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 V.

Scene 1. Page 567.

P. Hen. Of fickle changelings, and poor discontents,
Which gape and rub the elbow, at the news
Of hurly burly innovation.

The itching of the elbow, according to popular belief, denoted an approaching change of some kind or other.

Scene 4. Page 587.

Hot. ... and life time's fool.

Mr. Steevens could not very easily have supported his opinion, that the allusion here is to the fool in the ancient farces, or in the representations called the Dance of death; a character which has been altogether misconceived in the course of the annotations on Shakspeare. Dr. Johnson's interpretation is much more natural and intelligible, and the allusion is certainly to the common or domestic fool, who was retained for the express purpose of affording sport to his still more foolish employers. In this sense our author uses death's fool, fortune's fool, and fate's fool.

Scene 5. Page 589.

P. Hen. Embowel'd will I see thee by and by.

An ingenious commentator on Mr. Mason's supplement to Dr. Johnson's dictionary, (see the Monthly magazine, vol. xii. p. 299,) has disputed the usual sense of embowel'd in this speech, on the ground that the prince would not be guilty of such brutality as to see Falstaff eviscerated; and he therefore contends that the meaning is, put into the bowels of the earth. But surely the prince designs no more than that Falstaff's body shall be embalmed in the usual manner. When the knight rises, he exclaims, "if thou embowel me to day, I'll give you leave to powder me, and eat me to-morrow," evidently alluding to the practice of evisceration and subsequent treatment of a dead body by strewing aromatics over it for preservation. If the body were to be put into the bowels of the earth, as the commentator contends, Falstaff's "eat me to-morrow" would manifestly be an absurd expression. That the present writer may not be suspected of plagiarism on this occasion, he feels himself obliged to lay claim to the above opinion in answer to the commentator, as it appeared in the before-mentioned periodical publication.