FOOTNOTES:

“I have rubb’d this young quat almost to the sense,And he grows angry.”

—Roderigo being called a quat by the same mode of speech as a low fellow is now called ascab. It occurs in Langham’s “Garden of Health,” p. 153: “The leaves [of coleworts] laid to by themselves, or bruised with barley meale, are good for the inflammations, and soft swellings, burnings, impostumes, and cholerick sores or quats,” etc.

Plague.“Tokens,” or “God’s tokens,” were the terms for those spots on the body which denoted the infection of the plague. In “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2), Biron says:

“For the Lord’s tokens on you do I see;”

and in “Antony and Cleopatra” (iii. 10) there is another allusion:

“Enobarbus.How appears the fight?Scarus.On our side like the token’d pestilence,Where death is sure.”

“Enobarbus.How appears the fight?

Scarus.On our side like the token’d pestilence,Where death is sure.”

In “Troilus and Cressida” (ii. 3), Ulysses says of Achilles:

“He is so plaguy proud that the death tokens of itCry—‘No recovery.’”

King Lear, too, it would seem, compares Goneril (ii. 4) to these fatal signs, when he calls her “a plague sore.” When thetokenshad appeared on any of the inhabitants, the house was shut up, and “Lord have mercy upon us” written or printed upon the door. Hence Biron, in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2), says:

“Write, ‘Lord have mercy on us,’ on those three;They are infected, in their hearts it lies;They have the plague, and caught it of your eyes.”

The “red pestilence,” referred to by Volumnia in “Coriolanus” (iv. 1), probably alludes to the cutaneous eruptions common in the plague:

“Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome,And occupations perish!”

In “The Tempest” (i. 2), Caliban says to Prospero, “The red plague rid you.”

Poison.According to a vulgar error prevalent in days gone by, poison was supposed to swell the body, an allusion to which occurs in “Julius Cæsar” (iv. 3), where, in the quarrel between Brutus and Cassius, the former declares:

“You shall digest the venom of your spleen,Though it do split you.”

We may also compare the following passage in “2 Henry IV.” (iv. 4), where the king says:

“Learn this, Thomas,And thou shalt prove a shelter to thy friends;A hoop of gold to bind thy brothers in,That the united vessel of their blood,Mingled with venom of suggestion—As, force perforce, the age will pour it in—Shall never leak, though it do work as strongAs aconitum, or rash gunpowder.”

In “King John,” Hubert, when describing the effect of the poison upon the monk (v. 6), narrates how his “bowels suddenly burst out.” This passage also contains a reference to the popular custom prevalent in the olden days, of great persons having their food tasted by those who were supposed to have made themselves acquainted with its wholesomeness. This practice, however, could not always afford security when the taster was ready to sacrifice his own life, as in the present case:[625]

“Hubert.The king, I fear, is poison’d by a monk:I left him almost speechless....Bastard.How did he take it? who did taste to him?Hubert.A monk, I tell you; a resolved villain.”

“Hubert.The king, I fear, is poison’d by a monk:I left him almost speechless....

Bastard.How did he take it? who did taste to him?

Hubert.A monk, I tell you; a resolved villain.”

The natives of Africa have been supposed to be possessed of the secret how to temper poisons with such art as not to operate till several years after they were administered.Their drugs were then as certain in their effect as subtle in their preparation.[626]Thus, in “The Tempest” (iii. 3), Gonzalo says:

“All three of them are desperate: their great guilt,Like poison given to work a great time after,Now ’gins to bite the spirits.”

The belief in slow poisoning was general in bygone times, although no better founded on fact, remarks Dr. Bucknill,[627]than the notion that persons burst with poison, or that narcotics could, like an alarum clock, be set for a certain number of hours. So, in “Cymbeline” (v. 5), Cornelius relates to the king the queen’s confession:

“She did confess, she hadFor you a mortal mineral; which, being took,Should by the minute feed on life, and, lingering,By inches waste you.”

