Jan. 29. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



HI 



graphy of Ceylon, it is still in hand; but the 

 pressure of official aud parliamentary duties has 

 sadly retarded its preparation for the press. 



J. Emebson Tennent. 

 €6. Warwick Square, Belgravia. 



AM, HAVE, AND WILL BE : 

 SC. 2. 



HENRY Vlir., ACT III. 



(Vol. vii., p. 5.) 



Independently of the obvious probability that 

 Shakspeare, in these three words, intended to em- 

 body the present, the past, and the future, there 

 is another reason why we can by no means part 

 with have, or suffer it to be changed into any 

 other word ; and that is, because it is open to one 

 of those pai'allel analogies which I have so often 

 upheld as sure guides to the true reading. Only 

 a few lines before, in a previous speech of Wolsey's, 

 he makes use of a precisely similar elliptical 

 -coupling together of the verbs have and be : 



" My loyalty, 

 Which ever has, and ever sliall be, growing." 



Here we have, in "has and shall be," the identical 

 combination which, in the case of " have and will 

 be," has given rise to so much doubt ; so that we 

 have only to understand the one phrase as we do 

 the other, and make the slight adclition of the per- 

 sonal pronoun I (not before, but after am), to 

 render Wolsey's exclamation not only intelligible, 

 but full of emphasis and meaning. 



But in tlie first place the King's speech to 

 Wolsey might be more intelligibly pointed if the 

 words " your bond of duty " were made a paren- 

 thetical explanation o? that. The " bond of duty " 

 is the mere matter-of-course duty to be expected 

 from every subject ; but the King says that, over 

 and above that, Wolsey ought, " as 'twere in loves 

 particular," to be more ! Thereupon Wolsey ex- 

 claims — 



" I do profess 



Tliat for your highness' good I ever hibour'd 



More than mine own." 



Here he pauses, and then immediately continues 

 his protestation in the fine passage, the meaning 

 of which has been so much disputed ; suddenly 

 reverting to what the King had just said he ought 

 to be, he exclaims : 



" That, am I, have, and will be. 

 Though all the world sliould crack their duty to you, 

 And throw it from their soul," &c. 



Still less can it be permitted to change " crack 

 their duty " into " lack their duty." Setting 

 aside all consideration of the comparative force of 

 the two words, and the circumstance that crack 

 is frequently used by Shakspeare in the sense of 

 sever by violence — the adoption of lack would be to 



attribute to Shakspeare an absolute blunder, for 

 how could " all the world " throw from their soul 

 that which they lacked? 



With reference to another alteration ("capa- 

 ble " into " palpable," in As Yon Like It, Act III. 

 Sc. 5.), notwithstanding that it seems so obvious, 

 and has been declared so self-evident, " as to be 

 lauded needs but to be seen" I, for one, enter my 

 protest against it, being of opinion that the con- 

 servation of capable is absolutely essential to the 

 context. 



Capable may be, and has been, defended upon 

 various grounds ; but there is one consideration 

 which, with me, is all-sufficient, viz., it is necessary 

 for the explanation and defence of the accom- 

 panying word " cicati'ice^ Capable is concave^ 

 and has reference to the lipped shape of the im- 

 pression, and cicatrice is a lipped scar ; therefore 

 one word supports and explains the other. And 

 it is not a little singular that cicatrice should, in 

 its turn, have been condemned as an improper 

 expression by the very critic (Dr. Johnson) who, 

 without perceiving this very cogent reason for so 

 doing, nevertheless explains " capable impressure " 

 as a hollow mark. A. E. B. 



Leeds. 



SIE HENRY WOTTON S LETTER TO MILTON. 



(Vol. vi., p. 5. ; Vol. vii., p. 7.) 



I desire to speak with the greatest deference to 

 Mr. Bolton Corney's superior judgment, but 

 still I cannot help saying that Thomas Warton's 

 remarks upon " our common friend Mr. B,." and 

 " the late li.'s poems " do not seem to be sup- 

 ported by facts. Randolph's poems were printed 

 at Oxford in 1638, but in what month we are not 

 told. The first question then is this, Were they 

 printed before or after the 13th of April, when 

 Wotton's letter was written ? li after the 13th, 

 or even the 6th of April, when Milton's present- 

 ation copy of Comus was forwarded, of course the 

 matter is decided. But, allowing for the present 

 that they were printed before the 13th of April in 

 the year 1638, I must ask, in the second place, 

 Could Sir H. Wotton predicate of any volume 

 printed in that year before that date (or rather of 

 Comus stitched up with that volume), that he had 

 viewed it some long time before with singular 

 delight ? I certainly think not, but shall be very 

 happy to have my objections overruled. 



Then, again, ii' we admit Mr. Bolton Cornet's 

 " novel conjecture " (which I freely allow to be 

 a great improvement upon that of Thomas 

 Warton), how comes it that Sir H. Wotton knew 

 nothing of " the true artificer " of Comus until he 

 was let into the secret by Milton himself? If 

 liobert Bandolph was the "common friend" of 

 Wotton and Milton, was he not likely to have 



