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

KING HENRY THE FOURTH.

The anachronisms are very numerous in the plays on this reign. We have pistols and silk stockings; gilt two-pences, and ten-shilling-pieces; a ballad with a picture on it, evidently alluding to the wood-cuts on those compositions; the game of shove-groat or slide shrift, which was not invented before the reign of Henry the Eighth. Mention is also made of John Scogan jester to Edward the Fourth, and of Arthur's show, though not introduced till a long time afterwards.