and habitually, or upon system. His masculine personifications are comparatively rare, and are only ventured upon either where he does not require to use the pronoun, or where its gender cannot be mistaken. Milton himself, however, nowhere, I believe, uses his in a neuter sense. He felt too keenly the annoyance of such a sense of it always coming in the way to spoil or prevent any other use he might have made of it. And the most curious thing of all in the history of the word its is the extent to which, before its recognition as a word proper for serious composition, even the occasion for its employment was avoided or eluded. This is very remarkable in Shakespeare. The very conception which we express by its probably does not occur once in his works for ten times that it is to be found in any modern writer. So that we may say the invention, or adoption, of this form has changed not only our English style, but even our manner of thinking. The Anglo-Saxon personal pronoun was, in the Nominative singular, He for the Masculine, Heó for the Feminine, and Hit for the Neuter. He we still retain; for Heó we have substituted She, apparently a modification of Seó, the Feminine of the Demonstrative (Se, Seó, Thaet); Hit we have converted into It (though the aspirate is still often heard in the Scottish dialect). The Genitive was Hire for the Feminine (whence our modern Her), and His both for the Masculine and the Neuter. So also the modern German has ihr for the Feminine, and only one form, sein, for both the Masculine and the Neuter. But in the inflection of this single form the two genders in An glo-Saxon were distinguished both in the Nominative and in the Accusative, whereas in German they are distinguished in the Accusative only. They are the same in the Genitive and Dative in both languages. 54, 55.—And bear the palm alone.—Another general shout.-Two hemistichs or broken lines thus following one another are not necessarily to be regarded as prosodically connected, any more than if they were several sentences asunder. The notion that two such consecutive fragments were always intended by Shakespeare to make a complete verse has led the modern editors, more especially Steevens, into a great deal of uncalled-for chopping and tinkering of the old text. 56. But in ourselves.-In the original edition divided " our selves," exactly as our stars" in the preceding line. And so always with our self, your self, her self, my self, thy self, and also it self, but never with himself, or themselves. Vid. 54. 56. What should be in that Cæsar?-A form of speech now gone out. It was a less blunt and direct way of saying What is there? or What may there be? These more subtle and delicate modes of expression, by the use of the subjunctive for the indicative and of the past for the present, which characterize not only the Greek and Latin languages but even the German, have for the greater part perished in our modern English. The deep insight and creative force—the “ 'great creating nature"-which gave birth to our tongue has dried up under the benumbing touch of the logic by which it has been trained and cultivated. 56. More than yours.-Here and everywhere else, it may be noticed once for all, our modern than is then in the old text. H 56. Become the mouth as well.-Always aswell, as one word, in the First Folio. 56. The breed of noble bloods.-We scarcely now use this plural. Shakespeare has it several times; as afterwards in 645, "I know young bloods look for a time of rest;" in Much Ado About Nothing, iii. 3, where Boracio remarks how giddily fashion "turns about all the hot bloods between fourteen and five and thirty;" in The Winter's Tale, i. 1, where Leontes says, "To mingle friendship far is mingling bloods;" in King John, ii. 1, where Philip of France, to the boast of John before the walls of Angiers that he brings as witnesses to his right and title "twice fifteen thousand hearts of English breed," replies (aside) that "As many and as well-born bloods as those Stand in his face to contradict his claim." 56. That her wide walls encompassed but one man.The old reading is "wide walks." Despite the critical canon which warns us against easy or obvious amendments, it is impossible not to believe that we have a misprint here. What Rome's wide walks may mean is not obvious; still less, how she could be encompassed by her walks, however wide. The correction to walls has the authority of Mr. Collier's MS. annotator, but had been conjecturally adopted down to the time of Malone by most of the modern editors, from Rowe inclusive. Such being the case, it is strange that Mr. Collier in his Notes and Emendations (p. 397) should state that the other reading had never, he believes, been doubted, and should produce that of walls as a novelty that had not before been suggested or thought of. been Room. 56. Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough.Shakespeare's pronunciation of Rome seems to have Besides the passage before us we have afterwards in the present play (368) "No Rome of safety for Octavius yet;" and in King John, iii. 1, "That I have room with Rome to curse a while." In the First Part of King Henry the Sixth, it is true, we have the other pronunciation; there (iii. 2), the Bishop of Winchester having exclaimed "Rome shall remedy this," Warwick replies "Roam thither, then." This little fact is not without its significance in reference to the claim of that Play to be laid at Shakespeare's door. 56. But one only man.—In the original text "but one onely man," probably indicating that the pronunciation of the numeral and of the first syllable of the adverb was one. 56. There was a Brutus once, that would have brooked. -To brook (Anglo-Saxon brucan), for to endure, to submit to, is one of those old words which every one still understands but no one uses, unless it may be some studious imitator of the antique. 57. That you do love me, I am nothing jealous.-I am nowhat jealous, doubtful, suspicious, in regard to its being the fact that you love me. This seems to be the grammatical resolution of a construction which, like many similar ones familiar to the freer spirit of the language two centuries ago, would now scarcely be ventured upon. 57. I have some aim.-Aim, in old French eyme, esme, and estme, is the same word with esteem (from the Latin æstimatio and æstimare), and should therefore signify properly a judgment or conjecture of the mind, which is very nearly its meaning here. We might now say, in the same sense, I have some notion. In modern English the word has acquired the additional meaning of an intention to hit, or catch, or in some other way attain, that to which the view is directed. It does not seem impossible that the French name for the loadstone, aimant, may be from the same root, although it has usually been considered to be a corruption of adamant. A ship's reckonings are called in French estimes, which is undoubtedly the same word with our aims. In the French of the early part of the sixteenth century we find esme and esmé (or esmez, as it was commonly written) confounded with the totally different aimer, to love. Rabelais, for instance, writes bien aymez for bien esmez, well disposed. See Duchat's Note on liv. I., ch. 5, pp. 62, 63. 57. For this present.-This expression, formerly in universal use and good repute, now remains only a musty law phrase, never admitted into ordinary composition except for ludicrous effect. 57. So with love I might entreat you.-This form of expression is still preserved both in our own language and in German. Thus (John i. 25) :—“ Warum taufest du denn, so du nicht Christus bist ?" or, "So Gott will" (If God please). And in one of Moore's squibs : "The Egyptians were n't at all particular, So that their kings had not red hair : The conjunction thus used is commonly said to be equivalent to if. But so, according to Horne Tooke (D. of P., 147), is merely the Moso-Gothic demon |
