I have thus reduced MR. HALLIWELL'S list to that number which usually forms the exception rather than the rule; and if accident, misprint, error in copying, or other special circumstance be not held sufficient to account for the single remaining instance, I have then only to say that I prefer deformed to deforming, as an epithet applied disparagingly to Time's hand as more in accordance with Shakspeare's practice, who was not in the habit of repeating the same idea, which, in the latter case, would occur again in the word "defeatures" in the following line.
MR. HALLIWELL may, doubtless find other instances, perhaps more felicitous than these; at present, all I can say is that he has failed to show that the use of the passive for the active participle was common with Shakspeare. As to other variations between the grammatical usage of Shakspeare's day and that of our own, I call assure him that I am not quite so ignorant of the fact as he imagines.
SAMUEL HICKSON
August 1. 1850.
ENGLISH COMEDIANS IN GERMANY.
I am glad to be enabled to reply to MR. BOLTON CORNEY'S Query (Vol. i., p. 439.) respecting a German book of plays.
The learned illustrator of the Curiosities of Literature would find the information he desires in the Vorrath zur Geschichte der deutschen dramatischen Dichtkunst of the formerly celebrated J. Christoph Gottsched (Leipzig, 1767-69, 2 vols. 8vo.). But as this book, now somewhat neglected, would perhaps be difficult to be found even in the British Museum, I will transcribe the contents of the Schau-Bühne englischer und franzõsischer Comõdianten auff welcher werden vorgestellt die schõnsten und neuesten Comõdien, so vor wenig Jahren in Frankreich, Teutschland und andern Orten ... seynd agirt und präsentirt worden.—Frankfurt, 1670, 3 vols. 8vo.
Vol. I.—
1. Amor der Arzt.