Part 2
_Car._ "I do professe That for your Highnesse good, I euer labour'd More then mine owne: that am, haue, and will be (Though all the world should cracke their duty to you, And throw it from their Soule, though perils did Abound, as thicke as thought could make 'em, and Appeare in formes more horrid) yet my Duty, As doth a Rocke against the chiding Flood, Should the approach of this wilde Riuer breake, And stand vnshaken yours."
Upon this Mason observes:
"I can find no meaning in these words (that am, have, and will be), or see how they are connected with the rest of the sentence; and should therefore strike them out."
Malone says:
"I suppose the meaning is, '_that_ or _such a man_, I am, have _been_, and will _ever_ be.' Our author has many hard and forced expressions in his plays; but many of the hardnesses in the piece before us appear to me of a different colour from those of Shakspeare. Perhaps however, a line following has been lost; for in the old copy there is no stop at the end of this line; and, indeed, I have some doubt whether a comma ought not to be placed at it, rather than a fullpoint."
Mr. Knight, however, places a fullpoint at _will be_, and says:
"There is certainly some corruption in this passage; for no ellipsis can have taken this very obscure form. Z. Jackson suggests 'that _aim has_ and will be.' This is very harsh. We might read 'That _aim_ I have and will,' _will_ being a noun."
Mr. Collier has the following note:
"In this place we can do no more than reprint exactly the old text, with the old punctuation; as if Wolsey, following 'that am, have, and will be' by a long parenthesis, had forgotten how he commenced his sentence. Something may have been lost, which would have completed the meaning and the instances have not been infrequent where lines, necessary to the sense, have been recovered from the quarto impressions. Here we have no quarto impressions to resort to, and the later folios afford us no assistance, as they reprint the passage as it stands in the folio 1628, excepting that the two latest end the parenthesis at 'break.'"
I cannot think that the poet would have put a short speech into Wolsey's mouth, making him forget how he commenced it! Nor do I believe that anything has been lost, except the slender letter _I_ preceding _am_. The printer or transcriber made the easy mistake of taking the word _true_ for _haue_, which as written of old would readily occur, and having thus confused the passage, had recourse to the unconscionable long mark of a parenthesis. The passage undoubtedly should stand thus:
_Car._ "I do profess That for your highness' good I ever labour'd More than mine own; that _I_ am _true_, and will be Though all the world should _lack_ their duty to you, And throw it from their soul: though perils did Abound, as thick as thought could make them, and Appear in forms more horrid; yet my duty (As doth a rock against the chiding flood,) Should the approach of this wild river break, And stand unshaken yours."
Here all is congruous and clear. This slight correction of a palpable printer's error redeems a fine passage hitherto entirely unintelligible. I do not insist upon the correction in the fourth line of _lack_ for _crack_, yet what can be meant by _cracking a duty_? The duke, in the _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, speaks of his daughter as "_lacking_ duty;" and seeing how very negligently the whole passage has been given in the folio, I think there is good ground for its reception. With regard to the correction in the second line, I feel confident, and doubt not that it will have the approbation of all who, like myself, feel assured that most of the difficulties in the text of our great poet are attributable to careless printer or transcriber.
When I proposed (Vol. vi., p. 468.) to read "_rail_ at once," instead of "_all_ at once," in _As You Like It_, Act III. Sc. 5., I thought the conjecture my own, having then only access to the editions of Mr. Collier and Mr. Knight; I consequently said, "It is somewhat singular that the passage should hitherto have passed unquestioned." My surprise was therefore great, on turning to the passage in the _Variorum Shakspeare_, to find the following note by Warburton, which had escaped my notice:
"If the speaker intended to accuse the person spoken to only for _insulting_ and exulting, then, instead of '_all_ at once,' it ought to have been _both_ at once. But, examining the crime of the person accused, we shall discover that the line is to be read thus:
'That you insult, exult, and _rail_ at once,'
for these three things Phoebe was guilty of. But the Oxford editor improves it, and, for _rail_ at once, reads _domineer_."
