Essays from Shakspere - George Somers Bellamy

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1879 Excerpt: ... ESSAYS FROM SHAKSPERE. (Sssag Jr. MOURNING FOR THE DEAD. Fool: Good madonna, give me leave to prove you a fool. Oliv.: Can you do it Fool: Dexterously, good madonna. Oliv.: Make your proof. Fool: I must catechise you for it, madonna: good my mouse of virtue, answer me. Oliv.: "Well, sir, for want of other idleness, I'll bide your proof. Fool: Good madonna, why mourn'st thou 1 Oliv.: Good fool, for my brother's death. Fool: I think his soul is in hell, madonna. Oliv.: I know his soul is in heaven, fool. Fool: The more fool you, madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul being in heaven.--Take away the fool, gentlemen. Twelfth Night, Act i. sc. 5. B "To persevere In obstinate condolement is a course Of impious stubbornness: 'tis unmanly grief; It shows a will most incorrect to heaven, A heart unfortified, a mind impatient, An understanding simple and unschool'd. 'Tis a fault to heaven, A fault against the dead, a fault to nature, To reason most absurd." Hamlet, Act i. sc. 2. IHE Rev. A. G. L'Estrange, in a recent work entitled English Humour, gives an interesting account of minstrels and fools of the Middle Ages. According to this writer, the Court fool was sometimes a mere idiot and butt, or that he corresponded with his name in having some mental weakness or eccentricity; but it not unfrequently happened that he was a man of genius, far superior to his masters. Taking our Middle Age dramatists as authorities on this subject, it is evident that many of the Court fools were shrewd, clever men, and not unfrequently men of genius. If our dramatists are to be taken alone as authorities on this subject, it would seem that the mere idiot, or man with a mental weakness, was the exception, not the rule; but then considerable allowance must be made for the fact that ...