Antony talks of packing cards, and deals out his knaves, queens, hearts, and trumps, as if he were a whist-player. His bestowing the epithet of gipsy on Cleopatra is whimsical, but may perhaps admit of defence.
CYMBELINE.
The British tribute being estimated at three thousand pounds, strikes on the ear as a modern computation. Imogen calls her supposed master, a valiant ancient Briton, by the name of Richard Du Champ. We find mention of the recreation of bowling; of paper; of rushes strewed in apartments; of a striking clock; of cherubims, and a chapel as a burial place. Cymbeline is made to knight Bellario and his sons on the field of battle by dubbing them according to the fashion of the middle ages.
TITUS ANDRONICUS.
The period in which the incidents in this play are supposed to have happened (for they are all fictitious) is difficult to ascertain. There was an usurper called Saturninus during the reigns of Gallien and Aurelian, but he was not the son of any Roman emperor, as stated in the dramatis personæ. From the introduction of the Goths, the author perhaps adverted to the time of the above sovereigns. In all events the play has many absurdities to answer for. A child is sent to Aaron the Moor to be christened by him. He accuses Lucius of twenty Popish tricks; talks of an idiot's bauble; and says he can blush "like a black dog, as the saying is." A clown invokes "God and Saint Stephen." Aaron calls for clubs, as if addressing the London 'prentices; and Demetrius speaks of a dancing rapier. Cards and a monastery are also introduced.
PERICLES.
The story, though altogether fabulous, belongs to a period a little antecedent to the Christian æra; and therefore it is a manifest inconsistency to introduce crowns of the sun; sequins; a pistol; cambrick; a Spanish ruff; signs of inns; Monsieur Veroles a French knight; a Spanish name and motto, and the lues Venerea. Amidst numerous invocations to Heathen Gods, there is an immediate allusion to the unity of the Deity.
KING LEAR.
We have here a plentiful crop of blunders. Kent talks, like a good Protestant, of eating no fish; and Gloster, of not standing in need of spectacles. We have Turks, Bedlam beggars, child Roland, Saint Withold, a Marshal of France, steeples, dollars, paper, holy water, and the French disease. There is an allusion to the old theatrical moralities; and Nero, who did not live till several hundred years after Lear, is mentioned by Edgar as an angler in the lake of darkness.