554 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 137. 



Jesus Clir'ist. London, printed for H. "Cripps and 

 L. Lloyd, 1655, 4to., pages 23." 



I might give an extract or two from this very 

 interesting tract, but do not wish to trespass too 

 much upon your space. Perhaps, next to Milton, 

 there is no writer of the time of the Common- 

 wealth equal to John Goodwin, in power and 

 elevation of composition ; and I am glad therefore 

 to be able to add one more to the series of his 

 pamphlets which his biographer has with so much 

 industry and research enumerated at the close of 

 the. Life. Jas. Ceossley. 



MR. COLLIER S rOLIO SHAKSPEARE : A PASSAGE 



IN "as you like it," 



It appears to me so obvious that the degree of 

 authority to be conceded to each particular cor- 

 rection or emendation in Mr. Collier's folio Shak- 

 speare must depend in a great measure on the 

 general character of the proposed alterations 

 throughout the work, that I cannot help thinking 

 it would be desirable to reserve all controversy on 

 such points until after the appearance of the pro- 

 mised volume. Such a resolution I made for my- 

 self, and to it I shall religiously adhere. This 

 much only I shall say, that, of the specimens given 

 by Mr. Collier in the Athenceum, — sufficient at 

 once to excite interest and to gratify curiosity, — 

 some of the corrections appear to be of that 

 nature that no conjecture could have supplied, 

 while all are good enough to command a deferen- 

 tial consideration. 



Your correspondent A. E. B. has attempted a 

 defence of the original reading of two passages 

 amended in Mr. Collier's folio. For the reason 

 above given I shall neither answer your corre- 

 spondent, nor even say whether I think him right 

 or wrong ; but it will not be overstepping the 

 bounds I have prescribed myself, if I take up a 

 collateral point he has raised in reference to one 

 of these passages. To strengthen the case for the 

 reading of the passage in Cymbeline, Act III. 

 Sc. 4., " Whose mother was her painting," he cites 

 a passage from As You Like It, Act IlL Sc. 5., in 

 ■which he says, " mother is directly used as a sort 

 of warranty of female beauty ! " Here is the 

 passage : 



" Who might be your mother, 

 That you insult, exult, and all at once. 

 Over the wretched ?" 



Shakspeare was, if I am not mistaken, one of 

 those persons to whom a mother was, as some one 

 expresses it, " the holiest thing alive." He con- 

 centrates this sentiment in the words of Troilus 

 (Troilus and Cressida, Act V. Sc. 2.) : 



" Let it not be believ'd for womanhood : 

 Think we had motliers," 



And again, in those of Palamon (which i have 

 no -doubt are Shakspeare' s) in the Two Noble 

 Kinsmen, Act V. Sc. 1. : 



" I have been harsh 

 To large confessors, and have hotly ask'd them • 

 If they had mothers? I had one, a woman, 

 And women t'were they wrong'd." 



Now it seems to me that the same feeling is im- 

 plied in Rosalind's reproof to Phebe ; and that 

 there is no ground whatever for saying that mother 

 is used as a warranty for female beauty, but 

 rather as one for feminine qualities, llosalind in 

 effect says, " who might your mother be that you 

 should be so unfeeling'?" And, as she tells her 

 plainly she sees no beauty in her, it is clearly to 

 be inferred that it must have been for some other 

 quality that her mother was to be "warranty." 

 llosalind, in other words, might have said, " Had 

 you a mother, a woman, that you can so discredit 

 the character of womanhood as to exult, insult, , 

 and all at once, over the wretched ?" 



It might however be contended, that Rosalind's 

 question referred to the I'ank, condition, or per- 

 sonal appearance of the mother. The latter only 

 bears upon this question ; and with regard to that 

 it may be said, that if beauty had been trans- 

 mitted to the daughter (independently of the 

 questioner having decided that it had not), the 

 question was not needed. Eosalind, in short, 

 seeks for a better cause for Phebe's pride or want 

 of feeling than her own insufficient attractions, in 

 the nature or quality of her mother. It will be 

 observed that, in this view, I have conceded that 

 who may be taken with something of the significa- 

 tion of what; but the answer to the question, 

 taken strictly, must be the name of some in- 

 dividual who might be known to the Querist, and 

 be in some measure a warranty for the disposi- 

 tion of tlie daughter, though for no personal 

 beauty but her own. Samuel IIickson. 



NOTES ON BOOKS, NO. III. — LAURENCE HUMPHREY, 

 PRESIDENT OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD, 

 AND DEAN OF AVIN CHESTER. 



In the year 1558 a handsome volume was 

 printed at Basle, in folio in Greek, by Jerome 

 Frobenius and Nicholas Episcopius, with the fol- 

 lowing title : 



" KEPA2 AMAA0EIA2, H nKEANOS. TflN EHH- 

 THSEnN nMHPIKflN, ««: tuv rov EvaTaOdov iraptK- 

 SoKii'v avvripiJLocTixivuiv, — i.e. Copia? Cornu sive Oceanus 

 Knarrationiim Horaericarura, ex Eustathii in eundem 

 commentariis concinnatarum, Hadriano Junio autor«.'* 



To an Oxford man, independent of its merit as 

 a compendium of the prolix comment of Eusta- 

 thius, this volume should be especially interesting, 

 on account of the prefatory dissertation " Ad 



