tortured man has fainted-"he'll scarce ride | produced in the leaves of many plants, and to day, though he has had his boots on." Douce says, "the torture of the boot was known in France, and, in all probability, imported from that country." He then gives a representation of it, copied from Millæus's Praxis criminis persequendi, Paris, 1541. The woodcut which we subjoin is from the same book; but we have restored a portion of the original engraving which Douce has omittedthe judges, or examiners, witnessing the torture, and prepared to record the prisoner's deposition under its endurance. "concealment, like a worm i' the bud, Fed on her damask cheek," in Twelfth Night.' Shakspere found the "canker-worm" in the Old Testament (Joel i. 4). The Geneva Bible, 1561, has, "That which is left of the palmerworm hath the grasshopper eaten, and the residue of the grasshopper hath the canker-worm eaten, and the residue of the canker-worm hath the caterpillar eaten." The Arabic version of the passage in Joel renders what is here, and in our received translation, "the palmer-worm," by dud, which seems a general denomination for the larva state of an insect, and which applies especially to the "canker-worm." The original Hebrew, which is rendered palmer-worm is from a verb meaning to cut or shear; the Greek of the Septuagint, by which the same word is rendered, is derived from the verb meaning to bend.-(See Pictorial Bible,' Joel i.) These two words give a most exact description of the "canker-worm ;"-of "the canker in the musk-rose buds;" of the larvæ which are which find habitation and food by the destruction of the receptacle of their infant existence. These caterpillars are termed "leaf-rollers," and their economy is amongst the most curious and interesting of the researches of entomology. A small dark-brown caterpillar, with a black head and six feet, is the "canker-worm" of the rose. It derives is specific name, Lozotania Rosana, from its habits. The grub, produced from eggs deposited in the previous summer or autumn, makes its appearance with the first opening of the leaves, and it constructs its summer tent while the leaves are in their soft and half-expanded state. It weaves them together so strongly, bending them (according to the Greek of the Septuagint) and fastening their discs with the silken cords which it spins-that the growth of the bud in which it forms its canopy is completely stopped. Thus secured from the rain and from external enemies, it begins to destroy the inner partitions of its dwelling: it becomes the cutting insect of the Hebrew. In this way, "The most forward bud Is eaten by the canker ere it blow." 4 SCENE I.-" Not so much as a ducat." The ducat-which derives its name from duke, a ducal coin-is repeatedly mentioned in Shakspere. There were two causes for this. First, many of the incidents of his plays were derived from Italian stories, and were laid in Italian scenes; and his characters, therefore, properly use the name of the coin of their country. Thus, ducat occurs in this play-in the Comedy of Errors-in 'Much Ado about Nothing'-in 'Romeo and Juliet;' and, more than all, in the Merchant of Venice.' But 6 Italy was the great resort of English travellers in the time of Shakspere; and ducat being a familiar word to him, we find it also in Hamlet,' and in 'Cymbeline.' Venice has, at present, its silver ducat-the ducat of eight livresworth about 38. 3d. The gold ducat of Venice is at present worth about 68. The following representation of its old gold ducat is from a print in the Coin Room in the British Museum. SCENE I.-"You have testern'd me." A verb is here made out of the name of a coin-the tester-which is mentioned twice in Shakspere: 1, by Falstaff, when he praises his recruit Wart, "There's a tester for thee;" and, 2, by Pistol, "Tester I'll have in pouch." We have also testril, which is the same, in Twelfth Night.' The value of a tester, teston, testern, or testril, as it is variously written, was supposed to be determined by a passage in Latimer's sermons (1584):-"They brought him a denari, a piece of their current coin that was worth ten of our usual pence-such another piece as our testerne." But the value of the tester, like that of all our ancient coins, was • SCENE II.-" Best sing it to the tune of Light o' love." This was the name of a dance tune, which, from the frequent mention of it in the old poets, appears to have been very popular. Shakspere refers to it again in 'Much Ado about Nothing,' with more exactness: "Light o' love; that goes without a burthen; do you sing it and I'll dance it." 7 SCENE II.-" Injurious wasps! to feed on such sweet honey." The economy of bees was known to Shakspere with an exactness which he could not have derived from books. The description in Henry V., "So work the honey bees," is a study for the naturalist as well as the poet. He had doubtless not only observed "the lazy yawning drone," but the "injurious wasps," that plundered the stores which had been collected by those who "Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds." These were the fearless robbers to which the "Injurious wasps! to feed on such sweet honey, And kill the bees that yield it with your stings!" The metaphor is as accurate as it is beautiful. SCENE II.