Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd;' No reckoning made, but sent to my account a gentleman of undoubted veracity) from an old Legend of Saints, where a man, who was accidentally drowned, is introduced as making the same complaint. STEEVENS. 1 Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd;] Unhousel'd is without having received the sacrament. Disappointed, as Dr. Johnson observes, "is the same as unappointed, and may be properly explained unprepared. A man well furnished with things necessary for an enterprise, was said to be well appointed." This explanation of disappointed may be countenanced by a quotation of Mr. Upton's from Measure for Measure: "Therefore your best appointment make with speed." Isabella, as Mr. Malone remarks, is the speaker, and her brother, who was condemned to die, is the person addressed. Unanel'd is without extreme unction. I shall now subjoin as many notes as are necessary for the support of the first and third of these explanations. I administer the bark only, not supposing any reader will be found who is desirous to swallow the whole tree. In the Textus Roffensis we meet with two of these words"The monks offering themselves to perform all priestly functions of houseling, and aveyling." Aveyling is misprinted for aneyling. STEEVENS. See Mort d'Arthur, p. iii. c. 175: "So when he was houseled and aneled, and had all that a Christian man ought to have," &c. TYRWHITT. The subsequent extract from a very scarce and curious copy of Fabian's Chronicle, printed by Pynson, 1516, seems to remove every possibility of doubt concerning the true signification of the words unhousel'd and unanel'd. The historian, speaking of Pope Innocent's having laid the whole kingdom of England under an interdict, has these words: "Of the manner of this interdiccion of this lande have I seen dyverse opynyons, as some ther be that saye that the lande was interdyted thorwly and the churchis and housys of relygyon closyd, that no where was used mase, nor dyvyne servyce, by whiche reason none of the VII sacramentis all this terme should be mynystred or occupyed, nor chyld crystened, nor man confessed nor marryed; but it was not so strayght. For there were dyverse placys in Englond, which were occupyed with dyvyne servyce all that season by lycence purchased than or before, also chyldren were chrystenyd throughę With all my imperfections on my head: all the lande and men houselyd and anelyd." Fol. 14, Septima Pars Johannis. The Anglo-Saxon noun-substantives husel, (the eucharist) and ele (oil) are plainly the roots of these last-quoted compound adjectives. For the meaning of the affix an to the last, I quote Spelman's Gloss. in loco: "Quin et dictionibus (an) adjungitur, siquidem vel majoris notationis gratia, vel ad singulare aliquid, vel unicum demonstrandum.” Hence anelyd should seem to signify oiled or anointed by way of eminence, i. e. having received extreme unction. For the confirmation of the sense given here, there is the strongest internal evidence in the passage. The historian is speaking of the VII sacraments, and he expressly names five of them, viz. baptism, marriage, auricular confession, the eucharist, and extreme unction. The antiquary is desired to consult the edition of Fabian, printed by Pynson, 1516, because there are others, and I remember to have seen one in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, with a continuation to the end of Queen Mary, London, 1559, in which the language is much modernized. BRAND. * O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!] It was ingeniously hinted to me by a very learned lady, that this line seems to belong to Hamlet, in whose mouth it is a proper and natural exclamation; and who, according to the practice of the stage, may be supposed to interrupt so long a speech. JOHNson. A couch for luxury-] i. e. for lewdness. So, in K. Lear: "To't luxury, pell-mell, for I lack soldiers." STEEVENS. See Vol. XV. p. 436 and 482. MALONE. |