WIDENER LIBRARY
HX 29WK R




TAS
HARVARD
COLLEGE
LIBRARY








Wong "66"
RAMBLES AMONG WORDS:
THEIR POETRY, HISTORY AND WISDOM.
BY
WILLIAM SWINTON.
POLONICS.-What do you read, my lord!
LAJLXT.-Words, Words, Words.
Hamlet
eroa W. lung.
Leon
REVISED EDITION.
NEW YORK :
DION THOMAS, 142 NASSAU STREET.
1864.


In compliance with current
copyright law, LBS Archival
Products produced this
replacement volume on paper
that meets the ANSI Standard
239.48-1984 to replace the
irreparably deteriorated
original.
1991





PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.
These pages present some fifteen hundred illustrations
of the Poetry, History and Wisdom of Words. For it
has dawned on the thought of modern times that Lan-
guage, too, is a living organism. Language is indeed
the grand spiritual fact of humanity. In speech man
incarnates himself. It paints—as I have elsewhere
said-humanity, its thoughts, struggles, longings: paints
them on a canvas of breath, in the colors of life.
Of the themes around which I clustered any illustra-
tions, those on the WORDS OF THE Sexses, the IDEALISM
OF Words, Words or Abuse, and the FANCIFCI. AND
FANTASTIC IN WORDS, will be found new constructions
of the philosophy of the English Language. Finally,
in the explorations of regions already in a measure
entered on, as in the Historical and Ethical elements in
words—I have directed my researches into new fields ;
and of the fifteen hundred Words which the Rambles
illustrate, the vast majority have never before been used
in the way of etymologic illustration.


PROGRAMME.
Ramble first.
PAOB
.
.
.
.
.
.
V
.
.
.
.
.
56
.
.
.
.
.
.
109
109
Premonitory, . . . . . .
Ramble Second.
The Work of the Senses, . . . .
Bamble Third.
The Idealism of Words, . . . .
Ramble Fourth.
Fossil Poetries, . . . . .
Ramble fifth.
Fossil Histories, . . . . .
Ramble Sixth.
Words of Abuse, . . . . .
Ramble Sebenth.
Fancies and Fantastics,
. .
Ramble Eighth.
Verbal Ethics, . . . . . .
Ramble Ninih.
Medals in Names, . . . . .
Bamble Tenth.
Synonyms and their Suggestions, . .
Ramb’e Elebenth.
The Growth of Words, . . . .
Ramble Twilfth.
English in America, . . . . .
.
.
.
. 189
. .
.
.
.
176
.
.
200
.
.
.
230
.
.
.
265
. . .
.
.
286


RAMBLE FIRST.
PREMONITORY.
JOHN STERLING records that when about nine years
old he was struck that the word sincere was derived
from the practice of filling up flaws in furniture with
wax, whence sine cera came to mean pure, not vamped
up. This explanation he says gave him great plea-
sure and abode in his memory as having first shown
him that there is a reason in Words as well as in
things.
I suppose many of us are conscious of having made
similar pleasurable discoveries. With what exultation
have I many a time welcomed the flashing across my
mind of the interior import of a word, revealing some
deep analogy or subtle beauty or furnishing a new
and pungent pointing to some old moral. Nor can I
imagine it possible to awaken without a thrill of
delight to the first consciousness of such meanings as
are wrapt up in 'WRONG,' which is just something


WORDS-MEDALS OF THE MIND.
They are the sanctuary of the intuitions. They paint
humanity, its thoughts, longings, aspirations, struggles,
failures-paint them on a canvas of breath, in the
colors of life.
To the illustration of the opulences of Words I
design these pages: with Runic spells to evoke the
pagan wanderers from their homes in the visionary
eld—to read some of the strange lessons they teach,
to catch of the wit and the wisdom, the puns and the
poetries, the philosophies, the fancies and the follies
that lurk in and flash out from them, and to seize,
flaming down, as it were, from the "firmament of
bards and sages," some of the deep analogies, the
spiritual significance, the poctic beauty and the rich
humor that sport and dwell in even our common,
every-day words and phrases.
Of course we shall ramble, now chasing some gay
etymologic butterfly, anon lingering 'ncath the palm
and plantain of genius or lonely wandering 'mid
The intelligible forms of ancient poets,
The fair humanities of old religion,
The power, the beauty and the majesty
That have their haunts in dale or piny mountains,
Or forest, by slow stream or pebbly spring,
Or chasms and watery depths.


10
PREMONITORY.
Medals of the mind we may call words. And as
the medals of creation from the Geologic world reveal
the workings of creative energy and the successive
developments of the divine idea, so Words present a
humanitary Geology where histories, philosophies and
ethics lie embodied and embalmed. But this is a
spiritual Geology, its strata built up of the rich
deposits of mind. With passionate fervor man pours
himself on nature. An irrepressible longing to
express his secret sense of his unity with nature pos-
sesses him: and from the consciousness, all plastic and
aglow, rush Words, infinitely free, rich and varied,
laden with pathos and power, with passion, poetry,
humor, thought.
Of course Language is a living Original. It is not
made but grows. The growth of language repeats the
growth of the plant. At first it is only root: next
it puts forth a stem, then leaves, and finally blossoms.
“ One must not," writes William Von Humboldt, “con.
sider a language as a product dead and formed but
once: it is an animate being and ever creative. Hu.
man thought elaborates itself with the progress of
intelligence; and of this thought language is a mani-
festation. An idiom cannot therefore remain station-
ary: it walks, it develops, it grows up, it fortifies itself,
it becomes old and it reaches decrepitude."


LANGUAGE A LIVING ORGANISM.
11
Language must move with the movements of mind,
as the ocean obeys siderial influences. A petrified and
mechanical national mind will certainly appear in a
petrified and mechanical language. But the provisions
are perfect. The renovation of language is provided
for, as the renovation of the races is provided for, by
a subtle chemistry. The sublime democracy of speech !
When a tongue has become dead and effete, the mind
walks out of it. With an advance in the national
mind—with the influx of a nobler spirit, comes a re.
novation of its language: by a passionate propulsive
movement it ejects its old dead speech, and riscs to
larger and freer expression. Like the waters in spring,
the rising spirit sweeps away the frozen surface of an
effete society, literature, language and thought.
The great tidal movements in a nation's life are
repeated in great tidal movements in its language.
With new creations, thoughts and hopes emerge new
demands on the horizon of its speech. The English
language shows in its growth crises that mark real
upsurgings from the spontaneous depths of human
nature. In Chaucer is embalmed that rich primitive
sensuous perception of English life, when the language
became so opulent in expressions of sensible objects
and simple feelings. The flood-tide in the national
mind that came with the Sixteenth Century finds


12
PREMONITORY.
expression in the Elizabethan literature, especially in
Shakespeare in whom English reached its truly mo-
dern mould. And the vast billowy tendencies of mo-
dern life, too—the new political, social, scientific births
-are making new demands on the English idiom. It
is for America especially to evoke new realizations
from the English speech. Always waiting in a lan-
guage are untold possibilities. On the lips of the people,
in the free rich unconscious utterance of the popular
heart are the grand eternal leadings and suggestions.
Of all the heritages which America receives the
English language is beyond all comparison the might-
iest. Language of the grand stocks, language of
reception, of hospitality, it is above all fitted to be the
speech for America. There is nothing fortuitous in
language. It is for reasons the English idiom is here.
In the English, more than all others, was concentrated
the spirit of the modern, breaking up the old crystal-
line classic mould. It is for America grandly to use
this grand inheritance. No language has, no language
ever had, such immense assimilation as the English.
Freely it absorbs whatever is of use to it, absorbs and
assimilates it to its own fluid and flexible substance.
This rich copious hospitable flow is to be encouraged.
In the growth of Words all the activities of the


METAPHYSICS OF LANGUAGE..
13
mind conspire. Language is the mirror of the living
inward consciousness. Language is concrete meta-
physics. What rays does it let in on the mind's
subtle workings! There is more of what there is
of essential in metaphysics—more of the structural
action of the human mind, in Words, than in the con-
certed introspection of all the psychologists. “In
language," observes Frederick Schlegel in a profoundly
suggestive passage, “all the principal powers have a
nearly equal part and share. The grammatical structure
is furnished by the reason. From the fancy, on the
other hand, is derived whatever is figurative; and how
far does not this reach, extending into the primary and
natural signification of words, which often no longer
exists, or at least is rarely traceable? And so also that
deep spiritual significance, that characteristic meaning,
which in the original stem-syllable and radical words
of some rich old language, invariably is regarded as a
beauty, must be ascribed to the understanding, which
so profoundly scizes and precisely designates whatever
is peculiar, unless perhaps it is preferred to assign it
to an immediate feeling which wonderfully harmonizes
with or responds to it."
In our studies on Words, then, a simple logic is
indicated for us in the several mental activities that
work in the mechanism of speech. Through the por.


14
PREMONITORY.
tals of the Senses enter the vivid presentings of nature.
On these the constructive Reason, the idealizing Im.
agination, the ethical Conscience work. Of this
working words are the records. Hence their warranty.
This it is that gives them their authority as profound
moral teachers, and amber-like, embalms within them
great and noble poetries, histories and philosophies.
It may not be amiss to throw out a few illustrations
of the treasures hoarded in Words. Such intimations
may serve the office of the overture—that is, may
strike fundamental chords.
A law that runs through the warp and woof of
language is the familiar principle of a translation of
sensible perceptions into the realm of ideas, into meta
physics and morals.
We are all conscious of a psychologic state when
the mind is balancing between conflicting possibilities,
when, as Dante has it,
Il si e il no nel capo mi tenzoni,
when “Yes and No contend within the head.” Now
how faithfully has the common intuition embodied this
condition in our "SUSPENSE,' which is indeed the
being—suspensushung up, balancing in deliberation,
And its analogue 'DELIBERATION,' which I have just
used, follows a like figure—it being just the action of


TREASURES HOARDED IN WORDS. 15
that mental balance-libra-into which possibilities
and probabilities are thrown. Our word 'AUSPICIOUS'
embalms a curious reminiscence of the good omens of
the auspex, or bird-inspector, whom the old-world
nations were wont to consult as oracles ; while 'FISCAL'
carries a reminder of the fiscus or wicker basket which
in primitive times contained the revenue of the state.
So 'FRUGAL' is strictly fruit-bearing, "CANDOR' is
just whiteness, and 'SERIOUS' (sine risus) is the being
unable to raise a laugh.
History, too, and vivid and vital history records
itself in Words. The coal in my grate is pictured
with ferns that flourished untold millennia ago. With
equal fidelity national customs, historic events and
mighty social revolutions are indelibly stamped on
word-medals.
What a curious piece of history does 'PECUNIARY'
record! The Latin pecunia, wealth, property, gives it
to us. Unwrapping it still farther we come to pecus,
cattle, herds : so that, flocks and herds being in primi-
tive and pastoral times the chief wealth, pecunia
became afterwards the expression for all the represen-
tatives of property. What a strange tale, too, does
SAUNTER' tell! The Crusades rise at the spell.
Saunt and Terre—the holy land—is the composition of
the term : and so, literally, a going to the Holy Land.


16
PREMONITORY.
But as this originally meritorious performance soon
degenerated in many cases into the mere pretence for
idling and mendicity, the claim of going to the Saunt
terre came to be regarded as a mere ruse, and 'SAUN-
TER' took the opprobrious burden it now bears with
it. I have here but space to mention the word 'WIFE,'
whose etymologic connection with weave, web, etc.,
records an interesting piece of primitive socialism.
Nor less has the informing fancy interwoven its
fairy imaginings in Words. The Grotesque and Ara-
besque are here, too. “Hocus-POCUS' for instance, is
said to be a monkish muddle for Hoc est corpus Christi
(the formula, This is the body, etc.). A ‘NOSTRUM'
preserves the claim of the Mediæval quacks to their
specifics as being—nostrum—ours, that is remedies
unknown to all the rest of the world: and to be in a
'QUANDARY’ is just to be in a pickle where you may
well ask, qu'en dira-t-on-what will they say to it ?
Marvelous are the modes in which the word-forming
faculties have labored to give to terms burdens of
abuse. The very anatomy of the human passions is
to be found here. I may instance ‘RASCAL' whose
primary signification is, in the words of Verstegan, *
an “il favoured leane and woorthelesse deer," and
* Restitution of Decayed Intelligence.


HISTORY AND MORALS IN WORDS.
17
then, by a "strayned sence" applied to a mean vile
fellow—the worst of the herd. Genial old Rogei
Ascham has a pungent illustration of the primary
meaning of rascal:
“A father that doth let loose his son to all experiences is
most like a fond hunter (that is, a foolish hunter) that letteth slip
a whelp to the whole herd; twenty to one he sball fall upon a
rascall (that is, "a leane woorthlesse deer ') and let go the fair
game."
The Scholemaster.
'FANATIC,' too, is well worth exploring. The
Roman fanaticus was simply one ardently attached to
the fana or temples. But as these devotees carried
their superstitious observances to outragcous lengths,
as lacerating themselves with knives, and so forth, the
term naturally came to assume the opprobrious mean.
ing it bears with us. As to "VIXEN' that is just a
fox-en-she fox, and 'BLACKGUARD' shuts up a
curious piece of English history, of which more anon.
The Morals in Words! Language is man's own
judge. Minos and Rhadamanthus are here. Terrible
the tales they often tell of human frailty and
depravity; grand often are they in their beautiful
scorn of the mean and ignoble. How fine the allusion
conveyed in "WORSHIP,' which is indeed just one's


18
PREMONITORY.
worth-ship! 'DECENT,' too, tells us how becoming-
decens—is the quality. And what a terrible sentence
is heaped on all pride, on
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
in the fact that 'VANITY' (vanitas, vanus, empty) is
but emptiness !
I find, however, I am running these premonitory
thoughts into the very pith of the book, so here I
shall abruptly close. But I read the other day in the
Cratylus of Plato an utterance of that old Socratic
brain, so subtle, so genial; and which I find after the
lapse of these twenty-odd centuries still so authentic
and intelligible that I cannot resist transferring it to
my page.
"O Hermogenes, son of Hipponicus, there is an
old proverb, that beautiful things are somehow diffi-
cult to learn. Now the learning relating to names
happens to be no small affair. I would not myself,
Cratylus, confidently assert a single point of what I
have said above. But I have considered with Her.
mogenes in the way it seemed good to me, so that on
this account, at least, speak boldly, as I am ready to


PLATO ON WORDS.
19
receive it, if you have anything better to say than
this. Nor shall I wonder if you have something to
say better; for you seem to me to have considered
things of this kind yourself, and to have learned them
from others. Should you, then, say anything better,
write me down as one of your disciples respecting the
meaning of Words."


RAMBLE SECOND.
THE WORK OF THE SENSES.
"Speech is the perfect expression of the Senses. Words are
but the representations of the disintegrated body of Man."
OKEN.
SYDNEY SMITH has somewhere an amusing passage
illustrative of the radical sensualism that underlies
our most supersensual terms, wherein alluding to our
æsthetic application of such expressions as 'taste,'
'tact' (from the Latin verb to touch), 'eye,' etc., he
observes that we will doubtless soon come to speak
of a man with a fine 'nose' for this or that province
of physics or philosophy.
Extravagance aside, the Senses have certainly left
their seal and superscription, sharp, unmistakable, on
the words of our language. The rôle they fill in the
body forthshadows their part and play in speech.
Roots of man's nature-outlets and inlets of the world


SENSUALISM OF LANGUAGE.
21
-their vivid, strong-flavored presentings run spine.
like through language. “SENSIBLE' is but a lively
condition of the senses or feelings, 'APATHY’ is want
of feeling—'GUSTO' is an idealization of rich juicy
taste—'TACT' is delicacy of touch, the "TANGIBLE' is
what can be touched—'RANK' and 'NASTY' have both
a far-off genesis in terms implying the nose—and
'ACUTENESS' is properly just sharpness of hearing.
How copiously, too, has the Eye contributed! "CIR-
CUMSPECTION,' for instance, is a careful looking (specio)
around on all sides (circum), hence mental wariness-
PERSPICUOUS' is what is readily to be seen through-
and 'ENVY' finely seizes that askance look which is
the natural manifestation of this passion.
Everywhere man finds himself. Himself, himself !
He darts responsive rays to nature. Civilization is
but the crystallization into fact of the human faculties
and functions. The practical arts are but an expanded
Hand: telescope and microscope are realizations of
the structure of the Eye: he adds boots of swiftness
to his feet in railroads and steam navigation : and his
nervous system is repeated, after sublime proportions,
in the electric threads with which he is now reticu-
lating the planet.
All words are primarily sympathetic. Words
are born of a passionate yearning. And it is through


22
WORK OF THE SENSES
the Senses that the mind goes out to nature: these the
filaments and outreachings—these the subtle threads
that link phenomena and the mind. I find an impres-
sive testimony to this primary law of language in the
word 'THOUGHT.' Evidently enough it is an abstraction
from the verb to think (Saxon, thencan, past part.
thoht), which Horne Tooke* deduces from thing—I
am thing.ed, Me thinketh, that is Me thingeth—pre-
cisely analogous to the Latin "REOR' from res—
derivations that may intimate the extent to which
things color thoughts.
It is an interesting illustration of how intellectual
conceptions are but a translation of sensible perceptions
that the word 'WITS’ was formerly used as synonymous
with 'SENSES,' a meaning which we can appreciate
from the phrase, to be 'OUT OF ONE'S WITS,' that is,
to be out of one's senses. It also intimates a curious
piece of metaphysics : as though the sole 'source of
wit and wisdom were through the avenues of the senses.
In Chaucer I find the following instance of its
employment:
" Thou hast don sinne again oure Lord Crist, for certes the
three enemies of mankind, that is to sayn, the flesh, the fend,
and the world, thou hast suffred hem entre into thin herte wil-
* Diversions of Purley, p. 608.


SENSE AND FEELING.
fully by the windowes of thy body, and hast not defended
thyself suffisantly agcin hir assautes and hir temptations, so
that they han wounded thy soule in five places, this is to sayn,
the dedly sinnes that ben entred into thyn herte by thy five
wittes," etc.
Tale of Melibeus.*
And how terribly does this passage find realization
in our "SENSUAL,' that is, a devotion of all the powers
to the service of the senses—a devotion, which Goethe
has embodied with such terrific power in the creation
of Mephistophiles.
On the other hand, what a noble redemption is found
in the word 'SENSE,' which simply means feeling, as
though only a man of feeling were a man of 'sensc.'
And certes between the man of noble heart and he of
great good sense, there is a close enough connection. To
what lofty statement of this thought did Swedenborg
rise in his august and oracular utterance that "the
quality of one's life is the quality of his love !" And
perhaps there is a profounder veracity than we might be
apt to suppose in the old maxim: Quantum sumus
scimus. At least it might do us no harm to have a
little more faith in heart-tellings and a little less in the
mere dictates of mortality.
* Tyrwhitt's Chaucer, vol. ïi. p. 284.


24
WORK OF THE SENSES.
“We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths ;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs."
So saith Festus. And so did the Boy through child
hood's long, various, agonizing years, away far up ir.
the “green, airy Pentlands,"lulled by the mellow music
of thy dashing waters, thou loveliest waterfa' of Hab-
bies How. Then he measured time, not by the rigid
exactitude of days and weeks and months and years;
but years by the springing of the primroses on the
sun-kissed bracs; and months and weeks and days, by
the exuberance of his emotions,—and that was
boundless.
The gustatory propensities of mankind have left
significant seals on Words. Thus, we express one of
our strongest mental repugnances by 'DISGUST,' that
is just ‘DISTASTE'; while everything that is unsyste-
matic and chaotic in intellect finds expression in
"CRUDITY' which is simply the being-crudus--
uncooked. "PALATE,' also, we employ in the same
sense as taste: thus, “men of nice palates could not
relish Aristotle as dressed up by the schoolmen.” How
utterly sensuous! Shakespeare, however, follows in
the same direction :
“Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude,
I have no relish of them.”


THE SENSE OF TASTE.
Now, of the force of 'RELISI,' we all have a keen
cnough appreciation; but our unexpressed, passive
understanding of it is brought out in alto relievo by
Minsheu's etymology thereof, from relecher—that
which is so pleasing to the palate as to tempt one to
lick his lips !
CAUSTIC,' 'MORDANT' and 'PIQUANT' have also
a like reference to the sense of taste, and sufficiently
explain themselves, in their burning, biting and stinging
allusions. “SAUCY 'is just salsus, salted: saucy 'talk
is therefore talk too highly peppered with salt-in gen-
eral, too “spicy. And 'RACY' always reminds us of
the root whence it springs. Thus Cowley's
“Rich, racy verses in which we
The soil from which they come, taste, smell and sec."
"SAVORY' and 'INSIPID' are both from one root-
sapio, to taste: the one signifying "tasty' and the
other tasteless;' while the highest intellectual endow-
ments can result in nothing more exalted than a man
of 'SAPIENCE,' which is also just a man of taste. So,
too, our Parisians have sublimated their conceptions
of all that is highest in modes or morals into their 'BON
GOÛT.' But this is not much to be wondered at, since
they are constitutionally rather Epicurean in their
аге с
rea


26
WORK OF THE SENSES.
philosophy; and it is so natural, with the smack of Clos-
Vougeot or Chateau-Lafitte on the lips, to transfer
the figure, not without gusto, to one's æsthetic judg-
ments. However, so be it: since De gustibus non est
disputandum.
Now besides all this, we are acquainted with at least
one northern European nation (not to mention the
Chinese), who hold that the soul lies in the abdomen,
and in whose language those two distinctly divergent
facts—soul and stomach, find expression in one and
the same term. Moreover the Greck for mind-
PIIREN—is (what is remarkable for so introspective a
race) that which also expresses midrif or diaphragm !
What a lesson do these words read us on the gas-
tronomic proclivities of our race! Should we not join
in the pious cjaculation of Dan Chaucer ?
“ Adam, our father, and his wif also,
Fro Paradis to labour and to wo,
W'cre driven for that vice, it is no drede.
For while that Adam fasted, as I rede,
He was in Paradis, and whan that he
Ete of the fruit defended on a tree,
Anon he was outcast to wo and peine.
O glotonie, on thee wel ought us plaine !"
The Pardoneres Tale.*
* Tyrwhitt's Chaucer, vol. ii. p. 182.


WORDS OF THE EYE.
27
NTASI
UAN
LANT
The contributions from the sense of Sight are
numerous and interesting. Nor will they, if ques-
tioned, yield less significant replies than such as have
just engaged our attention. 'FANCY,' • PHANTASY'
(fantasy), "FANTASTICAL, PHANTOM,' 'PHANTASM,'
‘PHASE' and · PHENOMENA ' are all drawn from the
Greek verb to see to seem, to appear-phaino: "FANCY'
and 'PHANTASY' being the image-forming faculty ;
PHANTOM' and 'PIIANTASM' mere images, spectres
(specio, to see); 'PHASE' an aspect, and 'PHENOMENA'
being but the apparent, the seeming, in opposition to
the absolute, the real (reulis, having relation to things-
res). "THEORY' and 'SPECULATION ' have an analo.
gous origin, both of them implying a contemplating
abstractly, without reference to the practical. Shakes-
pcare furnishes an instance of the use of “SPECULA-
TION' in its primary sense of sight:
“ Thou hast no speculation in those eyes ;"
and 'SPECULATION' in its commercial application has
reference to the keen look-out that is required to take
advantage of ups and downs of the market. "VISION-
ARY' should be mentioned in the same connection,
implying as it does the being given to indulging in
mere vague visions. And 'PROVIDENCE' is precisely
fore-sight: while, applied to deity, it is indicative of


THE SENSE OF SIGHT.
29
"SEER,' again, is simply one who sees—a see-er-
whose Eye has been unsealed to the "open secret” of
the universe, in Fichte's grand thought-a secret
hidden from the wise and prudent in their own
imaginings), and yet revealed'-revelounveiled to
those exercising the faith and the humility of babes.
Nor does there exist the problem for which benign
Nature will not give the response, will we but wisely
and trustingly interrogate her. For we know that she
"Never did betray
The heart that loved her."
"The answer lies around, written in all colors and motions,
uttered in all tones of jubilee and wail, in thousand-figured,
thousand-voiced, harmonious nature; but where is the cunning
eye to whom that God-written apocalypse will yield articulate
mcaning? We sit as in a boundless phantasmagoria and dream-
grotto; boundless, for the faintest star, the remotest century, lies
not even nearer the verge thereof; sounds and varied-colored
visions flit around our sense; but Him, the unslumbering, whose
work both dream and dreainer are, we see not-except in rare,
half-waking inoments, suspect not.”.
Sartor Resartus.
Sight is the most spiritual of the senses. Through
Sight the structure of the world is revealed. Through
it the perception of identity, growths, processes, vistas.
TIence the breadth of the significance of this sense in


WORK OF THE SENSES.
the nomenclature of Science. If Sight carries with it
the architecture of the world, Sound brings the uni-
versal solvent which whirls matter back to primal
æther. In melody Nature whispers to man the secret
confessions of her plan. Oken asserts that melody
is the voice of the universe whereby it proclaims its
scheme or its innermost essence. They at least know
this who have felt the mystical o'ermastering of
Music. Music is a passionate yearning after more
primeval natures.
The contributions of the Senses to Words are by
no means exhausted. But the principle does not lead
far. It is when the creative Reason, the idealizing
Imagination begin their work, loading words with
new burdens of ineaning, that the master-workings of
the mind in speech appear. And for a thicory of
speech somewhat progressive is required.


RAMBLE THIRD.
THE IDEALISM OF WORDS.
"Rendering apparent the images of unapparent natures
And inscribing the unapparent in the apparent frame of the
world."
ZOROASTER.
MAN is an idealist. Of this idealism Language is a
primitive expression. For Nature, too, is emblematic.
There is that subtle consanguinity between Nature
and the Soul that the laws of man's mentality have
the power to unlock the phenoinena of the world.
There is a saying reported of Zoroaster, and coming
from the deeps of forty centuries, that “the congrui.
ties of material forms to the laws of the soul are divine
allurements,” and that was a sublime audacity of
Paracelsus that “those who would understand the
course of the heavens above must first of all recognize
the heaven in man."
With passionate profusion Nature pours her


32
IDEALISM OF WORDS.
splendid solicitations on man. Flood and firmament,
light and night, bird and flower, woo him with their
sweet eternal persuasions:
"A rainbow, a sunbeam,
A subtle smell that spring unbinds,
Dead pause abrupt of midnight winds,
An echo or a dream,"—
all speak to the listening soul a strange yet unmis.
takable language; and to me, even
“The ineanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do oſten lie too deep for tcars."
This idealism of language rests on no whim, but is
a primary and necessary fact. Up from the core of
nature comes this wondrous symbolism. Words are
emblematic because things are emblematic. And as
Nature stands the splendid fable of spirit, so the
informing Imagination converts the language of out-
ward phenomena into types of the mind. There is no
term applied to a metaphysical or moral fact but
which, when opened up, is found to be the translation
of some fact in nature. "FERVOR' simply means
heat; "TRACTABLE,' that may be drawn along;
'ABUNDANCE' images an overflowing cup and 'TRANS-
GRESSION' is the crossing of the line that divides right


ALLEGORY OF LANGUAGE.
from wrong. In like manner, when we speak of
one's taking 'UMBRAGE' we simply idealize a shadow,
umbra—the dark shade that passes over one's mind.
*SUPERCILIOUS' is a picturesque translation of the
act of raising the eyebrows or supercilium—the natural
expression of hauteur. And a 'SCRUPLE' (of con-
science) is a vivid rendering of the scrupulus or little
bits of gravel that used to get into the very open
shoes of the Romans, and produce trouble and
hesitancy.
This allegory runs through the warp and woof of
language. It is a primary act of the word-forming
faculties, which take up a natural syinbol and enshrine
for ever within it a thought. Let us trace some of
the workings of this wondrous law.
What an image of fractious human passions must
have filled the mind of that poet who first spoke about
*REFRAINING' therefrom—that is reining (frænum)
then in, curbing them with bit and bridle! How faith-
fully, too, is the subtracting one part from a fault and
subduing another, thus as it were thinning it out, ex-
pressed in our 'EXTENUATE' (tenuis, thin): and how
deep was his knowledge of human nature who first
characterized that peering into another's faults and
failings as 'SUSPICIOX.' Could aught be more de.
scriptive, and at the same time convey a better moral,


34
IDEALISM OF WORDS.
than does 'SCANDAL,' especially when viewed in con.
nection with the Greek scandalon, a stumbling-block,
or indeed, primarily, a trap-spring, a snare? or
*PRECOCIOUS' whose composition implies cooked
before the time, as PREMATURE' means ripe before
the time? or "OBVIOUS' which is simply so apparent
as to meet us—ob vias—in our very way, or 'INSINU-
ATE,' which is just to steal—in sinus-into the breast?
We all know the value of "CANDOR,' but may it not
heighten our admiration of the quality when we reflect
that a 'candid' man is one whose walk and conver-
sation are candidus-of a shining white: in whose
communication is none of the darkness of deceit, but
all is fair and lucid ? 'DEXTERITY,' again, is sufficiently
palpable in all its significations, and yet do we always
catch the allusion which plays in the word to the dextra
manus—the right hand: that is to say, a 'dextrous'
person is one whose ‘faculties' (that is, facilities—the
doing, the executive part of him) are as perfectly apt
and under control as is the right hand of the crafty
workman. “SINISTER,' on the other hand, has relation
not to the right or good-omened side, but to the left
(sinistra) side of the auspex, where ill-omened birds
appeared; and so, inauspicious, baleful, adverse.
Again, how faithfully is 'PRECIPITANCY 'symbolized
by that heady haste, which so often causes both per.


WORDS MAKE US PHYSIOGNOMISTS.
sons and projects to tumble head foremost-precipitatus!
Just as vivid, however, is 'SEDATE' which implies no
more of internal repose than can be expressed by a set
or set-tled demeanor-quite closely allied, indeed, to
DEMURE' which, by the way, is a French quality,
claiming descent from demeurer to stay, and so some
peculiar 'STAIDNESS' (that is, stay-ed-ness) of disposition:
although it is by no means as cynical as ' MOROSE' for
the root of which we need perchance go no deeper
than the Latin moror, to stay, to loiter.
What chambers of imagery do Words present !
Could aught more picturesquely portray that utter
indolence and abandon we express in 'SUPINE' than
the lying on the back, with the face upwards-supinus ?
or, what could more pungently picture all the burden
of significance that dwells in 'SUPPLIANCE' than a
hending of the knee (supplex: and so literally a knee-
ling). "TRACTABLE' is that may be led along.
A "FRACTIOUS' man is most evidently one who
breaks loose from all restraint, who breaks into fits of
passion, etc. An instance of an exceedingly appro-
priate employment of this word occurs in Struan
Robertson's translation of Horace's famous description
of Achilles
“Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer"-


36
IDEALISM OF WORDS.
which he renders into this very pithy and pungent
vernacular:
"A fiery Etter-cap, a fractious chiel,
As het as ginger, and as stieve as steel !"
Words, too, often make their users instinctive physi.
ognomists. We have seen the allusion 'SUPERCILIOUS'
carries with it to the raising of the eyebrows. To the
forehead, also, words point as a most expressive fca-
ture. Else why do we have such strong terms as
'BROW BEAT,' or 'FROWN' which seems to be con.
tracted from the old French verb frogner—to knit the
brows? Here the most powerful mental struggles are
mirrored, and I recollect Lessing remarks that the rea-
son why the sculptors of the Laocoon did not surround
the head with the fillets worn by the priests was to be
enabled thus to develop that tremendous expression
of agony they have imprinted on the immortal marblc.
And more expressive symbols. “WILD'is willed,
willd (or self-willed), in opposition to those, whether
men or beasts, who are tamed or subdued, by reason
or otherwise to the will of others or of societies *;
'SURD'in Algebra means a quantity deaf (surdus) to
all attempts at reduction to a rational form; to 'RE-
FLECT' images a back-casting of the thoughts; to
* Horne Tooke: Diversions of Purley.


LAW OF VERBAL SYMBOLISM.
37
'PONDER' is literally to weigh, 'RUIN' finely images
mighty downfall, 'punctilious' is the observance of
cvery minute point-punctillum ; and · IMBECILE' is
a forcible metaphor drawn from the old man unable
to bobble along without the aid of his bacillum or
staff!
The law on which this idealism of Words rests has
its roots deep in man's mental structure. For as
material forms are the revelation of spiritual natures,
so the vivid imagination is constantly bringing provoca.
tions to ampler translations of our everyday perceptions
and experiences. From insight from a large perception
of Analogy, from a longing and passionate heart comes
the power of thus translating the presentings of nature
into the expressive symbols of moral and metaphysical
cxistences. To a sincere and tender nature words lend
themselves plastic and willing to the formative laws
of the word-formning faculties. Illustrations of the work.
ing of these laws run through our and every language.
When we speak of a 'cordial' man or manner, is it
not plain that we are simply ascribing to the man or
manner the quality of being hearty (cor, cordis, the
heart)? "EGREGIou's' too is liſted out of its special,
definite meaning of the animal chosen—e grege-out
of the flock, and idealized in a vigorous image to repre-


38
IDEALISM OF WORDS.
sent any property so remarkable as to remove it from
the ordinary rule and mark it as unique and unap-
proachable. The Latin term prævaricator, which
originally implied a straddler with distorted legs bas
given us our verb to ‘PREVARICATE,' which we readily
perceive has been abstracted to imply a mental or
moral shuffling. In like manner when Prince Hal
addresses Falstaff in the words “ Ilow now, my sweet
creature of bombast,” he is using the noun • BOMBAST?
in its literal sense of soft padding used to swell gar-
ments: this primary acceptation, however, the word
has now entirely lost, and we have transferred it to
idealize a swelling, inflated style of talking, fustian-
vox et preterca nihil. I see I have used the word
'FUSTIAN' in illustration of 'bombast': it is curious
that this term has undergone precisely the same curious
metamorphosis.
These changes in the meaning of Words—this ebb
and flow of significance—is constantly going on in a live
language: and it is no extravagance to say that the
moral and mental vitality of a people may be gauged
in the quantity and quality of these transformations,
For over these transformations the genius of the
nation unconsciously presides, and the issues of
Words represent issues in the national life and
thought. This metaphor and metamorphosis of


CHANGED MEANINGS OF WORDS.
39
Words is exceedingly curious. There is probably
nothing in which psychologic laws and the organic
workings of the human mind more vividly and vitally
reveal themselves than here. For though, to the su-
perficial eye, seemingly lawless and capricious, Words
yet bristle with rational thought, while even the most
startling metaphor and the wildest poctic image has a
law and logic of its own.
Of course in pursuing these Niles and Nigers to
their source we find many curious turnings and wind-
ings, and many strange regions do they flow through.
The cozenage of Words brings out many queer
developments. “DEBAUCH'is an instance. It tells us
that it was at first merely the attempt to draw a work-
man de (son) bauche—from his shop, and so, to de-
bauch' him. “DELIRIUM' is another. It certainly is
so if we derive it from de lira, that is, to make baulks
in ploughing, and so, a mental wandering, or raving.
And 'ESTUUSIASJI' is enthousiasmos-possessed by a
God, or the feeling that arises from the idea that one
is possessed by a God. Spinosa, then, to whom Novalis,
on account of his fervency in asserting the divinity of
universal Nature (hence our "PANTHEISM,' that the
whole-pan—is God) gave the appellation of the "God-
intoxicated man," perhaps presents us with a striking
illustration of the primary meaning of the 'Enthusiast.


