OFFICE, 22, TOOK'S COURT, CHANCERY LANE, E.C.

BY JOHN C. FRANCIS.

LONDON, SATURDAY, JULY 7, 1888.

CONTENTS.-N° 132.

NOTES:-Shakspeariana, 1-Honorary Degrees, 3-Curlliana

-Railway Tickets, 4-Steele and the Charterhouse-Abbott

Family-Three Sovereigns in one Year-Order against Games,

5-Miss Foote-Louvima-Verification of Quotations, 6.

QUERIES:-Chaffer-Challis-Chaise-longue-Chad Pennies

-Egotism-Macready, 7-Letting the Lightning out—E. J.

Conroy - Bishops Jackson and Lloyd - The Sorbonne-

Henry IV. and Mary de Bohun-Confucius-Hugo Lloyd-

Title of Book of Hymns-Certifago, 8-Rockall-Servants

to Kings-Death of Charles I.-Westmorland Dialect-

Authors Wanted, 9.

REPLIES:-Mark Lemon, 9

-

- Tête-à-Tête Portraits-Row-

landson-Moon-lore, 10-Sprig of Shillelah'-Booted Mis-

sion-Up-Helly-A, 11-Church Bells-Catsup-Reference

Wanted, 12-Caradoc-Book by General Outram-Royal

Offering-Cathedrals-Berthold's 'Political Handkerchief'

-Lapp Folk-Tales, 13-Snead-St. Malan-Scarron-Ver-

non-Norfolk Song, 14-Title of Novel-John Hamilton-

Sarum Missal-Shakspeare-Hide-Motion of the Sun, 15—

Rebecca-Hussar Pelisse, 16-Portraits-Sons of Edward

III.—Roman Wall, 17-Standing up at the Lord's Prayer

Mr. Justice Rokeby-Lindsey House-Wills of Suicides-

Authors Wanted, 18.

Notes.

SHAKSPEARIANA,

"

66

sense here too. Unfortunately, too, neither bank
nor shoal possesses in Shakespeare the meaning
which this interpretation gives them. Bank means
а river-bank
or sea-shore," never a bank
encircled by water." Except the present passage
Dr. Murray quotes no example earlier than 1696
of bank used in the latter sense. Shoal, used only
once by Shakespeare-" the depths and shoals of
honour" (Henry VIII.,' III. ii. 437)-has its
usual meaning of "shallow water," not "land left
bare by the receding of shallow water." In the
latter sense Shakespeare uses shelf, which, in fact,
with some plausibility, Warburton suggested here
for "schoole."
bank and shore of time." Compare 'Richard III.,'
I simply propose to read "this
IV. iv. 525:-

Send out a boat

Unto the shore, to ask those on the banks.
I have noted seven other instances in Shakespeare
in which the two words occur synonymously in
close connexion. Life is then regarded as the shore
from which the blind leap is made into eternity's
ocean. The oft-repeated phrase of Latin poets, in
luminis oras, occurs at once as a parallel, to which
tality" (Pericles,' V. i. 195).
we may add Shakespeare's own "shores of mor-

My last note on this subject shall be strictly

conservative. In V. ii. 14,-

For certain

He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause
Within the belt of rule,

the word cause has been quite undeservedly, I
THE TEXT OF MACBETH.' (Concluded from 7th think, suspected, and by Sidney Walker, Collier,
3. v. 323.)-Since communicating my former notes Dyce, and Singer rejected in favour of course. The
ɔn this subject to 'N. & Q.' it has occurred to me question of Rosencrantz, in 'Hamlet,' III. ii. 350,
to examine the text of a passage which I had pre- "Good my lord, what is your cause of dis-
viously supposed to have been emended in so satis- temper?" as well as 'John,' III. iv. 12, "Such
factory a manner as not to admit of further ques- temperate order in so fierce a cause," should surely
tion. In Macbeth's soliloquy in I. vii. Theobald's give the rash emendator pause. In what sense,
correction of "bank and shoal of time" for "Banke then, are we to take cause? Surely not, as the
and Schoole of time" finds place in almost every Clarendon Press editors do, as the disorganized
edition. The defence of the Folio reading by those party of Macbeth; the context is fatal to such a
who interpret it as a sort of ev dià Svoîv, meaning view. Caithness says, "Some people call his con-
on this school-bench of life,” cannot be regarded duct madness, others valiant fury"; at a loss which

seriously. On the other hand, there is much to be hypothesis to adopt, he chooses the word distemper,

said in favour of Theobald's reading, taking it, as which in Shakespeare is applied to both conditions.

the Clarendon Press editors do, as comparing There is no question at all of Macbeth's followers,

human life to "a narrow strip of land in an but only of the nature of his violence.

ocean. Yet examination will, I think, show con- sically-derived words used by Shakespeare it is

clusively that the reading and interpretation are always the safe plan to refer to the Latin dic-

equally untenable. Presumably the Clarendon tionary. Turning to Lewis and Short's 'Dic-

Press editors take bank as "sand-bank," and tionary 'I find under "Causa," "In medic. lang. a

shoal as its practical synonym, i. e., land covered cause for disease......Hence in late Latin for dis-

at times by shallow water. But if so, what a ease," for which various authorities are cited. Causa

strange notion is this of a man who jumps from a is, in fact, what in modern medical, as well as legal,

sand-bank into the shoaly waters of the sea! Is language is called a case," i. e., the matter at

not this an extraordinary way of picturing the leap issue. "Distemper'd cause," then, I take to mean

into eternity's gulf? Jump no doubt means his "malady of distemper," and in the same sense

tropically to risk," as the Clarendon Press the passage above quoted from 'Hamlet,' where it

editors demonstrate, but it clearly has its literal is to be noted that the expression is "your cause

=

In clas-