when he followed it up by the acquisition of landed property and armorial bearings, one of them could restrain himself no longer, and so he put into the mouth of a cavilling scholar these words: England affords those glorious vagabonds That carried earst their fardels on their backes With mouthing words that better wits have framed The last couplet is supposed to point the reference unmistakably to Shakespeare, to whose father a grant of arms was made (probably at the instance of the poet) in 1596, and who bought a house and land at Stratford in the following year. To my mind, the courser is no less suggestive. I believe that its advent preceded by many years the acquisition of either land or armorial bearings, and a sly hit at the envy of his fellows may have been intended when in touching up Greene's True Contention he made Jack Cade thus address the Lord Say: Thou dost ride in a foot-cloth, dost thou not? Cade. Marry, thou oughtest not to let thy horse wear a cloak, when honester men than thou go in their hose and doublets. 2 Hen. VI. iv. 7. 51. However this may be, to buy this courser he must needs. go to Smithfield. This great London mart had not the best of characters. 'Where's Bardolph?' asked Falstaff. Page. He's gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a horse. Fal. I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in Smithfield; an I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived. 2 Hen. IV. i. 2. 55. The Returne from Pernassus, acted in 1602. 2 Smithfield was a mart for horses from the reign of Henry II. Later on, Froissart tells us that Wat Tyler, Jack Straw, and John Ball'assembled their company to commune together in a place called Smithfield, where every Friday there is a market of horses' (Chronicles, Lord Berners' translation). Here A CLOUD IN THE FACE 255 These words record a personal experience in horsedealing, the key to which-as to most of Shakespeare's allusions to horses and sport-may be found where least you would expect it; in this instance in a Roman play. When Octavius Cæsar was taking leave of his sister Octavia, wedded to Mark Antony, the aspect of his countenance was noted by two lookers on: by his friend Agrippa, and by Domitius Enobarbus who followed the fortunes of his rival Antony. They spoke as follows: Eno. (aside to Agr.) Will Cæsar weep Agr. (aside to Eno.) He has a cloud in's face. Eno. (aside to Agr.) He were the worse for that, were he a horse; So is he, being a man. Ant. and Cleop. iii. 2. 51. Enobarbus' grim jest would have prospered better in the ear of a Smithfield horse-courser than it has fared with some of the critics. Mr. Grant White explains it as 'an allusion to the dislike which horse fanciers have to white marks or other discolorations in the face of that animal.' The horsecourser could have told him that the words meant the exact opposite. The horse with a cloud in his face was one with no white star. Fitzherbert, in his Boke of Husbandrie, commends the white star. 'It is an excellent good marke also for a horse to have a white star in his forehead. The horse that hath no white at all upon him is furious, dogged, full of mischiefe and misfortune.' Thus Gervase Markham; but was held the celebrated fair, the humours of which are drawn to the life by Ben Jonson in his Bartholomew Fair, the comedy which won for him the title of rare Ben Jonson.' 'You are in Smithfield,' says Waspe to his master, ‘you may fit yourself with a fine easy-going street nag for your saddle again Michaelmas term, do.' Dan Jordan Knockem, one of the characters in this play, is a horse courser, or jobber, a class which ranked lower in public estimation than the horse-master, who either bred the horses he sold, or bought them as young, unbroken colts (Fitzherbert, Boke of Husbandrie). Fitzherbert, one of the Justices of the Court of Common Pleas tempore Hen. VIII. proclaims himself a horse-master. Burton (Anatomy of Melancholy) bears testimony to the evil repute of Smithfield, and it was a common saying that a man must not make choyce of three things in three places: of a wife in Westminstre; of a servant in Paules; of a horse in Smithfield; lest he chuse a queane, a knave, or a jade ' (The Choice of Change, 1598). 