LIBRARY OF OLD AUTHORS. 223 



state, the only modernisations attempted consisting in the alter 

 nations of the letters i and j, and u and v, the retention of 

 which (does Mr. Halliwell mean the letters or the alterna 

 tions ?) l would have answered no useful purpose, while it would 

 have unnecessarily perplexed the modern reader. 



This is not very clear ; but as Mr. Halliwell is a member of 

 several learned foreign societies, and especially of the Royal 

 Irish Academy, perhaps it would be unfair to demand that he 

 should write clear English. As one of Mr. Smith s editors, it 

 was to be expected that he should not write it idiomatically. 

 Some malign constellation (Taurus, perhaps, whose infaust 

 aspect may be supposed to preside over the makers of bulls and 

 blunders) seems to have been in conjunction with heavy Saturn 

 when the Library was projected. At the top of the same page 

 from which we have made our quotation, Mr. Halliwell speaks 

 of conveying a favourable impression on modern readers. It 

 was surely to no such phrase as this that Ensign Pistol alluded 

 when he said, Convey the wise it call. 



A literal reprint of an old author may be of value in two 

 ways : the orthography may in certain cases indicate the ancient 

 pronunciation, or it may put us on a scent which shall lead us 

 to the burrow of a word among the roots of language. But in 

 order to this, it surely is not needful to undertake the reproduc 

 tion of all the original errors of the press ; and even were it so, 

 the proofs of carelessness in the editorial department are so 

 glaring, that we are left in doubt, after all, if we may congratu 

 late ourselves on possessing all these sacred blunders of the 

 Elizabethan type-setters in their integrity, and without any 

 debasement of modern alloy. If it be gratifying to know that 

 there lived stupid men before our contemporary Agamemnons 

 in that kind, yet we demand absolute accuracy in the report of 

 the phenomena in order to arrive at anything like safe statistics. 

 For instance, we find (vol. i. p. 89) AcTUS SECUNDUS, SCENA 

 PRIMUS, and (vol. iii. p. 174) l eocit ambo} and we are interested 

 to know that in a London printing-house, two centuries and a 

 half ago, there was a philanthropist who wished to simplify the 

 study of the Latin language by reducing all the nouns to one 

 gender and all the verbs to one number. Had his emancipated 

 theories of grammar prevailed, how much easier would that part 

 of boys which cherubs want have found the school-room benches ! 

 How would birchen bark, as an educational tonic, have fallen 

 in repute ! How white would have been the (now black-and- 

 blue) memories of Dr. Busby, and so many other educational 



