Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853

Notes

WITCHCRAFT IN SOMERSETSHIRE

Perhaps the following account of superstitions now entertained in some parts of Somersetshire, will be interesting to the inquirers into the history of witchcraft. I was lately informed by a member of my congregation that two children living near his house were bewitched. I made inquiries into the matter, and found that witchcraft is by far less uncommon than I had imagined. I can hardly adduce the two children as an authenticated case, because the medical gentleman who attended them pronounced their illness to be a kind of ague: but I leave the two following cases on record in "N. & Q." as memorable instances of witchcraft in the nineteenth century.

A cottager, who does not live five minutes' walk from my house, found his pig seized with a strange and unaccountable disorder. He, being a sensible man, instead of asking the advice of a veterinary surgeon, immediately went to the white witch (a gentleman who drives a flourishing trade in this neighbourhood). He received his directions, and went home and implicitly followed them. In perfect silence, he went to the pigsty; and lancing each foot and both ears of the pig, he allowed the blood to run into a piece of common dowlas. Then taking two large pins, he pierced the dowlas in opposite directions; and still keeping silence, entered his cottage, locked the door, placed the bloody rag upon the fire, heaped up some turf over it, and reading a few verses of the Bible, waited till the dowlas was burned. As soon as this was done, he returned to the pigsty; found his pig perfectly restored to health, and, mirabile dictu! as the white witch had predicted, the old woman, who it was supposed had bewitched the pig, came to inquire after the pig's health. The animal never suffered a day's illness afterwards. My informant was the owner of the pig himself.

Perhaps, when I heard this story, there may have been a lurking expression of doubt upon my face, so that my friend thought it necessary to give me farther proof. Some time ago a lane in this town began to be looked upon with a mysterious awe, for every evening a strange white rabbit would appear in it, and, running up and down, would mysteriously disappear. Dogs were frequently put on the scent, but all to no purpose, the white rabbit could not be caught; and rumours soon began to assert pretty confidently, that the white rabbit was nothing more nor less than a witch. The man whose pig had been bewitched was all the more confident; as every evening when the rabbit appeared, he had noticed the bed-room window of his old enemy's house open! At last a large party of bold-hearted men one evening were successful enough to find the white rabbit in a garden, the only egress from which is through a narrow passage between two cottages, all the rest of the garden being securely surrounded by brick-walls. They placed a strong guard in this entry to let nothing pass, while the remainder advanced as skirmishers among the cabbages: one of these was successful, and caught the white rabbit by the ears, and, not without some trepidation, carried it towards the reserve in the entry. But, as he came nearer to his friends, his courage grew; and gradually all the wrongs his poor pig had suffered, took form and vigour in a powerful kick at the poor little rabbit! No sooner had he done this than, he cannot tell how, the rabbit was out of his grasp; the people in the entry saw it come, but could not stop it; through them all it went, and has never been seen again. But now to the proof of the witchcraft. The old woman, whom all suspected, was laid up in her bed for three days afterwards, unable to walk about: all in consequence of the kick she had received in the shape of a white rabbit!

S. A. S.

Bridgewater.

"EMBLEMATA HORATIANA."

Whatever may be proposed as to republishing works of English emblems, the work published in Holland with the above title at all events deserves to be better known. All the English works on the subject I ever saw, are poor indeed compared with the above: indeed, I think most books of emblems are either grounded or compiled from this interesting work; which is to the artist a work of the deepest interest, since all the designs are by Otho Venius, the master of Rubens. Not only are the morals conveyed lofty and sound, but the figures are first-rate specimens of drawing. I believe it is this work that Malone says Sir Joshua Reynolds learned to draw from: and if he really did, he could have had nothing better, whatever age he might be. "His principal fund of imitation," says Malone, "was Jacob Cat's book of emblems, which his great-grandmother, by his father's side, who was a Dutch woman, had brought with her from Holland." There is a small copy I think published in England, but a very poor one: the original work, of which I possess a portion only, is large, and engraved with great care. And I have often thought it a pity such an admirable work should be so scarce and little known. Whoever did it, it must have occupied many years, in those slow days, to make the designs and engrave them. At the present day lithography, or some of the easy modes of engraving, would soon multiply it. The size of the engravings are rather more than seven inches. Many of the figures have been used repeatedly by Rubens, and also some of the compositions. And though he is certainly a better painter, he falls far short in originality compared with his master; and, I may add, in richness of material. I should say his chief works are to be found in that book. One of my leaves is numbered 195: so I should judge the work to be very large, and to embrace a variety of subjects. Some of the figures are worthy of Raffaelle. I may instance one called the "Balance of Friendship." Two young men have a balance between them; one side is filled with feathers, and the other with weightier offerings: the meaning being, we should not allow favours and gifts to come all from one side. The figures have their hands joined, and appear to be in argument: their ample drapery is worthy of a study for apostles.

