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Page 1
MISCELLANEOUS:--
Notes on Books, Sales, Catalogues, &c. 46
Notices to Correspondents 46
Advertisements 47
* * * * *
NOTES.
AUTHORSHIP OF HENRY VIII.
In my last communication on the subject of _Henry VIII._, I referred to
certain characteristic _tricks_ of Fletcher's style of frequent occurrence
in that play, and I now beg leave to furnish you with a few instances. I
wish it, however, to be understood, that I advance these merely as
illustrative specimens selected at random; as there is scarcely a line of
the portions of the play I assume to be Fletcher's but would furnish some
evidence to a diligent student of this writer's style: and that, although I
think each separate instance as strongly characteristic of Fletcher as it
is unlike Shakspeare, it is only in their aggregate number that I insist
upon their importance.
The first instance to which I call attention is the use of the substantive
"one" in a manner which, though not very uncommon, is used by no writer so
frequently as Fletcher. Take the following:--
"_So_ great ones."--_Woman's Prize_, II. 2.
"And yet his songs are sad ones."--_Two Noble Kinsmen_, II. 4.
and the title of the play, _The False One_.
Compare with these from _Henry VIII._:--
"This night he make a supper, and a great one."--Act I. 3.
"Shrewd ones."--"Lame ones."--"_so_ great ones."--_Ibid._
"I had my trial,
And must needs say a noble one."--Act II. 1.
"A wife--a true one."--Act III. 1.
"They are a sweet society of fair ones."--Act I. 4.
Fletcher habitually uses "thousand" without the indefinite article, as in
the following instances:
"Carried before 'em thousand desolations."--_False One_, II. 9.
"Offers herself in thousand safeties to you."--_Rollo_, II. 1.
"This sword shall cut thee into thousand pieces."--_Knight of Malta_, IV.
2.
In _Henry VIII._ we have in the prologue:
"Of thousand friends."
"Cast thousand beams upon me."--Act IV. 2.
The use of the word "else" is peculiar in its position in Fletcher:--
"'Twere fit I were hang'd else."--_Rule a Wife_, II.
"I were to blame else."--_Ibid._
"I've lost me end else."--Act IV.
"I am wide else."--_Pilgrim_, IV. 1.
In _Henry VIII._, the word occurs in precisely the same position:--
"Pray God he do! He'll never know himself, else."--Act II. 2.
"I were malicious, else."--Act IV. 2.
{34} The peculiarly idiomatic expression "I take it" is of frequent
occurrence in Fletcher, as witness the following:--
"This is no lining for a trench, I take it."--_Rule a Wife_, III.
"And you have land i' th' Indies, as I take it."--_Ibid._ IV.
"A fault without forgiveness, as I take it."--_Pilgrim_, IV. 1.
"In noble emulation (so I take it)."--_Ibid._ IV. 2.
In one scene of _Henry VIII._, Act I. 3., the expression occurs twice: "One
would take it;" "There, I take it."
Of a peculiar manner of introducing a negative condition, one instance from
Fletcher, and one from _Henry VIII._ in reference to the same substantive,
though used in different senses, will suffice:
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