Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/401

 g s. V.MAY TO, i9oo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

393

glad to see that they are to be continued. One only the note on the passage referred to above I venture to ask him to reconsider. I conjure thee, by all the parts of man Which honour does acknowledge, whereof the least Is not this suit of mine, that thou declare What incidency thou dost guess of harm Is creeping toward me.

I paraphrase the passage thus: "By all that a man of honour acknowledges as duties of which to warn another of danger threaten- ing his life is not the least I conjure you to declare what danger, known to you, is threat- ening mine."

MR. GOTCH thinks that while we may speak of a man's duty as a man's part, we cannot, using the plural, call duties parts. We cer- tainly do not ; but as certainly in more than one instance Shakespeare does. I refer ME. GOTCH to two passages :

lago. You were best go in.

Othello. Not I : I must be found :

My parts, my title, and my perfect soul Shall manifest me rightly.

' Othello,' I. ii. 30-32.

Good my liege,

The day that she was missing he \vas here : I dare be bound he 's true and shall perform All parts of his subjection loyally.


 * Cymbeline,' IV. iii. 16-19.

"All parts of his subjection "i.e., "All his duties as a subject." R. M. SPENCE, D.D.

1 WINTER'S TALE,' IV. iv. 443 (9 th S. v. 330). Polix. Thou churl, for this time,

Though full of our displeasure, yet we free thee

From the dead blow of it.

MR. GOTCH thinks that it cannot be the Shepherd who is addressed in these words, because he still remained "under the ban already pronounced." True ; but the ban is not removed, but only the deadly effect of it deferred : " For this time we free thee." The prince, the Shepherd, and Florizel are in succession spoken to. The address to the prince commences at 1. 437, "For thee, fond boy," and ends with "Follow us to court," at 1. 443. Then the Shepherd is addressed as "Thou churl," and last, Florizel, "And you, enchantment." IV. iv. 445.

And you, enchantment, &c. Neither can I accept MR. GOTCH'S interpre- tation of this passage. I take the meaning to be, "As a peasant you are not a suitable wife for the prince ; but were he not my son, and did not his mesalliance reflect dis- honour on me, he has behaved so badly that I should say he is unworthy of you, who, except in birth, are his superior."

R. M. SPENCE, D.D.

'JULIUS CAESAR,' II. i. 204-5. Unicorns may be betrayed with trees, And bears with glasses, elephants with holes.

The editors profusely illustrate the refer- ences to unicorns and elephants, but on the subject of the bears only quote or refer to the following note of Steevens's :

Bears are reported to have been surprised by means of a mirror, which they would gaze on, affording their pursuers an opportunity of taking
 * he surer aim. This circumstance, I think, is men-

tioned by Claudian."

[ am not aware of any such passage in Olaudian, and the slipshod " I think " is suspicious, when we remember how Steevens ould on occasion manipulate his authorities. The point is eminently one for ' N. & Q.' to elucidate, once for all. I think I have read somewhere of this device of mirrors, but I cannot fix the reference. If it is in Clau- dian it would be interesting to have the passage noted'. PERCY SIMPSON.

[SALTERTON puts practically the same query.]

'KiNG JOHN,' I. i. The episode of Philip the Bastard has a close parallel in a story cited by B. Rich, ' The Irish Hvbbvb ; or, the English Hve and Crie,' 1617, p. 13 :

'I remember I haue read in a French historic of a Duke of Guyse, that was well knowne to keepe Monsieur Granduyles wife, who was a Gentleman of great estate, and likewise descended from an honorable Familie, who after he was dead, there grew some question of his wiues children, whether they were legitimate, and begotten by her husband, or bastards to the Duke of Guyse, for so the most of them were supposed ; the eldest sonne protested with a vehement oath, that he had rather be accounted the noble Duke of Guyses bastard, then to be reputed cuckold Granduyles sonne, and in this humour he forsooke his inheritance, and left it to his yonger brother."

PERCY SIMPSON.

'THE MERCHANT OF VENICE,' IV. i. Says Antonio :

!So please my lord the duke, and all the court,

To quit the fine for one half of his goods,

I am content.

It has been conjectured by whom I do not now remember that in the second of the lines quoted we should read :

To quit for fine the one half of his goods. And is riot the conjecture a right good one 1 It certainly helps to make somewhat clearer a passage which, as I know from experience, has more than a little puzzled more than a few students of Shakespeare.

JOHN BAXTER.

" HANSEL." The initial meaning attached to this word by Dr. Brewer is " gift, or bribe," which is followed by well-known definitions.