Illustrations of Shakspeare, and of Ancient Manners: / with Dissertations on the Clowns and Fools of Shakspeare; on a Collection of Popular Tales Entitled Gesta Romanorum; and on the English Morris dance.

by Francis Douce

ACT I.

Scene 1. Page 9.

Mar. Thou art a scholar, speak to it, Horatio.

The reason why the common people believed that ghosts were only to be addressed by scholars seems to have been, that the exorcisms of troublesome spirits were usually performed in Latin.

Scene 1. Page 21.

Hor. The cock that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the God of day; and at his warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine.

Besides the hymn of Prudentius referred to in Dr. Farmer's note, there is another said to have been composed by Saint Ambrose, and formerly used in the Salisbury service. It contains the following lines, which so much resemble Horatio's speech, that one might almost suppose Shakspeare had seen them:

"Preco diei jam sonat,
Noctis profundæ pervigil;
Nocturna lux viantibus,
A nocte noctem segregans.
Hoc excitatus Lucifer,
Solvit polum caligine;
Hoc omnis errorum chorus
Viam nocendi deserit.
Gallo canente spes redit, &c."

See Expositio hymnorum secundum usum Sarum, pr. by R. Pynson, n. d. 4to, fo. vii. b. The epithets extravagant and erring are highly poetical and appropriate, and seem to prove that Shakspeare was not altogether ignorant of the Latin language.

Scene 2. Page 35.

Ham. Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self slaughter.

Mr. Steevens says, "there are yet those who suppose the old reading (cannon, in the sense of artillery) to be the true one." He himself was not of the number. It must be owned that fixing a cannon is an odd mode of vengeance on the part of the Deity; yet it is still more difficult to conceive in what manner this instrument could operate in avenging suicide. The pedants of Hierocles, who were the Gothamites of their time, might, if now existing, be competent to explain all this; or, indeed, we might ourselves suppose that suicides could be blown into atoms as the seapoys sometimes are, by tying them to the cannon's mouth, a method equally humane with the practice of driving stakes through their bodies. Mr. Malone's happy quotation has for ever fixed the proper meaning.

Scene 2. Page 40.

Ham. ... the funeral bak'd meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.

The practice of making entertainments at funerals which prevailed in this and other countries, and which is not even at present quite disused in some of the northern counties of England, was certainly borrowed from the cœna feralis of the Romans, alluded to in Juvenal's fifth satire, and in the laws of the twelve tables. It consisted of an offering of a small plate of milk, honey, wine, flowers, &c., to the ghost of the deceased. In the instances of heroes and other great characters, the same custom appears to have prevailed among the Greeks. With us the appetites of the living are consulted on this occasion. In the North this feast is called an arval or arvil-supper; and the loaves that are sometimes distributed among the poor, arval-bread. Not many years since one of these arvals was celebrated in a village in Yorkshire at a public-house, the sign of which was the family arms of a nobleman whose motto is VIRTUS POST FUNERA VIVIT. The undertaker, who, though a clerk, was no scholar, requested a gentleman present to explain to him the meaning of these Latin words, which he readily and facetiously did in the following manner: Virtus, a parish clerk, vivit, lives well, post funera, at an arval. The latter word is apparently derived from some lost Teutonic term that indicated a funeral pile on which the body was burned in times of Paganism. Thus ærill in Islandic signifies the inside of an oven. The common parent seems to have been ar, fire; whence ara, an altar of fire, ardeo, aridus, &c. &c. So the pile itself was called ara by Virgil, Æn. vi. 177:

"Haud mora, festinant flentes; aramque sepulchri
Congerere arboribus, cœloque educere certant."

Scene 2. Page 41.

Ham. He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.

In further support of the proposed elegant emendation, "Eye shall not look, &c.," this passage in 1 Corinth. ch ii. v. 9, may be adduced, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, the things which he hath prepared for them that love him." An objection of some weight may however be made to this change; which is, that in recitation some ambiguity might arise, or at least the force of it would not be perceived; whereas the other reading could not be mistaken.

Scene 3. Page 51.

Pol. But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade.

In Taverner's Proverbes or Adagies, gathered out of the Chiliades of Erasmus, 1569, 12mo, is the following adage: "Ne cuivis porrigas dexteram. Holde not forth thy hande to every man. He meaneth wee should not unadvisedlie admitte every body into our frendship and familiaritie." In the margin of the copy from which this extract is made, some person has written the above lines from Hamlet, on which the whole serves as an excellent comment, supporting Dr. Johnson's explanation of them in a remarkable manner.

Scene 4. Page 59.

Ham. The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse.

This word is used in the various significations of a riotous noise, a drunken debauch, and a large portion of liquor. We had it probably from our Saxon or Danish progenitors; and though the original word is lost it remains in the German rausch. Hence our carouse; roister is of the same family, and perhaps the word row, which was very much used a few years since. The Greeks too had their καρωσις, nimia ebrietas.

