The Druids were divided into three classes. The sacerdotal order wore white, the bards blue, and the third order, the Ovates or Obydds, who professed letters, medicine, and astronomy, wore green. Dion Cassius describes the dress of a British queen in the person of the famous Bonduca or Boadicea. He tells us that she wore a torque of gold, a tunic of several colours all in folds, and over it a robe of coarse stuff. Her light hair fell down her shoulders far below the waist. The costume and arms of the Romans will be noticed at considerable length in the Parts appropriated to the Tragedies of Coriolanus and Julius Cæsar. "THE people of Britain," says Strabo, "are generally ignorant of the art of cultivating gardens." By "the garden behind Cymbeline's palace" we should perhaps, therefore, in the spirit of minute antiquarianism, understand "a grove." But it is by no means clear that the Romans had not introduced their arts to an extent that might have made Cymbeline's palace bear some of the characteristics of a Roman villa. A highy-civilized people very quickly impart the external forms of their civilization to those whom they have colonised. We do not therefore object, even in a prosaic view of the matter, that the garden, as our artist has represented it, has more of ornament than belongs to the Druidical grove. The houses of the inhabitants in general might retain iu a great degree their primitive rudeness. When Julius Cæsar invaded Britain, the people of the southern coasts had already learned to build houses a little more substantial and convenient than those of the inland inhabitants. "The country," he remarks, "abounds in houses, which very much resemble those of Gaul." Now those of Gaul are thus described by Strabo:-"They build their houses of wood, in the form of a circle, with lofty tapering roofs."-Lib. v. The foundations of some of the most substantial of these circular houses were of stone, of which there are still some remains in Cornwall, Anglesey, and other places. Strabo says, The forests of the Britons are their cities; for, when they have enclosed a very large circuit with felled trees, they build within it houses for themselves and hovels for their cattle."-Lib. iv. But Cymbeline was one of the most wealthy and powerful of the ancient British kings. His capital was Camulodunum, supposed to be Maldon or Colchester. It was the first Roman colony in this island, and a place of great maguificence. We have not therefore to assume that ornament would be misplaced in it. Though the walls of Imogen's chamber, still subjecting the poetical to the exact, might by some be considered as proper to be of rude stone or wood, it may very fairly be supposed that it was decorated with the rich hangings and the other tasteful appendages described by Iachimo *-the presents of the Roman emperors, with whom Cymbeline and his ancestors had been in amity, or procured from the Greek and Phoenician merchants, who were constantly in commercial intercourse with Britain. (See, for fuller information on this subject, The Costume of the Original Inhabitants of the British Isles,' by S. R. Meyrick, LL.D., and Chas. Hamilton Smith, Esq.; fol. Lond. 1821.) But, after all, a play such as Cymbeline, is not to be viewed through the medium only of the literal and the probable. In its poetical aspect it essentially disregards the few facts respecting the condition of the Britons delivered down by the classic historians. Shakspere in this followed the practice of every writer of the romantic school. The costume (including scenery) had better want conformity with Strabo, than be out of harmony with Shakspere. * The "andirons" and "chimney piece" belong to the age of Elizabeth. But Shakspere, when he commits what we call anachronisms, uses what is familiar to render intelligible what would otherwise be cbscure and remote. The passage in the original edition (folio of 1623) stands thus: "You do not meet a man but frowns. Still seem, as do's the king's." In several editions courtiers is sometimes printed as the genitive case; sometimes is cut off from the verb seem by a semicolon, and the king's is retained as the genitive case. This we have ventured to alter to king, as Tyrwhitt suggested. As we have punctuated the passage, we think it presents no difficulty. Blood is used by Shakspere for natural disposition, as in All's Well that Ends Well "Now his important blood will nought deny The meaning of the passage then is-You do not meet a man but frowns: our bloods do not more obey the heavens than our courtiers still seem as the king seems. As is afterwards expressed -"they wear their faces to the bent 1 Gent. His daughter, and the heir of his kingdom, whom He purpos'd to his wife's sole son, (a widow, Her husband banish'd; she imprison'd: all 2 Gent, None but the king? 2 Gent. What's his name, and birth? 1 Gent. I cannot delve him to the root: His father Was call'd Sicilius, who did join his honour, (Then old and fond of issue,) took such sorrow Breeds him, and makes him of his bed-chamber: a You carry your praise far. Extend is here used in the same sense as in the fifth Scene of this Act: "His banishment, and the approbation of those that weep this lamentable divorce are wonderfully to extend him." The Gentleman says-I do extend himappreciate his good qualities-but only within the real limits of what they are: instead of unfolding his measure duly, I crush him together-compress his excellence. Malone thinks that the term extend is originally legal. An extent, according to Blackstone, is an order to the sheriff to appraise lands or goods to their full extended value. It is a well-known term in old Scotch law, meaning nearly the same as a census or valuation. So the folio. The variorum editors rejected the second name, reading "To his protection; calls him Posthumus." To make a line of ten syllables-as if dramatic rhythm had no irregularities-they have destroyed the sense. The name of Posthumus Leonatus was given to connect the child with the memory of his father, and to mark the circumstance of his being born after his father's death. d Puts to him is the original reading, which has been sometimes corrupted into puts him to. e We arrange these two lines, as in the folio. Some modern editors read "As we do air, fast as 't was minister'd, and In his spring becaine a harvest." f Feated. Johnson says, "a glass that formed them." But fent is used by Shakspere for nice, exact, with pro priety-as in The Tempest "And look how well my garments sit upon me How long is this ago? 1 Gent. Some twenty years. 2 Gent. That a king's children should be so convey'd! So slackly guarded! And the search so slow, 1 Gent. Howsoe'er 't is strange, Or that the negligence may well be laugh'd at, Yet is it true, sir. 2 Gent. I do well believe you. 1 Gent. We must forbear: Here comes the gentleman, queen, and princess. The a SCENE II-The same. [Exeunt. Enter the QUEEN, Posthumus, and IMOGEN. Queen. No, be assur'd, you shall not find me, daughter, After the slander of most step-mothers, I will be known your advocate: marry, yet Post. I will from hence to-day. Please your highness, Queen. You know the peril :-I'll fetch a turn about the garden, pitying The of barr'd affections; though the king pangs and, consequently, the glass which feats the mature who look upon Posthumus, is the mark and glass, copy and book," which renders their appearance and deportment as proper as his own. a The most important person (with reference to this conversation) who was coming is Posthumus-"the gentleman." The editors, however, quietly drop him, reading-"We must forbear: here comes the queen, and princess." What can justify such capricious alterations of the text? |