260 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 47. 



must be indulgeil in citing at leugtli, that the con- 

 text may the more clearly show what was really 

 the poet's meaning : — 



" Enter Ferdinand hearing a Log. 

 " Ftr. There be some sports are painful ; and their 

 labour 

 Delight in them sets off; some kinds of baseness 

 Are nobly undergone; and most poor matters 

 Point to rich ends. This my mean task 

 Would be as lieavy to me, as odious ; but 

 The mistress, which I serve, (juickens what's dead, 

 And makes my labours pleasures : O ! she is 

 Ten times more gentle than her father's crabbed ; 

 And he's composed of harshness. I must remove 

 Some thousands of ihese logs, and pile them up, 

 Upon a sore injunction : My sweet mistress 

 Weeps when she sees me work ; and says such bu^siness 

 Had never like executor. I forget: 

 But these sweet thouglits do even refresh my labours ; 

 Most busy lest when I do it." 



Mr. Collier reads these last two lines thus — 

 " But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours ; 

 Most busy, least when 1 do it." 



with the following note — 



" The meaning of this passage seems to have been 

 misunderstood by all the commentators. Ferdinand 

 says that the thoughts of Miranda so refresh liis labours, 

 that when he is most busy he seems to feel his toil 

 least. It is printed in the folio 162:5, — 

 ' Most busy lest when I do it,' 



— a trifling error of the press, corrected in the folio 1632, 

 although Theobald tells us that both the oldest edi- 

 tions read lest. Not catching the poet's meaning, he 

 printed, — 



' Most hu&y-less when I do it,' 



and his supposed emendation has ever since been taken 

 as the tjxt; even Capell adopted it. I am ha|ipy in 

 having Mr. Amyot's concurrence in this restoration." 



Mr. Knight adopts Theobald's reading, and Mr. 

 Dyce approves it in the following words : — 



" When Theobald made the emendation, ' Most busy- 

 less^ he observed that ' the corruption was so verv 

 little removed from the trutli of the text, that he could 

 not afford to think well of his own sagacity for having 

 discovered it.' The correction is, indeed, so obvious, 

 that we may well wonder that it had escaped his pre- 

 decessors ; but we must wonder ten times more that 

 one of his successors, in a blind reverence for tlie old 

 copy, should re-vitiate the text, and defend a corruption 

 which outrages language, taste, and common sense." 



Although at an earlier period of life I too 

 adopted Theobald's supposed emendation, it never 

 satisfied me. I have my doubts whether tliu 

 word husyleas existed in the poet's time ; and 

 if it did, whether he could possibly have used it 

 here. Now it is clear that labours J^^gifiU^lt 

 for labour ; else, to what does '^^B^B^P'n'^' 

 refer ? Busy lest is only a typmjpl^^^rerror for 

 tusyest : the double superlative was commonly 



used, being considered as more emphatic, by the 

 poet and his contemporaries. 



Thus in Hamlet's letter, Act ii. Sc. 2. : 

 " I love thee best, O most best." 

 and in King Lear, Act ii. Sc. 3. : 



" To take the basest and most poorest shape." 

 The passage will then stand thus : — 

 " But these sweet thoughts, do even refresh my labour, 

 Most busiest when I do it." 



The sense will be perhaps more evident by a 

 mere transposition, preserving every word : 

 " But these sweet thoughts, most busiest when I do 



My labour, do even refresh it." 



Here we have a clear sense, devoid of all am- 

 biguity, and confirmed by what precedes ; that his 

 labours are made pleasures, being beguiled by 

 these sweet thoughts of his mistress, which are 

 busiest when he labours, because it excites in his 

 mind the memory of her "weeping to see him 

 work." The correction has also the recommen- 

 dation of being effected in so sini])!e ii manner 

 as by merely taking away two superfluous letters. 

 I trust I need say no more ; secure of the approba- 

 tion of those who (to use the words of an esteemed 

 friend on another occasion) feel " that niakinff 

 an opaque spot in a great work transparent is not 

 a labour to be scorned, and that there is a pleasant 

 sympathy between the critic and bard — dead 

 though he be — -on such occasions, which is an 

 ample reward." S. W. Singer. 



Mickleham, Aug. 30. 1850. 



PUNISHMENT OF DE.\TH BY BURNING. 



(Vol. ii., pp. 6. 50. 90. 1C5.) 



In the "Notes and Queries" of Saturday, the 

 10th of August, Sene.x; gives some account of the 

 burning of a female in the Old Bailey, "about the 

 year 1788." 



Having myself been present at the last execution 

 of a female in Lond(jii, where the body was burnt 

 (being probably that to which Senex refers), and 

 as few persons who were then present may now be 

 alive, I beg to mention some circuuistunces relative 

 to that execution, which appear wo be worthy of 

 notice. ^-;.. 



Our criminal lajg^as then most severe and 

 cruel : the leo-alj^ffMshmenl^of females convicted 

 of high li:««»OT> ^^fcB#fty treason was burning; 

 coining was lieldHPI high treason; and murder 

 of ft husband was petty treason. 



I see it stated in the Ge title niaji's Magazine, that 

 on the 13th of ilarch, 1789, — 



" ■] he Recorder of London made his report to His 

 jNIajesty of the prisoners under sentence of death in 

 Newgate, convicted in the Sessions of September, 

 October, November, and January (forty-six in number), 



