158 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[Sept. 1. 1855. 



that should is used indifFerently to denote either 

 what will be or what ought to be ; that the tyrant 

 discourses of the certainty, not murmurs at the 

 untimeliness of his partner's death. One of a mil- 

 lion instances of should thus used from Shak- 

 speare himself may suffice. In Merchant of Ve- 

 nice, Act I. Sc. 2. : 



"Nerissa. If he should offer to chuse, and chuse the 

 right casket, you should refuse to perform your father's 

 •will, if you should refuse to accept him." 



N"ow-a-days, in sentences like this, the customary 

 speech is would for the second should. Not indeed 

 that the distinction which obtains now in the 

 usage of the verbs would and should is without 

 precedent in times anterior to Shakspeare's. Thus, 

 in Rastell's edition of Sir Thomas More's Works, 

 1557, p. 164. h : 



" ' Nowe, Maister Mayo (quod the Kinge's grace) ye be 

 a tall, stronge man on the one syde, and a connynge doc- 

 tor on the other side, what would ye haue done if ye had 

 bene not Joseph but in Josephes stede ? ' ' By my trouthe, 

 Syr,' quod he, ' and it like your Grace I can not tell j'ou 

 what I woulde haue done, but I can tell j'ou well what I 

 shoulde haue done.' " 



On the other hand, just as we have seen should 

 used of old where we now invariably write would, 

 so convertibly our forefathers not uncommonly 

 wrote ivotdd where we always use should. E.g., in 

 The fower chief yst Offices belongyng to Horseman- 

 shippe, by Thos. Blundevill, fol. 3. of "The Arte 

 of Rydinge," we have, under "What Shape a good 

 Horse ought to haue " (cap. iii.) : 



"A good horse, then, wmdd haue a black, smoth, drie, 



large, round, and hollow hooue His thighes full of 



sinews, the bones whereof would be shorte, equal!, juste, 

 and well proportioned, and the brawnes therof, when he 

 standeth with hj's legges together, must be much more 

 distaunt one from another aboue towardes the breast then 

 beneath." 



W. R. Areowsmith. 



Broad Heath, Worcester. 



CORRESPONDING WITH THE ENEMY IN TIME OF 

 WAR. 



In Alison's History of Europe during the French 

 Itevohdion, vol. xiv. p. 209., fifth edition, there is 

 a passage which imputes to the Whig opposition, 

 in 1811, the ofience of keeping up an extensive 

 correspondence with Napoleon, and of furnishing 

 him with details which might enable him to de- 

 feat the exertions of the British army in the 

 Peninsula. This imputation is of so grave a cha- 

 racter on the one hand, and, on the other, seems 

 to be supported by such equivocal testimony, that 

 I have taken the liberty of submitting it, together 

 with the grounds upon which it is made to rest, 

 for the consideration of your readers. The re- 

 marks of the historian are as follows : 



" The opposition were so inveterate against the Spanish 



No. 305.] 



war, that not only did they declaim against it in the most 

 violent manner on all occasions, both in and out of par- 

 liament, but, if we may believe the cotemporary autho- 

 Tity of Berthier, actually corresponded, during the most 

 critical period of the contest, with Napoleon himself, and 

 furnished him with ample details on the situation of the 

 English army, and the circumstances which would, in all 

 likelihood, defeat its exertions." 



And in the next page he adds : 



" And when he (the French Emperor) beheld the party 

 in Great Britain, who had all along denounced the war 

 there as utterly hopeless and irrational on the part of the 

 country — and some of whom, in their zeal against its con- 

 tinuance, and to demonstrate its absurdity, had actually 

 corresponded with himself — on the eve of getting posses- 

 sion of the reins of power in London, he was naturally led 

 to believe that no cause for disquiet existed in conse- 

 quence of the future efforts of England and Spain." 



The evidence by which this charge is supported 

 is a letter from Berthier to Marshal Massena, 

 which Alison quotes in a foot-note, as follows : 



" L'intention bien formelle de I'Empereur est, au mois 

 de Septembre (1811) aprfes la recolte, de combiner ua 

 mouvement avec I'armee du Midi.'un corps de I'armee 

 du centre, et votre arm&, pour culbuter les Anglais ; et 

 jusqu'ji cette ^poque que vous deviez agir de manifere 

 qu'aucun corps ennemi ne puisse tenir la campagne. Nous 

 sommes parfaitement instruits par les Anglais, et beau- 

 coup mieux que vous ne I'etes. L'empereur lit les Jour- 

 naux de Londres, et chaque jour un grand nombre des 

 lettres de Topposition, dont quelques-unes accusent Lord 

 Wellington, et parlent en detail de vos operations. 

 L'Angleterre tremble pour son armee d'Espagne, et Lord 

 Wellington a toujours ^te en grande crainte de vos ope- 

 rations." — Berthier, Major General, au Marechal Massena, 

 Prince d'Essling, Paris, 29 Mars 1811. Behnas, Journaux 

 des Sieges dans la Pininsule, vol. i. pp. 495, 496. 



To which the historian appends these comments : 



"The * extensive correspondence,' which is here stated 

 to have gone on between Napoleon and the English op- 

 position, took place in March 1811; that is, when Mas- 

 sena lay at Santarem, and Wellington at Cartaxo, — the 

 most critical period of the campaign and the war. Not- 

 withstanding the high authority on which the existence 

 of this correspondence is asserted, it is impossible to be- 

 lieve that it took place with any of the leaders of the 

 opposition; but it shows with what a spirit the party, 

 generally speaking, must have been actuated on the sub- 

 ject, when any, even the lowest of their number, could at 

 such a moment resort to communication with the mortal 

 enemy of their country." 



This imputation of "corresponding with the 

 enemy," I hold to be unfounded, for the following 

 reasons : 



1st. Because it is hard to believe, even on the 

 testimony of Berthier, that any English statesman, 

 whatever may have been the complexion of his 

 party or prejudices, could have been guilty of 

 such baseness. 



2ndly. Because Alison himself, who brings for- 

 ward the charge, deems it incredible as regards 

 the " leaders of the opposition," and confines it to 

 the "lowest of their number." But he forgets 

 that the lowest in the ranks of party are not those 



