Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853 | Page 6

lying ebb and close to the surface, must needs first reach the
light. I know no more appropriate mode of requiting the handsome
manner in which MR. SINGER has been pleased to speak of my
trifling contributions to "N. & Q.," than by asking him, with all the
modesty of which I am master, to reconsider the passage in Romeo and
Juliet; for though his substitution (rumourers vice runawayes) may, I
think, clearly take the wall of any of its rivals, yet, believing that Juliet
invokes a darkness to shroud her lover, under cover of which even the
fugitive from justice might snatch a wink of sleep, I must for my own
part, as usual, still adhere to the authentic text.
W. R. ARROWSMITH.

P. S.--In answer to a Bloomsbury Querist (Vol. viii., p. 44.), I crave
leave to say that I never have met with the verb perceyuer except in
Hawes, loc. cit.; and I gave the latest use that I could call to mind of the
noun in my paper on that word. Unhappily I never make notes, but rely
entirely on a somewhat retentive memory; therefore the instances that
occur on the spur of the moment are not always the most apposite that
might be selected for the purpose of illustration. If, however, he will
take the trouble to refer to a little book, consisting of no more than 448
pages, published in 1576, and entitled A Panoplie of Epistles, or a
Looking-glasse for the Unlearned, by Abraham Flemming, he will find
no fewer than nine examples, namely, at pp. 25. 144. 178. 253. 277.
285. (twice in the same page) 333. 382. It excites surprise that the word
never, as far as I am aware, occurs in any of the voluminous works of
Sir Thomas More, nor in any of the theological productions of the
Reformers.
With respect to speare, the orthography varies, as spere, sperr, sparr,
unspar; but in the Prologue to Troilus and Cressida, sperre is
Theobald's correction of stirre, in Folios '23 and '32. Let me add, what I
had forgotten at the time, that another instance of budde intransitive, to
bend, occurs at p. 105. of The Life of Faith in Death, by Samuel Ward,
preacher of Ipswich, London, 1622. Also another, and a very
significant one, of the phrase to have on the hip, in Fuller's Historie of
the Holy Warre, Cambridge, 1647:
"Arnulphus was as quiet as a lambe, and durst never challenge his
interest in Jerusalem from Godfrey's donation; as fearing to wrestle
with the king, who had him on the hip, and could out him at pleasure
for his bad manners."--Book ii. chap. viii. p. 55.
In my note on the word trash, I said (somewhat too peremptorily) that
overtop was not even a hunting term (Vol. vii., p. 567.). At the moment
I had forgotten the following passage:
"Therefore I would perswade all lovers of hunting to get two or three
couple of tryed hounds, and once or twice a week to follow after them a
train-scent; and when he is able to top them on all sorts of earth, and to
endure heats and colds stoutly, then he may the better relie on his speed

and toughness."--The Hunting-horse, chap. vii. p. 71., Oxford, 1685.
* * * * *
SNEEZING AN OMEN AND A DEITY.
In the Odyssey, xvii. 541-7., we have, imitating the hexameters, the
following passage:
"Thus Penelope spake. Then quickly Telemachus sneez'd loud,
Sounding around all the building: his mother, with smiles at her son,
said, Swiftly addressing her rapid and high-toned words to Eumæus,
{122} 'Go then directly, Eumæus, and call to my presence the strange
guest. See'st thou not that my son, ev'ry word I have spoken hath
sneez'd at?[5] Thus portentous, betok'ning the fate of my hateful suitors,
All whom death and destruction await by a doom irreversive.'"
Dionysius Halicarnassus, on Homer's poetry (s. 24.), says, sneezing
was considered by that poet as a good sign ([Greek: sumbolon
agathon]); and from the Anthology (lib. ii.) the words [Greek: oude
legei, Zeu sôson, ean ptarêi], show that it was proper to exclaim "God
bless you!" when any one sneezed.
Aristotle, in the Problems (xxxiii. 7.), inquires why sneezing is
reckoned a God ([Greek: dia ti ton men ptarmon, theon hêgoumetha
einai]); to which he suggests, that it may be because it comes from the
head, the most divine part about us ([Greek: theiotatou tôn peri hêmas]).
Persons having the inclination, but not the power to sneeze, should look
at the sun, for reasons he assigns in Problems (xxxiii. 4.).
Plutarch, on the Dæmon of Socrates (s. 11.), states the opinion which
some persons had formed, that Socrates' dæmon was nothing else than
the sneezing either of himself or others. Thus, if any one