194 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 200. 



The whole of Jackson's notes on King John are 

 ■well -worth reading. I beg to mention two of 

 these, as illustrations of old Jackson's acuteness, 

 when not under the warping influence of the ca- 

 coethes emendandi. His defence of untrimmed 

 bride, in Act II. So. 1., is most convincing. He 

 says, — 



" Constance stimulates [Lewis] to stand fast to his 

 purpose, and not to let the devil tempt him, in the like- 

 ness of an tintrimmed bride, to waver in his determin- 

 ation ; for that the influence of the Holy See would 

 strip King John of his present royalty. Where then 

 would be the great dowry Lewis was to receive with 

 his wife? At present he his only the promise of five 

 provinces, and 30,000 raaiks of English coin ; there- 

 fore, as the dowry has not been paid, Blanche is still 

 an untrimmed bride." — Recollections and Illustrations, 

 p. 179. 



His note on the itse o£ invisible, in Act V. Sc. 7., 

 is also excellent : 



" Death having prayed upon the reduced body of the 

 king, quits it, and now invisible, has laid siege to the 

 mind." 



I have elsewhere stated my opinion that " all 

 Jackson's emendations are bad." I should have 

 added that some few are very plausible and spe- 

 cious, and worthy of consideration. I will men- 

 tion one In King John, Act IV. Sc. 2. Pembroke 

 says, — 



" It, what in rest you have, in right you hold," &c. 



Kow, rest and right are no antithesis, nor are they 

 allied in meaning. Jackson inserts a f between in 

 and rest — 

 "If, what infrest you have in right you hold," &c. — 



•wliich he supports by admirable parallels from the 

 same play. I will cite one more example of Jack- 

 son's sagacity, from his notes on 1 Henry IV., Act I. 

 Sc. 3. Hotspur says, — 



" Never did bare and rotten policy," &c. 

 Jackson reads, — 



" Never did barren, rotten policy," &c. 



Mr. Collier never once refers to Jackson. Mr. 

 Singer, however, talks familiarly about Jackson, 

 in his Shakspeare Vindicated, as if he liad him at 

 his fingers' ends ; and yet, at page 239., he favours 

 the world with an original emendation (viz. " He 

 did behood his anger," Timon, Act III. Sc. 1.), 

 which, however, will be found at page 389. of 

 Jackson's book. I may be in error, but I cannot 

 but think such ignorance, on the part of profes- 

 sional Shakspearians, very culpable. 



C. MANsriELD Ingieby. 



Birmingham. 



On Three Passages in '■'■ Measure for Measure.'''' 

 — I have to crave a small space in your columns, 

 ■which have already done much good service for 

 the text of Shakspeare, to make a very few re- 



marks on three passages in the play of Measure 

 for Measure. It is no sweeping change of reading 

 that I am about to advocate, noi', as I think, any- 

 thing over ingenious ; inasmuch as, in two of the 

 passages in question, I propose to defend the 

 reading of the first folio, which, I contend, has 

 been departed from unnecessarily ; while, in the 

 third, I suggest the simple change of an f Into 

 an s. 



In Act II. Sc. 4., these lines occur in Angelo's 

 soliloquy, in my folio of 1G23 : 



" The state whereon I studied 

 Is like a good thing, being often read, 

 Growne feard and tedious." 



Mr. Knight, and other editors, read y'earf?, as in 

 the original, but give no explanation ; though such 

 a strange epitb.et would seem to require one. I 

 propose to read seared, i. e. dry, the opposite of 

 fresh. This, as the saying is, "requires," I think, 

 " only to be pointed out to be admitted." 



Lower down in the same scene we find the 

 following passage, in one of Angelo's addresses to 

 Isabel : 



" Such a person. 



Whose creadit with the judge, or owne great place. 



Could fetch your brother from the manacles 



Of the all-building law," 



The word building has always been a stumbling- 

 block to editors. Johnson first proposed to read 

 binding, and his successors have adopted it, and 

 such is now the generally received reading. Mr. 

 Collier's old corrector is also in favour of the 

 same change. I have always felt convinced, how- 

 ever, that building was the word which Shakspeare 

 wrote. That which answers to it in the A.-S. is 

 bytUng, bytleing, a building ; bytlian, to build ; 

 which are Inflected from byth, b'lotul, a hammer or 

 mallet (whence our beetle) ; so that the strict 

 meaning of the verb is firmare, covfirmare, ^ to 

 fasten, close, or bind together. This will give 

 much the same meaning to building as that Im- 

 plied in the proposed substitute binding. 



Not having met with the word used in this 

 peculiar sense by any old writer, I could not 

 venture to maintain the reading of the folio on 

 these grounds, Avhich I have just mentioned, alone. 

 At length, however, I have been successful, and I 

 am now able to quote a passage from a work 

 published very shortly before this play, entitled : 



« The Jewel House of Art and Nature," &c., "faith- 

 fully and familiarly set downe according to the 

 Author's owne experience, by Hugh Platte, of Lin- 

 coln's Inne, gentleman. London, 1594." 



in which this word building is used in precisely 

 the same sense as that which I defend. In " the 

 Preface of the Author," the following passage 

 occurs : 



" I made a condicionall promise of some farther dis- 

 couerie in arteficiall conceipts, then either my health 



