and saide that he doubted not Pandosto, sith he was his friend, and there had never as yet beene any breach of amity. He had not sought to invade his lands, to conspire with his enemies, to disswade his subjects from their allegiance; but in word and thought he rested his at all times: he knew not therefore any cause that should moove Pandosto to seeke his death, but suspected it to be a compacted knavery of the Bohemians to bring the king and him to oddes. "Franion staying him in the middst of his talke, told him that to dally with princes was with the swannes to sing against their death, and that if the Bohemians had intended any such mischiefe, it might have beene better brought to passe then by revealing the conspiracie; therefore his Majestie did ill to misconstrue of his good meaneng, sith his intent was to hinder treason, not to become a traytor; and to confirme his promises, if it pleased his Majestie to fly into Sicilia for the safegarde of his life, hee would goe with him, and if then he found not such a practice to be pretended, let his imagined treacherie be repayed with most monstrous torments. Eristus hearing the solemne protestations of Franion, begann to consider that in love and kingdomes neither faith nor lawe is to bee respected, doubting that Pandosto thought by his death to destroy his men, and with speedy warre to invade Sicilia. These and such doubtes throughly weyghed he gave great thankes to Franion, promising if hee might with life returne to Syracusa, that he would create him a duke in Sycilia, craving his counsell how hea might escape out of the countrie." I never wish'd to see you sorry; now I trust I shall.] ACT II. "Whereupon he began to imagine that Franion and his wife Bellaria had conspired with Egistus, and that the fervent affection shee bare him was the onely meanes of his secret departure; in so much that incensed with rage he commaundes that his wife should be carried straight to prison untill they heard further of his pleasure. The guarde, unwilling to lay their hands one such a vertuous princesse and yet fearing the kings fury, went very sorrowful to fulfill their charge. Comming to the queenes lodging they found her playing with her yong sonne Garinter, unto whom with teares doing the message, Bellaria, astonished at such a hard censure and finding her cleere consceence a sure advocate to pleade in her cause, went to the prison most willingly, where with sighes and teares shee past away the time till she might come to her triall. "But Pandosto, whose reason was suppressed with rage and whose unbridled follie was incensed with fury, seeing Franion had bewrayed his secrets, and that Egistus might well be rayled on, but not revenged, determined to wreake all his wrath on poore Bellaria. He therefore caused a generall proclamation to be made through all his realme that the queene and Egistus had, by the help of Franion, not only committed most incestuous adultery, but also had conspired the kings death: whereupon the traitor Franion was fled away with Egistus, and Bellaria was most justly imprisoned. This proclamation being once blazed through the country, although the vertuous disposition of the queene did halfe discredit the contents, yet the suddaine and speedy passage of Egistus, and the secret departure of Franion, induced them (the circumstances throughly considered) to thinke that both the proclamation was true, and the king greatly injured yet they pittyed her case, as sorrowful that so good a ladye should be crossed with such adverse fortune. But the king, whose restlesse rage would remit no pitty, thought that although he might sufficiently requite his wives falshood with the bitter plague of pinching penury, yet his minde should never be glutted with revenge till he might have fit time and opportunity to repay the treachery of Egistus with a totall injury. But a curst cow hath oftentimes short hornes, and a willing minde but a weake arme; for Pandosto, although he felt that revenge was a spurre to warre, and that envy alwaies proffereth steele, yet he saw that Egistus was not onely of great puissance and prowesse to withstand him, but had also many kings of his alliance to ayde him if neede should serve, for he married the Emperours daughter of Russia." -Pandosto. The Triumph of Time, 1588. (2) SCENE III.-Poor thing, condemn'd to loss !] In the novel, as in the play, the unhappy queen, while in prison, gives birth to a daughter, which the king at first determines shall be burnt, but being diverted from this bloody purpose by the remonstrance of his nobles, he resolves to set the hapless infant adrift upon the sea:-"The guard left her in this perplexitie, and carried the child to the king, who quite devoide of pity commanded that without delay it should bee put in the boat, haying neither saile nor other [rudder?] to guid it and so to be carried into the midst of the sea, and there left to the wind and wave as the destinies please to appoint. The very ship-men, seeing the sweete countenance of the yong babe, began to accuse the king of rigor, and to pity the childs hard fortune; but feare constrayned them to that which their nature did abhorre, so that they placed it in one of the ends of the boat, and with a few greene bows made a homely cabben to shrowd it as they could from wind and weather. Having thus trimmed the boat they tied it to a ship and so haled it into the mayne sea, and then cut in sunder the coarde; which they had no sooner done, but there arose a mighty tempest, which tossed the little boate so vehemently in the waves that the ship men thought it could not continue long without sincking; yea, the storm grew so great, that with much labour and perill they got to the shoare." ACT III. (1) SCENE II.