Pomander.This was either a composition of various perfumes wrought in the shape of a ball or other form, and worn in the pocket or hung about the neck, and even sometimes suspended to the wrist; or a case for containing such a mixture of perfumes. It was used as an amulet against the plague or other infections, as well as for an article of luxury. There is an allusion to its use in the “Winter’s Tale” (iv. 3), by Autolycus, who enumerates it among all his trumpery that he had sold. The following recipe for making a pomander we find in an old play:[628]“Your only way to make a pomander is this: take an ounce of the purest garden mould, cleans’d and steep’d seven days in change of motherless rose-water. Then take the best labdanum, benjoin, with storaxes, ambergris, civet, and musk. Incorporate them together, and work them into what form you please. This, if your breath be not too valiant, will make you smell as sweet as any lady’s dog.”

Rheumatism.In Shakespeare’s day this was used in a farwider sense than nowadays, including, in addition to what is now understood by the term, distillations from the head, catarrhs, etc. Malone quotes from the “Sidney Memorials” (vol. i. p. 94), where the health of Sir Henry Sidney is described: “He hath verie much distempored divers parts of his bodie; as namelie, his heade, his stomack, &c., and thereby is always subject to distillacions, coughes, and other rumatick diseases.” Among the many superstitions relating to the moon,[629]one is mentioned in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 1), where Titania tells how the moon,

“Pale in her anger, washes all the air,That rheumatic diseases do abound.”

The word “rheumatic” was also formerly used in the sense of choleric or peevish, as in “2 Henry IV.” (ii. 4), where the Hostess says: “You two never meet but you fall to some discord: you are both, in good troth, as rheumatic as two dry toasts.” Again, in “Henry V.” (ii. 3), the Hostess says of Falstaff: “A’ did in some sort, indeed, handle women; but then he was rheumatic,[630]and talked of the whore of Babylon.”

Serpigo.This appears to have been a term extensively used by old medical authors for any creeping skin disease, being especially applied to that known as theherpes circinatus. The expression occurs in “Measure for Measure” (iii. 1), being coupled by the Duke with “the gout” and the “rheum.” In “Troilus and Cressida” (ii. 3), Thersites says: “Now, the dry serpigo on the subject.”

Sickness.Sickness of stomach, which the slightest disgust is apt to provoke, is still expressed by the term “queasy;” hence the word denoteddelicate,unsettled; as in “King Lear” (ii. 1), where it is used by Edmund:

“I have one thing, of a queasy question,Which I must act.”

So Ben Jonson employs it in “Sejanus” (i. 1):

“These times are rather queasy to be touched.”

Sigh.It was a prevalent notion that sighs impair the strength and wear out the animal powers. Thus, in “2 Henry VI.” (iii. 2), Queen Margaret speaks of “blood-drinking sighs.” We may, too, compare the words of Oberon in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (iii. 2), who refers to “sighs of love, that cost the fresh blood dear.” In “3 Henry VI.” (iv. 4), Queen Elizabeth says:

“for this I draw in many a tear,And stop the rising of blood-sucking sighs.”

Once more, in “Hamlet” (iv. 7), the King mentions the “spendthrift sigh, that hurts by easing.” Fenton, in his “Tragical Discourses” (1579), alludes to this notion in the following words: “Your scorching sighes that have already drayned your body of his wholesome humoures.”

It was also an ancient belief that sorrow consumed the blood and shortened life. Hence Romeo tells Juliet (iii. 5):

“And trust me, love, in my eye so do you:Dry sorrow drinks our blood.”

Small-pox.Such a terrible plague was this disease in the days of our ancestors, that its name was used as an imprecation. Thus, in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2), the Princess says: “A pox of that jest.”

Saliva.The color of the spittle was, with the medical men of olden times, an important point of diagnosis. Thus, in “2 Henry IV.” (i. 2), Falstaff exclaims against fighting on a hot day, and wishes he may “never spit white again,” should it so happen.[631]

Sterility.The charm against sterility referred to by Cæsar in “Julius Cæsar” (i. 2) is copied from Plutarch, who, in his description of the festival Lupercalia, tells us how “noble young men run naked through the city, striking in sport whom they meet in the way with leather thongs,” whichblows were commonly believed to have the wonderful effect attributed to them by Cæsar:

“The barren, touched in this holy chase,Shake off their sterile curse.”

Suicide.Cominius, in “Coriolanus” (i. 9), arguing against Marcius’s overstrained modesty, refers to the manner in which suicide was thought preventable in olden times:

“If ’gainst yourself you be incens’d, we’ll put you,Like one that means his proper harm, in manacles,Then reason safely with you.”

