ページの画像
PDF
ePub

"Her garment side [i. e. long], and, by her side, her glaue." Id. b. ix. st. 8.

"Were for the glorious sunne-shine of my sonnes."

B. Barnes's Divels Charter, 1607, sig. B 2.

"Whilst by my furie Furies furious made," &c.

W. Alexander's [Lord Stirling's] Tragedie of
Julius Cæsar, sig. Q 4, ed. 1607.

"Great Pompey's pomp is past, his glorie gone."

"And force his forces from the Brittish shores."

Id. sig. R 2.

Armin's Valient Welshman, sig. c 3, ed. 1615.

"T'inflame the Flamine [Flamen] of Jove Ammon so,” &c. Sylvester's Du Bartas,-First Day of the First Week, p. 6, ed. 1641.

"And toward the bottom of this bottom [i. e. ball] bound." Id., Third Day of the First Week, p. 25.

"Fair rose this Rose with truth's new-springing raies."

Id., ibid. p. 26.

*" And still-green laurel shall be still thy lot."

Id., ibid. p. 29.

"Here, on a green, two striplings stripped light," &c.
Id., Seventh Day of the First Week, p. 59.

"There th' ugly Bear bears (to his high renown)
Seav'n shining stars."

"Where up

Id., The Columnes, p. 141 [139]. he mounts, and doth their Mount surprise." Id., The Vocation, p. 152.

Id., ibid. p. 155.

"As black as jet they jet about.”

σε Το

grave

this short remembrance on my grave."

Drummond,-Sonnet to Sir W. Alexander

(a sonnet of great beauty, most carefully composed).

"And, Reading [the name of the person addressed], of the

world thou read'st aright."

Hubert's Edward the Second, p. 129, ed. 1629.

"There hang a gauntlet bright, here a stabt buckler,

Pile up long piles [i. e darts]," &c.

Fuimus Troes, 1633, sig.F 3.

I could easily adduce many other passages: but, not to weary the reader, I close the list with proofs that even the lofty Muse of Milton did not disdain a jingle;

"That brought into this world a world of woe."

"He all their ammunition

Par. Lost, b. ix. 11.

And feats of war defeats."

Samson Agon. 1277.*

Further, it may be asked if the Manuscript-corrector's alteration does not introduce a great impropriety of expression,-"CLEANSE the bosom of GRIEF"?

Act v. sc. 5.

"And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death."

The commentators (who hunt for something parallel in the Psalms, Sidney's Arcadia, and Pierce Plowman) evi

* The old Italian poets occasionally affect the same sort of repetition;

e. g.;

"Cosi, quando quell' altro hebb' egli scorto,
Seco s' affronta, e in men ch' io non fauello,
Hebbe il franco Rugger quel Morte morto,
Che non potea trouar maggior flagello."

Dolce,-Prime Imprese del Conte Orlando,
c. xvii. p. 142, ed. 1572.

dently suppose that the very striking expression, “ dusty death," is found for the first time in Macbeth. But I meet with it in a poem which was published more than a dozen years before the appearance of that tragedy;

"Time and thy graue did first salute thy nature,
Euen in her infancie and cradle-rightes,

Inuiting it to dustie deaths defeature,

And therewithall thy Fortunes fierce despights:
Death is the gulfe of all: and then I say,

Thou art as good as Cæsar in his clay."

A Fig for Fortune, 1596, by Anthony Copley, p. 57 [49].

HAMLET.

Act i. sc. 1.

"We may presume that in this first scene a cock was heard to crow, in order to give the Ghost notice of the fit time for his departure, Cock crows being placed in the margin opposite the words 'Stop it, Marcellus.'" Collier's Notes and Emendations, &c. p. 418.

The cock used to crow when Garrick acted Hamlet, and perhaps also when that part was played by some of his successors; but now-a-days managers have done wisely in striking out the cock from the list of Dramatis Personæ.

Act i. sc. 2.

"discourse of reason."

To

Boswell, by several examples, has supported the phraseology of the text against Gifford, who rather hastily asserted that we ought to read "discourse and reason." the passages cited in Boswell's note, add the following one; "There was no discourse of reason strong enough to diuert him from thinking that he was betrayed." A Tragi-comicall History of our Times, under the borrowed names of Lisander and Calista (from the French), 1627, p. 34.

[blocks in formation]

So the Italians :

"E ch' io punisca il traditor di Gano

D'un tradimento già, ch' io veggo scorto
Con gli occhi de la mente in uno specchio," &c.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

The quartos have "distill'd;" the folio has "bestil'd." "Neither word, 'distill'd' or bestill'd, can be perfectly satisfactory; but it is apparent that bestill'd was a misprint in the folio, 1623 (and from thence copied into the folio, 1632), for a word, very like it in letters, but affording a very clear and sensible meaning:

'Whilst they, bechill'd

Almost to jelly with the act of fear,' &c.

[ocr errors]

Bernardo and Marcellus were almost chilled to jelly by their apprehensions, the cold fit of fear' having come powerfully upon them. This must be deemed a text superior to that of any old or modern edition." Collier's Notes and Emendations, &c. p. 420.

Is there not something strange in such an expression as "human bodies CHILLED almost to JELLY by fear"?

« 前へ次へ »