Notes and Queries articles from September 1995

Notes and Queries archives from September 1995

'Arma virumque cano'? (memorabilia)
September 1, 1995... KRIEG und Frieden in Gedichten von der Antike bis zum 20. Jahrhundert [Vortrage eines interdisziplinaren Kolloquiums, edited by Theo Stemmler. Pp. 257 (+ 4 pp. listing the publications of the preceding seven colloquia); Publikationen der...

On *Hjarthar-By(r) 'Herd Farm.'(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... ON hjord `herd, flock' is cited in Smith's English Place-Name Elements as possibly the first element of Harby in Leicestershire and Harby in Nottinghamshire.(1) Neither place-name is recorded before 1086, and in both instances the regular...

Old English 'faetfellere' and its Latin equivalent.
September 1, 1995... A LATIN equivalent can be useful for illuminating the semantic boundaries of an Old English word, but one poorly understood may obscure rather than enlighten. A case in point is the word faetfellere and its Latin counterpart abatis, from the...

A note on 'The Owl and the Nightingale,' lines 427-8.(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... THE nightingale is forced by the owl's clever confutation (255-390) of her charge -- that the owl is a creature of darkness, that her song is mournful, that she is blind by day (217-52) -- to find fresh ammunition for her attack. She chooses to...

Two manuscripts of 'Mandeville's Travels.'(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... SINCE its publication in 1966, M. C. Seymour's `English Manuscripts of Mandeville's Travels'(1) has been the primary source of manuscript information for scholars of the English versions of the book. As Seymour's handlist of the manuscripts is...

The source of Middle English 'neighebor' 'beloved one.'(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... MED, s.v. neighebor (c) `fellow man, fellow Christian' also notes a figurative sense `dear one' from a passage in The Assumption of the Virgin in the so-called Ludus Coventriae or N-Town Plays,(1) where, after the stage direction `hic vadit...

Francis Burton: Old Chaucer's 'Reeve's Tale' "put into better Englishe."(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... BETSY BOWDEN, introducing her highly pleasing collection of little-known eighteenth-century Canterbury Tales,(1) would have us believe that there were none of that literary kind till, in 1700, John Dryden published in the Fables his `Palamon...

An addition to Luke Shepherd's canon.(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... LUKE SHEPHERD, physician and popular reformist pamphleteer, lived in London in the 1540s. He is the author of several verse satires printed in the City circa 1548 and is probably most well-known for his anti-Catholic dialogue Iohn Bon and Mast...

The missing pages of Luke Shepherd's 'Pathose': a hypothesis.(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... LUKE SHEPHERD's anti-Catholic verse satire Pathose, or an inward passion of the pope for the losse of hys daughter the Masse (hereafter referred to as Pathose) was printed by John Day and William Seres in 1548. The revised STC lists a unique...

Spenser's birth and birthplace.(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... TWO sonnets in Spenser's Amoretti and Epithalamion were written or purported to be written on New Year's Day: Sonnets 4 and 62. At the beginning of Sonnet 4 Spenser borrows the iconology of the classical New Year: New yeare forth looking...

The beginning of the year in Spenser's 'Mutabilitie Cantos.'(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... A. C. HAMILTON has presented students of literature with the most accessible and scholarly edition of Spenser's The Faerie Queene to date.(1) However, the editor betrayed a small but significant misconception concerning the medieval calendar,...

latimer's 'Sermon on the Plough'and Spenser's 'Muiopotmos.'(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... I ARGUE that Hugh Latimer's `Sermon on the Plough' almost certainly prompted Spenser to choose a butterfly as the protagonist in Muiopotmos. The historical circumstances lying behind Latimer's use of the figure must be taken into account when...

Satan and the Presbyterians: an unnoticed 'STC' reprint. (Short-title Catalogue)(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... JUDGED strictly by the number of entries listed under his name in the Short-Title Catalogue, Satan was responsible for far fewer publications in the era than many contemporaries seem to have thought. He is accorded only one main entry, A...

Shakespeare and the Tomson New Testament.(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... THE facts concerning the Tomson New Testament are well known. In 1576, Laurence Tomson, a fellow of Magdalen College and a member of Parliament, published a revision of the Geneva New Testament. The importance of Tomson's New Testament lay not...

'Upstart Crow': provenance and meaning.(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... OF the limited materials that go to make up the biography of Shakespeare the most discussed and controversial continues to be the `upstart Crow' reference in Greene's Groatsworth of Wit (1592), probably by Robert Greene and/or Henry Chettle....

