206
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. VIIL SEPT. 7, 1901.
kept up for any length of time. In the
4 Rambles ' it is spoken of as intended to be
an annual event. W. B. H.
UNIVERSITY DEGREES. Are there any universities which grant degrees on a thesis only, taking professional and non-university examinations in lieu of residence or univer- sity examinations, either in this country, America, or abroad 1 R. J. T.
BISHOP'S ORNAMENTS. In a letter recently received by me from the pen of a dis- tinguished antiquary occurs the following pertinent passage : " No Anglican bishop since the Tudor days has been pictured in a pectoral cross, an official ring, or a purple cassock." Although the person who penned this statement is an acknowledged authority on all matters ecclesiological, I yet venture to maintain that in this case, at any rate, he is quite incorrect in his conclusions. Is not this the case 1 Surely some Anglican bishops have been represented in portraits habited in these ornamenta ecclesiastica. I believe, for instance, that in the Academy portrait of the late Bishop of London Dr. Creighton was represented wearing a pectoral cross, together with the cassock, cape, mitre, rochet, and ring. There must be many more such portraits extant depicting others of the post-Reformation prelates of the Church of England wearing at least some of these insignia. Can any of your correspondents give me particulars of such 1 ? Information with regard to these would be most welcome. H. BASKERVILLE.
$*?&*
SHAKESPEARE THE "KNAVISH."
(9 th S. vii. 162,255,330,474.) ONE can have little doubt that the adjective here used was not meant as a reflection on the poets character, but was intended as a com- pliment. We may take it in the sense of . mischievous" or "waggish," which it bears in the lines quoted from Shakespeare himself in Johnson's l Dictionary ' :
Here she comes curst and sad Cupid is a knavish lad, Thus to make poor females mad. But even if the word bore the worst of signi- fications, it should have little weight when employed by a solitary writer so many years after the dramatist's death MR. AxW has however, done a service to the memory of bhakespeare by demonstrating that he was not the originator of the phrase which elicited the compliment. It was bad enough for him
to have borrowed it, but great is one's satis-
faction that the authorship has been so
clearly traced to Rabelais. After such a
revelation these words of Mr. Swinburne
read strangely :
" From him [Rabelais] Shakespeare has learnt nothing and borrowed nothing that was not wise and good and sweet and clean and pure." 'A Study of Shakespeare,' third edition, p. 157.
Limpid waters from a cesspool ! But they have gushed from the stricken rock !
Mr. Sidney Lee has done well to disregard the gossip of Sir John Harington. His ex- cellent volume would have been disfigured, I venture to say, had he devoted any of its pages to the idle and malicious stories concocted by that writer. Fancy Shakespeare making his " pile " by stealing herds of deer (" so many hartes"), and rooking yeomen and cheating infant young gentlemen of their money by means of "double-headed groats" and "cogged dice"! "But," says MR. THORPE, "there is independent contemporaneous evidence to support it"; and then he refers us to the * Microcynicon,' formerly attributed to J. Marston, but now, it appears, to Middle- ton. Whoever was the author, this collection of satires, published in 1599," when Shake- speare was soaring up to the serene height of his incomparable genius, cannot be looked upon as of historical value, because it deals in the most general and indefinite way with types of character, and not with particular individuals. Here is the title : " Sixe Snarling Satyres. Insatiat. Prodigall. Insolent. Cheat- ing. Juggling. Wise." If MR. THORPE is able to identify Shakespeare as the type of "cheating," he would do us a favour by giving flesh and blood to the others men- tioned. But what helped him to solve the sixth part of the riddle 1 ? His words are these: "The sweet-singing youth is named ^hake-rag (1. 53), reminding one of Greene's Shakescene " (9 th S. vii. 331). Verily, the cat is out of the bag and the pig hath escaped from the poke. It is the old, old story not of love, but of its opposite. Love is often blind, but hatred, I take it, is always so. One might almost fancy that MR. THORPE is actuated by some hereditary vendetta so unscrupulous is he in his efforts to heap obloquy on the poet's reputation. That his attempt at identification is a ludicrous failure may be seen from the following passage :
" The tragedy of 'Arden of Feversham ' was indeed connected with Shakespeare-and that, as he should proceed to show, only too intimately ; but Shake- speare was not connected with it that is, in the capacity of its author. In what capacity would be too evident when he mentioned the names of the two leading ruffians concerned in the murder of