40
IDEALISM OF WORDS.
It is interesting, too, to interrogate words with a view
to detect those still more marked transformations that
frequently take place—how the degrees of praise and
blame vary-how they receive burdens of meaning that
properly belong not to them-how again they have
been shorn of their fair proportions of significance, and
often how secondary meanings have overlapped the
primary ones.
Nature's works are, we know oft times so over-
powering in their effects as to strike one dumb with
amazement—what we call “STUPENDOUS,' that is, so
impressive as to put one into a stupor with awe. This
expression, however, we must consider as even more
than metaphorical—our nil-uumirari philosophy re-
cognizes no such impressions: 'tis an “Exaggeration'
(Exaggero—a heaping up of meaning). And yet it is
no more outré * than a thousind other extravaganzas
we are constantly uttering. Thus the slightest possible
disturbance we stigmatize as a 'PEST!' or 'PLAGUE!'
without any thought of the burden of meaning
which the words primarily bear. And yet we bardly
"STIGMATIZE' it either, for that would be to brand it like
a slave-stigma (osizpl.) being originally the mark of Dis-
grace burned into the brow of a runaway. But indeed,
* French for the Latin ultra,' bevond.


NUISANCE-LYCEUM—DEBATE.
41
we are constantly using these heightened metaphors-
saying more than we mean. And this Extravagance
not only vibrates throughout the general form of
phrases and expressions, but discovers itself even in
individual words: so that his very language furnishes
evidence that man is a creature given to exagreration.
For we cannot even name a' NUISANCE' (French
nuisance * from nuire, to barm) without avcrring that it
is a positive injury; and the slightest ' ANXOYANCE'
(also through the Norman nuire) we persist in convert-
ing into a real hurt. Again, what was to the Roman
a fighting against—repugnantia—has been by us soft-
ened down to a mere 'REPUGNANCE;' a death-struggle-
reluctor—has sunk into the tame 'RELUCTANCE,' and
what was once actually deadly-perniciosus—has been
metamorphosed into the sinple ‘PERVICIOUS.' Our
peaceful “DEBATE' (de and battre, to beat down) was
to the Norman—who was more skilful in the use of
his sword th an of the weaponsdrawn from the armory
of wit-a downright battle ; while thic mild ‘LYCEUM'
was the Greck's—húxelov—woljøs den! Surely we give
* Happily the letters of this word still continue their allegiance,
for which we have not to thank Webster—who, following the
precedent of Blackstone, recommends that it be spelled rusance,
though on what principle, except that of " darkening wisdom,"
it might be difficult enough to determine.


42
IDEALISM OF WORDS.
many a command that is not at all deadly either in its
nature or consequences, and yet we will call such 'PER-
EMPTORY.' We may easily be astonished,' without being
struck with tonnere, thunder--or as we say, thunderstruck.
And it is certainly quite possible for one to be very
much ‘MORTIFIED' (mors, mortis-death) without its
proving the death of him!
But, while our language furnishes us with instances
in which conventional usage has conspired to soften
down the too expressive primitive power of words, we
on the other hand meet with numerous cases in which
terms acquire burdens of significance which primitively
and properly belong not to them. The sons become
stronger and wiser and wittier than their sires. This
we will have occasion to see copiously illustrated
hereafter: in the mean time take a few terms wherein
we may mark the steps of a progressive civilization.
TOILET,' for example, cannot, with all its arts, con-
ceal from us the fig-leaved condition that lurks in and
peeps out from it; we discern shreds of the toile—the
mere piece of cloth—which the savage was wont to
wrap around his loins to cover him withal and lo!
his toilet' was made! And so the jeweled 'DIADEM'
owes its origin to the simple woolen fillet-diadema,
which the king, in patriarchal days, bound around


TRANSFORMATION OF WORDS.
43
his brows; a 'ROBE' is cousin-german to rob: the
primitive rude, self-helping men robbed from the lion
or the bear or the wolf his hide-de-spoileil him as
we say, exultingly cast it about his own shoulders and
so the man was the richer by his robe' and the beast
the poorer by his skin! Nay, 'SCEPTRES’ were origi-
nally but willow-wands and the 'THRONE' itself is but
a chair ;—nay, merely a stool, as our humble Saxon
progenitors had it. *
"TABERNACLE,' again, is another word with a hum.
ble enough origin-being primtively a mere taber-
naculum, a tent or hut. 'PARADISE' to the oriental
was simply a park or pleasure-ground. So, too, 'FISCAL'
unmistakably points to the fiscus, or wicker basket
which, in carly tines contained the revenue of the
Statc. † A 'FURLONG' was once a furrow-long, or
length of a furrow; a field of any size was once termcd
an ‘ACRE' (German acker); "DRACHM' in the elder
Greek meant a handful, and "MYRIAD)' any great
number. And when Homer alludes to a certain IIero
* See King Alfred's Translation of Boethius de Consolationc
Philosophiæ.
+ So to .CONFISCATE' is evidently to put, forcibly, one's posses-
sions in along with (con) what is in the basket (fiscus) or hamper
of the State—“to adjudge to be forfeited to the public treasury."
Webster.


44
IDEALISM OF WORDS.
counting his sheep, he employs the expression
HEUTEoda, etc.,-he fived them-showing that their five
fingers were originally the limits of their arithmetical
notions. And whether or not there be any connection
between deka (ten) and duo echo, * or between pente
(five) and panta (all), our "DIGIT' (Latin digitus, a
finger) at least gives a strong confirmation to the sup-
position; while 'CALCULATE' clearly tells of the
calculi, or pebbles which the ancients employed to assist
them in their arithmetical difficulties.
A ludicrous example of this same attempt to tint
things up couleur de rose is furnished in the word
• PAMPER,' a term which the Italians have given us-
being, I believe, in their language pambere, that is,
pane,' bread, and 'bere' drink-so that it was origi-
nally nothing more luxurious than bread and drink,
plenty even of that, however, being considered as
enough to pamper' one. Just as the French viande,
meat, flesh, becomes our English "VIANDS' which
carries the idea of something more dainty still !
Again that French verb affronter which merely
implies a meeting face to face—a coming up, ad frons,
to the forehead, without any necessary hostility—gives
* Just as I have seen it stated that the Gothic Teiga, tein, our
TEN’ is just tai-hun that is two hands! But Touke is more
rational.


NEW BURDENS OF MEANING.
45
us our 'AFFRONT,' with all its causticity of application.
We said it did not necessarily imply hostility. Shake-
speare suggests numerous examples of its employment
in this neutral sense. Thus, in Hamlet, the King
says:
"For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither;
That he, as 'twere by accident, may here
Affront (that is, simply, may meet] Ophelia.”
Hamlet III. 1.
And indeed it would seem impossible for us irascible
Saxons to have even an 'ENCOUNTER' without con-
verting it into a downright battle. A MEETING'
almost always conveys the idea of something sinister
hidden beneath it. And we cannot have even the
slightest cause of complaint-querela—without picking
a 'QUARREL' out of it!
It may be worth noticing in this connection, the
feelings, embalmed in language, which have given rise
to words expressive of Grandeur and Pettiness—may
we not read therein a curious piece of man's mind ?
There seems to have been all along a very natural,
yet rather ludicrous association of grandeur and petti-
néss with mere physical greatness or littleness. Thus
our metaphorical GRAND'is simply the French grand
-implying merely tall, large; while their petit, or


46
IDEALISM OF WORDS.
little, become our "PETTY' which is less still.* But,
indeed, there is something so impressive and imposing
about bodily bigness, that we wonder not that those
old heroic Normans (or Northmen) did appear very
magnificent,' with their great tallness—what they
called 'HAUTEUR' (haut, high), which, alas, all too
soon degenerated into mere 'HAUGIITIN ESS;' or that
their 'MAJESTIES,' 'HIGHNESSES,' 'MAGNATES' and
"GRANDEES’ should soon have absorbed all nobility
and authority.
Often, too, has man tried to gild over his vices
with a fine name, calling those "GALLANTS' who have
no claim to the title, giving to persons whose sad life
can be gilded with but few rays of genuine joy the
appellation of “FILLES DE JOIE,' covering a blackleg
with the mantle of "CHEVALIER D'INDUSTRIE,' and
declaring that a 'PARAMOUR' is one who is loved-
par amour-very affectionately, t although, by the way,
Flute, the bellows-mender, understood the matter
better than that:
“Flute. He hath simply the best wit of any handicraft man in
Athens.
* French bigness (gros, grosse), however, degenerates into
English 'GROSSNESS,' a fact of curious historic significance.
† And see it used in this good sense throughout the whole of
our old English literature.


LIBEL-LEGEND-CATER.
47
Guince. Yes, and the best person too: and he is a very para-
mour for a sweet voice.
Flute. You must say, 'PARADOX:' a paramour is, God bless us,
a thing of naught."
Midsummer Nights' Dream IV. 2.
On the contrary words often do not get their due,
and debts which they never contracted are laid to
their account. A ‘LIBEL,' for instance, is properly
just a libellus, a little book—what we call a pamphlet:
as if it would insinuate that the only purpose of such
is to defame and malign! So a 'LEGEND' is simply
something to be read-legendum ;* while 'REVEREND'
evidently declares that it ought to be revered—reve-
rendus; and a ‘MAXIM' affirms that it is—maximum
-of the greatest importance. So 'CATER,' which is
coming with us to acquire a somewhat contemptuous
meaning, has no such stain on its birth—it is simply
to buy or purchase (acheter) for onc. So I find in
Ben Jonson
“He is my ward-robe man, iny acater, cook,
Butler and steward."
The Devil an Ass I. 3.1
* For the corruption of this word see Tooke's Diversions of
Purley.
+ Here the word is acater, which is nearly the original form,
and yet in Chaucer I find it achator (Canterbury Tales 570 ct
passim) which is nearer still.


48
IDEALISM OF WORDS.
'OBSEQUIOUS' is another instance of this same
downward tendency in words. For primitively the
word has no opprobrious import, signifying simply
following after, a meaning which becomes present
from our use of OBSEQUIES' which is just the following
the dead to the tomb; and in the elder dramatists we
frequently meet with this primary application of
obsequious.' Thus Shakespeare
“How many a holy and obsequious (that is funereal] tear
Hath dear religious love stolen from mine eye,
As interest of the dead."
Sonnet XXXI.
Now, however, we employ it but to express that
cringing compliance that leads one to follow after the
favor or fancy of another, or shape one's principles or
practice according to his whims. And lastly I may
mention the term GOSSIP' which tells a strange story:
for originally it was just the name applied to sponsors
at baptism-literally God-sibb: "sibb,' related (to the
child, in or through) God! Verstegan makes the
matter clear:
“Our Christian ancestors understanding a spirituall affinity for
to grow betweene the parents, and such as undertooke for the
childe at baptisine, called cach other by the name of God-sib,


VERBAL TURN-COATS.
49
Which is as much as to say as that they were sib together, i.e. of
kin together through God."
Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, C. 7.*
But, while we have, on the one hand, words which
have strengthened, and on the other hand, words
which have softened and degenerated in signification,
we have also words which have completely changed
meaning-perfect turn-coats: not mere renegades, as
are the others, but downright deserters.
How amazed, for instance, would one of our sturdy
old English writers be, were he told, by some modern,
tea-imbibing dame that she was very nervous.'
Viewing the word from the Latin stand-point-seeing
in it merely the classic nervosus, sinewy, 'muscular'-
an epithet only applicable to the stalwart strength of
manhood, and which even we can appreciate from the
employment of our nervous style,'—we can easily
* Webster bungles over this word. Verstegan would have
enlightened him, or Junius either, for that matter. For, as
Junius remarks, these gossips under cloak of this “SPIRITUALL
AFFINITY' used often to meet to tell stories and .....
tipple over them !--a circumstance from which we in English
derive our expression 'TO GO A GOSSIPING' etc. And it is a
curious coincidence that the French for "gossip' is commérage
from commère, a god-mother—a precisely analogous process
having taken place in the word.
. 3


50
IDEALISM OF WORDS.
imagine how the worthy would be either petrified
(even though he might not be turned into_petra-
stone) with amazement; or at least he would regard
the good lady as indulging in a joke!* And how
much of Carlyle's teaching is but a fiery plaint of the
sad seduction so painfully visible in the abysmal gulf
that has come to intervene between 'KEN' and 'Can'
-which, we are aware, were once one and the same.
But this was before 'CANNING' had become cunning;
or "CUNNING' had grown synonymous with crafty.
So that then the Baconian apothegm, Knowledge is
Power was to them a mere truism: since it only
asserted that Ken-ning is Can-ning!
How titanic is the power which many words wield!
Indeed, in numerous instances, so terrible is the in-
* In regard to this term Pegge says: “A word which till
lately when applied to a man was expressive of Muscular
strength, and a Brawny make; and thence metaphorically a
strong and forcible style is called nervous and energetic: whereas
now it is used only, in a contrary sense, to express a man whose
nerves are weak, and absolute enervation.”
Anecdotes of the Eng. Lang. page 264.
For this corrupt usage, he proposes nervish!
Bailey, in his Dictionary gives it in its primitive signification
of strength and vigor-and says that when applied to persons
of weak nerves it is a “medical cant."


TITANIC POWER OF WORDS.
51
fluence they exercise that mankind has been compelled
to break away in affright froin their sway into the do
main of others less potent. Of this we have a well-
known instance in that dangerous African cape, ever so
fatal to mariners, and which the wrathful “Spirit of
the Cape” lashes into foaming fury. Long was it all
too truthfully known by the name of the “Cape of
Storms;" but this was to recognize the danger (whereas
the feared and the fearful must ever be nameless); and
so, buoying up their courage, they gave it the more
cheerful appellation of the “Cape of Good Hope."
Again, how chilling to the ardor of the soldier must
be that word ‘FORLORN-HOPE'-men sent on a service
attended with such peril that hope must beforlorn-
relinquished, left behind by them.
But it is in Poetry's mightier idealizations that a far
loftier idealism discloses itself—in tones drawn by the
Master's hand from the lyre of humanity—in the wild
ravings of an old un-Kinged Lear, in an Othello's
bursts of wailing sadness or tempestuous madness-
“My wifel my wife! what wife ?—I have no wife !"
Or, when Cleopatra, refering to the asp, says:
"— Peace, Peace!
Dost thou not see my baby at my breast,
That sucks the nurse asleep?"


52
IDEALISM OF WORDS.
Or when with the true prerogative of genius—to
marry the phenomena of nature with the moods of
man's mind—Shakespeare sees types of insanity in
the green scum of the standing-pool-Poor Tom
“Drinks the green mantle of the standing pool !"
'Tis in the loftier and serener empyrean of Poetry
that we catch lineaments—shadowy and far away,
of a supernal beauty that haunts and will not leave us
and hear tones of more than mortal pathos and power.
“In the silence of the night
How we shiver with affright,”
at memories awakened perchance by some one weak
word-weak, yet winged: a mere breathing, and yet
vitalized by the very spirit of life. And so, under
the guidance of Bishop Hutchinson, let us return:
" And to make short of this argument, we doubt not
but many wise men have too mean an opinion of the
power of words and take too little care about them:
for though the words of a fool are little, the words of
a wise man are wonderful. Words are the judges
of our thoughts, the land-marks of all interests; and
the wheels of our human world are turned by them.
They move interests that are greater than mountains,
and many a time have subdued kingdoms. Riches and


BISHOP HUTCHINSON ON WORDS.
53
Poverty, Love and Hatred, and even Life and Death are
in the power of the tongue, and when their effects are
least they are still the character of the mind and abilities
of him who speaks them; and when they are first and
natural, though plain and unaffected they carry charms
that are superior to the beauty of the fairest face, while
the improper use of them shows ignorance of words
that are understood by others, they lessen the man and
make the picture as mean as sign-post painting." *
TRANSIENT' is a suggestive word. It is transiens-
passing away! With plaintive sadness it sings the
requiem of human life. Said Ina's queen, “ Are not
all things, are not we ourselves like a river hurrying
heedless and headlong to the dark ocean of illimitable
time?” And I find in the Romaunt of the Rose this
antique rhyme, through which the same figure runs :
“ The time that passith night and daie,
And restilesse travailith aie,
And stelith from us privily,
That to us semith sikirly
That it in one poinct dwellith ever,
And certes it ne restith never,
But goeth as fast and passeth aie
* From a curious old tract, entitled, “The Many Advantages
of a Good Language to any Nation.”


54
IDEALISM OF WORDS.
That ther n'is man that thinkin maie
What time that now present is,
Askith at these grete clerkis this ;
For men thinken redily
Thre timis ben ypassed by
The time that maie not sojourn,
But goth and maie never returne,
As watir that doune runnith aie,
But never droppe returne maie.”
How sublime is the allusion in ‘NATURE' (natus,
natura, to be born), the being born, or indeed the refer-
ence in Latin is to the future, as though it would
indicate that she is no dead mass, but a living and
ever-evolving Whole. And indeed she is our mother,
too-nourishing us tenderly on her breast, shedding
around us her balmy, balsamic influences, and gently
at last rocking us to sleep with sphere-music and old
eternal melodies. Shelley, her loveliest and lornest
child, shall sing her pæan.
"Mother of this unfathomable world!
Favour my solemn song, for I have loved
Thee ever, and thee only; I have watched
Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps,
And my heart ever gazes on the depth
Of thy deep mysteries. I have made my bed
In charnels and on coffins, where black death
Keeps record of the trophies won from thee,


THE THOUGHT OF NATURE.
55
Hoping to still these obstinate questionings
Of thee and thine, by forcing some lone ghost,
Thy messenger, to render up the tale
Of what we are. In lone and silent hours,
When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness,
Like an inspired and desperate alchymist
Staking his very life on some dark hope,
Have I mixed awful talk and asking looks
With my most innocent love, until strange tears,
Uniting with those breathless kisses, made
Such magic as compels the charmed night
To render up thy charge : and though ne'er yet
Thou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary;
Enough from incommunicable dream,
And twilight phantasms, and deep noon-day thougat,
Has shone within me, that serenely now
And moveless, as a long-forgotten lyre
Suspended in the solitary dome
Of some mysterious and deserted fane
I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strain
May modulate with murmurs of the air,
And motions of the forests and the sea,
And voice of living beings, and woven hymns
Of night and day, and the deep heart of man !"
ALASTOR


RAMBLE FOURTH.
FOSSIL POETRIES.
" Language is fossil poetry. The Etymologist finds the deadest
word to have been once a brilliant picture. As the limestone of
the continent consists of infinite masses of the shells of animal-
zules, so language is made up of images or tropes, which now,
in their secondary use, have long ceased to remind us of their
poetic origin,"
EMERSON.
ALL words are, more or less, poetry. For word-
making is an organic creation of the mind and runs
parallel with the processes of nature and is the crown
and consummation of the world. The Hindûs, in their
free and fluent mythology, conceived the second act
of Brahma to have been the Naming: and it is re-
ported of Pythagoras that he thought that of all wise
men he was not only the most rational but also the
most ancient who gave the names to things. The poet
is by divine right the proper Namer. Through sym.


CARLYLE ON THE POETRY OF WORDS.
57
pathy with the grand substantial Words of the world
he imports into human speech the utterance of orphic
Nature. Material forms—ocean, air, soil, fire, stars,
life, growths—these are sublime primeval Words.
These the Expressive passion dissolves into plastic
symbols. And the poet gives voice to mankind.
O, shining trails of bards and builders! “Think.
est thou there were no poets till Dan Chaucer ?”
asks Thomas Carlyle—“No heart burning with
a thought which it could not hold, and had no word
for, and needed to shape and coin a word for,—what
thou callest a metaphor, trope, or the like? For every
word we have, there was such a man and poet. The
coldest word was once a glowing new metaphor, and
bold questionable originality. My very attention, does
it not mean an attentio, a stretching-to? Fancy that
act of the mind, which all were conscious of, which
none had yet named,—when this new poet first
felt bound and driven to name it! His question.
able originality, and now glowing metaphor, was found
adoptable, intelligible, and remains our name for it to
this day.”
Words are often the expressed essence of poetry,
redolent as flowers in spring. 'AURORA' comes to us


AN ETYMOLOGIC BOUQUET.
59
The 'DAISY' has oftea been cited as fragrant with
poesy : 'tis the day's eye (Saxon, daeges ege). Chaucer
has these affectionate lines :
"Of all the floures in the mede
Than love I most these floures of which I rede,
Such that men call daisies in our town,
To them I have so great affectioun -
Nor is he alone in his love for the
“Wee, modest, crimson-tippet flower!"
Quite an odoriferous etymologic bouquet might we
cull froin the names of Flora's children. What a
beauty in 'PRIMROSE' which is just the prime-rose, the
first rose; the "SWEET WILLIAM;' the JORNING
Glory,' except when a pompous classical terminology
would convert it into a convolvulus! How many
sweet associations cluster around the 'FORGET-ME-
xot,' around the 'ANEJONE' (anemos, tlic wind.
flower) into which Venus changed her Adonis! Again
is there not poetry in calling a certain family of
minute crustacea—whose two eyes mect and form a
single spot in the centre of the head— CYCLOPS ?'
And if any one thinketh there cannot be poetry even
in the technicalities of science let him remember


60
FOSSIL POETRIES.
CORAL' which in the Greek means a sea damsel, or
the chemical "COBALT' which is said to be the German
Kobold, a goblin, the demon of the mines: so called
by miners from its being troublesome to work. To
be sure Science is a terrible destroyer of these fine
phantasies. But,
“Still the heart doth need a language, still
Doth the old instinct bring back the old names.'
“There shall be no more magic nor cabala,
Nor Rosicrucian, nor Alchemic lore,
Nor fairy fantasies; no more hobgoblins,
Nor ghosts, nor imps, nor demons. Conjurors,
Enchanters, witches, wizards, shall all die
Hopeless and heirless; their divining arts,
Supernal or infernal-dead with them !"
Dailey's Festus.
The 'Student's' prediction is indeed fully verified;
and yet must it not have been a terrible reality which
could leave so large a precipitate as this, from the
alembic?
We are not apt, in this practical age, to be very
profoundly devoted to astrolatry, and yet do we ever
• CONSIDER' without holding commerce with the


INFLUENCE OF ASTROLOGY.
61
sidera* -stars? The planets, with their heavenly
houses, are now to us all mute and motionless—with
“No real voice nor sound;"
and yet is not one man mercurial;' another jovial;'
a third martial' and a fourth 'saturnine' according
as the planet rules his destiny? We are not very
much given to erecting figures of the Heavens, and
determining "horoscopes' (horoskopos, and so, literally,
the observing the hora or hour of one's birth-that
being necessary in casting a 'nativity):' aud yet are
not our fortuncs sometimes in the ascendant;' are
there not those who are 'ill-starred,' mect we not with
dis-asters ?' And INFLUENCE,' too, looks back to a
time when the stars shot their swect impartings to
man's heart. So even the nonchalant Frenchman
persists in talking about his 'bon-heur' and his 'mal.
heur' --which, of course, we recognise as being naught
other than a good or bad hour-a good or bad horo-
scope. Perhaps may there be more truth than one
might be apt to suppose in this quaint passage from
* The word may indeed be from consido; as Webster asserts
it is. But it is characteristic of our worthy lexicographer to
lean towards the more unpoctical of disputed derivations neces-
sary result of his absurd theory of radices.


62
FOSSIL POETRIES.
Chaucer—which sounds forth here like a fragment of
some antique ritual:
"Peraventure in thilke lerge book
Which that men clepe the Heven ywritten was
With sterres, when that he his birthe took,
That he for lore shuld han his deth, alas !
For in the sterres, clerer than is glas
Is writen, God wot, who so coud it rede,
The deth of erery man withouten drede,
In sterres many a winter ther beforn
Was writ the death of Hector, Achilles,
Of Pompey, Julius, or they were born
The strif of Thebes, and of Hercules,
Of Sampson, Turnus, and of Socrates
The deth; but mennes willes ben so dull
That no wight can wel rede it at the full."
The Blan of Laues Tale.
And so Emerson tells us that,
“The old men studied magie in the lowers,
And human fortunes in Astronomy,
And an omnipotence in Chemistry."*
But the age of Faith, like the age of Chivalry, 193
gone by. We have dissolved partnership with yon
* Emerson's Poems: “Blight,”


OLD-TIME FANTASIES.
63
starry world: the spheral harmonies reach not our
dull ears.
So too, have gone trooping back to the land of
oblivion the 'GNOMES' and the 'IMPS' (surely nothing
very terrible, since the word meant primarily merely
a shoot or scion—a son); and the 'DEMONS' (who
were at first gods); and the "GHOSTS '* and the
"GHOULS' and the 'GENII:'
"And there were wandering on the highest mountains of
Yemen visionary forms—and they described them by the names
of Dogin or Genii, Ghouls or Demons.”+
CHARM,' 'INCHANT' and 'INCANTATION' all trace
their genesis to the time when spells were in vogue.
CHARM' is just carmen, from the fact of a sort of
runic rhyme having been used in this sort of diablerie.
So 'FASCINATION' recalls the era when the blight of
the evil eye was an object of terror. By the way
* By the way our quite un-ghostly "Gas' is from the same
root-German geist, to rush, to blow-spirit.
† From a cabalistic enough MS (referred to in the Account
of the MSS in the Bibliothèque du Roi), with the following
magnificent title: "The Golden Meadows and the Mines of
Precious Stones, by Aboul-hassan-Aly, son of A-Khair, son of
Aly, son of Abderrahman, son of Abdallah, son of Masoud-el-
Hadheli surnamed blasoudi.”


64
FOSSIL POETRIES.
SPELL' means simply word. Says Sir Thomas
Browne:
“Some have delivered the polity of spirits, that they stand in
awe of charms, spells, and conjurations, letters, characters, notes
and dashes."
Note, too, that from spell we get our 'GOSPEL,' that
is God's spell—God's word.
To conclude all of which, take the following exqui-
site passage from that most etherial “Undine" of De
la Motte Fouqué. (By the way is not Undine from
unda, a wave: that is a water-sprite?): “You must
know, that there are beings in the elements, which
bear the strongest resemblance to the human race, and
which, at the same time, seldom become visible to
you. The wonderful salamanders sparkle and sport
among the flames; deep in the earth the meagre and
malicious gnomes pursue their revels, the forest-spirits
belong to the air and wander in the woods; while in
the seas, rivers and streams live the wide-spread race
of water-spirits. These last beneath resounding domes
of crystal, through which the sky appears with sun
and stars, inbabit a region of light and beauty ; lofty
coral trees glow with blue and crimson fruits in their
gardens; they walk over the pure sand of the sea,
among infinitely variegated shells, and amid whatever


KOSMOS—WELKIN—HALCYON.
65
of beauty the old world possessed, such as the present
is no more worthy to enjoy ; creations which the
floods covered with their secret veils of silver; and
now those noble monuments glimmer below, stately
and solemn and bedewed by the water which loves
them and calls forth from their crevices exquisite
moss-flowers and enwreathing tufts of sedge."
It is not alone in Oriental tale that speakers drop
pearls: we can scarcely open our lips without giving
utterance to some rich primitive poetic allusion. On
what a grand perception of this wondrous frame, with
its boundless unity in variety, is that Greek word
Kosmos 'formed (the creation is ascribed to Pytha-
goras), signifying as it does harmonic order! So the
BRUNT' of the battle is just where the battle burns
hottest; and the 'WELKIN' (Saxon wealcan, to roll) is
that which rolls over our heads !
The ‘halcyon' days! What a balmy serenity in
the name! And its fitness becomes the more apparent
when we pierce to the secret the word enwraps. The
Alkuon was the name applied by the Greeks to the
Kingfisher. Literally it implies sea-conceiving, from
the fact of the bird's laying her eggs in rocks near the
sea, and the" daxuovides zones de "—the halcyon days—were
the fourteen days during the calm weather about the


66
FOSSIL POETRIES.
winter solstice during which the bird was said to build
her nest and lay her eggs.
The palm being to the oriental of such passing price,
at once food and shelter, we can easily imagine how
he would so enhance its value as to make it the type
of every thing prosperous and flourishing. Hence
our 'PALMY.' Sir Walter Raleigh has this passage :
“Nothing better proveth the excellency of this soil than the
abundant growing of the palm trees without labour of man.
This tree alone giveth unto man whatsoever his life beggeth at
nature's hand.”
'STYLE' and 'STILETTO 'might seem radically very
different words; and yet they are something more
than even cousins-german. 'STYLE' is from the
stylus, which the Greeks and Romans employed in
writing on their tablets; and as they were both sharp
and strong they were capable of being made a very
formidable weapon. Cæsar himself, it is supposed,
got his quietus by means of a stylus. Many who
have felt the bitter, biting tooth of 'SARCASM' will
hardly be disposed to consider it a metaphor, even
should we trace it to the Greek sarkazo—to tear the flesh
off-literally to 'flay.' 'SATIRE' again, has an
arbitrary enough origin. It is satira from satur,
mixed: the process of derivation being as follows.


MEAD AND AMBROBIA.
Each species of poetry, among the Romans, had its
own special kind of versification; thus, the hexameter
was used in epics, the iambic in the drama, etc. En-
nius, however, the earliest Roman 'satirist,' first
disregarded this conventionality, and produced a
medley (satur) of all kinds of metre. It afterwards
lost this idea of a melange, and acquired the notion of
a poem directed against the vices and follies of men.
How few who use that very vague word 'AMBRO-
SIAL' are conscious of the intimation it throws out of
gods. It afterwards came to be used in the sense of a
perfume, hence fragrant; and that is the primary idea
of our 'ambrosial '-instance Milton's "ambrosial
flowers.' The Immortals in the golden balls of
many-topped Olympus' would seem to have led
a merry enough life of it with their nectar and
ambrosia :
"And he kept pouring out for all the other gods, drawing
nectar from the goblet. And then inextinguishable laughter
arose among the immortal gods, when they saw Vulcan bustling
about through the mansion."
Iliad, Book I
But not half as jolly were they as Thor, Odin, and
the Northern braves, dead drunk over their mead
(meda, honey,) and ale, from


68
FOSSIL POETRIES.
“The ale cellars of the Jotun
Which is called Brimir."
Voluspa.
‘SERENADE' wafts us away to that bright Italian
land, where underneath the serene sky
Nox erat, et cælo fulgebat Luna serena
Inter minora sidera,
the lover pours forth his amorous ditties, on the odorous
wings of the balmy air, to the ear of his mistress and
the Night! A passage from the older editions of Milton
will present us with the original orthography of the
word :
"— Nor in court amours,
Mixt dance, or wanton mask, or midnight bal,
Or serenata, which the starved lover sings
To his proud fair, best quitted with disdain.”
Paradise Lost IV. 767.
And Bacon gives the following account of the origin
of the word 'CALAMITY :'
“Another ill accident is drouth, at the spindling of the corn;
which with us is rare; but in hotter countries common: inso-
much as the word calamitas, was first derived from calamus,
when the corn coulde not get out of the stalke."
Natural History.


69
FRAGRANCE OF DRY ROOTS.
This Etymology is at best dubious; nay, it is alto.
gether probable that it will have to be quite abandoned.
And yet there is a good degree of vraisemblance in
the word, for what could, in an agricultural community,
be a greater calamity' than this?
The word 'HEALTH 'wraps up within it—for, indeed,
it is hardly a metaphor—a whole world of suggestion.
It is that which healeth or causeth to be whole—what
the Scotch call hale: that is, perfect health’is that
state of the man when there is no discord or division
in the system, but when all the functions conspire to
make a perfect one or whole. Carlyle makes a most
effective use of this word.
“So long as the several elements of life, all fitly adjusted can
pour forth their movement like harmonious tuned strings, it is a
melody and unison; Life, from its mysterious fountains, filows out
as in celestial music and diapason,—which also like that other
music of the spheres, even because it is perennial and complete,
without interruption and without imperfection might be fated to
escape the ear. Thus, too, in some languages, is the state of
health well denoted by a term expressing unity: when we feel
ourselves as we wish to be, we say that we are whole."
Characteristics.
0, what a wealth of truth and beauty lies in even
our every-day, fire-side words! And what a fragrance
have even dry roots !


70
FOSSIL POETRIES.
Every nation has its legend of a Golden Age, when
all was young and fresh and fair, “Comme les couleurs
primitifs de la nature," ere the shadow of Sorrow-
the shadow of ourselves—had stretched itself over life:
a morn of Saturnian rule, when gods walked and
talked with men. And even now, in spite of our
atheism and our apathism, amid the Babel-din of the
great Living Present, the solemn voices of the Past
return with soft wailings of pity. In the moonlight
of memory they revisit us, those visions !
The rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the rose;
The moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare;
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth ;
And yet I know, where'er I go
That there hath passed away a glory from the Earth !
'Tis the mild, Brahminical Wordsworth that sings.
Wordsworth, it will be remembered, in that glorious
ode—the “Intimations of Immortality from the Re.
collections of early Childhood”-develops the Platonic
idea (shall we call Platonic the thought born of every
fine spirit?) of Anamnesis of a shadowy recollection


SPIRITUALITY OF WORDS.
71
of past and eternal existence in the profundities of
the divine heart. “It sounds forth here a mournful
reminiscence of a faded world of gods and heroes-
as the echoing plaint for the loss of man's original
celestial state and paradisiacal innocence." *
And then come those transcendent lines that are
borne to us like aromatic breezes blown from the
Islands of the Blest.
“Hence in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea,
Which brought us hither-
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the children sport upon the shore
And hear the mighty waters rolling ever more l'
But,
"descending
From those imaginative heights that yield
Far-stretching views into Eternity "-
what have Golden Ages and Platonisms to do with
our word-strolls ? A good deal. For language as the
mirror of the inmost consciousness may illustrate both.
Why is it that we generally speak of Death as a
return or a return home; and how is it that the same
* Frederick Schlegel: Philosophy of Life.


