July 26. 1851.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



63 



lished anno 1614, full nineteen yeeres si thence." 

 Mj authority, however, for tiie *■' three errors in 

 as many lines " is Cole's Collections for an Athena 

 Cantabrigenses. (See Brydges' Restituta, vol. iii. 

 p. 215.) 



6. " Holland also printed a copy of Latin verses 

 before Alexander's Itoxana, 1632." No such work 

 exists. He may have printed verses before the 

 Roxana of W. Alabaster, who was his brother- 

 collegian. 



Answer. My authority again is Cole's Collections 

 in Restituta, vol. iii. p. 215., where, under the head 

 of "Hugh Holland, Fellov/ of Trinity College," is 

 this line : " Has a copy of Latin verses before 

 Dr. Alexander's Roxana, 1632." I shall there- 

 fore leave the shade of Cole and Mr. Bolton 

 Cornet to settle the question as to whether any 

 such work exists. 



I have now disposed of the six statements, and 

 have only to add, that the authoi'ities which I have 

 consulted are those which I have named. 



Edward F. Rimbault. 



" PRENZIE IN "MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 



(Vol. iii., p. 522.) 



The suggestion of primzie is too ingenious, and 

 too apparently happy, to be passed over without 

 adducing some reason for refusing to give it the 

 preference to Tieck's reading of precise. 



The terminal adjuncts zie, sie, some, generally 

 imply some playful diminutive variation of the 

 original word, certainly they never add force or 

 gravity to it: prim, in itself, is a diminutive of 

 primitive, and applies more to external appearance 

 than to internal character. I do not think, there- 

 fore, that even prim would be a word sufficiently 

 dignified for the situation and context; much less 

 is its diminutive /»?•//««!(?. 



It seems to me that the character of Angelo is 

 generally mistaken ; he is too often looked upon as 

 a mere hypocrite, whereas Shakspeare depicts him, 

 before his fall, as a rigid but sincere ascetic. This 

 view of his character accounts for his final con- 

 demnation of Claudio : he has no mercy for the 

 crime, even while committing it himsell'; and he 

 ■was just the man who, had he escaped detection, 

 would probably have passed the remainder of his 

 life in the exercise of self-inflicted penance. 



Viewing Angelo, therefore, as a man proverbial 

 for rigidly virtuous conduct; who stood "at a 

 guard with envy ;" who challenged scrutiny ; and 

 who was above the tongue of slander ; I do not 

 think that primsic can be looked upon as an appro- 

 priate designation in the mouth of Claudio. He 

 would use some word in the greatest possible con- 

 trast to the infamous conduct Isabella was imput- 

 ing to Angelo: primsie would be weak and almost 

 unmeaning, and, as such, I will not receive it as 



Shakspeare's, so long as the choice of a better 

 remains. 



Does not Shakspeare, by his frequent repetition 

 o? precise, in this play, seem purposely to stamp it 

 with that peculiar signification necessary to his 

 meaning, that is, rigidly virtuous ? Another 

 example of it, not. I believe, before noticed, is 

 where Elbow describes his "two notorious bene- 

 factors " as " precise villains," " void of all pro- 

 fanation that good Christians ought to have." 



The humour of this is in the contrast aflbrded by 

 Elbow's association of incongruous and inconsis- 

 tent terms, causing Escalus to exclaim, " Do you 

 hear how he misplaces ?" Precise therefore in this 

 place also requires a meaning as opposite as possible 

 to villany, something 7nore than formal, in order 

 that the humour may be fidly appreciated. 



With respect to Halliwell's quotation from 

 Fletcher's poems, it certainly confers upon prin a 

 very different meaning from any that prim is 

 capable of receiving : the context requires prin to 

 have some signification akin to Jleshless ; like 

 "bodyes at the resurrection, just rarifying into 

 ayre." Prin, in this sense, would seem to have 

 some relation to pi?te, since pin and prin were 

 synonymous. A. E. B. 



Leeds, July, 1851. 



THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. 



(Vol. iii., pp. 166. 230.412.) 



The earliest divisions of the Decalogue are 

 those of Josepluis (^Ant. JiicL, lib. iii. c. v. s. 5.), the 

 Chaldee Paraphrase of Jonathan, and Philo- 

 JudcBus de Decern Oraculis. According to the two 

 former, the 3rd verse of Exod. xx., " Thou shalt 

 have no other gods but me," contains the first 

 commandment, the 4th, 5th, and 6th, the second. 

 Philo makes the Preface or Introduction to be a 

 distinct commandment, as do also St. Jerome 

 and Hesychius. The two latter make what we 

 call the first and second to be the second only ; 

 but Philo does not recite the words " Thou 

 shalt have no other gods but me ;" and whether 

 he understood them in the first or the second, 

 does not hence appear. The same uncertainty is 

 found in Athanasius in Synopsi S. Scripturce. 



It may however be inferred, from these two 

 writers giving the commencement only of the 

 other commandments, that they made the pro- 

 hibition, " Thou shalt not make," &c., in the same 

 manner the commencement of the second ; and 

 therefore joined the other, " Thou shalt have," &c., 

 to the words, " I am the Lord thy God." 



Those which we call the first and second were 

 united by St. Augustine. 



The distinction made by Josephus and the 

 Chiddee Paraphrast, separating the t\TO prohibi- 

 tion.s, was adopted by the following early writers : 

 Origen (Hom. viii. in Exod.) ; Greg. Nazianzen 



