Kitabı oku: «Notes and Queries, Number 04, November 24, 1849», sayfa 5
QUERIES
"CLOUDS" OR SHROUDS, IN SHAKESPEARE
I quite agree with your correspondent D.N.R., that there never has been an editor of Shakespeare capable of doing him full justice. I will go farther and say, that there never will be an editor capable of doing him any thing like justice. I am the most "modern editor" of Shakespeare, and I am the last to pretend that I am at all capable of doing him justice: I should be ashamed of myself if I entertained a notion so ridiculously presumptuous. What I intended was to do him all the justice in my power, and that I accomplished, however imperfectly. It struck me that the best mode of attempting to do him any justice was to take the utmost pains to restore his text to the state in which he left it; and give me leave, very humbly, to say that this is the chief recommendation of the edition I superintended through the press, having collated every line, syllable, and letter, with every known old copy. For this purpose I saw, consulted and compared every quarto and every folio impression in the British Museum, at Oxford, at Cambridge, in the libraries of the Duke of Devonshire and Lord Ellesmere, and in several private collections. If my edition have no other merit, I venture to assert that it has this. It was a work of great labour, but it was a work also of sincere love. It is my boast, and my only boast, that I have restored the text of Shakespeare, as nearly as possible, to the integrity of the old copies.
When your correspondent complains, therefore, that in "Hen. IV. Part 2," Act III. sc. 1., in the line,
"With deafening clamours in the slippery clouds,"
the word shrouds is not substituted by editors of Shakespeare for "clouds," the answer is, that not a single old copy warrants the merely fanciful emendation, and that it is not at all required by the sense of the passage. In the 4to of 1600, and in the folio of 1623, the word is "clouds;" and he must be a very bold editor (in my opinion little capable of doing justice to any author), who would substitute his own imaginary improvement, for what we have every reason to believe is the genuine text. Shrouds instead of "clouds" is a merely imaginary improvement, supported by no authority, and (as, indeed, your correspondent shows) without the merit of originality. I am for the text of Shakespeare as he left it, and as we find it in the most authentic representations of his mind and meaning.
J. PAYNE COLLIER.
MEDAL OF THE PRETENDER
Sir,—Possibly some one of your literary correspondents, who may be versed in the, what D'Israeli would call Secret History of the Jacobite Court, will endeavour to answer a "Query" relative to the following rare medal:—
Obv. A ship of war bearing the French flag; on the shore a figure in the dress of a Jesuit (supposed to represent Father Petre) seated astride of a Lobster, holding in his arms the young Prince of Wales, who has a little windmill on his head. Legend: "Allons mon Prince, nous sommes en bon chemin." In the exergue, "Jacc: Franç: Eduard, supposé. 20 Juin, 1688."
Rev. A shield charged with a windmill, and surmounted by a Jesuit's bonnet; two rows of Beads or Rosaries, for an order or collar, within which we read "Honny soit qui non y pense;" a Lobster is suspended from the collar as a badge. Legend: "Les Armes et l'Ordre du pretendu Prince de Galles."
The difficulty in the above medal is the Lobster, though doubtless it had an allusion to some topic or scandal of the day; whoever can elucidate it will render good service to Medallic History, for hitherto it has baffled all commentators and collectors of medals. The windmill (indicative of the poplar fable that the Prince was the son of a miller), and the Roman Catholic symbols, are well understood.
There is an engraving of this medal in Van Loon's Histoire Metallique des Pays Bas. It is also imperfectly engraved in Edwards' Medallic History of England, for the Jesuit is represented kneeling on the shore, and Pinkerton, who furnished the text, calls it "a boy kneeling on the shore." The medal is so rare that probably the artist could obtain only a rubbed or mutilated impression to engrave from. My description is from a specimen, in my own collection, as fine as the day it was minted.
I may add that both Van Loon and Pinkerton have engraved the legend in the collar erroneously, "honi soit qui bon y pense;" it should be "non."
B. NIGHTINGALE.
ROGER DE COVERLEY
In the Spectator's description of Sir Roger de Coverley it is said, "that his great-grandfather was the inventor of that famous country dance which is called after him." To the tune, as printed in Chappell's English Melodies, is appended a note to the effect that it was called after "Roger of Coverley" (Cowley, near Oxford).
