Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 | Page 3

the print as follows. This has a fine group of figures in it:
"When taught by man, the hound pursues The panting stag o'er hill and fell, With steadfast eyes he keeps in view The noble game he loves so well. A mongrel coward slinks away, The buck, the chase, ne'er warms his soul; No huntsman's cheer can make him stay, He runs to nothing, but his porridge bowl.
Throughout the race of men, 'tis still the same, And all pursue a different kind of game. Taverns and wine will form the tastes of some, Others success in maids or wives undone. To solid good, the wise pursues his way; Nor for low pleasure ever deigns to stay. Though in thy chamber all the live-long day, In studious mood, you pass the hours away; Or though you pace the noisy streets alone, And silent watch day's burning orb go down; Nature to thee displays her honest page: Read there--and see the follies of an age."
The taste for emblemata appears to have passed by, but a good selection would be I think received with favour; particularly if access could be obtained to a good collection. And I should like to {615} see any addition to the REV. J. CORSER's list in the Number of the 14th of May.
WELD TAYLOR.
* * * * *
SHAKSPEARE CRITICISM.
When I entered on the game of criticism in "N. & Q.," I deemed that it was to be played with good humour, in the spirit of courtesy and urbanity, and that, consequently, though there might be much worthless criticism and conjecture, the result would on the whole be profitable. Finding that such is not to be the case, I retire from the field, and will trouble "N. & Q." with no more of my lucubrations.
I have been led to this resolution by the language employed by MR. ARROWSMITH in No. 189., where, with little modesty, and less courtesy, he styles the commentators on Shakspeare--naming in particular, KNIGHT, COLLIER, and DYCE, and including SINGER and all of the present day--criticasters who "stumble and bungle in sentences of that simplicity and grammatical clearness as not to tax the powers of a third-form schoolboy to explain." In order to bring me "within his danger," he actually transposes two lines of Shakspeare; and so, to the unwary, makes me appear to be a very shallow person indeed.
"It was gravely," says Mr. A., "almost magisterially, proposed by one of the disputants [MR. SINGER] to corrupt the concluding lines by altering their the pronoun into there the adverb, because (shade of Murray!) the commentator could not discover of what noun their could possibly be the pronoun, in these lines following:
'When great things labouring perish in their birth, Their form confounded makes most form in mirth;'
and it was left to MR. KEIGHTLEY to bless the world with the information that it was things."
In all the modern editions that I have been able to consult, these lines are thus printed and punctuated:
"Their form confounded makes most form in mirth; When great things labouring perish in the birth:"
and their is referred to contents. I certainly seem to have been the first to refer it to things.
Allow me, as it is my last, to give once more the whole passage as it is in the folios, unaltered by MR. COLLIER's Magnus Apollo, and with my own punctuation:
"That sport best pleases, that doth least know how, Where zeal strives to content, and the contents Dyes in the zeal of that which it presents. Their form confounded makes most form in mirth, When great things labouring perish in the birth." Love's Labour's Lost, Act V. Sc. 2.
My interpretation, it will be seen, beside referring their to things, makes dyes in signify tinges, imbues with; of which use of the expression I now offer the following instances:
"And the grey ocean into purple dye." Faery Queene, ii. 10. 48.
"Are deck'd with blossoms dyed in white and red." Ib.., ii. 12. 12.
"Dyed in the dying slaughter of their foes." King John, Act II. Sc. 2.
"And it was dyed in mummy." Othello, Act III. Sc. 4.
"O truant Muse! what shall be thy amends For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?" Sonn. 101.
For the use of this figure I may quote from the Shakspeare of France:
"Mais pour moi, qui, caché sous une autre aventure, D'une ame plus commune ai pris quelque teinture." Héraclius, Act III. Sc. 1.
"The house ought to dye all the surrounding country with a strength of colouring, and to an extent proportioned to its own importance."--Life of Wordsworth, i. 355.
Another place on which I had offered a conjecture, and which MR. A. takes under his patronage, is "Clamor your tongues" (Winter's Tale, Act IV. Sc. 4.) and in proof of clamor being the right word, he quotes passages from a book printed