Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/210

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io th s. m. MARCH 4, iocs.

Shakspeare himself, in his plays and poems, was extremely fond of the word "gentle." He uses it nearly 400 times, and how aptly to the present purpose will be seen from the following : " We must be gentle, now we are gentlemen" (' Winter's Tale,' V. ii. 164); "He's gentle, never schooled and yet learned " (' As You Like It,' I. i. 172); His life was gentle, and the elements So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up And say to all the world, This was a man.

' Julius Caesar,' V. v. 73-5. May I add that to a layman like myself the vagaries of the legal mind on this subject are amazing? Eminent judges and other members of the legal profession seem no less incapable of distinguishing between such utterly incompatible characters as Bacon and Shakspeare than they were of differentiating between the personality and physiognomy of Adolf Beck and the convict Smith. It utterly shakes one's belief in their power of dis- tinguishing true from false.

REGINALD HAINES. Uppingham.

I may remind MR. HUTCHINSON that Vice' Chancellor Madden, in his well-known book ' The Diary of Master William Silence,' has suggested that this epithet was especially applicable to the poet on account of his evident love of sport of hunting the hart and hawking, and minute knowledge of horses and horsemanship pursuits generally asso- ciated with those of gentle birth. His allu- sions to such matters are frequent, and in marked contrast to the lack of interest dis- played towards the same by his contemporary playwrights and by Bacon. When one of them condescends to make use of a sporting term it is generally either to " point a moral and adorn a tale," or to manifest the writer's ingenuity, and not as of one to the manner born. A. R. BAYLEY.

It is quite amazing how the Baconian will read into Ben Jonson's lines a meaning which they could not be intended to have. The lines prefixed to the Folio of 1623 were addressed to William Shakespeare the poet, and Jonson's other tribute " to the Memory of my beloved Master William Shakespeare and what he hath left us," shows that he meant it for the poet and actor. The phrase "gentle Shakespeare" is in a manner repeated when Jonson addresses him as " Sweet Swan of Avon ! " How could such a term be applied to Bacon, who was supposec to have hidden his identity under the name of Shakespeare ? I note that MR. HUTCHIN SON lays stress on the opinion of Mr. Pit* Lewis, K.C., "a well-known authority on the

aw of evidence," who tries to identify ' Shakespeare " as Bacon, and maintains that A\e spelling " Shakespeare " was employed by 3acon as his " pen-name," and so appeared printed on the title-pages. Now, if any one will take the trouble to turn to the facsimile of the title-page of 'Loves Labour's Lost' quarto, 1598), reproduced in Mr. Sidney Jee's ' Life of Shakespeare,' he will find it ^titled :

A | Pleasant I Conceited Comedie [ called, | Loues abor's lost. | As it was presented before her iighnes | this last Christmas. | Newly corrected and augmented I By W.'Shakespere. | Imprinted at London by W. W. | for Cuthbert Burby. | 1598.

Now let us turn to Mr. Pitt Lewis, K.C., p. 38 :

'In the year just named, however -(1598), the jlay of ' Love's Labour 's Lost ' was shown to be page that it had been 'presented before her High- less last Christmas,' and that it had been newly corrected and enlarged by William Shakespeare"
 * hen an old play, by the announcement on its title-

Now, as Hamlet says,

Look here, upon this picture and on this, and then consider that on such " evidence " and such inaccuracy does at least one Baconian argument depend. D. R. CLARK.

Glasgow.

" WALKYN SILVER " (10 th S. iii. 29, 95). MR. MACMICHAEL offers at the last reference an interpretation of this phrase, based upon the gloss given by the law dictionaries of the term "Walker." " Walkyn silver" occurs in the rentals of the barony of Kendal, co. Westmorland, in the accounts of issues of the hamlet of Loughrigg. Several similar terms occur in the accounts of issues of the hamlets of Langdale and Grasmere. and in determining the meaning of "Walkyn silver," it may be convenient to consider these also. In rentals of the Lumley fee made (A) in 1375 and (B) a few years later (undated), there were, in addition to the issues of 19 tenements, 9 cottages, 5 " intakes," and 1 " plat" (about 5l. 12s. 4d), the following rents (A and B) : for brewing, 12d ; for a forge, 12d ; a fulling mill, 13s. 4<. ; a water corn mill, 20s. ; "forest sylver," 31. 6s. 8d. ; the fishing of the water, 2s. Gd ; and " gold sylver," 13d (A and B) In Langdale, 9 tenements, 3 in- takes (about 31. 3s. 5d) ; the water mill, 12s. ; pasture of [alibi agistment in] the forest called " forest sylver," 50s. ; a pasture called Whelpstrothe, 5s. ; a certain rent called "yeld,"5s. ; the tenants there for their "gold- wether," 6d (B) In Loughrigg, 10 messuages, 1 toft, 5 cottages, 1 enclosure (about 31s. lid) ; all the tenants used to render yearly 12s. for agistment in common, and render nothing