Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 | Page 3

alteration certainly not at odds with the host's ensuing
question, "said I well?" saving that that, to liquorish palate, might seem
a rather superfluous inquiry.
"With sorrow they both die and live That unto richesse her hertes
yeve." The Romaunt of the Rose, v. 5789-90.
"He is a foole, and so shall he dye and liue, That thinketh him wise, and
yet can he nothing." The Ship of Fooles, fol. 67., by Alexander Barclay,
1570.
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"Behold how ready we are, how willingly the women of Sparta will die
and live with their husbands."--The Pilgrimage of Kings and Princes, p.
29.
Except in Shakspeare's behalf, it would not have been worth while to
exemplify so unambiguous a phrase. The like remark may also be
extended to the next word that falls under consideration.
* * * * *
Kindly, in accordance with kind, viz. nature. Thus, the love of a parent
for a child, or the converse, is kindly: one without natural affection
([Greek: astorgos]) is unkind, kindless, as in--
"Remorselesse, treacherous, letcherous, kindles villaine." Hamlet, Act
II. Sc. 2.
Thence kindly expanded into its wider meaning of general benevolence.
So under another phase of its primary sense we find the epithet used to

express the excellence and characteristic qualities proper to the idea or
standard of its subject, to wit, genuine, thrifty, well-liking, appropriate,
not abortive, monstrous, prodigious, discordant. In the Litany, "the
kindly fruits of the earth" is, in the Latin versions "genuinus," and by
Mr. Boyer rightly translated "les fruits de la terre chaqu'un selon son
espèce;" for which Pegge takes him to task, and interprets kindly "fair
and good," through mistake or preference adopting the acquired and
popular, in lieu of the radical and elementary meaning of the word.
(Anonymiana, pp. 380--1. Century VIII. No. LXXXI.) The conjunction
of this adjective with gird in a passage of King Henry VI. has sorely
gravelled MR. COLLIER: twice over he essays, with equal success, to
expound its purport. First, loc. cit., he finds fault with gird as being
employed in rather an unusual manner; or, if taken in its common
meaning of taunt or reproof, then that kindly is said ironically; because
there seems to be a contradiction in terms. (Monck Mason's rank
distortion of the words, there cited, I will not pain the reader's sight
with.) MR. COLLIER'S note concludes with a supposition that gird
may possibly be a misprint. This is the misery! Men will sooner suspect
the text than their own understanding or researches. In Act I. Sc. 1. of
Coriolanus, dissatisfied with his previous note, MR. COLLIER tries
again, and thinks a kindly gird may mean a gentle reproof. That the
reader may be able to judge what it does mean, it will be necessary to
quote the king's gird, who thus administers a kindly rebuke to the
malicious preacher against the sin of malice, i.e. chastens him with his
own rod:
"King. Fie, uncle Beauford, I have heard you preach, That mallice was
a great and grievous sinne: And will not you maintaine the thing you
teache, But prove a chief offender in the same?
Warn. Sweet king: the bishop hath a kindly gyrd." First Part of King
Henry VI., Act III. Sc. 1. 1st Fol.
A gird, akin to, in keeping with, fitting, proper to the cardinal's calling;
an evangelical gird for an evangelical man: what more kindly? Kindly,
connatural, homogeneous. But now for a bushel of examples, some of
which will surely avail to insense the reader in the purport of this

epithet, if my explanation does not:
"God in the congregation of the gods, what more proper and
kindly"?--Andrewes' Sermons, vol. v. p. 212. Lib. Ang.-Cath. Theol.
"And that (pride) seems somewhat kindly too, and to agree with this
disease (the plague). That pride which swells itself should end in a
tumour or swelling, as, for the most part, this disease doth."--Id., p.
228.
"And so, you are found; and they, as the children of perdition should be,
are lost. Here are you: and where are they? Gone to their own place, to
Judas their brother. And, as is most kindly, the sons to the father of
wickedness; there to be plagued with him for ever."--Id., vol. iv. p. 98.
"For whatsoever, as the Son of God, He may do, it is kindly for Him, as
the Son of Man, to save the sons of men."--Id., p. 253.
"There cannot be a more kindly consequence than this, our not failing
from their not failing: we do not, because they do not."--Id., p. 273.
"And here falls in kindly this day's design, and the visible 'per me,' that
happened on it."--Id., p. 289.
"And having then made them, it is kindly that viscera misericordiæ
should be over those opera that came de visceribus."--Id.,