The comedies, histories, tragedies, and poems of William Shakspere . ; and some wag wrote hisepitaph as described by Hamlet,—• For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is hobby-horse of the May-games required aperson of considerable skill to manage him,although his body was only of wicker work, andhis head and neck of pasteboard. Sogliardo, inBen Jonsons Every Man out of his Humour,describes how he danced in him :— Sogliardo. Nay, look you, sir, theres neer a gentle-man in the country has the like humors for the hobby-horse as I have; I have the method for the threading ofthe needle and all,
The comedies, histories, tragedies, and poems of William Shakspere . ; and some wag wrote hisepitaph as described by Hamlet,—• For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is hobby-horse of the May-games required aperson of considerable skill to manage him,although his body was only of wicker work, andhis head and neck of pasteboard. Sogliardo, inBen Jonsons Every Man out of his Humour,describes how he danced in him :— Sogliardo. Nay, look you, sir, theres neer a gentle-man in the country has the like humors for the hobby-horse as I have; I have the method for the threading ofthe needle and all, the Carlo. Hovf, the method ? Sng. Ay, the leigerity for that, and the whighhie, andthe daggers in the nose, and the travels of the egg fromfinger to finger, and all the humors incident to the horse hangs at home in my parlour. I II keep it fora monument as long as I live, sure. 226 ILLUSTKATIONS. [act III. Strutt, in his antiquarian romance of Queen- I of tlie hobby-horse and the dragon and Friarhoo Hall/ has given at length the gambols | Scene I.— The boy hath sold htm a bargain. This comedy is running over with allusionsto country sports—one of the many proofs thatin its original shape it may be assigned to theauthors greenest years. The sport which sodelights Costard about the fox, the ape, and thehumble-bee, has been explained by Capell, whoselumbering and obscure comments upon Sliak-spere have been pillaged and sneered at by theother commentators. In this instance they takeno notice of him. It seems, according to Capell,that selling a bargain consisted in drawinga person in by some stratagem to proclaim him-self fool by his own lips; and thus, when Mothmakes his master repeat the Venvoy ending inthe goose, he proclaims himself a goose, accord-ing to the rustic wit, which Costard calls selling a bargain well. • Fast and loose, towhich he alludes, Avas another holiday sport;and the goose that ended the market alludes tothe proverb three women
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