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NOTES ON SEVERAL MISUNDERSTOOD WORDS

(Continued from p. 402.)

No did, no will, no had, &c.—

"K. John. · · · I had a mighty cause
To wish him dead, but thou hadst none to kill him.

Hubert. No had (my Lord), why, did you not provoke me?"

King John, Act IV. Sc. 2.

So the first folio edition of Shakspeare. A palpable error, as the commentators of the present would pleasantly observe, and all the world would echo the opinion; but here, as in most other instances, commentators and all the world may be wrong, and the folios right. The passage has accordingly been corrupted by the editors of Shakspeare into what was more familiar to their modern ears: "Had none, my Lord!" Though the mode of speech be very common, yet, to deprive future editors of all excuse for ever again depraving the genuine text of our national Bible, I shall make no apology for accumulating a string of examples:

"Fort. Oh, had I such a hat, then were I brave!
Where's he that made it?

Sol. Dead: and the whole world
Yields not a workman that can frame the like.

Fort. No does?"

"Old Fortunatus," Old English Plays, vol. iii. p. 140., by Dilke:

who alters "No does?" into None does? thinking, I presume, that he had thereby simplified the sentence:

"John. I am an elde fellowe of fifty wynter and more,
And yet in all my lyfe I knewe not this before.

Parson. No dyd, why sayest thou so, upon thyselfe thou lyest,
Thou haste euer knowen the sacramente to be the body of Christ."

John Bon and Mast Person.

"Chedsey. Christ said 'Take, eat, this is my body;' and not 'Take ye, eat ye.'
Philpot. No did, master doctor? Be not these the words of Christ, 'Accipite, manducate?' And do not these words, in the plural number, signify 'Take ye, eat ye;' and not 'Take thou, eat thou,' as you would suppose?"—Foxe's Acts and Monuments, vol. vii. p. 637., Cattley's edition.
"Philpot. Master Cosins, I have told my lord already, that I will answer to none of these articles he hath objected against me: but if you will with learning answer to that which is in question between my lord and me, I will gladly hear and commune with you.
Cosins. No will you? Why what is that then, that is in question between my lord and you?"—Id., p. 651.
"Philpot. And as I remember, it is even the saying of St. Bernard [viz. The Holy Ghost is Christ's vicar on earth (vic-arius), and a saying that I need not to be ashamed of, neither you to be offended at; as my Lord of Durham and my Lord of Chichester by their learning can discern, and will not reckon it evil said.
London. No will? Why, take away the first syllable, and it soundeth Arius."—Id. p. 658.
"Philpot. These words of Cyprian do nothing prove your pretensed assertion; which is, that to the Church of Rome there could come no misbelief.
Christopherson. Good lord, no doth? What can be said more plainly?"—Id., p. 661.

Again, at p. 663. there occur no less than three more instances and at p. 665. another.

"Careless. No, forsooth: I do not know any such, nor have I heard of him that I wot of.
Martin. No have, forsooth: and it is even he that hath written against thy faith."

Then Martin said:

"Dost thou not know one Master Chamberlain?
Careless. No forsooth; I know him not.
Martin. No dost! and he hath written a book against thy faith also."—Id., vol. iii. p. 164.
"Lichfield and Coventry. We heard of no such order.
Lord Keeper. No did? Yes, and on the first question ye began willingly. How cometh it to pass that ye will not now do so?"—Id., p. 690.
"Then said Sir Thomas Moyle: 'Ah! Bland, thou art a stiff-hearted fellow. Thou wilt not obey the law, nor answer when thou art called.' 'Nor will,' quoth Sir John Baker. 'Master Sheriff, take him to your ward.'"—Id., vol. vii. p. 295.

Is it needful to state, that the original editions have, as they ought to have, a note of interrogation at "Baker?" I will not tax the reader's patience with more than two other examples, and they shall be fetched from the writings of that admirable papist—the gentle, the merry-hearted More:

"Well, quod Caius, thou wylt graunte me thys fyrste, that euery thynge that hath two erys is an asse.—Nay, mary mayster, wyll I not, quod the boy.—No wylt thou? quod Caius. Ah, wyly boy, there thou wentest beyond me."—The Thyrde Boke, the first chapter, fol. 84. of Sir Thomas More's Dialogues.
"Why, quod he, what coulde I answere ellys, but clerely graunt hym that I believe that thyng for none other cause but only bycause the Scripture so sheweth me?—No could ye? quod I. What yf neuer Scripture had ben wryten in thys world, should there neuer haue bene eny chyrch or congregacyon of faythfull and ryght beyleuyng people?—That wote I nere, quod he. No do ye? quod I."—Id., fol. 85.

In taking leave of this idiom, it would not perhaps be amiss to remark, that "ye can," in Duke Humphey's rejoinder to the "blyson begger of St. Albonys," is not, as usually understood, "you can?" but "yea can?"

