228 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



tao'' S. VI. 142., Sept, 18. '58. 



columns to a subject of so much interest and im- 

 portance. Edw. Y. Lowne. 



War, its meaning in Shakspearc. — In a passage 

 in Timoii of Athens hereinafter quoted, this word 

 lias sorely troubled the commentators. It is curi- 

 ous to observe hov>r near a critic is at times to a 

 true interpretation or a true lection, and yet fails 

 to reach it. 



In ir. Hen. IV. Act I. Sc. 2., we read : — 



Chief Justice. " What! you are as a candle, the better 

 pait burnt out." 



Fahtiiff. " A wassel candle, my Lord ; all tallow : if I 

 did say olwax, my growth would approve the truth." 



On this Johnson says, " There is a poor quibble 

 upon the word ivax, which signifies increase as 

 well as the matter of the honey-comb," — a com- 

 ment characteristic of the pretentious dogmatism 

 of the lexicographer ! In the first place, the quib- 

 ble is an excellent one ; and, in the second, ivax 

 does not exactly mean increase, but the condition 

 which is the result of growth. FalstafT is a man 

 of wax ; the truth of which statement is evidenced 

 by his growth. Johnson thus narrowly escaped 

 hitting on the true signification, which may ac- 

 count for his having totally mistaken the sense of 

 the phrase, " Why, he's a man of wax," in Borneo 

 and Juliet, Act I. Sc. 3. The variorum commenta- 

 tors agree that this phrase means that Romeo was 

 " waxen, well-shaped, fine-turned ; " " as if he bad 

 been modelled in wax " (Steevens). A more 

 ludicrous mistake was never made. " A man of 

 wax " means a sufficient man, a man who has grown 

 to his full strength and puberty. 



Now, in Timon of Athens, Act I. Sc. 1., occurs 

 the remarkable passage : — 



Pottt. "You see this confluence, this great flood of visi- 

 tors. 

 I have, in this rough work, shap'd out a man. 

 Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug 

 With amplest entertainment : IMy free drift 

 Halts not particuUirly, but moves itself 

 In a wide sea of wax : no levell'd malice 

 Infects one comma in the course I hold ; 

 But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on, 

 Leaving no track behind." 



In the phrase " in a wide sea of wax," the com- 

 mentators can see nothing but an obscure allusion 

 to the custom of the ancients to write on imixen 

 tablets. That such an allusion never entered 

 Shakspeare's mind will soon be evident to every 

 reader. Let us inquire whether Shakspeare ever 

 associates the verb icax with the amplitude of the 

 sea. Compare the following : — 

 " For now I stand as one upon a rock, 

 Environ'd with a wilderness of sea; 

 Who marks the waxincj tide grnw wave by wave, 

 Expecting ever when some envious surge 

 Will jn his brinish Rowels swallow him." 



Titus Andr., Act IIL Sc. L 

 " . . , . His pupil age 

 l^Ian'enter'd thus, he waxed like a sea." 



Coriolanus, Act H, Sc. 2, 



It only remains to examine the context of the 

 phrase in Timon of Athens, to determine exactly 

 the sense of the latter. The poet calls Timon's 

 visitors a "confluence" and a "flood;" and as a 

 confluence of waters and a flood-tide are properly 

 applicable to the sea, we can readily perceive that, 

 in the poet's mind, the court is a sea. He calls 

 the purport of his poem, or "rough work," his 

 " free drift," which does not pause to criticise or 

 satirise this or that particular person, but " moves 

 itself in a wide sea of wax ; " that is, its scope com- 

 prises the whole concourse of courtiers, in all its 

 extent and fulness, as a sea at a flood or spring tide. 

 Had the passage stood, " moves itself in a wide- 

 waxen sea," every commentator would have un- 

 derstood the phrase, and we should have read no 

 nonsense about " waxen tablets " in the varioiiim 

 notes. I may add that I was originally led to the 

 true sense of this passage by comparing it with 

 one in Hamlet : — 



" And as this temple waxes, 

 The inward service of the mind and soul 

 Groivs wide withal." • 



I also owe it to your Quondam correspondent 

 A. E. B. that I was rescued from committing my- 

 self to the emendation, " wide- waxen." 



C. Mansfield Inglebt. 



Birmingham. 



Cochul. — In a series of papers appearing in the 

 Greenock Advertiser, giving an account of the 

 scenery and traditions of the West Highlands of 

 Scotland, there are some pleasant incidental notes. 

 The following is one apropos of a legend of Ar- 

 ran :— ■ 



'"Cochul ' is a now almost obsolete Gaelic word, which 

 was used to express the scaly integument popularly sup- 

 po.sed to conceal the lower limbs of the fabulous mer- 

 maiden, and which it was believed she had the privilege 

 of throwing otf at times and appearing in mortal guise. 

 In its original signification cochul means the husk, not 

 the shell, of a nut, therein differing from the Latin cocA/ea, 

 and the Greek kochlns, to which at first sight it hears 

 no little likeness. It has been suggested to me by an 

 ingenious friend, that from this word cochul may have 

 been derived the ' coil ' used by Hamlet — 



'When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,' 



which expression seems to want force, if taken, as usually 

 understood, to mean a stir, a tumult, or a bustle ; and 

 which is quite appropriate in the mouth of poor Juhet, 

 when her impatience has excited the petulance of the 

 nurse, and she exclaims 



' Here's such a coil," 



which in modern parlance would probably be rendered, 

 ' What a mess I've made.' But surel}- the philosophic 

 Hamlet means something more than the mere getting out 

 of a row. Life, to he sure, is at the best but a tumult, 

 and as such it is rendered by the paraphrast of the patient 

 and pious Job : — 



'How still and peaceful is the grave, 

 Where, life's vain tumults past ; ' 



but, still, it appears to me that the words of Hamlet 



