Vulgar words in Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare (Page 1)
This book at a glance
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~ ~ ~ Sentence 998 ~ ~ ~
He has for the most part more fairly distinguish'd them than any of his Successors have done, who have falsified them, or confounded them, by making Love the predominant Quality in all.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,009 ~ ~ ~
Witness _Menenius_ in the following Tragedy, whom he has made an errant Buffoon, which is a great Absurdity.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,010 ~ ~ ~
For he might as well have imagin'd a grave majestick _Jack-Pudding_, as a Buffoon in a _Roman_ Senator.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,088 ~ ~ ~
For first whereas _Menenius_ was an eloquent Person, _Shakespear_ has made him a downright Buffoon.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,090 ~ ~ ~
Never was any Buffoon eloquent, or wise, or witty, or virtuous.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,091 ~ ~ ~
All the good and ill Qualities of a Buffoon are summ'd up in one Word, and that is a Buffoon.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,148 ~ ~ ~
who is nothing but a drolling, lazy, conceited, overlooking Coxcomb; so far from being the honoured _Achilles_, the Epithet that _Homer_ and _Horace_ after him give him, that he is deservedly the Scorn and the Jest of the rest of the Characters, even to that Buffoon _Thersites_.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,201 ~ ~ ~
For I appeal to you, Sir, who shews most Veneration for the Memory of _Shakespear_, he who loves and admires his Charms and makes them one of his chief Delights, who sees him and reads him over and over and still remains unsatiated, and who mentions his Faults for no other Reason but to make his Excellency the more conspicuous, or he who, pretending to be his blind Admirer, shews in Effect the utmost Contempt for him, preferring empty effeminate Sound to his solid Beauties and manly Graces, and deserting him every Night for an execrable _Italian_ Ballad, so vile that a Boy who should write such lamentable Dogrel would be turn'd out of _Westminster_-School for a desperate Blockhead, too stupid to be corrected and amended by the harshest Discipline of the Place?
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,831 ~ ~ ~
Dennis is offended that Menenius, a senator of Rome, should play the buffoon; and Voltaire perhaps thinks decency violated when the Danish usurper is represented as a drunkard.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,834 ~ ~ ~
He knew that Rome, like every other city, had men of all dispositions; and wanting a buffoon, he went into the senate-house for that which the senate-house would certainly have afforded him.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 2,869 ~ ~ ~
Thus living continually in society, nay even in Taverns, and indulging himself, and being indulged by others, in every debauchery; drinking, whoring, gluttony, and ease; assuming a liberty of fiction, necessary perhaps to his wit, and often falling into falsity and lies, he seems to have set, by degrees, all sober reputation at defiance; and finding eternal resources in his wit, he borrows, shifts, defrauds, and even robs, without dishonour.-Laughter and approbation attend his greatest excesses; and being governed visibly by no settled bad principle or ill design, fun and humour account for and cover all.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 2,880 ~ ~ ~
This incident is generally construed to the disadvantage of _Falstaff_: It is a transaction which bears the external marks of Cowardice: It is also aggravated to the spectators by the idle tricks of the Player, who practises on this occasion all the attitudes and wild apprehensions of fear; more ambitious, as it should seem, of representing a _Caliban_ than a _Falstaff_; or indeed rather a poor unwieldy miserable Tortoise than either.-The painful Comedian lies spread out on his belly, and not only covers himself all over with his robe as with a shell, but forms a kind of round Tortoise-back by I know not what stuffing or contrivance; in addition to which, he alternately lifts up, and depresses, and dodges his head, and looks to the one side and to the other, so much with the piteous aspect of that animal, that one would not be sorry to see the ambitious imitator calipashed in his robe, and served up for the entertainment of the gallery.-There is no hint for this mummery in the Play: Whatever there may be of dishonour in _Falstaff_'s conduct, he neither does or says any thing on this occasion which indicates terror or disorder of mind: On the contrary, this very act is a proof of his having all his wits about him, and is a stratagem, such as it is, not improper for a buffoon, whose fate would be singularly hard, if he should not be allowed to avail himself of his Character when it might serve him in most stead.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 2,942 ~ ~ ~
_Falstaff_ is not surely introduced here in vicious indulgence to a mob audience;-he utters but one word, a buffoon one indeed, but aside, and to the Prince only.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 2,986 ~ ~ ~
These various occasions of expence,-servants, taverns, houses, and whores,-necessarily imply that _Falstaff_ must have had some funds which are not brought immediately under our notice.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,174 ~ ~ ~
No, like a buffoon only; the superior principle prevails, and _Falstaff_ lives by a stratagem growing out of his character, to prove himself _no counterfeit_, to jest, to be employed, and to fight again.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,203 ~ ~ ~
How many, who, proud and pedantic, hate all novelty, and damn it without mercy under one compendious word, Paradox?
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,323 ~ ~ ~
But _Shakespeare_, who delighted in difficulties, was resolved to furnish a richer repast, and to give to one eminent buffoon the high relish of wit, humour, birth, dignity, and Courage.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,392 ~ ~ ~
Such, I think, is the true character of this extraordinary buffoon; and from hence we may discern for what special purposes _Shakespeare_ has given him talents and qualities, which were to be afterwards obscured, and perverted to ends opposite to their nature; it was clearly to furnish out a Stage buffoon of a peculiar sort; a kind of Game-bull which would stand the baiting thro' a hundred Plays, and produce equal sport, whether he is pinned down occasionally by _Hal_ or _Poins_, or tosses such mongrils as _Bardolph_, or the Justices, sprawling in the air.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,412 ~ ~ ~
However we have reason to be satisfied as it is;-his death was worthy of his birth and of his life: "_He was born_," he says, "_about three o'clock in the afternoon, with a white head, and something a round belly._" But if he came into the world in the evening with these marks of age, he departs out of it in the morning in all the follies and vanities of youth;-"_He was shaked_" (we are told) "_of a burning quotidian tertian;-the young King had run bad humours on the knight;-his heart was fracted and corroborate; and a' parted just between twelve and one, even at the turning of the tide, yielding the crow a pudding, and passing directly into __ARTHUR'S BOSOM__, if ever man went into the bosom of __ARTHUR__._"-So ended this singular buffoon; and with him ends an Essay, on which the reader is left to bestow what character he pleases: An Essay professing to treat of the Courage of _Falstaff_, but extending itself to his Whole character; to the arts and genius of his Poetic-Maker, SHAKESPEARE; and thro' him sometimes, with ambitious aim, even to the principles of human nature itself.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 4,673 ~ ~ ~
From _A Whore_, Spenser Society Reprint of Folio of 1630, p. 272.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 4,903 ~ ~ ~
Eo nempe modo quo et olim _whorson_ dixerunt pro _son of a whore_.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 5,865 ~ ~ ~
The rhyming parts of the Historic plays are all, I think, of an older date than the times of _Shakespeare_.-There was a Play, I believe, of _the Acts of King John_, of which the bastard _Falconbridge_ seems to have been the hero and the fool: He appears to have spoken altogether in rhyme.