338 LIBRARY OF OLD AUTHORS. 



spheres bereft " is parenthetic, and the sense is " of 

 which only the jelly 's left." Lovelace is speaking of the 

 eyes of a mistress who has gi'own old, and his image, con- 

 fused as it is, is based on the belief that stars shooting 

 from their spheres fell to the earth as jellies, — a belief, 

 by the way, still to be met with in New England. 



Lovelace, describing a cow (and it is one of the few 

 pretty passages in the volume), says, — 



" She was the largest, goodliest beast 

 That ever mead or altar blest, 

 Round as her udder, and more white 

 Than is the Milky-Way in night." (p. 64.) 



Mr. Hazlitt changes to " Round was her udder," thus 

 making that white instead of the cow, as Lovelace in- 

 tended. On the next page we read, — 



" She takes her leave o' th' mournful neat, 

 Who, by her toucht, now prizeth her life, 

 Worthy alone the hollowed knife." 



Compare Chapman (Iliads, xviii. 480) : — 



" Slew all their white fieec'd sheep and neat." 



The original was " prize their life," and the use of 

 " neat " as a singular in this way is so uncommon, if 

 not unprecedented, and the verse as corrected so halt- 

 ing, that we have no doubt Lovelace so wrote it. Of 

 course " hollowed " should be " hallowed," though the 

 broader pronunciation still lingers in our country pul- 

 pits. 



" What need she other bait or charm 

 But look? or angle but her arm? " (p. 65.) 



So the original, which Mr. Hazlitt, missing the sense, 

 has changed to " what hook or angle." 



" Flj^ Joy on wings of Popinjays 

 To courts of fools where as your plays 

 Die laught at and forgot." (p. 67.) 



The original has " there." Read, — 



