* * * * *

_Kindly_, in accordance with kind, viz. nature. Thus, the love of a parent
for a child, or the converse, is kindly: one without natural affection
([Greek: astorgos]) is unkind, kindless, as in--

"Remorselesse, treacherous, letcherous, _kindles_ villaine."
_Hamlet_, Act II. Sc. 2.

Thence _kindly_ expanded into its wider meaning of general benevolence. So
under another phase of its primary sense we find the epithet used to
express the excellence and characteristic qualities proper to the idea or
standard of its subject, to wit, genuine, thrifty, well-liking,
appropriate, not abortive, monstrous, prodigious, discordant. In the
Litany, "the _kindly_ fruits of the earth" is, in the Latin versions
"genuinus," and by Mr. Boyer rightly translated "les fruits de la terre
chaqu'un selon son espece;" for which Pegge takes him to task, and
interprets _kindly_ "fair and good," through mistake or preference adopting
the acquired and popular, in lieu of the radical and elementary meaning of
the word. (_Anonymiana_, pp. 380--1. Century VIII. No. LXXXI.) The
conjunction of this adjective with _gird_ in a passage of _King Henry VI_.
has sorely gravelled MR. COLLIER: twice over he essays, with equal success,
to expound its purport. First, _loc. cit._, he finds fault with _gird_ as
being employed in rather an unusual manner; or, if taken in its common
meaning of taunt or reproof, then that _kindly_ is said ironically; because
there seems to be a contradiction in terms. (Monck Mason's rank distortion
of the words, there cited, I will not pain the reader's sight with.) MR.
COLLIER'S note concludes with a supposition that _gird_ may possibly be a
misprint. This is the misery! Men will sooner suspect the text than their
own understanding or researches. In Act I. Sc. 1. of _Coriolanus_,
dissatisfied with his previous note, MR. COLLIER tries again, and thinks a
_kindly gird_ may mean a gentle reproof. That the reader may be able to
judge what it does mean, it will be necessary to quote the king's _gird_,
who thus administers a kindly rebuke to the malicious preacher against the
sin of malice, _i.e._ chastens him with his own rod:

"_King._ Fie, uncle Beauford, I have heard you preach,
That mallice was a great and grievous sinne:
And will not you maintaine the thing you teache,
But prove a chief offender in the same?

_Warn._ Sweet king: the bishop hath a _kindly gyrd