66 quickly put himself into the head of the army, that would be ready to receive him" (Id., Book xiv.); "These cashiered officers . . . found so much encouragement, that, at a time appointed, they put themselves into the heads of their regiments, and marched with them into the field” (Id., Book cvi.); That Lord [Fairfax] had called together some of his old disbanded officers and soldiers, and many principal men of the country, and marched in the head of them into York" (Ibid.); "Upon that very day they [the Parliament] received a petition, which they had fomented, presented... by a man notorious in those times, . . . PraiseGod Barebone, in the head of a crowd of sectaries" (Ibid.); "He [the Chancellor] informed him [Admiral Montague] of Sir George Booth's being possessed of Chester, and in the head of an army" (Ibid.). 66 p. 241: Add to note on Enlarge your griefs :-Clarendon uses the verb to enlarge differently both from Shakespeare and from the modern language; thus:As soon as his lordship [the Earl of Manchester] had finished his oration, which was received with marvellous acclamations, Mr. Pym enlarged himself, in a speech then printed, upon the several parts of the King's answer" (Hist., Book vi.). p. 244, 1. 7, after " commencing" insert comma. 66 p. 245 Add to note on And bay the moon:—A third Anglicized form of battre, in addition to beat and bait, is probably bate, explained by Nares as a term in falconry; to flutter the wings as preparing for flight, particularly at the sight of prey." Thus Petrucio, in The Taming of the Shrew, iv. 1, speaking of his wife, after observing that his "falcon now is sharp, and passing empty" (that is, very empty, or hungry), goes on to say that he has another way to man his haggard (that is, apparently, to reduce his wild hawk under subjection to man), "That is, to watch her, as we watch those kites That bate, and beat, and will not be obedient." Nares quotes the following passage from a letter of Bacon's as beautifully exemplifying the true meaning of the word: Wherein [viz. in matters of business] I would to God that I were hooded, that I saw less; or that I could perform more for now I am like a hawk that bates, when I see occasion of service; but cannot fly, because I am tied to another's fist." The letter, which was first printed by Rawley in the First Part of the Resuscitatio (1657), is without date, and is merely entitled "A Letter to Queen Elizabeth, upon the sending of a New-year's Gift." p. 247: Add to note on Which I respect not :—Respect in Shakespeare means commonly no more than what we now call regard or view. Thus, in The Midsummer Night's Dream, i. 1, Lysander says of his aunt, "She respects me as her only son ;" and, in ii. 1, Helena says to Demetrius, You, in my respect, are all the world." So, in The Merchant of Venice, v. 1, when Portia, on hearing the music from the lighted house as she approaches Belmont at night in company with Nerissa, says,— 66 "Nothing is good, I see, without respect; Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day," she means merely that nothing is good without reference to circumstances, or that it is only when it is in accordance with the place and the time that any good thing can be really or fully enjoyed. As she immediately subjoins : "How many things by season seasoned are To their right praise and true perfection!" So afterwards Nerissa to Gratiano,-" You should have been respective, and have kept it" (the ring),—that is, you should have been mindful (of your promise or oath). p. 251: Insert after last line :-561. O Cassius, you are yoked with a lamb.-Pope prints, on conjecture, "with a man ;" and " a lamb," at any rate, can hardly be right. 562. Blood ill-tempered.-We have now lost the power of characterizing the blood as ill-tempered (except in imitation of the antique), although we might perhaps speak of it as ill-attempered. The epithet ill-tempered, now only applied to the sentient individual, and with reference rather to the actual habit of the mind or nature than to that of which it is supposed to be the result, was formerly employed, in accordance with its proper etymological import, to characterize anything the various component ingredients of which were not so mixed as duly to qualify each other. p. 252, 1. 20; strike out "In the former sense." p. 278, 1. 4 from foot: After" the adjective light" insert: -There evidently was, however, in that marvellous array in which the whole world of words was marshalled in the mind of Milton: : "So, besides Mine own that bide upon me, all from me On me, as on their natural centre, light ... p. 285 Add to note on If Messala will prefer me to you:-The sense of the verb to prefer that we have in Shakespeare continued current down to a considerably later date. Thus, Clarendon writes of Lord Cottington: -“His mother was a Stafford, nearly allied to Sir Edward Stafford ; by whom this gentleman was brought up, ... and by him recommended to Sir Robert Cecil . . . ; who preferred him to Sir Charles Cornwallis, when he went ambassador into Spain; where he remained for the space of eleven or twelve years in the condition of Secretary or Agent, without ever returning into England in all that time" (Hist., Book xiii.). CONTENTS. The Sources for the Text of Shakespeare's Plays The Shakespearian Editors and Commentators The Modern Shakespearian Texts. Page |