* * * * *
"AKE" AND ACHE.
John Kemble, it is well known, maintained that the latter was the mode of
pronouncing this word in Shakspeare's days. He was right, and he was wrong;
for, as I shall show, both modes prevailed, at least in poetry, till the
end of the seventeenth century. So it was with some other words, _show_ and
_shew_, for instance. It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to observe that the
sounds _k, ch, sh, kh_ (guttural) are commutable. Thus the letter _h_ is
named in Italian, _acca_; in French, _ache_, in English, _aitch_, perhaps
originally _atch_: our _church_ is the Scottish _kirk_, &c. Accordingly, we
meet in Shakspeare _reckless_ and _rechless_, _reeky_ and _reechy_; "As I
could _pike_ (pitch) my lance." (Coriol., Act I. Sc. 1.) Hall has (_Sat_.
vi. 1.) "Lucan _streaked_ (stretched) on his marble bed." So also there
were _like_ and _liche_, and the vulgar _cham_ for _I am_ (_Ic eom_, A.-S.)
Having now to show that both _ake_ and _ache_ were in use, I commence with
the former:
"Like a milch-doe, whose swelling dugs do _ake_,
Hasting to find her fawn hid in some brake."
Shakspeare's _Venus and Adonis_
"By turns now half asleep, now half awake,
My wounds began to smart, my hurt to _ake_."
Fairfax, _Godf. of Bull._, viii, 26.
"Yet, ere she went, her vex'd heart, which did _ake_,
Somewhat to ease, thus to the king she spake."
Drayton, _Barons' Wars_, iii. 75.
"And cramm'd them till their guts did _ake_
With caudle, custard, and plumcake."
_Hudibras_, ii. 2.
The following is rather dubious:
"If chance once in the spring his head should _ach_,
It was foretold: thus says my almanack."
Hall, _Sat._ ii. 7., ed. Singer.
The _aitch_, or rather, as I think, the _atch_ sound, occurs in the
following places:
"_B._ Heigh ho!
_M._ For a hawk, a horse, or a husband?
_B._ For the letter that begins them all, _H_."
_Much Ado about Nothing_, Act III. Sc. 4.
"Their fears of hostile strokes, their _aches_, losses."
_Timon of Athens_, Act V. Sc. 2.
"Yea, fright all _aches_ from your bones."
Jonson, _Fox_, ii. 2.
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"Wherefore with mine thou dow thy musick match,
Or hath the crampe thy ionts benom'd with _ache_."
Spenser, _Shep. Cal._, viii. 4.
"Or Gellia wore a velvet mastic-patch
Upon her temples, when no tooth did _ach_."
Hall, _Sat._ vi. 1.
"As no man of his own self catches
The itch, or amorous French _aches_."
_Hudibras_, ii, 2.
"The natural effect of love,
As other flames and _aches_ prove."
_Ib._, iii. 1.
"Can by their pangs and _aches_ find
All turns and changes of the wind."
_Ib._, iii. 2.
These, in Butler, are, I believe, the latest instances of this form of the
word.