Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/123

 ii s. XIL A, u, MO.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

III. v. 102, " and will doe." I cannot understand the note on " doe " : " Query, ' do't ' ? " Pronounce " and will do," and no change is required.

IV. i. 9, " at the game, Bear." The comma must be deleted if there is to be any conforming to modern punctuation.

IV. xiii. 25, " I could even with." Read ' I could even wish."

V. vi. 56 :

I am neither conjurer nor witch, But a great fortune-teller, that you'l finde.

Xote on " that " : " who says that." Surely " that " is the demonstrative in the objective case.

VI. Shirley s 'Royal Master.' Edited by Sir Adolphus W. Ward, Master of Peterhouse.

III. i. 71 :

you enjoy

The king, as I, but with less stock of merit, The favour of his excellence.

In place of " The king, as I," the editor prints " The same as I," and adds the note :

" Q. followed by Dyce, ' The King.' But this s/ivos no sense. His excellence .... in the next line is the Duke."

May "The king " not stand, with the sense " You enjoy the King just as I enjoy the favour of the Duke " ?

At any rate, the emendation " same " for " king " is a remarkably bold one, and the result gained is a modern vulgarism un- known to Elizabethans.

III. i. 108, " to Herare's arms." The editor prints " To another's arms," and adds tin- note :

" Q. followed by Dyce ' Herare's,' which is too mysterious to be entitled to stand." Query, " His grace's " (" H. graces ") ?

III. i. 128, " Let all the triumphs waste let them be wasted." For " waste," " wasted," read, perhaps, " wait " (" wayte "), " waited" : " Let all the shows provided in honour of the marriage wait on the bridal pair, and let them be seen out."

III. i. 129, "And night itself bribed." The editor prints " light " for " night." Better, perhaps, " sight."

III. i. 135. " one whom he loved better." For " he " read " she." Cp. IV. i. 47.

III. iii. 19-21. Cp. ' Hamlet,' V. ii. 33.

III. iii. 231, " Methinks I move upon a state already." Editor's note on " state " : " throne." Query, " dais " ?

IV. i. 68 :

She 's a princess

Yet, no stain to her invention, we are parallels Equal, but never meant to meet.

For " invention " the editor prints " scut- cheon," and adds the note :

" Q. invention ' : a printer's blunder. Dvce, who suggests 'station' if a substitute is to be found, describes the line as complete without it both as to rhythm and metre. ...' Station ' would be preferable to my conjecture 'scutcheon,' but for the consonance with ' stain.' "

Perhaps " invention " may stand in the sense " thoughts," " intentions." Cp. * Mea- sure for Measure,' II. iv. 3 :

my invention, hearing not my tongue, Anchors on Isabel.

IV. i. 501, " Oh, the duke's character had a powerful sense." Editor's note : " Collo- quially: the Duke had a strong sense of his- own.

But :i character " here means the hand- writing of the Duke's letter : " The Duke's letter implied much." The Duke says to Montalto, 1. 367 : " The King shall know yo ur stratagems " ; and at 1. 470 the King, after reading a paper, says : " This paper contains wonder, 'tis not possible ! "

V. i. 72-3 :

your breath

Makes the oblation rich. Cp. ' Hamlet,' III. i. 98.

G. C. MOORE SMITH.

THOMAS NABBES.

THE following hitherto unpublished in- formation relating to the life and works of" Thomas Nabbes, the dramatist and masque- writer who flourished during the reign of Charles I., may be of interest to readers of ' N. & Q.' A full account of this author was prefixed by Mr. A. H. Bullen to his edition of ' The Collected Works of Thomas Nabbes/ forming vols. i. and ii. of the new series of privately printed " Old English Plays." Nabbes enjoyed considerable celebrity during his lifetime, but posterity, not altogether justifiably, has neglected him, and only the modern interest in the history of the drama has rescued his name from "oblivion. The last piece of work on which the late A. C. Swinburne was engaged, shortly before his death, was an essay on Nabbes, the manu- script of which exists in private hands. The facts which follow are supplementary to Mr. Bullen's memoir and to the article in the ' D.N.B.'