Without entering into the general theory here involved, we may express an opinion that, in many instances, the freedom of Shakspere's lighter dialogue has been impaired by his editors. We have an instance before us. The three lines spoken by Lafeu are printed by us as in the original copy. Nothing can be more buoyant than their metrical flow, and nothing, therefore, more characteristic of the speaker. To get rid of the short line spoken by the King, some of the "regulators" have transposed the lines after this fashion, and so they are always printed : "Laf. Then here's a man Stands, that has brought his pardon. I would you Had kneel'd, my lord, to ask me mercy; and That, at my bidding, you could so stand up." In the same way the succeeding lines; which we also print as in the original, are changed by the syllable-counting process into the following: "King. I would I had, so I had broke thy pate, And ask'd thee mercy for 't. Good faith, across: "Laf. But, my good lord, 't is thus; will you be cur'd Of your infirmity? SCENE II.-" It is like a barber's chair." "As common as a barber's chair" was a proverbial expression, which we find used by Burton (Anatomy of Melancholy,' edit. 1652, p. 665). In a collection of epigrams, entitled 'More Fooles yet,' 1610, we have these lines: "Moreover, satin suits he doth compare gentleman" was nothing loth to exchange gossip with the artist who presided over the chair; and while "the Jack or journeyman" took his turn, many a gay gallant has filled up the minutes by touching the ghittern to some favourite roundelay. Jost Amman, one of the most spirited of designers, has given us a representation of a German barber's shop, which may well enough pass for such an English "emporium of intelligence." SCENE II.-" A morris for May-day." In A Midsummer Night's Dream' (Illustra tions of Act I.) will be found a general notice of the May-games. We take the opportunity | most curious as well as the oldest representation of here introducing a copy of an ancient painted window at Betley, in Staffordshire, an engraving and description of which are generally given in the variorum editions of Shakspere, appended to 'Henry IV., Part I.' Douce believes that this window "exhibits, in all probability, the of an English May-game and morris-dance that is anywhere to be found." Mr. Tollet, the possessor of this window, supposed it to have been painted in the youthful days of Henry VIII.; but Douce is of opinion "that the dresses and costume of some of the figures are certainly of trations of Act IV.) The rider of the hobbyhorse (5) is deemed by Mr. Tollet to be the King of the May at any rate, the hobby-horse was one of the greatest personages of the Maygames. (See 'Love's Labour 's Lost,' Illustrations of Act III.) The fool of the Morris (12) is plainly indicated by his cap and bauble; and the Piper, or Taborer (9), in the painted window, is pursuing his avocation with his wonted energy. Drayton has described this personage as Tom Piper, "Who so bestirs him in the morris dance For penny wage." Mr. Tollet thinks that the dancers in his window were representatives of the various ranks of life, and that the peasant, the franklin, and the nobleman are each to be found here. All the dancers, it will be observed, have bells attached to their ankles or knees; and Douce says, "there is good reason for believing that the morris-bells were borrowed from the genuine Moorish dance." At any rate, the bells were indispensable even in Shakspere's time. Will Kemp, the celebrated comic actor, was a great morris-dancer, and in 1599 he undertook the extraordinary feat of dancing the morris from London to Norwich. This singular performance is recorded by himself in a rare tract, republished by the Camden Society, entitled Kemp's Nine Daies Wonder; performed in a Dance from London to Norwich.' The opening passage of this curious pamphlet is descriptive of a state of society such as exists not amongst us now. Kemp was a person of high celebrity in his profession, and respectable in his private life. Imagine such an actor making a street exhibition at the present day, and taking sixpences and groats amidst hearty prayers and God-speeds. There is something more frank and cordial in this scene than would be compatible with our refinement. "The first Monday in Lent, the close morning promising a clear day (attended on by Thomas Sly, my taborer, William Bee, my servant, and George Sprat, appointed for my overseer that I should take no other ease but my prescribed order), myself, that's I, otherwise called Cavaliero Kemp, head master of morrice-dancers, high head-borough of heighs, and only tricker of your trill-lilles and best bell-shangler between Sion and Mount Surrey, began frolickly to foot it from the Right Honorable the Lord Mayor's of London towards the Right Worshipful (and truly bountiful) Master Mayor's of Norwich. "My setting forward was somewhat before seven in the morning; my taborer struck up merrily; and as fast as kind people's thronging together would give me leave, through London I leapt. By the way many good old people, and divers others of younger years, of mere kindness gave me bowed sixpences and groats, blessing me with their hearty prayers and Godspeeds. "Being past White Chapel, and having left fair London with all that north-east suburb before named, multitudes of Londoners left not me; but, either to keep a custom which many hold, that Mile-end is no walk without a recrea tion at Stratford Bow with cream and cakes, or else for love they bear toward me, or perhaps to make themselves merry if I should chance (as many thought) to give over my morrice within a mile of Mile-end; however, many a thousand brought me to Bow, where I rested awhile from dancing, but had small rest with those that would have urg'd me to drinking. But, I warrant you, Will Kemp was wise enough to their full cups kind thanks was my return, with gentlemanlike protestations, as 'Truly, Sir, I dare not.' The following extract is amusing in itself, and illustrates some of the peculiarities of the morris : "In this town of Sudbury there came a lusty, tall fellow, a butcher by his profession, that would in a morrice keep me company to Bury. I, being glad of his friendly offer, gave him thanks, and forward we did set; but, ere ever we had measured half a mile of our way, he gave me over in the plain field, protesting that if he might get a 100 pound, he would not hold out with me; for indeed my pace in dancing is not ordinary. "As he and I were parting, a lusty country lass, being among the people, called him fainthearted lout, saying, 'If I had begun to dance, I would have held out one mile though it had cost my life. At which words many laughed. 