478
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. XIL DEC. 12, i9Q
some connexion with the sun when rising or
setting.
Some pious Japanese pay particular homage to a picture called 'Yamakoshi no Mida (' Amitabha across a Mountain ') It is said to have originated in a drawing by a saint named Eshin (tenth century) of the Buddha, whom he actually saw on the setting sun when he was walking across a mountain.
KUMAGUSU MlNAKATA. Mount Nachi, Kii, Japan.
LATIN QUIP (9 th S. xii. 385). The form in which these lines were told me in my Oxford days adds somewhat to the version given by PROF. STRONG. The lines are a reproof to a grey-headed dean who had sung a hunting song. I read :
Cane Decane canis ; sed ne cane, cane Decane De cane : de canis, cane Decane, cane.
ALDENHAM.
SHAKESPEARE AND LORD BDRLEIGH (9 th S. xii. 328, 396, 411). If Queen Elizabeth visited Castle Hedingham in August, 1561, it must have been in the time of John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, who died in 1562, and was the father of Edward de Vere (born in 1550, and so eleven years old at the date of the queen's visit), who married in 1571 Anne, the eldest daughter of Lord Burleigh. ARTHUR HUSSEY.
Tankerton-on-Sea, Kent.
NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.
The Alchemist. By Ben Jonson. Newly edited by
H. C. Hart, (De La More Press. ) UNDER the care of Mr. H. C. Hart, the results of whose labours on Elizabethan and Jacobean literature are pleasantly conspicuous in ' N. & Q.,' we have an ideal edition of the best and most characteristic of Jonson's comedies. The work in question is issued with all the typo- graphical luxury of the De La More Press, and as one of the quartos published under the editorship of Mr. Israel Gollancz in the " King's Library." It may be held to show the best results of modern scholarship as applied to the as yet but half- explained allusions in our old dramatists. Again and again the conjectures of Gifford, the accepted editor of Jonson, are shown to be monstrous or futile, and flashes of light are let into chambers hitherto unexplored or dark. In no comedy of Jonson, and in few works of his epoch or that succeeding, not even in ShadwelPs ' Squire of Alsatia,' is the need of glossarial explanation so great as it is in ' The Alchemist.' Those who purchase the present volume, which is issued in a limited edition, may be pleased to think that not a few of the illustrations it supplies will be service- able in the case of other works of the epoch. In wishing that we could have all the principal plays of Tudor times in a similar form, we are aware of the difficulties and even the disadvantages that
beset such a task. Few shelves are long enough to-
receive in such a form the works of Ben Jonson
alone. Meantime, the plays of George Chapman
call for the editing they have never received, and
those of Beaumont and Fletcher in anything ap-
proaching to a satisfactory state are out of reach.
Our successors may hope for the days when the
services of .men so competent as Mr. Hart may be
secured to scholarship by a government or academic
grant. We may not, a propos of this reprint, deal
with the claims of the play or the merits of its
author. 'The Alchemist' is one of the very few
works of Jonson which, in addition to delighting
Pepys and the frequenters of the Theatre Royal
and Dorset Garden, have had a representation " of
sorts " before the present generation. It is con-
fessedly in its line unique, and its characters are
among the best drawn in the English drama. Like
other works of its time, it helped Milton, who,
after his fashion, improved and elevated all he
touched. Sir Epicure Mammon's lines to Dol
Common, beginning "It is a noble humour,"
IV. i. 96, inspired the divine verses in 'Cdmus'
beginning "It is for homely features to keep
home." Sir Epicure himself suggests edifying com-
parisons with the full-blooded heroes of Marlowe.
A "sudden boy," which Mr. Hart has not en-
countered elsewhere, recalls the soldier "sudden
and quick in quarrel." Can " Titi, Titi," fairy lan-
guage, have any connexion with, or throw any
light on, " Highty, tighty," originally written " hity
tity " ? A reproduction of Zoffany's plate of David
Garrick as Abel Drugger serves as frontispiece.
In this the Face appears to be Woodward, and
the Subtle is probably Burton. From lovers of
the drama this edition will obtain the warmest
welcome.
Shakespeare and the Rical Poet. By Arthur
Acheson. (Lane.)
IT would be rather cruel to apply to Mr. Acheson's own work the opening words of his preface. These words are as follows : " The research of text- students of the works of Shakespeare, undertaken, with the object of unveiling the mystery which envelops the poet's life and personality, has- added little or nothing to the bare outlines which hearsay, tradition, and the spare records of his time have given us." Mr. Acheson himself is, how- ever, under the impression that he has cast light upon some of the subjects most constantly in debate.. These subjects are, beside the chronology of the plays, ' The Patron,' ' The Rival Poet,' ' the Dark Lady,' and 'The Mr. W. H. of the Dedication.' In order to decide how far he has succeeded the reader must study the work for himself. The value of evidence is different to different minds, and as regards much that is told us concerning Shake- speare we are on the side of scepticism. Whether the Mr. W. H. to whom Thorpe dedicated the Sonnets was William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, a Mr. William Hall, or a Mr. William Hughes, is still fiercely contested. With regard to this question Mr. Acheson gives a rather uncertain sound. His words are: "I shall prove later on that William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, was not the patron addressed in these Sonnets, and shall, I believe, give very convincing evidence that Henry Wriothes- ley, Earl of Southampton, was that figure; yet I do not think it at all improbable that Pembroke was the 'Mr. W. H.' addressed by Thorpe, nor
