Page:Love's Labour's Lost (1925) Yale.djvu/132

120 the standard textbooks on Latin grammar. Previous editors have assumed that 'scratched Priscian' must be equivalent to 'breaking Priscian's head,' i.e. speaking ungrammatical Latin. Hence Theobald misingeniously invented an error by changing Sir Nathaniel's correct sentence to 'Laus deo, bone intelligo,' and altered Holofernes' French (misprinted 'Bome boon for boon' in the original editions) into Bone?—bone for bene. But the schoolmaster's meaning is that the sentence is Priscian (correct Latin), but scratched by overuse. He would never admit that a positive error in grammar 'will serve.'

honorificabilitudinitatibus. Dative (or ablative) plural of a genuine mediæval Latin word used by Dante and other writers. It was famous as the longest of all words. It means something like 'the state of being capable of honors.'

horn-book. A rudimentary implement of education. It consisted in a paper containing the letters of the alphabet, Lord's Prayer, etc., fastened to a piece of board and protected by a covering of transparent horn.

circum circa. This is Theobald's rather over-ingenious emendation of vnum cita in the early editions. Hart proposes unciatim, inch by inch, and the late Cambridge editors nimis cito, all too quickly. Furness thinks unum cita a meaningless bit of school-boy slang.

ad dunghill. This, as Holofernes suspects, is a perversion of ad unguem, probably current in the grammar-schools.

the charge-house on the top of the mountain. Charge-house, defined as boarding-school in the Oxford Dictionary, is not otherwise exemplified. The mention of the top of the mountain has been suspected of containing some topical reference. Critics who wish to identify Holofernes with John Florio take