for surely every case of reputed centenarianism must stand or fall on its own ground, and can derive no support from any number of other H. WHITEHEAD.

cases.

SHAKSPEARIANA.

66

'THE MERCHANT OF VENICE,' I. i. 53 (7th S. iii. 402). The previous note on this is a remarkable example of how in Shakespeare one rushes to emendation instead of calmly seeking for the sense intended. To many there is an irrepressible charm in emending Shakespeare, connected, I take it, with this thought, "I, I alone have here fathomed the depth of that mighty mind, and rescued and brought to light the word and meaning lost by his first editors and printers, losses that have escaped his thousands of students, and been unnoticed by his millions of hearers and readers." It may be true that association of parrots with any bagpipers is forced and purposeless." But it is certainly true that Shakespeare never associated these, except so far as he places them in juxtaposition in the same sentence, just as he might have said, "Parrots chatter, and the bagpipes discourse martial music." The misapprehension may be due somewhat to the commas introduced in the edition used by S. H. The Quartos, first Folio, and the Cambridge edition more correctly have no commas, though we might advantageously, perhaps, insert one after "" parrots. The sense is not that the parrot laughs when the bagpipes are played. But it is that some have lungs so tickle o' the sear that they continually break out into senseless guffaws, even at the sight or hearing of the bagpiper, a laughter as imitative and unmeaning as is the laughter of a parrot. If S. H. wishes the meaning given more concisely and more in the words of the text, let him take this, "E'en laugh at a bagpiper as causelessly as parrots laugh."

"

"6

usurped his throne, conquered him, made him prisoner, and carried him away to England, where, in all probability, nay, with all certainty, he will be got rid of. Her sole thought, her sole talk, is now of him and his fate, her curses, and her prayers for revenge. "She dies in a" despairing 'frenzy," IV. ii. 122. This scene is an example of it; and Philip shows that he knows what is coming by his words on her approach. After one futile attempt, he at last says, "Lady, you utter madness," but her only reply is a raving outburst of grief. Then he goes on another tack, and, as he He praises the beauty of the thinks, a sure one. hair she is destroying. She at first only hears sounds without sense. Suddenly, however, these meaningless sounds seem to her to refer to her one abiding thought. Placing her own construction on them, she catches at—

excellent use of a psychological law. Hence I would add a few words to MR. J. STANDISH HALY'S excellent though too concise remarks. The widowed mother and her only child had been inseparable. Arthur has been her idol, the more so that she has indulged in all but certain daydreams, and in loving thoughts of his future happy and glorious career. But his uncle John has

Like true, inseparable, faithful loves, Sticking together in calamity. "Yes," she says-if I may add her unexpressed thoughts to her spoken words-"Yes, to England if you will; be the consequences or prison or death, we will still be 'inseparable and faithful in our loves, clinging together in our calamities' and in our death. My Arthur, let us see one another, let us live together once more, till together we seek BR. NICHOLSON.

the

mercy

of God."

"WAY" IN SHAKSPEARE.-I have not lighted on any explanation of the word "way" as used in Macbeth,' V. iii. 22:

"

My way of life Is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf. The Clarendon Press editors approve Johnson's correction "May," or, leaving "way," they would regard it as a case of confused metaphor. They would have done better to compare the similar disputed passage in 'King Lear,' IV. iii. 21:—

You have seen

Sunshine and rain at once; her smiles and tears Were like a better way.

Here, too, "May" is suggested. We might ask, Why " May-showers"? and contrast 'Antony and Cleopatra,' III. ii. 43 :

·

There's April in her eyes; it is love's spring. But in neither passage is the correctness of the original to be questioned. Add to the above Massinger's Roman Actor,' I. ii., "In my way of youth, pure and untainted." It appears, then, that way meant "spring," and, metaphorically, the prime" or flower of life. Can any of your readers explain the origin of this use?

""

""

ARTHUR GRAY.

Jesus College, Cambridge.

BACON AND SHAKSPEARE (7th S. iii. 264).— Permit me to say that Pandulph was not a cardinal. He was merely a subdeacon. M. Paris (sub ann. 1212) writes, "His ita gestis misit dominus Papa à

latere suo Pandulphum subdiaconum, ad partes Gallicanas cum archiepiscopo et episcopis supradictis; ut in ipsius præsentia, ea quæ superius digesta sunt, exequatur." Lingard endorses this, and Milman (Latin Christianity') says distinctly, "Pandulph was not a cardinal."

It was quite a common practice for clergy of the lower orders (deacons and subdeacons) to be entrusted by the Pope with the most important commissions. They often represented him in councils and synods, and in early times were a very great power both in the Eastern and Western Church. The deacon in many respects was much more to the bishop than was the presbyter. The Apostolic Constitutions order, Ἔστω ὁ διάκονος τοῦ ἐπισκόπου ἀκοῆ καὶ ὀφθαλμός καὶ στόμα, καρδία τε, Kai vxy. Let the deacon be the ear, the eye, the mouth, the heart, and the mind of the bishop. The archdeacon now is said to be the eye of the bishop. EDMUND TEW, M.A.

CHARM FOR CURING A WOUND MADE BY A THORN. (See 7th S. iii. 405.)-I read at the above reference the account of a charm to be uttered over a wound. I may add the following. In my native parish, Aldington, Kent, a man named Wm. Hyder was in great repute as a charmer of thorns, and many vouched for the cures he made. He first asked the sufferer if he believed in Christ, when he took hold of the part affected, repeating the following words, at the same time passing his finger over the sore :

In Bethlehem our Saviour Christ was born,
His crown it was a plat of thorns;
May this thorn neither ache nor swell!
I trust in Christ it may do well.

O. MARSHALL.

'LOCKSLEY HALL': A PROPHECY.-In Conjunction with DR. GATTY's very appreciative note on 'Locksley Hall Sixty Years After' (7th S. iii. 347), it may not be out of place to look at a criticism passed on the former poem, 'Locksley Hall,' twenty-two years ago, which contains, a curious prophecy that has been fulfilled by Tennyson in his new poem. Whether the poet has come up to the expectation of the critic is a matter which cannot be decided by individual taste or fancy. Personally I do not doubt that posterity, looking at the poet's finished work, will return any other verdict than that the latter poem is a fitting sequel to the former. The criticism referred to is as follows:

"In Locksley Hall' we have a hero who has grappled with his passion and his grief, and puts them beneath him; but who has not yet learned, in the Goethean phrase, even to love and honour suffering and sorrow, and to look on them not as hindrances, but as having been helps to what is holy.' The crushed spirit we see has recovered from its worst writhings, and grimly fronts the sky, manlike, rejoicing that it can venture

forth to find comfort in some form of activity away from the hero's scathed heart dawns the glory of a great the scene of its wrongs and poignant sorrows. Upon moral truth, that though the individual withers under limitation and wrong, the world still progresses, and that the way to recover health and strength, is to unite with the great advancing phalanx which is ever increasing...... The poet has here carried the poem to the strict limit of his experience at the time it was written. It closes, but does not cease. It abounds with suggestions as to a higher result in prospect. It points to a region of lofty possibility. In one respect, however, it was unsafe for the poet to leave his hero here; that is, when viewed simply from the formally moral standpoint, which requires that a direct lesson be drawn from everything. If, however, the poet ever again wrote on a kindred theme, it would test at once his insight and fuller experience,whether he would conduct his hero to a more worthy goal.” Three Great Teachers of our own Time, by Alexander H. Japp (Smith & Elder, 1865), pp. 131-2.

ROBERT F. GARDINER.

VADE-MECUM.-I trust that some one is "reading" N. & Q.' for the 'New English Dictionary.' He will find an instance of the above-not very unusual-word in 7th S. iii. 286. If he extracts the phrase he should add a note that at the date of writing one-eighth of the 'Dictionary' had appeared; that this formed a solid mass 10 in. by 13 in. by 3 in. and weighed somewhere over ten pounds without binding; and that, notwithstanding, it was not generally considered in 1887 essential to a vade-mecum "that it should weigh eighty pounds and contain some two cubic feet.

Q. V.

"OVERLAIN" AND "OVERLAID " AS PARTICIPLES.-Will any of your readers explain why overlain is never seen, but overlaid thrust in to do what is often clumsy duty for it, and where overlain would conjugationally fit and be the very word in situ? Overlying is met, but who has ever come upon its reciprocal overlain? Is overlie, then, a verb so inflexible that in no place can its preterite overlay or participle overlain fit? See how the former is displaced in 1 Kings iii. 19; yet would it be grammatically wrong to say, "A shocking thing last night; the child dead, overlain by the mother"?or the farmer at fault did he say, "A great loss; the whole litter dead, overlain by the sow"? or another, of a building, "So overlain by weight that the structure fell"? Instances all where without a qualm I should use overlain, and preferably indeed to overlaid, despite that it means smothered. In allusion, again, to the strata of the

