Notes and Queries, Number 71, March 8, 1851

Notes and Queries, Number 71, March 8, 1851
Various

Various

Notes and Queries, Number 71, March 8, 1851 / A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc

Notes

ON TWO PASSAGES IN "ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL."

Among the few passages in Shakspeare upon which little light has been thrown, after all that has been written about them, are the following in Act. IV. Sc. 2. of All's Well that Ends Well, where Bertram is persuading Diana to yield to his desires:

"Bert. I pr'ythee, do not strive against my vows:
I was compell'd to her; but I love thee
By love's own sweet constraint, and will for ever
Do thee all rights of service.

Dia. Ay, so you serve us,
Till we serve you: but when you have our roses,
You barely leave our thorns to prick ourselves,
And mock us with our bareness.

Bert. How have I sworn?

Dia. 'Tis not the many oaths that make the truth;
But the plain single vow, that is vow'd true.
What is not holy, that we swear not by,
But take the Highest to witness: Then, pray you, tell me,
If I should swear by Jove's great attributes,
I love'd you dearly, would you believe my oaths,
When I did love you ill? this has no holding,
To swear by him whom I protest to love,
That I will work against him."

Read—"when I protest to Love."

It is evident that Diana refers to Bertram's double vows, his marriage vow, and the subsequent vow or protest he had made not to keep it. "If I should swear by Jove I loved you dearly, would you believe my oath when I loved you ill? This has no consistency, to swear by Jove, when secretly I protest to Love that I will work against him (i.e. against the oath I have taken to Jove)."

Bertram had sworn by the Highest to love his wife; in his letter to his mother he says:

"I have wedded her, not bedded her, and sworn to make the not eternal:"

he secretly protests to Love to work against his sacred oath; and in his following speech he says:

"Be not so cruel-holy, Love is holy."

He had before said:

"–do not strive against my vows:
I was compell'd to her; but I love thee
By Love's own sweet constraint:"

clearly indicating that this must be the true sense of the passage. By printing when for whom, and Love with a capital letter, to indicate the personification, all is made clear.

After further argument from Bertram, Diana answers:

"I see that men make ropes in such a scarre
That we'll forsake ourselves."

This Rowe altered to "make hopes in such affairs," and Malone to "make hopes in such a scene." Others, and among them Mr. Knight and Mr. Collier, retain the old reading, and vainly endeavour to give it a meaning, understanding the word scarre to signify a rock or cliff, with which it has nothing to do in this passage. There can be no doubt that "make ropes" is a misprint for "make hopes," which is evidently required by the context, "that we'll forsake ourselves." It then only remains to show what is meant by a scarre, which signifies here anything that causes surprise or alarm; what we should now write a scare. Shakspeare has used the same orthography, scarr'd, i.e. scared, in Coriolanus and in Winter's Tale. There is also abundant evidence that this was its old orthography, indicative of the broad sound the word then had, and which it still retains in the north. Palsgrave has both the noun and the verb in this form: "Scarre, to scar crowes, espouventail." And again, "I scarre away or feare away, as a man doth crowes or such like; je escarmouche." The French word might lead to the conclusion that a scarre might be used for a skirmish. (See Cotgrave in v. Escarmouche.) I once thought we should read "in such a warre," i.e. conflict.

In Minshen's Guide to the Tongues, we have:

"To Scarre, videtur confictum ex sono oves vel aliud quid abigentium et terrorem illis incutientium. Gall. Ahurir ratione eadem:" vi. to feare, to fright.

Objections have been made to the expression "make hopes;" but the poet himself in King Henry VIII. has "more than I dare make faults," and repeats the phrase in one of his sonnets: surely there is nothing more singular in it than in the common French idiom, "faire des espérances."

    S. W. Singer.

GEORGE HERBERT AND THE CHURCH AT LEIGHTON BROMSWOLD

(Vol. iii., p. 85.)

