_Unneath_ (Vol. vii., p. 631.).--It strikes me that your correspondents
MR. C. H. COOPER and E. G. R., in reply to MR. WRIGHT'S inquiry
respecting the {161} use of the word "unneath," used in Parnell's
_Fairy Tale_, have fallen into a slight mistake in supposing that the
seemingly old words used in this poem are really so. I make no doubt
that MR. HALLIWELL is correct in noting the word "unneath" as signifying
"beneath," in the _patois_ of Somerset; but I gravely suspect that
Parnell had picked up the word out of our older poets, and used it in the
passage quoted without consideration.
The true meaning of "unneath" (which is of Saxon origin, and variously
written "unnethe, unnethes") is _scarcely_, _not easily_.
Thus Chaucer says:
"The miller that for-dronken was all pale,
So that _unnethes_ upon his hors he sat."
_The Millers Prologue_, v. 3123. [Tyrwhitt.]
And again:
"Yeve me than of thy gold to make our cloistre,
Quod he, for many a muscle and many an oistre,
When other men han ben ful wel at ese
Hath been our food, our cloistre for to rese:
And yet, GOD wot, _unneth_ the fundament
Parfourmed is, ne of our pauement
N'is not a tile," &c.
_The Sompnours Tale_, v. 7685.
"Unneath," signifying _difficult_, _scarcely_, _with difficulty_, occurs
so frequently in Spenser, that it is unnecessary to burden your pages
with references. It may be remarked, however, that this latter author
occasionally employs this word in the sense of _almost_.