OBSOLETE WORDS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—You sometimes, I think, record local survivals of generally obsolete words. One such I chanced on here the other day. An old woman, speaking to me of an inflamed wound on her husband's leg, said : " It's as red as that there glede," and pointed to a glowing coal in the grate. The word was quite new to me then, though perhaps it ought not to
have been so ; but curiously enough I came across it again the same day in " The Vision of Piers the Plowman," in the noble passage :—
"Have mercy in thy mind—and with thy month beseech it, For Goddes Mercy is more—than all his other works,
And all the wickedness of the world—that man might work or think, Is no more to the mercy of God—than in the sea a glade."
—I am, Sir, &c., WRAY W. HUNT.
Wilnecote, Tamworth, September 23rd.
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