W. SNEYD.
Denton.
THE FALLACY OF TRADITIONS.
Several communications to the "N. & Q." have already proved how little reliance is to be placed upon the traditions repeated by vergers and guides to wondering lionizers. A collection of other instances, where the test of science and archæological investigation have exposed their falsity, would be interesting and instructive. In spite of Sir Samuel Meyrick's judicious arrangement of the armour in the tower, the beef-eaters still persist in relating the old stories handed down. At Warwick Castle the rib of the dun cow is ascertained to be a bone of a fossil elephant, and Guy's porridge-pot a military cooking utensil of the time of Charles I. St. Crispin's chair, carefully preserved in Linlithgow Cathedral by insertion in the wall, is of mahogany,—an American wood! The chair of Charles I. at Leicester bears a crown, which, having been the fashionable ornament after the Restoration, together with the form, betrays the date. Queen Eleanor's crosses, it now appears, were not built by her affectionate husband, but by her own direction and with her own money. The fire-place and other objects in belted Will's bedroom at Naworth Castle, are manifestly of later date. The curious bed treasured up near Leicester as that occupied by Richard III., immediately before the battle of Bosworth, is in the style commonly called Elizabethan. Queen Mary's bed at Holyrood is of the last century; and her room at Hardwicke is in a house which was not erected till after her death; the tapestry and furniture, however, may have been removed from the old hall where she was imprisoned. The tower of Caernarvon Castle, in which the first Prince of Wales is supposed to have been born, is not of so early a period. In short, archæologists seem to show that there is not only nothing new under the sun, but that there is also nothing true under the sun. To assume "a questionable shape," may I request some of your correspondents to add to the list?
C. T.
ON THE DERIVATION OF "THE RACK."
Some time ago I ventured to call the attention of your readers to what I regarded as an oversight of the commentators on Shakspeare, in reference to a certain passage of the Tempest in which the word "rack" occurs. It seemed to me that, with the exception of Malone, having overlooked the construction of the passage, they had been misled by the authority of Horne Tooke; for to every other part being conceded its due weight and meaning, and assuming, with Horne Tooke, that Shakspeare understood English at least as well as his commentators, I could not conceive it possible that there could be a serious doubt as to the value of the word in question. I have no wish, now, to say a word in addition upon this point, firmly convinced as I am that the time will come when "(w)rack" will be generally received by critics as it always has been by everybody else, as the true reading; but I have a few observations to make on the derivation of the word used by Shakspeare and others, with which it has been so often identified, which I trust will be found worthy of a few moments' consideration.
Horne Tooke is justly regarded as a very high authority, and certainly I should be the last to deny how deeply philology is indebted to the originality of his views; yet with the respect that I entertain for his labours, I see no reason why my judgment should abdicate its place, even though its conclusion should be that he was not always infallible. In considering the meaning of "rack" in the Tempest, I treated the question entirely as one of construction, and therefore allowed the supposed derivation of the same word in other places from Recan, to reek, to stand unexamined and unquestioned; but let us look now a little more closely into the matter, and I think I shall be able to make it appear that this conclusion is not altogether so unquestionable as many may have supposed. That the application of the word may be more clearly seen, I beg leave to quote a few passages:
"That which is now a horse, even with a thought,
The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct