Page:The Psychology of Shakespeare.pdf/276

Rh be revenged on the whole pack of you," foreshadowing a criminal information for conspiracy, or at the very least an action for assault and false imprisonment. The theme of Christopher Sly's imputed madness in the Induction of Taming the Shrew turns on the old point of indis tinguished identity. The frolic, to “practise on the drunken man” by letting him awake from the insensibility of his liquor, surrounded by the circumstances of a lord, at once suggests the old question, “Would not the beggar then forget himself?” Sly, we fear, is a sad rogue, though he denies it. “The Sly's are no rogues. Look in the Chronicles, we came in with the Conqueror.” But descent barreth not bad qualities, and a man's lineage may have “crept through scoundrels, ever since the flood.” He would almost barter his birthright for a pot of small ale, and it is not therefore surprising that he should readily enough give up his identity, when bribed with an atmosphere of sensual gratification. Consciousness and conscientiousness are not merely allied in sound. There is exquisite drollery, if there is also some inconsistency in making Sly, who is sane, accept this oft repeated test of alienation. Sly's readiness to submit to a change of identity, is proof positive, if other proofs were wanting, that this test is not trustworthy. He is at first very positive. “What, would you make me mad : Am I not Christopher Sly, old Sly’s son of Burton-heath ; by birth a pedlar, by education a card-maker, by transmutation a bear-herd, and now by present profession a tinker ? Ask Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot, if she know me not : if she say I

am not fourteen pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the lyingest knave in Christendom. What I am not bestraught !” Here is identification with circumstance : but, alas, the

tempter comes to prove all this is but a strange lunacy, and