12 S. I. APRIL 22, 1916.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
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The strange part of the thing is that I should have hit so nearly upon the title of the book and the time of its publication, and yet it is not what I wanted. Still, notice in 'N. & Q.' is shown to be better than most advertisements so I may get it yet. J. S. Udal, F.S.A.
Contributions to the History of European Travel (12 S. i. 61, 101, 141, 181, 221, 261, 301.—It would be well not to leave unnoticed the travels of Brigadier-General Sir Samuel Bentham, K.S.G., 1757-1831, more particularly in Russia, 1779 onwards to 1788. He travelled, too, beyond the Urals to the confines of China, but that is outside the scope of the notes. See 'D.N.B.' and 'Life' by his widow, 1862. H. W. Dickinson.
Collins: Asylum at Islington (12 S. i. 247).—The house referred to by Mr. Breslar was probably Fisher House in Lower Street, Islington. It was standing as late as the year 1806. (See Cassell's 'Old and New London,' vol. ii. p. 262.) M. D.
Montagu and Manchester (12 S. i. 267).—The Manchester from which Sir Henry Montagu took his title is Godmanchester, in the county of Huntingdon, about ten miles from Kimbolton Castle. G. W. E. R.
Notes on Books.
Like most books this is unequal, but it abounds in interest. No scholar's work on Shakespeare can but be valuable, and Mrs. Stopes has that rare and precious form of scholarship a first-hand acquaintance with contemporary documents. By this means she has added considerably added in previous volumes to the sum total of our knowledge of Shakespeare's environment, his family and probable associates, and his times. We see with regret that she fears that this collection of essays may be the last outcome of her lifelong service in the cause of Shakespearian learning. Whether this be so or no, nothing should take from her the knowledge of work, worth doing, done, even at the cost of a life of "laborious days." One discovery alone should repay her for all the toil spent in the making of the present volume—that of the incident of the drowning of a Katharine Hamlet at Tiddington (not Teddington), near Stratford, when Shakespeare was about 16 or 17, and when at the inquest the question was raised of the propriety of granting Christian burial. The original of Ophelia in other versions, be it noted, does not seek death by drowning. Was it then a haunting memory that gave such moving quality to the verse in which Gertrude tells of Ophelia's end, with its lingering (so inappropriate in the mouth of a queen) on the local names of flowers—
But our cold maids do dead-men's fingers call them?
The "cold maids" in the Alcester country near Stratford talk of "dead-men's fingers" still.
Another very happy instance of the working of Shakespeare's youthful memories may be furnished, Mrs. Stopes suggests (following Gervinus), in the mental atmosphere of 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' with its medley of royalty, fairy land, hunting, and the acting of "rude mechanicals," recalling the famous festivities of Leicester's entertainment of Elizabeth at Kenilworth Castle, a fascinating theory in the nature of things incapable of proof.
Perhaps the most interesting part of this volume is the bringing together of material used in some form or other by the creator of 'Hamlet' and ' Macbeth.'The Amleth of Saxo-Grammaticus and his French translator, Belleforest, is a fine figure of the heroic age, who also feigns madness, and, when sent out to be in the kitchen among the servants, sharpens the points of some faggots he has gathered together, "to make pointed javelins," as he says, "to avenge the death of my father." Gruoch, the original of Lady Macbeth, "was a faithful and liberal daughter of the early Scottish Church. Her charitable gifts were many. On one of her gifts of land to the Priory of Loch Leven was a well, which has ever since been venerated by her name as Gruoch's Well."
Mrs. Stopes thinks that Shakespeare went directly to Belleforest for his 'Hamlet' material, and, in addition to Holinshed, consulted Stewart's 'Chroniclis'—not printed until 1858—before writing 'Macbeth.' It may be so, but it seems more likely that in the case of 'Hamlet,' at least, he depended on an old play, now lost, by Kyd or in Kyd's vein, and that the ghost was suggested by this play or some other drama of revenge. Mrs. Stopes's assertion that "in every case in which Stewart differs from Holinshed, Shakespeare follows Stewart," is very telling; but this is a point where opinion can have no finality, since so much other literature that was accessible to the dramatist has been destroyed. While dealing with the subject of 'Hamlet' we should like to protest very strongly against Mrs. Stopes's desire to alter the received text of the play in order to satisfy a romantic prepossession as to the figure of the Prince of Denmark. It is definitely set down that he was 30 and that he was fat. We are not prepared to argue about the age at which a man is most likely to fall into Hamlet's brooding ways; but certainly there is no physiological canon that lays down that habits of reflection must necessarily co-exist with leanness. It is, in part, these prepossessions which make Mrs. Stopes so unsure as a critic. Yet, though in general the critical faculty has been denied her, she has wonderful flashes of insight. What can be more admirable than her summing-up (p. 6) of the vexed question of Shakespeare's learning, or her dictum that the poet introduced "a new reverence for women upon the English stage," or the apt lesson she draws (p. 205) from the simplicity of the furnishing of the Elizabethan stage?
And so in giving thanks, as at this time, for the master's "copious industry," let not the "copious industry" of others be forgotten.
