206 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. No 37., Sept. 13. '56. 



is silent, but the inference from antiquity in 

 respect of the former, and from the act of singing 

 the hitter, is that both should be said or sung 

 standing. T. J. Buckton. 



Lichfield. 



SHAKSPBARIANA. 



HAMIiGT READINGS, NO. II. " A MOST SELECT 



AND GENEROUS SHEAF." 



" Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, 

 But not e'xpress'd in fancy ; rich not gaudy ; 

 For the apparel oft proclaims the man, 

 And they in France of the best rank and station, 

 Are of a most select and generous cliief in that." 

 Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 2. 



I must ask for a small space in "N. & Q." to 

 advocate the claims of one of tlie most certain 

 restorations of the text of Shakspeare that has 

 ever been effected by the reading and ingenuity 

 of critics. In reviewing a MS. of Mr. Staunton's, 

 in the Illustrated London News, I had the pleasure 

 to call attention to that critic's substitution of 

 sheaf for " chief," in the passage which is the text 

 of this Note : laut want of space prevented my 

 doing justice to the reading. 



I cannot suppose with all editors (except Mr. 

 Collier), that " of a" is a press-interpolation : for 

 I am certain that Shakspeare would not have 

 written the line, 



" Are most select and generous, chief in that ; " 



that he would not have inserted " chief" at all ; 

 but would have read " generous," as I have thus 

 marked it. 



In the first quarto, the last two lines of my text 

 are thus given : — 



" And they of France of the cliiefe rancke and station 

 Are of a most select and generall chiefe in that." 



Supposing that the second "chief" is a mis- 

 print for sheaf, we see at once how the misprint 

 arose : viz. through the proximity of the same 

 word in the preceding line. And as if there was 

 a strange fatality about the word " chief," it has 

 been interpolated in a similar manner in the same 

 play, Act II. Sc. 2. : 



" One chief speech in it I chiefly loved." 

 Sic the folios. The first quarto reads : 



" A speech in it I chiefly remember." 

 While all the other quartos read : 



" One speech in it I chiefly loved." 

 the word " chief" being an Interpolation of the 

 first folio caught from the word " chiefly." 



Press considerations, then, favour the supposi- 

 tion of " chief" in my text being a misprint for 

 something. Now let us see how the word sheaf 

 answers the requirements of the passage. 



For its meaning we must have recourse to 



euphuism. If sheaf be Shakspeare's word, it Is 

 not the only instance of euphuism In Folonius's 

 speech. All the early quartos read " unfledg'd 

 courage." A courage. In euphuistic talk, meant 

 a gallant. It is so used by Sir Walter Scott in 

 The Monastery, and is put into the mouth of that 

 prince of euphuists Sir Piercie Shafton. 



Now, as sportsmen spoke of " a buck of the 

 first head," so euphuists talked of " gentlemen of 

 the first head" (vide Every Man out of His Hu- 

 mour, Act III. Sc. 1.). Similarly, as soldiers and 

 other archers spoke of " arrows of the first sheaf," 

 euphuists appropriated the metaphor, and called 

 their friends " gentlemen of the first sheaf." Every 

 archer of this day has his best set (a set=-12 ar- 

 rows) ; and every archer of Shakspeare's day had 

 \\\s first sheaf (a sheaf=24 arrows). To take one 

 example : 



" In my time, it was the usual practice for soldiers to 

 choose their first sheaf of arrows, and cut those shorter 

 which they found too long for their use." — Discourse on 

 Weapons. 



This first sheaf so chosen was a select sheaf I 

 now give two examples of the euphuistic use of 

 the word sheaf : 



" Sir Diaphanous Silkworm. Aj', and with assurance 

 that it" [the liberal undertaking of a danger] "is found in 

 noblemen and gentlemen of the best sheaf" — Magnetic 

 Lady, Act III. Sc. 5. 



" Fastidious Brisk. A pox on't ! I am so haunted at 

 the court, and at my lodging, with your refined choice 

 spirits, that it makes me clean* of another g^ari/, another 

 sheaf, I know not how ! I cannot frame me to your harsh 

 vulgar phrase, 'tis against my genius." — Every Man out 

 of His Humour, Act II. Sc. 1. 



Now a sheaf of corn or grain Is still heraldically 

 called a "garb;" and in Law Latin, "garba saglt- 

 tarum " means a sheaf of arrows. 



But the euphuism in question was not always 

 taken from archery : on the contrary, I am in- 

 clined to think that in the extract from Every 

 Man out of His Humour, we are presented with 

 an instance of a euphuistic use of garb and sheaf 

 as taken from husbandry. Without having re- 

 course to euphuism at all, we find that sheaf and 

 sheaves were used metaphorically. I append one 

 example from Locke's Essay on the Human Under- 

 standing : 



" In the knowledge of bodies we must glean what we 

 can ; since we cannot from a discovery of their real 

 essence grasp at a time whole sheaves, and in bundles 

 comprehend the nature of the whole species." 



Finally, in the passage which stands as text to 

 this Note, the metaphor Is from husbandry beyond 

 all question. The "crowning sheaf" at harvest 

 was one composed of those ears of corn which 

 were " most select and generous." This sheaf was 

 tied up with blue ribbon, and was the last carried 

 at the harvest-home. Putting together all I have 



* " Clean " means entirelv. 



