Item 7 - Letter from G. R. French to W. Aldis Wright

1 folded sheet

6 Henrietta Street, Brunswick Square, W.C.—Discusses suggested emendations to the text of Shakespeare.

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Transcript

Selle, saddle, French—sella Latin & Italian.
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Quotations from Spenser’s Faerie Queene—
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“He left his loftie steed with golden selle,
And goodlie gorgeous barbe.”
Book ii. Canto ii. Stanza xi.

“what mightie warrior that mote be,
That rode in golden selle with single spear.”
B. ii. C. iii. St. xii.

“They met, and low in dust was Guardi laid,
’Twixt either army, from his selle down rest.”
N.B. I cannot find the whereabouts. G.R.F.

“Nathless the prince would not forsake his selle,
(For well of yore he learnèd had to ride).”
B. ii. C. viii. St. xxxi.

“So sore he sous’d him on the compass’d crest,
That forcèd him to leave his loftie selle.”
B. ix. C. iv. St. xxx.

No doubt more may be found—especially in the noble Edition by Tyrwhitt.* {1} My sight is not good enough for such researches.

“The tyrant frown’d from his loftie selle,
And with his lookes made all his monsters tremble.”
Fairfax—Godfrey of Boulogne. B2. S. 7.

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Extracts from Sir Walter Scott’s Poems

“Returned Lord Marmion,
Down hastily he sprang from selle.”
Canto iii. Stanza 31.

“Where many a yeoman, bold and free,
Revelled as merrily and well,
As those that sat in lordly selle.”
Canto vi. St. 8.

“Fair was his seat in knightly selle.”
Lord of the Isles, Canto vi. St. 14.

alluding to Edward the Second at Bannockburn.

“From gory selle and reeling steed”
Cadyon Castle.

with a note. “Selle, saddle, a word used by Spenser and other ancient authors.”—

There is an instance in Chaucer, but I cannot put my hand on it.

Will not the above quoted passages justify you in putting “selle” for “selfe” in Macbeth. The suggestion by Singleton of “sell” is evidently right so far as sound goes—but there is no such noun in good English, and therefore is inadmissable. The word proposed by Bailey “its seat” is not near so good as selle. The early printers might easily mistake selle for selfe—hence the con-tinued error. “its-selle”—“its-selfe” {2}—I believe that the change would be most welcome to all true Shakspeareans.

For the reading in Hamlet the change advocated by me is fully discussed in a Note in my Book. There can hardly be a doubt on the proposed substitution being correct—hern-shaw (a young heron) for the stupid word, hand-saw—printer’s error again.

I strongly recommend you to retain, as given in many Editions—“Enter a gentle Astringer,” in “Alls Well” &c. In his Glossary, Harvey defines “astringer” as a “Gentleman Falconer” {2}. This is near the meaning—but “gentle” has nothing to do with a man, but means a bird—the French phrase “faucon gentil,” stands for “a tercel-gentle,” and Juliet exclaims—

“O for a falconer’s voice,
To hire this tassel-gentle back again.” R. & J. ii. 2.

“The falcon as the tercel,” Troilus & Cressida. Act III. 2.

The French word “tiercelet,” means “a tassel, tiercel, or tercel, the male of a hawk.” Fr. Dict.

“Achès”—noun & verb. The elder Disraeli, in his admirable “Curiosities of Literature,” tells us that the word was always written by our early authors as one of two syllables. There are more instances than the famous passage in the Tempest, for pronouncing achès as two syll. for which John Kemble was so brutally treated by the ignorant “groundlings.”

Thus in Coriolanus the metre requires the word to be divided.

“It makes the consuls base, and my soul achès
To know when two authorities are up.” Act III. Sc. 1.

So also in Timon of Athens—Act V. Sc. 2.

“Their fears of hostile strokes, their achès, losses.”

In Romeo & Juliet the Nurse exclaims—

“Lord, how my head achès, what a head have I.” Act II. 5.

In Butler’s Hudibras we have the couplet—Book II. 2.

“As no man of his own self catches
The itch, or amorous French achès.” line 455* {3}.

Do you agree with me and many authorities, that Perkin Warbeck was an impostor; “that Flemish counterfeit” as Sir W. Scott calls him in Marmion. Some years ago I read a paper, never published, on the Young Princes, before the Lond. & Midx Archæological Society {4}, of which I am now a V.P. I shall be happy to send it to you if it could be of service.

I remain
Yours very sincerely,
G. R. French

6 Henrietta St Brunswick Sqre W.C.
Augt 14, 1880

Wm Aldis Wright Esqre
Trinity Coll. Cambridge

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{1} Footnote: ‘*of Chaucer’.

{2} Opening inverted commas supplied.

{3} Footnote (inserted after the next paragraph): ‘*add. “Or ling’ringly his lungs consume, | Or meets with achès in the bone”. | Knight of the Burning Pestle. Act ii. Sc.’ (The number of the scene is wanting.)

{4} French read a paper to the Society on 11 April 1864 ‘On the localities connected with Shakespeare’s Plays in general, but especially the places in London and Westminster recorded in the Histories from King Richard II. to Henry VIII. inclusive.’ A discussion of this paper at the next meeting (9 May) was concluded by another paper by French on the death of the two young Princes in the Tower. (Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaelogical Society, vol. iii, p. 99.)

This description was created by A. C. Green in 2022.