'!%n 
 
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ENGLISH, 
 
 PAST AND PEESENT. 
 
ENGLISTC ^ 
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 PIVE LECTURES. 
 
 RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, D.D. 
 
 DEAU OP WEBIMINSTEB. 
 
 FIFTB EDITION, REVISED. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PARKER, SON, AND BOURN, WEST STRAND. 
 
 1862. 
 
V 
 
 /^/c^^-^ 
 
 
 J^O.NUON : 
 
 SAVltr, AND KDWAIiDS, FaI^T^l{S, 
 
 CHANDOS-STEEKT. 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 A SERIES of four lectures which I delivered 
 -^ last spring to the pupils of King's College 
 School, London, supplied the foundation to this 
 present volume. These lectures, which I was obliged 
 to prepare in haste, on a brief invitation, and 
 under the pressure of other engagements, being 
 subsequently enlarged and recast, were delivered 
 in the autumn somewhat more nearly in their 
 present shape to the pupils of the Training School, 
 Winchester; with only those alterations, omis- 
 sions and additions, which the difference in my 
 hearers suggested as necessary or desirable. I 
 have found it convenient to keep the lectures, as 
 regards the persons presumed to be addressed, in 
 that earlier form which I had sketched out at the 
 first ; and, inasmuch as it helps much to keep lec- 
 tures vivid and real that one should have some 
 well defined audience, if not actually before one, 
 yet before the mind's eye, to suppose myself 
 throughout addressing my first hearers. I have 
 supposed myself, that is, addressing a body of 
 young Englishmen, all with a fair amount of clas- 
 sical knowledge (in my explanations I have some- 
 times had others with less than theirs in my eye), 
 
 947 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 not wholly unacquainted with modern languages ; 
 ' but not yet with any special designation as to their 
 future work ; having only as yet marked out to 
 them the duty in general of living lives worthy of 
 those who have England for their native country^ 
 and English for their native tongue. To lead 
 such through a more intimate knowledge of this 
 into a greater love of that, has been a principal 
 aim which I have set before myself throughout. 
 
 In a few places I have been obliged again to 
 go over ground which I had before gone over in 
 a little book, " On the Study of Words ;" but I 
 believe that I have never merely repeated myself, 
 nor given to the readers of my former work and 
 now of this any right to complain that I am com- 
 pelling them to travel a second time by the same 
 paths. At least it has been my endeavour, when- 
 ever I have found myself at points where the two 
 books come necessarily into contact, that what was 
 treated with any fulness before, should be here 
 touched on more lightly; and only what there was 
 slightly handled, should here be entered on at 
 large. 
 
 Itchenstoke, Feb. 7, 1855. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 PAGB 
 ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGUAGE 1 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 GAINS OP THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 41 
 
 LECTURE III. - 
 
 DIMINUTIONS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE .... 115 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 CHANGES IN THE MEANING OF ENGLISH WOBDS . . 180 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 CHANGES IN THE SPELLING OF ENGLISH WOBDS . . 217 
 
ENGLISH, 
 
 PAST AND PEESENT. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGUAGE. 
 
 '* A VERY slight acquaintance with the history 
 Jj^ of our own language will teach us that the 
 speech of Chaucer's age is not the speech of 
 Skelton's, that there is a great difference between 
 the language under Elizabeth and that under 
 Charles the Firsts between that under Charles 
 the First and Charles the Second, between that 
 under Charles the Second and Queen Anne ; that 
 considerable changes had taken place between the 
 beginning and the middle of the last century, and 
 that Johnson and Fielding did not write alto- 
 gether as we do now. For in the course of a 
 nation's progress new ideas are evermore mount- 
 ing above the horizon, while others are lost sight 
 of and sink below it : others again change their 
 form and aspect : others which seemed united, 
 split into parts. And as it is with ideas, so it is with 
 their symbols, words. New ones are perpetually 
 coined to meet the demand of an advanced under- 
 standing, of new feelings that have sprung out of 
 
 B 
 
2 ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGUAGE. [lect. 
 
 the decay of old ones, of ideas that have shot forth 
 from the summit of the tree of our knowledge ; 
 old words meauwhile fall into disuse and become 
 obsolete ; others have their meaning narrowed and 
 defined ; synonyms diverge from each other and 
 their property is parted between them ; nay, whole 
 classes of words will now^ and then be thrown over- 
 board, as new feelings or perceptions of analogy 
 gain ground. A history of the language in w hich 
 all these vicissitudes should be pointed out, in 
 which the introduction of every new word should 
 be noted, so far as it is possible — and much may 
 be done in this way by laborious and diligent and 
 judicious research — in which such words as liave 
 become obsolete should be followed down to their 
 final extinction, in which all the most remarkable 
 words should be traced through their successive 
 phases of meaning, and in which moreover the 
 causes and occasions of these changes should be 
 explained, such a work would not only abound in 
 entertainment, but would throw^ more light on 
 the development of the human mind than all the 
 brainspun systems of metaphysics that ever were 
 written.^' 
 
 These words, which thus far are not my own, 
 but the words of a greatly honoured friend and 
 teacher, who, though we behold him now no more, 
 still teaches, and will teach, by the wisdom of his 
 writings, and the nobleness of his life (they are 
 words of Archdeacon Harems), I have put in the 
 forefront of my lectures ; seeing that they antici- 
 
I.] LOVE or OUR OWN TONGUE. 3 
 
 pate in the way of masterly sketch all which I 
 shall attempt to accomplish, aod indeed draw out 
 the lines of much more, to which I shall not venture 
 so much as to put my hand. They are the more 
 welcome to me, because they encourage me to 
 believe that if, in choosing the English language, 
 its past and its present, as the subject of that brief 
 course of lectures which I am to deliver in this 
 place, I have chosen a subject which in many 
 ways transcends my powers, and lies beyond the 
 range of my knowledge, it is yet one in itself of 
 deepest interest, and of fully recognized value. 
 Nor can I refrain from hoping that even \vith my 
 imperfect handling, it is an argument which will 
 find an answer and an echo in the hearts of all 
 who hear me; which would have found this at 
 any time ; which will do so especially at the 
 present. For these are times which naturally 
 rouse into liveliest activity all our latent affections 
 for the land of our birth. It is one of the com- 
 pensations, indeed the greatest of all, for the 
 wastefulness, the woe, the cruel losses of war,* that 
 it causes and indeed compels a people to know 
 itself a people; leading each one to esteem and 
 prize most that which he has in common with his 
 fellow countrymen, and not now any longer those 
 things which separate and divide him from them. 
 
 And the love of our own language, what is it in 
 fact, but the love of our country expressing itself 
 in one particular direction ? If the great acts of 
 
 * These lectures were first delivered during the Eussian War. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGUAGE. [leCT. 
 
 that nation to which we belong are precious to us, 
 if we feel ourselves made greater by their great- 
 ness, summoned to a nobler life by the nobleness of 
 Englishmen who have already lived and died, and 
 have bequeathed to us a name which must not by 
 us be made less, what exploits of theirs can well 
 be nobler, what can more clearly point out their 
 native land and ours as having fulfilled a glorious 
 past, as being destined for a glorious future, than 
 that they should have acquired for themselves and 
 for those who come after them a clear, a strong, 
 an harmonious, a noble language? For all this 
 bears witness to corresponding merits in those that 
 speak it, to clearness of mental vision, to strength, 
 to harmony, to nobleness in them that have gra- 
 dually formed and shaped it to be the utterance 
 of their inmost life and being. 
 
 To know of this language, the stages which it 
 has gone through, the sources from which its 
 riches have been derived, the gains which it is now 
 making, the perils which have threatened or are 
 threatening it, the losses which it has sustained, 
 the capacities which may be yet latent in it, waiting 
 to be evoked, the points in which it transcends 
 other tongues, in which it comes short of them, all 
 this may well be the object of worthy ambition to 
 every one of us. So may we hope to be ourselves 
 guardians of its purity, and not corrupters of it ; to 
 introduce, it may be, others into an intelligent 
 knowledge of that, with which we shall have our- 
 selves more than a merely superficial acquaintance ; 
 to bequeath it to those who come after us not worse 
 
I.] DUTY TO OUR OWN TONGUE. 5 
 
 than we received it ourselves. " Spartara nactus 
 esj hanc exorna/^ — this should be our motto in 
 respect at once of our country, and of our country's 
 tongue. 
 
 Nor shall we, I trust, any of us feel this subject 
 to be alien or remote from the purposes which have 
 brought us to study within these walls. It is true 
 that we are mainly occupied here in studying other 
 tongues than our own. The time we bestow upon 
 it is small as compared with that bestowed on 
 those others. And yet one of our main purposes in 
 learning them is that we may better understand 
 this. Nor ought any other to dispute with it the 
 first and foremost place in our reverence, our gra- 
 titude, and our love. It has been well and worthily 
 said by an illustrious German scholar: "The care of 
 the national language I consider as at all times a 
 sacred trust and a most important privilege of the 
 higher orders of society. Every man of education 
 should make it the object of his unceasing concern, 
 to preserve his language pure and entire, to speak 
 it, so far as is in his power, in all its beauty and 
 perfection A nation whose language be- 
 comes rude and barbarous, must be on the brink of 
 barbarism in regard to everything else. A nation 
 which allows her language to go to ruin, is parting 
 with the last half of her intellectual independence, 
 and testifies her willingness to cease to exist.'^* 
 
 But this knowledge, like all other knowledge 
 which is worth attaining, is only to be attained at 
 
 * F. Schlegel, History of Liter ature, Lecture 10. 
 
6 ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGUAGE. [lect. 
 
 the price of labour and pains. The language vTliich 
 at this day we speak is the result of processes 
 which have been going forward for hundreds and 
 for thousands of years. Nay more, it is not too 
 much to affirm that processes modifying the English 
 which at the present day we write and speak, have 
 been at work from the first day that man, being 
 gifted with discourseof reason, projected his thought 
 from out himself, and embodied and contemplated 
 it in his word. Which things being so, if we would 
 understand this language as it now is, we must 
 know something of it as it has been ; we must be 
 able to measure, however roughly, the forces which 
 have been at work upon it, moulding and shaping 
 it into the forms which it now wears. 
 
 At the same time various prudential considera- 
 tions must determine for us how far up we will 
 endeavour to trace the course of its history. There 
 are those who may seek to trace our language to 
 the forests of Germany and Scandinavia, to investi- 
 gate its relation to all the kindred tongues that 
 were there spoken ; again, to follow it up, till it and 
 they are seen descending from an elder stock ; nor 
 once to pause, till they have assigned to it its place 
 not merely in respect of that small group of lan- 
 guages which are immediately round it, but in 
 respect of all the tongues and languages of the 
 earth. I can imagine few studies of a more sur- 
 passing interest than this. Others, however, 
 must be content with seeking such insight into 
 their native language as may be within the reach 
 of all who, unable to make this the subject of 
 
T.] THE PAST EXPLAINS THE PRESENT. 7 
 
 especial research, possessing neither that vast com- 
 pass of knowledge, nor that immense apparatus of 
 books, not being at liberty to dedicate to it that 
 devotion almost of a life which, followed out to the 
 full, it would require, have yet an intelligent 
 interest in their mother tongue, and desire to learn 
 as much of its growth and history and construction 
 as may be reasonably deemed within their reach. 
 To such as these I shall suppose myself to be 
 speaking. It would be a piece of great presumption 
 in me to undertake to speak to any other, or to 
 assume any other ground than this for myself. 
 
 I know there are some, wdio, when they are 
 invited to enter at all upon the past history of the 
 lanjyuaore, are inclined to make answer — " To wdiat 
 end such studies to us ? Why cannot we leave 
 them to a few antiquaries and grammarians? 
 Sufficient to us to know the laws of our present 
 English, to obtain an accurate acquaintance with 
 the language as we now find it, without concerning 
 ourselves with the phases through which it has 
 previously past.'^ This may sound plausible enough; 
 and I can quite understand a real lover of his native 
 tongue, who has not bestowed much thought upon 
 the subject, arguing in this manner. And yet 
 indeed such argument proceeds altogether on a 
 mistake. One sufficient reason why we should 
 occupy ourselves with the past of our language is, 
 because the present is only intelligible in the light 
 of the past, often of a very remote past indeed. 
 There are anomalies out of number now existing in 
 our language, which the pure logic of grammar is 
 
8 ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGUAGE. [lect. 
 
 quite incapable of explaining ; wliicli nothing but 
 a knowledge of its historic evolutions, and of the 
 disturbing forces which have made themselves felt 
 therein, will ever enable us to understand. Even 
 as, again, unless we possess some knowledge of the 
 past, it is impossible that we can ourselves advance 
 a single step in the unfolding of the latent capa- 
 bilities of the language, without the danger of 
 committing some barbarous violation of its very 
 primary laws. 
 
 The plan which I have laid down for myself, 
 and to which I shall adhere, in this lecture and in 
 those which will succeed it, is as follows. In this 
 my first lecture I will ask you to consider the 
 language as now it is, to decompose with me some 
 specimens of it, to prove by these means, of what 
 elements it is compact, and what functions in it 
 these elements or component parts severally fulfil ; 
 nor shall I leave this subject without asking you to 
 admire the happy marriage in our tongue of the 
 languages of the north and south, an advantage 
 which it alone among all the languages of Europe 
 enjoys. Having thus presented to ourselves the 
 body which we wish to submit to scrutiny, and 
 having become acquainted, however sliglitly, with 
 its composition, I shall invite you to go back with 
 me, and trace some of the leading changes to which 
 in time past it has been submitted, and through 
 Avhicli it has arrived at what it now is ; and these 
 changes I shall contemplate under four aspects, 
 dedicating a lecture to each ; — changes which have 
 
I.] ALTERATIONS UNOBSERVED. 9 
 
 resulted from the birth of new, or the reception of 
 foreign, words ; — changes consequent on the rejec- 
 tion or extinction of words or powers once pos- 
 sessed by the language ; — changes through the 
 altered meaning of words ; — and lastly, as not 
 unw^orthy of our attention, bat often growing out 
 of very deep roots, changes in the orthography of 
 words. 
 
 I shall everywhere seek to bring the subject 
 down to our present time, and not merely call your 
 attention to the changes which have been, but to 
 those also which are now being, effected. .1 shall 
 not account the fact that some are going on, so to 
 speak, before our own eyes, a sufficient ground to 
 excuse me from noticing them, but rather an ad- 
 ditional reason for doing this. For indeed changes 
 which are actually proceeding in our own time, 
 and which we are ourselves helping to bring about, 
 are the very ones which we are most likely to fail 
 in observing. There is so much to hide the nature 
 of them, and indeed their very existence, that, 
 except it may be by a very few, they will often 
 pass wholly unobserved. Loud and sudden revolu- 
 tions attract and compel notice ; but silent and 
 gradual, although with issues far vaster in store, 
 run their course, and it is only when their cycle 
 is completed or nearly so, that men perceive what 
 mighty transforming forces have been at work 
 unnoticed in the very midst of themselves. 
 
 Thus, to apply what I have just affirmed to this 
 matter of language — how few aged persons, let 
 them retain the fullest possession of their faculties, 
 
10 ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 are conscious of any difference between the spoken 
 language of their early youth, and that of their old 
 age ; that words and ways of using words are 
 obsolete now, which were usual then ; that many 
 words are current now, which had no existence at 
 that time. And yet it is certain that so it must be. 
 A man may fairly be supposed to remember clearly 
 and well for sixty years back ; and it needs less 
 than five of these sixties to bring us to the period 
 of Spenser, and not more than eight to set us in 
 the time of Chaucer and Wiclif. How great a 
 change, what vast modifications in oar language, 
 within eiglit memories. No one, contemplating 
 this whole term, will deny the immensity of the 
 change. For all this, we may be tolerably sure 
 that, had it been possible to interrogate a series 
 of eight persons, such as together had filled up 
 this time, intelligent men, but men whose atten- 
 tion had not been especially roused to this subject, 
 each in his turn would have denied that there had 
 been any change worth speaking of, perhaps any 
 change at all, during his lifetime. And yet, 
 havins: rearard to the multitude of words which 
 have fallen into disuse during these four or five 
 hundred years, we are sure that there must have 
 been some lives in this chain which saw those 
 words in use at their commencement, and out of 
 use before their close. And so too, of the multi- 
 tude of words which have sprung up in this period, 
 some, nay, a vast number, must liavc come into 
 being within the limits of each of these lives. It 
 cannot then be superfluous to direct attention to 
 
I.] PROPORTIONS IN ENGLISH. 11 
 
 that which is actually going forward in our lan- 
 guage. It is indeed that, which of all is most 
 likely to be unobserved by us. 
 
 With these preliminary remarks I proceed at 
 once to the special subject of my lecture of to-day. 
 And first, starting from the recognized fact that 
 the English is not a simple but a composite lan- 
 guage, made up of several elements, as are the 
 people who speak it, I would suggest to you the 
 profit and instruction which we might derive from 
 seeking to resolve it into its component parts — 
 from taking, that is, any passage of an English 
 author, distributing the words of which it is made 
 up according to the languages from which they 
 are drawn; estimating the relative numbers and 
 proportions, which these languages have severally 
 lent us ; as well as the character of the words 
 which they have thrown into the common stock 
 of our tongue. 
 
 Thus, suppose the English language tobe divided 
 into a hundred parts ; of these, to make a rough 
 distribution, sixty would be Saxon ; thirty would 
 be Latin (including of course the Latin which has 
 Come to us through the French) ; five would be 
 Greek. We should thus have assigned ninety-five 
 parts, leaving the other five, perhaps too large a 
 residue, to be divided among all the other lan- 
 guages from which we have adopted isolated words. 
 And yet these are not few ; from our wide extended 
 colonial empire we come in contact with half the 
 world j we have picked up words in every quarter. 
 
12 ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGUAGE. [lect. 
 
 and^ the English language possessing a singular 
 
 power of incorporating foreign elements into itself, 
 
 have not scrupled to make many of these our own. 
 
 Thus we have a certain number of Hebrew 
 
 words, mostly, if not entirely, belonging to religious 
 
 matters, as ' amen,^ ' cabala/ ' cherub/ ^ ephod,' 
 
 *^ gehenna/ 'hallelujah/ ^ hosanna/ ^jubilee/ 
 
 leviathan/ ^manna,^ ^Messiah,^ ' sabbath,' 'Satan,' 
 
 ' seraph,' ' shibboleth,' ' talmud.' The Arabic 
 
 words in our language are more numerous ; we 
 
 have several arithmetical and astronomical terms, 
 
 as ' algebra,' ' almanach,' ^ azimuth,' ' cypher/* 
 
 * nadir/ 'talisman/ 'zenith/ 'zero/ and chemical, 
 
 for the Arabs were the chemists, no less than 
 
 the astronomers and arithmeticians of the middle 
 
 ages ; as ' alcohol,' ' alembic,' ' alkali/ ' elixir.' 
 
 Add to these the names of animals, plants, fruits, 
 
 or articles of merchandize first introduced by them 
 
 to the notice of Western Europe ; as ' amber,' 
 
 artichoke/ 'barragan/ 'camphor,' 'coffee/ 'cotton/ 
 
 crimson/ 'gazelle/ 'giraffe,' 'jar/ 'jasmin,' 
 
 lake' (lacca), 'lemon/ 'lime/ 'lute/ 'mattress,' 
 
 mummy,' ' saffron,' ' sherbet,' ' shrub,' ' sofa/ 
 
 sugar,' ' syrup,' ' tamarind / and some further 
 
 terms, ' admiral/ ' amulet,' ' arsenal/ ' assassin/ 
 
 barbican/ ' caliph,' ' caffre/ ' carat,' ' divan,' 
 
 dragoman/t ' emir,' ' fakir,' ' firman/ ' harem,' 
 
 hazard,' ' houri/ ' magazine,' ' mamaluke,' ' mi- 
 
 * Yet sec J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, p. 985. 
 f The word hardly deserves to be called English, yet in 
 Pope's time it had made some progress toward naturalization. 
 
I.] ARABIC, PERSIAN WORDS. 13 
 
 naret/ ' monsoon/ ' mosque/ ' nabob/ ^ razzia/ 
 ^ Sahara/ ' simoom/ ' sirocco/ ' sultan/ ^ tarif/ 
 ' vizier / and I believe we shall have nearly com- 
 pleted the list. We have moreover a few Persian 
 wordsj as ^ azure/ ' bazaar/ ^ bezoar/ ' caravan/ 
 ' caravanserai/ ' chess/ ' dervish/ ' lilac/ ^ orange/ 
 ^ saraband/ ' taffeta/ ' tambour/ ' turban / this 
 last appearing in strange forms at its first intro- 
 duction into the language, thus ' tolibant' (Putten- 
 ham), ' tulipant^ (Herbert^s Travels), ' turribant^ 
 (Spenser), ' turbat,' ^ turbant/ and at length 
 ^ turban.' We have also a few Turkish, such as 
 ^chouse,' ^janisary/ 'odalisque/ 'sash,' 'tulip.' 
 Of ' civet' and ' scimitar' I believe it can only be 
 asserted that they are Eastern. The following 
 are Hindostanee, ' avatar/ ' bungalow,' ' calico,' 
 ' chintz/ ' cowrie,' ' lac/ ' muslin/ ' punch/ 
 ' rupee,' ' toddy.' ' Tea/ or ' tcha/ as it was 
 spelt at first, of course is Chinese, so too are 'junk' 
 and ' satin.' 
 
 The New World has given us a certain number 
 of words, Indian and other — ' cacique' (' cassiqui,' 
 in Ralegh's Guiana), ' canoo,' ' chocolate,' ' cocoa,' 
 'condor,' 'hamoc' ('hamaca' in Ralegh), 'jalap/ 
 
 Of a real or pretended polyglottist, who might thus have 
 served as an universal interpreter, he says : 
 
 " Pity you was not druggerman at Babel." 
 
 * Truckman,' or more commonly 'truchman,' familiar to all 
 readers of our early literature, is only another form of this, 
 one which probably has come to us through ' turcimanno,' the 
 Italian form of the word. 
 
14 ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGUAGE. [lect. 
 
 'lama/ 'maize^ (Haytian), 'pampas/ ' pemmi- 
 can/ ' potato^ {' batata' in our earlier voj'agers)^ 
 ' raccoon/ ' sachem/ ' squaw/ ' tobacco/ ' toma- 
 hawk/ 'tomata' (Mexican), 'wigwam/ If 'hurri- 
 cane' is a word which Europe originally obtained 
 from the Caribbean islanders,* it should of course 
 be included in this list. A certain number of 
 words also we have received, one by one, from 
 various languages, which sometimes have not 
 bestowed on us more than this single one. Thus 
 ' hussar' is Hungarian ; ' caloyer,' Komaic ; 
 ' mammoth,' of some Siberian language ; ' tattoo,' 
 Polynesian ; ' steppe/ Tartarian ; ' sago,' ' bam- 
 boo,' ' rattan,' ' ourang-outang,' are all, I believe, 
 Malay words ; ' assegai/ ' zebra,' ' chimpanzee,' 
 ' fetisch,' belong to different African dialects ; the 
 last, however, having reached Europe through the 
 channel of the Portuguese. 
 
