466 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 211. 



SHAKSPEARE CORRESPONDENCE. 



Shakspeares Worlis with a Digest of all the 

 Readings (Vol. viil., pp. 74. 170.362.). — I am ex- 

 ceedingly obliged to your correspondent Este for 

 his suggestions, and need not say that any sincere 

 advice will be most respectfully considered. In 

 the second volume of my folio edition of Shak- 

 speare, I am partially endeavouring to carry out 

 the design to which he alludes, by giving a digest 

 of all the readings up to the year 1684. How is 

 it possible to carry out his wish farther with any 

 advantage ? I should feel particularly thankful 

 for a satisfactory reply to the following questions 

 in relation to this important subject : — 1. As many 

 copies of the first and other folio editions, as well 

 as nearly all the copies of the same quarto editions, 

 difier from each other, how are these differences 

 to be treated ? What copies are to be taken for 

 texts, and how many copies of each are to be col- 

 lated ? 2. Are such books ai Beckett, Jackson, 

 and others, to be examined ? If not, are any 

 conjectural emendations of the last and present 

 centuries to be given ? Where is the line to be 

 drawn ? A mere selection is valueless, or next to 

 valueless ; because, setting aside the differences in 

 opinion In such matters, we want to know what 

 conjectures are new, and which are old ? 3. Are 

 the various readings suggested in periodicals to be 

 given ? 4. Can any positive and practical rules 

 be furnished, likely to render such an under- 

 staking useful and successful ? J. O. Halliwell. 



Local Rhymes, Kent. — 



" Between Wickham and Welling 

 There's not an honest man dwelling ; 

 And I'll tell you the reason why, 

 Because Shooters' Hill's so nigh." 



Unless this is preserved in " N". & Q." it will 

 probably be forgotten with the highwaymen, whose 

 proceedings at Shooters' Hill, no doubt, origin- 

 ated it. G. W. Sktring. 



Samuel Pepys's Grammar. — I have lately been 

 looking over the Diary of this very clever person, 

 and I confess it has surprised me to find him, a 

 graduate of Cambridge, and, in fact, I may say a 

 man of letters, constantly employing such vulgar 

 bad grammar as " he do say," and such like. I am 

 the more surprised when, on looking at his letters, 

 even the familiar ones to his cousin Roger and to 

 W. Hewer, I can find nothing of the kind, they 

 being as grammatical and as well written as any 

 of the time. 



My hypothesis is — Lord Bratbrooke can cor- 

 rect me if I am wrong — that Pepys, writing his 

 Diary in short-hand, used one and the same 



character for all the persons of the present tense 

 of do, and that the decypherer did not attend to 

 this circumstance. In his letter to Col. Legge 

 (vol. v. p. 296.), Pepys writes " His R. H. does 

 think," &c., which in the Diary would surely be 

 " His R. H. do think," &c. In a similar way I 

 would account for the use of come instead of came 

 in the Diary, as there is nothing of the kind in 

 the Letters. Should I be right, I may have 

 rendered a slight service to the memory of an 

 able and worthy man. Thos. Keightlet. 



Roman Remains. — In Wright's Celt, Roman, and 

 Saxon, p. 207., a curious Roman altar, dedicated 

 to Silvanus, " ab aprum eximias forme captum," 

 is mentioned as found at Durham. It was found 

 in the wild district to the west, in the neighbour- 

 hood of Stanhope in Weardale, and is preserved 

 in the rectory house there. 



P. 330., figure a. This armilla (?) was not found 

 in Northumberland, but in Sussex, together with 

 several others of the same form, a torques and 

 celts. W. C. Treveltan, 



Wallington. 



To grab. — A very popular writer has lately 

 rightly denounced the use of this word as a vul- 

 garism. Like many other monosyllables used by 

 our working classes, it may plead antiquity in 

 extenuation of its vulgarity. It has been derived 

 from the Welsh word grabiaw, to grasp, and in 

 ancient times was one of our " household words." 

 The retention by a tailor of a portion of the cloth 

 delivered to him, although it had been a usage 

 from time immemorial, might have been considered 

 by our forefathers as a grabbage : we now call it 



N.W. S. 



Curfew at Sandwich. — Sometime back it was 

 stated that the curfew at Sandwich had been dis- 

 continued. It has been resumed in consequence 

 of the opposition made by the inhabitants. The 

 same occurred about twenty years ago. (From in- 

 formation on the spot.) E. M. 



Ecclesiastical Censure. — Ecclesiastical censure 

 was often used in the Middle Ages to enforce 

 civil rights, specially that of the exemption of the 

 clergy from the judgment of a lay tribunal. The 

 following instance thereof is new to me. I have 

 copied it from " Collectanea Gervasii Holies," 

 vol. i. p. 529., Lansdowne MS. 207., in the British 

 Museum : 



« Ex Archls Line. a° 1307, 



" The Major and Burgesses of Grimesby hanged a 

 Preist for theft called Richard of Notingham, Here- 

 upon ye Bp sendes to ye Abbott of Wellow to associate 

 to himselfe twelue adjacent chapleins to examine ye 

 cause, and in St. James his Church Excommunicates all 

 y* had any hand in it of whatsoever condition they 

 were, ye King, Queen, and Prince of Wales excepted ; 