To be at point = to be at a stay or stop, i.e. settled, determined, nothing farther being to be said or done: a very common phrase. Half a dozen examples shall suffice:

" · · · · · What I am truly
Is thine, and my poore countries to command:
Whither indeed before they (thy) heere-approach,
Old Seyward with ten thousand warlike men
Already at a point, was setting forth."

Macbeth, Act IV. Sc. 3. 1st Fol.

No profit to give the commentators' various guesses at the import of the phrase in the above passage, which will be best gathered from the following instances of its use elsewhere. But, before passing further, I beg permission to inform Mr. Knight that the original suggester of "sell" for "self," in an earlier part of this play, whose name he is at a loss for, was W. S. Landor, whose footnote to vol. ii. p. 273., Moxon's edit. of his works, is as follows:

"And here it may be permitted the editor to profit also by the manuscript, correcting in Shakespeare what is absolute nonsense as now printed:

'Vaulting ambition that o'erleaps itself,
And falls on the other side.'

Other side of what? It should be its sell. Sell is saddle in Spenser and elsewhere, from the Latin and Italian."

A correspondent of "N. & Q."., Vol. vii., p. 404., will be delighted to find his very ingenious discovery brought home, and corroborated by Landor's valuable manuscript: but it is an old said saw—"Great wits jump." Now to our examples:

"Pasquin. Saint Luke also affirmeth the same, saying flatly that he shall not be forgiuen. Beholde, therefore, how well they interprete the Scriptures.
Marforius. I am alreadie at a poynt with them, but thou shalt doo me great pleasure to expounde also vnto me certayne other places, vppon the which they ground this deceit."—Pasquine in a Traunce, turned but lately out of the Italian into this tongue by W. P.: London, 1584.
"But look, where malice reigneth in men, there reason can take no place: and, therefore, I see by it, that you are all at a point with me, that no reason or authority can persuade you to favour my name, who never meant evil to you, but both your commodity and profit."—Foxe's Acts and Monuments, vol. viii. p. 18.
"Not so, my lord," said I, "for I am at a full point with myself in that matter; and am right well able to prove both your transubstantiation with the real presence to be against the Scriptures and the ancient Fathers of the primitive Church."—Id., p. 587.
"Winchester. No, surely, I am fully determined, and fully at a point therein, howsoever my brethren do."—Id., p. 691.
"Brad. Sir, so that you will define me your church, that under it you bring not in a false church, you shall not see but that we shall soon be at a point."—Id., vol. vii. p. 190.
"Latimer. Truly, my lord, as for my part I require no respite, for I am at a point. You shall give me respite in vain; therefore, I pray you let me not trouble you to-morrow."—Id., p. 534.
"Unto whom he (Lord Cobham) gave this answer: 'Do as ye shall think best, for I am at a point.' Whatsoever he (Archbishop Arundel) or the other bishops did ask him after that, he bade them resort to his bill: for thereby would he stand to the very death."—Id., vol. iii. pp. 327-8.
"'Et illa et ista vera esse credantur et nulla inter nos contentio remanebit, quia nec illis veris ista, nec istis veris illa impediuntur.' Let bothe those truthes and these truthes be beleued, and we shall be at appoinct. For neither these truthes are impaired by the other, neither the other by these."—A Fortresse of the Faith, p. 50., by Thomas Stapleton: Antwerp, 1565.
"A poore man that shall haue liued at home in the countrie, and neuer tasted of honoure and pompe, is alwayes at a poynt with himselfe, when menne scorne and disdayne him, or shewe any token of contempt towardes his person."—John Calvin's CVIII. Sermon on the Thirtieth Chap. of Job, p. 554., translated by Golding: London, 1574.
"As for peace, I am at a point."—Leycester Correspondence, Camd. Soc., p. 261.
W. R. Arrowsmith.

(To be continued.)

FOLK LORE

Weather Rules.—The interesting article on "The Shepherd of Banbury's Weather Rules" (Vol. vii., p. 373.) has reminded me of two sayings I heard in Worcestershire a few months back, and upon which my informant placed the greatest reliance. The first is, "If the moon changes on a Sunday, there will be a flood before the month is out." My authority asserted that through a number of years he has never known this fail. The month in which the change on a Sunday has occurred has been fine until the last day, when the flood came. The other saying is, "Look at the weathercock on St. Thomas's day at twelve o'clock, and see which way the wind is, and there it will stick for the next quarter," that is, three months. Can any of your readers confirm the above, and add any similar "weather rules?"

J. A., Jun.

Birmingham.

