July 23. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



73 



read; <and the popular belief in the remarkable 

 descent of Henry, and consequently of our present 

 royal family, is quite new to me, and to all of 

 whom I have inquired. Still, finding that the 

 writer had an autliority for the " discipline," he 

 may have one for the Devil. If so, I should like 

 to know it ; for I contemplate something after the 

 example of Lucian's Quomodo Historia sit coti- 

 scribenda. H. B. C. 



U. U. Club. 



*'quem deus vult peedere prius dementat. 



Having disposed of the allegation that the 

 Greek Iambic, 



was from Euripides, by denying the assertion, I 

 am also, on farther investigation, compelled to 

 deny to him also the authorship of the cited pas- 

 sage,— 



"" orav Se AaifiOiy dvSpl iropcrivri KOKct, rov voxiv e§\wfie 

 irpu'Toy." 



Its first appearance is in Barnes, who quotes it 

 from Athenagoras " sine auctoris nomine." Car- 

 meli includes it with others, to which he prefixes 

 the observation, — 



" A me piacque come al Barnesio di porle per disteso, 

 ed a canto mettervi la traduzioiie in nostra favella.sejtza 

 entrnre tratlo iratto in qiiistioni inutili, se alcuni versi 

 iippartengano a Trcigedia di Euripide, o no.'" 



There is, then, no positive evidence of this pas- 

 sage having ever been attributed, by any competent 

 scholar, to Euripides. Indirect proof that it could 

 not have been written by him is thus shown: — In 

 the Antigone of Sophocles (v. 620.) the chorus 

 sings, according to Brunck, — 



" 'Zo<pia yap e/c rov 

 kXuvov tizos TTfcpavTai' 

 Th Kaichy SoKelp ttot' iad\hv 

 two' (finev, oTCjj (ppeyas 

 6ehs &7ei irpos arav 

 Tvpiaauv S' oXvyoffrhv XP^VOP eKrhs aras." 



*' For a splendid saying has been revealed by the 

 wisdom of some one : That evil appears to be good to 

 him whose mind God leads to destruction ; but that he 

 ^God) practises this a short time without destroying such 

 a one." 



Now, had Barnes referred to the scholiast on the 

 Antigone, or remembered at the time the above- 

 cited passage, he would either not have omitted 

 the conclusion of his distich, or he would at once 

 have seen that a passage quoted as "ex: tow, of some 

 one" by Sophocles, seventeen years the senior of 

 Euripides, could not have been the original com- 

 position of his junior competitor. The conclusion 

 of the distich is thus given by the old scholiast : 

 " uTav 5' 6 ha.ip.wv dv^pi itopavvri KaKh, 

 rbv vovv %S\w^i vpuTov ^ fiov\eviTat." 



The words " when he wills it " being left out by 

 Barnes and Carmeli, but which correspond with 

 the last line of the quotation from Sophocles. 

 The old scholiast introduces the exact quotation 

 referred to by Sophocles as " a celebrated (noto- 

 rious, aoi'Sijuoi/) and splendid saying, revealed by 

 the wisdom of some one, p-era aopias yap vk6 tivos." 



Indeed, the sentiment must have been as old as 

 Paganism, wherein, whilst all voluntary acts are 

 attributed to the individual, all involantary ones 

 are ascribed to the Deity. Even sneezing was so 

 considered: hence the phrase common in the lower 

 circles in England, "Bless us," and in a higher 

 grade in Germany, " Gott segne euch," which 

 form the usual chorus to a sneeze. 



The other scholiast, Trlclinius, explains the pas- 

 sage of Sophocles by saying, "The gods lead to 

 error (3\agTjv) him whom they intend to make 

 miserable (jSvarvx^Lv) : hence the application to 

 Antigone, who considers death as sweet." 



T. J. BuCKTOIf, 

 Lichfield. 



shakspeare correspondence. 



A Passage in '■'■The Taming of the Shrew." — ■ 

 Perhaps I mistake it, but Mr. C. Mansfield 

 Ingleby seems to me to write in a tone as if he 

 fancied I should be unwilling to answer his ques- 

 tions, whether public or private. Although I am 

 not personally acquainted with him, we have had 

 some correspondence, and I must always feel that 

 a man so zealous and intelligent is entitled to the 

 best reply I can afford. I can have no hesitation 

 in informing him that, in preparing what he terras 

 my "monovolume Shakspeare," I pursued this 

 plan throughout ; I adopted, as my foundation, the 

 edition in eight volumes octavo, which I completed 

 in 1844; that was "formed from an entirely new 

 collation of the old editions," and my object there 

 was to give the most accurate representation of 

 the text of the folios and quartos. Upon that 

 stock I engrafted the manuscript alterations in my 

 folio 1632, in every case in which it seemed to 

 me possible that the old corrector might be right — 

 in short, wherever two opinions could be enter- 

 tained as to the reading: in this way my text in 

 the " monovolume Shakspeare " was " regulated 

 by the old copies, and by the recently discovered 

 folio of 1632." 



Mr. Ingleby will see that in the brief preface 

 to the " monovolume Shakspeare," I expressly 

 say that " while a general similarity (to the folio 

 1632) has been preserved, care has been taken to 

 rectify the admitted mistakes of the early impression, 

 and to introduce such alterations of a corrupt and 

 imperfect text, as Avere warranted by better au- 

 thorities. Thus, while the new readings of the 

 old corrector of the folio 1632, considerably ex- 

 ceeding a thousand, are duly inserted in the places 



