246 LIBRARY OF OLD AUTHORS. 



etymology we cannot conceive. It does not mean in use, but 

 to work, being merely the English form of en ce:tvre, as * ma 

 nure is of manceuvrer. 



So troop-meal Troy pursued a while. (II. xvii. 634.) 



Troop-meal in troops, troop by troop. So piece-meal. To 

 meal was to mingle, mix together ; from the French meler. . . . 

 The reader would do well to consult Dr. Jamieson s excellent 

 &quot; Dictionary of the Scottish Language&quot; in voce &quot;mell. nt No 

 doubt the reader might profit by consulting it under any other 

 word beginning with M, and any of them would be as much to 

 the purpose as melL Troop-meal, like inch-meal, piece-meal, 

 implies separation, not mingling, and is from a Teutonic root. 

 Mr. Hooper is always weak in his linguistic. In a note on II. 

 xviii. 144, he informs us that To sterve is to die ; and the sense 

 of starve, with cold or hunger, originated in the seventeenth cen 

 tury. We would it had! But we suspect that men had died 

 of both these diseases earlier. What he should have said was 

 that the restriction of meaning to dying with hunger was modern. 



II. xx. 239, we have the God s for the Gods and a few 

 lines below &amp;lt; Anchisiades&quot; for Anchisiades s; II. xxi. 407, 

 press d for prest. 



We had noted a considerable number of other slips, but we 

 will mention only two more. Treen broches is explained to 

 mean branches of trees. (Hymn to Hermes, 227.) It means 

 wooden spits. In the Bacchus (28, 29) Mr. Hooper restores a 

 corrupt reading which Mr. Singer (for a wonder) had set right. 

 He prints 



Nay, which of all the Pow r fully-divined 

 Esteem ye him? 



Of course it should be powerfully-divined, for otherwise we must 

 read * Pow rs. The five volumes need a very careful revision in 

 their punctuation, and in another edition we should advise Mr. 

 Hooper to strike out every note in which he has been tempted 

 into etymology. 



We come next to Mr. W. C. Hazlitt s edition of Lovelace. 

 Three short pieces of Lovelace s have lived, and deserved to 

 live : To Lucasta from Prison/ To Lucasta on Going to the 

 Wars, and The Grasshopper. They are graceful, airy, and 

 nicely finished. The last especially is a charming poem, deli 

 cate in expression, and full of quaint fancy, which only in the 

 latter half is strained to conceit. As the verses of a gentleman 

 they are among the best, though not of a very high order as 



