U4 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2»'i S. VII. Feb. 19. '69. 



derigo, Osrick, and Count Basset. Farley took 

 them, and kept them to the last. His Poins was a 

 speaking picture ; his Osrick, Cloten, and Rode- 

 ngo, all fools in different ways, were charmingly 

 discriminated by him. There are few such true 

 bits of Shaksperian acting now to be seen, — acting 

 in which the person represented, and not the 

 player, stands before you, except perhaps in the 

 Gravedigger (in Hamlet) of Mr. H. Widdicombe. 

 How he looked in Canton is well known to 

 most of us by the engraving containing the por- 

 traits of himself, Mr. Farren, and Jones, in the 

 toilet-scene of The Clandestine Marriage. This 

 was one of the best of his French parts, of which 

 no two were alike ; and yet he was in some degree 

 a mannerist. We may have heard his Count Sans 

 Chateau described, and also his Champignon ; but 

 many of us can remember him in Canton and Dr. 

 Caius ; and in these, not inferior to his Papillion 

 in The Lyar, he was admirable for variety and 

 minuteness. The same may be said for all his 

 fops. In the representation of these his voice 

 assisted him, for he had a curious bubbling sound, 

 which he could less control as his very remarkable 

 nose grew larger and larger. But he did not de- 

 pend on a defect for an effect. He was great with- 

 out speaking, and his performance of the dumb 

 Francisco, in the Tale of Mystery, was as elo- 

 quent and touching as though he had had a 

 hundred tongues all tuned to tell with irresistible 

 force a tale of suffering. 



Some of the parts of which he was the original 

 performer, may occasionally yet be seen upon the 

 stage — metropolitan or provincial. I may name 

 as a few of them, Bronze, in The Cure for the 

 Heart- Ache; Sir Charles Crofton, in The Poor 

 Gentleman; Valentine, in Valentine and Orson; 

 Francisco, in The Tale of Mystery ; Kalig, in The 

 Blind Boy ; Count Grenouille, in We Fly by 

 Night; and Grindoff, in The Miller and his Men. 

 To the middle-ajied and elders of the present 

 generation, he will be best remembered by the 

 last character. As the bandit-miller he was, night 

 after night, hard at work — loving, jilting, grind- 

 ing corn, sinjiing glees, and getting blown up by 

 a final explosion, which, with rare discrimination, 

 injured only the wicked — to the intense delight 

 of audiences who made the streets musical with 

 " When the wind blows," &c. 



Jolliest of millers, most imposing of Tartars, 

 most wicked of sorcerers, most abominable of ruf- 

 fians, gayest of Frenchmen, most laughable of 

 fops, — a score of years ago, he laid down all, and, 

 curiously enough, got rid, with medical assistance, 

 of a great portion of that huge nose that used so 

 •well to serve hina on the stage. He lived sur- 

 rounded by troops of friends, and died regretted 

 by them, — not altogether, we believe, unindebted 

 to the Fund, of which he was a great promoter, 

 a staunch supporter, and to which he was a 



steady contributor during the years he was " in 

 harness." J. Doean. 



DIABLERIE ILLUSTRATED BT HAR8NET. 



If your pages are open to diablerie of any kind, 

 the following extracts from that scarce, curious, 

 and caustic book of Dr. S. H. (Samuel Harsnet), 

 entitled A Declai-ation of egregious Popish Impos- 

 tures, ^c, London, 1603, may prove interesting, 

 especially as they afford significant illustrations of 

 passages in two of our greatest poets. 



Harsnet's work, which I have gone through 

 paginatim for the Philological Society, abounds 

 with curious words and quaint phrases which I 

 cannot now particularise, but proceed to give a 

 list of Devils from his tenth chapter, as Anony- 

 mos, Bernon, Bonjour, Cliton, Cocabetto, Cor-« 

 nerd-Cappe or Corner-Cap, Delicat, Frateretto, 

 Fliberdigibet, (Lustie) Dicke or Dickie (Lustie), 

 Huffe-Cap, Haberdicut or Hoberdicut, Hob, He- 

 lemodion, Hoberdidance, Hilo, Hillio, Hilco, 

 Lustie Jollie-Jenkin, Killico, Killicocam, Ij^aho, 

 Modu, Modion, Malkin, Motubiyanto, Nurre, 

 Philpot, Pippin, Portiricchio, Pour-Dieu ! Pud- 

 ding-of-Thame, Puffe, Purre, Smolkin, Soforce, 

 Tocabetto, Wilkin. 



Warburton, in his notes on Shakspeare, first 

 I believe pointed out the above as the source of 

 the names of Edgar's devils in King Lear, to 

 which he was not improbably led by a perusid of 

 Dr. Francis Hutchinson's History of Witchcraft^ 

 8vo., 1718, who refers to and quotes (p. 18.) Hars-. 

 net's book, as also his Discoverie of the fraudulent 

 Practises of John Darrell, Sfc, 1599, vide p. 189. 



Compare Edgar, in King Lear, Act III. Sc. 4., 

 where he speaks of 



" The foul fiend Flibbertigibbet," 

 and 



" Peace, Smolkin ; peace, thou fiend." 



Again : — 



" The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman : 

 Mode he's called, and Mahu." 



Again : — 



" Frateretto calls me ; and tells me, Nero is an angler in 

 the lake of Darkness." 



Again : — 



" Hop-Dance cries in Tom's belli/," &c. 

 and 



" Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once ; of Lust, as 

 Obidicut ; Hobbididence, Prince of Dumbness ; Mahu of 

 Stealing; Modo of Murder; Flibbertigibbet of Mopfing 

 and Mowing, who since possesses chamber-maids and wait- 

 ing-women." 



This exactly applies to the case of Sara Wil- 

 liams, of whom Harsnet says (p. 21.) : — 



"She was a long time managed (menag£e9) to be 

 brought to the Line, and for her better advancement in 

 her Maister's Ej'e shee was made Mistris Peckham's 

 chamber-mayd Pardie." 



