44 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. No 81., July 18. '57. 



cheek (see Twelfth Night) is made to say his leg 'does 

 indifferent well in a dam'd- coloured stock,' or stocking. 

 Pope supposed .>?ame-coloured might have been the original 

 expression. Knight suggests, with perhaps equal plausi- 

 bility, damasi-eoloured ; but, while the latter emendation 

 is something nearer the old print ' dam'd,' the former has 

 the advantage of being an expression positively used by 

 Shakspere in another play, as especially referring to the 

 gaudy attire in which vanity seems to have delighted in 

 suiting itself. Thus there is fair reason for supposing that 

 Sir Andrew Aguecheek, as well as Falstaff 's ' hot wench,' 

 had pride and pleasure in the showy exhibition of the 

 flaming costume, to which we now know Hamlet refers in 

 \m expression, ' a suit of sabell,' 



" GfiOEGfE WlQHTWICK." 



Cehes : Shakspeare. — In the Cehetis Thebani 

 Tabula (oh. vii.), the goddess Fortune is described 

 as " rv(pXt) Koi fj.atvo/.iei')-! rts iivai SoKovca, koI effrriKvla 

 eirl \l6ov Tivhs crrpoyyiiXov" i. e. as " seemingly blind 

 and mad, and standing on a rolling stone." 



Shakspeare also (Henry V. Act III. Sc. 6.) 

 similarly describes Fortune as — - 



" . . . . That goddess blind, 

 That stands upon the rolling restless stone." 



Is not this as striking a resemblance as that 

 mentioned by J. W. Faereb, between a passage in 

 llamlet and one in the Clouds of Aristophanes ? 



T. H. Plowman. 



Mumby. Alford. 



"OaV' or "Hawk?" — In Othello, Act ni. 

 Sc. 3., lago says, " To seel her father's eyes up, 

 close as oak," and a note on this passage in my 

 copy of Shakspeare explains it thus : " To seel a 

 hawk is to sew up his eyelids." Surely, then, the 

 term " oak " in the text should be " hawk," an 

 alteration which gives significancy to a simile 

 which has otherwise no meaning at all. D. 



Aristophanes : Shakspeare (2"'^ S. iii. 365.)— Cf. 

 Bp. Jeremy Taylor, The Wo7'thy Communicant : 



" So we sometimes espy a bright cloud formed into an 

 irregular figure ; which, it is observed by unskilful and 

 fantastic travellers, looks like a centaur to some, and as a 

 castle to others. Some tell that tiiey saw an army with 

 banners, and it signifies war ; but another, wiser than his 

 fellows, saj's it looks like* a flock of sheep, and foretells 

 plenty ; and all the while it is nothing but a shining 

 cloud, by its own mobility and the activity of a wind cast 

 into a contingent and artificial shape ; so it is in this great 

 mystery of our religion [the Holy Eucharist], in which 

 some esp3' strange things which God intended not; and 

 Others see not what God has plainly told." 



S. T. Coleridge : Zapolya, Act IV". Sc. 1. : — 



" Ld. Riid. See, the sky lowers ! the cross-Avinds way- 

 wardly 

 Chase the fantastic masses of the clouds 

 With a wild mockery of the coming hunt! 



" Cas. Mark yonder mass ! I make it wear the shape 

 Of a huge ram that butts with head depressed. 



" Ld. Rnd. [smiling]. Belike, some stray sheep of the 

 oozy flock, 

 Which, if bards lie not, the Sea-shepherds tend, 



Glaucus or Proteus. But my fancy shapes it 

 A monster couchant on a rocky shelf. 



" Cas. Mark too the edges of the lurid mass — 

 Restless, as if some idly-vexing sprite. 

 On swift wing coasting by, with tetchy hand 

 Pluck'd at the ringlets of the vaporous fleece. 

 These are sure signs of conflict nigh at hand. 

 And elemental war ! " 



Wordsworth has (where ?) : 



" Yon rampant cloud mimics a lion's shape ; 

 And here combats a huge crocodile, — agape 

 A golden spear to swallow." 



Ache. 



Shakspeare : Quarry (2"* S. iii. 203.) — Your 

 correspondent appears to doubt whether the 

 critics are borne out by the use of the language, 

 in explaining Quarry — Coriolauus, Act I. sc. 1., 

 — as " a heap of dead game." 



The word is clearly so meant, in the elder 

 Ballad of Chevy Chase : 



" The begane in Chyvlat the hyls abone * 



Yerly on a monnyn day ; 

 Be that it drewe to the o'ware off none 



A hondrith fat hartes ded ther laj'. 

 The blewef a mot uppone the bent, 



The semblyd on s^'dis shear ; 

 To the QUYKUY the Perse went 



To se the bryttlynge oflf the deare." 



As the earl goes to witness that crowning dis- 

 play of our ancient woodcraft, the breaking — as 

 it was, also, called — or artistic dismemberment 

 of the deer ; the quarry must, here, have been — 

 the hundred slain deer, as they lay, gathered and 

 ready for brytling, but, as yet, unbroken. 



The MOT — not mort, — as Percy has too hastily 

 altered the text, given him by Ilearne, from the 

 manuscript -*- was the note blown for the pur- 

 pose of collecting the straggled company: and the 

 minstrel shows them obeying the jocund call. 



L. X^ R. 



GENEBAI. WOLFE. 



I send a few additional Notes on this subject. 

 They have not yet appeared in " N. & Q." 



At Mr. Meigh's sale of autographs, Feb. 23, 

 1856, at Sotheby's, tliere were sold several letters. 

 The catalogue enables me to give the following 

 notice of them. They were all addressed to 

 3Iajor Wolfe, his uncle; the first is dated (I re- 

 verse the auctioneer's order) from Blackheath, 

 Jan. 21st, 1757. Lot 50. : 



" The king has honoured me with the rank of a Bri- 

 gadier in America, which I cannot but consider as a par- 

 ticular mark of his Majesty's favour and confidence, and 

 I intend to do ray best to deserve it." 

 This is described as a most interesting letter rC" 

 lating to his departure to America and to family 

 in titters 



Lot 49. Blackheath, Oct. 18, 1757. "The 



* Aboue. H. 



t Blwe. H. 



