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January 10,1857.] THE LEADER. 4,X
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MONARCHS RETIRED FROM BUSINESS. Monarchs...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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The English Of Shakspeare. , The English...
sooner or rather , which last ia properly the comparative of rath , or rathe , signifying early , not found in Shakespeare , but used ia one expression— "the rathe primrose " ( Lycidas , 142 )—by Milton , who altogether ignores lief . Lief , liefer , and liefest , are all common in Spenser . Shakespeare has lief pretty frequently , but never liefer ; and liefest occurs only in the Second Part of King Henry VI . , -where , in iii . 1 , we have " My liefest liege . " In the same play ,-too ( i . 1 ) , we have " Mine alderltefest sovereign , " meaning dearest of all . " This beautiful word , " says Mr . Knight , "is a Saxon compound . Alder , of all , is thus frequently joined with an adjective of the superlative degree , —as alderfirst , aiderlast . " But it cannot be meant that such combinations are frequent in the English of Shakespeare ' s day . They do occur , indeed , in a preceding stage of the language . Alder is a corrupted or at least modified form of the A . Saxon genitive plural aller , or allre ; at is that strengthened by the interposition of
a supporting d ( a common expedient ) . Aller , -with the same signification , is still familiar in German compounds . —The ancient effect and construction of lief in English may be seen in the following examples from Chaucer : —" For him was lever han at hisbeddes head" ( C .-T . Pro . 295 ) , that is , To him it was dearer to have ( lever & monosyllable , beddes a dissylable ); " Ney though I say it , I n' am not lefe to gabbe " ( C . T . 3510 ) , that is , I am not given to prate ; "I hadde lever dien , " that is , I should hold it preferable to die . And Chaucer has also "Al he him loth or lefe " ( C . T . 1839 ) , that is , Whether it be to him agreeable or disagreeable ; and " For lefe ne loth" ( C . T . 13062 ) , that is , For lore nor loathing . —We may remark the evidently intended connexion ia sound between the lief and the live , or rather the attraction by which the one word has been naturally produced or evoked by the other .
We must venture on a long extract , trusting its value will excuse the length : — Bid lose his lustre . —There is no personification here . Sis was formerly neuter as well as masculine , or the genitive of It as well as of He ; and his lustre , meaning the lustre of the eye , is the same form of expression that we have in the familiar texts : u The fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind , whose seed is in itself" { Gen , i . 11 ) ; " It shall bruise thy head , and thou shait bruise / tis heel" ( Gen . iii . 15 ) ; " If the salt have lost his savour" ( Matt . v . 13 , and Luke xiv . 34 }; "If the salt have lost his saltnesa" ( Mark ix . 50 ) ; and others . The word Its does not occur in the authorized translation of the Bible ; its place is always supplied either by His or by Thereof . So again , in the present play , in 523 , we have " That every nice offence should bear
his comment ; ' and in Anton ?/ and Cleopatra , v . 1 , " The heart where mine -his thoughts did kindle . " Its , however , is found in Shakespeare ; Mr . Trench , in his English , Past and Present , says that it occurs , he Relieves , three times . I should he inclined to think the instances would be found to be considerably more numerous . There is one in Measure for Measure , ! . 2 , where Lucio's remark about coming to a composition with the King of Hungary draws the reply , " Heaven grant us its peace , but not the King of Hungary ' s . " The its here , it may be observed , has the emphasis . It is printed without the apostrophe both in the First and in the Second Folio . But the most remarkable of the Plays in regard to this particular is probably The Winter's Tale . Here , in i . 2 , we have so many as three instances in a single speech of Leontes : —
.. '¦ ' * How sometimes Nature will betray it ' s folly ? It's tendemesse ? and make it selfe a Pastime To harder bosomes ? Looking on the Lynes Of my Boyes face , me thoughts I did requoyle Twentie three yeeres , and saw my selfe vnbreech'd , In my greene Velvet Coat ; my Dagger muzzel'd , Least it should bite it ' s Master , and sd prove ( As Ornaments oft do ' s ) too dangerous . " So stands the passage in the First Folio . Nor does the new pronoun here appear to be a peculiarity of expression characteristic of the excited Sicilian king ; a little while after in the same scene we have the same form from the mouth of Csunillo : — " Be plainer with me , let me know my Trespas By it's o- \ vne visage . " And again , in iii . 3 , we have Antigonus , when about to lay down the child ia Bohemia , observing that he believes it to be the wish of Apollo that "it should heere lift laida
