Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/121

 9 th S. I. FEB. 5, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

113

] ramatists ' (Nimmo, 1875), p. 423, there is t le following foot-note to the above passage : ' The porter's lodge, in our author's days, v hen the great claimed, and, indeed, fre- qaently exercised, the right of chastising t leir servants, was the usual place of punish- D tent. Gifford."

In the same edition the foot-note to the

p issage quoted by the querist, ' New Way to

Pay Old Debts,' I. i., is simply : " The porter's

L >dge, the first degree of servitude. Gifford."

C. LAWRENCE FORD, B.A.

Bath.

" GRIMTHORPED " (8 th S. xii. 205, 353 ; 9 th S. i. 51). As to Lord Grimthorpe's liberality in paying for restorations, in conformity with his own designs, there may be no question ; as to his judgment and taste, as shown in those restorations, there is, most people will admit, considerable room for discussion. But I do not think that the comparison of him as an architect with Lord Macaulay as an author can be maintained. Genius, with a general education, may fully suffice to equip an author ; but genius needs a very special education to furnish an architect with all necessary knowledge and artistic culture. Further, Lord Grimthorpe may, according to an old story, have had a genius for making watches and wills, but he is not yet credited with a genius for architecture.

JULIAN MARSHALL.

" PRENDS-MOI TEL QUE JE sins " (8 th S. xii. 508). The letter s, not being the desinence of the imperative second person singular in Latin, is not found in the same part of the Old French verb, which in the case of prendre might be pren or prend, sometimes written prent. The s is a later excrescence, due to analogy with the second persons singular of other moods. I find examples in the twelfth- century ' Mystere d'Adam ' (Cledat, * Mor- ceaux Choisis,' p. 413) :

Eva. Est tels li fruiz ?

Diabolus. Oil, par voir

Primes le prent, Adam le done ;

in the thirteenth - century chantefaUe of 'Aucassin et Nicolette' (Moland and He'ri- cault's * Nouvelles du XIII 6 Siecle,' p. 234) : " Fix, car pren tes armes, si monte el ceval, si deffent [mod. French defends] te terre"; in the sixteenth-century 'Nouvelles Recreations' of Bonaventure des Periers (nouv. 100, subfin.): "Pren courage, mon amy"; and in many other compositions.

Your correspondent may have noticed that the rule of life of the Thelemites is in some editions of Rabelais printed "Fay," and in others " Fais ce que vouldras," furnishing an

analogy to his own phrase. In our language William of Wykeham's motto, " Manners maketh man," correct according to the acci- dence of Wykeham's time, might be modern- ized into " Manners make [a] man " ; and it is easy to imagine a foreigner putting a query as to the discrepancy in his own vernacular ' N. & O.' It should be noted, however, that in the fifth edition of Burke's * Peerage ' the mottoes of the Loftus (Ely) and Ricketts families have the reading prend, which I find also in * The Manual of Nobility,' 1807, p. 73.

F. ADAMS.

Is not prend (Lat. prehende or prende, Ital. prendi) at least as grammatical as prends ? No doubt there must be some good explana- tion of the added s, and it would be interest- ing to know what it is. Probably Littre would tell, but I have not the book here. As to F. L.'s question, I have a MS. (c. 1430) of Guillaume de Guilevile's ' Pelerinage de Vie Humaine ' (1340), in which it is always spelt pren, which seems to suit well with the plural prenez. ALDENHAM.

SHAKSPEARE'S GRANDFATHER (8 th S. xii. 463 ; 9 th S. i. 41). MR. J. P. YEATMAN, under the above heading, again attacks the late Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps.

1. He says, "Mr. Phillipps suppresses the fact that Robert Arden was son of Thomas." On the contrary, Mr. Halliwell - Phillipps pointed out this fact, and emphasized it fifty years ago (see his 'Life of William Shakespeare,' 1848, p. 8) ; and he prominently stated it at least four times in the last edition of his 'Outlines' (seventh edition, vol. ii. pp. 174, 207, 366, 367, &c.).

2. It may be remarked that MR. YEATMAN in his communication makes some six or seven other quotations, referring sometimes to page so-and-so " of my book." Every one of these references, without exception, was given by Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps ; out in no case does MR. YEATMAN acknowledge the source of his information.

3. MR. YEATMAN further alludes to "Mr. Phillipps's idea that the poet's father was a resident of Stratford in 1552," &c., and makes the following comment :

"The whole train of argument [was] invented apparently to confound the poet's father with John Shakspere, the shoemaker."

It is difficult to understand exactly what this statement means ; but, whatever it may mean, the remark may be made that Mr. Halliwell- Phillipps printed the whole of the Stratford allusions both to the poet's father and to the shoemaker, so that any student may form iiis own conclusions.