DISSERTATION I. ON THE CLOWNS AND FOOLS OF SHAKSPEARE. THE ensuing dissertation originated from the opinion of a late eminent critic and antiquary that the subject was deserving of particular consideration. How imperfectly it must be executed will best be felt by those who are already accustomed to obscure inquiries; and little more can here be offered, or reasonably expected, than some attempt to arrange a few materials that have occurred during a course of reading immediately connected with the history of ancient manners. The critic above alluded to had remarked, that Shakspeare has most judiciously varied and discriminated his fools.* Without doubting that great writer's capacity to have done so, it certainly remains to be proved that he has; or it might even be maintained that on some occasions he has left his sketches so imperfect as to render it by no means an easy matter to comprehend them. It has already been thought better to make the attempt in a separate note to the plays in which a clown or fool is introduced, and to direct what is now offered to a more general view of the subject. It is so exceedingly clear that the terms clown and fool were used, however improperly, as synonymous by our old writers, that it would be an unnecessary occupation of the reader's time to adduce examples. Their confused introduction in the dramatis personæ might indeed render this position doubtful to any one who had not well considered the See a note by Mr. Ritson in Twelfth night, Act II. Scene 3, edit. Steevens, vol. iv. p. 53. matter; but although the fool of our old plays denoted either a mere idiot or natural, or else a witty hireling or artificial fool, both retained for the purpose of making sport for their employers, the clown was certainly a character of much greater variety. He occasionally represented one of the above personages; sometimes he was a mere rustic, and very often no more than a shrewd and witty domestic. There are some instances in which any low character in a play served to amuse the audience with his sallies of coarse buffoonery, and thus became the clown of the piece. In short, the theatrical clown or fool seems to have been a kind of heterogeneous character, drawn in part from real life, but very considerably heightened in order to produce stage effect; an opinion that derives considerable support from what Shakspeare has put into the mouth of Hamlet, when he makes him admonish those who play the clowns to speak no more than is set down for them. Indeed, the great dramatist himself cannot be absolved from the imputation of having given too high a colouring to the characters in question, unless we suppose, what is extremely probable, that his plays have been very much interpolated with the extemporaneous nonsense of the players. To this licentious practice the author of an excellent and well written satire, entitled Pasquil's mad-cappe, throwne at the corruptions of these times, 1626, 4to, alludes in the following lines: "Tell country players, that old paltry jests Among other grave writers of the age, Sir Philip Sidney has reprobated the practice of introducing fools on the theatre. He remarks that the plays of his time were neither right tragedies nor right comedies, but that the authors mingled kings and clowns, "not," says he, "because the matter so carieth it, but thrust in the clowne by head and shoulders to play a part in majestical matters, with neither decencie nor discretion: so as neither the admiration and commiseration, nor the right sportfulnesse is by their mongrell tragi-comedie obtained."* William Rankin, a puritan, and contemporary with Shakspeare, has left us a most virulent attack on plays, and players, whom he calls monsters: " And whie monsters," says he, "Bicause under colour of humanitie they present nothing but prodigious vanitie. These are wels without water, dead branches fit for fuell, cockle amongst corne, unwholesome weedes amongst sweete hearbes, and finallie, feends that are crept into the worlde by stealth, and holde possession by subtill invasion." In another place, describing the performers at a fictitious banquet in Terralbon, [England] he says, "Some transformed themselves to roges, other to ruffians, some other to clownes, a fourth to fooles the roges were ready, the ruffians were rude, theyr clownes cladde as well with country condition, as in ruffe russet; theyr fooles as fonde as might be," &c.† The latter passage is interesting, because the clown is properly distinguished from the fool, as he always should have been. It may be the means of affording a clearer view of the present subject, if something like a classification of the different sorts of fools and clowns be given. The following is therefore offered as a substitute for a better. I. The general domestic fool, often, but as it should seem improperly, termed a clown. He was, 1. a mere natural, or idiot. 2. Silly by nature, yet cunning and sarcastical. 3. Artificial. Puttenham, speaking of the latter, says, "A buffoune or counterfet foole, to here him speake wisely which is like himselfe, it is no sport at all; but for such a counterfait to talke and looke foolishly it maketh us laugh, because it is no * Defence of poesie, near the end. + Mirrour of monsters, 1587, 4to, fo. 7. part of his naturall."* All these officiated occasionally as menial servants. II. The clown, who was, 1. a mere country booby. 2. A witty rustic. 3. Any servant of a shrewd and witty disposition, and who, like a similar character in our modern plays, was made to treat his master with great familiarity in order to produce stage effect. III. The female fool, who was generally an idiot. IV. The city or corporation fool, whose office was to assist at public entertainments and in pageants. To this class belong perhaps the Lord Mayor's state fool, and those employed by the companies of trades, &c. V. Tavern fools. These seem to have been retained to amuse the customers. We learn from one of Ben Jonson's plays that they exhibited with a Jew's harp, mounted on a joint-stool, and in another of them he has preserved the name of such a character: they were sometimes qualified to sing after the Italian manner.§ Fools were also employed in the common brothels.|| VI. The fool of the ancient theatrical mysteries and moralities. He was, more properly speaking, the Vice, a singular character, that would afford sufficient matter for much better dissertations than those of Warburton or Upton. Being generally dressed in a fool's habit, he appears to have been gradually and undistinguishably blended with the domestic fool; yet he was certainly a buffoon of a different sort. He was always a bitter enemy to the Devil, and a part of his employment consisted in teazing and tormenting the poor fiend on every occasion. He ceased to be in fashion at the end of the sixteenth century.¶ Arte of English poesie, 1589, 4to, fo. 243. + The devil is an ass, Sc. 1. § Marston's Malcontent, Sc. 7. The devil is an ass, Sc. 1. The fox, Act II. Sc. 1. || See p. 94. |