( Either for life , or death ) vpon the earth . Of it ' s light Father . " Nor is this all . There arc two other passages of the same play , in which the modern editors also give us its ; but in these the original text has it . The first is in ii . 3 , where Leontes , in directing Autigonus to carry away the " female bastaTd" to somo foreign land , enjoins him that he there leave it " ( Without more mercy ) to it owne protection . " The other is in iii . 2 , where Ilermione ' s words stand in both the First and Second Folio , " The innocent milke in it most innocent mouth . " It is a mistake to assume , as the modern editors do , that it in these instances is a misprint for its : Mr . Guest ( Phil . Pro . i . 280 ) has observed that in the dialects of the North-Western Counties formerly it was sometimes used for its ; and that , accordtto fir ly , we have not only in Shakespeare ' s King John ii . 1 " ¦ Goe to yt grandame
, , childl . . . . and it grandame will give yt a plumb , " but in Ben Jonson ' s Silent Woman , ii . 3 , " It knighthood and it friends . " So in Lear , i . 4 , wo have in a speech Of the Fool , " For you know , Nunckle , the Hedge-Sparrow fed the Cuckoo so long , that it ' s had it head bit off by it young" ( that is , that it has had its head , —not that it had its head , as tho modern editors give the passage , after the Second Folio , in which it stands , " that it had its head bit off by it young" ) . So likewiso , long before its was generally received , we have it self commonly printed in two words , evidently under tho impression that it was a possessive , of tho same syntactical force with the pronouns in my self , your self , luir self . And even now we do not write itsself Formerly , too , according to Mr . Guest , they often said even " The King ¦ wife , " & c , for u Tho King's wife . " So he holds that in such modern phrases , as " The idea of a thing being abstracted , " " of it being abstracted , " thing and it ajc genitives , for thing ' s and its .
We have also either it or its in another passage of Lear , where Albany , in iv . 2 , apeaks of " that nature which condemns its origin . " The passago ia not in tho Folios ; but , if wo may trust to Jennons , tho First Quarto lias ith , the Second it , for the its of tho modern text . Both those Quartos are of 1 G 08 ; and there is also a third of the same year , but tho reading in that ia not noted by tho commentators . Mr . Guest asserts that it . i was used generally by tho dramatists of tho age to which the authorized version of the Bible belongs , and also by ninny of their contemporaries . Mr . Trench doubts whether Milton has onco admitted it into Paradise Lost , " although , when that was composed , others frequently allowed it . " Tho common authorities give us no help in such matters as this ; no notice ia taken of the word Ms eithor in Todd ' s Verbal Index to Milton , or in Mrs . Clarke ' s elaborate Concordance to Shakespeare . But Milton does umlts occasionally , as , e . g . ( P . L . i . 251 ) , " Tho mind is its own place , and in itself ; " and ( 2 * . L . iv . 813 ) , " No falsehood can endure Tou-ch of celestial temper , but letuniB Of force to its o-wn likeness . " Generally , however , lie avoids tho -word , and cosily manages to do so by personifying moat of liia
aubatau-^^^¦ ^ ¦ ¦ ¦¦¦ M MnnMHHHMHMHHHHHHHHMMHMHI ^^ iB ^ MMMHH ^ Mn ^ HMHH ^ H ^^ HMiHHHi ^ MB ^^ M ^^^^^^^ tives ; it is only when this cannot be done , as in the above examples , that he reluctantly accepts the services of the little parvenu monosyllable . Mr . Trench notices the fact of the occurrence of Us in Rowley's Poems as decisive against their genuineness . He observes , also , that " Dryden , when , in one of hU fault-finding moods with the great men of the preceding generation , he ia taking Bea Jonson to task for general inaccuracy in lia English diction , mong other counts of his indictment , quotes this line of Catiline , ' Though leaven should speak with all his wrath at once ; ' and proceeds , * Heaven is ill syntax with his . ' " This is a curious evidence of how completely tie former humble condition and recent rise of the now fully established vocable had come to he generally forgotten ia a single generation . The need of it , indeed , must have been much felt . If it was convenient to have the two forms He and It in the nominative , and Sim and It in the other cases , a similar distinction between the Masculine and the Neuter of the genitive must have been equally required for perspicuous expression . Even the personifying power of his was impaired by its being applied to both genders . Milton , consequently , it may be noticed , prefers wherever it is possible the feminine to the masculine personification , as if he felt that the latter was always obscure from the risk of the hit being taken for the neuter pronoun . Thus we have ( P . L . i . 723 ) " The ascending pile Stood fixed her stately height" ( ii . 4 ); " The gorgeous East with richest hand Showers on her kings" ( ii . 175 ); " What if all Her stores were opened , and this firmament Of hell should spout her cataracts of fire" ( ii . 271 ); " This desert soil Wants not her hidden lustre" ( ii . 584 ); " Lethe , the river of oblivion , rolls Her watery labyrinth" ( ix . 1103 ); " The fig-tree . .. spreads her arms" ( Com . 396 ) ; " Beauty . . . had need . . . To save her blossoms and defend her fruit" ( Com 486 ) ; " The soul grows clotted ... till she quite lose The divine property of her first being ; " and so on , continually and habitually , or upon system . His masculine personifications are comparatively rare , and are only Ventured upon either where he does not require to use the pronoun , or where its gender cannot be mistaken .
