a comrade.]

{282} "I have seen him
Caper upright, like a wild _Morisco_,
Shaking the bloody darts, as he his bells".

Shakespeare, _2 Henry VI_ Act iii, Sc. 1.

{283} In the reprinting of old books it is often very difficult to
determine how far the old shape in which words present themselves
should be retained, how far they should be conformed to present
usage. It is comparatively easy to lay down as a rule that in
books intended for popular use, wherever the form of the word is
not affected by the modernizing of the spelling, as where this
modernizing consists merely in the dropping of superfluous
letters, there it shall take place; as who would wish our Bibles
to be now printed letter for letter after the edition of 1611, or
Shakespeare with the orthography of the first folio; but wherever
more than the spelling, the actual shape, outline, and character
of the word has been affected by the changes which it has
undergone, that in all such cases the earlier form shall be held
fast. The rule is a judicious one; but when it is attempted to
carry it out, it is not always easy to draw the line, and to
determine what affects the form and essence of a word, and what
does not. About some words there can be no doubt; and therefore
when a modern editor of Fuller's _Church History_ complacently
announces that he has allowed himself in such changes as 'dirige'
into 'dirge', 'barreter' into 'barrister', 'synonymas' into
'synonymous', 'extempory' into 'extemporary', 'scited' into
'situated', 'vancurrier' into 'avant-courier'; he at the same time
informs us that for all purposes of the study of the English
language (and few writers are for this more important than
Fuller), he has made his edition utterly worthless. Or again, when
modern editors of Shakespeare print, and that without giving any
intimation of the fact,

"Like quills upon the fretful _porcupine_",

he having written, and in his first folio and quarto the words
standing,

"Like quills upon the fretful _porpentine_",

this being the earlier, and in Shakespeare's time the more common
form of the word [e.g. "the _purpentines_ nature" (Puttenham,
_Eng. Poesie_, 1589, p. 118, ed. Arber)], they must be considered