This instrument is found in the hands of fools long before the time of Shakspeare. With respect to the sign of the tabor mentioned in the notes, it might, as stated, have been the designation of a musick shop; but that it was the sign of an eating-house kept by Tarleton is a mistake into which a learned commentator has been inadvertently betrayed. It appears from Tarleton's Jests, 1611, 4to, that he kept a tavern in Gracious [Gracechurch] street, at the sign of the Saba. This is the person who in our modern bibles is called the queen of Sheba, and the sign has been corrupted into that of the bell-savage, as may be gathered from the inedited metrical romance of Alexander, supposed to have been written at the beginning of the fourteenth century by Adam Davie, who, in describing the countries visited by his hero, mentions that of Macropy (the Macropii of Pliny), and adds,
"In heore[4] lond is a cité
On of the noblest in Christianté[5];
Hit hotith[6] Sabba in langage.
Thennes cam Sibely savage,
Of al theo world theo fairest quene,
To Jerusalem, Salamon to seone[7]
For hire fairhed[8], and for hire love,
Salamon forsok his God above."
Sibely savage, as a proper name, is another perversion of si belle sauvage; and though the lady was supposed to have come from the remotest parts of Africa, and might have been as black as a Negro, we are not now to dispute the superlative beauty of the mistress of Salomon, here converted into a Savage. It must be admitted that the queen of Sheba was as well adapted to a sign as the wise men of the East, afterwards metamorphosed into the three kings of Cologne.
Mr. Pegge, in his Anecdotes of the English language, p. 291, informs us that a friend had seen a lease of the Bell Savage inn to Isabella Savage; "which," says he, "overthrows the conjectures about a bell and a savage, la belle sauvage, &c." It is probable that the learned writer's friend was in some way or other deceived. The date of the instrument is not mentioned; and if the above name really appeared in the lease, it might have been an accidental circumstance at a period not very distant. Mr. Pegge was likewise not aware that the same sign, corrupted in like manner, was used on the continent.
Scene 2. Page 109.
Sir To. Go write it in a martial hand; be curst and brief.
Of the latter sentence Dr. Johnson has not given the exact explanation. It alludes to the proverb, "A curst cur must be tied short."
Scene 4. Page 120.
Sir To. What, man! defy the Devil: consider, he's an enemy to mankind.
It was very much the practice with old writers, both French and English, to call the Devil, the enemy, by way of pre-eminence, founded perhaps on the words of Christ in Luke x. 19. Thus at the beginning of the Roman de Merlin, MS. "Mult fu iriez li anemis quant nre sires ot este en anfer;" and see other examples in Barbasan's glossary to the Ordene de chevalerie, 1759, 12mo, in v. Anemi. The cause of the Devil's wrath in the above instance, was the liberation of Adam, Noah, and many other saints and patriarchs from the purgatorial torments which they had endured. In a most curious description of hell in Examples howe mortall synne maketh the synners inobedyentes to have many paynes and doloures within the fyre of hell, b. l. no date, 12mo, the Devil is thus referred to: "Come than after me, and I shal shewe unto the the ryght cursed enemye of humayne lygnage." And again, "About the enemy there were so many devyls and of cursed and myserable soules that no man myght beleve that of all the worlde from the begynnynge myght be yssued and brought forth so many soules." Sometimes he was called the enemy of hell, as in Larke's Boke of wisdome, b. l. no date, 12mo, where it is said that "the enemye of hell ought to be doubted of every wise man." This note may serve also in further explanation of the line in Macbeth, Act III. Scene 1,