P. S.—Excuse my French-English.
Philarète Chasles, Mazarianæus
Paris, Palais de l'Institut.
SHAKSPEARE CORRESPONDENCE.
Meaning of "Delighted" in some Places of Shakspeare.—I am sorry to be obliged to differ so often in opinion with H. C. K., but as we are both, I trust, solely actuated by the love of truth, he no doubt will excuse me. My difference now with him is about "delighted spirit," by which he understands the "tender delicate spirit," while I take it to be the "delectable" or "delightful spirit." As I think this is founded on the Latin, I beg permission to quote the following portion of my note on Jug. ii. 3. in my edition of Sallust:
"Incorruptus, ἄφθαρτος , i. e. incapable of dissolution, the incorruptibilis of the Fathers of the Church. In imitation probably of the Greek verbal adjective in τος, as αἱρετός, στρεπτός, etc., the Latins, especially Sallust, sometimes used the past part. as equivalent to an adj. in bilis: comp. xliii, 5.; lxxvi. 1.; xci. 7.; Cat. I. 4.,
'Non exorato stant adamante viæ;' Propert. IV. 11. 4.,
'Mare scopulis inaccessum;' Plin. Nat. Hist., XII. 14.
It is in this sense that flexus is to be understood in Virg. Æn., v. 500."
The same employment of the past part. is frequent in our old English writers, and I rather think that they adopted it from the Latin. The earliest instance which I find in my notes is from Golding, who renders the tonitrus et inevitabile fulmen of Ovid (Met. III. 301.):
"With dry and dreadful thunderclaps and lightning to the same,
Of deadly and unavoided dint."