Notes and Queries, Number 184, May 7, 1853 | Page 7

is, that the contempt of the
world, "shutting all doors" against the accused, is a sharper kind of
justice than any which the law could inflict: but, to be given up to "the
sharp'st knife of justice" could only mean, being consigned to the public
executioner,--which was just what Katherine was deprecating.
In p. 325. the lines relating to Wolsey's foundations at Ipswich and
Oxford are printed thus in the folio--
"one of which fell with him, Unwilling to outlive the good that did it:"
that is, unwilling to outlive the virtues which prompted it,--a passage
teeming with poetical feeling: but the commentator has ruthlessly
altered it to--
"Unwilling to outlive the good man did it;"

which, I submit, not only destroys all the poetry, but is decidedly not
English!
The next passage I would notice is from Much Ado about Nothing, p.
76. How, I would ask, can the phrase--
"And sorrow wag,"
be a misprint for "call sorrow joy?" No compositor, or scribe either,
could possibly be misled by any sound from the "reader" into such a
mistake as that! The words "and sorrow wag," I admit, are not sense;
but the substitution of "call sorrow joy" strikes me as bald and
common-place in the extreme, and there is no pretence for its having
any authority. If, then, we are to have a mere fanciful emendation, why
not "bid sorrow wag?" This would be doing far less violence to the
printed text, for it would only require the alteration of two letters in the
word "and;" while it would preserve the Shakspearian character of the
passage. "Wag" is a favourite expression in {451} the comedies of the
Bard, and occurs repeatedly in his works. The passage would then run
thus--
"If such a one will smile and stroke his beard, Bid sorrow wag--cry
hem! when he should groan."
In p. 73. we find--
"Soul-tainted flesh," &c.
substituted for "foul tainted flesh;" and we are told that the critics have
been all wrong, who supposed that Shakspeare intended any "metaphor
from the kitchen!" If so, what meaning can be attached to the line--
"And salt too little which may season give?"
If that is not a metaphor from the kitchen, I know not what could be? I
still believe that "foul tainted flesh" is the correct reading. The
expression "soul-tainted flesh" is not intelligible. It should rather be
"soul-tainting flesh." The soul may be tainted by the flesh: but how the

flesh can be soul-tainted, I cannot understand.
Turning further back, to p. 69., we find it asserted, quite dogmatically,
that the word "truths" of the folios ought to be "proofs;" but no reason
whatever is offered for the change. I cannot help thinking that "seeming
truths" is much the most poetical expression, while in "seeming proofs"
there is something like redundancy,--to say nothing of the phrase being
infinitely more common-place!
In the play of the Tempest, p. 4., the beautiful passage--
"he being thus lorded Not only with what my revenue yielded," &c.,
is degraded into "he being thus loaded," &c. Can there be a moment's
doubt that "lorded" was the word used by Shakspeare? It is completely
in his style, which was on all occasions to coin verbs out of
substantives, if he could. "He being thus lorded," i. e. ennobled "with
what my revenue yielded," is surely a far superior expression to "being
thus loaded,"--as if the poet were speaking of a costermonger's donkey!
Again, in p. 10.:
"Wherefore this ghastly looking?"
or, this ghastly appearance? Who will venture to say, that the
substitution of "thus ghastly looking" is not decidedly a change for the
worse?
In the Merchant of Venice, p. 118.:
"and leave itself unfurnished,"
is altered to "leave itself unfinished!" I confess I cannot see the slightest
warrant for this change. The words--
"having made one, Methinks IT should have power to steal both his,"
distinctly show that the author was alluding to the eye only, and not to
the portrait and how could the eye (already made) describe itself as

unfinished? Surely the sense is unfurnished, that is, unfurnished with its
companion, or probably with the other accessories required to complete
the portrait.
P. 119. has the line--
"And swearing 'til my very roof was dry,"
transmogrified into--
"And swearing 'til my very tongue was dry."
Now, why "this lame and impotent conclusion?" What can be a more
common expression than the "roof of the mouth?" and it is just the part
which is most affected by a sensation of dryness and pricking, after any
excitement in speaking, whereas the tongue is not the member that
suffers!
In As You Like It, p. 127., in the line--
"Mistress dispatch you with your safest haste,"
the last two words are made "fastest haste," which, to say