THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.
There lived in the city of Verona two young gentlemen, whose names were Valentine and Protheus, between whom a firm and uninterrupted friendship had long subsisted. They pursued their studies together, and their hours of leisure were always passed in each other’s company, except when Protheus visited a lady he was in love with; and these visits, and this passion of Protheus for the fair Julia, were the only topics on which these two friends disagreed: for Valentine, not being himself a lover, was sometimes a little weary of hearing his friend forever talking of his Julia, and then he would laugh at Protheus, and in pleasant terms ridicule the passion of love, and declare that no such idle fancies should ever enter his head, greatly preferring (as he said) the free and happy life he lead, to the anxious hopes and fears of the lover Protheus.
One morning Valentine came to Protheus, to tell him that they must for a time be separated, for that he was going to Milan. Protheus, unwilling to part with his friend, used many arguments to prevail upon Valentine not to leave him; but Valentine said, “Cease to persuade me, my loving Protheus, I will not, like a sluggard, wear out my youth in idleness at home. Home-keeping youths have ever homely wits. If your affection were not chained to the sweet glances of your honored Julia, I would entreat you to accompany me, to see the wonders of the world abroad; but since you are a lover, love on still, and may your love be prosperous!” They parted with mutual expressions of unalterable friendship. “Sweet Valentine, adieu!” said Protheus; “think on me, when you see some rare object worthy of notice in your travels, and wish me partaker of your happiness.”
Valentine began his journey that same day towards Milan; and when his friend had left him, Protheus sat down to write a letter to Julia, which he gave to her maid Lucetta to deliver to her mistress. Julia loved Protheus as well as he did her, but she was a lady of a noble spirit, and she thought it did not become her maiden dignity too easily to be won; therefore she affected to be insensible of his passion, and gave him much uneasiness in the prosecution of his suit. And when Lucetta offered the letter to Julia, she would not receive it, and chid her maid for taking letters from Protheus, and ordered her to leave the room. But she so much wished to see what was written in the letter, that she soon called in her maid again, and when Lucetta returned, she said, “What o’clock is it?” Lucetta, who knew her mistress more desired to see the letter than to know the time of day, without answering her question, again offered the rejected letter. Julia, angry that her maid should thus take the liberty of seeming to know what she really wanted, tore the letter in pieces, and threw it on the floor, ordering her maid once more out of the room. As Lucetta was retiring, she stopped to pick up the fragments of the torn letter; but Julia, who meant not so to part with them, said, in pretended anger, “Go, get you gone, and let the papers lie; you would be fingering them to anger me.”
Julia then began to piece together as well as she could the torn fragments. She first made out these words, “Love-wounded Protheus;” and lamenting over these and such-like loving words, which she made out though they were all torn asunder, or she said, wounded (the expression “Love-wounded Protheus,” giving her that idea), she talked to these kind words, telling them she would lodge them in her bosom as in a bed, till their wounds were healed, and that she would kiss each several piece, to make amends. In this manner she went on talking with a pretty lady-like childishness, till finding herself unable to make out the whole, and vexed at her own ingratitude in destroying such sweet and loving words, as she called them, she wrote a much kinder letter to Protheus than she had ever done before.
Protheus was greatly delighted at receiving this favorable answer to his letter; and while he was reading it, he exclaimed, “Sweet love, sweet lines, sweet life!” In the midst of his raptures he was interrupted by his father. “How now!” said the old gentleman, “what letter are you reading there?” “My lord,” replied Protheus, “it is a letter from my friend Valentine, at Milan.” “Lend me the letter,” said his father; “let me see what news.” “There are no news, my lord,” said Protheus, greatly alarmed, “but that he writes how well beloved he is of the Duke of Milan, who daily graces him with favors; and how he wishes me with him, the partner of his fortune.” “And how stand you affected to his wish?” asked the father. “As one relying on your lordship’s will, and not depending on his friendly wish,” said Protheus.
Now it had happened that Protheus’s father had just been talking with a friend on this very subject: his friend had said, he wondered his lordship suffered his son to spend his youth at home, whilst most men were sending their sons to seek preferment abroad; “some,” said he, “to the wars, to try their fortunes there, and some to discover islands far away, and some to study in foreign universities; and there is his companion Valentine, he is gone to the Duke of Milan’s court. Your son is fit for any of these things, and it will be a great disadvantage to him in his riper age, not to have traveled in his youth.”
Protheus’s father thought the advice of his friend was very good, and upon Protheus telling him that Valentine “wished him with him, the partner of his fortune,” he at once determined to send his son to Milan; and without giving Protheus any reason for this sudden resolution, it being the usual habit of this positive old gentleman to command his son, not reason with him, he said, “My will is the same as Valentine’s wish:” and seeing his son look astonished, he added, “Look not amazed, that I so suddenly resolve you shall spend some time in the Duke of Milan’s court; for what I will I will, and there is an end. To-morrow be in readiness to go. Make no excuses, for I am peremptory.” Protheus knew it was of no use to make objections to his father, who never suffered him to dispute his will; and he blamed himself for telling his father an untruth about Julia’s letter, which had brought upon him the sad necessity of leaving her.
Now that Julia found she was going to lose Protheus for so long a time, she no longer pretended indifference; and they bade each other a mournful farewell with many vows of love and constancy. Protheus and Julia exchanged rings, which they both promised to keep forever in remembrance of each other; and thus, taking a sorrowful leave, Protheus set out on his journey to Milan, the abode of his friend Valentine.
Valentine was in reality what Protheus had feigned to his father, in high favor with the duke of Milan; and another event had happened to him, of which Protheus did not even dream, for Valentine had given up the freedom of which he used so much to boast, and was become as passionate a lover as Protheus. She who had wrought this wondrous change in Valentine, was the lady Silvia, daughter of the duke of Milan, and she also loved him; but they concealed their love from the duke, because although he showed much kindness to Valentine, and invited him every day to his palace, yet he designed to marry his daughter to a young courtier whose name was Thurio. Silvia despised this Thurio, for he had none of the fine sense and excellent qualities of Valentine.
These two rivals, Thurio and Valentine, were one day on a visit to Silvia, and Valentine was entertaining Silvia with turning everything Thurio said into ridicule, when the duke himself entered the room, and told Valentine the welcome news of his friend Protheus’s arrival. Valentine said, “If I had wished a thing, it would have been to have seen him here!” and then he highly praised Protheus to the duke, saying, “My lord, though I have been a truant of my time, yet hath my friend made use and fair advantage of his days, and is complete in person and in mind, in all good grace to grace a gentleman.” “Welcome him then according to his worth,” said the duke; “Silvia, I speak to you, and you, sir Thurio; for Valentine, I need not bid him do so.” They were here interrupted by the entrance of Protheus, and Valentine introduced him to Silvia, saying, “Sweet lady, entertain him to be my fellow servant to your ladyship.”
When Valentine and Protheus had ended their visit, and were alone together, Valentine said, “Now tell me how all does from whence you came? How does your lady, and how thrives your love?” Protheus replied, “My tales of love used to weary you, I know you joy not in a love-discourse.” “Ay, Protheus,” returned Valentine, “but that life is altered now. I have done penance for condemning love. For in revenge of my contempt of Love, Love has chased sleep from my enthralled eyes. O gentle Protheus, Love is a mighty lord, and hath so humbled me, that I confess there is no woe like his correction, and no such joy on earth as in his service. I now like no discourse except it be of love. Now I can break my fast, dine, sup, and sleep, upon the very name of love.”
This acknowledgment of the change which love had made in the disposition of Valentine was a great triumph to his friend Protheus. But “friend” Protheus must be called no longer, for the same all-powerful deity, Love, of whom they were speaking, (yea even while they were talking of the change he had made in Valentine) was working in the heart of Protheus; and he, who had till this time been a pattern of true love and perfect friendship, was now, in one short interview with Silvia, become a false friend and a faithless lover; for at the first sight of Silvia, all his love for Julia vanished away like a dream, nor did his long friendship for Valentine deter him from endeavoring to supplant him in her affections; and although, as it will always be, when people of dispositions naturally good become unjust, he had many scruples, before he determined to forsake Julia, and become the rival of Valentine, yet he at length overcame his sense of duty, and yielded himself up, almost without remorse, to his new unhappy passion.
Valentine imparted to him in confidence the whole history of his love, and how carefully they had concealed it from the duke her father, and told him, that despairing of ever being able to obtain his consent, he had prevailed upon Silvia to leave her father’s palace that night, and go with him to Mantua; then he showed Protheus a ladder of ropes, by help of which he meant to assist Silvia to get out of one of the windows of the palace, after it was dark.
Upon hearing this faithful recital of his friend’s dearest secrets, it is hardly possible to be believed, but so it was, that Protheus resolved to go to the duke and disclose the whole to him. This false friend began his tale with many artful speeches to the duke, such as that by the laws of friendship he ought to conceal what he was going to reveal, but that the gracious favor the duke had shown him, and the duty he owed his grace, urged him to tell that, which else no worldly good should draw from him; he then told all he had heard from Valentine, not omitting the ladder of ropes, and the manner in which Valentine meant to conceal them under a long cloak.
The duke thought Protheus quite a miracle of integrity, in that he preferred telling his friend’s intention rather than he would conceal an unjust action, highly commended him, and promised him not to let Valentine know from whom he had learned this intelligence, but by some artifice to make Valentine betray the secret himself. For this purpose the duke awaited the coming of Valentine in the evening, whom he soon saw hurrying toward the palace, and he perceived somewhat was wrapped within his cloak, which he concluded was the rope ladder.
The duke upon this stopped him, saying, “Whither away so fast, Valentine?” “May it please your grace,” said Valentine, “there is a messenger, that stays to bear my letters to my friends, and I am going to deliver them.” Now this falsehood of Valentine’s had no better success in the event than the untruth Protheus told his father. “Be they of much import,” said the duke. “No more, my lord,” said Valentine, “than to tell my father I am well and happy at your grace’s court.” “Nay, then,” said the duke, “no matter; stay with me awhile. I wish your counsel about some affairs that concern me nearly.” He then told Valentine an artful story, as a prelude to draw his secret from him, saying, that Valentine knew he wished to match his daughter with Thurio, but that she was stubborn and disobedient to his commands, “neither regarding,” said he “that she is my child, nor fearing me as if I were her father. And I may say to thee, that this pride of hers has drawn my love from her. I had thought my age should have been cherished by her child-like duty. I am now resolved to take a wife, and turn her out to whomsoever will take her in. Let her beauty be her wedding-dower, for me and my possessions she esteems not.”
Valentine, wondering where all this would end, made answer. “And what would your grace have me do in all this?” “Why,” said the duke, “the lady I would wish to marry is nice and coy, and does not much esteem my aged eloquence. Besides, the fashion of courtship is much changed since I was young; now I would willingly have you to be my tutor to instruct me how I am to woo.” Valentine gave him a general idea of the modes of courtship then practiced by young men, when they wished to win a fair lady’s love, such as presents, frequent visits, and the like. The duke replied to this, that the lady did not refuse a present which he sent her, and that she was so strictly kept by her father, that no man might have access to her by day. “Why then,” said Valentine, “you must visit her by night.” “By night,” said the artful duke, who was now coming to the drift of his discourse, “her doors are fast locked.”
Valentine then unfortunately proposed that the duke should get into the lady’s chamber at night, by means of a ladder of ropes, saying, he would procure him one fitting for that purpose; and, in conclusion, advised him to conceal this ladder of ropes under such a cloak as that which he now wore. “Lend me your cloak,” said the duke, who had feigned this long story on purpose to have a pretence to get off the cloak; so, upon saying these words, he caught hold of Valentine’s cloak, and throwing it back, he discovered not only the ladder of ropes, but also a letter of Silvia’s which he instantly opened and read; and this letter contained a full account of their intended elopement. The duke, after upbraiding Valentine for his ingratitude in thus returning the favor he had shown him, by endeavoring to steal away his daughter, banished him from the court and city of Milan forever; and Valentine was forced to depart that night, without even seeing Silvia.
While Protheus at Milan was thus injuring Valentine, Julia at Verona was regretting the absence of Protheus, and her regard for him at last so far overcame her sense of propriety, that she resolved to leave Verona, and seek her lover at Milan; and to secure herself from danger on the road, she dressed her maid Lucetta and herself in men’s clothes, and they set out in this disguise, and arrived at Milan soon after Valentine was banished from that city, through the treachery of Protheus.
Julia entered Milan about noon, and she took up her abode at an inn; and her thoughts being all on her dear Protheus, she entered into conversation with the inn-keeper, or host, as he was called, thinking by that means to learn some news of Protheus. The host was greatly pleased that this handsome young gentleman (as he took her to be), who from his appearance he concluded was of high rank, spoke so familiarly to him; and being a good-natured man, he was sorry to see him look so melancholy; and to amuse his young guest he offered to take him to hear some fine music, with which, he said, a gentleman that evening was going to serenade his mistress.
The reason Julia looked so very melancholy was, that she did not well know what Protheus would think of the imprudent step she had taken; for she knew that he had loved her for her noble maiden pride and dignity of character, and she feared she should lower herself in his esteem; and this it was that made her wear a sad and thoughtful countenance.
She gladly accepted the offer of the host to go with him, and hear the music; for she secretly hoped she might meet Protheus by the way. But when she came to the palace whither the host conducted her, a very different effect was produced to what the kind host intended; for there, to her heart’s sorrow, she beheld her lover, the inconstant Protheus, serenading the lady Silvia with music, and addressing discourse of love and admiration to her. And Julia overheard Silvia from a window talk with Protheus, and reproach him for forsaking his own true lady, and for his ingratitude to his friend Valentine; and then Silvia left the window, not choosing to listen to his music and his fine speeches; for she was a faithful lady to her banished Valentine, and abhorred the ungenerous conduct of his false friend Protheus.
Though Julia was in despair at what she had just witnessed, yet did she still love the truant Protheus; and hearing that he had lately parted with a servant, she contrived, with the assistance of her host, the innkeeper, to hire herself to Protheus as a page; and Protheus knew not she was Julia, and he sent her with letters and presents to her rival Silvia, and he even sent by her the very ring she gave him as a parting gift at Verona.
When she went to that lady with the ring, she was most glad to find that Silvia utterly rejected the suit of Protheus; and Julia, or the page Sebastian, as she was called, entered into conversation with Silvia about Protheus’s first love, the forsaken lady Julia. She putting in (as one may say) a good word for herself, said she knew Julia; as well she might, being herself the Julia of whom she spoke: telling how fondly Julia loved her master Protheus, and how his unkind neglect would grieve her. And then she, with a pretty equivocation, went on: “Julia is about my height, and of my complexion, the color of her eyes and hair the same as mine;” and indeed Julia looked a most beautiful youth in her boy’s attire. Silvia was moved to pity this lovely lady, who was so sadly forsaken by the man she loved; and when Julia offered the ring which Protheus had sent, refused it, saying, “The more shame for him that he sends me that ring; I will not take it, for I have often heard him say his Julia gave it to him. I love thee, gentle youth, for pitying her, poor lady! Here is a purse; I give it you for Julia’s sake.” These comfortable words coming from her kind rival’s tongue cheered the drooping heart of the disguised lady.
But to return to the banished Valentine, who scarce knew which way to bend his course, being unwilling to return home to his father a disgraced and banished man. As he was wandering over a lonely forest, not far distant from Milan, where he had left his heart’s dear treasure, the lady Silvia, he was set upon by robbers, who demanded his money. Valentine told them he was a man crossed by adversity, that he was going into banishment, and that he had no money, the clothes he had on being all his riches. The robbers, hearing that he was a distressed man, and being struck with his noble air and manly behavior, told him, if he would live with them and be their chief, or captain, they would put themselves under his command, but if he refused to accept their offer they would kill him. Valentine, who cared little what became of himself, said he would consent to live with them and be their captain, provided they did no outrage on women or poor passengers. Thus the noble Valentine became, like Robin Hood, of whom we read in ballads, a captain of robbers and outlawed banditti; and in this situation he was found by Silvia, and in this manner it came to pass:
Silvia, to avoid a marriage with Thurio, whom her father insisted upon her no longer refusing, came at last to the resolution of following Valentine to Mantua, at which place she had heard her lover had taken refuge; but in this account she was misinformed, for he still lived in the forest among the robbers, bearing the name of their captain, but taking no part in their depredations, and using the authority which they had imposed upon him in no other way than to show compassion to the travelers they robbed. Silvia contrived to effect her escape from her father’s palace in company with a worthy old gentleman, whose name was Eglamour, whom she took along with her for protection on the road. She had to pass through the forest where Valentine and the banditti dwelt; and one of the robbers seized on Silvia, and would also have taken Eglamour, but he escaped.
The robber who had taken Silvia, seeing the terror she was in, bid her not to be alarmed, for that he was only going to carry her to a cave where his captain lived, and that she need not be afraid, for their captain had an honorable mind, and always showed humanity to women. Silvia found little comfort in hearing she was going to be carried as a prisoner before the captain of a lawless banditti. “O Valentine,” she cried, “this I endure for thee!” But as the robber was conveying her to the cave of his captain, he was stopped by Protheus, who, still attended by Julia in the disguise of a page, having heard of the flight of Silvia, had traced her steps to this forest. Protheus now rescued her from the hands of the robber, but scarce had she time to thank him for the service he had done her, before he began to distress her afresh with his love suit; and while he was rudely pressing her to consent to marry him, and his page (the forlorn Julia) was standing beside them in great anxiety of mind, fearing lest the great service which Protheus had just done to Silvia should win her to show him some favor, they were all strangely surprised with the sudden appearance of Valentine, who having heard his robbers had taken a lady prisoner, came to console and relieve her.
Protheus was courting Silvia, and he was so much ashamed of being caught by his friend, that he was all at once seized with penitence and remorse; and he expressed such a lively sorrow for the injuries he had done to Valentine, that Valentine, whose nature was noble and generous, even to a romantic degree, not only forgave and restored him to his former place in his friendship, but in a sudden flight of heroism he said, “I freely do forgive you; and all the interest I have in Silvia, I give it up to you.” Julia, who was standing behind her master as a page, hearing this strange offer, and fearing Protheus would not be able with this new found virtue to refuse Silvia, fainted, and they were all employed in recovering her; else would Silvia have been offended at being thus made over to Protheus, though she could scarcely think that Valentine would long persevere in this over-strained and too generous act of friendship. When Julia recovered from the fainting fit, she said, “I had forgotten, my master ordered me to deliver this ring to Silvia.” Protheus, looking upon the ring, saw that it was the one he gave to Julia, in return for that which he received from her, and which he had sent by the supposed page to Silvia. “How is this?” said he, “this is Julia’s ring; how came you by it, boy?” Julia answered, “Julia herself did give it me, and Julia herself hath brought it hither.”
Protheus, now looking earnestly upon her, plainly perceived that the page Sebastian was no other than the lady Julia herself; and the proof she had given of her constancy and true love so wrought in him, that his love for her returned into his heart, and he took again his own dear lady, and joyfully resigned all pretensions to the lady Silvia to Valentine, who had so well deserved her.
Protheus and Valentine were expressing their happiness in their reconciliation, and in the love of their faithful ladies, when they were surprised with the sight of the Duke of Milan and Thurio, who came there in pursuit of Silvia. Thurio first approached, and attempted to seize Silvia, saying, “Silvia is mine.” Upon this Valentine said to him in a very spirited manner, “Thurio, keep back; if once again you say that Silvia is yours, you shall embrace your death. Here she stands; take but possession of her with a touch! I dare you but to breathe upon my love.” Hearing this threat, Thurio, who was a great coward, drew back, and said he cared not for her, and that none but a fool would fight for a girl who loved him not.
The duke, who was a very brave man himself, said now in great anger, “The more base and degenerate in you to take such means for her as you have done, and leave her on such slight conditions.” Then turning to Valentine, he said, “I do applaud your spirit, Valentine, and think you worthy of an empress’s love. You shall have Silvia, for you have well deserved her.” Valentine then with great humility kissed the duke’s hand, and accepted the noble present which he had made him of his daughter with becoming thankfulness; taking occasion of this joyful minute to entreat the good-humored duke to pardon the thieves with whom he had associated in the forest, assuring him that when reformed and restored to society, there would be found among them many good, and fit for great employment, for the most of them had been banished, like Valentine, for state offences, rather than for any black crimes they had been guilty of. To this the ready duke consented; and now nothing remained but that Protheus, the false friend, was ordained, by way of penance for his love-prompted faults, to be present at the recital of the whole story of his loves and falsehoods before the duke. And the shame of the recital to his awakened conscience was judged sufficient punishment; which being done, the lovers, all four, returned back to Milan, and their nuptials were solemnized in presence of the duke, with high triumphs and feasting.
