I trust I may be left in the quiet possession of whatever merit is due to this restoration. Some other of my humble auxilia have, before now, been coolly appropriated, with the most innocent air possible, without the slightest acknowledgment. One instance is afforded in Mr. Keightley's communication to "N. & Q.," Vol. vii., p. 136., where that gentleman not only repeats the explanation I had previously given of the same passage, but even does me the honour of requoting the same line of Shakspeare with which I had supported it.
I did not think it worth noticing at the time, nor should I now, were it not that Mr. Keightley's confidence in the negligence or want of recollection in your readers seems not have been wholly misplaced, if we may judge from Mr. Arrowsmith's admiring foot-note in last Number of "N. & Q.," p. 568.
A. E. B.Leeds.
SHAKESPEARE'S USE OF THE IDIOM "NO HAD" AND "NO HATH NOT."
(Vol. vii., p. 520.)We are under great obligations to the Rev. Mr. Arrowsmith for his very interesting illustration of several misunderstood archaisms; and it may not be unacceptable to him if I call his attention to what seems to me a farther illustration of the above singular idiom, from Shakspeare himself.
In As You Like It, Act I. Sc. 3., where Rosalind has been banished by the Duke her uncle, we have the following dialogue between Celia and her cousin:
"Cel. O my poor Rosalind! whither wilt thou go?
Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine.
I charge thee, be not thou more grieved than I am.
Ros. I have more cause.
Cel. Thou hast not, cousin:
Pr'ythee be cheerful: know'st thou not, the duke
Hath banish'd me, his daughter?
Ros. That he hath not.
Cel.No hath not? Rosalind lacks, then, the love
Which teacheth thee that thou and I are one.
Shall we be sunder'd," &c.
From wrong pointing, and ignorance of the idiomatic structure, the passage has hitherto been misunderstood; and Warburton proposed to read, "Which teacheth me," but was fortunately opposed by Johnson, although he did not clearly understand the passage. I have ventured to change am to are, for I cannot conceive that Shakspeare wrote, "that thou and I am one!" It is with some hesitation that I make this trifling innovation on the old text, although we have, a few lines lower, the more serious misprint of your change for the charge. I presume that the abbreviated form of the = ye was taken for for yr, and the r in charge mistaken for n; and in the former case of am for are, indistinctness in old writing, and especially in such a hand as, it appears from his autograph, our great poet wrote, would readily lead to such mistakes. That the correction was left to the printer of the first folio, I am fully persuaded; yet, in comparison with the second folio, it is a correct book, notwithstanding all its faults. That it was customary for men who were otherwise busied, as we may suppose Heminge and Condell to have been, to leave the correction entirely to the printer, is certain; for an acquaintance of Shakspeare's, Resolute John Florio, distinctly shows that it was the case. We have this pithy brief Preface to the second edition of his translation of Montaigne:
"To the Reader"Enough, if not too much, hath beene said of this translation. If the faults found even by myselfe in the first impression, be now by the printer corrected, as he was directed, the work is much amended: if not, know that through mine attendance on her Majesty, I could not intend it; and blame not Neptune for my second shipwracke. Let me conclude with this worthy man's daughter of alliance: 'Que t'ensemble donc lecteur?'
Still Resolute John Florio."S. W. Singer.Mickleham.
Shakspeare (Vol. vii., p. 521.).May I ask whether there is any precedent (I think there can be no excuse) for calling Shakspeare's plays "our national Bible"?
A Clergyman.Minor Notes
The Formation of the Woman, Gen. ii. 21, 22.The terms of Matthew Henry on this subject, in his learned Commentary, have become quite commonplace with divines, when speaking of the ordinance of marriage:
"The woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam: not made out of his head, to top him; nor out of his feet, to be trampled upon by him; but out of his side, to be equal with him; under his arm, to be protected; and near his heart, to be beloved."
