Chapter 2

But this is not the question. The question is, did he write the passage as it stands in the first folio, which I have copied above? Subsequent consideration has satisfied me that he did. I find the following passage in the _Merchant of Venice_, Act II. Sc. 6.:

"---- but come at once, For the close night doth play the run-away, And we are staid for at Bassanio's feast."

Is it very difficult to believe that the poet who called the departing _night_ a _run-away_ would apply the same term to the _day_ under similar circumstances?

Surely the first folio is a much more correctly printed book than many of Shakspeare's editors and critics would have us believe.

H. C. K.

---- Rectory, Hereford.

The Word "_clamour" in "The Winter's Tale_."--MR. KEIGHTLEY complains (Vol viii., p. 241.) that some observations of mine (p. 169.) on the word _clamour_, in _The Winter's Tale_, are precisely similar to his own in Vol. vii., p. 615. Had they been so in reality, I presume our Editor would not have inserted them; but I think they contain something farther, suggesting, as they do, the A.-S. origin of the word, and going far to prove that our modern _calm_, the older _clame_, the Shakspearian _clamour_, the more frequent _clem_, Chaucer's _clum_, &c., all of them spring from the same source, viz. the A.-S. _clam_ or _clom_, which means a band, clasp, bandage, chain, prison; from which substantive comes the verb _claemian_, to clam, to stick or glue together, to bind, to imprison.

If I passed over in silence those points on which MR. KEIGHTLEY and myself agreed, I need scarcely assure him that it was for the sake of brevity, and not from any want of respect to him.

I may remark, by the way, on a conjecture of MR. KEIGHTLEY'S (Vol. vii., p. 615.), that perhaps, in _Macbeth_, Act V. Sc. 5., Shakspeare might have written "till famine _clem_ thee," and not, as it stands in the first folio, "till famine _cling_ thee," that he is indeed, as he says, "in the region of conjecture:" _cling_ is purely A.-S., as he will find in Bosworth, "_Clingan_, to wither, pine, to cling or shrink up; marcescere."

H. C. K.

---- Rectory, Hereford.

_Three Passages in "Measure for Measure._"--H. C. K. has a treacherous memory, or rather, what I believe to be the truth, he, like myself, has not a complete Shakspeare apparatus. COLLIER'S first edition surely cannot be in his library, or he would have known that Warburton, long ago, read _seared_ for _feared_, and that the same word appears in Lord Ellesmere's copy of the first folio, the correction having been made, as MR. COLLIER remarks, while the sheet was at press. I however assure H. C. K. that I regard his correction as perfectly original. Still I have my doubts if _seared_ be the poet's word, for I have never met it but in connexion with hot iron; and I should be inclined to prefer _sear_ or _sere_; but this again is always physically _dry_, and not metaphorically so, and I fear that the true word is not to be recovered.

I cannot consent to go back with H. C. K. to the Anglo-Saxon for a sense of _building_, which I do not think it ever bore, at least not in our poet's time. His quotation from the "Jewel House," &c. is not to the point, for the context shows that "a building word" is a word or promise that will {362} set me a-building, _i. e._ writing. After all I see no difficulty in "the _all-building_ law;" it means the law that builds, maintains, and repairs the whole social edifice, and is well suited to Angelo, whose object was to enhance the favour he proposed to grant.

Again, if H. C. K. had looked at COLLIER'S edit., he would have seen that in Act I. Sc. 2., _princely_ is the reading of the second folio, and not a modern conjecture. If he rejects this authority, he must read a little farther on _perjury_ for _penury_. As to the Italian _prenze_, I cannot receive it. I very much doubt Shakspeare's knowledge of Italian, and am sure that he would not, if he understood the word, use it as an adjective. MR. COLLIER'S famed corrector reads with Warburton _priestly_, and substitutes _garb_ for _guards_, a change which convinces me (if proof were wanting) that he was only a guesser like ourselves, for it is plain, from the previous use of the word _living_, that _guards_ is the right word.

THOS. KEIGHTLEY.

_Shakspeare's Works with a Digest of all the Readings_ (Vol. viii., pp. 74, 170.).--I fully concur with your correspondent's suggestion, and beg to suggest to MR. HALLIWELL that his splendid monograph edition would be greatly improved if he would undertake the task. As his first volume contains but one play (_Tempest_), it may not be too late to adopt the suggestion, so that every variation of the text (in the briefest possible form) might be seen at a glance.

ESTE.

* * * * *

DEATH ON THE FINGERS.

"Isaac saith, I am old, and I know not the day of my death (_Gen._ xxvii. 2.); no more doth any, though never so young. As soon (saith the proverb) goes the _lamb's_ skin to the market as that of the _old sheep_; and the Hebrew saying is, There be as many _young_ skulls in Golgotha as _old_; young men _may_ die (for none have or can make any agreement with the grave, or any covenant with death, _Isa._ xxviii. 15. 18.), but old men _must_ die. 'Tis the grant statute of heaven (_Heb._ ix. 27.). _Senex quasi seminex_, an old man is half dead; yea, now, at fifty years old, we are accounted three parts dead; this lesson we may learn from our fingers' ends, the dimensions whereof demonstrate this to us, beginning at the end of the little finger, representing our childhood, rising up to a little higher at the end of the ring-finger, which betokens our youth; from it to the top of the middle finger, which is the highest point of our elevated hand, and so most aptly represents our middle age, when we come to our [Greek: akme], or height of stature and strength; then begins our declining age, from thence to the end of our forefinger which amounts to a little fall, but from thence to the end of the thumb there is a great fall, to show, when man goes down (in his old age) he falls fast and far, and breaks (as we say) with a witness. Now, if our very fingers' end do read us such a divine lecture of mortality, oh, that we could take it out, and have it perfect (as we say) on our fingers' end, &c.

"To old men death is _prae januis_, stands before their door, &c. Old men have (_pedem in cymba Charonis_) one foot in the grave already; and the Greek word [Greek: geron] (an old man) is derived from [Greek: para to eis gen oran], which signifies a looking towards the ground; decrepit age goes stooping and grovelling, as groaning to the grave. It doth not only expect death, but oft solicits it."--Christ. Ness's _Compleat History and Mystery of the Old and New Test._, fol. Lond. 1690, chap. xii. p. 227.

From _The Barren Tree_, a sermon on Luke xiii. 7., preached at Paul's Cross, Oct. 26, 1623, by Thos. Adams:

"Our bells ring, our chimneis smoake, our fields rejoice, our children dance, ourselues sing and play, _Jovis omnia plena_. But when righteousnesse hath sowne and comes to reape, here is no haruest; [Greek: ouk eurisko], I finde none. And as there was neuer lesse wisdome in Greece then in time of the Seven Wise Men, so neuer lesse pietie among vs, then now, when vpon good cause most is expected. When the sunne is brightest the stars be darkest: so the cleerer our light, the more gloomy our life with the deeds of darkness. The Cimerians, that live in a perpetuall mist, though they deny a sunne, are not condemned of impietie; but Anaxogoras, that saw the sunne and yet denied it, is not condemned of ignorance, but of impietie. Former times were like Leah, bleare-eyed, but fruitful; the present, like Rachel, faire, but barren. We give such acclamation to the Gospell, that we quite forget to observe the law. As vpon some solenne festivall, the bells are rung in all steeples, but then the clocks are tyed vp: there is a great vntun'd confusion and clangor, but no man knowes how the time passeth. So in this vniuersall allowance of libertie by the Gospell (which indeed rejoyceth our hearts, had we the grace of sober vsage), the clocks that tel vs how the time passes, Truth and Conscience, that show the bounded vse and decent forme of things, are tyed vp, and cannot be heard. Still _Fructum non invenio_, I finde no fruits. I am sorry to passe the fig-tree in this plight: but as I finde it, so I must leave it, till the Lord mend it."--Pp. 39, 40., 4to. Lond. 1623.

BALLIOLENSIS.

* * * * *

Minor Notes.

_On a "Custom of y^e Englyshe._"--When a more than ordinarily doubtful matter is offered us for credence, we are apt to inquire of the teller if he "sees any green" in our optics, accompanying the query by an elevation of the right eyelid with the forefinger. Now, regarding this merely as a "fast" custom, I marvelled greatly at finding a similar action noted by worthy Master Blunt, as conveying to his mind an analogous meaning. I can scarcely credit its antiquity; but what other meaning can I understand from the episode he {363} relates? He had been trying to pass himself off as a native, but--

"The third day, in the morning, I, prying up and down alone, met a Turke, who, in Italian, told me--Ah! are you an Englishman, and with a _kind of malicious posture laying his forefinger under his eye_, methought he had the lookes of a designe."--_Voyage in the Levant, performed by Mr. Henry Blunt_, p. 60.: Lond. 1650.

--a silent, but expressive, "posture," tending to eradicate any previously formed opinion of the verdantness of Mussulmans!

R. C. WARDE.

Kidderminster.

_Epitaph at Crayford._--I send the following lines, if you think them worthy an insertion in your Epitaphiana: a friend saw them in the churchyard of Crayford, Kent.

"To the Memory of PETER IZOD, who was thirty-five years clerk of this parish, and always proved himself a pious and mirthful man.

"The life of this clerk was just three score and ten, During half of which time he had sung out Amen. He married when young, like other young men; His wife died one day, so he chaunted Amen. A second he took, she departed,--what then? He married, and buried a third with Amen. Thus his joys and his sorrows were treble, but then His voice was deep bass, as he chaunted Amen. On the horn he could blow as well as most men, But his horn was exalted in blowing Amen. He lost all his wind after threescore and ten, And here with three wives he waits till again The trumpet shall rouse him to sing out Amen."

Tradition reports these verses to have been composed by some curate of the parish.

QUAESTOR.

_The Font at Islip._--

"In the garden is placed a relic of some interest--the font in which it is said King Edward the Confessor was baptised at Islip. The block of stone in which the basin of immersion is excavated, is unusually massy. It is of an octangular shape, and the outside is adorned by tracery work. The interior diameter of the basin is thirty inches, and the depth twenty. The whole, with the pedestal, which is of a piece with the rest, is five feet high, and bears the following imperfect inscription:

'This sacred Font Saint Edward first _receavd_, From Womb to Grace, from Grace to Glory went, His virtuous life. To this _fayre_ Isle _beqveth'd_, _Prase_ ... and to _vs_ but lent. Let this remaine, the Trophies of his Fame, A King baptizd from hence a Saint became.'

"Then is inscribed:

'This Fonte came from the Kings Chapel_l_ in Islip.'"--Extracted from the _Beauties of England and Wales_, title "Oxfordshire," p. 454.

In the gardens at Kiddington there--

"was an old font wherein it is said Edward the Confessor was baptized, being brought thither from an old decayed chapel at Islip (the birth-place of that religious prince), where it had been put up to an indecent use, as well as the chapel."--Extracted from _The English Baronets, being a Historical and Genealogical Account of their Families_, published 1727.

The Viscounts Montague, and consequently the Brownes of Kiddington, traced their descent from this king through Joan de Beaufort, daughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.

C. B.

"_As good as a Play._"--I note this very ordinary phrase as having royal origin or, at least, authority. It was a remark of King Charles II., when he revived a practice of his predecessors, and attended the sittings of the House of Lords.

The particular occasion was the debate, then interesting to him, on Lord Roos' Divorce Bill.

W. T. M.

Hong Kong.

* * * * *

Queries.

LOVETT OF ASTWELL.

It is stated in all the pedigrees of this family which I have seen, that Thomas Lovett, Esq., of Astwell in Northamptonshire, who died in 1542, married for his first wife Elizabeth, daughter (Burke calls her "heir," _Extinct Baronetage_, p. 110.) of John Boteler, Esq., of Woodhall Watton, in Hertfordshire. The pedigree of the Botelers in Clutterbuck's _Hertfordshire_ (vol. ii. p. 476.) does not notice this marriage, nor is there any distinct allusion to it in the wills of either family. Thomas Lovett's will, dated 20th November, 1542, and proved on the following 19th January, does not contain the name of Boteler. (_Testamenta Vetusta_, vol. ii. p. 697.) His father Thomas Lovett, indeed, in his will dated 29th October, 7 Henry VII., and proved 28th January, 1492 (_Test. Vetust._, vol. ii. p. 410.), bequeaths to Isabel Lovett and Margaret, his daughters, "Cl. which John Boteler oweth me," but he refers to no relationship between the families. Again, "John Butteler, Esquier," by his will, dated 7th September, 1513, and proved at Lambeth 11th July, 1515, appoints "his most gracious Maister, Maister Thomas Louett," to be supervisor of his will, and bequeaths to him "a Sauterbook as a poore remembraunce;" but he alludes to no marriage, nor does he mention a daughter Elizabeth. This John Boteler is said by Clutterbuck to have married three wives: 1. Katherine, daughter of Thomas Acton; 2. Margaret, daughter of Henry Belknap, who died 18th August, 1513; 3. Dorothy, daughter of William Tyrrell, Esq., of Gipping in Suffolk: the last-mentioned was the mother of his heir, Sir Philip Boteler, Kt.; but I can nowhere find who was the mother of the son Richard, and the daughters Mary and Joyce mentioned in his will, {364} or of Thomas Lovett's wife. I cannot help fancying that Elizabeth Lovett was his only child by one of his wives, and was perhaps heir to her mother. Can one of your contributors bring forward any authority to confirm or disprove this conjecture? Whilst I am speaking of the Lovett pedigree, I would also advert to two other contradictions in the popular accounts of it. That most inaccurate of books, Betham's _Baronetage_, vol. v. p. 517., says, Giles Pulton, Esq., of Desborough, married Anne, daughter of Thomas Lovett, Esq., of Astwell: the same author, vol. i. p. 299., calls her Catherine; which is correct? Neither Anne nor Catherine is mentioned in Thomas Lovett the Elder's will (_Test. Vetust._, vol. ii. p. 410). Again, Betham, Burke, and Bridges (_History of Northamptonshire_, "Astwell") have rolled out Thomas Lovett into two persons, and in fact have made him appear the son of his second wife Joan Billinge, who was not the ancestress of the Lovetts of Astwell at all. Nor was it possible she could be; for Thomas Lovett, in his will, dated 1492, speaks of her as "Joan, my wife, late the wife of John Hawys, one of the Justices of the Common Pleas." Now this John Hawys was living in 1487, and Lovett's son and heir, Thomas, was seventeen years old in 1492. The abstract of Lovett's will in the _Test. Vetust._, calling Thomas Lovett the Younger "my son and heir by the said Joan my wife," must therefore be manifestly incorrect. I will not apologise for the minuteness of this account, as I believe the correction of detail in published pedigrees to be one of the most valuable features of "N. & Q.;" but I am almost ashamed of the length of my communication, which I hope some of your readers may throw light upon.

TEWARS.

* * * * *

OATHS.

The very remarkable distinction between the manner in which English and Welsh witnesses take the book at the time when they are sworn, has often struck me. An English witness always takes the book with his fingers under, and his thumb at the top of the book. A Welsh witness, on the contrary, takes it with his fingers at the top, and his thumb under the book. How has this singular difference arisen? I am inclined to suggest that originally the oath was taken by merely laying the hand on the top of the book, without kissing it. Lord Coke (3 _Inst._ 165.) says, "It is called a corporal oath, because he toucheth with his hand some part of the Holy Scripture." And Jacob (_L. D._, "Oath"), says it is so called "because the witness, when he swears, _lays his right hand upon_, and toucheth the Holy Evangelists." And Lord Hale (2 _H. P. C._ 279.) says, "The regular oath, as is allowed by the laws of England, is 'Tactis sacrosanctis Dei Evangeliis'," and in case of a Jew, "Tacto libro legis Mosaicae:" and, if I rightly remember, the oath as administered in the Latin form at Oxford concludes: "Ita te Deus adjuvet, tactis sacrosanctis Christi Evangeliis." In none of these instances does kissing the book appear to be essential. Whereas the present form used in the Courts is, "So help you God, kiss the book;" but still the witness is always required to touch the book with his hand, and he is never permitted to hold the book with his hand in a glove. When then did the practice of kissing the book originate? And how happens it that the Welsh and English take the book in the hand in the different manners I have described?

C. S. G.

* * * * *

THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.

Powerful as this extraordinary agent has become, and incalculably useful as its operation is now found to be, it would appear that the principle of the electric telegraph and its _modus operandi_, almost identically as at present, were known and described upwards of a century ago. On the occasion of a late visit to Robert Baird, Esq., of Auchmeddan, at his residence, Cadder House, near Glasgow, my attention was called by that gentleman to a letter initialed C. M., dated Renfrew, Feb. 15, 1753, and published that year in the _Scots Magazine_, vol. xv. p. 73., where the writer not only suggests electricity as a medium for conveying messages and signals, but details with singular minuteness the method of opening and maintaining lingual communication between remote points, a method which, with only few improvements, has now been so eminently successful. It is usual to attribute this wonderful discovery to the united labours of Mr. W. F. Cooke and Professor Wheatstone, but has any one acknowledged the contribution of C. M., and can any of the learned correspondents of "N. & Q." inform me who he was?

