SHAKESPEARIANA. 'HAMLET,' I. iv. 36-8 (12 S. iv. 211). and from that time onwards Owen built paddle-boats only. The first steamer of this type constructed by him was finished in 1817, and in the following year made voyages on Lake Mälar. The steamer soon became popular in Sweden, and, thanks to A. As a preliminary to tackling this Owen, Sweden was the first European passage, admittedly impossible as it stands country after Great Britain to have a in the Second and Third Quartos, it is steamship service and a steamship in- expedient to clear the ground by considering dustry. In recognition of his services, Owen was made a member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences and of the Academy of Agriculture. This great pioneer never became rich. In fact, as the result of competition and the great losses he had suffered, Samuel Owen had to shut down his works and hand over his property to his creditors. For a while he carried on a scheme for the draining of bogs in the province of Småland ; and then from 1847 to 1851 he again acted as foreman at a foundry. After settling at the town of Södertelje he returned to Stockholm, and died there on Feb. 15, 1854. His position might have been precarious but for the fact that he had been granted a pension by the Swedish State for the pioneer work he had done. Apart from his merits as an industrial organizer, Samuel Owen will always be remembered in Sweden as one of those who helped to introduce Methodism and the temperance movement into that country. One other interesting fact remains to be mentioned. The wife of Samuel Owen was the aunt of August Strindberg, one of the greatest names in nineteenthcentury Swedish literature. In his autobiography The Son of a Maid' Strindberg describes this aunt, who after the death of her husband took up her abode with Strindberg's parents. There sat the old lady, who had known so many famous people, and instructed her young nephews in the art of politeness. With her lace cap, and surrounded by vestiges of former greatnessfurniture with coverings of an English pattern, and the bust of Samuel Owen in the uniform of the Academy of Sciences she was a figure to inspire young Strindberg with respect. He tells us also that Mrs. Owen drank tea after the English custom and read English books. We may doubtless attribute to these surroundings, in part at least, the familiarity with English thought that Strindberg afterwards displayed-a familiarity which was to be of far-reaching importance for his development as an author. HERBERT G. WRIGHT. University College, Bangor. causes of corruption. We will assume that Shakespeare originally wrote sense, however difficult for a cursory reader to follow. (1) The printer, confronted with very bad handwriting, may have done his bestprinted exactly what he made of it, with no intrusion of his own intelligence. (2) Finding the MS. unintelligible, he may have emended" on his own, modestly or recklessly. (3) He may have printed from dictation, in which case his ear, not his eye, was deceived. Many of the proposed emendations seem to rest on this supposition. Is it a possible one? B. (1) It is commonly accepted that cale is a mistake for evil. Surely a very odd mistake! Evil is a common word, which it is hard to believe that any printer could corrupt into a rare or non-existent one. Yet, on the other hand, at II. ii. 577 the Quarto did print deale for devil. The presumed intermediate form e'il is hardly worth consideration, in spite of the Scottish deil" for devil. Shakespeare was writing English; and the notion that e'il was used for metre's sake is ludicrous. The 24 lines of this speech contain 8 other hypermeters. (2) The only other tenable suppositions are (a) that eale has displaced some other word; (b) that it is a genuine word itself, which occurs nowhere else, and whose The N.E.D.' does meaning is now lost As to (a), there is still an not recognize it. opening for a brilliant conjectural restoration; but the restorer must satisfy himself whether the printer was baffled by bad handwriting or misled by pronunciation. Is (b) possible? Note that the word passed through the Third Quarto unchallenged. The word is required to mean some ingredient of a mixture, a modicum of which has power to spoil or corrupt the mass; as, e.g., rennet or some acids, dropped into milk or cream, would operate. 