230 LIBRARY OF OLD AUTHORS. 



mean, why, you might as well think Death was a sense, one of 

 the senses. See a like phrase at p. 77. What help we should 

 get by thinking Death one of the senses, it would demand 

 another GEdipus to unriddle. Mr. Halliwell can astonish us no 

 longer, but we are surprised at Mr. Dilke, the very competent 

 editor of the Old English Plays, 1815. From him we might 

 have hoped for better things. Death o sense ! is an exclama 

 tion. Throughout these volumes we find a for o\ as, a clock 

 for o clock/ * a the side for o the side. A similar exclama 

 tion is to be found in three other places in the same play, where 

 the sense is obvious. Mr. Halliwell refers to one of them on 

 p. 77, Death a man ! is she delivered? The others are, 

 * Death a justice ! are we in Normandy ? (p. 98) ; and Death 

 a discretion ! if I should prove a foole now, or, as given by Mr. 

 Halliwell, l Death, a discretion ! Now let us apply Mr. Halli- 

 well s explanation. Death a man! you might as well think 

 Death was a man, that is, one of the men ! or a discretion, 

 that is, one of the discretions ! or a justice, that is, one of the 

 quorum ! We trust Mr. Halliwell may never have the editing 

 of Bob Acres s imprecations. * Odd s triggers ! he would say, 

 that is, as odd as, or as strange as, triggers. 



Vol. iii. p. 77, the vote- killing mandrake. Mr. HalliwelPs 

 note is, vote-killing. &quot;Voice-killing,&quot; ed. 1613. It may well 

 be doubted whether either be the correct reading. He then 

 gives a familiar citation from Browne s ( Vulgar Errors. Vote- 

 killing may be a mere misprint for note-killing, but voice- 

 killing is certainly the better reading. Either, however, makes 

 sense. Although Sir Thomas Browne does not allude to the 

 deadly property of the mandrake s shriek, yet Mr. Halliwell, who 

 has edited Shakspeare, might have remembered the 



Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake s groan. 



(Second Part of Henry VI. Act III. Scene 2), 



and the notes thereon in the variorum edition. In Jacob Grimm s 

 Deutsche Mythologie (vol. ii. p. 1154), under the word^4/- 

 raun, may be found a full account of the superstitions concern 

 ing the mandrake. When it is dug up, it groans and shrieks 

 so dreadfully that the digger will surely die. One must, there 

 fore, before sunrise on a Friday, having first stopped one s ears 

 with wax or cotton-wool, take with him an entirely black dog 

 without a white hair on him, make the sign of the cross three 

 times over the alraun, and dig about it till the root holds only 

 by thin fibres . Then tie these by a string to the tail of the dog, 

 show him a piece of bread ? and run away as fast as possible. 



