Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 - Various 2 стр.

A similar superstition supposes that the sole of the left shoe of a person of the same age, but opposite sex, to the patient, reduced to ashes is a cure for St. Anthony's fire. I have seen it applied with success, but suppose its efficacy is due to some astringent principle in the ashes.

SHAKSPEARE CORRESPONDENCE

On Two Passages in Shakspeare.Taking up a day or two since a Number of "N. & Q.," my attention was drawn to a new attempt to give a solution of the difficulty which has been the torment of commentators in the following passage from the Third Act of Romeo and Juliet:

"Runaways'" being a manifest absurdity, the recent editors have substituted "unawares," an uncouth alteration, which, though it has a glimmering of sense, appears to me almost as absurd as the word it supplies. In this dilemma your correspondent Mr. Singer ingeniously suggests the true reading to be,

No doubt this is a felicitous emendation, though I think it may be fairly objected that a rumourer, being one who deals in what he hears, as opposed to an observer, who reports what he sees, there is a certain inappropriateness in speaking of a rumourer's eyes. Be this as it may, I beg to suggest another reading, which has the merit of having spontaneously occurred to me on seeing the word "runaways'" in your correspondent's paper, as if obviously suggested by the combination of letters in that word. I propose that the passage should be read thus:

A subsequent reference to Juliet's speech has left no doubt in my mind that this is the true reading, and so obviously so, as to make it a wonder that it should have been overlooked. She first asks the "fiery-footed steeds" to bring in "cloudy night," then night to close her curtain (that day's eyes may wink), that darkness may come, under cover of which Romeo may hasten to her. In the next two lines she shows why this darkness is propitious, and then, using an unwonted epithet, invokes night to give her the opportunity of darkness:

The peculiar and unusual epithet "civil," here applied to night, at once assured me of the accuracy of the proposed reading, it having evidently suggested itself as the antithesis of "rude" just before applied to day; the civil, accommodating, concealing night being thus contrasted with the unaccommodating, revealing day. It is to be remarked, moreover, that as this epithet civil is, through its ordinary signification, brought into connexion with what precedes it, so is it, through its unusual meaning of grave, brought into connexion with what follows, it thus furnishing that equivocation of sense of which our great dramatist is so fond, rarely missing an opportunity of "paltering with us in a double sense."

I think, therefore, I may venture to offer you the proposed emendation as rigorously fulfilling all the requirements of the text, while at the same time it necessitates a very trifling literal disturbance of the old reading, since by the simple change of the letters naw into ded, we convert "runaways'" into "rude day's," of which it was a very easy misprint.

Having offered you an emendation of my own, I cannot miss the opportunity of sending you another, for which I am indebted to a critical student of Shakspeare, my friend Mr. W. R. Grove, the Queen's Counsel. In All's Well that ends Well, the third scene of the Second Act opens with the following speech from Lafeu:

"They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar things, supernatural and causeless. Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors; ensconcing ourselves in a seeming knowledge when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear."

On reading this passage as thus printed, it will be seen that the two sentences of which it is composed are in direct contradiction to each other; the first asserting that we have philosophers who give a causeless and supernatural character to things ordinary and familiar: the second stating as the result of this, "that we make trifles of terrors," whereas the tendency would necessarily be to make "terrors of trifles." The confusion arises from the careless pointing of the first sentence. By simply shifting the comma at present after "things," and placing it after "familiar," the discrepancy between the two sentences disappears, as also between the two members of the first sentence, which are now at variance. It should be pointed thus:

"They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless."

It is singular that none of the editors should have noticed this defect, which I have no doubt will hereafter be removed by the adoption of a simple change, that very happily illustrates the importance of correct punctuation.

