Chapter I: Front Matter

[Transcriber's note: Original spelling variations have not been standardized. Characters with macrons have been marked in brackets with an equal sign, as [=e] for a letter e with a macron on top, or [p=] for a letter p with a horizontal bar in the descender. Underscores have been used to indicate _italic_ fonts. A list of volumes and pages in "Notes and Queries" has been added at the end.]

NOTES AND QUERIES:

A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION

FOR

LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.

"When found, make a note of."--CAPTAIN CUTTLE.

VOL. V.--No. 124. SATURDAY, MARCH 13. 1852.

Price Fourpence. Stamped Edition, 5_d._

CONTENTS.

Page

NOTES:--

Readings in Shakspeare, No. III. 241

Folk Lore:--Burning Fern brings Rain 242

Translations, by C. Redding 243

Ballad of Lord Delamere 243

Minor Notes:--A Note on Henry III.--Old Books and
New Titles--Bowdler's Family Shakspeare--The
French Language--Curious Epitaph 244

QUERIES:--

"Hogs Norton, where Pigs play upon the Organs," by
Thos. Lawrence 245

Minor Queries:--The Judge alluded to by South--English
Translation of the Canons--Snuff-boxes and
Tobacco-pipes--Cromwell--Meaning of Wallop--The
"Mistral"--Deaths from Fasting--Ad Viscum--Whipping
Graves--John Rogers, Protomartyr--Autograph
Music by Handel--The Layard Family--C.
L. A. A. P. D. P.--Prianho, De Pratellis and Prideaux
Family--Joseph Adrien Le Bailly 246

MINOR QUERIES ANSWERED:--The Great Bowyer Bible--Orloff,
Derivation of--"A Captain bold of Halifax"--Goblin,
Gorgeous, Gossip--Maheremium; Arc de Arbouin 248

REPLIES:--

Moravian Hymns 249

Archaic and Provincial Words, by
Robert Rawlinson, &c. 250

Macaronic Poetry, by James Cornish 251

Young's "Narcissa" 252

Dulcarnon, by S. W. Singer, &c. 252

St. George Heraldical MSS. 253

Sterne in Paris 254

Replies to Minor Queries:--Collar of Esses--Quid
est Episcopus--Paper-making in England--"Mother
Damnable"--Miniature of Cromwell--Etymology
of Church--The Königsmarks--L'Homme de 1400
Ans--Close of the Wady Mokatteb Question--Was
Queen Elizabeth dark or fair?--Meaning of Knarres--Cheap
Maps--English Free Towns--Sir Alexander
Cumming and the Cherokees--Junius--Hell-Rake--Ambassadors
addressed as Peers--Red Book of the
Irish Exchequer--Yankee, Derivation of--Indian
Jugglers; Ballad of Ashwell Thorp--Meaning of
Crabis--"'Twas whisper'd in Heaven"--"Troilus
and Cressida," Act I. Sc. 3.--Stone-pillar Worship--John
of Padua--Modern Greek Names of Places--Beocherie,
alias Parva Hibernia--Ruffles, when worn--Long
Meg of Westminster--Family Likenesses--"A
Roaring Meg"--Lyte Family--Nuremberg Token--The
Old Countess of Desmond--Pimlico--"Wise
above that which is written"--Sir John Cheke--Richard
Earl of Chepstow--Maps of Africa--Lady
Diana Beauclerk--"Litera Scripta manet"--"Qui
vult plene," &c.--Engraved Portraits 255

MISCELLANEOUS:--

Notes on Books, &c. 261

Books and Odd Volumes wanted 262

Notices to Correspondents 262

Advertisements 263

Notes.

READINGS IN SHAKSPEARE, NO. III.

_Hamlet_, Act I. Sc. 5.

"My tables, my tables,--meet it is I set it down."

This line (which might have suggested to our worthy patron, Captain Cuttle, the posy on our title-page) has, in my opinion, been misapplied and misinterpreted; and, as I am unable to convince myself that the view I take of it, albeit in opposition to all other readers of Shakspeare, is wrong, I venture to remove my light from under the bushel, although in so doing am sorely in dread of its being rudely puffed upon.

