ON THE CLOWNS AND FOOLS OF SHAKSPEARE.
The ensuing dissertation originated from the opinion of a late eminent critic and antiquary that the subject was deserving of particular consideration. How imperfectly it must be executed will best be felt by those who are already accustomed to obscure inquiries; and little more can here be offered, or reasonably expected, than some attempt to arrange a few materials that have occurred during a course of reading immediately connected with the history of ancient manners. The critic above alluded to had remarked, that Shakspeare has most judiciously varied and discriminated his fools.[45] Without doubting that great writer's capacity to have done so, it certainly remains to be proved that he has; or it might even be maintained that on some occasions he has left his sketches so imperfect as to render it by no means an easy matter to comprehend them. It has already been thought better to make the attempt in a separate note to the plays in which a clown or fool is introduced, and to direct what is now offered to a more general view of the subject.
It is so exceedingly clear that the terms clown and fool were used, however improperly, as synonymous by our old writers, that it would be an unnecessary occupation of the reader's time to adduce examples. Their confused introduction in the dramatis personæ might indeed render this position doubtful to any one who had not well considered the matter; but although the fool of our old plays denoted either a mere idiot or natural, or else a witty hireling or artificial fool, both retained for the purpose of making sport for their employers, the clown was certainly a character of much greater variety. He occasionally represented one of the above personages; sometimes he was a mere rustic, and very often no more than a shrewd and witty domestic. There are some instances in which any low character in a play served to amuse the audience with his sallies of coarse buffoonery, and thus became the clown of the piece. In short, the theatrical clown or fool seems to have been a kind of heterogeneous character, drawn in part from real life, but very considerably heightened in order to produce stage effect; an opinion that derives considerable support from what Shakspeare has put into the mouth of Hamlet, when he makes him admonish those who play the clowns to speak no more than is set down for them. Indeed, the great dramatist himself cannot be absolved from the imputation of having given too high a colouring to the characters in question, unless we suppose, what is extremely probable, that his plays have been very much interpolated with the extemporaneous nonsense of the players. To this licentious practice the author of an excellent and well written satire, entitled Pasquil's mad-cappe, throwne at the corruptions of these times, 1626, 4to, alludes in the following lines:
"Tell country players, that old paltry jests
Pronounced in a painted motley coate,
Filles all the world so full of cuckoes nests,
That nightingales can scarcely sing a note:
Oh bid them turne their minds to better meanings;
Fields are ill sowne that give no better gleanings."
Among other grave writers of the age, Sir Philip Sidney has reprobated the practice of introducing fools on the theatre. He remarks that the plays of his time were neither right tragedies nor right comedies, but that the authors mingled kings and clowns, "not," says he, "because the matter so carieth it, but thrust in the clowne by head and shoulders to play a part in majestical matters, with neither decencie nor discretion: so as neither the admiration and commiseration, nor the right sportfulnesse is by their mongrell tragi-comedie obtained."[46] William Rankin, a puritan, and contemporary with Shakspeare, has left us a most virulent attack on plays, and players, whom he calls monsters: "And whie monsters," says he, "Bicause under colour of humanitie they present nothing but prodigious vanitie. These are wels without water, dead branches fit for fuell, cockle amongst corne, unwholesome weedes amongst sweete hearbes, and finallie, feends that are crept into the worlde by stealth, and holde possession by subtill invasion." In another place, describing the performers at a fictitious banquet in Terralbon, [England] he says, "Some transformed themselves to roges, other to ruffians, some other to clownes, a fourth to fooles ... the roges were ready, the ruffians were rude, theyr clownes cladde as well with country condition, as in ruffe russet; theyr fooles as fonde as might be," &c.[47] The latter passage is interesting, because the clown is properly distinguished from the fool, as he always should have been.
It may be the means of affording a clearer view of the present subject, if something like a classification of the different sorts of fools and clowns be given. The following is therefore offered as a substitute for a better.
