Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 | Page 2

It may be remarked that "Robin" is the Norman diminutive of "Robert", and that the latter is the name by which we should have expected to find the doings of a Saxon hero commemorated. It is true that Norman and Saxon soon came to have their feelings and traditions in common; but it is not the less curious to find the old Saxon name still traditionally applied by the people, as it seems to have been from the Vision of Piers Ploughman.
Whether Robin Goodfellow and his German brother "Knecht Ruprecht" are at all connected with Robin Hood, seems very doubtful. The plants which, both in England and in Germany, are thus named, appear to belong to the elf rather than to the outlaw. The wild geranium, called "Herb Robert" in Gerarde's time, is known in Germany as "Ruprecht's Kraut". "Poor Robin", "Ragged Robin", and "Robin in the Hose", probably all commemorate the same "merry wanderer of the night."
RICHARD JOHN KING.
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ON A PASSAGE IN "THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR," AND ON CONJECTURAL EMENDATION.
The late Mr. Baron Field, in his _Conjectures on some Obscure and Corrupt Passages of Shakspeare_, published in the "Shakspeare Society's Papers," vol. ii. p. 47., has the following, note on _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, Act ii. Sc. 2.:--
"'_Falstaff._ I myself sometimes having the fear of heaven on the left hand, and hiding mine honour in my necessity, am fain to shuffle, to hedge, and to lurch; and yet you, you rogue, will esconce your _rags_, your cat-a-mountain looks, your red-lattice phrases and your bold-beating oaths, under the shelter of your honour.'
"Pistol, to whom this was addressed, was an ensign, and therefore rags can hardly bear the ordinary interpretation. A rag is a beggarly fellow, but that will make little better sense here. Associated as the phrase is, I think it must mean _rages_, and I find the word used for ragings in the compound _bard-rags_, border-ragings or incursions, in Spenser's _Fairy Queen_, ii. x. 63., and _Colin Clout_, v. 315."
Having on one occasion found that a petty larceny committed on the received text of the poet, by taking away a superfluous _b_, made all clear, perhaps I may be allowed to restore the abstracted letter, which had only been misplaced and read _brags_, with, I trust, the like success? Be it remembered that Pistol, a braggadocio, is made up of brags and slang; and for that reason I would also read, with Hanmer, _bull-baiting_, instead of the unmeaning "_bold-beating_ oaths."
I well know with what extreme caution conjectural emendation is to be exercised; but I cannot consent to carry it to the excess, or to preserve a vicious reading, merely because it is warranted by the old copies.
Regretting, as I do, that Mr. Collier's, as well as Mr. Knight's, edition of the poet, should both be disfigured by this excess of caution, I venture to subjoin a cento from George Withers, which has been inscribed in the blank leaf of one of them.
"Though they will not for a better Change a syllable or letter, Must the _Printer's_ spots and stains Still obscure THE POET'S Strains? Overspread with antique rust, Like whitewash on his painted bust Which to remove revived the grace And true expression of his face. So, when I find misplaced B's, I will do as I shall please. If my method they deride, Let them know I am not tied, In my free'r course, to chuse Such strait rules as they would use; Though I something miss of might, To express his meaning quite. For I neither fear nor care What in this their censures are; If the art here used be Their dislike, it liketh me. While I linger on each strain, And read, and read it o'er again, I am loth to part from thence, Until I trace the poet's sense, And have the _Printer's errors_ found, In which the folios abound."
PERIERGUS BIBLIOPHILUS.
October.
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Minor Notes.
_Chaucer's Damascene._--Warton, in his account of the physicians who formed the Library of the Doctor of Physic, says of John Damascene that he was "Secretary to one of the caliphs, wrote in various sciences before the Arabians had entered Europe, and had seen the Grecian philosophers." (_History of English Poetry_, Price's ed., ii. 204.) Mr. Saunders, in his book entitled _Cabinet Pictures of English Life_, "Chaucer", after repeating the very words of this meagre account, adds, "He was, however, more famous for his religious than his medical writings; and obtained for his eloquence the name of the Golden-flowing" (p 183.) Now Mr. Saunders certainly, whatever Warton did, has confounded Damascenus, the physician, with Johannes Damascenus Chrysorrhoas, "the {323} last of the Greek Fathers," (Gibbon, iv. 472.) a voluminous writer on ecclesiastical subjects, but no physician, and therefore not at all likely to be