'Edmund Ironside': scholarship versus propaganda.(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... PROFESSOR TAYLOR described Dr Eric Sams's case for attributing the anonymous Elizabethan drama Edmund Ironside to Shakespear speare as `relentlessly partisan argument'.(1) Dr Sams's response(2) to the tests I performed(3) on this play forcibly...

Dating 'Edward III.'(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... WE have had two solid dates for Edward III. (1) The play contains a definite and ironic reference to the Spanish Armada, and so it must have been written after the attempted Spanish invasion of 1588. Although the battle for England had taken...

Common words in 'Titus Andronicus': the presence of Peele.(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... FOR a long time Titus Andronicus was regarded as too artistically wretched and too morally repellent to be Shakespeare's, despite Francis Meres' listing it among Shakespeare's plays in his Palladis Tamia (1598) and its presence in the First...

The 'text' at 'Love's Labour's Lost.'(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... AT the end of the second scene of the fourth act of Love's Labour's Lost the following exchange takes place: Holofernes: I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain pupil of mine; where, if (before repast) it shall please you to...

Bottom's 'hopping' heart and Thomas Phaer: the influence of the early translators on 'Pyramus and Thisbe.'(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... SOME time ago, I drew attention to a parallel between the curious movement of Bottom's heart when, as Pyramus, he prepares to deliver the fatal blow in the burlesque: Out sword, and wound The pap of Pyramus, Ay, that left pap, ...

Bottom's 'Hold or cut bow-strings' (A Midsummer Night's Dream I.ii.106).
September 1, 1995... GEORGE CAPELL was apparently the first to attempt an explanation of Bottom's words. He asserts that the phrase is proverbial and `was born in the days of archery'. When an archery contest was planned, `assurance of meeting was given in the...

Commendable silence: a crux in 'The Merchant of Venice.'
September 1, 1995... ANTONIO's speech at The Merchant of Venice I.i.113 is obviously corrupt: in the Quarto of 1600 and the subsequent early texts he is given the words `It is that any thing now'. From Rowe onwards most editors have emended, but although their...

An incident from Greene's 'Alphonsus' in 'As You Like It.'(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... IT is interesting to note the striking parallel between incidents and dialogue in the opening scenes of As You Like It and Robert Greene's The Comicall Historie of Alphonsvs King of Aragon. This strongly suggests Shakespeare's knowledge -- and...

A 'Hamlet' crux.(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... HAMLET's reference to the hobby-horse as he waits for the Murder of Gonzago to begin (III.ii.125-6) has not been satisfactorily explained and there is some disagreement amongst editors. One of the play's most recent academic editors, G. R....

The 'bed-trick' in 'Measure for Measure': a source suggestion.(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... UNTIL quite recently there was a scholarly consensus that All's Well that Ends wen preceded Measure for Measure. A corner-stone of this traditional case was a belief that Shakespeare's use of a `bed-trick' in the latter play (where it is not in...

Did Goneril look 'black,' 'back,' or 'blank,' upon her father?(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... IN King Lear, in the scene where Lear asks Regan for shelter and declares he will not return to Goneril, he explains his decision in a speech beginning `Never, Regan. / She hath abated me of half my train;'.(1) In the third line of this speech,...

'Which is the iustice, which is the theefe': variants of transposition in the texts of 'King Lear.'
September 1, 1995... Q1: see how yon Iustice railes upon yon simple theefe, harke in thy eare handy dandy, which is the theefe, which is the Iustice, . . . F: see how yond Iustice railes upon yond simple theefe. Hearke in shine eare: Change places, and...

The martlet re-examined.(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... IN Macbeth I.vi, Shakespeare juxtaposes Lady Macbeth's raven, `himself... hoarse / That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan / under my battlements' (I.v.38-40), with the martlet that Banquo discovers presaging summer: This guest of...

'Virtue and cunning': a source for 'Pericles.'(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... IN one of the more memorable speeches of Pericles, Cerimon states his philosophy of life: I hold it ever, Virtue and cunning were endowments greater Than nobleness and riches; careless heirs May the two latter darken and...

'Cymbeline' and Plutarch.(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... SHAKESPEARE's Cymbeline has been the subject of much critical debate, on the grounds of dating, sources, and its supposed `Romanness'. It has already been suggested that there are some resonances of North's Plutarch in Iachimo's description of...

'Cymbeline' and Ezekiel.(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... IN Act V of Cymbeline, Posthumus sleeps and Jupiter descends to him upon an eagle, leaving him an obscure message, part of which states: When from a stately cedar shall be lopp'd branches, which, being dead many years, shall after revive, be...