-" I see you have a month's mind," &c. constantly changing, in consequence of the infamous practice of debasing the currency, which was amongst the expedients of bad governments for wringing money out of the people by cheating as well as violence. The French name, teston, was applied to a silver coin of Louis XII., 1513, because it bore the king's head; and the English shilling received the same name at the beginning of the reign of Henry pretty pouting Julia compares her fingers :— VIII.,-probably because it had the same value as the French teston. The testons were called in by proclamations in the second and third years of Edward VI., in consequence of the extensive forgeries of this coin by Sir William Sherrington, for which, by an express act of parliament, he was attainted of treason. They are described in these proclamations as "pieces of xiid., commonly called testons." But the base shillings still continued to circulate, and they were, according to Stow, "called down" to the value of ninepence, afterwards to sixpence, and finally to fourpence halfpenny, in the reign of Edward VI. The value seems, at last, to have settled to sixpence. Harrison in his description of England, says "Sixpence, usually named the testone." In Shakspere's time, it would appear, from the following passage in 'Twelfth Night,' where Sir Toby and Sir Andrew are bribing the Clown to sing, that its value was sixpence : "Sir To. Come on; there is sixpence for you: let's have a song. Sir A. There's a testril of me, too." In the reign of Anne its value, according to Locke, who distinguishes between the shilling and the tester, was sixpence; and to this day we sometimes hear the name applied to sixpence. Whence do we derive the present slang name for sixpence, a tanner? The month's mind, in one form of the expres sion, referred to the solemn mass, or other obsequies directed to be performed for the repose of the soul, during the month which followed interment. At the funeral of the Abbot Islip, "The herse, with all th' other things, did remayne there untill the monethes mynde.” (Vetusta Monumenta,' Vol. IV. p. 3.) The strong desire with which this ceremony was regarded in Catholic times might have rendered the general expression " month's mind" equivalent to an eager longing, in which sense it is generally thought to be here used. But we are not quite sure that it means a strong and abiding desire; two lines in Hudibras would seem to make the "month's mind" only a passing inclination :— "For if a trumpet sound, or drum beat, Who hath not a month's mind to combat?" 9 SCENE III." Some to the wars," &c. It would be out of place here to give a more particular detail of what were the wars, and who the illustrious men that went "to try their fortunes there," or to recapitulate "the islands far away," that were sought for or discovered, or to furnish even a list of "the studious universi- | writing, and acting at once upon the cupidity ties" to which the eager scholars of Elizabeth's and curiosity of the times, produced an incontime resorted. The subject is too large for us to ceivable effect in diffusing a thirst for novelties attempt its illustration by any minute details. among a people, who, no longer driven in hosWe may, however, extract a passage from Gif- tile array to destroy one another, and combat ford's Memoirs of Ben Jonson,' prefixed to for interests in which they took little concern, his excellent edition of that great dramatist, had leisure for looking around them, and conwhich directly bears upon this passage:— sulting their own amusement." "The long reign of Elizabeth, though sufficiently agitated to keep the mind alert, was yet a season of comparative stability and peace. The nobility, who had been nursed in domestic turbulence, for which there was now no place, and the more active spirits among the gentry, for whom entertainment could no longer be found in feudal grandeur and hospitality, took advantage of the diversity of employment happily opened, and spread themselves in every direction. They put forth, in the language of Shakspere, 'Some, to the wars, to try their fortune there: Some, to discover islands far away; Some, to the studious universities'; and the effect of these various pursuits was speedily discernible. The feelings, narrowed and embittered in household feuds, expanded and purified themselves in distant warfare, and a high sense of honour and generosity, and chivalrous valour, ran with electric speed from bosom to bosom, on the return of the first adventurers in the Flemish campaigns; while the wonderful reports of discoveries, by the intrepid mariners