Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/234

 190

NOTES AND QUERIES. in s. v. MAR. 9, 1912

PHILIP AND MARY. Why does the reign of the eldest daughter of Henry VIII., alluded to as that of Queen Mary, appear in Acts of Parliament as " Philip and Mary " ?

J. LANDFEAR LUCAS.

[This is official in accordance with the terms of < the marriage settlement, which reflects Mary's own . desire.]

SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS : THE RIVAL POET. There have been many suggestions as 4 to the identity of the rival poet of Shake- speare's sonnets, but I do not know whether Marlowe has ever been suggested. If we accept the late Samuel Butler's dates for .the composition of the sonnets, Marlowe seems the only possible man. May we accept them ? Butler argues that Sonnet CVII. refers, not, as has been commonly held, to the death of Elizabeth and the consequent accession of James, but to the destruction of the Spanish Armada, in which ase the sonnets preceding it must have been written in the three years preceding July, 1588. It is not necessary to reproduce his arguments and answers to possible objec- tions here ; it is sufficient to refer to his ' Shakespeare's Sonnets Reconsidered ' ; but I think most readers will agree that as regards Sonnet CVII. the argument has great force.

In 1588 Shakespeare and Marlowe were both twenty -four years old ; we may safely assume that they were both in London and both connected with the stage. What degree of intimacy there was between them then or subsequently we do not know, but we do know that at the outset of his career Shakespeare greatly admired, and was to some extent dominated by, the other's genius. Was he ever, at any period of his career, so greatly influenced by any other contemporary ? Could he at any time sincerely have spoken of himself as " i ferior far " to any other ? I think not.

And when we turn to Sonnet LXXXVI. we find a description of his rival which applies exactly to Marlowe, and to no other contemporary poet ; of no other could Shakespeare have so spoken without betray- ing a singular lack of judgment. " The proud, full sail of his great verse " has indeed been thought to apply to Chapman (who would, of course, be out of the question at the date suggested), and perhaps it does; but Chapman cannot be thought of as " by spirits taught to write above a mortal pitch," or as having converse with an " affable familiar ghost who nightly gulls him with intelligence." There is nothing at al]

supernatural about Chapman's verse, nor about that of Marston or Barnes, or other later poets who have been suggested. But the description exactly fits Marlowe's " mighty line " and magic. And may we not without extravagance suspect the shadow of Mephis- topheles in this " familiar ghost " ? ' The Tragedy of Dr. F o stus ' was, it is believed, produced within 'fpyear of the probable date of this sonnet, or shortly afterwards.

C. C. B.

[Marlowe's claim has been urged long since. For Prof. Minto's suggestion that the Rival Poet was Chapman see ' Characteristics of the English Poets,' 1885. and also ' Shakespeare and the Rival Poet '' by Mr. A. Acheson, 1903.]

RAILWAY TRAVEL: EARLY

IMPRESSIONS. (11 S. v. 29, 113.)

SEE the ' Collected Works of the Rev. Sydney Smith,' 3 vols., vol. iii. pp. 421-9, 1845, ' Letters on Railways.' Two of these are on ' Locking In ' on railways, and the third on ' Burning Alive on Railroads.' The following is from Sydney Smith's letter to the editor of The Morning Chronicle, and is dated 7 June, 1842 :

" Railroad travelling is a delightful improve- ment of human life. Man is become a bird ; he can fly longer and quicker than a Solan goose. The mamma rushes sixty miles in two hours to the aching finger of her conjugating and declining grammar boy. The early Scotchman scratches himself in tlie morning mists of the North, and has his porridge in Piccadilly before the setting sun. The Puseyite priest, after a rush of 100 miles, appears with his little volume of nonsense at the breakfast of his bookseller. Every thing is near, every thing is immediate time, distance, and delay are abolished. But, though charming and fascinating as all this is, we must not shut our eyes to the price we shall pay for it. There will be every three or four years some dreadful massacre whole trains will be hurled down a precipice, and 200 or 300 persons will be killed on the spot. There will be every now and then a great combustion of human bodies, as there has been at Paris ; then all the newspapers up in arms a thousand regulations, forgotten as soon as the directors dare loud screams of the velocity whistle monopoly locks and bolts, as before ;if^ifc<!!*-

" We have been, up to this point, very careless of our railway regulations. The first person of rank who is killed will put every thing in order, and produce a code of the most careful rules. I hope it will not be one of the bench of bishops ; but should it be so destined, let the burnt bishop the unwilling Latimer remember that, how- ever painful gradual concoction by fire may be,