216 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 174. 



be attributable to that well-known slovenliness in 

 ritual matters which was but too characteristic of 

 the last century ? John Jebb. 



Peterstow Rectory, Ross. 



UNANSWERED QUERIES REGARDING SHAKSPEARB. 



Domestic anxieties having unavoidably detained 

 me in this place during the last three or four 

 months, I am necessarily without nearly all my 

 books. My corrected folio, 1632, is one of the 

 very few exceptions ; and as I have not the No. 

 of "N. & Q." to which A. E. B. refers, I am un- 

 able to reply to his question, simply because I do 

 not remember it. 



To whomsoever these initials belonir, he is a man 

 of so much acuteness and learning, that, although 

 I may deem his conjectures ratlier subtle and in- 

 genious than solid and expedient, I consider him 

 entitled to all the information in my power. I do 

 not, of course, feel bound to notice all anonymous 

 speculators (literary or pecuniary) ; but if A. E. B. 

 will be good enough to take the trouble to repeat 

 his interrogatory, I promise him to answer it at 

 once. 



My recent volume was put together with some 

 rapidity, and under many disadvantages : not a 

 few of the later sheets were corrected, and several 

 of them written, two hundi-ed miles from home. 

 Such was the case with the note on the suggestion 

 I hastily attributed to Mr. Cornish, on the faith 

 of his letter in "N. & Q." I did not advert to 

 the circumstance that Warburton had proposed 

 the same emendation ; and it may turn out that a 

 few other notes by me are in the same predica- 

 ment. The authority I usually consulted as to the 

 conjectures of previous editors was the Variorum 

 Shahspeare, in twenty-one volumes 8vo. 



I need hardly add that I was acquainted with 

 the fact that Mr. Singer had published an edition 

 of Shakspeare; but, like some others, it was not 

 before me when I wrote my recent volume, nor 

 when I printed the eight volumes to which that is 

 a supplement. Even the British Museum does not 

 contain all the impressions of the works of our 

 great dramatist ; but I resorted, more or less, to 

 twenty or thirty of them in the progress of my 

 undertaking. 



Mr. Singer's edition, no doubt, deserves more 

 than the praise he has given to it : on the other 

 hand, I am thoroughly sensible of the imperfect- 

 ness of my own labours, however anxious I was to 

 avoid mistakes; and when I prepare a new impres- 

 sion, I will not fail duly to acknowledge the ob- 

 ligations of Shakspeare to Mr. Singer. One of 

 my notes on a celebrated passage in Timon of 

 Athens will liave shown that there was no reluc- 

 tance on my part to give Mr. Singer full credit 

 for a very happy emendation. 



I hope and believe that he does not participate 

 in the anger some have expressed, because I have 

 been merely the medium of making known other 

 emendations at least equally felicitous. 



J. Payne Collier. 



Torquay. 



THE PASSAMEZZO GALLIARD. 

 (Vol. vi., p. 311.) 



The passage quoted by Mr. Forbes from 

 Richard Ligon's History of Barbndoes, in illustra- 

 tion of a scene in the 2nd Part of King Henry IV., 

 was pointed out by Sir John Hawkins in his His- 

 tory of Music (vol. iii. p. 383., note). 



For " passame sares galiard," as it stands in 

 Ligon, we should read " passamezzo galliard." 

 Sir John Hawkins derives passamezzo from passer, 

 to walk, and mezzo, the middle or half. The term 

 is variously corrupted by the English poets and 

 dram atists, — passy-measure, passa- measure, passing- 

 measure, &c. Douce, in his valuable Illustrations 

 of Shakspeare (edit. 1839, p. 72.), has the follow- 

 ing passage on the subject : 



" riorio, in his Italian Dictionary, ] 598, has passa- 

 mezzo, a passameasure in dancing, a cinque pace ; and 

 although the English word is corrupt, the other contri- 

 butes a part, at least, of the figure of this dance, which 

 is said to have consisted in making several steps round 

 the ball-room, and then crossing it in the middle. 

 Brantome calls it ^le pazzameno d'ltaVie,' and it appears 

 to have been more particularly used by the Venetians. 

 It was much in vogue with us during Shakspeare's 

 time, as well as the pavan ; and both were imported 

 either from France, Spain, or Italy. In a book of in- 

 structions for the lute, translated from the French by 

 J. Alford, 1568, 4to., there are two passameze tunes 

 printed in letters according to the lute notation." 



The passamezzo was sometimes sung as well as 

 danced. Morley, in his Introduction to Practicall 

 Musiche, 1597, has an interesting passage bearing 

 on the point, which has been overlooked by modern 

 writers : 



" There is likewise a kind of songs (which I had 

 almost forgotten) called Justinianas, and are all written 

 in the Bergamasca language. A wanton and rude kinde 

 of musicke it is, and like enough to carrie the name of 

 some notable curtisan of the citie of Bergama ; for no 

 man will deny that Justiniana is the name of a woman. 

 There be also manie other kinds of songs which the 

 Italians make; as pastorellas and passamesos, with a 

 dittie, and such like, which it would be both tedious 

 and superfluous to dilate unto you in words; therefore 

 I will leave to speak any more of them, and begin to 

 declare unto you those kinds which they make without 

 ditties." 



Mr. Forbes asks, " Is the tune of the galliard 

 known ? " I know at least a hundred different 

 galliard tunes. They are distinguished by appel- 

 lations which seem to indicate their being the 



