If it were important enough, it deserves erasure as much as the false inscription on London's monument.
As soon as the public blood was cool, "Mac" surrendered himself, was tried at the Old Bailey, and acquitted.
Should it be in the power of any of the readers of your interesting miscellany, by reference to the Session Papers, to give me the actual name of poor "Mac," I shall feel obliged.
September 9. 1850.
SATIRICAL POEMS ON WILLIAM III
Some years since I copied from a MS. vol., compiled before 1708, the following effusions of a Jacobite poet, who seems to have been "a good hater" of King William. I have made ineffectual efforts to discover the witty author, or to ascertain if these compositions have ever been printed. My friend, in whose waste-book I found them,—a beneficed clergyman in Worcestershire, who has been several years dead,—obtained them from a college friend during the last century.
"'Twill puzzle much the author's brains,
That is to write your story,
To know in which of these campagnes
You have acquired most glory:
For when you march'd the foe to fight,
Like Heroe, nothing fearing,
Namur was taken in your sight,
And Mons within your hearing."
"Cease, Hippocrites, to trouble heaven
How can ye think to be forgiven
The dismall deed you've done?
When to the martyr's sacred blood,
This very moment, if you could,
You'd sacrifice his son."
"Rejoice, yee fops, yo'r idoll's come agen
To pick yo'r pocketts, and to slay yo'r men;
Give him yo'r millions, and his Dutch yo'r lands:
Don't ring yo'r bells, yee fools, but wring yo'r hands."
SHAKSPEARE'S GRIEF AND FRENZY
I have looked into many an edition of Shakspeare, but I have not found one that traced the connexion that I fancy exists between the lines—
Cassius. "I did not think you could have been so angry."
Brutus. "O Cassius! I am sick of many griefs."
or between
Brutus. "No man bears sorrow better.—Portia is dead."
Cassius. "How 'scaped I killing when I crossed you so!"
which will perhaps better suit the object that I have in view. The editors whose notes I have examined probably thought the connexion so self-evident or insignificant as not to require either notice or explanation. If so, I differ from them, and I therefore offer the following remarks for the amusement rather than for the instruction of those who, like myself, are not at all ashamed to confess that they cannot read Shakspeare's music "at sight." I believe that both Replies contain an allusion to the fact that Anger, grafted on sorrow, almost invariably assumes the form of frenzy; that it is in every sense of the word "Madness," when the mind is unhinged, and reason, as it were, totters from the effects of grief.
Cassius had but just mildly rebuked Brutus for making no better use of his philosophy, and now—startled by the sudden sight of his bleeding, mangled heart—"Portia is—Dead!" pays involuntary homage to the very philosophy he had so rashly underrated by the exclamation—
"How 'scaped I killing when I crossed you so!"
I wish, if possible, to support this view of the case by the following passages:—
I. Romeo's address to Balthasar.
"But if thou … roaring sea."
II. His address to Paris.
"I beseech thee youth … away!"
III. "The poor father was ready to fall down dead; but he grasped the broken oar which was before him, jumped up, and called in a faltering voice,—'Arrigozzo! Arrigozzo!' This was but for a moment. Receiving no answer, he ran to the top of the rock; looked at all around, ran his eye over all who were safe, one by one, but could not find his son among them. Then seeing the count, who had so lately been finding fault with his son's name, he roared out,—'Dog, are you here?' And, brandishing the broken oar, he rushed forward to strike him on the head. Bice uttered a cry, Ottorino was quick in warding off the blow; in a minute, Lupo, the falconer, and the boatmen, disarmed the frantic man; who, striking his forehead with both hands, gave a spring, and threw himself into the lake.
"He was seen fighting with the angry waves, overcoming them with a strength and a courage which desperation alone can give."—Marco Viconti, vol. i. chap. 5.
IV. A passage that has probably already occurred to the mind of the reader, Mucklebackit mending the cable in which his son had been lost:
"'There is a curse either on me or on this auld black bitch of a boat, that I have hauled up high and dry, and pitched and clouted sae mony years, that she might drown my poor Steenie at the end of them, an' be d–d to her!' And he flung his hammer against the boat, as if she had been the intentional cause of his misfortune"—Antiquary, vol. ii. chap. 13. Cadell, 1829.
V. "Giton præcipuè, ex dolore in rabiem efferatus, tollit clamorem, me, utrâque manu impulsum, præcipitat super lectum."—Petron. Arb. Sat. cap. 94.
The classical reader will at once recognise the force of the words "rabiem," "efferatus," "præcipitat," in this passage. The expression "utrâque manu" may not at first sight arrest his attention. It seems always used to express the most intense eagerness; see
"Ijecit utramque laciniæ manum."—Pet. Arb. Sat. 14.
"Utrâque manu Deorum beneficia tractat."—Ib. 140.
"Upon which Menedemus, incensed at his insolence, answered,—'Nothing is more necessary than the preservation of Lucullus;' and thrust him back with both hands."—Plutarch, Life of Lucullus.
"Women have a sort of natural tendency to cross their husbands: they lay hold with both hands [à deux mains] on all occasions to contradict and oppose them, and the first excuse serves for a plenary justification."—Montaigne, Essays, book 2. chap. 8.
"Marmout, deceived by the seemingly careless winter attitude of the allies, left Ciudad Rodrigo unprotected within their reach and Wellington jumped with both feet upon the devoted fortress of Napier," Pen. War, vol. iv. p. 374.
Any apology for the unwarrantable length of this discursive despatch, would, of course, only make matters worse.
Temple.
ETYMOLOGICAL NOTES
1. Gnatch.—"The covetous man dares not gnatch" (Hammond's Catechism). From this, and the examples
