be permitted to bury their dead and

"Sort our nobles from our common men;
For many of our princes (wo the while!)
Lie drowned and soaked in mercenary blood;
So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs
In blood of princes." (Henry V., Act 4, Sc. 7.)

With equal courtesy Richard III., on Bosworth field, speaks of his
opponents to the gentlemen around him:

"Remember what you are to cope withal--
A sort of vagabonds, rascals, and runaways,
A scum of Bretagne and base lackey peasants."
(Act 5, Sc. 3.)

But Shakespeare does not limit such epithets to armies. Having, as we
have seen, a poor opinion of the lower classes, taken man by man, he
thinks, if anything, still worse of them taken _en masse_, and at his
hands a crowd of plain workingmen fares worst of all. "Hempen
home-spuns," Puck calls them, and again

"A crew of patches, rude mechanicals,
That work for bread upon Athenian stalls."

Bottom, their leader, is, according to Oberon, a "hateful fool," and
according to Puck, the "shallowest thick-skin of that barren sort"
(Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 3, Scs. 1 and 2, Act 4, Sc. 1). Bottom's
advice to his players contains a small galaxy of compliments:

"In any case let Thisby have clean linen, and let not him
that plays the lion pare his nails, for they shall hang out
for the lion's claws. And, most dear actors, eat no onion or
garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath, and I do not doubt
to hear them say, it is a sweet comedy."
(Ib., Act 4, Sc. 2.)

The matter of the breath of the poor weighs upon Shakespeare and his
characters. Cleopatra shudders at the thought that

"mechanic slaves,
With greasy aprons, rules and hammers, shall
Uplift us to the view; in their thick breaths
Rank of gross diet, shall we be enclouded,
And forced to drink their vapor."
(Antony and Cleopatra, Act 5, Sc. 2.)

Coriolanus has his sense of smell especially developed. He talks of the
"stinking breaths" of the people (Act 2, Sc. 1), and in another place
says:

"You common cry of curs, whose breath I hate
As reek of rotten fens, whose love I prize
As the dead carcasses of unburied men
That do corrupt the air, I banish you,"

and he goes on to taunt them with cowardice (Act 3, Sc. 3). They are the
"mutable, rank-scented many" (Act 3, Sc. 1). His friend Menenius is
equ