-Look for no less than death.] "But leaving the childe to her fortunes, againe to Pandosto, who not yet glutted with sufficient revenge desired which way he should best increase his wives calamitie. But first assembling his nobles and counsellors, hee called her for the more reproch into open court, where it was objected against her that she had committed adulterie with Eristus, and conspired with Franion to poyson Pandosto her husband, but their pretence being partely spyed, she counselled them to flie away by night for their better safety. Bellaria, who standing like a prisoner at the barre, feeling in herselfe a cleare conscience to withstand her false accusers, seeing that no lesse than death could pacifie her husbands wrath, waxed bolde and desired that she might have lawe and justice, for craved nor hoped for; and that those perjured wretches mercy shee neyther which had falsely accused her to the king might be brought before her face to give in evidence. But Pandosto, whose rage and jealousie was such as no reason nor equitie could appease, tolde her, that for her accusers they were of such credite as their wordes were sufficient witnesse, and that the sodaine and secret flight of Egistus and Franion confirmed that which they had confessed; and as for her, it was her parte to deny such a monstrous crime, and to be impudent in forswearing the fact, since shee had past all shame in committing the fault: but her state countenaunce should stand for no coyne, bastard which she bare was served, so she should with for as the some cruell death be requited."-Pandosto. The Triumph of Time, 1588. (2) SCENE II. Your honours all, The extracts here given will show that in most of the incidents connected with the arraignment of the queen, the great dramatist varies but little from the story. He has made one important change, however, without which we should have lost the finest scene in the play; for in the novel the unfortunate lady, overcome with grief for the death of her eldest child, expires in the public court shortly after the response of the oracle is declared. "The noble men which sate in judgement said that Bellaria spake reason, and intreated the king that the accusers might be openly examined and sworne, and if then the evidence were such as the jury might finde her guilty, (for seeing she was a prince she ought to be tryed by her peeres) then let her have such punishment as the extremitie of the law will assigne to such malefactors. The king presently made answere that in this case he might and would dispence with the law, and that the jury being once panneld they should take his word for sufficient evidence, otherwise he would make the proudest of them repent it. The noble men seeing the king in choler were all whist; but Bellaria, whose life then hung in the ballaunce, fearing more perpetual infamie than momentarie death, told the king if his furie might stand for a law that it were vaine to have the jury yeeld their verdict; and therefore she fell downe upon her knees, and desired the king that for the love he bare to his young sonne Garinter, whome she brought into the world, that hee would graunt her a request; which was this, that it would please his majestie to send sixe of his noble men whom he best trusted to the Isle of Delphos, there to enquire of the oracle of Apollo whether she had committed adultery with Egistus or conspired to poyson him with Franion? and if the god Apollo, who by his divine essence knew al secrets, gave answere that she was guiltie, she were content to suffer any torment were it never so terrible. The request was so reasonable that Pandosto could not for shame deny it, unlesse he would bee counted of all his subjects more wilfull than wise: he therefore agreed that with as much speede as might be there should be certaine Embassadores dispatched to the Ile of Delphos, and in the meane season he commanded that his wife should be kept in close prison." (3) SCENE II.-And the king shall live without an heir, if that which is lost be not found.] The answer of the oracle in the play is almost literally the same as that in the tale : "THE ORACLE. "Suspition is no proofe: Jealousie is an unequal judge: Bellaria is chast: Egistus blameless: Franion a true subject: Pandosto treacherous: His babe innocent, and the king shall live long without an heire, if that which is lost be not founde." (4) SCENE III.