A Shakespearean Study [pp. 280-282]

APPLETONS' JO URNAL.
geous palace where I was a moment (as it seemed)
before, and the lone, drear, unfurnished, musty,
monk-haunted place I called my studio and lodging.
One little incident more will be enough to indicate what profit I derived from my consular appointment. I had returned to Rome, and had given
myself up body and mind to my art. Every once a
month there came reports from my agent or viceconsul, with formal wax-seals and our arms impressed
upon them, costing me double the postage that it
costs me at present to send a letter to America.
These reports contained the same intelligence, in
the same stereotyped language: "I have the honor
to inform you that no American citizen has presented himself at this consulate, and no American
vessel has appeared in this port, since my last report." My own reports went to the department
with a black line drawn diagonally from one corner
to the other of the sheet through the divided spaces
where there were headings for registering all that
referred to the business of a seaport consulate. After
seven or eight years of this blank reporting, one winter, when few of our countrymen had come to Rome,
and those who had come expended little or nothing
for pictures-I had not during the season sold a single work, and had no hope of doing so, with the prospect of a long summer staring me in the face before
another winter might bring other of my compatriots
to Rome, and I was already very much pinched for
money-there came a report from my agent with a
more than ordinary heavy and pretentious seal upon
it. I opened the document, and it read thus:
"SIR: I have the honor to inform you that the sloopof-war Preble came into this port three days since. As
soon as I was informed of the circumstance, I immediately hired a proper boat and oarsmen, and placed the
United States flag in the prow of it, and went out to the
vessel. I was saluted with four guns and invited on
board, where I partook of a splendid collation. After
these honors and civilities, I could not do less than invite
the officers on shore, asking them to a dinner at the
Hotel della Posta. The repast was magnificent, and
went off charmingly; we were all very merry and social,
and kept it up till late in the evening. I flatter myself
that I discharged the duties which devolved upon me
with credit, and did honor to the position which you
have placed me in, and shall have your approval. Herewith I inclose you the bill of expenses, which I must beg
you to pay by return of post through Welby Brothers."
THE BILL.
For boat and oarsmen................... io scudi.
For the dinner.......................... 60o
For champagne.........................5. 5
Total............................85
Eighty-five dollars! It looked a mighty sunm
with my present means and discouraging hopes; still
I felt that I must pay it at once. I paid it; but the
draft upon me left me nearly without a sou in my
pocket. Thank Heaven, no other American vesselof-war ever came into the port of Ancona while I
was consul!
A SHAAKESPEAREAN STUDY.
BY GEORGE LUNT.
"' Aroint thee, witch!' the rump-fed ronyon cries."-MACB=r, Act I., Scene 3.
N O word in all Shakespeare's writings has given
so much trouble to commentators as this expression "aroint!" They have never been able to
discover any plausible explanation of its origin or
propriety. As often happens, perhaps they look too
far to find a meaning which might present itself close
at hand. It is said that Mr. J. P. Collier, whose
conjectural emendations of the poet's text are generally unpoetical enough, and often seem to me to
confuse and distort passages which to a person of
poetical sympathies need no gloss whatever, professes
to know the real interpretation of the mysterious
word, but refuses to disclose it. What a tremendous
secret this is to carry out of the literary world with
him to those Elysian fields in which the ghost of
Shakespeare must reproach him for declining to
enlighten an anxious public upon a point so obscure
and yet so important!
There are two theories, however, which may tend
to relieve Mr. Collier of the immense responsibility
he has assumed. It cannot be rationally imagined
that Shakespeare invented this word, or that he had
not a definite idea in his mind of the meaning and
propriety of the language he intended to produce
upon the stage. In order to approach the subject with
due reverence, let me remark that it was the indispensable practice of witches in former times to besmear themselves with some sort of oleaginous preparation before taking their nocturnal flights. This
necessary preliminary to aerial expeditions was called
"anointing," or, in the more familiar and perhaps
more correct phraseology of those days, "ointing,"
from the French verb oindre. The effect of this
magical application was to produce such a porosity
or lightness of the physical system that they could
mount and fly Iike a bird, or, if any external instrumentality was required, even a broomstick, as is
well known, was a sufficient steed for a jaunt through
the air.'
Now, it seems to require no great stretch of in
1' They" (witches) " could fly in the air, when they would.
on a broomstick or a fern-stalk."-Thornbury's " Shakespeare's
England," ii., I14.
"Satan taught them to strangle unbaptized children, or
steal them from their graves and boil the flesh; of the fat they
made ointment, which, when rubbed on their bodies, enabled
them to fly in the air."-Id.
Both passages apparently taken from King James's'"Demonologie."
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28o