Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/245

 g8. viii. SEPT. 21, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

237

LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER SI, 1901.

CONTENTS. -No. 195.

NOTES : President McKinley Shakespeariana, 237 "Blood is thicker than water," 238 John Quinby, 239- " Alright "Fifteenth-century Religious Verses Battle of Salamis, 240" Byron's tomb " Eastern and Western Fables, 241 Demon Repentant Borrow in Hungary- Well and Fountain Verses" It," 242.

QUERIES -.New Testament Diction Nursery Rime Redmayne Children Hanged " Panshon, " 243 Gold- smith's Birthplace Quotation Wanted Parish Registers Setting a Price on Head Capt. Jones " Judicious actor" Armorial Robert Shirley. 244 Whyte-Melville S. Du Bois Dawe and Lamb "Old original "Tomb- land Place-names in Fox's ' Journal,' 245.

REPLIES : ' Marseillaise,' 245 " Lanspisadoes," 246 Bonaparte Queries Malt and Hop Substitutes Author of Poem' Le Bon Rpi Dagobert,' 247' Tennysonian Ode ' "Tall Leicestershire women" Folk-lore of Sailors Arms of European Countries Transfer by " Church Gift," 248 Armorial : Leighton, 249 " Alewives "Little John's Remains" Toucan "Civil War, 250 Tenures of Land "Stinger " Powney, 251 Portrait by Dighton Mistakes of Authors Royal Personages Sir James Jay, 252 Nobility Site of Brunanburh, 253 " Leet-ale," 254 Corlett of Douglas" Halsh," 255.

NOTES ON BOOKS :-Gutch's ' Folk-lore of North Riding' Gasc's 'French and English Dictionary' "Chiswick Shakespeare " Thimm's ' Russian Self- Taught 'Violet Fane's ' Two Moods of a Man ' ' The Library ' ' Journal of Royal Institution of Cornwall.'

Notices to Correspondents.

$01*8*

DEATH OF PRESIDENT McKINLEY.

THE great calamity that has befallen the United States is shared by Eng- land. Not a reader is there of ' N. & Q.' on either side of the Atlantic but will forgive us if, in presence of such a tragedy, we neglect the unwritten law that bids us hold aloof from politics, and stretch out sym pathetic hands across the sea. Quoting from 'Mac- beth,' we would say to America of this loss :

No mind that 's honest But in it shares some woe, though the main

" part Pertains to you alone.

We have no words but those of sorrow and reverence, and it is with an ap- palled sense of the transitoriness of things that we ask our kindred across the sea to permit us a share in their sorrow. With bowed head and hushed voice we bear our tribute to the illus- trious dead who now shines a fixed star in his and our firmament.

SHAKESPEARIANA.

'HAMLET,' I. i. 117, 118. I venture to sug- gest that we should here read

A storm with rains of fire and dews of blood Disaster'd in the sun ; and the moist star, &c.,

on the following grounds.

1. The repetition of the word " star " in the original is exceedingly awkward.

2. "Dews of blood" more appropriately Balances " rains of fire " than " trains of fire."

3. Though stars may, indeed, have " trains of fire," it is difficult to account for their being associated with "dews of blood."

4. For " A storm with rains of fire " compare Julius Caesar,' I. iii. 9, 10 :

But never till to-night, never till now, Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.

5. For "dews of blood" compare 'Julius Csesar,' II. ii. 19-21 :

Fierce fiery warriors fought upon the clouds, In ranks and squadrons and right forms of war, Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol.

6. For " disastered " compare ' Antony and /leopatra,' II. vii. 18 : "The holes where eyes

should be, which pitifully disaster the cheeks." I take " in " to be used adverbially.

It may be added that the obvious re- semblance of 11. 115 and 116 to ' Julius Caesar,' II. ii. 18 and 24, and of 11. 121-5 to ' Julius Csesar,' I. iii. 31, 32, naturally leads us to look to the play of ' Julius Csesar ' for elucidation of the difficulties presented by the text.

ALFRED E. THISELTON.

'THE MERCHANT OF VENICE,' III. ii. 1-24. To the suitors who had preceded Bas- sanio Portia was indifferent, but she loved him, and told her love as plainly as did Miranda or Desdemona; only, as the former was artlessly direct in her avowal, and the latter exquisitely feminine by in- viting a declaration, Portia was convention- ally correct. She saved her dignity by declaring that a maiden hath no tongue but thought, and then managed to think to such good purpose that her general remarks fully showed her heart, and how much she dreaded being misunderstood. What she wished Bassanio fully to understand was that her honourable purpose, her firm resolve to obey her father's wisn, while being able to teach him how to choose right, was not supported by indifference that it meant misery to her should the choice go wrong, and, since these naughty times put bars between the owners and their rights, if it prove, although his at heart, she was not to be so in reality, that fortune should be cast into the hell of his condemnation, not herself :