Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853

The most celebrated High Churchmen who lived in the last century, are Dr. South, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Rev. Wm. Jones of Nayland, Bp. Horne, Bp. Wilson, and Bp. Horsley. See a long passage on "High Churchmen" in a charge of the latter to the clergy of St. David's in the year 1799, pp. 34. 37. See also a charge of Bp. Atterbury (then Archdeacon of Totnes) to his clergy in 1703.

    Jarltzberg.

CONCLUDING NOTES ON SEVERAL MISUNDERSTOOD WORDS

(Continued from Vol. vii., p. 568.)

Not being minded to broach any fresh matter in "N. & Q.," I shall now only crave room to clear off an old score, lest I should leave myself open to the imputation of having cast that in the teeth of a numerous body of men which might, for aught they would know to the contrary, be as truly laid in my own dish. In No. 189., p. 567., I affirmed that the handling of a passage in Cymbeline, there quoted, had betrayed an amount of obtuseness in the commentators which would be discreditable in a third-form schoolboy. To substantiate that assertion, and rescue the disputed word "Britaine" henceforth for ever from the rash tampering of the meddlesome sciolist, I beg to advertise the ingenuous reader that the clause,—

"For being now a favourer to the Britaine,"

is in apposition with Death, not with Posthumus Leonatus. In a note appended to this censure, referring to another passage from L. L. L., I averred that Mr. Collier had corrupted it by chancing the singular verb dies into the plural die (this too done, under plea of editorial licence, without warning to the reader), and that such corruption had abstracted the true key to the right construction. To make good this last position, two things I must do first, cite the whole passage, without change of letter or tittle, as it stands in the Folios '23 and '32; next, show the trivial and vulgar use of "contents" as a singular noun. In Folio '23, thus:

"Qu. Nay my good Lord, let me ore-rule you now;
That sport best pleases that doth least know how.
Where Zeale striues to content, and the contents
Dies in the Zeale of that which it presents:
Their forme confounded, makes most forme in mirth
When great things labouring perish in their birth."

    Act IV. p. 141.
With this the Folio '32 exactly corresponds, save that the speaker is Prin., not Qu.; ore-rules is written as two words without the hyphen, and strives for striues. I have been thus precise, because criticism is to me not "a game," nor admissive of cogging and falsification.

I must now show the hackneyed use of contents as a singular noun. An anonymous correspondent of "N. & Q." has already pointed out one in Measure for Measure, Act IV. Sc. 2.:

"Duke. The contents of this is the returne of the Duke."

Another:

"This is the contents thereof."—Calvin's 82nd Sermon upon Job, p. 419., Golding's translation.

Another:

"After this were articles of peace propounded, y

contents wherof was, that he should departe out of Asia."—The 31st Booke of Justine, fol. 139., Golding's translation of Justin's Trogus Pompeius.

Another:

"Plinie writeth hereof an excellent letter, the contents whereof is, that this ladie, mistrusting her husband, was condemned to die," &c.—Historicall Meditations, lib. iii. chap. xi. p. 178. Written in Latin by P. Camerarius, and done into English by John Molle, Esq.: London, 1621.

Another:

"The contents whereof is this."—Id., lib. v. chap. vi. p. 342.

Another:

"Therefore George, being led with an heroicall disdaine, and nevertheless giuing the bridle beyond moderation to his anger, vnderstanding that Albert was come to Newstad, resolued with himselfe (without acquainting any bodie) to write a letter vnto him, the contents whereof was," &c.—Id., lib. v. chap. xii. p. 366.

If the reader wants more examples, let him give himself the trouble to open the first book that comes to hand, and I dare say the perusal of a dozen pages will supply some; yet have we two editors of Shakspeare, Johnson and Collier, so unacquainted with the usage of their own tongue, and the universal logic of thought, as not to know that a word like contents, according as it is understood collectively or distributively, may be, and, as we have just seen, in fact is, treated as a singular or plural; that, I say, contents taken severally, every content, or in gross, the whole mass, is respectively plural or singular. It was therefore optional with Shakspeare to employ the word either as a singular or plural, but not in the same sentence to do both: here, however, he was tied to the singular, for, wanting a rhyme to contents, the nominative to presents must be singular, and that nominative was the pronoun of contents. Since, therefore, the plural die and the singular it could not both be referable to the same noun contents, by silently substituting die for dies, Mr. Collier has blinded his reader and wronged his author. The purport of the passage amounts to this: the contents, or structure (to wit, of the show to be exhibited), breaks down in the performer's zeal to the subject which it presents. Johnson very properly adduces a much happier expression of the same thought from A Midsummer Night's Dreame:

"Hip. I love not to see wretchedness o'ercharged;
And duty in his service perishing."

The reader cannot fail to have observed the faultless punctuation of the Folios in the forecited passage, and I think concur with me, that like many, ay, most others, all it craves at the hands of editors and commentators is, to be left alone. The last two lines ask for no explanation even to the blankest mind. Words like contents are by no means rare in English. We have tidings and news, both singular and plural. Mr. Collier himself rebukes Malone for his ignorance of such usage of the latter word. If it be said that these two examples have no singular form, whereas contents has, there is means, at any rate precisely analogous. On the other hand, so capricious is language, in defiance of the logic of thought, we have, if I may so term it, a merely auricular plural, in the word corpse referred to a single carcase.

