5^"^ S. N» 29,, July 19. '66.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



4d 



had been, " once on a time," among the mountains 

 of Scotland, and had witnessed the many beauti- 

 ful phenomena which their tops often put on in 

 their misty " cloud-capp'd towers" and " gorgeous 

 palaces" — that he had carefully watched their 

 rolling storms — the dispersing of the vapours 

 absolutely reduced to a film, leaving " not a rack 

 behind" — all of which had conveyed to his highly 

 sensitive imagination one of the most sublime 

 images with which our poetry is graced. I have 

 also a kind of idea that the poet had heard the 

 people of the northern country, in a morning like 

 this (June 4), alternating with sunshine and 

 showers, using an expression at this moment fa- 

 miliar, that " the day would rack up ;" or, in other 

 words, that the weather would soon be settled and 

 dry, and nowhere any traces exist of the frowning 

 atmosphere, — the force of his simile upon a 

 native ear reminding one of that which would be 

 communicated to an Asiatic in the ornate language 

 of " the Song of Solomon :" 



" For lo the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, 

 the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing 

 of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle (dove) is 

 heard in our land," &c. 



I have no doubt but that rack was the true 

 word employed by Shakspeare ; and that his com- 

 mentators, however learned and ingenious they 

 may be, do him infinite injustice by such emend- 

 ations as "track," "wrack," "reek," &c. The 

 lines of the Earl of Stirling, who could write 

 (1603) — 



" Those stately courts, those sky-encountering walls. 

 Evanish like the vapours of the air" — 



perfectly explain Shakspeare's metaphor, that 

 nobleman having been, before his creation by 

 James I., Sir William Alexander of Menstrie (a 

 village situated at the base of the Ochil Hills), 

 and to whose eyes the appearances he describes 

 must have been of common occurrence. G. N. 



Allow me to add a little in confirmation of Q.'s 

 argument, by subjoining to it the two following 

 quotations from the same play, The Tempest, in 

 which the disputed reading occurs : 



" Alon. If thou beast Prospero 

 Giiie us particulars of thy preservation. 

 How thou hast met ns heere, whom three howres since 

 Were wrackt vpon this shore." 



Tempest, Act V. So. 1. 

 " Pros. Know for certain 



That I am Prospero, and that very Duke 

 Which was thrust forth of Millaine, who most strangely 

 Vpon this shore (where you were wrackt) was landed 

 To be the Lord on't." 



Id.ib. 



E. 



Faxsage in " AlVs Well that Ends Well" (2"^ S. 

 i. 494.) — A sense may be found in the quoted 

 lines, although not a very poetical one. John- 



son and Malone (see their notes) are wrong, 

 and so is Mr. Singer, in their personification of 

 " hate." They consider " sleeping hate " and 

 "dreadful, revengeful, ruthless hate" as being 

 synonymous, and so their meaning must be, that, 

 it hate had not slept, the mischief would not have 

 been done ; but that is an error in calculo : "hate," 

 of course, can only be active when awake ; sleep- 

 ing, he is — like Anteus lifted up from his mother 

 earth — without force, and so is "love."* "Hate" 

 and " love," directed towards the same object, can 

 not be awake at the same time. 



What I have found in the two lines is this : 

 " Love " fell asleep, and by this fact, and in the 

 same moment, " hate " was awaking, and did mis- 

 chief, profiting by " love's " sleep. Too late, after 

 "hate" being tired, " love " awakes, and "cries 

 to see what's done," while, at the same time, 

 " shameful hate " like a gourmand, surfeited by a 

 luxurious repast, " sleeps out the afternoon." 



If that is not poesy, at least it is sense. 



F. A. Leo. 



Berlin. 



Kneller's Portrait of Shakspeare. — In Dryden's 

 Poem to Sir Godfrey Kneller, printed in the 4th 

 volume of the Miscellany Poems, the poet speaks 

 of a portrait of Shakspeare painted by and given 

 to him by Kneller : 



" Shakspeare thy Gift, I place before my sight ; 

 Witli Awe, I ask his blessing e're I write; ^ 



With Reverence look on his Majestick Face ; 

 Proud to be less ; but of his Godlike Race. 

 His Soul inspires me while thy Praise I write, 

 And I like Teucer, under Ajax fight ; 

 Bids thee, through me, be bold ; with dauntless breast. 

 Contemn the bad, and emulate the best," &c. 



And a side note on the first words refers to — 



" Shakspeare's Picture, drawn by Sir Godfrey Kneller, 

 and given to the author." 



Is anything known of this picture at the present 

 time ? From what did Kneller make his copy ? 

 as it is not likely he would have taken the trouble 

 to copy a picture without being first satisfied 

 that it was a genuine portrait. K. P. S. 



tOVmCAh POEJt. 



As the political squibs of the last century are thought 

 worthy of being collected, I send you a copy of verses, 

 the appearance of which bear witness to its having been 

 written at the time when the subject it refers to was 

 of recent occurrence. I am not aware whether it has 



* See as analogous : F. A. Leo, BeitrOge und Verbesser- 

 ungen zu Shakespeares Drameti nach handschriftlichen 

 Anderungen, &c. &c., 1853, Berlin, A. Asher & Co., page 

 iSO, some remarks about the word "invisible." 