Like many other things in his Exposition, this is not original with Henry. It is here traced to the Speculum Humanæ Salvationis of the earliest and rarest printed works. Some of your readers can probably trace it to the Fathers. The verses which follow are engraven in block characters in the first edition of the work named, and are copied from the fifth plate of specimens of early typography in Meerman's Origines Typographicæ: Hague, mdcclxv.:
"Mulier autem in paradiso est formata
De costis viri dormientis est parata
Deus autem ipsam super virum honestavit
Quoniam Evam in loco voluptatis plasmavit,
Non facit eam sicut virum de limo terræ
Sed de osse nobilis viri Adæ et de ejus carne.
Non est facta de pede, ne a viro despiceretur
Non de capite ne supra virum dominaretur.
Sed est facta de latere maritali
Et data est viro pro gloria et socia collaterali.
Quæ si sibi in honorem collata humiliter præstitisset
Nunquam molestiam a viro unquam sustinuisset."
Singular Way of showing Displeasure.
"The earl's regiment not long after, according to order, marched to take possession of the town (Londondery); but at their appearance before it the citizens clapt up the gates, and denyed them entrance, declaring their resolution for the king (William III.) and their own preservation. Tyrconnel at the news of this was said to have burnt his wig, as an indication of his displeasure with the townsmen's proceedings."Life of James II., p. 290.
E. H. A.The Maids and the Widows.The following petition, signed by sixteen maids of Charleston, South Carolina, was presented to the governor of that province on March 1, 1733-4, "the day of the feast:"
"To His Excellency Governor Johnson"The humble Petition of all the Maids whose names are underwritten:"Whereas we the humble petitioners are at present in a very melancholy disposition of mind, considering how all the bachelors are blindly captivated by widows, and our more youthful charms thereby neglected: the consequence of this our request is, that your Excellency will for the future order that no widow shall presume to marry any young man till the maids are provided for; or else to pay each of them a fine for satisfaction, for invading our liberties; and likewise a fine to be laid on all such bachelors as shall be married to widows. The great disadvantage it is to us maids, is, that the widows, by their forward carriages, do snap up the young men; and have the vanity to think their merits beyond ours, which is a great imposition upon us who ought to have the preference.
"This is humbly recommended to your Excellency's consideration, and hope you will prevent any farther insults.
"And we poor Maids as in duty bound will ever pray.
"P.S.I, being the oldest Maid, and therefore most concerned, do think it proper to be the messenger to your Excellency in behalf of my fellow subscribers."
Uneda.Alison's "Europe."In a note to Sir A. Alison's Europe, vol. ix. p. 397., 12mo., enforcing the opinion that the prime movers in all revolutions are not men of high moral or intellectual qualities, he quotes, as from "Sallust de Bello Cat.,"
"In turbis atque seditionibus pessimo cuique plurima vis; pax et quies bonis artibus aluntur."
No such words, however, are to be found in Sallust: but the correct expression is in Tacitus (Hist., iv. 1.):
"Quippe in turbas et discordias pessimo cuique plurima vis; pax et quies bonis artibus indigent."
Sir A. Alison quotes, in the same note, as from Thucydides (l. iii. c. 39.), the following:
"In the contests of the Greek commonwealth, those who were esteemed the most depraved, and had the least foresight, invariably prevailed; for being conscious of this weakness, and dreading to be overreached by those of greater penetration, they went to work hastily with the sword and poniard, and thereby got the better of their antagonists, who where occupied with more refined schemes."
This paragraph is certainly not in the place mentioned; nor can I find it after a diligent search through Thucydides. Will Sir A. Alison, or any of his Oxford friends, be good enough to point out the author, and indicate where such a passage is really to be found?
T. J. Buckton.Birmingham.
"Bis dat, qui cito dat" (Vol. vi., p. 376.)."Sat cito, si sat bene."The first of these proverbs reminded me of the second, which was a favourite maxim of Lord Chancellor Eldon. (See The Life of Lord Chancellor Eldon, vol. i. p. 48.) I notice it for the purpose of showing that Lord Eldon followed (perhaps unconsciously) the example of Augustus, and that the motto is as old as the time of the first Roman emperor, if it is not of more remote origin. The following is an extract from the Life of Augustus, Sueton., chap. xxv.:
"Nil autem minus in imperfecto duce, quam festinationem temeritatemque, convenire arbitrabatur. Crebrò itaque illa jactabat, Σπεδε βραδεως. Et:
'σφαλς γρ στ' αμενων θρασς στρατηλτης.'
