That the principle Dr. Schmidt announces in the words just quoted is sound and laudable there can be no dispute. But it may be pressed too far. And once or twice Dr. Schmidt is in danger of so pressing it. It is certainly not enough in discussing any special sense of a word, to say that it does not occur elsewhere in Shakespeare in that sense. At times what Dr. Schmidt terms "adventitious means of information" must undoubtedly be called in; for, as is well known, Shakespeare's vocabulary is of immense range and variety. It is always ramifying, and extending, and expanding. There is nothing more remarkable about our great poet than his unceasing movement. He is never as one that has already attained perfection, or is already perfect; but he "follows after." His artistic form is perpetually changing. He is ever essaying new methods, conquering new worlds; ever striving to hold the mirror up to nature with a firmer hand, so as to secure a more steady and faithful image. Hence, to return to his language, there is in his writings a vast number of ἅπαξ λεγόμενα—of words that occur only once, and of word senses that occur only once. To take an example, Dr. Schmidt objects to "smote" in Hamlet, I. i. 63:

"When in an angry parle,

He smote the sledded pollax (or poleaxe) on the ice."

(we give the reading given in the lexicon) being interpreted "he beat or defeated;" he says it can only mean," he struck them." But the use of "smote" in the sense of defeated is common enough in other Elizabethan writings, notably in the Bible, as in Judges xv. 8: "And he [Samson] smote them [the Philistines] hip and thigh, with a great slaughter." Cranmer's Bible has "smote" here; and it is worth noticing in this connection that there are several "scripturisms" in Hamlet. Again, one of Dr. Schmidt's objections to "putter

out," in Tempest, III. iii. 48, meaning one that lays out money, is that "put out" is not used by Shakespeare in this sense; and he holds that "putter out " means a traveller, one that puts out to sea! Now it may well be that Shakespeare does not happen to use "put out" elsewhere in the sense of Horace's ponere in Epod. ii. 70; but the phrase is most usual in our language at all times. Thus, to quote from Johnson, Psalm. xv.: "Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle?... He that putteth not out his money to usury." Dryden translates the lines of Horace referred to :

"To live retired upon his own,

He called-his money in ;

But the prevailing love of pelf

Soon split him on the former shelf,
He put it out again."

It is clear, we hope, that the design of these volumes, though there may be slight imperfections, is truly excellent. Obviously the most essential point in the execution of such a design is accuracy. It is obvious, too, that one cannot bestow this praise upon such a work till after long and frequent use. All we can say is that, so far as we have at present used it, we have found it deserve the very highest commendation in this respect. The use of "these" in "O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers," is not noted, but similar uses are so. With regard to other matters, one is reminded sometimes that it is a foreigner's English one sees before one, as when a Threshold (misprinted Treshold) is defined to be "the plank that lies at the bottom of a door;" but even in this respect there is little to complain of. One redundancy catches our eye, s. v. Square, where the wellknown King Lear phrase is quoted, both under (1) and also under (3); but this may possibly be intentional. If so, however, the two references should have been connected by a

see (3) and a see (1). It is somewhat bold to define pilcher (Romeo and Juliet, III. i. 84) as a scabbard, although "in contempt" is added. It means some sort of garment. We venture to suggest that its use by Mercutio might serve to illustrate the "breeched"-" their daggers unmannerly breeched with gore"—of Macbeth. "The ears" in Romeo and Juliet, which has tempted "emendators" to read " pitcher" is intelligible enough, if we remember what pilcher means. Dr. Schmidt thinks that subtlety in The Tempest, v. 124, has no culinary reference, but does not taste support Steevens's note?

"You yet do taste,

Some subtilties of the isle that will not let you

Believe things certain."

...

As to three-suited in Lear II. ii. 16, Dr. Schmidt objects to the ordinary interpretation, and suggests that "perhaps we have here a trace of a custom once reigning among the peasantry of Germany, to put on their whole wardrobe on festival occasions, one suit above another;" but surely Ben Jonson's expression in The Silent Woman, quoted by Singer, "Wert a pitiful fellow . . . and having nothing but three suits of apparel," &c., is against him. See also in that same play (Act iii. sc. 1), where Mistress Otter addresses her captain, just entered "with his cups": "Who gives you your maintenance; and, pray you, who allows you your horse meat and man's meat? your three suits of apparel a year, your four pair of stockings -one silk, three worsted?" &c. The phrase is explained by the fact that Elizabethan wardrobes were of prodigious extent. "I know the man as well as you," is an ambiguous rendering of "Novi hominem tanquam te." With regard to the dialectic speeches in King Lear, Steevens, writes Dr. Schmidt, "pleads for Somersetshire, in the dialect of which rustics were commonly introduced by ancient writers."

Steevens did not know, but we now do, that the so-called "Somersetshire" dialect spread once all over the south of the island. In Kent and Surrey once f's and s's were flattened, a fact pointed out years ago by Dr. Guest; see his History of English Rhythms, ii. 188. Is it not rather comical to treat "a" in "and merrily hent the stile a," and such uses, as a remnant of Anglo-Saxon suffixes?

Criticisms of this sort might be considerably extended, but it is not necessary. They will suggest themselves to all intelligent persons who consult Dr. Schmidt's work; and they are not of a kind seriously to impair the value of this excellent lexicon, for which we beg to thank its compiler heartily.

TH

XII.

SHAKESPEARE SCENES AND

CHARACTERS.1

(From the Academy for June 16, 1877.)

HE good Shakespearian service that Germany has done by its verbal criticisms is so well known that we turn with interest to a volume in which it attempts interpretation of another kind. Not that we have in it Germany's first attempts in the pictorial illustration of the supreme Teutonic -the supreme human-poet. Retzsch and Kaulbach are no strange names to us. But this volume is in a special sense representative, as it contains the designs of no less than six distinguished German artists; and as these are living artists, "it may be considered," as Prof. Dowden justly remarks, "in a measure to represent the contemporary artmovement of that country. Munich must be regarded as the centre around which the artists whose work appears in this volume are grouped; but each has his own distinctive traits, and they have been brought under the influenceone in Rome, another in Paris, a third in the Dresden galleries of various art-methods, ideas, and traditions."

Certainly, in England, our comprehension of Shakespeare

1 Shakespeare Scenes and Characters. A Series of Illustrations designed by Adams, Hofmann, Makart, Pecht, Schwoerer, and Spiess; engraved on steel by Barkel, Bauer, Goldberg, Raab, and Schmidt; with Explanatory Text selected and arranged by Prof. E. Dowden, LL.D., Author of "Shakspere; a Study of his Mind and Art." (London: Macmillan and Co., 1876.)