We have already stated that Shakespeare's aristocratic contempt for the mob had its root in a purely physical aversion for the atmosphere of the "people." We need but to glance through his works to find the proof of it. In the Second Part of Henry VI. (Act iv. sc. 7) Dick entreats Cade "that the laws of England may come out of his mouth;" whereupon Smith remarks aside: "It will be stinking law; for his breath stinks with eating toasted cheese." And again in Casca's description of Cæsar's demeanour when he refuses the crown at the Lupercalian festival: "He put it the third time by, and still he refused it; the rabblement hooted and clapped their chapped hands, and threw up their sweaty nightcaps, and uttered such a deal of stinking breath because Cæsar refused the crown, that it had almost choked Cæsar; for he swooned and fell down at it: and for mine own part, I durst not laugh for fear of opening my lips and receiving the bad air" (Julius Cæsar, Act i. sc. 2).
Also the words in which Cleopatra (in the last scene of the play) expresses her horror of being taken in Octavius Cæsar's triumph to Rome:
"Now, Iras, what thinkest thou?
Thou, an Egyptian puppet, shalt be shown
In Rome as well as I: mechanic slaves,
With greasy aprons, rules, and hammers, shall
Uplift us to the view; in their thick breaths,"
Rank of gross diet, shall we be enclosed
And forced to drink their vapour."
All Shakespeare's principal characters display this shrinking from the mob, although motives of interest may induce them to keep it concealed. When Richard II., having banished Bolingbroke, describes the latter's farewell to the people, he says (Richard II., Act i. sc. 4):
"Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here and Green,
Observed his courtship to the common people;
How did he seem to dive into their hearts
With humble and familiar courtesy,
Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smile
And patient underbearing of his fortune,
As 'twere to banish their effects with him.
Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench,
A brace of draymen bid God-speed him well,
And had the tribute of his supple knee,
With 'Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends.'"
The number of these passages proves that it was, in plain words, their evil smell which repelled Shakespeare. He was the true artist in this respect too, and more sensitive to noxious fumes than any woman. At the present period of his life this particular distaste has grown to a violent aversion. The good qualities and virtues of the people do not exist for him; he believes their sufferings to be either imaginary or induced by their own faults. Their struggles are ridiculous to him, and their rights a fiction; their true characteristics are accessibility to flattery and ingratitude towards their benefactors; and their only real passion is an innate, deep, and concentrated hatred of their superiors; but all these qualities are merged in this chief crime: they stink.
"Cor. For the mutable rank-scented many, let them
Regard me as I do not flatter, and
Therein behold themselves" (Act iii. sc. I).
"Brutus. I heard him swear,
Were he to stand for consul, never would he
Appear i' the market-place, nor on him put
The napless vesture of humility;
Nor, showing as the manner is, his wounds
To the people, beg their stinking breaths" (Act ii. sc. I).
When Coriolanus is banished by the people, he turns upon them with the outburst:
"You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate
As reek o' the rotten fens, whose loves I prize
As the dead carcases of unburied men
That do corrupt my air" (Act iii. sc. 3)
When old Menenius, Coriolanus's enthusiastic admirer, hears that the banished man has gone over to the Volscians, he says to the People's Tribunes: