of Dyce, as quoted above; Dyce, in turn, appears to have based his statement on the passage in Othello, rather than on any authority. The New Hudson Macbeth, possibly following Steevens, correctly states that "Mummy was much used as a medicine," and then adds, "a witch's, of course, had evil magic in it." The meaning of "mummy" in the third passage is obvious. In Merry Wives, III, v, 9-19, Falstaff says: The rogues slighted me into the river. ... I had been drowned a death that I abhor, for the water swells a man. . . I should have been a mountain of mummy. The N. E. D., Schmidt, giving this reference, has: "a carcass." citing this passage for illustration, and evidently drawing its definition from it, says: "Used jocularly for: Dead flesh; body in which life is extinct." Light is thrown on these passages by Pharmacopoeia Londinensis. Or, the New London Dispensatory, by William Salmon, Professor of Physick, London, 1691, Fourth Edition.3 On pages 194-195 there is the following: Mummy is five-fold: 1. Factitious Pissasphaltum, made of Bitumen and Pitch. 2. Flesh of a Carcase dried by the Sun, in the Country of the Hammonians between Cyrene and Alexandria, being Passengers buried in the Quick-sands. 3. Ægyptian, a Liquor sweating from Carcasses embalmed with Pissasphaltum. 4. Arabian, a Liquor which sweats from Carcases embalmed with Myrrh, Aloes, and Balsam. 5. Artificial, which is Modern. Of all which the two last are the best, but the Arabian is scarcely to be got; the second and third sorts are sold for it: the Artificial is thus made. 22. Mumia Artificialis, Artificial or Modern Mummy, according to Crollius. Take the Carcase of a young man (some say red hair'd) not dying of a Disease, but killed; let it lie 24 hours in clear water in the Air; cut the flesh in pieces, to which add Powder of Myrrh, and a little Aloes: imbibe it 24 hours in the Spirit Wine and Turpentine, take it out, hang it up twelve hours; imbibe it again 24 hours in fresh spirit, then hang up the pieces in a dry air, and a shadowy place, so will they dry, and not stink. 8 I do not know the date of the first edition. Revisions on such a matter as that in hand would almost certainly be minor; and the account given may fairly be assumed to represent information current in Shakespeare's own time. Brit. Mus. Cat. lists an edn. of year 1678. Cong. Libr. Cat. gives Salmon's dates as 1644-1713. 24. Elixir Mumiae, Elixir of Mummy. R/ Artificial Mummy out small, to which put spirit of Turpentine, putrifie it forty days in a Vessel close luted; strain it, and put it into a Bladder with S. V. digest, and in an Alembick in sand draw off the Quintessence with the spirit, which separate; the Feces reverberate, and sublime to a salt, which unite with the separated Quintessence by circulation: then digest this Quintessence with Treacle and Musk to an Elixir. 25. Balsamum Mumiae, Balsam of Mummy. R/ Artificial Mummy cut small, digest it forty days with Oyl Olive in a luted vessel: put it in a glass Body, and in B. M. let the foetid scent exhale, till the Mummy is dissolved, digest it twenty days or more with S. V. which separate, and you have a sweet-scented red Oyl. This Oyl is exalted by degestion with S. V. and drawing it off four or five times. Where note, that Quercetan uses fresh flesh instead of Artificial Mummy. 26. Aqua Divina, Divine Water. Take the whole carcase of a man violently killed, with the Intrails, cut it in pieces, and mix them; distil it from a Retort twice or thrice. It is reputed to have a Magnetick power. The conclusions are fairly obvious. Mummy is not, as Professor Manly says, "properly" a sort of semi-fluid gum that oozes from an embalmed body; nor is it, in these passages from Shakespeare at least, the redolent gum that grows, mentioned by Herbert; rather it is, as Hill says, either the "dried flesh of human bodies" or the "liquor running from such mummies.' Or, as Salmon describes it, there are several kinds of liquid mummy, all of which, apparently, have the "Artificial or Modern Mummy" or its equivalent as their "base." On the first passage, the doubt of Furness that "the word conveyed, of necessity, any reference to Egyptian mummies" seems not well grounded, for Othello himself says that an "Egyptian," who was "a charmer," gave the handkerchief to his mother 11. 56-58). Hill (op. cit.) seems to scout the idea that the mummy sold by apothecaries was Egyptian; but Salmon, commenting on the scarcity of Arabian mummy, names the Egyptian as one kind usually sold for it; and Hunter concludes (note on 1. 69) that the mention of mummy "and other points in the passage, seem to guide us to the true Egyptians, neighbors of the 4 That the history of the handkerchief here given, manifestly designed to increase the terror of Desdemona, differs from that in V, ii, 214-215, does not, of course, affect the background of information employed. Moors." Shakespeare, it seems evident, was familiar, not only with the solid or "Artificial or Modern Mummy," but with the liquid or "Arabian" and "Egyptian" mummy. And it was in this liquid or Egyptian mummy that the handkerchief was "dy'd." "Dy'd," of course, means "dipped in," with the added idea of being mysteriously or magically affected. Salmon notes that the Divine Water, a form of liquid mummy, has "Magnetic power;" and though this power was designed, presumably, to affect the body primarily, a transference of effect upon the mind, through the medium of an object, would be a simple matter for Shakespeare in the fulfillment of his dramatic purpose. Similarly, with the authority of Quercetan for the use of fresh flesh rather than artificial mummy, the use of "maidens' hearts" would be simple and, for Othello's purposes, would lend an added touch of mystery and terror. In the second passage, "Witches' mummy" is evidently the "Artificial or Modern Mummy" described in section 22 by Salmon, with the body of a witch substituted for that of a young man, a substitution no doubt designed, as the New Hudson Macbeth assumes, to add to the magical power of the hell-broth; it is almost certainly not the semi-fluid gum that Professor Manly supposes, nor a "medicine" as the Tudor, evidently leaning on Steevens' note, says. The probability that the "witches' mummy" here used was a substance rather than a liquid appears to be increased by the fact that the ingredients of the hell-broth are, with a single possible exception, substances, not liquids. In the third passage, the meaning of Falstaff's "mummy" as "dead flesh," possibly with the added idea of its being soaked in liquid, is clear. THE INFLUENCE OF NON-LATIN ELEMENTS ON THE TONIC VOWEL IN ITALIAN DIALECTS By HERBERT H. VAUGHAN The study of Italian dialects has never received the attention that it merits. Many do not realize that nowhere is the history of the civilization of a people so clearly and accurately shown as in its language, and that the dialects are unerring records of the communities in which they are spoken. Each dialect word has its particular significance, and, if its history can be traced, will bring out some interesting fact concerning the community which uses it. Every phonetic change is of great significance if the influence which caused it can be ascertained. In Italy the study of the vernacular is particularly interesting and more than ordinarily satisfactory because there we can study the linguistic development of twenty-four centuries and check the conclusions which we reach by historical data which, we know, possess a fair degree of accuracy. Italian dialects may be roughly divided into five groups: (a) North Italian or Gallo-Italian, spoken in the Po valley and presenting many characteristics of Germanic origin similar to those shown by French and Provençal; (b) Central Italian, spoken in Tuscany, Umbria, and Latium, and closely resembling the literary Italian; (c) Neapolitan, spoken in the territory of Naples and, with some modifications, in the Abruzzi, the Capitanata, and the Puglie; (d) Sicilian, the dialects of Sicily, the Calabrie, and Terra d'Otranto; and (e) Sardinian. These divisions are only approximate, and isolated "dialect islands" of some other group often appear within the confines of a certain geographic division. For these anomalies there is always an historical reason. Venetian, for instance, although in North Italian territory, is a Central Italian dialect. This is because the Venetians, instead of yielding to the Goths and Lombards, withdrew to their lagune and maintained their independent state, having little intercourse with the invaders, and preserving the purity of their language. There are also isolated communities in Sardinia and Sicily that speak Tuscan or North Italian. These are due to colonization by people speaking those dialects. The outstanding features of the North Italian are syncope, the dropping of the final vowel unless it be a, and the disappearance of double consonants. In Central Italy syncope is less frequent, the final vowels are kept, and double consonants are pronounced double. As we proceed towards Naples we find that the vowel quantity of the Latin is actually kept, and, instead of syncope, we find the opposite phenomenon of anaptyxis. On the other hand, as we go farther south and approach the Straits of Messina, anaptyxis becomes less frequent and syncope begins to re-appear. In North Italian, tonic Latin a often appears as open ę (lęć < lactem; cantęda < cantata; era < alam); u as ü (lüm, lim < lumen; rüm << rumor); and open o as ö (cf. French eu) (fjöl < filiolum; fög' < focum). In Central Italian the tonic vowels have remained more like the Latin sounds from which they developed than in any of the other groups. In the Neapolitan group of dialects they show important variations in development according to the locality which is studied. In Sicilian they show more uniformity, but some very striking phenomena are to be noted; such as, for instance, the regular change of closed e to i, and of closed o to u (stissu < iste ipse; signuri < seniorem; duluri < dolorem). Some of these changes are due to phonetic tendencies which have operated since Latin times, while others are doubtless to be regarded as originating in pre-Latin dialects or languages spoken in the various parts of the country. Among the foreign influences which have operated since Latin times the most important is the Germanic. The language of the invaders of the North presented certain characteristics which were opposed to those of the Latin, and which made it well-nigh impossible for the invading race as a whole to acquire the more polished tongue and to speak it correctly. The Goth or the Lombard carried his habits of pronunciation with him, and these were different from those of the Roman. One of the most important of these differences seems to have been in the system of accentuation. While the question of Latin accentuation has been the subject of much debate, most authorities are agreed that in early times it resembled the Ger |