Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/13

 9* s. vi. JULY 7, i9oo.] NOTES AND QUERIES. form of mutual address used by the two kings is " brother." It will be noticed that How, my lord ! What cheer? how is't with you, beat brother? contains two distinct inquiries and addresses. In view of this_ fact and the foregoing reasons, I should distribute the speeches as follows :— Her. He something seems unsettled. How, my lord! What cheer ? Pol. How is "t with you, best brother ? While recognizing the cordial note and the propriety of the inquiry, indicating the necessity of restoring so much of 1. 148 to Polixenes, there seems something incongruous in the two expressions " my lord " and " best brother," as in the received text, implying as they do different relations or character of intimacy, besides the fact that one of them is redundant. I believe that the restoration of " How, my lord ! What cheer ?" to the queen assigns to her an expression perfectly in character, and shows beyond all question that " How is't with you, best brother ? " belongs to Polixenes, as seconding her inquiry, and is an improvement in every way. E. MERTON DEY. ' MACBETH,' I. iii. 6.— " Aroint thee, witch !" the rump-fed ronyon cries. An interesting parallel which is new to me occurs in F. Grose's ' A Provincial Glossary,' 1811 :— " Rynt ye ; by your leave, stand handsomely; as, Rynt you witch, quoth Besse Locket to her mother. Cheoh. Prov." Is the proverb still in use in Cheshire 1 Is it olner than the time of Shakespeare? Is anything known of Bass Locket; and is the explanation which Grose gave of the phrase correct ? PERCY SIMPSON. •MERCHANT OF VENICE,' II. ix. 59-62 (9th 8. v. 163).—Were I to regard this as a colloquy between Portia and Arragon. I should not know which of the two to charge with the greater rudeness—the prince in turning so savagely on the lady as if she was to blame for his choice of the casket, or the lady in coolly telling the prince that the opinion she had formed of him was so poor that she would not needlessly offend him by giving it expression. I picture Portia as seated at one end of the apartment, the prince as standing before the caskets at the other. Portia overhears his indignant soliloquy, and replies to it in an aside: "As for your 'deserts,' I have my own opinion of them, but I shall not offenc you by telling you what it is, I have a right to judge ; I have no right to offend. You leserve the judgment; you have done nothing to daserve the offence." What Portia's judg- ment was she was at no pains to conceal after the prince had gone. Thus," she says '/o Nerissa:— Thus hath the candle singed the moth. O, these deliberate fools ! when they do choose They have the wisdom by their wit to lose. R. M. SPENCE, D.D. 'MERCHANT OF VENICE,' III. ii.— Tell me where is fancy bred, Or in the heart or in the head ? How begot, how nourished? Reply, reply, nde ""I'-J* i. L It is engendered in the eyes. With gazing fed; and fancy dies In the cradle where it lies. Compare Lodge's 'Rosalind' (Cassell, 1887, p. 32): "She accounted love a toy [i.e., a mere trifle] and fancy a momentary passion, that, as it was taken in with a gaze, might be shaken off with a wink, and therefore feared not to dally in the flame." The date of ' Rosalind' is given as 1590. I believe the earliest probable date assigned to the ' Merchant of Venice' is 1594. I do not find this parallel noticed by Dyce, Staunton, Singer, or Dr. Aldis Wright (' Select Plays,' 1884). "Fancy," as Singer says, is "love," with which, as Dr. Wright points out, it is synonymous in ' Twelfth Night,' I. i. 9-14. For the force of "wink" in Lodge, cf. G. Herbert in ' Home' :— What is this womankind, which I can mint Into a blackness and distaste ? Shakspeare's indebtedness in ' As You Like It' to Lodge's ' Rosalind ' is well known. C. LAWRENCE FORD, B.A. Bath. 1 ROMEO AND JULIET,' II. iii. 1-4.— The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night. Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light, And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels From forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels. It is singular that the editors of Shake- speare generally seem not to have noticed the parallel in one of Drummond of Haw- thornden's lyrics:— The winds all silent are, And Phcebus in his chair, Ensaffroning sea and air, Makes vanish every star: Night like a drunkard reels Beyond the hills to shun his flaming wheels. Drummond's lines seem to be obviously a reminiscence of Shakespeare's, unless, indeed, both poets were drawing in common from an Italian source. In this connexion it is inter-