Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/49

 s. in. JAN. 21, mi NOTES AND QUERIES.

1 he price of the 1609 quarto edition of the ' Sonnets ' was fivepence.

P. 230. "Queen Elizabeth's death, 26 March,

603." All the authorities, including Dr.

Jessopp in his article ' Elizabeth ' in the 'Dic-

ionary of National Biography,' agree that

^ueen Elizabeth died 24 March, 1603.

P. 224. "Except 'Antony and Cleopatra,' which exceeds it [' Hamlet '] by sixty lines, the piece is the longest of Shakespeare's plays." The Index (pp. 448, 460) repeats this statement. In the "Globe" edition (text only) 'Hamlet' contains 3,930 lines, 29,492 words, and 120,050 letters ; * Antony and Cleopatra ' contains 3,067 lines, 23,809 words, and 97,125 letters. So far from l Antony and Cleopatra' exceeding 'Hamlet' by sixty lines, ' Hamlet ' contains 863 more than ' Antony and Cleopatra.' Other editions may differ from the "Globe" as to number of lines, but any such variations would not alter the position which 'Hamlet' holds of being by far the longest of Shakespeare's plays.

P. 239. It ['Macbeth'] is in its existing shape the shortest of Shakespeare's plays." The Index (p. 465) repeats this statement. This error frequently occurs in print. ' The Tempest ' and ' The Comedy of Errors ' are both shorter than 'Macbeth.' In the "Globe" edition 'Macbeth' contains 2,108 lines, 'The Tempest' 2,063 lines, and 'The Comedy of Errors ' 1,777. See next note for number of words and letters in these plays respectively. The number of lines may vary in other editions, but any such variations would not alter the position which 'The Comedy of Errors ' holds of being the shortest of Shake- speare's plays.

1 P. 254. " ' The Tempest ' (which, excepting ' Macbeth ' and 'The Two Gentlemen,' is the shortest of Shakespeare's plays)." 'Macbeth,' with 2,108 lines, and 'The Two Gentlemen' with 2,293, are both longer plays than ' The Tempest,' which has only 2,063* lines. ' The Comedy of Errors ' is the shortest play, and contains 1,777 lines. The number of lines in the text of a play is usually deemed its length. The following are the numbers of lines, words, and letters in the five shortest plays (text only) :

Lines. Words. Letters.

'The Comedy of Errors' 1,777 14,438 57,514 'The Tempest' ... 2,063 16,178 65,144

'Macbeth' 2,108 16,546 68,144

' Midsummer Night's

Dream' 2,175 16,177 65,125

' Two Gentlemen ' ... 2,293 16,942 67,434

P. 284. " It [Shakespeare's name] has been

proved capable of four thousand variations."

I heave a table, compiled by Mr. H. R.

Philipps, showing 1,036,800 variations ; Mr. Philipps adds, "Many other ways are pos- sible, but these are enough."

P. 285. Shakespeare "is the spelling adopted on the title-pages of the majority of contemporary editions of his works." In only five contemporary editions of works by or attributed to Shakespeare is his name spelled otherwise than " Shakespeare."

P. 297. Amongst the Shakespeare memorials in sculpture, the monument in Park Lane, London, W., is omitted.

P. 299. The editions of ' Venus and Adonis ' dated 1596, 1599, 1600, and the two dated 1602, are here stated to be in quarto. They are in octavo, not in quarto.

P. 299. There is no ground for supposing that the missing edition of ' The Passionate Pilgrim' was dated 1600, as here suggested. It may be fairly inferred that there was an edition between 1599 and 1612, but there is nothing to show the date of it.

P. 302. There is no edition of '1 Henry IV.' dated 1615. There is an edition dated 1613, which is not mentioned here.

P. 304. Two editions of " ' Romeo and Juliet' published in 1611" are mentioned here. Tney are not referred to on pp. 301-2, where a complete list of lifetime editions is intended to be given. There is no edition of 'Romeo and Juliet ' dated 1611.

P. 365. " The Shakespearean entries in the

British Museum Catalogue comprising

3,680 titles published in 1897." This cata- logue contains 4,079 entries.

A few typographical errors occur in my copy on pp. 34, 55, 120, 286, 366, 411, and 425, but neither these nor the other matters re- ferred to in this communication detract from the value of this book, which is quite the ablest 'Life of Shakespeare' ever written, and will ultimately supersede all previous books on the same subject.

EDWARD B. HARRIS.

5, Sussex Place, N.W.

"STONE" IN TOPOGRAPHY.

(See 9 th S. ii. 516.)

ALTHOUGH Kingston - on - Thames is no longer able to claim the glory of deriving its name from the venerable coronation stone of so many of our Saxon kings, yet the A.-S. word stdn, a stone, enters largely into topographic nomenclature. First and foremost among such names comes Stonehenge, the great megalithic monument on Salisbury Plain, where the upper stones of the great trili- thons overhang (M.E. hengen, to hang). This explanation of the name is confirmed by the