July 17. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



M 



MERCHANT OF VENICE, ACT III. 8C. 2. 



(Vol. v., p. 605.) 



Mb. Singer must permit me to set him right as 

 to a matter of fact, in which he has made a slight 

 misstatement. 



My argument was not, as he says, " to show that 

 beautie iti the third line may be the true reading" 

 — but it was to defend the text from that punctu- 

 ation which would detach beauty from its proper 

 clause in the sentence. Beauty is in possession of 

 the text already, and is not in the least likely to be 

 dislodged from it by either Hanmer's dowdy or 

 Walker's gypsey. It would be the judgment of 

 Paris over again, in which beauUy would be certain 

 " to have it hollow." 



With respect to the substitution of stale for pale 

 (originally proposed by Farmer), so far from acced- 

 ing to it, I am, on the contrary, convinced that 

 Warburton's suggestion of plainness, instead of 

 paleness, is right ; and I am only surprised that it 

 has not been forced into general adoption by its 

 own intrinsic evidence of truth ? There is no re- 

 lation between paleness and eloquence, in the sense 

 requii'ed by the context. Paleness can only move 

 "more than eloquence" when the feeling to be 

 excited is compassion: but plainness has just that 

 sort of opposition to eloquence which the tenour of 

 the passage requires. Moreover, plainness has an 

 obvious reference — which paleness has not — to 

 the preceding line : 



" Which rather threat'nest than doth promise aught." 



And it is also an appropriate continuation of 

 meagre, in the sense of poor, barren, unassuming ! 



Altogether, although I am by no means an ad- 

 vocate for rash interference with the text, yet, in 

 this instance, plainness adds so greatly to the har- 

 mony and consistency of the whole passage, that I 

 have no hesitation in avowing my conviction that it 

 is the true word. 



With respect to guiled and guilded, there seems 

 to be sufficient authority for the word in either 

 form ; but it is rather singular that Mr. Lettsom's 

 question respecting it, addressed directly to Mr. 

 Collier in the Athenceum of the 17th of April last, 

 should not, as yet, have been replied to. A. E. B, 



Leeds. 



HANNAH WOOLLY. 



(Vol. v., p. 225.) 

 J. Mt. refers to a curious autobiographical 

 sketch of Hannah Woolly, prefixed to her Gentle- 

 loomarCs Companion, 1682, and asks further inform- 

 ation concerning her. I have never seen that book, 

 but as J. Mt. mentions that she states she had 

 suffered " by loss of husband, children, friend, 

 estate," he will probably find some information in 

 a work by the same writer of an earlier date. It 

 is entitled — 



" A Supplement to the Queen-like Closet, or a little 

 of every thing, presented to all ingenious ladies and 

 gentlewomen, by Hanna Wooley. London, printed by 

 T. R. for Rich. Lownds, and are to be sold at the sign 

 of the White Lion in Duck Lane, 1674." 

 In this work, which contains receipts in medicine 

 and housewifery, the authoress says, in explanation 

 of the manner in which she became a practitioner 

 of physic, 



" First take notice, that my mother and my elder 

 sisters were very well skilled in physick and chirur- 

 gery, from whom I learned a little, and at the age of 

 seventeen I had the fortune to belong to a noble lady 

 in this kingdom till I married, which was at twenty- 

 four years of age." 



She then states that she studied by leave of that 

 lady, who provided her with drugs and simples, 

 and permitted her to try her skill upon the poor 

 neighbours. She goes on to say : 



" When I was married to Mr. Woolly, we lived to* 

 gether at Newport Pond in Essex, near Saffron Wal- 

 den, seven years; my husband having been master of 

 that free school for fourteen years before. We having 

 many boarders, my skill was often exercised amongst 

 them." 



She then gives a long account of various sur» 

 prising cures which she made, and continues — 



" After these seven years were passed, we lived at 

 Hackney, near London, where we had above three 

 score boarders, and there I had many more trials of my 

 skill both at home and abroad. I cured my own son 

 of an impostume in the head, and of a consumption, 

 after the physicians had given him up," &c. 



She continues — 



" If any person desire to speak with me, they may 

 find me at Mr. Richard Woolley's (^sic^ house in the 

 Old Bailey, in Golden Cup Court. He is Master of 

 Arts and Reader at St. Martin's, Ludgate. 



In another part of the book she complains that 

 Mr. Newman had printed the second edition of 

 her work, The Young Ladies' Guide, without her 

 knowledge, and had employed another hand upon 

 it, whereby it was so much altered that she felt it 

 due to herself to disclaim the authorship. The 

 remedies mentioned in The Supplement to the 

 Queen-like Closet recommend a liberal use of burnt 

 snails, mashed toads, and other like ingredients of 

 the barbarous pharmacopoeia of that age. 



T. Westcott. 



Philadelphia, U, S. A., June 5, 1852. 



ettmologt of the word "devil." 



(Vol. v., pp. 508. 595.) 



Of the two correspondents of " N. & Q." who 

 have undertaken to answer my Query regarding 

 the etymology of the word Devil, C. appears not 

 to have read my argument, and A. N. not to have 

 clearly comprehended it. 



