Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/588

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. VIL JUNE 22, 1907.

something very different, less familiar and homely, more rarely conceived, and more finely expressed. To " unveil thoughts " -we do not so much want to know about the cradle which contained them as to learn something about the thoughts themselves, to discover their features, the flash-lights which proceed from them, the notes, signs, subtle characters, by which alone the provi- dential, watchful eye can hope to decipher and read them. Just as by watching the signs in the great heaven above us we may forecast the weather that is to be, so by careful observation of the lofty heights of -the thought-sphere we may form a shrewd rguess of what is passing there. Now it is evident that any word which we propose -to substitute for " cradles " should bear some resemblance to it ; should be Shake- spearian in style, and, if possible, rest to a certain extent on Shakespearian authority ; it should satisfy both the sense and the scansion, and should be a fitting finale to an exceptionally fine passage. Now I venture to think that we have such a word in "by many in that day, as it would be by not a few in the present day, " eraldry," and so written cf. Italian araldo. Now suppose that c was set down for an e (the two letters are frequently confounded), and that d and I changed places (a common printer's error), and the hard word " eraldry " might readily pass for the easy word "" cradles."
 * heraldry," pronounced, we may be sure,

In confirmation of this conjecture I shall now quote a passage from ' The Rape of Lucrece,' 1. 64, where Shakespeare, por- traying the shifting flushes in Lucrece's face, says :

This heraldry in Lucrece' face was seen, Argued by beauty's red and virtue's white ; and in the very first line of the next stanza, repeating the thought in slightly different language, he says :

This silent war of lilies and of roses. Here we have " heraldry " applied to the comings and goings in Lucrece's face, which the author explains as a silent war in other words, " dumb heraldry."

PHILIP PERKING.

' MACBETH ' : THE THREE WITCHES. In the ' Calendar of Ormonde MSS.,' N.S. iv. 140, is the following curious parallel of three Scottish witches :

1678. "My Lord of Montrose and the Earl of Argyle, and my Lord Lauderdale and one who is now Master of the Rolls for Scotland, did meet three women fortune tellers, whom they thought witches, and had each his fortune told Montrose

that he should be hanged on a very high tree, Argyle that he should be beheaded, and Lauderdale torn to pieces of the people, and the last that he should live to see all this come to pass. This Master of the Rolls, being sick like to die, sent every moment to see whether my Lord Lauderdale was well, but, after recovering, my Lord Lauderdale asked him how he came to send to him so often ? He reminded his Grace of the speech the witches made them, and that as long as he was sure his Lordship was out of danger, he could not but hope to live."

Montrose was hanged in 1650, and Argyll beheaded in 1661. W. C. B.

' ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL,' V. n. : "PURR" (10 S. vi. 323, 505; vii. 144). I am sorry the REV. C. B. MOUNT is unable to accept my interpretation of this word, as, without having read his remarks upon it, I might never have tried to arrive at its meaning, the play in which it occurs never having been a favourite with me. As I said before, MR. MOUNT gets very near to the meaning of " purr " without, however, as I consider, hitting the nail upon the head. To say the Clown would never describe Parolles as "an ' evil smell ' of Fortune's " is to ignore the conversation that takes places from the opening of the scene, which runs entirely on Fortune and on smells ; hence it would be quite in keeping with the forlorn appearance of Parolles if the Clown called him " an odour of Fortune's," at the same time the speaker may easily be supposed to confuse the odour emitted from the vagrant's garments with the man himself, when he goes on to speak of him as having fallen into the fishpond of Fortune's dis- pleasure. It was because my rendering of " purr " fitted in well with what is said of Fortune, of her cat, and of the musk cat, that I ventured on such an irregular ex- planation of the term ; while a play of words may also be intended between " perfume " and the " purring " of a cat. Words thus cut short may be as rare in contemporary literature as the monstrosity of a Manx cat is in England at the present day ; but as a class they make their appearance certainly at the Restoration and afterwards, when pant for "pantaloon," miss for "mistress," piano for " pianoforte " (after 1709), and others begin to crop up increasingly.

I do not think MR. MOUNT'S appeal to Victor will avail him much. That writer in his ' Shakespeare Phonography,' p. 45, says : " Once more we find Shakespeare on the side of the unlearned in pronouncing -ar, -or, -ur, as [er], probably approaching [fir] " ; and he goes on to instance as rimes " tempering " and " venturing." The spel-