As another illustration of the careless or superficial manner in which the
meaning of Shakspeare has been sought, allow me to call attention to the
celebrated passage in the _Tempest_ in which the word "rack" occurs. The
passage really presents no difficulty; and the meaning of the word, as it
appears to me, might as well be settled at once and for ever. I make this
assertion, not dogmatically, but with the view of testing the correctness
of my opinion, that this is not at all a question of etymology, but
entirely one of construction. The passage reads as follows:--
"These, our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabrick of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And, like this insubstantial pageant, faded,
Leave not a rack behind."--_Tempest_, Act IV. Sc. 1.
As I have expressed my opinion that this is not at all a question of
etymology, I shall not say more in reference to this view of the case than
that "rack," spelt as in Shakspeare, is a word in popular and every-day use
in the phrase "rack and ruin;" that we have it in the term "rack off," as
applied to wine, meaning _to take from the rack_, or, in other words, "to
leave a rack" or _refuse_ "behind," racked wine being wine drawn from the
lees; and that it is, I believe, still in use in parts of England, meaning
_remains_ or _refuse_, as, in the low German, "der Wraek" means the same
thing. Misled, however, by an unusual mode of spelling, and unacquainted
with the literature of Shakspeare's age, certain of the commentators
suggested the readings of _track_ and _trace_; whereupon Horne Tooke
remarks:--
"The ignorance and presumption of his commentators have shamefully
disfigured Shakspeare's text. The first folio, notwithstanding some few
palpable misprints, requires none of their alterations. Had they
understood English as well as he did, they would not have quarrelled
with his language."--_Diversions of Purley_, p. 595.
He proceeds to show that _rack_ "is merely the past tense, and therefore
past participle, [reac] or [rec], of the Anglo-Saxon verb Recan,
_exhalare_, to _reek_;" and although the advocates of its being a
particular description of light cloud refer to him as an authority for
their reading, he treats it throughout generally as "a vapour, a steam, or
an exhalation." But Horne Tooke, in his zeal as an etymologist, forgot
altogether to attend to the construction of the passage. What is it that
shall "leave not a rack behind?" A rack of what? Not of the baseless fabric
of this vision, like which the "cloud-capp'd towers shall dissolve,"--not
of this insubstantial pageant, like which they shall have faded,--but of
"the cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the
great globe itself." There is in fact a double comparison; but the
construction and the meaning are perfectly clear, and no word will suit the
passage but one that shall express a result common {219} to the different
objects enumerated. A cloud may be a fit object for comparison, but it is
utterly inconsequential; while the sense required can only be expressed by
a general term, such as _remains_, a _vestige_, or a _trace_.