Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 5.djvu/121

 128. V. MAY, 1919.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

115

1 "Sea ; Death on the Pale Horse ; and other Poems.' London : 1818. A copy of this book Is in the British Museum. I have not yet been able to obtain sight of a copy. It is in none of the large libraries in the United States. Byron expressly repudiates the second piece in his 4 Reply to Blackwood's Magazine,' March 15, 1820 (' Letters and Journals,' iv. 474-5).
 * 17. ' Childe Harold's Pilgrimage to the Dead

18. ' Th Q Vampyre, a, Tale.' London : Sher- wood, Neely & Jones, 1810. Quickly repudiated by Byron (' Letters and Journals,' iv. 286) and acknowledged by Polidori.

19. ' Lines found in Lord Byron's Bible.' 'These eight lines are by Sir Walter *Scott (' The

Monastery,' chap. xii.). They may actually have been found copied out by Byron. Apparently they were first ascribed to him in the ' Life, Writings,' &c., iii. 414. The piece is among the " attributed poems " in Galignani 1826 ; but .1 have found it in no other collection by Byron.

SAMUEL C. CHEW. Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania.

(To be concluded.)

SHAKESPEARIANA.

THE GERM or MALVOLIO. In ' The Arte of English Poesie ' (book iii. chap. xxiv. ), printed by Richard Field in 1589, the unknown author observes :

" And all singularities or affected parts of a man's behaviour seem undecent, as for a man to march or jet in the streets more stately, or to look more solemnly, or to go more gaily and in other colours or fashioned qarments than another of the same degree and estate."

The author of ' Twelfth Night ' must have had that passage in his mind in shaping Malvolio. The steward puts himself intc " the trick of singularity ." Maria alludes t< him as " an affectioned ass." She discovers him " practising behaviour to his own shadow " (V. ii.). Towards Sir Toby am his companions Malvolio puts on a stateh and solemn bearing, " quenching his familia smile with an austere regard of control.' Fabian actually applies the verb " jet " t< illustrate his affected carriage :

" O, peace ! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him. How he jets under his advanced plumes ! " II. v.

To the Countess, however, he comes gaily and with a ridiculous boldness, continually smiling and kissing his hand (III. iv.) a contract to the "sad face and reverend carriage like some sir of note, and so forth," with which he thinks to impress those of, as he imagines, inferior elements.

As for the " other colours or fashioned garments " referred to in the ' Arte,' every -

>ody knows that he appears before the Countess " in yellow stockings and cross- gartered, a fashion she detests." ^ It is merely the sight of means to go above lis estate which incites him to ridiculous sxtremes, and leads him to construct any- hing as a point in favour of his obsession, n the Countess's command, " Let this ellow be looked to," he finds significance in .he term " fellow " : " Not Malvolio, nor rfter my degree, but ' fellow.' '

W. L. Rushton, in ' Shakespeare and ' The Arte of English Poesie," ' proves how ihoroughly conversant Shakespea're was ,vith the contents of this remarkable book, and especially demonstrates that the poet, n his use of a figure of rhetoric or form of verse described in the ' Arte,' constantly drags in some unusual word or expression employed in the passage which the mysteri- ous author gives to illustrate that particular figure. So far as I am aware, however, this evidence as to the origin of Malvolio' s " singularities " is quite new.

R. L. EAGLE.

'HAMLET/ I. iv. 36-8 (12 S. iv. 211; v. 4). May I add a fresh solution to the existent mass ?

H. K. ST. J. S.'s third suggestion is that the printer may have set from dictation. I have had over fifty years' intimacy with printing, and no printing office from the first ever worked in siich a doubly expensive and objectless way. Hiring one printer to save another the trouble of reading his copy would assure early bankruptcy. We have only to consider how the words looked to the eye, not sounded to the ear. This debars several explanations.

" Esil," implying actual spoiling of sub- stance, contradicts the explicit meaning of the passage, which applies only to what others think, not to what in fact is.

Their virtues else

Shall in the general censure take corruption From that particular fault.

That is, not that the fault has actually corrupted the man, but that people think it has. I agree fully that " eale " is a most improbable form of " e'il." Shake- speare, writing for Londoners, would hardly u?e this Scotticism, anyway, or feel the need (felt nowhere else) of helping out his rhythm with it, as H. K. ST. J. S. justly says.

It has been my habit for many years, often with surprising success, when I wished to decipher a hopelessly meaningless piece