Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/356

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. i. APRIL 9, 1901.

"angchor," "Jengkins," &c., the only per- missible one. J. H. MAcMiCHAEL.

W. S. B. H.'s assumption that n is " always sounded as ng before k, c or ch (pro- nounced ask), and x" astonishes me. With the single exception of the word anxiety, which is sometimes rendered angxiety by people who try to talk very nicely, i do not think the examples he gives would be con- firmed by the utterance of most well-educated men. ST. SWITHIN.

MARLBOROUGH AND SHAKESPEARE (10 th S. i. 127, 177, 256). It seems clear to me that after the Eestoration Jonson and Beaumont and Fletcher were the most esteemed of the dramatists that flourished during the reigns of Elizabeth and James. When another was mentioned, it was Shakspeare. Pepys, in his ' Diary,' seems to reflect the opinion of his age, and evidently holds Jonsoii in the greatest esteem. We can also gather from the ' Diary ' that the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher were the most frequently performed. Of the ' Volpone ' of Ben Jonson Pepys has written :

" A most excellent play : the best, I think, I ever saw."

In another place he has the following : "I never was more taken with a play than I am with this ' Silent Woman,' as old as it is, and as often as I have seen it. There is more wit in it than

goes to ten new plays The best comedy, I think,

that ever was wrote."

He has written as follows of ' Bartholomew Fair ' :

"An excellent play. The more I see it, the more I love the wit of it."

Shakspeare's plays evidently appeared to him to be of less value :

"To the King's Theatre, where we saw 'Mid- summer's Night's Dream,' which I had never seen before, nor shall I ever again, for it is the most insipid, ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life." He, however, thought better of ' Macbeth ' :

"A pretty good play, but admirably acted

A most excellent play."

He has written thus :

" To Deptford by water, reading ' Othello, Moore of Venice,' which I ever heretofore esteemed a mighty good play, but having so lately read ' The Adventures of Five Houres,' it seems a mean thing."

The 'Diary' contains likewise this pas- sage :

"Saw ' The Merry Wives of Windsor,' which did not please me at all, in no part of it."

It has also the following :

"Resolved to go to see 'The Tempest.' The

most innocent play, that ever I saw The play

has no great wit, but yet good above ordinary plays."*

If I have counted them rightly, Pepys saw eight plays of Shakspeare. Those on which he has made no remark were ' Hamlet, 1 ' Romeo and Juliet,' ' Henry IV.' He saw eleven plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, and five of Fletcher. Milton, in poetry which was not read, acknowledged the supremacy of Shakspeare. Dryden did the same, and also extolled Milton. But not till the eighteenth century was either Shak- speare or Milton valued at his real worth by the public. Hume, in his 'History of England,' referring to 'Paradise Lost.' has written the following sentence :

" Lord Somers, by encouraging a good edition of it, about twenty years after the author's death, first brought it into request ; and Tonsqn, in his dedica- tion of a smaller edition, speaks of it as a work just beginning to be known.

Addison must have spread the fame of our two greatest poets by what he wrote con- cerning them in the Spectator.

E. YARDLEY.

TIDESWELL AND TlDESLOW (9 th S. xii. 341, 517 ; 10 th S. i. 52, 91, 190, 228, 278). I have read the articles contributed by MR. ADDY, PROF. SKEAT, and DR. BRUSHFIELD on this interesting tumulus and its connexion with the origin of the name Tideswell, a town very prettily situated not far away, and can testify to the local pronunciation being Tidsa for the town, and Tidslow for the ancient burial mound.

The position of the low is very commanding, standing as it does on the highest point of Tideswell Moor; and though my acquaintance with Anglo-Saxon grammar is too meagre to allow me to enter the lists with such able scholars as MR. ADDY and PROF. SKEAT, I am of opinion that MR. ADDY'S theory has much support from natural evidence, such as is afforded by a comparison with other sites ; for instance, Walder's Low, on the crest of the hill about eight miles north-west of Sheffield, brings down the stream of time the personal name of an old chieftain whose memory is embalmed in Waldershelf, the ancient name of the district now known as Bolsterstone.

With reference to the suffix ivell, there is in the Little Don valley a small district known as Swinden Walls, but I cannot find that this name has anything to do with wells or springs of water ; on the contrary, the fact that there has been from time imme- morial a cultivated clearing in the moorland

[* Is not this reference to Dryden's ' Tempest ' ?]