I. The general domestic fool, often, but as it should seem improperly, termed a clown. He was, 1. a mere natural, or idiot. 2. Silly by nature, yet cunning and sarcastical. 3. Artificial. Puttenham, speaking of the latter, says, "A buffoune or counterfet foole, to here him speake wisely which is like himselfe, it is no sport at all; but for such a counterfait to talke and looke foolishly it maketh us laugh, because it is no part of his naturall."[48] All these officiated occasionally as menial servants.
II. The clown, who was, 1. a mere country booby. 2. A witty rustic. 3. Any servant of a shrewd and witty disposition, and who, like a similar character in our modern plays, was made to treat his master with great familiarity in order to produce stage effect.
III. The female fool, who was generally an idiot.
IV. The city or corporation fool, whose office was to assist at public entertainments and in pageants. To this class belong perhaps the Lord Mayor's state fool, and those employed by the companies of trades, &c.
V. Tavern fools. These seem to have been retained to amuse the customers. We learn from one of Ben Jonson's plays that they exhibited with a Jew's harp, mounted on a joint-stool,[49] and in another of them he has preserved the name of such a character:[50] they were sometimes qualified to sing after the Italian manner.[51] Fools were also employed in the common brothels.[52]
VI. The fool of the ancient theatrical mysteries and moralities. He was, more properly speaking, the Vice, a singular character, that would afford sufficient matter for much better dissertations than those of Warburton or Upton. Being generally dressed in a fool's habit, he appears to have been gradually and undistinguishably blended with the domestic fool; yet he was certainly a buffoon of a different sort. He was always a bitter enemy to the Devil, and a part of his employment consisted in teazing and tormenting the poor fiend on every occasion. He ceased to be in fashion at the end of the sixteenth century.[53]
VII. The fool in the old dumb shows exhibited at fairs and perhaps at inns, in which he was generally engaged in a struggle with Death; a fact that seems alluded to more than once in Shakspeare's plays. It is possible that some casual vestiges of this species of entertainment might have suggested the modern English pantomimes.
VIII. The fool in the Whitsun ales and Morris dance.
IX. The mountebank's fool, or merry Andrew.
There may be others introduced into our old dramas of an indefinite and irregular kind, and not reducible to any of the above classes; but to exemplify these or many of the above by a specific reference to authorities is not within the scope of the present essay. It is hoped that what has been just stated may contribute to assist the readers of old plays in forming some judgment of their own whenever the necessity shall arise.
A general investigation of that most singular and eccentric character, the real domestic fool, would occupy more space than could here have been spared. It would indeed extend to a length that few will conceive; but should the same laudable spirit of curiosity respecting the manners of former times which at present constitutes much of the amusement of an enlightened public continue to maintain its influence, encouragement would not be wanting to resume the subject more at large. In the mean time it may be sufficient to remark that the practice of retaining fools can be traced in very remote times throughout almost all civilized and even among some barbarous nations. It prevailed from the palace to the brothel. The pope had his fool, and the bawd her's; and ladies entertained them of both sexes. With respect to the antiquity of this custom in our own country, there is reason to suppose that it existed even during the period of our Saxon history; but we are quite certain of the fact in the reign of William the Conqueror. An almost contemporary historian, Maitre Wace, has left us a curious account of the preservation of William's life when he was only duke of Normandy by his fool Goles.[54] Mention is made in Domesday of Berdic joculator regis; and although this term was unquestionably applied in numerous instances to denote a minstrel, much evidence might be adduced to show that on this occasion it signified a buffoon. Latin terms were used by the middle-age writers so licentiously and with such extreme carelessness, that in many cases it is difficult to obtain a precise idea of their meaning. Thus the jesters and minstrels were indefinitely expressed by the words joculator, scurra, mimus, ministrallus, &c., a practice that may admit of justification when we consider that in early times the minstrel and buffoon characters were sometimes united in one person. It must be allowed, however, that in an etymological point of view the term joculator is much better adapted to the jester than the minstrel.
