July 24. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



79 



easily tested, by placing side by side whatever 

 authentic descriptions remain of the mother and 

 daughter ; and perhaps some of your readers will 

 refer me to the books where they are to be found. 

 But they must be descriptions diawn from the 

 life. For in the case of Mary Queen of Scots, 

 traditions are of no value. A woman who met 

 with such a fortune and such a fate must have 

 been plain indeed if history did not represent her 

 as beautiful. James Spbdding. 



A PASSAGE IN " AS TOU I.IKE IT." 



(Vol. T., pp. 554. 587.) 



As A. E. B., in his reply to my " objections," 

 addresses some questions to me which seem to 

 demand an answer, and lest he should imagine 

 again that what I have left unanswered I therefore 

 think unanswerable, I must beg space for a few 

 further remarks. Your correspondent may ima- 

 gine, if he pleases, a " physical interpretation" of 

 the passage in As You Like It ; but as he admits 

 it to be " a matter of opinion," I am content. As 

 a matter of taste, however, I may say that " bugle 

 eye -balls" are not included in my catalogue of 

 beauty ; though it is not improbable tliat a 

 child of two or three years old might think her 

 doll, which exactly answered the description of 

 Phebe, perfection. Undoubtedly " Rosalind's 

 depreciation of Phebe's beauty was assumed for 

 the purpose of humbling her;" and, if I might 

 offer a suggestion, it would be that it is simply 

 what it Avas Rosalind's cue to represent her that 

 is in question. 



I now come to the more important portion of 

 your correspondent's reply ; and in dealing with 

 this, I must first dispose of a question of fact in 

 relation to which he disputes my correctness. If 

 we do say to a messenger " take that to," &c., the 

 words indicate that they accompany the act of 

 transferring the missive, and whoever should not 

 accompany the words with such act would use 

 them improperly. But now comes the grand 

 question : " Do I seriously mean to say that Shak- 

 speare's language is to be scanned by our present 

 ideas of correctness?" Seriously, then, I do. 

 Your correspondent's question is simply a repe- 

 tition of the objection taken by Mr. Halliwell 

 some time ago. It was, however, not so easy to 

 reply to Mr. Halliwell as to your correspondent, 

 as the words instanced by the former were not in 

 very conunon use. My answer, once for all, is 

 this. The structure of the English language was 

 as perfect in Shakspeare's time as in our own ; but 

 the conventional sense of words is subject to 

 change. In deciding questions of this kind, there- 

 fore, we must consider whether words are simply 

 structural, or whether they are such as are ca- 

 pable of conventional or accidental meanings. I 



deny the indiscriminate use of the passive and 

 active participles, believing that on the form in 

 each case depends the sense ; and for the use of 

 such words as this and that, and for the nicest ap- 

 plication of the structural rules of the lanf^uan-e 

 I should say that from no writer would you obtain 

 such hiippy illustrations as from Shakspeare. See,) 

 for instance, in the Two Gentlemen of Verona 

 (Act V. Sc. 4.) the following dialogue : 

 " Pro. Where is that ring, boy ? 

 Jul. Here 'tis ! this is it. r 



l^ro. How ! let me see : why this is the ring I gav&f 

 to Julia." * 



The same fatal objection to A. E. B.'s " demon- 

 strative pronoun that" does not apply to '■^ there 

 is our commission : " the words indicate so clearly 

 the act of presenting it that no direction is needed. 

 Had here been used, it would have been doubtful 

 (so far) whether the duke intended to give it then ; 

 and in the passage above extracted from the Two 

 Gentlemen of Verona, it will be evident that Julia 

 merely produces the ring which Proteus takes from 

 her. 



I cannot conclude without saying that I feel 

 strongly confirmed in my opinion of a line having 

 been lost, by the concurrence of a gentleman who 

 has himself made valuable contributions to your 

 columns, and who points out that the line — 

 " But that to your sufficiency, as your worth is able" — 



is correct in expression so far as it goes, and quite 

 Shakspearian ; the that, however, being not the 

 demonstrative pronoun, but the conjunction, and 

 the words between commas being parenthetical. 

 The missing line, therefore, should complete the 

 expression of something to be added " to your 

 sufficiency," and which together with it should 

 " work." It would be much more satisfactory to 

 find the " commission " in this missing line than in 

 "that;" and though there is nothing more easy 

 than to conjure up a " magician's wand " to get 

 over all these difficulties, I think it should be 

 sparingly used, especially in defence of mistakes put 

 upon Shakspeare by his commentators. Finally, 

 let me observe that if the commonest words are 

 to lose their obvious meanings — on the ground 

 that Shakspeare could do as he pleased with them — 

 whenever a gentleman wishes to strain a point, 

 we shall have no ground to stand upon : we can 

 only deal with the language as we find it. 



Samuel HicksoN. 



LIFTING EXPERIMENT. 



(Vol. vi., p. 8.) 



In reference to the observation of your corre- 

 spondent W. Cl. on the experiment of lifting great 

 living weights, that it is essential that the liftee 

 should inhale at the moment the effort is made, but 



