404 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2'>d s. X. Nov. 24. '60, 



In 2 Hen. VI . (Act I. Sc. 1.), and probably not 

 by Shakspeare : — 

 " The Dukes of Orleans, Calaber, Bretaigne, and Alen90n, 



Seven earls, twelve barons, and twenty reverend 

 bishops." 



Ben Jonson begins Every Man in his Humour 

 thus : — 

 " A goodly day toward and a fresh morning — Brainworm I 



Call up your young master. Bid him rise. Sir." 



So also in The Alchemist, Act IV. Sc. 2. : — 

 " And her right worshipful brother here, that she shall be 



A countess, do not delay them. Sir, a Spanish countess." 



In all the dramatists there are innumerable 

 lines with one or more trisyllabic feet. Nay, in 

 Chaucer himself we find : — 



" For ever as tender a capon eteth the fox." 



The influence of Lyly on his contemporaries 

 was very great. We find not only Shakspeare 

 and Jonson, but also Marlow adopting his prosaic 

 metric verse ; it is also employed in Henry VI. and 

 Titus Andronicus, whoever were the authors. In 

 fact, I cannot name any dramatist whatever of the 

 sixteenth century who used true genuine prose. 

 In Shakspeare, with the exception of the speeches 

 of the Fool in Lear, there is not a line of prose : 

 the only prose in Fletcher is the dialogue of the 

 citizen and his wife in The Knight of the Burning 

 Pestle, while in Jonson I have not been able to 

 detect a single line ; his very Discoveries are 

 written in this loose easy verse. 



In what is printed as verse in Shakspeare's 

 earlier plays, the lines are very nearly decasyl- 

 labic. We may take as examples Romeo and 

 Juliet and The Midsummer Nighfs Dream; in 

 which last, in the line — 



" This man hath bewitched the bosom of my child," 

 I am confident that the poet must have written 

 witched. This regular verse, it would seem, was 

 called blank verse, par excellence, in opposition to 

 the comic or familiar verse. In As You Like It 

 (Act IV. Sc. 1.), Jaques and Rosalind are con- 

 versing in this last verse, and Orlando enters : — 



" Ros. By my faith, you have great reason to be sad. 

 I fear you have sold your own lands to see 

 Other men's ; them to have seen much and to have little 

 Is to have rich eyes and poor hands. 



" Jaq. Yea, I have gained 



My experience. 



" ^os. And your experience 



Makes you sad. I had rather have a fool 

 To make me merry than experience 

 To make me sad. And to travel for it too ! 



" Orl. Good day and happiness, dear Kosalind. 



" Jaq. Nay then, God be wi' you, an you. talk in blank 

 verse."'^ 



He goes, and Rosalind and Orlando talk to the 

 end of the scene in comic verse. 



We shall also see that this verse was called 

 prose, probably from its form. Chaucer's Persone 

 says : — 



" 1 wol yow telle a merry tale injorose," — 



but the Man of Lawe also says : — 



" I speke in prose, and let him rymes make," — 

 while he is speaking in rime, and his tale of Con- 

 stance is in stanzas. No great stress then can be 

 laid on these passages ; but in Tvjelfth Night (Act 

 II. Sc. 5.), Malvolio, having read and meditated 

 on the rimes with which his letter began, cries : 

 " Soft ! here follows prose." 

 Let us then read this letter : — 

 " If this should fall into thy hands, revolve — 

 In my stars I am above thee ; but be not afraid 

 Of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve 

 Greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. 

 Thy fates open their hands ; let thy blood and spirit 

 Embrace them ; and to inure thyself to what 

 Thou'rt like to be, cast thy humble slough and appear 



fresh ; 

 Be opposite with a kinsman, surly with servants ; 

 Let thy tongue tang arguments of state ; put thyself 

 Into the trick of singularity. 

 She thus advises thee that sighs for thee. 

 Remember who commended thy yellow stockings. 

 And wished to see thee ever cross-gartered. 

 I say, remember. Go to, thou art made. 

 If thou desirest to be so ; if not, let me see thee 

 A steward still, the fellow of servants, and not 

 Worthy to touch Fortune's fingers. Farewell.- She that 

 Would alter service with thee." 



The Fortunate- Unhappy. 



I should hope that no unprejudiced mind will 

 fail to recognise the presence of metre in the ex- 

 tracts which I have given. I have gone through 

 between seven and eight hundred prose pages of 

 Shakspeare, and marked out the verse without a 

 single failure ; I have done the same with several 

 plays of other dramatists with the like success ; 

 and I therefore think myself entitled to claim the 

 merit of discovery. It will be long, however, I 

 apprehend, before my claim will be generally re- 

 cognised, for great is the strength of prejudice. 



ThOS. KElGHTIiET. 



P.S. I learn that in two of my corrections in 

 "Are Critics Logicians?" (2'"» S. x. 65.), I had 

 been anticipated by Johnson and Warburton. I 

 have more than once explained that I know the 

 elder critics only through the Variorum Shak- 

 speare, and I attach the utmost importance to 

 independent emendation : so I always prefer ope- 

 rating on the mere text. But it does astonish 

 me, if Johnson had restored to sense a passage 

 in Troilus and Cressida, how subsequent critics 

 should have persisted in printing the original 

 nonsense of the text, without taking even the 

 slightest notice of an indubitable emendation. I 

 may well ask again — " Are Critics Logicians ? " 



PECULIAR NAMES ON MONUMENTS, ETC. IN 

 JAMAICA AND BARBADOES. 

 Can any reader of " N. & Q." throw light on the 

 origin of the following names occurring on the 