A Scotch Prayer.—The following prayer was written about 1804, at a time when Britain was threatened with a French invasion, Napoleon having assumed full authority:
“God bless this house, and all that’s in this house, and all within twa miles ilka side this house. O bless the cow, and the meal, and the kail-yard, and the muckle town o’ Dumbarton.
“O God! bless the Scotch Greys that are lien’ in Hamilton Barracks. They are brae chiels—they are not like the English whalps, that dash their foot against a stone, and damn the saul of the stone—as if a stone had a saul to be saved.
“O build a strong deak [dyke] between us and the muckle French, but a far stranger one between us and the wild Irish.
“O Lord! preserve us frae a’ witches and warlocks, and a’ lang-nebbed beasties that gang threw the heather.
“O Lord! put a pair o’ branks about the king o’ France’s neck—gie me the helter in my ain hand, that I may lead him about when I like: for thy name’s sake. Amen.”
[CONSTANT CHANGE IN WORDS.]
By JOHN PEILE, M. A.
Words are subject to an incessant change. Substantives, for example, are the names of things actually existing, or of qualities of those things. When I say an oak, I mean an oak and not a beech; goodness is not badness; and if these things don’t change, how can the names which express them change without causing utter confusion? Perhaps variations so violent as these are not very common, and yet both these changes have occurred in language. The very same word which to the Greeks meant an oak, to the Romans meant a beech, though an oak never yet changed into a beech. Schlecht in German first of all meant “straight.” Now the “straightness” of a visible object, such as a line, is the most obvious metaphor by which to express the moral idea of “straightforwardness” and simplicity of heart and purpose, just as our common word right means originally that which is straight, the Latin rectus. But then simpleness may shade into the folly of the simpleton; and lastly the fool in worldly wisdom may give his name to the fool of whom Solomon spoke; and by some such process as this schlecht in modern German means “bad” only. After seeing this change of nouns, can we wonder that verbs can vary their meaning by imperceptible degrees so much that the first sense would be altogether unrecognizable unless we had the history of the word recorded by its use in successive writers?
Great changes of language are sometimes due to great convulsions in history; as when the Roman civilization was destroyed by nations comparatively uncivilized and the language of the Romans remained modified in different ways in the countries of which they were the lords no longer. Such great changes do not often take place; yet just as surely, though more slowly, a gradual change goes on in the most peaceful times, of which you cannot have a better example than in your own English. “Well,” you say, “surely English has not changed much in the last three hundred years. We can read Shakspere without any difficulty.” That is saying a little too much; we are so familiar with the best parts of Shakspere that perhaps we are hardly conscious of the difference; the words have a well-known sound, and if we are not students of language we may not examine them very carefully. But open your Shakspere almost at random and you will soon find out, if you really consider, how much is now obsolete, how many words have passed out of use or are used in a different sense. I have opened on “Macbeth,” Act. i. Sec. 7, and there I find in Lady Macbeth’s speech:—
“His two chamberlains
Will I with wine and wassail so convince
That memory, the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
A limbec only.”
Now look at a few of the words here. (1) “Chamberlain,” as we all know, etymologically a man of the chamber; it comes from camera, a chamber, originally a vault; the root of this is cam—to be bent or crooked, which is supposed to be the origin of the name of our most crooked river. The old sense of “chamberlain” has not quite died out of our recollection; yet when we speak of the Lord Chamberlain—the only person to whom the title is now applied—we don’t think of a man whose business it is to guard his king’s sleep when on a journey, or, generally, of a bed-room attendant, but of one whose best known duty is the censorship of plays. (2) “Wassail” is a word which we should expect to find in a historical novel, but not to hear in every-day talk. We feel pretty sure that it has something to do with good cheer, but we may not know that it was originally a drinking of health; that was was the imperative of the verb was “to be,” which we have turned into an auxiliary verb to mark past time; and the last syllable is our word hale—healthy, which we have pretty well restricted to the description of an elderly man, whom we call “hale for his years;” though we are familiar with the word in corrupted form whole, which we have in the Bible, “I have made a man every whit whole on the Sabbath day.” (3) “Convince” has wavered much in sense; we use it now simply for persuading a person, but the primary meaning was “to overpower,” which it has here; in the Bible phrase “Which of you convinceth me of sin?” we have the same special sense of overcoming by testimony, which convincere had in Latin.
So again (4) “Warder,” like “wassail” is a word with which we are familiar from books, but which we should not ourselves use without the appearance of affectation; we should use the equivalent “guard.” We have here a couple of words identical in meaning, just as we have wise and guise, warrant and guarantee, wager and gaze, and others which explain the riddle, such as war and French guerre, warren and French garenne. It is well known that in all these the w marks the Teutonic word introduced alike into England by the Anglo-Saxons and into France by the Franks, which the earlier inhabitants of France were unable to pronounce without letting a g escape before it; and so they produced the second form beginning with gu. Some of these second forms were brought into England by the Normans, and existed there by the side of the English word brought long before; but as there was no distinction in sense, one form generally fell into disuse, only to be revived for a special purpose, as by Sir Walter Scott, to give a mediæval look to his poems.