Et, 'Sat celeriter fieri, quicquid fiat satis bene.'"
Perhaps T. H. can give us the origin of these Greek and Latin maxims, as he has of "Bis dat, qui cito dat" (Vol. i., p. 330).
F. W. J.Queries
HOUSE-MARKS
Are there traces in England of what the people of Germany, on the shores of the Baltic, call Hausmärke, and what in Denmark and Norway is called bolmærke, bomærke? These are certain figures, generally composed of straight lines, and imitating the shape of the cross or the runes, especially the so-called compound runes. They are meant to mark all sorts of property and chattels, dead and alive, movable and immovable, and are drawn out, or burnt into, quite inartistically, without any attempt of colouring or sculpturing. So, for instance, every freeholder in Praust, a German village near Dantzic, has his own mark on all his property, by which he recognises it. They are met with on buildings, generally over the door, or on the gable-end, more frequently on tombstones, or on epitaphs in churches, on pews and old screens, and implements, cattle, and on all sorts of documents, where the common people now use three crosses.
The custom is first mentioned in the old Swedish law of the thirteenth century (Uplandslagh, Corp. Jur. Sveo-Goth., iii. p. 254.), and occurs almost at the same period in the seals of the citizens of the Hanse-town Lubeck. It has been in common use in Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Sleswick, Holstein, Hamburgh, Lubeck, Mecklenburgh, and Pomerania, but is at present rapidly disappearing. Yet, in Holstein they still mark the cattle grazing on the common with the signs of their respective proprietors; they do the same with the haystacks in Mecklenburgh, and the fishing-tackle on the small islands of the Baltic. In the city of Dantzic these marks still occur in the prayer-books which are left in the churches.
There are scarcely any traces of this custom in the south of Germany, except that the various towers of the city-wall of Nurnberg are said to bear their separate marks; and that an apothecary of Strasburg, Merkwiller, signs a document, dated 1521, with his name, his coat of arms, and a simple mark.
Professor Homeyer has lately read, before the Royal Academy of Berlin, a very learned paper on the subject, and has explained this ancient custom as significant of popular law, possibly intimating the close connexion between the property and its owner. I am sorry not to be able to copy out the Professor's collection of runic marks; but I trust that the preceding lines will be sufficient in order to elicit the various traces of a similar custom still prevalent, or remembered, in the British isles; an account of which will be thankfully received at Berlin, where they have lately been informed, that even the eyder-geese on the Shetlands are distinguished by the marks of their owners.
α.Minor Queries
"Seductor Succo."Will any of your readers oblige me by giving me either a literal or poetical translation of the following lines, taken from Foulis, Rom. Treasons, Preface, p. 28., 1681?
"Seductor Succo, Gallo Sicarius; Anglo Proditor; Imperio Explorator; Davus Ibero; Italo Adulator; dixi teres ore,Suitam."
Clericus (D).Anna Lightfoot.T. H. H. would be obliged by any particulars relating to Anna Lightfoot, the left-handed wife of George III. It has been stated that she had but one son, who died at an early age; but a report circulates in some channels, that she had also a daughter, married to a wealthy manufacturer in a midland town. It is particularly desired to know in what year, and under what circumstances, Anna Lightfoot died.
Queries from the "Navorscher."Did Addison, Steele, or Swift write the "Choice of Hercules" in the Tatler?
Was Dr. Hawkesworth, or, if not, who was, the author of "Religion the Foundation of Content," an allegory in the Adventurer?
In what years were born C. C. Colton, Pinnock, Washington Irving, George Long, F. B. Head; and when died those of them who are no longer among us?
Who wrote "Journal of a poor Vicar," "Story of Catherine of Russia," "Volney Becker," and the "Soldier's Wife," in Chamber's Miscellany?
Did Luther write drinking-songs? If so, where are they to be met with?
"Amentium haud Amantium."I should be glad to ascertain, and perhaps it may be interesting to classical scholars generally to know, if any of your correspondents or readers can suggest an English translation for the phrase "amentium haud amantium" (in the first act of the Andria of Terence), which shall represent the alliteration of the original. The publication of this Query may probably elicit the desired information.