72
FOSSIL POETRIES.
thought has interwoven itself with the very warp and
woof of our speech and song? So 'decease' but
implies a withdrawal; demise' a removal. It is
curious to trace the thoughts in the minds of men that
bave given rise to the various words expressing death.
Thus we have the Latin mors—allied to moros and
moira, and hence, that which is allotted, appointed.
But both the Hellenic and Roman mind was averse
to expressing the dreadful realism of mortality, by
these strong words, and sought to veil it with such ·
circumlocutions as vitam suam mutare, transire a seculo;
" Koruñoato zánxeov ünvov ” (he slept the brazen sleep.
Iliad 4th book); " Tov de OxOTOS Öod' éxádu ev ” (and
darkness covered his eyes : 6th book).
But, why should we mourn departed friends, since
we know they are but lying in the sleeping place
koimeterion—'CEMETERY;' or as the vivid old Hebrew
faith expressed it, the house of the living-Bethaim?
And thus we see that Language, that primitive organic
creation of the human soul, testifies to our highest
intuitions and aspirations, and assures us that He who
has, for a season, enveloped us in the mantle of
this sleep-rounded life will again take us back to
his fatherly bosom.
Thus profound are the suggestions of Words. And


SPIRITUALITY OF WORDS.
73
even those we toss about with the most plethoric pro.
fusion and the most sacrilegious indifference are often
found, when we catch the play of allusion, to be the
most marvelous speaking pictures. For coming as
they do from the informing mind, even the most start-
ling metaphor and the wildest poetic image has a law
and logic of its own. The Imagination bodies forth
the forms of things, visionary, swift, shadowy; but
the living Word—the strain or the statue or the
picture, seizes the fleeting idols, and lo! they stand
perennial and imperishable. Thence the Kinship of
the Arts. The Arts are one in that all are outlets to
the Spiritual. Beneath their finite guises gleam down
glimpses of the Infinite that brightens over and
embellishes all. High, clear and far up sounds their
silvery voice, awaking in the vasty deeps of con-
sciousness thrilling trembling echoes, faint and far
away, of the old eternal melodies and making even
" Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the Eternal Silence !"


RAMBLE FIFTH.
FOSSIL HISTORIES
“The most familiar words and phrases are connected by im-
perceptible ties with the reasonings and discoveries of former
men and distant times. When one counts his wealth he finds
he has in his bands coins which bear the image and superscrip-
tion of ancient and modern intellectual dynasties, and that in
virtue of this possession acquisitions are in his power which none
could ever have attained to, if it were not that the gold of truth
unce dug out of the mine circulates more and more widely
among mankind.”
WTEWELL: Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences.
WHAT vast historical results have come from the
modern studies on Language! Comparative Philology
studying languages as living organisms—subject to
organic laws of growth and decay-has shown that
we possess in speech a grand recorded History of
Humanity, where in colossal outlines man, his affilia-
tions, migrations, workings, growths, are drawn.


76
FOSSIL HISTORIES.
worlds, venerable with years, coevals of primeval
man.
But with these colossal results of Comparative
Philology it is not our present purpose to deal. What
I would show is that in Words themselves we have
pregnant histories embalmed—that in these medals
of the mind we have the record of “ancient and
modern intellectual dynasties," of vast moral and
social revolutions, of the unfolding spirit of man.
Words are the amber that enwraps and retains these
marvelous stories, the wit and the wisdom, the fancies,
the follies and the failings of humanity incarnated
for ever.
Sometimes this history is that of a nation-with
the Spirit of its Laws and its Religion and its Litera-
ture embalmed imperishable in these fleeting, yct
immortal breathings. And often, too, these characters
—these runes—are all that remain to tell the chro-
nology of Empires perished-their
“Cloud-capp'd towers, their gorgeous palaces,
Their solemn temples"
all evanished, and these brief articulations alone left
to tell the story of their existence. At other times
the story they tell may be less important. It may be


WORDS AS FOSSILS.
77
some historical event retained; some blasted hypothesis
sublimated; some man immortalized; some creed
with merely verbal credit; some poetic pulsation em-
bodied; or, it may be a Nation's Spirit—its glory or
its shame stamped in unfading colors in words that
perish not. And so they all have their family secrets
--with now a merely personal or incidental interest,
and again of national and universal import.
And these are the airy, the transient utterances
which we are constantly giving forth without heed,
almost without a moment's reflection—tossing them
from us in prodigal profusion, as if they had no wit
or worth. Like the geodes that we find on rivers'
banks which, on the outside, are rough and dirty and
uninteresting, yet split them open and the cavity
within holds things rich and rare-sparkling with
crystals bright and beauteous. So with the words we
utter. They seem from their very familiarity all trite
and homely: yet beneath this conventional surface
lie fine fancies, rich old legends and decp historic lore.
Let us, then, in these our Rambles, like the Geologist
take our (Etymologic) hammer along with us; and,
laying open the rocks we may chance to meet, see if
we cannot discover fossils that tell of antique worlds,
and compel them to speak of the poetries and the his.
tories and the moralities of the old Time entombed.


78
FOSSIL HISTORIES.
The term 'ROMANCE' embalms an interesting his.
tory of the chivalric era of the Middle Ages—of that
epoch when, in the words of Tieck, “Believers sang
of Faith; lovers of Love; knights described knightly
actions and battles, and loving believing knights were
their chief audience."
Fully to appreciate the origin and application of
romance' it will be necessary to transport ourselves
to France and the Ninth Century. At this period we
find an important transition taking place in the lan-
guage: the Latin is dying out, Frankish contributions
are coming in and a new speech arising, the Lingua
Romana—the Romans or Romance tongue. Now, as
the tales of chivalry—the lays of the Troubadours and
Minnesingers—so popular at this peried, were written
in this idiom, the compositions themselves took the
title of Romances (Romans, romants, romaunts or what
not): so that, in subsequent times, any composition
that partook of the nature of these songs still retained
the appellation of 'romances,' and that even after the
distinct class of productions to which the name
legitimately belonged had died out.*
What a strange piece of history does 'ORDEAL'
contain! It took its rise from a peculiar Saxon
* Bishop Percy has some interesting particulars in the third
volume of the “Reliques."


LEGACIES FROM SAXON LIFE.
79
custom. This was the trial-ordob—to which accused
persons were subjected to test their guilt or innocence,
and was of two kinds—by hot water and by hot iron.
The modus operandi was as follows: The suspected
person was forced to plunge his hand as far as the
wrist, or his arm as far as the clbow (according to the
magnitude of the crime) into a vessel of water boiling
'furiously hot;' take out therefrom a piece of iron
of a certain weight and, after having carried it a
certain distance, drop it. Then after three days the
hand was inspected to see if 'foul' or clean '—and
judgment pronounced accordingly. And this literally
very ‘fiery trial' it is which gives point to our
ordeal' and perhaps lies at the root of our expression,
“I would go through fire and water for you.” *
Another social custom of the Saxons has left us
several legacies. Among them every individual was
valued at a certain amount of money, to which ainount
he was continually under bail for his good behavior.
This sum, of course varied: the thane so much the
churl so much—the thrall so much : in fact it varied
according to his worth-ship—what we now call
* For besides the ordeal by hot water there was also that of
walking over red hot ploughshares. For a minute account of
this curious custom consult Verstegan's “ Restitution of Decayed
Intelligence" and Turner's “History of the Anglo-Saxons."


80
FOSSIL HISTORIES.
WORSHIP. “Every man,” says Sharon Turner, *
"was valued at a fixed sum which was called his
were; † and whosoever took his life was punished by
having to pay this were.” Moreover, in addition to
this, there was a pecuniary fine imposed, called the
wite : 4 and a person thus paying the forfeiture of all
his worth-ship presents us with the original idea of a
'FELON '—which is asserted by some to be just
feo-lun—destitute of property!
An interesting passage from King Alfred will give
us the original form of some significant words:
“This like, 0 King, (cyning) does this present life of man on
earth appear to me, compared with the time that is unknown
* History of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. II. p. 132.
+ The Scotch still retain the verb “to ware"—that is, to expend.
Compare with this the Scotch wyte, blame.
ş But besides having the ware and wite to pay, there was also
a fine imposed for the infliction of any personal injury, and a
curious system of anatomical economy arose. The loss of an
eye or leg, for instance, was esteemed to be worth 50 shillings;
for "breaking the mouth" a penalty of 12 shillings was
imposed; for cutting off the little finger 11 sh.; for piercing the
nose 9 sh.; for cutting off the thumb-nail, for the first double
tooth, or for breaking a rib, each 3 sh.; for any nail and for any
tooth beyond the first double tooth 1 shilling!


KING-ALDERMAN.
81
(uncuth *) to us: just like as thou sittest at feast, among thy
aldermen and thanes, (mid thinum ealdormannum and thegnum)
in winter time; and thy fire barns and thy hall is warmed.
And while it rains and snows and stirs without (and hit rene and
snewe and styrine ute), there comes a sparrow (spearwa), and
quickly it flies through the house (hus t)-coming in at one door
and going out at the other. Whilst it is amongst us, it feels not
the wintry tempest. It enjoys the short comfort and serenity
of its transient stay ; but then, plunging into the winter from
which it bad down, (he roma of wintra in winter eft cymew)
it disappears from our eyes. Such is the life of man," 1 etc.
'KING’is, we perceive, primarily cyning (or kyning:
cyning, cynig, cyng=Kyng i. e. King), coincident with
the German König, that is, the can-ning, the able, the
powerful man : in regard to which hear what Verste.
gan tells us : “And certaine it is that the kings of
monster nations were in the beginning elected and
chosen by the people to raigne over them, in regard
of the greatnesse of their cowrage, valour, and
strength, as beeing therefore best able to defend and
governc them.”
*ALDERMAN' is evidently just elderman (ealdorman)
*We still say "uncouth' i. e. any thing that is not couth or
kenned—that is unknown to us—a significant word indeed.
+ Which we still preserve pure in husband i. e. house-bund.
Turner's Hist. Anglo-Saxons.


82
FOSSIL HISTORIES.
that is, elder-man. It has reference to the early Saxon
society when the people, imagining that the elders
would be most likely to possess wisdom and authority
chose to appoint them as their rulers. This notion
of the sagacity in grey hairs seems to have been a
rather common one. Thus we have the Latin Senatus
(our.Senate ') from senex, an old man ; and the Greek
Presbuteros—our ‘Presbyterian.' Indeed Homer thus
lays down the law :
" For the minds of young men are ever fickle; but when a
senior is present he looks at once to the past and the future
(before and behind) that the matter may be best for both parties."
Iliad, Book III.
"Everich for the wisdom that he can
Was shape lich for to ben an alderman."
Canterbury Tales.
Chaucer does not tell us what this 'shape' was like;
but there would seem to have been all along a fiction
of it's not being very tenuous !
The very obvious connection of 'WIFE' with web
and the verb weave * has often been noticed: as if it
* Wefan is the Saxon form of the verb: German weben, whence
'web'; and the German weib –Sax, wif-Eng.' wife.'


SPINSTER AND WIFE.
83
would insinuate that weaving is the only legitimate
sphere of womanly occupation. And really I doubt
we will be compelled to receive the derivation,
especially since the term 'SPINSTER ' appears to point
in the same direction. For it is impossible to avoid
perceiving that this word is formed from the verb to
spin; and King Alfred, in his Will, designates the
females of his house as the spindle-side. *
“My Grand father bath bequeathed his Land to the spear-side
(or spear-half ] and not to the spindle-side. If, therefore, I have
bestowed any of his possessions on a female, my relations must
redeem it, it they will, while she is living; but if not, it can be
dealt with as we have before settled."
The Will of King Alfred, page 25.
Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, 1788.
Our industrious Saxon progenitors, therefore, took
it for granted that the unmarried women would be
employed in spinning. Chaucer makes the “Wif of
Bathe" thus give us the Whole Duty of Woman :
* As the female side was designated by the spindle, so the
male was by the sword or the spear. The Goths, however,
employed a still more fantastic distinction, for man they denoted
by hat ; woman by hood.


FOSSIL HISTORIES.
“For all swiche wit geven us in our birth;
Deceite, weping, spinning, God hath yeven,
To woman kindly while that they may liven.”
The Wif of Bathes Tale.
Whence it would appear that there may be more
than we might be apt to suppose, in the character
given of a certain Roman Matron :
“Domum mansit-lanam ſecit”-
so quaintly and forcibly rendered by Gawain Douglas
“She keepit close the hous, and birlit at the quhele!”
And more of this wondrous Archæology of Words.
Plagium was among the Romans the name given to
man-stealing—"the crime of knowingly buying or
selling a freeman as a slave”-a species of “plagiary'
which, it would seem, by the way, is not yet quite
extinct. But, since this has become less appreciable,
the word is now employed to designate the more palpa-
ble literary thefts. Richardson cites the following:
“Plagiarie had not its nativity with printing; but began in
Limes when thefts were difficult, and the paucity of books scarce
wanted that invention."
Brown's Vulgar Errours.


THE ARCHÆOLOGY OF LANGUAGE.
85
The story which 'EMOLUMENT ' tells us furnishes an
additional tint wherewith to fill up the picture of
primitive times : for do we not catch, lurking therein,
glimpses of the mola or mill, far in the distance, on the
edge of old Roman wood or water? And, in fact, all
that'emolument' at first implied was that tithe of the
grist which went to the miller for grinding the grain-
truly his Emolumentum! 'IMMOLATE' would seem
to have no possible connection with the foregoing,
and yet its alliance therewith is very close: molæ
was the word used to denote grits or grains of corn
coarsely ground; and, when mixed with salt, was
called the mola salsa, or sacrifice-meal—which mola
was sprinkled on the head of the victim previous to
immolating him : hence its application to sacrificing,
offering up. The connection of 'SALARY' with sal,
salt is also very obvious. And in fact the salarium
was primarily money for salt, then allowance of money
for a journey, and then, in general, pay, allowance.
It is said, moreover, that Roman soldiers were wont
to receive part of their pay in salt.
The connection of 'PECUNIARY' with the primitive
idea of flocks and herds (pecus) has already been
noticed. A fragment from Surtor Resartus, which
sounds forth here like a snatch of some antique idyl,
will put the matter in its clearest light:


86
FOSSIL HISTORIES.
“A simple inrention it was in the old-world Grazier-sick of
lugging his slow ox about the country till he got it bartered for
corn or oil—to take a piece of leather, and thereon scratch or
stamp the mere Figure of an Ox (or Pecus); put it in his pocket,
and call it Pecunia, Money. Yet hereby did Barter grow Sale,
the leather Money is now Golden or Paper, and all miracles have
been out-miracled; for there are Rothschilds and English
National Debts; and whoso has sixpence is Sovereign (to the
length of six pence) over all men; commands books to feed him,
Philosophers to teach him, King to mount guard over him,-to
the length of sixpence !"
Sartor Resartus, p. 30.
From this same root (pecus) we get two other
instructive words, namely 'PECULIAR' and 'PECU-
LATE.' The immediate origin of peculiar' is to be
sought in peculium—" the stock or money, which a son,
with the consent of his father, or a slave, with the consent
of his master, had of his own; or which a wife has
independent of her husband; private property" —hence,
in general, any thing special or particular to the
individual—taking away which would, doubtless, be
peculating.'
While on this subject it will not be amiss to cause
such terms as wealth,' 'chattels,' spoil'etc. to tell
us their story.
*Wealth' is evidently that which wealcth or maketh


WEALTH-CHATTEL-SPOILS.
87
a man to be weal, what we now call well* _which
weal or well Dryasdust makes out to mean primarily
strong, powerful. Nor is this derivation at all im-
probable, seeing that all the purposes of wealth are
originally to make one powerful, prevalent over his
enemies. So chattel' and 'cattle are, at first one
word-(Norman catal-katalla); but as the principal
part of their chattels'—their "goods' was in the
shape of oxen, sheep, etc., it is perfectly evident how
the signification would become absorbed in "cattle,'
and that term be raised to typify all kinds of moveable
property. One word will let us into the whole secret
of 'SPOIL.' For spolium primarily implied the skin of
an animal stript off, and then extended so as to em
brace any 'spoils' whatsoever. A picturesque snatch
of history indeed is this primitive, self-helping man-
a rude Goëtz von Berlichingen-tearing from the
wolf or the bear his hide and carrying it off as spoil.
Virgil, in Romulus, gives us a vivid picture of the
character in his old, heroic lineaments:
“Inde lupae fulvo nutricis tegmine laetus
Romulus excipiet gentem,” etc.
* "Weal' is now only used as a noun,
“The weal or woe in thee is placed."— Milton.
Yet in Scotland they still use it as an adjective (weel).


88
FOSSIL HISTORIES.
What a long and entertaining yarn might be spun
out of the 'sardonic laugh! We should be compelled
to travel back even to the days of Greece's blind but
sunny bard whom we find first alluding to the “yew:
Japoovios." Let old, heroic Chapman recite the passage
for us :
"— Who (Ulysses) he heard,
Shrunke quietly aside and let it shed
His malice on the wall. The suffering man
A laughter raiséd most Sardonian
With scorne, and wrath mixt.”
Odyssey, Book XX.
And Richardson cites a passage from Taylor's
Pausanias which sufficiently explains the origin and
application of the term:
“This same island [Sardinia] is free from all kinds of poisonous
and deadly herbs, excepting one herb, which resembles parsely
and which, they say, causes those who eat it to die laughing.
From this circumstance Homer first and others after him calls
laughing which conceals some noxious design: 'sardonican.'"
Description of Greece, vol. iii. p. 149.
The piece of history wrapt up in .CURFEW’ is very
familiar; but it will bear repetition. The composition


STORY OF THE CURFEW.
89
of the word we know to be couvre feu, that is to say,
cover up your fires. So that whenever
“The curfew tolled the knell of parting day,"
(and the bell rang regularly at 8 o'clock every night),
the good folks quietly raked up their fires, put out
their lights and retired to bed, as peaceable people
should do. The word reads its own story. And, by
the way, it also points with unerring certainty to its
originators. For we see that the word is Norman :
and, in fact, this very practice was established by
William the Conqueror—that grand innovator of
Saxon manners and customs and introducer of French
modes and morals. On this word Webster has the
following curious passage: "The practice of ringing
bells at nine o'clock continues in many places, and is
considered, in New England, as a signal for people to
retire from company to their own abodes; and, in general,
the signal is obeyed !"
By the way, fiends and fairies, as well as mortals,
were supposed to be subject to the same regulation.
Thus Edgar says:
“This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins at curfew,
and walks till the first cock," etc.
Lcar, III. 4.


FOSSIL HISTORIES.
"RIVAL' is another word of well-known origin.
The Latin adjective rivalis is literally that which per-
tains to a-rivus—stream or rivulet; and the plural
rivales was used to designate those who had a brook in
common, or who got water from the same brook.* But,
it being soon found out that this circumstance was
almost constantly productive of contentions, the word
lost this speciality of application, and concentrated
within itself the notion of every thing that is bitter in
animosity or fierce in contention. And yet Shake-
speare employs the word in an altogether friendly
sense. Thus when Bernardo exclaims,
“If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste;"
Hamlet, I. 1.
he understands and intends partners, sharers—partners
in the watch, even as those who live on the same
stream are sharers in the water. This use of the word
is now, however, entirely obsolete. Still, we use
*COMPANION'—which may just be one who eats
* “Si inter rivales, id est qui per eundem rivum aquam ducunt,
sit contentio de aquæ usu," etc.
Ulpian Leg. I.


INFIDELS MISCREANTS.
91
(panis) bread along with us—in a wholly amicable
application.*
The most perfect realization of the primitive con.
ception of “rivals' is no doubt the 'Border-men'-
whom the magic wand of Sir Walter's genius has
unsepulchred, causing them to spring up, clad “in
complete steel," raging in the fury of their deadly
feuds. We catch glimpses of the old baron issuing
forth, with his troop of mailed retainers, bent on
plunder, and returning with the stolen cattle of their
neighbors—leaving their sign-manual in smoking
houses and desolated homes.
"SIGN-MANUAL,' did we say ? Even this may not
be without its history. Does it not give us hints of
rude lion-hearted heroes, in those rude yet romantic
Middle Ages, "whose signature, a true sign-manual,
was the stamp of their iron hands duly inked and
clapt upon the parchment.”+
Lo! rise there up before the mind's eye the 'CRU.
SADES'--those enthusiastic expeditions against the
• INFIDELS' and the 'MISCREANTS'-sending out to
* Webster, however, takes this word from con and pannus, a
cloth or flag; and makes a companion' one who is under the
same standard. He is probably right.
+ Carlyle: “Stump Orator.”


92
FOSSIL HISTORIES.
'SAUNTER' to the holy sepulchre whole bands of
'PILGRIMS' who came home 'PALMERS.'
In these few words lies embalmed the entire history
of the movements.
The "CRUSADES,' that is the croisades, or cross-ades-
the cross being the banner under which they marched,
each crusader,' moreover, bearing about with him
“The dear remembrance of his dying Lord."
The Holy-land, we know, was the place whither the
"PILGRIMS' (the pelerins-peregrini, i.e. the wanderers)
were wont to wend their steps; which knowing, we
can readily conceive how the pilgrimage might very
soon degenerate into a mere 'SAUNTERING'—and the
PALMERS,' returning with their branches of palm, use
this symbol only as a sanction for mendicity.
"I am a palmer, as ye se,
Which of my lyfe much part have spent,
In many a fayre and farre countrie.”
Old Play (Quoted by Nares).
And more of the Middle Ages! Our notions of
Chivalry are mainly derived from the sportive phan-
tasy of glorious old Cervantes' 'Don Quixote;' but
it must not be imagined that Miguel was the first
satirist of Chivalry. Nay, our own Dan Chaucer,


94
FOSSIL HISTORIES.
“ Slept never on the Mount of Parnasso,
Ne lerned Marcus Tullius Cicero."
I quote the passage, however, merely to note the
old spelling of 'School'-Scole-a form which ap-
proaches nearer to the original word and gives us a
glimpse thereinto. Schole is the etymon and signifies
primitively leisure—the otium cum dignitate' so
essential to permit of scholastic' pursuits. The
following passage, cited by Richardson, well illus-
trates the original meaning of the word:
"For hee pictured the noble ladie Hesione, K. Alexander the
Great, and Philip the King his father, with the goddesse
Minerva; which tables hang in the Philosopher's Schoole, or
walking place, within the stately galleries of Octavia, where the
learned clerks and gentlemen favourers of learning, were wont to
mect and converse.'
Holland's Plinie.
The archaic use of CLERK,' in the above passage,
suggests a remark in regard to the history of it, also.
This word has, in its transition from its original to
the present application suffered divers changes in
signification. Thus the word is at first one with
clergy—(Latin clericus, Greck clericos—cleros)*—and
* Literally chosen by lot—the application of which is said by
some to have originated in the choosing of Mathias recorded in
the Acts of the Apostles.


CLERGY-FARCE_JEOPARDY.
95
then, since the clergy were supposed to absorb all the
learning of the times and what could be a more
conclusive evidence of this fact than that we find
'clergie' meaning literature ?—it came to signify a
man of letters—“Every one that could read being,"
as Blackstone informs us, “accounted a clerk.'”
We next find it approximating still closer to its
present usage—being employed in the sense of a
writer in an office: and then, by an easy gradation,
a shopman, a "clerk."
We all recognize in 'FARCE' a stuffing of irrele-
vances and ludicrous conceits; but we will realize
this all the more forcibly by noting that it actually
does mean something sluſjed—the verb to 'farce'
being formerly used in precisely that signification, as
a passage from Sir T. More will well exemplify:
wherein he says with his usual causticity:
“Which was farforth fursed, stuffed and swole wo venemous
heresies.”
"JEOPARDY,' again, is a word that smacks of the
gaming table—the composition being in all proba-
bility that suggested by Tyrwhitt, namely, jeu parti
-an even game, that is, one in wbich the chances are
equal, so that there is a chance, and a danger, of its
falling on either side—the whole being very jeopar.


96
FOSSIL HISTORIES.
dous! And this derivation wears a still more decided
air of probability when viewed in connection with
such passages as the following:
“And when he, thurgh his madnesse and folie
Hath lost his owen good thurgh ju partie,
Then he exciteth other folk thereto,
To lose his goodes as he himself liath do."
Chaucer.
Or in the following from Froissart:
“Si nous les royons à jou partie"- If we see them at even
game, etc.
Chronicles, Vol I. p. 234.
And more of the Archæology of Words !
“The Host looked stedfastly at Adams, and after a moment's
silence asked him, 'if he was not one of the writers of the
Gazetteers, for I have hear,' says he, they are writ by parsons.'
"Gazetteers l' answered Adams, 'What's that?'"
Fielding's Joseph Andrews.
Any school boy could now answer the good Par.
son's interrogatory; and tell him, moreover, that the
GAZETTE' first took its name from a Venetian coin
called a gazet or gazetta—and which is said to have
been the price charged for perusing it. But


GAZETTE—INOCULATION.
97
even in England this word was used as a designation
for a small coin. Thus,
“Since you have said the word I am content,
But will not go a gazet less."
Massinger's Maid of Ilonour, III. 1.
A curious picce of history is contained in our
application of the word 'INOCULATION. The appli-
cation, I say ; for originally the verb to 'inoculate'
merely signified to ingraft—literally, to insert-ocula-
cyes i. e. buds or grafts, in a tree. And in this sense
solely was it employed, until the rise of a new practice
(and the necessity of a designation therefor) drew the
word away from its primary usage, and gave it an
application altogether novel. Here is a snatch of old
rhyme-rubbish anent the subject:
“If I had twenty children of my own,
I would inoculate them every one.
Ay, but should any of them die! what moan
Would then be made for venturing thereupon.
No; I should think that I had done the best,
And be resigned whatever should befall.
But could you really be so, quite at rest?
I could. Then why inoculate at all ?
Byrom on Inoculation. (Written when first practised).
Sometimes, again, there remain to us embers and


98
FOSSIL HISTORIES.
ashes from some mighty social or political volcano, or
revolution (which is also a turning of things upside
down-revolvo, volutum). Instance .SEPTEMBRIST '-
a name given to those engaged in the Paris massacre
of September '92. This same French Revolution bas,
moreover, left us ‘SANSCULOTTES '—a term of reproach
applied to the ultra Republicans—that is, fellows so
wretched as to be even destitute of breeches ! The
*CHARTIST,' too, clearly lets us know that he goes in
for his charta, or charter: and it is perfectly evident
that the 'RADICAL' believes in going down to the
very root—radix-of the matter and upturning
therefrom.
How perfectly faithful is the history "MOB' gives
us of itself. We, of course, instantly perceive it to
be a shortened form of mobile—the variable, fickle,
mobile crowd that is swayed about by any wind of
caprice. This derivation receives an additional
certificate when we learn that it was formerly written
mobile, in full, as a trisyllable. Thus in the "Song of
an Orange," among the State Poems, * we have the
following:
" Tho' the mobile baul
Like the Devil and all,
For religion, property, justice and laws.”
* Vol. III. 287. In Nares' Glossary.


MOB-HYPOCRITE.
99
And in the days of Addison it was written as a.
contract, that is, with a dot after it. But let him
speak for himself* : “It is perhaps this humour of
speaking no more words than we needs must, wbich
has so miserably curtailed some of our words, that
in familiar writings and conversation they often lose
all but their first syllables, as in mob., red., pos., incog.,
and the like; and as all ridiculous words make their
first entry into a language by familiar phrases, I dare
not answer for these that they will not in time be looked
upon as a part of our tongue !".
Two old Grecian words read us an instructive
history. 'HYPOCRITE' and 'SYCOPHANT' namely.
Let us lay open these words and see what treasures
they will display. 'HYPOCRITE' is written Hypocrites
in Greek, and in its usual application implied a stage-
player, an actor +-hence one who feigns a part, hence
a dissembler, a 'hypocrite.' But this application of
the word is placed in a much clearer light when we
consider for a moment certain peculiarities of the
Grecian stage. From the immense extent of the
ancient theatres it was necessary, in order to avoid a
ludicrous disproportion, to make the players—the
* Spectator.
+ Our verb to 'act is often used in the sense of feigning, pre-
tending


100
FOSSIL HISTORIES.
hypocrites—by artificial means, of a supernatural size,
And as their rôles belonged chiefly to an antique and
heroic age—mid an atmosphere of stillness and
repose—they were the more readily able to effect this.
Thus they increased by a hidden trumpet, the power
and volume of their voices—and they were generally
masked: so that they were in a double and still more
comprehensive and comprehensible sense, feigners ;
and our acceptation of 'HYPOCRITE' acquires from
the genesis of the word increased point and pun.
gency.
Of 'SYCOPHANT' the history is exceedingly curious.
In Greece a Sycophantes--sycophant-meant a fig-shower
—that is one who gave information of persons esporting
figs from Attica, or plundering sacred fig-trees; and
as such offices always carry something opprobrious
with them and are eminently exposed to abuse, it soon
acquired the signification of a common informer, a
false accuser, a slanderer, a mean parasite. And eren
'PARASITE' which I see I have just chanced to use
flashes across the mind an interesting piece of history.
The composition of the term rould indicate that it
meant originally one who took his corn (sitos) with
another—and so lived at the other's expense. But as
this privilege was, among such characters, generally
paid for by obsequious flattery and buffoonery, it


LEGENDERY LORE OF WORDS.
101
readily acquired the odious signification in which we
now employ it.
Often, too, dwells there in some quaint old word a
fund of legendary lore, at which the imagination takes
flight, bearing us back to the fairy scenes of old by..
gone days. “FoxGLOVE,' for example, which is just
the folk's glove that is, the good folk's glove—the
"GOOD PEOPLE' being the affectionate name by which
the fairies were known to our simple-minded ances-
tors, and by which they are still designated by the
Irish peasantry. We meet with the same idea in the
Welsh maneg ellyllon—which is also the fairies' glove.
“Delightedly dwells he 'mong ſays and talismans,
And spirits!"
WITCH' and 'WIZARD,' too, let us into the weird
phantasies of a superstitious people. For both of
these words are from the Saxon verb to know—wissen
-simply signifying, therefore, a wise person—that is,
one whom they esteemed to be supernaturally wise.
'ROSICRUCIAN' is a word that smells of the
Alchemical alembic. The composition is ros, dew,
and crux (crucis), the cross. Now the Rosicrucians--
those Hermetical philosophers who appeared in Ger-
many in the Seventeenth Century-affected a know-


102
FOSSIL HISTORIES.
ledge of the Philosopher's Stone and other chemical
arcana: so that the name is peculiarly applicable to
them-dew being according to their notions the most
powerful solvent of gold, and the cross being the
emblem of light. Cabalistic enough!
Poor Luna, too, bas had to suffer her own share of
odium. Not to mention the thousand fantastic tricks
formerly ascribed to her—such as her disobliging
dealings with meats and men—with what infinite
contempt do we talk about 'MOONSHINE;' and it is to
be feared that not even advancing civilization will
wholly rid us of belief in all moony influences, since
we have the superstition firmly rooted in the very
groundwork of our language. Witness ‘LUNATIC;'
also the alchemical ‘MENSTRUUM' (mensis—a month);
and, by the way, 'MONTH' itself is just the time in
which it moon-eth.*
How often do we speak of our 'COMRADES,' and
yet how seldom do we think of the allusion we con.
tinually make in doing so. The French form of this
word is camarade; Portuguese and Spanish camarada ;
Italian camerata. Now this close analogy is clearly
* The steps are just these: mooneth—moneth—month. Chau-
cer will furnish examples of the middle step. Thus
“This monethes two."
Canterbury Tales.


WORDS SELF-REPORTERS.
103
significant of the common origin of these words; and
in fact, we do indeed find that the root of them all is
the Latin camera, a chainber: a "comrade' is there-
fore, originally, just a chamber-fellow. It seems strange
why the English should have corrupted this word,
while in all the cognate languages it remains pure.
And, indeed, we find that formerly the word was not
• comrade,' but camarade. In Evelyn, for instance, I
find the following:
“These are the particular idioms and graceful confidences
dow in use; introduced, I conceive, at first by some camerades
one with another ; but is mean and rude."
Character of England.
This, indeed, is one of the most important functions
of words: that they report and describe themselves,
and in their simple composition, ofttimes tell us more
than do the Encyclopædias. Words thus become a
complete catalogue raisonnée of all thoughts and things;
and while they are crystalized poctries and philoso-
phies, they are at the same time important scientific
organs and instruments.
The 'RUBY,' for instance, says plainly that it is
red-ruber; and so 'RUBRIC' tells of the red paint with
which titles of laws were first painted. The 'NEGRO'
carries black on the very face of him, 'AUBURN' is


104
FOSSIL HISTORIES.
quite literally sun-burned (brennan), while an ‘ALBUM
is quite as plainly a while tablet. A 'RESTORATEUR'
offers to restore, or refresh us; while an 'OMNIBUS'
invitingly affirms that it is to or for all; and a ‘PORT-
MANTEAU' jogs our memory in regard to its ability
to carry our mantle for us! Then, again, 'PURGA-
TORY' informs us that it is the place wbere we may
purge out our trespasses; while 'ROSARY' proffers to
conduct us through a very bed of roses (rosarium).
PAPER,' again, claims an intimate kinship with the
old Egyptian papyrus; a 'MANGER' truly tells us that
it is that whereout cattle may manger-eat; 'LIEU-
TENANT'avers that he is merely one wbo holds the
place, who stands in lieu, of his superior; and a
CRAVEN' basely confesses that he has craved or
craven his life at his enemy's hand. "JAUNDICE'
truthfully aflirms that it turns its victim yellow-
jaune; and we cannot mention ‘ELECTRICITY' with.
out being reminded of electron or amber—a substance
which so plentifully secretes the fluid. “AFFABLE' en.
couragingly assures us that it may readily be spoken to
(affabilis); as for 'INFANT,' if it could speak, it would
tell us that (etymologically) it cannot speak (in-fans).
*RECIPE' simply says, do thou take' (so and so);
' RENDEZ-VOUS' says, “betake yourselves' (to such and
such a place; and this place is the rendez-vous ');


BISCUIT-SURLOIN--AUTHOR.
105
and the waiter when he calls, 'Anon, sir,' means to
say, 'In one (minute), sir.' So BISCUIT' tells us that
it is originally an article which is bis-cuit, bis-coctus-
twice.cooked ; 'SURLOIN' just informs us that it is sur
(le) loigne-above the loin, although a fantastic ety.
mology would give it the honor of knighthood and
make it Sir Loin! A 'MINISTER' offers to minister to,
or serve us; a "TUTOR' offers to look after us (tueor)
and a 'PRISON' offers to take or hold one (prendre,
pris). 'SHABBY'affirms that it is at present désha-
billé ; while 'DANDELION' seems to claim some strange
alliance with a lion's tooth-dent de lion, and a 'PRI-
VILEGE' avers that it has its own privy, or private
law (lex-legis). Again, an 'AUTHOR,' if verily such,
ought to be in every sense an auctor ;* that is, not
merely one who produces something, but„qui auctat
—who positively increases our stock of knowledge and
happiness. Tried by this standard of etymology, how
many of “the mob of gentlemen who write with
ease," will be found wanting!
"SHROVE-TIDE' we cannot help perceiving to be the
time when people were shrived, or shriven ; so 'DE-
BONAIRE' is just as evidently de bon air—a word
which has unhappily fallen into disuse, for it is both
* It was formerly so written. I have seen it thus as late
as 1557.


