546 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 188. 



munication to "N. & Q.," Vol. vli., p. 405.), and 

 from the nature of the transaction to which they 

 relate, my impression is, that he was by profession 

 a money scrivener in the town of Lutterworth ; 

 a circumstance which may possibly tend to the 

 discovery of his family connexion (if any existed) 

 ■with William Shakspeare. Chablecote. 



Passage inlMacbeth, Act I. Sc.5. — 

 " . . . . . Come, thick night, 



And pall thee in the diinnest smoke of hell. 

 That my keen knife see not the wound it makes. 

 Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, 

 To cry, Hold, hold ! " 



In Mr. Payne Collier's Notes and Emenda- 

 tions, p. 407., we are informed that the old correc- 

 tor substitutes blanhiess for blanket. The change 

 is to me so exceedingly bad, even if made on some 

 sort of authority (as an extinct 4to.), that I should 

 have let it be its own executioner, had not Mr. 

 Collier apparently given in his adhesion to it. I 

 now beg to offer a few obvious reasons why blanket 

 is unquestionably Shakspeare's word. 



In the Rape of Lucrece, Stanza cxv., we have 

 a passage very nearly parallel with that in Macbeth : 

 " O night, thou furnace of foul reeking smoke. 

 Let not the jealous day behold thy face. 

 Which underneath thy black all-hiding cloak, 

 Immodestly lies martyr'd with disgrace." 



In Lucrece, the cloak of night is invoked to 

 screen a deed of adultery ; in Macbeth the blanket 

 of night is invoked to hide a murder : but the foul, 

 reeking, smoky cloak of night, in the passage just 

 quoted, is clearly parallel with the smoky blanket 

 of night in Macbeth. The complete imagery of 

 both passages has been happily caught by Carlyle 

 {Sartor liesartus, 1841, p. 23.), who, in describing 

 night, makes Teufelsdrockh say : 



" Oh, under that hideous coverlet of vapours, and putre- 

 factions, and unimaginable gases, what a fermenting-vat 

 lies simmering and hid ! " 



C. Mansfield Ingleby. 



Birmingham. 



'■'■Discourse of Reason" (Vol. vii., p. 497.). — 

 This phrase, "generally supposed to be peculiarly 

 Shakspearian," which A. E. B. has indicated in his 

 quotation from Philemon Holland, occurs also in 

 Dr. T. Bright's Treatise of Melancholy, the date of 

 ■which is 1586. In the third page of the dedicatory 

 epistle there is this sentence : 



" Such as are of quicke conceit, and delighted in dis- 

 course of reason in naturall things." 



Here, then, is another authority against Gifford's 

 proposed "emendation" of the expression as it 

 occurs in Hamlet, M. D. 



The MSS. of Gervase Hollis. — These were 

 taken during the reign of Charles I., and continue 

 down to the middle of Charles II. In Harl. MSS- 

 6829. will be found a most curious and valuable 

 volume, containing the painted glass, arms, monu- 

 ments, brasses, and epitaphs in the various churches 

 and chapels, &c. throughout the county of Lin- 

 coln. The arms are all drawn in the margin ia 

 colours. Being taken before the civil war, they 

 contain all those which were destroyed or de- 

 faced by the Parliament army. They were all 

 copied by Gough, which he notices in his Brit. 

 Top., vol. i. p. 519., but not printed. 



His genealogical collections are contained in a 

 series of volumes marked with the letters of the- 

 alphabet, and comprehended in the Lansdowne 

 Catalogue under No. 207. The Catalogue is very 

 minute, and the contents of the several volumes- 

 very miscellaneous ; and some of the genealogical 

 notes are simply short memoranda, which, in order 

 to be made available, must be wrought out from 

 other sources. They all relate more or less to the- 

 county of Lincoln. One of these, called " Trus- 

 but," was presented to the British Museum by^ 

 Sir Joseph Banks in 1817, and will be found in 

 Add. MSS. 6118. E. G. Ballard. 



Anagrams. — The publication of two anagrams- 

 in your Number for May 7, calls to my mind a 

 few that were made some years ago by myself and 

 some friends, as an experiment upon the anagram- 

 matic resources of words and phrases. A subject 

 was chosen, and each one of the party made an 

 anagram, good, bad, or indifferent, out of the- 

 component letters. The following may serve as a. 

 specimen of the best of the budget that we made. 



1. French Revolution. 

 Violence, run forth ! 



2. Swedish Nightingale. 



Sing high ! sweet Linda, (q. d. dl Chamouni.) 



3. Spanish Marriages. 



Rash games in Paris ; or. Ah ! in a miser's grasp.. 



4. Paradise Lost. 

 Reap sad toils. 



5. Paradise Regained. 

 Dead respire again. 



C. Mansfield Ingleby, 

 Birmingham. 



Family Caul — Child's Caul. — The will of Sir 

 John Offley, Knight, of Madeley Manor, Stafford- 

 shire (grandson of Sir Thomas Offley, Lord 

 Mayor of London temp. Eliz.), proved at Doctors' 

 Commons 20th May, 1658, contains the following 

 singular bequest : 



" Item, I will and devise one Jewell done all in 

 Gold enammelled, wherein there is a Caul that covered 

 my face and shoulders when I first came into the world, 

 the use thereof to my loving Daughter the Lady Eliza- 



