306 LIBRARY OF OLD AUTHORS. 



And term d phantasticall. By the muddy spawne 



Of slymie neughtes, when troth, phantasticknesse 



Tliat which the natural! sopliysters tearme 



Pkantusia incomjjltxa is a i'unction 



Even of the bright immortal part of man. 



It is the common passe, the sacred dore, 



Unto the prive chamber of the soule : 



That bar'd, nought passeth past the baser court 



Of outward sceuce by it th' inamorate 



Most lively thinkes he sees the absent beauties 



Of his lov'd mistres." (Vol. I. p. 241.) 



In this case, also, the true readings are clear enough : 



" And termed fantastical by the muddy spawn 

 Of slimy newts"; 



and 



" . . . . past the baser court 

 Of outward sense " ; 



but, if anything was to be explained, why are we hero 

 deserted by our fida compagna ? Again, (Vol. II. pp. 

 55, 56,) we read, " This Granuffo is a right wise good 

 lord, a man of excellent discourse, and never speakes his 

 signes to me, and men of profound reach instruct aboun- 

 dantly ; hee begges suites with signes, gives thanks with 

 signes," etc. This Granuffo is qualified among the " In 

 terlocutors " as " a silent lord," and what fun there is in 

 the character (which, it must be confessed, is rather of a 

 lenten kind) consists in his genius for saying nothing. 

 It is plain enough that the passage should read, " a 

 man of excellent discourse, and never speaks ; his 

 signs to me and men of profound reach instruct abun 

 dantly," etc. 



In both the passages we have quoted, it is not difficult 

 for the reader to set the text right. But if not difficult 

 for the reader, it should certainly not have been so for 

 the editor, who should have done what Broome was said 

 to have done for Pope in his Homer, "gone before 

 and swept the way." An edition of an English author 

 ought to be intelligible to English readers, and, if the 