 To come nearer home — we have a certain num- 
 ber of Italian words, as ' balcony/ ' baldachin/ 
 ' balustrade,' ' bandit,' ' bravo,' ' bust' (it w^as 
 ' busto' as first used in English, and therefore 
 from the Italian, not from the French), 'cameo/ 
 ' canto,' ' caricature,' ' carnival,' ' cartoon/ ' char- 
 latan,' ' concert,' ' conversazione,' ' cupola,' ' ditto,' 
 ' doge/ ' domino/ ' felucca/ ' fresco,' ' gazette/ 
 'generalissimo/ 'gondola,' 'gonfalon/ 'grotto/ 
 (' grotta' is the earliest form in which we have it 
 in English), ' gusto/ ' harlequin,' ' imljroglio,' 
 
 * See Washington Irving, Life and Voyages of Columbus, 
 b. 8, c. 9. 
 
I.] SPANISH WORDS. 15 
 
 ' inamorato/ ' influenza/ * lava/ ' malaria/ ' mani- 
 festo/ ' masquerade' C mascarata' in Hacket), 
 ' motto/ ' nuncio/ ' opera/ ' oratorio/ ' pantaloon/ 
 ' parapet/ ' pedantry/ ' pianoforte/ ' piazza/ 
 ' portico/ ' proviso/ ' regatta/ ' ruffian/ ' scara- 
 mouch/ ' sequin/ ' seraglio/ ' sirocco/ ' sonnet/ 
 ' stanza/ ^ stiletto/ ' stucco/ ' studio/ ' terracotta/ 
 ^ umbrella/ ' virtuoso/ ' vista/ ' volcano/ ' zany/ 
 ' Becco/ and ^ cornuto/ ' fantastico/ ' magnifico/ 
 impress' (the armorial device upon shields^ and 
 appearing constantly in its Italian form ' impresa'), 
 ^ saltimbanco' (= mountebank), all once common 
 enough, are now obsolete. Sylvester uses often 
 ' farfalla' for butterfly, but, as far as I know, this 
 use is peculiar to him. If these are at all the 
 whole number of our Italian words, and I cannot 
 call to mind any other, the Spanish in the 
 language are nearly as numerous ; nor indeed 
 would it be wonderful if they were more so ; for 
 our points of contact with Spain, friendly and 
 hostile, have been much more real than with Italy. 
 Thus we have from the Spanish ' albino,' ' alli- 
 gator' (' el lagarto'), ' alcove/* ' armada,' ' arma- 
 dillo,' * barricade,' ^ bastinado,' ' bravado/ ^caiman, 
 * cambist/ 'camisado,' ' carbonado,' ' cargo,' 'cigar, 
 ' cochineal,' ' Creole,' ' desperado,' ' don,' ' duenna, 
 ' eldorado,' ' embargo,' ' flotilla,' ' gala,' ' grandee, 
 ' grenade/ ' guerilla,' 'hooker/f 'infanta,' ' jennet, 
 
 * On the question whether this ought not to have been in- 
 cluded among the Arabic, see Diez, Worterbuch d. Roman. 
 Sprachen, p. 10. 
 
 f Not in our dictionaries ; but a kind of coasting vessel 
 
16 ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 'junto/ ' merino/ ' mosquito/ ' mulatto/ ^ negro/ 
 ' olio/ *" ombre/ ' palaver/ ' parade/ ' parasol/ 
 ' parroquet/ ' peccadillo/ ' picaroon/ ' platina/ 
 ' poncho/ ' punctilio^ (for a long time spelt ' puu- 
 tillo/ in English books), ^quinine/ * reformado/ 
 ' savannah/ * serenade/ 'sherry/ 'stampede/ 'stoc- 
 cado/ ' strappado/ ' tornado/ ' vanilla/ ' verandah/ 
 ' Buffalo^ also is Spanish ; ' buff' or ' buffle' being 
 the proper English word ; ' caprice' too we pro- 
 bably obtained rather from Spain than Italy, as 
 we find it written ' capricho' by those who used 
 it first. Other Spanish words, once familiar, 
 are now extinct. * Punctilio' lives on, but not 
 ' punto,' which occurs in Bacon. ' Privado/ signi- 
 fying a prince's favourite, one admitted to his 
 privacy (no uncommon word in Jeremy Taylor 
 and Fuller), has quite disappeared; so too has 
 ' quirpo' (cuerpo), the name given to a jacket 
 fitting close to the body ; ' quellio' (cuello), a ruff 
 or f^^c^-collar j and ' matachin,' the title of a 
 sword-dance ; these are all frequent in our early 
 dramatists ; and ' flota' w^as the constant name 
 of the treasure-fleet from the Indies. ' Intermess' 
 is employed by Evelyn, and is the Spanish ' en- 
 tremes,' though not recognized as such in our 
 Dictionaries. ' Mandarin' and ' marmalade' are our 
 only Portuguese words I can call to mind. A 
 good many of our sea-terms are Dutch, as ' sloop,' 
 
 well known to seafaring men, the Spanish *urca;' thus in 
 Oklys' Life ofRaleJcjli : "Their <;alk>ons, galleasses, gallies, 
 ureas, and zabras were miserably shattered." 
 
I.] ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH. 17 
 
 ' schooner/ ' yacht/ ^ boom/ ' skipper/ ' tafferel/ 
 ' to smuggle / ^ to wear/ in the sense of veer, as 
 when we say ' to wear a ship ;' ' skates/ too, and 
 ' stiver' are Dutch. Celtic things are for the most 
 part designated among us by Celtic words; such 
 as ' bard/ ' kilt/ ' clan/ ' pibroch/ ' plaid/ ' reel/ 
 Nor only such as these, which are all of them 
 comparatively of modern introduction, but a con- 
 siderable number, how large a number is yet a 
 very unsettled question, of words which at a much 
 earlier date found admission into our tongue, are 
 derived from this quarter. 
 
 Now, of course, I have no right to presume that 
 any among ns are equipped with that knowledge 
 of other tongues, which shall enable us to detect of 
 ourselves and at once the nationality of all or most 
 of the words which we may meet — some of them 
 greatly disguised, and having undergone manifold 
 transformations in the process of their adoption 
 among us; but only that we have such helps at 
 command in the shape of dictionaries and the like, 
 and so much diligence in their use, as will enable 
 ns to discover the quarter from which the words we 
 may encounter have reached us ; and I will con- 
 fidently say that few studies of the kind will be 
 more fruitful, will suggest more various matter of 
 reflection, will more lead you into the secrets of the 
 English tongue, than an analysis of a certain num- 
 ber of passages drawn from different authors, such 
 as I have just now proposed. For this analysis 
 you will take some passage of English verse or 
 prose — say the first ten lines of Paradise Lost — 
 c 
 
18 ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 or the LorfVs Prayer — or the 23rd Psalm ; you will 
 distribute the whole body of words contained in 
 that passage, of course not omitting the smallest, 
 according to their nationalities — writing, it may 
 be, A over every Anglo-Saxon word, L over every 
 Latin, and so on with the others, if any other 
 should occur in the portion which you have sub- 
 mitted to this examination. When this is done, 
 you will count up the number of those which 
 each language contributes ; again, you will note the 
 character of the words derived from each quarter. 
 Yet here, before I pass further, I would observe 
 in respect of those which come from the Latin, that 
 it will be desirable further to mark whether they 
 are directly from it, and such might be marked L^, 
 or only mediately from it, and to us directly from 
 the French, which would be L', or L at second 
 hand — our English word being only in the second 
 generation descended from the Latin, not the child, 
 but the child^s child. There is a rule that holds 
 pretty constantly good, by which you may deter- 
 mine this point. It is this, — that if a word be 
 directly from the Latin, it will not have undergone 
 any alteration or modification in its form and shape, 
 save only in the termination — ^ innocentia,' will 
 have become Mnnocency,^ ^ natio,' will have be- 
 come ' nation,^ ' firmameutum' ' firmament,' but 
 nothing more. On the other hand, if it comes 
 through the French, it will generally be considerably 
 altered in its passage. It will have undergone a 
 process of lubrication ; its sharply defined Latin 
 outline will in good part have departed from it; 
 
I.] TWO SHAPES OF WORDS. 19 
 
 thus ' crown' is from ^ corona/ but through ' cou- 
 ronne/ and itself a dissyllable, ' coroune/ in our 
 earlier English ; 'treasure' is from 'thesaurus/ but 
 through 'tresor/ 'emperor^ is the Latin 'im- 
 perator/ but it was first ' empereur.' It will 
 often happen that the substantive has past through 
 this process, having reached us through the inter- 
 vention of the French ; while we have only felt 
 at a later period our want of the adjective also, 
 which we have proceeded to borrow direct from 
 the Latin. Thus, ' people' is indeed ' populus/ 
 but it was 'pen pie' first, while ' popular' is a direct 
 transfer of a Latin vocable into our English glos- 
 sary. So too ' enemy^ is ' inimicus/ but it was 
 first softened in the French, and had its Latin 
 physiognomy to a great degree obliterated, while 
 'inimical' is Latin throughout; 'parish' is ' pa- 
 roisse,' but 'parochial' is ' parochialis/ 'chapter' 
 is ' chapitre,' but ' capitular' is ' capitularis.' 
 
 Sometimes you will find in English what I may 
 call the double adoption of a Latin word ; w'hich 
 now makes part of our vocabulary in two shapes ; 
 ' doppelgangers' the Germans would call such 
 words. There is first the elder word, which the 
 French has given us ; but which, before it gave, it 
 had fashioned and moulded, cutting it short, it 
 may be, by a syllable or more, for the French 
 devours letters and syllables; and there is the 
 later w^ord which we borrowed immediately from 
 the Latin. I will mention a few examples ; ' se- 
 cure' and ' sure,' both from ' securus,' but one 
 directly, the other through the French; 'fidelity' 
 c 2 
 
20 ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGUAGE. [leCT. 
 
 and ' fealty/ both from ' fidelitas/ but one directly, 
 the other at second-hand ; ' species^ and ' spice/ 
 both from ' species/ spices being pi'operly only 
 kinds of aromatic drugs ; ' blaspheme^ and ' blame/ 
 both from ' blasphemare/* but ' blame' immedi- 
 ately from ^ blamer/ Add to these \ granary' 
 and ^garner/ ^captain' (capitaneus) and ^chieftain/ 
 ' tradition' and ' treason / ' abyss' and ' abysm / 
 'regal' and 'royal/ 'legal' and 'loyal/ 'cadence' 
 and 'chance/ 'balsam' and 'balm/ 'hospital' and 
 ' hotel / ' digit' and ' doit / ' pagan' and ' pay- 
 nim / ' captive^ and ' caitiff/ ' persecute' and 
 
 * pursue / ' superficies' and ' surface / ' faction' 
 and ' fashion / ' particle' and ' parcel / ' redemp- 
 tion' and ' ransom / ' probe' and ' prove / ' ab- 
 breviate' and ' abridge / ' dormitory' and ' dor- 
 toir' or ' dorter' (this last now obsolete, but not 
 uncommon in Jeremy Taylor) ; ' desiderate' and 
 'desire/ 'fact' and 'feat/ 'major' and 'mayor/ 
 ' radius' and ' ray / ' pauper^ and ' poor/ ' potion' 
 and ' poison / ' ration' and ' reason / ' oration' and 
 
 * orison.'t I have, in the instancing of these, 
 
 * This particular instance of double adoption, of ' dimor- 
 phism' as Latham calls it, * dittology' as Heyse, recurs in 
 Italian, ' bestemmiare' and 'biasimare/ and in Spanish, 
 
 * blasf'eniar' and 'lastimar.' 
 
 f Somewhat diflerent from this, 3^et itself also curious, is 
 the passing of an Anf^h)-Saxon word in two diflerent forms 
 intoEng-lish, and continuing in both; thus ' desk' and 'dish,' 
 both the Anglo-Saxon ' disc,' the German ' tisch ;' ' beech' and 
 
 * book,' both the Anglo-Saxon ' boc,' our first books being 
 heechen tablets (see Grimm, Wurterhuch, s. vv.' Buch,' 
 
 * Buche') ; * girdle' and ' kirtle,' both ortheiii corresponding to 
 
l.J ASSIMILATION OF WORDS. 21 
 
 named always the Latin form before the French ; 
 but the reverse I suppose in every instance is the 
 order in which the words were adopted by us ; 
 we had ' pursue^ before ^ persecute/ ' spice' before 
 ^ species/ ' royalty' before ' regality/ and so with 
 the others.* 
 
 The explanation of this greater change which the 
 earlier form of the word has undergone, is not far 
 to seek. Words which have been introduced into 
 a language at an early period, when as yet writing 
 is rare, and books are few or none, when therefore 
 orthography is unfixed, or being purely phonetic, 
 cannot properly be said to exist at all, such words 
 for a long while live orally on the lips of men, 
 before they are set down in writing ; and out of this 
 fact it is that we shall for the most part find them 
 reshaped and remoulded by the people who have 
 adopted them, entirely assimilated to their language 
 in form and termination, so as in a little while to 
 
 the German 'giirtel/ already in Anglo-Saxon a double spell- 
 ing, ' gyrdel,' ' cyrtel/ had prepared for the double words ; so 
 too 'haunch' and 'hinge;' 'lady' and 'lofty;' 'shirt,' and 
 
 * skirt ;' ' black' and ' bleak ;' ' pond' and ' pound ;' ' deck' and 
 
 * thatch ;' ' deal' and ' dole ;' ' weald' and ' wood ;' ' dew' and 
 ' thaw ;' ' wayward' and ' awkward ;' ' dune' and ' down ;' 
 'hood' and 'hat;' 'ghost' and 'gust;' 'evil' and 'ill;' 
 
 * mouth' and ' moth ;' ' hedge' and ' hay.' 
 
 * We have in the same way double adoptions from the 
 Greek, one direct, at least as regards the forms; one modified 
 by its passage through some other language; thus, ' adamant' 
 and 'diamond;' 'monastery' and 'minster;' 'scandal' and 
 ' slander ;' ' theriac' and ' treacle ;' ' asphodel' and ' daffodil ;' 
 ' presbyter' and * priest.' 
 
22 ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGUAGE. [lect. 
 
 be almost or quite indistinguishable from natives. 
 On the other hand a most effectual check to this 
 process^ a process sometimes barbarizing and de- 
 facing, however it may be the only one which will 
 make the newly brought in isntirely homogeneous 
 with the old and already existing, is imposed by 
 the existence of a much written language and a 
 full formed literature. The foreign word, being 
 once adopted into these, can no longer undergo a 
 thorough transformation. For the most part the 
 utmost which use and familiarity can do with it 
 now, is to cause the gradual dropping of the 
 foreign termination. Yet this too is not unim- 
 portant ; it often goes far to making a home for 
 a word, and hindering it from wearing the ap- 
 pearance of a foreigner and stranger.* 
 
 * The French itself has also a double adoption, or as 
 perhaps we should more accurately call it there, a double 
 formation, from the Latin, and such as quite bears out what 
 has been said above : one goin^ far back in the history of the 
 language, the other belonging to a later and more literary 
 period ; on which subject there are some admirable remarks 
 by Genin, Recreations PhiloJogiques, vol. i. pp. 162 — 166 ; 
 and see Fuchs, Die Roman. Sprachen, p. 125. Thus from 
 
 * separare' is derived ' sevrer,' to separate the child from its 
 mother's breast, to wean, but also 'separer,' without this 
 special sense; from ' pastor,* ' patre,' a shepherd in the literal, 
 and ' pasteur' the same in a tropical, sense ; from ' catena,' 
 
 * chaiiie' and * cadene ;' from ' fragilis,' ' frele' and ' fragile ;' 
 from * pensare,' ' peser' and * penser ;' from ' gehenna,' * gene' 
 and * gehcnne;' from ' captivus,' 'chetit" and ' captif ;' from 
 
 * nativus,' 'naif and 'natif;' from ' designare,' ' dessiner' and 
 'designer;' from 'decimare,' ' dimer' and 'dccimer;' from 
 
 * consumere/ 'consomracr' and 'consumer;' from 'simulure,' 
 
I.] ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH. 23 
 
 Bat to return from this digression — I said just 
 now that you would learn very much from observing 
 and calculating the proportions in which the words 
 of one descent and those of another occur in any 
 passage which you analyse. Thus examine the 
 Lord^s Prayer. It consists of exactly seventy 
 words. You will find that only the following six 
 claim the rights of Latin citizenship — ' trespasses/ 
 ^trespass/ 'temptation/ ^deliver/ ^power/ 'glory.' 
 Nor would it be very difficult to substitute for 
 any one of these a Saxon word. Thus for ' tres- 
 passes' might be substituted ' sins / for ' deliver' 
 ' free / for ' power' ' might / for ' glory' ' bright- 
 ness / which would only leave ' temptation/ about 
 which there could be the slightest difficulty^ and 
 ' trials,' though we now ascribe to the word a 
 somewhat difi'erent sense, would in fact exactly 
 correspond to it. This is but a small percentage, 
 
 ' sembler' and *simuler;' from the low Latin, *disjejunare,' 
 'diner' and 'dejeuner;' from 'acceptare,' ' acheter' and 'ac- 
 cepter;' from 'homo,' 'on' and 'homme;' from 'paganus,' 
 ' payen' and ' pa3'san ;' from ' obedientia,' ' obeissance' and 
 ' obedience ;' from ' strictus,' ' etroit' and ' strict ;' from ' .sa- 
 cramentum,' ' serment' and ' sacrement ;' from ' ministeriuui,' 
 ' metier' and ' ministere ;' from ' parabola,' ' parole' and ' pa- 
 rabole;' from ' peregrinus,' ' pelerin' and 'peregrin;' from 
 ' factio,' ' fa9on' and ' faction,' and it has now adopted ' factio' 
 in a third shape, that is, in our English ' fashion ;' from 
 * pietas,' ' pitie' and ' piete ;' from ' capitulum,' ' chapitre' and 
 ' capitule,' a botanical term. So, too, in Italian, ' raanco,' 
 maimed, and ' monco,' maimed of a hand; 'rifutare,' to 
 refute, and ' rifiutare,' to refuse ; ' dama' and ' donna,' both 
 forms of ' domina.' 
 
24 ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGUAGE. [leCT. 
 
 six words in seventy, or less than ten in the hun- 
 dred ; and we often light upon a still smaller pro- 
 portion. Thus take the first three verses of the 
 23rd Psalm : — " The Lord is my Shepherd ; 
 therefore can I lack nothing; He shall feed me 
 in a green pasture, and lead me forth beside the 
 waters of comfort ; He shall convert my soul, and 
 bring me forth in the paths of righteousness for 
 his Name's sake/' Here are forty-five words, 
 and only the three in italics are Latin : and for 
 every one of these too it would be easy to sub- 
 stitute a word of Saxon origin ; little more, that 
 is, than the proportion of seven in the hundred ; 
 while, still stronger than this, in five verses out 
 of Genesis, containing one hundred and thirty 
 words, there are only five not Saxon, less, that is, 
 than four in the hundred. 
 
 Shall we therefore conclude that these are the 
 proportions in which the Anglo-Saxon and Latin 
 elements of the language stand to one another ? 
 If they are so, then my former proposal to express 
 their relations by sixty and thirty was greatly at 
 fault ; and seventy and twenty, or even eighty and 
 ten, would fall short of adequately representing the 
 real predominance of the Saxon over the Latin 
 element of the language. But it is not so ; the 
 Anglo-Saxon words by no means outnumber the 
 Latin in the degree which the analysis of those 
 passages would seem to imply. It is not that there 
 are so many more Anglo-Saxon words, but that 
 the words which there are, being words of more 
 primary necessity, do therefore so much more 
 
I.] ANGLO-SAXON THE BASE OF ENGLISH. 25 
 
 frequently recur. The proportions which the 
 analysis of the dictionary, that is, of the language 
 at rest, would furnish, are very different from 
 these which I have just instanced, and which the 
 analysis of sentences, or of the language iyi motion, 
 gives. Thus if we examine the total vocabulary 
 of the English Bible, not more than sixty per cent, 
 of the words are native ; such are the results 
 which the Concordance gives ; but in the actual 
 translation the native words are from ninety in 
 some passages to ninety-six in others per cent.* 
 
 The notice of this fact will lead us to some very 
 important conclusions as to the character of the 
 words which the Saxon and the Latin severally 
 furnish ; and principally to this : — that while the 
 English language is thus compact in the main of 
 these two elements, we must not for all this regard 
 these two as making, one and the other, exactly 
 the same kind of contributions to it. On the con- 
 trary their contributions are of very different 
 character. The Anglo-Saxon is not so much, as 
 I have just called it, one element of the English 
 language, as the foundation of it, the basis. All 
 its joints, its whole articulation, its sinews and its 
 ligaments, .the great body of articles, pronouns, 
 conjunctions, prepositions, numerals, auxiliary 
 verbs, all smaller words which serve to knit to- 
 gether and bind the larger into sentences, these, 
 not to speak of the grammatical structure of the 
 
 * See Marsh, Manioal of the English Language, Engl. 
 Ed. p. 88 s^<i. 
 
26 ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGUAGE. [lect. 
 
 language, are exclusively Saxon. The Latin may 
 contribute its tale of bricks, yea, of goodly and 
 polished hewn stones, to the spiritual building; 
 but the mortar, with all that holds and binds the 
 different parts of it together, and constitutes them 
 into a house, is Saxon througliout. I remember 
 Selden in his Table Talk using another compa- 
 rison ; but to the same effect : "■ If you look upon 
 the language spoken in the Saxon time, and the 
 language spoken now, you will find the difference 
 to be just as if a man had a cloak which he wore 
 plain in Clueen Elizabeth's days, and since, here 
 has put in a piece of red, and there a piece of 
 blue, and here a piece of green, and there a piece of 
 orange-tawny. We borrow words from the Frencli, 
 Italian, Latin, as every pedantic man pleases." 
 
 I believe this to be the law which holds good in 
 respect of all composite languages. However com- 
 posite they may be, yet they are only so in regard 
 of their words. There may be a medley in respect 
 of these, some coming from one quarter, some from 
 another; but there is never a mixture of gram- 
 matical forms and inflections. One or other lan- 
 guage entirely predominates here, and everything 
 has to conform and subordinate itself to the laws 
 of this ruling and ascendant language. The 
 Anglo-Saxon is the ruling language in our present 
 English. Thus while it has thought good to drop 
 its genders, even so the French substantives which 
 come among us, must also leave theirs behind 
 them ; as in like manner the French verbs must 
 renounce their own conjugations, and adapt them- 
 
I.] QUOTATION EROM GRIMM. 27 
 
 selves to ours * I believe that a remarkable 
 parallel to this might be found in the language of 
 Persia, since the conquest of that country by the 
 Arabs. The ancient Persian religion fell with the 
 government, but the language remained totally 
 unaffected by the revobition, in its grammatical 
 structure and character. Arabic vocables, the 
 only exotic words found in Persian, are found in 
 numbers varying with the object and quality, 
 style and taste of the writers, but pages of pure 
 idiomatic Persian may be written without em- 
 ploying a single word from the Arabic. 
 