106
FOSSIL HISTORIES.
beautiful and expressive enough to have been retained.
So "CORONER' and— so on through ten thousand
other cases. But enough, enough!
The historical significance of Words springs from the
fact of their being born of spontaneity. Words thus
formed unwittingly, and on which the national mind,
making and moulding, has wrought, must be the very
expression of the national life. They are the sanctuary
of the intuitions. Here we should find a people daguer.
reotyped in the very lineaments of life.* Nay even
our common, every-day words and phrases will many
a time furnish keen hints of ethnic peculiarities. Thus
what is on the carpet' (sur le tapis) to the Frenchman,
for the Englishman gets 'on the anvil ;' nor are the
'ESPRIT' and 'CAUSERIES' of the one any more cha.
racteristic than the ‘SPLEEN' and 'HUMOR' of the
other; and yet the Englishman possesses a 'HOME,'
while the Frenchman has only a 'CHEZ NOUS' (ut our
place). And so the Parisian's joli (pretty), to the
Cockney—who is apt to cluster most of his ideas of a
'pretty fellow' around mirth and enjoyment–becomes
* “Il est certain que la langue d'un peuple contient, s'il m'est
permis de m'exprimer de la sorte, les véritables dimensions de
son esprit. Il est la mesure de l'étendue de sa logique et de ses
connaissances.”—M. le President de Brosses. Traité de la Forma-
tion Méchanique de Langues, etc. Tome I. 74.


TRAVEL AND TRAVAIL.
107
quite 'JOLLY.' And this disposition leaks out through
his very amusements, so that even with his cards'
in his hand, he will brawl and babble of clubs' and
'spades' (pique et trêjle). There is said to be no
equivalent for the Italian 'CONCETTI;' while nothing
could prove more mournfully the degeneracy of that
once heroic people than the fact that a villain or an
assassin is to them a 'BRAVO' (a brave man).
The coincidence of TRAVEL' and 'TRAVAIL' rests
on a piece of history worth exploring. “Long after
the Frank had achieved the conquest, he well remem.
bered the vast amount of labor and blood it had cost
him to get over the immense walls with which the
Roman tried to protect his fortified encampments and
towers. To scale them, to get 'trans vallum' was
the most difficult part of his military labor; so he
soon came, by analogy, to call every uncommon effort
a TRAVAIL' and what the Frenchman still ascribes
to the labors in childbed and the report of the Minis-
ter of Finances-apparently his hardest works as
they are both called “travail' by eminence,-the
Englishman of the Middle Ages applied to his labor
in travelling through foreign countries."*
It is curious, also, to note in connection with this
that we always designate a literary production as a
* Prof. De Vere: Comparative Philology.


108
FOSSIL HISTORIES.
'work'—what the Roman termed his opus (plural
opera)—what the Italian terms his opera, only that
he, dilettante-like, applies the word exclusively to
musical compositions.
In connection with travel' I might have noticed
that what was to the Frenchman merely a day through,
or a day's work (journée) became to the Englishman
his 'JOURNEY '—the application of which it will not
be difficult to trace.
I have spoken of our forms of greeting and parting,
as 'GOOD-BYE,' which is just God be wr you, ‘ADIEU,'
I commend you (à dieu) to God, “FAREWELL' which
is may you fare or go, well. Perhaps there is to be
read in these national good wishes a deep enough
lesson: perhaps it is that that these spontaneous
utterances may embody the very spirit of the people.
Thus the warlike Roman concentrated his best wishes
in his 'SALVE !'—which is just · May you be safe ;'
or into his 'VALE'—which, also, is naught other
than “May you be well'—following his departed
friends even to the tomb with his last sad requiem,
“Vale, vale, in eternum, vale !"
The gay symmetrical Greek summed up his 'con.
gratulations in his rašpe!'—'May you be joyful;'
while the profounder repose of the Oriental is mani.
fested in his 'SALAAMI-peace !


RAMBLE SIXTH.
WORDS OF ABUSE.
Falstaff. Away, you starveling, you elf-skin, you dried neat's
tongue, you stock-fish,–O for breath to utter what is like thee!
-you tailor's yard, you bow-case, you vile standing tuck:-
Prince Henry. Well, breathe awhile, and then to it again;
and when thou hast tired thyself in base comparisons, hear me
speak but this.
First Part of Henry IV. ii. 4.
You remember that the disclosure which Prince
Hal makes of the merry prank played on “lean
Jack" and his companions effectually closed the cra-
ter of that volcano which could vomit forth naught
save wit and braggardism: otherwise we might have
had a perfect exhaustion of Billingsgate from that
"trunk of humors, that bolting-hutch of beastliness,
that swoln parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of
sack, that stuffed cloak bag of guts, that roasted Man-
ning-tree ox with the pudding in his belly, that reve.


110
WORDS OF ABUSE.
rend vice, that grey iniquity, that father ruffian, that
vanity in years!"
As it is, however, we will find no lack of material
wherewith to supply the hiatus. For here, at least,
language is full to overflowing. It is a current which
frets and foams—rushing on dashing and impetuous;
which o'erleaps the barriers of custom and conven-
tion, and sweeps into its resistless torrent history and
metaphor and allusion and truth and falsehood and
poetry and passion and prejudice and fact and fable.
Rousscau conceived language to be the natural pro-
duct of the Passions. And really the thought re-
ceives no small degree of warranty when one marks
the prodigious word-fecundity of Love and Hatred-
how they have ransacked heaven and earth for sym-
bols, exhausting nature and piling hyperbole on
hyperbole. Take away from any speech what these
have done for it, and how small a remnant will be
left! As the skeleton forms the frame-work on
which the splendid drapery of the human form is
placed, so the most highly elaborated speech has its
roots in homely and hearty idioms and instincts—
elemental utterances of human nature.
. Among the most instructive of this class of words
are the terms which the speech-forming faculties have
loaded with burdens of abuse. A representative, that


112
WORDS OF ABUSE.
courtiers, nobles, etc., was generally followed by the
attendants, and the rear brought up by the lowest
class of menials—by the scullery-servants, the turn-
spits, the coal-carriers and others of that ilk-rather a
black guard, we should say: and, in fact, they were
jocularly designated by this very term—an appella-
tion which, in the shape of our 'BLACKGUARD' re.
mains even to the present day; though why those
poor devils came to be the exclusive representatives
of scurrility and mcanness, it might be difficult to
determine—unless, indeed, as we may well suppose,
they were by no means ignorant, and as little sparing
in their employment, of those peculiar elegancies of
diction which are playfully ascribed to that classic
region where they sell the best fish and speak the
best English. Burton, by the way, speaking of the
various ranks and gradations of devils, alludes to this
“guard :"
“Though some of them are inferior to those of their own
ranke, as the Blacke guard in a prince's court.”
Anatomy of Melancholy, p. 42.
Frorn 'blackguard' we ascend to the formuling of
a principle which we find exercising quite an impor-
tant influence over the Abusive Element in speech,
namely, that particular trades or professions or ranks


Wrong
BLACKGUARD—SNOB—KNAVE.
113
in life which involve something effeminate, or mean
or opprobrious—or which are supposed to do so—are
taken as the types of these qualities. Thus that vile
sarcasm on tailors which wickedly declares them to
be but a vulgar fraction of a man is of quite dateless
antiquity, while shoemakers are proverbially 'SNOBS.'
However, we find some compensation and consola-
tion in the fact that on this subject, too, the standards
of judgment vary. In France, for instance, they do
not typify this class by a shoemaker, but by a grocer
—an'épicier' being the very beau ideal of twopenny
flash and beggarly magnificence. Another word that
will conveniently come under this same category is
*FLUNKEY'-a term which, in these latter days of
flunkey-ism, has become significant of so much, but
which primarily imports merely a livery servant, a
sense in which the Scotch still use it.
Of similar significance is the word 'KNAVE'-a
term which has sadly lost caste—sinking down from
an innocent boy or youth (as the German for boy is
still knabe) to the very depth of rascality. The inter-
mediate step, however, throws a ray of light on the
terminus at which the word arrives. For this middle
meaning is that of a servant—often enough, we know,
apt to be knavish.* The course it has taken is, there-
*Valet' and 'varlet' were, it is surmised, originally one word.


MEAN-PAGAN—VAGABOND.
115
profligate, is also from a Saxon root signifying the
common people—the lay people. So, 'MEAN' has an
analogous origin witht he many-Saxon meneg; and
'CHURL' is just the Saxon for a man, a fellow-ceorl:*
a sense which the Scotch carle still retains as 'cantie
carle,' that is, a merry fellow. Again, 'BOOR' is Dutch
for farmer; 'RUSTIC' is having relation to the country;
'PAGAN' is primarily a dweller in a paganus or ham.
let; SAVAGE,' or salvage as the truer orthography
would write it (Spanish salvage, Italian selvaggio), is a
dweller in the woods (sylva) a backwoodsman: and
'VILLAIN' is primitively the serf or peasant (villanus)
attached to the villa or farm. Nor does it originally
bear with it any opprobrious meaning. Thus, in
Chaucer:
“But firste I praie you of your curtesie
That ye ne asette it not my vilanie,
Though that I plainly speke in this matere,
To tellen you hir wordes and hir chere
Ne though I speek hir wordes proprely."
Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.
"VAGABOND,' too, is well worth exploring, being,
etymologically, merely one who is given to wandering
* Whence Carl, Carolus, Charles, etc.


116
WORDS OF ABUSE.
about—vagabundus—or, as we also say, 'vagrant'*—
and primarily carries nothing opprobrious with it.
The Prince Gonzaga di Castiglione, at least, intended
to employ it in an altogether complimentary manner
when, being at table with Dr. Johnson and a host of
learned pundits, he called out to Johnson: “At your
good health Mr. Vagabond ."' imagining that to be
assuredly an appropriate epithet for the author of the
Rambler! It is curious, and not uninstructive to note
in connection with this, how the staidness of our
ancestors has stamped respectability on every thing
that is settled ; while it has cast a slight on every thing
that approaches to roving. Thus Swift uses stroller'
as precisely synonymous with óvagabond ;' while one
given to roving is proverbially a ne'er-do-weel' (a
never-do-well) as thic Scotch say. Furthermore, a
CORSAIR' (French, corsaire; Italian, corsare; Spanish,
corsario—all from Latin curro—cursus, to run), is just
* Both of these words spring from one root-vagor, to rove,
to ramble; vagabond being a corruption of vagabundus; and
'VAGRANT'a corruption, through the French, of the present par-
ticiple. The story that these words and their analogues enwrap
is curious enough. The very fact of being a wanderer would
seem to presuppose some sinister design; and express provision
is made, at least in all civilized countries, for the punishment of
this very class. In England, for instance, the ancient punish-
ment was, I believe, boring the ear, whipping, etc.


118
WORDS OF ABUSE.
“For if thou blessist in spyrit, who filleth the place of an
idyot (qui supplet locum idiotae] how schal he seie amen un thi
blessyng?”
I. Cor. chap. 14.
Here 'idiot' is, we know, rendered, by subsequent
translations, 'he that occupieth the room of the un-
learned.'
The reason of this unwarranted application of
“idiot' might be difficult to determine, unless it be
that he who has not been able to get beyond the con-
dition of a private person (iôsúsris) and attain to some
office or honor, presents thereby prima facie evidence
of not having the wit to do so and is, therefore, to be
regarded as witless and imbecile!
But the Abusive ficulty, not content with ransack-
ing human nature for appellations black and bitter, is
fain to go and beg or borrow from the lower animals
epithets fitted to its ends. “Divers words expressive
of contempt beeing," as an old English Archæologist
has it,“ properly the names of some vile things, and
in contempt and disgrace, full often, and with great
breach of charitie, injuriously applyed unto men and
women.” It is no respecter either of persons or
things. Willing or unwilling, it presses universal
nature into its service.


CRONE-SHREW.
119
*CRONE' (whence our "crony'), for instance, is said
to be properly the appellation for a toothless old ewe,
and then applied, in passion and sarcasm, to an old
woman-an old 'hag,' which, by the way, meant
primarily an enchantress or fury. “SHREW,' also, is
asserted by Lye to have been taken from the schreawa,
or shrew-mouse-a little creature whose spitefulness
was proverbial and whose bite and venom are even
said to have been fatal.* The variations in the
* In regard to this word Webster says: “I know not the
original sense of this word ... but beshrew, in Chaucer is
interpreted to curse.” Most assuredly it is and quite properly,
too! The fact is Webster was lead astray by Todd (see Todd's
Johnson's Dict. : in loco) who makes the noun (a shrew-mouse)
a derivative from the verb (to shrew, to curse). Whereas the
reverse is undoubtedly the case. This arrangement, too, ex-
hibits, and accounts for, the natural development of the deriva-
tives. Thus:
A 'SHREW' is a woman possessed with the contentious spite-
fulness and venom of a shrew-mouse.
To sirew' is to wish one to be struck as with the mortal
venom of a shrew-mouse, and, in general, to curse.
SAREwD' is just shrew-ed, curst, malicious—in this sense used
a thousand times by Shakspeare and his cotemporaries; and
then softened down to what is merely sly, sagacious.
To 'BESHREW' is simply another (strengthened) form of to
SHREW ;' and hence Chaucer's 'interpretation' thereof.


120
WORDS OF ABUSE.
orthography of 'VIXEN' will lead us, by the nearest
road, up to its source: the steps are as follows:
Vixen, fixen or fixin, fox-en = a she-fox: from which
point of view our readers will readily perceive its
peculiar applicability. And one can imagine some
old hag, white and foaming with rage, endeavoring to
conjure up something overwhelming wherewith to
stigmatize some of her fellows—and at last screaming
out, “You ... you ... you 'QUEAN!'”
—that is, you barren old cow-cwean being the Saxon
designation therefor.
As for 'CAT' and ‘BITCH' and 'CUR' and 'HORSE'
and ' Ass' and others such like, (of which we have a
numerous enough tribe), they require no particulari-
zation. But it might puzzle one's wits to say what
special stigmatic force there lies in ‘MANDRAKE,' un-
less one receive all the wild fables that cluster around
that strange plant.
In the following, for example, it is undoubtedly
used in an abusive sense—where Falstaff, addressing
his page says: “If the prince put thee into my service
for any other reason than to set me off, why then I
have no judgment. Thou whoreson mandrake, thou
art fitter to be worn in my cap, than to wait at my
heels," etc.- Second Part of Henry IV. I. 2.
Here, we perceive, the applicability hangs on the


QUAINT BITS OF ABUSE.
121
old notion of the mandrake's bearing a certain resem-
blance to the human figure, especially to a diminutive
person. On this quaint fancy, Nares quotes the follow-
ing curious passage from Lyte: “The roote is great
and white, not muche unlyke a radishe roote, divided
into two or threc partcs, and sometimes one upon
another, almost lyke the thighes and legges of a man.”
It was, moreover, supposed that this plant, when
torn up from the ground, uttered groans so horrible
as to drive any one mad who chanced to hear it.
By the way, “MANDRAKE' is a corruption from
mandregora—the peculiar soporific effects of which
a familiar passage in Othello will have imprinted on
the reader's memory:
" - Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrops of the world,
Shall ever medecine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou ow'dst yesterday !"
Thus we often times find embalmed, even in words
expressive of contempt, quite an important fact or
fable. From the unpromising "TAWDRY,' for ex.
ample, we evolve quite a piece of history. For it is
asserted to be a contraction from St. Audrey (or Saint
Ethelrida)--a name commonly applied to an annual
fair held on S6 Audrey's day, and at which all kinds


122
WORDS OF ABUSE.
. of frippery and trinkets were bought and sold: but as
these articles generally possessed more glitter than
gold and their splendors were too often sadly faded, it
soon came to acquire the meaning which we now
attach to the word “tawdry :' "That was bought at St.
Audrey-fair !' and so 'tawdry.' By the way, the
fair saint herself is said to have been rather attached
to finery—so much so, indeed, as to have died of a
swelling in the throat, sent as a special visitation on
account of an ardent youthful fondness for fine neck-
laces! Many of my readers may remember the very
strange story which Horne Tooke compels from 'POL-
TROON. He takes it from pollice truncus—one that
has deprived himself of his thumb, a derivation in which
he is supported by the elder Etymologists, as Vossius,
Skinner and Menage. “Multi enim illo tempore, quia
necessitate ad bellum cogebantur præ ignavia sibi
pollices truncabant, ne militarent!” Some doubt has
indecd been cast on this etymology and yet here is a
passage giving so perfect a realization of the primary
idea of “poltroon' that one can scarcely resist accept
ing it:
“In October 1795, one Samuel Caradise, who had been com-
mitted to the house of correction in Kendal, and there confined
as a vagabond until put on board a King's ship, agreeable to the
late Act, sent for his wife the evening before his intended de-


SCOUNDREL-COWARD.
123
parture. He was in a cell and she spoke to him through the
iron door. After which he put his hand underneath, and she
with a mallet and chissel, concealed for the purpose, struck off a
finger and thumb, to render him unfit for his Majesty's service."
And similar in origin is 'SCOUNDREL'—said to be
the Italian scondaruole, that is, a soldier who absconds
or skulks at muster-role :
“Go, if your ancient, but ignoble blood
Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood !"
Pope.
And similar, too, are . DASTARD,' 'COWARD,' and
CRAVEN.' A 'CRAVEN' is one who has craved or
craven his life at his enemy's hands. 'DASTARD,' is
from the Saxon verb Dastrigan, to be scared, fright-
ened. And “COWARD' is from a verb that is now
obsolete in English, though it is still a living vocable
in the Scotch idiom—to cower, to shake, to shiver.
Of its use I find such examples as this:
“Winter with his rough winds and blasts causeth a lusty man
and woman to cowre and sit by the fire."
Or this:
“And she was put, that I of talke
Ferre fro these other, up in a halke;
There lurked, and there cowred she.”
Romaunt of the Rose.


124
WORDS OF ABUSE.
Our slightly contemptuous term "STICKLER' has
rather an unexpected derivation. A citation from
Shakespeare will let us into the secret. In Troilus
and Cressida after
“Achilles hath the mighty Hector slain,"
he exclaims :
“The dragon wing of night o'erspreads the earth,
And stickler like the armies separates," etc.
Like a stickler,' that is, like an arbiter. A ‘stick-
ler' in a duel was, therefore, what we now term a
'second ;' and as their duty-namely that of seeing
fair-play, equal advantages etc., between the combat-
ants—would often lead them to chaffer and contend
and stickle’ in regard to special points or punctilios,
we can readily conceive how it came to acquire the
meaning in which it is now used. The reason of
their being called sticklers’ is said by Stevens to
have been from their carrying white sticks as emblems
of their duty.
· HERETIC' gives us some keen hints respecting the
causes of religious intolerance and the odium theologi-
cum. For Hairetikos (Greek haireo, to take or choose
for oneself) originally implies simply one who chooses
an opinion for himself, without any reference to the


HERETIC-INFIDEL.
125
truth or falsity of that opinion. But as bigotry never
can endure that any man choose a belief that it does
not choose for him and is never half so much at home
as when anathemizing all who cannot subscribe credo
to its every dogma, we can readily conceive how this
innocent word acquired the meaning of one who holds
erroneous and, consequently, bad opinions! Hobbes,
in the following passage well illustrates this word :
“The word heresy is Greek, and signifies a taking of anything,
particularly the taking of an opinion. After the study of Phi-
losophy began in Greece, and the philosophers, disagrecing
amongst theinselves, had started many questions, not only about
things natural, but also moral and civil, because every man took
what opinion he pleased, each several opinion was called a
heresy; which signified no more than a private opinion, without
reference to truth or falsehood."
Hobbes' Historical Narration concerning Heresy.
It should also be noticed that “INFIDEL' literally
but imports one who is faithless (infidelis) to our beliefs.
In the wars of the crusades the epithet 'infidel' was
applied to the Mohammedans, even as the Normans
called them 'MISCREANTS '—mescreaunts—which is
also unbelievers. And it is a curious fact that the
Turks, resenting, stigmatized the Christians as “gia
ours,' which, I am told, signifies in their language
infidel or unbeliever, also !


126
WORDS OF ABUSE.
We are all familiar with what infinite contempt the
Greeks were wont to look down upon all foreign
nations—branding them universally as 'BARBARIANS.'
The word "barbarian’ itself, however, is by no means
so easily traced. Gibbon makes it Syrian, while
others declare it to be merely intended as a general
imitation of a (to the Greeks) foreign tongue. Thus
we see how entirely relative are all such terms,
whether ethical or ethnical. But so do words acquire
a factitious value. How are we under the sway of
Words! They tyrannize over and terrify us-
“Assume the nod,
Affect the god,"
as though they really had some inherent virtue and
valor of their own, and were not in themselves most
poverty-stricken and impotent!
In thus converting words into epithets of slight, sad
injustice is often done to innocent terms. Indeed it
frequently happens that words that are now employed
in a scornful or opprobrious sense, were once terms
of honor. Of this process of degradation 'IMP'
affords a striking illustration. In Shakespeare "imp'
constantly means a son, and, indeed, its primary signi.
fication is a shoot or scion. Thus


IMP-BRIGAND.
127
“Save thy grace, king Hall, my royall Hall.
The heavens thee guard and keepe, most royall impe of fume."
First Part of Henry IV.
And Spenser employs it in addressing the Muses:
“Ye sacred imps that on Parnasso dwell,
And there the keeping havc of learnings threasures."
Faeric Queene.
'BRIGAND' is most palpably formed with malice
prepense: for originally it significd merely one who
lives on a brig, or summit-a mountaineer. Surely
the word deserves a better fate! So does 'IMPOSTER;'
but, indeed, any species of putting on (im-posing) is so
apt to be an imposition that there is no wonder
the word has taken this course. But we cannot offer
this excuse for a ‘BELDAME'—which is every letter a
fine lady (a belle dame); or, at least it is nothing
worse than a grandmother. * Chaucer furnishes exam-
ples of its employment in the first sense, and Shake.
speare in the last. In the First Part of Henry IV., for
instance, we find Hotspur speaking as follows:
* Beldame was the word for grandmother ; belsire for grand-
father. Note that a French lady (dame) sobers down to an
English 'dame.'


128
WORDS OF ABUSE.
“Oft the teeming Earth
Is with a kind of colic pinch'd and vex'd
By the imprisoning of unruly wind
Within her womb; which, for enlargement striving,
Shakes the old beldame Earth, and topples down
Steeples and moss-grown towers. At your birth
Our grandam Earth, having this distemprature,
In passion shook."
And why a house-wife or huswife (pronounced
huzzif and hence the Scotch 'hizzie')—honest, thrifty
soul-should degenerate into a mere 'HUSSY ' seems
quite inexplicable. There is surely malice prepense
here; or else some sad degeneracy in housewives
received even worse usage. It is certainly so, at least,
if we derive it from the Latin nanus, a dwarf. And
as for “NINCOMPOOP' he mournfully confesses that he
is non compos—not of a sound mind! And yet surely
CURMUDGEON' (cæur mechant, bad heart) bas not so
bad a heart as it would make us believe; while lubber,
it is said, primarily implied just a tall, strapping
fellow; “JUNTO' ought to be nothing more than a
body of men-junctus—joined together; a “NATURAL'
has been compelled to bear the burden of a fool, and
'SILLY' has its root in the German selig,' blessed !
Dolt' is descriptive enough: it is simply one


THE FANTASTIC OF ABUSE.
129
who is dulled. So ‘LOUT' which is connected with
low, and 'MONSTER,' which is just a sight. 'RUFFIAN'
is of the same root with robber and a 'ROUÉ' is a
fellow so bad as to deserve to be broken on the wheel!
A 'DRAB' all too truthfully declares herself to be
the drabbe—the lees, or, as we say, the very dregs of
society; while (SCURRILITY' palpably declares that
it is only fit for the inouth of a scurra, or buffoon. A
CHARLATAN' (Spanish charlar, to prate) is quite as
evidently merely a prating fool, and all that he says
sheer 'RUBBISH' (originally something rubbed off,
refuse); while a 'PETTIFOGGER' has petliness or Fittle.
ness written on his very face. "CANT' is a thing of
which unfortunately we have no lack; and yet the
word itself is involved in considerable obscurity.
However, a likely enough origin for it is the Latin
canto (cano), to sing: and hence that peculiar whining,
sing-song tone common to jugglers, sturdy vagabonds
and other imposters religious and scientific. From
the manner it was afterwards transferred to the thing
itself.
Many a time, too, the Abusive reaches out to fan-
tastic lengths. 'HAIR-BRAINED'is just hare-brained,
a 'SCAPE-GRACE' is one who has escaped merely by
grace or favor, and “JACKANAPES’ is jack and ape.
So we have ‘BORE,' 'BOOBY,' 'BLACKLEG,' BUMPKIN,'
6*


130
WORDS OF ABUSE.
LOOSE-FISH,' 'SMELL-FEAST,' 'TRENCHER-FI.IEND.'
SCAMP' is connected with scamper ; 'CAITIFF' is one
who is taken-literally; captive. And how often do
we hear persons stigmatized as 'NUMSKULLS' and
THICKSKULLS' and 'BLOCKHEADS '—though why
they should be block-heads, I know not; unless it be
that the head of such an one may be supposed to be
possessed of all the stolidity and all the woodenness
of a block. As for "RAPSCALLION,' 'SLUBBERDE-
GULLION,' etc., language is here whirled away into
the realms of the hopelessly grotesque.
Interesting, too, are the opprobrious names that
have been applied in scorn, contempt or hatred to
parties and sects. The terms 'WHIG' and 'TORY,' for
example, have both their origin in the malignity of
the opposition. Their derivations are, however, too
familiar to induce us to delay over them. However
pure the 'PURITANS' may have been, both in walk
and conversation, it did by no means save the name
from falling into sad contempt; and however metho-
dical the 'METHODISTS' were, it did not prevent the
derision, which Sidney Smith, from the Edinburgh
Review so plentifully lavished upon them, from
taking effect in the scornful associations which, for so
long a time, attached to the name.
In like manner, we can easily conceive how the


PARTY NICK-NAMES.
131
QUAKERS' came to be designated by this appellation,
and Dean Swift, in a passage of dubious character, *
which I shall not quote, gives us the origin of the
party called 'ROUNDHEADS. In a note he says:
“The fanatics, in the time of Charles I. ignorantly
applying the text, “Ye know that it is a shame for
men to wear long hair,' cut theirs very short. It is
said that the Queen once seeing Pym, a celebrated
patriot thus cropped, enquired who that roundhead
man was, and that from this incident, the distinction
became general, and the party were called 'ROUND-
HEADS.""
Our own rich and free political life is constantly
giving rise to numberless party.names of more or less
interest and significance. 'HUNKER' and LOCO-FOCO'
and 'FIRE-EATER' and 'DOUGHFACE' and 'Black-re-
publican’ and the 'shells' 'HARD' and 'SOFT' and
KNOW-NOTHING' and 'BARNBURNER' are samples,
of which there are thousands, of this prodigious
political activity. But as I find I shall have to
devote a Ramble to the subject of Names I shall here
abruptly stop.
ROGUE' is an abusive with a double sense, being
employed both in an offensive and an amiable applica-
* Tractate on "The Mechanical Operation of the Spirit.”


132
WORDS OF ABUSE.
tion—as is also the case with roguish :' so I shall
here take occasion to make a digression on Amiably
Abusive terms.
And how does Love bend even the most refractory
words to the purposes of endearment. Every thing
it conquers, and compels into its service. Under its
sweet sway "BEAR' becomes an amiable sobriquet
for a husband ;* nor does 'MOUSE' seem contemptible
-nay, altogether endearing, as in Hamlet,
“Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you, his mouse."
But Love's veritable vocabulary finds not its way
into dictionaries—learned academies take no cogni-
zance of it. The soil in which it flourisheth is by the
hearth-stone and around the ingle-side. And thus do
the home and hearth exercise their own sweet yet
potent influence over language. They preserve it
from corruption-moulding it into their own beau-
tiful forms.
* 'Tis said that since the publication of Miss Bremer's 'Neigh-
bours' (wherein, it will be remembered, a 'bear' figures in this
way) thousands of wives have adopted this amiably abusive
term. It would, of course, be impossible here to attempt enter-
ing on the subject; the vocabulary of endearment is a private
one. I would merely mention the French 'BICHE,' a hind—which
is very popular as an appellation of this sort,


OATHS AND EXCLAMATIONS.
133
A very curious and very fruitful province under
the dominion of the Abusive element is Oaths. Of
cursing and swearing—that senseless and sinful prac-
tice—we speak not; but of those more innocent, yet
characteristic exclamations and other popular and
peculiar idioms and plırases by which wc often con-
trive to communicate thoughts and fancies and feelings
which it would be impossible otherwise to convey.
Thus I know of no equivalent for the common excla.
mation The Deuce!' It bears with it a burden of
significance not its own and which no other term can
fitly represent. By the way, this word is said to be
the Gallic name of a demon or evil spirit. Augustine,
in his City of God, mentions the word:
“Quosdam dæmones quos dusios Galli nuncupant."*
An emotion there is, which only "whew !' can per-
fectly symbolize: and so with a thousand lights and
shades of meaning, which only such interjectional
articulations can fully convey. Indeed we should
say that some of the keenest instruments and organs
of thought had not yet found their way into words.
The ‘DICKENS !' for instance, which is said to be just
the 'deill' and— but 'tis needless to enumerate.
* See Webster.


134
WORDS OF ABUSE.
I shall not enter into the dark abyss of terms
formed by that disgraceful practice of swearing: it is
curious, however, to note the characteristic oaths of
different nations. Thus the Frenchman swears 'Par
bleu' and by his 'mille tonnères !' while the German
growls out his ‘Donner und Blitzen!' or 'Donner und
Teufel!' as Jean Paul often has it.
So we see that oaths are not only national, but
individual. Thus how famous is Socrates' 'By the
dog!' And Charles Odd's death!' Just as noto-
rious, however, is the 'God's death!' of good Queen
Bess. Swearing, indeed, Elizabeth affected as she did
many other manly accomplishments. For if she
could sing 'ditties,
" In a summer's bower,
With ravishing division to her lute;"
she was also quite as able, when occasion required,
heartily to cuff her courtiers. It would seem, how.
ever, that ladies once enjoyed a much larger share of
at least, conclude so from Hotspur's exhortation to
his wife :
“ Hotspur. Come, Kate, I'll hear your song, too.
Lady Percy. Not mine, in good sooth.


OATHS INDIVIDUAL AND NATIONAL.
135
Hotspur. Not yours, in good sooth! 'Heart, you swear like a
comfit-maker's wife! Not you, in good sooth; and, As true as 1
live; and, As God shall mend me; and, As sure as day;
And giv'st such sarcenet surety for thy oaths,
As if thou never walk'dst further than Finsbury.
Swear me, Kate, like a lady (!), as thou art,
A good mouth-filling oath; and leave in sooth,
And such protests of pepper-gingerbread,
To velvet guards and Sunday citizens!"
First Part of Henry IV. III. 2.
• ZOUNDS !' is a common enough exclamation, and
is probably a contraction for God's wounds—a form
which we find in Chaucer, who is overflowing with
quaint asseverations of this kind. Thus we find,
"I make a vow by Goddes digne bones."
The Pardoneres Tale.
'PERDY,' again, is just a corruption for par dieu (by
God). So, 'GRAMERCY' returns-grand merci-great
thanks. Of this primitive form Chaucer will afford us
an example:
“ Grand mercy, lord, God thank it you (quod she)
That ye have saved me my children dere."
The Clerkes Talc.
BY'R LADY,' that is by our lady (the Virgin Mary).


ABOVE AND BELOW THE SALT.
141
his head she trod upon his legs, and when they laid hold of his
legs, she pressed upon his head and it was his death."
Chronicles of the Kings of Norway.
'PREPOSTEROUS' is curious enough. It is præ and
posterus, having that before which ought to come
after—"putting the cart before the borse," as we say ;
and how could one be more perfectly brought to a
stand than by being .non-plussed'--that is, so bam-
boozled as to be able to say—non plus—no more!
'INTERLARD' is plainly the mixing fat and lean-
entrelarder; to get things 'on tick' is properly to get
them on ticket or bill—a form common in old litera-
ture; a ' HABERDASHER' has, according to Minsheu,
a fantastic genesis in the expression of a shopkeeper
offering his wares, Habt ihr dass ?—have you this;
TEETOTALISM' is just T-totalism, that is temperance-
totalism! and 'News' is matter brought from all quar-
ters—(N)orth, (E)ast, (W)est, (S)outh = NEW SI
But these Gypsies of language, seemingly so dcstitute
of history or ancestry, do often, when keenly tracked,
reveal long historic processes in their composition.
What a strangely extravagant round has the word
• LOCO-FOCO' taken! We first have it, probably as a
corruption of loco foci (i. e. in place of a fire) and so ap-
plied to lucifer matches (lucifer matches! that is, light
bringing matches)—and then by a bizarre incident, in


142
FANCIES AND FANTASTICS.
which lucifer matches acted a part, applied as a
designation of a particular political party. The occa-
sion of its application is said to have been as follows.
At a meeting of the extreme democrats in Tammany
Hall, New York, there was a great diversity of
opinion, and consequently great confusion-on account
of which the chairman left his seat and the lights were
extinguished with a view to dissolving the meeting;
when those in favor of extreme measures produced
loco-foco matches, rekindled the lights, continued the
meeting, and accomplished their object. Hence the
name of 'LOCO-FOCO' which continueth even unto
this day. Again, the familiar phrase to 'OUT-HEROD
HEROD,' is not a mere chance-combination, but holds
in itself the pith and marrow of a thousand legends.
In regard to King Ilerod we are merely told that "he
sat upon a throne and made an oration” unto the
people—of what character we are not informed, and
yet from subsequent events and the awful punishment
which befel him, we may reasonably conclude that it
was bombastic, bold and blasphemous. But in the
old "Mysteries' and 'Moralities' he is constantly
represented as of a fierce, proud, virulent character.
Now it was doubtless from these that Shakespeare
drew the expression : and hence its peculiarly ex.
pressive power.


