Mr. Forman dates March 14, 1818, Keats disclaims all definite religious convictions; he wishes he could enter into his friend's feelings and say something to his liking, but he adds: "I am sometimes so very sceptical as to think Poetry itself a mere Jack o' Lantern." C. C. B.
'The Tragedy of Mariam' (12 S. i. 22).—Prof. Moore Smith's annotations on this play stop just short of an interesting line (2138 of the Malone Society edition). Herod rebukes the sun for shining when his beauteous Mariam is dead:—
You could but shine, if some Egiptian blows,
Or Æthiopian doudy lose her life.
One is reminded of the well-known crux in 'The Merchant of Venice,' III. ii. 98-9:—
……the beauteous scarf
Veiling an Indian beauty,
where "beauty" has been on all hands condemned as corrupt. In its stead Sir Thomas Hanmer proposed "dowdy." His conjecture has met with scant favour; but it seems to me that this contemporary occurrence of "Æthiopian doudy" lends it strong support.
The meaning of this word has suffered a decided change and weakening since Shakespeare's time. Now it merely connotes unbecomingness of attire: a woman is so designated if she is dressed somewhat "in the rearward of the fashion." Then it meant a woman repulsively ugly. Thus Burton, 'Anatomy,' III. iii. iv. ii. (ed. 1621, p. 702):—
"A cittizen of Bizance in Thrace had a filthy dowdy, deformed slut to his wife."
Much later (about 1700), in 'A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew,' by B. E., we find:—
"Doudy, An ugly coarse hard favored Woman. She is a meer Doudy, that is, very ugly."
And in Kersey's edition of Phillips's 'New World of Words' (1706):—
"Dowdy, a swarthy gross Woman,"
which further justifies the application to an Ethiopian or Indian.
One or two of the misprints in this play (duly noted by the Malone Society editors) deserve attention. Line 728 gives us a clear instance of the confusion of "live" and "lie": "liue" is printed, but the rime shows "lie" to be the right word. Cf. '1 Henry IV.,' I. ii. 213: "In the reproof of this lies the jest," where the First Quarto has "liues" ; and in other passages of Shakespeare there is reason to suspect the same confusion. In 1. 1478, for "heauy semblance" the editors with great probability suggest "heaunly semblance." Cf. 'Much Ado,' V. iii. 21, where the Quarto has "Heauily, heauily," the First Folio "Heauenly, heauenly"; and 'Hamlet,' II. ii. 309, "and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition," where the Folio commits the same blunder. Walter Worrall.
Folk-Lore: the Dangers of Crossing (11 S. xii. 461).—In this part many folks say that rats are unable to cross a room in man's presence, and run only along the bases and corners of its walls. Kumagusu Minakata.
Tanabe, Kii, Japan.
Cleopatra and the Pearl (12 S. i. 128,, i 198).—Cleopatra would have no difficulty with her pearl. Pearls are composed mainly of chalk, and to that extent are soluble in acids. The first part of the process of making the magistery of pearls and coral of our old London pharmacopoeia was the dissolution of these substances in vinegar. C. C. B.
"Trefira Saracin" (12 S. i. 168).—Dr. Paul Dorveaux's 'Les pots de pharmacie: leurs inscriptions présentées sous forme de dictionnaire,' Paris, 1908, probably the best collection of drug-pot inscriptions yet published, gives the following, which may interest Mr. F. J. Odell:—
"Trifera Persica (italien), tryphera persica de Mésué.
"Triphera Pers.; Triphera Persica, tryphera persica de Mésué. Tryphera vient du grec (
Greek characters), délicat."
'The Final Toast' (12 S. i. 111).—This is catalogued at the British Museum as. "a masonic lyric (begins 'Are your glasses charged?'), written by D. L. Richardson, music by Edwin John Crow, London, 1871." It was advertised in 1875 as in stock at Kenning's Masonic Depots. W. B. H.
"Terra Rodata" (12 S. i. 149).—In this matter neither Littleton nor Ainsworth is in accord with Isaac Taylor. The former gives, in the 'Latin-Barbarous' division of his dictionary, "Rodata, a rood of land," while the latter has, under 'Index Vocabulorum in Jure Anglicano occurrentium,' "Rodata terræ, a quarter of an acre." Charles Gillman.
Church Fields, Salisbury.
This expression seems to 'be of Germanic origin from roden=to clear forest land; and Rodeland means freshly cleared land. L. L. K.
