LIBRARY OF OLD AUTHORS. 225 



Mr. Halliwell comes to our assistance thus : Page 244, line 21, 

 [22 it should be,]/z/w, a printer s error for / am Dignus 

 &quot;vindice nodus ! Five lines above, we have whole for who 11, 

 and four lines below, helmeth for whelmeth; but Mr. 

 Halliwell vouchsafes no note. In the Fawn we read, Wise 

 neads use few words, and the editor says in a note, a misprint 

 for heads ! Kind Mr. Halliwell ! 



Having given a few examples of our editor s corrections, we 

 proceed to quote a passage or two which, it is to be presumed, 

 he thought perfectly clear. 



A man can skarce put on a tuckt-tip cap, 



A button d frizado sute, skarce eate good meate, 



Anchoves, caviare, but hee s satyred 



And term d phantasticall. By the muddy spawne 



Of slymie neughtes, when troth, phantasticknesse 



That which the naturall sophysters tearme 



PJtantusia. incomplexa is a function 



Even of the bright immortal part of man. 



It is the common passe, the sacred dore, 



Unto the prive chamber of the soule ; 



That bar d, nought passeth past the baser court 



Of outward scence by it th inamorate 



Most lively thinkes he sees the absent beauties 



Of his lov d mistress. (Vol. i. p. 241.) 



In this case, also, the true readings are clear enough: 



And termed fantastical by the muddy spawn 

 Of slimy newts ; 



and 



. . . . past the baser court 

 Of outward sense ; 



but, if anything was to be explained, why are we here deserted 

 by OurJ&a compagna? Again (vol. ii. pp. 55, 56) we read, 

 This Granuffo is a right wise good lord, a man of excellent 

 discourse, and never speakes his signes to me, and men of pro 

 found reach instruct aboundantly ; hee begges suites with signes, 

 gives thanks with signes/ etc. This Granuffo is qualified among 

 the Interlocutors as a silent lord, and what fun there is in 

 the character (which, it must be confessed, is rather of a lenlcn 

 kind) consists in his genius for saying nothing. It is plain 

 enough that the passage should read, a man of excellent dis 

 course, and never speaks ; his signs to me and men of profound 

 reach instruct abundantly, etc. 



In both the passages we have quoted, it is not difficult for the 

 reader to set the text right. But if not difficult for the reader, 

 it should certainly not have been so for the editor, who should 

 have done what Broome was said to have done for Pope in his 

 Homer, gone before and swept the way. An edition of an 



Q 



