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quently published 'Catch that Catch can,' as | Shakspere's plays, as is supposed to have been well as another work which he names. This is a question into which we shall not enter, our only object being to give such music, as part of

originally sung in them, or that may have been introduced in them shortly after their production.

21 SCENE III.-"I see, love hath made thee a quently used to express a poor contemptible tame snake." fellow." We have no doubt that the allusion

Upon this passage the commentators simply was to the snake made harmless by the serpentsay, "This term was, in our author's time, fre

charmer.

[Serpent Charmers of India.]

ل

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ACT V.

92 SCENE III." It was a lover, and his lass." a duet, unless the two pages sang in unison-performed in the play, either as this was originIn the Signet-Office library at Edinburgh is a ally acted, or not long after its production. But MS. in 4to., formerly in the possession of Mr. whether our conjecture-and only as such we Heber, containing many songs set to music, and offer it-be well or ill founded, there can be no among them the following. It seems quite clear doubt that the composition is one of those that this manuscript cannot have been written which, in musical chronology, is classed as later than sixteen years after the publication of ancient. We here give it, with the simple and the present play, and may have existed at a modern accompaniment, as it is printed in the much earlier period; it is, therefore, not strain-Collection of National Airs,' edited by Mr. ing probability too hard to suppose that the air Chappell (vol. i. p. 81), a valuable work, to here inserted was, in some form-most likely as which we have before been indebted.

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hey

non ne no, and a hey

no nee no, ni no,

That

o'er the greene corne field did passe In spring tyme, in spring tyme, in spring tyme, The

on - lie prettie

ring tyme, When birds doo sing, Hey ding a ding a ding, Hey

ding a ding a ding, Hey ding a ding a ding; Sueet 10 -
- vers love the spring.

COSTUME.

Although Shakspere has not given a name either to the duchy in which the scene is laid, or the duke who has been deprived of it, we have one point to guide us in our selection of the costume of this exquisite comedy,—namely, the circumstance of an independent duchy in France. The action must therefore be supposed to take place before the union of the great fiefs to the crown, and consequently not later than the reign of Louis XII., whose marriage with

Anne of Brittany incorporated that last and most independent province with the royal dominions. Illuminations of the reign of Charles VIII., the immediate predecessor of Louis XII., have been elsewhere suggested as furnishing a picturesque and appropriate costume for the usurping duke and his courtiers, and a MS. in the Royal Library at Paris (Rondeaux Chants

■ ' Costume of Shakespear's Comedy of As You Like It, by J. R. Planché. 12mo, London, 1825.

Royal, No. 6989) as supplying the hunting dress of the time". Many of the former are engraved in Montfaucon's 'Monarchie Française,' and some figures from the latter will be found in Mons. Willemin's superb work, 'Monumens inédites, &c.' The dress of a shepherd of this period may be found in Pynson's 'Shepherd's Kalendar: and the splendid Harleian MS. No. 4425, presents us with the ordinary habits of an ecclesiastic when not clad in the sacred vestments of his office or order.

The late Mr. Douce, in his admirable disser

See also Modus le Roy. Livre de Chasse.' Folio,

Chambery, 1486.

tation on the clowns of Shakspere, has made the following remarks on the dress of this character:-"Touchstone is the domestic fool of Frederick, the duke's brother, and belongs to the class of witty or allowed fools. He is threatened with the whip, a mode of chastisement which was often inflicted on these motley personages. His dress should be a partycoloured garment. He should occasionally carry a bauble in his hand and wear ape's ears to his hood, which is probably the head-dress intended by Shakespeare, there being no allusion whatever to a cock's head or a comb."

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