368 LIBRARY OF OLD AUTHORS. 



seems unaware of the fact. In his first volume (p. 224) 

 he gravely prints : 



" They trowed verelye that she shoulde dye ; 

 With that our ladye wold her helpe and spede." 



The semicolon after dye shows that this is not a mis 

 print, but that the editor saw no connection between the 

 first verse and the second. In the same volume (p. 

 133) we have the verse, 



" He was a grete tenement man, and ryche of londe and lede," 



and to lede Mr. Hazlitt appends this note : " Lede, in early 

 English, is found in various significations, but here 

 stands as the plural of lad, a servant." In what con 

 ceivable sense is it the plural of lad? And does lad 

 necessarily mean a servant ] The Promptorium has 

 ladde glossed by garcio, but the meaning servant, as in 

 the parallel cases of irait, puer, garqon, and boy, was a 

 derivative one, and of later origin. The word means 

 simply man (in the generic sense) and in the plural peo 

 ple. So in the " Squyr of Low Degre," 



" I will forsake both land and lede," 



and in the " Smyth and his Dame," 



" That hath both land and lyth." 



The word was not " used in various significations." Even 

 so lately as " Flodden Ffeild " we find, 



" He was a noble leed of high degree." 



Connected with land it was a commonplace in German 

 as well as in English. So in the Tristan of Godfrey of 

 Strasburg, 



,,(?r ^Beba(d) fin Ufct i>nt>e fin lant 



#11 fines* marfcalteflt Ijant." 



Mr. Hazlitt is more nearly right than usual when he 

 says that in the particular case cited above lede means 

 servants. But were these of only one sex 1 Does he not 

 know that even in the middle of the last century when 



