Those to whom the law applied, and who wore the statute-caps, were citizens, and artificers, and labourers; and thus, as the nobility continued to wear their bonnets and feathers, Rosaline says, "better wits have worn plain statutecaps."

30 SCENE II.-" You cannot beg us." Costard means to say we are not idiots. One of the most abominable corruptions of the feudal system of government was for the sovereign, who was the legal guardian of idiots, to grant the wardship of such an unhappy person to some favourite, granting with the idiot the right of using his property. Ritson, and Douce more correctly, give a curious anecdote illustrative of this custom, and of its abuse :

"The Lord North begg'd old Bladwell for a foole (though he could never prove him so), and having him in his custodie as a lunaticke, he carried him to a gentleman's house, one day, that was his neighbour. The L. North and the gentleman retir'd awhile to private discourse, and left Bladwell in the dining-roome, which was hung with a faire hanging; Bladwell walking up and downe, and viewing the imagerie, spyed a foole at last in the hanging, and without delay drawes his knife, flyes at the foole, cutts him cleane out, and layes him on the floore; my Lord and the gentleman coming in againe, and finding the tapestrie thus defac'd, he ask'd Bladwell what he meant by such a rude uncivill act; he answered, Sir, be content, I have rather

done you a courtesie than a wrong, for, if ever my L. N. had seene the foole there, he would have begg'd him, and so you might have lost your whole suite." (Harl. MS. 6395.)

31 SCENE II.-" Pageant of the nine worthies."

The genuine worthies of the old pageant were Joshua, David, Judas Maccabeus, Hector, Alexander, Julius Cæsar, Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey of Bulloigne. Sometimes Guy of Warwick was substituted for Godfrey of Bulloigne. These redoubted personages, according to a manuscript in the British Museum (Harl. 2057), were clad in complete armour, with crowns of gold on their heads, every one having his esquire to bear before him his shield and pennon at arms. According to this manuscript, these "Lords" were dressed as three Hebrews, three Infidels, and three Christians. Shakspere overthrew the just proportion of age and country, for he gives us four infidels, Hector, Pompey, Alexander, and Hercules, out of the five of the schoolmaster's pageant. In this manuscript of the Harleian Collection, which is a Chester pageant, with illuminations, the Four Seasons conclude the representation of the Nine Worthies. Shakspere must have seen such an exhibition, and have thence derived the songs of Ver and

34 SCENE II." When daisies pied."

The first two stanzas of this song are set to

"When daisies pied, and violets blue,

And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
Do paint the meadows with delight."

"To-who"

music by Dr. Arne, with all that justness of In the third and fourth verses,
conception and simple elegance of which he
was so great a master, and which are conspi-
cuous in nearly all of his compositions that are
in union with Shakspere's words.

This song having been "married" to music, it would not be well to disturb the received reading. Yet the deviations in all the original copies must be noted. There is a transposition in the first four lines, to meet the alternate rhymes in the subsequent verses. In the originals we find,

is a modern introduction, to correspond with
"Cuckoo." But "To-who" alone is not the
song of the owl-it is "Tu-whit, to-who." The
original line stand thus:-

"Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-whit, to-who,
A merry note."

Did not the original music vary with the vary-
ing form of the metre?

COSTUME.

CESARE Vecellio, at the end of his third book (edit. 1598), presents us with the general costume of Navarre at this period. The women appear to have worn a sort of clog or patten, something like the Venetian chioppine; and we are told in the text that some dressed in imitation of the French, some in the style of the Spaniards, while others blended the fashions of both those nations. The well-known costume of Henri Quatre and Philip II. may furnish authority for

the dress of the king and nobles of Navarre, and of the lords attending on the Princess of France, who may herself be attired after the fashion of Marguerite de Valois, the sister of Henry III. of France, and first wife of his successor the King of Navarre. (Vide Montfaucon, Monarchie Française.') We subjoin the Spanish gentleman, and the French lady, of 1589, from Vecellio. For the costume of the Muscovites in the mask (Act V.), see Illustrations, p. 230.

NOTICE.

venient to the Subscribers to 'THE NATIONAL SHAKSPERE' to be apprised of which the several Parts will be published. Without too long postponing the any Volume, the Editor is desirous to meet the wishes of the Public to have in the Parts composing the Monthly Issue, so that the Comedies may not have of the more popular HISTORIES and TRAGEDIES. The following arrangement be adhered to: