9 



' Up ' is misprinted for ' Ape,' ' Esel ' in old language is 1 Ass.' " 



It may be well to command our faces long enough to remember 

 that Esil was a common term for vinegar, and also might have been a 

 corruption of Issel, one of the affluents of the Ehine. So much for 

 Becket — " off with his head." 



We next call up Mr. Jackson — and there is no mistake about the 

 latter syllable of his name, however much the reader may be inclined 

 to doubt it after hearing some examples of his powers. Take the 

 speech of the Clown in AIVs Well that Ends Well. Clown has been 

 singing an old ballad about the scarcity of good women, and then ob- 

 serves : ••An we might have a good woman born but every blazing 

 star, or at an earthquake, 'twould mend the lottery well ; a man may 

 pluck his heart out ere he pluck one." Mr. Jackson says : " How can 

 a woman be born ? A female, when introduced into life, is an infant ; 

 — the reading is highly injudicious, and the correction seems to have 

 been made without reflecting on the incongruity which it produced. 

 The old copy read : 'but o'er every blazing star.' In my opinion, from 

 the word on being badly formed, the compositor mistook it for ore. I 

 read ' an we might have a good woman, but on every blazing star or 

 nt an earthquake, etc' " We may dismiss Mr. Jackson, with the in- 

 junction to study St. John's Gospel, chapter sixteenth, verse twenty- 

 one : " but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth 

 no more the anguish for joy that a man is born into the world." 



But this same passage nearly proved too much even for Malone, 

 who says : " "Twould mend the lottery well.' This is surely a strange 

 kind of phraseology. I have never met with any example of it in 

 any of the contemporary writers; and if there were any proof that in 

 the lotteries of Queen Elizabeth's time wheels were employed, I should 

 be inclined to read — lottery wheel." If you arc going to read wheel, 

 why not go the whole figure, and read pottery wheel ? This would 

 make still greater nonsense, if possible. Again, look at this passage in 

 Hamlet : 



"MarceUus. My good lord,— 



Hamlet. I am very glad to see you ; good even, sir." 

 The acute Jackson reads : 



" I am very glad to see you good ; even, sir." 



That is, as Marcellus has just called him "good," he gets "even" 

 with him by calling him "good." This is an odd way of getting 