-They have scared away two of my best sheep,- if anywhere I have them, 'tis by the sea-side, browzing of ivy.] This is one of the instances, proving that Shakespeare had the novel before him while composing his drama, in which the identical expression of the original is transferred to the copy. After recounting how the babe, which had been left to the mercies of the "gastfull seas,' "floated two whole daies without succour, readie at every puffe to bee drowned in the sea, till at last the tempest ceased and the little boate was driven with the tyde into the coaste of Sycilia, where sticking uppon the sandes it rested," the novelist proceeds to tell that, "It fortuned a poore mercenary sheepheard that dwelled in Sycilia, who got his living by other mens flockes, missed one of his sheepe, and thinking it had strayed into the covert that was hard by, sought very diligently to find that which he could not see, fearing either that the wolves or eagles had undone him (for he was so poore as a sheepe was halfe his substance), wandered downe toward the sea cliffes to see if perchaunce the sheepe was browsing on the sea ivy, whereon they greatly doe feede; but not finding her there, as he was ready to returne to his flocke hee heard a child crie, but knowing there was no house nere, he thought he had mistaken the sound and that it was the bleatyng of his sheepe. Wherefore looking more narrowely, as he cast his eye to the sea, he spyed a little boate, from whence, as he attentively listened, he might heare the cry to come. Standing a good while in a maze, at last he went to the shoare, and wading to the boate, as he looked in he saw the little babe lying al alone ready to die for hunger and colde, wrapped in a mantle of scarlet richely imbrodered with golde, and having a chayne about the necke." ACT IV. (1) SCENE II.-Trol-my-dames.] A game more anciently known as "Pigeon-holes," because the balls were driven through arches on the board resembling the apertures in a dove-cote. It is mentioned in a treatise, quoted by Farmer, on "Buckstone Bathes ;"men, wyves, maydes, if the weather be not agreeable, may "The ladyes, gentle woohave in the ende of a benche eleven holes made, intoo the which to troule pummits, either wyolent or softe, after their own discretion: the pastyme troule in madame is termed;" and an illustration, showing the board and mode of play, will be found prefixed to Emblem No. II. in Quarles' "Emblems," 1635, which begins: 254 "Prepost'rous fool, thou troul'st amiss; (2) SCENE II.-An ape-bearer.] In explanation of a passage in Massinger's play of "The Bondman," Act III. Sc. 3, Gifford has an amusing note on the excellence displayed by our ancestors in the education of animals: Banks's horse far surpassed all that have been brought up in the academy of Mr. Astley; and the apes of these days are mere clowns to their progenitors. The apes of Massinger's time were gifted with a pretty smattering of politics and philosophy. The widow Wild had one of them: He would come over for all my friends, but was the dog ged'st thing to my enemies; he would sit upon his tale Men say you've tricks; remember, noble captain, What can you do for the Pope of Rome? Lo! He stirreth not, he moveth not, he waggeth not. The occupation of the ape-bearer, then, was to instruct apes in their tumbling, and to exhibit the learned animals for a consideration to the public. The course of tuition must have required no little patience on the part of the teacher, and great docility in the pupil; for it usually ended in giving to the ape-bearer an absolute control over the creature, which, by means of some secret correspondence between them, could be made to express either anger or good-humour at the keeper's will. This perfect mastery gave occasion for a saying attributed to James I.-" If I In the Inhave Jack-a-napes, I can make him bite you; if you have Jack-a-napes, you can make him bite me.' duction to Ben Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair," the stage- (3) SCENE II.—Then he compassed a motion of the Pro- (4) SCENE II.— Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way, These lines are part of a song found in a collection of "Witty Ballads, Jovial Songs, and Merry Catches," called "An Antidote against Melancholy;" 1661. It is said to have been set as a round for three voices by John Hilton; and the melody, a base and accompaniment being added, is given as follows from "The Dancing Master," 1650, by Mr. Knight in his "Pictorial Shakespeare:' #6 mer-ri-ly hent the stile, O; A mer-ry heart goes all the day, Your sad tires in a mile, O. (5) SCENE III.— I bless the time, When my good falcon made her flight across So in the tale:-"It happened not long after this that (7) SCENE III. O, Proserpina, See the passage in Ovid's Metamorphoses, lib. v. "ut summa vestem laxavit ab ora Collecti flores tunicis cecidere remissis,-" and the following translation by Shakespeare's contemporary, Golding: "Neare Enna walles there stands a lake Pergusa is the name, Cayster heareth not more songs of swannes than doth the same. A wood environs every side the water round about, And with his leaves as with a veile doth keepe the sun heat out. The boughes doo yeeld a coole fresh aire: the moistnesse of the ground Yeelds sundrie flowers: continuall spring is all the yeare there found. While in this garden Proserpine was taking her pastime, Dis spide her, lov'd her, caught her up, and all at once well neere: So hastie, hot, and swift a thing is love, as may appeere. Her mother and her waiting maids, but mother most of all. (8) SCENE III.