May 28. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



521 



stances, the commentators and all the world may 

 be wrong, and the folios right. The passage has 

 accordingly been corrupted by the editors of 

 Shakspeare into what was more familiar to their 

 modern ears : " Had none, my Lord ! " Though 

 the mode of speech be very common, yet, to de- 

 prive future editors of all excuse for ever again 

 depraving the genuine text of our national Bible, 

 I shall make no apology for accumulating a string 

 of examples : 



" Fort. Oh, had I such a hat, then were I brave ! 

 "Where's he that made it ? 



Sol. Dead : and the whole world 



Yields not a workman that can frame the like. 



Fort. No does ? " 



" Old Fortunatus," Old English Plays, vol. iii. 

 p. 140., by Dilke : 

 ■who alters " No does ? " into None does ? thinking, 

 I presume, that he had thereby simplified the 

 sentence : 



"John. I am an elde fellowe of fifty wynter and 

 more, 

 And yet in all my lyfe I knewe not this before. 



Parson. No di/d, why sayest thou so, upon thyselfe 

 thou lyest. 

 Thou haste euer knowen the sacramente to be the body 

 of Christ." — John Bon and Mast Person. 



" Chedsey. Christ said ' Take, eat, this is ray body ;' 

 and not ' Take ye, eat ye.' 



Philpot. No did, niaster doctor ? Be not these the 

 words of Christ, ' Aecipite, manducate ?' And do not 

 these words, in the plural number, signify ' Take ye, 

 eat ye ; ' and not ' Take thou, eat thou,' as you would 

 suppose?" — Foxe's Acts and Monuments, vol. vii. 

 p. 637., Cattley's edition. 



" Philpot. Master Cosins, I have told my lord 

 already, that I will answer to none of these articles he 

 hath objected against me : but if you will with learn- 

 ing answer to that which is in question between my 

 lord and me, I will gladly hear and commune with 

 you. 



Cosins. A'b will you ? Why what is that then, that 

 is in question between my lord and you ?" — Id., p. 651. 



•' Philpot. And as I remember, it is even the saying 

 of St. Bernard [viz. The Holy Ghost is Christ's vicar 

 on earth (^vic-ariits)'], and a saying that I need not to 

 be ashamed of, neither you to be offended at ; as my 

 Lord of Durham and my Lord of Chichester by their 

 learning can discern, and will not reckon it evil .said. 



London. No will ? Why, take away the first syllable, 

 and it soundeth Arius." — Id., p. 658. 



" Philpot. These words of Cyprian do nothing prove 

 your pretensed assertion ; which is, that to the Church 

 of Home there could come no misbelief. 



Christopherson. Good lord, no doth ? What can be 

 said more plainly ?" — Id., p. 661. 



Again, at p. 663. there occur no less than three 

 more instances : and at p. 665. another. 



" Careless. No, forsooth ; I do not know any such, 

 ner have I heard of him that I wot of. 



Martin. No have, forsooth : and it is even he that 

 hath written against thy faith." 



Then Martin said : 



«' Dost thou not know one Master Chamberlain ? 



Careless. No forsooth ; I know him not. 



Martin. No dost ! and he hath written a book 

 against thy faith also." — Id., vol. viii. p. 164. 



" Lichfield and Coventry. We heard of no such order. 



Lord Keeper. No did ? Yes, and on the first ques- 

 tion ye began willingly. How coinelh it to pass that 

 ye will not now do so ?" — Id., p. 690. 



" Then said Sir Thomas Moyle : ' Ah I Bland, thou 

 art a stiff-hearted fellow. Thou wilt not obey the law, 

 nor answer when tliou art called.' ^ Nor wilt,' quoth 

 Sir John Baker. ' Master Sherilf, take him to your 

 ward.'" — Id., vol. vii. p. 295. 



Is it needful to state, that the original editions 

 have, as they ought to have, a note of interrogation 

 at " Baker i'" 1 will not tux the reader's patience 

 with more than two other examples, and they shall 

 be fetched from the writings of that admirable 

 papist — the gentle, the merry-hearted More: 



" Well, quod Caius, thou wyit graunte me thys fyrste, 

 that euery thynge that hath two erys is an asse — Nay, 

 mary mayster, wyll I not, quod tlie boy. — No wyit 

 thou? quod Caius. Ah, wyiy boy, there thou wentest 

 beyond me." — The Thyrde Boke, the first chapter, 

 fol. 84. of Sir Thomas More's Dialogues. 



" Why, quod he, what coulde I answere ellys, but 

 clerely graunt hym that I believe that thyng for none 

 other cause but only bycause the Scripture so sheweth 

 me? — No could ye ? quod I. What yf neuer Scrip- 

 ture had ben wryten in thys world, should there neuer 

 haue bene eny chyrch or congregacyon of faythfuU and 

 ryght byleuyng people? — That wote I nere, quod he. 

 No do ye? quod I."— Id., fol. 85. 



In taking leave of this idiom, it would not per- 

 haps be amiss to remark, that " ye can," in Duke 

 Humphrey's rejoinder to the " blyson begger of 

 St. Albonys," is not, as usually understood, " you 

 can ? " but " yea can ? " 



To be at point := to be at a stay or stop, i. e, 

 settled, determined, nothing farther being to be 

 said or done : a very common phrase. Half a 

 dozen examples shall suffice : 



" . . . . . What I am truly 



Is thine, and my poore countries to command : 

 Whither indeed before they (thy) heere-approach, 

 Old Seyward with ten thousand warlike men 

 Already at a point, was setting forth." 



Macbeth, Act IV. Sc. 3. 1st Fol. 



No profit to give the commentators' various 

 guesses at the import . of the phrase in the above 

 passage, which will be best gathered from the fol- 

 lowing instances of its use elsewhere. But, before 

 passing further, I beg permission to inform Mr. 

 Knight that the original suggester of "sell" for 

 " self," in an earlier part of this play, -whose name 