Toothache.It was formerly a common superstition—and one, too, not confined to our own country—that toothache was caused by a little worm, having the form of an eel, which gradually gnawed a hole in the tooth. In “Much Ado About Nothing” (iii. 2), Shakespeare speaks of this curious belief:

“Don Pedro.What! sigh for the toothache?Leonato.Where is but a humour, or a worm.”

“Don Pedro.What! sigh for the toothache?

Leonato.Where is but a humour, or a worm.”

This notion was, some years ago, prevalent in Derbyshire,[632]where there was an odd way of extracting, as it was thought, the worm. A small quantity of a mixture, consisting of dry and powdered herbs, was placed in some small vessel, into which a live coal from the fire was dropped. The patient then held his or her open mouth over the vessel, and inhaled the smoke as long as it could be borne. The cup was then taken away, and in its place a glass of water was put before the patient. Into this glass the person breathed hard for a few moments, when it was supposed the grub or worm could be seen in the water. In Orkney, too, toothache goes by the name of “the worm,” and, as a remedy, the following charm, called “wormy lines,” is written on a piece of paper, and worn as an amulet, by the person affected, in some part of his dress:

“Peter sat on a marble stone weeping;Christ came past, and said, ‘What aileth thee, Peter?’‘O my Lord, my God, my tooth doth ache.’‘Arise, O Peter! go thy way; thy tooth shall ache no more.’”

This notion is still current in Germany, and is mentioned by Thorpe, in his “Northern Mythology” (vol. iii. p. 167), who quotes a North German incantation, beginning,

“Pear tree, I complain to thee;Three worms sting me.”

It is found, too, even in China and New Zealand,[633]the following charm being used in the latter country:

“An eel, a spiny backTrue indeed, indeed: true in sooth, in sooth.You must eat the headOf said spiny back.”

A writer in theAthenæum(Jan. 28, 1860), speaking of the Rev. R. H. Cobbold’s “Pictures of the Chinese, Drawn by Themselves,” says: “The first portrait is that of a quack doctress, who pretends to cure toothache by extracting a maggot—the cause of the disorder. This is done—or, rather, pretended to be done—by simply placing a bright steel pin on the part affected, and tapping the pin with a piece of wood. Mr. Cobbold compares the operation to procuring worms for fishing by working a spade backwards and forwards in the ground. He and a friend submitted to the process, but in a very short time compelled the doctress to desist, by the excessive precautions they took against imposition.” We may further note that John of Gatisden, one of the oldest medical authors, attributes decay of the teeth to “a humour or a worm.” In his “Rosa Anglica”[634]he says: “Si vermes sint in dentibus, ℞ semen porri, seu lusquiami contere et misce cum cera, pone super carbones, et fumus recipiatur per embotum, quoniam sanat. Solum etiam semen lusquiami valet coctum in aqua calida, supra quam aquam patiens palatum apertum si tenuerit, cadentvermes evidenter vel in illam aquam, vel in aliam quæ ibi fuerit ibi posita. De myrrha et aloe ponantur in dentem, ubi est vermis: semen caulis, et absinthium, per se vermes interficit.”

Tub-fast.In years past “the discipline of sweating in a heated tub for a considerable time, accompanied with strict abstinence, was thought necessary for the cure of venereal taint.”[635]Thus, in “Timon of Athens” (iv. 3), Timon says to Timandra:

“Be a whore still! they love thee not that use thee;Give them diseases, leaving with thee their lust.Make use of thy salt hours: season the slavesFor tubs and baths: bring down rose-cheeked youthTo the tub-fast, and the diet.”

As beef, too, was usually salted down in a tub, the one process was jocularly compared to the other. So, in “Measure for Measure” (iii. 2), Pompey, when asked by Lucio about his mistress, replies, “Troth, sir, she hath eaten up all her beef, and she is herself in the tub.” Again, in “Henry V.” (ii. 1), Pistol speaks of “the powdering-tub of infamy.”

Vinegar.In Shakespeare’s day this seems to have been termed “eisel” (from A. S.aisel), being esteemed highly efficacious in preventing the communication of the plague and other contagious diseases. In this sense it has been used by Shakespeare in Sonnet cxi.:

“like a willing patient, I will drinkPotions of eisel, ’gainst my strong infection.”

In a MS. Herbal in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, occurs “acetorum, ancevynegre or aysel.” The word occurs again in “Hamlet” (v. 1), where Laertes is challenged by Hamlet:

“Woo’t drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?”

