358 LIBRARY OF OLD AUTHORS. 



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

 lent edition of " Piers Ploughman " and the volume of 

 " Ancient Vocabularies," would have deserved the grati- 

 tude of all lovers of our literature or students of our 

 language, does not save him from the severe justice of 

 Mr. Hazlitt, nor is the name of Warton 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, Mr. Hazlitt has allowed 

 the following couplet to escape his conscientious atten- 

 tion : — 



" Next, that no gallant should not ought suppose 

 That prayers and glory 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." 



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

 that everybody knows, give us a note upon in ferrus 1 

 It would have matched his admirable elucidation of 



