Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/434

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NOTES. AND QUERIES.

[2nd s. N 22., MAY 31. '56.

All the likeness affirmed would be lost by the substitution of wrack, a heap of solid materials : the double purpose required, and justly required, by MB. HICKSON would not be fulfilled ; that valued contributor to " N. & Q." (who has so in- considerately stigmatised the authority of Tooke's " admirable observations," as no better than a showy authority,) is so unversed in the empty re- sults, wh'ch are usually all we gain from the dispu- tations of verbal criticism, as to imagine it to be in his power " to settle (the question) at once and for ever."

This is amusing enough ; and I more than sus- pect that the philosophic grammarian of Wimble- don was too " old a soldier" to indulge in so vain a fancy. Neither do I, though I think I have brought the whole question more fully before the readers of " N. & Q." than it has hitherto ap- peared in the pages of that " curious miscellany."

I subjoin a few lines quoted by Mr.- Singer (previously by Steevens), from the Darius of Lord Sterline (1603), containing " evidence of the same train of thought with Shakespeare," and which, I submit, plead strongly against himself:

" Those golden palaces, those gorgeous halls, With furniture superfluously fair, Those stately courts, those sky-encountering walls, Evanish like the vapours of the air."

I also subjoin two examples of the use of the verb " to rack or reek" from Mr. N ares' s Glossary, strangely misunderstood by him :

" The rivers in their shores do run,

The clouds rack clear before the sun, The rudest winds obey the calmest air."

B. Jonson. Underwoods. To Hicrome. Lord Weston.

" Cup. Stay, clouds, ye rack too fast ; bright Phoabus see." Beaumont Fletcher (Four Plays in One), p. 542.

I will not prolong this article by quoting in- stances of the use of the word rack, as that which is reeked. The reader can consult the common books referred to by Mr. Singer, Tooke's Diver- sions of Purley, and the Dictionaries of Richard- son and Jamieson. Q.

Bloomsbury.

A SHEAF Or PROVERBS.

I do not send the following as unregistered proverbs : they are, many of them, well known ones. My object in taking note of them is twofold, first, for the variations many of them present; secondly, to assist in tracing their origin. W. DENTON.

" (Q d Pandarus.') Thou hast a full great care Lest the chorle may fall out of the moone."

Chaucer, 1st Book of Troihis.

anything remarkable in the rack, what more likely than an exclamation, " What a rack ? "

" He may say with our parish priest, Do as I say, but not as I do."

Ib. Prologue to Remedy of Love.

" While men gon after a leche the body is buried." Ib. Testament of Love, book iii.

" Habit maketh no monke, ne wearing of guilt spurs maketh no knight."* Ib. ib., book ii.

" Stedfast way maketh stedfast heart." Ib. ib., book ii. 5.

" Lo eke an old proverb, ' He that is still, seemeth as he graunted,' " i. e. silence gives consent, Ib. ib., book i.

" For an old proverbe it is ledged, ' he that heweth to hie, with chips he may lose his sight.' " Ib. ib.

" If thou dread such janglers thy voyage to make ; understand well, that he that dreadeth any raine to sow his comes he shall have thin bernes; also he that is afearde of his clothes let him daunce naked : who no- thing undertaketh nothing atcheveth : after great stormes the weather is often merry and smooth : after much clattering, there is mokell rowning: thus after jangling wordes cometh huisht peace and be still." Ib. ib.

" When bale is greatest, then is bote a nie bore." Ib. book ii.

" Eke wonder last but ix deies never in town." Troilus, book iv.

" He that prayeth for other for himself travayleth." Ib. Testament of Love, book iii.

" He counted not three strees Of nought that fortune coude do."

The Dream of Chaucer.

" Three may keep a counsel if twain be away." The Ten Commandments of Love.

" As digne as water in a diche." Reve's Tale in init. So

" Dygne as dich -water." P. Ploughman's Creed, 747. " Dead as a dore-tree." Ib. Vision, 833.

" Naked as a needle." Ib. ib., 11. 482.

" Friends fail fleers." Sir Thos. More's Eny. Works, p. 55.

" As full of reason as an egge full of nmstarde." Ib. p. 582.

" Pride, as the proverb is, must needs have a shame." Ib. 256.

" He should as he list be able to prove the moon made of greene cheese." Ib. 256.

All weare he mitre, crowne, or diademc."
 * " He is not gentill though he rich seme ;

Henry Scogan. " What veray nobilitie is, and whereof it toke first that

denomination

" We have in this realme coynes whiche be called nobles; as longe as they bee sene to be golde, they be so called : but if they be counterfayted, and made in brasse, copper, or other vyle mettall, who for the print only calleth theim nobles? Whereby it appereth, that the estimation

is the mettall, and not in the printe or fygure

" . . . . Thus I conclude, that nobylitie is not after the vulgare opynyon of menne, but is onely the prayse and surname of vertue." Sir Thomas Elyot, The Gou- vernor, book ii. c. 4.

" The rank is but the guinea's stamp ; The man's the gowd for a' that."

Burns.