66 66 Is dout (do out) to be taken as meaning the signification of turn, pervert, corrupt, or put out," extinguish"? This is con- the like. Shakespeare's meaning evidently sonant with the idea of liquid in dram. Or is that a little leaven leavens the whole as meaning " eject," "expel"? One objec- lump." tion that I have seen to the word often, viz., that it is too limited, is sufficiently refuted by oft in 11. 23 and 28. In a MS. the most likely word to be misread as dout would be clout. Clout patch gives no sense; but a noun clout is another form of clot, and the participle clouted, of clotted. TheN.E.D. admits under clouted that a verb clout for clot is conceivable, though no instances are listed. To revert to a notion indicated above, if eale could be a lost word for vinegar, or be a printer's misreading for esil (Esile in the Folio), we should gain a good and clear metaphor: "It often happens that a small portion of vinegar dropped into a nobler substance (such as milk) curdles it all." (c) His own means the depraved man's." This remoteness of reference, and false concord, is more licentious writing, but thoroughly Shakespearean in style. H. K. ST. J. S. Prof. Elze's reading is quoted in The Athenæum of Aug. 11, 1866, pp. 217-18, viz., often daub"; and if these words were merely altered to overdaub," the change would, I think, supply much the best sense and rhythm to the passage hitherto forthcoming : SHAKESPEARE: A SURVIVAL OF AUGURY.— At 12 S. iii. 297 I referred to a possible use by Shakespeare of oral tradition. In Ireland there is a widespread belief that it is unlucky to see one magpie, but lucky to see Among the six pages of closely written two. I believe there are other traditional notes on this passage in Furness's Variorum facts available concerning the magpie, but edition is one from the First Series of this particular case is interesting as Shake'N. & Q.' (v. 377) resembling the emenda-speare referred to the bird as a means of tion now suggested by PROF. ELLERSHAW. The writer of the note in 1852 advocated the reading o'er a doubt," which he explained as "doth cast a doubt over all the noble substance, bring into suspect all the noble qualities"; and H. D. in The Athenæum of Aug. 18, 1866, suggested "overdout." Dyce, it appears, agreeing with Lettsom, considered that a verb must lurk under See Furness, 'Variorum Shakespeare.' the corruption 'a doubt' or 'doubt' with augury as follows:— Stones have been known to move and trees to forth Macbeth,' III. iv. 123-6. J. J. MACSWEENEY. me blundering Frenchman informed me that it was an Australian Famous Norwich physician word signifying the right shop to go to for Tom Brown" of Facetious anything. I see that the question of its religion, if we may appro- meaning was discussed at 10 S. iii. 168 and of a Cambridge humorist, 217, when one or two correspondents cited Joyous bright Greek type, the E.D.D.,' where dinkum is defined n in anything in particular, to mean work, due share of work." at it, when it did." WILLOUGHBY MAYCOCK. adds that "the Note was een written by Clément, de la Bibl. du Roi, who "I cannot find that ever held the office of Bibliothèque." According bie Universelle,' he was sous nd died in 1712. The aphie Générale' styles him en second," and assigns of his death. EDWARD BENSLY. : HIS IDENTITY.-Ball in closures to the west of the town THE JUDGES' LEVEL.-There is a familiar legal anecdote of the judge who was seen 66 The story is, however, of much earlier date. In a commonplace-book of Charles II.'s time (Harleian MS. 6395) we are told (Fragment No. 337) that Sir John Millicent excused his potations on the plea that he must 'drink himself down to the capacity of the Bench." Sir John Millicent was only a county magistrate, whom James I. knighted at Royston. So the anecdote was not a slander against any of the king's courts at Westminster, but only against a provincial Quarter Sessions. CYRIL. 66 RUTTER FAMILY NAME.-I have found that it is believed (and even by some who bear the name) that Rutter is German in origin. In the seventeenth century the word rutter was used to designate & own that the last letter of the trooper, and it is customary to derive it was often attracted to a from the Low Dutch ruiter. This is erroas in Tedan for St. Aidan,neous: the identification partly depends 1. Antony, Tooley and Tulius upon the vowel u, which in ruiter is merely and Tobin for St. Aubin. In orthographical. The Dutch word rimes ve might have Tninian for pretty closely with English loiter," and and as ru would be more easily could not therefore yield rutter. iter the T than ni, the forms I would seek the origin of "Rutter' in Trunian," and "Trunnion" the French routier, and the reduction of ossibly have been developed ti to t similarly occurs in gutter" from an was forgotten. gouttière. J. T. F. the above was in type I have y suggestion has been anticiPlummer's 'Bede,' ii. 129. 