444 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[Dec. 8. 1855. 



many samples of the stiffer and more canonical 

 system of speech now in fashion, had prevailed 

 against it. , 



Of such a compromise, Middleton and his 

 readers, both antiquarian and modern, may, I 

 conceive, justly complain. Middleton, that his 

 language, and the language of his times, is not 

 truly represented. The antiquarian, that the 

 landmarks which distinguish the several epochs of 

 a people's grammar are thereby confused, or alto- 

 gether obliterated. The modern, that his ear is 

 Still offended by often violation of one of the 

 commonest and most received rules of his syntax. 

 Of these, perhaps, the last has smallest reason to 

 take offence ; because, without being aware of it, 

 he daily transgresses his own rule in many a col- 

 loquial and idiomatic phrase. And when he reads 

 or hears a breach of it in his Bible or Prayer- 

 book, the force of habit is so strong that his senses 

 of sif^ht and hearing are dead to its infraction : so 

 that whatever else " moth and rust doth corrupt," 

 even to him they do not utterly corrupt all the 

 memorials of a syntax which he unwittingly 

 avouches, but critically disallows. Such an one, 

 therefore, it should not greatly startle to find Mr. 

 Dyce now accommodating Middleton's authentic 

 ■words to the regimen established by the newest 

 grammatical statutes ; and, by and by, retaining 

 the selfsame words with their syntax incorrupt, 

 after the antiquated use, and in accordance with 

 the commorf law of construction previously in 

 force, or otherwhiles constrained by the exigen- 

 cies of the rhythm, or of the rhyme, to forego his 

 purposed emendation. 



Thus, in The Spanish Gipsy, Act III. Sc.l., 



vol. iv. p. 148. : 



" Soto. Through a gap ia your groand thence late have 

 bee a stole 

 A very fine ass and a very fine /oaZ ; 



San, O Soto, that ass and foal fattens me!" 



Kow the same, or, at any rate, as sufficient rea- 

 son, may be assigned for retaining hath of the old 

 editions, altered by Mr. Dyce to have, out of com- 

 pliment, I presume, to the very fine ass and very 

 ■fine foal, as for continuing fattens unaltered upon 

 their loss of that addition. 



Before leaving this play, I would beseech our 

 grammatical martinets to explain the construction 

 of the following lines, passed unmolested by their 

 able editor : 



Act IV. Sc.3. p. 183.: 



" Fer. Nothing are left me but my oflSces, 

 And thin-faced honours." 



With them, nothing but the singular noun 

 *' nothing" can be the nominiitlve to "are." With 

 me, the things excepted out of the many into which 

 that comprehensive nothing is, to the speaker's 

 mind, partitioned, indicate a plentiful plural resi- 

 de 319.] 



due to justify the use of are in lieu of is: or the 

 things excepted themselves, on which the speaker's 

 thoughts would naturally most dwell, furnish a 

 logical, If not a strictly grammatical nominative, 

 to are. I shall venture to address one more 

 Query to the disciples of LIndley Murray. 



In The Changeling, Act II. Sc. 1,, vol. iv. 

 p. 230., are these words : 



" De F. . . . I'll despair the less, 



Because there's daily precedents of bad faces 

 Belov'd beyond all reason." 



Now I would gladly learn under what rule of 

 their syntax this example falls, or whether they 

 stigmatise such sentences as bad grammar ? As 

 in the former citation, they have a singular noun 

 and a plural verb ; so In this latter, a plural noun 

 and a singular verb — Instances of which, in a like 

 kind, may be multiplied a hundredfold. To re- 

 turn to Mr. Dyce. It puzzles me beyond mea- 

 sure to account for the fineness of ear which has 

 so often detected the false syntax of two or more 

 nouns with a verb singular, when I observe the 

 glaring irregularity in the next quoted sentence 

 to have passed without notice. 



A Game at Chess, Act V. Sc. 1., vol. iv. p. 394. : 



" B. Knight. Hark, to enlarge your welcome, from all 

 parts 

 Is heard sweet-sounding airs !" 



In the next example, Mr. Dyce informs the 

 reader, that " he has not altered agrees into the 

 plural, because a rhyme is intended." 



A Fair Quarrel, Act III. Sc. 2., vol. ili. p. 499. : 



" Fhy, The lawyer and physician here agrees, 



To women-clients they give back their fees." 



It was, no doubt, the necessity of the rhyme 

 that operated to save the following from alteration 

 likewise : 



Your Five Gallants, Act IV. Sc. 5., vol. ii. 

 p. 289. : 



" Fit. Thou, Impudence ! the minion of our days, 



On whose pale cheeks favour and fortune j^ays." 



Any Thing for a Quiet Life, Act IV. Sc. 1., 

 vol. iv. p. 472. : 



" G. Cress. All that her malice and proud will procures 

 Shall shew her ugly heart, but hurt not yours." 



More Dissemblers besides Women, Act II. Sc. 1., 

 vol. iii. p. 578. : 



" Car. Thence lust, and heat, and common cu.ttom grows; 

 But she's part virgin who but one man knows." 



That the following survive untouched, is due 

 perhaps to the rhythm : — 



The Mayor of Queenborough, Act IV. Sc. 2., 

 vol. i. p. 190. : 



" Box. . . . And t' approve the purity 

 Of what my habit and my time professeth." 



