352 LIBEAEY OF OLD AUTHORS. 



we might say, with lights of his own), he frequently 

 creates a darkness where none was before, and the pecu- 

 liar bumptiousness of his incapacity makes it particularly 

 offensive. We shall bring a few instances in proof of 

 what we assert, our only embarrassment being in the 

 superabundance of our material. In the Introduction to 

 the second volume of his collection, Mr. Hazlitt speaks 

 of " the utter want of common care on the part of pre- 

 vious editors of our old poetry." Such oversights as he 

 has remarked upon in his notes are commonly errors 

 of the press, a point on which Mr. Hazlitt, of all men, 

 should have been charitable, for his own volumes are 

 full of them. We call his attention to one such which 

 is rather amusing. In his " additional notes " we find 

 "line 77, wylle. Strike out the note upon this word ; 

 but the explanation is correct. Be wroght was a mis- 

 print, however, for he wroght." The error occurs in a 

 citation of three lines in which lother is still left for 

 tother. The original note affords us so good an example 

 of Mr. Hazlitt's style of editing as to be worth preserv- 

 ing. In the " Kyng and the Hermit " we read, — 



" He ne wyst w[h]ere that he was 

 Ne out of the forest for to passe, 

 And thus he rode all wylle." 



And here is Mr. Hazlitt's annotation on the word 

 wylle : — 



" i. e. evil. In a MS. of the Tale of the Basyn, sup- 

 posed by Mr. Wright, who edited it in 1836, to be writ- 

 ten in the Salopian dialect, are the following lines : — 



1 The lother hade litull thoght, 

 Off husbandry cowth he noght, 

 But alle his wyves vrillbe wroght.' " (Vol. I. p. 16.) 



It is plain that he supposed will, in this very simple pas- 

 sage, to mean evil ! This he would seem to rectify, but 

 at the same time takes care to tell us that " the expla- 