"Undertake nothing beyond your Strength" is emblemised by the giants scaling the heavens: one very fine figure, full of action, in the centre, is most admirably drawn.

"Education and Habit" is another, full of meaning. Two dogs are running: one after game, and another to a porringer. Some one has translated the verses at the bottom on the back of the print as follows. This has a fine group of figures in it:

 
"When taught by man, the hound pursues
The panting stag o'er hill and fell,
With steadfast eyes he keeps in view
The noble game he loves so well.
A mongrel coward slinks away,
The buck, the chase, ne'er warms his soul;
No huntsman's cheer can make him stay,
He runs to nothing, but his porridge bowl.
 
 
Throughout the race of men, 'tis still the same,
And all pursue a different kind of game.
Taverns and wine will form the tastes of some,
Others success in maids or wives undone.
To solid good, the wise pursues his way;
Nor for low pleasure ever deigns to stay.
Though in thy chamber all the live-long day,
In studious mood, you pass the hours away;
Or though you pace the noisy streets alone,
And silent watch day's burning orb go down;
Nature to thee displays her honest page:
Read there—and see the follies of an age."
 

The taste for emblemata appears to have passed by, but a good selection would be I think received with favour; particularly if access could be obtained to a good collection. And I should like to see any addition to the Rev. J. Corser's list in the Number of the 14th of May.

Weld Taylor.

SHAKSPEARE CRITICISM

When I entered on the game of criticism in "N. & Q.," I deemed that it was to be played with good humour, in the spirit of courtesy and urbanity, and that, consequently, though there might be much worthless criticism and conjecture, the result would on the whole be profitable. Finding that such is not to be the case, I retire from the field, and will trouble "N. & Q." with no more of my lucubrations.

I have been led to this resolution by the language employed by Mr. Arrowsmith in No. 189., where, with little modesty, and less courtesy, he styles the commentators on Shakspeare—naming in particular, Knight, Collier, and Dyce, and including Singer and all of the present day—criticasters who "stumble and bungle in sentences of that simplicity and grammatical clearness as not to tax the powers of a third-form schoolboy to explain." In order to bring me "within his danger," he actually transposes two lines of Shakspeare; and so, to the unwary, makes me appear to be a very shallow person indeed.

"It was gravely," says Mr. A., "almost magisterially, proposed by one of the disputants [Mr. Singer] to corrupt the concluding lines by altering their the pronoun into there the adverb, because (shade of Murray!) the commentator could not discover of what noun their could possibly be the pronoun, in these lines following:

 
'When great things labouring perish in their birth,
Their form confounded makes most form in mirth;'
 

and it was left to Mr. Keightley to bless the world with the information that it was things."

 

In all the modern editions that I have been able to consult, these lines are thus printed and punctuated:

 
"Their form confounded makes most form in mirth;
When great things labouring perish in the birth:"
 

and their is referred to contents. I certainly seem to have been the first to refer it to things.

Allow me, as it is my last, to give once more the whole passage as it is in the folios, unaltered by Mr. Collier's Magnus Apollo, and with my own punctuation:

 
"That sport best pleases, that doth least know how,
Where zeal strives to content, and the contents
Dyes in the zeal of that which it presents.
Their form confounded makes most form in mirth,
When great things labouring perish in the birth."
 

Love's Labour's Lost, Act V. Sc. 2.

My interpretation, it will be seen, beside referring their to things, makes dyes in signify tinges, imbues with; of which use of the expression I now offer the following instances:

 
"And the grey ocean into purple dye."
 

Faery Queene, ii. 10. 48.

 
"Are deck'd with blossoms dyed in white and red."
 

Ib.., ii. 12. 12.

 
"Dyed in the dying slaughter of their foes."
 

King John, Act II. Sc. 2.

 
"And it was dyed in mummy."
 

Othello, Act III. Sc. 4.

 
"O truant Muse! what shall be thy amends
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?"
 

Sonn. 101.

For the use of this figure I may quote from the Shakspeare of France:

 
"Mais pour moi, qui, caché sous une autre aventure,
D'une âme plus commune ai pris quelque teinture."
 

