"Now grant my ship, that some smooth haven win her; I follow Statius first, and then Corinna."
Alas! this worst of all is Elizabeth Barrett's! "Well of English undefiled!"
In Chaucer we have—
"A Sergeant of the Lawè, ware and wise, That often hadde yben at the Parvis."
Mr Horne gives us—
"A Sergeant of the Law, wise, wary, arch! Who oft had gossip'd long in the church porch."
The word "arch" is here interpolated to give some colour to the charge of "gossiping," absurdly asserted of the learned Sergeant. The Parvis was the place of conference, where suitors met with their counsel and legal advisers; and Chaucer merely intimates thereby the extent of the Sergeant's practice. In Chaucer we have—
"In termès hadde he cas and domès alle That fro the time of King Will. weren falle."
Who does not see the propriety of the customary contraction, King Will.? Mr Horne does not; and substitutes, "since King William's reign."
Of the Frankelein Chaucer says, he was