Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/229

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S. III. MARCH 11, 1905.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


185


its own justification, but with all respect for the opinions of my betters it is clear to me that the circumstances require that another friar be meant as witness to the flight of Silvia and Eglamour. The appointment was for Friar Patrick's cell in the evening, and from there the fugitives went to "the forest not three leagues off." If Friar Patrick had expected to meet Silvia at his cell at a certain hour, it is hardly probable that he would have been wandering in penance through a distant forest, where it is stated a friar met and recognized Silvia's companion. Note the care with which it is explained (V. ii. 38) how the second friar happened to be absent from his priestly haunts -he was doing penance. Friar Lawrence was evidently not discharging the duties of a confessor at the time he met the wanderers in the forest, since he was then himself a penitent, which is an additional reason for our believing that he was not the Friar Patrick who was to have met Silvia at the cell. E. MERTON DEY. St. Louis.

"PUCELLE" ix f l HENRY VI.' (10 th S. ii. 524) Pucelle is not taken as a surname in one line of the play :

Pucelle or puzzel, dolphin or dog-fish.

Act I. sc. iv.

The writer must have known the meaning of the word. Virgin" and "drab" are evi- dently contrasted here. E. YARDLEY.

"THE PENALTY OF ADAM, 'As You LIKE IT, II. i. (lot" S ii. 524).-In the variorum edition, 1821, the line is,

Here feel we but the penalty of Adam. The old commentators thought that this reading was right. It agrees with the con- text and dispels all doubt. It seems likely that khakspeare had in his mind the words in the extract, " Both heat and cold did vexe him sore," when he made the Duke speak of the penalty of Adam as being the seasons'

itterence. The Duke is making the best of this adversity. If ue admit but, instead of not, we can read the whole of this admirable scene without a doubt as to the meaning of any part of it ; and this is an uninterrupted pleasure which we do not always have in reading Shakspeare's works.

E. YARDLEY.

ZE.MSTVO AND ZEMSKY-SoBoR. It has been recently asserted that the Russian Zemstvo and /emsky-Sobor (i.e , a county council and a general assembly of them, or Etats-Gene'-


stitution in Russia. Let me correct thi* error. As Prof. Morfill kindly pointed out to me, these Zemstvos did not exist in former times, and, for this reason, the very word which denotes a Zemstvo does not occur, except in the latest dictionaries of the Russian language, as, for instance, in Alexandrov's 'Russian-Eng. Dictionary,' published at St. Petersburg in 1885. Even the new edition of Dai's 'Russian Dictionary,' which is still in progress, does not contain the word. Som& centuries ago Russia was endowed, indeed,, with a sort of national council, called Veche,. still preserved in the Polish word " wiec,' i.e.,. a popular assembly. But it had fallen long, ago into desuetude. H. KREBS.

JAMES QUIN, THE ACTOR. To all those- interested in the history of the drama in this country, the unveiling by Sir Henry Irving on 17 February of a tablet on the house No. 4, Pierrepont Street, Bath, where this distinguished actor lived and where he died,, will be a matter for congratulation. From 1734 until the appearance of Garrick in 1741, Quin was universally looked upon as the first actor in England. Born in London, of Irish parentage, on 24 February, 1C93, he made his first appearance upon the stage in 1714 at Dublin. He afterwards made his- way to London, where he played minor parts- at Drury Lane for some time. In 1716, through the sudden illness of a leading actor, lie was called upon to take the part of Bajazet in the famous play of k Tamerlane,' and this was the first great success of his life. The next year he exchanged Drury Lane for Rich's Theatre, Lincoln's Inn Fields, where he remained as a leading actor for seventeen years. The two characters in which he succeeded best were Capt. Macheath in ' The Beggar's Opera ' and Falstaff. In 1734 he- returned to Drury Lane, on such terms, says- Gibber, "as no hired actor had before received." In 1746 he and Garrick acted together in 'The Fair Penitent,' but the- latter's superiority was admitted by all com- petent judges, and Quin withdrew from the- stage in 1751 and settled down at Bath, where he died, and was buried in the Abbey in 1766. The Corporation of Bath is to be congratu- lated on the way it is gradually marking all the houses rendered famous by distinguished citizens. FREDERICK T. HIBGAME.

CHURCH Music. The following, though of modern production, so happily presents an old-world figure and style that it deserves to be known to a wider circle than the village


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mx or Landstande, by way of comparison) of Warnham. Here in the Sussex church- are a mere restoration of some ancient in- ! yard, not far from the spot where Shelley