The costumes of Caliban and Ariel qua sea-nymph.(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... CALIBAN and Ariel are anomalous for Shakespeare, who generally populated even his most fantastical plays with human beings or indeterminate humanoids. Caliban is part man and part fish, and in general a `monster'. In an important scene, Ariel...

'Fury-innocent' as used in 'Two Noble Kinsmen.'(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... SINCE Thomas Seward's edition in 1750,(1) editors of The Two Noble Kinsmen have consistently concealed with improper emendations the rich comparisons Emilia discloses in her account of the childhood love she and Flavinia shared. Emilia...

William Taylor and some traditions of Shakespeare biography.(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... `JA wenn irgend eine Reise Shakespeare's, so ist er vor allem die Reise nach Italien, welche einen hohen Grad von Wahrscheinlichkeit fur sich in Anspruch nehmen darf', Karl Elze could write in 1873, at a time when the idea that Shakespeare had...

Possible light on a Kyd canon.(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... THE only extant play accepted as written by Thomas Kyd is The Spanish Tragedy. Heywood in his Apology for Actors (1612) accurately quoted three lines from the play, named the play and gave the author as M. Kyd. It is worth noting that the same...

New variants in the first part of Dekker's 'The Honest Whore.'(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... THE First Part of The Honest Whore has an intriguing textual history. Two quarto editions of the play appeared in 1604. Both bear the imprint of Valentine Simmes, yet each appears to have been the work of no less than three different printing...

"Upon a Sudden Wit': on the sources of an unnoticed pun in 'The Revenger's Tragedy.'(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... IN the fourth act of The Revenger's Tragedy, there is a tense moment when Lussurioso sends Hippolito to look for Piato. We are left wondering how Hippolito will save the situation, since Vindice, who had been passing himself off as Piato till...

Donne's sifted soul.(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... IN Donne's Holy Sonnets, gluttonous death sieves the soul: Then, as my soule, to `heaven her first seate, takes flight, And earth-borne body, in the earth shall dwell, So, fall my sinnes, that all may have their right, To where...

A note on Randle Cotgrave.(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... IN 1861, T. Hughes suggested publishing a notice in Notes and Queries concerning Randle Cotgrave,(1) compiler of the first complete French-English dictionary in 1611; the notice never appeared. Other attempts were made to identify Cotgrave,...

The date of F.B.'s verse letter to Ben Jonson.(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... I SOMEWHERE between 1613 and March 1616, a verse letter signed `F. B.' was sent to Ben Jonson. This article will attempt to show that the letter was written in the summer or autumn of 1613. The letter is best known for its comment...

A vindication of A.H. Bullen's dating of 'the Costlie Whore.'(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... THE anonymous The Costlie Whore, printed in 1633, was dated 1613 by A. H. Bullen in his 1885 edition of the play.(1) The date is disputed by Bentley who assigns a terminus a quo of 1619, based on a notice on the title-page which reads `Acted by...

The 'Candie-souldier,' Venice, and James VI (I)'s advice on monarchic dress in 'Basilicon Doron.'(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... NO adequate gloss exists for the use of the term `Candie-souldier' in book three of Basilicon Doron: Be also moderate in your rayment; neither ouer superfluous, like a deboshed waister; nor yet ouer base, like a miserable wretche;...

Bishop Duppa and Jonson's 'Epick Poem.'(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... BISHOP BRIAN DUPPA's connection with Ben Jonson is well known, since Duppa collected and edited the important volume of poetic eulogies entitled Jonsonus Virbius (1638), published less than a year after the great writer's death.(1) However,...

The influence of Edmund Spenser's 'View' on Fyne Moryson's 'Itinerary.'(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... EDMUND SPENSER's A View of the Present State of Ireland was written in 1596, but it was not published until 1633.(1) According to the editors of the Variorum Spenser, `Today there are at least fifteen manuscripts extant' most of which `must...

'The Countesse of Lincolne's Nurserie' as inspiration for Anne Bradstreet.(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... PROPOSALS regarding both creative and historic sources represent a vital aspect of the study of writings by Renaissance women. Based upon her subject matter and poetics, critics have suggested various influences upon Anne Bradstreet's poetry,...

A source for the 'Aethiop' in Francis Bacon's 'New Atlantis.'(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... IN Francis Bacon's New Atlantis, a resident of the utopian society of Bensalem refers to a book that recounts a demonic apparition. The identity of this unnamed book appears to have eluded scholars. Robert Leslie Ellis's note in James...

Thomas Middleton's 'A Game at Chesse': a sermon analogue.(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... SCHOLARLY debate concerning Middleton's A Game at Chesse has focused, to some extent, on the relationship between the political and moral allegories represented in the play, and in particular, the staging of the chess bag/hellmouth. The...