The accounts of the household expenses of our sovereigns contain many payments and rewards to fools both foreign and domestic, the motives for which do not appear, but might perhaps have been some witty speech or comic action that had pleased the donors. Some of these payments are annual gifts at Christmas. Dr. Fuller, speaking of the court jester, whom he says some count a necessary evil, remarks, in his usual quaint manner, that it is an office which none but he that hath wit can perform, and none but he that wants it will perform.[55] A great many names of these buffoons have been preserved; and sufficient materials remain to furnish a separate biography of them, which might afford even more amusement than can be found in the lives of many of their betters. They continued an appurtenance to the English court to a late period. Muckle John, the fool of Charles the First, and the successor of Archee Armstrong, is perhaps the last regular personage of the kind.[56] The national troubles that produced the downfall of regal power, and the puritanical manners that ensued, at once determined the existence of an office that had so long maintained its ground at court: and when Charles the Second resumed the throne, it was probably deemed a matter of no moment to restore it. The common stories that relate to Killigrew as jester to Charles, rest on no sufficient authority; and although he might have contributed to amuse the witty monarch with his jokes, it is certain that he had no regular appointment to such an office. Mr. Granger has justly observed that the wit of the buffoons became the highest recommendation of a courtier in the time of Charles the Second.[57]
The discontinuance of the court fool had a considerable influence on the manners of private life; and we learn from one of Shadwell's plays, that it was then "out of fashion for great men to keep fools."[58] But the practice was by no means abolished; it maintained its ground in this country so late as the beginning of the last century; and we have an epitaph, written by Dean Swift, on Dicky Pearce the Earl of Suffolk's fool, who was buried in Berkley church-yard, June 18, 1728.[59] This person was an idiot. Lord Chancellor Talbot kept a Welsh jester named Rees Pengelding. He was a very shrewd fellow, and rented a farm of his master. Being distrained on for his rent by an oppressive steward, who had been a tailor and bore him a grudge, the surly fellow said to him on this occasion, "I'll fit you, sirrah."
"Then," replied Rees, "it will be the first time in your life that you ever fitted any one." Another Welshman called Will the taborer was retained in a similar capacity, about the beginning of the last century, by Sir Edward Stradling, of St. Donat's castle, in Glamorganshire. He is said to have been a very witty fellow, and man of strong intellects. Lord Bussy Mansel, of Margam, had likewise in his service one Robin Rush, an idiot by nature, but who often said very witty things. There are people now alive in Wales, or lately were, who well remembered him.
The sort of entertainment that fools were expected to afford, may be collected in great variety from our old plays, and particularly from those of Shakspeare; but perhaps no better idea can be formed of their general mode of conduct than from the following passage in a singular tract by Lodge, entitled Wit's miserie, 1599, 4to: "Immoderate and disordinate joy became incorporate in the bodie of a jeaster; this fellow in person is comely, in apparell courtly, but in behaviour a very ape, and no man; his studie is to coine bitter jeasts, or to shew antique motions, or to sing baudie sonnets and ballads: give him a little wine in his head, he is continually flearing and making of mouthes: he laughs intemperately at every little occasion, and dances about the house, leaps over tables, out-skips mens heads, trips up his companions heeles, burns sack with a candle, and hath all the feats of a lord of misrule in the countrie: feed him in his humor, you shall have his heart, in meere kindness he will hug you in his armes, kisse you on the cheeke, and rapping out an horrible oth, crie God's soule Tum, I love you, you know my poore heart, come to my chamber for a pipe of tabacco, there lives not a man in this world that I more honor. In these ceremonies you shall know his courting, and it is a speciall mark of him at the table, he sits and makes faces: keep not this fellow company, for in jugling with him, your wardropes shall be wasted, your credits crackt, your crownes consumed, and time (the most precious riches of the world) utterly lost." This is the picture of a real hireling or artificial fool.
