ation cannot, properly speaking, be regarded as even present participles in disguise. Their true history has been given for the first time by Mr. Richard Taylor in his Additional Notes to Tooke's Diversions of Purley, 1829 and 1840; see edition of 1840 [or 1860], pp. xxxix.-liv. The termination of the present participle in Saxon was ende; and when that part of the verb was used substantively it denoted the agent, or performer of the verbal act. Thus, Haeland signified the Healer, or Saviour; Scyppend, the Shaper, or Creator. Ing or ung, on the other hand, was the regular termination of that description of verbal substantive which denoted the act. Thus Brennung was what in Latin would be called Combustio, and what in our modern English is still called the Burning. In other tongues of the same Gothic stock to which our own in part belongs, both forms are still preserved. In German, for instance, we have end for the termination universally of the present participle, and ung for that of a numerous class of verbal substantives all signifying the act or thing done. It never could have been supposed that in that language these verbal substantives in ung were present participles. But in English the fact is, as Mr. Taylor has observed, that it is not the verbal substantive denoting the act which has assumed the form of the present participle, but the latter which has thrown away its own proper termination and adopted that of the former. This change appears to have commenced as early as the twelfth century, and to have been completely established by the fourteenth. Even after the middle of the sixteenth century, however, we have the old distinction between the two terminations (the end or and for the present participle, or the agent, and the ing for the verbal act) still adhered to by the Scottish writers. [One might infer from this statement that the distinction was uniformly regarded by Scottish writers of the sixteenth century. What Mr. Taylor says is this: "Though the use of ing for the present participle was fully established in the fourteenth century, the age of Langland, Chaucer, and Wiclif, yet the ancient ande was still occasionally used, both being found in the same writers, and sometimes in the very same sentence; and in the North, to the end of the sixteenth century." The following are examples of the two endings appropriately used in the same sentence: Hors, or hund, or othir thing Barbour (1357). Full low inclinand to their queen full clear Our sovereign havand her majesty's promise be writing of luff, friendship, etc. Lord Herries (1568, quoted by Robertson). The following are examples of the indiscriminate use of these endings: herdes of oxin and of fee, Fat and tidy, rakand over all quhare, In the rank gers pasturing on raw. Gawin Douglas. Changyng in sorrow our sang melodious, Sir D. Lyndsay (1528). I may add that in Gower (Pauli's ed.) the prevailing form of the participle is ende; while in Chaucer (Wright's ed.) -ing is the ending. Mr. Taylor says, "It requires a long search in Chaucer's works to find a participle in ande.” See also Marsh, Lect. on Eng. Lang., First Series, pp. 649-658.] 1. What trade art thou?. The rationale of this mode of expression may be seen from the answer to the question: "Why, Sir, a carpenter." The trade and the person practising it are used indifferently the one for the other: "What trade art thou?" is equivalent to "What tradesman art thou?" So in 6 we have "A trade which is, indeed, a mender of bad soles." The thou, as here and in 5, 7, 9, II, 13, was still common in the English of Shakespeare's age; it was the ordinary form in addressing an inferior; only when he was treated, or affected to be treated, as a gentleman, the mechanic received the more honorable compellation of you;-as in 3, "You, Sir, what trade are you?" Thou, Sir, would have been incongruous in the circumstances. 6. Soles.Quasi souls; an immemorial quibble, doubtless. It is found also (as Malone notes) in Fletcher's Woman Pleased. Yet we might seem to have a distinction of pronunciation between soul and sole indicated in The Merchant of Venice, iv. I, "Not on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew." 7. This speech in the old copies is given to Flavius; and it is restored to him by Mr. Knight, who observes that the modern editors" assume that only one of the tribunes should take the lead; whereas it is clear that the dialogue is more natural, certainly more dramatic, according to the original arrangement, where Flavius and Marullus alternately rate the people, like two smiths smiting on the same anvil." But this will not explain or ac count for the "mend me" of Marullus in 9. That proves beyond controversy that the preceding speech (8) was addressed to Marullus; and it is equally clear that the you of speech 8 is the person to whom speech 7 belongs. The rating, besides, is as much alternate, or intermingled, in the one way as in the other: Mr. Knight gives six speeches to Flavius and five to Marullus; the common arrangement gives five to Flavius and six to Marullus. [Collier, Dyce, and White give the speech to Marullus; Hudson, to Flavius.] 8. Be not out with me; yet, if you be out. The two senses of being out are obvious: " They are out with one another," or, simply, "They are out ;" and "He is out at the elbows," or in any other part of his dress. The answer shows that mend, not Mend me. 9. me, is the emphatic word. 12. But with awl. Mr. Knight and Mr. Collier [and Hudson] print "with all." This, apparently, would accord with Farmer's notion, who maintains that the true reading is, "I meddle with no trade, man's matters," etc., understanding with awl, or with all, I suppose, to involve, as one of its meanings, that of "with all trades." The original reading [which White adopts] is, "but withal I am indeed, Sir, a surgeon," etc. And the Second Folio has "woman's matters." -- 12. As proper men. ·A proper man is a man such as he should be. In The Tempest, ii. 2, we have the same expression that we have here distributed into two successive speeches of the drunken Stephano: "As proper a man as ever went on four legs;" and "Any emperor that ever trod on neat's leather." [A proper man, a proper fellow, a proper gentlewoman, etc., are very common expressions in Shakespeare. See Mrs. Clarke's Concordance. Compare Hebrews, xi. 23. For the word in its other sense, one's own, peculiar, see 45 and 743; also, I Chron. xxix. 3; Acts i. 19; 1 Cor. vii. 7.] 15. Wherefore rejoice? etc.-This was in the beginning of B. C. 44 (A. U. C. 709), when Cæsar, having returned from Spain in the preceding October, after defeating the sons of Pompey at the Battle of Munda (fought 17th March, B. C. 45), had been appointed Consul for the next ten years and Dictator for life. The festival of the Lupercalia, at which he was offered and declined the crown, was celebrated 13th February, B. C. 44; and he was assassinated 15th March following, being in his fifty-sixth year. 15. Many a time and oft.-This old phrase, which is still familiar, may be held to be equivalent to many and many a time, that is, many times and yet again many more times. The old pointing of this line is," Knew you not Pompey many a time and oft?" It is like what all the Folios give us in Macbeth, i. 5: Your face, my thane, is as a book where men What follows, "Have you climbed up," etc., is, of course, made a second question. 15. That Tiber trembled underneath her banks. The proper antecedent of that (so, or in such wise) is left unexpressed, as sufficiently obvious. Some of the modern editors have taken the unwarrantable liberty of changing her into his in this line and the next but one, because Tiber is masculine in Latin. This is to give us both language and a conception different from Shakespeare's. |