 At the same time the secondary or superinduced 
 language, even while it is quite unable to force any 
 of its forms on the language which receives its 
 words, may yet compel that to renounce a portion 
 of its own forms, by the impossibility which is 
 practically found to exist of making them fit the 
 new comers ; and thus it may exert, although not 
 a positive, yet a negative, influence on the grammar 
 of the other tongue. It has been so, as is generally 
 admitted, in the instance of our own. '' When the 
 English language was inundated by a vast influx 
 of French words, few, if any, French forms were 
 received into its grammar ; but 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 the newly imported words in 
 
 * W. Schlegel {IndiscJie BihliotJieh, vol. i. p. 284) : Coeuut 
 quidem paullatim iu novum corpus peregriua vocabula, sed 
 grammatica linguarum, unde petitce sunt, ratio perit. 
 
28 ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGCJAGE. [lecT. 
 
 a rude state, was induced to neglect the inflections 
 of the native ones. This for instance led to the 
 introduction of the s as the universal termination 
 of all plural nouns, which agreed with the usage 
 of the French language, and was not alien from 
 that of the Saxon, but was merely an extension 
 of the termination of the ancient masculine to 
 other classes of nouns."* 
 
 If you wish to convince yourselves by actual 
 experience, of the fact which I just now asserted, 
 namely, that the radical constitution of the lan- 
 guage is Saxon, T would say. Try to compose a 
 sentence, let it be only of ten or a dozen words, 
 and the subject entirely of your choice, employing 
 therein only words which are of a Latin derivation. 
 I venture to say you will find it impossible, or 
 next to impossible, to do it ; whichever way you 
 turn, some obstacle will meet you in the face. 
 And while it is thus with the Latin, whole pages 
 might be written, I do not say in philosophy or 
 theology or upon any abstruser subject, but 
 on familiar matters of common everyday life, 
 in which every word should be of Saxon ex- 
 traction, not one of Latin ; and these, pages in 
 which, with the exercise of a little patience and 
 ingenuity, all appearance of awkwardness and 
 constraint should be avoided, so that it should 
 never occur to the reader, unless otherwise in- 
 formed, that the writer had submitted himself to 
 
 * J. Griinm, quoted in The Philological Museum, vol. i. 
 p. 667. 
 
I.] QUOTATION FROM SIR THOMAS BROWNE. 29 
 
 this restraint and limitation in the words which 
 he employed, and was only drawing them from 
 one section of the English language. Sir Thomas 
 Browne has given several long paragraphs so con- 
 structed. Take for instance the following, which 
 is only a little fragment of one of them : " The 
 first and foremost step to all good works is the 
 dread and fear of the Lord of heaven and earth, 
 which through the Holy Ghost enlighteneth the 
 blindness of our sinful hearts to tread the ways 
 of wisdom, and lead our feet into the land of 
 blessing."* This is not stiffer than the ordinary 
 English of his time. I would suggest to you at 
 your leisure to make these two experiments ; you 
 will find it, I think, exactly as I have here 
 affirmed. 
 
 While thus I bring before you the fact that it 
 would be quite possible to write English, foregoing 
 altogether the use of the Latin portion of the 
 language, I would not have you therefore to con- 
 clude that this portion of the language is of little 
 value, or that we could draw from the resources 
 of our Teutonic tongue eSicient substitutes for all 
 the words which it has contributed to our glossary. 
 I am persuaded that we could not ; and, if we 
 could, that it would not be desirable. I mention 
 this, because there is sometimes a regret expressed 
 that we have not kept our language more free 
 from the admixture of Latin, a suggestion made 
 that we should even now endeavour to keep under 
 
 * Works, vol. iv. p. 202. 
 
30 ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 the Latin element of it, and as little as possible 
 avail ourselves of it. I remember Lord Broiio^ham 
 urging upon the students at Glasgow as a help to 
 •writing good English, that they should do their 
 best to rid their diction of long- tailed words in 
 ' osity^ and ' ation.' He plainly intended to in- 
 dicate by this phrase all learned Latin words, or 
 words derived from the Latin. This exhortation 
 is by no means superfluous ; for doubtless there 
 were writers of a former age, Samuel Johnson in 
 the last century, Henry More and Sir Thomas 
 Browne in the century preceding, who gave undue 
 preponderance to the learned, or Latin, portion in 
 our language ; and very much of its charm, of its 
 homely strength and beauty, of its most popular 
 and truest idioms, would have perished from it, 
 had they succeeded in persuading others to write 
 as they had written. 
 
 But for all this we could almost as ill spare 
 this side of the language as the other. It repre- 
 sents and supplies needs not less real than the 
 other does. Philosophy and science and the arts 
 of a high civilization find their utterance in the 
 Latin words of our language, or, if not in the 
 Latin, in the Greek, which for present purposes 
 may be grouped with them. How should they 
 have found utterance in the speech of rude tribes, 
 which, never having cultivated the things, must 
 needs have been without the words which should 
 express those things. Granting too that, aeteris 
 paribus, when a Latin and a Saxon word offer 
 themselves to our choice, we sliall generally do 
 
I.] QUOTATION TROM DE QTJINCEY. 31 
 
 best to employ the Saxon^ to speak of ' happiness^ 
 rather than ^ felicity/ ' almighty' rather than 
 ' omnipotent/ a ' forerunner' rather than a ' pre- 
 cursor/ still these latter must be regarded as much 
 denizens in the language as the former, no alien 
 interlopers, but possessing the rights of citizen- 
 ship as fully as the most Saxon word of them all. 
 One part of the language is not to be favoured at 
 the expense of the other ; the Saxon at the cost 
 of the Latin, as little as the Latin at the cost of 
 the Saxon. " Both are indispensable ; and speak- 
 ing generally without stopping to distinguish as to 
 subject, both are equally indispensable. Pathos, 
 in situations which are homely, or at all connected 
 with domestic affections, naturally moves by Saxon 
 words. Lyrical emotion of every kind, which (to 
 merit the name of lyrical) must be in the state 
 of flux and reflux, or, generally, of agitation, also 
 requires the Saxon element of our language. And 
 why? Because the Saxon is the aboriginal ele- 
 ment j the basis and not the superstructure : con- 
 sequently it comprehends all the ideas which are 
 natural to the heart of man and to the elementary 
 situations of life. And although the Latin often 
 furnishes us with duplicates of these ideas, yet the 
 Saxon, or monosyllabic part, has the advantage of 
 precedency in our use and knowledge ; for it is the 
 language of the nursery whether for rich or poor, 
 in which great philological academy no toleration 
 is given to words in ' osity' or ' ation.' There is 
 therefore a great advantage, as regards the conse- 
 cration to our feelings, settled by usage and 
 
32 ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGUAGE. [lect. 
 
 custom upon the Saxon strands in the mixed yarn 
 of our native tongue. And universally, this may 
 be remarked — that wherever the passion of a 
 poem is of that sort which uses^ jji^esumes, or 
 jjostulates the ideas, without seeking to extend 
 them, Saxon will be the ' cocoon^ (to speak by 
 the language applied to silk- worms), which the 
 poem spins for itself. But on the other hand, 
 where the motion of the feeling is by and through 
 the ideas, where (as in religious or meditative 
 poetry — Young's, for instance, or Cowper's), the 
 pathos creeps and kindles underneath the very 
 tissues of the thinking, there the Latin will predo- 
 minate ; and so much so that, whilst the flesh, the 
 blood, and the muscle, will be often almost ex- 
 clusively Latin, the articulations only, or hinges 
 of connection, will be Anglo-Saxon." 
 
 These words which I have just quoted are De 
 Quincey's — whom I must needs esteem the greatest 
 living master of our English tongue. And on the 
 same matter Sir Francis Palgrave has expressed 
 himself thus : " Upon the languages of Teutonic 
 origin the Latin has exercised great influence, but 
 most energetically on our own. The very early 
 admixture of the Langue d^Oil, the never inter- 
 rupted employment of the French as the language 
 of education, and the nomenclature created by the 
 scientific and literary cultivation of advancing and 
 civilized society, have Romanized our speech; the 
 warp may be Anglo-Saxon, but the woof is Roman 
 as well as the embroideiy, and these foreign mate- 
 rials have so entered into the texture, that were 
 
I.] THE ENGLISH BIBLE. 33 
 
 they plucked out, the web would be torn to rags, 
 unravelled and destroyed/^* 
 
 I do not know where we could find a happier 
 example of the preservation of the golden mean in 
 this matter than in our authorized Version of the 
 Bible. One of the chief among the minor and 
 secondary blessings which that Version has con- 
 ferred on the nation or nations drawing spiritual 
 life from it, — a blessing not small in itself, but 
 only small by comparison with the infinitely 
 higher blessings whereof it is the vehicle to them, 
 — is the happy wisdom, the instinctive tact, with 
 which its authors have steered between any futile 
 mischievous attempt to ignore the full rights of 
 the Latin part of the language on the one side, 
 and on the other any burdening of their Version 
 with such a multitude of learned Latin terms as 
 should cause it to forfeit its homely character, 
 and shut up large portions of it from the under- 
 standing of plain and unlearned men. There is a 
 remarkable confession to this eflfect, to the wis- 
 dom, in fact, which guided them from above, to 
 the providence that overruled their work, an 
 honourable acknowledgment of the immense 
 superiority in this respect of our English Version 
 over the Romish, made by one now, unhappily, 
 familiar with the latter, as once he was with our 
 own. Among those who haverecentlyabandonedthe 
 communion of the English Church one has exprest 
 himself in deeply touching tones of lamentation 
 
 * Sistory of Normandy and England, vol. i. p. 78. 
 
34 ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 over all, which in renouncing our translation, he 
 feels himself to have foregone and lost. These 
 are his words : " Who will not say that the un- 
 common beauty and marvellous English of the 
 Protestant Bible is not one of the great strong- 
 holds of heresy in this country ? It lives on the 
 ear, like a music that can never be forgotten, like 
 the sound of church bells, which the convert 
 hardly knows how he can forego. Its felicities 
 often seem to be almost things rather than mere 
 words. It is part of the national mind, and 
 the anchor of national seriousness The me- 
 mory of the dead passes into it. The potent 
 traditions of childhood are stereotyped in its 
 verses. The power of all the griefs and trials of 
 a man is hidden beneath its words. It is the re- 
 presentative of his best moments, and all that 
 there has been about him of soft and gentle and 
 pure and penitent and good speaks to him for 
 
 ever out of his English Bible It is his 
 
 sacred thing, which doubt has never dimmed, and 
 controversy never soiled. In the length and 
 breadth of the land there is not a Protestant with 
 one spark of religiousness about him, whose spi- 
 ritual biography is not in his Saxon Bible."* 
 
 Such are his touching words ; and certainly one 
 has only to compare this version of ours with the 
 Rhemish, and the transcendent excellence of our 
 own reveals itself at once. I am not extolling 
 now its superior scholarship ; its greater freedom 
 
 * Dublin Eeview, June, 1S53. 
 
T.] THE RHEMISH BIBLE. 35 
 
 from by-ends ; as little would I urge the fact that 
 one translation is from the original Greek, the 
 other from the Latin Vulgate, and thus the trans- 
 lation of a translation, often reproducing the mis- 
 takes of that translation ; but, putting aside all 
 considerations such as these, I speak only here of 
 the superiority of the diction in which the meaning, 
 be it correct or incorrect, is conveyed to English 
 readers. Thus I open the Rhemish version at 
 Galatians v. 19, where the long list of the " works 
 of the flesh,'' and of the '' fruit of the Spirit," is 
 given. But what could a mere English reader 
 make of words such as these — ' impudicity,' ^ ebrie- 
 ties,' ' coniessations,' * longanimity/ all which 
 occur in that passage ? while our Version for 
 * ebrieties' has ' drunkenness,' for ' comessations' 
 has ' revelllngs,' and so also for ' longanimity' 
 ^ longsuffering.' Or set over against one another 
 such phrases as these, — in the Rhemish, ''the 
 exemplars of the celestials" (Heb. ix. 23), but in 
 ours, " the patterns of things in the heavens." 
 Or suppose if, instead of the words which we read 
 at Heb. xiii. 16, namely, " To do good and to 
 communicate forget not ; for with such sacrifices 
 God is well pleased," we read as follows, which 
 are the words of the Rhemish, '' Beneficence and 
 communication do not forget ; for with such hosts 
 God is promerited" ! — Who does not feel that if 
 our Version had been composed in such Latin- 
 English as this, had abounded in words like 
 ' odible,' ' suasible,' ' exinanite,' ' contristate,' ' pos- 
 tulations,' ' coinquinations,' ' agnition,' ' zealatour,' 
 D 2 
 
36 ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGUAGE. [leCT. 
 
 all, with many more of the same mint, in the 
 Rhemish Version, our loss would have been great 
 and enduring, one which would have searched into 
 the whole religious life of our people, and been 
 felt in the very depths of the national mind ?* 
 
 There was indeed something still deeper than 
 love of sound and genuine English at work in our 
 Translators, whether they were conscious of it or 
 not, which hindered them from presenting the 
 Scriptures to their fellow-countrymen dressed out 
 in such a semi-Latin garb as this. The Refor- 
 mation, which they were in this translation so 
 mightily strengthening and confirming, was just a 
 throwing off, on the part of the Teutonic nations, 
 of that everlasting pupilage in which Rome would 
 have held them ; an assertion at length that they 
 were come to full age, and that not through her, 
 but directly through Christ, they would address 
 themselves unto God. The use of the Latin 
 language as the language of worship, as the lan- 
 guage in which the Scriptures might alone be 
 read, had been the great badge of servitude, even 
 as the Latin habits of thought and feeling which 
 it promoted had been the great helps to the con- 
 tinuance of this servitude, through long ages. It 
 lay deep then in the very nature of their cause 
 that the Reformers should develop the Saxon, or 
 essentially national, element in the language ; 
 while it was just as natural that the Roman 
 
 * There is more on this matter in my book On the 
 Authorized Version of the New Testament, pp. 33 — 35. 
 
I.] rUTURE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 37 
 
 Catholic translators, if they must translate the 
 Scriptures into English at all, should yet trans- 
 late them into such English as should bear the 
 nearest possible resemblance to the Latin Vulgate, 
 which Rome with a very deep wisdom of this world 
 would gladly have seen as the only one in the 
 hands of the faithful. 
 
 Let me again, however, recur to the fact that 
 what our Reformers did in this matter, they did 
 without exaggeration ; even as they had shown the 
 same wise moderation in still higher matters. 
 They gave to the Latin side of the language its 
 rights, though they would not suffer it to encroach 
 upon and usurp those of the Teutonic part of the 
 language. It would be difficult not to believe, 
 even if many outward signs said not the same, 
 that great things are in store for the one language 
 of Europe which thus serves as connecting link 
 between the North and the South, between the 
 languages spoken by the Teutonic nations of 
 the North and by the Romance nations of the 
 South ; which holds on to and partakes of both ; 
 which is as a middle term between them.* There 
 are who venture to hope that the English Church, 
 being in like manner double-fronted, looking on 
 the one side toward Rome, being herself truly 
 Catholic, looking on the other toward the Pro- 
 testant communions, being herself also protesting 
 
 * See a paper On the Probable Future Position of the 
 English Language, by T. Watts, Esq., in the Proceedings 
 oftJie Philological Societi/, vol. iv. p. 207. 
 
38 ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGUAGE. [lect. 
 
 and reforming, may yet in the providence of God 
 have an important part to play for the recon- 
 ciling of a divided Christendom. And if this ever 
 should be so, if, notwithstanding our sins and 
 nn worthiness, so blessed a task should be in store 
 for her, it will not be a small help and assistance 
 thereunto, that the language in which her media- 
 tion will be effected is one wherein both parties 
 may claim their own, in which neither will feel 
 that it is receiving the adjudication of a stranger, 
 of one who must be an alien from its deeper 
 thoughts and habits, because an alien from its 
 words, but a language in which both must recog- 
 nize very much of that which is deepest and most 
 precious of their own. 
 
 Nor is this prerogative which T have just claimed 
 for our English the mere dream and fancy of 
 patriotic vanity. The scholar who in our days 
 is most profoundly acquainted with the great group 
 of the Gothic languages in Europe, and a devoted 
 lover, if ever there was such, of his native German, 
 I mean Jacob Grimm, has expressed himself very 
 nearly to the same effect, and given the palm over 
 all to our English in words which you will not 
 grudge to hear quoted, and with which I shall 
 bring this lecture to a close. After ascribing to 
 our language "a veritable power of expression, 
 such as perhaps never stood at the command of 
 any other language of men," he goes on to say, 
 " Its highly spiritual genius, and w onderfully happy 
 development and condition, have been the result of 
 a surprisingly intimate union of the two noblest 
 
I.] JACOB GRIMM ON ENGLISH. 39 
 
 languages in modern Europe, the Teutonic and the 
 Romance. — It is well known in what relation these 
 two stand to one another in the English tongue ; 
 the former supplying in far larger proportion the 
 material groundwork, the latter the spiritual con- 
 ceptions. In truth the English language, which 
 by no mere accident has produced and upborne 
 the greatest and most predominant poet of modern 
 times, as distinguished from the ancient classical 
 poetry (I can, of course, only mean Shakespeare), 
 may with all right be called a world-language ; and, 
 like the English people, appears destined hereafter 
 to prevail with a sway more extensive even than 
 its present over all the portions of the globe.* For 
 
 * A little more than two centuries ago a poet, himself 
 abundantly deserving the title of * well-languaged,' which a 
 cotemporary or near successor gave him, ventured in some 
 remarkable lines timidly to anticipate this. Speaking of his 
 native tongue, which he himself wrote with such vigour and 
 purity, though wanting in the fiery impulses which go to the 
 making of a first-rate poet, Daniel exclaims : 
 
 " And who, in time, knows whither we may vent 
 The treasure of our tongue, to what strange shores 
 This gain of our best glory shall be sent, 
 To enrich unknowing nations with our stores ? 
 What worlds in the yet unformed Occident 
 May come refined with the accents that are ours ? 
 Or who can tell for what great work in hand 
 The greatness of our style is now ordained ? 
 What powers it shall bring in, what spirits command, 
 What thoughts let out, what humours keep restrained, 
 What mischief it may powerfully withstand, 
 And what fair ends may thereby be attained ?" 
 
40 ENGLISH A COMPOSITE LANGUAGE. [lecT. I. 
 
 in wealth, good sense, and closeness of structure 
 no other of the languages at this day spoken 
 deserves to be compared with it — not even our 
 German, which is torn, even as we are torn, and 
 must first rid itself of many defects, before it can 
 enter boldly into the lists, as a competitor with the 
 English/'* 
 
 * Veher den Ursprung der S;prache, Berlin, 1832, p. 50. 
 
41 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 IT is not for nothing that we speak of some 
 languages as living, of others as dead. All 
 spoken languages may be ranged in the first class ; 
 for as men will never consent to use a language 
 without more or less modifying it in their use, 
 will never so far forego their own activity as to 
 leave it exactly where they found it, it will there- 
 fore, so long as it is thus the utterance of human 
 thought and feeling, inevitably show itself alive 
 by many infallible proofs, by motion, growth, 
 acquisition, loss, progress, and decay. A living 
 language therefore is one which abundantly de- 
 serves this name; for it is one in which, spoken 
 as it is by living men, a vital formative energy is 
 still at work. It is one which is in course of 
 actual evolution, which, if the life that animates it 
 be a healthy one, is appropriating and assimilating 
 to itself what it anywhere finds congenial to its 
 own life, multiplying its resources, increasing its 
 wealth ; while at the same time it is casting off 
 useless and cumbersome forms, dismissing from its 
 vocabulary words of which it finds no use, reject- 
 ing from itself by a re- active energy the foreign 
 and heterogeneous, which may for a while have 
 been forced upon it. I would not assert that in 
 
42 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [leCT. 
 
 the process of all this it does not make mistakes ; 
 in the desire to simplify it may let go distinctions 
 which were not useless, and which it would have 
 been better to retain ; the acquisitions which it 
 makes are very far from being all gains ; it some- 
 times rejects words as worthless, or suffers words 
 to die out, which were most worthy to have lived. 
 So far as it does this its life is not perfectly 
 healthy ; there are here signs, however remote, of 
 disorganization, decay, and ultimate death ; but 
 still it lives, and even these misgrowths and mal- 
 formations, the rejection of this good, the taking 
 up into itself of that ill, all these errors are them- 
 selves the utterances and evidences of life. A 
 dead language is the contrary of all this. It is 
 dead, because books, and not now any generation of 
 living men, are the guardians of it, and what 
 they guard, they guard without change. Its 
 course has been completely run, and it is now 
 equally incapable of gaining and of losing. We 
 may come to know it better : but in itself it is 
 not, and never can be, other than it was when 
 it ceased from the lips of men. • 
 
 Our own is, of course, a living language still. 
 It is therefore gaining and losing. It is a tree in 
 which the vital sap is circulating yet, ascending 
 from the roots into the branches; and as this 
 works, new leaves are continually being put forth 
 by it, old are dying and dropping away. I pro- 
 pose for the subject of mypresent lecture toconsider 
 some of the evidences of this life at work in it still. 
 As I took for the subject of my first lecture the 
 actual proportions in which the several elements of 
 
II.] LANGUAGE OF THE CONQUERED. 43 
 
 our composite English are now found in it^ and the 
 service which they were severally called on to per- 
 form, so I shall consider in this the sources 
 from which the English language has enriched its 
 vocabulary, the periods at which it has made the 
 chief additions to this, the character of the addi- 
 tions which at different periods it has made, and 
 the motives which induced it to seek them. 
 
 I had occasion to mention in that lecture, and 
 indeed I dwelt with some emphasis on the fact, 
 that the core, the radical constitution of our lan- 
 guage, is Anglo-Saxon; so that, composite or 
 mingled as it must freely be allowed to be, it is 
 only such in respect to words, not in respect of con- 
 struction, inflexions, or generally its grammatical 
 forms. These are all of one piece ; and whatever 
 of new has come in has been compelled to conform 
 itself to these. The framework is English ; only 
 a part of the filling in is otherwise ; and of this 
 filling in, of these its comparatively more recent 
 accessions, I now propose to speak. 
 
 The first great augmentation by foreign words 
 of our Saxon vocabulary, setting aside those which 
 the Danes brought us, was a consequence, although 
 not an immediate one, of the battle of Hastings, and 
 of the Norman domination which Duke William's 
 victory established in our land. And here let me 
 say in respect of that victory, in contradiction to 
 the sentimental regrets of Thierry and others, and 
 with the fullest acknowledgment of the immediate 
 miseries which it entailed on the Saxon race, that 
 it was really the makmg of England ; a jud^^ment, 
 it is true, but a judgment and mercy in one. 
 
44 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [leCT. 
 
 God never showed more plainly that He had great 
 things in store for the people which should occupy 
 this English soil, than when He brought hither 
 that aspiring Norman race. At the same time 
 the actual interpenetration of our Anglo-Saxon 
 with any large amount of French words did not 
 find place till very considerably later than this 
 event, however it was a consequence of it. Some 
 French words we find very soon after ; but in the 
 main the two streams of language continued for a 
 long while separate and apart, even as the two 
 nations remained aloof, a conquering and a con- 
 quered, and neither forgetting the fact. 
 
