He appears but twice in the play, and was certainly intended to be an allowed or domestic fool in the service of Othello and Desdemona.
[ADDITIONS TO THE NOTES.]
Page 37. The tune of the old ballad of Green sleeves may be seen in Sir John Hawkins's Hist. of musick, vol. v. Append., and is still used in The beggar's opera, in the song of "Since laws were made for every degree."
Page 53. Cupid's golden shaft is again mentioned in the Midsummer night's dream, Act I. Scene 1:
"Herm. by his best arrow with the golden head."
Page 96. To the list of imitations, &c. of the story of Measure for measure, add the novel of Waldburgh and Belanca, in Reynolds's God's revenge against adultery. This is the substance of it: In the reign of Gustavus Adolphus king of Sweden, Moruffi, a Danish general, in attacking the castle of Colmar, was taken prisoner by the governor count Waldbourg. Belanca, the wife of Moruffi, obtained a promise from the count to liberate her husband on the terms of her submitting to his unlawful desires. The unfortunate woman was afterwards inhumanly presented with the head of her husband. When Gustavus heard of the fact, he compelled the count to marry the injured lady, and then condemned him to death. Reynolds pretended that all his stories in this and his other once celebrated work, God's revenge against murder, were originals, and that he had collected the materials for them in the course of his travels.
Page 119. The recipe here given for making men seem like horses or asses, from Scot's Discoverie of witchcraft, where Shakspeare might have seen it, is the real property of Baptista Porta, in the serious refutation of whom the Jesuit Kircher has wasted too much time. See his treatise De luce et umbra.
In the Prodromo apologetico alii studi Chircheriani of Petrucci, there are similar receipts, and especially one in which an oil is directed to be made from the semen of a horse, which being used in a lamp, the company present will appear to have horses' heads. It is accompanied with a curious engraving of a Houyhnhnm party engaged in conversation, among whom there is the figure of an equus togatus, that will not fail to make a due impression on such readers as are acquainted with the trick put by Mr. Spence, the author of Polymetis; on Dr. Cooke, the provost of King's College Cambridge, a sour pedant who had offended him. See the tail-piece to the 17th dialogue in the first edition of the above work.