DON'T CARE A FIG.
143
That old expression to sit 'above, or below the salt'
becomes instinct with meaning when we recollect that
it was the custom, in old times, to place a large dish
of salt about the middle of the table, 'above' which
the more honorable guests were wont to sit, while the
vulgar took their places in unnoticed obscurity "below.'
And Sidney Smith thus gives us the origin of the
expression within or without the pale:' "The limit
which divided the possessions of the English settlers
[in Ireland] from those of the native Irish was
called the pale; and the expression of inhabitants
within the pale and without the pale, were the terms by
which the two nations were distinguished."*
The phrase 'I don't care a fig' would seem, at the
first blush, to contain no special force, the ſig being to
us rather a valuable article ;t but the expression rises
to pungent point when we recollect that the phrase is an
importation from the Spanish, fujo or fico being in that
language an obscene expression, as in Shakespeare:
“ Pistol. Die and be damned; and figo for thy friendship!
Fluellen. It is well.
Pistol. The fig of Spain !
Fluellen. Very good."
Henry V. III. 6.
* Edinburgh Review: article on “Parnell and Ireland.”
Our Not a straw'—what the Latins named nihil (ne
hilum)—would seem to carry more force.


144
FANCIES AND FANTASTICS.
Certain words, indeed, are absurdly fantastic, mere
lusus verborum: and it is only their history, that
comes in to integrate them with by-gone circum-
stances, that can restore them to the region of common-
scnse. For example, five important sea-port towns,
on the eastern coast of England, opposite France, were
properly enough called collectively the Cinque-ports,
or five harbors; but, when, forgetting the literal im-
port, people came to speak about seven of the 'Cinque-
ports,' it assuredly became more than most ridiculous.
DEAN' (decanus) is properly the leader of a file ten
feet deep. 'QUARANTINE,' again, we plainly perceive,
implies the forty days during which ships suspected
of carrying disease were obliged to wait; but such
combinations as a quarantine' of five, or of ten days
twist arithmetic out of all proportion. To be sure, it
will not do for us to make any violent protest against
the like anomalies, as this overlaying of primary by
secondary formations is fundamental in the philoso-
phy of Speech: but the process none the less demands
vigilant oversight.
Then, there are pure pieces of whimsey. "KICK-
SHAW' is an instance to the point-supposed to be
intended for quelque chose,' that is, something, and
mon, or that has no particular name," as the dictiona:


QUANDARY— HOCUS-POCUS.
145
As for 'QUANDARY,' that is still
ries define it.
worse :
“Falstaff. Mistress Ford;—come, Mistress Ford, -
Quickly. Marry, this is the short and the long of it; you have
brought her into such a canaries as 'tis wonderful. The best
courtier of them all, when the court lay at Windsor, could never
have brought her into such a canary."
Merry Wives of Windsor, II. 2.
And into a pretty 'canaries,' too, has good Mistress
Quickly brought her words! For the terń she in-
tended is, at its best, quandary,' and that is fantas-
tic enough—bcing, as is supposed, a corruption for
Qu'en dira-t-on- What will they say ?—which, though
not very elegant, is yet sufficiently descriptive of
being in a terrible fix!
A few Latin whimsicalities may not be out of place
here. IIocus pocus is one of the most outré of the
tribe, and has a fantastic enough origin. Fantastic,
at least, if we make it a corruption of Hoc est corpus
(Christi); if it be true that the ignorant and juggling
priests' “who gabble Latin which they do not under.
stand," instead of saying Hoc est corpus meum trans-
formed it into hocus pocus (meum)!* May we not
* There are, of course innumerable etymologies for this
phrase : Some (Todd, Johnson's Editor, among them) take it


146
FANCIES AND FANTASTICS.
legitimately enough form ‘HOAX' from this? To
hocus, indeed, I find originally used in the same sense.
Henry VII. is said to have told a story similar to this,
of a stupid old monk who, in repeating his breviary
constantly put mumpsimus instead of sumpsimus; and
who, on being told of his mistake said it might be so
for what he knew, but "mumpsimus was what he
was taught and he would continue to say it "*_hence
mumpsimus,' though discarded now, was formerly
used for an ignorant and incorrigible blunder. Igno-
ramuses all of them! And yet 'IGNORAMUS' itself is
extravagant enough: for it is evidently the first per-
son plural of the present indicative of the verb ignoro,
i.e., we are ignorant—and, according to Webster, "the
froni Ochus Bochus, the name of a famous magician which the
Italian conjurors were wont to invoke. Webster says it is
Welsh !—but we have no patience to quote the trash. Risum
teneas!
In regard to the above derivation Pegge says: “This we
nay believe when we are told that they [the priests) call part
of the funeral service, De Profundis, by the style and title of
Deborah Fundish: after which we cannot be surprised that an
ignorant imprisoned Cockney pick pocket should call a Habeas
Corpus—a hap'oth of Copperas, said to be the language of
Newgate."
Pegge's Anecdotes of the English Language, p. 75.
* Nares' Glossary.


LATIN WHIMSICALITIES.
147
indorsement which a grand jury make on a bill pre
sented to them for inquiry, when there is not evidence
to support the charges !” The word deserves a better
fatc.
We all remember Hudibrastic Butler's lines on
that Scholastic limbo
“Where Entity and quidity
The ghosts of defunct bodies ily."
Most assuredly defunct—with very little something-
ness (to render quiditas literally) left; except that the
lawyer has inherited the 'quiddits' and the quillets.'
Of their "QUODLIBETS,' the elder D'Israeli thus dis-
courses: “The Scholastic questions were called Ques-
tiones Quod libeticu ; and they were frequently so
ridiculous that we have retained the word Quodlibet
in our vernacular style to express anything ridicu-
lously subtile; something which comes at length to
be distinguished
With all the rash dexterity of wit.'”.
But we have not done with our Latinisms yet.
Thus have we not still "QUORUMS:' that is to say,
bodies-quorum-of whom these present are legally
sufficient to transact the business. 'QUIDNUNCS ' are


148
FANCIES AND FANTASTICS.
at present quite as anxious as ever to know whai
now? while there would seem to be even an increase
of ignorant empirics, with their 'NOSTRUMS,' in regard
to which they vauntingly say: "Id nostrum est—this
is ours—an arcanum which nobody else possesses,
and wherewith we will cure all your maladies!"
From quacks and quackeries we naturally stroll to
'MOUNTEBANKS'—who, it is evident, have their cha-
racter lurking out from their very name: for it is
impossible to conceal from us, that he is just one who
mounts the bench (monte banc), and there rants respect-
ing his own skill and the infallibility of his medicines;
often, however, managing very effectually to 'gull'
and coney-catch' (what very rabbits they must be)
the 'greenhorns '-literally such.
Talking about .gulling' (which we still have) and
coney-catching' (which we do not have), I should
notice that D’Israeli, in the “Curiosities of Litera-
ture," has a curious passage in regard to this practice,
which the reader may consult for himself.* And in
Overbury's Characters, we have also the following:
"He cheats young guls that are newly come to towne; and
when the keeper of the Ordinary blames him for it, he answers
him in his owne profession, that a woodcocke must be plucked
ere it be drest."
* Page 230 and following.


ANIMAL CHARACTERISTICS
ANIMAL CHARACTERISTICS. 149
The allusion to the woodcock as typical of a person
of intense verdancy and witlessness was quite in
vogue some time ago. Thus we have in Shake-
speare:
“O this woodcock! what an ass it is !".
Taming of the Shrew, I. 2.
See, however, when we think of it for a moment,
what a curious collocation is thus produced—a wood-
cock and an ass! But so has language in its hot pur-
suit of analogy barried creation for emblems. A
modern poetical anatomist has thrown out the intima-
tion that the whole animal kingdom is simply man
disintegrated. And assuredly we have in language a
record of how the apprehensive fancy has seized on
animal suggestions as symbols of metaphysical and
moral qualities. Thus we typify courage by the
'lion;' ferocity by the 'tiger' (wolf, etc.); frolicsome
gentleness by the lamb'—provided, indeed, this
amiable quality degenerate not into 'sheepishness;
and 'beastliness' in general by the hog! How keenly
do we characterize, when we speak about a boy
playing fox;' or of one'crowing' over another, or
of a woman 'gad-ding' about! So, too, our 'BUCKS'
-I fear they almost deserve the name of coXCOMBS'
(i.e. cock's combs),-often enough go out a- larking,'


150
FANCIES AND FANTASTICS.
and capering' about (caper, a goat)—which is very
much like a goat, indeed!
And more froin the animal world. The ichthyo.
logic fact of the gudgeon's easily swallowing the bait
has been imported by the vivid fancy into speech in
the word “GUDGEON'-a term expressive of a facile
disposition with whom anything readily goes down.
Cicero traces a curiously fantastic connection between
MUSCLE' (musculus) and musculus, a little mouse ;
and the raven has got itself into language in our
Cravenous.' The Etymologists charge the cuckoo with
having fathered that ugly word 'CUCKOLD' upon
us ;* while 'COWARD' is asserted by the old lexico-
graphs to be just a contraction for cow-hearted—a
derivation which certainly does not stand any very
close test, though it is not without a degree of vrai-
semblance when we view it in connection with our
vcrbs to cow, cower etc.+ So our verb to "HAWK'
* But see Tooke's “Diversions of Purley," under this word:
and for the connection of the Scotch ‘GOWK' therewith, see
Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary.
+ If, as is asserted, the original French orthography of cow-
ard' were culvert, the derivation, which has been proposed,
from culum and vertere-to turn the tail (very coward' like,
indeed!) will receive countenance. See Minshew and Menage;
also Tookc, and Tyrwhitt on Chaucer.


ANIMAL SYMBOLISM.
-
151
and the substantive 'HAWKER' may possibly have
reference to one who carried round hawks for sale.
Moreover the wooden frame in which he kept his
birds he called a “CADGE' whence we have the old
English (and the present Scotch) CADGER 'which in
English becomes a very queer CODGER!
But can the grotesque of animal symbolism farther
go than in those curiously complicated allusions to
rats and rhyming which we find scattered throughout
the elder dramatists. Thus in As You Like It, Rosa-
lind says, apropos of the profusion of verses lavished
on her:
“I was never so be-rhymed since Pythagoras' time, that I
was an Irish rat, which I can hardly remember."
And you may remember the very sarcastic witti-
cism which Dean Swift, in his Advice to a Young Poet,
picks out of it:
'Sir Philip Sidney,” observes he, "mentions rhyming to
death, which is said to be done in Ireland; and truly, to our
honour be it spoken, that power, in a great measure, continues
with us to this day !”.
But anent rats and rhyming, let old Verstegan tell
us a story that will set the matter in its clearest light:
“There came into the town of lamel in the countrey of


152
FANCIES AND FANTASTICS.
Brunswyc an od kynd of compagnion, who for the fantastical
cote which hee wore beeing wrought with sundry colours, was
called the pyed pyper; for a pyper hee was besydes lois other
qualities. This fellow forsooth offred the townsmen for a cer-
tain somme of mony to rid the town of all the rattes that were
in it (for at that tyme the burgers were with that vermin greatly
annoyed). The accord in fyne beeing made; the pyed pyper
with a shril pype went pyping through the streets, and foorth-
with the rattes came all running out of the houses in great num-
bers after him; all which hee led unto the river of Il'easer and
therein drowned them. This donne, and no one rat more per-
ceaved to bee left in the town; he afterward came to demaund
his reward according to his bargain, but beeing told that the
bargain was not made with him in good earnest, to wit with
an opinion that even hee could bee able to do such a ſeat;
they cared not what they accorded unto, when they imagyncd
it could never bee deserved, and so never to be demaunded :
but nevertheless seeing hee had donne such an unlykely thing
in deed, they were content to give a good reward; and so
offred him far less than lee lookt for; but hee therewith discon-
tented, said he would have his ful recompence according to lis
bargain, but they utterly denying to give it him, hec threatened
thē with revēge; they bad him do his worst, whereupon he
betakes him again to his pype, and going through the streets as
before, was followed of a number of boyes out at one of the
gates of the citie, and coming to a little hil, there opened in the
syde thereof a wyde hole, into the which himself and all the
children beeing in number one hundred and thirtie did enter ;
and beeing entred the hil closed up again, and became as before.


GROTESQUE WORDS.
153
A boy that becing lame and came somewhat lagging behynd the
rest, seeing this that hapned returned presently back and told
what hee had secn; foorthwith began great lamentation among
the parents for their children, and men were sent out with all
dilligence, both by land and by water to enquyre yf ought could
bee heard of thein, but with all the enquyrie they could possibly
use, nothing more than is aforesaid could of them be understood.
In memorie thereof it was then ordayned, that from thence-forth
no drum, pype or other instrument, should be sounded in the
street leading to the gate through which they passed; nor no
osterie to bee there holden. And it was also established, that
from that tyme forward in all publyke wrytings that should bee
made in that town, after the date therein set down of the yeare
of our Lord, the date of the yeare of this going foorth of their
children should bee added, the which they have accordingly
ever since continued. And this great wonder hapned on the
22. day of July, in the yeare of our Lord one thowsand three
hundreth seaventie, and six."
Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, 85.
Big words! Here, too, the grotesque comes into
play. And what a subtle psychology lies in these
Cyclopean efforts of the human mind. The affecta-
tion of words big merely for the sake of their bigness
is limited to no country and to no age. “SLUBBER-
DEGULLION,' which Butler einploys in Hudibras,
affords an example to the point. So also "SPLENDI.
DIOUS' used by Drayton, though without the sanction


154
FANCIES AND FANTASTICS.
either of etymology or analogy. Shakespeare is in
these extravaganzas, as everywhere, pre-eminent.
Instance his 'ANTHROPOPHAGINIAN'which the Host,
in The Merry Wives of Windsor, gets off in order to
overwhelm poor Simple:
Host. What wouldst thou have, boor? What, thick-skin?
Speak, breathe, discuss; brief, short, quick, snap.
Simple. Marry, sir, I come to speak with Sir John Falstaff,
from Master Slender.
Host. There's his chamber, his house, his castle, his standing-
bed and truckle-bed; 'tis painted about with the story of the
prodigal, fresh and new; Go, knock and call; he'll speak like
an anthropophaginian unto thee: knock, I say.
Merry Wives of Windsor, IV. 5.
In the days of good Queen Bess, while through the
brain of “Sweet Will” Tempests and Mid Summer
Night's Dreams were singing themselves, lived also
one John Lylly who became the founder of a new Ism
-Euphuism, * namely, or Fine Speaking—a species
of .bizarrerie which, by the constant use of the far-
thest-fetched allegory and the most farcical bombast,
succeeded in producing some of the most extraordi.
* His two books are entitled, “Euphues and his England,"
and “The Anatomy of Wit.” Sir Walter Scott, it will be
remembered has, in the “Monastery," a popular representation
of Euphuism in the character of Sir Percie Shafton.


EUPHUISM.
155
nary contortions of which our language could be
imagined susceptible. Immense, however, was the
success of the Euphuist. Indeed it was for a time
pushed to perfect mania. “All our ladies," says
Blount, “were then his scollers, and that beautie in
Court who could not parley Euphuesme was as little
regarded as shee which now there speaks not French."
Blount was the Editor of Lylly's books, and, of
course, an adoring admirer of him: and as the pane.
gyrics he pronounces on his master are altogether in
the Euphuistic style I shall quote one of them: “The
witty, comical, facetiously quick, and quickly face-
tious John Lylly—he that sat at Apollo's table and
to whom Phoebus gave a wreath of his own bays
without snatching!"
Shakespeare's keen eye, however, soon penetrated
the affectation, and accordingly we find himn taking
frequent occasion to ridicule the absurdity. Thus in
the First Part of Henry IV., and also in the charac-
ter of Osric, in Hamlet, we have a perfect character-
izing of the Euphuistic courtier of his day. Lamlet's
summing up of the character is so complete that I
really cannot resist quoting it:
“He did comply [i.e. compliment] with his dus, before he
sucked it. Thus has he (and many more of the same breed.


156
FANCIES AND FANTASTICS.
that, I know, the drowsy age dotes on) only got the tune of the
time and outward habit of encounter; a kind of yesty collection,
which carries them through and through the most fond and win-
nowed opinions; and do but blow them to their trial, the bubbles
are out."
Hamlet, V. 2.
Euphuism died a natural death. Its ghost has,
nevertheless, appeared at various periods, in various
guises. Often, indeed, in the shape of a most abomi-
nable affectation of Gallicisms—of which take but
one example:
“I was chez moi, inhaling the odeur musquée of my scented
boudoir, when the Prince de Z. entered. He found me in my
demi-toilette, blasie surtout and pensively engaged in solitary
conjugation of the verb s'ennuyer; and though he had never
been one of my habitués, or by any means des nótres, I was not
disinclined, at this moment of my delassement, to glide with him
into the crocchio restretto of familiar chat!"
Lady Morgan's New Monthly.*
So much for a class of writers of which literature
has never been destitute of specimens, and in refer.
ence to whom we can most heartily say, with
Mercutio :
* The later productions of Madame D'Arbly are replete with
illustrations.


LETTERS AND RUNES.
159
ver
names which have not been shortened, and to trace
the cause thereof-whether from the writer's not
being naturalized in the country, or what not. But
so much for names.
We might discover, to push the matter of abbrevi.
ations a little farther, something fantastic even in
particular letters. That learned man Jovianus Pon-
tanus writ two books concerning that strange rune
'H;' 'S'has a long and mystic bistory. Not to
mention the cabalistic use made of the Runes, and
the semi-sacred letters of the Hebrews, how contemp-
tuously do we talk about persons who are not able
to tell a ‘B from a Bull's foot;' while 'R' was, we
know, long called the dog's letter—an instance of
which we have in the dialogue between the Nurse
and Romeo, in Romeo and Juliet:
Nurse. Doth not Rosemary and Romco begin both with a
letter?
Rom. Ay, nurse; what of that? both begin with an R.
Nurse. Ah mockerl that's the dog's name; R is for the dog.
No: I know it begins with some other letter, etc.
Romeo and Juliet, II. 4.
The mention of 'rosemary,' by the nurse, in the
above passage, suggests a remark thereanent. Note,
however, that it has no connection whatever with


VERBAL EXTRAVAGANZAS.
161
Often times there would seem to be some strange
fatality attached to certain words. For we see them
wafted by favoring gales to the very zenith of popu-
larity-swaying and registering the sentiment of the
times, and, in their own ludicrous or pathetic associa-
tions, furnishing the key wherewith to unlock the
floodgates of public laughter or of public pity.
We are the creatures of Extremes: words feel this.
They are the objects of our wildest caprice. Now
honored and lionized—reveling in hut and hall, then
cast aside and forgotten—damned so that prayers
offered up in all churches would not save them. This
Abuse of Words might add a strange chapter to the
“Curiosities of Literature ;" and I think it not at all
improbable that one of the faithfulcst indications of
the tendency of popular feeling, and one of the truest
sublimations of the hour or the Age are to be sought
in our common, vulgar catch-words and bandied
phrases—extravaganzas that seem to have no rationale,
which appear amongst us as outlaws and rebels that
acknowledge allegiance to no established power, but
which come—shift and sway us—leave their moment-
ary impression, and then go as they came-without
announcement and without farewell.
In the time of Shakespeare, for instance, the em.
ployment of the word ‘HUMOR' was carried to the


162
FANCIES AND FANTASTICS.
inost ridiculous excess. The 'fast' gents of those
days had all their thousand and one 'humors' which
they affected and pampered—any conceivable pecu-
ljarity or bizarrerie being, for the time their 'humor.'
Nay, not only was it applied to idiosyncracies of cha-
racter, but even garters, hat-bands and shoe-ties bad
each its particular 'humor-so that it grew to be a
perfect mania, “ bred,” as Ben Jonson tells us, “in
the special galantry of our time, by affectation, and
fed by folly."
This absurdity Shakespeare laughably exposes, in
the character of Nym, whom he causes to discourse
after the following fashion :-
“Nym. And this is true [To Page). I like not the humor of
lying. He hath wronged me in some humors ; I should have
borne the humored letter to her: but I have a sword and it
shall bite upon my necessity. He loves your wife; there's the
short and the long. My name is Corporal Nym; I speak and I
avouch. 'Tis true:—my name is Nym, and Falstaff loves your
wife.-Adieu! I love not the humor of bread and cheese; and
there : the humor of it. Adieu.
Page. The humor of it, quoth 'al here's a fellow frights humor
out of its wits."
Merry Wives of Windsor, II. 1.
Wherein we most heartily agree with Page; but


LINGUISTIC ABSURDITIES.
163
we are out of humor with the wretched affectation,
and can only exclaim, with honest Ben:
“But that a rook, by wearing a py'd feather,
The cable hat-band, or the three pil'd ruff,
A yard of shoe-tye, or the Switzer's knot
On his French garters, should affect a humour,
O, it is more than most ridiculous !"
Induction to “ Every Man out of his Humour."
This is surely the very depth of bathos: and yet
we have no lack of parallel terms to bear it company.
Thus the verb 'ACCOMMODATE' was, about the same
period, lugged into discourse on every proper or im-
proper occasion—a word which, by the way, has, in
our own day, become again popular and is now used
almost as frequently, and quite as ineptly as of yore.
Nor is it presumable that many of its modern abusers
would be much more successful in defining it, in its
multifarious applications, than was their grand proto-
type, Bardolph :
“ Accommodated; that is, when a inan is, as they say, ac-
commodated; or when a man is,—being; -whereby,-he may be
thought to be accommodated; which is an excellent thing."
Second Part of Henry IV. III. 2.
The similarity of Ajax to a jakes furnished the wits
of Elizabeth's reign with subject-matter for many a


168
FANCIES AND FANTASTICS.
poison-toxicum) as being 'tight,' 'tipsey,' 'boosy,
potvaliant, bruddled,' 'fuddled,' 'fou,' 'corned,
"half seas over,''the worse for liquor,' drunk as a
piper,' or as having a "brick in his hat!' And how
far might we go before we would find such expres.
sive symbols as 'blue-stocking' (bas bleu) or “hail-
fellow,' or 'all the go,' or 'catch-penny,' or 'fire-
eater,' or 'dead-letter,' (a term which the Post Office
has given us ?) or chatter-box,' or 'crusty,' or
'inuendo,' (literally a nodding at) or leg-bail,' or 'cut
a swell,' or “hobby,' or to 'palm,' (anything on one),
or luggage,' which is just something lugged about!
Though what special applicability there is in the old
phrase "honest as the skin between the brows,' it
might be difficult to tell; and equally hard to tell how
the phrase to 'sow one's wild onts' arose, and why it
was that oats should have been selected from among
grains as emblematic of the dissipation and excess of
youth; while to curry faror, smacks quite of the
stable; the once popular exclamation, Cry you
mercy, I took you for a joint stool,' seems purely fun-
tastic, and I suppose brandy is called the water of lije,
'eau de vie,' “aqua vitae,' . usquebaugh,' (for they all
have the same meaning) according to the law of lucus
a non-precisely because it proves in so many cases
the water of death!


RYTHMICAL PANCIES.
169
There is another class of fantastics that also claims
attention. I mean such as have been formed purely
under the guidance of the ear-rhyming reduplicates,
which have no meaning aside from what the mere
sound carries with it. Such are “bow-wow,' chit-
chat,' 'harum-scarum,' 'flim-flam," "helter-skelter,'
"biggledy-piggledy,'' hodge-hodge,'' hubbub,'' hurly-
burly,' 'rif-raff,' 'tip-top,' 'rub-a-dub,' 'slip-slop,'
(exemplified in Mrs. Malaprop in the Rivals) “tip-
top !'*
But I forget to mention the very term that most
perfectly typifies many of the words of this Ramble.
I mean "GROTESQUE. And indeed its origin is grotes-
que enough, being taken from certain whimsical figures
found in the subterranean apartments—grottoes—in
the ancient ruins at Rome, and thence extended to
typify aught fantastic, ludicrous, or irregularly pro-
portioned. Such is the derivation given by Benve-
nuto Cellini in his Memoirs; and as I have the pas-
sage at hand, I shall quote it: “These foliages have
received the name of grotesque from the moderns
because they are found in certain caverns in Rome,
which in ancient days were chambers, baths, studies,
halls and other places of the like nature. The curious
* Notes and Queries, vol vüi.


170
FANCIES AND FANTASTICS.
happened to discover them in these subterranean
caverns whose low situation is owing to the raising
of the surface of the ground in a series of ages,
and as these caverns in Rome are commonly called
grottoes, they from them acquire the name of gro-
tesque." *
And numerous are the other words of equal inter-
est, in which the workings of fairy Fancy may be
traced. It was a piece of phantasy, for instance, to
call the Roman platform for orators the 'ROSTRUM,'
from the fact of its having been adorned with the
bealcs (rostra) or heads of captured ships, and I remem-
ber years ago feeling great pleasure at the perception
of the connection-fanciful and yet faithful—of
‘INCULCATE' with calx, the heel (inculco, to tread over
again, to heel-it over again and hence to impress by
frequent admonitions). What is a "brown study?'
Is it a barren study, or is it allied to the word brow ?
Certainly 'etiquette' is just the ticket : it having been
once the custom to get out cards containing orders for
regulating ceremonies on public occasions. And
COCKADE,' 'tis said, arose during the wars of the
Scotch covenanters, when the English to distinguish
* Memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini, a Florentine Artist, written
by himself, vol. I. p. 65.


CANT-LANGUAGE.
171
them wore a black rosette, which from its position,
shape, etc., the Scotch nicknamed cock'ade !*
But, beneath the lowest depth of vulgarity, slang
and Billingsgate a lower deep opens in the expressive
power of speech. For without the pale of civiliza-
tion, in depths where not even
"The rarity
Of Christian charity"
penetrates, live brothers of ours, and children are
born and live and die who speak not even the lan-
guage of other men ; but a speech of their own-dark
and terrible and awfully significant. This Cant
Language, or Argot we have, during the last few
years, been made familiar with from the representa-
tions of popular novels. Eugene Sue, for example,
has vividly portrayed the Parisian langue des escrocs
-giving us an insight both into its dark and its
bright side. For even it, 'twould seem, has its lights
-its gleams of humanity—that manifest that its
authors are still of our common kind, and that the
germs of love and pity and hope are quite absent
from no mortal breast.
* "Cocarde, touffe de rubans que sous Louis XIII. on por-
tait sur le feutre, et qui imitait la crête du coq.” Roqueforty
Dictionaire étymologique.


THE PUNS OF SHAKESPEARE.'
173
Etymologic or dead puns that occur to me, from
Shakespeare.
Johnson asserts that a quibble was to Shakespeare
the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and
was content to lose it. This, like the generality
of Johnsoniana, has considerable truth, with a vast
deal of mere burly assertion and paradox about it.
And I believe the question of Shakespeare's quibbles
is now pretty much at rest.
In “As You Like It," Touchstone, the clown (and
a very “material fool,” by the way), says to Audrey :
“I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most
capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths.”—
As You Like It, III. 3.
Here the play of words between Goats and Goths
is apparent enough: but the real pith and marrow of
it is lost unless we recognize the occult pun that lurks
in the term 'CAPRICIOUS'—the etymon of it, Caper
. (whence, I suppose, we have our verb to caper'-
signifying a he-goat. This seen, the allusion becomes
luminous.
Addison has announced that a pun cannot be trans-
lated. Literally, perhaps not. And yet skill and
finesse can go wonderfully far towards a perfect render-
ing: for a proof of which we need go no farther than
Schlegel's Translation of Shakespeare, wherein, though,


174
• FANCIES AND FANTASTICS.
of course, times innumerable he falls infinitely short, he
attempts, at least, to render every nuance of expression
and every finesse of verbal play. That they are
many a tiine thin and ghostly must certainly be
admitted, yet it must also be granted that his Trans-
lation is an example of what diligence can, in this
direction, perform.
Puns are the most fickle and fragile things in ex-
istence. They live and move and have their being
in chance. Hence it is not at all to be wondered at,
should they many a time, in the lapse of years, perish
through neglect. The word "TANDEJI' shuts up a
curious practical pun, unrecognized till translated,
and here is an example from the mouth of that mon-
ster of sin, sack and sagacity-Sir Jolin Falstaff:
Chief Justice. You follow the young prince up and down like
his ill angel.
Falstaff. Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light; but I hope
he that looks upon me will take me without weighing; and yet,
in some respects, I grant, I cannot go, I cannot tell.
Second Part of Henry IV. I. 2.
Here in order to appreciate the pun we must recol.
lect that an 'Angel' was, at that time, the name
applied to a coin, worth about ten shillings (English):
the quibble, together with his not going' and not


RAMBLE EIGHTH.
VERBAL ETHICS.
“By your words ye shall be justified, and by your words
shall ye be condemned.”
SHALL we ascend to the highest statement and say
that in Words there is an Ethical element also ? For
ever the innermost evolves itself and becomes the
outermost; and surely it cannot be otherwise than
that some transcript should be left in Words of the
workings of that ethical Conscience that witnesses
within us of right and wrong. Once, we know, every
term, be it warped in its meaning, or be it meaning-
less, rushed forth, glowing and red hot, from the con-
sciousness, laden with its own power and pathos-
a blessing or a curse, a startling metaphor or a rich
poetic image.
And so, too, we may read in Words the moralities
of mankind. They are the decalogue in miniature-
the verdicts pronounced by the great High Court of
Humanity, not to be circumvented, and at once with-
out precedent and without repeal. Oh! not unmind.


WORDS EMBALMED MORALS.
177
ful be we of these still small voices, which, from
cavernous depths, whisper to the willing ear, of
human frailty and of human power—which, with a
certain beautiful scorn, repel all meandess and igno-
bility, beckoning with alluring smiles to crowns and
garlands starry and unfading, and telling of thee,
"Stern Daughter of the voice of God,
O Duty!"
It may be interesting, to begin with, to notice the
evidence embalmed in Words of the primitive mo.
rality of mankind, and to trace the development of
the historical conscience in its ascent to absolute
ethical judgments. Marvelous are these vestiges of
the spiritual history of man!
The law, which, in early times regulated the notions
of guilt and innocence would not appear to have been
very rigid. For if words speak truly “INNOCENCE'
itself merely consists in the not doing any barm-
in-nocens—or, as we also say, 'harmless.' It is, there-
fore, a negative, not a positive virtue. "Guilt' un.
folds some curious historic and ethic facts. The
Saxon form of the word is gylt*-signifying both a
* From the verb gyldan, to pay. By the way, the ancient
'guild' is also formed from this verb; since each member of the
fraternity was obliged to-gyldan-pay something.
8*


178
VERBAL ETHICS.
crime and a debt, or fine—the latter, however, is the
primary signification. It was, in fact, a fine, or remu-
neration paid by a person who had committed some
offense; and then this fine applied to the crime itself.
The person was brought in-gyltig-guilty of so
much, that is, he was compelled to pay so much.*
The attachment of a moral idea to a mere business
transaction is curiously suggestive of many things.
And by the way, our “CRIME'—if crimen be connected
with xpivw—may have a derivation quite analogous to
the preceding. It is instructive also to note that the
German for debt and sin is one and the same word-
schuld; and thereby hangs a pun of Jean Paul
Richter's. In the Flegeljahre, the reader will remeni-
ber the following: “The count,' said one, 'with his
fortune, marries for beauty and accomplishments
only, for he has ten times more money than the
general has debts ?' 'What then,' said an unmarried
comedian, who always played the father, “the beloved
is charity itself and covers a multitude of—schulden-
debts [or sins].'”+
A not uninteresting comparison might be instituted
between the respective codes of honor of different
* See the interpretation of the expressions ware' and
wite' in Fossil Histories.
† Walt and Vult, vol. I. 194.


VIRTUE_DECENT.
179
peoples. I shall, however, merely indicate two: The
Frenchman's 'honest' man-un honnête homme--im-
plies a person who tells the truth ; while the English-
man clusters all his ideas of honesty around the
abstaining from stealing! VIRTUE' to the ancient
Roman meant simply physical bravery—manliness ;
while to the aesthetic Italian virtu has acquired the
signification of the love of the fine arts. And it is
also worth noting that'VALOR 'simply means worth—
an allusion carried out in worship, as we have before
seen. A certain degree of moderation in behavior-
enough, at least, to keep one within bounds—modus
-the word-forming faculties have named 'MODEST.'
Whatever is becoming (decet) they call 'DECENCY.'
And what is above all seemly and graceful in walk
and conversation is affirmed, both truthfully and
beautifully, to be “DECOROUS'—that which is as a-
decus—ornament and embellishment to all the other
graces. This primary meaning of the word we can
understand from the old verb to decore, as thus:
“Which church he decored with many ornaments and edifices,
especially the south side thereof."
Fuller's Worthies.
When a person desires to exact a degree of homage
· which we are not wont (in-soleo) to render, we very


180
VERBAL ETHICS.
properly call this ‘INSOLENCE'—though, by the way,
'INSOLENT' did not at first carry with it any other
idea than that which is unusual. As for example, in
the following passage quoted by Richardson:
“The interpretor of Hans Bloome names it (Tænia) the top
of & pillar, but very insolently [i. e. very unusually) it being
indeed that small fascia part of the Doric architecture."
Evelyn on Architects and Architecture.
Chaucer well expounds the word for us :
" Insolent is he that despiseth in his judgment all other folk,
as in regard of his value, of his conning, of his speking, and of
his bering."
The Persones Tale.
'INDOLENCE,' again, lets us into a rather curious
ethical fact-the composition of indolentia being in
and dolentia, that is to say a freedom from pain! Can
it be that this circumstance induces and implies lazi.
ness or idleness? What a curious state of things is
it, in which a thoughtful person becomes “pensive;'
when one who always separates the truth-se verus-
is said to be severe;' when anything shown is re-
garded as a 'monster;' and when the entire potion of
'convivial' is that of living together! And yet is not


IDEALS OF THE NOBLE AND GENTLE.
181
comfort' very truly that wherewith we strengthen
one another ? So an agrecable' person is quite
faithfully one who is suited—a (notre) gré—to our
disposition-a man after one's own heart, as we say.
And what a depth of meaning is there in the fact that
.study' is literally just zeal; while earnest' and
‘yearning' are one word !
'NOBLE' declares itself to be primarily that which
is known—noted-bruited about: so it would appear
that language takes no cognizance of hidden worth,
but conceives of all 'NOBILITY' merely as notoriety
and measures all talent by success. And someven
as we should expect—'MEAN' declares itself to be
that which appertains to the mæneg—oi Tokoi-the
many: having its origin among the ignobile vulgus,
unknown and so not at all 'NOBLE.'
" He was a veray parfit gentil knight.”
Chaucer.
GENTIL' (gentle) is the Latin gentilis from gens, a
clan—and so pertaining to a clan—'CLANNISH,' as
the Scotch say. This is the primary signification.
The transition in the meaning of this term—through
which it has passed from one who has relation to some
race (a 'HIDALGO,' as they say in Spain, that is a son
of something in contradistinction to him who is a son


182
VERBAL ETHICS.
of nothing), or of birth, * as we say, in opposition to
him who is of no 'family,' down to its present vague,
indefinite application or mis-application-might, had
we opportunity to trace it, be not uninteresting or
unprofitable. In the mean time take the following
from Froissart:
“Il-y-avoit un Chevalier, Capitaine de la Ville : point gentil
homme n'estoit: et l'avoit fait, pour sa vaillance, le Roy Edouard
Chevalier."
Chronicle V. ii.
And there are other words that point the same
moral. The striking analogy between kin and kind is
significant, and GENEROUS' primarily means simply
of birth. Shakespeare presents an example of its
employment in this its primary sense. Thus Des-
demona says:
“How now, my dear Othello ?
Your dinner, and the generous islanders
By you invited, do attend your presence."
Othello, III. 2.
Here 'generous' necessarily implies
noble'—the
* If 'Gens' is from gigno (yiyveo), these words do, in the last
analysis, all merge into one; while the divers offshoots—Gen-
tle,'"Genteel,' Gentile,' etc., all flow from one fountain.


