368 LIBRARY OF OLD AUTHORS. 



seems unaware of the fact. In his first volume (p. 224) 



he gravely prints : — 



" They trowed verelye that she shoulde dye ; 

 With that our ladye wold her helpe and spede." 



The semicolon after dye shows that this is not a mis- 

 print, but that the editor saw no connection between the 

 first verse and the second. In the same volume (p. 

 133) we have the verse, 



" He was a grete tenement man, and ryohe of londe and lede," 



and to lede Mr. Hazlitt appends this note : " Lede, in early 

 English, is found in various significations, but here 

 stands as the plural of lad, a servant." In what con- 

 ceivable sense is it the plural of lad? And does lad 

 necessarily mean a servant ? The Promptorium has 

 ladde glossed by garcio, but the meaning servant, as in 

 the parallel cases of irait, puer, gargon, and boy, was a 

 derivative one, and of later origin. The word means 

 simply man (in the generic sense) and in the plural peo- 

 ple. So in the " Squyr of Low Degre," 



" I will forsake both land and lede" 

 and in the " Smyth and his Dame," 



" That hath both land and lytk." 

 The word was not " used in various significations." Even, 

 so lately as " Flodden Ffeild " we find, 



" He was a noble feed of high degree." 

 Connected with land it was a commonplace in German 

 as well as in English. So in the Tristan of Godfrey of 

 fetrasburg, 



„<2r <8e»a(c!) (tit 1 i 6 1 6tt»e |tn (ant 

 '.Jtii fitted marfcaKes Ijant." 



Mr. Hazlitt is more nearly right than usual when he 

 says that in the particular case cited above lede means 

 servants. But were these of only one sex ? Does he not 

 know that even in the middle of the last century when 