 Time however softened the mutual antipathies. 
 The Norman, after a while shut out from France, 
 began more and more to feel that England was his 
 home and sphere. The Saxon, recovering little by 
 little from the extreme depression which had 
 ensued on his defeat, became every day a more 
 important element of the new English nation which 
 was gradually forming from the coalition of the 
 two races. His language partook of his elevation. 
 It was no longer the badge of inferiority. French 
 was no longer the only language in which a gentle- 
 man could speak, or a poet sing. At the same 
 time the Saxon, now passing into the English 
 language, required a vast addition to its vocabulary, 
 if it were to serve all the needs of those who were 
 willing to employ it now. How much was there of 
 high culture, how many of the arts of life, of its 
 refined pleasures, which had been strange to Saxon 
 men, and had therefore found no utterance in 
 
II.] INFLrENCE OF CHAUCER. 45 
 
 Saxon words. All this it was sought to supply 
 from the French. 
 
 We shall not err, T think, if we assume the great 
 period of the incoming of French words into the 
 English language to have been when the Norman 
 nobility were exchanging their own language for 
 the English ; and I should be disposed with 
 Tyrwhitt to believe that there is much exaggera- 
 tion in attributing the large influx of these 
 into English to one man's influence, namely to 
 Chaucer's.* Doubtless he did much ; he fell in 
 with and furthered a tendency which already pre- 
 vailed. But to suppose that the majority of 
 French vocables which he employed in his poems 
 had never been employed before, had been hitherto 
 unfamiliar to English ears, is to suppose that his 
 poems must have presented to his contemporaries 
 an absurd patchwork of two languages, and leaves 
 it impossible to explain how he should at once 
 have become the popular poet of our nation. 
 
 That Chaucer largely developed the language in 
 this direction is indeed plain. We have only to 
 compare his English with that of another great 
 master of the tongue, his contemporary Wiclif, to 
 
 * Thus Alexander Gil, head-master of St. Paul's school, in 
 his book, LogonomiaAnglica, 1621, Preface: Hue usque pere- 
 grinse voces in lingua Anglica inauditse. Tandem circa annum 
 1400 Galfridus Chaucerus, infausto omine, vocabulis Gallicis 
 et Latinis poesin suam famosam reddidit. The whole pas- 
 sage, which is too long to quote, as indeed the whole book, is 
 curious. Gil was an earnest advocate of phonetic spelling, 
 and has adopted it in all his English quotations in this book. 
 
46 GAINS or THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [leCT. 
 
 perceive how much more his diction is saturated 
 with French words than is that of the Reformer. 
 We may note too that many which he and 
 others employed, and as it were proposed for ad- 
 mission, were not finally allowed and neceived ; so 
 that no doubt they went beyond the needs of the 
 language, and were here in excess.* At the same 
 time this can be regarded as no condemnation of 
 their attempt. It was only by actual experience 
 that it could be proved whether the language 
 wanted those words or not^ whether it could absorb 
 them into itself, and assimilate them with all that 
 it already was and had ; or did not require^, and 
 would therefore in due time reject and put them 
 away. And what happened then will happen in 
 every attempt to transplant on a large scale the 
 words of one language into another. Some will 
 take root ; others will not, but after a longer or 
 briefer period will wither and die. Thus I observe 
 in Chaucer such French words as these, * miseri- 
 corde,^ 'malure^ (malheur), 'penible/ ^ aye? (aieul), 
 ' tas/ ' gipon,^ ' pierrie^ (precious stones) ; none of 
 
 * We may observe exactly the same in Plautus ; a mul- 
 titude of Greek words are used by him, which the Latin lan- 
 guage did not want, and therelbre refused to take up ; thus 
 
 * clepta,' 'zamia' {^rjfxLa), 'danista,' 'harpagare,' 'apolactizare,' 
 
 * nauclerus,' ' strategus,' ' niorologus,' * phylaca,' ' malacus,* 
 
 * sycophantia,' * euscheme' {evaxw^s)^ ' dulice' {8ov\iK(bs), [so 
 
 * scymnus' by Lucretius], none of which, I believe, are em- 
 ployed except by him; ' mastigias' and ' techna' appear also 
 in Terence, Yet only experience could show that they were 
 superfluous ; and at the epoch of Latin literature in which 
 Plautus lived, it was well done to put them on trial. 
 
II.] INFLUENCE OF CHAUCER. 47 
 
 which, and Wiclif ^s ' creansur' (2 Kings iv. 1) as 
 little, have permanently won a place in our tongue. 
 For a long time ' mel/ used often by Sylvester, 
 struggled hard for a place in the language side by 
 side with honey ; ^ roy' side by side with king ; 
 this last quite obtained one in Scotch. It is 
 curious to mark some of these French adoptions 
 keeping their ground to a comparatively late day, 
 and yet finally extruded : seeming to have taken 
 firm root, they have yet withered away in the end. 
 Thus has it been, for example, with * egaP (Put- 
 tenham) ; with ^ ouvert,^ ' mot/ ' ecurie,' ^ baston/ 
 ' gite^ (Holland); with ^rivage,^ ^ jouissance,^ 
 '^ noblesse,^ ^ tort' (= wrong), ' accoir (accueillir), 
 ^ seir (= saddle), all occurring in Spenser; with 
 *■ to serr' (serrer), ^ vive,' ' reglement,' used all by 
 Bacon ; and so with ' esperance,' ' orgillous' 
 (orgueilleux), ' rondeur,' ' scrimer' (= fencer), all 
 in Shakespeare ; with ' amort' (this also in Shake- 
 speare), and * avie' (Holland). ' Maugre/ 'congie,' 
 ' devoir,' ^dimes,' ^sans,' and ' bruit' used often in our 
 Bible, were English once; when we employ them 
 now, it is with the sense that we are using foreign 
 words. The same is true of ^ dulce,' ' aigredoulce' 
 = soursweet), of ' mur' for wall, of ^ baine' for 
 bath, of the verb 'to cass' (all in Holland), of 
 volupty' (Sir Thomas Elyot), ' volunty' (Evelyn), 
 medisance' (Montagu), ' petit' (South), ' aveugle,' 
 colliue' (both in State Papers), and ' eloign' 
 (Hacket).* 
 
 * Let me here observe once for all that in adding the 
 name of an author, which I shall often do, to a word, I do 
 
48 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 We have seeu when the great influx of French 
 words took place — that is, from the time of the 
 Conquest, although scantily and feebly at the first, 
 to that of Chaucer. But with him our literature 
 and language had made a burst, which they were 
 not able to maintain. He has by Warton been 
 well compared to some warm bright day in the 
 very early spring, which seems to say that the 
 winter is over and gone ; but its promise is deceit- 
 ful ; the full bursting and blossoming of the spring- 
 time are yet far off. That struggle with France 
 which began so gloriously, but ended so disas- 
 trously, even with the loss of our whole ill-won 
 dominion there, the savagery of our wars of the 
 Roses, wars which were a legacy bequeathed to us 
 by that unrighteous conquest, leave a huge gap in 
 our literary history, nearly a century during which 
 very little was done for the cultivation of our 
 native tongue, during which it could have made 
 few important accessions to its wealth. 
 
 The period however is notable as being that 
 during which for the first time we received a large 
 accession of Latin words. There was indeed 
 already a small settlement of these, for the most 
 part ecclesiastical, which had long since found their 
 home in the bosom of the Anglo-Saxon itself, and 
 had been entirely incorporated into it. The fact 
 that we had received our Christianity from Rome, 
 
 not mean to affirm the word in any way peculiar to him ; 
 althouf^h in some cases it may be so ; but only to give one 
 authority for its use. 
 
II.] LATIN IMPORTATION. 49 
 
 and that Latin was the constant language of the 
 Church, sufficieutly explains the incoming of these. 
 Such were ' monk/ ' bishop/ (I put tliera in their 
 present shapes, and do not concern myself whether 
 they were originally Greek or no ; they reached us 
 as Latin); ^ provost/ ' minster/ ' cloister/ ' candle/ 
 ' psalter/ ' mass/ and the names of certain foreign 
 animals, as ' camel/ or plants or other productions, 
 as ' pepper/ ^ fig / which are all, with slightly dif- 
 ferent orthography, Anglo-Saxon words. Tliese, 
 however, were entirely exceptional, and stood to 
 the main body of the language not as the Romance 
 element of it does now -to the Gothic, one power 
 over against another, but as the Spanish or Italian 
 or Arabic words in it now stand to the whole pre- 
 sent body of the language — and could not be 
 affirmed to affect it more. 
 
 So soon however as French words were imported 
 largely, as I have just observed, into the language, 
 and were found to coalesce kindly with the native 
 growths, this very speedily suggested, as indeed it 
 alone rendered possible, the going straight to the 
 Latin, and drawing directly from it; and thus in 
 the hundred years which followed Chaucer a lai'ge 
 amount of Latin found its way, if not into our 
 speech, yet at all events into our books — words 
 which were not brought through the French, for 
 they are not, and have not at any time been, 
 French, but yet words which would never have 
 been introduced into English, if their way had not 
 been prepared, if the French already domesticated 
 among us, had not bridged over, as it were, the 
 
 E 
 
50 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 gulf, that would have otherwise been too wide 
 between them and the Saxon vocables of our 
 tongue. 
 
 In this period, a period of great depression of 
 the national spirit, we may trace the attempt at a 
 pedantic latinization of English quite as clearly at 
 work as at later periods, subsequent to the revival 
 of learning. It was now that a crop of such words 
 as ' facundious,' ' tenebrous,' ' solacious,' ' pulcri- 
 tude,' ' consuetude' (all these occur in Hawes), 
 with many more, long since rejected by the lan- 
 guage, sprung up ; while other words, good in 
 themselves, and which have been since allowed, 
 were yet employed in numbers quite out of pro- 
 portion with the Saxon vocables with which they 
 were mingled, and which they altogether over- 
 toi)ped and overshadowed. Chaucer's hearty Eng- 
 lish feeling, his thorough sympathy with the people, 
 the fact that, scholar as he was, he was yet the 
 poet not of books but of life, and drew his best 
 inspiration from life, all this had kept him, in the 
 main, clear of this fault. But in others it is very 
 manifest. Thus I must esteem the diction of 
 Lydgate, Hawes, and the other versifiers who 
 filled up the period between Chaucer and Surrey, 
 imnicnsely inferior to Chaucer's ; being all stuck 
 over with long and often ill selected Latin words. 
 The worst offenders in this line, as Campbell 
 himself admits, were the Scotch poets of the 
 fifteenth century. " The prevailing fault," he 
 says, " of English diction, in the fifteenth century, 
 is redundant ornament, and an aff'ectation of 
 
TI.] DRYDEN ON NEW WORDS. 51 
 
 anglicising Latin words. In this pedantry and 
 use of " aureate terms" the Scottish versifiers went 
 even beyond their brethren of the south. . . . 
 When they meant to be eloquent, they tore up 
 words from the Latin, which never took root in 
 the language, like children making a mock garden 
 with flowers and branches stuck in the ground, 
 which speedily wither.'^* 
 
 To few indeed is the wisdom and discretion 
 given, certainly it was given to none of those, to 
 bear themselves in this hazardous enterprise ac- 
 cording to the rules laid down by Dryden ; who 
 in the following admirable passage declares the 
 motives that induced him to seek for foreign 
 words, and the considerations that guided him in 
 their selection : " If sounding words are not of 
 our growth and manufacture, who shall hinder me 
 to import them from a foreign country ? I carry 
 not out the treasure of the nation which is never 
 to return, but what I bring from Italy I spend in 
 England. Here it remains and here it circulates, 
 for, if the coin be good, it will pass from one 
 hand to another. I trade both with the living 
 and the dead, for the enrichment of our native 
 language. We have enough in England to supply 
 our necessity, but if we will have things of mag- 
 nificence and splendour, we must get them by 
 commerce. Poetry requires adornment, and that 
 is not to be had from our old Teuton monosyl- 
 lables ; therefore if I find any elegant word in a 
 
 Essay on English Poetry, p. 93. 
 
52 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 classic author, I propose it to be naturalized by 
 using it myself; and if the public approves of it, 
 the bill passes. But every man cannot distinguish 
 betwixt pedantry and poetry : every man therefore 
 is not fit to innovate. U|)on the whole matter a 
 poet must first be certain that the word he would 
 introduce is beautiful in the Latin ; and is to con- 
 sider in the next place whether it will agree with 
 the English idiom : after this, he ought to take the 
 opinion of judicious friends, such as are learned in 
 both languages ; and lastly, since no man is in- 
 fallible, let him use this licence very sparingly ; 
 for if too many foreign words are poured in upon 
 us, it looks as if they were designed not to assist 
 the natives, but to conquer them.^'* 
 
 But this tendency to latinize our speech was 
 likely to receive, and actually did receive, a new 
 impulse from the revival of learning, and the 
 familiar re-acquaintance with the great master- 
 pieces of antient literature which went along with 
 this revival. Happily another movement accom- 
 panied, or at least followed hard on this ; a move- 
 ment in England essentially national ; and which 
 stirred our people at far deeper depths of their 
 moral and spiritual life than any mere revival of 
 learning could have ever done ; I refer, of course, 
 to the lleformation. It was only among the 
 Germanic nations of Europe, as has often been 
 remarked, that the Reformation struck lasting 
 roots; it found its strength therefore in the Teutonic 
 
 Dedication of the Translation of the ^neid. 
 
II.] TIMES OF RAPID CHANGE. 53 
 
 element of the national character, wliich also it in 
 its turn further strengthened, purified, and called 
 out. And thus, though Latin came in upon us 
 now faster than ever, and in a certain measure 
 also Greek, yet this was not without its redress 
 and counterpoise, in the cotemporaneous unfolding 
 of the more fundamentally popular side of the 
 language. Popular preaching and discussion, the 
 necessity of dealing with truths the most trans- 
 cendant in a way to be understood not by scholars 
 only, but by ' idiots^ as well, all this served to 
 evoke the native resources of our tongue ; and 
 thus the relative proportion between the one part 
 of the language and the other was not dangerously 
 disturbed, the balance was not destroyed ; as it 
 might well have been, if only the Humanists had 
 been at work, and not the Reformers as well. 
 
 The revival of learning, which made itself first 
 feltin Italy, extended toEngland, and was operative 
 here, during the reigns of Henry the Eighth and 
 his immediate successors. Having thus slightly 
 anticipated in time, it afterwards ran exactly 
 parallel with, the period during which our Refor- 
 mation was working itself out. The epoch was 
 in all respects one of immense mental and moral 
 activity, and such never leave the language of a 
 nation where they found it. Much is changed in 
 it ; much probably added ; for the old garment of 
 speech, which once served all needs, has grown too 
 narrow, and serves them now no more. '^Change 
 in language is not, as in many natural products, 
 continuous j it is not equable, but eminently by 
 
54 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 fits and starts f and when the foundations of the 
 national mind are heaving under the power of 
 some new truth, greater and more important 
 changes will find place in fifty years than in two 
 centuries of calmer or more stagnant existence. 
 Thus the activities and energies which the Refor- 
 mation awakened among us here, and I need not 
 tell you that these reached far beyond the domain 
 of our directly religious life, caused mighty alter- 
 ations in the English tongue.* 
 
 * We have notable evidence in some lines of Waller of the 
 sense which in his time scholars had of the rapidity with 
 which tlie language was changing under their hands. Look- 
 \VL% back at what the last hundred 3' ears had wrought of 
 alteration in it, and very naturally assuming that the next 
 hundred would effect as much, he checked with misgivings 
 such as these his own hope of immortality : 
 
 " Who can hope his lines should long 
 Last in a daily changing tongue .P 
 While they are new, envy prevails, 
 And as that dies, our language fails. 
 
 " Poets that lasting marble seek, 
 Must carve in Latin or in Greek : 
 We write in sand ; our language grows, 
 And like the tide our work o'erilows." 
 
 Such were his misgivings as to the future, assuming that 
 the rate of change would continue what it had been. How 
 little they have been fulfilled, every one knows. In actual 
 fact two centuries which have elapsed since he wrote, have 
 hard!}'' antiquated a word or a phrase in his poems. If we 
 care very little for them now, this is to be explained by quite 
 other causes — by the absence of all moral earnestness from 
 them. 
 
II.] TIMES OF EAPID CHANGE. 55 
 
 For example, the Reformation had its scholarly, 
 we might say, its scholastic, as well as its popular, 
 aspect. Add this fact to the fact of the revived 
 interest in classical learning, and you will not 
 wonder that a stream of Latin, now larger than 
 ever, began to flow into our language. Thus Put- 
 tenham, writing in Queen Elizabeth's reign,* gives 
 a long list of words which, as he declares, had been 
 quite recently introduced into the language. Some 
 of thera are Greek, a few French and Italian, but 
 very far the most are Latin. I will not give you 
 his whole catalogue, but some specimens from it ; 
 it is difficult to understand concerning some of 
 these, how the language should have managed to 
 do without them so long ; ^ method,^ ^ methodical,' 
 ' function,' ' numerous,' ^ penetrate,' ' penetrable,' 
 * indignity,' ' savage,' ' scientific,' ' delineation,' 
 ' dimension' — all which he notes to have recently 
 come up ; so too ' idiom,' ' significative,' ^ com- 
 pendious,' ' prolix,' ' figurative,' ' impression,' 
 ' inveigle,' ^ metrical.' All these he adduces with 
 praise ; others upon which he bestows equal com- 
 mendation have not held their ground, as ^ placa- 
 tion,' * numerosity,' ' harmonical.' Of those 
 neologies which he disallowed, he only anticipated 
 in some cases, as in ' facundity,' ' implete,' ' at- 
 temptat' [' attentat'), the decision of a later day ; 
 other words which he condemned no less, as 
 
 * In his Art of English Poesy, London, 1589, republished 
 in Haslewood's Ancient Critical Essays upon English Poets 
 and Poesy, London, 1811, vol. i. pp. 122, 123. 
 
56 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 ' andaciou?/ ' compatible/ ' egregious/ have main- 
 tained their ground. These too have done the 
 same ; ' despicable/ ' destruction/ ' homicide/ 
 ' obsequious/ ' ponderous/ ' portentous/ ^ pro- 
 digious/ all of them by another writer a little 
 earlier condemned as " inkhorn terms, smellins: too 
 much of the Latin. ^^ 
 
 It is curious to observe the " words of art/* as 
 he calls them, which Philemon Holland, a volu- 
 minous translator at the end of the sixteenth and 
 beginning of the seventeenth century, counts it 
 needful to explain in a sort of glossary which he 
 appends to his translation of Pliny's Natural 
 History.^ One can hardly at the present day 
 understand how any person who would care to 
 consult the book at all would find any difficulty 
 with words like the following, 'acrimony,' 'austere,' 
 ' bulb,' ' consolidate,' ' debility/ ' dose/ ' ingre- 
 dient/ 'opiate,' ^propitious/ 'symptom,' all which, 
 however, as novelties he carefully explains. Some 
 
 * London, 1601. Besides this work Holland translated 
 the whole of Plutarch's Moralia,t\\Q Cyropoedia ofXenophon, 
 Livy, Suetonius, Ammianus Marcellinus, and Camden's Bri- 
 tannia. His works make a part of the " librarj'- of dullness" 
 ill Pope's Dunciad: 
 
 " De Lyra there a dreadful front extends, 
 And here the groaning shelves Philemon hends" — 
 very unjustly; the authors whom he has translated are all 
 more or less important, and his versions of them a mine of 
 genuine idiomatic English, neglected by most of our lexico- 
 graphers, wrought to a considerable extent and with eminent 
 advantage by Richardson ; yet capable, as it seems to me, of 
 yielding much more than thoy hitherto have yielded. 
 
II.J TRENCH NEOLOGIES. 57 
 
 of the words in his glossary, it is true, are harder 
 and more technical than these ; but a vast propor- 
 tion of them present no greater difficulty than those 
 which I have adduced.* 
 
 * And so too in French it is surprising to find of bow late 
 introduction are many words, which it seems as if the lan- 
 guage could never have done without. * D6sinteressement,' 
 * exactitude,' * sagacite,' * bravonre,' were not introduced till 
 late in the seventeenth century. ' Renaissance,' ' emporte- 
 ment,' ' s9avoir-faire,' ' ind61ebile,' ' desagrement' were all 
 recent in 1675 (Bouhours) ; ' indevot,' ' intolerance,' ' impar- 
 dounable,' ' irr6ligieux,' were struggling into allowance at 
 the end of the seventeenth century, and were not established 
 till the beginning of the eighteenth. * Insidieux' was invented 
 by Malherbe ; ' frivolite' does not appear in the earlier edi- 
 tions of the Dictionary of the Academy ; the Abbe de St. 
 Pierre was the first to employ ' bienfaisance,' the elder Balzac 
 ' feliciter,' Sarrasin ' burlesque.' Mad. de Sevigne exclaims 
 against her daughter for employing ' effervescence' in a letter 
 (comment dites-vous cela, ma fille? Voila un mot dont je 
 n'avais jamais ou'i parler). ' Demagogue' was first hazarded 
 by Bossuet, and was counted so bold a novelty that it was 
 long before any ventured to follow him in its use. Somewhat 
 earlier Montaigne had introduced 'diversion' and 'enfantil- 
 lage,' though not without being rebuked by cotemporaries 
 on the score of the last. Desfontaines was the first who em- 
 ployed ' suicide;' Caron gave to the language ' avant-propos,' 
 Ronsard ' avidit6,' Joachim Dubellay ' patrie,' Denis Sau- 
 vage 'jurisconsulte,' Menage ' gracieux' (at least so Voltaire 
 afiirms) and ' prosateur,' Desportes * pudeur,' Chapelain ' ur- 
 banite,' and Etienne first brought in, apologizing at the same 
 time for the boldness of it, ' analogie,' (si les oreilles fran- 
 Qoises peuvent porter ce mot.) Preliber' (praelibare) is a word 
 of our own day ; and it was Charles Nodier who, if he did not 
 coin, yet revived the obsolete ' simplesse.' — See Genin, Varia- 
 tiojis du Langage Fran^ais, pp. 308 — 319. 
 
.^8 GAINS or THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 The period during which this naturalization of 
 Latin words in the English Language was going 
 actively forward, may be said to have continued 
 till about the Restoration of Charles the Second. 
 It first received a check from the coming up of 
 French tastes, fashions, and habits of thought 
 consequent on that event. The writers already 
 formed before that period, such as Cudworth and 
 Barrow, still continued to write their stately sen- 
 tences, Latin in structure, and Latin in diction, 
 but not so those of a younger generation. We 
 may say of this influx of Latin that it left the 
 language vastly more copious, with greatly en- 
 larged capabilities, but perhaps somewhat burdened, 
 and not always able to move gracefully under the 
 weight of its new acquisitions ; for as Dryden has 
 somewhere truly saifl, it is easy enough to acquire 
 foreign words, but to know what to do with them 
 after you have acquired, is the difficulty. 
 