(5) “Fume” meant smoke or steam. Shakspere used it metaphorically, just as we might speak of a man’s reason being clouded. Such a use of the word may have been familiar at his time, but no such idea would now attach to it; if we use it at all, we do so in the old simple sense, as the “fumes of tobacco,” the same sense which the word bore at Rome and in the far-away India more than twenty centuries ago; while the Greeks turned it, by a different metaphor, to express the steam of passion, and Plato in his famous analysis distinguished the “thumoeides,” the spirited part of the soul, from that part which reasons, and from that part which desires. (6) “Receipt” seems to be used of a place, that place where reason is found, just as we hear of Matthew in the Bible “sitting at the receipt of custom.” (7) “Limbec” has probably died out altogether. It is only the student of the history of the English language who can guess that the word is equivalent to alembic, which meant a still or retort, and so is used here by Shakspere merely in the sense of an empty vessel, that into which anything may be poured. The word is Arabic; it was brought into England with chemical study like alchemy itself, algebra, and many others. Then by degrees people fancied that the a at the beginning of the word was our article, though really the first syllable al is the Arabic article; and thus lembic or limbic was left. The article has often been a thief in England. It has two forms an and a, and meant one, as you may see in the old Scotch form, “ane high and michty lord.” The shortened form a was naturally used before a consonant, but when the word began with n, people did not always see where to divide rightly. Thus a nadder turned into an adder, a napron has become an apron, etc.; on the other hand the eft (ewt) seems to have robbed the article in its turn and become a newt.
Thus we have examined one passage, and have found in its four lines seven words which are either not used now at all or are used in a different sense. Yet, as we said, the passage as a whole sounds simple enough when we read it or hear it on the stage. We must admit then that the English of to-day differs much from Shakspere’s English in the meaning of its words.
[ARCHERY IN SCOTLAND.]
By ROBERT MACGREGOR.
Though it has often been hastily assumed that the annals of the bow in the northern kingdom would require no more space in the writing than did Olaus Magnus’s famous chapter on the snakes of Iceland, yet this is only true of archery in battle; and it is a curious fact that, though the Scots could never be induced to take to the bow as a military weapon, they became very fond of archery as a pastime, when firearms took the place of bows and arrows as “artilyere,” and there was no further need of statutes forcing the bow into their hands, and forbidding all outdoor amusements that interfered with its practice. It is a curious problem why, in two races so akin as the English and the Lowland Scots, national bent should in this respect take such opposite directions. While the southern yeoman delighted in his long-bow and the sheaf of shafts—“the twelve Scots’ lives” he bore under his girdle—his kinsman foe across the Tweed could never be compelled either by experience or a long series of penal statutes to take to the weapon whose power in skilful hands he had felt on many a bloody field. “Few of thaim was sekyr of archarie,” laments Blind Harry, the minstrel, of Wallace’s followers; and not only was this true of all succeeding Scottish soldiers, but it may be that the same national prejudice can be traced back for centuries before the Blind Minstrel’s time, to the days of the sculptured stones that stud the northeastern districts of Scotland. While on them are many delineations of the hunter aiming his arrow at deer or wild boar, there is only one instance, in all their many scenes of war, in which fighting men are armed with the bow.
When the first James of Scotland returned to his northern kingdom with his “fairest English flower,” Lady Jane Beaufort, he brought back with him from his long captivity a deep impression of the value of the bow. Under the careful instruction of the constable of Pevensey, James had become a fine marksman, and he tried by every means in his power to popularize the exercise at home. He forbade football and other “unprofitable sports;” he ordered every man to shoot at the bow marks near his parish church every Sunday; he chose a bodyguard for himself from among the most skilful archers at the periodical “Wappinshaws;” and in his poem of “Christ’s Kirk on the Green” he published a scathing satire on the clumsiness and inefficiency of his peasantry in archery. What the most energetic of the Stuart kings set his mind to he generally succeeded in; and possibly, if the dagger of “that mischant traitor, Robert Grahame,” had spared his life at Perth, James might have done what so many Scottish kings failed to do; as it was, we see signs of improvement among his people.
The bodyguard that the author of the “King’s Quhair” embodied for himself was the origin of the famous “Royal Company of Archers” that still flourishes vigorously in Edinburgh. So say the present “Bodyguard for Scotland,” though their oldest extant records stop short two centuries and a half of King James’s time.
