P.S. The subject is, of course, capable of almost indefinite extension, but the above hasty notes will probably occupy as much space as you would be willing to spare for its consideration. _Alcides' Shoes._--There is merit, in my opinion, in elucidating, if it were only a single word in our great dramatist. Even the attempt, though mayhap a failure, is laudable. I therefore have made, and shall make, hit or miss, some efforts that way. For example, I now grapple with that very odd line-- "As great Alcides' shoes upon an ass."--_King John_, Act II. Sc. 1. out of which no one has as yet extracted, or I think ever will extract, any good meaning: _Argal_, {267} it is corrupt. Now it appears to me that the critic who proposed to read _shows_, came very near the truth, and would have hit it completely if he had retained _Alcides'_, for it is the genitive with _robe_ understood. To explain: Austria has on him the "skin-coat" of Coeur-de-Lion, and Blanch cries,-- "O! well did he become that lion's robe, That did disrobe the lion of that robe." "It lies," observes the Bastard, "It lies as sightly on the back of him (_Austria_) As great Alcides' (_robe_) shows upon an ass:-- But, ass, I'll take that burden from your back," &c. Were it not that _doth_ is the usual word in this play, I might be tempted to read _does_. In reading or acting, then, the _caesura_ should be made at _Alcides'_, with a slight pause to give the hearer time to supply _robe_. I need not say that the robe is the lion's skin, and that there is an allusion to the fable of the ass. Now to justify this reading. Our ancestors knew nothing of our mode of making genitives by turned commas. They formed the gen. sing., and nom. and gen. pl., by simply adding _s_ to the nom. sing.; thus king made _kings_, _kings_, _kings_ (not _king's_, _kings_, _kings'_), and the context gave the case. If the noun ended in _se_, _ce_, _she_, or _che_, the addition of _s_ added a syllable, as _horses_, _princes_, &c., but it was not always added. Shakspeare, for example, uses _Lucrece_ and _cockatrice_ as genitives. I find the first instances of such words as _James's_, &c., about the middle of the seventeenth century, but I am not deeply read in old books, so it may have been used earlier. In foreign words like _Alcides_, no change ever took place; it was the same for all numbers and cases, and the explanation was left to the context. Here are a couple of examples from Shakspeare himself: "My fortunes every way as fairly ranked-- If not with vantage--as Demetrius."--_Midsummer Night's Dream_, Act I. Sc. 1. "To Brutus, to Cassius. Burn all. Some to Decius house, and some to Cascas; some to Ligarius. Away! go!"--_Julius Caesar_, Act III. Sc. 3. All here are genitives, as well as _Cascas_. If any doubt, Brutus and Cassius, we have just been told, "Are rid like madmen through the gates of Rome," so _they_ could not be burned. I say now, _judicet lector_!