May 25. 1850.] 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
485 
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, — 
We'd jump the life to come.” 
Now, I think by altering the punctuation, the 
sense of the passage is at once made apparent, as 
thus, — 
“ If it were done when ’tis done then ’twere well. 
It were done quickly, if the assassination 
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch, 
With his surcease, success, that but this blow 
Might be the be-all and the end all here,” &e. 
but to make use of a paradox, it is not done when 
it 7s done; for this reason, there is the conscience 
to torment the evil-doer while living, and the 
dread of punishment in another world after death : 
the “bank and shoal of time” refers to the inter- 
val between life and death, and to “jump” the life 
to come is to hazard it. The same thought occurs 
in Hamlet, when he alludes to— 
“ That undiscovered country, from whose bourne 
No traveller returns.” 
But that is clear enough, as in all probability the 
annotators left the passage as they found it. I 
have not the opportunity of consulting Mr. Collier’s 
edition of Shakspeare, so that I am unaware of 
the manner in which he renders it; perhaps I 
ought to have done so before I troubled you. 
Possibly some of your readers may be disposed to 
coincide with me in the “new reading ;” and if 
not, so to explain it that it may be shown it is my 
own obscurity, and not Shakspeare’s, with which 
I ought to cavil. 
I have witnessed many representations of Mac- 
beth, and in every instance the passage referred 
to has been delivered as I object to it: but that is 
not to be wondered at, for there are professed 
admirers of Shakspeare among actors who read 
him not as if they understood him, but who are— 
« Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” 
eG Bux. 
MINOR QUERIES, 
As throng as Throp’s Wife.— As I was busy in 
my garden yesterday, a parishioner, whose cighty- 
two years of age render her a somewhat privileged 
person to have a gossip with, came in to speak to 
me. With a view to eliciting material for a Note 
or a Query, I said to her, “ You see I am as throng 
as Throp's wife;” to which she replied, “ Aye, 
Sir, and she hanged herself in the dishcloth.” The 
answer is new to me; but theproverb itself, as 
) well as the one mentioned by “ D. V. 8.” (No. 24. 
| p- 382.) “As lazy as Ludlum's dog, &c.,” has been 
an especial object of conjecture to me as long as 
Tcan remember. I send this as a pendant to 
| *)D. V.S.’3” Query, in hopes of shortly seeing the 
_ origin of both these curious sayings. J.E. 
Ecclesfield, Sheffield, April 19, 1850. 
Trimble Family.—In a MS. account of the 
Fellows of King’s I find the following : — 
**1530.— Rich. Trimble, a very merry fellow, the 
fiddle of the society, who called him ‘ Mad Trimble.’ 
M. Stokes of 1531 wrote this distich on him: — 
‘ Os, oculi, mentum, dens, guttur, lingua, palatum 
Sunt tibi; sed nasus, ‘l’rimbale, dic ubi sit ?’ 
By which it appears he had a very small nose; and 
this day, July 13, 1739, I hear that there is one Mr. 
R,. Trimble of an English family, an apothecary at 
Lisburn in Ireland, who is remarkable for the same.” 
As “ Notrs anp Querres” circulate in Ireland, 
are there any of the family of “ Trimble” now in 
that country, and are they distinguished by any 
such peculiarity ? J. H. L. 
The Word “ Brozier.” —My brother Etonians 
will feelingly recollect the word “ Brozier,” used 
by the boys for nearly a century to denote any 
one who had spent his pocket-money ; an event of 
very frequent occurrence shortly after the holi- 
days. ‘There were also sometimes attempts made 
to “brozier my dame,” in case a suspicion had 
arisen that the good lady’s larder was not too 
well supplied. The supper table was accordingly 
cleared of all the provisions, and a further stock 
of eatables peremptorily demanded. 
I spell the word “brozier” as it is still pro- 
nounced ; perhaps some of your readers have seen 
it in print, and may be able to give some account 
of its origin and etymology, and decide whether it 
is exclusively belonging to Eton. 
BRaAYBROOKE, 
April 14. 
REPLIES. 
THE DODO QUERIES. 
There is no mention of the Solitaire as inhabit- 
ing Bourbon, either in Pere Brown’s Letter or in 
the Voyage de l Arabie Heureuse, from whence the 
notice of the Oiseau Bleu was extracted. I have 
since seen Dellon, Rélation @un Voyage des Indes 
Orientales, 2 vols. 12mo. Paris, 1685, in which 
there is a brief notice of the Isle of Bourbon or 
Mascarin; but neither the Dodo, the Solitaire, or 
the Oiseau Bleu are noticed. The large Bat is 
mentioned, and the writer says that the French 
who were on the island did not eat it, but only 
the Indians. He also notices the tameness of the 
birds, and says that the Flammand, with its long 
neck, is the only bird it was necessary to use a 
gun against, the others being readily destroyed 
with a stick or taken by hand. 
Mr. Strickland’s correction of the error about 
the monumental evidence of the discovery of 
Bourbon by the Portuguese, in 1545, will aid 
research into the period at which it was first 
visited and named; but my stock of Portuguese 
literature is but small, and not all of it accessible 