The more so, because the natural hesitation which must be felt, in any case, when challenging for the first time the correctness of a generally received reading, is, in this instance, greatly augmented, by finding that an illustrious commenter upon Shakspeare--himself a great and congenial poet--has conferred a special approbation upon the old reading, by choosing it out as an item in his appreciation of Hamlet's character.

I allude to Coleridge, whose remark is this:

"Shakspeare alone could have produced the vow of Hamlet, to make
his memory a blank of all maxims and generalised truths that
'observation had copied there,' followed immediately by the
speaker noting down the generalised fact--

"'That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.'

"Now, that this last line _is_ really what Shakspeare _intended to
be noted down_, is precisely the point that goes so much "against
the stomach of my sense!"

This jotting down by Hamlet, upon a real substantial table, of one of those "generalised truths" which he had just excluded from the table of his memory, would be such a _literalising of the metaphor_, that it is a great relief to me to feel convinced that Shakspeare never intended it.

In Hamlet's discourse there may be observed an under current of thought that is continually breaking forth in _apostrophe_. In the present instance it is directed to his uncle:

"O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain!
At least I'm sure it may be so in Denmark--
So! uncle, _there_ you are!"

Is not all this _one continued apostrophe_? The second line an admirative comment upon the first, and the fourth line, even in the present day, a common exclamation expressive of misdeeds, or intentions, unexpectedly brought to light? But it is not this most trite reflection, in the second line, that Hamlet wishes to set down. No, it is the all-absorbing _commandment_:

"And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmixed with baser matter--

"My tables, my tables,--meet it is I set it down!"

_Set it down_, in order that the exact words of the commandment--subsequently quoted to the very letter--may be preserved.

To suppose that Hamlet gets forth his tables for the purpose of setting down a common-place truism, _because_ he has reserved no place for such matters _in the table of his memory_, is surely to materialise a fine poetical image by contrasting it with a substantial matter of fact operation.

And to suppose, with Coleridge, that the very absurdness of the act is a subtle indication of incipient madness, is an over refinement in criticism, as intenable as it is unnecessary.

Hamlet evinces no semblance of unsettled mind, real or assumed, until joined by Horatio and Marcellus; and, even then, his apparently misplaced jocularity does not commence until he has finally determined _to withhold_ the secret he had twice been on the point of disclosing:

"How say you then, would the heart of man once think it?--
But you'll be secret."

Again:

"There's ne'er a villain dwelling in all Denmark--
But he's an arrant knave."

I do not know whether I am singular in the view I take of these two sentences, but I understand them as _inchoate disclosures_, suddenly broken off through the irresolution of the speaker.

For instance, I do not understand the last, as Horatio understood it--"_There needs no ghost from the grave to tell us this_;" but I understand it as an intended revelation, begun, withdrawn, and cleverly turned off by the substitution of a ridiculous termination. It is _then_, when Hamlet finally resolves to withhold the secret, at least from Marcellus (when or where Horatio afterwards acquires it, is not explained), that he seeks to conceal his overwrought feelings by assumed levity.

Such is the way I read this scene; and, while I freely admit the difficulty presented in the fact, that, amongst so many acute students of Shakspeare, no one before should have seen any difficulty in the usual interpretation of this passage, I must at the same time declare, that I can perceive no single point in favour of that interpretation, save and except the placing of the "stage direction" where it now is. But this may have arisen from the early printers being misled by the apparent sequence of the word "that," with which the next line commences:

----"meet it is I set it down
_That_" &c.

It may be observed, however, that such a commencement, to a sentence expressive of wonder or incredulity, was by no needs uncommon. As, for example, in the first scene of _Cymbeline_:

"That a _king's_ children should be so convey'd!"

I really can perceive little _else_ than this "stage direction" to favour the usual reading, while, in that proposed by me, the sequence of action appears to be the most natural in the world:--

First, "My tables, my tables," &c.

