LIBRARY OF OLD AUTHORS. 265 



where Ritson had substituted wrotherheyle. The measure 

 shows that Ritson was right. Wroth her heyle, moreover, is 

 nonsense. It should have been uurother her heyle at any rate, 

 but the text is far too modern to admit of that archaic form. 

 In the Debate of the Body and the Soul (Matzner s A. E. 

 Sprachproben, 103) we have, 



Why schope thou me to wrother-hele, 



and in * Dame Siris (Ibid., no), 



To goder hele ever came thou hider. 



Mr. Hazlitt prints, 



For yf it may be found in thee 

 That thou them [de] fame for enuyte. 



The emendation [de] is Ritson s, and is probably right, though 

 it would require, for the metre s sake, the elision of that at the 

 beginning of the verse. But what is enuyte? Ritson reads 

 enmyte, which is, of course, the true reading. Mr. Hazlitt prints 

 (as usual either without apprehending or without regarding the 

 sense), 



With browes bent and eyes full mery, 



where Ritson has brent, and gives parallel passages in his note 

 on the word. Mr. Hazlitt gives us 



To here the bugles there yblow, 

 With their bugles in that place, 



though Ritson has made the proper correction to begles. Mr. 

 Hazlitt, with ludicrous nonchalance, allows the Squire to press 

 into the throng 



With a bastard large and longe, 



and that with the right word (baslarde) staring him in the face 

 from Ritson s text. We wonder he did not give us an illustra 

 tive quotation from Falconbridge ! Both editors have allowed 

 some gross errors to escape, such as come/20/ for come* 

 (v. 425); so leue he be for ye be (v. 593) ; vnto her chambre 

 for * vnto your (v. 993) ; but in general Ritson s is the better 

 and more intelligent text of the two. In the * Knight of Curtesy, 

 Mr. Hazlitt has followed Ritson s text almost literatim. Indeed, 

 it is demonstrable that he gave it to his printers as copy to set 

 up from. The proof is this: Ritson has accented a few words 

 ending in / Generally he uses the grave accent, but now and 

 then the acute. Mr. Hazlitt s text follows all these variations 

 exactly. The main difference between the two is that Ritson 

 prints the first personal pronoun /, and Mr. Hazlitt, I. Ritson 

 is probably right ; for in the Scholehouse of Women (vv. 537, 

 538), where the text no doubt was 