I have no recollection of having ever read the note before, and certainly was not conscious of it. The coincidence, therefore, may be considered (as Mr. Collier observed in respect to the reading of _palpable_ for _capable_) as much in favour of this conjecture. {6}
That the most careful printers can _misread_, and consequently _misprint_, copy, is evident from the following error in my last Note:--Vol. vi., p. 584., col. 1, for "in the edition which I gave of the _part_," read "_poet_." This mistake, like most of those I have indicated in the first folio Shakspeare, might easily occur if the word was indistinctly written.
S. W. SINGER.
Mickleham.
* * * * *
NOTES ON BACON'S ESSAYS.
As I find that the editor of _Bacon's Essays_ for Bohn's _Standard Library_ has not verified the quotations, I venture to send you a few "N. & Q." on them, which I hope to continue from time to time, if they prove acceptable. In compliance with the recommendation of MR. SYDNEY SMIRKE and the REV. H. T. ELLACOMBE (Vol. vi., p. 558.), I append my name and address.
N.B. The paging and notes of Bohn's edition are followed throughout.
Preface, p. xiii. note *. "Speech on the Impeachment of Warren Hastings." See Burke's _Works_, vol. viii. p. 15. [ed. 1827.] Speech on the first day of reply.
Ditto, p. xv. Letter to Father Fulgentio. See Montagu's _Bacon_, vol. xi. pref., p. vii.; vol. xii. p. 205.
Ditto, ditto. _Spenser's Faery Queene, &c._ See preface to Moxon's _Spenser_ (1850), p. xxix., where this story is refuted, and Montagu, xvi., note _x_.
Ditto, p. xvi. "It was like another man's fair ground," &c. See Montagu, xvi. p. xxvii.
Ditto, ditto. "I shall die," &c. Ditto, xxxiv. and note _ww_.
Ditto, p. xvii. note +. Dugald Stewart. Supplement to _Encycl. Brit._, vol. i. p. 54. [ed. 1824.]
Ditto, ditto. H_a_tton, not H_u_tton, as in _Eliza Cook's Journal_, vi. 235.
Ditto, ditto. Love an ignoble passion. Essay x. _ad init._
Ditto, p. xviii. "Says Macaulay." Review of B. Montagu's _Bacon Essays_, p. 355. [ed. 1851.]
Ditto, ditto. A pamphlet. Montagu, vi. 299.
Ditto, p. xix. "A place in the Canticles." Cap. ii. 1. Bacon quotes, from memory it would appear, from the Vulgate, which has "Ego flos campi." By whom is the observation? See, for the story, Montagu, xvi. p. xcviii.
Ditto, ditto. "Books were announced." What?
Ditto, p. xx. "Cæsar's compliment to Cicero." Where recorded?
Ditto, p. xxi. "The manufacture of particular articles of trade." Montagu, xvi. 306.
Ditto, p. xxii. "Says Macaulay." _Ut supra_, p. 407.
Ditto, ditto. Ben Jonson. See Underwood's, lxix. lxxviii. [pp. 711, 713. ed. Moxon, 1851.]
Ditto, p. xxv. Marcus Lucius. Who is here alluded to?
Ditto, p. xxvii. "Which strangely parodies." The opening alluded to is "Franciscus de Verulam sic cogitavit."
Ditto, p. xxviii. "One solitary line." Where is this to be found?
Ditto, ditto. "Ben Jonson after sketching." See _Discoveries_, p. 749. _ut sup._
Ditto, p. xxix. "Might have censured with Hume." Where?
Ditto, ditto. "Hobbes." Where does he praise Bacon?
Ditto, ditto. "Bayle." In Bayle's _Dictionary_ [English edition, 1710], _s. v._, we find but fourteen lines on Bacon.
