Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/30

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. vii. JAN. 12, 1901.

SHAKESPEARIAN A.

As You LIKE IT,' II. vii. 53-7 (8 th S. v. 63, 283, 362 ; vii. 203 ; 9 th S. vi. 364). He that a fool doth very wisely hit Doth very foolishly, although he smart, Seem senseless of the bob : if not, The wise man's folly is anatomized Even by the squandering glances ot the tool. Lest any readers new to * N. & Q.,' from the want of references at the last reference given above, should suppose that the passage under review had not been previously discussed, I have supplied MR. E. MERTON DEY'S omis-

I am glad to find that he thinks with me (8 th S. v. 362) that Theobald's addition is not necessary on the score of being needed to supply the place of a lacking foot, the want of the foot being already sufficiently supplied by a pause. He differs from me in placing the pause after "bob." No doubt we have the ordinary pause after a colon there ; but, dear me, if the ordinary pause marked with a colon were sufficient to supply the place of a foot, we should have lines of four feet by the hundred ! I placed the pause at the end of the line, the very elliptical expression " if not " making a lengthened pause both natural and necessary there. I heartily con- gratulate MR. DEY on his very original and very ingenious argument that with or without Theobald's addition the meaning of the passage is the same. Paradoxical though this seems, and as at first perusal of his note I thought it, he proves to demonstration the proposition which he announces in these terms : " The one reading is an affirmative, the other a negative statement of the same thought." At the same time I am glad that, while proving that Theobald's innovation is not the nonsense which some, and I among them, thought and called it, MR. DEY gives his vote in favour of the original text.

R. M. SPENCE, D.D.

Manse of Arbuthnott, N.B.

MR. MERTON DEY, after quoting Johnson's interpretation of this much-vexed passage, proceeds, "With the meaning practically settled," &c. I beg to demur to this entirely. I have never understood how Johnson and other critics could thus turn the argument upside down. The key to the argument, as in many other difficult passages, is supplied by the context. For it is an answer to Jaques's own question, " Why must they most laugh who are most galled by the fool's folly ? " Why ? Because if they pretend not to notice the hit, the fool will lay their folly bare by his squandering glances to the com-

pany. The argument being abundantly clear, t is strange that so many critics should ^mport into the text what is not there, with the result that the speaker is made to stultify limself completely. HOLCOMBE INGLEBY.

' KING HENRY V.,' V. ii. 12 (Queen Isabel's speech to Henry at the conference to discuss the terms of peace). The First Folio reads :

So happy be the issue, brother Ireland,

Of this good day and of this gracious meeting. For " Ireland," which is pure nonsense, the Second Folio (followed by the Third and Fourth, and by all subsequent editions) reads "England." But if Shakespeare wrote this, by what conceivable freak of transcriber or compositor could a reading so simple and intelligible have been tortured into the " Ireland " of the Folio 1 There is nothing in the context to suggest or to explain such a blunder, and the natural inference therefore is that the corruption conceals the original text. I offer the suggestion that the play house MS., from which Heminge and Condell printed this play, read

So happy be the issue to our land.

To our land," illegibly written, might be misread as " Ireland "; " brother " would then be inserted metri gratia from the preceding speech of the French king :

Right joyous are we'to behold your face,

Most worthy brother England.

PERCY SIMPSON

'THE WINTER'S TALE,' I. ii. 138-43. In these reflections the king is endeavouring to prove to himself that his perception is not at fault that love lends him the power to discover the truth :

Affection ! thy intention stabs the centre. Nothing can remain hidden from the search- ing power of love from its penetrating intensity :

Thou dost make possible things not so held,

Communicatest Math dreams.

Even the apparently impossible is compassed, as when in dreams the spirit seems to anni- hilate time and space in its quest for know- ledge regarding a loved one. As an illustra- tion of the poet's thought may be instanced the prophetic dream of Calpurnia ('Julius Caesar,' II. ii.), wherein she thrice cried out, " Help, ho ! they murder Caesar ! " Leontes had been a prey to jealous fancies in his dreams, which now occur to him in the light of a revelation : With what 's unreal thou coactive art, And fellow'st nothing : then 'tis very credent Thou mayst co-join with something.

Affection has the power to accomplish this