Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/249

 10 s. VIIL SEPT. 14, loo?.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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could not possibly have used gan=gone ,' but if such proof be forthcoming, then bigan must be changed to bigon.

It is curious, by the way, that the trouble about bigan should date from Chaucer's own time or soon after, as the well-known variant reading of the Harleian MS. " tway monthes and dayes tuo " clearly testifies.

' THE CLERKES TALE,' 106-8 :

For certes, lord, so wel vs lyketh yow

And al your werk and euer han doon, that we

Ne coude nat vs self deuysen how, &c.

Prof. .Skeat interprets " and euer han doon " thus : " and (both you and your doings) have ever brought it about." This is entirely wrong ; but quandoque bonus dor- mitat Homerus. One fatal objection to the meaning given here to doon is that it quite alters the character of the conjunction that, which, correlative to so, introduces an adverbial clause of consequence, and is not the simple conjunction of subordination (as Mason styles it) introducing a noun clause. The mistake is all the more surprising from the presence in the same tale of " and hath doon yore" (68), " and haue doon ay" (149), " as I haue doon bifore " (486), where doon is used in exactly the same way.

The correct explanation is that though lyketh is impersonal (the construction is rightly explained by Prof. Skeat in the note preceding that quoted above), yet, the personal use of the verb being not unknown in Chaucer's day, " and euer han doon " follows, just as if the poet had used the verb personally ; i.e., just as if he had said " we like you and all your doings," or rather "you and all your doings like ( = please' us." " And euer han doon " simply = and ever have done so. Chaucer uses lyke(n' as a personal verb in ' L.G.W.,' 1075-6.

' THE PARLEMENT OF FOTJLES,' 309-13 :

For this was on Seynt Valentynes day, Whan every bird cometh there to chese his make Of every kynde that men thinke may ; And that so huge a noyse gan they make, That erthe and eyr, &c.

"These lines," writes Mr. J. B. Bilder beck (' Chaucer's Minor Poems,' Bell & Sons p. 91), " present a constructional and logica difficulty. Perhaps 1. 312 should be treatet as parenthetical." I have not a copy o Prof. Skeat's ' Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer ' to refer to, but Mr. Bilderbeck had, and probably gives what is supposed to be the last word in the matter. If so it is very strange that the editors shoulc have stumbled over the that in 1. 312. Th~

xplanation is that that = whan (310) : cp. the- ise of que in French. See also Maetzner's English Grammar ' (Murray, 1874, vol. iii. >p. 399-400), where Shakespearian and other- ixamples may be found. The usage is [uite familiar to students of our older iterature.

I believe that the particle is to be ex- plained in the same way in ' King Lear,' .1. i. 47, where it repeats the when of 1. 44. At least, I do not see what other explanation s possible. The editors either ignore the word, or jejunely refer to I. i. 251, which las nothing to do with the matter.

A. E. ADOLPHTTS. Maharajah's College, Mysore.

EDWARD HARLEY : THE EARLS OF OX- FORD : MORTIMER'S CROSS. In the ' Remains of Thomas Hearne ' (second edition, John Russell Smith, vol. ii. 270) occurs the follow- ing entry :

" Nov. 15 [1726]. On November 9th called upon me Edward Harley, esq., late gentleman com- moner and master of arts of Christ Church (son of auditor Harley), he being going with his lady (sister of Mr. Morgan of Tredegar) into Wales. This Mr. Harley is a fine gentleman, being much given to books, and a friend to scholars. He hath one son (being his first child) about a quarter of a year old, by his lady, who is a very great fortune to him. [He hath another son since, December 6, 1727.] "

Presumably the reference is to the son of" Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, Earl Mor- timer, and Baron Harley of Wigmore, who had been Lord High Treasurer, and retired to his family seat at Brampton Bryan, co. . Hereford, dying there in 1724. There is a monument to him in the church. Hearne had heard that " he had never had his true health since he was stabbed " by Guiscard at the Council board in 1711, though this may be doubted. A beautiful poetical epistle was addressed by Pope to him on his retirement to the country in 1721.

The second Earl, who died in 1741,. inherited his father's literary tastes, and added largely to his library. Vertue thus alludes to his death :

" The true, noble, and beneficent Edward, Earl of Oxford, and Earl Mortimer, Baron of Wigmore, born 2nd of June, 1688, and died the 16th of June, 1741. A friend noble, generous, good, and amiable, to me above all men : the loss not to be expressed.

These time-honoured titles became extinct on the death of Alfred, sixth Earl, in 1853, and have never been revived. Wigmore Castle is an interesting ruin not far from the old family home at Brampton Bryan, and the view from it, bounded by the Welsh hills, is very fine.