Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/202

The Clown is not only quaint, droll, full of banter, sly with sense, like clowns in the other plays, but he is the most ebullient with spirits of them all, ready for the next freak, to dissemble himself in the curate's gown and carry on two voices with Malvolio in the prison, keeping him on the rack the while, or to carouse with the two knights till daybreak, and delight them with manufacturing burlesques. "Thou wast in very gracious fooling last night, when thou spokest of Pigrogromitus, of the Vapians passing the equinoctial of Queubus: 'twas very good, i' faith. I sent thee sixpence for thy leman: hadst it?" Feste resumes the burlesquing humor: "I did impeticos thy gratillity; for Malvolio's nose is no whipstock: my lady has a white hand, and the Myrmidons are no bottle-ale houses." As for "bottle-ale," the phrase occurs once more in Shakspeare, 2 "Henry IV.," ii. 4, to express contempt,—"Away, you bottle-ale rascal!" So Feste does not think small-beer of the Myrmidons, or retainers of Olivia, who might scent out his sixpence as quickly as Malvolio. Was the bottling of ale just coming in, to the immense disgust of the loyal Briton, who thought nobly of the ancient brew and would not have it save mightily on tap? The words, "Pigrogromitus," "Vapians," "Queubus," sound like the names which Rabelais manufactured to cover his sly allusions to public personages; but they cannot be traced. It is just possible that Shakspeare invented them to burlesque the words and style which mariners and travellers brought home to vapor with to eager listeners in the taverns: marvels of the East that would not stay in Damascus,