 It might have received indeed most serious 
 injury, if" all the words which the great writers of 
 this second Latin period of our language employed, 
 and so proposed as candidates for admission into 
 it, had received the stamp of popular allowance. 
 But happily it was not so ; it was here, as it had 
 been before with the French importations, and 
 with the earlier Latin of Lydgate and Occleve. 
 The re-active powers of the language, enabling it 
 to throw off that which was foreign to it, did not 
 fail to display themselves now, as they had done 
 on former occasions. The number of unsuccessful 
 candidates for admission into, and permanent natu- 
 
II.] PEDANTIC WORDS. 59 
 
 ralizatioa in, the language during this period, is 
 enormous ; and one may say tliat in almost all 
 instances where the Alien Act has been enforced, 
 the sentence of exclusion was a just one ; it was 
 such as the circumstances of the case abundantly 
 bore out. Either the word was not idiomatic, or 
 was not intelligible, or was not needed, or looked 
 ill, or sounded ill, or some other valid reason 
 existed against it. A lover of his native tongue 
 will tremble to think what that tongue would have 
 become, if all the vocables from the Latin and the 
 Greek which were then introduced or endorsed 
 by illustrious names, had been admitted on the 
 strength of their recommendation ; if ' torve^ and 
 ' tetric' (Fuller), ' cecity' (Hooker), ' fastide' and 
 ' trutinate' [State Papers), 'immanity' (Shake- 
 speare), 'insulse' and ' insulsity' (Milton, prose), 
 ' scelestick' (Feltham), ' splendidious' (Drayton), 
 ' pervicacy' (Baxter), * stramineous,' ^ ardelion' 
 (Burton), ' lepid' and ' sufflaminate' (Barrow), 
 ' facinorous' (Donne), ^ immorigerous,' ^ clancular,' 
 ' ferity,' ' ustulation,' ' stultiloquy,' ' lipothymy' 
 {XenroQii/jLia), ' hyperaspist' (all in Jeremy Taylor), 
 if ' mulierosity,' ^subsannation,' ^coaxation,' 'ludi- 
 bundness/ ' delinition,' ' septemfluous,' ' medi- 
 oxumous,' ' mirificent,' ' palmiferous' (all in Henry 
 More), ^pauciloquy' and ' multiloquy' (Beaumont, 
 Psyche) ; if ' dyscolous' (Foxe), ' ataraxy' (AUes- 
 tree), ' moliminously' (Cud worth), ' luciferously' 
 (Sir Thomas Browne), ' immarcescible' (Bishop 
 Hall), ' exility,' ' spinosity,' ' incolumity,' ' soler- 
 tiousness,' ' lucripetous,' ' inopious/ ' eluctate/ 
 
60 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 ' eximious' (all in Racket), ' ari-ide^ (ridiculed by- 
 Ben Jonson), uith the linndreds of other M'ords 
 like these, and even more monstrous than are 
 some of these, not to speak of such Italian as 
 ' leggiadrous^ (a favourite word in Beaumont's 
 Psyche), ^ amorevolous' (Hacket), had not been 
 rejected and disallowed by the true instinct of the 
 national mind. 
 
 A great many too icere allowed and adopted, 
 but not exactly in the shape in which they first 
 were introduced among us ; they were made to 
 drop their foreign termination, or otherwise their 
 foreign appearance, to conform themselves to 
 English ways, and only so were finally incorporated 
 into the great family of English words.* Thus of 
 Greek words we have the following : * pyramis' 
 and ' pyramides,' forms often employed by Shake- 
 speare, became ^pyramid' and ^pyramids/ ^ dosis' 
 (Bacon) ' dose ;' ' distichon' (Holland) ' distich ;'' 
 ' hemistichion' (North) ^ hemistich -/ ' apoga^on' 
 (Fairfax) and '^ apogeum' (Browne) ^apogee/ 
 ' sumphonia' (Lodge) 'symphony;' 'prototypon' 
 (Jackson) 'prototype/ * synonymon' (Jeremy- 
 Taylor) or ' synonymum' (Hacket), and ' syno- 
 nyma' (Milton, prose), became severally ' syno- 
 nym' and ' synonyms ;' ' syntaxis' (Fuller) became 
 'syntax;' ' extasis' (Burton) 'ecstasy;' 'parallelo- 
 grammon' (Holland) 'parallelogram;' 'programma' 
 
 * J. Grimm {Worterbuch, p. xxvi.) : Fallt von unj^efahr 
 ein freirides wort in den brunnen einer sprache, so wird es so 
 lan<;e darin umgetrieben, l»is es ihre I'arbe annimmt, und 
 seiner frcuidcn art zuni trotze wie ein heiniisches aussielit. 
 
II.] NATURALIZATION OF WORDS. 61 
 
 (Warton)' program i' 'epitheton'(Cowell) 'epithet;' 
 ' epocha' (South) ' epoch / ' biographia' (Dryden) 
 ' biography ;' ' apostata' (Massiiiger) ' apostate ;' 
 ' despota' (Fox) * despot / ' misanthropos' (Shake- 
 speare) if ' misanthropi^ (Bacon) ' misanthrope / 
 ' psalterion' (North) ' psaltery -' ' chasma' (Henry 
 More) ' chasm / ' idioma' and ' prosodia' (both in 
 Daniel, prose) ' idiom^ and ' prusody f ' energia/ 
 ' energy/ and ' Sibylla/ ' Sibyl' (both in Sidney) ; 
 ' zoophyton' (Henry More) ' zoophyte / ' enthousi- 
 asmos' (Sylvester) ' enthusiasm / ' phantasma' 
 (Donne) ' phantasm / ' magnes' (Gabriel Harvey) 
 * magnet / ' cynosura' (Donne) ' cynosure / ' gal- 
 axias' (Fox) ' galaxy / ' heros' (Henry More) 
 ' hero / ' epitaphy' (Hawes) ' epitaph.' 
 
 The same process has gone on in a multitude of 
 Latin words, which testify by their terminations 
 that they were, and were felt to be, Latin at their 
 first employment; though now they are such no 
 longer. Thus Bacon uses generally, I know not 
 whether always, ' insecta' for ' insects / and ' chy- 
 lus' for 'chyle/ Bisliop Andrews ' nardus' for 
 ' nard / Spenser ' zephyrus,' and not ' zephyr / so 
 ' interstitium' (Fuller) preceded ' interstice / 
 ' philtrum' (Culver well) ' philtre / ' expansum' 
 (Jeremy Taylor) 'expanse/ 'preludium' (Beaumont, 
 Psyche), ' prelude -,' ' precipitium' (Coryat) ' pre- 
 cipice ;' 'aconitum' (Shakespeare) 'aconite;' 
 ' balsamum' (Webster) ' balsam / ' heliotropium' 
 (Holland) ' heliotrope ;' ' helleborum ' (North) 
 ' hellebore / ' vehiculum' (Howe) ' vehicle / ' tro- 
 chseus' and ' spondseus' (Holland) ' trochee' and 
 
62 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 ' spondee ;* and ' macliina' (Henry More) 
 ' machine.' We have ' intervalla/ not ' intervals/ 
 in Chillingworth ; ' postulata/ not ' postulates/ 
 in Swift; 'archiva/ not 'archives/ in Baxter; 
 ' demagogi/ not ' demagogues/ in Hacket ; ' ves- 
 . tigium/ not ' vestige/ in Culverwell ; ' panto- 
 mimus^ in Lord Bacon for 'pantomime/ ' mysta- 
 gogus' for ' mystagogue/ in Jackson ; * atomi' in 
 Lord Brooke for 'atoms / ' aedilis' (North) went 
 before 'aedile;' 'effigies' and 'statua' (bothin Shake- 
 speare) before ' effigy ' and ' statue ;' ' abyssus' 
 (Jackson) before ' abyss ;' ' vestibulum' (Howe) 
 before ' vestibule;' ' symbolum' (Hammond) before 
 ' symbol ;' ' spectrum' (Burton) before ' spectre / 
 while only after a while ' qusere' gave place to 
 ' query ;' ' audite' (Hacket) to ' audit ;' ' plaudite' 
 (Henry More) to ' plaudit ;' and the low Latin 
 ' mummia' (Webster) became ' mummy.' The 
 widely extended change of such words as ' inuo- 
 cency/ ' indolency/ ' temperancy/ and the large 
 family of words with the same termination^ into 
 ' innocence/ ' indolence/ ' temperance/ and the 
 like, can only be regarded as part of the same 
 process of entire naturalization. 
 
 The plural very often tells the secret of a word, 
 and of the light in which it is regarded by those 
 who employ it, when the singular, being less 
 capable of modification, would have failed to 
 do so ; thus when Holland writes ' phalanges,' 
 ' bisontes/ ' idese,' it is clear that ' phalanx/ 
 'bison/ 'idea,' were still Greek words for him; 
 as ' dogma' was for Hammond, when he made its 
 
II.] NATURALIZATION OF WORDS. 63 
 
 plural not ' dogmas/ but ' dogmata /* and when 
 Spenser uses ' heroes^ as a trisyllable, it plainly is 
 not yet thoroughly English for him.f ^ Cento' 
 is not English, but a Latin word used in English, 
 so long as it makes its plural not ' centos/ but 
 ^ centones/ as in the old anonymous translation of 
 Augustin's City of God ; and * specimen/ while it 
 makes its plural 'specimina' (Howe). Pope making, 
 as he does, ' satellites' a quadrisyllable in the line 
 *' Why Jove's satellites are less than Jove," 
 
 must have felt that he was still dealing with it 
 as Latin; just as 'terminus/ a word which the 
 necessities of railways have introduced among us, 
 will not be truly naturalized till we use ' termi- 
 nuses/ and not ' termini' for its plural ; nor ' phe- 
 nomenon/ till we have renounced ' phenomena.' 
 Sometimes it has been found convenient to retain 
 both plurals, that formed according to the laws of 
 the classical language, and that formed according 
 to the laws of our own, only employing them in 
 different senses ; thus is it with ' indices' and ^ in- 
 dexes/ ' genii' and ' geniuses.' 
 
 The same process has gone on with words from 
 other languages, as from the Italian and the 
 
 * Have we here an explanation of the ' battalia' of Jeremy 
 Taylor and others? Did they, without reflecting on the 
 matter, regard ' battalion' as a word with a G-reek neuter 
 termination P It is difficult to think they should have done 
 so; yet more difficult to suggest any other explanation. 
 
 f " And old heroes, which their world did daunt." 
 
 Sonnet on Scanderheg. 
 
6-1 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUxVGE. [lect. 
 
 Spanish ; thus ^ baiidetto' (Shakespeare), ' bandito' 
 (Jeremy Taylor), becomes ^bandit/ ^ ruffiano' 
 (Coryat) ' ruffian / ' concerto/ ' concert ; ' busto' 
 (Lord Chesterfield) ' bust / ' caricatura ^ (Sir 
 Thomas Browne) ' caricature;^ ' princessa^ (Racket) 
 ^ princess ;' ' scaramucha^ (Dryden) ' scaramouch •' 
 'pedanteria' (Sidney) 'pedantry/ ' impresa^ 'im- 
 press / ' caprichio^ (Shakespeare) becomes first 
 ' caprich' (Butier), then ' caprice / ' duello' (Shake- 
 speare) ' duel/ ' alligarta' (Ben Jonson)' alligator / 
 * parroquito' (Webster) ' parroquet / ' scalada' 
 (Heylin) or ' escalado' (Holland) ' escalade/ 'gra- 
 nada' (Hacket) ' grenade / ' parada' (J. Taylor) 
 ' parade / ' emboscado' (Holland) ' stoccado/ ' bar- 
 ricado/ ' renegado/ 'hurricano' (all in Shake- 
 speare)/ brocado' (Hackluyt), 'palissado' (Howell), 
 drop their foreign terminations, and severally 
 become ' ambuscade,' ' stockade/ ' barricade,' 
 ' renegade,' ' hurricane,' ' brocade,' ' palisade / 
 ' croisado' in like manner (Bacon) becomes first 
 ' croisade' (Jortin), and then ' crusade / ' quina- 
 quina' or ' quinquina,' ' quinine.' Other slight 
 modifications of spelling, not in the termination, 
 but in the body of a word, will indicate in hke 
 manner its more entire incorporation into the 
 English language. Thus ' shash/ a Turkish word, 
 becomes ' sash / ' colone' (Burton) ' clown / re- 
 storation' was at first spelt ' rest«//ration / and 
 so long as ' vicinage' was spelt ' voisinage'* (Sau- 
 
 * Skinner [Etymologicon, 1G71) protests auainst the word 
 alto<,rether, as purely French, and having uo right to be con- 
 bidored Enirli.sh at all. 
 
II.] NATURALIZATION OF WORDS. 65 
 
 derson), ' mirror^ ^ miroir^ (Fuller), ' recoiP ' re- 
 cule/ or ' career^ ' carriere^ (both by Holland), 
 they could scarcely be considered those purely 
 English words which now they are.* 
 
 Here and there even at this comparatively late 
 period of the language awkward foreign words will 
 be recast in a more thoroughly English mould ; 
 ' chirurgeon^ will become ' surgeon / ' hemor- 
 rhoid' ' emerod / ^ squinancy' will become first 
 ' squinzey' (Jeremy Taylor), and then ^ quinsey / 
 ^porkpisce' (Spenser), that is sea-hog, or more 
 accurately hogfish, will be ' porpesse/ and then 
 'porpoise/ as it is now. In other words the 
 attempt will be made, but it will be now too late 
 to be attended with success. ' Physiognomy' w ill 
 not give place to ^ visnomy,' however Spenser and 
 Shakespeare employ this briefer form ; nor ' hip- 
 popotamus' to ^ hippodame,' even at Spenser^s 
 bidding. In like manner the attempt to natu- 
 ralize ' avant-courier' in the shape of ' vancurrier' 
 lias failed. Other words also we meet which have 
 finally refused to take a more popular form, 
 although such was once more or less current ; or, 
 if this is too much to say of all, yet hazarded by 
 good authors. Thus Holland wrote ' cirque/ but 
 we ^ circus / ' cense,' but we ^ census / ' inter- 
 reign/ but we ' interregnum / Sylvester ' cest/ 
 
 * It is curious how effectually the nationahty of a word 
 may by these slight alterations in spelUng be disguised. I 
 have met an excellent French and English scholar, to whom 
 it was quite a surprise to learn that ' redingote' was ' riding- 
 coat.' 
 
 F 
 
66 gai:ns of the English language, [lect. 
 
 but we *cestus;' ^ quirry/ but we ^equerry/ 
 ' colosse/ but we still ' colossus •/ Golding ' ure/ 
 but we ^ urus ;' ' metropole/ but we ' metropolis f 
 Dampier ' volcan/ but this has not superseded 
 * volcano -/ nor * pagod^ (Pope) ' pagoda ;' nor 
 ' skelet' (Holland) ' skeleton -/ nor * stimule' 
 (Stubbs) ^ stimulus/ Bolingbroke wrote ' exode/ 
 but we hold fast to ^ exodus f Burton ' funge/ 
 but we ' fungus -/ Henry More ' enigm/ but we 
 ' enigma ;' ' analyse/ but we ' analysis/ ' Super- 
 fice' (Dryden) has not put ' superficies/ nor ' sa- 
 crary' (Hacket) ' sacrarium/ nor ' limbeck^ ^ alem- 
 bic/ out of use. Chaucer's ^ potecary' has given 
 way to a more Greek formation ' apothecary/ 
 Yet these and the like must be regarded quite as 
 exceptions ; the tendency of things is altogether 
 the other way. 
 
 Looking at this process of the reception of 
 foreign words, with their after assimilation in 
 feature to our own, we may trace, as was to be 
 expected, a certain conformity between the genius 
 of our institutions and that of our language. It 
 is the very character of our institutions to repel 
 none, but rather to afford a shelter and a refuge 
 to all, from whatever quarter they come ; and after 
 a longer or shorter while all the strangers and 
 incomers have been incorporated into the English 
 nation, within one or two generations have for- 
 gotten that they were ever ought else than mem- 
 bers of it, have retained no other reminiscence of 
 their foreign extraction than some slight difference 
 of name, and that often disappearing or having 
 
II.] FRENCH AT THE RESTORATION. 67 
 
 disappeared. Exactly so has it been with the 
 English language. No language has shown itself 
 less exclusive ; none has stood less upon niceties ; 
 none has thrown open its arms wider, with a fuller 
 confidence, a confidence justified by experience, 
 that it could make truly its own, assimilate and 
 subdue to itself, whatever it received into its 
 bosom ; and in none has this experiment in a 
 larger number of instances been successfully carried 
 out. 
 
 Such are the two great enlargements from 
 without of our vocabulary. All other are minor 
 and subordinate. Thus the introduction of French 
 tastes by Charles the Second and his courtiers 
 returning from exile, to which I have just adverted, 
 though it rather modified the structure of our 
 sentences than the materials of our vocabulary, gave 
 us some new words. In one of Dryden's plays, 
 Marriage a la Mode, a lady full of affectation is 
 introduced, who is always employing French idioms 
 in preference to English, French words rather 
 than native. It is not a little curious that of 
 these, thus put into her mouth to render her 
 ridiculous, not a few are excellent English now, 
 and have nothing far- sought or affected about 
 them : for so it frequently proves that what is 
 laughed at in the beginning, is by all admitted 
 and allowed at the last. For example, to speak 
 of a person being in the ' good graces^ of another 
 has nothing in it ridiculous now ; the words 
 ' repartee,^ ^ embarrass,^ ^ chagrin,^ ' grimace,' do 
 f2 
 
68 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 not sound novel and affected now as they all must 
 plainly have done at the time when Drvden wrote. 
 ' Fougue^ and ' fraischeur/ which he himself em- 
 ployed — being it is true, no frequent offender in 
 this way — have not been justified by the same 
 success. 
 
 Nor indeed can it be said that this adoption 
 and naturalization of foreign words ever ceases in 
 a language. There are periods, as we have seen, 
 ■when this goes forward much more largely than 
 at others; when a language throws open, as it 
 were, its doors, and welcomes strangers with an 
 especial freedom ; but there is never a time, when 
 one by one these foreigners and strangers are not 
 slipping into it. We do not for the most part 
 observe the fact, at least not while it is actually 
 doing. Time, the greatest of all innovators, 
 manages bis innovations so dexterously, spreads 
 them over such vast periods, and therefore brings 
 them about so gradually, that often, while effecting 
 the mightiest changes, we have no suspicion that 
 he is effecting any at all. Thus how imper- 
 ceptible are the steps by which a foreign word is 
 admitted into the full rights of an English one; 
 the process of its incoming often eluding our notice 
 altogether. There are numerous Greek words, 
 for example, which, quite unchanged in form. 
 Lave in one way or another ended in finding a 
 home and acceptance among us. We may in 
 almost every instance trace step by step the natu- 
 ralization of one of these; and the manner of 
 this singularly confirms what has just been said. 
 
II.] NATURALIZATION OF WORDS. 69 
 
 We can note it spelt for a while in Greek letters, 
 and avowedly employed as a Greek and not an 
 English vocable ; then after it had thus obtained 
 a certain allowance among us, and become not 
 altogether unfamiliar, we note it exchanging its 
 Greek for English letters, and finally obtaining 
 recognition as a word which, however drawn from 
 a foreign source, is yet itself English. Thus 
 ' acme,' ' apotheosis,' ' criterion,' ' chrysalis,' ' en- 
 cyclopedia,' ' metropolis,' ' opthalmia,' ' pathos,' 
 ' phenomena,' are all now English words, while 
 yet South with many others always wrote aKfxy], 
 Jeremy Taylor airoQitiiGiq and KpiTiipiov, Henry 
 More ^pvaaXig, Ben Jonson speaks of ' the know- 
 ledge of the liberal arts, which the Greeks call 
 ey/cvicXoTra^f/aV,* Culverwell wrote fxriTpoiroXiq 
 and o(l)OaX/uLia, Preston, (jtaivuiJLeva — Sylvester 
 ascribes to Baxter, not ' pathos,' but TraOoQ.f 
 HOog is a word at the present moment preparing 
 for a like passage from Greek characters to Eng- 
 lish, and certainly before long will be acknow- 
 ledged as an English word. The only cause 
 which has hindered this for some time past is the 
 misgiving whether it will not be read ^ ethos,' 
 
 * He is not indeed perfectly accurate in this statement, for 
 the Greeks spoke of iv KixXa Traibeia and eyKixXLos naibeia, 
 but had no such composite word as eyKv^XoTratSeia. We 
 gather however from these expressions, as from Lord Bacon's 
 using the term 'circle-learning' (=' orbis doctrine,' Quin- 
 tilian), that ' encyclopaedia' did not exist in their time. 
 
 f See the passages quoted in my paper, On some Defi- 
 ciencies in our English Dictionaries, p. 38, 
 
70 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [leCT. 
 
 and not ' ethos/ and thus not be the word in- 
 tended. 
 
 Let us trace a like process in some French 
 word^ which is at this moment becoming EngUsh. 
 I know no better example than the French ' pres- 
 tige' will afford. 'Prestige' has manifestly no 
 equivalent in our own language ; it expresses some- 
 thing which no single word in English, which only 
 a long circumlocution, could express ; namely, that 
 magic influence on others, which past successes, 
 as the pledge and promise of future ones, breed. 
 The word has thus naturally come to be of very 
 frequent use by good English writers ; for they do 
 not feel that in employing it they are passing by 
 as good or a better word of their own. At first 
 all used it avowedly as French, writing it in 
 italics to indicate this. At the present moment 
 some write it so still, some do not ; some, that is, 
 regard it still as foreign, others consider that it 
 has now become Enghsh, and obtained a settle- 
 ment among us.* Little by little the number of 
 those who write it in italics will become fewer 
 and fewer, till they cease altogether. It will then 
 only need that the accent should be shifted, in 
 obedience to the tendencies of the English lan- 
 
 * We may see the same progress in Greek words which 
 were being incorporated in the Latin. Thus Cicero writes 
 avTiTToSe? {Acad. ii. 39, 123), but Seneca {Ujj. 122), ' anti- 
 podes ;' that is, the word tor Cicero was still Greek, while in 
 the period that elapsed between him and Seneca, it had be- 
 come Latin : so too Cicero wrote eiScoXoi/, the Younger Pliny 
 * idolou,' and TertuUiau ' idolum.* 
 
II.] SHIFTING OF ACCENTS. 71 
 
 guage, as far back in the word as it will go, that 
 instead of ^ prestige/ it should be pronounced 
 ' prestige^ even as within these few years instead 
 of ' depot^ we have learned to say ' depot/ and its 
 naturalization will be complete. I have little doubt 
 that in twenty years it will be so pronounced by 
 the majority of well educated Englishmen, — some 
 pronounce it so already, — and that our present 
 pronunciation will pass away in the same manner 
 as ' obleege/ once universal, has past away, and 
 everywhere given place to ' oblige.^* 
 
 Let me here observe in passing, that the pro- 
 cess of throwing the accent of a word back, by 
 way of completing its naturalization, is one which 
 we may note constantly going forward in our 
 language. Thus, while Chaucer accentuates some- 
 times ^ nature,^ he also accentuates elsewhere 
 ' nature/ while sometimes ^ virtue/ at other times 
 ' virtue.' ' Prostrate' ' adverse/ ' aspect, ' process/ 
 ' insult/ ' impulse,' ' pretext,' ' contrite,' ' uproar/ 
 ' contest,' had all their accent on the last syllable 
 in Milton ; they have it now on the first ; ' cha- 
 racter' was * character* with Spenser ; * theatre' 
 was ' theatre' with Sylvester ; while ' academy' 
 was accented ' academy' by Cowley and Butler.f 
 ' Essay' was ' essay' with Dryden and with Pope ; 
 
 * See in Coleridge's Table Talk, p. 3, the amusing story 
 of John Kemble's stately correction of the Prince of Wales 
 for adhering to the earlier pronunciation, ' obleege, — " It will 
 become your royal mouth better to say obh'ge." 
 
