And by that musick let us all embrace:
For here on earth, some of us never shall
A second time do such a courtesy."
If it should be thought that here on could not well be mistaken, even in MS., for heaven to, I reply that stranger misreadings of the compositor could be easily adduced; and that even in the preceding page we have one at any rate more wide of the mark, where supposition is printed in both the folios for suspicion.
How this extraordinary reading should have hitherto escaped suspicion, I am at a loss to imagine, and feel assured that no one who is competent to enter into the spirit of this exquisitely conceived passage, which breathes the true expression of heroic pathos, will attempt a vindication of the old reading.
Minor Notes.
"Thirty days hath September."
—The unknown author of Thirty days hath September may be fairly described as the most popular versifier in the history of English literature. I believe he was rather a translator than an author, and that both the Latin text and the English version are of very early date. Be it as it may, no one can dispute its merit as a specimen of mnemonic verse.
On the list of claimants to the honour in question it is my wish to place, but without advocating the cause of either, 1. Richard Grafton, citizen of London; and 2. Arthur Hopton, A.B. Oxon., the "miracle of his age for learning."