June 25. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



615 



se? any addition to the Rev. J. Corseb's list in 

 the Number of the 14th of May. Weld Tatloe. 



SHAKSPEAKE CRITICISM. 



When I entered on the game of criticism in 

 " N. & Q.," I deemed that it was to be played with 

 good humour, in the spirit of courtesy and urbanity, 

 and that, consequently, though there might be 

 touch worthless criticism and conjecture, the result 

 would on the whole be profitable. Finding that 

 Such is not to be the case, I retire from the field, 

 and will trouble " N. & Q." with no more of my 

 lucubrations. 



I have been led to this resolution by the lan- 

 guage employed by Mr. Arrowsmith in No. 189., 

 where, with "little modesty, and less courtesy, he 

 Styles the commentators on Shakspeare — naming, 

 in particular, Knight, Collier, and Dtce, and 

 including Singer and all of the present day — 

 criticasters who " stumble and bungle in sentences 

 of that sirtiplicity and grammatical clearness as not 

 to tax the powers of a third-form schoolboy to ex- 

 plain." In order to bring me " within his danger," 

 'he actually transposes two lines of Shakspeare; 

 and so, to the unwary, makes me appear to be a 

 very shallow person indeed. 



" It was gravely," says Mr. A., " almost magisterially, 

 proposed by one of the disputants [Mr. Singer] to 

 corrupt the concluding lines by altering their the pro- 

 noun into there the adverb, because (shade of Murray !) 

 the commentator could not discover of what noun their 

 ■could possibly be the pronoun, iu these lines following: 



• When great things labouring perish in their birth, 

 Their form confounded makes most form in mirth ; ' 



and it was left to Ma. Keightley to bless the world 

 with the information that it was things." 



In all the modern editions that I have been 

 able to consult, these lines are thus printed and 

 punctuated : 



" Their form confounded makes most form in mirth ; 

 When great things labouring perish in the birth : " 



and their is referred to contents. I certainly seem 

 to have been the first to refer it to things. 



Allow me, as it is my last, to give once more the 

 "whole passage as it is in the folios, unaltered by 

 Mr. Collier's Magnus Apollo, and with my own 

 punctuation : 



" That sport best pleases, that doth least know how, 

 Wliere zeal strives to content, and the contents 

 Dyes in the zeal of that which it presents. 

 Their form confounded makes most form in mirth, 



■ When great things labouring perish in the birth." 

 Love's Labour's Lost, Act V. Sc. 2. 



My interpretation, it will be seen, beside refer- 

 ring their to things, makes dyes in signify tinges, 



imbues with ; of which use of the expression I now 

 offer the following instances : 



" And the grey ocean info purple dye." 



Faery Queene, ii. 10. 48. 



" Are deck'd with blossoms dyed in white and red." 



lb., ii. 12. 12. 



" Dyed in the dying slaughter of their foes." 



Kijiy John, Act II. Sc. 2. 



" And it was dyed in mummy." 



Othello, Act III. Sc. 4. 



" O truant Muse ! what shall be thy amends 

 For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed 9 " 



Sonn. 101. 



For the use of this figure I may quote from the 

 Shakspeare of France : 



" Mais pour moi, qui, cache sous une autre aventure, 

 D'une ame plus commune ai pris quelque teinture," 

 Heraclius, Act III. Sc. 1. 



" The house ought to dye all the surrounding country 

 with a strength of colouring, and to an extent propor- 

 tioned to its own importance." — Life of Wordsworth, 

 i. 355. 



Another place on which I had offered a conjec- 

 ture, and which Mr. A. takes under his patronage, 

 is "Clamor your tongues" {Winters Tale, Act IV. 

 Sc. 4.) ; and in proof of clamor being the right word, 

 he quotes passages from a book printed in 1542, in. 

 which are chaumhreed and chaumbre, in the sense 

 of restraining. I see little resemblance here to 

 clamor, and he does not say that he would substi- 

 tute chaumbre. He says, " Most judiciously does 

 Nares reject Gifford's corruption of this word into 

 charm [it was Grey not Gifford] ; nor will the 

 suffrage of the ' clever ' old commentator," &c. It 

 is very curious, only that we criticasters are so apt 

 to overrun our game, that the only place where 

 " charm your tongue" really occurs, seems to have 

 escaped Mr. Collier. In Othello, Act V. Sc. 2., 

 lago says to his wife, " Go to, charm your tongue;" 

 and she replies, " I will not charm my tongue." 

 My conjecture was that clamor was clam, or, as it 

 was usually spelt, clem, to press or restrain; and 

 to this I still adhere. 



" When my entrails 

 Were clemmed with keeping a perpetual fast." 



Massinger, Rom. Actor., Act II. Sc. 1. 



" I cannot eat stones and turfs : say, what will he 

 clem me and my followers?" — Jonson, Poetaster, Act I. 

 Sc. 2. 



" Hard is the choice when the valiant must eat their 

 arms or clem." — Id., Every Man Out of his Humour, 

 Act III, Sc. 6. 



In these places of Jonson, clem is usually ren- 

 dered starve ; but it appears to me, from the 

 kindred of the terra, that it is used elliptically. 

 Perliaps, instead of " Till famine cling thee " 

 (Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 5.), Shakspeare wrote "Till 



