June 26. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



605 



vast learning, would doubtless have done ample 

 justice to his task. EiciiAUD Hoopee. 



St. Stephen's, Westmhister. 



^N A PASSAGE IN THE "MERCHANT OP VENICE," 

 ACT III. SC. 2. 



The passage in which I am about to propose 

 seme verbal corrections has already been in part 

 examined by your correspondent A. E. B. in 

 p. 483. of this volume ; but the points, except one, 

 to which I advert, have not been touched by that 

 gentleman. The first folio reads thus : 

 " Thus ornament is but the guiled shore 

 To a most dangerous sea, the beauteous scarfe 

 Vailing an Indian heautie ; In a word, 

 The seeming truth which cunning times put on 

 To intrap the wisest. Therefore then, thou gaudie 



gold. 

 Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee. 

 Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge 

 Tweene man and man : but thou, thou meager lead, 

 Which rather threatnest than doih promise ought, 

 Thy palenesse moves me more than eloquence, 

 And here choose I, joy be the consequence." 



The word guiled in the first line is printed 

 guilded in the second folio, the form in which 

 gilded appears often in the old copies. I have no 

 doubt that this is the true reading, and it would 

 obviate the difficulty of supposing that Shakspeare 

 wrote g\x\\ed for guWing. 



In Henry Peacham's Minerva Briianna, 1612, 

 p. 207., oi' deceitful " court favour" it is said : 



*' She beares about a holy-water brush, 

 Wherewith her bountie round about she throwes 

 Fair promises, good wordes, and gallant showes : 

 Herewith a knot o( guilded hookes she beares," &c. 



Notwithstanding your correspondent's ingenious 

 argument to show that heautie in the third line 

 may be the true reading, I cannot but think that 

 it is a mistake of the compositor caught from 

 beauteous in the preceding line ; and that gypsie 

 was the word used by the poet, who thus desig- 

 nates Cleopatra. The words in their old form 

 might well be confused. For " thou pale and 

 common drudge," in the seventh line, I unhesi- 

 tatingly read " tliou stale and common drudge ; " 

 and, by so doing, avoid the repetition of the same 

 epithet to silver and lead. It is evident that the 

 epithet applied to silver should be a depreciating 

 one ; while paleness is said to move more than elo- 

 quence. The following passage in King Henry IV., 

 Part I. Act III. Sc. 2. confirms this reading : 

 " So cmnmoH hackney'd in the eyes of men. 

 So stale and cheap." 



To obviate the repetition, Warburton altered 

 paleness to plainness^ but paleness was the appro- 

 priate epithet for lead. Thus, Baret has, " Pale- 

 nesse or ivannesse like lead. Ternissure." 



And in Romeo and Juliet, Act II. Sc. 5., we have : 

 " Unwieldly, slow, heavy and pale as lead." 



With these simple and, most of them, obvious 

 corrections, I submit the passage to the impartial 

 consideration of those who with me think that our 

 immortal poet, so consummate a master of English, 

 has been here, as elsewhere, rendered obscure, if 

 not absurd, by the blunders of the printer. It 

 will then run thus : 

 " Thus ornament is but the gilded shore. 

 To a most dangerous sea : the beauteous scarf 

 Veiling an Indian gipsy ; in a word. 

 The seeming truth which cunning times put on 

 To entrap the wisest. Therefore, thou gaudy gold. 

 Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee : 

 Nor none of thee, thou stale and common drudge 

 'Tween man and man : but thou, thou meagre lead, 

 Which rather threat'nest than doth promise aught. 

 Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence, 

 And here choose I ; joy be the consequence !" 



I may just observe, that in Troihis and Cressida, 

 Act II. Sc. 2., the quarto copies have printed j9aZe 

 for stale, which is corrected in the folio. 



S. W. SiNGEK. 



EPISODE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 



Mademoiselle de Sombreuil and the Glass of Blood. 



" .... In the Abbaye, Sombreuil, the venerable 

 Governor of the Invalides, was brought up to the table, 

 and Maillard had pronounced the words ' a la Force,' 

 when the Governor's daughter, likewise a prisoner, 

 rushed through pikes and sabres, clasped her old father 

 in her arms so tightly that none could separate her 

 from him, and made such piteous cries and prayers 

 that some were touched. She vowed that her father 

 was no aristocrat, that she herself hated aristocrats. 

 But to put her to a further proof, or to indulge their 

 bestial caprices, the ruffians presented to her a cup full 

 of blood, and said : ' Drink ! drink of the blood of the 

 aristocrats, and your father shall be saved !' The lady 

 took the horrible cup, and drank; and the monsters 

 kept their promise." 



Thus, in relating the massacres of September* 

 writes the author of Knight's Pictorial Hist, of 

 Engl. (Reign of Geo. III., vol. iii. p. 160.) ; and 

 thus tradition has handed down to us this most 

 horrible episode of the first French revolution; 

 one which made so deep an impression on my 

 own mind, that the scene was always uppermost 

 whenever the atrocities committed during that 

 eventful period of French history were under 

 consideration. This impression, I am glad to say, 

 has now been removed by M. Granier de Cas- 

 sagnac, who (^Histoire du Directoire^ states that 

 the tradition is not founded on fact ; and as it is 

 the first denial of the event which has come under 

 my notice, I send you the substance of the evi- 

 dence which M. de Cassagnac brings forward in 

 support of his statement : — 



