Notes and Queries, Number 04, November 24, 1849 | Page 9

books which it may be desirable to consult:--

_On the Scandinavian discoveries._--Mémoires de la société royale des
antiquaires du Nord. 1836-1839. _Copenhague._ 8°. p. 27.--Historia
Vinlandiæ Antiquæ, seu partis Americæ septentrionalis--per
Thormodum Terfæum. _Haviniæ_, 1705. 8°. 1715. 8°--Antiquitates
Americanæ, sive scriptores septentrionales rerum Ante-Columbianarum
in America. _Hafniæ_, 1837. 4°.
_On the Welsh discoveries._--The historie of Cambria, now called
Wales--continued by David Powel. _London_, 1584. 4°. The Myvyrian
archaiology of Wales, _London_, 1801-7. 8°. 3 vol. British remains, by
the Rev. N. Owen, A.M. _London_, 1777. 8°. The Cambrian biography,
by William Owen, F.A.S. _London_, 1803. 8°. Biblithèque Américaine,
par H. Ternaux. _Paris_, 1837. 8°. The principall navigations, voiages
and discoveries of the English nation--by Richard Hakluyt, M.A.
_London_, 1589. fol.
BOLTON CORNEY.
* * * * *
MADOC--HIS EXPEDITION TO AMERICA.
Dr. Plott, in his account, and Lord Monboddo, _Origin and Progress of
Language_, refer to the Travels of Herbert (17th century), lib. iii. cap.
ult., for a full history of this supposed discovery. They derived it from
Meredyth ap Rhys, Gatty Owen, and Cynfyn ap Gronow, A.D. 1478-80.
See also _Atheneaum_, Aug. 19. 1848.--Professor Elton's address at the
meeting of the British Association, on this and the earlier Icelandic
discovery.
The belief in the story has been lately renewed. See _Archæologia
Cambrens_, 4. 65., and _L'Acadie_, by Sir J.E. Alexander, 1849. I will
only observe that in Dr. Plott's account, Madoc was directed by the
_best compass_, and this in 1170! See M'Culloch's Dictionary of
Commerce.
ANGLO-CAMBRIAN.
* * * * * {58}
MADOC'S EXPEDITION.
A traveller informs us that Baron A. von Humboldt urges further search
after this expedition in the Welsh records. He thinks the passage is in
the Examin Critique.
* * * * *
QUERIES

"CLOUDS" OR SHROUDS, IN SHAKESPEARE.
I quite agree with your correspondent D.N.R., that there never has been
an editor of Shakespeare capable of doing him full justice. I will go
farther and say, that there never will be an editor capable of doing him
any thing like justice. I am the most "modern editor" of Shakespeare,
and I am the last to pretend that I am at all capable of doing him justice:
I should be ashamed of myself if I entertained a notion so ridiculously
presumptuous. What I intended was to do him all the justice in my
power, and that I accomplished, however imperfectly. It struck me that
the best mode of attempting to do him any justice was to take the
utmost pains to restore his text to the state in which he left it; and give
me leave, very humbly, to say that this is the chief recommendation of
the edition I superintended through the press, having collated every line,
syllable, and letter, with every known old copy. For this purpose I saw,
consulted and compared every quarto and every folio impression in the
British Museum, at Oxford, at Cambridge, in the libraries of the Duke
of Devonshire and Lord Ellesmere, and in several private collections. If
my edition have no other merit, I venture to assert that it has this. It was
a work of great labour, but it was a work also of sincere love. It is my
boast, and my only boast, that I have restored the text of Shakespeare,
as nearly as possible, to the integrity of the old copies.
When your correspondent complains, therefore, that in "Hen. IV. Part
2," Act III. sc. 1., in the line,
"With deafening clamours in the slippery clouds,"
the word shrouds is not substituted by editors of Shakespeare for
"clouds," the answer is, that not a single old copy warrants the merely
fanciful emendation, and that it is not at all required by the sense of the
passage. In the 4to of 1600, and in the folio of 1623, the word is
"clouds;" and he must be a very bold editor (in my opinion little
capable of doing justice to any author), who would substitute his own
imaginary improvement, for what we have every reason to believe is
the genuine text. Shrouds instead of "clouds" is a merely imaginary
improvement, supported by no authority, and (as, indeed, your
correspondent shows) without the merit of originality. I am for the text
of Shakespeare as he left it, and as we find it in the most authentic
representations of his mind and meaning.
J. PAYNE COLLIER.

* * * * *
MEDAL OF THE PRETENDER.
Sir,--Possibly some one of your literary correspondents, who may be
versed in the, what D'Israeli would call Secret History of the Jacobite
Court, will endeavour to answer a "Query" relative to the following
rare medal:--
_Obv._ A ship of war bearing the French flag; on the shore a figure in
the dress of a Jesuit (supposed to represent Father Petre) seated astride
of a _Lobster_,