Drills presaging Death (Vol. vii., p. 353.).—Your correspondent asks if the superstition he here alludes to in Norfolk is believed in other parts. I can give him a case in point in Berkshire:—Some twenty years ago an old gentleman died there, a near relative of my own; and on going down to his place, I was told by a farm overseer of his, that he was certain some of his lordship's family would die that season, as, in the last sowing, he had missed putting the seed in one row, which he showed me! "Who could disbelieve it now?" quoth the old man. I was then taken to the bee-hives, and at the door of every one this man knocked with his knuckles, and informed the occupants that they must now work for a new master, as their old one was gone to heaven. This, I believe, has been queried in your invaluable paper some time since. I only send it by the way. I know the same superstition is still extant in Cheshire, North Wales, and in some parts of Scotland.

T. W. N.

Malta.

A friend supplies me with the information that before drills were invented, the labourers considered it unlucky to miss a "bout" in corn or seed sowing, will sometimes happened when "broadcast" was the only method. The ill-luck did not relate alone to a death in the family of the farmer or his dependents, but to losses of cattle or accidents. It is singular, however, that the superstition should have transferred itself to the drill; but it will be satisfactory to E. G. R. to learn that the process of tradition and superstition-manufacturing is not going on in the nineteenth century.

E. S. Taylor.

Superstition in Devonshire; Valentine's Day (Vol. v., pp. 55. 148.).—This, according to Forby, vol. ii. p. 403., once formed in Norfolk a part of the superstitious practices on St. Mark's Eve, not St. Valentine's, as mentioned by J. S. A., when the sheeted ghosts of those who should die that year (Mrs. Crowe would call them, I suppose, Doppelgängers) march in grisly array to the parish church.

The rhyme varies from J. S. A.'s:—

"Hempseed I sow:
Hempseed grow;
He that is my true love
Come after me, and mow."

and the Norfolk spectre is seen with a scythe, instead of a rake like his Devonshire compeer.

E. S. Taylor.

A NOTE ON GULLIVER'S TRAVELS

If I may argue from the silence of the latest edition of Gulliver's Travels, with Notes, with which I am acquainted, viz. that by W. C. Taylor, LL.D., Trinity College, Dublin, the Preface to which is dated May 1st, 1840, I may say that all the commentators on Swift—all, at least, down to that late date—have omitted to refer to a work containing incidents closely resembling some of those recorded in the "Voyage to Lilliput."

The work to which I allude is a little dramatical composition, the Bambocciata, or puppet-show, by Martelli, entitled The Sneezing of Hercules. Goldoni, in his Memoirs, has given us the following account of the manner in which he brought it out on the stage:

"Count Lantieri was very well satisfied with my father, for he was greatly recovered, and almost completely cured: his kindness was also extended to me, and to procure amusement for me he caused a puppet-show, which was almost abandoned, and which was very rich in figures and decorations, to be refitted.
"I profited by this, and amused the company by giving them a piece of a great man, expressly composed for wooden comedians. This was the Sneezing of Hercules, by Peter James Martelli, a Bolognese.

· · · · · · · · · ·

"The imagination of the author sent Hercules into the country of the pigmies. Those poor little creatures, frightened at the aspect of an animated mountain with legs and arms, ran and concealed themselves in holes. One day as Hercules had stretched himself out in the open field, and was sleeping tranquilly, the timid inhabitants issued out of their retreats, and, armed with prickles and rushes, mounted on the monstrous man, and covered him from head to foot, like flies when they fall on a piece of rotten meat. Hercules waked, and felt something in his nose, which made him sneeze; on which, his enemies tumbled down in all directions. This ends the piece.
"There is a plan, a progression, an intrigue, a catastrophe, and winding up; the style is good and well-supported; the thoughts and sentiments are all proportionate to the size of the personages. The verses even are short, and everything indicates pigmies.
"A gigantic puppet was requisite for Hercules; everything was well executed. The entertainment was productive of much pleasure; and I could lay a bet, that I am the only person who ever thought of executing the Bambocciata of Martelli."—Memoirs of Goldoni, translated by John Black, 2 vols., duod. vol. i. chap. 6.

It is certainly not necessary to point out here in what respects the adventures of Hercules, the animated mountain, and those of Quinbus Flestrin, the man mountain, differ from, or coincide with, each other, as the only question I wish to raise is, whether a careful analysis of Martelli's puppet-show ought, or ought not, to have been placed among the notes on Gulliver's Travels.

C. Forbes.

Temple.

SHAKSPEARE CORRESPONDENCE

In reply to J. M. G. of Worcester, who inquires for a MS. volume of English poetry containing some lines attributed to Shakspeare, and which is described in Thorpe's Catalog of MSS. for 1831, I can supply some particulars which may assist him in the research. The MS., which at one period had belonged to Joseph Hazlewood, was purchased from Thorpe by the late Lord Viscount Kingsborough; after whose decease it was sold, in November, 1842, at Charles Sharpe's literary sale room, Anglesea Street, Dublin. It is No. 574. in the auction catalogue of that part of his lordship's library which was then brought to auction.