 ■\ " In this great academy of mankind." 
 
 Butler, To the Memory of Du Tal. 
 
72 GAINS OF THE EXGIJSH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 the first closes an heroic line \^ith the word ; 
 Pope does the same with ' barrier^* and ' effort ;' 
 therefore pronounced ' barrier/ ' effort/ by him. 
 
 There are not a few other French words which 
 like * prestige^ are at this moment Iiovering on the 
 verge of English, hardly knowing whether they 
 shall become such, or no. Such are ' ennui/ 
 ^ exploitation/ ' verve/ ' persiflage/ ' badinage/ 
 ^ chicane/ ' finesse/ and others ; all of them often 
 employed by us, — and it is out of such frequent 
 employment that adoption proceeds, — because ex- 
 pressing shades of meaning not expressed by any 
 words of our own. Some of these, we may con- 
 fidently anticipate, will complete their naturaliza- 
 tion ; others will after a time retreat again, and 
 become for us avowedly French. ^ Solidarity,' a 
 word which we owe to the French Communists, 
 and which signifies a fellowship in gain and loss, 
 in honour and dishonour, in victory and defeat, a 
 being, so to speak, all in the same bottom, is so 
 convenient that, unattractive as confessedly it is, 
 it will be in vain to struggle against its reception. 
 The newspapers already have it, and books will 
 not long exclude it ; not to say that it has esta- 
 blished itself in German, and probably in other 
 European languages as well. 
 
 Greek and Latin words also we still continue to 
 adopt, although now no longer in troops and com- 
 panies, but only one by one. "With the lively 
 interest which alwavs has been felt in classical 
 
 " 'Twixt that aiul reason what a nice harrier." 
 
II.] GREEK IN ENGLISH. 73 
 
 studies among us, and which will continue to be 
 felt, so long as any greatness and nobleness sur- 
 vive in our land, it must needs be that accessions 
 from these quarters would never cease altogether. 
 I do not refer here to purely scientific terms ; 
 these, so long as they continue such, and do not 
 pass beyond the threshold of the science or sciences 
 for the use of which they were invented, being 
 never heard on the lips, or employed in the 
 writings, of any but the cultivators of these 
 sciences, have no right to be properly called 
 words at all. They are a kind of shorthand of 
 the science, or algebraic notation ; and will not 
 find place in a dictionary of the language, con- 
 structed upon true principles, but rather in a 
 technical dictionary apart by themselves. Of 
 these, compelled by the advances of physical 
 science, we have coined multitudes out of number 
 in these later times, fashioning them mainly from 
 the Greek, no other language within our reach 
 yielding itself at all so easily to our needs. 
 
 Of non- scientific words, both Greek and Latin, 
 some have made their way among us quite in 
 these latter times. Burke in the House of Com- 
 mons is said to have been the first who employed 
 the word ' inimical.^ He also launched the verb 
 ^ to spheterize^ in the sense of to appropriate or 
 make one's own ; but this without success. Others 
 have been more fortunate ; ' sesthetic^ we have 
 got indeed through the Germans, but froyn the 
 Greeks. Tennyson has given allowance to ' seon / 
 and ' myth' is a deposit which wide and far- reach- 
 
74 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [leCT. 
 
 ing controversies have left in the popular language. 
 ' Photography^ is an example of what I was just 
 now speaking of — namely, a scientific word which 
 has travelled beyond the hmits of the science 
 which it designates, and which gave it birth. 
 ' Stereotype^ is another word of the same charac- 
 ter. It was invented — not the thing, but the 
 word^ — by Didot not very long since ; but it is 
 now absorbed into healthy general circulation^ 
 being current in a secondary and figurative sense. 
 Buskin has given to ' ornamentation^ the sanction 
 and authority of hisname. * NormaF and ' ab- 
 normal ;^ not quite so new, are yet of recent in- 
 troduction into the language. 
 
 When we consider the near affinity between 
 the English and German languages, which, if not 
 sisters, may at least be regarded as first cousins, 
 it is somewhat remarkable that almost since the 
 day when they parted company, each to fulfil its 
 own destiny, there has been little further com- 
 merce between them in the matter of giving or 
 taking. At any rate adoptions on our j^art 
 from the German have been till within this period 
 extremely rare. ' Crikesman^ (Kriegsmann) and 
 'brandschaf (Brandschatz), with some other Ger- 
 man words common enough in the State Papers of 
 the sixteenth century, found no permanent place 
 in the language. The explanation lies in the 
 fact that the literary activity of Germany did 
 not begin till very late, nor our interest in it till 
 later still, not indeed till the beginning of the 
 present century. Yet ' plunder,' as I have men- 
 
II.] GERMAN IMPORTATIONS. 75 
 
 tioned elsewhere, was brought back from Germany 
 about the beginning of our Civil Wars, by the 
 soldiers who had served under Gustavus Adolphus 
 and his captains. And ' trigger/ written ' tricker^ 
 in Hudibras is manifestly the German ' driicker/ 
 though none of our Dictionaries have marked it 
 as such ; a word first appearing at the same period, 
 it may have reached us through the same channel. 
 ' Iceberg^ (eisberg) also we must have taken whole 
 from the German, as, had we constructed the word 
 for ourselves, we should have made it not ^ ice- 
 berg,' but ' ice-mountain.^ T have not found it in 
 our earlier voyagers, often as they speak of the 
 ^ icefield,' which yet is not exactly the same thing. 
 An English ' swindler' is not exactly a German 
 ' sch windier,' yet the notion of the ' nebulo/ 
 though more latent in the German, is common to 
 both ; and we must have drawn the word from 
 Germany (it is not an old one in our tongue) 
 during the course of the last century. If ^ life- 
 guard' was originally, as Richardson suggests, 
 ' /eiZ>-garde,' or ^ Z'Of/^-guard,' and from that trans- 
 formed, by the determination of Englishmen to 
 make it significant in English, into ' /«/e-guard,' 
 or guard defending the life of the sovereign, this 
 will be another word from the sareie quarter. Yet 
 I have my doubts ; * leibgarde' would scarcely 
 have found its way hither before the accession of 
 the House of Hanover, or at any rate before the 
 arrival of Dutch William with his memorable 
 guards ; while ^ lifeguard,' in its present shape, is 
 certainly an older word in the language ; we hear 
 
76 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 often of the ' lifeguards' in our Civil Wars ; as wit- 
 ness too Fuller's words : " The Cherethites were a 
 kind of lifegard to king David."* 
 
 Of late our German importations have been 
 somewhat more numerous. With several German 
 compound words we have been in recent times so 
 well pleased, that we must needs adopt them into 
 English, or imitate them in it. We have not 
 always been very happy in those which we have 
 selected for imitation or adoption. Thus we might 
 have been satisfied with ' manual/ and not called 
 back from its nine hundred years of oblivion that 
 ugly and unnecessary word ^ handbook.' And 
 now we are threatened with ' word-building,' as I 
 see a book announced under the title of " Latin 
 word-building,'' and, much worse than this, with 
 * stand -point.' ^ Einseitig' (itself a modern word, 
 if I mistake not, or at any rate modern in its 
 secondary application) has not, indeed, been 
 adopted, but is evidently the pattern on v»'hich we 
 have formed ' onesided' — a word to which a few 
 years ago something of affectation was attached ; 
 so that any one who employed it at once gave 
 evidence that he w^as more or less a dealer in 
 German wares ; it has however its manifest con- 
 veniences, and will hold its ground. ' Fatherland' 
 (Vaterland) on the contrary will scarcely establish 
 itself among us, the note of affectation will con- 
 tinue to cleave to it, and we shall go on contented 
 with ' native country' to the end. The most suc- 
 
 * Fisgah Sight of Palestine, 1650, p. 217. 
 
II.] COMPOUNDED WORDS. 77 
 
 cessfal of these compounded words, borrowed 
 recently from the German, is ' folk-lore/ and the 
 substitution of this for popular superstitions, must 
 be esteemed, I think, an unquestionable gain. 
 
 To speak now of other sources from which the 
 nQvf words of a language are derived. Of course 
 the period when absolutely new roots are gene- 
 rated will have past away, long before men begin 
 by a reflective act to take any notice of processes 
 going forward in the language which they speak. 
 This pure productive energy, creative we might 
 call it, belongs only to the earlier stages of a 
 nation^s existerice, — to times quite out of the ken 
 of history. It is only from materials already 
 existing either in its own bosom, or in the bosom 
 of other languages, that it can enrich itself in the 
 later, or historical stages of its life. 
 
 And first, it can bring its own words into new 
 combinations; it can join two, and sometimes 
 even more than two, of the words which it already 
 has, and form out of them a new one. Much 
 more is wanted here than merely to attach two 
 or more words to one another by a hyphen ; this 
 is not to make a new word : they must really 
 coalesce and grow together. Different languages, 
 and even the same language at different stages of 
 its existence, will possess this power of forming 
 new words by the combination of old in very 
 different degrees. The eminent felicity of the 
 Greek in this respect has been always acknowledged. 
 " The joints of her compounded words," says 
 
78 GAINS or THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [leCT. 
 
 Fuller, " are so naturally oiled, that they run 
 nimbly on the tongue, which makes them though 
 long, never tedious, because significant."* Sir 
 Philip Sidney boasts of the capability of our 
 English language in this respect — that " it is par- 
 ticularly happy in the composition of two or three 
 
 * Holy State, b. 2, c. 6. There was a time when the 
 Latin promised to display, if not an equal, yet not a very 
 inferior, freedom in this forming of new words by the happy 
 marriage of old. But in this, as in so many respects, it 
 seemed possessed at the period of its highest culture with a 
 timidity, which caused it voluntarily to abdicate many of its 
 own powers. Where do we find in the Augustan period of 
 the language so grand a pair of epithets as these, occurring as 
 they do in a single line of Catullus : Ubi cerva silvicultrix, 
 ubi aper nemorivagus ? or again, as his ' fluentisonus ?' 
 Yirgil's vitisator [JEn. 7, 179) is not his own, but derived 
 from one of the earlier poets. Nay, the language did not 
 even retain those compound epithets which it once had 
 formed, but was content to let numbers of them drop : ' par- 
 cipromus,' ' turpilucricupidus,' and many more, do not ex- 
 tend beyond Plautus. On this matter Quhitilian observes 
 (i. 5. 70) : Res tota magis Graecos decet, nobis minus suc- 
 cedit ; nee id fieri natura puto, sed alienis faveums ; ideoque 
 cum Kvpravx^va mirati sumus, incurvicervicum vix a risu 
 defendimus. Elsewhere he complains, though not with re- 
 ference to compound epithets, of the little generative power 
 which existed in the Latin language, that its continual losses 
 were compensated by no equivalent gains (viii. 6. 32) : Deinde, 
 tanquam consummata sint omnia, nihil generare audemus ipsi, 
 quum multa quotidie ab antiquis ficta moriantur. Notwith- 
 standing this complaint, it must be owned that the silver 
 age of the language, which sought to recover, and did recover 
 to some extent the abdicated energies of its earlier times, re- 
 asserted among other powers that of combining words, with 
 a certain measure of success. 
 
II.] COMPOUNDED WORDS. 79 
 
 words together, near equal to the Greek/' No 
 one has done more than Milton to justify this 
 praise, or to make manifest what may be effected 
 by this marriage of words. Many of his compound 
 epithets, as ' golden- tressed/ ' tinsel-slippered,' 
 ' coral-paven,' ' flowry-kirtled,' ^ violet-embroi- 
 dered/ Vermeil- tinctured,' are themselves poems 
 in miniature. Not unworthy to be set beside 
 these are Sylvester's '* opal-coloured morn," Dray- 
 ton's " silver-sanded shore," and perhaps Mar- 
 lowe's " golden-fingered Ind." 
 
 Our modern inventions in the same kind are for 
 the most part very inferior : they could hardly fail 
 to be so, seeing that the formative, plastic powers 
 of a language are always waning and diminishing 
 more and more. It may be, and indeed is, gaining 
 in other respects, but in this it is losing ; and thus 
 it is not strange if its later births in this kind are 
 less successful than its earlier. Among the poets 
 of our own time Shelley has done more than any 
 other to assert for the language that it has not 
 quite renounced this power ; while among writers 
 of prose in these later days Jeremy Bentham has 
 been at once one of the boldest, but at the same 
 time one of the most unfortunate, of those who 
 have issued this money from their mint. Still 
 we ought not to forget, while we divert ourselves 
 with the strange and formless progeny of his brain, 
 that we owe ^international' to him — a word at 
 once so convenient and supplying so real a need, 
 that it was and with manifest advantage at once 
 adopted by all. 
 
80 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 Auotlier way in which languages increase their 
 stock of vocables is by the forming of new words 
 according to the analogy of formations, which in 
 seemingly parallel cases have been already allowed. 
 Thus long since upon certain substantives such as 
 * congregation/ ' convention/ were formed their 
 adjectives, * congregational/ ' conventional / yet 
 these also at a comparatively modern period; ' con- 
 gregational first rising up in the Assembly of 
 Divines, or during the time of the Commonwealth.* 
 These having found admission into the language, 
 it is attempted to repeat the process in the case of 
 other words with the same ending. I confess the 
 effect is often exceedingly disagreeable. We are 
 now pretty well used to ' educational,' and the 
 word is sometimes serviceable enough ; but I can 
 perfectly remember when some twenty years ago 
 an " Educational Magazine" was started, the first 
 impression on one's mind was, that a work having 
 to do with education should not thus bear upon 
 its front an offensive, or to say the best, a very 
 dubious novelty in the English language. These 
 adjectives are now^ multiplying fast. We have 
 ' inflexional/ ' seasonal,' * denominational/ and, 
 not content with this, in dissenting magazines at 
 least, the monstrous birth, ^ denominationalism ;' 
 * emotional' is creeping into books, ' sensational,' 
 and others as well ; so that it is hard to say where 
 this influx will stop, or whether all our words with 
 
 * Collection of Scarce Tracts, edited by Sir W. Scott, 
 vol. vii. p. 91. 
 
TI.] HISTORY or THE WORD ' STARVATION.' 81 
 
 this termination will not finally generate an adjec- 
 tive. Convenient as you may sometimes find these, 
 I would yet certainly counsel you to abstain from 
 all but the perfectly well recognised formations of 
 this kind. There may be cases of exception ; but 
 for the most part Pope's advice is good, as cer- 
 tainly it is safe, that we be not among the last to 
 use a word which is going out, nor among the 
 first to employ one that is coming in. 
 
 ' Starvation' is another word of comparatively 
 recent introduction, formed in like manner on the 
 model of preceding formations of an apparently 
 similar character — its first formers, indeed, not 
 observing that they were putting a Latin termina- 
 tion to a Saxon word. Some have supposed it to 
 have reached us from America. It has not how- 
 ever travelled from so great a distance, being a 
 stranger indeed, yet not from beyond the Atlantic, 
 but only from beyond the Tweed. It is an old 
 Scottish word, but unknown in England, till used 
 by Mr. Dundas, the first Viscount Melville, in an 
 American debate in 1775. That it then jarred 
 strangely on English ears is evident from the nick- 
 name, '' Starvation Dundas,-" which in consequence 
 he obtained.* 
 
 Again, languages enrich themselves, our own has 
 done so, by recovering treasures which for a while 
 
 * See Letters of Horace Walpole and Mann, vol. ii. 
 p. 396, quoted in Notes and Queries, No. 225 ; and another 
 proof of the novelty of the word in Pegge's Anecdotes of the 
 English Language, 1814, p. 38. 
 
82 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 had been lost by them or foregone. I do not mean 
 that all which drops out of use is loss ; there are 
 ^^ ords which it is gain to be rid of; which it would 
 be folly to wish to revive ; of w hich Dryden, setting 
 himself against an extravagant zeal in this direc- 
 tion, says in an ungracious comparison — they do 
 " not deserve this redemption, any more than the 
 crowds of men who daily die, or are slain for six- 
 pence in a battle, merit to be restored to life, if a 
 wish could revive them.^^* There are others, 
 however, which it is a real gain to draw back 
 again from the temporary oblivion which had over- 
 taken them ; and this process of their setting and 
 rising again, or of what, to use another image, we 
 might call their suspended animation, is not so 
 unfrequent as at first might be supposed. 
 
 You may perhaps remember that Horace, tracing 
 in a few memorable lines the history of words, 
 while he notes that many once current have now 
 dropped out of use, does not therefore count that 
 of necessity their race is for ever run ; on the 
 contrary he confidently anticipates a palhif/enesy 
 for many among them ;t and I am convinced that 
 there has been such in the case of our English 
 w ords to a far greater extent than we are generally 
 aware. Words slip almost or quite as impercep- 
 tibly back into use as they once slipped out of it. 
 Let me produce a few facts in evidence of this. In 
 
 * Postscript to his Translation of the JEneid. 
 f Multa renasccntur, qua? jam cecidere. 
 
 Be A. P. IG— 72j cl". j&>. 2. 2. 115. 
 
II.] WORDS COME BACK ITs^TO USE. 83 
 
 the coterai^orary gloss which an anonymous friend 
 of Spenser's furnished to his Shepherd's Calendar, 
 first published in 1579, " for the exposition of 
 old words," as he declares, lie thinks it expedient 
 to include in his list, the following, ' dapper,' 
 ' scathe,' * askance/ ' sere,' ' embellish,' ' bevy/ 
 ' forestall/ ' fain/ with not a few others quite as 
 familiar as these. In Speght's Chaucer (1667), 
 there is a long list of " old and obscure words in 
 Chaucer explained/' these" old and obscure words" 
 including ' anthem/ ' blithe,' ' bland,' ' chapelet,' 
 * carol, ' deluge,' ' franchise/ ' illusion/ ' problem,' 
 ' recreant,' 'sphere/ 'tissue,' ' transcend/ with very 
 many easier than these. In Skinner's Etymologi- 
 con (1671), there is another such list of obsolete 
 words,* and among these he includes ' to dovetail,' 
 ' to interlace,' ' elvish,' ' encombred,' ' phantom' 
 (fantome), ' gawd/ ' glare/ ' masquerade' (mas- 
 carade), ' oriental,' ' plumage,' ' pummel' (pomell), 
 and ' stew/ that is, for fish. Who will say of 
 the verb * to hallow' that it is now even obsoles- 
 cent ? and yet Wallis two hundred years ago 
 observed — "it has almost gone out of use" (fere 
 desuevit). It would be difficult to find an ex- 
 ample of the verb, ' to advocate/ between Milton 
 and Burke. Franklin, a close observer in such 
 matters, as he was himself an admirable master 
 of English style, considered the word to have 
 
 * Etymologicon vocum omnium antiquarum quce usque 
 a Wilhelmo Victore invaluerunt, et jam ante 'parentum 
 cetatem in usu esse desiet'unt. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 GAINS OV THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [leCT. 
 
 sprung up during his own residence in Europe. 
 In this indeed he was mistaken ; it had only 
 during this period revived. Johnson says of 
 'jeopardy' that it is a'' word not now in use;" 
 which certainly is not any longer true.* 
 
 I am persuaded that in facility of being under- 
 stood, Chaucer is not merely as near, but much 
 nearer, to us than Dryden and his cotemporaries 
 felt him to be to them. He and the writers of his 
 time make exactly the same sort of complaints, 
 only in still stronger language, about his archaic 
 ])hraseology and the obscurities which it involves, 
 that are made at the present day. Thus in the 
 Preface to his Tales from Chaucer, having quoted 
 some not very difficult lines from the earlier poet 
 whom he was modernizing, he proceeds : " You 
 have here a specimen of Chaucer's language, which 
 is so obsolete that his sense is scarce to be under- 
 stood." Nor was it merely thus with respect of 
 Chaucer. These wits and poets of the Court of 
 Charles the Second were conscious of a greater 
 gulf between themselves and the Elizabethan sera, 
 separated from them by little more than fifty 
 years, than any of which we are aware, separated 
 
 * In like manner La Bruyere, in his Caracieres, c. 14, 
 laments the extinction of a large number of French words 
 which he names. At least half of these have now free course 
 in the language, as ' valeureux,' Miaineux,' 'peineux,' ' fruc- 
 tueux,' ' mensonger,' ' coutumier,' ' vantard,' ' courtois,' 'jo- 
 vial,' ' fetoyer,' ' larmoyer,' ' verdoyer.' Two or three of these 
 may be rarely used, but every one would be found in a dic- 
 tionary of the living language. 
 
II.] NUGGET, INGOT. 
 
 85 
 
 from it by nearly two centuries more. I do not 
 mean merely that tbey felt themselves more re- 
 moved from its tone and spirit ; their altered cir- 
 cumstances might explain this ; but I am convinced 
 that they found a greater difficulty and strangeness 
 in the language of Spenser and Shakespeare than 
 we find now ; that it sounded in many ways more 
 uncouth, more old-fashioned, more abounding in 
 obsolete terms than it does in our ears at the pre- 
 sent. Only in this way can I explain the tone 
 in which they are accustomed to speak of these 
 worthies of the near past. I must again cite 
 Dryden, the truest representative of literary Eng- 
 land in its good and in its evil during the last 
 half of the seventeenth century. Of Spenser, 
 whose death was separated from his own birth by 
 little more than thirty years, he speaks as of one 
 belonging to quite a difiFerent epoch, counting it 
 much to say, "notwithstanding his obsolete lan- 
 guage, he is still intelligible.''* Nay, hear what 
 his judgment is of Shakespeare himself, so far as 
 language is concerned : " It must be allowed to 
 the present age that the tongue in general is 
 so much refined since Shakespeare's time, that 
 many of his words and more of his phrases are 
 scarce intelligible. And of those which we un- 
 derstand, some are ungraramatical, others coarse; 
 and his wdiole style is so pestered with figura- 
 tive expressions, that it is as affected as it is 
 obscure."t 
 
 * Preface to Juvenal. 
 f Preface to Troilus and Cressida. In justice to Diyclen, 
 
86 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 Sometimes a word will emerge anew from the 
 undercurrent of society, not indeed new, but yet 
 to most seeming as new, its very existence having 
 been altogether forgotten by the larger number of 
 those speaking the language ; although it must 
 have somewhere lived on upon the lips of men. 
 Thus, for instance, since the Californian and Aus- 
 tralian discoveries of gold we hear often of a 
 ' nugget' of gold ; being a lump of the pure metal ; 
 and there has been some discussion whether the 
 word has been born for the present necessity, or 
 whether it be a recent malformation of ' ingot.' 
 I am inclined to think that it is neither one nor 
 the other. T would not indeed affirm that it may 
 not be a popular recasting of ' ingot / but only 
 that it is not a recent one ; for ^ nugget' very 
 nearly in its present form, occurs in our elder 
 writers, being spelt ^ niggot' by them.* There 
 can be little doubt of the identity of ' niggot' and 
 ^ nugget ;' all the consonants, the stamina of a 
 word, being the same ; while this early form 
 ^ niggot' makes more plausible their suggestion 
 
 and lest it should be said that he had spoken poetic blas- 
 phemy, it ought not to be forgotten that * pestered' had not 
 in his time at all so offensive a sense as it would have now. 
 It meant no more than inconveniently crowded; thus Milton: 
 " Confined and pestered in this pinfold here." 
 
