304 LIBRARY OF OLD AUTHORS. 



number. Had his emancipated theories of grammar pre- 

 vailed, how much easier would that part of boys which 

 cherubs want have found the school-room benches ! 

 How would birchen bark, as an educational tonic, have 

 fallen in repute ! How white would have been the (now 

 black-and-blue) memories of Dr. Busby and so many 

 other educational lictors, who, with their bundles of rods, 

 heralded not alone the consuls, but all other Roman an- 

 tiquities to us ! We dare not, however, indulge in the 

 grateful vision, since there are circumstances which lead 

 us to infer that Mr. Halliwell himself (member though 

 he be of so many learned societies) has those vague no- 

 tions of the speech of ancient Rome which are apt to 

 prevail in regions which count not the betula in their 

 Flora. On page xv of his Preface, he makes Drummond 

 say that Ben Jonson " was dilated " (delated, Gifford 

 gives it in English, accused) " to the king by Sir James 

 Murray," Ben, whose corpulent person stood in so 

 little need of that malicious increment ! 



What is Mr. Halliwell's conception of editorial duty 1 

 As we read along, and the once fair complexion of the 

 margin grew more and more pitted with pencil-marks, 

 like that of a bad proof-sheet, we began to think that he 

 was acting on the principle of every man his own wash- 

 erwoman, that he was making blunders of set purpose, 

 (as teachers of languages do in their exercises,) in order 

 that we might correct them for ourselves, and so fit us 

 in time to be editors also, and members of various learned 

 societies, even as Mr. Halliwell himself is. We fancied, 

 that, magnanimously waving aside the laurel with which 

 a grateful posterity crowned General Wade, he wished 

 us " to see these roads before they were made," and de- 

 velop our intellectual muscles in getting over them. 

 But no ; Mr. Halliwell has appended notes to his edi- 

 tion, and among them are some which correct misprints, 



