It occurs in
a speech by the Pardoner, near the end, where he is praising one of his
relics:-- {210}
"I wyll edefy more, with the syght of it
Than wyll all the pratynge of holy wryt;
For that except that the precher, hym selfe lyue well,
His predycacyon wyll helpe neuer a dell,
And I know well, that thy lyuynge is nought:
_Thou art an apostata, yf it were well sought_,
An homycyde thou art I know well inoughe," &c.
The line omitted is the more remarkable, because it contains an instance
of the employment of a word very old in our language, and in use in the
best periods of our prose and poetry: "apostata" is explained in the
_Promptorium_, is found in Skelton and Heywood, and so down to the time
of Massinger, who was especially fond of it.
How many copies were issued of Smeeton's reprint of _The Pardoner and
the Frere_, I know not; but any of your readers, who chance to possess
it, will do well to add the absent line in the margin, so that the
mistake may be both rectified and recorded. I was not aware of Mr.
Child's intention to re-publish the interlude in the United States, or I
would long ago have sent him the correction, as indeed I did, a day or
two after I received his volume.
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