Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/93

. NO 5., FEB. 2. '56.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

LONDON, SATURDAY, FEBRUARYS, 1886.

A TEW SUPPLEMENT AT, NOTES ON SOME PASSAGES IN MIDDLETON'S " PLAYS."

The Mayor of Queenborough, Act II. Sc. 2., vol. i. p. 148. :

"Hor. Stay, fellow!

Sim. How, fellow? 'Tis more than you know whether I be your fellow or no ; I am sure you see me not."

As Mr. Dyce has no note upon this reply of Simon, and since it is sheer nonsense as it stands, I sup- pose see to be a misprint for fee. The use of " fellow " for servant, so common with us in Here- fordshire, was by no means rare with writers of Middleton's time. Thus in Loves Labours Lost, Act I. Sc. 2. :

" Arm. Thou shalt be heavily punished.

Cot. I am more bound to you than your fellows, for they are but lightly rewarded."

In Blurt Master Constable, Act II., vol. i. p. 262., noticing the phrase " stand a high lone," Mr. Dyce refers his reader for more instances to Romeo and Juliet, Act I. Sc. 3., 4to. 1597, which reads " stand high lone," for " stand alone " of the received text, and to W. Rowley's A Shoomaker a Gentleman, 1638, sig. B. 4., where is found " go a hie lone." As Mr. Halliwell in his Dictionary re- mits his reader to the example in Middleton and Mr. Dyce' 8 note, it may not be amiss to add an- other :

" Amongst the which he affirm eth that all beasts, so soone as they are deliuered from their damme, get upon their feet, and are able to stand ' a high alon.' " Gu- azzo's Civile Conversation, booki. p. 12., London, 1581.

The Phoenix, Act V. Sc. 1., vol.i. p. 398. :

"Duke. Our joy breaks at our eyes; the prince is come!

Prod. So\i\~quicking news! pale vengeance to mv blood!" (Aside.)

On this " aside " of Proditor Mr. Dyce's note is " quicking.'] So ed. 1630,' first ed. 'qucking;' query quickening." But rather query " quaking," both as being more pertinent, and as supported by A Mad World my Masters, Act IV. Sc. 1., vol. ii. p. 387. :

"Pen. B. Devil, I do conjure thee once again, By that soul-quaking thunder to depart."

To digress a moment from Middleton to Shak- speare. Most Shakspeare scholars will remember that of Timon, " Raise me this beggar and deny't that lord," Act IV. Sc. 3., on which Warburton and Steevens have the following highly charac- teristic notes :

"Where is the sense and English of 'deny't that lord'? Deny him what? What preceding noun is there to which the pronoun it is to be referred ? And it would be absurd to think the poet meant to say deny to

raise that lord. The antithesis must be, let fortune raise this beggar, and let her strip and despoil that lord of all his pomp and ornaments, &c., which sense is compleated by the slight alteration, 'and denude that lord.' So Lord Rea, in his relation of Sir Hamilton's plot, written in 1630, 'All these Hamiltons had denuded themselves of their fortunes and estates.' And Charles the First, in his message to the parliament, says : ' Denude ourselves of all.' (Clar., vol. iii. p. 15., octavo edit.)" Warburton.

"I believe the former reading to be the true one. Raise me that beggar and den.v a proportionable degree of elevation to that lord. A lord is not so high a title in the state but that a man originally poor might be raised to one above it. We might read ' devest that lord.' De- vest is an English law-phrase. Shakspeare uses the word in King Lear, ' Since now we will devest us both of rule,' &c. The word which Dr. Warburton would intro- duce is not, however, uncommon ; I find it in the Tragedie of Croesus, 1604, ' As one of all happiness denuded.' " i Steevens. [Johnson and Steevens's Shahspeare, London, 1778.]

What is obvious enough, Warburton at once per- ceived that there must be a thorough antithesis, that the whole context, as well as the disputed line, absolutely requires this; and while Steevens's reverence for the authorised reading led him vainly to struggle against what must have been equally apparent to him, after an unsuccessful attempt to make sense of " deny't," he suggests "devest," not as a better word than denude, but partly because something nearer to the letters of the text, partly perhaps from unwillingness to be outdone by his brother commentator. Now, if the text must needs be altered, the alteration should at any hand fulfil the required conditions ; varying as little as possible from the trace of the letters in the. rejected word, it should strictly supply the indispensable antithesis. But the ob- jection to Dr. Warburton's denude is, that it is not antithetical to " raise ; " and until an example be adduced, some precedent to build upon, I will not believe that it ever was, ever could be so used. Our great forefathers, pre-eminently Shakspeare, did not utter words with the lax rambling senses that the wear and tear of a vulgar currency has since acquired for them. They were too fresh from the mint to bear any other value than what their stamp clearly expressed. Aversion to tam- pering with the text would effectually prohibit the entertainment of any wish to elevate an emend- ation of my own into the room of the authorised reading ; but I venture to suggest, by way of note, a verb that is the manifest, and was the customary antithesis of " raise," and hardly more remote from the letters of the text than either "denude " or " devest " that word is " deject." This di- gression from Middleton to Shakspeare was oc- casioned by crossing an instance in point, which occurs in A Trick to catch the Old One, Act II. Sc. 2., vol. ii. p. 27. :

" Hoa. In this one chance shines a twice happy fate, I both deject my foe and raise my state."