The word woo’t, in the northern counties, is the common contraction ofwouldst thou, which is the reading of the old copies. In former years it was the fashion with gallants todo some extravagant feat, as a proof of their love, in honor of their mistresses, and, among others, the swallowing of some nauseous potion was one of the most frequent. Hence, in the above passage, some bitter potion is evidently meant, which it was a penance to drink. Some are of opinion thatwormwoodis alluded to; and Mr. Singer thinks it probable that “the propoma called absinthites, a nauseously bitter medicament then much in use, may have been in the poet’s mind, to drink up a quantity of which would be an extreme pass of amorous demonstration.” It has been suggested by a correspondent of “Notes and Queries,”[636]that the reference in this passage from “Hamlet” is to a Lake Esyl, which figures in Scandinavian legends. Messrs. Wright and Clark, however, in their “Notes to Hamlet” (1876, p. 218), say that they have consulted Mr. Magnusson on this point, and he writes as follows: “No such lake as Esyl is known to Norse mythology and folk-lore.” Steevens supposes it to be the river Yssell.[637]

Water-casting.The fanciful notion of recognizing diseases by the mere inspection of the urine was denounced years ago, by an old statute of the College of Physicians, as belonging to tricksters and impostors, and any member of the college was forbidden to give advice by this so-called “water-casting” without he also saw the patient. The statute of the college runs as follows: “Statuimus, et ordinamus, ut nemo, sive socius, sive candidatus, sive permissus consilii quidquam impertiat veteratoriis, et impostoribus, super urinarum nuda inspectione, nisi simul ad ægrum vocetur, ut ibidem, pro re natû, idonea medicamenta ab honesto aliquo pharmacopoea componenda præscribat.” An allusion to this vulgar error occurs in the “Two Gentlemen of Verona” (ii. 1), where, after Speed has given to Valentine his amusing description of a lover, in which, among other signs, are “to walk alone, like one that had the pestilence,” and “to fast, like one that takes diet,” the following quibbletakes place upon the within and the without of the symptoms:

“Valentine.Are all these things perceived in me?Speed.They are all perceived without ye.Valentine.Without me? they cannot.Speed.Without you? nay, that’s certain; for, without you were so simple, none else would: but you are so without these follies, that these follies are within you, and shine through you like the water in an urinal, that not an eye that sees you but is a physician to comment on your malady.”

“Valentine.Are all these things perceived in me?

Speed.They are all perceived without ye.

Valentine.Without me? they cannot.

Speed.Without you? nay, that’s certain; for, without you were so simple, none else would: but you are so without these follies, that these follies are within you, and shine through you like the water in an urinal, that not an eye that sees you but is a physician to comment on your malady.”

This singular pretence, says Dr. Bucknill,[638]is “alleged to have arisen, like the barber surgery, from the ecclesiastical interdicts upon the medical vocations of the clergy. Priests and monks, being unable to visit their former patients, are said first to have resorted to the expedient of divining the malady, and directing the treatment upon simple inspection of the urine. However this may be, the practice is of very ancient date.” Numerous references to this piece of medical quackery occur in many of our old writers, most of whom condemn it in very strong terms. Thus Forestus, in his “Medical Politics,” speaks of it as being, in his opinion, a practice altogether evil, and expresses an earnest desire that medical men would combine to repress it. Shakespeare gives a further allusion to it in the passage where he makes Macbeth (v. 3) say:

“If thou couldst, doctor, castThe water of my land, find her disease,And purge it to a sound and pristine health,I would applaud thee to the very echo.”

And in “2 Henry IV” (i. 2) Falstaff asks the page, “What says the doctor to my water?” and, once more, in “Twelfth Night” (iii. 4), Fabian, alluding to Malvolio, says, “Carry his water to the wise woman.”

It seems probable, too, that, in the “Merry Wives ofWindsor” (ii. 3), the term “mock-water,” employed by the host to the French Dr. Caius, refers to the mockery of judging of diseases by the water or urine—“mock-water,” in this passage, being equivalent to “you pretending water-doctor!”