With James’s assassination at Perth, the new-born zeal for archery seems to have died away; and it is not till we come to the time of James V. that any noteworthy traces of its practice can be found. If we may judge from a story told in Lindsay of Pitscottie’s quaint old chronicle of Scotland, the Commons’ king had some fine archers in his kingdom; for Lindsay tells us how the Scottish marksmen were victorious in what must surely have been the earliest friendly shooting-match between England and Scotland. The occasion of this international match was Henry VIII. sending an embassy with the garter to his nephew, the young King of Scots, in 1534. “In this year,” says Pitscottie, whose spelling we modernize, “came an English ambassador out of England, called Lord William Howard: a bishop and other gentlemen, to the number of three score horse: who were all able wailled [picked] gentlemen for all kinds of pastimes, as shooting, leaping, wrestling, running, and casting of the stone. But they were well essayed in all these before they went home, and that by their own provocation, and they almost ever tint [lost]: while at the last the king’s mother favored the Englishmen, because she was the king of England’s sister; and therefore she took a wager of archery upon the Englishmen’s hands, contrary to the king her son, and any half dozen Scotsmen, either noblemen, gentlemen, or yeomen, that so many Englishmen should shoot against them at ‘rovers,’ ‘butts,’ or ‘prick-bonnet.’ The king hearing of this bonspiel [sporting match] of his mother was well content. So there was laid a hundred crowns, and a tun of wine pandit [staked] on each side. The ground was chosen in St. Andrews. The Scottish archers were three landed gentlemen and three yeomen, to wit: David Wemyss of that ilk, David Arnott of that ilk, and Mr. John Wedderburn, vicar of Dundee. The yeomen were John Thomson in Leith, Steven Tabroner, and Alexander Baillie, who was a piper. [The Scottish archers] shot wondrous near, and won the wager from the Englishmen; and thereafter went into the town, and made a banquet to the queen and the English ambassador, with the whole two hundred crowns and the two tuns of wine.”
Archery from this time became an established pastime in Scotland, amicably sharing men’s leisure with its old enemies golf and football, while with the ladies it took rank as their chief, if not only, outdoor pastime. Queen Margaret herself might possibly have taken her place with credit beside the six Englishmen she backed in this match against her son; for we are told by Leland and others that Henry’s sister was no mean shot, while her unfortunate grandchild, Mary Queen of Scots, was as fond of archery as was her cousin Elizabeth of England and many another lady of that time.
[TENNYSON AND MRS. CARLYLE.]
Mrs. Carlyle wrote in 1843: “Pickwick, Bulwer Lytton and Alfred Tennyson—the last is the greatest genius, though the vulgar public have not as yet recognized him as such. He is a very handsome man, and a noble-hearted one, with something of the gipsy in his appearance which, for me, is perfectly charming. One night at private theatricals in being escorted through a long dim passage to a private box, I came on a tall man leant to the wall, with his head touching the ceiling, to all appearance asleep, or resolutely trying it under most unfavorable circumstances. ‘Alfred Tennyson!’ I exclaimed in joyful surprise. ‘Well,’ said he, taking the hand I held out to him, and forgetting to let it go again. ‘I did not know you were in town,’ said I. ‘I should like to know who you are,’ said he; ‘I know that I know you, but I can not tell your name.’ And I had actually to name myself to him. Then he woke up in good earnest, and said he had been meaning to come to Chelsea. ‘But Carlyle is in Scotland,’ I told him with due humility. ‘So I heard from Spedding already, but I asked Spedding, would he go with me to see Mrs. Carlyle? and he said he would.’ Last Sunday I was lying on the sofa, headachey, when a cab drove up. Mr. Strachey? No. Alfred Tennyson alone! Actually, by a superhuman effort of volition he had put himself into a cab, nay, brought himself away from a dinner party, and was there to smoke and talk with me!—by myself—me!”
How dear is fatherland to all noble hearts.—Voltaire.
[GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS.]
By ALFRED NEWTON.
Some facts as to the geographical distribution—whether of plants or animals—have, it is true, been long known, indeed they present themselves on the slightest inquiry. Every one is aware that elephants and tigers do not roam in our woods now-a-days, whatever may have been the case aforetime. Many persons have read that horses were unknown in the New World at the time of its discovery by Europeans, and were subsequently introduced by its Spanish conquerors. Some may even know that humming-birds are not to be found in the Old World, and that (as has been already said) the so-called “marsupial” animals are at the present time, with a few exceptions, confined to Australia, as well as that in that country nothing like vultures or woodpeckers are to be found.
The assemblage of animals which inhabit any portion of the earth’s surface, whether it be land or water, is called its “fauna,” in the same way that the plants of a country are called its “flora.” To be entitled to the former term it is unnecessary that the animals composing the assemblage should not be found anywhere else; it is enough that they occur there and impress upon the district, be it large or small, certain more or less well-marked peculiarities. Nor does it follow because certain kinds of animals are found to inhabit two districts that these two have the same fauna. We have to take the whole assemblage as a whole, and abide by the verdict which the majority of kinds affords us. Now by collecting such facts as those stated in the preceding paragraph, and such facts can be collected by the hundred or the thousand, we are able to get hold of a general idea of the geographical distribution of animals, and when the results of all the knowledge on this subject which we can acquire are brought together, it will appear that the earth may be partitioned into several great zoölogical regions—each separable in subregions, provinces, subprovinces and so on.
America is divided into two regions—the “Nearctic” and the “Neotropical,” which meet in Mexico at about the 22d parallel of north latitude:—
(1) The Nearctic Region (that is the Northern part of the New World) includes the Aleutian Islands, besides Greenland and the Bermudas with all of what is generally called North America.
(2) The Neotropical Region (that is the tropical part of the New World) comprises the West India Islands, the Galapagos, and the whole of South and Central America.
