[280] [‘Dirige’ was the first word of the antiphon at matins in the Office for the Dead, taken from Psalm v, 9 (Vulg.), in which occur the words “dirige in conspectu tuo vitam meam”. See Skeat, Piers Plowman, ii, 52. Hence also Scotch dregy, a dirge.]
[281] [Incorrect: the ‘mid-wife’ is etymologically she that is with (old English mid) a woman to help her in her hour of need, like German bei-frau, Spanish co-madre, Icelandic naer-kona, “near-woman”, Latin ob-stetrix, “by-stander”, all words for the lying-in nurse. Compare German mit-bruder, a comrade.]
“I have seen him
Caper upright, like a wild Môrisco,
Shaking the bloody darts, as he his bells”.
Shakespeare, 2 Henry VI Act iii, Sc. 1.
[283] In the reprinting of old books it is often very difficult to determine how far the old shape in which words present themselves should be retained, how far they should be conformed to present usage. It is comparatively easy to lay down as a rule that in books intended for popular use, wherever the form of the word is not affected by the modernizing of the spelling, as where this modernizing consists merely in the dropping of superfluous letters, there it shall take place; as who would wish our Bibles to be now printed letter for letter after the edition of 1611, or Shakespeare with the orthography of the first folio; but wherever more than the spelling, the actual shape, outline, and character of the word has been affected by the changes which it has undergone, that in all such cases the earlier form shall be held fast. The rule is a judicious one; but when it is attempted to carry it out, it is not always easy to draw the line, and to determine what affects the form and essence of a word, and what does not. About some words there can be no doubt; and therefore when a modern editor of Fuller’s Church History complacently announces that he has allowed himself in such changes as ‘dirige’ into ‘dirge’, ‘barreter’ into ‘barrister’, ‘synonymas’ into ‘synonymous’, ‘extempory’ into ‘extemporary’, ‘scited’ into ‘situated’, ‘vancurrier’ into ‘avant-courier’; he at the same time informs us that for all purposes of the study of the English language (and few writers are for this more important than Fuller), he has made his edition utterly worthless. Or again, when modern editors of Shakespeare print, and that without giving any intimation of the fact,
“Like quills upon the fretful porcupine”,
he having written, and in his first folio and quarto the words standing,
“Like quills upon the fretful porpentine”,
this being the earlier, and in Shakespeare’s time the more common form of the word [e.g. “the purpentines nature” (Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, 1589, p. 118, ed. Arber)], they must be considered as taking a very unwarrantable liberty with his text; and no less, when they substitute ‘Kenilworth’ for ‘Killingworth’, which he wrote, and which was his, Marlowe’s, and generally the earlier form of the name.