"Spread thy close curtain, love-performing Night,
That rude day's eyes may wink, and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen."
A subsequent reference to Juliet's speech has left no doubt in my mind that this is the true reading, and so obviously so, as to make it a wonder that it should have been overlooked. She first asks the "fiery-footed steeds" to bring in "cloudy night," then night to close her curtain (that day's eyes may wink), that darkness may come, under cover of which Romeo may hasten to her. In the next two lines she shows why this darkness is propitious, and then, using an unwonted epithet, invokes night to give her the opportunity of darkness:
"Come, civil night,
Thou sober suited matron all in black,
And learn me how to lose a winning game," &c.
The peculiar and unusual epithet "civil," here applied to night, at once assured me of the accuracy of the proposed reading, it having evidently suggested itself as the antithesis of "rude" just before applied to day; the civil, accommodating, concealing night being thus contrasted with the unaccommodating, revealing day. It is to be remarked, moreover, that as this epithet civil is, through its ordinary signification, brought into connexion with what precedes it, so is it, through its unusual meaning of grave, brought into connexion with what follows, it thus furnishing that equivocation of sense of which our great dramatist is so fond, rarely missing an opportunity of "paltering with us in a double sense."
I think, therefore, I may venture to offer you the proposed emendation as rigorously fulfilling all the requirements of the text, while at the same time it necessitates a very trifling literal disturbance of the old reading, since by the simple change of the letters naw into ded, we convert "runaways'" into "rude day's," of which it was a very easy misprint.
Having offered you an emendation of my own, I cannot miss the opportunity of sending you another, for which I am indebted to a critical student of Shakspeare, my friend Mr. W. R. Grove, the Queen's Counsel. In All's Well that ends Well, the third scene of the Second Act opens with the following speech from Lafeu:
"They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar things, supernatural and causeless. Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors; ensconcing ourselves in a seeming knowledge when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear."
On reading this passage as thus printed, it will be seen that the two sentences of which it is composed are in direct contradiction to each other; the first asserting that we have philosophers who give a causeless and supernatural character to things ordinary and familiar: the second stating as the result of this, "that we make trifles of terrors," whereas the tendency would necessarily be to make "terrors of trifles." The confusion arises from the careless pointing of the first sentence. By simply shifting the comma at present after "things," and placing it after "familiar," the discrepancy between the two sentences disappears, as also between the two members of the first sentence, which are now at variance. It should be pointed thus:
"They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless."
It is singular that none of the editors should have noticed this defect, which I have no doubt will hereafter be removed by the adoption of a simple change, that very happily illustrates the importance of correct punctuation.
Shakspeare's Skull.—As your publication has been the medium of many valuable comments upon Shakspeare, and interesting matter connected with him, I am induced to solicit information, if you will allow me, on the following subject. I have the Works of Shakspeare, which being in one volume 8vo., I value as being more portable than any other edition. It was published by Sherwood without any date affixed, but probably about 1825. There is a memoir prefixed by Wm. Harvey, Esq., in which, p. xiii., it is stated that while a vault was being made close to Shakspeare's, when Dr. Davenport was rector, a young man perceiving the tomb of Shakspeare open, introduced himself so far within the vault that he could have brought away the skull, but he was deterred from doing so by the anathema inscribed on the monument, of—
"Curs'd be he that moves my bones."
This is given upon the authority of Dr. Nathan Drake's work on Shakspeare, in two vols. 4to. Now in this work much is given which is copied into the memoir, but I do not there find this anecdote, and perhaps some reader of "N. & Q." may supply this deficiency, and state where I may find it. I may be allowed to state, that Pope's skull was similarly stolen and another substituted.
I annex Wheler's remark that no violation of the grave had, up to the time of his work, taken place.
"Through a lapse of nearly two hundred years have his ashes remained undisturbed, and it is to be hoped no sacrilegious hand will ever be found to violate the sacred repository."—History of Stratford-upon-Avon, by R. B. Wheler (circa 1805?), 8vo.
On a Passage in "Macbeth."—Mr. Singleton (Vol. vii., p. 404.) says, "Vaulting ambition, that o'erleaps itself," is nonsense—the thing is impossible; and proposes that "vaulting ambition" should "rest his hand upon the pommel, and o'erleap the saddle (sell)," a thing not uncommon in the feats of horsemanship.
Did Mr. Singleton never o'erleap himself, and be too late—later than himself intended? Did he never, in his younger days, amuse himself with a soprasalto; or with what Donne calls a "vaulter's sombersault?" Did he never hear of any little plunderer, climbing a wall, o'erreaching himself to pluck an apple, and falling on the other side, into the hands of the gardener? "By like," says Sir Thomas More, "the manne there overshotte himself."
What was the manne about? Attempting such a perilous gambol, perhaps, as correcting Shakspeare.
To {overleap, overreach, overshoot} himself are merely, to {leap, reach, shoot}, over or beyond the mark himself intended.
Bloomsbury.
P.S.—Mr. Arrowsmith reminds us of the old saw, that "great wits jump." He should recollect also that they sometimes nod.
Minor Notes
Lemon-juice administered in Gout and Rheumatism.—At a time when lemon-juice seems to be frequently administered in gout and rheumatism, as though it were an entirely new remedy, I have been somewhat amused at the following passage, which may also interest some of your readers; it occurs in Scelta di Lettere Familiari degli Autori più celebri ad uso degli studiosi della lingua Italiana, p. 36., in a letter "Di Don Francesco a Teodoro Villa":
"Io non posso star meglio di quel che sto, e forse perchè uso di spesso il bagno freddo, e beo limonata a pranzo e a cena da molti mesi. Questa è la mia quotidiana bevanda, e dacche mi ci sono messo, m' ha fatto un bene che non si puo dire. Di quelle doglie di capo, che un tempo mi sconquassavano le tempie, non ne sento più una. Le vertigini, che un tratto mi favorivano sì di spesso, se ne sono ite. Sino un reumatismo, che m' aveva afferrato per un braccio, s' e dileguato, così ch'io farei ora alla lotta col più valente marinaro calabrese che sia. L' appetito mio pizzica del vorace. Che buona cosa il sugo d' un limone spremato nell' acqua, e indolciato con un po' di zucchero! Fa di provarlo, Teodoro. Chi sa che non assesti il capo e lo stomaco auche a te."
Weather Proverbs.—Are these proverbs worth recording?
"Rain before seven, fine before eleven."
"A mackerel sky and mare's tails,
Make lofty ships carry low sails."
"If the rain comes before the wind,
Lower your topsails and take them in:
If the wind comes before the rain,
Lower your topsails and hoist them again."
The