Shakspeare's Skull.As your publication has been the medium of many valuable comments upon Shakspeare, and interesting matter connected with him, I am induced to solicit information, if you will allow me, on the following subject. I have the Works of Shakspeare, which being in one volume 8vo., I value as being more portable than any other edition. It was published by Sherwood without any date affixed, but probably about 1825. There is a memoir prefixed by Wm. Harvey, Esq., in which, p. xiii., it is stated that while a vault was being made close to Shakspeare's, when Dr. Davenport was rector, a young man perceiving the tomb of Shakspeare open, introduced himself so far within the vault that he could have brought away the skull, but he was deterred from doing so by the anathema inscribed on the monument, of

"Curs'd be he that moves my bones."

This is given upon the authority of Dr. Nathan Drake's work on Shakspeare, in two vols. 4to. Now in this work much is given which is copied into the memoir, but I do not there find this anecdote, and perhaps some reader of "N. & Q." may supply this deficiency, and state where I may find it. I may be allowed to state, that Pope's skull was similarly stolen and another substituted.

I annex Wheler's remark that no violation of the grave had, up to the time of his work, taken place.

"Through a lapse of nearly two hundred years have his ashes remained undisturbed, and it is to be hoped no sacrilegious hand will ever be found to violate the sacred repository."History of Stratford-upon-Avon, by R. B. Wheler (circa 1805?), 8vo.

On a Passage in "Macbeth."Mr. Singleton (Vol. vii., p. 404.) says, "Vaulting ambition, that o'erleaps itself," is nonsensethe thing is impossible; and proposes that "vaulting ambition" should "rest his hand upon the pommel, and o'erleap the saddle (sell)," a thing not uncommon in the feats of horsemanship.

Did Mr. Singleton never o'erleap himself, and be too latelater than himself intended? Did he never, in his younger days, amuse himself with a soprasalto; or with what Donne calls a "vaulter's sombersault?" Did he never hear of any little plunderer, climbing a wall, o'erreaching himself to pluck an apple, and falling on the other side, into the hands of the gardener? "By like," says Sir Thomas More, "the manne there overshotte himself."

What was the manne about? Attempting such a perilous gambol, perhaps, as correcting Shakspeare.

To {overleap, overreach, overshoot} himself are merely, to {leap, reach, shoot}, over or beyond the mark himself intended.

Bloomsbury.

P.S.Mr. Arrowsmith reminds us of the old saw, that "great wits jump." He should recollect also that they sometimes nod.

Minor Notes

Lemon-juice administered in Gout and Rheumatism.At a time when lemon-juice seems to be frequently administered in gout and rheumatism, as though it were an entirely new remedy, I have been somewhat amused at the following passage, which may also interest some of your readers; it occurs in Scelta di Lettere Familiari degli Autori più celebri ad uso degli studiosi della lingua Italiana, p. 36., in a letter "Di Don Francesco a Teodoro Villa":

"Io non posso star meglio di quel che sto, e forse perchè uso di spesso il bagno freddo, e beo limonata a pranzo e a cena da molti mesi. Questa è la mia quotidiana bevanda, e dacche mi ci sono messo, m' ha fatto un bene che non si puo dire. Di quelle doglie di capo, che un tempo mi sconquassavano le tempie, non ne sento più una. Le vertigini, che un tratto mi favorivano sì di spesso, se ne sono ite. Sino un reumatismo, che m' aveva afferrato per un braccio, s' e dileguato, così ch'io farei ora alla lotta col più valente marinaro calabrese che sia. L' appetito mio pizzica del vorace. Che buona cosa il sugo d' un limone spremato nell' acqua, e indolciato con un po' di zucchero! Fa di provarlo, Teodoro. Chi sa che non assesti il capo e lo stomaco auche a te."

Weather Proverbs.Are these proverbs worth recording?

The expressions in the latter two are maritime, and the rhymes not very choice; but they hold equally in terrestrial matters, and I have seldom found them wrong.

