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sense here too. Unfortunately, too, neither bank

nor shoal possesses in Shakespeare the meaning

which this interpretation gives them. Bank means

"river-bank" 66

or sea-shore," never a bank

encircled by water." Except the present passage
Dr. Murray quotes no example earlier than 1696
of bank used in the latter sense. Shoal, used only
once by Shakespeare-" the depths and shoals of
honour" (Henry VIII., III. ii. 437)—has its
usual meaning of "shallow water," not "land left
bare by the receding of shallow water." In the
latter sense Shakespeare uses shelf, which, in fact,
REPLIES:-Mark Lemon, 9-Tête-à-Tête Portraits-Row-for "schoole." I simply propose to read "this
with some plausibility, Warburton suggested here
landson-Moon-lore, 10-Sprig of Shillelah'-Booted Mis- bank and shore of time." Compare 'Richard III.,'
IV. iv. 525:-

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My last note on this subject shall be strictly

conservative. In V. ii. 14,-

For certain

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the word cause has been quite undeservedly, I

THE TEXT OF MACBETH.' (Concluded from 7th think, suspected, and by Sidney Walker, Collier,

S. v. 323.) Since communicating my former notes Dyce, and Singer rejected in favour of course. The

on this subject to 'N. & Q.' it has occurred to me question of Rosencrantz, in 'Hamlet,' III. ii. 350,

to examine the text of a passage which I had

pre-

Good my lord, what is your cause of dis-

viously supposed to have been emended in so satis- temper?" as well as 'John,' III. iv. 12, "Such

factory a manner as not to admit of further ques- temperate order in so fierce a cause," should surely

tion. In Macbeth's soliloquy in I. vii. Theobald's give the rash emendator pause.

In what sense,

correction of "bank and shoal of time" for "Banke then, are we to take cause? Surely not, as the
and Schoole of time" finds place in almost every Clarendon Press editors do, as the disorganized
edition. The defence of the Folio reading by those party of Macbeth; the context is fatal to such a
who interpret it as a sort of ev dià Svoîv, meaning view. Caithness says, "Some people call his con-
"on this school-bench of life," cannot be regarded duct madness, others valiant fury"; at a loss which
seriously. On the other hand, there is much to be hypothesis to adopt, he chooses the word distemper,
said in favour of Theobald's reading, taking it, as which in Shakespeare is applied to both conditions.
the Clarendon Press editors do, as comparing There is no question at all of Macbeth's followers,
human life to "a narrow strip of land in an but only of the nature of his violence. In clas-
ocean." Yet examination will, I think, show con- sically-derived words used by Shakespeare it is
clusively that the reading and interpretation are always the safe plan to refer to the Latin dic-
equally untenable. Presumably the Clarendon tionary. Turning to Lewis and Short's 'Dic-
Press editors take bank as "sand-bank," and tionary' I find under "Causa," "In medic. lang. a
shoal as its practical synonym, i. e., land covered cause for disease......Hence in late Latin for dis-
at times by shallow water. But if so, what a ease," for which various authorities are cited. Causa
strange notion is this of a man who jumps from a is, in fact, what in modern medical, as well as legal,
sand-bank into the shoaly waters of the sea! Is language is called a case," i. e., the matter at
not this an extraordinary way of picturing the leap issue. "Distemper'd cause," then, I take to mean
into eternity's gulf? Jump no doubt means his "malady of distemper," and in the same sense
tropically "to risk," as the Clarendon Press the passage above quoted from 'Hamlet,' where it
editors demonstrate, but it clearly has its literal is to be noted that the expression is "your cause

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