Passing to the Old World, it is separable, as may be seen, into four regions.
(3) The Palæarctic Region (or Northern part of the Old World) including that portion of Africa which lies to the northward of the Great Desert, the Atlantic Islands (Madeiras, Canaries, and Azores), the whole of Europe from Iceland to Greece, besides Asia Minor, Palestine, Persia, probably Afghanistan, the whole of Northern, Central and Eastern Asia, lying to the northward of the Himalaya Mountains and of China proper, as well as Japan.
(4) The Ethiopian Region consists of Africa, excepting Morocco and Algeria (which, as already stated, belong to the preceding region), as well as of Arabia and of course the adjacent islands from those off the Cape Verd to Madagascar and Socotra.
(5) The Indian Region includes possibly Beloochistan, all British India, Burmah, China proper (that is, without Chinese Tartary), Cochin China, the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Java, Bali, Borneo, and the Philippine Islands.
(6) The Australian Region is very trenchantly divided from the Indian at the Straits of Macassar, and, beginning with the islands of Celebes and Lombok, comprises all the groups between them and Papua or New Guinea, as well as Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, and, generally, all the islands of the Pacific Ocean, except those already otherwise appropriated—as Japan, the Aleutian Islands and the Galapagos.
It may be added that though the preceding outlines of geographical distribution were first laid down with reference to the most vagrant class of animals in creation—namely birds—their truth has since been in the main confirmed by nearly all those zoölogists who have studied the subject in reference to particular classes in the knowledge of which they themselves stand preëminent.
Yet it may not be unreasonably expected of these six zoögeographical regions, that they are not all equally distinct, and it is quite possible that future researches may show that their boundaries require some rectification.
The study of the geographical distribution of animals furnishes us with facts of much importance in the history of the earth. For example: It has been stated, and that on the very best authority, that the marine faunas of the two coasts of the Isthmus of Panama, which joins the two continents of North and South America, have but thirty per cent. of species in common. Now what does this show? No doubt the very considerable antiquity of the barrier which exists between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans—for if, in anything like recent times, there had been a break in this barrier, within the tropics where the sea is warm, then assuredly we should have had a very much larger interchange of the species which inhabit its two sides, or perhaps we should even find precisely the same fishes, the same shells, the same crabs and the same corals in the harbor of Colon on the one side and that of Panama on the other. As it is we have corals on the Atlantic coast of the isthmus and on the Pacific none whatever, while, as before said, of the rest of the marine fauna (the fishes especially) not more than thirty per cent. are common to both. It is moreover particularly to be noted that there seems to be no other reason than the one here assigned for this difference. Very many sorts of fishes and of shells which occur on one side so much resemble those found on the other that the distinction between them is only such as can be recognized by expert zoölogists, yet this distinction is constantly to be observed—they form what are called “Representative Species,” that is, one kind of fish or shell on one side is exactly represented by another kind of fish or shell on the other.
But this difference between the marine faunas of the two coasts of the Isthmus of Panama not only proves its long duration as a barrier of dry land, but some other deductions follow naturally enough. It is also tolerably clear that the Gulf Stream must have been running pretty much the same course that it runs now so long as the barrier presented by the Isthmus of Panama has existed. If it were not for that barrier the current would have continued its westerly flow onward to the Pacific Ocean. Now we have seen that the difference between the marine faunas of the two sides of the isthmus proves its long duration. Hence we may fairly conclude that for so long has the Gulf stream been flowing and helping to soften what would otherwise have been the rigorous climate of Ireland and Scotland, thereby materially affecting their fauna.
Everyone knows the old legend of St. Patrick, and how he is said to have banished all noxious reptiles from his favorite island. As a matter of fact only one kind of reptile proper is found in Ireland. This is the viviparous lizard, a harmless little animal which also occurs in Great Britain and generally throughout the continent of Europe. But in England we have besides a second kind of lizard, commonly known as the sand-lizard, and this also is spread over the Continent, where they have in addition, even in Northern France, a third kind, the green lizard, which does not inhabit any part of Great Britain or much less of Ireland. It is therefore a not very unlikely deduction from these facts that the viviparous lizard had made its appearance in this part of the world at an epoch when Ireland was joined to England by dry land, and England was in like manner connected with France, and that that epoch was earlier than the time when the sand-lizard appeared, for if the latter had then occurred it would in all likelihood have spread to Ireland. But if we suppose, and geologists tell us we may do so, St. George’s Channel to have been formed before the English Channel was, then it is plain that a reptile extending its range from the middle of Europe would have been able to get into England, but not into Ireland; and this supposition would account for the limited distribution of the sand-lizard. While again a third reptile, like the green lizard, coming at a subsequent period, after the straits of Dover were formed, would find them before him and be unable to set his foot off the continent.
Thus in whatever way we regard them, the not unreasonable deductions afforded by the facts which a study of the geographical distribution of animals makes known to us are of very great importance. We may of course be wrong in some of our inferences, we very likely shall err, as some of our predecessors have done, but the facts remain whatever construction we put upon them, and, as they go on accumulating, we may be sure that errors by degrees will be swept away, and perhaps the genius of man by this means alone may explain one of the mysteries of creation.