Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/515

 us. vi. NOV. so, 1912.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

423

The other instances of Shakespeare's use of this word will all be found (8 in number) in Schmidt's ' Shakespeare lexicon.' They all belong to what is called Shakespeare's first period, the later limit of which, judging by extant Quartos, is 1597. As a piece of cumulative^evidence I regard this as very important.

If we have independent indications that e Titus Andronicus ' owes something to Shakespeare, the fact that the play belongs to the period of his earlier activity, and has a word which he subsequently discarded, is of some significance. In no less than twenty-three plays after that first period in other words, in all his subsequent work the word is conspicuous by its absence.

If we find it in Beaumont and Fletcher, if we find " tunelessly " in Milton on ' The Death of a Fair Infant,' these instances are probably the result of a familiarity with Shakespeare's earliest works. It is not a Spenserian word, for the author of the epitaph on Sidney, in which alone it is found in the whole of Spenser's works, is expressly said to be unknown. I believe that Shakespeare deliberately gave it up, in deference either to his own judgment or to the criticism of others. That he was "sensitive to criticism in this respect I can show by another instance, in the word " misprize."

Misprising what they look on,
 * Much Ado,' m. i.*52 :

I am altogether misprised; Ibid., I. ii. 192 :
 * As You Like It,' I. i." 177 :

Your reputation shall not therefore be mis- prised :

D. C. TOVEY.

(To l>e continued.)

CHARLES GORE OF WEIMAR. (See ante, p. 402.)

FROM 1791, therefore, this far - travelled Englishman (so Gore is described in ' Characteristics of Goethe/ trans. Sarah Austin, 1833, iii. 136, 177) made his home in the best society of Saxe - Weimar. His name finds a place in ' Les Villes de Thuringe.' by Edouard Humbert (1869), p. 315, among the distinguished persons who were attracted to Weimar at this period. The leading position occupied by the Gores is shown in several ways. There

hangs, for instance, in the grand-ducal library a well-known drawing in colour, by G. M. Kraus, of the " Evening Circle of the Duchess Amalia, 7 ' which is reproduced in several works. Ten figures are portrayed seated at a table :

"The Duchess is painting ; to her left is Charles Gore, who has just been reading aloud and ia looking over his spectacles at the Duchess r then comes Elise Gore, also painting ; Emilie Gore, dressed in black, with a wonderful hat, and an air of being somebody, stitching, has looked up at a sketch which Herder is holding before her " (Duntzer, trans. Lyster, ii. 1334 f Gerard, i. 300 ; M. C. Crawford, ' Goethe and his Woman Friends,' p. 337).

In June, 1793, Gore and Kraus, with Goethe, witnessed the operations of the siege of Mainz, and were much interested in the scene ; at another time Kraus accom- panied Gore on a tour through Tyrol and' the North of Italy (' Characteristics of Goethe.' i. 153 ; ' Belagerung von Maintz,. 1793,' Goethe's ' Werke,' vol. xx., 1858).

An account by H. C. R. (Henry Crabb> Robinson), published in December, 1807 r from information derived from his friends at Jena, of events at Weimar after the battle- of Jena in 1806, is embodied in vol. iii. of Sarah Austin's volumes (p. 203 et seq.), The reigning Duchess Louise had retired within the walls of her palace to await the approach of Napoleon. She had called around her the ladies of the Court and the leading English. " Her amiable friend Miss Gore, with her aged parent since deceased* . . . .were among the select party." A. picture of Gore's condition at this time is given in the volume of ' Goethe, sein Leben,*" by Ludwig Geiger (1910). The French had taken from him almost all he had,

" It was truly an exceedingly touching spectacle- to see the venerable old man lying ill with gout on a sofa in the chamber of the Duchess."

Gore died at Weimar on 22 Jan., 1807,. at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and was buried near his daughter Eliza Maria (who had been one of Hackert's pupils) on Monday,. 26 Jan., at 9 o'clock at night, in the " Kas- sengewolbe " a general vault belonging to the Landschafts-Kasse, in which were buried persons of standing who had no family graves in the old churchyard of St. James's Church. The funeral was, as became his position in life, of the most impressive character, and was attended by a dis- tinguished company of mourners. The body had previously lain in state between lighted candelabra before the altar in that church,, the Court band had played funeral music,, and Herr General Superintendent Vogt,