Scene 4. Page 60.

Ham. And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.

Thus Cleaveland in his Fuscara, or The bee errant,

"Tuning his draughts with drowsie hums
As Danes carowse by kettle-drums."

Scene 4. Page 60.

Ham. Keeps wassel——

As the whole that appertains to this ancient, and, as connected with convivial manners, interesting word, lies scattered in various places, and has been detailed by writers whose opinions are extremely discordant, an attempt seemed necessary to digest within a reasonable compass the most valuable of the materials on the subject. There cannot be the smallest doubt that the term itself is to be sought for in the well-known story of Vortigern and Rowena, or Ronix, the daughter of Hengist; the earliest authority for which is that of Walter Calenius, who supplied the materials for Geoffrey of Monmouth's history. He relates that on Vortigern's first interview with the lady, she kneeled before him, and presenting a cup of wine, said to him, "Lord king, wacht heil," or in purer Saxon wæs hæl; literally, be health, or health be to you! As the king was unacquainted with the Saxon language, he inquired the meaning of these words; and being told that they wished him health, and that he should answer them by saying drinc heil, he did so, and commanded Rowena to drink. Then, taking the cup from her hand, he kissed the damsel and pledged her. The historian adds, that from that time to his own the custom remained in Britain that whoever drank to another at a feast said wacht heil, and he that immediately after received the cup answered drinc heil. Robert of Brunne, in translating this part of Geoffrey of Monmouth, has preserved a curious addition to it. He states that Vortigern, not comprehending the words of Rowena, demanded their meaning from one of his Britons, who immediately explained to him the Saxon custom as follows:

"This es ther custom and ther gest,
Whan thei are at the ale or fest,
Ilk man that lovis qware him think,
Salle say Wosseille, and to him drink.
He that bidis salle say, Wassaile;
The tother salle say again, Drink haille.
That sais Wosseille drinkis of the cop,
Kissand his felaw he gives it up;
Drinheille, he sais, and drinks therof,
Kissand him in bourd and skof.
The king said as the knight gan ken
Drinkheille, smiland on Rouewen,
Rouwen drank as hire list,
And gave the king, sine him kist.
There was the first wassaille in dede
And that first of fame yede
Of that wassaille men told grete tale,
And wassaille whan thei were at ale
And drinkheille to tham that drank
Thus was wassaille tane to thank."

An old metrical fragment preserved by Hearne in his glossary to Robert of Gloucester's chronicle, carries the practice of wassailing much higher, even to the time of Saint Alban in the third century:

"In that tyme weteth welle,
Cam ferst wassayle and drynkehayl
In to this londe, withowte wene,
Thurghe a mayde, brygh and schene
Sche was cleput mayde Ynge."

The chronicler proceeds to relate a story of this Ynge, who quitted Saxony with several others of her countrymen on account of hunger, and, arriving in Britain, obtained of the king as much land as she should be able to cover with a bull's hide. She afterwards invited the king and his nobles to a feast, and giving him wassel, treacherously slew him, her companions following the example by murdering the nobles. By these means she obtained possession of the whole kingdom, which was from her afterwards called Yngland. This statement is unworthy of notice in an historical point of view, being manifestly a corrupt account of the arrival of Hengist as related by Geoffrey of Monmouth. But the story of Vortigern is not improbable, and has at least furnished the origin of the words wæs hæl and drinc hæl, as used at convivial meetings in this country; for whatever may have been said or imagined concerning any previous custom of health-drinking among the Saxons or other German nations, it is certain that no equivalent term with our wassel is to be found in any of the Teutonic dialects.