who opened the route since so successfully pursued, faithfully committed to 10 SCENE III." There shall he practise tilts and tournaments." St. Palaye, in his 'Memoirs of Chivalry,' says that, in their private castles, the gentlemen practised the exercises which would prepare them for the public tournaments. This refers to the period which appears to have terminated some half-century before the time of Elizabeth, when real warfare was conducted with express reference to the laws of knighthood; and the tournay, with all its magnificent array-its minstrels, its heralds, its damosels in lofty towers-had its hard blows, its wounds, and sometimes its deaths. There were the "Joustes à outrance," or the "Joustes mortelles et à champ," of Froissart. But the "tournaments" that Shakspere sends Proteus to "practise" were the "Justes of Peace," the "Joustes à Plaisance," the tournaments of gay penons and pointless lances. They had all the gorgeousness of the old knightly encounters; but they appear to have been regarded only as courtly pastimes, and not as serious preparations for "a well-foughten field." ACT II. "SCENE I." Beggar at Hallowmas." If we were to look only at the severe statutes against mendicancy, we might suppose that, at the period when Shakspere thus describes what he must have commonly seen, there were no beggars in the land but the licensed beggars, which these statutes permitted. Unlicensed beggars were, by the statute of 1572, to be punished, in the first instance, by grievous whipping and burning through the gristle of the right ear; and for second and third of fences they were to suffer death as felons. It is clear that these penal laws were almost wholly inoperative; and Harrison, in his 'Description of Britain,' prefixed to Holinshed, shows the lamentable extent of vagrancy amongst the "thriftless poor." In our notes upon 'King Lear,' where Edgar describes himself as Poor Tom, who is whipped from tything to tything, and stocked, punished, and imprisoned," we again notice this subject. Of the "valiant beggar," the compound of beggar and thief,-Shakspere has given a perfect picture in his Autolycus. We give a curious representation of the Beggarman and Beggarwoman, from a manuscript of the 'Roman de la Rose,' in the Harleian Collection (No. 4425). The date of the MS. is somewhat earlier than this play, and these beggars are French; but the costume of rags is not a subject for very nice distinctions either of time or place. 12 SCENE I.-" He, being in love, could not see to garter his hose." Shakspere is here speaking of the garters of his own time, but at the period to which we have confined the costume of this play, garters of great magnificence appeared round the large slashed hose, both above and below the knee. To go ungartered was the common trick of a fantastic lover, who thereby implied he was too much occupied by his passion to pay attention to his dress. 13 SCENE I.-"Sir Valentine and servant." Sir J. Hawkins says, "Here Silvia calls her lover servant, and again her gentle servant. This was the common language of ladies to their lovers at the time when Shakspere wrote." Steevens gives several examples of this. Henry James Pye, in his 'Comments on the Commentators,' mentions that, "In the 'Noble Gentlemen' of Beaumont and Fletcher, the lady's gallant has no other name in the dramatis person than servant," and that "mistress and servant are always used for lovers in Dryden's plays." It is clear to us, however correct may be the interpretation of servant and mistress (see 'Studies,' p. 464), that Shakspere here uses the words in a much more general sense than that which expresses the relations between two lovers. At the very moment that Valentine calls Silvia mistress, he says that he has written for her a letter,-"some lines to one she loves,"-unto a "secret nameless friend;" and what is still stronger evidence that the word "servant" had not the full meaning of lover, but meant a much more general admirer, Valentine, introducing Proteus to Silvia, says, "Sweet lady, entertain him To be my fellow-servant to your ladyship; " and Silvia, consenting, says to Proteus, "Servant, you are welcome to a worthless mistress." Now, when Silvia says this, which, according to the meaning which has been attached to the words servant and mistress, would be a speech of endearment, she had accepted Valentine really as her betrothed lover, and she had been told by Valentine that Proteus "Had come along with me, but that his mistress Did hold his eyes lock'd in her crystal looks." It appears, therefore, that we must sometimes receive these words in a very vague sense, and regard them as titles of courtesy, derived, perhaps, from the chivalric times, when many a harness'd night and sportive troubadour described the lady whom they had gazed upon in the tilt-yard as their "mistress," and the same lady looked upon each of the gallant train as a "servant" dedicated to the defence of her honour, or the praise of her beauty. 