354 LIBKARY OF OLD AUTHORS. 



As it was, he got one word right, and so far has the 

 advantage of Mi'. Hazlitt. The true reading is, of 

 course, ner a dell, never a deal, not a whit. The very- 

 phrase occurs in another poem which Mr. HazUtt has re- 

 printed in his collection, — 



" For niver a dell 

 He wyll me love agayne." (Vol. HI. p. 2.) 



That adell was a misprint in Ritson is proved by the fact 

 that the word does not appear in his glossary. If we 

 were to bring Mr. Hazlitt to book for his misprints ! In 

 the poem we have just quoted he gravely prints, — 



" Matter in dede, 

 My sides did blede," 



for "mother, indede," "through ryght wysenes " for 

 "though ryghtwisenes," "with man vnkynde " for " sith 

 man vnkynde," " ye knowe a parte " for " ye knowe 

 aperte," " here in " for " herein," all of which make non- 

 sense, and all come within the first one hundred and 

 fifty lines, and those of the shortest, mostly of four syl- 

 lables each. Perhaps they rather prove ignorance than 

 want of care. One blunder falling within the same 

 limits we have reserved for special comment, because it 

 alibrds a good example of Mr. Hazlitt's style of editing : — 



" Your herte souerayne 

 Clouen in twayne * 



By longes the bljrnde." (Vol. HI. p. 7.) 



Here the uninstructed reader would be as completely in 

 the dark as to what longes meant as the editor plainly 

 was himself. The old rhymer no doubt wrote Longis, 

 meaning thereby Longinus, a personage familiar enough, 

 one should think, to any reader of mediaeval poetry. 

 Mr. Hazlitt absolves himself for not having supplied a 

 glossary by the plea that none is needed by the class 

 of readers for whom his volumes are intended. But this 

 will hardly seem a valid excuse for a gentleman who 