Dog Latin.The answer of one of your late correspondents (E. M. B., Vol. vii., p. 622.) on the subject of "LatinLatiner," has revived a Query in your First Volume (p. 230.) as to the origin of this expression which does not appear to have been answered. I do not remember having seen any explanation of the term, but I have arrived at one for myself, and present it to your readers for what it is worth. Nothing, it must be admitted, can be more inconsistent with the usual forms of language than the Latin of mediæval periods; it is often, in fact, not Latin at all, but merely a Latin form given to simple English or other words, and admitting of the greatest variety. Now of all animals the distinctions of breed are perhaps more numerous in the canine race than any other. The word "mongrel," originally applied to one of these quadruped combinations of variety, has long been used to signify anything in which mixture of class existed, especially of a debasing kind, to which such mixture generally tends. Nothing could be more appropriate than the application of the term to the "infima latinitas" of the Middle Ages; and from "mongrel" the transition to the name of the genus from that of the degenerate species appears to me to be very easy, though fanciful.

Thomas Wright of Durham.In the Philosophical Magazine for April, 1848, I gave an account of the "Original Theory or new Hypothesis of the Universe" of Thomas Wright, whose anticipations of modern speculation on the milky way, the central sun, and some other points, make him one of the most remarkable astronomical thinkers of his day. In the biography in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1793, he is described as struggling for a livelihood when a young man, and no account is given of the manner in which he obtained the handsome competence with which he emerges in 1756, or thereabouts. A few days after my account was published, I was informed (by Captain James, R.E.) that a large four-foot orrery, constructed by Wright for the Royal Academy at Portsmouth, was still in that town; and that by the title of "J. Harrises Use of the Globes" it appears that he (Wright) kept his shop at the Orrery, near Water Lane, Fleet Street (No. 136), under the title of instrument-maker to his Majesty. In an edition of Harris (the 8th, 1767), which I lately met with, the above is described as "late the shop of Thomas Wright," &c. By the advertisements which this work contains, Wright must have had an extensive business as a philosophical instrument-maker. The omission in the biography is a strange one. Possibly some farther information may fall in the way of some of your readers.

A Funeral Custom.At Broadwas, Worcestershire, in the valley of the Teame, it is the custom at funerals, on reaching "the Church Walk," for the bearers to set down the coffin, and, as they stand around, to bow to it.

Queries

LITTLECOTTSIR JOHN POPHAM

Every one knows the tradition attached to the manor of Littlecott in Wiltshire, and the alleged means by which Chief Justice Sir John Popham acquired its possession. It is told by Aubrey, Sir Walter Scott, and many others, and is too notorious to be here repeated. Let me ask you or your learned correspondents whether there exists any refutation of a charge so seriously detrimental to the character of any judge, and so inconsistent with the reputation which Chief Justice Popham enjoyed among his cotemporaries? See Lord Ellesmere's notice of him in the case of the Postnati (State Trials, ii. 669.), and Sir Edward Coke's flattering picture of him at the end of Sir Drew Drury's case (Reports, vi. 75.). Are there any records showing that a Darell was ever in fact arraigned on a charge of murder, and the name of the judge who presided at the trial? Is the date known of the death of the last Darell who possessed the estate, or that of Sir John Popham's acquisition of it? The discovery of these might throw great light on the subject, and possibly afford a complete contradiction.

Sir Francis Bacon, in his argument against Sir John Hollis and others for traducing public justice, states that

"Popham, a great judge in his time, was complained of by petition to Queen Elizabeth; it was committed to four privy councillors, but the same was found to be slanderous, and the parties punished in the court."State Trials, vol. ii. p. 1029.

If this petition could be discovered, and it should turn out that the slander complained of in it had reference to this story, the investigation which it then underwent by the four privy councillors, and the chief justice's enjoyment of his high office for so many subsequent years, would go far to prove the utter falsehood of the charge. This is a "consummation devoutly to be wished" by every one who feels an interest in the purity of the bench, and particularly by the present possessors of the estate, who must be anxious for their ancestor's fame.