FAME-REPUTATION-RENOWN.
183
islanders of birth. And more of the same: “fame,'
'renown,' reputation. “REPUTATION' is simply
what one is reputed (not at all affecting the charac-
ter,' which is the seal and token impressed on the soul,
organic in the structure of one's being: and so, inde-
pendent of all reputation.') 'RENOWN' is, as we see,
just tbe being named over and over-renommé, and
'FAME' itself ( fama, phemi, to speak) is but the being
spoken about, idle rumor, surely not to be very
ardently coveted. Here is one of Carlyle's fiery
fragments that lights up these words with luminous
meanings: “So fares it with the sons of Adam in
these bewildered epochs; so, from the first opening
of his eyes in this world, to his last closing of them
and departure hence, speak, speak, O speak; if thou
have any faculty, speak it, or thou diest and it is no
faculty! So in universities, and all manner of dames'
and other schools, of the very highest class as of the
very lowest ; and Society at large, when we enter
there, confirms with all its brilliant review-articles
snccessful publications, intellectual tea-circles, literary
gazettes, parliamentary eloquences, the grand lesson
we had. Other lesson, in fact, we have none, in these
times. If there be a human talent, let it get into the
tongue, and make melody with that organ. The
talent that can say nothing for itself, what is it?


184
VERBAL ETHICS.
Nothing; or a thing that can do mere drudgeries,
and at best make money by railways."*
But we must ascend to the appreciation of the
King-words of the moral world of Good and Bad,
of Truth and Right and Wrong-spinal expres-
sions in the Ethical utterance of man. Of Good'the
is from the Saxon verb Godian, to aid, to benefit.
Skinner prefers to deduce it from the Latin gaudeo.
Junius asserts it is from the Greek wybos—an opinion
which Donaldsont also favors. Webster finds the pri-
mary meaning to be strong, free, large. And Horne
Tooke assures us that it is “Ge-owed perhaps gowed,
written and pronounced Good, which the Scotch pro-
nounce and write Gude." This is vague indeed: but
no objection can be made to his derivation of 'Bad'
which hc thus evolves with his wonted sagacity: “To
Bay, i.e. To vilify, to bark at, to reproach, to express
horror, hatred and defiance, etc. Bayed, Bæd, i.e.
Bay'd, Ba'd, abhorred, hated, defied, i.e. BAD.”+
“Right' is no other than rectum (regitum) the par.
* The “Stump Orator."
+ New Cratylus, 420 and following.
| From the same verbal root come also 'Bane' and 'Ban:
as thus-Bayen, Bay'n, Bæn, written BANE; To ban, to curse.


186
VERBAL ETHICS.
Compare with "RIGHT' and 'WRONG'-'upright,'
regular,' 'rectitude,' error,' 'transgression ' 'tortu-
ous.' 'Upright' is palpable enough; "regular' is
according to regula or rule, and therefore according
to the ordered. “Rectitude' (rectum) is just the straight
line-the ordered or directed one. 'Error' is an erring .
(erro)—a wandering from this straight line of "recti-
tude.' "Transgression' (transgressum) is a transgress-
ing, a going beyond this ordered linc. "Tortuous'
(tort, wrong) has also relation to what is injurious (in
jurem against the law) that is against the commanded,
that is wrong.
MORAL' and 'ETHICAL' have a marvelous genesis.
Mores in Latin means customs; moralis, the customary:
and 'ETHICAL' is precisely the same word with a
Greek origin—ethikos, elhos ! On which words read
this fiery comment: "Instead of shrieking more, it
were perhaps edifying to remark, on the other side,
what a singular thing customs (in Latin mores) are;
and how fitly the virtue, manhood, or worth, that is
in a man, is called his morality or customariness. Fell
slaughter, one of the most authentic products of the
pit, you would say, once give it customs, becomes
war, with laws of war, and is customary and moral
enough; and red individuals carry the tools of it girt
round their haunches not without an air of pride


WHAT IS TRUTH?
187
which do thou nowise blame. While, seel so long as
it is but dressed in bodden or russet; and revolution,
less frequent than war, has not yet got its laws of
revolution, but the hodden or russet individuals are
uncustomary—Oh, shrieking, beloved brother block.
heads of mankind, let us close those wide mouths of
ours; let us cease shrieking, and begin considering!"
Great, good, glorious Carlyle! forced thyself, by
thy longing and tameless heart, to set thyself in stern
hostility to very many of the customs' and not a
few of the 'moralities of this our era-honest to the
very profundity of thy great heart, yet thereby forced
sometimes to appear dishonest—the wisest, and yet
willing to be to many a stumbling-block and the
foolishest—the most religious, and yet compelled to
seem the most sacrilegious! with what Titanic force
dost thou wield thy winged words,'—that in thy
hands split oft with bursting, burning meaning:
bringing them up in their primitive truth-loving and
truth-telling simplicity, and setting them, not without
a certain grave sarcastic smile, over against their
abuses and their corruptions and their twistings to
gild a falschood or to consecrate a lie—there to blazon ·
in immortal scorn human hypocrisies and shams!
And "TRUTI,' too, how pregnant its meaning!
"TRUTH' is that which a man troweth, thinketh,


188
VERBAL ETHICS.
firmly believeth :* "TRUE,' or trew as it was formerly
written,
("A bedrole long and trew he reckoneth")
is that which is trewed or firmly believed! Thus
TRUTI' and the 'TRUE' suppose humanity: they
express man, his limitations, struggles, aspirations.
For how possible is it for one to trow what is not
in the highest translation true! And indeed the word
primarily carries with it no absolute force—a false
truth, that is a false opinion, a false belief, being an
expression not unfrequently met with in our elder
literature. Thus
“Many a fals treuthe.”
Piers Ploughman.
But here it is that the marvel and miracle of lan-
guage begin. For the divine influx, working on the
unfolding Conscience and the ascending Spirituality
of man, is constantly operating to elevate and ennoble
words. How often do Words, through the inspira-
tion that is breathed into them, become virtuous and
valorous beyond their native ability. They lend
* The past participle of the verb to trow was formerly writ-
ten trew, just as the past participle of know is written knew.


THE DEEP MEANING IN WORDS.
189
themselves plastic to the moulding power of some-
thing higher than human Will. For man cannot free
himself from God. The spell of divinity is on him.
“The hand that rounded Peter's dome,
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,
Wrought in a sad sincerity:
Himself from God he could not free;
He builded better than he knew,
The conscious stone to beauty grow!"
And so, through these Symbols glimmer hints of
deeper meanings-sacred suspicions of divinity-
trailing clouds of glory: so that
“We stand,
Adore and worship, when we know it not;
Pious beyond the intention of our thought,
Devout beyond the meaning of our will."
For if we saw that 'Moral' and 'Ethical' meant
merely the customary and the capricious, yet do they
bear the burden of something stabler by far—of laws
in the depths of the divine consciousness which no
caprice creates nor custom changes. Truth'but im.
plies that which each man troweth or believeth for
himself—and so would seem to be a fickle and fanci-
ful enough affair: virtue' may have been to the old


SARCASM IN WORDS.
191
“ Decripit miser! base, ignoble wretch I"
First Part of Henry VI. V. 5.
“Do not yet disdaine to carrie with thee the wofull words of a
miser now disparing."
Arcadia, p. 117.
In both of these instances the word has no connec-
tion with avarice-implying simply a wretched one.
And the love of money cannot conceal from us that
it is at least a very "SORDID' thing; and sordid is of
a base enough extraction-claiming kinship with
sordes, which is just filih!
Indeed there often lurks in words a sly piece of
sarcasm on pettiness or paltriness which shows that,
how much soever Society may be sunk in inanity,
they will yet continue to speak out boldly and truth-
fully. Might one not, to be charitable, admit that
those mournful mementoes yclept ‘DANDIES,' are in
their very name, sufficiently afflicted—when we re-
flect that though it be French, it is only French for a
ninny-dandin: Webster himself defining it as “a
fop; a coxcomb; one who dresses himself like a doll
and who carries his character on his back !” Again,
how significant a moral is enwrapt in the fact that
loose,' 'lose' and 'loss' are all from one root; that
6 sore and sorrow' have a like genesis. Who could
wish any severer punishment on a ‘PROFLIGATE' than


192
VERBAL ETHICS.
Wory:
that he is one whom the appellation itself declares to
be dashed to the ground--profligatus-utterly broken
and abandoned! And how fearfully are the gnaw-
ings of Conscience which attend the commission of
any unmanliness or ungodliness embodied in our
REMORSE!'
Thus do Words become most powerful engines in
the cause of truth—filails with which shams and mean-
nesses are castigated. On this head De Quincey
discourses wisely:
“The word humbug, for instance, rests upon a rich
and comprehensive basis: it cannot be rendered ade-
quately, either by German or by Greek, the two
richest of human languages, and without this ex-
pressive word we should all be disarmed for one
great case, continually recurrent, of social enormity.
A vast mass of villany, that cannot otherwise be
reached by legal penalties or brought within the
rhetoric of scorn, would go at large with absolute
impunity were it not through the stern Rhadaman.
thean aid of this virtuous and inexorable word."*
'HUMILITY' is an instructive word, claiming kin.
ship with humus, the ground-a lowly enough origin
truly. “PROBIT'Y,' too, is just what has been probed,
* From a paper on “ Language."


194
VERBAL ETHICS.
man be spirited and courageous without converting
the disposition into 'ANIMOSITY? Wha: causes a
cupidity' in the way of benevolence or a 'lust'
of doing good to sound like incongruities or down.
right contradictions ? What a story of covetousness
and extortion is revealed by such a word as 'USURY'
—which should surely be called abusury at once!
Or, again, why is it that we cannot promulgate any.
thing with reference to a person, without forthwith
falling to TRADUCE' him? or report a story without
becoming 'TELL-TALES '—while 'STORY' itself is now
quite synonyinous with a fib.
Under old Roman rule persons who were set free
from servitude-freed-men-were called libertini; but
does that authorize us to convert them into ‘LIBER-
TINES'-or, is there a dark current of wickedness
underſlowing all this—must liberty degenerate into
license? Mignon in French and mignone in Italian
both imply a darling, a favorite ; but since
“That poor man
That hangs on princes' favors"
is not apt to be over scrupulous touching the modo
in which he gains these favors, it gradually came by
a regular process of degradation to bear with it all
the baseness and blackness of a “MINION! If pre-


RATIONALISM-OFFICIOUS.
195
tense and presuinption be not all too rife, as well now
as among the old Hellenic sages, why is it that the
appellation of a wise man should be loaded with con.
tempt—that he should become a mere mock wise man
(which is the foolishest of all)—a merc.SOPIIIST,' and
all his instructions mere 'SOPHISTRIES ?' And in our
own times we may discern the same principle at work
-so that the very exercise of reason we are fain to
stigmatize as 'RATIONALISM.' It would seem impossi-
ble for one to hold an opinion without converting it
into a 'DOGMA,' or assert one without becoming • DOG-
MATICAL;' to be habile or business-like without its
merging into the ‘PRAGMATICAL;' and I know not
as it is possible to advance without being 'FORWARD!'
The original signification of 'OFFICIOUS' we know
to have been merely dutiful, attentive-full of offices.
Thus I find in Dr. Johnson's poem on his servant,
Levett:
“Well tried through many a varying year,
See Levett to the grave descend;
Officious, innocent, sincere,
Of every friendless name the friend I"
But how different its present application! Why is
it that we convert a feeling over again into a 'RESENT-
MENT;' that we cannot turn the mind to (animadverto)


196
VERBAL ETHICS.
VCT
a person or thing, without ‘ANIMADVERTING' thereon,
or have a conception without getting into 'CONCEIT'
with it? while even the sacred and the holy will
degenerate into the merely 'SANCTIMONIOUS!
What a tale of strength abused does 'robustious'
tell us; and what a history of pettifogging do 'CUN-
NING' and 'CRAFTY' tell !—'CRAFTY' which is pro-
perly just skillful, powerful, artful' (only that that
also has gone the same way); and 'CUNNING' which,
at first was simply-connan-kenning-knowing: but,
indeed, I despair of defining the word, since almost
every analogue that can be enumerated has been
equally debased : for what does a “knowing' fellow
mean but an artful, designing "* fellow ? A simi.
lar and even sadder debasement is observable in the
word 'SENSUAL,' which as we have before seen,
strictly signifies simply that which pertains to the
senses—sensualis—but which has so completely taken
possession of and fortified itself within the corrupt
acceptation that we are fain to invent 'SENSUOUS' to
supply its place. Surely, surely, Dan Chaucer
spake rightly-
“To don sinne is mannish 1"+
* Certain it is that his designs' will be bad.
+ Take in addition, such examples as 'MENIAL,' "NIGGARD,
' PIETIST,' 'TAX,''TRAITOR,'' TREASON,' 'SEMBLANT,' 'PERJURE,' etc.


GOOD AND EVIL IN WORDS.
197
We find at once our compensation and our conso-
lation in scrutinizing to the bottom the abyss, black
and bottomless though it may seem. For soon light
begins to blend with the shade, aurora-strcaks of hope
become visible and the white butterflies of Love fiut-
ter gaily in the ruddy sunlight. For if it be in
reality that there is nothing totally bad—if our Life-
tree bear on its boughs at once the blossoms of Good
and Evil; so, while we find in language, traces of
baseness and corruption—if words appear subservient
to everything that is mean and contemptible, they also
lend themselves graciously, and, as it were, with a
greater good will, to keep or carry sentiments of
Love, of Peace, of Hope, of Benevolence, of Nobility;
and the same breath that festers into a curse can
beautifully mould itself into a heaven-born aspiration
and become the swift-footed and winged messenger of
truth and benignity!
What is 'DUTY? Is it not evidently what a man
owes (devoir, du)-all that is due from him to himself
and to others. High, clear above us sounds the voice
of the dread eternal Nemesis—unflinching, exacting,
with trumpet-tones demanding “What thou owest !”
“Stern Lawgiver ! yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace;


THE MYSTERY OF NAMES.
201
name; and Roderigo felt that, robbed of his 'good
name,' he was 'poor indeed !
What comes so close to man or woman as his or
her Name? Next to the sweet consciousness of
identity, of this "pleasing, anxious being” is the
marvel and mystery of one's Name. The tragedy of
tragedies is in a Name. To what thrilling realiza-
tions may it liftraising
“Beyond the reaches of the soul.”
Names of home—the sacred names of mother and
sister and wife—the sweet idyl of the names of children
-the clustering associations of the names of the troop
of amis! Names of bards, benefactors, martyrs, dear
to the heart of the world-Names of the primeval
supremes, of the founders of the antique Religions:
Brama, Osiris, Zoroaster, Prometheus, Orpheus, Jove!
The execrated names of tyrants and oppressors,
names uttered with compressed lips—names of war.
riors and conquerors writing their fiery legends on
man's mind as the lightning writes on rocks!
Names of the dead—names embalmed—tombs in a
battle-field, o'ergrown with grasses and flowers!
Of the suggestions from names none are more sig.
nificant than such as aris: from a mustering of names


PERSONALITIES IN NAMES.
203
mer. Macadam has given us to 'MACADAMIZE;'
Mackintosh has left his name to a coat, and Lord
Spencer to the "SPENCER.' Was the 'NEGUS' first
compounded, as is asserted, by a Colonel Negus ?
We certainly know that Lord Sandwich has left his
name to slices of bread and meat— SANDWICH.'
The associations we call "TONTINE' were first con-
ceived by a Neapolitan named Tonti ; Dahl, a Swede,
introduced the cultivation of the 'DAHLIA,' and Lord
Orrery was the first for whom an "ORRERY' was
made.
The same law in the formation of words is fre-
quently found in the genesis of terms that have
acquired a degree of opprobrious or abusive significa-
tion. And often do words thus formed do sad injus-
tice to their sires. Thus Duns Scotus, that subtilest
of schoolmen, survives only in the shape of a 'DUNCE;'
while Hector, son of Priam-a man who, it is said,
united
“The mildest manners with the bravest mind"
has received a maligned immortality in our verb 'To
Hector' and a hectoring fellow, which is just a “blus-
tering, turbulent, noisy fellow!" Rodomont—that
celebrated hero in Ariosto-bas lent us several words.


204
MEDALS IN NAMES.
The name itself “rodomont” we take to designate a
vaporing bully and boaster; and the very sublimation
of empty bluster and rant we express by 'rodo-
montade.
"FUDGE' is a curious word, having a positive per-
sonality underlying it. Such at least is it, if D’Israeli's
account thereof be authentic. He quotes from a
pamphlet published at the beginning of the Eighteenth
Century, entitled “Remarks upon the Navy," the
author of which says: “There was, sir, in our time,
one Captain Tudge, commander of a merchantman,
who upon his return from a voyage, how ill fraught
soever his ship was, always brought home his owners
a good cargo of lies; so much that now, aboard ship,
the sailors, when they hear a great lie told, cry out,
"You fudge it!”
The term 'CHOUSE,' a word which one used to hear
on the lips of youngsters, has a similar fantastic gene-
sis in the Turkish name for interpreter--chiaous. It
was a person holding this office in the Turkish em-
bassy in England, and who in the early part of the
Seventeenth century committed an enormous fraud
on the Oriental merchants resident in London, that
gave rise to this appellation as the designation for any
huge piece of swindling. And Verstegan traces
“RIBALD' to an analogous origin-a derivation we are


ORIGIN OF RIBALD.
205
forced to hold by somewhat freely, but which none
the less excellently illustrates the principle now under
exemplification. But let him speak for himself.
“This word was at first Rabad as yet in the Nether
lands it is used, wherehence both wec and the French
having taken the name, have somewhat varied it both
in ortography and sence. It was the proper name
of Rabad-a heathen king of Friesland, which being
instructed in the faith of Christ, by the godly Bishop
Ulfrau faithfully promised to be baptized, and ap-
pointed the time and place: where being come, and
standing in the water, hee asked of the Bishop where
all bis forefathers were that in former ages were de-
ceased ? the Bishop answered, that dying without
the true knowledge of God etc. they were in hell,
then quoth Rabad, I hold it better and more praise-
worthy to go with the greater multitude to hell, then
with your few Christians to heaven; and therewith-
all he went out of the water unchristened [that is not
brought over to the faith of Christ: to 'christen'
being just to Christ-en]; and returned both to his
wonted idolatry and to his evil lyf, notwithstanding
the good admonitions of the Bishop, and an evident
miracle, which (tlırough the power of God) the said
Bishop wrought, even in his own presence. IIce was
afterwards surprised (literally sur-prised i. e. over-taken]


206
MEDALS IN NAMES.
with a suddaine and improvyded [i. e. unforeseen]
death, about the year of our Lord 720, and his very
name became so odious through his wickedness, that
it grew to bee a tytle of reproche and shame, and
hath so continued ever since."*
And the contributions from proper names are not
exhausted. Into what an unenviable notoriety has
the Trojan Pandarus been taken up in our term to
'PANDER;' and what centuries of political finesse are
summed up in BACHIAVELISM'-offspring of that
subtle Italian brain! One would not desire to share
the fate of Dr. Guillotin and father such a word as
"GUILLOTINE.' So, Solomon is a common nickname
for a blockhead ; Cervantes has made 'QUIXOTIC' an
epithet of universal significance, and our rich, rough
New York life has erected -MOSE' into a type of
character which no other term could convey with
equal directness and force. 'JESUIT' is another word
of kindred genus. Its history too is important. It
was, we know, the name given to the order instituted
by Ignatius Loyola, in 1534. This order was called
the Society of Jesus—and the members thereof 'Jesuits.'
So much for the origin of the word. And now when
we look in our dictionaries and find 'Jesuit' synony.
* Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, 337.


AMERICAN CONTRIBUTIONS.
207
mous with crafty intriguer, and see "Jesuitical' defined
as designing; cunning; deceitful; prevaricating,'
who could be persuaded that these are the character-
istics and these the followers of that meck and lowly
Jesus, in whose mouth no guile was found ?
The American contributions to this class of words
have been by no means scanty. Indeed, is it not
natural that a people so prolific as are we in isms
should leave a pretty large verbal precipitate ?
* Bowey-knife' is a familiar example of this kind.
LYNCHING' smacks of the rude, lawless Western
and Southern life, where immortal Lynch presides;
while Barnum will live in his name and bis ism, long
after the “happy family'shall have had its quietus,
and the portals of the memorable Temple of
the Moral Drama' shall have been closed for
ever!
Sometimes, too, this process of word-building leads
into fantastic snatches of life and thought. The word
'PASQUIN ’ is an example to the point having an ex.
ceedingly curious origin. The word was applied to
a mutilated statue at Rome, in a corner of the palace
Ursini, so called from a cobbler of the name of Pas-
quin who was remarkable for his sneers and gibes,
and near whose shop the statue was dug up. On this
statue it has been customary to paste satiric papers.


208
MEDALS IN NAMES.
Hence, a lampoon. * In reading the elder Dramatists
one very often lights upon the expressions · Cain-
colored' and ' Judas-colored '—forms which might be
apt to puzzle us, did we not remember that all legends
ascribe red hair and beards to both Cain and Judas;
and, indeed, the aversion which our ancestors had for
red or yellow hair was only less violent than the
odium theologicum—so violent was it that they even
favored the de'il himself with the attribute. To what
is this owing? Had its association with the Danes,
whom Alfred calls the Heathen Folk, anything to do
with the prejudice?
What a profound significance frequently attaches
to national names! What a host of ideas, for exam-
ple, cluster around the 'SAXONS '—especially if we
derive the name from seaz, a sword: and so, the men
of the sword! Readily can we understand how, with
sword in hand, they became invincible in arms
driving all before them; and appreciate how those
terrible Vikings, with their awful 'berserkir rage'
spread dread and destruction all around the coasts
which they haunted; and by the terror of their name,
compelled the Gauls to intercalate, into their litany,
a new pctition: “A furore Normannorum, libera nos,
* Encyclopædia Americana.


ORIGIN OF SLAVE.
209
Domine!" Deliver us, O Lord, from ine fury of the
Northmen! For how could it be otherwise than
that men who affected such grim appellations as
‘BLOODY-AXE,' 'SKULL-CLEAVER,' 'DEATH'S HEAD'
—and whose deeds did not belie their names, should
inspire a natural horror? So with the ‘Picts,' the
original (Welsh) forms of which Verstegan affirms to
be Phictian i.e. fighters; and the Scots' which,
according to the same authority, comes from the Teu-
tonic verb scytan—to shoot.
On the word 'SLAVE' Gibbon, in the Fifty-fifth
Chapter of the “Decline and Fall,” has a pungent
passage which I shall quote here as altogether per.
tinent. “The unquestionable evidence of Language
attests the descent of the Bulgarians from the original
stock of the Sclavonic, or more properly Slavonic
race: and the kindred tribes of Servians, Bisneans,
Rasivians, Croatians, Walachians etc., followed cither
the standard or the example of the leading tribe.
From the Euxine to the Adriatic, in the state of
Captives, or Subjects, or Allies, or Enemies, in the
Greek Empire, they overspread the land; and the
national appellation of the SLAVES has been degraded
by chance or malice from the signification of glory to
that of servitude."*
* "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," Vol. VII. Chap.


210
MEDALS IN NAMES.
A mere chance, then, a mere mishap in war has
given us the appellation of 'SLAVE;' and those old
Slavic tribes, subducd, stolen and sold, have iminor-
talized their name, and within it embalmed the record
of mankind's infamy.
We are not without analogues to this same mode of
procedure. Thus the 'HELOTS,' among the Greeks,
were, it is asserted, simply the EiTwTes—that is, the
55. In a note to the above he says: “Jordan subscribes to the
well-known and probable derivation from slavu, laws, gloria, and
which forms the termination of the most illustrious names (De
Originibus Sclavonicis Pars I. p. 40; pars IV. p. 101, 102)."
An example of the employment of this word slava, glory,
occurs in Suwarrow's letter to the Empress Katharine on the
taking of Ismael, wherein he exclaims :
“ Slava Bogu! slava vam!
Krepost vzata, y ia tam.”
Glory to God; glory to thee!
The fortress is taken and I am there.
The correctness of this derivation has, however, latterly been
called in question by some philologers. Anent which take the
following from Talti's “Literature of the Slavic Nations."
“The name of the slavi has generally been derived from slova,
glory, and their national feelings have of course been gratified
by this derivation. But the more immediate origin of the
appellation is to be sought in the word Slovo, word, speech," eta
Lit. of Slav. Nat. p. 2, 3, note.


212
MEDALS IN NAMES.
those on whom the sun of Gascony never shone; and
TARTARS' who never saw Tartary. By the way
what a keen set of fellows those Tartars must be,
when 'to catch a Tartar' becomes so pungent an ex-
pression! Were the Carthaginians really instinct
ively liars, or was it only Roman malignity that made
the ‘Punic faith' emblematic of utter national menda-
city ? Still do the 'Goths' and `VANDALS’ survive
as typical of everything that is ferocious and sacrile-
gious, albeit between us and them rolls the flood of
fourteen centuries; and it is even said that the ‘OGRES'
of the Arabian Nights are not merely mythic mon.
sters, but that a dim memory survives of an Asiatic
nation called the Oigours who, along with the Huns
and the Eastern barbarians, spread terror throughout
Europe—leaving behind them mementoes and associ-
ations which became the bases of a thousand fairy and
fantastic tales.
'PATAVINITY' (Patois) with which Livy was
charged is plainly just that peculiar dialect spoken in
Patavium, where Livy was born. So, 'LACONIC'
-haxwvixos—is just something short and pithy—such
as we might expect from the people of Laconia—the
Spartans—a grave, sententious, silence-loving, and
most Carlylean race. Again, the term "CRAVAT '
Skinner derives from the Croai soldiers, or cravates,


MUSLIN-DOLLAR-TARIFF.
215
does an 'ANDREW FARRARA.' And so also does a
• Douay-BIBLE'—cvidently being the translation made
at Douay. Lunier declares 'MUSLIN' (what the
French call mousseline) to be from Moussoul, in Meso-
potamia; and asserts that 'PARCHMENT' is named
after Pergamus—whose king, Eumenes, 'tis said, in-
vented the article. But however this may be, a
• MAGNET,' at least points straight to dlagnesia, in
Asia Minor. Every "GUINEA' we handle jogs the
memory in regard to its origin on the Guinea coast-
that ancient El Dorado, while our “DOLLAR' (Swedish
daler) is maintained by some to be connected with
Dale, where, they say, it was first coined. And
STERLING' may have some relation to the place of
that name—though more probably, as Camden de.
clares, it is a contraction from Easterling, “once the
popular name of German traders in England, whose
money was of the purest gold.”
It not unfrequently happens, too, that these appel.
lations having their origin in the names of places,
preserve some important piece of history. The word
TARIFF' is an example to the point. It traces itself
back to Tarifa, a Moorish name for a fortress on a
Southern promontory of Spain, running into the
Straits of Gibraltar, and commanding the entrance of
the Mediterranean sea. From this Tarifa the Moors,


216
MEDALS IX NAMES.
during their dominion in Spain, were wont to watch
merchant-ships passing into or out from the Mediter-
ranean, and, making a sally therefrom, used to levy
duty on merchandise carried by the ships. And
from this practice it was that the application of the
word `TARIFF' arose. .
Proper names! This is a vast, indeed a quite bound.
less field! A calculation that seems to err on the
safe side makes out the number of surnames in the
English language to be between thirty and forty
thousand !* Of English Surnames we have, so far,
nothing like an adequate History or Philosophy.
Camdent—"nourice of antiquitie”—broke ground
more than two hundred years ago in this interesting
investigation. His contemporary, genial old Verste-
gan, did good service in the same direction. On
these-added to additional contributions of minor
notc-Mr. Mark Antony Lower wrought in the pro-
duction of his “Essays on Family Nomenclature'
(2 vols. 12mo., London, 1842). The Essays are useful
and entertaining, though quite inadequate, Mr. Lower
* Rev. Mark Noble: History of the College of Arms.
+ Remains concerning Britaine, but especially England and the
Inhabitants thereof.


PROPER NAMES AND SURNAMES.
217
being no philologer. A work up to the demands of
the theme would be indeed a desideratum.
Was there ever a time when men were anony-
mous ?-a mere indiscriminate herd of Yous ? To
this period tlıc memory of man, at least, runneth not
back, and the oldest historical representations open
with a personal nomenclature somewhat of the nature
of the sobriquct or nickname—a single name freely
designating some idiosyncrasy of the individual. A
broad, free, spontaneous method was this—seizing
some cmphatic piece of personnel, and making it the
symbol of the man. Hercules, Ulysses, Diogenes,
Socrates, Isaac, Jacob are instances from Greek and
Hebrew nomenclature.
An advance on this primitive nomenclature was
the assumption of the name of one's sire in addition
to his own proper name, as Melchi ben Addi-Mel-
chi, son of Addi; Ixapos sou Aardanos—Icarus, son of
Dedalus. Additional definiteness was gained by the
annexation of an epithet indicative of his country or
some personal or social peculiarity, as Herodotus of
Halicarnassus; Diogenes the Cynic; Alexander the
Great.
But the perfection of personal nomenclature was
the introduction of the Surname proper-a name
superadded to the first or Christian name, to indicate
10


218
MEDALS IN NAMES.
the family to which the individual bearing it belongs.
Du Cange asserts that Surnames were at first written
"not in a direct line after the Christian name, but
above it, between the lines ”—and so, literally, supra-
nomina or over-names. English hereditary Surnames
were among the fruits of that mighty social revolu-
tion that came with the Norman conquest. As says
the great Camden, “ About the year of our Lord
1000, (that we may not minute out the time) sur-
names became to be taken up in France; and in
England about the time of the Conquest, or else a
very little before, under King Edward the Confessor,
who was all Frenchified. This will sceme strange to
some Englishmen and Scottishmen, whicle, like the
Arcadians, thinke their surnames as antient as the
moon, or at least to reach many an age beyond the
Conquest. But they which thinke it most strange
(I speake under correction), I doubt they will hardly
finde any surname which descended to posterity
before that time: neither have they seene (I feare)
any deede or donation before the Conquest but sub-
signed with crosses and single names without sur-
names, in this manner: + Ego Eadredus confirmaui.
+ Ego Edmundus corroboraui. + Ego Sigarius
conclusi," etc.
Lower makes a classification of English surnames


LOCAL SURNAMES.
219
43 originating in Locality, Occupations, Dignities,
Physical and Mental Qualities, Natural Objects,
Social Relations, Contempt, Virtues and Vices, Histori-
cal Events, Oaths and Exclamations, Puns, Whimsi-
calities, ctc. I can but select a few typical examples.
Lucal Surnames. This is a copious source of names,
every feature in Geography having fossilized into
numerous personal appellations. BURNS, BRYDGES
(Scotch BRIGGS), BROOKS, CRAGGS, the CHASE (or
forest), the FIELD, FOLD and FOREST, the GRANGE,
GROVE, Hill and HOUSE, the Holmes (meadow sur-
rounded by water), KNOWLES (top of a hill), and
LOWNDES (or lawns), MARSII, Mill, Moss and
MOUNTAIN, PARK, Pitt, Poole, and SANDS, the
STREET, SPIRE, TREE and Tower, and finally every
quarter, NORTH, SOUTH, East and West have con-
tributed to swell the list.
Occupations and Pursuits. Iu this inarshaling of
Names with reference to their sources, next in num-
ber to the local contributions are the contributions
from Occupations and Pursuits. These became a
natural resort for nomenclature with the advance of
the arts. “PARSONS and PRIESTS met with CHURCHES
and PARISHES and DYERS bound to COFFINS, while
GRAVES yawned before both; BREWER sent out
BEERS, and FISHER brought in EELS; and, in short,


220
MEDALS IN NAMES.
every body had the name of doing something in the
way of his trade.”
But whence came all the SMITHS ? Momentous
question! An acceptable enough answer is contained
in this old rhyme which Verstegan quotes as current
in his time:
"From whence comes Smith, all be he Knight or Squyre,
But from the Smith that forgeth at the fyre ?”
SMITH, then, is originally one who smitheth-
Smi(te)th. But as the Saxon verb smitan was applied
to workers in wood as well as to those in metal, SMITH
meant a smiler in general, including wheelwrights,
carpenters, masons, etc. And hence the frequency of
the name.
Leaving the Smiths we have the MILLERS, MASONS,
CARPENTERS, BAKERS, GOLDSMITIIS, STIEPHERDS,
BUTLERS, BUTCHERS, CARTERS, COOPERS, COLLIERS,
LAWYERS, TAYLORS, etc. JENNER is an old form of
joiner; WEBSTER is properly the feminine of weaver.
The associations of field-sports have left us HUNTERS,
FOWLERS, FISHERS, FALCONERS, HAWKERS, ARROW-
SMITHS and FLETCHERS (French flèche, an arrow),
which is Norman for the same. But what do you
say of HOPPERS, SKIPPERS and JUMPERS ?


OFFICIAL NAMES.
221
-
And then, Offices and Dignities have left us a large
nominal legacy—from EMPEROR and KING, through
PRINCES, EARLES and Lords, down to the plain
YEOMAN and SQUIRE. The Church has given us
POPES, BISHOPS, PARSONS, PRIESTS and CLARKS
(CLARKES). The State has given us, entre autres,
CHANCELLORS, Mayors and REEVES. As for SPEN-
CER, it is simply Le Despencer, the dispenser ; CHAL-
MERS (Chambers) is primarily De la Chambre the
Chamberlain ; and FRANKLIN records a piece of
primitive English socialism-being etymologically
just a freeholder. Chaucer, in the Prologue to the
Canterbury Tales, has a lively picture of the Frank-
lin, which begins after this wise:
"A FRANKELEIN was in this compagnie
White was his berd, as is the dayesie.
Of his complexion he was sanguin," etc.
PILGRIM and PALMER! The crusades rise at the
names !—the PILGRIMS on their way to the Holy
Land, the PALMERS with their palm-branches in their
bands.*
"His sandals were with travel tore,
Staff, budget, bottle, scrip he wore;
* Lower on Surnames.


