338 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 206. 



passages in Romeo and Juliet? Much more might 

 be written on this subject. 



Robert Rawlinson- 



At 'the Hull meeting of the British Association, 

 Mr. Russell, farmer, Kilwhiss, Fife, read a paper 

 on " The Action of the Winds which veer from the 

 South-west to West, and North-west to North." 

 This he wound up by a reference to Shakspeare, 

 ■which may be worthy of noting : 



" In concluding, I cannot help remarking that this 

 circuit of the wind from SW. by W. to NW. or N., 

 from our insular position, imparts to our climate its 

 fickleness and inconstancy. How often will our 

 brightest sky become suffused by the blackest vapours 

 on the slightest breach of SW. wind, and the clouds 

 will then disappear as speedily as they formed, when 

 the NW. upper current forces their stratum of moist 

 air to rise and mingle with the dryer current above. 

 I do not know who first noticed and recorded this 

 change of the wind from SW. to NW., but the re- 

 gularity of the phenomenon must teach us that the 

 law which it obeys is part of a grand system, and in- 

 vites us to trace its action. I do not think it will be 

 out of place to point out the fact that the great English 

 poet seems to have been quite familiar with this feature 

 of our weather, not only in its most striking manifest- 

 ations in the autumn and winter months, to which he 

 especially refers, but even in its more pleasant aspects 

 of summer. Shakspeare likens the wind in this shift- 

 ing to an individual who pays his addresses in succes- 

 sion to two fair ones — first he wooes the North, but in 

 courting that frigid beauty a difference takes place, 

 whereupon he turns his back upon her and courts the 

 fair South. You will observe the lines are specially 

 applied to the winter season — 



' And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes 

 Even now the frozen bosom of the north, 

 And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence, 

 Turning this /ace to the dew-dropping south.' 



— I am not aware that the philosophic truth contained 

 in these lines has ever before been pointed out. The 

 beautiful lines which the poet, in his prodigality, put 

 into the mouth of one of his gay frolicsome characters. 

 the meaning of them he no doubt thought might have 

 been understood by every one ; but his commentators 

 do not seem to have done so. In some editions turning 

 his side has been put for /ace, which is feeble and un- 

 meaning. And I do not think the recent emendation 

 by Mr. Collier on the text is any improvement, where 

 tide is substituted for face, which impairs both the 

 beauty and harmony of the metaphor." 



Anon. 



A Word for ^'' the Old Corrector." — Allow me, as 

 an avowed enemy to " the Old Corrector's" novel- 

 ties, to render " the Great Unknown " one act of 

 justice. I am convinced there are but two prac- 

 tically possible hypotheses, on which to account 

 for the MS. emendations : either the emendations 

 were for the most part made from some authori- 

 tative document, or they are parts of a modern 



fabrication. No third supposition'can be reason- 

 ably maintained. Mr. Knight's view, for ex- 

 ample, gives no account of the immense number of 

 coincidences with the conjectural emendations of 

 the commentators. Whichever of the two hypo- 

 theses be the true one, I need hardly say that 

 Mr. Collier's name is a suflScient guarantee for 

 all honorable dealing, so far as he is connected 

 with the MS. corrections. 



Permit me farther to do an act of justice to 

 Mr. Collier himself. In my note on a passage 

 in The Tempest, I stated that Mr. Collier had 

 overlooked a parallel passage in Richard II. It 

 was I who had overlooked Mr. Collier's supple- 

 mental note. However, I must add, that how 

 Mr. Collier could persuade himself to print heat 

 for "cheek," in his " monovolume edition," after 

 he had seen the passage in Richard II., is utterly 

 beyond my power of comprehension. 



C. Maksfibld Inglbbt. 



Birmingham. 



JMinor §,atti. 



Injustice, its Origin. — In looking through a file 

 of papers a few days since, I met with the follow- 

 ing as being the origin of this term, and would 

 ask if it is correct ? 



" When Nushervan the Just was out on a hunting 

 excursion, his companions, on his becoming fatigued, 

 recommended him to rest, while they should prepare 

 him some food. There being no salt, a slave was 

 dispatched to the nearest village to bring some. But 

 as he was going, Nushervan said, ' Pay for the salt you 

 take, in order that it may not become a custom to rob, 

 and the village ruined.' They said, ' What harm will 

 this little quantity'do ? ' He replied, ' The origin of in- 

 justice in the world was at first small, but every one 

 that came added to it, until it reached its present 

 magnitude.' " 



W. w. 



Malta. 



Two Brothers of the same Christian Name. — 

 An instance of this occurs in the family of Croft 

 of Croft Castle. William Croft, Esq., of Croft 

 Castle, had issue Sir Richard Croft, Knight, his 

 son and heir, the celebrated soldier in the wars of 

 the Roses, and Richard Croft, Esq., second son, 

 " who, by the description of Richard Croft the 

 Younger, received a grant of lands" in 1461. (Re- 

 trospective Review, 2nd Series, vol. i. p. 472.) 



Tewabs. 



Female Parish Clerk. — In the parish register 

 of Totteridge appears the following : 



" 1802, March 2. Buried, Elizabeth King, widow, 

 for forty-six years clerk of this parish, in the ninety- 

 first year of her age." — Burn on Parish Registers, 110. 



Is there any similar instance on record of a 

 woman being a parish clerk ? Y. S. M. 