Ditto, ditto. "Tacitus." _Vit. Agric._, cap. 44.
Ditto, p. xxxiii. note. Solomon's House. See p. 296. _seqq._ of the vol. of the _Standard Library_.
Ditto, p. xxxiv. note. Paterculus, i. 17. 6. [Burmann.]
(_To be continued._)
P. J. F. GANTILLON, B.A.
26. Hill's Road, Cambridge.
* * * * *
LATIN POEMS IN CONNEXION WITH WATERLOO.
I send you two copies of Latin verses which have not, to my knowledge, appeared in print. They are however interesting, from the coincidence of their both relating to _elm-trees_, and in some measure belonging to the "Story of Waterloo," about which we never can hear too much. The lines themselves possess considerable merit; and, as their authors were respectively distinguished alumni of Eton and Winchester, I hope to see both compositions placed in juxtaposition in the columns of "N. & Q."
The first of these productions was written by Marquis Wellesley, as an inscription for a chair carved from the _Wellington Elm_ (which stood near the centre of the British lines on the field of Waterloo), and presented to his Majesty King George IV., to whom the lines were addressed:
Ampla inter spolia, et magni decora alta triumphi, _Ulmus_ erit fastis commemoranda tuis, Quam super exoriens faustâ tibi gloria pennâ Palmam oleamque uno detulit alma die; Immortale decus maneat, famâque perenni Felicique geras sceptra paterna manu; Et tua victrices dum cingunt tempora lauri, Materies solio digna sit ista tuo.
For the other verses subjoined, we are indebted to the late Rev. William Crowe, Fellow of New College, Oxford, and many years public orator in that university. It seems that he had planted _an elm_ at his parsonage, on the birth of his son, afterwards killed at Waterloo, which sad event was {7} commemorated by his afflicted father in the following touching monody, _affixed to the same tree_:
_Hanc_ Ego quam felix annis melioribus _Ulmum_ Ipse manu sevi, tibi dilectissime Fili Consecro in æternum, Gulielme vocabitur Arbos Hæc tua, servabitque tuum per secula nomen. Te generose Puer nil muneris hujus egentem Te jam perfunctum vitæ bellique labore, Adscripsit Deus, et coelestibus intulit oris, Me tamen afflictum, me consolabitur ægrum Hoc tibi quod pono, quanquam leve pignus amoris, Hic Ego de vitâ meditans, de sorte futurâ, Sæpe tuam recolam formam, dulcemque loquelam, Verbaque tam puro et sacrato fonte profecta, Quam festiva quidem, et facili condita lepore. At Te, qui nostris quicunque accesseris hospes Sedibus, unum oro, moesti reverere Parentis, Nec tu sperne preces quas hâc super Arbore fundo. Sit tibi non invisa, sit inviolata securi, Et quantum natura sinet, crescat monumentum Egregii Juvenis, qui sævo est Marte peremptus, Fortiter ob patriam pugnando, sic tibi constans Stet fortuna domûs, sit nulli obnoxia damno, Nec videas unquam dilecti funera nati.
BRAYBROOKE.
* * * * *
SIR HENRY WOTTON AND MILTON.
The letter which sir Henry Wotton addressed to Milton, on receiving the _Maske presented at Ludlow-castle_, appears to admit of an interpretation which has escaped the numerous editors of the works of Milton; and I resolve to put this novel conjecture on its trial in the critical court of facts and inferences held at No. 186. Fleet Street.
Sir Henry Wotton thus expresses himself on the circumstance which I conceive to have been misinterpreted:
"For the work itself [a dainty piece of entertainment, by Milton] I had viewed some good while before with singular delight, having received it from our common friend Mr. R. in the very close of the late R.'s _Poems_, printed at Oxford; whereunto [it] is added (as I now suppose) that the accessory might help out the principal, according to the art of stationers, and to leave the reader _con la bocca dolce_."--_Reliquiæ Wottonianæ_, 1672.
