"These our actors " (As I foretold you) were all spirits, and Tempest, pag. 15, col. 1. Many persons, you know, and those of no mean authority, instead of RACKE read WRECK. And sir Thomas Hanmer reads TRACK: which Mr. Steevens says...." may be supported by the following passage in the first scene of Timon of "Athens.... "But flies an eagle flight, bold, and forth on, "Leaving no TRACT behind." H. The ignorance and presumption of his commentators have shamefully disfigured Shakespear's text. The first folio, notwithstanding some few palpable misprints, requires none of their alterations. Had they understood English as well as he did, they would not have quarrelled with his language. F. But if RACKE is to remain, what does it mean? "RACK (says Mr. Malone) is generally used by our ancient writers for a body of clouds sailing along; or rather, for the course of the clouds when "in motion. But no instance has yet been produced, " where it is used to signify a single small fleeting "cloud; in which sense only it can be figuratively "applied here. I incline therefore to sir Thomas "Hanmer's emendation: though I have not dis"turbed the text." Dr. Johnson concurs with Malone. He says.... "RACK (racka, Dutch. A track.) The clouds "as they are driven by the wind." Though I mention their opinions, I am not in the least swayed by their authority: for Shakespear himself gives a flat contradiction to their imputed signification of RACK; where he says, in Hamlet, "But as we often see against some storme, "A silence in the heauens, the RACKE stand still, "The bold windes speechlesse, and the orbe below If the RACKE may stand still; it cannot be.... "the course of the clouds when in motion." Nor.... "the clouds as they are driven by the wind." Upon this passage too, in the third part of Henry VI. "Dazzle mine eyes, or do I see three sunnes? "Three glorious sunnes, each one a perfect sunne, "But seuer'd in a pale cleare-shining skye." Upon this passage Mr. Malone quotes from Shakespear's sonnets, "Anon permits the basest clouds to ride "With ugly RACK on his celestial face." Can Mr. Malone imagine that....“ ugly RACK” ....means here....an ugly motion that rides on the sun's face? Upon the whole, what does RACK mean? And observe, you will not satisfy my question by barely suggesting a signification; but you must shew me etymologically, how the word RACK comes to have the signification which you may attribute to it. . H. You ask no more than what should always be done by those who undertake to explain the meaning of a doubtful word. It surely is not suf ficient to produce instances of its use, from whence to conjecture a meaning; though instances are fit to be produced, in order, by the use of the word, to justify its offered etymology. RACK is a very common word, most happily used in the Tempest; and ought not to be displaced because the commentators know not its meaning. If such a rule for banishing words were adopted; the commentators themselves would, most of them, become speechless. In Songs and Sonets by the earl of Surrey and others, pag. 61, we read, "When clouds be driven, then rides the RACKE." By this instance also we may see that RACK does not mean the course of the clouds when in motion. "Some time we see a clowd that's dragonish, "A VAPOUR Some time, like a beare, or lyon. Antony and Cleopatra, pag. 362, col. 1. Mr. Steevens says...." The RACK dislimes, i. e. "the fleeting away of the clouds destroys the ડેટ picture." But the horse may be dislimb'd by the approach of the RACK, as well as by the fleeting away of the clouds for RACK means nothing but vapour; as Shakespear, in a preceding line of this passage, terms it. "The upper part of the scene, which was all of "clouds, and made artificially to swell and ride "like the RACK, began to open; and the air clear, "ing, in the top thereof was discovered Iuno." Ben Jonson, Masque. "A thousand leagues I have cut through empty air, "Upon the wings of angry winds." "Shall I stray B. and Fletcher, Women pleas'd. "In the middle air, and stay "The sayling RACK?" B. and Fletcher, Faithful Shepherdess. "Taucht him thay war but vode gaistis all tha Douglas, booke 6, pag. 173. Upon this passage the glossarist of Douglas says "WRACHIS, spirits, ghosts. We once thought "that it might be a typographical error for wrathis, ❝t and c, being written the same way in the manu<6 script. But we thought fit not to alter it." What a mischievous fury have commentators and editors to alter those words of their author which they do not understand! The glossarist of Douglas did well here not to yield to his inclina tion. "Na slaw cours of thy hors onweildy PART II. Uu "Nor yit nane vane WRECHIS nor gaistis quent "Thy chare constrenit bakwart for to went." Douglas, booke 10, pag. 339. "Sic lik as, that thay say, in diuers placis, "The WRACHIS walkis of goistis that ar dede." Douglas, booke 10, pag. 341. "Thiddir went this WRAYCH or schade of Enee "That semyt all abasit fast to fle." Douglas, booke 10, pag. 342. "Persauyt the mornyng bla, wan and har, Douglas, Prol. to booke 7, pag. 202. "Wyth cloudy gum and RAK." "The brychtnes of day "Inuoluit all with cluddis hid away. “The rane and ROIK reft from us sycht of heuin.” Douglas booke 3, pag. 74. "As we may gyf ane similitude, wele like "Quhen, that the herd has fund the beis bike, "Closit under ane derne cauerne of stanis "And fyllit has full sone that litil wanys "Ouerthowrt thare hyuis and waxy tentis rynnis, "That to the ruffis toppis went the smoik, "The stanis warpit in fast did rebound, "Within the wallis rais the grete brute and sound, "And up the REIK all wod went in the are." Douglas, booke 12, pag. 432.. "Quhare thir towris thou seis doun fall and sway, "And stane fra stane doun bet, and REIK upryse, "With stew, pouder, and dust mixt on this wyse." Douglas booke 2, pag. 59. |