384 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 208. 



Languesctint, gustusque minor fit : denique semper 

 Aut hoc, aut illo morbo vexantur — inermi 

 Manduntur vix ore cihi, vix crura bacillo 

 Sustentata meant : animus quoque vulnera sentit. 

 Desipit, et longo torpet confectus ab avo." 

 It would have only occupied your space need- 

 lessly, to have transcribed at length the celebrated 

 description of the seven ages of human life from 

 Shakspeare's As You Like It; but I would solicit 

 the attention of your readers to the Latin verses, 

 and then to the question, Whether either poet has 

 borrowed from the other ? and, should this be de- 

 cided affirmatively, tlie farther question would arise, 

 Which is the original ? Arterus. 



Dublin. 



[These lines look like a modern paraphrase of Shak- 

 speare ; and our Correspondent has not informed us 

 from what book he has transcribed them. — Ed.] 



Passage in '■'■King John^' and " Borneo and Juliet^ 

 — I am neither a commentator nor a reader of 

 commentators on Shakspeare. AVhen I meet with a 

 difficulty, I get over it as well as I can, and think 

 no more of the matter. Having, however, acci- 

 dentally seen two passages of Shakspeare much 

 ventilated in "N. & Q.," I venture to give my 

 poor conjectures respecting them. 



1, Kii\g John. — 



" It lies as sightly on the back of him. 

 As great Alcides' shows upon an ass." 



I consider shows to be the true reading ; the re- 

 ference being to the ancient myste7-ies, called also 

 ^hows. The machinery required for the celebra- 

 tion of the mysteries was carried by asses. Hence 

 the proverb : " Asinus portat mysterijc." The 

 ■connexion of Hercules — "great Alcides" — with 

 the mysteries, may be learned from Aristophanes 

 and many other ancient writers. And thus the 

 meaning of the passage seems to be : The lion's 

 skin, which once belonged to Richard of the Lion 

 Heart, is as sightly on the back of Austria, as 

 were the mysteries of Hercules upon an ass. 



2. JRomeo and Jidiet. — 



" That runaways eyes may wink." 



Here I would retain the reading, and interpret 

 runaways as signifying " persons going about on 

 the watch." Perhaps runagates, according to 

 modern usage, would come nearer to the proposed 

 signification, but not to be quite up with it. Many 

 words in Shakspeare have significations very re- 

 mote from those which they now bear. 



Patrick Muirson. 



Shakspeare and the Bible. — Has it ever been 

 noticed that the following passage from the Second 

 Part of Henry IV., Act I. Sc. 3., is taken from the 

 fourteenth chapter of St. Luke's Gospel ? 



" What do we then, but draw anew the model 

 In fewer offices ; or, at least, desist 



To build at all ? Much more, in this great work, 



(Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down, 



And set another up) should we survey 



The plot, the situation, and the model ; 



Consult upon a sure foundation, 



Question surveyors, know our own estate, 



How able such a work to undergo. 



A careful leader sums what force he brings 



To weigh against his opposite ; or else 



We fortify on paper, and in figures. 



Using the names of men, instead of men : 



Like one that draws the model of a house 



Beyond his power to build it." 



The passage in St. Luke is as follows (xiv. 

 28-31.): 



" For which of you, intending to build a tower, sit- 

 teth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he 

 have sufficient to finish it ? 



" Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and 

 Is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock 

 him, 



" Saying, This man began to build, and was not able 

 to finish. 



" Or what king, going to make war against another 

 king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he 

 be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh 

 against him with twenty thousand?" 



I give the passage as altered by Mr. Collier's 

 Emendator, because I think the line added by 

 him, 



" A careful leader sums what force he brings," 

 is strongly corroborated by the Scripture text. 



Q. D. 



Judicial Families. — In vol. v. p. 206. (new- 

 edition) of Lord Mahon's History of England, we 

 find the following passage : 



•' Lord Chancellor Camden was the younger son of 

 Chief Justice Pratt, — a case of rare succession in the 

 annals of the law, and not easily matched, unless by 

 their own cotemporaries, Lord Hardwicke and Charles 

 Yorke." 



The following case, I think, is equally, if not 

 more, remarkable : — 



The Right Hon. Thomas Berry Cusack-Smith, 

 brother of the present Sir Michael Cusack-Smith, 

 Bart., is Master of the Rolls in Ireland, having 

 been appointed to that high ofllice in January, 

 1846. His father, Sir William Cusack-Smith, 

 second baronet, was for many years Baron of the 

 Court of Exchequer in Ireland. And his grand- 

 father, the Right Hon. Sir Michael Smith, first 

 baronet, was, like his grandson at the present day, 

 Master of the Rolls in Ireland. 



Is not this " a case of rare succession in the 

 annals of the law, and not easily matched ? " 



Abhba. 



