2nd §, No 5., Fer. 2. °56.] 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
89 
which he shows that he took umbrage at the 
vulgar familiarity of Hamlet, in alluding to his mo- 
ther's shoes, I have, after a diligent search, failed 
to discover a single note in extenuation, explana- 
tion, illustration, or emendation, of what appears 
to me a singular anti-climax. I can hardly con- 
ceive that any intelligent reader of the passage 
and context can fail to be conscious of a halt in 
the first two lines, and to suspect that the hitch is, 
not as the French dramatist says, in the vulgar 
familiarity of the allusion, but, in the inappropri- 
ateness and incongruity of Hamlet, making the 
antiquity or the wear and tear of his mother's 
shoes the measure of her sorrows, or at least of 
her sense of propriety. I ask with Theobald, ona 
kindred passage in King John, “* Why her shoes, in 
the name of propriety ?” for let them be as black 
as they may, I suppose she did not put them into 
mourning. Now in the passage in King John, to 
which I have alluded, that most sagacious of all 
verbal critics, Theobald, proposed to read Alcides’ 
shows, instead of Alcides’ “shoes ;’’ an emendation 
which the ability of your guondam correspondent, 
A.E.B. (“N.&Q,,” 1% S. viii. 28.), will not serve to 
shelve until he has proved that “ shoes” wagyused 
by the early dramatists to express the entire pro- 
perties of a character. 
_ Itisa year ago since I first suggested shows 
instead of “shoes” in the passage which stands at 
the head of this Note, and time has only served to 
confirm me in that suggestion. Mr. Hunter is 
inclined to adopt movds of the second folio, vice 
“modes,” in a preceding passage of the same 
scene, and to distinguish between the “ forms, 
moods, shows of grief,” thus: 
“Forms, including habits exterior. 
Moods, the musings of the melancholy mind, occasionally 
aud partially appearing. 
Shows of grief, mourning-apparel.” — New Illustrations, 
ii. 216,, 1845. 
In point of fact, Hamlet gives us the definition of 
“shows of grief,” viz. “the trappings and the 
suits of woe;” and he says that he has “that 
within, which passeth show; his sorrow was such 
as no mourning apparel could truly denote. Com, 
paring the passage in which these expressions 
oceur with that which I have taken as text, 
what, I ask, are the shows with which Gertrude 
followed her husband’s corse to the grave but 
“customary suits of solemn black” ? What were 
her Niobe’s tears but “the fruitful river in the 
eye”? What were these but “forms and shows 
of grief”? That there would be no incongruity in 
applying the epithet “old” to these “shows,” 
may be inferred from another passage in Shak- 
speare, even if it were not evident from the special 
use of “shows# in the text. We read: 
“ At Christmas I no more desire a rose, 
Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows.” 
Love's Labour Lost, Act I. Se. 1. 
There may be other passages still more in point, 
but I take the first at hand. I paraphrase the 
text thus: 
« Before my mother’s ‘mourning-weeds’ (2 Hen. VI.) 
were worn out, she doffed them for the wedding-gear. 
Oh! most wicked speed,” &c. 
Accordingly, I regulate the passage thus : 
“ A little month; or e’er those shows were old, 
With which she followed my poor father’s body, 
Like Niobe, all tears; ” &c. 
C. Mansrietp InGLEBY. 
Birmingham. 
ILLUSTRATIONS OF MACAULAY. 
The Song of Lillibullero. — Several of our 
readers have suggested to us the propriety of 
reprinting in our columns one of the most talked 
of, yet least known, songs that ever gave a voice 
to public feeling, namely, Lillibullero. True it is 
that it may be found — at least the first portion 
of it—in Percy’s Reliques, vol. ii. p. 373., edit. 
1794; but it is not every one who would think 
of looking there for it, even if possessed of a copy 
of Percy. 
Before quoting the song, let us give its history 
in the words both of Burnet and Macaulay. Bur- 
net (History of his Own: Time) says : 
“ The king [James II.] saw himself forsaken by those 
whom he had trusted and favoured most, even by his own 
children; and of the army, there was not one body en- 
tirely united and firm to him. A foolish ballad made at 
the time, treating Papists, chiefly Irish, in a ridiculous 
manner, had a burden, said to be Irish words, ‘lero, lero, 
lillibulero, that made an impression on the army that 
cannot be well imagined by those who saw it not. The 
whole army, and at last all people in city and country, 
were singing it perpetually. Perhaps never had so slight 
a thing so great an effect.” 
On which Swift (with his usual bitterness) says, 
“They are not Trish words, but better than 
Scotch ;” and Lord Dartmouth adds : 
« There was a particular expression in the song which 
the king remembered he had made use of to the Earl of 
Dorset; from whence it was concluded that he was the 
author.” 
Macaulay, in his second volume, p. 428., de- 
scribing the discontent which prevailed among 
the clergy, the gentry, and the army, with the 
conduct of James after the trial of the bishops, 
observes : 
“ Public feeling did not then manifest itself by those 
signs with which we are familiar, by large meetings, and 
by vehement harangues, Nevertheless it found a vent. 
Thomas Wharton, who, in the last Parliament, had re- 
presented ~Buckinghamshire, and who was already con- 
spicuous both as a libertine and as a Whig, had written 
a satirical ballad on the administration of Tyreonnel. In 
this little poem an Irishman congratulates a brother 
Irishman, in a barbarous jargon, on the approaching 
triumph of popery, and of the Milesian race. The Pro- 
testant heir will be excluded. The Protestant officera - 