224
MEDALS IN NAMES.
Ben Jonson, in Bartholemew Fair, thus throws his
thought into Dialogue:
Q. His Christon-name is Zeal-of-the-Land.
L. Yes, Sir, Zeal-of-the-Land Busy.
W. How! What a name's there !
L. O, they have all such names, Sir; he was witness for
Winbere (they will not be called God-fathers) and named her
Win-the-light: you thought her name had been Winnifred, did
you not?
IV. I did indeed.
L. He would ha' thought himself a stark reprobate if it had.
But the most extraordinary one I have yet met with
is the following-itself a perfect catechism in petto: If-
Christ-had-not-died-for-thee-thou-had'st-been-damned
Dobson!
A very evident mode of forming names of persons
would be to join the father's—the sire's name—to that
of the child, connecting them by some word to indi-
cate the relationship. Thus the Scotch Highlanders
have their Mac— MACDONALD,' for instance—or as
we would have it, 'DONALDSon' (i.e. Donald's son).
So the Normans have their Fitz-supposed to be just
a corruption of fils (filius—a son); the Irish their
O’; the Russians their Witz; the Poles their Sky-


WELSH AND SAXON NAMES.
225
*PETERSON,' for instance, being with them, 'PETROW-
SKY;' and the Welsh thcir Ap—which, however, we
are not always very careful to preserve—David ap
IIowel (i.e. David, son of Howel) appearing simply
as David Powell, and John ap Richard, as the plain
John Pritchard.
The Welsh affectation of joining together the names
of a score or two of ancestors (connecting them by
their endless ‘APS ') has given rise to more banter
and pleasantry than we could conveniently notice
Tim Bobbin has some curiosities in this way. It was
not unusual, a century or two back, to hear of such
combinations as Evan-ap-Grifftli-ap-David-ap-Jenkin;
and some wag, in the way of burlesque, described
cheese as being
“ Adam's own cousin-german by its birth,
Ap-Curds-ap-Milk-ap-Cow-ap-Grass-ap-Earth."
Such names as these, declares Lower, cast the
Dutch Inkvervankodsdorspanckinkadrachdern quite into
the shade!
Our Saxon names are often profoundly significant.
'ALFRED,' for instance, is All peace; 'BERNARD' is
Bearen (or Bear's) heart; “EDGAR'is Ead-gard-one
who guards his (ead) oath—a troth-keeper; 'Ed.
10*


NAMES FROM TRADES.
227
by ironing a horsc; while a 'CURRIER’ finds his em.
ployment in-cuir-leather, and a 'SEXTON is just a
sacristan.
Pegge says—whether right or wrong—that 'APOTH-
ECARY' (the old potecary) is originally a boticario_i.e.,
one who has a shop, what we would call a 'STATIONER?
(only that that has acquired a special signification), in
opposition to a 'PEDLER'—who is, of course, continu.
ally trudging along on his feet-pedes. A ‘BUTCHER'
is doubtless just the French boucher—a form which,
by the way, we find in old literature. Thus the
“ beastly Skelton” says:
“For drede of the Boucher's dog
Wold worry them like a hog."
And a 'GROCER ' rather boastingly declares that he
deals only in gross. Johnson, indeed, recommended
that the word be spelled grosser*—which has certainly
* Our age is no respecter of letters. In our retrenchment
and amendment we deal with them just as if they had no feeling
on the subject. Once, we know, Orthography was a more
serious affair; for “Worthy" Fuller tells us of a clerk in the
culinary department of the royal household, who narrowly
escaped condign punishıment for spelling Cinapi as Sinapi.
Church History, Book IV. p. 156


RICHNESS OF ENGLISH IN SYNONYMS.
233
more strikingly manifest in the Arabic, which is said
to have the enormous multitude of several hundred
words for the ship of the desert.'
These divers influences have all acted on the Eng.
lish Speech. Complex in its organism as no language
is, it inherits all that antiquity conceived and freely
augments and enriches itself with importations from
the modern idioms. Born thus of the marriage of
several stocks and tongues, a copious equivalence
runs through the English language, and it frequently
depends on a writer's choice whether his diction shall
bear the features of this or that branch of his linguistic
ancestry.
Of this hospitality of our language numerous illus-
trations present themselves. Thus the good strong
Saxon "TRICK' has always been a living part of our
speech, expressing a sly fraud: but, not content with
this single symbol, early in the literary history of our
language a double inoculation of words from the
classics took place—the Greck contributing 'STRA-
TAGEM' (stratagema), the Latin ! ARTIFICE' (artificium).
Nor is this all. With the study of Italian literature,
during the reign of James I., "DEVICE' was intro-
duced; and a still farther importation was made,
under the writers of Charles II.—with whom a
French renaissance took place—of the term 'FINESSE.'


GROUPS OF SYNONYMS ILLUSTRATED.
235
word-histories. For 'GUST' and 'STORM' are of
Northern origin (Danish and Icelandic in their con.
nections), and suggest the phenomena of northern
climates—'gust’ carrying with it the fitful gush of
the wind; and “storm' being more violent, more
complex—the stir, namely, of the atmospheric ele-
ments; fierce rapid meteorologic commotion, throwing
air and earth and ocean into elemental contest, with
darkness, perchance, and destruction and hail and
snow. "TEMPEST' is of southern origin and describes
the sort of storm common in warm countries, where
quite a-time-of-it (tempestas, tempus, time) is of frequent
occurrence, wind accompanied with rain and lighten-
ings and thunder. "HURRICANE’ though of Spanish or
French origin (Spanish huracan ; French ouragan) has
yet a historical and geographical connection with the
storm-phenomena of the West Indies and the Caribean
Sea; and hence is in its very nature peculiarly fitted
to typify tropical and summer storms. As I am on
the vocabulary of tempests, it occurs to me to mention
an additional synonym to the preceding, and which
did not come into my mind when writing the above.
I refer to the word "TORNADO.' And here, too, the
magic wand of Etymology is of potent service. For
is it not patent that the connection of this term with
the verb to turn (Spanish and Portuguese tornada, a


236
SYNONYMS AND THEIR SUGGESTIONS.
turning round) is suggestive of precisely the element
that most eminently characterizes these oriental tem-
pests—the whirling motion, the whirlwind, namely ?
But let me enter into the subject of Synonyms with
somewhat more of system. And in this estimation
of the influences that have acted on the growth of
Synonyms we shall follow the line of history if we
notice such correlative expressions as arose from the
inoculation, early in the history of our language, of
the large Norinan element that came with the Norman
Conquest. Such correlatives are very numerous.
And it is a significant fact that the antagonism that
long subsisted between the Saxon and Norman races
is vividly mirrored in our language. For presently a.
ficrce hostility arose between the contending native
and foreign terms, and Saxon and Norman verbs and
substantives waged a war as bitter as that recently
carried on by Saxon and Norman men.
Various of course were the fortunes of the day.
At times, the Gallicism clean overpowered and sup-
planted the Saxonism; at others, the French word
had to yield before the imperious home-instinct. Now
a Saxon noun fell into disuse, a Norman substitute
taking its place, and only the adjective remaining as a
reminiscence of the old vocable; anon, both words
were retained, some compromise being struck between


VICISSITUDES OF WORDS.
237
them—the Saxon, perchance, crystallizing around the
homelier, heartier nucleus of meaning; the Gallicism
employed in the more courtly, more recherché signi-
fication.
And first, of such duplicates the native form of
which the French finally succeeded in eliminating.
The Saxon term for a tiller of the ground was earth-
ling—a word of sweet and tender beauty, which I
cannot but wish had been retained-gave place to
the Norman ‘FARMER'—fermier ; while earthling has
completely lost all its old vitality and been pressed
into the moral service. Relations, social and political,
coming under the control of the invaders, the new
regime made itself powerfully and practically felt in
the dealings of the law, of which here is an illustra-
tion. To express the legal union of the sexes the
Normans imposed on the conquered Saxon their word
MARRIAGE,' which is just the getting of a mari or
husband (getting a man, as the Scotchi say)-sup-
planting thus the native expression, gyfta (a giving
away). This, though, is but the external, the conven-
tion part: the heart of the matter continued still to
be expressed by the Saxon 'WEDDING,' an expressive
word, originating in wed, a pledge, a covenant. And
here are some native words every vestige of which
has disappeared from our specch. Month-sick has


VERBAL DUPLICATES AND TRIPLICATES.
241
Saxon.
WOOLE
HIDDEN
SOUR
ΤΑΜΕ
HATE
HELP
DIE
BETTER
LESSEN
TRUST
Latin.
ENTIRE
OCOULT
ACID
GENTLE
ABAOR
ASSIST
EXPIRE
MELIORATE
DIMINISH
CREDIT
These new factors coming in to do their work in
the growth of our tongue, the result was that many a
significant combination arosc. And first, we find
triplicates in which a Saxon, French, and Latin term
stood side by side, each severally coming gradually
to assert and assume a sphere of its own. Thus from
the three roots country (Saxon), pays (French), and
rus (Latin)—three synonymous roots from as many
distinct sources—arise COUNTRYMAN,' 'PEASANT,'
and “RUSTIC.' 'FORESIGHT' comes to us a native-bred
home-word: with the Norman inoculation came 'PRU-
DENCE,' etymologically an exact synonym of the
foregoing: but, not satisfied with this duality, writers
in the course of time went back to the Roman idiom
and imported thence 'PROVIDENCE,' whereof PRU-
11


SYNONYMOUS TRIPLETS.
243
groups—many a curious fact or fancy will they reveal.
Take the triplet ‘foe'—'opponent'-'antagonist,' for
example. The Saxon 'FOE,' has its connections in
the Teutonic verbs feon, fian, * to hate, and means
(any one) hated—and hence is of these terms the one
that carries with it the burden of the most active hos-
tility; 'OPPONENT,' indeed, is one who is pitted against
(ob and pono) another, while 'ANTAGONIST' has its
origin in the antagonistes of the Grecian games. Or
consider this group—wayward,' erratic,''eccentric:'
on what a vivid perception of character do they rest.
“WAYWARD' is just away-ward—the tendency to
be off and away—an image perfectly realized by
' ERRATIC,” which is the being given to' erring, or
wandering-
“The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confines."
Hamlet.
* ECCENTRIC’ is an importation from geometry, typi-
fying the tendency to depart from the centre—“flying
off in a tangent” from the centred round of customary
thinkings and actings. Or explore the suggestions in
this group—tale,' novel,' 'story. "TALE' has its
* 'Fiend' is the present participle of this verb, and signifies
the hater. The interjections - FIE' (Fou' and 'SAUGI' have all
a like genesis.


244
SYNONYMS AND THEIR SUGGESTIONS.
roots in the verb to tell, and hence is properly con.
fined to a short narrative within the compass of conver.
sational convenience, and fitted to amuse the hearer;
'STORY,' however, in its very origin professes to be
true (historia), while the primary characteristic of the
'NOVEL' is that it bave novelty.* Finally, of the
group 'pithy,' 'concise,' and 'laconic;' PITHY' claims
to shut up in a small compass much pith, much of the
spine and spirit of the matter under consideration;
while 'CONCISE' (concisus, cut off) prunes and lops off
all verbal excess and redundancy, and 'LACONIC'is
after the fashion of the Lacones or men of Laconia-
the Spartans—a grave, brief, sententious race.
Having taken this historical coup-d'oeil of Syno.
nyms, it may be permitted us to enter into the subject
with somewhat more of freedom. It is curious to
observe how, in the final assortment of correlative
terms, the national instinct wrought on each, and
what is the fate that has befallen these several ana-
logues—how the degrees of praise and blame, of merit
and demerit have varied with the pulsings of the popu-
lar heart. Of this action such words as 'womanly'-
feminine ;' 'boyish '-'puerile;' 'lively'—'vital;'
'friendly'—'amical,' etc., afford illustrations. As far
* Taylor : Synonyms Discriminated.


245
WOMANLY-FEMININE.
as composition gocs, 'WOMANLY' and 'FEMININE' are
entirely coincident and correspondent: and yet see
how the formative popular energy has wrought on
these words. For who does not perceive that there is
something infinitely loving in 'WOMANLY,' that 'FEMI-
NINE' (which merely denotes that which pertains to
woman as the opposite sex—and for which womanish
was formerly employed) can lay no claim to? Chau-
cer's beautiful lines come in here with expressive
significance:
“I see wel that ye have on my distresse
Compassion, my faire Canese,
Of veray* womanly benignitie,
That nature in your principles hath set."
The Squieres Tale.
On the other hand, a passage from Milton will set
'FEMININE' in almost too clear a light.
“Yet the fourth time when mustering all her wiles,
With blandisht parlies, feminine assaults,
Tongue-batteries, she surceased not day nor night
To storm me overwatched and wearied out."
Samson Agonistes.
"CHILDLIKE' is a very beautiful and ingenuous
* What we write very; 'VERY' is, therefore, just truly—vrai.


246
SYNONYMS AND THEIR SUGGESTIONS.
term, and yet ‘INFANTINE' or 'INFANTILE,' albeit just
the Latin therefor, have none of its charming sim-
plicity-nay, they are altogether childish,' although
it may not be unworthy of note that even it had for-
merly precisely the meaning of childlike,' as in the
following:
“Charitie is a childish thing, as holi churche wittnesseth nisi
efficiamini sicut parvuli.
Piers Ploughman, p. 280.
There is nothing offensive about 'BOYISH,' and yet
who would wish to be charged with being 'PUERILE,'
either in word or deed ? Dryden introduced 'BOY-
ISM,' but I know not that it survived him. It is
instructive to observe how the balance of Compensa-
tion in time equalizes and adjusts every thing: for
even 'PUERILE' had once nothing contemptuous about
it, but was, in fact, precisely analogous to our present
acceptation of 'BOYISH.' An instance of this from
Anthony-à-Wood suggests itself:
“Franciscus Junius was born at Heidelberg a famous city and
university of Germany an. 1589, educated in puerile learning at
Leyden," etc.
Athena Oxon.
Compare the home-bred 'LIVELY' with the im.


SHADES IN SYNONYMS.
247
'LIVE
portcd 'VITAL. Is there not something more in
'LIVELY' than the mere possession of vitality-a
something of quickness and vivacity superadded
thereto which 'VITAL' possesses not, and which for
ever prevents them from coalescing? 'FRIENDLY;'
too-can it be because it is a tone of our old mother
tongue?-seems to wear an infinitely more winning
smile, and an infinitely warmer hcart than docs the
more stately 'AMICAL,' or the somewhat frigid ‘AMI-
CABLE.'
But, if our strong Saxonisms sometimes have the
advantage over their high-born Southern sisters, the
reverse is oft times the case: the Omnipresent, Omni-
potent Law of Compensation which balances granules
and gravitation here also makes itself felt, and uner-
ringly adjusts the terms of the great linguistic equa-
tion. "BLOODY' and 'SANGUINE' afford an illustra-
tion to the point. For though from analogous roots
(sanguis = blood)—yet has the Latin by far the milder
meaning—implying, at present, rather that expectant,
confiding disposition that is generally found in union
with an ardent temperament and a copious flow of
blood. Chapinan, however, frequently employs it as
synonymous with bloody. As here:
"Sharpe axes, turbils, two-hand swords, and spears
with two heads borne,


248
SYNONYMS AND THEIR SUGGESTIONS.
Were then the weapons : faire short swords with
sanguine hilts still worn,
Had use in like sort."
Iliad, XV.*
Iliad.
"WORLDLY' and 'EARTHLY' have clustered much
of their meaning round ethical pivots—worldly im.
plying the being too much attached to the world—to
"This earthly load
Of death called life:"
whereas 'MUNDANE' and 'TERRESTRIAL' (and
EARTHY,' too,) have to a much greater extent pre-
served their merely expletive and definitive acceptation.
This principle, indeed, we find running through a
very prolific class of synonyms: the Saxon adjective
being the homely, hearty, common word—with, per-
chance, a poetic or sentimental sense superadded
thereto: while the Latin remains literal-rigid and
scientific. Instances innumerable might be adduced
in illustration. 'HEARTY' may be no more than
cordial,' yet is it much more than "cardiac;' while
what is quite 'salutary' may not always be very
"healthy.' There is poetry in 'sunny' and 'starry'
* But the heroic translator of the old blind Bard is frequently
very erratic in his use of words—almost always employing
them in their literal, classic sense. Thus for the word in ito
above acceptation, we now use 'SANGUINARY.'


SAXON AND LATIN COUPLETS. 249
and 'fiery' and 'icy' and 'glassy,' but not an atom
can be extracted from solar' or 'stellar' ( astral,
sidereal,' etc.) or 'igneous' or 'glacial' or vitre.
ous'—the corresponding adjectives of Latin origin.
* Hairy' cannot be defined by 'capillary,' nor ‘handy'
by 'manual,' while 'doggish' (“dogged,' etc.) has an
innate snappish and cynic force that is not responded
to by 'canine.' No poet would hesitate, as to beauty
and expressiveness, between 'nightly' and 'noctur-
nal,' or between 'wintry' and 'brumal,' even though
he might not remember that our Saxon forefathers
were wont to count time by nights, and the years of
their life-time by winters.* It is not, however,
always the case that the Latin retains the literal,
while the Saxon receives the metaphorical applica-
tion. Thus' woody' is nearer the literal truth than
is 'sylvan '-even though it has its root in the Roman
forest (sylva).
It frequently happens, too, that the presence of
these various factors in our language has made strange
work with the parts of speech. And significant among
these results is the existence of numerous couplets,
whereof the substantive is a Saxonism, the adjective
* Traces of this crop out in our terms se'night and fortnight,
i..e geven nights; fourteen nights (hence).
11*


252
SYNONYMS AND THEIR SUGGESTIONS.
Donner and Blitzen! Seven syllables out of one!
But let Horne Tooke give us the why and the
wherefore.
“With the Christian religion were very early intro-
duced to our ancestors the Greek words, Church,
Parish, People, Alms: which they corrupted and used
as substantives, a long time before they wanted them
in an adjectived state. When the latter time arrived,
they were incapable of adjectiving these words them-
selves, and were therefore forced to seck them in the
original language. Hence the Adjectives are not so
corrupt as the Substantives. And hence the strange
appearance of Eleemosynary, a word of seven syllables,
as the Adjective of the monosyllable Alms; which
itself became such by successive corruptions of ELEE-
MOSUNE long before its Adjective was required :
having successively exhibited itself as Almosine,
Almosie, Almose, Almes, and finally Alms; whilst in
the French language it appeared as Almosine, Almosne,
Aumosne, Aumône."*
The rounds that words make are indeed often
curiously erratic. Thus the Latin adjective salvus
becomes transformed into the French sauf, whence it
comes to us in the shape of 'SAFE,' from this we form,
also, “SAFETY.' But an analogous word being found
* Diversions of Purley, p. 639.


DIVERGENT WORDS FROM SAME ROOT.
253
necessary for a spiritual application, we went back
again to the Latin and transferred their salvatio into
our "SALVATION:' 'SALVATION' and 'SAFETY' are
therefore, properly, one word—being differenced only
by the process of derivation.
And, by the way, it is instructive to observe the
very widely divergent words that we frequently find
formed from one root. So widely divergent that they
oftentimes appear to have no connection with each
other; and it is only the Ariadne-thread of Etymology
that gives us a clue through the labyrinth of verbal
forms. The words 'PITY' and 'PIETY' afford an
instructive example. These emotions the Spanish,
Portuguese, Italian and Latin languages all unite in
expressing by one and the same term. The Latin
furnishes the radix from which all the others spring.
For 'PIETAS'implies that state of feeling which causes
us to act rightly both towards the gods and towards
men; and since tenderness and compassion are prime
elements in this beautiful passion, there was no neces-
sity felt for separating them by diverse terms. Nor
was it until the French made the unnatural divorce
(and the English here, as in so many instances, blindly
followed them*) that both things and words came to
* “Whose manners still our tardy apish nation,
Limps after in base imitation.”—Richard II. ii. 1.


254 SYNONYMS AND THEIR SUGGESTIONS.
be sundered in form and substance. And yet does
not Dan Chaucer tell us:
“Lo, pitee renneth sone in gentil herte !"
'PROPERTY' and 'PROPRIETY,' again, are both from
one root-proprius, special, proper (in the old sense
and equivalent to the French propre): "PROPERTY'
is, therefore, that which is specially or peculiarly
one's own; 'PROPRIETY’ is the adaptation of conduct
etc. to the special occasion—the instinctive perception
of that course that is proper, fitting thereto. Among
the Romans a Patronus was a person who had eman-
cipated his slave, but still retained some right over
him—was, as it were, a sort of father-pater-to him
-one who was to be looked up to with veneration,
and regarded as an exemplar which he might copy:
PATRON' and 'PATTERN' are, therefore, originally
one and the same word. The French verb parler, to
speak, gives us two distinct words, "PARLOR' and
'PARLIAMENT '-in which, however, it will not be
difficult to trace the bond of union. For the 'PAR-
LOR' (parloir) is properly the room in a nunnery
where the nuns are permitted to meet and converse
with each other--and so the common room for meet-
ing, speaking, etc., distinct from the 'DRAWING 'room,
or rather the withdrawing room. As for "PARLIA-
uns
verse


JOURNEY-JOURNAL.
255
MENT,' it is preeminently the parlementum—the speak-
ing (very often only), the spouting place!
We saw some time ago that 'JOURNEY' originally
significd the distance travelled—dans un jour, in a day.
The root is the Latin dies, a day. This, in the Italian,
transforms itself into giorno; as in Dante,
“Lo giorno se n'andava, e l'ær bruno
Toglieva gli animai, che sono in terra,
Dalle fatiche loro;" etc.
Inferno, Canto II.
And the French, by a still further transformation,
convert it into jour: thence it will not be difficult to
perceive that a journal means a record of daily trans-
actions. Not originally, however; for we know that
in old English literature it is used in the literal sense
of daily. As in Shakspeare,
"Ere since the sun had made his journal greeting
To the under generation."
Aleasure for Measure, IV. 3.
Or in Spencer,
“And his faint steedes watred in ocean deepe,
Whiles from their journall labors they did rest."
Fairie Queene I., XI. 31.


256
SYNONYMS AND THEIR SUGGESTIONS.
But, having, as we have seen, acquired a special
signification, in order to supply the deficit we went
back to the Latin, and taking their adjective diurnus
made ‘DIURNAL' out of it. "JOURNEY,' 'JOURNAL,'
DIARY,' “ DIURNAL,' are, therefore, all from one root,
the seminal force of all being dies, a day.
· Although according to one acceptation of the word,
a ‘man of honor' may not always be a man of 'HON-
ESTY;' yet are both these words from the same root:
or rather honestus is properly the adjective formed
from honor and consequently signifying the highest
degree of that quality. 'Host' and 'HOSTILE' are
both from one root: and, not to dwell on the subject,
so are :
PASSIVE
NATION
MONSTER
INGENIOUS
PASSION
NATURE
MUSTER
INGENUOUS
INFERIOR
COFFER
BRAND
Custou
CUPID
MODISI
COFFIN
BRUNT
COSTUME
CUPIDITY
MODEST, etc. etc.
From the fact of the English being a mixed lan-


ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGUAGE. 257
guage spring some curious results. One—and a very
lamentable one-is, that by far the larger portion of
those who speak our language—who are
" Native here
And to the manner born,”-
have no distinct idea of the signification of three.
fourths of the words in their so called “mother
tongue.” Of Saxon roots we have, as it were, an
innate realization : they sound like old familiar tones
-snatches of melodies that we learned long, long
ago; but the verbal stems from the classic tongues,
and, consequently, the immense number of offshoots
therefrom, seem all alien and away. And, in our hete-
rogeneous language, how frequent are the misappli-
cations and misunderstandings of words; and how
available an opportunity does it afford for sophisms,
grandiloquence and verbal quirks and quibbles of
every species. *
* [Words] “ being philosophically unfolded, several of those
pretended mysteries, profound notions, expressed in great
swelling words, whereby some were set up for reputation, being
this way examined, will appear to be either nonsense, or very
flat and jejune."
Bishop Wilkins: "Real Character and Philosophic Language."
Epist: Dedicatory.


260
SYNONYMS AND THEIR SUGGESTIONS.
language and baptize all by the name of English, as
those which wee dayly take from the Latin, or lan-
guages thereon depending: heer-hence it cometh (as
by after experience is found) that some Englishmen
discoursing together, others beeing present and of our
own nation and that naturally speak the English
tongue arc not able to understand what the others
say, notwithstanding they call it English what they
speake !"*
The most amusing part in the above passage of
honest Verstegan is that over a half of the words
are "from the Latin, or languages thereon depend.
ing!” Let us strike the balance. A composition
confined exclusively to the Saxon element, would,
in all likelihood, be as stiff and unwieldy as, if
totally of Latin, it would be flat or farcical. But
in what admirable harmony are the several mem-
bers of our great language united! With its Saxon
spine and heart, animated with the breath of
Latin verbs and winged with Greek substantives, it
presents an organism perfect for all the purposes
of practical and spiritual expression-a language
" which," in the words of one of the profoundest of
modern philologists, Jacob Grimm, “in wealth, good
* Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, p. 205.


VERBAL EQUATIONS.
261
sense and clearness of structure outrivals all other
of the languages at this day spoken.”
I am digressing, however, too far: so let us return
to our Synonyms.
An interesting class of Synonyms are such as result
from an exact similarity of composition, one of the
pair being taken, perchance, from the Latin, the other
from the Greek. Thus natura = phusis (puois), and
super = meta (uerc): 'supernatural' = 'metaphysical.'
Pono = tithemi (ridrui), and sub = hupo (imó): suppo-
sition' = 'hypothesis.' Sun (oiv) = con; and metron
(uérgov) = mensura: 'symmetrical' = 'commensurate.'
Con = sun (rúv), and gredior = ago (dow): "congrega-
tion' = 'synagogue.' Sus (contracted from sursum)
= up, and teneo = hold : *sustain' = uphold.' Super
= over, and fluens = flowing: superfluity'='over-
flowing.' Of these various verbal equations, each
member severally is, etymologically, precisely equal
to its opposite: and yet in actual use, see what a dis-
parity frequently intervenes between them! I have
mentioned congregation' and 'synagogue' as being,
as far as derivation goes, exactly equivalent: the
same may be said of ‘Bible' and 'Alcoran '—the
latter being Arabic for the former's Greek. And,
indeed, these transcripts are often quite surprising.


262
SYNONYMS AND THEIR SUGGESTIONS.
'Domineer' (dominus, a lord) is, for instance, pre.
cisely to'lord it over;' «momentous' is just
weighty ;' trenchant' is 'cutting;' specious' is
sightly;'pardon' is 'forgive ;' «sermon' is 'speech;'
'dictum' is a 'saying;' surveyor' is 'overseer ;
‘liberal' is 'free;' “potent' is ‘able' and 'quantity'
is “how much?' Sometimes, again, we find a digni-
fied classicism to be just the translation of some
homely piece of vernacular. Thus when we say to
circumvent' (circum, around and venio, to come), we
simply say, in Latin, to 'come round.' So, to 'connive'
is literally to 'wink at;' 'punctilious' is 'pointed,'
and to resist' is to take a stand against.' It is
pleasant thus to discover ourselves unconscious ety-
mologists, and bandying the same hearty idioms as
resounded through the streets of Rome and Athens
twenty centuries ago. Then, there is the burlesque
of Synonymy—extensive domain on which I have
just now no time to enter. As if, for instance, one
being “hard up'were to say that he was in a state
of 'indurated loftiness,' or playfully allude to a cer.
tain enigmatical individual as the antique Henry.'
And new vistas open upon the suggestions of Syno-
nyms. How profoundly significant are these correla.
tives often of national characteristics! What subtle
glimpses do they afford into national manners and


SIGNIFICANCE OF SYNONYMS.
263
morals! The distinction, for instance, which etymo
logic anatomy lays barc, between the Teutonic “ban-
ish' and the Roman "exile' gives us an insight into
certain fundamental social characteristics. For 'ban-
ish' is evidently the being subjected to the ban,* or
proclamation—whence we gather that the French and
Teutonic mode of punishment was by public proclama-
tion ; whereas the Latin exile' as clearly points to
exsilere as its root—suggesting Cicero's definition-
"perfugium potius supplicii, non supplicum.”+
So in one of the triplets before given we read the
various national ideas of the commodious. To the
practical Saxon it is what is ‘bandy'i.e. to his hand;
the Frenchman, however, regards it as suitable'
(suivre, to follow), i.e. what naturally and properly
follows (the necessities of the occasion ?), while the
Latin takes his notion thereof from, what comes along
with another, as being its natural concomitant-and so
* This verbal root crops out through several compounds and
derivatives. The 'bans of marriage, for example, are just the
proclamations of marriage. So, our common phrase "to be
under ban,' is evidently to be under sentence. Furthermore, to
abandon' is-à (le) ban donner—to give over to the ban. And
a 'bandit' is quite as palpably one ban-dit ban-proclaimcu, sen.
tenced by the bun. Italian Bandito pl. Banditti.
+ De Vere's Comparative Philology.


266
GROWTH OF WORDS.
babe, begotten of the blended love of spirit and of
matter-physical, mystical, the Sphinx! Through
speech man realizes and incarnates himself; and Oken
has an oracular utterance that “without speech there
is no world."
It is one of the current wranglings, How language
originated: as though Language were not an innate
energy and aspiration! Language is not a cunning
conventionalism arbitrarily agreed upon : it is an
internal necessity. Language is not a fiction, but a
truth. Language is begotten of a lustful longing to
express, through the plastic vocal energy, man's
secret sense of his unity with nature.
This vitality of speech manifests itself in a two-fold
manifestation: in the possession of a distinctive per-
sonality and identity-in material elements and formal
laws that stamp it with the stamp of linguistic indi-
viduality; and, further, in that other characteristic of
every living organism in the exhibition of growth,
progress, decay—in the ongoing of processes of ab-
sorption, assimilation and elimination in the inwork.
ing and outworking of the creative energy.
And it is in this sense that the English language is
alive-as displaying successive processes of growth
and development within the limits of its linguistio
individuality.


PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. 267
The causes of that marvelous identity we call the
English Language lie deep in the manifold influences
that have made the English Nation. The History of
a Language is measurable only in the terms of all the
factors that have shaped a people's life. A nation's
history is the result of the double action of internal
impulses and external events. And Language ex
presses the infusions from all these-subtily absorbing
the ethnology of a nation, its geography, government,
traditions, culture, faith. Shooting its deep tap-root
into eldest antiquity, drawing from the pith and sap
of that grandest of all families of races and tongues-
the Indo-European stock; receiving living grafts
from France and Italy and Scandinavia, this divine
tree of the English Speech has grown up into its sub-
lime proportions nurtured by the history of a thou-
sand years.
Of this superb Speech-the grandest in the world
—we have no adequate treatment. There is no His-
tory of the English Language. Nor any Dictionary
of the English Language. We have no such work
on the English Language as the Germans possess in:
the “ Teutonic Grammar” of Jacob Grimm, who has
with masterly method and largest appreciation of
modern Philology, traced the formative influences
of the Gerinan speech, as it has shaped itself into


268
GROWTH OF WORDS.
conscious individuality. A History of the English
Language, rising out of a full appreciation of the
Philosophy of Speech (to which must go that large
hospitality and impartiality that flows from the
thought of the Ensemble), answering to the require-
ments of modern research, and after the broad, free
methods America lets down, has yet to come. To
the achievement of this epic work may well go the
loftiest energies of both branches of the Anglican
stock and speech!
How far would the Philosophy of the English Lan.
guage reach! What a retrospect of ages, growths,
processes, accretions, events, forces, impulses! In the
motions of man's creative energy how all is inter-
woven with the all! How celestial forces ascend and
descend and hand each other the golden pails !
An appreciation of the organic laws of the English
Language in its historic unfolding is inseparable from
considerations that embrace the ensemble of Lan-
guages. For ascending through the Anglo-Saxon
idioms to the stock to which they belong—the Ger-
manic or Teutonic group of tongues, we are here
carried back into that grand radiation of race and
speech which modern philologic criticism has for-
muled as the INDO-EUROPEAN line of peoples and
tongues; nor do we stop till we have reached the


ENGLISH MODERN IN ITS GENIUS.
271
affinities came into action. The Teutonic genius gave
its own inflections, conjugations and forms, working
on Latin roots, breaking up the crystalline structure
of the classic mould, freeing the grammatical forms
from their absorption in the terminations of nouns
and verbs, and erecting them into independent prepo-
sitions and auxiliaries. This passage from synthesis
to analysis is the career of all languages. How
markedly is this visible in the English! The glory
of the English is that it is essentially modern—essen-
tially unclassical.
I have shown the admirable marriage of Germanic
and Roman elements present at the birth of the his-
torical English Speech. The subsequent history of
this language shows the copious infusions of new ele-
ments and the unfolding of those prolific germs,
under the guidance of the influences, internal and
external, that went to shape the English nation and
mind.
It is this indeed which especially characterizes our
tongue—its eminently composite and complex struc-
ture. It is to the scheme of Language what the
diluvial rocks of the Secondary formation are in Geo-
logy. And as these have been formed by floods and
inundations—water-borne and crumbling debris of
antique worlds : so is the English language built out


272
GROWTH OF WORDS.
of the drift and detritus of other and elder tongues
This fact is in the line of the genius of the English
race, which is unequaled in absorption and assimila-
tion, in receptive and applicative power.
To exhibit in epic unfolding the harmonious blend-
ing of these formative elements into the grand organ-
ism of the English Language does not come within
the scope of these pages. How have I longed to
work on this great problem! May my aspirations
some day be realized !
But within the brief limits that are left me I may
have time to notice some of the most eminent contri-
butions that have gone to the making of our language.
And first, it is necdless for me to remark that the
heart of our language is Anglo-Saxon. This is the
spine on which the structure of our speech is hung.
Drawing from the substance of the grand Germanic
stock—a stock in which the instinct of personal and
political independence has always been powerfully
present—what infusions of passion and power and
noble manly strength did our language thus receive!
Saxon, too, is the whole body of grammatical forms
and inflections; Saxon are the articulations—the con-
junctions, articles, pronouns; Saxon those powerful
instruments, the Prepositions and Auxiliaries !
And yet, had the Saxon been left to itself, it never


THE NORMAN ELEMENT.
273
could have grown into the English tonguc. It needed
a new clement. This it found in the Norman French
introduced with that great political and social revolu.
tion, the Norman Conquest—a conquest that has
been made the theme of much sentimental twaddle,
but which was no doubt precisely the best thing that
could have happened. A double action forth with
began—on the grammar and on the vocabulary, the
latter copiously enriching itself with numerous terms
indicative of the new political and social relations-
of war, of law-of the arts and elegancies of society,
which, having bad no existence in Saxon life, found
no utterance in the Saxon language. In regard of
Grammar-of structural forms and inflections—the
French influence was powerful, but indirect. Indi.
rect, I say; because the French gave few or any
forms of its own. And yet one can scarcely exagge-
rate the power of that influence in freeing the nascent
English speech from those useless and cumbersome
forms with which the Anglo-Saxon was overloaded.
“The Saxon forms soon dropped away, because they
did not suit the new roots; and the genius of the
language, from having to deal with newly imported
words in a rude state, was induced to neglect the
inflexions of the native ones."* Let a single illustra.
* Jacob Grimm.
. 12*


274
GROWTH OF WORDS.
tion suffice. A complex system of the formation of
the plural of nouns obtained—some nouns making
that number in a, others in an, others in as, others in
u; the Norman infusion, however, led to the adop-
tion of s as the universal termination of all plural
nouns, that being the French method and at the same
time the termination of the ancient Anglo-Saxon
masculine.
I have said that with the French inoculation a vast
enriching of the vocabulary took place. This enrich-
ing was of course progressive-was, indeed, the work
of centuries. The value of this legacy cannot be
overstated: it embraced thousands of our most ex-
pressive and most important words. Of the prodi-
gious activity with which the French genius wrought
on the English language, for the four or five centu-
ries succeeding the Conquest, we have a significant
record in Chaucer. Chaucer, indeed, perhaps exagge-
rates the French element; and it was no doubt on
account of this penchant that he in his own day
received the nickname of the “French brewer.” But
it cannot be that Chaucer did anything more than
crystallize into literature verbal forms already in
solution among the floating word-capital of the day.
For never otherwise could he have been the popular
poet he was. What a lusty leap the English Lan-


CHAUCER'S FRENCH IMPORTATIONS.
275
guage had taken since the Norman Conquest the
Canterbury Tales vividly mirror forth. 'Twas the
flush of adolescence, rich and juicy and spendthrift:
manhood, compact, cquable, had yet to come. Let
me quote a few passages from Chaucer showing the
average proportion of French in his diction. To
bring it home to the eye I shall italicise the chief
Norman engraftings.
Whanne that April with his showers sote
The droughte of March hath perced to the rote
And bathed every veine in swiche licour,
Of which vertue engendred is the flour :
Whan Zephirus eke with his sote brethe
Enspired hath in every holt and hethe
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And small foules maken melodie,
And slepen all night with open eye,
So priketh him nature in his corages,
Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages, etc
To Canterbury with devoute courage,
At night was com into that hostelrie
Wel nine-and-twenty in a compagnie.
At mortal batailles hadde he been fiftene.
Ile was a veray parfit gentil knight.


