506 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2°^ S. X. Dec. 29. '60. 



italics, and after p. 244. the pagination recom- 

 mences with p. 217. ; and all that follows is in a 

 different type. This was probably the edition 

 which Pope "connived at," as he was forced to 

 acknowledge to Fortescue. 



The next edition was probably one " Printed, 

 and sold by the Booksellers of London and West- 

 minster." Tlys was a still cheaper reprint, pro- 

 bably by or for Cooper. Here again haste is 

 evident : four letters are printed, throughout, in 

 italics. It is professed in the title-page that this 

 "Edition contains more letters, and more coi*- 

 rectly printed, than any other extant." As to the 

 superior accuracy I have not collated, and there- 

 fore cannot say ; but it certainly contains two 

 letters not before published, one from Attei'bury 

 and one "To W*," no doubt contributed by 

 Pope. It has also a portrait of Pope, copied I 

 presume from Curll, and therefore reversed ; it is 

 inscribed, " Mr. Alexander Pope," whereas Curll's 

 is " Mr. Pope." The portrait may have been, and 

 probably was, a subsequent insertion. This is the 

 edition to which Bowles referred in his contro- 

 versy with Roscoe. (See " N. & Q.," 2»'» S. x. 381.) 



Another edition, which asserts the same supe- 

 riority as the last — that is, "more letters, and 

 more correctly printed" — is said in the title-page 

 to be " Printed for J. Smith, and sold by the 

 Booksellers of London and Westminster." This, 

 I suspect, was another of the issues " connived at." 

 Whether it preceded or followed the last edition, 

 I have not considered : my impression is that it 

 followed, because there is only one letter in italics. 



The best, typographically, of these 12mo. edi- 

 tions, is " Printed for T. Cooper." It was, I think, 

 a reprint from the first 12mo., also "Printed for 

 T. Cooper." The pagination is wrong in both, 

 and at the same places. Thus p. 216. is followed 

 by p. 221., and p. 263. by p. 294. It contains 

 the additional Letters, and the " Narrative." 

 There was a second issue of this edition, with a 

 sheet of portraits prefixed, no doubt in rivalry of 

 Curll's edition " with portraits." 



All the above 12mo. editions have the "Narra- 

 tive" prefixed or affixed. 



Curll also issued a 12mo. edition of the letters, 

 " Printed for E. Curll, in Rose Street, Covent 

 Garden." I have a third edition of it with date 

 of 1735. D. 



"COLLINO CUSTURE ME!" 



I have an idea the Sphinx spoke Irish. A spe- 

 cimen of that language appears in Plautus, to 

 puzzle the wisest etymologists, and a passage in 

 Shakspeare that has baffled a hundred critics, 

 turns out to be Irish too. Being rather awk- 

 wardly situated for a " Query," in consequence of 

 the failure of the ocean cable, I beg your permis- 

 sion to make u " Note" on this subject — one that. 



curiously enough, connects your great dramatist 

 with a little cotemporary song in the Irish verna- 

 cular which is still heard on both sides of the At- 

 lantic — in Manhattan and Momonia alike — in 

 Cattaraugus as well as in Cork. 



In the 4th Act of Henry F., Pistol is made to 

 say : " Quality ! Call you me ; cons#ue me," a 

 sentence which carries a very Shaksperean look 

 with it, and satisfies most people. At least it 

 satisfied me till I saw what the poet actually wrote, 

 to wit : Collino custure me. I have just seen this 

 sentence quoted in Lover's Songs of Ireland, and 

 I understand it at a glance. Warburton, Stee- 

 vens, Malone, Ritson, Boswell, Payne Collier, 

 Knight, Singer, and Lloyd, and the rest have 

 given explanations and emendations of this with 

 all the usual insight and sagacity of those Shak- 

 sperean criticisms. Lover also comes forward 

 with his interpretation, which likewise looks fairly ; 

 " Capote me, but it wears a face ! " He believes 

 it to be Irish, which it is ; but he supplies a set of 

 words — which it is not. He came to his conclusion 

 on the authority of an Irish teacher in London, 

 named Finnigan, — who guessed, I am sorry to say, 

 na better than a mere Anglo-Saxon, — and he sup- 

 poses that collino means " colleen-oge," and cu,s- 

 ture me " astore," a solution so Irish-looking and 

 so poetical, that it is with a pang of compunction 

 I am about to set it aside. 



And yet I cannot help smiling to think how an 

 old Irish song which I heard in childhood from 

 the tailor, who, sitting cross-legged on a kitchen 

 table, fashioned my first breeches to a long lament- 

 ing tune, should enable me to bring sense out of 

 the nonsense of forty Shakspearean critics — " the 

 forty guessing like one " — to say nothing of non- 

 sensical Pistol, who knew as little about it as any 

 of them. The refrain of that sartorial melody ran 

 as follows, as it does still : — 



" Thaira sh'am chuUa, na dushture me." 

 This means, "I am asleep, let me not be awakened,'' 

 and is part of a long-drawn plaintive air repre- 

 sented in Moore's version — " Erin, O Erin ! " 



Irish songs, as may be seen in the " Talbot 

 Papers," and other notices of that Elizabethan 

 period, were sung in the courtly and fashionable 

 society of England, and Irish refrains were popu- 

 larly hummed by thousands ignorant of Gaelic. 

 The above line, per ora volitans, was shortened in 

 a slang way like " Nix my Dolly," and quoted — 

 Chulla na dushture me, the pronunciation of which 

 in English would be, Collino custure me, or Kalen o 

 custar me, as presented in some of the various 

 readings of the passage. Shakspeare himself seems 

 to have set it down as Collino custure me ; and 

 when the Frenchman in the dialogue pronounces 

 his word qualite. Pistol is made to pun or play 

 upon the similarity of sound between the two jar- 

 gons, — as they seem to him. 



I thus give you the IvMi "Open Sesame" of 



