Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/492

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. n. DKC. 16, WIG.

Twice the author of ' Alphonsus ' uses the expression " Imlf dead " :

Thus will I vrx tln-ir souls with sight of death, 'Loudly exclaiming in their half (load ears.

Act V. p. 269.

[lest]

. . . .after wound received from fainting hand Thou fall half dead among thipe enemies.

Act V. p. 275.

Its appearance twice in this play at once struck my attention, as I could not recall any instance of its use by Peele, and it is just such an expression as this, apparently insignificant in itself, that often affords a valuable clue to a writer's identity. But although it is not in any signed work of Peele' s, it crops up again in ' Jack Straw ' : If then at instant of the dying hour Your grace's honourable pardon come To men half dead, .who lie killed in conceit.

Hazlitt, ' Dodsley,' v. p. 208.

and as Peele is usually credited with a share in the First Part of 'Henry VT.'it is interest- ing to note its reappearance here (III. ii. 55) : And twit with cowardice a man half dead.

Note again the explanatory " I mean " in the following passages : . . . .conspiring all your deaths, I mean your deaths, that are not dead already. ' Alphonsus,' Act III. p. 249. But ah the sweet remembrance of that night, That night, I mean, of sweetness and of stealth.

Act IV. p. 261.

Mr. H. C. Hart has drawn attention to this as a " weak unpoetical trick of Peele's." It will be found three times in ' Jack Straw ' :

.... so good a gentleman As is that knight, Sir John Morton I mean.

Hazlitt, ' Dodsley,' v. p ; 389. I mean against your manor of Greenwich town.

P. 392.

Excepting namely those his foremost men, I mean the priest and him they call Wat Tyler.

P. 410.

It occurs also in ' King Henry VI.,' Part I. (V. v. 20) :

Cdmmand, I mean, of virtuous chaste intents ;
 * ho is content to be at your command,

and in ' Titus Andronicus,' II. iii. 269, a strong case in favour of Peele's part-author- ship of which has been made out by Mr. Robertson.

Another mark that points to Peele is the use of the words " short tale to make " (equivalent to the popular modern phrase

To make a long story short ') in Alexander's account of the circumstances surrounding the death of Alphonsus :

Short tale to make, I bound him cunningly, Told him of his deceit, triumphing over him, And lastly with my rapier slew him dead.

Act V. p. 281.

which will be found again in Peele's ' Tale of Troy,' 1. 474 :

Short tale to make, when thus the town of Troy, &c.

and twice in Part II. of ' The Troublesome

Reign ' :

Short tale to make, the see apostolick

Hath offered dispensation for the fault.

' Six Old Plays,' vol. ii. p. 292. Short tale to make, myself amongst the rest Was fain to fly before the eager foe.

Ibid., p. 303.

Note that the phrase always takes the same position at the beginning of a line.

Another phrase common to ' The Trouble- some Reign ' and ' Alphonsus 'is " heir indubitate." In ' Alphonsus,' Act IV. p. 263:

For good thou hast an heir indubitate ; and in ' The Troublesome Reign,' Part I. (p. 221):- If first-born son be heir indubitate.

In Act I. of ' Alphonsus,' p. 209, we find the line :

But private cause must yield to public good ; and again, a few lines before the close of the play : Let private sorrow yield to public fame.

The appearance of two lines so closely akin disposes us to expect something similar elsewhere in Peele, and, sure enough, in ' The Tale of Troy ' (1. 219) we find : But private cause must common cause obey ; and in ' Jack Straw ' (p. 392) : I hope, my lord, this message so will prove That public hate will turn to private love.

H. DTJGDAXE SYKES. Enfield.

(To be continued.)

BELLEFOREST. Recently I purchased a set of seven volumes of Belief orest's tales. On looking through the sixth volume, dated 1583, I Discovered that the book was iden- tical in subject-matter with the fifth, dated 1572. Obviously the error was a printer's one. Luckily an odd volume, the genuine sixth, was already in my possession.

At 12 S. i. 126 I solicited information re- garding a substituted tale which appeared in the first English version of the ' iJecame- rone,' the original tale being omitted. Al- though MR. LEE, the author of 'Sources of the Decamerone,' replied to my note (ibid.,