166
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. x. AUG. 29, im
If any explanation of the present reading
can be offered, I shall be glad to know of it.
ISAAC HULL PLATT. Wallingford, Pennsylvania.
- VENUS AND ADONIS ' : " Lo, HEBE THE
GENTLE LARK" (10 S. v. 465; ix. 505). There is surely no reason whatever why Shakespeare should not have called the lark " gentle " if he felt disposed to do so. Perhaps the bird is not essentially more entitled to the epithet than other denizens of the grove and the field ; but by com- parison with persistent marauders like the thrush and the blackbird and certain finches, and with such a pugnacious rascal as cock robin, it is conspicuous in gentleness and charm. To the Ettrick Shepherd, a man used to the open air and a capable and discriminating observer, the lark seemed " blithesome and cumberless," the latter term (of which lexicographers are shy) indicating the poet's conviction that the winsome songster is not cumbersome or troublesome, but noticeably gentle. It does no harm, as some of its fellows do, in the meadows or the cornfields within which it constructs and cherishes its ' ' watery nest " ; and when it rises in its tuneful flight towards heaven's gate, its graceful and fascinating movement is gentleness itself. Shelley gave adequate expression, once for all, to the floating and running of this wonderful ascent when he said that the lark, in compassing its tour, was " like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun." Sweetness, uplifting rapture, infinite gentle- ness, are all suggested by the terms of this appropriate description. Moreover, the bird is deservedly called gentle because of its apparent nobility of nature and conduct. Like Chaucer's very perfect gentle knight, at is the embodiment of fidelity and un- swerving devotion to the call of duty. Jeremy Taylor perceived this when he utilized the ardent persistence of the warbler as an incentive to those who were disposed to be hopeless regarding the efficacy of prayer. THOMAS BAYNE.
I think we must rest content that the metre is good and the word " gentle " euphonious, without pressing any special meaning into it. Venus and Adonis ' is one of the poet's earlier works, and we can hardly expect to find here that concen- tration of thought and purpose which is evident at a later period. Something must be ^allowed for development, training, ex- perience. If the early works are to be con- sidered perfect in all their parts, what are
we to expect of the later ones ? The diction
of the earlier works is admittedly more
elaborate in relation to thought than that
of the later. As Prof. Dowden says :
" In the earliest plays the language is sometimes as it were a dress put upon the thought a dress ornamented with superfluous care ; the idea is at times hardly sufficient to fill out the language in which it is put," &c.
Later, as the brain developes, experience accumulates, and judgment ripens ; the process is reversed, and the thought is in excess of the diction. Here, indeed, we may look for a special meaning in every word, and ideas unexpressed, or only hinted at, by words ; but hardly in so early a poem as
- Venus and Adonis.' J. FOSTER PALMER.
8, Royal Avenue, S.W.
" Gentle " is here predicated of the lark, I think, on account of that bird's vocal skill : it was the rippling, resonant, and sustained notes of his song that roused Venus from her depression, and restored her to the realities of life. This seems, at any rate, to have been the view of Shelley in his immortal ode.
The epithet is certainly used advisedly by Shakespeare, and is no mere sounding brass or tinkling cymbal, as Lucis would have us believe. N. W. HILL.
New York.
- MACBETH,' III. iv. 105 : " IF TREMBLING
I INHABIT " (10 S. ix. 263, 506). The reading of the First Folio and of most modern editions is "If trembling I inhabit then," with the comma after " then." The mean- ing suggested by MR. TOM JONES would require a different punctuation, thus : "If, trembling, I inhabit, then," &c. ; but it appears to me strained and artificial, and the alteration unnecessary. I could never see the difficulty in the passage which induced Pope and Theobald to substitute " inhibit " (which seems to me nonsense), and some one else " inherit," which is not much better. In the first place, " trembling " is not an adjective, but a noun. If parallels are re- quired, I would refer to Falstaff's " a kind of sleeping in the blood, a whoreson tingling. " Inhabit," too, is used as a transitive verb, in its ordinary meaning, to " live in." If we may be said to " live in fear," we may, with equal correctness, be said to " live in trembling," when the latter word is used as a noun. " If trembling I inhabit then " is simply " If I still live in fear (or trembling) then (i.e., when Ban quo has dared him to the desert with his sword), protest me | The baby of a girl." J. FOSTER PALMER.
