‘Prosp. Hast thou, spirit,
Performed to point the tempest that I bade thee?
Ar. In every article.’”
Neither the proposed etymology nor the illustration requires any remark from us. We will only say that point-device is excellently explained and illustrated by Wedgwood.
We will give a few more examples out of many to show Mr. Hazlitt’s utter unfitness for the task he has undertaken. In the “Kyng and the Hermyt” are the following verses,
“A wyld wey, I hold, it were
The wey to wend, I you swere,
Bot ye the dey may se,”
meaning simply, “I think it would he a wild thing (in you) to go on your way unless you wait for daylight.” Mr. Hazlitt punctuates and amends thus:—
“A wyld wey I hold it were,
The wey to wend, I you swere,
Ye bot [by] the dey may se.” (Vol. I. p. 19.)
The word bot seems a stumbling-block to Mr. Hazlitt. On page 54 of the same volume we have,
“Herd i neuere bi no leuedi
Hote hendinesse and curteysi.”
The use of the word by as in this passage would seem familiar enough, and yet in the “Hye Way to the Spittel Hous” Mr. Hazlitt explains it as meaning be. Any boy knows that without sometimes means unless (Fielding uses it often in that sense), but Mr. Hazlitt 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.”