As the profession of these hirelings required a considerable degree of skill and dexterity to amuse their employers, so it would in some instances fail of success, and the want of the above talents would excite considerable disgust and dissatisfaction. Cardinal Perron being one day in company with the duke of Mantua, the latter, speaking of his fool, said that he was un magro buffone & non haver spirito. The cardinal remarked that nevertheless he had wit. "Why so?" demanded the duke. "Because," replied the other, "he lives by a trade which he does not understand."[60] The liberties allowed them were necessarily very great; but this was not always a protection to them. Every one knows the disgracefully severe conduct of archbishop Laud to poor Archee. The duke d'Espernon, though a man of great haughtiness of spirit, conducted himself on a similar occasion with much more discretion. His Gascon accent was a constant subject of raillery on the part of Maret, the fool of Louis XIII., whose great talent lay in mimicry. Cardinal Richelieu, who took upon him to give the duke some pointed admonitions, ordered him among other things to endeavour to get rid of his provincial tones, at the same time counterfeiting his speech, and sarcastically intreating him not to take his advice in bad part. "But why should I," replied the duke, "when I bear as much every day from the king's fool, who mocks me in your presence?"[61] Selden has remarked, on a similar occasion, that a gallant man is above ill words, and has left us a story of the forbearance of the old lord Salisbury, whom he calls a great wise man, towards Stone, a celebrated fool in the reign of James the First.[62] Fools, however, did not always escape with impunity; they were liable to, and often experienced, very severe domestic castigation. Whipping was the punishment generally inflicted.[63] On the other hand they appear to have been sometimes used with great tenderness. This is very feelingly exemplified in the conduct of Lear. Stafford in his Guide of honour, 1634, 18mo, tells us, that he "had knowne a great and competently wise man who would much respect any man that was good to his foole." An opportunity here presents itself of explaining the old proverb of "five pounds; you've bled a fool," which, adverting to the usual privilege or allowance belonging to this character, seems to demand a forfeit from whoever had infringed it by inflicting an improper and unlawful chastisement. This exposition derives support from a passage in Ben Jonson's Fox, and also contributes to its illustration. In the second Act there is a song describing a fool, in which it is said that he "speaks truth free from slaughter." This has been with some ingenuity supposed to mean "free from hurting any one." The other construction may perhaps be thought as plausible.
With respect to his office on the stage, we may suppose it would be nearly the same as in reality; the difference might be that his wit was more highly seasoned. Mr. Malone has already cited a very curious passage on this subject from the play of The careless shepherdess, 1656.[64] In Middleton's Mayor of Quinborough, a company of actors with a clown make their appearance, and the following dialogue ensues:
First cheater.
This is our clown, sir.
Simon.
Fye, fye, your company
Must fall upon him and beat him; he's too fair, i' faith
To make the people laugh.
First cheater.
Not as he may be dress'd sir.
Simon.
'Faith, dress him how you will, I'll give him
That gift, he will never look half scurvily enough.
Oh, the clowns that I have seen in my time.
The very peeping out of one of them would have
Made a young heir laugh, though his father lay a dying;
A man undone in law the day before
(The saddest case that can be) might for his second
Have burst himself with laughing, and ended all
His miseries. Here was a merry world, my masters!
Some talk of things of state, of puling stuff;
There's nothing in a play like to a clown,
If he have the grace to hit on it, that's the thing indeed.
Simon.
Away then, shift; clown to thy motley crupper.
Whoever is desirous of obtaining general and accurate information concerning the great variety of dresses that belong to some of the characters in question at different periods, must study ancient prints and paintings, and especially the miniatures that embellish manuscripts. These will afford sufficient specimens; but the difficulty of ascertaining how the theatrical fools and clowns of Shakspeare's time were always habited, is insuperable. In some instances the plays themselves assist by peculiar references that leave but little doubt; but this is not the case in general. It is to be lamented that our artists did not appropriate more of their labours to the representation of theatrical subjects, and the fortunate discovery of a single ancient painting of this kind would be of more importance than a volume of conjectural dissertations. As it may be presumed that former theatrical managers exhibited with fidelity on the stage, the manners of their own times, a reference to the materials which remain to illustrate the dress of the real fools, may supply the defect before alluded to.