Héraclius, Act III. Sc. 1.

"The house ought to dye all the surrounding country with a strength of colouring, and to an extent proportioned to its own importance."—Life of Wordsworth, i. 355.

Another place on which I had offered a conjecture, and which Mr. A. takes under his patronage, is "Clamor your tongues" (Winter's Tale, Act IV. Sc. 4.) and in proof of clamor being the right word, he quotes passages from a book printed in 1542, in which are chaumbreed and chaumbre, in the sense of restraining. I see little resemblance here to clamor, and he does not say that he would substitute chaumbre. He says, "Most judiciously does Nares reject Gifford's corruption of this word into charm [it was Grey not Gifford]; nor will the suffrage of the 'clever' old commentator," &c. It is very curious, only that we criticasters are so apt to overrun our game, that the only place where "charm your tongue" really occurs, seems to have escaped Mr. Collier. In Othello, Act V. Sc. 2., Iago says to his wife, "Go to, charm your tongue;" and she replies, "I will not charm my tongue." My conjecture was that clamor was clam, or, as it was usually spelt, clem, to press or restrain; and to this I still adhere.

 
"When my entrails
Were clemmed with keeping a perpetual fast."
 

Massinger, Rom. Actor., Act II. Sc. 1.

"I cannot eat stones and turfs: say, what will he clem me and my followers?"—Jonson, Poetaster, Act I. Sc. 2.

"Hard is the choice when the valiant must eat their arms or clem." Id., Every Man Out of his Humour Act III. Sc. 6.

In these places of Jonson, clem is usually rendered starve; but it appears to me, from the kindred of the term, that it is used elliptically. Perhaps, instead of "Till famine cling thee" (Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 5.), Shakspeare wrote "Till famine clem thee." While in the region of conjecture, I will add that coasting, in Troilus and Cressida (Act IV. Sc. 5.), is, in my opinion, simply accosting, lopped in the usual way by aphæresis; and that "the still-peering air" in All's Well that Ends Well (Act III. Sc. 2.), is, by the same figure, "the still-appearing air," i. e. the air that appears still and silent, but that yet "sings with piercing."

One conjecture more, and I have done. I do not like altering the text without absolute necessity; but there was always a puzzle to me in this passage:

 
"Where I find him, were it
At home, upon my brother's guard, even there,
Against the hospitable canon, would I
Wash my fierce hand in 's blood."
 

Coriol., Act I. Sc. 10.

Why should Aufidius speak thus of a brother who is not mentioned anywhere else in the play or in Plutarch? It struck me one day that Shakspeare might have written, "Upon my household hearth;" and on looking into North's Plutarch, I found that when Coriolanus went to the house of Aufidius, "he got him up straight to the chimney-hearth, and sate him downe." The poet who adhered so faithfully to his Plutarch may have wished to preserve this image, and, chimney not being a very poetic word, may have substituted household, or some equivalent term. Again I say this is all but conjecture.

Thomas Keightley.

P.S.—It is really very annoying to have to reply to unhandsome and unjust accusations. The Rev. Mr. Arrowsmith first transposes two lines of Shakspeare, and then, by notes of admiration, holds me up as a mere simpleton; and then A. E. B. charges me with having pirated from him my explanation of a passage in Love's Labour's Lost, Act V. Sc. 2. Let any one compare his (in "N. & Q.," Vol. vi., p. 297.) with mine (Vol. vii., p. 136.), and he will see the utter falseness of the assertion. He makes contents the nom. to dies, taken in its ordinary sense (rather an unusual concord). I take dyes in the sense of tinges, imbues with, and make it governed of zeal. But perhaps it is to the full-stop at presents that the "that's my thunder!" applies. I answer, that that was a necessary consequence of the sense in which I had taken dies, and that their must then refer to things maugre Mr. Arrowsmith. And when he says that I "do him the honour of requoting the line with which he had supported it," I merely observe that it is the line immediately following, and that I have eyes and senses as well as A. E. B.

A. E. B. deceives himself, if he thinks that literary fame is to be acquired in this way. I do not much approve either of the manner in which, at least to my apprehension, in his opening paragraph, he seems to insinuate a charge of forgery against Mr. Collier. Finally, I can tell him that he need not crow and clap his wings so much at his emendation of the passage in Lear, for, if I mistake not, few indeed will receive it. It may be nuts to him and Mr. Arrowsmith to know that they have succeeded in driving my name out of the "N. & Q."