the end,-". desire to eat with her, carve her, drink to her, and still among intermingle your petition" &c. And so construe, Beaumont and Fletcher, Double Marriage, v.1, Moxon, vol. ii. p. 121, col. 1,— "Nay, then I'll carve myself; I'll stay no ceremonies." Beaumont, Translation of Ovid's Remedy of Love, vol. ii. p. 704, col. 1,— "Salute him friendly, give him gentle words, Return all courtesies that he affords, Drink to him, carve him, give him compliment ;" &c. Day, Isle of Gulls, iii. 1 [ed. 1633, D.], “My lady's in love with thee. Lisan. With me, my lord! Bas. With thee, my lady. Her amorous glances are her accusers; her very looks write sonnets in thy commendations [-tion]; she carves1 thee at board, and cannot sleep, for dreaming of thee, in bed." ii., towards the end, ""Tis true, she rides me, and I long for grass." Meaning that he is hungry? 1 Three of these four passages have been quoted by Mr. Dyce ("Few Notes" &c. p.18), in support of Mr. Hunter's well-known interpretation of the word carve. I should say they all refer to cutting up food. It appears, from the curious passage adduced from Overbury by Mr. Grant White, that there really was "a sign of intelligence made by the little finger as the glass was raised to the mouth," and that this sign bewraied carving. Carving therefore (at least this sort of it) must have been not this or any other sign, but something that this sign indicated. Perhaps, however, some words may be lost in Overbury.--Ed. Heywood, Rape of Lucrece, i. 2, speaking of the supposed idiot Brutus, "Hence with that mome." Song in Massinger's Fatal Dowry, Moxon, p. 289, col. 2,— "What though the gallants call thee Mome?" See context. the end, Sir Philip Sidney, Defence of Poesy, near if you have so earth-creeping a mind &c.or rather, by a certain rustical disdain, will become such a mome as to be a Momus of poetry, then " &c. Spenser, Canto i. of Mutabilitie, St. xlix., where Faunus is caught, and treated roughly, by Diana and her nymphs,- "Ne ought he said, whatever he did heare, But, hanging down his head, did like a Mome appeare." Sylvester, Epistle ii. ed. 1641, p. 643, col. 2,— Perhaps this suitor was some simple patch : Why should she grant with such a mome to match ? " Compare (for malt-horse) Jonson, Every Man in his Humour, i. 4, Gifford, vol. i. p. 36,—“ Hang him, rook! he! why he has no more judgment than a malt-horse." 2, conversation between Antipholus S. and Dromio S. I have little or no doubt that the geographical part of this dialogue is spurious. iv. 2, "A chain, a chain: do you not hear it ring?" Should there not be a dash after the colon? See context. v. 1,— "And in a dark and dankish vault at home They 2 left me and my man," &c. 2 Walker writes They for there without observation; so, too, the Old Corrector. But might not Shakespeare have written,— The termination ish has not here a lessening force, but implies the same as in forms derived from nouns substantive, e.g., foolish, womanish, &c. Quere, indeed, whether dankish itself may not be derived from the substantive dank, not from the adjective? Marston, Prologue to P. ii. of Antonio and Mellida, Lamb, vol. i. p. 81, ed. 1835, "The rawish dank of clumsy [read clammy] winter cramps The fluent summer's vein." (Milton's dank, P. L., vii. 440,— દ yet oft they quit The dank, and, rising on stiff pennons, tower is merely a Latinism.) Compare the damp.-Other in- In the same manner perhaps dampish, chillish, hoarish, are formed; at any rate, the ish in these words, as they are used by the old writers, has the same force as in dankish. Dampish. Bacon, Essay of Building,-"- let it be level upon the floor, no whit sunk underground, to avoid all dampishness." Spenser, F. Q., B. iii. C. iv. St. lii.,— "All soddeinly dim wox the dampish ayre, And griesly shadowes coverd heaven bright." And may have crept in from the third and fourth verses above, and then into been purposely changed to in, to make metre and something like sense. In the passage from Marston, Walker gives cramps for ramps, also without any remark.-Ed. Chapman, Widow's Tears, iv. 1, Dodsley, vol. vi. p. 176; there printed as prose,— "Let's air our dampish spirits, almost stifled In this gross muddy element." Herrick, Old Wives' Prayer, ed. Clarke, vol. ii. p. 99, lxxv., those sounds that us affright In the dead of dampish night." Hoarish. Romeus and Juliet, Var. Shakespeare, vol. vi. p. 305, "But sound advice aboundes in heddes with horish heares.” Chillish. Romeus and Juliet, ut supra, p. 325, "Her golden heares did stande upright upon her chillish hed." So apparently learnedish, Butler, Miscellaneous Thoughts, 463, "Some write in Hebrew, some in Greek, And some, more wise, in Arabic, Of difficulter wit and sense; And seem more learnedish than those That at a greater charge compose." Some of these words, however, are clearly derived from adjectives. Rawish; Marston, above. Maddish, Beaumont and Fletcher, Wild Goose Chace, ii., near the end, "Dost think I am maddish?" See the context. Duskish. Spenser, F. Q., B. i. C. vii. St. xiii., Through smouldry cloud of duskish stinking smoke.” and so ib., C. xi. St. xliv., "Enrold in duskish smoke and brimstone blew." Swartish. Stanyhurst, Æn. iv. (I quote at second-hand),— Ile with fire swartish hop after;" (sequar atris ignibus absens). Grayish. Romeus and Juliet, p. 284, "This barefoote fryer gyrt with cord his grayish weede." Wannish. Fairfax's Tasso, B. iv. St. i., "The ancient foe to man and mortal seed His wannish eyes upon them bent askance." And so T. C. (Carew, as is supposed) in his translation of the same passage, ap. Introduction to Singer's Fairfax,— "He that graund foe was aie to humaine kind, His wannish eyes doth on the Christians cast." Milton, Minor Poems, The Passion,— "The leaves should all be black whereon I write, Ib., And letters, where my tears have wash'd, a wannish white." "Master, shall I fetch your stuff from shipboard? Surely, "shall I go fetch;" the expression seems even more natural. That thou begann'st to twist so fine a story?" Surely story is wrong. [Qu., string.--Ed.] 3,- "A proper squire! And who, and who?" Shirley, Witty Fair One, iv. 2, Gifford and Dyce, vol. i. p. 333,— and when, and when?" Wedding, iii. 2, p. 406,— "And how, and how do you like it?" Gentleman of Venice, iii. 4, vol. v. p. 50,--" And how, and how shew |