Can any one inform me—
I. Where any notice of that Roger is to be found?
II. What is the etymon of "Cowley" (Temple Cowley and Church Cowley)?
III. If any notice of the tune is to be met with earlier than 1695, when it was printed by H. Playford in his Dancing Master?
W.
HISTORY OF LANDED AND COMMERCIAL POLICY OF ENGLAND—HISTORY OF EDWARD II
Who was the author of the two following works?—"Remarks upon the History of the Landed and Commercial Policy of England, from the Invasion of the Romans to the Accession of James I. 2 vols. London: printed for E. Brooke, in Bell Yard, Temple Bar, MDCCLXXXV."
"The History of the Life, Reign, and Death of Edward II, King of England and Lord of Ireland, with the Rise and Fall of his great Favourites, Gaveston and the Spencers. Written by E.F. in the year 1627, and printed verbatim from the original. London: Printed by J.C. for Charles Harper, at the Flower-de-Luce in Fleet St.; Samuel Crouch, at the Princes' Arms, in Pope's head Alley in Cornhill; and Thomas Fox, at the Angel in Westminster Hall, 1680. (a portrait of Ed. II.)" In the 1st vol. Harl. Miscell. it is said that the above was found with the papers of the first Lord Falkland, and is attributed to him. My copy has Faulconbridge inserted in MS. over the F., and a book plate of Earl Verney, motto "Prodesse quam conspici," with an escutcheon of pretence.
ANGLO-CAMBRIAN
THE REVEREND THOMAS LEMAN
Mr. Editor,—Amongst the later authorities on subjects of British-Roman antiquity, the Rev. Thomas Leman is constantly referred to, and in terms of great commendation.
Can you inform me whether that gentleman published any work or made an avowed communication of any of his researches? His name is not found in the Index to the Archæologia.
Mr. Leman contributed largely to Mr. Hatcher's edition of Richard of Cirencester; but it is one of the unsatisfactory circumstances of this work that these contributions, and whatever may have been derived from the late Bishop of Cloyne, are merely acknowledged in general terms, and are not distinguished as they occur.
I believe the MS. of the work was all in Mr. Hatcher's handwriting; some of your readers may possibly have the means of knowing in what way he used the materials thus given, or to what extent they were adapted or annotated by himself.
A.T. Coleman Street, Nov. 13.
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE
Sir,—Will any of your readers favour me with an account of the origin, as well as the date of introduction, of the term "Gothic," as applied to the Pointed Styles of Ecclesiastical Architecture?
This Query is, of course, intimately connected with the much-disputed question of the origin of the Pointed Style itself. But yet I imagine that the application of the term "Gothic" may be found to be quite distinct, in its origin, from the first rise of the Pointed Arch. The invention of the Pointed Arch cannot, surely, be attributed to the Goths; whence then the origin and the meaning of the term Gothic?
R. VINCENT. Winchester, Nov. 12.
KATHERINE PEGG
Sir,—I think you may safely add Pepys's Diary to the list of books in illustration of which you are willing to receive both Queries and Answers. There is not a passage in the Diary that does not deserve to be understood.
At vol. iv. p. 435. of the new edition is the following entry:—
"7 May, 1668. Here [at the King's Theatre] I did kiss the pretty woman newly come, called Pegg, that was Sir Charles Sedley's mistress, a mighty pretty woman, and seems (but is not) modest."
On this Lord Braybrooke has the following note:—
"Pegg must have been Margaret Hughes, Prince Rupert's mistress, who had probably before that time lived with Sir Charles Sedley."
And then follows some account of Mrs. Hughes. But, query, was the "Pegg" of the Diary, Peg Hughes? was she not rather as I belived her to have been, Katherine Pegg, by whom king Charles II. had a son, Charles Fitz-Charles, created Earl of Plymouth, 29th July, 1675, died 1680?
Katherine Pegg has escaped Lord Braybrooke. Can any of your correspondents tell me who she was?
PETER CUNNINGHAM
