344
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. x. OCT. 31, im
bourhood," and quotes the following passage
from Hutton, who visited Bosworth in 1770 :
"The inhabitants set their dogs at me merely because I was a stranger. Surrounded with impas- sable roads, no intercourse with man to humanize the mind, no commerce to smooth their rugged manners, they continue the boors of nature."
Nichols, however, makes actual reference to the condition of Bosworth about the date when Johnson was employed there (' Leices- tershire,' vol. iv. p. 499) :
" Bosworth, about the year 1730, was famous for the resort of the neighbouring gentry ; who came regularly twice a week, for pleasure and amusement, to the bowling-green of Simon Oakden. At that period, this was reckoned the genteelest part of the county ; several coaches and six being kept within a few miles of it."
This makes it seem very unlikely that the inhabitants were then " the boors of nature," or that Bosworth was " surrounded with impassable roads." The greatest sports- man in the district at that time must have been Johnson's connexion Thomas Boothby .of Tooley Park, not six miles away.
ALEYN LYELL READE,
Park Corner, Blundellsands, near Liverpool.
(To be continued.)
SHAKESPEARIANA.
'WINTER'S TALE,' IV. iv. 334: "SAL- TIERS." A servant is made to say :
"Master, there is three carters, three shepherds, three neat-herds, three SMdne-herds, that have made themselves all men of hair ; they call themselves Saltiers, and they have a dance which the wenches say is a gallimaufry of gambols."
Schmidt's explanation is merely " the ser- vant's blunder for Satyrs."
Of course this is right, as far as it goes, because just below comes the stage-direc- tion : " Here a dance of twelve Satyrs."
But this does not at all fully explain the joke, viz., why did the servant make this particular mistake ?
The answer surely is this : he (or rather "Shakespeare) was thinking of the French word then spelt saulteur, which had the double sense of " dancer," like the modern French sauteur, and of the heraldic " saltire." He meant to express the idea of " dancers," and he used the word saltiers, i.e., " sal- tires," for the purpose.
Cotgrave's French dictionary tells us this much ; and the context shows how the idea of " dancers " is dwelt upon. Thus we have " a dance " and " a gallimaufry of gambols," and just afterwards :
"One three of them, by their own report, sir, hath danced before the king ; and not the worst of
the three but jumps [French saute] twelve foot and
a half by the squire.
As saulteur was then pronounced as French sauteur, the sound of it came close to that of satyr. WALTER W. SKEAT.
' As You LIKE IT,' II. vii. 70-73 :
Why, who cries out on pride That can therein tax any private party ? Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea, Till that the wearie verie meanes do ebb ?
Those who cannot persuade themselves that the last two lines of this passage, as I have given them from the First and Second Folios, came from the pen of Shake- speare, may be induced to consider the following rearrangement of them. Put the note of interrogation after " sea," and not after " ebb " ; instead of " Till that the " read " Till that they " ; place a comma after " weary," and treat it as a verb, and the lines may very well stand thus :
Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea ? Till that they weary, very means do ebb.
For a similar use of " Till that " in the sense of " before that " see ' Hamlet,' Act IV. sc. vii. 183 :
But long it could not be,
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious song To muddy death.
PHILIP PERRING. 7, Lyndhurst Road, Exeter.
' KING RICHARD III.,' IV. iv. 175 (10 S. vii. 143).
Humphrey hour, that called your grace To breakfast once forth of my company.
" To dine with Duke Humphrey " was popularly known in Shakespeare's day for
going without one's dinner. So any allusion to the Humphrey hour was understood as the time of fasting. Again, as the Humphrey
lour must mean the duration of a fast, so the
Dreakfast would be the time when the fast is satisfied. The antithetical 'construction is thus made clear ; and the sense also in regard to the Humphrey hour that called her grace once forth to breakfast. The quip, however, would be pointless, but
Richard, to be even with her grace, puts two meanings in one word," and alludes the hour of his conception.
TOM JONES.
' HENRY IV.,' PART II., I. iii. 34-8 (10 S. viii. 504 ; ix. 264). The Globe edition
ollows the original text, and marks the passage as corrupt. The alteration I pro-
)osed was founded on Pope's emendation.
