Queries.

MR. HALLIWELL'S ANNOTATED SHAKSPEARE FOLIO.

"This volume contains several hundred very curious and important corrections, amongst which I may mention an entirely new reading of the difficult passage at the commencement of Measure for Measure, which carries conviction with it; and shows, what might have been reasonably expected, that that to is a misprint for a verb."—Mr. Halliwell in Notes & Queries, p. 485.

In common, doubtless, with many other of your readers, I am curious to know what this verb can be, which, while carrying conviction with it, is yet so mysteriously withheld from publication.

In a small pamphlet, published a month or two since by Mr. Halliwell, in opposition to Mr. Collier's folio, he lays down at p. 7. "a canon in philology;" from which he deduces the following as one of the "circumstances under which no manuscript emendation of so late a date as 1632 will be admissible."

"It will not be admissible in any case where good sense can be satisfactorily made of the passage as it stands in the original, even although the correction may appear to give greater force or harmony to the passage."

Now, in the case referred to from Measure for Measure, I had previously ("N. & Q." Vol. v., p. 410.) shown to Mr. Halliwell that "good sense can be satisfactorily made of the passage as it stands in the original;" and therefore I feel the greater curiosity to know what this verb can be which carries conviction to him even in the face of his own canon?

A. E. B.

Leeds.

RESTIVE.

Can the editor, or any of the readers of "N. & Q." account for the very prevalent misuse of the word restive or restiff? Of course, everybody knows that the affix ive or iff does not imply "privation," but the opposite; and that therefore restive means—as we find it defined in our dictionaries—"unwilling to stir," "inclined or determined to rest," &c.; but yet the most common use of the word now would require it to mean "unwilling to rest," "restless," "unquiet," &c. As the word is most frequently employed in newspaper paragraphs, in describing accidents arising from the restiveness, or much more frequently restlessness, of horses, we can easily account for the misuse of the word in such cases: as the free use of the whip, which is sure to follow the restiveness of a horse or ass, is almost as surely followed by a sudden restlessness, at least when the nobler animal is under chastisement; what ends in restlessness and running away has thus got confounded with what it only has become, in some cases; while in others nothing is more common than to find the sudden shying and starting off of a horse, which has been anything but restive, described as such by some forgetfulness of the meaning of the word. Were the misuse of the word confined to such cases, however, it might not be worthy of notice in "N. & Q.", but I think it will be found to extend further: for instance, in The Eclipse of Faith (recently published), although evidently written by a scholar, and one who weighs the meaning of words, I find the following passage:

"'But,' said Fellowes, rather warmly, for he felt rather restive at this part of Harrington's discourse," &c.

J. R.

Brompton.

REASON AND UNDERSTANDING ACCORDING TO COLERIDGE.

There is a remarkable discrepancy in the statements of Coleridge respecting reason and understanding.

(1.) Friend, vol. i. pp. 207-8. (Pickering.)—

"That many animals possess a share of understanding perfectly distinguishable from mere instinct we all allow. Few persons have a favourite dog, without making instances of its intelligence an occasional topic of conversation. They call for our admiration of the individual animal, and not with exclusive reference to the wisdom in nature, as in the case of στοργὴ, or maternal instinct: or of the hexangular cells of the bees.... We hear little or nothing of the instincts of the 'half-reasoning elephant,' and as little of the understanding of caterpillars and butterflies."

Aids to Reflection, vol. i. pp 171-3. (Pickering.) Here, after quoting two instances from Hüber about bees and ants, he says,—

"Now I assert that the faculty in the acts here narrated does not differ in kind from understanding."

Does Coleridge mean to tell us that bees and ants have the same faculty (understanding) as dogs and elephants?

(2.) Friend, vol. i. pp. 216-7.—

"For a moment's steady self-reflection will show us that, in the simple determination 'black is not white,' or 'that two straight lines cannot include a space,' all the powers are implied that distinguish man from animals; first, the power of reflection; second, of comparison; third, and therefore suspension of the mind; fourth, therefore of a controlling will, and the power of acting from notions, instead of mere images exciting appetites; from motives, and not from mere dark instinct."

And after relating a story about a dog who appeared to have employed the disjunctive syllogism (in relation to which see Cottle's Reminiscences, vol. i. pp. 48-9.), Coleridge remarks,—

"So awful and almost miraculous does the simple act of concluding 'take three from four, and there remains one,' appear to us, when attributed to one of the most sagacious of all brute animals."

Aids to Reflection, vol. i. p. 175.—

"Understanding is the faculty of reflection, reason of contemplation." And p. 176.—"The understanding, then, considered exclusively as an organ of human intelligence, is the faculty by which we reflect and generalise.... The whole process [of the understanding] may be reduced to three acts, all depending on, and supposing a previous impression on, the senses: first, the appropriation of our attention; second (and in order to the continuance of the first), abstraction, or the voluntary withholding of the attention; and, third, generalisation; and these are the proper functions of the understanding."

Aids to Reflection, vol. i. p. 182. note.—

"So far, and no further, could the understanding carry us; and so far as this, 'the faculty judging according to sense' conducts many of the inferior animals, if not in the same, yet in instances analogous and fully equivalent."

Does Coleridge, then, mean us to understand him as saying, that many of the brutes can reflect, abstract, and generalise?

(3.) Friend, vol. i. p. 259.—

"Reason! best and holiest gift of God, and bond of union with the Giver; the high title by which the majesty of man claims precedence above all other living creatures—mysterious faculty, the mother of conscience, of language...."

Aids to Reflection, vol. i. pp. 176-182.—Coleridge here gives his reasons for considering language a property of the understanding; and, in p. 195., adds,—

"It is, however, by no means equally clear to me that the dog may not possess an analogon of words which I have elsewhere shown to be the proper objects of the 'faculty judging according to sense.'"

Does Coleridge mean that the inferior animals may have language?

Who, of your many able correspondents, will assist me in unravelling this complicated tissue?

C. Mansfield Ingleby.