It may be collected both from the plays themselves, and from various other authorities, that the costume of the domestic fool in Shakspeare's time was of two sorts. In the first of these the coat was motley or parti-coloured, and attached to the body by a girdle, with bells at the skirts and elbows, though not always. The breeches and hose close, and sometimes each leg of a different colour. A hood resembling a monk's cowl, which, at a very early period, it was certainly designed to imitate, covered the head entirely, and fell down over part of the breast and shoulders. It was sometimes decorated with asses ears, or else terminated in the neck and head of a cock,[65] a fashion as old as the fourteenth century. It often had the comb or crest only of the animal,[66] whence the term cockscomb or coxcomb was afterwards used to denote any silly upstart. This fool usually carried in his hand an official scepter or bauble, which was a short stick ornamented at the end with the figure of a fool's head, or sometimes with that of a doll or puppet.[67] To this instrument there was frequently annexed an inflated skin or bladder, with which the fool belaboured those who offended him, or with whom he was inclined to make sport; this was often used by itself, in lieu, as it should seem, of a bauble.[68] The form of it varied, and in some instances was obscene in the highest degree. It was not always filled with air, but occasionally with sand, or peas. Sometimes a strong bat or club was substituted for the bauble.[69] In the second tale of the priests of Peblis, a man who counterfeits a fool is described "with club and bel and partie cote with eiris;" but it afterwards appears that he had both a club and a bauble. In an inventory of the goods of the ancient company of Saint George at Norwich, mention is made of "two habits, one for the club-bearer, another for his man, who are now called fools;"[70] and the author of Tarlton's newes out of purgatory, 1630, 4to, describes a dream in which he saw "one attired in russet with a button'd cap on his head, a great bag by his side, and a strong bat in his hand, so artificially attired for a clowne, as I began to call Tarlton's woonted shape to remembrance."
In some old prints the fool is represented with a sort of flapper or rattle ornamented with bells. It seems to have been constructed of two round and flat pieces of wood or pasteboard, and is no doubt a vestige of the crotalum used by the Roman mimes or dancers.[71] This implement was used for the same purpose as the bladder, and occasionally for correcting the fool himself whenever he behaved with too much licentiousness. Such a castigation is actually exhibited in one ancient German edition of the Ship of fools, by Sebastian Brandt; but the usual punishment on this occasion was a simple whipping. In some old plays the fool's dagger is mentioned, perhaps the same instrument as was carried by the Vice or buffoon of the Moralities; and it may be as well to observe in this place that the domestic fool is sometimes, though it is presumed improperly, called the Vice.[72] The dagger of the latter was made of a thin piece of lath; and the use he generally made of it was to belabour the Devil. It appears that in Queen Elizabeth's time the archbishop of Canterbury's fool had a wooden dagger and coxcomb.[73] In Greene's play of Fryer Bacon, the fool speaks of his dagger. In Beaumont and Fletcher's Noble gentleman, a person being compared to a fool, it is added that he should wear a guarded coat and a great wooden dagger. In Chapman's Widows tears, an upstart governor is termed "a wooden dagger gilded o'er;" and Rabelais has made Panurge give Triboulet the fool a wooden sword. In an old German print a fool is represented with a sword like a saw.[74]
The other dress, and which seems to have been more common in the time of Shakspeare, was the long petticoat.[75] This originally appertained to the idiot or natural fool, and was obviously adopted for the purposes of cleanliness and concealment. Why it came to be used for the allowed fool is not so apparent. It was, like the first, of various colours, the materials often costly, as of velvet, and guarded or fringed with yellow.[76] In one instance we have a yellow leather doublet.[77] In Bancroft's Epigrams, 1639, quarto, there is one addressed "to a giglot with her greene sicknesse," in which are these lines,
"Thy sicknesse mocks thy pride, that's seldom seene
But in foole's yellow, and the lover's greene."
And a manuscript note in the time of the commonwealth states yellow to have been the fool's colour. This petticoat dress continued to a late period, and has been seen not many years since in some of the interludes exhibited in Wales.
But the above were by no means the only modes in which the domestic fools were habited. Many variations can be traced. The hood was not always surmounted with the cocks comb, in lieu of which a single bell and occasionally more appeared.[78] Sometimes a feather was added to the comb.[79] In the old morality of The longer thou livest the more foole thou art, Moros the fool says,
"By my trouth the thing that I desire most
Is in my cappe to have a goodly feather."