Notes on editing Webster.(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... The following material may be useful to an editor preparing a modernized and annotated edition of the plays of John Webster. The White Devil(1) I.ii.235-6 As I sat sadly leaning on a graue, Checkered with crosse-sticks....

The date of 'A Cure for a Cuckold.' (Notes.)
September 1, 1995... THE most recent scholarly consideration of the date of A Cure for a Cuckold appears in F. L. Lucas's 1927 edition of the play in the third volume of The Works of John Webster.(1) Lucas adduces a pair of topical allusions which associate the...

A nightingale in poplar: the sub-plot of 'A Cure for a Cuckold.'(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... NO source has ever been suggested for A Cure for a Cuckold's sub-plot, attributed to William Rowley. All that the play's most recent editor, F. L. Lucas, could offer was an assertion by the play's Restoration publisher, Francis Kirkman that...

John Ford's 'Perkin Warbeck' and 'Henry IV Part One.'(Notes.)
September 1, 1995... IT has already been noted that John Ford's Perkin Warbeck contains echoes of Shakespeare's Richard II.(1) There is also, however, another parallel, which does not seem to have been hitherto remarked, between the opening of Perkin Warbeck and...

A Comparative Study of Old English Metre.
September 1, 1995... Whitman, F.H., Pp. ix + 170. Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 1993. 35.75[pounds]. HARDLY a year passes without the publication of a new theory of Old English metre. Some recent theories -- like those of G. Russom and C....

The Origins of 'Beowulf' and the Pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia.
September 1, 1995... Newton, S., Pp. xiii + 177. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1993. 35.00[pounds] IT is hard to shake off the feeling that Old English literature's acknowledged masterpiece would be better studied if there were either more of it or less. Were Beowulf...

The Early Medieval Bible: Its Production, Decoration and Use.
September 1, 1995... Gameson, R. (ed.), Pp. xiv + 242 (Cambridge Studies in Palaeography and Codicology). Cambridge, New York, Oakleigh: Cambridge University Press, 1994. 40.00[pounds]. THIS collection of eleven essays, seven of which are from the 1990...

Medieval Listening and Reading: The Primary Reception of German Literature, 800-1300.
September 1, 1995... Green, D. H., Pp. xv + 483. Cambridge, New York, Oakleigh: Cambridge University Press, 1994. 50.00[pounds]. THIS study, building on previous work by the same author, and based on a vast array of primary and secondary sources, is in part a...

Verse with Prose from Petronius to Dante: The Art and Scope of the Mixed Form.
September 1, 1995... Dronke, P., Pp. x + 148. Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 1994. 25.95[pounds]. READERS of Professor Dronke's previous work will expect elegance, close analysis of texts, and width of learning in this new book, and they...

Arthurian Literature XII.
September 1, 1995... Carley, J.P. and Riddy, Pp. vii + 198. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1993. 35.00[pounds]. THIS volume, under new editorship, contains six articles, four notes, and a style sheet. Martin B. Shichtman and Laurie A. Finke consider Geoffrey of...

Shakespeare in the Stratford Records.
September 1, 1995... Bearman, R., Stroud and Dover, new Hampshire; Alan Sutton Publishing, in association with The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, 1994. Paperbound 6.99[pounds]. ONE of the likely problems with writing a book on the documents held by an...

Collections, Volume XV: Ralph Crane's Transcript of 'A Game at Chess, Bodleian Manuscript Malone 25.
September 1, 1995... Bawcutt, N. (ed.), 25. Pp. iv + 205. Oxford: Oxford University Press, for three Malone Society, 1993. 17.50[pounds]. ONE of the likely problems with writing a book on the documents held by an institution, rather than describing them, or using...

Shakespeare and the Geography of Difference.
September 1, 1995... Gillies, J., Pp. xiii + 255 (Cambridge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture 4). Cambridge, New York, Oakleigh: Cambridge University Press, 1994. 37.50[pounds]. PROMISING a `gentle' sea-crossing from France to England, the Chorus in...

Everybody's Shakespeare: Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedies.
September 1, 1995... Mack, M., Pp. xii + 279. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1993. 27.50[pounds]. THERE is something perplexing about Maynard Mack's Everybody's Shakespeare: Reflections Chiefly on The Tragedies. In his preface he addresses...

Essays, Mainly Shakespearean.
September 1, 1995... Barton, A., Cambridge, New York, Oakleigh: Cambridge University Press, 1994, 40.00[pounds]. THIS is the kind of book that is equivalent to a well-respected artist's retrospective exhibition. Anne Barton is such a fine and subtle critic that...

