Aug. 6. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



123 



tion against hackney coaches coming into the streets to 

 stand to be hired, yet I got one to carry me home." 



T. D. 



SHAKSPEARE COBBESFONDENCE. 



Passage in " IVie Tempest,''' Act I. So. 2. — 



" The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch. 

 But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek, 

 Dashes the fire out." 



"The manuscript corrector of the folio 1632," 

 Mr. Collier informs us, " lias substituted heat for 

 'cheek,' which is not an unlikely corruption, a 

 person writing only by the ear." 



I should say very unlikely : but if heat had been 

 actually printed in the folios, without speculating 

 as to the probability that the press-oopy was 

 written from dictation, I should have had no 

 hesitation in altering it to cheek. To this I 

 should have been directed by a parallel passage in 

 Richard IL, Act III. Sc. 3., which has been over- 

 looked by Mb. Collier : 



" Methinks, King Richard and myself should meet 

 With no less terror than the elements 

 Of fire and water, when their thundering shock 

 At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven." 



Commentary here is almost useless. Every one 

 who has any capacity for Shakspearian criticism 

 must feel assured that Shakspeare wrote cheek, 

 and not heat. 



The passage I have cited from Richard II. 

 strongly reminds me of an old lady whom I met 

 last autumn on a tour through the Lakes of Cum- 

 berland, &c. ; and who, during a severe thunder- 

 storm, expressed to me her surprise at the per- 

 tinacity of the lightning, adding, " I should think, 

 Sir, that so much water in the heavens would 

 have put all the fire out." 



C. Mansfield Inglebt. 



jBirmingham, 



77ie Case referred to by Shakspeare in Hamlet 

 (Vol. vii., p.550.).— 



" If the water come to the man." — Shakspeare. 



The argument Shakspeare referred to was that 

 contained in Plovvden's Report of the case of 

 Hales V. Petit, heard in the Court of Common 

 Pleas in the fifth year of the reign of Queen 

 Elizabeth. It was held that though the wife of 

 Sir James Hale, whose husband was felo-de-se, 

 became by survivorship the holder of a joint term 

 for years, yet, on office found, it should be for- 

 feited on account of the act of the deceased hus- 

 band. The learned Serjeants who were counsel 

 for the defendant, alleged that the forfeiture 

 should have relation to the act done in the party's 

 lifetime, which was the cause of his death. " And 



upon this," they said, " the parts of the act are to 

 be considered." And Serjeant Walsh said : 



" The act consists of three parts. The first is the 

 imagination, which is a reflection or meditation of the 

 mind, whether or no it is convenient for him to destroy 

 himself, and what way it can be done. The second is 

 the resolution, which is the determination of the mind 

 to destroy himself, and to do it in this or that par- 

 ticular way. The third is the perfection, which is the 

 execution of what the mind has resolved to do. And 

 this perfection consists of two parts, viz. the beginning 

 and the end. The beginning is the doing of the act 

 which causes the death ; and the end is the death, which 

 is only the sequel to the act. And of all the parts, the 

 doing of the act is the greatest in the judgment of our 

 law, and it is, in effect, the whole and the only part 

 the law looks upon to be material. For the imagination- 

 of the mind to do wrong, without an act done, is not 

 punishable in our law ; neither is the resolution to do 

 that wrong which he does not, punishable ; but the 

 doing of the act is the only point the law regards, for 

 until the act is done it cannot be an offence to the 

 world, and when the act is done it is punishable. Then, 

 here, the act done by Sir James Hale, which is evil and 

 the cause of his death, is the throwing of himself into 

 the water, and death is but a sequel thereof, and this 

 evil act ought some way to be punished. And if the 

 forfeiture shall not have relation to the doing of the 

 act, then the act shall not be pimished at all, for inas- 

 much as the person who did the act is dead, his person 

 cannot be punished, and therefore there is no way else 

 to punish him but by the forfeiture of those things 

 which were his own at the time of the act done ; and 

 the act was done in his lifetime, and therefore the for- 

 feiture shall have relation to his lifetime, namely, to 

 that time of his life in which he did the act which took 

 away his life." 



And the judges, viz. Weston, Anthony Brown, 

 and Lord Dyer, said : 



" That the forfeiture shall have relation to the time 

 of the original offence committed, which was the cause 

 of the death, and that was, the throwing himself into 

 the water, which was done in his lifetime, and this 

 act was felony." " So that the felony is attri- 

 buted to the act, which act is always done by a living 

 man and in his lifetime," as Brown said; for he said, 

 " Sir James Hale was dead, and how came he to his 

 death ? It may be answered, By drowning. And who 

 drowned him ? Sir James Hale. And when did he 

 drown him ? In his lifetime. So that Sir James 

 Hale being alive, caused Sir James Hale to die ; and 

 the act of the living man was the death of the dead 

 man. And then for this offence it is reasonable to 

 punish the living man who committed the offence, and 

 not the dead man. But how can he be said to be 

 punished alive when the punishment comes after his 

 death ? Sir, this can be done no other way but by 

 devesting out of him, from the time of the act done in 

 his life, which was the cause of his death, the title and 

 property of those things which he had in his lifetime." 



The above extract is long, but the work from 

 which it is taken can be accessible to but very few 



