St. John's Wood, Jan. 27. 1851.
P.S. In replying to Mr. G. STEPHENS, in reference to the meaning of a
passage in the _Tempest_, I expressed a wish that he would give the meaning
of what he called a "common ellipsis" "stated _at full_." This stands in
your columns (Vol. ii., p. 499.) "at first," in which expression I am
afraid he would be puzzled to find any meaning.
* * * * *
I might safely leave H. K. S. C. to the same gentle correction bestowed
upon a neighbour of his at Brixton some time since, by MR. HICKSON, but I
must not allow him to support his dogmatic and flippant hypercriticism by
falsehood and unfounded insinuation, and I therefore beg leave to assure
him that I have no claim to the enviable distinction of being designated as
the friend of MR. HICKSON, to whom I am an utter stranger, having never
seen him, and knowing nothing of that gentleman but what his very valuable
communications to your publication conveys.
I have further to complain of the want of truth in the very first paragraph
of your correspondent's note: the question respecting the meaning of
"Eisell" does _not_ "remain substantially where Steevens and Malone left
it;" for I have at least shown that _Eisell_ meant _Wormwood_, and that
Shakspeare has elsewhere undoubtedly used it in that sense.
Again: the remark about the fashion of extravagant feats, such as
swallowing nauseous draughts in honour of a mistress, was quite uncalled
for. Your correspondent would insinuate that I attribute to Shakspeare's
time "what in reality belongs to the age of Du Guesclin and the
Troubadours." Does he mean to infer that it did not in reality equally
belong to Shakspeare's age? or that I was ignorant of its earlier
prevalence?
The purport of such remarks is but too obvious; but he may rest assured
that they will not tend to strengthen his argument, if argument it can be
called, for I must confess I do not understand what he means by his
"definite quantity." But the phrase _drink up_ is his stalking-horse; and
as he is no doubt familiar with the _Nursery Rhymes_[1], a passage in
them--
"Eat up your cake, Jenny,
_Drink up_ your wine."
may perhaps afford him further apt illustration.
The proverb tells us "It is dangerous playing with edge tools," and so it
is with bad puns: he has shown himself an unskilful engineer in the use of
MR. HICKSON's canon, with which he was to have "blown up" MR. HICKSON's
argument and my proposition; with what success may be fairly left to the
judgment of your readers. I will, however, give him another canon, which
may be of use to him on some future occasion: "When a probable solution of
a difficulty is to be found by a parallelism in the poet's pages, it is
better to adopt it than to charge him with a blunder of our own creating."
The allusion to "breaking Priscian's head" reminds one of the remark of a
witty friend on a similar occasion, that "there are some heads not easily
broken, but the owners of them have often the fatuity to run them against
stumbling-blocks of their own making."