The head was frequently shaved in imitation or perhaps ridicule of a monk's crown. This practice is very ancient, and can be traced to the twelfth century. In one instance the hair exhibits a sort of triple or Papal crown.[80] The tails of foxes or squirrels were often suspended to the garment. Godfrey Gobilive, the fool in Hawes's Pastime of pleasure, 1517, 4to, is described as so habited. In The pope's funerall, 1605, 4to, the author says, "I shall prove him such a noddy before I leave him that all the world will deeme him worthy to weare in his forehead a coxcombe for his foolishness, and on his back, a fox tayle for his badge." It was likewise the dress of the fool in the plough pageant and morris dance.[81] One might almost conclude that this custom was designed to ridicule a fashion that prevailed among the ladies in the reign of Edward the Third, and which is mentioned by the author of the old chronicle of England, erroneously ascribed to Caxton the printer, in the following terms: "And the women more nysely yet passed the men in aray and coriouslaker, for they were so streyt clothed that they let hange fox tailles sowed bineth within hir clothes for to hele and hide thir a—, the which disguysinges and pride paradventure afterward brouzt forth and encaused many myshappes and meschief in the reame of Englond." The idiot or natural was often clothed in a calf or sheep's skin.[82]
A large purse or wallet at the girdle is a very ancient part of the fool's dress. Tarlton, who personated the clowns in Shakspeare's time, appears to have worn it.[83] The budget given by Panurge to Triboulet the fool is described as made of a tortoise shell.[84]
We may suppose that the same variety of dress was observed on the stage which we know to have actually prevailed in common life. The fools, however, did not always appear in a discriminative habit, and some of their portraits still remaining confirm this observation. A very fine painting by Holbein, in Kensington palace, represents Will Somers the fool of Henry the Eighth, in a common dress.[85] In a wardrobe account of that sovereign, we find these articles: "For making a dubblette of wursteede lyned with canvas and cotton, for William Som'ar oure foole. Item for making of a coote and a cappe of grene clothe fringed with red crule and lyned with fryse, for our saide foole. Item for making of a dublette of fustian, lyned with cotton and canvas for oure same foole." Yet he sometimes wore the usual hood instead of a cap; for in the same account is an article "For making of a coote of grene clothe with a hoode to the same, fringed with white crule lyned with fryse and bokerham, for oure foole aforesaid;"[86] and there is a print of him after a picture by Holbein, in which he is represented in a long tunic with a chain and horn in his hand.[87] In the celebrated picture of Sir Thomas More's family by Holbein, Patenson the fool is not distinguished by any peculiarity of dress, and, in one instance at least, the same remark applies to Archy, the fool of James I.[88] In those families where the fool acted as a menial servant, it is possible that he might have reserved his official habit for particular occasions. The paucity of materials that illustrate the theatrical character in question, must necessarily leave this part of the subject still more imperfect than the rest; but the plays of Shakspeare have furnished more information than those of any other writer. It is surprising, on the whole, that the character of the domestic fool is so seldom found in the old dramas that remain; because it was not only capable of affording considerable mirth to the unrefined part of the audience, but of giving the authors an opportunity of displaying a great deal of ingenuity so far as regarded extemporary wit. It is certain that the fools in Shakspeare's plays were pre-eminent above all others. For this we have the authority of Shadwell, who makes one of his characters say that they had more wit than any of the wits and critics of his time.[89] Beaumont and Fletcher have but rarely introduced them; Ben Jonson and Massinger never. Indeed, the originals had rapidly declined at the period in which most of their plays were written, and another character of a mixed nature been substituted in their room. This was the witty servant or clown (Class II. No. 3.), and of course his dress was not distinguished by any peculiarity.
