SHAKESPEARE ON THE "BIKE."

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 3817, 9 April 1898, Page 4

SHAKESPEARE ON THE "BIKE."

IT Shakpspeare, it would perro, lim^l" hove known somnthing about tho bicycle, for throughout his plays he makes frequent rpforenco to tbo wheel. It must be that TlamUt'.s father had visited a bicycle academy, whore beginners on tho wheel wore plenty, for his OhiM said : — " What a falling off was there !" This most excellent description is paralleled by another in the samo play, in which reference is made to an accident, the new woman of tho early sixteenth century being evidently the greatest sufferer. Tho ilrst player says; — " Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel." Then the Fool in Lear pivos n-lvice to coasters, of fcho merits of which the modern rider may judge for himself. He sayn :—: — " Let us go thy hold when a great wheel runs down hill, le.st it break thy neck with following it." Even Cleopatra had her wheel Antony advises her to mount it and seek Cicsar, whon he says: — "Of Ca-ar seek jour honour, with your ' safety.'" Thero woiv evidently bicycle thiovo? : in those days, iuid owners had to I carefully guard their precious whei 1* ; the Tempest Alonzo says to the King :— " We, too, my lord, Will guard your person while you take your* : rest, And watch your ' safety.' " In that same play, Ariel undoubtedly beard the King and his atteridants coming on their wheels when she sang :— " Hark I Now I hear them; ding-dong I bell." Thore is no doubt that Achilles, in Troilus and Cressida, travelled on a bicycle, for he says to the myrmidons :—: — " Attend me while I wheel." Ifc is safo to assume that, as to-day the wheel is a neverending source of conversation, so was it at the time of Titus Andronicus, though the listener whs more patient then. Aaron says to Demetrius :—: — "Now tnlk at pleasuscof your ' safety.' " It appears from a quotation made by tho king in All's Well that Ends Well that the law required lamps to be carried at night, and that a violation of it was followed by death. He says: — " Let me live after my /lame lacks oil." Chains were not noiseless, and bells wore used in the days of the Comedy of Errors, as is shown by a conversation between the Dromio of Syracu?e and Adriana, which runs thus: — " A chain, a chain, do you not hear it ?"' " Whit, the chain?" No, no; the bell," The availability of wheels in dangerous service is illustrated in Coriolanus, when the winged messenger says to Cominius :—: — " Spies of the Volsces I Held me in chase, that I was forced to wheel I Three or four miles about; else had, sir, ; Half an hour since brought my reprot." The tire of which Shakespeare wrote was evidently filled with hair instead of air, aud even its colour was of impoftanne. .In Much Ado About Nothing, Margaret says :—: — " I like the new tire within excellently, if the hair were a thought browner.' Puck's prophetic remarks about plating a girdle round the world in forty minutes is fully equalled by that of Laucce in the Two Gentlemen of Verona. He says :—: — " Then, may I set the world on wheels." Surely this prophicy has been I fulfilled.—lnvention,