answered" well. A "Tableau Analytique, Berne,
Nov. 14, 1816, de M. Jullien," follows after a blank
leaf, and after twenty-seven blank leaves the verses
enclosed. Can any correspondent of ' N. & Q.' say
if they have been published, and who is the author?
De la tige détachée,
pauvre feuille desséchée,
ou vas-tu ?-je n'en sais rien.
L'orage a brisé le chêne
qui seul était mon soutien.
De son inconstante haleine
le zéphir ou l'acquilon
depuis ce jour me promène
de la montagne à la plaine,
de la forêt au vallon,

je vais où le vent me mène,
hélas sans trop m'effrayer;
je vais où va toute chose,
où va la feuille de rose,

où va la feuille de laurier.

Quelques poësies détachées

Sur la vie humaine.

Un vague souvenir

du passé, qui n'est plus, nous reproduit l'image. La crainte et l'esperance ont seules en partage l'incertain avenir.

Le passé, l'avenir, sont deux ombres légères

dont l'homme en vain poursuit les formes mensongères. Le présent seul existe, hélas ! comme un éclair qui brille et disparait dans les plaines de l'air, ainsi, le souvenir, le crainte, l'esperance, un éclair: ò mortels! voilà notre existence.

(Signed) M. A. JULLIEN. C. D. LAMONT.

OUSE, ISIS, OSE, ISE, USK, ESK, EXE, AXE, OCK, Ux, &c. (See 7th S. iii. 323.)-MR. MAYHEW says, "There has never been any attempt to...... prove that these river-names are connected with one another." Courage is really contagious, and in this case we may safely and justly venture to exact from him an attempt to prove they are not connected. Take his special objection to Wisbech. It is on the beach-bench-bank-batch-bach (as Sandbach) of the ancient course of one of the numerous rivers Ouse.

As to the last half of Wisbech, I have in my mind the solution of what has been another topographical riddle to all who have yet encountered it, but will not lengthen this note.

Without having seen Mr. Palmer's book, I had dealt with Oxford, Oseney, &c., elsewhere (Academy, April 9, p. 257).

THOMAS KERSLAKE.

'EIPHNAPXIA.'-In a recent number of Messrs. Pickering & Chatto's Book-Lover's Leaflet (No. 3, p. 16) a work with the above extraordinary title is advertised among other books by Humphrey Lloyd. None of these latter appears to be written in any of the aboriginal languages of North America. Another catalogue recently sent me introduced 'The Diversions of Purley' as 'Eiiea IItepeonta.' Is it too much to ask our second

ARQUEBUS, ITS DERIVATION.-Prof. Skeat, in his Etymological Dictionary,' derives this word from Fr. arquebuse, which he takes to be from Walloon harkibuse, a dialectal variation of Du. haakbus, literally," a gun with a hook." The following spelling of the word in English seems to corroborate the derivation :

Then pusshed souldiers with their pikes
And holbarders with handy strokes;
The hargabushe in fleshe it lightes,
And dims the ayre with misty smokes.
Tottel's Miscellany,' 1557, p. 173, ed. Arber, 1870.
F. C. BIRKBECK TERRY.

CORNISH HISTORIES.-I notice by the reports of the sale of the library of Mr. W. C. Borlase, the Cornish historians, have passed into the M.P., that the manuscripts of Tonkin and Hals, possession of the Royal Institution of Cornwall. Under these circumstances would it not be possible and desirable to arrange for the publication in a complete form of one or both of these histories?

JOHN LANGDON BONYTHON.

Adelaide, South Australia.

those who are interested in Cornish history and anti[This suggestion will have the hearty concurrence of quities.]

BLINDLING.-There are only two quotations for this word in the 'New English Dictionary,' both from the sixteenth century. It is used by Thackeray in a letter of Christmas, 1849, published in Scribner's Magazine for this month (June), p. 687 :—

"But what impudence it is in us, to talk about loving God enough, if I may so speak. Wretched little blindlings, what do we know about Him?"

JOHN RANDALL.

"IT MUST BE A CLOSE PASTURE WHERE HE CAN'T NIBBLE."-This is a common saying in the Midlands, and is probably well known through the country. The meaning is that a man may make a living if he tries, no matter what it is that he may turn his hand to. It is often heard among labourers, handy-men, and artisans. One speaking to another of the venture of a third in a new line