present in the chapel of Ardpatrick one Sunday, when Father Dan O'Kennedy, after Mass, called on the two schoolmasters—candidates for a school vacancy—to come forward to him from where they stood at the lower end of the chapel; when one of them, Mat Rea, a good scholar but a terrible pedant, called out magniloquently, 'Yes, doctor, we SHALL go to your reverence,' unconsciously following in the footsteps of Shakespeare.
The language both of the waiter and of Mat Rea is exactly according to the old English usage.
- 'Lady Macbeth (to Macbeth):—Be bright and jovial among your guests to-night.
- 'Macbeth:—So shall I, love.' ('Macbeth,' Act iii. scene ii.)
- 'Second Murderer:—We shall, my lord,
- Perform what you command us.' (Ibid., Act iii. scene i.)
But the Irish waiter's answer would now seem strange to an Englishman. To him, instead of being a dutiful assent, as it is intended to be, and as it would be in England in old times, it would look too emphatic and assertive, something like as if it were an answer to a command not to do it. (Woollett.)
The use of shall in such locutions was however not universal in Shakespearian times, as it would be easy to show; but the above quotations—and others that might be brought forward—prove that this usage then prevailed and was correct, which is sufficient for my purpose. Perhaps it might rather be said that shall and will were used in such cases indifferently:—
- 'Queen:—Say to the king, I would attend his leisure
- For a few words.
- 'Servant: Madam, I will.' ('Macbeth,' Act iii. scene ii.)