Next, the continuation of the interrupted apostrophe, which occupies the time while getting forth and preparing the tables.

Next, the abrupt exclamation, "Now to my word."

And finally, the dictating, _to the pen_, the express words of the last line of the ghost's speech.

In point of fact, the best possible _stage direction_ is given by Shakspeare himself, when he makes Hamlet exclaim, "_Now to my word_," or, now to my _memorandum_, reverting to the purpose for which he had got his tables forth. In the old reading, Steevens was driven to explain "now to my word" in this way, "Hamlet alludes to the _watchword_ given every day in military service."

It is of the more importance that this point, raised by me, should be fairly and impartially examined, because, being in correction of alleged misinterpretation, its decision must have some influence upon a right discrimination of the character of Hamlet's madness, as opposed to the deduction drawn by Coleridge. In taking it into consideration, the following alterations in the existing punctuation must be premised:--

After "set it down," a full stop; after "and be a villain," a note of admiration; the stage direction "(_writing_)" to be removed two lines lower down.

A. E. B.

Leeds.

FOLK LORE.

_Burning Fern brings Rain._--In a volume containing miscellaneous collections by Dr. Richard Pococke, in the British Museum, MS. Add. 15,801, at fol. 33. is the copy of a letter written by Philip Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke, Lord Chamberlain, to the Sheriff of Staffordshire, which illustrates a curious popular belief of the period, from which even the king was not free. It is as follows:

"Sr.--His Majesty taking notice of an opinion entertained in
Staffordshire, that the burning of Ferne doth draw downe rain, and
being desirous that the country and himself may enjoy fair weather
as long as he remains in those parts, His Majesty hath commanded
me to write unto you, to cause all burning of Ferne to bee
forborne, untill his Majesty be passed the country. Wherein not
doubting but the consideration of their own interest, as well as
of his Ma'ties, will invite the country to a ready observance of
this his Ma'ties command, I rest,

"Your very loving friend,
PEMBROKE AND MONTGOMERY.

"Belvoir, 1st August, 1636.

"To my very loving friend the
High Sheriff of the County
of Stafford."

Do any other writers of the time notice this "opinion," and do any traces of it exist at present?

μ.

TRANSLATIONS.

It becomes needful that the translations which are to be copyright should be accurately made when the new international law comes into effect. In the _Consulship and Empire_ of M. Thiers, vol. iii. p. 220., purporting to be translated by D. Forbes Campbell, "under the sanction and approval of the author," the following _happy_ piece of translation occurs:--

"They urged also, that the Maltese people would offer great
resistance to the destruction of those fine fortresses, and
proposed the reconstitution of the Order on a new and more solid
basis. They had no objection to allow the French language still to
be used there, stipulating only that a college should be
instituted for teaching the English and Maltese languages. The
latter for the advantages of the Maltese people, who should have a
share in its management; they were desirous of placing this new
settlement under the guarantee of some great power, Russia for
example. The English were in hopes that with the English and
Maltese languages spoken by the people who would still be devoted
to them, they should still have an influence in the island, which
would prevent the French from again obtaining possession of it."

The translator has invented a college and system of instruction, because he did not know how to translate "_langue_!"[1] Thus this important passage is wholly perverted.

"Ils alléguaient la resistance de la population maltaise à toute
destruction de ses belles forteresses, et proposaient la
reconstitution de l'Ordre sur des bases nouvelles et plus solides.
_Ils voulaient y laisser une langue française, moyennant qu'on y
institût une langue anglaise et une langue maltaise, celle-ci
accordée à la population de l'îsle, pour lui donner part à son
gouvernement; ils voulaient que ce nouvel établissement fût placé
sur la garantie d'une grande puissance, la Russie par exemple. Les
Anglais espéraient qu'avec les langues anglaise et maltaise qui
leur seraient dévotée, ils auraient un pied dans l'isle, et
empêcheraient les Français d'y rentrer._"

[Footnote 1: "Langue" means Order of Knights of Malta, of the
particular "nation" expressed.]