358 LIBRARY OF OLD AUTHORS. 



wlio, if he had given us nothing more than his excel- 

 lent edition of " Piers Ploughman " and the vohune of 

 "Ancient Vocabularies," would have deserved the grati- 

 tude of all lovers of our literature or students of our 

 lang-uage, does not save him from the severe justice of 

 Mr. Hazlitt, nor is the name of Wartou too venerable to 

 be coupled with a derogatory innuendo. Mr. Wright 

 needs no plea in abatement from us, and a mischance of 

 Mr, Hazlitt's own has comically avenged Warton. The 

 word prayer, it seems, had somehow substituted itself 

 for prayse in a citation by Warton of the title of the 

 " Schole-House of Women." Mr. Hazlitt thereupon 

 takes occasion to charge him with often " speaking at 

 random," and after suggesting that it might have been 

 the blunder of a copyist, adds, "or it is by no means 

 impossible that Warton himself, having been allowed 

 to inspect the production, was guilty of this oversight." 

 (Vol. IV. p. 98.) Now, on the three hundred and eigh- 

 teenth page of the same volume, ls\x. Hazlitt has allowed 

 the following couplet to escape his conscientious atten- 

 tion : — 



" Xext, that no gallant should not ought suppose 

 That^7'a!/ers and gloiy doth consist in cloathes." 



Lege, nostro periculo, prayse ! Were dear old Tom still 

 on earth, he might light his pipe cheerfully with any 

 one of Mr. Hazlitt's pages, secure that in so doing he 

 was consuming a brace of blunders at the least. The 

 word prayer is an unlucky one for Mr. Hazlitt. In the 

 "Knyght and his Wyfe" (Vol. II. p. 18) he prints : — 



" And sayd, Syre, I rede we make 

 In this chapel oure prayers, 

 That God us kepe both in ferrus.* 



Wiry did not Mr. Hazlitt, who explains so many things 

 that everybody knows, give us a note upon in ferrus ? 

 It would have matched his admirable elucidation of 



