in which were contained the several incantations used by witches to draw the moon from the heavens.

So when the moon was eclipsed, the Romans supposed it was from the influence of magical charms; to counteract which, as well as those already enumerated, they had recourse to the sound of brazen implements of all kinds. Juvenal alludes to this practice when he describes his talkative woman. Jam nemo tubas, nemo æra fatiget,

Una laboranti poterit succurrere lunæ." Sat. vi. 441.

And see particularly Macrob. Saturnal. 1. v. c. 19. It is not improbable that the rattling of the sistrum by the priests of Isis, or the moon, may be in some way or other connected with this practice, or have even been its origin.

In proportion to the advance of science, it will, no doubt, be found that the Greeks and Romans borrowed more than is commonly imagined from the nations of the East, where the present practice seems to have been universal. Thus the Chinese believe that during eclipses of the sun and moon these celestial bodies are attacked by a great serpent, to drive away which they strike their gongs or brazen drums; the Turks and even some of the American Indians entertain the same opinion. This is perhaps a solution of the common subject on Chinese porcelain, of a dragon pursuing a ball of fire, the symbol of the sun. The Hindoos suppose that a serpent, born from the head of a giant slain by Vishnu, is permitted by that deity to attack the sun. Krishna the Hindoo sun is sometimes represented combating this monster, whence the Greek story of Apollo and the serpent Python may have been derived.

THE FOOL.

The character of Trinculo, who in the dramatis personæ is called a jester, is not very well discriminated in the course of

the play itself. As he is only associated with Caliban and the drunken butler, there was no opportunity of exhibiting him in the legitimate character of a professed fool; but at the conclusion of the play it appears that he was in the service of the king of Naples as well as Stephano. On this account therefore, and for the reasons already offered in page 20, he must be regarded as an allowed domestic buffoon, and should be habited on the stage in the usual manner.

TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 170.

PRO. For I will be thy beadsman, Valentine.

A BEADSMAN is one who offers up prayers to heaven for the welfare of another. Many of the ancient petitions to great men were addressed to them by their " poor daily orators and beadsmen." To count one's beads, means, in the Romish church, to offer up as many prayers to God and the Virgin Mary as the priest or some voluntary penance or obligation shall have enjoined; and that no mistake may happen in the number, they are reckoned by means of certain balls strung in a kind of chaplet, and hence in the English language termed beads, from the Saxon bead, a prayer. There is much difference of opinion among ecclesiastical writers as to the origin of this practice. Some ascribe its invention to Peter the hermit in the eleventh century, others to Venerable Bede, misled probably by the affinity of the name. Monsieur Fleury more rationally conceives it to be not older than the eleventh century; but the probability is, that it was imported into Europe by the crusaders, who found it among the Mahometans. The latter use it wherever their religion has been planted, and there is even reason for supposing that it originated among the natives of Hindostan. These chaplets made of

beads are called rosaries when they are used in prayers to the Virgin. The term bead, as applied to the materials of which necklaces, &c. are made, seems therefore to have been borrowed from the chaplet of rosaries in question.

SCENE 1. Page 171.

PRO. Over the boots? Nay, give me not the boots.

An allusion, as it is supposed, to the diabolical torture of the boot. Not a great while before this play was written, it had been inflicted in the presence of King James on one Dr. Fian, a supposed wizard, who was charged with raising the storms that the King encountered in his return from Denmark. In the very curious pamphlet which contains the account of this transaction it is stated that "hee was with all convenient speed, by commandement, convaied againe to the torment of the bootes, wherein he continued a long time, and did abide so many blowes in them, that his legges were crushte and beaten togeather as small as might bee, and the bones and flesh so brused, that the bloud and marrowe spouted forth in great abundance, whereby they were made unserviceable for ever." The unfortunate man was afterwards burned. But the above instrument of torture was not, as suggested in one of the notes on this occasion, "used only in Scotland;" it was known in France, and in all probability imported from that country. The following representation of it is copied from Millæus's Praxis criminis persequendi, Paris, 1541, folio. This instrument of torture continued to be used in Scotland so late as the end of the 17th century. See A hind let loose, 1687, 8vo, pp. 186, 198, in the frontispiece to which work there is an indistinct representation of the boot. It is said to have been imported from Russia by a Scotchman. See Maclaurin's Arguments in remarkable cases, 4to, p. xxxvii.

In love, where scorn is bought with groans: coy looks,
With heart-sore sighs; one fading moment's mirth,
With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights:

If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain;

If lost, why then a grievous labour won;
However, but a folly bought with wit,
Or else a wit by folly vanquished.

Thus explained by Dr. Johnson. "This love will end in a foolish action, to produce which you are long to spend your wit, or it will end in the loss of your wit, which will be overpowered by the folly of love ;" an explanation that is in part very questionable. The poet simply means that love itself is sometimes a foolish object dearly attained in exchange for reason; at others the human judgment subdued by folly. He is speaking of love abstractedly, and not alluding to that of Proteus.