Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/84

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NOTES AND QUEEIES. [io s. x. JULY 25,

V. i. 179 : " Neither maid, widow, nor wife." This is in Peele's ' Olde Wives Tale ' (Roiitledge's ' Dyce,' 451a) : And never none shall break this little glass, But she that's neither wife, widow, nor maid.

V. i. 321-3 :

the strong statutes

Stand like the forfeits in a barber's shop, As much in mock as mark.

For my explanation of this passage I must refer to the note in Appendix (Arden ed.). I had nowhere been able to meet any confirmation of the " table of forfeiture " said to be placed upon a barber's walls. See Nares, Steevens, Johnson, Warburton, and * New English Dictionary.' However, I have since found a passage that tends to render my note nugatory. It is in 'Plaine Percevall' (1842 reprint, p. 19), circa 1589, by Richard Harvey probably :

" Speake a blooddy word in a Barber's shop, you make a forfet : and good reason too, Cap him, sirra, if he pay it not. Speak a broad word or use a grosse tearme amongst huntsmen in chaze, you shall be leasht for your labor : as one that dis- graceth a gentleman's pastime and game."

This passage calls for two notes. Dr. Kenrick's forged rules (Nares) contain no reference to the fault or its punishment, so that he cannot have known this reference to build upon. And its non-inclusion at ''forfeits" in ' N.E.D.' is unfortunate, since the book had been read on account of the quotation of the passage at the verb " to cap," explained on this one reference " to arrest." This signification does not commend itself to me unless it has other support. The legal meaning is far-fetched, and unlikely, if not impossible. The punish- ment was some rough game of bashing the offender on the head with his own cap and those of the assembly, familiar to school- boys. Or else he may have been compelled to wear a special fool's cap or cap of for- feiture kept for the purpose.

V. i. 359 : " Lucio [to the Duke disguised

as a friar]. Why, you bald-pated, lying

rascal, you must be hooded, must you ? . . . . show your sheep-biting face, and be hanged

an hour! Will't not off? [Pulls off

the friar's hood, and discovers the Duke]." Sheep-biter was applied to a sheep-stealer or hence to any thievish person, and primarily, perhaps, to a sheep-stealing cur. Hence to a skulking thief. See my note at passage (Arden ed., p. 138). That sense is quite incongruous here. And so it is in Shakespeare's only other use in ' Twelfth Night,' II. v. 6, where Sir Toby says of Malvolio : " Wouldst thou not be glad to

have the niggardly, rascally sheep-biter come by some notable shame?" The notes only emphasize the difficulty and lack of explanation. Malvolio " was a kind of Puritan" (II. iii. 144), and that gives the clue. In Nashe's ' An Almond for a Parrot' (1589) there is a similar use: "There is not a Presician in England that hath abused arte or mistaken a metaphor but I have his name in blacke and white, What say you to that zealous sheepebyter of your owne edition in Cambridge, that saide," &c. It was a term of abuse with the Martinists. The true pastors were the shepherds, but the Puritans were the sheep-biters. It is as likely as not to be original in Nashe in this sense, though found earlier as a thief. It is in the sense of a puritanical sneer that Lucio uses it to the supposed friar.

H. CHICHESTEB HAKT.

BONAPARTE ON THE NORTHUMBERLAND.

(Concluded from p. 4.) ;

IT had been conjectured by many of the newspapers that Bonaparte, whose personal courage had never been questioned, would play the coward at last, and put an end to his own life rather than suffer the disgrace of being sent a captive to St. Helena. The matter came to his ears, and he said : " No, no ; I have not enough of the Roman in me to destroy myself." He reasoned for some time on the subject of suicide, and concluded with this decisive opinion :

' Suicide is a crime the most revolting to my leelings ; nor does any reason present itself to my understanding by which it can be justified. It certainly originates in that species of fear which we denominate cowardice. For what claims can that man have to courage who trembles at the frowns of Fortune? True heroism consists in becoming superior to the ills of life in whatever shape they may challenge to the combat."

The great man seldom suffered a day to pass without making particular inquiry respecting the health of the crew and the nature of such diseases as then prevailed among them, with the particular mode of treatment. The complaints, according to our good surgeon, required a free use of the lancet. Napoleon, however, seemed bo entertain a very strong prejudice against bleeding, which, remembering the satire of Lesage, he called the Sangrado practice. He urged the propriety of sparing the pre- cious fluid, but the surgeon maintained the doctrine of the good effects of the practice