Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 5.djvu/10

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. v. JAN., 1919.

and from that time onwards Owen built paddle-boats only. The first steamer of this type constructed by him was finished in 1817, and in the following year made voyages on Lake Malar. The steamer soon became popular in Sweden, and, thanks to Owen, Sweden was the first European country after Great Britain to have a steamship service and" a steamship in- dustry. In recognition of his services, Owen was macle a member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences and of the Academy of Agriculture.

This great pioneer never became rich. In fact, as the result of competition and the great losses he had suffered, Samuel Owen had to shut down his works and hand over his property to his creditors. For a while he carried on a scheme for the drain- ing of bogs in the province of Sm&land ; and then from 1847 to 1851 he again acted as foreman at a foundry. After settling at the town of Sodertelje he returned to Stockholm, and died there on Feb. 15, 1854. His position might have been pre- carious but for the fact that he had been granted a pension by the Swedish State for the pioneer work he had done. Apart from his merits as an industrial organizer, Samuel Owen will always be remembered in Sweden as one of those who helped to introduce Methodism and the temperance movement into that country.

One other interesting fact remains to be mentioned. The wife of Samuel Owen was the aunt of August Strindberg, one of the greatest names in nineteenth- century Swedish literature. In his auto- biography ' The Son of a Maid ' Strindberg describes this aunt, who after the death of her husband took up her abode with Strind- berg's parents. There sat the old lady, who had known so many famous people, and instructed her young nephews in the art of politeness. With her lace cap, and surrounded by vestiges of former greatness furniture with coverings of an English pattern, and the bust of Samuel Owen in the uniform of the Academy of Sciences she was a figure to inspire young Strindberg with respect. Ho tells us also that Mrs. Owen drank tea after the English custom and read English books. We may doubtless attribute to these surroundings, in part at least, the familiarity with English thought that Strindberg afterwards displayed a familiarity which was to be of far-reaching importance for his development as an author.

HEBBEBT G. WBIGHT. University College, Bangor.

SHAKESPEARIANA.

'HAMLET,' I. iv. 36-8 (12 S. iv. 211).

A. As a preliminary to tackling this passage, admittedly impossible as it stands in the Second and Third Quartos, it is expedient to clear the ground by considering causes of corruption. We will assume that Shakespeare originally wrote sense, however difficult for a cursory reader to follow.

(1) The printer, confronted with very bad handwriting, may have done his best

j printed exactly what he made of it, with no intrusion of his own intelligence.

(2) Finding the MS. unintelligible, he may have " emended " on his own, modestly or recklessly.

(3) He may have printed from dictation, I deceived. Many of the proposed emenda- tions seem to rest on this supposition. Is it a possible one ?
 * in which case his ear, not his eye, was

B. (1) It is commonly accepted that cale is a mistake for evil. Surely a very odd mistake ! Evil is a common word, which it is hard to believe that any printer could corrupt into a rare or non-existent one. Yet, on the other hand, at II. ii. 577 the Quarto did print deale for devil. The presumed intermediate form e 1 il is hardly worth consideration, in spite of the Scottish " deil " for devil. Shakespeare was writing English ; and the notion that e'il was used for metre's sake is ludicrous. The 24 lines of this speech contain 8 other hypermeters. (

(2) The only other tenable suppositions are (a) that eale has displaced some other word ; (6) that it is a genuine word itself, which occurs nowhere else, and whose meaning is now lost The * N.E.D.' does not recognize it. As to (a), there is still an opening for a brilliant conjectural restora- tion ; but the restorer must satisfy himself whether the printer was baffled by bad handwriting or misled by pronunciation.

Is (6) possible ? Note that the word passed through the Third Quarto un- challenged. The word is required to mean some ingredient of a mixture, a modicum of which has power to spoil or corrupt the mass ; as, e.g., rennet or some acids, dropped into milk or cream, would operate.

C. It is also commonly agreed that " of a dout " is wrong. " Often dout " seems to me at present the least unsatisfactory.