MISCELLANEOUS:-- Notes on Books, Sales, Catalogues, &c. 46 Notices to Correspondents 46 Advertisements 47 * * * * * NOTES. AUTHORSHIP OF HENRY VIII. In my last communication on the subject of _Henry VIII._, I referred to certain characteristic _tricks_ of Fletcher's style of frequent occurrence in that play, and I now beg leave to furnish you with a few instances. I wish it, however, to be understood, that I advance these merely as illustrative specimens selected at random; as there is scarcely a line of the portions of the play I assume to be Fletcher's but would furnish some evidence to a diligent student of this writer's style: and that, although I think each separate instance as strongly characteristic of Fletcher as it is unlike Shakspeare, it is only in their aggregate number that I insist upon their importance. The first instance to which I call attention is the use of the substantive "one" in a manner which, though not very uncommon, is used by no writer so frequently as Fletcher. Take the following:-- "_So_ great ones."--_Woman's Prize_, II. 2. "And yet his songs are sad ones."--_Two Noble Kinsmen_, II. 4. and the title of the play, _The False One_. Compare with these from _Henry VIII._:-- "This night he make a supper, and a great one."--Act I. 3. "Shrewd ones."--"Lame ones."--"_so_ great ones."--_Ibid._ "I had my trial, And must needs say a noble one."--Act II. 1. "A wife--a true one."--Act III. 1. "They are a sweet society of fair ones."--Act I. 4. Fletcher habitually uses "thousand" without the indefinite article, as in the following instances: "Carried before 'em thousand desolations."--_False One_, II. 9. "Offers herself in thousand safeties to you."--_Rollo_, II. 1. "This sword shall cut thee into thousand pieces."--_Knight of Malta_, IV. 2. In _Henry VIII._ we have in the prologue: "Of thousand friends." "Cast thousand beams upon me."--Act IV. 2. The use of the word "else" is peculiar in its position in Fletcher:-- "'Twere fit I were hang'd else."--_Rule a Wife_, II. "I were to blame else."--_Ibid._ "I've lost me end else."--Act IV. "I am wide else."--_Pilgrim_, IV. 1. In _Henry VIII._, the word occurs in precisely the same position:-- "Pray God he do! He'll never know himself, else."--Act II. 2. "I were malicious, else."--Act IV. 2. {34} The peculiarly idiomatic expression "I take it" is of frequent occurrence in Fletcher, as witness the following:-- "This is no lining for a trench, I take it."--_Rule a Wife_, III. "And you have land i' th' Indies, as I take it."--_Ibid._ IV. "A fault without forgiveness, as I take it."--_Pilgrim_, IV. 1. "In noble emulation (so I take it)."--_Ibid._ IV. 2.