I should here close my account with "N. & Q." were it not that I have an act of justice to perform. When I first lighted upon the two examples of chaumbre in Udall, I thought, as we say in this country, it was a good "fundlas," and regarded it as my own property. It now appears to be but a waif or stray; therefore, suum cuique, I cheerfully resign the credit of it to Mr. Singer, the rightful proprietary. Proffering them for the inspection of learned and unlearned, I of course foresaw that speedy sentence would be pronounced by that division, whose judgment, lying ebb and close to the surface, must needs first reach the light. I know no more appropriate mode of requiting the handsome manner in which Mr. Singer has been pleased to speak of my trifling contributions to "N. & Q.," than by asking him, with all the modesty of which I am master, to reconsider the passage in Romeo and Juliet; for though his substitution (rumourers vice runawayes) may, I think, clearly take the wall of any of its rivals, yet, believing that Juliet invokes a darkness to shroud her lover, under cover of which even the fugitive from justice might snatch a wink of sleep, I must for my own part, as usual, still adhere to the authentic text.

    W. R. Arrowsmith.

P. S.—In answer to a Bloomsbury Querist (Vol. viii., p. 44.), I crave leave to say that I never have met with the verb perceyuer except in Hawes, loc. cit.; and I gave the latest use that I could call to mind of the noun in my paper on that word. Unhappily I never make notes, but rely entirely on a somewhat retentive memory; therefore the instances that occur on the spur of the moment are not always the most apposite that might be selected for the purpose of illustration. If, however, he will take the trouble to refer to a little book, consisting of no more than 448 pages, published in 1576, and entitled A Panoplie of Epistles, or a Looking-glasse for the Unlearned, by Abraham Flemming, he will find no fewer than nine examples, namely, at pp. 25. 144. 178. 253. 277. 285. (twice in the same page) 333. 382. It excites surprise that the word never, as far as I am aware, occurs in any of the voluminous works of Sir Thomas More, nor in any of the theological productions of the Reformers.

With respect to speare, the orthography varies, as spere, sperr, sparr, unspar; but in the Prologue to Troilus and Cressida, sperre is Theobald's correction of stirre, in Folios '23 and '32. Let me add, what I had forgotten at the time, that another instance of budde intransitive, to bend, occurs at p. 105. of The Life of Faith in Death, by Samuel Ward, preacher of Ipswich, London, 1622. Also another, and a very significant one, of the phrase to have on the hip, in Fuller's Historie of the Holy Warre, Cambridge, 1647:

"Arnulphus was as quiet as a lambe, and durst never challenge his interest in Jerusalem from Godfrey's donation; as fearing to wrestle with the king, who had him on the hip, and could out him at pleasure for his bad manners."—Book ii. chap. viii. p. 55.

In my note on the word trash, I said (somewhat too peremptorily) that overtop was not even a hunting term (Vol. vii., p. 567.). At the moment I had forgotten the following passage:

"Therefore I would perswade all lovers of hunting to get two or three couple of tryed hounds, and once or twice a week to follow after them a train-scent; and when he is able to top them on all sorts of earth, and to endure heats and colds stoutly, then he may the better relie on his speed and toughness."—The Hunting-horse, chap. vii. p. 71., Oxford, 1685.

SNEEZING AN OMEN AND A DEITY

In the Odyssey, xvii. 541-7., we have, imitating the hexameters, the following passage:

"Thus Penelope spake. Then quickly Telemachus sneez'd loud,
Sounding around all the building: his mother, with smiles at her son, said,
Swiftly addressing her rapid and high-toned words to Eumæus,
'Go then directly, Eumæus, and call to my presence the strange guest.
See'st thou not that my son, ev'ry word I have spoken hath sneez'd at?[5 - The practice of snuff-taking has made the sneezing at anything a mark of contempt, in these degenerate days.]
Thus portentous, betok'ning the fate of my hateful suitors,
All whom death and destruction await by a doom irreversive.'"

Dionysius Halicarnassus, on Homer's poetry (s. 24.), says, sneezing was considered by that poet as a good sign (σύμβολον ἀγαθόν); and from the Anthology (lib. ii.) the words οὐδὲ λέγει, Ζεῦ σῶσον, ἐὰν πταρῇ, show that it was proper to exclaim "God bless you!" when any one sneezed.

Aristotle, in the Problems (xxxiii. 7.), inquires why sneezing is reckoned a God (διὰ τί τὸν μὲν πταρμὸν, θεὸν ἡγούμεθα εἴναι); to which he suggests, that it may be because it comes from the head, the most divine part about us (θειοτάτου τῶν περὶ ἡμᾶς). Persons having the inclination, but not the power to sneeze, should look at the sun, for reasons he assigns in Problems (xxxiii. 4.).

Plutarch, on the Dæmon of Socrates (s. 11.), states the opinion which some persons had formed, that Socrates' dæmon was nothing else than the sneezing either of himself or others. Thus, if any one sneezed at his right hand, either before or behind him, he pursued any step he had begun; but sneezing at his left hand caused him to desist from his formed purpose. He adds something as to different kinds of sneezing. To sneeze twice was usual in Aristotle's time; but once, or more than twice, was uncommon (Prob. xxxiii. 3.).

Petronius (Satyr. c. 98.) notices the "blessing" in the following passage:

"Giton collectione spiritus plenus, ter continuo ita sternutavit, ut grabatum concuteret. Ad quem motum Eumolpus conversus, salvere Gitona jubet."

    T. J. Buckton.

Birmingham.

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