Читать книгу Facts and fancies for the curious from the harvest-fields of literature - Charles C. Bombaugh - Страница 57

Table of Contents

When Mr. Justice Hawkins of the English Queen’s Bench was a leader at the bar, he appeared in a shipping case before the late Baron Channel, who was a little shaky with his aspirates. The name of the vessel about which the dispute had arisen was Hannah; but Hawkins’s “junior,” in utter desperation, said to him, “Is the ship the Anna or the Hannah, for his lordship says one thing and every one else says another?” “The ship,” said Hawkins, in reply, “was named the Hannah, but the H has been lost in the chops of the Channel!”

In “Much Ado About Nothing,” where Beatrice is touched with her first love longing for Benedict, occurs this passage:

“Beat. ’Tis almost five o’clock, cousin. ’Tis time you were ready. By my troth I am exceeding ill; heigh ho!

Margaret. For a hawk, a horse, or a husband?

Beat. For the letter that begins them all, h.”

This is supposed to be a poor pun on ache, but be that as it may, it seems clear that Margaret must have been supposed to sound the aspirate clearly in each of the words she used. Had she said, “For an ’awk, an ’orse, or an ’usband,” Beatrice’s joke about the letter h, which in that case would not have been used at all, would have been absurd. On this single illustration one might build quite an argument to show that Shakespeare did not drop his h’s.