'Whan thu seches in Here hert yreret. Than sulen Engles in three be ydeled. That han sal into Yrland altolate waie, That other into Puille mid prude bi seue, The thridde into Airhahen herd alle wreken drechegen.'"
This is evidently full of typographical errors, and may be more correctly set forth in the English edition of 1596, which I have not at hand. I therefore wish for information on these points:
1. What is the correct version of this prophecy, and where may it be found?
I need hardly say that I have no difficulty as to the first two lines: "When you see a hart reared (erected) in Here, then shall England be divided into three parts."
_A Skating Problem._--The motto of your paper is, "When found, make a note of it." Here then is one for you.
In several of my skating excursions I have observed, and noted it to others, that ice of just sufficient strength to bear any one in skates standing upon it, will instantly break if tried by the same person without having skates on. I don't know if any of your readers have made the same discovery: if so, can they explain the cause? If, on the contrary, any are incredulous enough to doubt the fact, I would recommend them to test the truth of my statement by a personal trial, before they pass a hasty judgment of the subject.
"_Rap and rend for._"--In Dryden's Prologue to _The Disappointment, or the Mother in Fashion_, we find these lines:
"Our women batten well on their good nature All they can rap and rend for the dear creature."
"All they can rap and run for" is the more frequent colloquial version of this quaint phrase.
In Chaucer's "Chanones Yeman's Tale" it stands thus:
"But wasten all that ye may rape and renne."
And to this last word Tyrwhit, in his Glossary, gives "rend?" with a mark of interrogation, as doubtful of the meaning.
Johnson gives it "rap and rend," and quotes a line of Hudibras:
"All they could rap and rend and pilfer:"
and adds, "more properly, _rap and ran_; [ræpan] Sax., to bind, and _rana_, Icelandic, to plunder."
The question is, are we to accept this phrase in the sense it is commonly used, _to seize and plunder_; or have later and better philologists mended the version?
The context in Chaucer does not seem to warrant the interpretation given by Tyrwhit. The narrator is warning his hearers against the rogueries of alchemy: