Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/70

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. m. JAN. 28, m

word "overture" is peculiarly appropriate in connexion with bribes and flattery. Corio lanus has just refused what he regards as a bribe to pay his sword, and, in the lines which immediately precede, has pictured a world whose ruling principle was flattery " Overture " (the reading of the First Folio^ would thus appear to be far more in keeping with the spirit of the context than "coverture,' which has generally supplanted it j while " armature " owes its introduction merely tc the manifest deficiency of "coverture.' Besides, when steel has become soft as silk, what need of either " coverture " or " arma- ture " for the wars 1

ALFRED E. THISELTOST.

' OTHELLO,' I. ii. 11-14 (9 th S. ii. 402). I do not think it at all likely that Shakespeare has represented lago as saying anything so extravagant as that Brabantio's influence in the council was in potency double that of the Duke. Is it not much more probable that " double " is here used for " doubly," an adjective for an adverb, so frequent in Shake- speare, and that the meaning is that, com- pared with that of any other member of council, Brabantio's voice was doubly poten- tialequal, in fact, to that of the Duke 1 I should read the lines as if written thus :

Be assured of this, That the magnifico is much beloved, And hath in his effect a voice potential, As doubly [potential], as the Duke's.

K. M. SPENCE, D.D. Manse of Arbuthnott, N.B.

' MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ' (9 th S. ii. 523). It is to me a complete puzzle why Shak- spearian critics, historians, and people gener- ally will persist in crediting Prince Henry, afterwards Henry V., with the folly and wild pranks which Shakspeare attributed to him. The only tangible ground for his character as Madcap Harry, as I believe, was his once stopping the royal mails and seizing the money that was due to him as Prince of Wales, which was absolutely his own pro- perty, and which his father refused to yield to him. His life was pure, his character a noble one, and his idea (a visionary one) was to rescue France from its state of utter chaos so as to be free to lead a Crusade for the re- demption of Palestine from the Moslem. The character of Madcap Harry was, as I have endeavoured to show before, drawn from life. At the very time that Shakspeare was living in Southwark, Mr. Popham, barrister, after- wards Lord Chief Justice, was, according to Lord Campbell, actually performing the very pranks and leading the life attributed to the

prince who lived more than a hundred years before. Upon the slender thread of the one actually recorded escapade of Prince Henry, Shakspeare wove in the stories of the disre- putable pranks of Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Popham's, which were being enacted in South- wark at the very time, his reform and farewell to his friends being actual facts. It is plain that the character of Falstaff was introduced as the name and character of Sir John Fastolfe were odious in the records of the Borough from various causes. There is still less excuse for the libel upon the other Prince of Wales, Henry Stuart. "He was high-spirited and inclined to be wild," says your correspondent. Now Prince Henry was notorious for the absolute purity of his life, which was strict even to the verge of Puri- tanical austerity ; and a libel upon the illus- trious dead, who cannot answer it, is to me worse than upon the living.

CHARLOTTE G. BOGER. Chart Sutton.

' As You LIKE IT ' (9 th S. ii. 204). I offer a few remarks on some of MR. DEY'S valuable notes.

II. iv. 44-58. MR. DEY, as an American, may not be aware that there is in England a provincial use of " mortal " in the sense of "extreme." Touchstone, I think, plays with the word thus : " As all is mortal " (subject to death) "in nature, so is all nature in love mortal" (extreme) "in folly." Rosa- lind, as MR. DEY has well observed, glances at a third meaning of the word " fatal."

II. iv. 46-8. I think MR. DEY'S conjecture that for " a-night " we should read " a-nigh " exceedingly probable. In the dark Touch- stone should not have seen to hit the stone.

II. vii. 38-42. I rather think the meaning is that, like stale biscuits, Touchstone's brain bred maggots. E. M. SPENCE, D.D.

Manse of Arbuthnott, N.B.

' OTHELLO,' I. i. 21 (5 th S. xi. 383 ; 9 th S. i. 83, 283, 422, 483 ; ii. 203, 402, 524). In an old Latin dictionary, under the word ' Damnum,' the following from Ovid is quoted, " credu- Itas damno solet esse puellis," and the mean-
 * ng given is " to be hurtful or fatal." Under

Damnare' the following from Statius is quoted, "jaculo damnare sagittas," and the word damnare is translated " to get the better of." These extracts may justify me in giving a meaning to damn different from that of

ondemn or blame. Shakspeare was so proud of the little Latin which he knew that he pve to words directly or indirectly taken knowledge of that language. For instance,
 * rom the Latin a sense meant to show his