LIBRARY OF OLD AUTHORS. 26l 



Bekker s Ferabras, the more willingly as it may direct his 

 attention to a shining example of how an old poem should be 

 edited: 



en la crotz vos pendero li fals luzieu truan, 

 can Longis vos ferie de sa lansa trencan : 

 el non ayia vist en trastot son vivan; 

 lo sane li venc per 1 asta entro al punh colan; 

 e [el] toquet ne sos huelhs si vie el mantenan. 



Mr. Hazlitt, to be sure (who prints sang paries for sans 

 parler) (Vol. I. p. 265), will not be able to form any notion of 

 what these verses mean, but perhaps he will be able to draw an 

 inference from the capital L that longes is a proper name. The 

 word truan at the end of the first verse of our citation may also 

 suggest to him that truant is not quite so satisfactory an expla 

 nation of the word trewat as he seems to think. (Vol. IV. 

 p. 24, note.} In deference to Mr. Hazlitt s presumed familiarity 

 with an author sometimes quoted by him in his notes, we will 

 point him to another illustration : &amp;gt; 



Ac ther cam forth a knyght, 

 With a kene spere y-grounde 

 Highte Longeus, as the lettre telleth, 

 And longe hadde lore his sighte. 



Piers Ploughman, Wright, p. 374. 



Mr. Hazlitt shows to peculiar advantage where old French is 

 in question. Upon the word Osyll he favours us with the 

 following note : The blackbird. In East Cornwall ozell is 

 used to signify the windpipe, and thence the bird may have had 

 its name, as Mr. Couch has suggested to me. (Vol. II. p. 25.) 

 Of course the blackbird, alone among fowls, is distinguished by 

 a windpipe ! The name is merely another form of O. F. oisil, 

 and was usurped naturally enough by one of the commonest 

 birds, just 2&pajaro (L. passer) in Spanish, by a similar process 

 in the opposite direction, came to mean bird in general. On 

 the very next page he speaks of the Romance which is vulgarly 

 entitled Lybeaus Disconus^ i.e. Le Beau Disconnu? If he had 

 corrected Disconus to Desconus, all had been well ; but Dis- 

 connu neither is nor ever was French at all. Where there is 

 blundering to be done, one stone often serves Mr. Hazlitt for 

 two birds. Ly beaus Disconus is perfectly correct old French, 

 and another form of the adjective (bius) perhaps explains the 

 sound we give to the first syllable of beauty and Beaufort. A 

 barrister-at-law, as Mr. Hazlitt is, may not be called on to 

 know anything about old English or modern French, but we 

 might fairly expect him to have at least a smattering of Law 

 French ! In volume fourth, page 1 29, a goodman trying his wife, 



