and "The Evangelical Succession."

Footnote 3:(return)

It is not so very "singular," when we remember that the bishops were what Lord Campbell and Mr. Macauley call "judiciously chosen" by William. On this point a cotemporary remarks, "Some steps have been made, and large ones too, towards a Scotch reformation, by suspending and ejecting the chief and most zealous of our bishops, and others of the higher clergy; and by advancing, upon all vacancies of sees and dignities, ecclesiastical men of notoriously Presbyterian, or, which is worse, of Erastian principles. These are the ministerial ways of undermining Episcopacy; and when to the seven notorious ones shall be added more, upon the approaching deprivation, they will make a majority; and then we may expect the new model of a church to be perfected." (Somers' Tracts, vol. x. p. 368.) Until Atterbury, there were few High Church Bishops in Queen Anne's reign in 1710. Burnet singles out the Bishop of Chester: "for he seemed resolved to distinguish himself as a zealot for that which is called High Church."—Hist. Own Time, vol. iv. p. 260.

Footnote 4:(return)

Of Izaak Walton his biographer, Sir John Hawkins, writing in 1760, says, "he was a friend to a hierarchy, or, as we should now call such a one, a High Churchman."

CONCLUDING NOTES ON SEVERAL MISUNDERSTOOD WORDS.

(Continued from Vol. vii., p. 568.)

Not being minded to broach any fresh matter in "N. & Q.," I shall now only crave room to clear off an old score, lest I should leave myself open to the imputation of having cast that in the teeth of a numerous body of men which might, for aught they would know to the contrary, be as truly laid in my own dish. In No. 189., p. 567., I affirmed that the handling of a passage in Cymbeline, there quoted, had betrayed an amount of obtuseness in the commentators which would be discreditable in a third-form schoolboy. To substantiate that assertion, and rescue the disputed word "Britaine" henceforth for ever from the rash tampering of the meddlesome sciolist, I beg to advertise the ingenuous reader that the clause,—

"For being now a favourer to the Britaine,"

is in apposition with Death, not with Posthumus Leonatus. In a note appended to this censure, referring to another passage from L. L. L., I averred that Mr. Collier had corrupted it by chancing the singular verb dies into the plural die (this too done, under plea of editorial licence, without warning to the reader), and that such corruption had abstracted the true key to the right construction. To make good this last position, two things I must do first, cite the whole passage, without change of letter or tittle, as it stands in the Folios '23 and '32; next, show the trivial and vulgar use of "contents" as a singular noun. In Folio '23, thus:

With this the Folio '32 exactly corresponds, save that the speaker is Prin., not Qu.; ore-rules is written as two words without the hyphen, and strives for striues. I have been thus precise, because criticism is to me not "a game," nor admissive of cogging and falsification.

I must now show the hackneyed use of contents as a singular noun. An anonymous correspondent of "N. & Q." has already pointed out one in Measure for Measure, Act IV. Sc. 2.:

"Duke. The contents of this is the returne of the Duke."

Another:

"This is the contents thereof."—Calvin's 82nd Sermon upon Job, p. 419., Golding's translation.

Another:

"After this were articles of peace propounded, y^e contents wherof was, that he should departe out of Asia."—The 31st Booke of Justine, fol. 139., Golding's translation of Justin's Trogus Pompeius.

Another:

"Plinie writeth hereof an excellent letter, the contents whereof is, that this ladie, mistrusting her husband, was condemned to die," &c.—Historicall Meditations, lib. iii. chap. xi. p. 178. Written in Latin by P. Camerarius, and done into English by John Molle, Esq.: London, 1621.

Another:

"The contents whereof is this."—Id., lib. v. chap. vi. p. 342.

Another:

"Therefore George, being led with an heroicall disdaine, and nevertheless giuing the bridle beyond moderation to his anger, vnderstanding that Albert was come to Newstad, resolued with himselfe (without acquainting any bodie) to write a letter vnto him, the contents whereof was," &c.—Id., lib. v. chap. xii. p. 366.

If the reader wants more examples, let him give himself the trouble to open the first book that comes to hand, and I dare say the perusal of a dozen pages will supply some; yet have we two editors of Shakspeare, Johnson and Collier, so unacquainted with the usage of their own tongue, and the universal logic of thought, as not to know that a word like contents, according as it is understood collectively or distributively, may be, and, as we have just seen, in fact is, treated as a singular or plural; that, I say, contents taken severally, every content, or in gross, the whole mass, is respectively plural or singular. It was therefore optional with Shakspeare to employ the word either as a singular or plural, but not in the same sentence to do both: here, however, he was tied

to the singular, for, wanting a rhyme to contents, the nominative to presents must be singular, and that nominative was the pronoun of contents. Since, therefore, the plural die and the singular it could not both be referable to the same noun contents, by silently substituting die for dies, Mr. Collier has blinded his reader and wronged his author. The purport of the passage amounts to this: the contents, or structure (to wit, of the show to be exhibited), breaks down in the performer's zeal to the subject which it presents. Johnson very properly adduces a much happier expression of the same thought from A Midsummer Night's Dreame:

The reader cannot fail to have observed the faultless punctuation of the Folios in the forecited passage, and I think concur with me, that like many, ay, most others, all it craves at the hands of editors and commentators is, to be left alone. The last two lines ask for no explanation even to the blankest mind. Words like contents are by no means rare in English. We have tidings and news, both singular and