f the picture"! Our readers can decide for themselves;--the passage occurs Vol. I. p. 214.
We think Mr. Hazlitt's notes are, in the main, good; but we should like to know his authority for saying that _pench_ means "the hole in a bench by which it was taken up,"--that "descant" means "look askant on,"--and that "I wis" is equivalent to "I surmise, imagine," which it surely is not in the passage to which his note is appended. On page 9, Vol. I., we read in the text,
"To whom, my lord, bends thus your awe,"
and in the note, "i.e. submission." The original has _aue_, which, if it mean _ave_, is unmeaning here. Did Mr. Hazlitt never see a picture of the Annunciation with _ave_ written on the scroll proceeding from the bending angel's mouth? We find the same word in Vol. III. p. 217,--
"Whose station's built on avees and applause."
Vol. III. pp. 47-48:--
"And then rest, gentle bones; yet pray
That when by the precise you are view'd,
A supersedeas be not sued
To remove you to a place more airy,
That in your stead they may keep chary
Stockfish or seacoal, for the abuses
Of sacrilege have turned graves to viler uses."
To the last verse Mr. Hazlitt appends this note, "Than that of burning men's bones for fuel." There is no allusion here to burning men's bones, but simply to the desecration of graveyards by building warehouses upon them, in digging the foundations for which the bones would be thrown out. The allusion is, perhaps, to the "Churchyard of the Holy Trinity";--see Stow's _Survey_, ed. 1603, p. 126. Elsewhere in the same play, Webster alludes bitterly to "begging church-land."
Vol. I. p. 73, "And if he walk through the street, he ducks at the penthouses, like an ancient that dares not flourish at the oathtaking of the praetor for fear of the signposts." Mr. Hazlitt's note is, "_Ancient_ was a standard or flag; also an _ensign_, of which Skinner says it is a corruption. What the meaning of the simile is the present editor cannot suggest." We confess we find no difficulty. The meaning plainly is, that he ducks for fear of hitting the penthouses, as an ensign on the Lord Mayor's day dares not flourish his standard for fear of hitting the signposts. We suggest the query, whether _ancient_, in this sense, be not a corruption of the Italian word _anziano_.
Want of space compels us to leave many other passages, which we had marked for comment, unnoticed. We are surprised that Mr. Hazlitt, (see his Introduction to "Vittoria Coromboma,") in undertaking to give us some information concerning the Dukedom and Castle of Bracciano, should uniformly spell it _Brachiano_. Shakspeare's _Petruchio_ might have put him on his guard. We should be glad also to know in what part of Italy he places _Malfi_.
Mr. Hazlitt's General Introduction supplies us with no new information, but this was hardly to be expected where Mr. Dyce had already gone over the field. We wish that he had been able to give us better means of distinguishing the three almost contemporary John Websters one from the other, for we think the internal evidence is enough to show that all the plays attributed to the author of the "Duchess" and "Vittoria" could not have been written by the same author. On the whole, he has given us a very respectable, and certainly a very pretty, edition of an eminent poet.
In leaving the subject, we cannot but express our satisfaction in comparing with these examples of English editorship the four volumes of Ballads recently published by Mr. Child. They are an honor to American scholarship and fidelity. Taste, learning, and modesty, the three graces of editorship, seem to have presided over the whole work. We hope soon, also, to be able to chronicle another creditable achievement in Mr. White's Shakspeare, which we look for with great interest.
_History of the Inductive Sciences, from the Earliest to
the Present Time_. By WILLIAM WHEWELL, D.D.,
Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Third Edition,
with Additions. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1858.
2 vols. 8vo. pp. 566, 648.
We are heartily glad to welcome this reprint of the "History of the Inductive Sciences," from an improved edition. From an intimate acquaintance with the fi