In the poems of Milton, as edited by himself in 1645, the date of this letter is "13th April, 1638;" and as the _Poems_ of "Thomas Randolph, master of arts, and late fellow of Trinity colledge in Cambridge," were printed at Oxford in that year, in small quarto, it may be assumed that the gift of _Mr. R._ was a copy of that volume, with the addition of the _Maske_, as printed in the same size in 1637. Such was the conclusion of Warton, and such is mine. The question at issue is, Who was _Mr. R._? Warton says, "I believe _Mr. R._ to be John Rouse," the keeper of the Bodleian library. Is it not more probable that _Mr. R._ means Robert Randolph, master of arts, and student of Christchurch--a younger brother of Thomas Randolph, and the editor of his poems?
I must first dispose of the assertion that the friendship between Rouse and Milton "appears to have subsisted in 1637." There is no evidence of their friendship till 1647; and that evidence is the ode to Rouse, to which this address is prefixed: "Jan. 23. 1646. Ad Joannem Rousium, Oxoniensis academiæ bibliothecarium. De libro poematum amisso, _quem ille sibi denuo mitti postulabat_, ut cum aliis nostris in bibliotheca publica reponeret, ode." It seems that Milton did not send the volume of 1645 till a copy of it had been requested; no evidence, certainly, of old friendship! I admit the probability that Wotton and Rouse were friends; but why should Rouse _officiously stitch up_, as Warton expresses it, the _Mask_ of Milton with the _Poems_ of Thomas Randolph, and present the volume to Wotton? Did he give away that which is still wanting in the Bodleian library?
Admit my novel conjecture, and all the difficulties vanish. Thomas Randolph, says Phillips, was "one of the most pregnant young wits of his time;" and Robert, who was also noted as a poet, could scarcely fail to offer the poems of his brother to so eminent a person as sir Henry Wotton. As sir Henry _yearly went to Oxford_, he may have made acquaintance with Robert; and Robert may have been introduced to Milton by Thomas, who was for eight years his cotemporary at Cambridge, and in the enjoyment of much more celebrity. The _Maske_ may have been added as an experiment in criticism.
The rev. Thomas Warton was a man of extensive reading, an excellent critic, and a fascinating writer--but too often inattentive to accuracy of statement. He says that Randolph _died_ the 17th March, 1634: Wood says he was _buried_ the 17th March, 1634. He says it is so stated on his monument: the monument has no date. He says the _Poems_ of Randolph contain 114 pages: the volume contains 368 pages! He says the _Maske_ is a slight quarto of 30 pages only; it contains 40 pages! Is it not fit that such carelessness should be exposed?
BOLTON CORNEY.
* * * * *
FOLK LORE.
_Unlucky to sell eggs after Sunset._--The following paragraph is extracted from the _Stamford Mercury_ of October 29, 1852:
"There exists a species of superstition in north Nottinghamshire against letting eggs go out of a house after sunset. The other day a person in want of some eggs called at a farm-house in East Markham, and inquired of the good woman of the house whether she had any eggs to sell, to which she replied that she had a few scores to dispose of. 'Then I'll take them home {8} with me in the cart,' was his answer; to which she somewhat indignantly replied, 'That you'll not; don't you know the sun has gone down? You are welcome to the eggs at a proper hour of the day; but I would not let them go out of the house after the sun is set on any consideration whatever!'"
DRAUFIELD.
_Old Song._--
My father gave me an acre of land, Sing ivy, sing ivy. My father gave me an acre of land, Sing green bush, holly, and ivy. I plough'd it with a ram's horn, Sing ivy, &c. I harrow'd it with a bramble, Sing ivy, &c. I sow'd it with a peppercorn, Sing ivy, &c. I reap'd it with my penknife, Sing ivy, &c. I carried it to the mill upon the cat's back, Sing ivy, &c.
