358 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2-"» S. IX. May 12. '60. 



which, I suppose, is not owing to the change of 

 popular tastes, inasmuch as there always has been 

 a great love of the marvellous among clergy as 

 well as laity ; and some of the contents of this 

 work have been often printed. The true reason 

 why this edition has been, as it .appears to me, 

 suppressed, is the presence in it of Friar Robert's 

 animadversions. This is the fly in the ointment 

 which would ensure dislike. I know not whether 

 the book appears in any of the Indexes Expurga- 

 torii and Prohibitorum. But this would not be 

 requisite to secure it opposition and» distrust ; it 

 carries with it its own condemnation. The out- 

 break of the Reformation would render such a 

 production doubly dangerous, and no doubt 

 every endeavour would be put forth to repress it. 

 To this circumstance we owe the almost complete 

 extinction of the first edition of the Latin version 

 of Hernias — a work of undoubted antiquity, what- 

 ever value may be put upon it by a rigidly scien- 

 tific criticism. B. H. C. 



TRANSPOSITION. 



It is, I think, a most just remark of Mr. Bran- 

 dreth, in his curious edition of the Iliad, that no 

 liberty is so lawful to an editor as that of trans- 

 position. He has himself used it, sometimes to 

 the great improvement of the text ; and I met 

 with, not long since, but unluckily neglected to 

 note it, a line in one of the chorusses of iEs- 

 ohylus where a simple transposition restores the 

 metre, and yet no one of the editors seems to 

 have observed it. It is, in fact, one of the very 

 last remedies that an editor thinks of having re- 

 course to. 



As our great poet is Shakspeare, and as his text 

 is in the worst condition of almost any of our old 

 poets, all the appliances of criticism should be 

 used to educe his true meaning and to restore the 

 harmony of his verse. I will, therefore, give a 

 couple of instances of the use that may be made 

 of transposition for this purpose. 



To begin with the metre. Can anything be 

 more inharmonious than 



■ Well- fitted in arts, glorious in arms." 



Love's Labour's Lost, Act II. Sc. 1. 

 But transpose 



" In arts well-fitted, glorious in arms, 

 and what is more harmonious ? 



Again, a la Steevens : — 



" If the first that did th' edict infringe." 



Measure for Measure, Act II. Sc. 2. 

 is mere prose ; but transpose, and see the effect 1 

 " If the first that the edict did infringe." 



I could give many more, but let these suffice. 



Then for the sense. Is not the following pure 

 nonsense ? 



" ' • . . . Waving thy head, 

 Which often, thus, correcting thy stout heart, 



Now humble as the ripest mulberry, 

 That will not hold the handling : or say to them." 

 Coriolanus, Act III. Sc. 2. 

 Now read the second line thus : 

 " Often thus ; which correcting thy stout heart," 



and omit the or in the last line, and see if the 

 passage does not acquire sense — for the first time 

 in its life. The pr was, as is so frequently the 

 case, put in by the printer to try to remedy the 

 confusion he had introduced. 

 Again : 



" And yet the spacious breadth of this division 

 Admits no orifice for a point, as subtle 

 As Ariachne's broken woof, to enter." 



Troilus and Cress., Act V. Sc. 2. 



A point as subtle as a broken woof! and 

 Ariachne written by one so well read in Golding's 

 Ovid! 



Let us apply the talisman of transposition : 



" And yet the spacious breadth of this division, 

 As subtle as Arachne's broken woof, 

 Admits no orifice for a point to enter." 



Subtle is the Latin sabtilis, "fine-spun;" and 

 he says " broken woof" probably because Minerva 

 tore Arachne's web to pieces. The printer intro- 

 duced Ariachne to complete the metre. 



Thos. Keightley. 





TOMBSTONES, EPITAPHS, ETC. 



Tombstones in their varied forms have recently 

 undergone a searching investigation into their 

 history, formation, and materials. But of the 

 one very common alike in England, France, and 

 Belgium, made rectangular on one side and 

 aslant on the other, reducing the width at the 

 foot about five or six . inches less than at the 

 head, very few remarks have been made, and 

 probably no attempt to explain the significant 

 distinction. They are rarely, if ever, inscribed or 

 indented with crosses or inlaid with brasses; the 

 surface is always flat, but the sides are occasion- 

 ally moulded with projections and cavities. It 

 is most desirable to ascertain whether the inclined 

 line is always on the left, or, in military language, 

 on the sword side, or if pastoral, what is thereby 

 signified. 



Boutell, the most searching of the recent au- 

 thors upon the subject, at p. 9. of his Christian 

 Monuments, says : " But in some examples the ta- 

 pering form is found to have been produced by a 

 slope on one side only, the other being worked at 

 right angles at both ends of the coffin." To this 

 suggestion the following foot-note is appended : 

 " These were evidently designed to be placed in 

 immediate connexion with one of the walls of the 

 church." 



It is scarcely possible to conceive one of the 

 leading principles of Egyptian architecture would 

 have been intruded upon the Gothic style, and for 