I have great pleasure in laying before your readers the following particulars, which I collected on a journey to Leighton Bromswold, undertaken for the purpose of satisfying the Query of E. H. If they will turn to A Priest to the Temple, ch. xiii., they will find the points to which, with others, my attention was more especially directed.

Leighton Church consists of a western tower, nave, north and south porches and transepts, and chancel. There are no aisles. As Prebendary of the Prebend of Leighton Ecclesia in Lincoln Cathedral, George Herbert was entitled to an estate in the parish, and it was no doubt a portion of the increase of this property that he devoted to the repairing and beautifying of the House of God, then "lying desolate," and unfit for the celebration of divine service. Good Izaak Walton, writing evidently upon hearsay information, and not of his own personal knowledge, was in error if he supposed, as from his language he appears to have done, that George Herbert almost rebuilt the church from the foundation, and he must be held to be incorrect in describing that part of it which stood as "so decayed, so little, and so useless." There are portions remaining earlier than George Herbert's time, whose work may be readily distinguished by at least four centuries; whilst at one end the porches, and at the other the piscina, of Early English date, the windows, which are of different styles, and the buttresses, afford sufficient proofs that the existing walls are the original, and that in size the church has remained unaltered for ages. As George Herbert new roofed the sacred edifice throughout, we may infer this was the chief structural repair necessary. He also erected the present tower, the font, put four windows in the chancel, and reseated the parts then used by the congregation.

Except a western organ gallery erected in 1840, two pews underneath it, and one elsewhere, these parts, the nave and transepts, remain, in all probability, exactly as George Herbert left them. The seats are all uniform, of oak, and of the good old open fashion made in the style of the seventeenth century. They are so arranged, both in the nave and in the transepts, that no person in service time turns his back either upon the altar or upon the minister. (See "Notes and Queries," Vol. ii., p. 397.) The pulpit against the north, and the reading-desk, with clerk's seat attached, against the south side of the chancel-arch, are both of the same height, and exactly similar in every respect; both have sounding-boards. The font is placed at the west end of the nave, and, together with its cover, is part of George Herbert's work; it stands on a single step, and a drain carries off the water, as in ancient examples. The shallowness of the basin surprised me. A vestry, corresponding in style to the seats, is formed by a wooden inclosure in the south transept, which contains "a strong and decent chest." Until the erection of the gallery, the tower was open to the nave.

The chancel, which is raised one step above the nave, is now partly filled with high pews, but, as arranged by the pious prebendary, it is believed to have contained only one low bench on either side. The communion table, which is elevated by three steps above the level of the chancel, is modern, as are also the rails. There is a double Early English piscina in the south wall, and an ambry in the north. A plain cross of the seventeenth century crowns the eastern gable of the chancel externally.

No doubt there were originally "fit and proper texts of scripture everywhere painted;" but, if this were so, they are now concealed by the whitewash. Such are not uncommon in neighbouring churches. No "poor man's box conveniently seated" remains, but there are indications of its having been fixed to the back of the bench nearest to the south door.

The roof is open to the tiles, being, like the seats, Gothic in design and of seventeenth century execution. The same may be said of the tower, which is battlemented, and finished off with pinnacles surmounted by balls, and has a somewhat heavy appearance. But it is solid and substantial, and it is evident that no expense was spared to make it—so far as the skill of the time could make it—worthy of its purpose and of the donor. There are five bells. No. 1. has the inscription:

"IHS NAZARENVS REX IVDEORVM FILI DEI

MISERERE MEI : GEORGE WOOLF VICAR :

I : MICHELL : C : W : W : N. 1720."

Nos. 2. 4. and 5. contain the alphabet in Lombardic capitals; but the inscription and date on each of them,—

"THOMAS NOBBIS MADE ME 1641"—

show that they are not of the antiquity which generally renders the few specimens we have of alphabet bells so peculiarly interesting, but probably they were copied from the bells in the more ancient tower. No. 3. has in Lombardic capitals the fragment—

"ESME: CCATHERINA,"