She thought, was past it; and to be dishonest,
I think, she would not."

Can the following passage be classed with the above?
King Henry VIII. v. 1,—

"I swear he is true-hearted; and a soul

None better in my kingdom."

The construction seems to be the same as in the following passages from Elizabethan poets. Greene, Looking-Glass for London, &c. Dyce, vol. i. p. 111,—

(Have I copied this right? 17 or should it be "Fairest thou"?)

Dekker, Old Fortunatus, Lamb, ed. 1835, vol. i. p. 65,"The glist'ring beams which do abroad appear

In other heavens, fire is not half so clear."

B. and F., Night Walker, i. 2, Moxon, vol. ii. p. 663, col. 2,

"An impudence, no brass was ever tougher." Drayton, Moses, B. iii. ed. 1630, p. 180,—

"He whom the whole world hath but such another."

(This is rather perhaps an outrageous Draytonism for " H than whom," &c.) Ford and Dekker, Sun's Darling, iii. 3, p. 177, col. 2, Moxon,—

"I feared thine eyes should have beheld a face,

The moon has not a clearer: this! a dowdy."

17 Yes; but the context seems to require Fairest. This play is very corrupt. At p. 113, "suits Spenori" is printed seemingly for "sumd his pennons," and three lines are given to Rasni which are the undoubted property of his wife.-Ed.

(Write, "this', [or this's] a dowdy.") Burns, Fair Lesley,

"Return again, fair Lesley,

Return to Caledonie!

That we may say, we hae a lass

There's nane again sae bonny."

Something like this is the construction, M. of V. iv. 1, if I understand it rightly,

I have a daughter,18

Would any of the stock of Barrabas

Had been her husband, rather than a Christian!"

Fuimus Troes, iii. 6, Dodsley, vol. vii. p. 422,

tr

"Night having drawn the curtain, down I lie
By one, for worse Saturnius left the sky."

Wilkins, Miseries of Enforced Marriage, i. ib. vol. v. p. 17,—

.

Indeed he is one,

All emulate his virtues, hate him none."

Vision of Piers Ploughman, 1. 892, Wright's ed. 1844, p. 28,

"Y-corouned with a coroune,

The kyng hath noon bettre."

Browne, Britannia's Pastorals, B. i. Song ii. Clarke, vol. i. p. 69,

"The drops within a cistern fell of stone;

Which, fram'd by nature, art had never one
Half part so curious."

18 The semicolon, which follows daughter in most modern editions, is not, I believe, authorized by any old copy. The folios, except the fourth, have not even a comma.-Ed.

Something like it occurs in Latin. Sil. Ital. viii. 490, of

the Sibyl,

hæc, hæc veri fæcunda sacerdos :

Cui tantum patuit rerum, quantum ipse negarit

Plus novisse Deus."

Shirley, Love Tricks, iv. 2, Gifford and Dyce, vol. i. p. 68,-in thy face

tr

Are many gardens, spring had never such."

[To return from this digression to the main subject of this article.]

Wilkins, Miseries of Enforced Marriage, v. Dodsley, vol. v. p. 80,

Middleton, &c. Old Law, Moxon's Massinger, p. 430, col. 2; perhaps it would be better to insert a comma after strike,

દઃ 'He you shall strike your stroke shall be profound,

And yet your foe not guess who gave the wound."

The following in Daniel seems not to belong to the present head, but to be an imitation of the Latin construction; Civil Wars, B. iv. St. vii.,

(she) disdain'd

To have it thought, she would but hear that wrong
Mov'd to her, of her lord and husband dead,

To have his murderer's race enjoy his bed."

Compare Bunyan, Holy War, ed. 1791, p. 217,-"The proposals therefore, which now at last you have sent us, since we saw them, we have done little else, but highly approved and admired them.”

IV.

The following are instances of an inaccurate use of words in Shakespeare, some of them owing to his imperfect scholarship (imperfect, I say, for he was not an ignorant man even in this point), and others common to him with his contemporaries.

Eternal for infernal. Hamlet, i. 5,—

"But this eternal blazon must not be

To ears of flesh and blood."

"There was a Brutus once, that would have brook'd
Th' eternal devil to keep his state in Rome,

As easily as a king."

Othello, iv. 2,

some eternal villain,

Some busy and insinuating rogue,

Some cogging, cozening slave."

And this, I think, is its meaning, Hamlet, v. 2,--

This seems to be still in use among the common people. In two tales of Allan Cunningham's (Ollier's Miscellany, and London Magazine) I observe the exclamation, "Eternal villain! I need scarcely notice the Yankee 'tarnal. Exorcist and exorciser for magician. All's Well, &c. v. 3, towards the end of the play,

"Is there no éxorcist

Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes?
Is't real that I see?"

Dirge in Cymbeline, iv. 2,—

"No exorciser harm thee!"

Triple for third. All's Well, &c. ii. 1,—

— as a triple eye,

Safer than mine own two, more dear."

A. and C. i. 1,—

"Take but good note, and you shall see in him

The triple pillar of the world transform'd

Into a strumpet's fool."

(I have no doubt, by the way, that Shakespeare wrote, as some suggest, a strumpet's stool; " I believe that pillar requires it. I borrow this emendation from the Var. Notes.19) Somewhat otherwise Chapman, Odyss. iv. p. 49,

Of fate, and erring as I had no home. And, now I have and use it, not to take Th' entire delight it offers; but to make Continual wishes, that a triple part Of all it holds, were wanting, so my heart Were eas'd of sorrows (taken for their deaths That fell at Troy) by their revived breaths." v. 97 (Chapman has not rendered it exactly),— ὧν ὄφελον τριτάτην περ ἔχων ἐν δώμασι μοῖραν ναίειν οἱ δ' ἄνδρες σόοι ἔμμεναι, οἳ τοτ ̓ ὄλοντο Τροίη ἐν ἐυρείη ἕκὰς Αργεος ἱπποβότοιο.

Imperious and judicious for imperial and judicial, e.g. :Troilus and Cressida, iv. 5,-"most imperious Agamem

19 I do not find this emendation noted in Var. 1821. It is the property of Warburton. It appears to me very doubtful, even if there is no allusion to the custom of keeping fools in brothels, for which see Johnson's note on Timon of Athens, ii. 2, and Douce's Illustrations, vol. ii. p. 73.-Ed.