FOOTNOTES:[589]See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 482; also, Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. iii. p. 311; Henderson’s “Folk-Lore of Northern Counties,” 1879, pp. 168, 169.[590]Aldis Wright’s “Notes to King Lear,” 1877, p. 179.[591]Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 381; cf. the word “Berlué, pur-blinded, made sand-blind,” Cotgrave’s “Fr. and Eng. Dict.”[592]Vol. ii. p. 765.[593]Bucknill’s “Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,” p. 93.[594]Bucknill’s “Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,” p. 258.[595]Cf., too, “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2):“A blister on his sweet tongue, with my heart,That put Armado’s page out of his part.”[596]Dr. Prior’s “Popular Names of British Plants,” 1870, p. 185.[597]“The Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,” 1860, p. 78.[598]“The Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,” 1860, p. 65.[599]See Tylor’s “Primitive Culture,” vol. i. p. 761.[600]See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. pp. 660, 661; Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 322.[601]Quoted in Singer’s “Shakespeare.”[602]Cf. “King John” (iii. 1), where Constance gives a catalogue of congenital defects.[603]“Handbook Index to Shakespeare,” p. 150. See “Notes and Queries” for superstitions connected with drowning, 5th series, vol. ix. pp. 111, 218, 478, 516; vol. x. pp. 38, 276; vol. xi. pp. 119, 278.[604]Dr. Bucknill’s “Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,” p. 95.[605]Singer’s “Shakespeare,” vol. iii. p. 225.[606]See Singer’s “Shakespeare,” vol. vii. p. 347.[607]Wright’s “Notes to King Lear” (1877), p. 196.[608]“Worthies of England” (1662), p. 180.[609]Singer’s “Shakespeare,” pp. 384, 385; Wright’s “Notes to King Lear,” pp. 154, 155.[610]“Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,” p. 121.[611]See p.73.[612]Halliwell-Phillipps’s “Handbook Index to Shakespeare” (1866), p. 333.[613]“A Book of Musical Anecdote,” by F. Crowest (1878), vol. ii. pp. 251, 252.[614]See Beckett’s “Free and Impartial Enquiry into the Antiquity and Efficacy of Touching for the King’s Evil,” 1722.[615]See “Notes and Queries,” 1861, 2d series, vol. xi. p. 71; Burns’s “History of Parish Registers,” 1862, pp. 179, 180; Pettigrew’s “Superstitions Connected with Medicine and Surgery,” 1844, pp. 117-154.[616]Bucknill’s “Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,” p. 235.[617]See Pettigrew’s “History of Mummies,” 1834; also Gannal, “Traité d’Embaumement,” 1838.[618]Rees’s “Encyclopædia,” 1829, vol. xxiv.[619]Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, in his “Handbook Index to Shakespeare,” 1866, p. 332, calls it a balsamic liquid.[620]“Six Old Plays,” ed. Nichols, p. 256, quoted by Mr. Aldis Wright, in his “Notes to King Lear,” 1877, p. 170.[621]“Shakespeare,” vol. ix. p. 413.[622]Bucknill’s “Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,” p. 235.[623]“Shakespeare,” 1875, vol. iii. p. 284.[624]See Pettigrew’s “Medical Superstitions,” pp. 13, 14.[625]Bucknill’s “Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,” p. 136.[626]Singer’s “Shakespeare,” vol. i. p. 65.[627]“Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,” p. 226.[628]Quoted in Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 671.[629]See p.74.[630]Malone suggests that the hostess may mean “then he was lunatic.”[631]Bucknill’s “Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,” p. 150.[632]See “English Folk-Lore,” p. 156.[633]See Shortland’s “Traditions and Superstitions of the New-Zealanders,” 1856, p. 131.[634]Liber Secundus—“De Febribus,” p. 923, ed. 1595.[635]Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 906.[636]See 4th series, vol. x. pp. 108, 150, 229, 282, 356.[637]See Dyce’s “Shakespeare,” vol. vii. p. 239.[638]“The Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,” 1860, pp. 1-64.

[589]See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 482; also, Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. iii. p. 311; Henderson’s “Folk-Lore of Northern Counties,” 1879, pp. 168, 169.

[590]Aldis Wright’s “Notes to King Lear,” 1877, p. 179.

[591]Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 381; cf. the word “Berlué, pur-blinded, made sand-blind,” Cotgrave’s “Fr. and Eng. Dict.”

[592]Vol. ii. p. 765.

[593]Bucknill’s “Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,” p. 93.

[594]Bucknill’s “Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,” p. 258.

