Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/429

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w* s. i. APRIL so, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


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being top great, it did not please me as otherwise I believe it would ; my having a book, 1 believe, did spoil it a little."

And on seeing it again he says :

" Contrary to expectation, was pleased in nothing more than in Cartwright's speaking of FalstafFs speech about ' What is honour.' "

In his remarks on ' The Tempest' he speaks of

"a curious piece of music in an echo of half sentences, the echo repeating the former half, while the man goes on to the latter, which is mighty pretty."

This bears put the Editor's note at the last reference, as it is evidently the song sung by Ferdinand, wherein Ariel echoes " Go thy ways," in an adaptation of 'The Tempest ' by Davenant and Dryden. This fashion of alter- ing Shakespeare's plays is always to be taken into account when speaking of Pepys as a Shakespearean critic. In conclusion, may I quote a passage from some remarks that I made on this subject before the Shakespeare Club at Stratford-on-Avon 1

" It is safe to say that very few of Shakespeare's plays seen by Pepys were acted as we know them now. To name but three notorious examples, Dryden and Davenant adapted ' The Tempest,' Lacy altered ' The Taming 'of the Shrew,' and the Hon. James Ho\yard had the audacity to supply | Romeo and Juliet' with a happy ending, and to introduce another character the wife of Count Paris. After this, I think we are justified in pardon- ing Pepys many of his criticisms of Shakespeare's plays, and a worse offender in this respect than he is his brother diarist, John Evelyn, generally accepted as a more refined and cultured man than Pepys, who in 1661 writes : ' I saw "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark," played, but now the old plays begin to disgust this refined age, since his Majesty's being so long abroad ! ; and this is the only play of Shake- speare's which he mentions in his Diary as having been acted.

CHARLES E. DAWES.

I am sure MR. YARDLEY will permit me to call his attention to the fact that eleven, and not eight, was the number of the plays of Shakespeare seen by Samuel Pepys : 'Hamlet,' 'Henry IV.,' 'Henry VIIL," Mac- beth,' 'Merry Wives of Windsor,' 'Mid- summer Night's Dream,' 'Othello,' 'Eomeo and Juliet,' 'Taming of the Shrew,' ' Tempest,' and ' Twelfth Night.' It may further be remarked that the exact number of plays of all kinds that the immortal diarist saw was 145 ; for the names of which see 'Samuel Pepys : and the World He Lived In,' by Henry B. Wheatley, F.S.A. (London, Bickers & Son, 1880). HENRY GERALD HOPE.

119, Elms Road, Clapham, S.W.

"TUGS," WYKEHAMICAL NOTION (10 th S. i. 269). The late Warden of Merton College,


Oxford, in his interesting book 'Memories and Impressions,' a copy of which he pre- sented to me, appears to derive the term " tugs " (togati) (chap, ii.), a term applied to the Collegers at Eton by the Oppidans, from toga, a gown. It was, I have heard, from their having only roast mutton for dinner. The slang term "togs" is applied to articles of dress.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

MUTILATED LATIN LINES (10 th S. i. 268). In line 1 Flamen seems right.

5. Read " ne qua."

6. Undique and Parthus.

7. Polluti fratrum membris sparsique cruore.

8. Jussissent hominum millia capta neci.

13. Purgacordascelusque,domuuidescende, precamur.

14, Es custos nobis, sicut et ante tuia. The lines of course refer to St. Elizabeth :

" When the minister so wise and clever of the eternal parent guarded her couch in which thou, aged maiden, wast cherishing the child and wast mingling holy prayers with thy cares, lest, violently advancing along the whole line of Jordan, the Parthian and Arabian fierce should vent their wrath on every side, polluted with the limbs of their brothers and sprinkled with blood, should have consigned thousands of men captive to death :

" Thou still in conscious safety in the shadow of the divine deity wast impressing many kisses on the cheeks of thy son.

"Thus when proud kingdoms are crushed by punishment, being present at the altar, do Thou, Christ, protect Thy congregations.

"Purge our hearts and purge away our crime, and come down to our home, we pray. Be guardian to us, even as Thou wert before to Thy people ! "

H. A. STRONG.

University, Liverpool.

FEUDAL SYSTEM (10 th S. i. 248). The following quotations from Stephen's ' Com- mentaries ' should explain as to mesne tenant :

"The stipendiary (or feudatory, as he should now rather be termed), considering himself as sub- stantially the owner, began to imitate the example of his sovereign by carving out portions of the benefice or feud, to be held of himself by some other person, on terms and conditions similar to those of the original grant ; and a continued chain of suc- cessive dependencies was thus established, con- necting each stipendiary, or vassal, as he was termed, with his immediate superior or lord.

And again :

"Such tenants as held under the king imme- diately, when they granted out portions of their lands to inferior persons, became also lords with respect to those inferior persons, as they were still tenants with respect to the king ; and, thus par- taking of a middle nature, were called mesne, or