Among other valuable remarks that have already been made in some notes on this word by Messrs. Steevens and Malone, it has been observed that the wassel bowl was particularly used at the season of Christmas, and that in process of time wassel came to signify not only meetings of rustic mirth, but also general riot, intemperance, and festivity. In the eleventh volume of Archæologia, the learned Dr. Milner has exhibited and described an ancient oaken cup, formerly belonging to the abbey of Glastonbury, which with great probability he supposes to be of Saxon times, and to have been used for wasselling. In The antiquarian repertory, vol. i. p. 217, there is an account, accompanied with an engraving, of an oaken chimney-piece in a very old house at Berlen near Snodland in Kent, on which is carved a wassel bowl resting on the branches of an apple-tree, alluding, probably, to part of the materials of which the liquor was composed. On one side is the word was̀s̀heíl, and on the other dríncheíle. This is certainly a very great curiosity of its kind, and at least as old as the fourteenth century. Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, in his will gave to Sir John Briddlewood a silver cup called wassail; and it appears that John Duke of Bedford, the regent, by his first will bequeathed to John Barton, his maitre d'hotel, a silver cup and cover, on which was inscribed WASHAYL. During the Christmas holidays these wassel-bowls were often carried from house to house by the common people with a view to collect money. There are, besides, other significations of the word wassel that deserve to be noticed. These are, 1. A drinking song sung on the eve of Twelfth-day. 2. A custom of throwing toast to apple-trees for the purpose of procuring a fruitful year; which, says Mr. Grose, who has mentioned this practice in his provincial glossary, seems to be a relic of the heathen sacrifice to Pomona. 3. The contents of the wassel-cup, which were of different materials, as spiced wine or ale, with roasted apples and sugar, mead, or metheglin, &c. There was also what was called wassel, or more properly wastel-bread, which may be deserving of particular notice, as there is much diversity of opinion among those who have mentioned it. Bishop Lowth, in his Life of William Wykeham, had supposed that the term was derived from the wastell, vessell or basket in which the bread was made, or carried or weighed; an etymology which is with great reason contested by Dr. Milner in his paper on the Glastonbury cup. The latter writer is of opinion, that during the times of wasselling a finer sort of bread was provided, which on that account was called wassel-bread; and other persons had already conceived that the bread in question took its name from being dipped in the wassel-bowl. As a preliminary objection to these conjectures, it must be observed that the genuine orthography of the word is wastel, and not wassel, which is undoubtedly a corruption, and has led to much misconception. The earliest instance in which mention is made of wastel-bread is the statute 51 Henry III., entitled Assisa panis et cerevisiæ; where it is coupled with the simnel bread, which was made of the very finest flour, and twice baked. It appears from the same statute that wastel-bread was next in fineness to the simnel, and is described as white bread well baked. There does not seem therefore any reason for concluding that the wastel-bread was in particular, but in general use at all seasons. We are told by Hoveden the historian, that at an interview which took place between William king of Scotland and Richard the First, at Northampton, a charter was granted to the Scotish monarch, in which it was agreed, that, whenever he should be summoned to the English court for the performance of homage, his daily allowance, among other things, should consist of twelve simnels and as many wastels. In Matthew Paris's history of the abbots of Saint Alban's, p. 141, it is said of the abbot; "Solus in refectorio prandebit supremus, habens vastellum." It is surprising how Mr. Watts the editor should misconceive the meaning of this word so much as to call it a canopy; nor is it indeed much less extraordinary that Dr. Milner, who is so well skilled in ecclesiastical antiquities, should have supposed it to signify a wassel-bowl. The regulation is general, and it had escaped the learned writer's recollection that wasselling was of a particular season; for it could not be applied in its subordinate sense of revelling or rioting, to so grave a person as an abbot. The Doctor might have been misled by the authority of Mr. Blount in his edition of Cowel's law dictionary, where the conjecture on the part of Mr. Somner, that the wastel bread might have been derived from pastillus, is termed unlucky; but, as it is presumed, without sufficient reason, although it may not be the exact origin of the expression. Chaucer, speaking of his Prioress, says,

"Of smale houndes hadde she, that she fedde
With rosted flesh, and milk, and wastel-brede."

We cannot suppose that these animals would have been regaled with a food which was set apart for particular festivities, but rather with what was to be procured at all times, though of a more delicate and expensive nature. In short, what seems to be the most probable original of this much disputed word is the French gasteau, anciently written gastel, in the Picard language ouastel or watel, and signifying a cake; a name which might with great propriety have been applied to this sort of bread on account of its superior quality, in like manner as the simnel bread was so termed from the Latin simila, the finest part of the flour. The cake-like form, too, of this kind of bread seems to be alluded to in the following extract from the register of William of Wykeham, which has been quoted by Bishop Lowth for a very different, but, as it is submitted, inapplicable purpose: "Octo panes in wastellis, ponderis cujuslibet wastelli unius miche conventualis," i. e. eight loaves in the form of wastels or cakes, the weight of each being that of a conventual manchet. And to conclude this part of the subject, in the old French language the term wastelier is used for a pastry-cook or maker of wastiaux, where it is not likely that there could have been any connection with our wassel in its Saxon and legitimate construction. What the heralds call torteauxes, in reality little cakes, from the French tourte, were likewise termed wastels, as we learn from the old book on coat armour ascribed to Dame Juliana Bernes, the celebrated abbess of Sopewell near Saint Albans.

The wassel songs were sung during the festivities of Christmas, and, in earlier times, principally by those itinerant minstrels who frequented the houses of the gentry, where they were always certain of the most welcome reception. It has indeed been the chief purpose in discussing the present subject, to introduce to the reader's notice a composition of this kind, which is perhaps at the same time to be regarded as the most ancient drinking song, composed in England, that is extant. This singular curiosity has been written on a spare leaf in the middle of a valuable miscellaneous manuscript of the fourteenth century, preserved in the British Museum, Bibl. Reg. 16, E. viii. It is probably more than a century older than the manuscript itself, and must have been composed at a time when the Norman language was very familiar in England. In the endeavour to translate it, some difficulties were to be encountered; but it has been an object to preserve the whole and sometimes literal sense of the original, whilst from the nature of the English stanza it was impossible to dispense with amplification.