LIBRARY OF OLD AUTHORS. 273 



nations still testify their respect to a superior by holding their 

 hand [either their hands or the hand, Mr. Hazlitt !] over their 

 head. Touching the hat appears to be a vestige of the same 

 custom. In the present passage the three outlaws may be 

 understood to kneel on approaching the throne, and to hold up 

 each a hand as a token that they desire to ask the royal clemency 

 or favour. In the lines which are subjoined it [what ?] implies 

 a solemn assent to an oath : 



This swore the duke and all his men, 

 And all the lordes that with him lend, 

 And tharto to* held they up thaire hand. 



Minot s Poems, ed. 1825, p. 9. 



The admirable Tupper could not have done better than this, 

 even so far as the mere English of it is concerned. Where all 

 is so fine, we hesitate to declare a preference, but, on the whole, 

 must give in to the passage about touching the hat, which is as 

 good as mobbled queen. The Americans are still among the 

 f savage nations who imply a solemn assent to an oath by hold 

 ing up the hand. Mr. Hazlitt does not seem to know that the 

 question whether to kiss the book or hold up the hand was once 

 a serious one in English politics. 



But Mr. Hazlitt can do better even than this ! Our readers 

 may be incredulous ; but we shall proceed to show that he can. 

 In the Schole-House of Women, among much other equally 

 delicate satire of the other sex (if we may venture still to call 

 them so), the satirist undertakes to prove that woman was made, 

 not of the rib of a man, but of a dog : 



And yet the rib, as I suppose, 

 That God did take out of the man 

 A dog vp caught, and a way gose 

 Eat it clene ; so that as than 

 The woork to finish that God began 

 Could not be, as we haue said, 



Because the dog the rib conuaid. f. 



A remedy God found as yet ; r i OW ln tne 



Out of the dog he took a rib. ; usefulness; and.as 

 &quot; ^ 7&quot;-- - Ol himself, and won t bite 



write, in 



sof 