Then follows some more which I forget, but I think it ends thus:
I made a cake for all the king's men, Sing ivy, sing ivy. I made a cake for all the king's men, Sing green bush, holly, and ivy.
D.
_Nursery Tale._-- I saddled my sow with a sieve full of buttermilk, put my foot into the stirrup, and leaped nine miles beyond the moon into the land of temperance, where there was nothing but hammers and hatchets and candlesticks, and there lay bleeding Old Noles. I let him lie, and sent for Old Hippernoles, and asked him if he could grind green steel nine times finer than wheat flour. He said he could not. Gregory's wife was up in the pear-tree gathering nine corns of buttered peas to pay Saint James' rent. Saint James was in the meadow mowing oat cakes; he heard a noise, hung his scythe at his heels, stumbled at the battledore, tumbled over the barn-door ridge, and broke his shins against a bag of moonshine that stood behind the stairsfoot door, and if that isn't true you know as well as I.
D.
_Legend of Change._--In one of the Magazines for November, a legend, stated to be of oriental origin, is given, in which an immortal, visiting at distant intervals the same spot, finds it occupied by a city, an ocean, a forest, and a city again: the mortals whom he found there, on each occasion, believing that the present state had existed for ever. I have seen in the newspapers, at different times, a poem (or I rather think two poems) founded on this legend; and I should like to know the author or authors, and whether it, or either of them, is to be found in any collection of poems.
D. X.
* * * * *
PASSAGE IN HAMLET.
"Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin, Unhousell'd, disappointed, unaneld'd." _Hamlet_, Act I. Sc. 5.
Boucher, in his _Glossary of Archaic and Provincial Words_ (art. ANYEAL), has a note on this passage which seems to me to give so much better an idea of the word _disappointed_ than any I have met with, that I am induced to send it you as a Note:--
"The last two words have occasioned considerable difficulty to the critics. The old copies, it is said, concur in giving _disappointed_, which Dr. Johnson is willing to understand as meaning _unprepared_; a sense that might very well suit the context, but will not be easily confirmed by any other instance of the use of the word _disappointed_. Dissatisfied, therefore, with this interpretation, some have read _unanointed_, and some _unappointed_. Not approving of either of these words, as connected with _unanealed_, Pope, no timid corrector of texts, reads _unaneld_, which he supposes to signify _unknelled_, or the having no knell rung. To these emendations and interpretations Mr. Theobald, whose merit as a commentator of Shakspeare Mr. Pope, with all his wit and all his poetry, could not bring into dispute, urged many strong objections. Skinner rightly explains _anealed_ as meaning _unctus_; from the Teutonic preposition _an_, and _ele_, oil. As correction of the second word is admitted by all the commentators to be necessary, it is suggested that a clear and consistent meaning, consonant with Shakspeare's manner, will be given to the passage, if, instead of _disappointed_, _unassoiled_, which signifies 'without absolution,' be substituted.
"The line--
'Unhousell'd, unassoil'd, unaneal'd,'
will then signify 'without receiving the sacrament: without confession and absolution: and without extreme unction.'
"The _unassoiled_ was no less proper, will appear from due attention to the word _assoile_, which of course is derived from _absolvo_; and the transition from _absolve_ into _assoyle_ is demonstrated in the following passage from Piers Plowman, Vision, p. 3.:
'There preached a pardoner, as he a priest were, Brought forth a bul, with many a bishop's seales, And saide, that himself might absoyle hem alle, Of falshode, of fasting, and of vowes broken.'
As a further confirmation of the propriety of substituting a word signifying _absolution_, which pre-supposes confession, the following sentence from _Prince Arthur_ may be adduced: 'She was confessed and houselled, and then she died,' part ii. p. 108.
"It must be allowed that no instance can be given of the word _unassoiled_: but neither does any other instance occur to me of the word _unhouseled_ except the line in _Hamlet_."
B. J. S.
* * * * *
{9}
VOLCANIC INFLUENCE ON THE WEATHER.