Milton himself , however , nowhere , I "believe , uses his in a neuter sense . He felt too keenly the annoyance of such a sense of it always coming in the way to spoil or prevent any other use he might have made of it . And the most curious thing of all in the history of the word its is the extent to which , before its recognition as a word proper for serious composition , even the occasion for its employment was avoided or eluded . This is very remarkable in Shakespeare . The very conception which vre express by its probably does not occur once in his -works for tea times that it is to be found in any modern writer . So that -we may say the invention , or adoption , of this form has changed not only our English style , but even our manner of thinking . The use of the word " lover , " on -which Professor Craik comment * ( p . 175 ) , is not yet extinct in the provinces . We one day received a letter from a young gentleman , expressive of his literary admiration , -which was signed " Your lover , —Thomas . " Professor Craik says : —
Thy lover . —As we might still say " One who loves thee . " It is nearly equivalent to friend , and was formerly in common use in that sense . Thus in . Psalm xxxviii . 11 , we have in the old version My lovers and my neighbours did stand looking- upon my trouble , " and also in the common version , "My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore . ";—So afterwards in 375 Brutus begins his address to the people , " Eomans , countrymen , and lovers . " Another change which has been undergone by this and some other words is that they are now usually applied only to men , whereas formerly they were common to both sexes . This has happened , for " instance , to paramour and villain , as well as to lover . But villain is still a term of reproach for a woman as well as for a man in some of the provincial dialects . And , although -we no longer call a woman a lover , we still say of a man and woman that they are lovers , or a pair of lovers . I find the term lover ¦ distinctly applied to a woman ia so late a work as Smollett ' s Count Fathom , published in 1754 : — " These were alarming symptoms to a lover of her delicacy and pride . " ( Vol . I . ch . 10 . )
January 10,1857.] The Leader. 4,X
January 10 , 1857 . ] THE LEADER . 4 , X
Monarchs Retired From Business. Monarchs...
MONARCHS RETIRED FROM BUSINESS . Monarchs Retired from Business . By I > r . Doran . 2 vols . Bentley . Db . Dokan allows few historical doubts to interfere "with the facile gaiety of his narrations . He is a talker and a teller of stories . Even when denials of old versions are taken into the account , it is merely in the way of gossip , scrutiny being dull , and dullness being the sin which , of all others , Dr . Doran is most anxious to avoid . His acuteness , however , enables him to see through many perplexities of improbability and contradiction , so that , without suffering from any peculiar tenderness of literary conscience , he is less inaccurate than we might expect so rapid and discursive a compiler
to be . Still , ^ , e is essentially a random writer , whose power of amusing may be admitted , but whose conclusions must be laid aside for further analysis . He cannot spare from his biographies the spice of the apocryphal or of the discreetly scandalous . Personal histories , in particular , lose too much of their colour , when exposed to criticism , to satisfy the strong turn that Dr . Doran has for the dramatic . His new book is , perhaps , more loosely constructed than the others which preceded ifc . It is also less rich in illustrations derived from the study of uncommon books . It has no real Library scent ; it is modern in material as well as in style ; it has fewer surprises of anecdote than " Table Traits , ' * less variety than " Habits and Men . "
The subject is good—better , by far , than the treatment , though the treatment is superior to that of most compilations . Dr . Doran ia a -writer of some resources ; lie is witty , quaint , and endowed with a memory for good sayings and anecdotes ; so that , even when lie is merely working up a wellknown memoir , a ray of original humour serves to lighten the narration . The book , therefore , is interesting in a double sense—it abounds in entertaining matter , and the manner is peculiarly that of Dr . Doran . Ho is free from the abject vice of our time , the adoration of royalty , and has no objection to expose the dark side of ; a sacred reputation . Indeed , had it been his tendency to flatter , he must liavo forsaken the idea of following kings into the cloister
and queens , or have imitated that mercenary scribe who attributed to Christina of Sweden the virtues of Cato . It majesty upon the throne has been habitually hateful , majesty off" the throno has been usually ridicu loua . Not many r « adcra will care to look for illustrations so far back as the reign of Adoni-Bezck , who cut off tho thumbs and toes of seventy conquered princes , and after wards , toeless and thuinblcss himself , eat his food oat of the dust . But it is as well to remember that the terrible Dionysius was a capital barber , and that Zenobia , in her sublime retirement , consoled herself by drinking . History has too long been converted into the Walhalla of crowned heads . A Suetonius is needed , froiu time to time , to show what leprous beggars have worn the purple ? wo must have our
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 10, 1857, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_10011857/page/17/
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