1 Cavalarice, G. Markham. in the common language of the stable, such a horse was said to have a cloud in his face. Equus nebula (ut vulgo dicitur) in facie, cujus vultus tristis est et melancholicus, jure vituperatur, says the learned Sadleirus in his work, De procreandis etc. equis (1587).' But Smithfield taught the lesson fronti nulla fides. The horse carefully chosen for his fair white brow developed in time the fateful cloud. For the Smithfield horse-courser had skill to make a false star in the forehead, and the old masters of farriery did not scruple to tell him how the trick might be done, so as to deceive the unwary-for they taught also how to distinguish the artificial from the natural white. And so the purchaser, notwithstanding all his care, might find himself the owner of such a steed as Emily bestowed on Arcite : a black one, owing 2 Not a hair-worth of white, which some will say His goodness with this note; which superstition It may have been for good cause that the superstition of the clouded face found allowance with the author of these lines and of Antony and Cleopatra, for the story of the showy black courser with the ill-omened cloud was perhaps a personal reminiscence of what happened to the writer in very deed, 1 From Sadler's words ut vulgo dicitur, the expression cloud in the face' seems to have been in general use. Those who had not Shakespeare's intimate knowledge of the language of the stable probably used it without any clear idea of its meaning, as Burton may have done when he wrote 'every louer admires his mistress, though she be very deformed of herselfe-thin leane chitty face, haue clouds in her face' (Anatomy of Melancholy). A coal black without any white' is, according to Markham (Maister-peece), a cholerick horse' partaking ‘more of the fire than of the other elements.' Homer had sound views in regard to the forehead, for at the funeral games in honour of Patroclus, the horse noted by Idomeneus was one ὃς τὸ μὲν ἄλλο τόσον φοῖνιξ ἦν, ἐν δὲ μετώπῳ Il. xxiii. 454. Two Noble Kinsmen, v. 4. 50. As to Shakespeare's share in the authorship of this play, see Note, Critical Significance of Shakespeare's Allusions to Field Sports. AN ALLOWED SUPERSTITION 257 but fortunately with a less tragical result as regards the rider. As Arcite, mounted on this horse, was Trotting the stones of Athens, which the calkins a sudden spark flew forth, with this result: The hot horse, hot as fire, Took toy at this, and fell to what disorder His power could give his will, bounds, comes on end, And of kind manage; pig-like he whines Of boisterous and rough jadery, to disseat His lord that kept it bravely: when naught serv'd, Disroot his rider whence he grew, but that He kept him 'tween his legs, on his hind hoofs On end he stands, That Arcite's legs, being higher than his head, Seem'd with strange art to hang; his victor's wreath Even then fell off his head; and presently Backward the jade comes o'er, and his full poise Becomes the rider's load. 'Furious, dogged, full of mischiefe and misfortune,' in the words of Gervase Markham, was this ill-starred steed; and though proper palfreys black as jet'1 might please the eye in the sallet days when the showy black courser was bought, and when Titus Andronicus was thought worth adapting, we can trace, along with the development of the mighty genius of Shakespeare, the growth of a sounder judgment in the matter of horseflesh. Later on, roan Barbary, and the Dauphin's prince of palfreys, are more to his mind; proving him to be of the same opinion with Master 1 Tit. Andr. v. 2. 50. S Blundevill, who tells us that a fair rone' is among all kinds most commendable, most temperat, strongest and of gentlest nature.' Of this roan we shall hear more anon, for it also is a personal reminiscence. But there is more to be looked to, if you would choose your horse aright, than his white marks, his colour, or even than that ostrich feather,' of which Blundevill says that the horse that hath it either on his forhead, or on both sides of his maine, or on the one side, or else behind on his buttockes, or in anie place where he himself cannot see it, can never be an euill horse.' For, he wisely adds, though the horse be neuer so well coloured and marked, yet is he little worth unlesse his shape be accordinglie.' And I am certain that the author of Venus and Adonis, though he may have had reason to rail at Smithfield in the matter of the clouded face, made no mistake in regard to shape, provided he carried in his eye the points which he had noted in Adonis's trampling courser : So did this horse excel a common one In shape, in courage, colour, pace, and bone. Round-hoof'd, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long, Ven. and Ad. 293. This is a picture of the perfect English horse, drawn with pen and ink, as when a painter would surpass the life, In limning out a well-proportioned steed.1 Ibid. 289. 1 Professor Dowden asks in regard to this passage, 'Is it poetry, or a paragraph from an advertisement of a horse sale?' (Shakspere, his Mind and Art). And in truth it is scarcely more poetical than Blundevill's catalogue of points in his chapter entitled, What shape a good horse ought to have, from which I give the following extract, in his own words, but in the order of the description in Venus and Adonis : ‘Round hoofe; pasterns short; his joints great with long feawter locks behind which is a signe of force; his breast large and round; |