Jan. 25. 1851.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



65 



derived from tlie silence of the writer in the 

 Philosophical Transactions six years afterwards ; 

 strange as sucli silence assuredly appears. After 

 all, the question occurs : AVhat has become of the 

 bodies said to have been preserved ? As all par- 

 ties concur in naming "old j\Ir. Staniforth" as 

 the accoucheur in attendance on ]Mrs. Birch ; and 

 as that gentleman has been dead many years, I 

 called upon his eldest surviving pxipil, Mr. Nichol- 

 son, surgeon, to ask him whether, in conversation, 

 or among the preparations in the surgery of his 

 worthy master, he had ever met witli any illustra- 

 tion of the parturition in question ? He replied 

 that he liad not. It may not, perliaps, be out of 

 place here to riiention tliat the above-named JNlr. 

 Nicholson, surgeon, himself delivered a poor wo- 

 man of five children, on tiie lOtli of February, 

 1829, at Handsworth Woodhouse, near Slieffield. 

 This case was even more remarkable than that 

 which gave occasion to the paper which was read 

 before the Royal Society in 1787, inasmuch as not 

 only were four of the children born alive, but 

 three of them lived to be baptized. N. D. 



Sheffield, Jan. 13. 1851. 



SHAKSPEAKE S USE OF " CAPTIOUS. 



(Vol. ii., p. 354.) 



In All's Well that Ends Well, Act I. So. 3., 

 Helena says to the Countess, speaking of her 

 love for Bertram, — 



" I know 1 love in vain ; strive against hope ; 

 Yet; in this captious and intenible sieve, 

 T still pour in the waters of my love, 

 And lack not to lose still." 



It is not without hesitation that I venture to 

 oppose Mr. Singer on a point on which he is so 

 well entitled to give an opinion. Bat I cannot 

 help thinking that Mr. Singer's explanation, be- 

 sides being somewhat too refined and recondite, is 

 less applicable to the general sense and drift of 

 the passage than that of Steevens, which jMalone 

 and Mr. Collier have adopted. 



What I think wanting to Steevens' interpreta- 

 tion, is an increase, if I may so express myself, of 

 intensity. He takes the word, I conceive, in its 

 right bearing, but does not give it all the requisite 

 force. I should sussest that it means not merely 

 " recipient, capable of receiving," but, to coin a 

 woril, captations, eager or greedy to receive, ab- 

 sorbing ; as we say avidum mwe, or a greedy gulf. 

 The Latin analogous to it in this sense would bo, 

 not capax, or ^1r. Singer's captiosus, but captax, 

 or captabnndus ; neither of which words, however, 

 occurs. 



The sense of the word, like that of many others 

 in the same author, must be determined by the 

 scope and object of the passage in which it is used. 



The object of Helena, in declaring her love to the 

 Countess, is to show the all-absorbing nature of it ; 

 to jDrove that she is tola in illo ; and that, however 

 she may strive to stop the cravings of it, her en- 

 deavours are of no more use than the attempt to 

 fill up a bottomless abyss. 



The i-eader may, if he pleases, compare her case 

 with that of other ho-oines in like predicaments. 

 Thus ftledsea, in Apollonius Rhodius : 



" Tl6.VTf) fioi (ppeves elalv biX''i}X'^voi, ov5€ tis oAK)) 

 nv,i.iaTOs." 



And the same lady in Ovid: 



" Luctata diu, postqiiam ratione furorem, 



Vincere non poterat. Frustra, Medea, repugnas. 

 ****** 



Excute virgineo conceptas pectore flammas, 



Si potes, iiitVlix. Si possem sanior essem : 



Sed trahit invitam nova vis." 



Or Dido, in Virgil or Ovid : 



" Ille qiiidem male gratus, et ad mimera surdus ; 



Et quo si non sim stiilta carere velira : 



Non tamen IE.nea.m, quamvis male cogitat, odi ; 



Sed queror infidum, questaque pejus arao." 



Or PhtEdra, in Seneca : 



" Furor cogit sequi 



Pejora : vadit animus in prjeceps sciens, 

 Remeatque, frustra sana consilia appetens. 

 Sic cum gravatam navita adversa ratetn 

 Propellit unda, cedlt in vanum labor, 

 Et victa prono puppis aufertur vado." 



The complaints of all are alike ; they lament that 

 they make attempts to resist their passion, but 

 find it not to be resisted ; that they are obliged at 

 last to yield themselves entirely to it, and to feel 

 their whole thoughts, as it were, swallowed up 

 by it. 



Such being the way in which Shakspeare repre- 

 sents Helena, and such the sentiments which he 

 puts into her mouth, it seems evident that the in- 

 terpretation of captious in the sense of absorbent is 

 better adapted to the passage than the explanation 

 of it in the sense o^ fallacious. 



" I know I love in vain, and strive against hope; 

 yet into this insatiable and iinretaining sieve I still pour 

 in the waters of my love, and fail not to lose still." 



I said that the sense oi fallacious seemed to be 

 too refined and recondite. To believe that Shak- 

 speare borrowed his captious in this sense, from 

 the Latin captiosus, we must suppose that he was 

 well acquainted with the exact sense of the Latin 

 word ; a supposition which, in regard to a man 

 who had small Latin, v/c can scarcely be justified 

 in entertaining. This interpretation is, therefore, 

 too recondite ; and to imagine Helena as ajiplying 

 the word to Bertram as being " incapable of re- 

 ceiving her love," and " truly captious " (or de- 

 ceitful and ensnaring) "in that respect," is surely 

 to indulge in too much refinement of exposition. 



That Shakspeare had in his mind, as Mr. Singeb 



