Mr. Ritson will not admit this to be a fool kept by the sheriff for diversion, but supposes her one of those idiots whose care, as he says, devolved on the sheriff when they had not been begged of the king on account of the value of their lands. Now if this was the law, the sheriff must have usually had more than one idiot in his custody; and had Shakspeare alluded to one of these persons, he would not have chosen so definite an expression as that in question; he would rather have said, "a sheriff's fool." Female idiots were retained in families for diversion as well as male, though not so commonly; and there would be as much reason to expect one of the former in the sheriffs household as in that of any other person. It is not impossible that our author might have in view some real event that had just happened.
Scene 3. Page 327.
Ber. I know his brains are forfeit to the next tile that falls.
In Whitney's Emblems, a book certainly known to Shakspeare, there is a story of three women who threw dice to ascertain which of them should first die. She who lost affected to laugh at the decrees of fate, when a tile suddenly falling, put an end to her existence.
Scene 3. Page 329.
Par. ... a dangerous and lascivious boy, who is a whale to virginity.
This is an allusion to the story of Andromeda in old prints, where the monster is very frequently represented as a whale.
Scene 3. Page 333.
Par. For a quart d'ecu he will sell the fee simple of his salvation.