To this passage (tolerably plain to those not too familiar with “our early literature”) Mr. Hazlitt appends this solemn note: ‘To hold up the hand was formerly a sign of respect or concurrence, or a mode of taking an oath; and thirdly as a signal for mercy. In all these senses it has been employed from the most ancient times; nor is it yet out of practice, as many savage nations still testify their respect to a superior by holding their hand [either their hands or the hand, Mr. Hazlitt!] over their head. Touching the hat appears to be a vestige of the same custom. In the present passage the three outlaws may be understood to kneel on approaching the throne, and to hold up each a hand as a token that they desire to ask the royal clemency or favour. In the lines which are subjoined it [what?] implies a solemn assent to an oath:
‘This swore the duke and all his men,
And all the lordes that with him lend,
And tharto to[33] held they up thaire hand.’”
Minot’s Poems, ed. 1825, p. 9.
The admirable Tupper could not have done better than this, even so far as the mere English of it is concerned. Where all is so fine, we hesitate to declare a preference, but, on the whole, must give in to the passage about touching the hat, which is as good as “mobbled queen.” The Americans are still among the “savage nations” who “imply a solemn assent to an oath” by holding up the hand. Mr. Hazlitt does not seem to know that the question whether to kiss the book or hold up the hand was once a serious one in English politics.
But Mr. Hazlitt can do better even than this! Our readers may be incredulous; but we shall proceed to show that he can. In the “Schole-House of Women,” among much other equally delicate satire of the other sex (if we may venture still to call them so), the satirist undertakes to prove that woman was made, not of the rib of a man, but of a dog:—
‘And yet the rib, as I suppose,
That God did take out of the man
A dog vp caught, and a way gose
Eat it clene; so that as than
The woork to finish that God began
Could not be, as we haue said,
Because the dog the rib connaid.
A remedy God found as yet;
Out of the dog he took a rib.”
Mr. Hazlitt has a long note on way gose, of which the first sentence shall suffice us: “The origin of the term way-goose is involved in some obscurity.” We should think so, to be sure! Let us modernize the spelling and grammar, and correct the punctuation, and then see how it looks:—
“A dog up caught and away goes,
Eats it up.”
We will ask Mr. Hazlitt to compare the text, as he prints it, with
“Into the hall he gose.” (Vol. III. p. 67.)
We should have expected a note here on the “hall he-goose.” Not to speak of the point of the joke, such as it is, a goose that could eat up a man’s rib could only be matched by one that could swallow such a note,—or write it!