go a maying without their musicke, the Fidler comes in with his Taber and Pipe, and a whole Morice after him, with motly visards for theyr better grace. These foure had forty assistants under them, as themselves doe confesse. **

"Maho was general Dictator of hell; and yet for good manners sake, hee was contented of his good nature to make shew, that himselfe was under the check of Modu, the graund devil in Master Maynie. These were all in poore Sara at a chop, with these the poor soule travailed up and doune full two yeeres together; so as during these two yeeres, it had beene all one to say, one is gone to hell, or hee is gone to Sara Williams : for shee poore wench had all hell in her belly."-Chap. X. pp. 45-50.

(4) SCENE IV.

Fie, foh, and fum,

I smell the blood of a British man.]

A quotation, as Mr. Jameson has shown, in his "Illustrations of Northern Antiquities," p. 397, from an old romance, familiarly known in Shakespeare's day in this country, and still partly preserved in Scotland. The words are those uttered by Rosman, king of Elfland, when Child Rowland, in search of his sister, "Burd Ellen," had penetrated to the tower in which she was confined by the fairy emissaries of the Elfland monarch.

66 fi, fi, fo, and fum!

I smell the blood of a Christian man!

Be he dead, be he living, wi' my brand

I'll dash his harns [brains] frae his harn-pan."

ACT IV.

(1) SCENE VI.-That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper.] The office of "crowkeeper" was to fright the crows from the corn and fruit; for this purpose a poor rustic, who, though armed with bow and arrows, was not supposed to have much skill in archery, was sometimes employed, and at others his place was supplied by a stuffed figure, resembling a man, and armed in the same way. Ascham, in his "Toxophilus," when speaking of a lubberly shooter, has a similar comparison to that in the text:"Another coureth downe and layeth out his buttockes, as thoughe hee should shoote at

crowes."

(2) SCENE VI.-Draw me a clothier's yard.] That is, an arrow a clothier's yard in length. The ancient "long-bow" was about six feet in length, and the shaft over three. So, in the old ballad of "Chevy-Chace: "—

"An archar off Northomberlonde

Say slean was the lord Persè,

He bar a bende-bow in his hande,

Was made off trusti tre: