218 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 73. 



assist in the good cause, by sending memoranda 

 of inscriptions to Mr. Dunkin. L. J. 



Plymouth. 



The following letter from the Rev. E. S. Taylor 

 proposes a Society for the purpose: — 



I for one sliall be happy to co-operate with 

 Mr.Puacock in this useful worlc; and I trust that, 

 through the valuable medium of '■ Notes and 

 Qderies," many will be induced to offer their 

 assistance. Could not a Society Iwj formed for the 

 purpose, so that mutual correspondence might 

 take place ? E. S. Taylor. 



Martham, Norfolk. 



We doubt the necessity, and indeed the advisability, 

 of the foniiation of any such Society. 



Mr,. Peacock (anic, p. 1 17.) has already wisely sug- 

 gested, that " in time a copy of every inscription in 

 every chuieli in England might be ready for reference 

 in our National Library," and we have as little doubt 

 that the MS. department of the British Museum is the 

 proper place of deposit for such records, as that tlie 

 trustees would willingly accept the charge of them on 

 the recommendation of their present able and active 

 Keeper of the Manuscripts. What he, and what the 

 trustees would require, would be some soGurity that 

 the documents were what they professed to be ; and 

 this might very properly be accomplished through the 

 agency of such a Society as Mr.. Tatlok proposes, if 

 there did not already exist a Society upon whom such a 

 duty might very safely be devolved : — and have we not, 

 in the greater energy which that Societv has latelv dis- 

 played, evidence that it would undertake a duty for 

 which it seems pre-eminently fitted ? We allude to the 

 Sjciety of Antiquaries. The anxiety of Lord Malion, 

 its president, to promote the efficiency of that Society, 

 has recently been made evident in many ways ; and we 

 cannot doubt that he would sanction the formation of 

 a sub-commiitee for the purpose of assisting in col- 

 lecting and preserving a record of all existing monu- 

 ments, or that he would find a lack of able men to serve 

 on such a committee, when he numbers among the 

 official or active Fellows of the Society gentlemen so 

 peculiarly fitted to carry out this important national 

 object, as Mr. Hunter, Sir Charles Young, Mr. J. 

 Pavne Collier, and Mr. Bruce. 



ON THE WORD " RACk" IN SnAKSPEARE's TEMPEST. 



As another ill\istrati( n of the cai-eless or super- 

 ficial manner in which the meaning of Shakspeare 

 has been sought, allow me to call attention to the 

 celebrated passage in the Tempest in which the 

 word " rack" occiu-s. The passage really presents 



no difficulty ,- and the meaning of the word, as it 

 appears to me, might as well be settled at once 

 and for ever. I make this assertion, not dogmati- 

 cally, but with the view of testing the correctness 

 of my opinion, that this is not at all a question of 

 etymology, but entirely one of construction. The 

 passage reads as follows : — 



" These, our actors. 

 As I foretold you, were all spirits, and 

 Are melted into air, into thin air : 

 And, like the baseless fabrick of this vision. 

 The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, 

 The solemn temples, the great globe itself. 

 Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve ; 

 And, like this insubstaiitial pageant, faded. 

 Leave uot a rack behind." — Temjiest, Act IV. Sc. L 



As I have expressed my opinion that this is nofc 

 at all a question of etymology, I shall not say 

 more in reference to this view of the case than 

 that " rack," spelt as in Shakspeare, is a word in 

 popular and every-day use in the phrase "rock 

 and ruin ;" that we have it in the term " rack off," 

 as applied to wine, meaning to take jrom the rack, 

 or, in otiier words, "to leave a rack" or re- 

 fuse "behind," racked wine being wine drawn 

 from the loes ; and that it is, I believe, still in use 

 in parts of England, meaning remains or refuse, as, 

 in the low German, " der ^^'raek" means the same 

 thing. Misled, however, by an unusual mode of 

 spelling, and unacquainted with the literature of 

 Shakspeare's age, certain of the commentators 

 suggested the readings of track and trace; where- 

 u[)on Home Tooke remarks : — 



" The ignorance and presumption of his commenta- 

 tors have shamefully dijiigured Shaksjicare's text. The 

 first folio, notwitlistanding some few palpable misprints, 

 requires none of their alterationr:. Had they under- 

 stood English as well as he did, they would not have 

 quarrelled with his language." — Diversions of Purleij, 

 p. 595. 



He proceeds to show that rack " is merely the 

 past tense, and therefore past participle, peac or 

 pec, of the Anglo-Saxon verb Recall, exlialare, to 

 reek; and although the advocates of its being a 

 particular description of light cloud refer to him 

 as an authority for their reading, he treats it 

 throughout generally as " a vapour, a steam, or an 

 exhalation." But Home Tooke, in his zeal as an 

 etymologist, forgot altogether to attend to the 

 construction of the passage. What is it that shall 

 "leave not a rack behind?" A rack of what ? 

 Xot of the baseless fitbric of tliis vision, like 

 wliich the "cloud-capp'd towers shall dissolve," — 

 not of this insubstantial pageant, like which they 

 shall have faded, — but of " the cloud-capp'd 

 towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn tem])les, 

 the great globe itself." There is in fact a double 

 comparison ; but the construction and the meaning 

 are perfectly clear, and no word will suit the pas- 

 sage but one that shall express a result common 