The volume has been noticed by Patrick Fraser Tytler, in his Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, Edinburgh, 1833 (in Appendix B, p. 436., of 2nd edit.), where, citing the passage from Collier, which is referred to by J. M. G., he asserts that the lines are not Shakspeare's, but Jonson's. But he does not appear to me to have established his case beyond doubt; as the lines, though found among Jonson's works, may, notwithstanding, be the production of some other writer: and why not of Shakspeare, to whom they are ascribed in the MS.? Some verses by Sir J. C. Hobhouse originally appeared as Lord Byron's: and there are numerous instances, both ancient and modern, of a similar attribution of works to other than their actual authors.

Arterus.

Dublin.

The Island of Prospero.—We cannot assert that Shakspeare, in the Tempest, had any particular island in view as the scene of his immortal drama, though by some this has been stoutly maintained. Chalmers prefers one of the Bermudas. The Rev. J. Hunter, in his Disquisition on the Scene, &c. of the Tempest, endeavours to confer the honour on the Island of Lampedosa. In reference to this question, a statement of the pseudo-Aristotle is remarkable. In his work "περὶ θαυμασίων ἀκουσμάτων," he mentions Lipara, one of the Æolian Islands, lying to the north of Sicily, and nearly in the course of Shakspeare's Neapolitan fleet from Tunis to Naples. Among the πολλὰ τερατώδη found there, he tells us:

"Ἐξακούεσθαι γὰρ τυμπάνων καὶ κυμβάλων ἦχον γέλωτα τε μετὰ θορύβου καὶ κροτάλων ἐναργῶς. λέγουσι δέ τι τερατωδέστερον γεγονέναι περὶ τὸ σπήλαιον."

If we compare this with the aerial music heard by Ferdinand (Tempest, I. 2.), especially as the orchestra is represented by the genial burin of M. Retsch in the fifth plate of his well-known sketches (Umrisze), it will appear probable that Shakspeare was acquainted with the Greek writer either in the original or through a translation. As far as I am aware, this has not been observed by any of the commentators.—From The Navorscher.

J. M.

Coincident Criticisms.—I shall be obliged if you will allow me through your pages to anticipate and rebut two charges of plagiarism. When I wrote my Note on a passage in The Winter's Tale ("N. & Q.," Vol. vii., p. 378.), I had not seen the Dublin University Magazine for March last, containing some remarks on the same passage in some respects much resembling mine. I must also declare that my Note on a passage in All's Well that ends Well ("N. & Q.," Vol. vii., p. 426.) was posted for you some time before the appearance of A. E. B.'s Note on the same passage ("N. & Q.," Vol. vii., p. 403.). The latter coincidence is more remarkable than the former, as the integrity of the amended text was in both notes discussed by means of the same parallel passage. Apropos of A. E. B.'s clever Note, permit me to say, that though at first it appeared to me conclusive, I now incline to think that Shakspeare intended Helen to address the leaden messengers by means of a very hyperbolic figure: "wound the still-piecing air that sings with piercing" is a consistent whole. If, as A. E. B. rightly says, to wound the air is an impossibility, it is equally impossible that the air should utter any sound expressive of sensibility. The fact of course is, that the cannon-balls cleave the air, and that by so cleaving it a shrill noise is produced. The cause and effect may, however, be metaphorically described, by comparing air to Bertram. I believe it is a known fact that every man who is struck with a cannon-ball cries out instinctively. Shakspeare therefore might, I think, have very poetically described the action and effect of a cannon-ball passing through the air by the strong figure of wounding the air that sings with the piercing which it is enduring.

In concluding this Note, I beg to express what is not merely my own, but a very general feeling of disappointment in respect of Mr. Collier's new edition of Shakspeare. To it, with a new force, may be applied the words of A. E. B. in "N. & Q.," Vol. vi., p. 296.:

"But the evil of these emendations is not in this instance confined to the mere suggestion of doubt; the text has absolutely been altered in all accessible editions, in many cases silently, so that the ordinary reader has no opportunity of judging between Shakspeare and his improvers."

That Mr. Collier should be the greatest of such offenders, is no very cheering sign of the times.

C. Mansfield Ingleby.

Birmingham.

Dogberry's Losses (Vol. vii., p. 377.).—I do not know whether it has ever been suggested, but I feel inclined to read "lawsuits." He has just boasted of himself as "one that knows the law;" and it seems natural enough that he should go on to brag of being a rich fellow enough, "and a fellow that hath had lawsuits" of his own, and actually figured as plaintiff or defendant. Suppose the words taken down from the mouth of an actor, and the mistake would be easy.