take on him the office of patron or treasurer to the hospital; and that if any desperate censurer shall stab him for assigning his office or place, he presently take him into the dark ward and in the same work, certain idle fools are consigned to the darksome guesthouse of their madness. SCENE 4. Page 124. OLI. I have said too much unto a heart of stone, and laid mine honour too unchary on't. This is the reading of the old copy, which has been unnecessarily disturbed at Theobald's suggestion by substituting out. If might be urged that laying honour out is but an awkward phrase. The old text simply means, I have placed my honour too incautiously upon a heart of stone. The preceding note had shown that adjectives are often used adverbially by Shakspeare. SCENE 4. Page 127. SIR TO. He is a knight, dubb'd with unhack'd rapier, and on carpet consideration. The original word is unhatch'd, and if any alteration be admitted it should be an hatch'd, for the first reason assigned in Mr. Malone's ingenious note. Sir Toby says that his brother knight was no hero dubbed in the field of battle, but a carpet knight made at home in time of peace with a sword of ceremony richly gilt or engraved. In Don Quixote, the damsel whom Sancho finds wandering in the streets of Barataria disguised as a man, is furnished with "a very faire hatched dagger," chap. 49 of Shelton's translation. In The tragical history of Jetzer, 1683, 18mo, mention is made of "a sword richly hatcht with silver." Thus much in support of the above slight alteration of the old reading. The second conjecture of Mr. Malone, that unhatcht might have been used in the sense of unhack'd, deserves much attention; but there was no necessity for introducing the latter word into the text. To hatch a sword has been thought to signify to engrave it; F but it appears from Holme's Academy of armory, B. iii. p. 91, that "hatching, is to silver or gild the hilt and pomell of a sword or hanger." With respect to carpet knights, they were sometimes called knights of the green cloth. For this information we are also indebted to Holme, who, in his above cited work, B. iii. p. 57, informs us that "all such as have studied law, physic, or any other arts and sciences whereby they have become famous and serviceable to the court, city, or state, and thereby have merited honour, worship, or dignity, from the sovereign and fountain of honour; if it be the King's pleasure to knight any such persons, seeing they are not knighted as soldiers, they are not therefore to use the horseman's title or spurs; they are only termed simply miles et milites, knights of the carpet or knights of the green cloth, to distinguish them from knights that are dubbed as soldiers in the field; though in these our days they are created or dubbed with the like ceremony as the others are, by the stroak of a naked sword upon their shoulder, with the words, Rise up Sir T. A. knight." ACT IV. SCENE 1. Page 136. CLO. I am afraid this great lubber the world will prove a cockney. A typographical corruption seems to have crept into this place from similitude of sound; but a very slight alteration will restore the sense. The clown is speaking of vent as an affected word; and we should therefore read "this great lubberly word will prove a cockney," i. e. will turn out to be cockney language. SCENE 2. Page 140. CLO. For as the old hermit of Prague Not the celebrated heresiarch Jerome of Prague, but another of that name born likewise at Prague, and called the hermit of Camaldoli in Tuscany. SCENE 2. Page 141. CLO. Say'st thou that house is dark? This Mr. Malone conceives to be a pompous appellation for the small room in which Malvolio was confined; but it seems to be merely the designation of a madhouse. See the preceding note on Act III. Scene 4, p. 121. ACT V. SCENE 1. Page 157. PRIEST, A contract of eternal bond of love Confirm'd by mutual joinder of your hands, Attested by the holy close of lips, Strengthened by interchangement of your rings; And all the ceremony of this compact Seal'd in my function, by my testimony. It will be necessary, for the better illustration of these lines, to connect them with what Olivia had said to Sebastian at the end of the preceding act: "Now Now the whole has been hitherto regarded as relating to an actual marriage that had been solemnized between the parties; whereas it is manifest that nothing more is meant than a betrothing, affiancing or promise of future marriage, anciently distinguished by the name of espousals, a term which was for a long time confounded with matrimony, and at length came exclusively to denote it. The form of betrothing at church in this country, has not been handed down to us in any of its ancient ecclesiastical service books; but it is to be remembered that Shakspeare is here making use of foreign materials, and the ceremony is preserved in a few of the French and Italian rituals. The custom of betrothing appears to have been known in ancient times to almost all the civilized nations among whom marriage was considered as a sacred engagement. Our northern ancestors were well acquainted with it. With them the process was as follows: 1. Procatio, or wooing. 2. Impetratio, or demanding of the parents or guardian. 3. The conditions of the contract. All these were sealed by joining the right hands, by a certain form of words, and a confirmation before witnesses. The length of the time between espousals and marriage was uncertain, and governed by the convenience of the parties; it generally extended to a few months. Sometimes in cases of necessity, such as the parties living in different countries, and where the interference of proxies had been necessary, the time was protracted to three years. The contract of the affiancing party was called handsaul; (whence our hansel) of the agreeing party, handfastening. See Thorlacius De borealium veterum matrimonio, 1785, 4to, pp. 33, 42. Vincent de Beauvais, a writer of the 13th century, in his Speculum historiale, lib. ix. c. 70, has defined espousals to be a contract of future marriage, made either by a simple promise, by earnest or security given, by a ring, or by an oath. During the same period, and the following centuries, we may trace several other modes of betrothing, some of which it may be worth while to describe more at large. I. The interchangement of rings. Thus in Chaucer's Troilus and Creseide, book 3. "Sone after this they spake of sondry things As fill to purpose of this aventure, And playing enter chaungeden her rings Of which I can not tellen no scripture. But well I wot, a broche of gold and assure In which a rubie set was like an herte Creseide him yave, and stacke it on his sherte." When espousals took place at church, rings were also in terchanged. According to the ritual of the Greek church, the priest first placed the rings on the fingers of the parties, who afterwards exchanged them. Sometimes the man only gave a ring. In the life of Saint Leobard, who is said to have flourished about the year 580, written by Gregory of Tours he gives a ring, a kiss, and a pair of shoes to his affianced. The ring and shoes were a symbol of securing the lady's hands and feet in the trammels of conjugal obedience; but the ring of itself was sufficient to confirm the contract. In The miracles of the Virgin Mary, compiled in the twelfth century by a French monk, there is a story of a young man who, falling in love with an image of the Virgin, inadvertently placed on one of its fingers a ring which he had received from his mistress, accompanying the gift with the most tender language of respect and affection. A miracle instantly took place, and the ring remained immoveable. The young man, greatly alarmed for the consequences of his rashness, consulted his friends, who advised him by all means to devote himself entirely to the service of the Madonna. His love for his former mistress prevailing over their remonstrances: he married her; but on the wedding night the newly-betrothed lady appeared to him, and urged her claim with so many dreadful menaces that the poor man felt himself compelled to abandon his bride, and that very night to retire privately to a hermitage, where he became a monk for the rest of his life. This story has been translated by Mons. Le Grand in his entertaining collection of fabliaux, where the ring is called a marriage ring: but this is probably a mistake in the translator, as appears from several copies of the above Miracles that have been consulted. The giving of rings was likewise a pledge of love in cases where no marriage could possibly happen. In The lay of Equitan, a married woman and her gallant exchange rings, "Par lur anels sentresaisirent Lur fiaunce sentreplevirent." |