The Politics of Unease in the Plays of John Fletcher.
September 1, 1995... McMullan, G., Pp. xiii + 338 (Massachusetts Studies in Early Modern Culture). Amberst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1994. 33.25[pounds]. McMULLAN's book offers two things which are very welcome: a long overdue serious concentration...

Miscellaneous Works, 2 vols.
September 1, 1995... Bunyan, J. (ed. W. R. Owens), Pp. xlvii + 460; xxxiv + 535. Oxford. Clarendon Press, 1994. 50.00[pounds] each vol. EIGHTEEN years after the publication in 1976 of its first volume the Clarendon Press's magnificent and magisterial edition of...

Indamora to Lindamira.
September 1, 1995... Pierrepont (later Wortley Montagu), Lady Mary (ed. Isobel Grundy), Pp. xiv + 38. Edmonton: The Juvenilia Press, University of Alberta, 1994. Paperbound $77.00. JULIET McMASTER's illustrations to Indamora to Lindamira, a novel in five letters...

Approaches to Teaching Pope's Poetry.
September 1, 1995... Jackson, W. and Yoder, R.P. (eds), Pp. xi + 207 (Approaches to Teaching World Literature 46). New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1993. Hardbound $37.50; paperbound $19.75. THE editors of this collection of essays state that...

A New Species of Criticism: Eighteenth-Century Discourse on the Novel.
September 1, 1995... Bartolomeo J.F., Pp. 209. Newark: University of Delaware Press; London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1994. 28.00[pounds]. THE title of this work echoes Samuel Richardsons important phrase in a 1741 letter concerning Pamela,...

Approaches to Teaching the Works of Samuel Johnson.
September 1, 1995... Anderson, D.R. and Kolb, G.J. (eds), Pp. xi + 152 (Approaches to Teaching World Literature 49). New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1993. Hardbound $37.50; paperbound $19.75. THIS volume belongs to a long-established series...

Strangers to that Land: British Perceptions of Ireland from the Reformation to the Famine.
September 1, 1995... Hadfield, A. and McVeagh, J. (eds). Pp. xii + 315 and illustrations (Ulster Editions & Monographs 5). Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1994. 27.50[pounds]. THOMAS DE QUINCEY speaks for all of the `strangers' anthologized in this useful volume...

British Poetry of the Nineteenth Century.
September 1, 1995... Gurney, S., Pp. xiv + 341. New York and Toronto: Twayne Publishers and Maxwell Macmillan Canada, 1993. BRITISH POETRY OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY is a broad survey following a number of themes, one of them the waning of the Romantic Movement...

Biblical Echo and Allusion in the Poetry of W.B. Yeats: Poetics and the Art of God.
September 1, 1995... Purdy, D.H., Pp. 169. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press; London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1994. 27.00[pounds] THIS is a useful study, not only to students and readers of Yeats, but of interest to anyone concerned with...

Culture and Anarchy.
September 1, 1995... Arnold, M. (ed. S. Lipman; commentary by M. Cowling, G. Gaff, S. Lipman, and S. Marcus), Pp. xix + 230 (Rethinking the Western Tradition). New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994. Paperbound 9.95[pounds]. THIS new edition of...

T.S. Eliot at the Turn of the Century.
September 1, 1995... Thormahlen, M. (ed.), Pp. 244 (Lund Studies in English, 86). Lund: Lund University Press, 1994. SEK 288.00. THIS collection of twelve essays can be read in two different ways. The essays were first delivered as lectures at a colloquium in...

Thoreau's Morning Work: Memory and Perception in 'A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers,' 'The Journal,' and 'Walden.'
September 1, 1995... Peck, H.D., Pp. xiv + 194. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994. Paperbound 8.95[pounds]. PROFESSOR PECK sets out to give an explanation of how Thoreau's Journal relates to his two most famous works and the result is an...

Hemingway's Genders: Rereading the Hemingway Text.
September 1, 1995... Comley, N.R. and Scholes, R., Pp. xiii + 154. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994. 16.95[pounds]. THE dust-cover of Hemingway's Genders summarizes the book's contents as follows. Ernest Hemingway has long been regarded ...

Ezra Pound as Critic.
September 1, 1995... Singh, G., Pp. xii + 176. London: Macmillan; New York: St Martin's Press, 1994. 35.00[pounds]. LIKE most investigations into modernism, studies in Ezra Pound have specialized for years: Pound's fascism, Pound vis-a-vis Eliot, Pound and the...