LEAVES THEY SAVE TOUCHEjD. 489 



Jeans apj)ends the folio-wing "answer," in tlie form, however, of a 

 query : , " Did not William Prynne write Histrio-mastix, the Players' 

 scourge 1 If Piynne ever met with anytliing of Shakspeare's, would 

 he not have been likely to have destroyed it 1" And on the closing 

 remark, " not a word in his handwiitiiig is known to exist," he 

 makes the note : "So much the better for me," alluding to the 

 " his booke, given him by Mr. Warner." He jots down figures which 

 show that "Shakspeare was 32 years of age when this book was 

 printed :" and adds : "So that this may have been written any time 

 between 1596 and his death in 1616. I take it by the style,", he 

 then says, " to have been rather of the time of James I., than that of 

 Elizabeth, when the Italian style was more generally adopted." He 

 gives a tracing, made by himself, of " the autograph in Florio's Mon^ 

 taigne's Essays, 1603, Brit. Mus.," and one or two other fac-similes 

 of signatures for comparison. On the name "Warner," which is 

 slightly smeared, he remarks : "A gentleman at the British Museum 

 told me he could clearly read the obliteration for " Warnei-," who, it 

 is added, was "Author of Albion's England." Mr. Jeans makes 

 likewise the note : " See page 175, also 203." On turning to these 

 places, we behold certain vague marks of a pen on the margin, as 

 though made by one thrown into a reverie by the thoughts expressed 

 in the adjoining text. 



Now all this, as I hafe said, must go for what it is woi-th. I 

 choose to allow my copy of Gervaise Babington's Comfortahle Notes 

 on Genesis to enjoy every advantage which Mr. Jeans' surmises can 

 impart to it. Were it required to establish a probability that Shaks- 

 peare had read Gervaise Babington's Notes, one or two remarkable 

 coincidences of language might be dwelt on. For example, take the 

 expression, " To have a man on the hip." Gervaise Babington uses 

 it in connection -svith the story of Laban. " See a chmie, i.e. a real 

 churl, if ever you will see a kindly one, i.e. one connected by some 

 natural relationship with the person sought to be oppressed. Jacob 

 is his flesh and blood by bii'th, and his sonne-in-law by mariage ; he 

 hath both his daughters, and their children are many, bone of his 

 bone, yet is he glad to have Jacob on the hip for a bad bargaine as 

 he hoped." Now it happens that Shakspeare employs the same 

 expression twice in a play where the story of Laban is made use of, 

 " If I can catch him once upon the hip," Shylock says of Antonio, 

 " I will feed fat the grudge I bear him/' i.e. the grudge for having, 



