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 IV.

Scene 2. Page 448.

Mrs. Ford. ... and her muffler too.

It would oppress the reader by citing authorities to prove that the muffler was a contrivance of various kinds to conceal a part of the face, and that even a mask was occasionally so denominated. From an examination of several ancient prints and paintings, it appears that when the muffler was made of linen, it only covered the lower part of the face; such it was in the present instance, for the old woman of Brentford would not want to conceal her eyes. It is otherwise in King Henry V. Act III. Scene 1, where Fortune's blindness is described, and there a linen bandage would be meant, but perhaps not very correctly called a muffler. The term is connected with the old French musser or muçer, to hide, or with amuseler, to cover the museau or mufle, a word which has been indiscriminately used for the mouth, nose, and even the whole of the face; hence our muzzle. It was enacted by a Scotish statute in 1457, that "na woman cum to kirk, nor mercat, with her face mussaled or covered that scho may not be kend." Notwithstanding this interposition of the legislature, says Mr. Warton, the ladies of Scotland continued muzzled during three reigns; and he cites Sir David Lyndsay's poem In contemptioun of syde taillis, in which the author advises the king to issue a proclamation that the women should show their faces as they did in France. Hist. of Eng. poetry, ii. 324.

The annexed cuts exhibit different sorts of mufflers. The first and third figures are copied from Jost Amman's Theatrum mulierum, Francof. 1586, 4to; the second, from Speed's Map of England, is the costume of an English countrywoman in the reign of James I.; the fourth is from an old German print; and the others from Weigel's Habitus præcipuorum populorum, Nuremb. 1577, folio; a work which, for the beauty of the wood-cuts, has never been surpassed.

In the reign of Charles I. the ladies wore masks which covered the eye-brows and nose, holes being left for the eyes. Sometimes, but not always, the mouth was covered, and the chin guarded with a sort of muffler then called a chin-cloth; these were chiefly used to keep off the sun. See Hollar's print of Winter. The velvet masks probably came from France, as they are mentioned in the Book of values of merchandize imported, under the administration of Oliver Cromwell. There was another sort called visard masks, that covered all the face, having holes only for the eyes, a case for the nose, and a slit for the mouth. They were easily disengaged, being held in the teeth by means of a round bead fastened in the inside. These masks were usually made of leather, covered with black velvet. Randle Holme, from whose Academy of armory, book iii. c. 5, their description is extracted, adds, that the devil invented them, and that none about court except w——s, bawds, and the devil's imps, used them, being ashamed to show their faces.

Scene 2. Page 450.

Page. Why this passes!——

The word had been already explained by Warburton in p. [329]. Page, astonished at Ford's conduct, says it exceeds every thing. Such is the sense in the New Testament, "the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge," Ephes. iii. 19. The French often use passer in the same manner; and in Hamlet we have this expression, "I have that within which passeth show."

Scene 2. Page 452.

Ford. ... his wife's leman.

Mr. Steevens derives it from the Dutch, a language whence we have borrowed few, if any words. The term is of Saxon origin, and leveman can be traced to an Anglo-Norman period. This was afterwards contracted into leman. The etymology is perhaps from leoꝼe, amabilis, and man, homo. The latter in Saxon denoted both man and woman; so that leman was formerly applied to both sexes as a person beloved.

Scene 2. Page 455.

Mrs. Page. ... in the way of waste——

This expression is from the same law manufactory referred to by Mr. Ritson in the preceding note. The incident in the present scene, of Falstaff's threshing in the habit of a woman, might have been suggested by the story of the beaten and contented cuckold in Boccaccio's Decameron, day 7. ver. 7.

Scene 5. Page 466.

Simp. Pray you, sir, was't not the wise woman of Brentford?

Mr. Steevens cites Judges v. 29, on this occasion: but the wise ladies there were of a very different character from the old woman of Brentford, even according to the Hebrew text: see the Vulgate and Septuagint versions, where the expression is still more remote. The subject of these wise women will be resumed in a note on Twelfth night, Act III. Scene 4.