Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 | Page 6

interior of three sides, and the floor and ceiling, with the tables, chairs,
and reading-desk; an open door shows the interior of his sleeping-room,
being over the entrance door porch.
The third--
"Ye Globe, as to be seen before ye Fire in ye year 1615, when this
place was burnt down. This old building," &c.
Here follows a long interesting description. It is an exterior view; size
of drawing 7¼ wide × 9-7/8 high, "W. H. 1640."
The fourth shows the stage, on which are two actors: this drawing,
7-7/8 × 6½, was done by J. Eyre, 1629, and on which he gives a curious
description of his accompanying Prince Charles, &c.; at this time he
belonged to the Court, as he also accompanied that prince to Spain.

The fifth, done by the same hand in a most masterly manner, pen and
ink portrait of Shakspeare, copied, as he writes, from a portrait
belonging to the Earl of Essex, with interesting manuscript notice.
The sixth, done also by J. Eyre:
"Ye portraiture of one Master Ben Jonson, as on ye walls of Master
Will Shakspeare's rooms in Clinke Streete, Southwarke."--J. E. 1643.
The first three, in justice to Hollar, independent of the admirers of the
immortal bard and lovers of antiquities, should be engraved as
"Facsimiles of the Drawings." This shall be done on my receiving the
names of sixty subscribers, the amount of subscription one guinea, for
which each subscriber will receive three engravings, to be paid for
when delivered.
P. T.
P. S.--These curious drawings may be seen at No. 1. Osnaburgh Place,
New Road.
Thomas Shakspeare.--From a close examination of the documents
referred to (as bearing the signature of Thomas Shakspeare) in my last
{546} communication to "N. & Q.," Vol. vii., p. 405.), and from the
nature of the transaction to which they relate, my impression is, that he
was by profession a money scrivener in the town of Lutterworth; a
circumstance which may possibly tend to the discovery of his family
connexion (if any existed) with William Shakspeare.
CHARLECOTE.
Passage in Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 5.--
" . . . Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep
through the blanket of the dark, To cry, Hold, hold!"
In MR. PAYNE COLLIER'S Notes and Emendations, p. 407., we are

informed that the old corrector substitutes blankness for blanket. The
change is to me so exceedingly bad, even if made on some sort of
authority (as an extinct 4to.), that I should have let it be its own
executioner, had not MR. COLLIER apparently given in his adhesion
to it. I now beg to offer a few obvious reasons why blanket is
unquestionably Shakspeare's word.
In the Rape of Lucrece, Stanza CXV., we have a passage very nearly
parallel with that in Macbeth:
"O night, thou furnace of foul reeking smoke, Let not the jealous day
behold thy face, Which underneath thy black all-hiding cloak,
Immodestly lies martyr'd with disgrace."
In Lucrece, the cloak of night is invoked to screen a deed of adultery; in
Macbeth the blanket of night is invoked to hide a murder: but the foul,
reeking, smoky cloak of night, in the passage just quoted, is clearly
parallel with the smoky blanket of night in Macbeth. The complete
imagery of both passages has been happily caught by Carlyle (Sartor
Resartus, 1841, p. 23.), who, in describing night, makes Teufelsdröckh
say:
"Oh, under that hideous coverlet of vapours, and putrefactions, and
unimaginable gases, what a fermenting-vat lies simmering and hid!"
C. MANSFIELD INGLEBY.
Birmingham.
"Discourse of Reason" (Vol. vii., p. 497.).--This phrase, "generally
supposed to be peculiarly Shakspearian," which A. E. B. has indicated
in his quotation from Philemon Holland, occurs also in Dr. T. Bright's
Treatise of Melancholy, the date of which is 1586. In the third page of
the dedicatory epistle there is this sentence:
"Such as are of quicke conceit, and delighted in discourse of reason in
naturall things."

Here, then, is another authority against Gifford's proposed
"emendation" of the expression as it occurs in Hamlet.
M. D.
* * * * *
Minor Notes.
The MSS. of Gervase Hollis.--These were taken during the reign of
Charles I., and continue down to the middle of Charles II. In Harl. MSS.
6829, will be found a most curious and valuable volume, containing the
painted glass, arms, monuments, brasses, and epitaphs in the various
churches and chapels, &c. throughout the county of Lincoln. The arms
are all drawn in the margin in colours. Being taken before the civil war,
they contain all those which were destroyed or defaced by the
Parliament army. They were all copied by Gough, which he notices in
his Brit. Top., vol. i. p.