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A Student's Pastime, a Select Ser. of Articles Repr. From 'notes and Queries'.
A Student's Pastime a Select Ser of Articles Repr From 'notes and Queries' Author:Walter William Skeat General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1896 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: ' God lene hym werken as he can devyse.' Trail, and Crestide. ii. 7. ' God true us for to lake it for the best.' Ibid. v. 1749. Morris prints lene. Moxon prints /eve, but Tyrwhitt has lene in his Glossary (s. v. ' Leveth'), in all three instances. The three instances in Havelok occur in similar exclamations, in the forms ' God leue,' or ' Crist leue,' and Halliwell need not have called such a spelling absurd. The quotations from the Ormu/um entirely establish the phrase. Lastly, by way of a crucial test, take Pierce the Ploughman's Crede. I regret that I have, in all four places, printed lene in the text. Yet, strictly speaking, there are two instances of lene, in lines 445, 741 ; and two of leue, in lines 366, 573, where the phrase is 'God leue,'etc. And now observe a circumstance that clinches the whole result. In lines 445 and 741 all three copies of the Crede have lene; but in lines 366 and 573 the best MS. can be read either way; the British Museum MS. has /eve, and the old printed edition has leue, as shown by my footnotes. Surely future editors of Chaucer ought to note these corrections. Of course I have not taken into consideration here the other senses of the word leue, viz. (i) to believe, (2) to leave, and (3) dear. Curiously enough, all these three occur in one line : -- ' What I leuestow, leue lemman, that i the leue wold ?' William o/Palertit, 2358. 46. Porcelain (4 S. ii. 155 ; 1868). Mr. Wedgwood derives this from ' Ptg. porcellana, china ware, said to be so called from the surface being like that of i« less