[595]Cf., too, “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2):“A blister on his sweet tongue, with my heart,That put Armado’s page out of his part.”

[595]Cf., too, “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2):

“A blister on his sweet tongue, with my heart,That put Armado’s page out of his part.”

[596]Dr. Prior’s “Popular Names of British Plants,” 1870, p. 185.

[597]“The Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,” 1860, p. 78.

[598]“The Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,” 1860, p. 65.

[599]See Tylor’s “Primitive Culture,” vol. i. p. 761.

[600]See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. pp. 660, 661; Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 322.

[601]Quoted in Singer’s “Shakespeare.”

[602]Cf. “King John” (iii. 1), where Constance gives a catalogue of congenital defects.

[603]“Handbook Index to Shakespeare,” p. 150. See “Notes and Queries” for superstitions connected with drowning, 5th series, vol. ix. pp. 111, 218, 478, 516; vol. x. pp. 38, 276; vol. xi. pp. 119, 278.

[604]Dr. Bucknill’s “Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,” p. 95.

[605]Singer’s “Shakespeare,” vol. iii. p. 225.

[606]See Singer’s “Shakespeare,” vol. vii. p. 347.

[607]Wright’s “Notes to King Lear” (1877), p. 196.

[608]“Worthies of England” (1662), p. 180.

[609]Singer’s “Shakespeare,” pp. 384, 385; Wright’s “Notes to King Lear,” pp. 154, 155.

[610]“Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,” p. 121.

[611]See p.73.

[612]Halliwell-Phillipps’s “Handbook Index to Shakespeare” (1866), p. 333.

[613]“A Book of Musical Anecdote,” by F. Crowest (1878), vol. ii. pp. 251, 252.

[614]See Beckett’s “Free and Impartial Enquiry into the Antiquity and Efficacy of Touching for the King’s Evil,” 1722.

[615]See “Notes and Queries,” 1861, 2d series, vol. xi. p. 71; Burns’s “History of Parish Registers,” 1862, pp. 179, 180; Pettigrew’s “Superstitions Connected with Medicine and Surgery,” 1844, pp. 117-154.

[616]Bucknill’s “Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,” p. 235.

[617]See Pettigrew’s “History of Mummies,” 1834; also Gannal, “Traité d’Embaumement,” 1838.

[618]Rees’s “Encyclopædia,” 1829, vol. xxiv.

[619]Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, in his “Handbook Index to Shakespeare,” 1866, p. 332, calls it a balsamic liquid.

[620]“Six Old Plays,” ed. Nichols, p. 256, quoted by Mr. Aldis Wright, in his “Notes to King Lear,” 1877, p. 170.

[621]“Shakespeare,” vol. ix. p. 413.

[622]Bucknill’s “Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,” p. 235.

[623]“Shakespeare,” 1875, vol. iii. p. 284.

[624]See Pettigrew’s “Medical Superstitions,” pp. 13, 14.

[625]Bucknill’s “Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,” p. 136.

[626]Singer’s “Shakespeare,” vol. i. p. 65.

[627]“Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,” p. 226.

[628]Quoted in Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 671.

[629]See p.74.

[630]Malone suggests that the hostess may mean “then he was lunatic.”

[631]Bucknill’s “Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,” p. 150.

[632]See “English Folk-Lore,” p. 156.

[633]See Shortland’s “Traditions and Superstitions of the New-Zealanders,” 1856, p. 131.

[634]Liber Secundus—“De Febribus,” p. 923, ed. 1595.

[635]Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 906.

[636]See 4th series, vol. x. pp. 108, 150, 229, 282, 356.

[637]See Dyce’s “Shakespeare,” vol. vii. p. 239.

[638]“The Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare,” 1860, pp. 1-64.

Inyears gone by the anniversaries connected with the calendar were kept up with an amount of enthusiasm and merry-making quite unknown at the present day. Thus, for instance, Shakespeare tells us, with regard to the May-day observance, that it was looked forward to so eagerly as to render it impossible to make the people sleep on this festive occasion. During the present century the popular celebrations of the festivals have been gradually on the decline, and nearly every year marks the disuse of some local custom. Shakespeare has not omitted to give a good many scattered allusions to the old superstitions and popular usages associated with the festivals of the year, some of which still survive in our midst.

