FOOTNOTES:
[45] See a note by Mr. Ritson in Twelfth night, Act II. Scene 3, edit. Steevens, vol. iv. p. 53.
[46] Defence of poesie, near the end.
[47] Mirrour of monsters, 1587, 4to, fo. 7.
[48] Arte of English poesie, 1589, 4to, fo. 243.
[49] The devil is an ass, Sc. 1.
[50] The fox, Act II. Sc. 1.
[51] Marston's Malcontent, Sc. 7.
[53] The devil is an ass, Sc. 1.
[54] Roman des ducs de Normandie, MS. Reg. 4, C. xi.
[55] Holy state, p. 182.
[56] This person was probably the subject of the following lines in Bancroft's Epigrams, 1639, 4to:
"How plumpe's the libertine! how rich and trimme!
He jests with others, fortune jests with him."
Mr. Garrard, in a letter to lord Strafford, says, "There is a new fool in his [Archee's] place, Muckle John, but he will ne'er be so rich, for he cannot abide money."—Strafford papers, ii. 154.
[57] Biogr. hist. of England, i. 116.
[58] The woman captain, 1680, Sc. i.
[59] Bigland's Collect. for Gloucest.
[60] Perroniana, inter Scaligerana, &c. i. 115.
[61] Vigneul de Marville, Mêlanges, ii. 50.
[62] Table talk, Art. Evil-speaking.
[63] This appears from many of our old plays. Lear threatens his fool with the whip, Act I. Scene 4; and see As you like it, Act I. Scene 2. In Dr. Turner's New booke of spirituall physik, 1555, 12mo, fo. 8, there is a very curious story of John of Low, the king of Scotland's fool, which throws light on the subject in question. Yet the chastising of the poor fools seems to have been a very unfair practice, when it is considered that they were a privileged class with respect to their wit and satire. Olivia, in Twelfth night, says, that "there is no slander in an allowed fool though he do nothing but rail;" and Jaques, in As you like it, alludes to the above privilege. See likewise other instances in Reed's Old plays, iii. 253, and xi. 417. Yet in cases where the free discourse of fools gave just offence to the ears of modest females they seem to have been treated without mercy, and to have forfeited their usual privilege. This we learn from Brantôme, who, at the end of his Dames galantes, relates a story of a fool belonging to Elizabeth of France, who got a whipping in the kitchen for a licentious speech to his mistress. A representation of the manner in which the flagellation of fools was performed may be seen in a German edition of Petrarch De remediis utriusque fortunæ, published more than once at Frankfort, in the sixteenth century, part ii. chap. 100.
[64] See his note in All's well that ends well, Act I. Scene 3.
[65] Plate II. fig. 1; also figs. 2 and 3, p. 516; and fig. 4, p. 517.
[66] Plate II. fig. 3.
[67] Plate III. figs. 7, 8, 9; also the centre fig. in Plate II. Hence the French call a bauble marotte, from Marionnette, or little Mary; but if the learned reader should prefer to derive the word from the Greek μορος, or the Latin morio, he is at full liberty to do so; and indeed such preference would be supported by the comparatively modern figure of the child's head, which the term marotte might have suggested. The bauble originally used in King Lear is said to have been extant so late as the time of Garrick, and the figure of it would certainly have been worth preserving. To supply its place a representation is given of the head of a real bauble very finely carved in ivory. See Plate IV. figs. 3, 4. A bauble is very often improperly put into the hands of Momus.
[68] Plate III. figs. 2, 6, 7, 9; also figs. 1 and 3, p. 516.
[69] Plate III. fig. 4; and see Strutt's Dress and habits of the people of England, Plate LXXI.
[70] Blomefield's History of Norfolk, ii. 737.
[71] Plate III. fig. 1. In the Imperial library at Vienna, there is a manuscript calendar, said to have been written in the time of Constantius the son of Constantine the great, with drawings of the twelve months. April is represented as a man dancing with a crotalum in each hand. This instrument was probably constructed of brass, in order to make a rattling noise. See it represented in Plate III. fig. 3, which is copied from a print in Lambecii Bill. Cæsar. Vindobon. tom. iv. p. 291. These months are also given in Montfaucon's antiquities.
[72] See Ben Jonson's Devil is an ass, Scene 1.
[73] Penry's O read over John Bridges, fo. 48.
[74] Plate III. fig. 5. copied from Schopperi ΠΑΝΟΠΛΙΑ, omnium illiberalium artium genera continens, &c. Francof. 1568, 12mo, sign. O. 8.
[75] Figs. 1 and 2, p. 516.
[76] Prologue to King Henry the Eighth. Marston's Malcontent, Act I. Scene 7, and Act III. Scene 1.
[77] Malone's Shakspeare, vol. i. part ii. p. 301.
[78] Plate II. fig. 4. Plate IV. fig. 1.
[79] Plate IV. fig. 1.
[80] Plate II. fig. 2.
[81] Coryat's Crudities, p. 9. edit. 1611, 4to. Brand's Observ. on popular antiquities, p. 176.
[82] See the notes on a passage in King John. Steevens's Shakspeare, viii. p. 79, edit. 1793. "The scribe claims the manor of Noverinte, by providing sheep-skins and calves skins to wrappe his highness wards and idiotts in."—Gesta Grayorum, 1688, 4to.
[83] See the quotation from Tarlton's Newes out of purgatory given in a preceding page (509). The portrait of Tarlton in Hardinge's Biographical mirror, and a print in the title of Greene's Tu quoque, or the cittie gallant, show the costume of the purse and feather. See likewise Plate IV. fig. 2; and the centre fig. in Plate II.
[84] Rabelais, book iii. ch 45.
[85] This picture is very well engraven in Caulfield's Portraits of remarkable persons, vol. ii. There is a beautifully illuminated psalter preserved among the royal manuscripts in the British Museum, 2 A xvi, written by John Mallard the chaplain and secretary of Henry the Eighth, with several marginal notes in the king's own hand-writing, some of which are in pencil. Prefixed to psalm 52, "Dixit insipiens," according to a very ancient custom, are the figures of king David and a fool, in this instance evidently the portraits of Henry and his favourite Will Somers. That of the latter person is here copied in Plate IV. fig. 2, but rather enlarged. The countenance bears a strong resemblance to that of the figure in Holbein's picture of Henry the Eighth and his family, already noticed in p. [336].
[86] Archæologia, ix. p. 249.
[87] In Tatham's play of The Scot's figgaries, 1652, 4to, the king's fool is described as habited in a long coat with a gold rope or chain about his neck.
[88] See the print of Archy engraved by Cecill and prefixed to his Jests, in which, unless Mr. Granger could have been certain with respect to what he has called "a parti-coloured tunic," there is nothing discriminative of the fool's dress. This portrait has been copied in Caulfield's above-cited work.
[89] The woman captain, Scene I.
[90] See Mr. Malone's Historical account of the English Stage.
[91] Parfait, Histoire du theatre François, II. pp. 27, 46, 62.
[92] See Mr. Steevens's note at the end of the second act of The taming of the shrew.
[93] Arte of English poesie, 69.
[94] See Mr. Steevens's note in King Lear, Act III. Scene 6.
[95] See Mr. Malone's note in All's well that ends well, Act I. Scene 3.