Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/87

This page needs to be proofread.

9-s.vm.joLY27,i9oi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


79


Have with our neelds created both one flower, Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion, Both warbling of one song, both in one key ; As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds, Had been incorporate. So we grew together, Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, But yet an union in partition ; Two lovely berries moulded on one stem ; So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart Two of the first, like coats in heraldry, Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.

' Midsummer Night's Dream,' III. ii.

"I mistrusted least my tongue, impatient of a case so important, should discover it to the very walles of my private chamber, witnesse thereof is Amese my nephewe, my chiefest friende and coun- sellor at that time, and the faithful companion of my travels, and some few besides him, whose faith- full and froward assistance and diligence did us good service in the execution of this action. For albeit we lived together and familiarly (as it were) in one and the same course of life : though we eate at one and the same table, and though wee did in a manner (as it were) breathe jointly with one and the same soule : neverthelesse neither they nor any man alive did ever heare me mindefull of my countrie, but only in the warre of Hungarie : neither was there ever anie man that heard me use any speech, or to utter any one word at any time, which might argue me to bee a Christian or free man, till such time as I sawe, and perceived that I might freely do it, and without all feare of danger." ' The Life of Scanderbeg.'

Scanderbeg's account of the familiar manner in which he lived with his nephew Amese re- sembles Helena's description of her schoolday friendship with Hermia. They were all closely intimate. Helena and Hermia both created one flower, both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion, both warbling of one song in one key, as if their hands, sides, voices, and minds had been incorporate; and Scanderbeg and Amese lived together familiarly in one and the same course of life, did eat at one and the same table, and did breathe jointly with one and the same soul ; and it is worthy of notice that the word one is used by Scanderbeg and Helena to describe the unity of close and familiar friendship. Moreover, Helena speaks of the counsel she had shared with Hermia and Scanderbeg calls Amese his counsellor.

Chorus. O England 1 model to thy inward great


Like little body with a mighty heart.

' Henry V.,' II.

This comparison may have been suggestec by the following passage in the 'Life o: Scanderbeg,' which is descriptive of Ballaban Badera : ,

"Touching the stature of his bodie, he was no very tall, but of a middle size : but he was of a notable quicke and ready wit, his minde was ex tremely great and haughtie, besides that he wa very resolute and couragious, fearing nothing. S it may be said of him as Homer wrote of Tydeus,


A little man of body, and but small of stature, Yet great in deedes of armes, arid a mightie warrior."

According to this quotation from Homer, Ballaban Badera was a little man of body,

yet a mighty warrior, and Shakespeare com- >ares England to a little body with a mighty leart.

Pistol. He hears with ears.

Evans. The tevil and his tarn ! What phrase is his, "He hears with ear"? Why, it is affec- ations. * Merry Wives,' I. i.

Biron. Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise, Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affectation, figures pedantical. ' Love's Labour Lost,' V. ii.

Hamlet. I remember, one said there were no wallets in the lines to make the matter savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might indict the author of affectation. ' Hamlet,' II. ii.

I think that Shakespeare in these passages refers to cacozelia or " fonde " affectation, thus described by Puttenham :

" Ye have another intolerable ill maner of speach, which by the Greekes originall we may call fonde affectation, and is when we affect new words and phrases other than the good speakers and writers in any language hath allowed, and is the common fault of young schollers not halfe so well studied before they come from the Universitie or Schooles, and when they come to their friends, or happen to get some benefice or other promotion in their countreys, will seeme to coigne fine wordes out of the Latin, and to use new fangled speaches, thereby to shew themselves among the ignorant the better learned."' The Arte of Poesie.'

Evans seems to think that Pistol affects a new phrase other than custom or the

ood speakers and writers in any language

iave allowed, and that he makes use of the intolerable manner of speech which Putten- ham calls fond affectation. In the speech which Hamlet heard the First Player speak once, there was in the phrase no matter that might indict the author of affectation.

W. L. RUSHTON. (To be continued.)


THE CHUKCH OF ST. SOPHIA, CONSTAN- TINOPLE. M. Antoniadi, who has been for some years past chiefly engaged on astro- nomical work at the Flammarion Observatory, Juvisy, made whilst at Constantinople some interesting studies of Justinian's great church (now, as we all know, a mosque) there, the results of which he hopes to publish in an English archaeological journal. But in the meantine he has called my attention to an error in the great work of Lethaby and Swainson (1894), entitled 'The Church of Sancta Sophia, Constantinople : a Study of Byzantine Building.' The church was de- scribed shortly after its completion in a