-Poking-sticks of steel.] "These pokingsticks were heated in the fire, and made use of to adjust the plaits of ruffs. In Marston's 'Malcontent' [Act V. Sc. 3] 1604, is the following instance: There is such a deale a pinning these ruffes, when the fine clean fall is worth all; and again, if you should chance to take a nap in an afternoon, your falling band requires no poking-stick to recover his form,' &c. Again, in Middleton's comedy of Blurt, Master Constable' [Act III. Sc. 3], 1602: Your ruff must stand in print; and for that purpose, get poking-sticks with fair long handles, lest they scorch your lily sweating] hands.' Again, in the Second Part of Stubbes's Anatomie of Abuses, 8vo. no date: "They (poking-sticks) be made of yron and steele, and some of brasse, kept as bright as silver, yea some of silver itselfe, and it is well if in processe of time they grow not to be gold. The fashion whereafter they be made, I cannot resemble to any thing so well as to a squirt or a little squibbe which little children used to squirt out water withal; and when they come to starching and setting of their ruffes, then must this instrument be heated in the fire, the better to stiffen the ruffe,' &c."-STEEVENS. (9) SCENE III.-Of a fish, that appeared upon the coast on Wednesday the fourscore of April, &c.] "The Shakesperian era was the age of ballads, broadsides, and fugitive pieces on all kinds of wonders, which were either gross exaggerations of facts or mere inventions. The present dialogue seems to be a general, not a particular, satire; but it may be curiously illustrated by an early ballad of a fish, copied from the unique exemplar preserved in the Miller collection, entitled, The discription of a rare or rather most monstrous fishe, taken on the east cost of Holland the xvij. of November, anno 1566.' In 1569 was published a prose broadside, containing,- A true description of this marvellous straunge Fishe, which was taken on Thursday was sennight, the 16. day of June, this present month, in the yeare of our Lord God, 1569.-Finis, Qd. C. R.-Imprinted at London, in Fleetstreete, beneath the conduit, at the signe of Saint John Evangelist, by Thomas Colwell.' In 1604 was entered on the books of the Stationers' Company: A strange reporte of a monstrous fish that appeared in the form of a woman, from her waist upward, seene in the sea;' and in May of the same year, a ballad called a ballad of a strange and monstruous fishe seene in the sea on Friday the 17 of Febr. 1603.' In Sir Henry Herbert's office-book, which contains a register of all the shows of London from 1623 to 1642, is 'a licence to Francis Sherret to shew a strange fish for a yeare, from the 10th of Marche, 1635.'"-HALLIWELL. (10) SCENE III.-Men of hair.] A dance in which the performers were disguised as satyrs, not unusually formed a feature of the entertainment on festival occasions in olden time, and this species of masquerade is connected with a very tragic incident, graphically told by Froissart, which occurred at the French court in 1392: "It fortuned that, soon after the retaining of the foresaid knight, a marriage was made in the king's house between a young knight of Vermandois and one of the queen's gentlewomen; and because they were both of the king's house, the king's uncles, and other lords, ladies, and damoiselles, made great triumph: there was the Dukes of Orléans, Berry, and Bourgoyne, and their wives, dancing and making great joy. The king made a great supper to the lords and ladies, and the queen kept her estate, desiring every man to be merry and there was a squire of Normandy, called Hogreymen Gensay, he advised to make some pastime. The day of the marriage, which was on a Tuesday before Candlemas, he provided for a mummery against night: he devised six coats made of linen cloth, covered with pitch, and thereon flax-like hair, and had them ready in a chamber. The king put on one of them, and the Earl of Jouy, a young lusty knight, another, and Sir Charles of Poitiers the third, who was son to the earl of Valentenois, and Sir Juan of Foix another, and the son of the Lord Nanthorillet had on the fifth, and the squire himself had on the sixth; and when they were thus arrayed in these sad coats, and sewed fast in them, they seemed like wild woodhouses,* full of hair from the top of the head to the sole of the foot. This device pleased well the French king, and was well content with the squire for it. They were apparelled in these coats secretly in a chamber that no man knew thereof but such as helped them. When Sir Juan of Foix had well devised these coats, he said to the king,-'Sir, command straightly that no man approach near us with any torch or fire, for if the fire fasten in any of these coats, we shall all be burnt without remedy.' The king answered and said,—‘Juan, ye speak well and wisely; it shall be done as ye have devised;' and incontinent sent for an usher of his chamber, commanding him to go into the chamber where the ladies danced, and to command all the varlets holding torches to stand up by the walls, and none of them to approach near to the woodhouses that should come thither to dance. The usher did the king's commandment, which was fulfilled. Soon after the Duke of Orléans entered into the hall, accompanied with four knights and six torches, and knew nothing of the king's commandment for the torches, nor of the mummery that was coming thither, but thought to