2'"i S. X" 81., JtJi.Y 18. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



43 



formed concerning him, he has been dead some years ago. 

 What proper measures could therefore be inkallibly 

 taken for his punishment ? Was he to be raised from the 

 dead?" 



Again, in another letter to Kidgell, the writer 

 observes : — 



"You call the Essay on Woman a libel, while you 

 yourself, reverend Sir, have incurred the guilt of a ma- 

 licious and infamous libel, by charging the writer [writ- 

 j'n/;] of this work on a man who did not write it . . . VVhat 

 adds to your offence is, that you know that this person was 

 not the author, and that the poem was written by a worthy 

 son of a worthy Archbishop of Canterbury." 



I shall now leave the question to the judgment 

 of jour readers. D. 



SHAKSPEABIANA. 



Passage in Hamlet: " A Suit of Sables" (2"^ S. Hi. 

 62.) — It seems to me your correspondent's Query 

 as to the construction of this sentence admits of only 

 one answer, — which must be in the negative, inas- 

 much as the devil has been in all ages familiarly 

 styled " the old gentleman in black ; " how then 

 could Hamlet appropriately exclaim, " Nay, then 

 let the devil wear black 'fore (before) I'll have a 

 suit of sables," the word before implying a colour 

 contrary to that of his usual costume ? There 

 might have been some reason in supposing the 

 word " 'fore " was omitted had Hamlet used white 

 instead o^ black; for then his intention would have 

 clearly conveyed the improbability of his ever 

 donning the " sables," as we generally understand 

 that term to signify black. But I am convinced 

 here is the mistake, and I would ask if Stylites 

 has ever seen the article by Mr. Wightwick in 

 The Critic, which provoked much 'discussion at 

 the time ; the arguments, pro and con, being so 

 evenly balanced that Mr. W". left the matter as 

 a drawn game ? 



I think if sufficient space can be afforded for 

 the following extract from it, it is well worthy of 

 preservation in " N. & Q.," and may satisfy many 

 a future querist, as it did myself 



Bristoliensts, S.V.H. 



"We trust in being now enabled to afford the most 

 important correction of a word (as it has heretofore been 

 printed), in one of Hamlet's sentences in the play scene. 



" Ophelia having remarked on Hamlet's merriment, the 

 dialogue proceeds as follows : 



" * Hamlet. What should a man do but be merry ? for, 

 look you, how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father 

 died within these two hours. 



" ' Ophelia. Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord. 



" Hamlet. So long ? Nay, then let the devil wear black, 

 for ril have a suit of sables.' 



" The meaning of the word * sables ' has long been a 

 speculation with the commentators. Warburton says: 

 — 'the senseless editors had written sables, the fur so 

 called, for sable, black. The true reading is Met the devil 

 wear black 'fore I'll have a suit of sable:' 'fore, i.e. be- 

 fore. As much as to say — * Let the devil wear black for 

 me; I'll have none.' 



" The Oxford editor would read, ' for I'll have a suit of 

 ermine.' 



"Dr. Johnson 'cannot find why Hamlet, when he laid 

 aside his dress of mourning, in a country where it was 

 bitter cold, and the air nipping and eager, should not have 

 a suit of sables.' 



" Steevens says, ' a suit of sables was the richest dress 

 that could be worn in Denmark.' 



" Malone conceives Hamlet to mean, ' Let the devil 

 wear black. As for me, so far from wearing a mourning 

 dress, I'll wear the most costl}' and magnificent suit that 

 can be procured ; a suit trimmed with sables.' 



" Knight finds a ' latent irony in Hamlet's reply,' and 

 gives a very far-fetched reason for his meaning to say, 

 'let the devil wear the real colours of grief, but I'll be 

 magnificent in a garb that only has a facing of something 

 like grief.' 



" Warburton is right in thinking the editors have sig- 

 nified a material, when a colour only was intended ; but 

 there we must leave him, as not less amenable to the 

 charge of ' senselessness ' than those whom he abused. 



" Malone is correct in supposing that a costume of 

 splendid gaiety was intended in opposition to the robe of 

 mourning ; but he errs with others in imagining that the 

 fur sables has anything to do with the matter. 



" It has ever been obvious to all simple-minded and 

 common-sense readers that Shakspere intended ' Hamlet ' 

 to mean thus : ' Nay, then, let the devil preserve to him- 

 self his own black, which custom has adopted as the sign 

 of mourning ; I'll wear the colour, of all others, most op- 

 pugnant to sorrow.' There was no making the word 

 'sables' confirm this meaning, so far as colour was con- 

 cerned; and therefore it has been ingeniously supposed 

 that the material — the fur — had reference to living 

 pomp, as opposed to sepulchral gloom. 



" But a reference to the third number of thenewiJe- 

 trospective Review for May 1853 will at once set this long- 

 disputed matter perfectly, and most satisfactorily, at rest. 



" In an account of the writings of Henry Peacham (who 

 was contemporary with Shakspere), an extract is made 

 from the author's ' directions for painting or colouring of 

 cuts and printed pictures;' and, in the list of colours 

 ('some of which,' says the reviewer, ' it would puzzle a 

 modern R.A. to make out'), are the following: 



" ' Blanket-colour, i.e. a light watchet. Scarlet, i.e. 

 crimson or stammel. Shammy, a smoakie or rain-colour. 

 Turkic colour, i.e. Venice blue, or, as others will have it, 

 red. Safte/Z colour, I.e. ^aine-colour, &c.' 



"Hamlet, then, means to say, 'Let the devil wear 

 black; I'll have a suit ol sabelW (i.e. o{ Jlame-colour.) 



" A mis-spelling has doubtless produced all the foregone 

 confusion of the editors in respect to this passage ; and we 

 may reasonabh' conclude that a different pronunciation 

 distinguished the ' sable ' meaning dark or black, from 

 the ' sabell ' meaning flame-colour. 



" When, in another part of the play of Hamlet we find 

 the words, ' He, whose sable arms, black as his purpose,' 

 &c., — the word is obviously used as signifying dark. In 

 the description of the beard of Hamlet's father — ' a sable- 

 silvered ' — it is likened to the fur sable, rendered grey 

 by mixture with the white hairs of advancing age. In 

 the same play we read that 'youth no less becomes the 

 light and careless livery that it wears, than settled age 

 his sables." In the latter case the word has no reference 

 to splendour or gaiety ; but simply to comfort and gravity. 

 In the first part of Henry the Fourth is the expression ' a 

 hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta ; ' i.e. sabell taffeta. 

 Hamlet unquestionably meant to contrast with the sober 

 black which sorrow should wear, the flaunting garb of 

 wantonness, a suit of Jlame-colour. 



" In the older editions of Shakspere, Sir Andrew Ague- 