66 Rutter, moreover, is a much older family gote, goute. Now [Endorsed :] Thank Mr. Walpole for his care of Officers Letters & desire he will continue so to do. Whatever charge shall arise shall be pay'd by me on his making up the Acct, but I am to pay only those expenses without which the Prisoners could not receive their letters. BRITISH NAVY, 1587-1919.-At a moment | unhappy countrymen I shall as willingly conwhen every member of the British Empire tribute to it as to convince your Lordship on all is, or should be, proud of his incomparable occasions of the sincere regard with which I have the honour to be My Lord Navy, it may be well to record, for the Your Lordships historian's future use, the following early Most obedient & very hum: Servant reference. It occurs in a rare poetical THOMAS WALPOLE. tract believed to survive in two original exemplars only. The slender volume was issued to mark Queen Elizabeth's thirty years' reign of unexampled prosperity, and just a year before the stearnfull" navy had a chance of showing the Spaniards the stuff it was made of, despite miserable supplies of provisions and munitions. I append the extract from Maurice Kyffin's Blessednes of Brytaine,' 1587, in its archaic spelling, believing that hitherto it has not seen the light of print in 'N. & Q.': 66 Broad Street buildings In sending your Lordship the inclosed Letter £1: 9:2 12: 6 the situation of prisoners is deserving compassion in every consideration, & therefore these letters were sent to the Commissioners of sick and wounded, & by them directed to the War Office, though neither would pay the charges, many have been forwarded by us to the prisoners in France for which we have paid the postage to flanders and our Correspondent at Paris Monsieur de Monmartel has never brought us any further account, we cannot therefore charge him with those he is so kind to send us. I should be glad therefore to receive your Lordships orders in what manner or to whom the prisoners letters in France ought to be directed in future. If I can be in this or any other shape assistant to my time, to know that the monetary obstacle SIR THOMAS BROWNE: TOM BROWN.-In the preface to Dr. Greenhill's 'Golden Treasury' edition of the 'Religio Medici' is a detail which requires, I think, some further explanation. In giving an account, on p. ix, of the way in which translations of the Religio Medici' were received on the Continent, he observes that the book was by some persons much misunderstood, and gave occasion to great and most undeserved misrepresentation of the author's religious opinions." An instance of this is appended at the foot of the page : 66 "The following Note (which deserves preservation on account of its monstrous ignorance and from one of the copies in the National Library absurdity) was copied by the present Editor at Paris: Th. Brown, un des plus déclaréz ennemis de toute Réligion, et que l'Univers. d'Oxford avoit autrefois chassé pour ses débauches, avant sa mort écrit une lettre pleine dans un Recueil postume de ses dialogues.' de sentimens de pénitence: elle est imprimée Dr. Greenhill apparently leaves the reader to suppose that this ludicrously false account is the invention of malicious bigotry. What has really happened is that the reported facts of one man's life have been transferred to another of a similar name. It was Thomas Brown (1663-1704) who is said, when an undergraduate at Christ Church, to have been threatened with expulsion by Dean Fell. I have not examined the posthumous Collection of all the Dialogues of Mr. Thomas Brown,' 1704, but feel safe in accepting from so sound an authority as Mr. A. H. Bullen the statement, in the 'D.N.B.,' that to this edition was appended a letter (the genuineness of which was attested by Thomas Wotton, curate of St Lawrence Jewry) purporting to have been written by Brown on his death-bed. In this letter Brown, after expressing regret for having written anything that would be likely to have a pernicious influence, protests against being responsible for lampoons, trips, London Spies," in which he had no hand.' |