behold the dancing, and began himself to dance. Therewith the king with the five other came in; they were so disguised in flax that no man knew them: five of them were fastened one to another; the king was loose, and went before and led the device. "When they entered into the hall every man took so great heed to them that they forgot the torches: the king departed from his company and went to the ladies to sport with them, as youth required, and so passed by the queen and came to the Duchess of Berry, who took and held him by the arm, to know what he was, but the king would not show his name. Then the duchess said, Ye shall not escape me till I know your name. In this mean season great mischief fell on the other, and by reason of the Duke of Orléans; howbeit, it was by ignorance, and against his will, for if he had considered before the mischief that fell, he would not have done as he did for all the good in the world but he was so desirous to know what personages the five were that danced, he put one of the torches that his servant held so near, that the heat of the fire entered into the flax (wherein if fire take there is no remedy), and suddenly was on a bright flame, and so each of them set fire on other; the pitch was so fastened to the linen cloth, and their shirts so dry and fine, and so joining to their flesh, that they began to burn and to cry for help: none durst come near them; they that did burnt their hands by reason of the heat of the pitch: one of them called * Savages. Nanthorillet advised him how the botry was thereby; he fled thither, and cast himself into a vessel full of water, wherein they rinsed pots, which saved him, or else he had been dead as the other were; yet he was sore hurt with the fire. When the queen heard the cry that they made, she doubted her of the king, for she knew well that he should be one of the six; therewith she fell into a swoon, and knights and ladies came and comforted her. A piteous noise there was in the hall. The Duchess of Berry delivered the king from that peril, for she did cast over him the train of her gown, and covered him from the fire. The king would have gone from her. Whither will ye go? quoth she; ye see well how your company burns. What are ye? I am the king, quoth he. Haste ye, quoth she, and get you into other apparel, and come to the queen. And the Duchess of Berry had somewhat comforted her, and had showed her how she should see the king shortly. Therewith the king came to the queen, and as soon as she saw him, for joy she embraced him and fell in a swoon; then she was borne to her chamber, and the king went with her. And the bastard of Foix, who was all on a fire, cried ever with a loud voice, Save the king, save the king! Thus was the king saved. It was happy for him that he went from his company, for else he had been dead without remedy. This great mischief fell thus about midnight in the hall of Saint Powle in Paris, where there was two burnt to death in the place, and other two, the bastard of Foix and the Earl of Jouy, borne to their lodgings, and died within two days after in great misery and pain." ACT V. (1) SCENE III.-The ruddiness upon her lip is wet.] However general the distaste for colouring sculpture in the present day, there can be no denying that the practice is of very high antiquity; since the painted low reliefs found in such profusion in the Egyptian tombs are usually assigned to the period B.C. 2400. In those remains there appears to have been the same intention as that shown in the coloured Monumental Effigies of the later middle-ages and the sixteenth century; namely, the production of a perfect and substantial image of the person represented, painted with his natural complexion and apparelled "in his habit as he lived." In this view of the custom it may be divested of much of its bad taste; especially if we suppose that really eminent artists were frequently employed as well on the painting of the figure as on the modelling and carving it. The later commentators only have taken this the true view of the statue of Hermione; though they have all pointed out the poet's error in representing Giulio Romano as a sculptor. We are inclined to doubt, however, whether Shakespeare committed any mis take upon the subject: when he calls the statue "A piece many years in doing, and now newly performed," he may have remembered that Vasari, Romano's contemporary, has recorded that "over his paintings he sometimes consumed months and even years, until they became wearisome to him." And when he represents this artist as colouring sculpture, he may have recollected the same authority states, that Giulio Romano built a house for himself in Mantua, opposite to the church of St. Barnaba. "The front of this he adorned with a fantastic decoration of coloured stuccoes; causing it at the same time to be painted and adorned with stucco-work within." It will be readily admitted that when the practice of making painted effigy portraits and busts was established, the greatest talent as well as the most inferior might be employed on the colouring; and Vasari adds further, that Giulio Romano would not refuse to set his hand to the most trifling matter, when the object was to do a service to his lord or to give pleasure to his friends. VOL. III. 257 S |