14 SCENE II." Why, then, we 'll make exchange." The priest in Twelfth Night' (Act V., Sc. 1,) describes the ceremonial of betrothing: "A contract of eternal bond of love, Confirm'd by mutual joinder of your hands, Strengthened by interchangement of your rings." This contract was made, in private, by Proteus and Julia; and it was also made by Valentine and Silvia-"We are betroth'd." 15 SCENE III.-"This left shoe." each foot was formerly fitted with its shoe, a A passage in 'King John' also shows that fashion of unquestionable utility, which has been revived in recent times: "Standing on slippers, which his nimble haste 16 SCENE IV.-" My jerkin is a doublet." The jerkin, or jacket, was generally worn over the doublet; but occasionally the doublet was worn alone, and, in many instances, is confounded with the jerkin. Either had sleeves or not, as the wearer fancied; for by the inventories and wardrobe accounts of the time, we find that the sleeves were frequently separate articles of dress, and attached to the doublet, jerkin, coat, or even woman's gown, by laces or ribbons, at the pleasure of the wearer. A "doblet jaquet" and hose of blue velvet, cut upon cloth of gold, embroidered, and a "doublet hose and jaquet" of purple velvet, embroi dered, and cut upon cloth of gold, and lined with black satin, are entries in an inventory of the wardrobe of Henry VIII. In 1535, a jerkin of purple velvet, with purple satin sleeves, embroidered all over with Venice gold, was presented to the king by Sir Richard Cromwell; and another jerkin of crimson velvet, with wide sleeves of the same coloured satin, is mentioned in the same inventory. 17 SCENE VII. "The table wherein all my thoughts Are visibly character'd." The allusion is to the table-book, or tables, which were used, as at present, for noting down something to be remembered. Hamlet says: 'My tables,-meet it is I set it down." sometimes of slate. The Archbishop of York, in 'Henry IV.,' says: "And therefore will he wipe his tables clean." The table-book of slate is engraved and described in Gesner's treatise, De Rerum Fossilium Figuris, 1565; and it has been copied in Douce's 'Illustrations.' 18 SCENE VII." A true devoted pilgrim." The comparison which Julia makes between the ardour of her passion and the enthusiasm of the pilgrim, is exceedingly beautiful. When travelling was a business of considerable danger and personal suffering, the pilgrim who was not weary "To measure kingdoms with his feeble steps," to encounter the perils of a journey to Rome, or Loretto, or Compostella, or Jerusalem, was a person to be looked upon as thoroughly in earnest. In the time of Shakspere the pilgrimages to the tomb of St. Thomas à Becket, at Canterbury, which Chaucer has rendered immortal, were discontinued; and few, perhaps, undertook the sea voyage to Jerusalem. But the pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James, or St. Jago, the patron-saint of Spain, at Compostella, was undertaken by all classes of Catholics. The house of our Lady at Loretto was, however, the great object of the devotee's vows; and, at particular seasons, there were not fewer than two They were made sometimes of ivory, and hundred thousand pilgrims visiting it at once. ACT III. 19 SCENE I.-"My jealous aim might err." "My discovery be not aimed at." STEEVENS explains the noun aim as meaning guess. But aim also signifies purpose, intention. The duke feared that his "jealous aim," -his purpose-to forbid Valentine his court might "disgrace the man."-Aimed at is also stated, both by Steevens and Johnson, to mean to guess. The common interpretation of aim,to point at, to level at,-will, however, give the meaning of the passage quite as well. At first sight it might appear that the word aim, which, literally or metaphorically, is ordinarily taken to mean the act of looking towards a definite object with a precise intention, cannot include the random determination of the mind which we imply by the word guess. But we must go a little further. The etymology of both words is somewhat doubtful. Aim is supposed to be derived from æstimare, to weigh attentively; guess from the Anglo-Saxon wiss-an, wis, to think (see Richardson's Dictionary). Here the separate meanings of the two words almost slide into one and the same. It is certain that in the original and literal use of the word aim, in archery, was meant the act of the mind in considering the various circumstances connected with the flight of the arrow, rather than the mere operation of the sense in pointing at the mark. When Locksley, in 'Ivanhoe,' tells his adversary, "You have not allowed for the wind, Hubert, or that would have been a better shot," he furnishes Hubert with a new element of calculation for his next aim. There is a passage of Bishop Jewell: "He that seeth no mark must shoot by aim." This certainly does not mean must shoot at random-although it may mean |