Notes and Queries, Number 187, May 28, 1853 | Page 5

other {521} instances, commentators and all the world may be wrong, and the folios right. The passage has accordingly been corrupted by the editors of Shakspeare into what was more familiar to their modern ears: "Had none, my Lord!" Though the mode of speech be very common, yet, to deprive future editors of all excuse for ever again depraving the genuine text of our national Bible, I shall make no apology for accumulating a string of examples:
"Fort. Oh, had I such a hat, then were I brave! Where's he that made it?
Sol. Dead: and the whole world Yields not a workman that can frame the like.
Fort. No does?" "Old Fortunatus," Old English Plays, vol. iii. p. 140., by Dilke:
who alters "No does?" into None does? thinking, I presume, that he had thereby simplified the sentence:
"John. I am an elde fellowe of fifty wynter and more, And yet in all my lyfe I knewe not this before.
Parson. No dyd, why sayest thou so, upon thyselfe thou lyest, Thou haste euer knowen the sacramente to be the body of Christ." John Bon and Mast Person.
"Chedsey. Christ said 'Take, eat, this is my body;' and not 'Take ye, eat ye.'
Philpot. No did, master doctor? Be not these the words of Christ, 'Accipite, manducate?' And do not these words, in the plural number, signify 'Take ye, eat ye;' and not 'Take thou, eat thou,' as you would suppose?"--Foxe's Acts and Monuments, vol. vii. p. 637., Cattley's edition.
"Philpot. Master Cosins, I have told my lord already, that I will answer to none of these articles he hath objected against me: but if you will with learning answer to that which is in question between my lord and me, I will gladly hear and commune with you.
Cosins. No will you? Why what is that then, that is in question between my lord and you?"--Id., p. 651.
"Philpot. And as I remember, it is even the saying of St. Bernard [viz. The Holy Ghost is Christ's vicar on earth (vic-arius), and a saying that I need not to be ashamed of, neither you to be offended at; as my Lord of Durham and my Lord of Chichester by their learning can discern, and will not reckon it evil said.
London. No will? Why, take away the first syllable, and it soundeth Arius."--Id. p. 658.
"Philpot. These words of Cyprian do nothing prove your pretensed assertion; which is, that to the Church of Rome there could come no misbelief.
Christopherson. Good lord, no doth? What can be said more plainly?"--Id., p. 661.
Again, at p. 663. there occur no less than three more instances and at p. 665. another.
"Careless. No, forsooth: I do not know any such, nor have I heard of him that I wot of.
Martin. No have, forsooth: and it is even he that hath written against thy faith."
Then Martin said:
"Dost thou not know one Master Chamberlain?
Careless. No forsooth; I know him not.
Martin. No dost! and he hath written a book against thy faith also."--Id., vol. iii. p. 164.
"Lichfield and Coventry. We heard of no such order.
Lord Keeper. No did? Yes, and on the first question ye began willingly. How cometh it to pass that ye will not now do so?"--Id., p. 690.
"Then said Sir Thomas Moyle: 'Ah! Bland, thou art a stiff-hearted fellow. Thou wilt not obey the law, nor answer when thou art called.' 'Nor will,' quoth Sir John Baker. 'Master Sheriff, take him to your ward.'"--Id., vol. vii. p. 295.
Is it needful to state, that the original editions have, as they ought to have, a note of interrogation at "Baker?" I will not tax the reader's patience with more than two other examples, and they shall be fetched from the writings of that admirable papist--the gentle, the merry-hearted More:
"Well, quod Caius, thou wylt graunte me thys fyrste, that euery thynge that hath two erys is an asse.--Nay, mary mayster, wyll I not, quod the boy.--No wylt thou? quod Caius. Ah, wyly boy, there thou wentest beyond me."--The Thyrde Boke, the first chapter, fol. 84. of Sir Thomas More's Dialogues.
"Why, quod he, what coulde I answere ellys, but clerely graunt hym that I believe that thyng for none other cause but only bycause the Scripture so sheweth me?--No could ye? quod I. What yf neuer Scripture had ben wryten in thys world, should there neuer haue bene eny chyrch or congregacyon of faythfull and ryght beyleuyng people?--That wote I nere, quod he. No do ye? quod I."--Id., fol. 85.
In taking leave of this idiom, it would not perhaps be amiss to remark, that "ye can," in Duke Humphey's rejoinder to the "blyson begger of St. Albonys," is not, as usually understood, "you can?" but "yea can?"
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To be at point = to be at a stay or stop, i.e. settled, determined, nothing farther being to be