436 



NOTES AND QUEEIES. 



[2"^ S. TI. 152., Nov. 27. '58. 



and thus show the absurdity of all that is said 

 about the authority of the folio Shakspeare, and 

 Beaumont and Fletcher, &c. I however think 

 that Mr. Halliwell might have been less chary of 

 his notes. 



I will say nothing of the Dramas, but I will 

 take this occasion of correcting a place or two in 

 the " Satires" and the " Scourge of Villainy." 



" M.iking men think thee gracious in his sight, 

 When he esteems thee parasite." — Sat. i. p. 213. 



Now surely but his, or something of the kind, 

 has been omitted before " parasite." In the same 

 Satire, speaking of Sorbo in office and men 

 " capping" to him, he says : — 



" IsTo-vv Sorbo swels with selfe-conceited sence, 

 Thinking that men do yeeld this reverence 

 Unto his vertiies : fond credulity ! 

 Asses, take of Isis, no man honours thee." 



Now what is the meaning of " take of Isis ? " 

 Is there any one who understands it ? Mr. Hal- 

 liwell, I am certain, does not, or he would have 

 given a note on it. And he need not be ashamed 

 of it ; for such things are usually discovered by a 

 lucky chance ; tbey flash as it were on the mind. 

 I myself had nearly given it up in despair, when 

 I thought of the Lord Mayor and the collar of SS, 

 and then I saw at once that we should read " take 

 ofi" Esses," or rather " the Esses," and the passage 

 became quite clear. But only think of such a 

 blunder escaping the eye of the author ! 



" If not no title of my senselesse change. 



To wrest some forced rime, but freelj' range." (P. 270.) 



Any one, I think, who will examine the con- 

 text will see that we should read tiille and sense 

 Tie, i. q. I'll. 



In Marstou, as in Shakspeare and others, and 

 is frequently omitted by the printer : — 



" Bedlam (and) Frenzie, Madnes, Lunacie " (p. 224.). 



" Pidlers {and) scriveners, pedlers, tynkering knaves, 

 Base blew-coates, tapsters (and) broad-minded slaves." 



(P. 243.) 

 I find I have corrected many other places, but 

 these may suffice to prove my position. 



AVith such examples before our eyes, should 

 we hesitate to correct the metre in Shakspeare, 

 who never printed any of his plays ? For ex- 

 ample : — 



" What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me ? 

 What wheels? rocks? fires? What flavii^g? boiling 

 In leads or oils? "—Winter's Tale, Act III. Sc. 2. 



Now surely no one who is not a worshipper of 

 the old printers will believe that Shakspeare 

 wrote such mere prose as this, and not — 



" What studied torments, tyrant, hast thou for me ? 

 What wheels? ivhat racks? what &K&7 ichat flaying, 

 boiling ? " 



In this easy simple manner the metre may be 

 corrected in numerous places, and I have done so 

 in my copy. Thos. Keightlet. 



SIR GEORGE C.\EEW. 



(2"-^ S. vi. 395.) 



I am inclined to think that Mr. TncKETT has 

 fallen into the very common error of confounding 

 two persons of this name. Sir George Carew, 

 created Baron Carew of Clopton, 1603, and Earl 

 of Totnes, 1625, was an eminent antiquary and 

 genealogist ; and the first part of the Query would 

 seem to apply to him rather than to Sir George 

 Carew, the son of Sir Wymond Carew of Antony, 

 and uncle (not brother) of Richard, the historian 

 of Cornwall. The latter Sir George, so far as I 

 am aware, was not particularly addicted to anti- 

 quarian pursuits. The former was of the Ottery 

 Mohun family. He was a friend of Camden, 

 whom he assisted in the preparation of the Bri- 

 tannia, of Sir Eobert Cotton, and Sir Thomas 

 Bodley. He was also intimately connected with 

 John Hooker of Exeter, who acted as the agent 

 of Sir Peter Carew in the recovery of his Irish 

 estates, whose heir'Sir George Carew became upon 

 the death of his elder brother Sir Peter Carew 

 the younger, in 1580. He made a very large and 

 valuable collection of MSS. — historical, genealo- 

 gical, and heraldic : about forty volumes of which, 

 chiefly relating to Ireland, remain in Lambeth 

 Library, and a considerable number are preserved 

 in the Bodleian. I have prepared a Life of this 

 nobleman, which is ready for the pi-ess, and it is 

 probable a short sketch of his career will appear 

 in a few weeks in the Imperial Dictionary of Bio- 

 graphy. 



Of Sir George Carew, the ambassador, I am not 

 able to say much beyond what is stated in the 

 Quei'y. He appears, however, not to have been a 

 Prothonotary in Chancery until IGll, when that 

 office was granted to him jointly with his son 

 Francis, together with the privilege of making 

 letters patent of pardon and outlawry, and all 

 writs of supplicavit and supersedeas. (<S. P. O. 

 Gi-ant Booh, p. 67.) He was made Master of the 

 Wards in July 1612 {Dom. Cor., vol. Ixx. 17.), 

 and died in November the same year {Idem, vol. 

 Ixxi. p. 33.) Sir Matthew Carew, brother of this 

 Sir George, writing to Carleton on Oct. 4, 1617, 

 mentions that Sir George Carew's daughter, Anne, 

 was married, against her mother's will, to Eaw- 

 lings, a servant of the king. {Idem, vol. xciii. 

 p. 112.) John Maclean. 



Hammersmith. 



WHAT IS A BEDSTAFF ? 



(2-^* S. vi. 347.) 



In seeking an explanation of this term, as it 

 occurs in the English translation of Rabelais 

 (" The grim fiend would have mowed him down 

 in the twinkling of a bed-staff,") it is to the 

 original Rabelais that in the first instance one 



