“Jack Carter prays you all that ye make a good end of that ye have begun, and do well, and still better and better; for at the even men near the day. If the end be well, then is all well. Let Piers the ploughman dwell at home, and dyght us corn. Look that Hobbe the robber be well chastised. Stand manly together in truth, and help the truth, and truth shall help you.”
[3] Sir Francis Palgrave’s “Rise and Progress of the English Common wealth;” Proofs and Illustrations, ccxiii.
[4] This letter to the translator Hoby has been passed over by those who collected the few letters of the learned Cheke; and, what seems strange, appears only in the first edition of Hoby’s translation, having been omitted in the subsequent editions. Perhaps the translator was not enamoured of his excellent critic.
[5] Sir Thomas Wilson’s “Arte of Rhetoric,” 1553.
[6] Spenser’s protest against the Innovators of Language may be seen in his “Three Letters,” which are preserved unmutilated in Todd’s “Spenser;” they are deficient in Hughes’ edition.
[7] Heylin’s “Observations on the Historie of the Reign of King Charles.” L’Estrange’s rejoinder may be found in the second edition of his History.
[8] “Alvearie, or quadruple Dictionary of Four Languages,” 1580.
[9] “The English Dictionary, or an Interpreter of Hard English Words,” by H. C., gent., 1658. The eleventh and twelfth editions are before me. The last, edited by another person, is not so copious as the former. In Cockram’s own edition we have a first “Book” of his “Hard Words,” followed by a second of what he calls “Vulgar Words,” which are English. The last editor has wholly omitted the second part. Of the first part, or the “Hard Words,” Cockram observes that “They are the choicest words now in use, and wherewith our language is enriched and become so copious, to which words the common sense is annexed.” [See note on this Dictionary, with some few specimens of its contents, in “Curiosities of Literature,” vol. iii.]