The practice of introducing the fools and clowns between the acts and scenes, and after the play was finished, to amuse the audience with extemporaneous wit and buffoonery, has been so well illustrated by the able historian of the English stage, that very little can remain to be said on the subject.[90] It has been traced from the Greek and Roman theatres; and, as their usages were undoubtedly preserved in those of the middle ages that belonged to the countries where Roman influence had been spread, it would not of course be peculiar to the early stage in England. Indeed, the records of the French theatre amply demonstrate the truth of this position, and furnish several examples of the practice in question. In the mystery of Saint Barbara we find this stage direction, "Pausa. Vadant, et Stultus loquitur;" and he is several times introduced in like manner between the scenes, in order that the amusement of the spectators might not be suspended whilst something was in agitation for the further prosecution of the piece.[91] Perhaps the most singular pause in any dramatic composition whatsoever is one which occurs in the very rare morality of La condamnation des banquetz in the following words: "Pause pour pisser le fol. Il prent ung coffinet en lieu de orinal & pisse dedans, et tout coule par bas," sign. M iiij. Nor was the English stage in Shakspeare's time allowed to remain empty. Lupton has related a story of the clown at the Red Bull theatre, who was suddenly called for between the acts, and forgot his fool's cap.[92] Puttenham, speaking of verses that rhime in the middle and end, observes that "they were more commodiously uttered by the buffoons or vices in plays than by any other person."[93] It was likewise part of the stage fool's office to introduce at his own discretion a great many old songs, or at least the fragments of them.[94]
The first symptoms of the decline of the domestic fools, and the causes of it, have been already touched on; and the same reasons may partly be assigned for their exile from the stage. In the præludium to Goffe's Careless shepherdess, 1656, 4to, there is a panegyric on them,[95] and some concern is manifested for the fool's absence in the play itself. It is likewise expressly stated that "the motly coat was banish'd with trunk-hose." Yet during the reign of Charles the Second occasional efforts were made to restore the character. In the tragedy of Thorney abbey, or the London maid, 1662, 12mo, the prologue is spoken by a fool who uses these words, "the poet's a fool who made the tragedy to tell a story of a king and a court and leave a fool out on't, when in Pacy's and Sommer's and Patche's and Archee's times, my venerable predecessours, a fool was alwaies the principal verb." Shadwell's play of The woman captain, 1680, is perhaps the last in which a regular fool is introduced, and even there his master is made to say that the character was then exploded on the stage.
The following is some additional and necessary explanation of the cuts belonging to this dissertation.
Plate II. fig. 1, is from Catzii emblemata. Fig. 2 is the duke of Suffolk's fool in the time of Henry VIII., copied from a print in Mr. Brydges's Memoirs of the peers of England. Figs. 3 and 4 are from paintings in the author's possession. The centre fig. is from a print by Breughel.
Plate III. All these instruments, excepting fig. 3, before described, are taken from various Dutch and German prints.
Plate IV. fig. 1, is from an old German print by an unknown master.
Plate II.
Published by T. Tegg. Cheapside, Sept.r 1839.
Plate III.
Published by T. Tegg, Cheapside, Sept.r 1839.
Plate IV.
Published by T. Tegg, Cheapside, Sept.r 1839.
Figs. 1 and 3 below are from A booke of Christian prayers, &c., 1590, 4to, being figures belonging to a dance of Death. Fig. 2 is from the frontispiece to Heywood's comedy of The fair maid of the exchange. Similar figures of the costume of fools in the time of James I., or Charles I., may be seen in The life of Will Summers, compiled long after his time. Figs. 4 and 5 are from La grant danse Macabre, printed at Troyes without date, but about the year 1500, in folio, a book of uncommon rarity and curiosity. Fig. 6 is from the Stultarum virginum scaphæ, seu naviculæ of Badius Ascensius, another work of much rarity, and far exceeding that of the ship of fools by Sebastian Brandt. In all the editions of the latter, a great variety of the fools of the fifteenth century will be found. Fig. 7 is from a French translation of St. Augustine on the city of God, printed at Abbeville 1486. It exemplifies the use of the tabor and pipe by fools; a practice that seems to have been revived by Tarlton in the time of Elizabeth. Figures 3, 4, and 6, have been introduced to show the costume of female fools. Among others of this kind that might deserve notice is a very interesting one in the picture, by Holbein, of Henry the Eighth's family already mentioned.
