Replies To Minor Queries.
_Shakspeare's Use of "Captious"_ (Vol. ii., p. 354.; Vol. iii., p.
229.).--As W. F. S. does me the favour to ask my opinion of his notion
respecting the passage in _All's Well that Ends Well_, I beg to say that
I am very glad to find he agrees with me in regard to the
_signification_ of the word "captious;" but that I cannot suppose, with
him, that Shakspeare wrote _capatious_ in a passage in which the metre
is regular; for what sort of verse would be--
"Yet in this _capatious_ and intenible sieve?"
Surely W. F. S. has too good an ear to allow him to fix such a line in
Shakspeare's text.
J. S. W.
Stockwell, April 3. 1851.
* * * * *
_Inscription on a Clock_ (Vol. iii., p. 329.).--The words written under
the curious clock in Exeter Cathedral, about which your correspondent M.
J. W. HEWETT inquires, and which are, or were, also to be found under
the clock over the Terrace in the Inner Temple, London, are, in truth, a
quotation from Martial; and it is singular that a sentiment so truly
Christian should have escaped from the pen of a Pagan writer:
"They" (that is, the moments as they pass) "slip by us unheeded, but
are noted in the account against us."
What could Chrysostom or Augustine have said stronger or better? The
whole epigram is so good that I venture to transcribe it.
"AD MARTIALEM DE AGENDA VITA BEATA.
"Si tecum mihi, care Martialis,
Securis liceat frui diebus,
Si disponere tempus otiosum,
Et veræ pariter vacare vitæ,
Nec nos atria, nec domos potentum,
Nec lites tetricas, forumque triste
Nôssemus, nec imagines superbas:
Sed gestatio, fabulæ, libelli,
Campus, porticus, umbra, virgo, thermæ;
Hæc essent loca semper, hi labores.
Nunc vivit sibi neuter, heu! bonosque
Soles effugere atque abire sentit;
Qui nobis PEREUNT, ET IMPUTANTUR.
Quisquam vivere cum sciat, moratur?"
Lib. v. ep. 20.