Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/122

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NOTES AND QUERIES, [ii s. xn. AFG, u, 1915,

The General Editor inserts a note of exclama- tion after " merrily "

Hence merrily ! fine to get money ! " Fine " should perhaps be " fly " (" flie "),

HI. Fletcher's ' Ruli a Wife and Have a Wife.' Edited by Prof. Saintsbury of the University of Edinburgh.

III. iii. 65-6 :

This rascal will make rare sport ! how the ladies Will laugh him Leave ager. So the quarto. The folio omits the mys- terious "Leave ager," and inserts ''at" before " him."

Prof. Warwick Bond in Mr. Bullen's Fletcher ' ' emends the line, in my opinion most satisfactorily, to
 * ' Variorum Edition of Beaumont and

Will laugh him lean again (" leane agen "), which leads up to the speech that follows, If I light on him I '11 make his purse sweat too.

The same emendation occurred to me before I saw that it had been already made.

Prof. Saintsbury, who deals somewhat brusquely with other editors in his notes, is not apparently acquainted with Prof. Bond's work, and contents himself with saying, " ' Leave ager ' was probably a simple irreption of the kind so frequent." By this he apparently means that the words crept into the text without rime or reason. Whether such " irreptions " are common, I doubt ; but the theory is convenient for an editor in a difficulty.

He fails to notice that

Will laugh [at] him.

If I light on him,

does not make a line, while

Will laugh him lean again.

If I light on him,

makes a very good one. Meanwhile the text he actually gives is

Will laugh [at] him! [leave anger!]

III. v. 149, " Mercy, forsake me ! " As Mercy is not addressed, the comma after the word disturbs the sense. Neither Bond nor Waller has it.

IV. Massinger's ' New Way to Pay Old Debts.' Edited by Prof. Brander Matthews of Columbia University.

I. ii. 43, note 2, "candle," presumably a misprint for " caudle," or the consumers of " panada " are to be pitied.

II. iii. 133, " Did you soe I doe ? " Gif- ford's emendation (" Idiot " for "I doe")

is relegated to a foot-note. Its lightness is shown, however, by V. i. 268.

IV. ii. 157, " play my price." Gifford's

" prize " for " price " is here altogether disregarded.

V. i. 300, " There will be cowards." Here Gifford rightly has a comma after " be,' r and as the present editor professes to have conformed the punctuation " to something like modern usage," he should have one also..

V. i. 371-3 I- You. . ..

cannot so create your aimes, but that They may be crooss'd.

For " create," read, perhaps, " erecte " or " directe."

V. Bromz's ' Antipodes.' Edited by ProL G. P. Baker of Harvard University.

I. i. 80-83 :

Tother day

He set the braines of an attorney right That were quite topsie turvy overturn'd In a pitch ore the barre.

The editor comments on the last words*- " Punning for ' disbarred ' ? " Though there is no doubt a pun in the word " barre," the attorney -was not a barrister, and could not be " disbarred."

I. iv. 37, " shooke the great Turke by the beard." Perhaps a reminiscence of ' Henry V.,' V. ii. 222, " take the Turk by t he- beard."

I. vi. 86 :

Like the reports of those that beggingly

Have put out, on returzies from Edenburgh,

Paris, or Venice."

The editor's note explains " put out " as- " published."

Surely it is a reference to travellers putting out money to be returned with increase on their return from their travels.. Cp. ' Tempest,' III. iii. 48, " Each putter out of five for one," and Jonson, ' Every Man out of his Humour,' II. i. :

" I do intend. . . .to travel. . . .and I am deter- mined to put forth some five thousand pounds- to be paid me, five for one, upon the return of myself, my wife, and my dog, from.... Con- stantinople."

II. vii. 3 :

O, are you here ? My lady and my selfe

Have fought you sweetly.

The editor's note is: "Ironical." Shoul " fought," however, be " sought " ?

III. v. 18 :

The beggars are the Most absolute. The line should be divided after " most.'