Alluding to the revels, there can be no doubt that Shakespeare was indebted to the revel-books for some of his plots. Thus, in “The Tempest” (iv. 1), Prospero remarks to Ferdinand and Miranda, after Iris, Ceres, and Juno have appeared, and the dance of the nymphs is over:

“You do look, my son, in a mov’d sort,As if you were dismay’d; be cheerful, sir.Our revels now are ended. These our actors,As I foretold you, were all spirits, andAre melted into air, into thin air:And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,The solemn temples, the great globe itself,Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,Leave not a rack behind.”

It has been inferred that Shakespeare was present at Kenilworth, in 1575, when Elizabeth was so grandly entertainedthere. Lakes and seas are represented in the masque. Triton, in the likeness of a mermaid, came towards the queen, says George Gascoigne, and “Arion appeared, sitting on a dolphin’s back.” In the dialogue in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream,” between Oberon and Puck (ii. 1), there seems a direct allusion to this event:

“Oberon.My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou remember’stSince once I sat upon a promontory,And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s backUttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,That the rude sea grew civil at her song,And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,To hear the sea-maid’s music.Puck.I remember.”

Puck.I remember.”

Then, too, there were the “Children of the Revels,” a company who performed at Blackfriars Theatre. In “Hamlet” (ii. 2), Shakespeare alludes to these “children-players.”[639]Rosencrantz says, in the conversation preceding the entry of the players, in reply to Hamlet’s inquiry whether the actors have suffered through the result of the late inhibition, evidently referring to the plague, “Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace; but there is, sir, an aery of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically clapped for ’t; these are now the fashion; and so berattle the common stages—so they call them—that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither.”

Twelfth-Day.There can be no doubt that the title of Shakespeare’s play, “Twelfth Night,” took its origin in the festivities associated with this festival. The season has, from time immemorial, been one of merriment, “the more decided from being the proper close of the festivities of Christmas, when games of chance were traditionally rife, and the sport of sudden and casual elevation gave the tone of the time. Of like tone is the play, and to this,”[640]says Mr. Lloyd, “it apparently owes its title.” The play, it appears,was probably originally acted at the barristers’ feast at the Middle Temple, on February 2, 1601-2, as Manningham tells us in his “Diary” (Camden Society, 1868, ed. J. Bruce, p. 18). It is worthy of note that the festive doings of the Inns of Court, in days gone by, at Christmas-tide were conducted on the most extravagant scale.[641]In addition to the merry disports of the Lord of Misrule, there were various revels. The Christmas masque at Gray’s Inn, in 1594, was on a magnificent scale.

St. Valentine’s Day(Feb. 14). Whatever may be the historical origin of this festival, whether heathen or Christian, there can be no doubt of its antiquity. According to an old tradition, to which Chaucer refers, birds choose their mates on this day; and hence, in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (iv. 1), Theseus asks:

“Good morrow, friends. St. Valentine is past:Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?”

From this notion, it has been suggested, arose the once popular practice of choosing valentines, and also the common belief that the first two single persons who meet in the morning of St. Valentine’s day have a great chance of becoming wed to each other. This superstition is alluded to in Ophelia’s song in “Hamlet” (iv. 5):

“To-morrow is Saint Valentine’s day,All in the morning betime,And I a maid at your window,To be your valentine.”

There seems every probability that St. Valentine’s day, with its many customs, has come down to us from the Romans, but was fathered upon St. Valentine in the earlier ages of the Church in order to Christianize it.[642]In France St. Valentine’s was a movable feast, celebrated on the first Sunday in Lent, which was called thejour des brandons, becausethe boys carried about lighted torches on that day.

Shrove-Tuesday.This day was formerly devoted to feasting and merriment of every kind, but whence originated the custom of eating pancakes is still a matter of uncertainty. The practice is alluded to in “All’s Well that Ends Well” (ii. 2), where the clown speaks of “a pancake for Shrove-Tuesday.”[643]In “Pericles” (ii. 1) they are termed “flap-jacks,” a term used by Taylor, the Water-Poet, in his “Jack-a-Lent Workes” (1630, vol. i. p. 115): “Until at last by the skill of the cooke it is transformed into the form of a flap-jack, which in our translation is called a pancake.” Shrovetide was, in times gone by, a season of such mirth thatshroving, orto shrove, signified to be merry. Hence, in “2 Henry IV.” (v. 3), Justice Silence says:

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