INQUIRENDO.

Glasgow.

* * * * *

Minor Queries.

_Queries relating to the Porter Family._--Above the inscription on the tablet erected by a devoted friend to the memory of this highly-gifted family in Bristol Cathedral, is a medallion of a portcullis surrounded by the word AGINCOURT, and surmounted by the date 1415.--What connexion is there between Agincourt[2] and the Porter family?

{365}

Did Sir R. K. Porter write on account of Sir John Moore's campaign in the Peninsula?--What is the title of the book, and where can it be procured?[3]

Who was Charles Lempriere Porter (who died Feb. 14, 1831, aged thirty-one), mentioned on the Porter tombstone in St. Paul's churchyard at Bristol?--Who was Phoebe, wife of Dr. Porter, who died Feb. 20, 1845, aged seventy-nine, and whose name also occurs on this stone?

Did this family (which is now supposed to be extinct) claim descent from Endymion Porter, the loyal and devoted adherent of King Charles the Martyr?

D. Y. N.

[Footnote 2: It refers to Sir Robert Ker Porter's third great battle-piece, AGINCOURT: which memorable battle took place October 25, 1415. Sir Robert presented it to the city of London, and it is still in the possession of the corporation: it was hung up in the Guildhall a few years since.]

[Footnote 3: In 1808, Sir R. K. Porter accompanied Sir John Moore's expedition to the Peninsula, and attended the campaign throughout, up to the closing catastrophe of the battle of Corunna. On his return to England, he published anonymously, _Letters from Portugal and Spain, written during the March of the Troops under Sir John Moore_, 1809, 8vo.--ED.]

_Lord Ball of Bagshot._--Coryat, in his _Crudities_, vol. ii. p. 471., edit. 1776, tells us that at St. Gewere, near Ober-Wesel--

"There hangeth an yron collar fastened in the wall, with one linke fit to be put upon a man's neck, without any manner of hurt to the party that weareth it.

"This collar doth every stranger and freshman, the first time that he passeth that way, put upon his neck, which he must weare so long standing till he hath redeemed himself with a competent measure of wine."

Coryat submitted himself to the collar "for novelty sake," and he adds:

"This custome doth carry some kinde of affinity with certain sociable ceremonies that wee have in a place of England, which are performed by that most reuerend Lord _Ball_ of Bagshot, in Hampshire, who doth with many, and indeed more solemne, rites inuest his brothers of his vnhallowed chappell of Basingstone (Basingstoke?) (as all our men of the westerne parts of England do know by deare experience to the smart of their purses), to these merry burgomaisters of Saint _Gewere_ vse to do."

Will any of your readers state whether the custom is remembered in Hampshire, and afford explanation as to the most Rev. Lord Ball? The writers that I have referred to are silent, and I do not find mention of the custom in the pages of Mr. Urban.

J. H. M.

_Marcarnes._--In Guillim's _Display of Heraldry_ (6th edit., London, 1724), sect. 2. chap. v. p. 32., occurs the following description of a coat of arms: "_Marcarnes_, vaire, a pale, sable."

There is no reference to a Heralds' Visitation, or to the locality in which resided the family bearing this name and coat. It is only mentioned as an instance among many others of the pale in heraldry. I have searched many heraldic books, as well as copies of Heralds' Visitations, but cannot find the name elsewhere. Will any herald advise me how to proceed farther in tracing it?

G. R. M.

_The Claymore._--What is the original weapon to which belongs the name of claymore (_claidh mhor_)? Is it the two-handed sword, or the basket-hilted two-edged sword _now_ bearing the appellation? Is the latter kind of sword peculiar to Scotland? They are frequently to be met with in this part of the country. One was found a few years since plunged up to the hilt in the earth on the Cotswold Hills. It was somewhat longer than the Highland broadsword, but exactly similar to a weapon which I have seen, and which belonged to a Lowland Whig gentleman slain at Bothwell Bridge. If these swords be exclusively Scottish, may they not be relics of the unhappy defeat at Worcester?

FRANCIS JOHN SCOTT.

Tewkesbury.