276
GROWTH OF WORDS.
Therfore in stede of weping and praiers
Men mote give silver to the poure frercs. *
Th' estat th' araie, the nombre and eke the cause.
Were it by aventure, or sort, or cas.
In prison
Perpetuel, he n' olde no raunsom.
Of course amid these thousand-fold French impor-
tations many, many were not finally adopted into the
vernacular. Put through the assay, they were not
found fit to be stamped with the scal of popular ac-
ceptation. In Chaucer I find such Gallicisms as
these—'gaillard' (gay), 'debonair' (good-natured),
devoir' (duty), “lointain' (the distance), “jouissance'
(enjoyment), 'misericorde' (tenderheartedness), 'pier-
rie' (precious stones), 'rondeur' (roundness—the
'Earth's rondeur'), with scores of such like, some of
which will no doubt again make their appearance in
our language, many of them expressing thoughts or
things not so well expressed by any we have. But
as I shall make the Unworked Mines of the English
Language the theme of a future volume I shall not
be tempted into farther illustration.
And now we must descend the stream of our lan.
* What we now write ‘friars :' frères, brothers.


THE FOREIGN ELEMENT.
THE FOREIGN ELEMENT.
277
guage to that period when those copious tributaries
from the classic fountains poured their grand affluents
into the rich river of English Speech. And here we
have to mention the deep debt we owe to that illus-
trious nation, Italy—which for so many centuries led
the van of European civilization—in operating the
renaissance of Greek and Latin language and thought.
The breath of antique genius passed over the English
mind like the air of Spring, bursting and blossoming
in luxuriant growths of thought and speech. The
period of this creative movement is that mighty Six.
teenth century, from the reign of the Eighth Henry
through the Elizabethan era. Not by hundreds
merely, one may say, but by thousands, were Latin
and Greek words then naturalized into the English
speech.
Nor is the quality of these importations of less sig.
nificance. It was theirs to satisfy the needs of the
higher intellectual and spiritual expression which
tbat new upsurging from the spontaneous depths of
human nature brought. Philosophy, Science and
Poetry put on that rich feuillage of verbal forms that
gives such masterly expression to English litera-
ture In a word, the classical contributions furnished
the spiritual conceptions, and endowed the material
body of the English specch with a living soul. Under


278
GROWTH OF WORDS.
the hands of the fine geniuses of the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth centuries the English Language rounded
into compact, kosmic mould.
Of those three grand factors—Saxon, French, and
Classical—is our language made up. It is the mutual
influence and action of these that form the warp and
woof of our English speech. Not but that other ele-
ments are, in greater or smaller proportions, present,
and weave their threads into the divine web; but
these are the main sources whence our language has
enriched itself—these the main sources whether of its
terms or its powers, of its material elements or its
formal laws.
Of these minor tributaries the Italian, German,
Norse, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, deserve special
mention. From Italian we have such accretions as
'virtuoso,' 'bravo,' 'bandit,' charlatan,' 'gazette,'
'con amore,' etc. The maritime and commercial
activity of the Portuguese during the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth centuries has left us some significant
words. Thus 'fetishism,' a term applied by them to
the low idolatry and sorcery of the African tribes, is
simply the Portuguese feitico, sorcery, witchcraft.
Their relations with the African coast have also given
us 'palaver'—Portuguese palavra, talk, speech; and
applied by them to a council of African chiefs. It is,


DUTCHI AND SLAVIC CONTRIBUTIONS.
279
moreover, to the long monopoly by the Portuguese
of the East Indian trade that we are indebted for the
introduction of various oriental words, as 'taboo'
from the Sandwich Islands, and the phrase "run.
amuck' from the Malays. The Dutch have left the
impress of their maritime activity on our language.
Sloop,' for instance, and 'yacht' and 'schooner' are
all of Dutch etymology. To later German we owe
the suggestions of many valuable metaphysical sym-
bols, made after the antique—not the least significant
of which are the much-used 'objective and subjec-
tive.' Nor is this all, there being scarce a tongue on
the planct which the all-absorbing Saxon genius has
not laid under contribution to enrich the exchequer
of its conquering speech. The aboriginal American
dialects, for instance, have given us 'tobacco,' "wig-
wam,' papouse,' 'moccasin,' 'Yankee,' 'potato,'
"chocolate,' and others. The Slaves have contributed
plough,' word and thing. Arabia shows her pow.
erful influence on the culture of the Middle Ages in
such terms as "algebra,' zero,' almanach,' alkali,"
alembic,' 'elixir,' alcohol, etc. Hebraisms, too,
are not lacking—witness ósabbath,' 'jubilee,' 'halle.
lujah,' 'amen,' 'cabala,' 'Messiah,' etc. Turkey
sends us tulip,' 'turban,' 'dragoman ;' Persia,
'bazaar,' caravan,' 'azure,' scarlet;' China, "tea'


280
GROWTH OF WORDS.
and 'Nankeen;' Ilindostan, calico, 'chintz,' 'curry,'
lac;' the Malays "bantam,' 'gambogc,' rattan,'
sago.'
ure
The growth of words runs parallel with the unfold.
ing of a nation's life. Every addition to practical
civilization, every scientific generalization, commerce
in all its branches, foreign literary influence, diplo-
macy, religion, philosophy, sociology are the per-
petual agents of linguistic increase.
A curious law attaches to the origin of words by
which they are forced to undergo a period of proba-
tionship before they receive the stamp of legal cur-
rency. Every new word passes through an embry-
onic stage previous to emerging as a normal member
of the organism of speech, and perhaps for half a cen-
tury or more finds a place in no dictionary. The
advent of every ncologism is met by a powerful con-
servatism opposing the innovation: and only after a
severe ordeal does it raise itself to a place in the
pecrage of language. With its emergence in the
Dictionary it has passed the grand climacteric, and
may henceforth count on a longer or shorter lease of
life. Thousands of words, too, make their debut as
slang-gipseys and outlaws that are afterwards re-
claimed by civilizcd society. And it is curious to


282
GROWTH OF WORDS.
time, won its way into the Dictionary. You look in
vain in any vocabulary of the English language for
sociology' (creation of Auguste Comte) 'solidarity,'
placer: they are all most valuable contributions,
however, and will no doubt soon receive Dictionary-
endorsement. “Telegram' again, which appears in
the new editions of the English dictionaries, is an
example of how an imperious necessity will force
words into immediate acceptance and recognition.
The French contributions to our language, so copi.
ous and rich, were never more important than they
have been within the present century. Let me enu.
merate some that we have received within that period,
with others that look a little farther back. I shall
give such as suggest themselves to my mind, without
any attempt at completeness.
Accoucheur-Accouchement : Valuable contributions
to our language, and now getting into popular
use.
Attaché: A diplomatic term, implying one attached to
the suite of an embassador, and now creeping into
more general use. Thus we speak about the
attachés of a reigning belle.
Au fait: “Posted up”—up to the mark, having an
off-hand familiarity with the matter in hand.


FRENCH CONTRIBUTIONS.
283
Badinage: Half-earnest jesting—a delicate modifica-
tion of raillery.
Blasé: Past participle of the verb blaser, to surfeit,
and popularized by the comedy of “Used Up."
Bon-mot or simply Mot: Literally a good word—a
good thing.
Brochure: A pamphlet: from the verb brocher, to
stitch.
Coup: A stroke or blow, and in compounds implies
any sudden action. The compounds are very
numerous, coup-d'état, coup-de-grace, coup-de-main,
coup-de-soleil, coup-d’ail, coup-de-théâtre, etc.
Debris: A symbolism from Geology, where it means
masses of rock etc., detached by attrition or me-
chanical violence.
Debut: First public appearance. Debutant, Debutante,
the person making it.
Elite: The flower—literally the elect or chosen.
Employé: A word of the greatest utility and coming
into universal use: the meaning is any one employed.
Ennui : Weariness, sense of tedium.
Ensemble: The totality as distinguished from the
details. A noble word with immense vista.
Façade: Chief frontage of a building—a term bor.
rowed from the French architects.
Goût: Relish, æsthetic taste.


284
GROWTH OF WORDS.
Naïve, Naïveté: Most desirable words, with the French
elisive charm, and implying a combination of the
ingenuous, candid, winning.
Nonchalance : Cool carelessness and indifference.
Outré: Etymologically the same as ultra and carrying
with it the sense of the extravagant and grotesque.
Passé: A term whose import is realized with tremen-
dous force by ladies of a certain age. En passant,
by the way.
Penchant: Inclination, proclivity.
Persiflage: Light, mocking banter.
Personnel: Originally, corps of persons employed in
contradistinction to the materiel; but now coming
to mean, also, the sum of characteristics constituting
one's personality.
Précis: A summary or abridgment. A valuable
word.
Prestige: A most useful word, supplying a positive
want in our language. The original meaning was
a piece of smuggling or imposture; but the word
now bears with it the idea of the presumption which
pust successes beget of future ones.
Programme: A word of universal use in America in
the sense of a printed synopsis: a desirable contri.
bution, which the French has given us, taking it
from the Greek.


MODIFICATIONS OF ENGLISH IN AMERICA. 287
tradition, caste go hopelessly. New tests, demands,
verdicts come, disconcerting the old decorums in
opinions, manners, literature. Audacious aspirations
arise. A lofty augury beckons on to new cerebral
and spiritual shores.
A specch to correspond! These oceanic move-
ments in the age must make flood-tide in the Lan-
guage, also. For speech moves with the movements
of mind, as the ocean obeys celestial influences.
Always Language is incubated by the mind of the
ages. Transported to the new and vaster arena of
America, the English language comes under the con.
ditions, outer and inner, that are shaping the Ameri.
can mind. It is qualified by all that makes American
life—by the geographic and climatic conditions, by
the ethnology of America, by her politics, sociology,
manners, mentality.
Of course the English Language must take on new
powers in America. And here we are favored by
the genius of this grand and noble language, which
more than all others lends itself plastic and willing
to the moulding power of new formative influences.
Was it supposed that the English Language was
finished ? But there is no finality to a Language!
The English bas vast vista in it-vast vista in
America.


288
ENGLISH IN AMERICA.
It is the sum of the uses of precedents, to a live
nation, that it shall match the same with better from
its own soul, and consume them before its audacious
improvisations. A nation cannot live on reminis-
cences: it can only live on influx. The English
Language, expressing the genius of the English race
and its culture history, thought, is still inadequate to
the utterance of America, and must take on new pro-
portions before it can become the living garment
of this new life of humanity.
The future expansions of the English Language in
America are already marked in the great lines of de-
velopment this idiom shows. It is for us freely to
follow the divine indications. And here a spinal
fact is the composite character of our language: to
what new realizations is it lifted in America! The
immense diversity of race, temperament, character-
the copious streams of humanity constantly flowing
hither—must reappear in free, rich growths of speech.
From no one ethnic source is America sprung: the
electric reciprocations of many stocks conspired and
conspire. This opulence of race-elements is in the
theory of America. Land of the Ensemble, to her
the consenting currents flow, and the ethnology of
the States draws the grand outline of that hospitality
and reception that must mark the new politics, soci-
ology, literature and religion.


A BROADER THEORY OF LANGUAGE.
280
Language, too, must feel this influence. ' And this
is to appear not merely in the copious new verbal
contributions the various idioms may bring, but in
the entire spirit of the Language-moulded more and
more to a large hospitality, and impartiality. The
theory of English scholars and literateurs, for hun-
dreds of years, has been the theory of repression.
They have discouraged and cramped the spontaneous
expansions of the Language-discouraged inocula-
tions from the French, from Latin, Greek, Italian.
What pitiful cant, too, does one hear every day about
Saxon! as though it were not the very theory of the
English Language—the very genius and animus of it
-to take its food from all sources! This ridiculous
nonsense is to be utterly dismissed.
What starvation has this insane purism effected!
What a poor, indigent, watery affair is our literary
expression! Books cling to the old traditions and
timidities—no full, free, utterance, untrammeled,
mystical: no influx, no abandonment. Surely the
time has come to dismiss this old impotence. And
what means arise for enriching the arsenal of expres-
sion! What new creations surge and swell the
ampler currents of our time! New thoughts, new
things, all unnamed! Where is the theory of literary
expression that stands for the new politics and soci.
13


290
ENGLISH IN AMERICA.
ology? that puts itself abreast the vast divine tenden
cies of Science ? that absorbs the superb suggestions
of the Grand Opera ?
I can see but one limitation to the theory of Words
—the theory of Things. Is it for us who are borne
on the billowy tides of this new humanity to limit the
unfolding opulence of God—to put a girdle round the
widening future of our civilization and our speech?
Freely, then, may the American literat proceed to
quarry and build in the architecture of the English
Language. Of course the conditions of this free ex.
pressive activity are high. To him who would
mould our language must go many qualities—must
go large knowledge of the philosophy of speech, must
go rich aesthetic instincts, among the rest.
The sources of future enrichings of the Anglican
speech are the same old fountains. In our native
roots, in the plastic forms of the antique, in the noble
modern idioms are the magazines of word-wealth.
How much has the French language been to English!
How much has it yet to give! Nation of sublime
destinies, noble, naïve, rich with humanity, bearers
of freedom, upholding on her shoulders the history
of Europe for a thousand years! The Italian gifts,
too, direct and indirect, are not nothing to America.
Spain is not nothing. How much they have to con-


LANGUAGE THE FLOWER OF A NATION'S LIFE. 291
tribute-Italy with her rich and rosy nature, her grand
style of music and consummate intuitions of art;
Spain, so noble, so proud, so much to manners, to
behavior! I would not underrate the German and
Scandinavian influences—mighty race, spiritual, as-
piring, individual, melancholy, prudent.
The flower and aroma of a Nation is its Language.
The conditions of a grand language are a grand life.
For words are metaphysical beings, and draw of the
life of the mind. Not in these wondrous hieroglyphs
of Words, not in these mystic runes, is the power: in
the Mind which loads these airy messengers with bur-
dens of meaning is the vis and vivification of speech.
Over the transformations of a Language the genius of
a nation unconsciously presides—the issues of Words
represent issues in the national thought. And in the
vernal seasons of a nation's life the formative energy
puts forth verbal growths opulent as flowers in spring.
THE END.





INDEX.
Abandon, 242, 263, | Andrew Farrara, 215. | Auricular, 251.
(note).
Anemone, 59.
Aurora, 57.
Absurd, 8.
Angel, 174.
Auspicious, 16.
Abundance, 32. | Animadvert, 196. Author, 105.
Academy, 202. Animosity, 194. Azure, 279.
Accommodate, 163. Annoyance, 41.
Accouchement, 282. Anointed, 258.
Bacchanalian, 202.
Accoucheur, 282. Anon, 105.
Back, 223.
Acre, 43.
Antagonist, 243. Bacon, 222.
Acuteness, 21. Anthropophaginian, Bad, 184.
Adieu, 108.
154.
Badinage, 283.
Æsthetic, 251. Antique Henry, 262. Bag and Nails, 160.
Affable, 104, 264. Apathy, 21.
Baker, 220.
Affront, 45.
Apollo, 214.
Balderdash, 167.
Agreeable, 181. Apothecary, 227. Bamboozle, 167.
Ajax, 163.
Aqua Vite, 168. Ban, 184 (note).
Album, 104.
Aquiline, 251.
Bandit, 203 (note)
Alcohol, 279.
Arras, 214.
| Bapislı, 263.
Alcoran, 261.
Arrowsmith, 220. Bane, 181 (note).
Alderman, 81.
Artitice, 233.
Bans, 263,
Alembic, 279.
Ascendant, 61.
Bantam, 280.
Algebra, 279.
Ass, 149.
| Barbarian, 126.
Alkali, 279.
Astonish, 42.
Barnburner, 131.
Almanach, 279. Astral, 249.
Barnum, 207.
Ambrosia, 67.
Atlas, 202.
Bayonet, 214.
Ambrosial, 67.
Attaché, 282.
Bazaar, 279.
Amen, 279.
Attention, 57.
Bead, 238.
Amiable. 247.
Auditory, 251.
Bead-roll, 238.
Amical, 247.
Auburn, 103.
Beastliness. 149.
Amuck, 279.
Au jait, 282.
| Bear, 132, 242.


296
INDEX.
Egg on, 167.
Egregious, 37.
Elbow, 251.
Electricity, 104.
Elegant, 242.
Eleemosynary, 252.
Elite, 283.
Elixir, 279.
Emolument, 85.
Emperor, 221.
Encounter, 45.
Ennui, 283.
Ensemble, 283.
Envy, 21.
Enthusiasm, 39.
Epicier, 113.
Epicure, 202.
Equine, 251.
Erratic, 243.
Error, 186.
Esprit, 106.
Essential, 250.
Ethical, 186.
Etiquette, 170.
Euphuism, 154.
Exaggeration, 40.
Exile, 263.
Extenuate, 33.
Eye, 20.
Forvor, 32
Gasconade, 211.
Fetishisın, 278. Gauls, 213.
Fie, 243 (note). Gazette, 96, 278.
Field, 219.
General, 250.
Fiend, 243 (note). Generous, 182.
Fille de Joie, 46. Genteel, 182.
Finesse, 223.
Gentile, 182.
Fire-eater, 131. Gentle, 181.
Fiscal, 15, 43.
Ghost, 63.
Fisher, 219, 220. Giaours, 125.
Flay, 66.
Gifford, 222.
Fletcher, 220.
Ginger, 167.
Flim-flam, 169.
Glacial, 249.
Flint, 223.
Godwir., 226.
Fly, 222.
Goldsmith, 220.
Flunkey, 113,
Good, 184.
Foe, 243.
Goodenough, 222.
Foh, 243 (note). Good-bye, 108.
Fold, 219.
Gordian, 202.
Foresight, 241. Gosling, 223.
Forest, 219.
Gospel, 64.
Forget-me-not, 59. Gossip, 48.
Fortnight, 249 (note). Go the whole hog, 167
Fortye, 223.
Goths, 212.
Forlorn-hope, 51. | Gouk, 150 (note).
Forward, 195. Goat, 284.
Fowler, 220.
Grand, 4.
Foxglove, 101. Grange, 219.
Fractious, 35.
Græcari, 211.
Frank, 211.
Gramercy, 135.
Franklin, 221. Graves, 219.
Free, 211.
Grandee, 46.
Freeman, 222. Grey, 222.
Friar, 276 (note). Grocer, 227.
Friendly, 247.
Grotesque, 169.
Frost, 223.
Grove, 219.
Frown, 36.
Gudgeon, 150.
Frugal, 15.
Guild, 177 (note).
Fudge, 204.
Guillotine, 206.
Furlong, 43.
Guilt, 177.
Fustian, 38.
Guinea, 215.
Gull, 148.
Gaillard, 276.
Gust, 235.
Gallant, 46.
Gustatory, 251.
Galvanism, 202. Gusio, 21.
Gamboge, 280.
| Gas, 63 (note). TH,' 159.
Façade, 283.
Falconer, 220.
Fame, 183.
Fanatic, 17.
Fancy, 27.
Fantastical, 27.
Farce, 95.
Farrier, 226.
Farthing, 223.
Farthingale, 160.
Farewell, 108.
Fascination, 63.
Fast, 167.
Faugh, 243 (note).
Feline, 251.
Felon, 80.
Feminine, 245.


INDEX.
297
| Inoculation, 97.
Insinuate, 34.
Insipid, 25.
Insolence, 179.
Interlard, 141.
Intoxicate, 168.
Intrepid, 242.
Intuition, 28.
Inuendo, 168.
Invidious, 28.
Iranian, 269 (note).
Ire, 242.
Haberdasher, 141. | Hood-wink, 167.
Hag, 119.
Hopper, 220.
Hail, 223.
Horace, 158.
Ilair-brained, 129. Horoscope, 61.
Halcyon Days, 65. Horse, 120.
Ilale, 69.
Host, 256.
Hallelujah, 279. Hostile, 256.
Handy, 203.
House, 219.
Happy, 193.
Hubbub, 169.
Hard Shell, 131. Hule, 223.
Harmless, 177. Humble, 250.
Hart, 222.
Humbug, 192.
Harum-scarum, 169. Humility, 192.
Haughtiness, 46. Humor, 106, 161.
Hauteur, 46.
Hunker, 131.
Hawk, 150.
Hunter, 220.
Hawker, 151, 220. Hurly-burly, 169.
Head, 223.
Hurricane, 235.
Heady, 239.
Husband, 81 (note).
Health, 69.
Hussy, 128.
Heart, 223.
Hut, 239.
Hearty, 37, 248. Hypocrite, 99.
Heaven, 8.
Hyperborean, 58.
Hectoring, 203. Hypoes, 167.
Helots, 210.
Hypothcsis, 261.
Helter-skelter, 169.
Herculean, 202. Idea, 28.
Heretic, 124.
Idiot, 117.
Hermetic, 202.
Igneous, 249.
Heron, 222.
Ignoramus, 146.
Herring, 222.
Ill-starred, 61.
Hidalgo, 181.
Imbecile, 37.
Higgledy-piggledy, Immolate, 85.
169.
Imp, C3, 126.
Highness, 46.
Impertinent, 193.
Hill, 219.
Imposter, 127.
Hoax, 146.
Incantation, 63.
Hob or nob, 157. Incog, 157.
Hocus pocus, 16, 145. Inculcate, 170.
Hodge-podge, 169. Indolence, 180.
Hogg, 222.
Infant, 104.
Holland, 214.
Infantile, 246.
Holmes, 219.
Infantine, 246.
Home, 106.
Infidel, 125.
Honesty, 179, 256. In fine, sir, 165.
Honey-moon, 166. Influence, 61.
Honnéte, 179.
Innocence, 177.
Jackanapes, 129.
Japan, 214.
Jaundice, 104.
Jay, 222.
Jenner, 220.
Jeopardy, 95.
Jesuit, 206.
Jesuitical, 207
Jewell, 223.
Jolly, 107.
Jouissance, 276.
Journal, 255.
Journey, 108, 255.
Jovial, 61.
Jubilee, 279.
Judas-colored, 208.
Jumper, 220.
Junto, 128.
Just, 185.
Ken, 50.
Kickshaw, 144.
Kind, 182.
King, 81, 221.
Kingly, 242.
Knave, 113.
kinavish, 113.
Knight, 93.
Knock under, 167.
Knowing, 196.
Knowles, 219.
Know-nothing, 131.
| Kosmos, 65.
13*


INDEX.
299
Objective, 279. Parlor, 254.
Obs. and sols., 157. Parsons, 219.
Obsequies, 48.
Passé, 284.
Obsequious, 48. Pasquin, 207.
Obvious, 34.
Patavinity, 212
Occident, 58.
Patois, 2i2.
Ocean, 202.
Patron, 254.
Ocular, 251.
Pattern, 254.
Odd's death! 134. Peasant, 241.
Officious, 195.
Pease, 223.
Ogres, 212.
Pectoral, 251.
Olfactory, 250. Peculate, 86.
O Lord, sir, 165. Peculiar, 86.
Omnibus, 104. Pecuniary, 15, 85
Once, 223.
Pedal, 251.
On the anvil, 106. Pedler, 227.
On the carpet, 106. Peel, 223.
Out-Herod Herod, 142. 1eureolai, 44.
On tick, 141.
Penchant, 284.
Opponent, 243, Penetrability, 258.
Optic, 251.
Penny, 223.
Ordeal, 78.
Pensive, 180, 239
Orient, 58, 242. Ilovre, 44.
Orrery, 203.
Pepper, 223.
Outré, 284.
Peremptory, 42.
Perdy, 135.
Pagan, 115.
Pernicious, 41.
Palate, 24.
Perspicuous, 20.
Palaver, 278.
•Pert, 40.
Pale, within and with- | Peterson, 225.
out the, 143. Petrified, 50.
Palmer, 92, 221. Pettiſogger, 129.
Palmy, 66.
Petty, 46.
Pamper, 44.
Phantasm, 27.
Pander, 206.
Phantasy, 27.
Pantheist, 39.
Phantom, 27.
Paper, 104.
Phase, 27.
Papouse, 279.
Phenomena, 27.
Paradise, 43.
Philanthropist, 198.
Paramour, 46.
Philippic, 202.
Parasite, 100.
Phren, 26.
Par bleu, 134.
Physic, 233.
Parchment, 215. Pickle, 167.
Pardon, 262.
Picts, 209.
Parish, 219.
Pierrie, 276.
Park, 219.
Piety, 253.
Parliament, 254. | Pike, 222.
Pilgrim, 92, 221.
Piquant, 25.
Pithy, 244.
Pitt, 219.
Pity, 253.
Placer, 282.
Plagiary, 84.
Plague, 40.
| Platonic, 202.
Plough, 279.
Poltroon, 122.
Powder, 37
Poole, 219.
Pope, 221.
Portmanteau, 104.
Port, 214.
Potato, 279.
Potent, 262.
Powell, 225.
Pragmatical, 195.
Prayer, 238.
Precipitancy, 34.
Précis, 284.
Precocious, 34.
Prejudice, 193.
Premature, 34.
Preposterous, 141.
Presbyterian, 82.
Prestige, 281.
Prevaricate, 38.
Priest, 219.
Primrose, 59.
Prince, 221.
Prison, 105.
Pritchard, 220.
Privilege, 105.
Pro, 157.
Probity, 192.
Profligate, 191.
Programme, 284.
Promethean, 202.
Property, 254.
Propinquity, 258.
Proprietary, 259.
Propriety, 254.
Protegé, 285.
Providence, 27, 241.


300
INDEX.
Rubbish, 129.
Rubric, 103,
Ruby, 103.
Rufian, 129.
Ruin, 37.
Rule the roost, 167.
Run amuck, 167.
Rustic, 115, 241.
Prudence, 241. | Reeve, 221.
Puerile, 246.
Reflect, 36.
Pug, 157.
Refraining, 33,
Pulmonary, 251. Regal, 242.
Punctilious, 262. Regard, 28.
Punic faith, 212. Regular, 186.
Purgatory, 101. Relish, 25.
Puritan, 130. | Reluctance, 41.
Puritan names, 223, Remorse, 192.
224.
Renaissance, 285.
Rendez-vous, 104.
Quaker, 131.
Renown, 183.
Quandary, 16, 145. Reor, 22.
Quantity, 262. Repugnance, 41.
Quarantine, 144. Reputation, 183.
Quarrel, 45.
Resentment, 195,
Queen, 120.
Resist, 202.
Quiddits, 147.
Respect, 28.
Quidity, 147.
Respectable, 28.
Quidnuncs, 147. Restorateur, 104.
Quillets, 167.
Revealed, 29.
Quixotic, 206.
Reverend, 47.
Quiz, 167.
Rhyming to death,
Quodlibets, 147.
151.
Quorums, 147. Ribald, 204.
Rich, 167.
•R,' 159.
Rifl-raff, 169.
Racy, 25.
Right, 184.
Radical, 98, 250. Ritto, 185.
Rage, 242.
Rival, 8, 90.
Rajpoot, 214.
Robe, 43.
Kank, 21.
Robert, 226.
Rapport, 825.
Robustious, 196.
Rapscallion, 130. Rodomontade, 203.
Rascal, 16, 111 Rogue, 131.
Rational, 250.
Roguish, 132.
Rationalism, 195. Romance, 78.
Rattan, 280.
Rondeur, 276.
Ravenous, 150. Rooke, 222.
Real, 27, 250.
Rosary, 104.
Recherché, 242. Rosemary, 159.
Recipe, 104.
Rosicrucian, 101.
Rectitude, 186. Rostrum, 170.
Red, 157.
Roué, 129.
Redacteur, 285. Roundheads, 131.
Redaction, 285. Royal, 242.
Reed, 222.
Rub-a-dub, 169.
"S' 159.
Sabbath, 279.
Safe, 252.
Safety, 252.
Sage, 223.
Sago, 280.
Salaam, 108.
Salary, 85.
Sallust, 158.
Salutary, 248.
Salvation, 253.
Salve, 108.
Salt, above and below
the, 143.
Sanctimonious, 196.
Sands, 219.
Sandwich, 203.
Sanguine, 247.
Sanguinary, 248.
Sansculotie, 98.
Sapience, 25.
Sarcasm, 66.
Sardonic (laugh), 88.
Saucy, 25.
Satire, 66.
Saturnine, 61.
Saunter, 15, 92.
Savage. 115.
Sarory, 25.
Saxon, 208.
Scamp, 130.
Scandal, 34.
Scape-grace, 129.
Scarlet, 279.
Sceptre, 43.
School, 93.
Schooner, 279.
Schuld, 178.


INDEX.
301
Scruple, 33.
Scotland, 213.
Scots, 209.
Scoundrel, 8, 123.
Scurrility, 129.
Séance, 285.
Sedate, 35.
Seer, 29.
Select, 242.
Senate, 82.
Se'night, 249 (note).
Sense, 23.
Senses, to be out of,
22.
Sensible, 21.
Sensual, 23, 196.
Sensuous, 196.
Septembrist, 98.
Serenade, 68.
Scrious, 15.
Sermop, 262.
Severe, 180.
Sexton, 227.
Shabby, 105.
Sheepishness, 149.
Shepberd, 220.
Shrew, 119.
Shrewd, 119 (note).
Shrove-tide, 105.
Siderial, 249.
Sign-manual, 91.
Silly, 128.
Sincere, 7.
Sinister, 34.
Six, 223.
Skipper, 220.
Slave, 209.
Slip-slop, 169.
Sloop. 279.
Slubberdegullion, 130,
153.
Small, 222.
Smeared, 258.
Smell-feast, 130.
Smith, 220.
Snob, 113.
Snow, 223.
Sociology, 282.
Soft Shell, 131.
Soirée, 285.
Solar, 249.
Sole, 223.
Solidarity, 282.
Solomon, 206.
Sophist, 195.
Sordid, 191.
Sore, 191.
Sorrow, 191.
South, 219.
Sparrow-grass, 160.
Specious, 262.
Speculation, 27.
Spell, 64.
Spencer, 203, 221.
Spicy, 25.
Spinster, 83.
Spire, 219.
Spleen, 106.
Splendidious, 153.
Spoil, 87.
Squire, 221.
Staidness, 35.
Star, 222.
Stationer, 227.
Staves-acre, 160.
Stecle, 223.
Sterling, 215.
Sterne, 222.
Steward, 238.
Stickler, 124.
Stigma, 40.
Stigmatize, 40.
Stiletto, 66.
Stone, 223,
Storm, 235.
Story, 194, 244.
Stout, 222.
Stratagem, 233.
Street, 219.
Strong, 222.
Study, 181.
Stupendous, 40.
Style, 66.
Subjective, 279.
Subtle, 8.
Suitable, 263.
Sun, 222.
Supercilious, 33.
Superfluity, 261.
Supernatural, 261
Supine, 35.
Suppliance, 35.
Support, 242.
Supposition, 261.
Surloin, 105.
Surprise, 205.
Surd, 36.
Surveyor, 262.
Suspense, 14.
Suspicion, 33.
Sustain, 261.
Sweet, 222.
Sweet William, 69.
Swift, 222.
Sycophant, 8, 100.
Sylvan, 249.
Symmetrical, 261.
Sympathy, 199.
Synagogue, 261.
Tabernacle, 43.
Tact, 20.
Taboo, 279.
Tailor, 226.
Tale, 243.
Tandem, 174.
Tangible, 21.
Tantalize, 202.
Tariff, 215.
Tartar, 212.
Taste, 20.
Tasty, 251.
Tawdry, 121.
Taylor, 220.
Tea, 279.
Tectotalism, 141.
Telegram, 282.
Tell-tales, 193.
Tempest, 235.
Ten, 44 (note).
Terminus, 202.