'Nay,' saith she, if the dancer will lend me a leash of his bells, I'll venture to tread one mile with him myself. I looked upon her, saw mirth in her eyes, heard boldness in her words, and beheld her ready to tuck up her russet petticoat; I fitted her with bells, which she merrily taking, garnished her thick short legs, and with a smooth brow bade the tabrer begin. The drum struck; forward marched I with my merry Maid Marian, who shook her fat sides, and footed it merrily to Melford, being a long mile. There parting with her, I gave her (besides her skin full of drink) an English crown to buy more drink; for, good wench, she was in a piteous heat: my kindness she requited with dropping some dozen of short curtsies, and bidding God bless the dancer. I bade her adieu; and to give her her due, she had a good ear, danced truly, and we parted friendly." 10 SCENE II.-" Do you cry, O Lord, sir,' at your whipping?" &c. The now vulgar expression "O Lord, sir," was for a long time the fashionable phrase, and has been ridiculed by other writers. The whipping of a domestic fool was not an uncommon occurrence. Sir Dudley Carleton writes to Mr. Winwood, in 1604,-" There was great execution done lately upon Stone, the fool, who was well whipped in Bridewell for a blasphemous speech, that there went sixty fools into Spain besides my lord admiral and his two sons. But he is now at liberty again, and for that unexpected release gives his lordship the praise of a very pitiful lord."-(Memoirs of the Peers,' by Sir E. Brydges.) " SCENE III." The scarfs and the bannerets about thee," &c. Parolles, from this, and several passages of a similar nature, appears to have been intended for a great coxcomb in dress; and Lafeu here compares his trappings to the gaudy decorations of a pleasure-vessel, not "of too great a burthen." Hall, in his 'Satires' (b. iv. s. 6), has described a soldier so scarfed : "The sturdy ploughman doth the soldier see Whom Indian pillage hath made fortunate; And now he 'gins to loath his former state." 12 SCENE V.-" Like him that leaped into the custard." Ben Jonson has a passage which well illustrates this:: "He may perchance, in tail of a sheriff's dinner, Devil is an Ass, Act I., Scene 1. The leaper into the custard was the city fool. Gifford has a note on the above passage of Jonson, which we copy::-" Our old dramatists abound with pleasant allusions to the enormous size of their 'quaking custards,' which were served up at the city feasts, and with which such gross fooleries were played. Thus Glapthorne : : 'I'll write the city annals In metre, which shall far surpass Sir Guy Of Warwick's history, or John Stow's, upon The custard, with the four-and-twenty nooks At my lord mayor's feast.'-Wit in a Constable. Indeed, no common supply was required; for besides what the corporation (great devourers of custard) consumed on the spot, it appears that it was thought no breach of city manners to send or take some of it home with them for the use of their ladies. In the excellent old play quoted above, Clara twits her uncle with this practice : Nor shall you, sir, as 't is a frequent custom, ACT III. 13 SCENE II.-" Smoky muskets." PORTABLE fire-arms, according to Sir Samuel Meyrick, were first used by the Lucquese in 1430. The hand-cannon, and the hand-gun, were little more than tubes of brass fitted on a piece of wood, and fired with a match held in the hand. In a French translation of Quintus Curtius, written in 1468, and preserved amongst the Burney MSS. in the British Museum, we find the earliest representations of hand fire arms which are known. In the next page is a copy of part of an illumination in this volume. The arquebus conveyed the match to the pan by a trigger. This was the first great improveThe following ment in portable fire-arms. description of the musquet is extracted from the 'Penny Cyclopædia' (Art. Arms) : "The musquet was a Spanish invention. It is said to have first made its appearance at the battle of Pavia, and to have contributed in an especial manner to decide the fortune of the day. Its use, however, seems for a while to have been confined. It appears not to have been generally adopted till the Duke of Alba took upon himself the government of the Netherlands in 1567. M. de Strozzi, colonel-general of the French infantry under Charles IX., introduced it into France. The first Spanish musquets had straight stocks; the French curved ones. Their form was that of the haquebut, but so long and heavy that something of support was required; and hence originated the rest, a staff the height of a man's shoulder, with a kind of fork of iron at the top to receive the musquet, and a ferule at bottom to steady it in the ground. On a march, when the piece was shouldered, the rest was at first carried in the right hand, and subsequently hung upon the wrist by means of a loop tied under its head. A similar rest had been first used by the mounted arquebusiers. In the time of Elizabeth, and long after, the English musqueteer was a most encumbered soldier. He had, besides the unwieldy weapon itself, his coarse powder for loading in a flask; his fine powder for priming in a touch-box; his bullets in a leathern bag, the strings of which he had to draw to get at |