Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/332

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. xii. OCT. 24, 1903.

learning that is to be found in his plays and other poems.

The blackest sin is cleared with absolution. Tarquin did not get that from Ovid's * Fasti.' He speaks like a .Roman Catholic. 'The Rape of Lucrece ' is a multitude of conceits, and it is possible that many of them are like those of Ovid ; but Shakspeare's fertile mind not only originated much, but hit also uncon- sciously on much that other poets before him had produced. He may, too, have reproduced the thoughts of the ancients through learned English writers who had borrowed or trans- lated them ; and it must be difficult to trace all his imitations made in this way. In the eighteenth century the commentators on his works, who were men of classical learning, pointed out many resemblances between his thoughts and those of the Greek and Latin poets, but withal they saw clearly that he had small Latin and less Greek. There is certainly nothing that argues classical know- ledge in 'The Rape of Lucrece,' if it be not in the ideas themselves, for there is not in it a reference to any ancient person or thing, out side the story itself, except to Tantalus, who is as well known as Jupiter, to Tereus and Philomel, and to a few of the best -known characters of the Trojan war. Shakspeare's limited range of reference, with other things, convinces me that he knew little Greek and Latin. Chaucer and Spenser make mistakes, but .witha], they, show abundantly that their classical knowledge was extensive. All these attempts to give t erudition to Shakspeare seem to lead to his being converted to Bacon. Otherwise, I should not trouble myself much about them. E. YARDLEY.

" MATED MIND."

My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight. ' Macbeth,' V. i. 86.

The 'Variorum' editor quotes numerous authorities in explanation of k ' mated mind," but Shakespeare appears to have borrowed the expression from Sidney's 'Arcadia,' Liber III. p. 266 recto, ed. 1590 :

" Now that the enemy gave a dreadful aspect unto the castle, his [Clinias's] eyes saw no terror, nor eare heard any martiall sounde, but that they multiplied the hideousness of it to his mated minde."

From what immediately follows in the 'Arcadia' all readers would not, perhaps, infer the same meaning for the expression. CHAS. A. HERPICH.

'KiNG LEAR,' II. iv. 56 (9 th S. xi. 162, 323) : O, how this mother swells up toward my heart ! Let me thank MR. ADAMS and W. C. B. for their learned replies to my query. The fact

that two such pundits have considered it worth their time to reply with sympa- thetic, interesting comments, proves that the passage needed elucidation. In view of the circumstance that I was careful to compare one passage of Shakespeare with another, and to offer Shakespeare for Shake- speare, MR. YARDLEY'S remark that " if such alterations are readily accepted, we shall not retain much that Shakespeare has written," seems a little wide of 'the mark. Anything which excites interest in his works does good. "Est in nobis : agitante calescimus

illo." T. B. WlLMSHUBST.

THE BATTLE OF THE NILE, 1798. In James's ' Naval History of Great Britain/ published in 1837, appears a list of the ships engaged in the action of the Nile on 1 August, 1798, with the names of their respective first lieutenants. The Minotaur, one of Nelson's vessels, commanded by Capt. Louis, played a very active and important part in the battle, and credit is given in the ' Naval History ' to Lieut. C. M. Schomberg as being her first lieutenant on that occasion. This is mani- festly wrong, as on reference to the Minotaur's books in the Public Record Office it is found Lieut. Schomberg joined that ship nearly two months subsequent to the action. More- over, every first lieutenant of a ship so engaged was promoted commander, and this step in rank was not given to Lieut. Schom- berg until 1802. The first lieutenant of the Minotaur at the battle of the Nile was John Hill, who was promoted commander for the action, and who, knighted in 1831, died as a flag officer in 1855. The statement of 'the above facts seems the only effectual means of rectifying an error of such long standing, and rendering very tardy justice to Lieut. Hill, who, as first lieutenant of the Minotaur, did his duty at the Nile, which battle in itself and consequences is by many considered as the greatest naval engagement recorded in history. A RELATIVE.

THOMAS LLOYD, REPUBLICAN. The dedica- tion, on 22 August last, of a tablet to the memory of Capt. Thomas Lloyd at St. Augustine's Church, Philadelphia, not far from the resting-place of Benjamin Franklin, calls attention to an interesting career that has escaped the notice of biographical dictionary makers in this country and in the United States. Lloyd, though of Welsh ancestry, was born in London on 14 August, 1756. About 1763 he was sent for education, as were many young Catholics of that period, to the Jesuit College at St. Orner. There he