In answer to Dr. Todd's inquiries, I would say, first of all, the
"rehatours" of Douglas and the other Scots are beside his question, and
a totally different word. Feelings cherished in the mind will recur from
time to time; and those malevolent persons, who thus retain them, were
said to _re-hate_, as they are now said to re-sent.
But the verb really in question is, _per se_, a perfectly plain one, to
re-heat. The difficulty is as to its use. The primary use, of course, is
to _heat again_. The nearest secondary use is "to cherish, cheer, or
comfort, to refocillate;" which is too plain to require more words.
Another secondary meaning is "to re-vive or to re-kindle" in its
metaphoric sense. This may be said well, as of life, health, or hope; or
ill, as of war, hatred, grief; or indifferently, as of love. What
difficulty Mr. Tyrwhitt could find in "the revival of Troilus's bitter
grief" being called "the reheating of his sore sighs," I cannot imagine.
Even literal heat is not wanting to sighs, and is often ascribed to them
by poets: and lovers' sighs are warm in every sense. I think Tyrwhitt
has thrown upon this passage the only darkness that involves it.
Now comes the more difficult point, which alone concerns Dr. Todd in his
highly interesting labours upon Wycliffe. And the method which, until
better advised, I should be inclined to follow with those passages, is
to take the word nearly, though not exactly, in what seems to have been
its most usual sense; not indeed for comforters or cherishers, but for
those who promote comfort and convenience, viz., ministers or servants.
It does not at all follow, because he is blaming the introduction of
these persons as expensive, superfluous, and otherwise evil, that he
describes them by a word expressive of evil. As a ministering angel
would be a reheting angel, so I take a rehetor here to be simply a
minister, one who waits upon your occasions and serves you.