 * Thus in North's Flularch, p. 499 : "After the fire was 
 quenched, they found in nicjgots of gold and silver mingled 
 together, about a thousand talents ;" and again, p. 323 : 
 " There was brought a marvellous great mass of treasure in 
 oiifjgots of gold." The word has not found its way into our 
 dictionaries or glossaries. 
 
II.] PROPER NAMES BECOME WORDS. 87 
 
 that * nugget' is only ^ ingot' disguised, seeing that 
 there wants nothing but the very common trans- 
 position of the first two letters to bring that out 
 of this. 
 
 New words are often formed from the names 
 of persons, actual or mythical. Some one has ob- 
 served how interesthig would be a complete collec- 
 tion, or a collection approaching to completeness, 
 in any language of the names of persons which 
 have afterwards become names of things, from 
 ' nomina appellativa' have become ' nomina realia.' 
 Let me without confining myself to those of more 
 recent introduction endeavour to enumerate as 
 many as I can remember of the words which have 
 by this method been introduced into our language. 
 To begin with mythical antiquity — the Chimasra 
 has given us ^ chimerical,' Hermes ^ hermetic,' 
 Tantalus ^ to tantalize/ Hercules ' herculean,' 
 Proteus 'protean,' Vulcan Wolcano' and 'vol- 
 canic,' and Dsedalus ' dedal,' if this word may on 
 Spenser's and Shelley's authority be allowed. 
 Gordius, the Phrygian king who tied that famous 
 ' gordian' knot which Alexander cut, will supply 
 a natural transition from mythical to historical. 
 Here Mausolus, a king of Caria, has left us ' mau- 
 soleum,' Academus ' academy,' Epicurus ' epicure,' 
 Philip of Macedon a ' philippic,' being such a dis- 
 course as Demosthenes once launched against the 
 enemy of Greece, and Cicero ' cicerone.' Mithri- 
 dates, who had made himself poison-proof, gave us 
 the now forgotten word ' mithridate,' for antidote ; 
 as from Hippocrates we derived ' hipocras,' or 
 
88 GAINS or THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 'ypocras/ a word often occurring in our early 
 poets, being a wine supposed to be mingled after 
 Lis receipt. Gentius, a king of Illyria, gave his 
 name to the plant ' gentian/ having been, it is 
 said, the first to discover its virtues. A grammar 
 used to be called a ' donat^ or ' donet^ (Chaucer), 
 from Donatus, a famous grammarian. Lazarus, 
 perhaps an actual person, has given us ^ lazar^ and 
 * lazaretto / St. Veronica and the legend con- 
 nected with her name, a ' vernicle / being a napkin 
 with the Saviour^s face portrayed on it; Simon 
 Magus ' simony / Mahomet a ' mammet' or ' mau- 
 met,' meaning an idol ; and ' mammetry^ or 
 idolatry ; ' dunce' is from Duns Scotus ; while 
 there is a legend that the ' knot' or sandpiper is 
 named from Canute or Knute, with whom this 
 bird was a special favourite. To come to more 
 modern times, and not pausing at Ben Jonson's 
 ' chaucerisms,' Bishop HalPs ^ scoganisms,' from 
 Scogan, Edward the Fourth's jester, or his ' are- 
 tinismiS,' from an infamous writer, ' a poisonous 
 Italian ribald,' as Gabriel Harvey calls him, named 
 Aretine; these being probably not intended even 
 by their authors to endure; a Boman cobbler 
 named Pasquin has given us the ^ pasquil' or 
 'pasquinade;' 'patch' in the sense of fool, and 
 often so used by Shakespeare, was originally the 
 proper name of a favourite fool of Cardinal 
 Wolsey's ; Colonel Negus in Queen Anne's time 
 first mixed the beverage which goes by his name; 
 Lord Orrery was tlie first for whom an ' orrery' 
 was constructed ; and Lord Spencer first wore, or 
 
II.] PROPER NAMES BECOME AVORDS. 89 
 
 at least first brouglit into fashion, a * spencer/ 
 Dahl, a Swede, introduced the cultivation of the 
 ' dahlia/ and M. Tabinet, a Trench Protestant 
 refugee, the making of the stuff called ' tabinet' in 
 Dublin; in ' tram-rosid,' the second syllable of the 
 name of Ontram, the inventor, survives. The 
 ' tontine' was conceived by an Italian named 
 Tonti; and another Italian, Galvani, first noted 
 the phenomena of animal electricity or ' galvan- 
 ism / V7hile a third It alian, ' Volta/ gave a name 
 to the ' voltaic' battery. ^ Martinet,' ^ mackin- 
 tosh,' ' doyly,' ^ brougham/ ' to macadamize,' ' to 
 burke/ are all names of persons or formed from 
 persons, and then transferred to things, on the 
 score of some connexion existing between the one 
 and other.* 
 
 * Several of these we have in common with the French. 
 Of their own they have * sardanapalisme,' any piece of pro- 
 fuse luxury, from Sardanapalus ; while for 'lambiner,' to 
 dally or loiter over a task, they are indebted to Denis Lambin, 
 a worthy Greek scholar of the sixteenth century, whom his 
 adversaries accused of sluggish movement and wearisome dif- 
 fuseness in style. Every reader of Pascal's Provincial 
 Letters will remember Escobar, the great casuist among the 
 Jesuits, whose convenient subterfuges for the relaxation of 
 the moral law have there been made tamous. To the noto- 
 riety which he thus acquired, he owes his introduction into 
 the French language ; where ' escobarder' is used in the 
 sense of to equivocate, and ' escobarderie' of subterfuge or 
 equivocation. The name of an unpopular minister of finance, 
 M. de Silhouette, unpopular because he sougiit to cut down 
 unnecessary expenses in the state, was applied to whatever 
 was cheap, and, as was implied, undul v economical ; it has 
 survived in the black outline portrait which is now called a 
 
90 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 Again the names of popular characters in lite- 
 rature, such as have taken strong hold on the 
 national mind, give birth to a number of new words. 
 Thus from Homer we have ' mentor' for a monitor; 
 ' stentorian' for loud-voiced ; and inasmuch as with 
 all of Hector's nobleness there is a certain amount 
 of big talking about him, he has given us ' to 
 hector;'* while the medieval romances about the 
 siege of Troy ascribe to Pandarus that shameful 
 ministry out of which his name has past into the 
 words ' to pandar' and ^ pandarism.' ^ Rodomon- 
 tade' is from Kodomont, a blustering and boasting 
 hero of Boiardo, adopted by Ariosto; ^ thrasonical/ 
 from Thraso, the braggart of the Roman comedy. 
 Cervantes has given us ' quixotic ;' Swift ^ lilli- 
 putian ;' to Moliere the French language owes 
 ' tartuffe' and ' tartutferie.' ' Reynard' too, which 
 with us is a duplicate for fox, while in the French 
 ' renard' has quite excluded the older ' volpils,' wfis 
 originally not the name of a kind, but the proper 
 name of the fox-hero, the vulpine Ulysses, in that 
 famous beast-epic of the middle ages, Reineke 
 Fuchs ; the immense popularity of which we 
 gather from many evidences, from none more 
 clearly than from this. ' Chanticleer' is in like 
 manner the proper name of the cock, and ' Bruin' 
 
 'silhouette' (Sismondi, Histoire des Frangais, torn. xix. 
 pp. 04, 95.) In the ' mansarde' roof we have the name of 
 Mansart, the architect wlio introduced it. I need hardly 
 add ' ^nnllotine.' 
 
 * See Cul. iMure, Languaf/e and LUerature of Ancient 
 Greece, vol. i. p. 350. 
 
IT.] PROPER NAMES BECOME WORDS. 91 
 
 of the bear in the same poem.* These have not 
 made fortune to the same extent of actually putting 
 out in any language the names which before ex- 
 isted, but still have become quite familiar to us all. 
 We must not count as new words properly so 
 called, although they may delay us for a minute, 
 those comic words, most often comic combinations 
 formed at will, and sometimes of enormous length, 
 in which, as plays and displays of power, great 
 writers ancient and modern have delighted. These 
 for the most part are meant to do service for the 
 moment, and then to pass away. The inventors 
 of them had themselves no intention of fastening 
 them permanently on the language. Thus among 
 the Greeks Aristophanes coined fxEWoviKiaoj, to 
 loiter like Nicias, with allusion to the delays with 
 which this prudent commander sought to put off 
 the disastrous Sicilian expedition, with not a few 
 other familiar to every scholar. The humour of 
 them sometimes consists in their enormous length, 
 as in the a/i^tTrroXf^toTrr^Srifricrrparog of Eupolis ; 
 the (T7rtpiJ.ayopaioXEKi6oXayai>67roj\ig of Aristo- 
 phanes; sometimes in their mingled observance and 
 transgression of the laws of the language, as in the 
 *oculissimus^ of Plautus, acomic superlative of ^ocu- 
 luo/ ^occisissimus' of ' occisus/ as in the ^dosones,' 
 ' dabones,^ which in Greek and in medieval Latin 
 were names given to those who were ever pro- 
 mising, ever saying " I will give," but never per- 
 
 * See Genin, Des Variations dit Lang age Fran^ais, 
 p. 12. 
 
92 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 forming their promise. Plautus witli liis exube- 
 rant wit, and exulting in his mastery and com- 
 mand of the Latin language, will compose four or 
 five lines consisting entirely of comic combina- 
 tions thrown off for the occasion.* Of the same 
 character is Butler's ^ cynarctomachy/ or battle of 
 a dog and bear. Nor do I suppose that Fuller, 
 when he used ' to avunculize,' to imitate or follow 
 in the steps of one^s uncle, or Cowper, when he 
 suggested ' extraforaneous^ for out of doors, in 
 the least intended them as lasting additions to the 
 language. 
 
 Sometimes a word springs up in a very curious 
 way ; here is one, not having, I suppose, any great 
 currency except among schoolboys ; yet being no 
 invention of theirs, but a genuine English word, 
 though of somewhat late birth in the language, I 
 mean ' to chouse.' It has a singular origin. The 
 word is, as I have mentioned already, a Turkish 
 one, and signifies interpreter.' Such an inter- 
 preter or ' chiaous' (written ' chaus' in Hackluyt, 
 ' chiaus' in Massinger), being attached to the 
 Turkish embassy in England, committed in the 
 year 1609 an enormous fraud on the Turkish and 
 Persian merchants resident in London. He suc- 
 ceeded in cheating them of a sum amounting to 
 
 * Persa, iv. 6, 20 — 23. At the same time tliese words 
 may be earnest enough ; such was the eXaxia-rorfpos of St. 
 Paul (Ephes. iii. 8) ; just as in the Middh; Ages some did 
 not account it sufficient to call themselves " fratres minores, 
 minimi, postremi," but coined ' postrcmissimi/ to express the 
 depth ol" their " voluntary humility," 
 
II.] DirFERENT SPELLING OF WORDS. 93 
 
 £4000 — a sum very mucli greater at that day 
 than at the present. From the vast dimensions of 
 the fraud, and th^ notoriety which attended it, 
 any one who cheated or defrauded was said ' to 
 chiaous,^ ^ chause/ or ' chouse / to do, that is, as 
 this ' chiaous^ had done.* 
 
 There is another very fruitful source of new 
 words in a language, or perhaps rather another 
 way in which it increases its vocabulary, for a 
 question might arise whether the words thus pro- 
 duced ought to be called new. I mean through 
 the splitting of single words into two or even more. 
 The impulse and suggestion to this is in general 
 first given by varieties in pronunciation, which 
 are presently represented by varieties in spelling ; 
 but the result very often is that what at first 
 were only precarious and arbitrary differences in 
 this, come in the end to be regarded as entirely 
 different words ; they detach themselves from one 
 another, not again to reunite ; just as accidental 
 varieties in fruits or flowers, produced at hazard, 
 have yet permanently separated off, and settled into 
 different kinds. They have each its own distinct 
 domain of meaning, as by general agreement as- 
 signed to itj dividing the inheritance between 
 
 * It is curious that a correspondent of Skinner {Etymolo- 
 gicoji, 1671), although quite ignorant of this stor}^ and indeed 
 wholly astray in his application, had suggested that 'chouse' 
 mio-ht be thus connected with the Turkish ' chiaus.' I believe 
 Gifford, in his edition of Ben Jonson, was the first to clear up 
 the matter. A passage in T/ie Alchemist (Act i. Sc. 1) will 
 have put him on the right track. 
 
94 GAINS or THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 them, which hitherto they held in common. No 
 one who has not had his attention called to this 
 matter, who has not watched and catalogued these 
 words as they have come under his notice, would 
 at all believe how numerous they are. 
 
 Sometimes as the accent is placed on one syl- 
 lable of a word or another, it comes to have diffe- 
 rent significations, and those so distinctly marked, 
 tliat the separation may be regarded as complete. 
 Examples of this are the following : ^ divers/ and 
 
 * diverse / ^conjure' and ' conjure / ' antic^ and 
 
 * antique / ^ hitman^ and ^ humane •' ' lirban^ and 
 ' urbane ;' * gentle^ and ' genteel / * custom' and 
 ' costume -' * essay' and ' assay / ' property' and 
 ' propriety.' Or again, a w^ord is pronounced with 
 a full sound of its syllables, or somewhat more 
 shortly : thus ' spirit' atid ' sprite ;' ' blossom' and 
 ' bloom ;' ^ courtesy' and ' curtsey ;' ' nourish' and 
 ' nurse ;' ^ personality' and * personalty ;' 'fantasy' 
 and ' fancy ;' * triumph' and ' trump' (the winning 
 card*) ; ' happily' and ' haply ;' ' waggon' and 
 ' wain ;' ' ordinance' and ' ordnance ;' ' shallop' 
 and ' sloop ;' ' brabble' and ' brawl / ' syrup' and 
 ' shrub ;' ' balsam' and ' balm ;' ' eremite' and 
 ' hermit;' 'nighest' and ' next ;' ' poesy' and 'posy;' 
 ' fragile' and ' frail ;' * achievement' and ' hatch- 
 ment ;' ' mancEuvre' and ' manure ;' — or with the 
 dropping of the first syllable: ' history' and 'story;' 
 
 * If there were any doubt about this matter, which in- 
 deed there is not, a reference to Latimer's famous Sermon on 
 Cards would abundantly remove it, where ' triumph' and 
 
 * trump' arc interchangeably used. 
 
II.] DirFERENT SPELLING OE WORDS. 95 
 
 'etiquette' and 'ticket/ 'escheat' and 'cheat/ 
 ' estate' and ' state ;' and, older probably than any 
 of these, ' other' and ' or ;' — or with a dropping 
 of the last syllable, as ' Britany' and Britain ;' 
 ' crony' and ' crone ;' — or without losing a syllable, 
 with more or less stress laid on the close : ' regi- 
 ment' and ' regimen ;' ' corpse' and ' corps ;' ' bite' 
 and ' bit ;' ' sire' and ' sir ;' ' land' or ' laund' and 
 ' lawn ;' ' suite' and ' suit ;' ' swinge' and ' swing ;' 
 ' gulph' and * gulp ;' ' launch' and ' lance;' ' wealth' 
 and ' weal ;' ' stripe' and ' strip ;' ' borne' and 
 ' born ;' ' clothes' and ' cloths j' — or a slight inter- 
 nal vowel cbange finds place, as between ' dent' 
 and ' dint ;' ' rant' and ' rent' (a ranting actor 
 tears or rends a passion to tatters) ; ' creak' and 
 ' croak ;' ' float' and ' fleet ;' ' sleek' and ' slick ;' 
 ' sheen' and ' shine ;' ' shriek' and * shrike ;' 
 ' pick' and ' peck ;' ' peak/ ' pique/ and ' pike / 
 ' weald' and ' wold / ' drip' and ' drop / ' wreathe' 
 and ' writhe / ' spear' and ' spire' (" the least 
 spiy^e of grass/' South) ; ' trist' and ' trust / 
 ' band/ ' bend' and ' bond / ' cope/ ' cape' and 
 ' cap / ' tip' and ' top / ' slent' (now obsolete) 
 and ' slant / ' sweep' and ' swoop / ' wrest' and 
 ' wrist / ' gad' (now surviving only in gadfly) and 
 'goad/ 'complement' and ' compliment/ 'fitch' and 
 ' vetch / ' spike' and ' spoke / ' tamper' and ' tem- 
 per / ' ragged' and ' rugged / ' gargle' and ' gur- 
 gle / ' snake' and ' sneak' (both crawl) ; ' deal' and 
 ' dole / ' giggle' and ' gaggle' (this last is now 
 commonly spelt ' cackle') ; ' sip/ ' sop/ ' soup' 
 and ' sup / ' clack/ ' click' and ' clock / ' tetchy' 
 
9G GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 and ' touchy ;' ' neat' and ' nett / ' stud' and 
 ' steed ;' ' then' and ' than ;'* ' grits' and ' grouts / 
 ^ spirt' and ' sprout ;' ' cure' and ' care ;' ' prune' 
 and ^ preen ;' ' mister' and ' master ;' ' allay' and 
 ' alloy ;' ' ghostly' and ' ghastly ;' ' person' and 
 'parson / ' cleft' and ' clift/ now written 'cliff;' 
 ' travel' and ' travail ;' ' truth' and ' troth ;' ' pen- 
 non' and ' pinion / ' quail' and ' quell ;' ' quell' 
 and ' kill ;' ' metal' and ' mettle ;' ' chagrin' and 
 ' shagreen ;' ' can' and ' ken ;' ' Francis' and 
 ' Frances ;'t ^ chivalry' and ' cavalry ;' ' oaf and 
 'elf;' 'lose' and '"^loose ;' 'taint' and 'tint.' 
 Sometimes the difference is mainly or entirely 
 in the initial consonants, as hetween ' phial' and 
 ' vial ;' ' pother' and ' bother ;' ' bursar' and ' pur- 
 ser ;' ' thrice' and ' trice ;' ' shatter' and ' scatter ;' 
 ' chattel' and ' cattle ;' ' chant' and ' cant ;' ' zea- 
 lous' and 'jealous;' 'channel' and 'kennel;' 
 ' wise' and ' guise ;' ' quay' and ' key ;' ' thrill,' 
 ' trill' and ' drill ;' — or in the consonants in the 
 middle of the word, as between ' cancer' and ' can- 
 ker ;' 'nipple' and 'nibble;' 'tittle' and 'title;' 
 ' price' and ' prize ;' ' consort' and ' concert ;' — or 
 there is a change in both, as between ' pipe' and 
 ' fife.' 
 
 * On these words see a learned discussion in English Re- 
 traced, Cambridge, 1862. 
 
 t The appropriating of * Frances' to women and * Franc/s' 
 to men is quite of modern introduction; it was formerly 
 nearly as often Sir Frances Drake as Sir Francis, while Fuller 
 {Holy State, b. iv. c. 1 i) speaks of Franc/5 Brandon, eldest 
 daughter of Charles ]>riindc)n, Duke of Suffolk ; and see ^jcw 
 Jonson's New Inn, Act. ii. Sc. i. 
 
Il.J DIFFERENT SPELLING OF WORDS. 97 
 
 Or a word is spelt now with a final k and now 
 with a final ch ; out of this variation two different 
 words have been formed ; with, it may be, other 
 slight differences superadded ; thus is it with 
 ' poke^ and ' poach ;' ' dyke' and ' ditch / ' stink' 
 and ' stench ;' ^ prick' and ^ pritch' (now obsolete) ; 
 ' break' and ' breach ;' to which may be added 
 ' broach ;' ^ lace' and ' latch ;' ' stick' and *" stitch ;' 
 Murk' and Murch;' Mmnk' and 'bench;' 'stark' 
 and * starch;' 'wake' and 'watch.' So too t and 
 d are easily exchanged ; as in ' clod' and ' clot ;' 
 * vend' and ' vent ;' ' brood' and ' brat ;' ' halt' and 
 ' hold ;' ' sad' and ' set ;' ' card' and ' chart ;' 
 ' medley' and ' motley.' Or there has grown up, 
 besides the rigorous and accurate pronunciation of 
 a word, a popular as well ; and this in the end has 
 formed itself into another word ; thus is it with 
 ' housewife' and ' hussey ;' ' hanaper' and 'hamper;' 
 ' puisne' and ' puny ;' ' patron' and ' pattern ;' 
 ' spital' (hospital) and ' spittle' (house of correc- 
 tion) ; ' accompt' and ' account ;' ' donjon' and 
 'dungeon;' 'nestle' and 'nuzzle' (now obsolete) ; 
 ' Egyptian' and ' gypsy ;' ' Bethlehem' and ' Bed- 
 lam ;' 'exemplar' and 'sampler;' 'dolphin' and 
 'dauphin;' 'iota' and 'jot.' 
 
 Other changes cannot perhaps be reduced ex- 
 actly under any of these heads ; as between ' ounce' 
 and ' inch ;' ' errant' and ' arrant ;' ' slack' and 
 ' slake ;' ' slow' and ' slough ;' ' bow' and ' bough ;' 
 'hew' and ' hough ;' ' dies' and ' dice' (both plurals 
 of 'die'); 'plunge' and 'flounce;' 'staff' and 
 ' stave ;' ' scull' and ' shoal ;' ' benefit' and ' bene- 
 
 H 
 
98 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [leCT. 
 
 fice/* Or^ it may be_, the difference which con- 
 stitutes the two forms of the word into two words 
 is in the spelling only^ and of a character to be 
 appreciable only by the eye, escaping altogether 
 the ear : thus is it with ' drafts and ' draught •/ 
 ' plain' and ' plane / ' coign' and ^ coin •/ ' flower' 
 and ' flour ;' ' check' and ' cheque ;' ' straight' and 
 ^ strait ;' * ton' and ' tun ;' ' road' and ' rode ;' 
 ' throw' and * throe ;' ' wrack' and ' rack ;' ' gait' 
 and ' gate ;' ' hoard' and ' horde ;' ' knoll' and 
 ' noil j' * chord' and ^ cord ;' ^ drachm' and ^ dram ;' 
 ' sergeant' and ' serjeant ;' 'mask' and ' masque;' 
 ' villain' and ' villein.' 
 
 * Were there need of proving that these both lie in 
 'beneficium,' which there is not, for in Wiclif's translation 
 of the Bible the distinction is still latent, (1 Tim. vi. 2,) 
 one might adduce a singularl}' characteristic little trait of 
 Papal policy, which once turned upon the double use of 
 this word. Pope Adrian the Fourth writing to the Emperor 
 Frederic the First to complain of certain conduct of his, 
 reminded the Emperor that he had placed the imperial 
 crown upon his head, and would willingly have conferred 
 even greater ' beneficia' upon him than this. Had the word 
 been allowed to pass, it would no doubt have been afterwards 
 appealed to as an admission on the Emperor's part, that he 
 held the Empire as a feud or fief (for ' beneficium' was then 
 the technical word for this, though the meaning has much 
 narrowed since) from the Pope — the very point in dispute 
 between them. The word was indignantly repelled by the 
 Emperor and the whole German nation, whereupon the 
 Pope appealed to the etymology, that * beneficium' was but 
 • bonum factum,' and protested that he meant no more than 
 to remind the Emperor of the ' benefits* which he had 
 done him, and which he would have willingly multiplied 
 still more. 
 
II.] WORDS IN TWO FORMS. 99 
 
 Now, if you will put the matter to proof, you 
 ■will find, I believe, in every case that there has 
 attached itself to the different forms of a word a 
 modification of meaning more or less sensible, that 
 each has won for itself an independent sphere of 
 meaning, in which it, and it only, moves. For 
 example, ' divers' implies difference only, but 
 
 * diverse' difference with opposition ; thus the 
 several Evangelists narrate the same event in 
 
 * divers' manner, but not in ' diverse.' ' Antique' 
 is ancient, but * antic' is now the ancient regarded 
 as overlived, out of date, and so in our days gro- 
 tesque, ridiculous ; and then, with a dropping of 
 the reference to age, the grotesque, the ridiculous 
 alone, ' Human' is what every man is, 'humane' 
 is what every man ought to be ; for Johnson's 
 suggestion that ' humane' is from the French 
 feminine, ' humaine,' and ' human' from the mas- 
 culine, cannot for an instant be admitted. ' In- 
 genious' expresses a mental, 'ingenuous' a moral, 
 excellence. A gardener ' prunes,' or trims his 
 trees, properly indeed his vines alone {^Yovigner)^ 
 birds ' preen' or trim their feathers. We ' allay' 
 wine with water; we * alloy' gold with platina. 
 ' Bloom' is a finer and more delicate efflorescence 
 even than ' blossom ;' thus the ' bloom,' but not 
 the ' blossom,' of the cheek. It is now always 
 ' clots' of blood and ' clods' of earth ; a ' float' of 
 timber, and a ' fleet' of ships ; men ' vend' wares, 
 and ' vent' complaints. A ' curtsey' is one, and 
 that merely an external, manifestation of ' cour- 
 tesy.' * Gambling' may be, as with a fearful irony 
 
 H 2 
 
100 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 it is called, pJay, but it is nearly as distant from 
 ' gambolling^ as hell is from heaven. Nor would 
 it be hard, in almost every pair or larger group of 
 words which I have adduced, as in others which 
 no doubt might be added to complete the list, to 
 trace a difference of meaning which has obtained 
 a more or less distinct recognition."^ 
 
 But my subject is inexhaustible ; it has no limits 
 except those, which indeed may be often narrow 
 enough, imposed by my own ignorance on the one 
 side ; and on the other, by the necessity of consult- 
 
 * The same happens in other languages. Thus in Greek 
 ' dvddefia and ' dvddrjfxa both si«fnify that which is devoted, 
 though in very different senses, to the gods ; * Odpaos,' bold- 
 ness, and * Opdaos,' temerity, were no more at first than 
 different spellings of the same word ; not otherwise is it with 
 yplnos and yp'i(f)os, edos and rjdos, ^pvKco and I3pv)(a) : while 
 olSeXos and o^oXos, aopos and aapos, are probably the same 
 words. So too in Latin 'penna' and * pinna' differ only in 
 form, and signify alike a 'wing;' while yet 'penna' has 
 come to be used for the wing of a bird, ' pinna' (its diminu- 
 tive * pinnaculum,' has given us * pinnacle') for that of a build- 
 ing. So is it with ' Thrax' a ' Thracian, and ' Threx' a gla- 
 diator; with 'codex' and 'caudex;' 'forfex' and 'forceps;' 
 ' anticus' and ' antiquus ;' * celeber' and ' creber ; ' infacetus' 
 and 'inficetus;' ' providentia,' ' prudentia,' and 'provincia;' 
 ' columen' and 'culmen;' 'coitus' and 'coetus;' 'fegrimonia' 
 and ' a?rumna ;' ' Luciua' and ' luna;' * navita' and ' nauta :' 
 in German with ' I'echtlich' and * redlich ;' ' schlecht' and 
 ' schlicht ;' * ahnden' and ' ahnen ;' ' biegsam' and ' beugsam ;' 
 ' fursehung' and 'vorsehung;' 'deich' and ' teich ;' ' trotz' 
 and ' trutz ;* ' born' and 'brunn;' ' athem' and *odem:' in 
 French with ' harnois' the armour, or ' harness,' of a soldier, 
 ' harnais' of a horse ; with * Zephire' and 'zcphir,' and with 
 many more. 
 
II.] MOTIVE or A NEW WORD-COINAGE. 101 
 
 ing your patience, and of only choosing such 
 matter as will admit a popular setting forth. 
 These necessities, however, bid me to pause, and 
 suggest that I should not look round for other 
 quarters from whence accessions of new words are 
 derived. Doubtless I should not be long without 
 finding many such. I must satisfy myself for the 
 rest with a very brief consideration of the motives 
 which, as they have been, are still at work among 
 us, inducing us to seek for these augmentations of 
 our vocabulary. 
 
 And first, the desire of greater clearness is a 
 frequent motive and inducement to this. It has 
 been well and truly said: "Every new term, express- 
 ing a fact or a difference not precisely or adequately 
 expressed by any other word in the same lan- 
 guage, is a new organ of thought for the mind that 
 has learned it.''* The limits of their vocabulary 
 are in fact for most men the limits of their know- 
 ledge ; and in a great degree for us all. Of course 
 I do not affirm that it is absolutely impossible to 
 have our mental conceptions clearer and more dis- 
 tinct than our words ; but it is very hard to have, 
 and still harder to keep, them so. And therefore 
 it is that men, conscious of this, so soon as ever 
 they have learned to distinguish in their minds, 
 are urged by an almost irresistible impulse to dis- 
 tinguish also in their words. They feel that no- 
 thing is made sure till this is done. 
 
 The sense that a word covers too large a space 
 
 * Coleridge, Church and State, p. 200. 
 
102 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [leCT. 
 
 of meaning, is the frequent occasion of the intro- 
 duction of another, which shall relieve it of a 
 portion of this. Thus, there was a time when 
 ' witch^ was applied equally to male and female 
 dealers in unlawful magical arts. Simon Magus, 
 for example, and Elymas are both ^ witches,^ in 
 Wiclif s Neiv Testament (Acts viii. 9 ; xiii. 8), and 
 Posthumus in Cijmbeline : but when the medieval 
 Latin ' sortiarius' (not ^ sortitor^ as in Richardson), 
 supplied another word, the French ' sorcier/ and 
 thus our English ' sorcerer' (originally the ^' caster 
 of lots''), then ' witch' gradually was confined to 
 the hag, or female practiser of these arts, while 
 ^ sorcerer' was applied to the male. 
 
 New necessities, new evolutions of society into 
 more complex conditions, evoke new words ; which 
 come forth, because they are required now ; but did 
 not formerly exist, because they were not required 
 in the period preceding. For example, in Greece 
 so long as the poet sang his own verses, ^ singer' 
 [aoi^oq] sufficiently expressed the double function; 
 such a ' singer' was Homer, and such Homer de- 
 scribes Demodocus,the bard of the Phaacians; that 
 double function, in fact, not being in his time con- 
 templated as double, but each part of it so naturally 
 completing the other, that no second word was 
 required. When, however, in the division of labour 
 one made the verses which another chaunted, then 
 ' poet' or ' maker,' a word unknown in the Homeric 
 age, arose. In like manner, when ^physicians' were 
 the only natural philosophers, the word covered this 
 meaning as well as that other which it still retains ; 
 
II.] PROCESS OF DISSIMILATION. 1^^ 
 
 but when the investigation of nature and natural 
 causes detached itself from the art of healing, 
 became an independent study of itself, the name 
 ' physician' remained to that which was as the 
 stock and stem of the art, while the new offshoot 
 sought out a new name for itself. 
 
 Another motive to the invention of new words, 
 is the desire thereby to cut short lengthy explana- 
 tions, tedious circuits of language. Science is often 
 an immense gainer by words, which say singly 
 what it would have taken whole sentences other- 
 wise to have said. Thus ' isothermal' is quite of 
 modern invention ; but what a long story it would 
 be to tell the meaning of ' isothermal lines,' all 
 which is summed up in and saved by the word. 
 We have long had the word ' assimilation' in our 
 dictionaries ; ' dissimilation' has not yet found its 
 way into them, but it speedily will. It will ap- 
 pear first, if it has not already appeared, in our 
 books on language. I express myself with this 
 confidence, because the advance of philological en- 
 quiry has rendered it almost a matter of necessity 
 that we should possess a word to designate a certain 
 process, and no other word would designate it at 
 all so well. There is a process of ' assimilation' 
 going on very extensively in language ; it occurs 
 where the organs of speech find themselves helped 
 by changing a letter for another which has just 
 occurred, or will just occur in a word ; thus we say 
 not ' af//iance' but 'a^iance,' not ' Yeno\\m/ as our 
 ancestors did when the word ' renommee' was first 
 naturalized, but ' renown J At the same time 
 
101' GAINS or THE EiNGLTSH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 there is another opposite process, where some letter 
 would recur too often for euphony or comfort in 
 speaking, if the strict form of the word were too 
 closely held fast, and where consequently this 
 letter is exchanged for some other, generally for 
 some nearly allied ; thus it is at least a reasonable 
 suggestion, that ^ coeruleum' was once ' coe/uleum/ 
 from caelum : so too the Italians prefer ' veleno' 
 to ' \ene7io / and we ' cinnamow^ to ' cinnaraom^ 
 (the earlier form) ; in ' turtle^ and ' purple' we 
 have shrunk from the double ' r^ of ' turtur' and 
 * purpura / and this process of makhig unlike, re- 
 quiring a term to express it, will create, or indeed 
 has created, the word ' dissimilation,^ which pro- 
 bably will in due time establish itself among us 
 in far wider than its primary use. 
 
 ' Watershed^ has only recently begun to appear 
 in books of geography ; and yet how convenient it 
 must be admitted to be; how much more so than 
 " line of water parting,^^ which it has succeeded ; 
 meaning, as I need hardly tell you it does, not 
 merely that which sheds the waters, but that 
 which divides them [' wasserscheide^) ; and being 
 applied to that exact ridge and highest line in a 
 mountain region, where the waters of that region 
 separate off and divide, some to one side, and some 
 to the other ; as in the llocky jMountains of North 
 America there are streams rising within very few 
 miles of one another, which flow severally cast and 
 west, and, if not in unbroken course, yet as allluents 
 to larger rivers, fall at last severally into the Pacific 
 and Atlantic oceans. It must be alloued^ I tliink, 
 
n.] 'affluent' a recet^t noun. 105 
 
 that not merely geographical terminology^ but 
 geography itself, had a benefactor in him who first 
 endowed it with so expressive and comprehensive 
 a word, bringing before ns a fact which we should 
 scarcely have been aware of without it. 
 
 There is another word which I have just em- 
 ploy ed_, * affluent/ in the sense of a stream which 
 does not flow into the sea, but joins a larger stream, 
 as for instance, the Isis is an ' affluent' of the 
 Thames, the Moselle of the Rhine. It is itself au 
 example in the same kind of that whereof I have 
 been speaking, having been only recently consti- 
 tuted a substantive, and employed in this sense, 
 w'hile yet its utility is obvious. ^ Confluents' would 
 perhaps be a fitter name, where the rivers, like 
 the Missouri and the Missisippi, were of equal or 
 nearly equal importance up to the time of their 
 meeting. 
 
 Again, new words are coined out of the necessity 
 which men feel of filling up gaps in the language. 
 Thoughtful men, comparing their own language 
 with that of other nations, become conscious of 
 deficiencies, of important matters unexpressed in 
 their own, and with more or less success proceed 
 to supply the deficiency. For example, that sin 
 of sins, the undue love of self, with the postponing 
 of the interests of all others to our own, had for a 
 longtime no word to express it in English. Help 
 was sought from the Greek, and from the Latin. 
 ' Philauty' ((^iXavTia) had been more than once 
 attempted by our scholars ; but found no popular 
 acceptance. This failing, men turned to the Latin ; 
 
106 GAINS or THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 one writer trying to supply the want by calling the 
 man a ^ suist/ as one seeking Ms oion things (' sua^), 
 and the sin itself, ' suicism/ The gap, however, 
 was not really filled up, till some of the Puritan 
 writers, drawing on our Saxon, devised ' selfish^ 
 and ' selfishness,^ words which to us seem obvious 
 enough, but which yet are little more than two 
 hundred years old.* 
 
 * A passage from Hacket's Life of ArchhisJiop Williams, 
 part 2, p. 144, marks the first rise of this word, and the 
 quarter from whence it arose: "When they [the Presby- 
 terians] saw that he was not selfish (it is a word of their own 
 new mint), &c." In Whitlock's Zootomia (1654) there is 
 another indication of it as a novelty, p. 364 : " If constancy 
 may be tainted with this selfishness (to use our new wordinffs 
 of old and general actings)" — It is he who in his striking 
 essay, The Grand Schismatic, or Suist Anatomized, puts 
 forward his own words, ' suist,' and ' suicism,' in lieu of tho.se 
 which have ultimately been adopted. ' Suicism,' let me 
 observe, had not in his time the obvious objection of resem- 
 bling another word too nearly, and being liable to be confused 
 with it ; for ' suicide' did not then exist in the language, nor 
 indeed till some twenty j-ears later. The coming up of 
 * suicide' is marked by this passage in Phillips' New World 
 of IVords, 1671, 3rd edit. : " Nor less to be exploded is tlie 
 word 'suicide,' which may as well seem to participate of sus 
 a sow, as of the pronoun sui." In the Index to Jackson's 
 Works, published two years later, it is still ' suicidiuni — "the 
 horrid suicidium of the Jews at York." ' Suicide' is appa- 
 rently of much later introduction into French. Gcnin {Re- 
 creatiuiis Philol. vol. i. p. 194) places it about the year 1738, 
 and makes the Abbe Desfontaines its first sponsor. He is 
 wrong, as the words just quoted show, in supposing that we 
 borrowed it from the French, or that the word did not exist 
 in English till the middle of last century. The French 
 sometimes complain that the fashion of suicide was borrowed 
 
II.] NOTICES OF NEW WORDS. 107 
 
 Before quitting this part of the subject, let me 
 say a few words iu conclusion on this deliberate 
 
 from England. It would seem at all events probable that 
 the word was so borrowed. 
 
 Let me urge here the advantage of a complete collection, or 
 one as nearly complete as the industry of the collectors would 
 allow, of all the notices in our literature, which mark, and 
 would serve as dates for, the first incoming of new words into 
 the language. These notices are of the most various kinds. 
 Sometimes they are protests and remonstrances, as that just 
 quoted, against a new word's introduction ; sometimes they 
 are gratulations at the saraej while many hold themselves 
 neuter as to approval or disapproval, and merely state, or 
 allow us to gather, the fact of a word's recent appearance. 
 There are not a few of these notices in Eichardson's Dic- 
 tionary : thus one from Lord Bacon under ' essay ;' from 
 Swift under 'banter;' from Sir Thomas Elyot under * man- 
 suetude;' from Lord Chesterfield under 'flirtation;' from 
 Davies and Marlowe's Epigrams under ' gull ;' from Roger 
 North under ' sham' (Appendix) ; the third quotation from 
 Dryden under ' mob ;' one from the same under ' philan- 
 thropy,' and again under ' witticism,' in which he claims the 
 authorship of the word; that from Evelyn under 'miss;' and 
 from Milton under ' demagogue.' There are also notices of 
 the same kind in Todd's Johnson. The work, however, is 
 one which no single scholar could hope to accomplish, which 
 could only be accomplished by many lovers of their native 
 tongue throwing into a common stock the results of their 
 several studies. The sources from which these illustrative 
 passages might be gathered cannot beforehand be enume- 
 rated, inasmuch as it is difficult to say in what unexpected 
 quarter they would not sometimes be found, although some 
 of these sources are obvious enough. As a very slight sample 
 of what might be done in this way by the joint contribu- 
 tions of many, let me throw together references to a tew 
 passages of the kind which I do not think have found thciir 
 
108 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 introduction of words to supply felt omissions in a 
 language, and the limits within which this or any 
 
 way into any of our dictionaries. Thus add to that which 
 Richardson has quoted on ' banter,' another from The Tathr, 
 No. 230. On ' plunder' there are two instructive passages in 
 Fuller's Church History, b. xi. § 4, 33 ; and b. ix. § 4 ; and 
 one in Heylin's Animadversions thereupon, p. 196. On * ad- 
 miralty' see a note in Harington's Ariosto, book 19 ; on 
 ' maturity' Sir Thomas Elj'ot's Governor, b. i. c. 22 ; and on 
 ' industry' the same, b. i. c. 23; on ' neoph^^te' a notice in 
 Fulke's Defence of the English Bible, Parker Society's 
 edition, p. 586 ; and on ' panorama,' and marking its recent 
 introduction (it is not in Johnson), a passage in Pegge's 
 Anecdotes of the English Language, first published in 
 1803, but my reference is to the edition of 1814, p. 306; on 
 ' accommodate,' and supplying a date for its first coming into 
 popular use, see Shakespeare's 2 Henry IV. Act 3, Sc. 2 ; on 
 * shrub,' Junius' Etyniologicon, s. v. ' syrup ;' on ' sentiment' 
 and ' cajole' Skinner, s. vv., in his Etymologicon (' voxnuper 
 civitate donata') ; and on 'opera' Evelyn's Memoirs and 
 Diary, 1827, vol. i. pp. 189, 190. In such a collection should 
 be included those passages of our hterature which supply 
 implicit evidence for the non-existence of a word up to a cer- 
 tain moment. It may be urged that it is difficult, nay im- 
 possible, to prove a negative ; and yet a passage like this 
 from Bolingbroke makes certain that when it was written the 
 word ' isolated' did not exist in our language : ** The events 
 we are witnesses of in the course of the longest life, appear to 
 us very oft^n original, unprepared, signal and unrelative : 
 if I may use such a word for want of a better in English. In 
 French I would say isole.s" {Notes and Queries, No. 226). 
 Compare Lord Chesterfield in a letter to Bishop Chenevix, of 
 date March 12, 1767 : " I have survived almost all my cotem- 
 poraries, and as I am too old to make new acquaintances, I 
 find my f^eWisolt." So,too, it is pretty certain that 'amphibious' 
 w'ua not yet English, when one writes (in 1018) : '* We are 
 
II.] ' zoology/ ' zoophyte/ 109 
 
 other conscious interference with the development 
 of a language is desirable or possible. By tlie 
 time that a people begin to meditate upon their 
 language, to be aware l)y a conscious reflective act 
 either of its merits or deficiencies, by far the greater 
 and more important part of its work is done; it 
 is fixed in respect of its structure in immutable 
 forms ; the region in which any alteration or modi-- 
 ficatiou, addition to it, or subtraction from it, 
 deliberately devised and carried out, may be pos- 
 sible, is very limited indeed. Its great laws are 
 too firmly established to admit of this; so that 
 
 like those creatures called dfjicfu^ia, who live in water or on 
 land." ZcooXoyia, the title of a book published in 1649, makes 
 it clear that ' zoology' was not yet in our vocabulary, as 
 C(A)6({)VTov (Jackson) proves the same for ' zoophyte,' and ttoXv- 
 Oeiaixos (Gell) for 'polytheism.' One precaution, let me ob- 
 serve, would be necessary in the collecting, or rather in the 
 adopting of any statements about the newness of a word — lor 
 the passages themselves, even v^rhen erroneous, ought not the 
 less to be noted — namely, that, where there is the least motive 
 for suspicion, no one's affirmation ought to be accepted simply 
 and at once as to the novelty of a word ; for all here are liable 
 to error. Thus more than one which Sir Thomas Elyot indicate^i 
 as newinhis time, 'magnanimity'for example, {T/ie Governor, 
 2, 14) are to be met in Chaucer. When Skinner affirmed of 
 * sentiment' that it had only recently obtained the rights of 
 English citizenship from the translators of French books, he 
 was altogether mistaken, this word being also one of continual 
 recurrence in Chaucer. An intelligent correspondent gives in 
 Notes and Queries, No. 225, a useful catalogue of recent 
 neologies in our speech, which yet would require to be used 
 with caution, for there are at least half a dozen in the list 
 which have not the smallest right to be so considered. 
 
110 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 almost notliing can be taken from it, which it has 
 got ; ahnost nothing added to it, which it has not 
 got. It will travel indeed in certain courses of 
 change ; but it would be as easy almost to alter the 
 career of a planet as for man to alter these. This 
 is sometimes a subject of regret with those who see 
 what they believe manifest defects or blemishes 
 in their language, and such as appear to them 
 capable of remedy. And yet in fact this is well; 
 since for once that these redressers of real or 
 fancied wrongs, these suppliers of things lacking, 
 would have mended, we may be tolerably confident 
 that ten times, yea, a hundred times, they would 
 have marred; letting go that which would have 
 been well retained ; retaining that which by a 
 necessary law the language now dismisses and lets 
 go ; and in manifold ways interfering with those 
 processes of a natural logic, which are here ever- 
 more at work. The genius of a language, uncon- 
 sciously presiding over all its transformations, and 
 conducting them to a definite issue, will have been 
 a far truer, far safer guide, than the artificial wit, 
 however subtle, of any single man, or of any asso- 
 ciation of men. For the genius of a language is 
 the sense and inner conviction of all who speak it, 
 as to what it ought to be, and the means by which 
 it will best attain its objects ; and granting that 
 a pair of eyes, or two or three pair of eyes may 
 see much, yet millions of eyes will certainly see 
 more. 
 
 It is only with the words, and not with the 
 forms and laws of a language, that any interference 
 
II.] GERMAN PURISTS. Ill 
 
 such as I have jnst supposed is possible. Some- 
 thing, indeed much, may here be done by wise 
 masters, in the way of rejecting that which would 
 deform, allowing and adopting that which will 
 strengthen and enrich. Those who would purify 
 or enrich a language, so long as they have kept 
 within this their proper sphere, have often effected 
 much, more than at first could have seemed pos- 
 sible. The history of the German language 
 atfords so much better illustration of this than 
 our own would do, that I shall make no scruple 
 in seeking ray examples there. When the patriotic 
 Germans began to wake up to a consciousness of 
 the enormous encroachments which foreign lan- 
 guages, the Latin and French above all, had made 
 on their native tongue, the lodgements which they 
 had therein effected, and the danger which threat- 
 ened it, namely, that it should cease to be German 
 at all, but only a mingle-mangle, a variegated 
 patchwork of many languages, without any unity 
 or inner coherence at all, various societies were 
 instituted among them, at the beginning and during 
 the course of the seventeenth century, for the 
 recovering of what was lost of their own, for the 
 expelling of that which had intruded from abroad ; 
 and these with excellent effect. 
 
 But more effectual than these societies were the 
 efforts of single men, who in this merited well of 
 their country.* In respect of words which are now 
 
 * There is an admirable Essay by Leibnitz with this view 
 {Opera, vol. vi. part 2, pp. 6—51) in French and German, 
 
112 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 entirely received by the whole nation, it is often 
 possible to designate the writers who first substi- 
 tuted them for some affected Gallicism or unneces- 
 sary Latinism. Thus to Lessing his fellow-country- 
 men owe the substitution of ^zartgefiihP for ^delica- 
 tesse/ of ' empfindsamkeit^ for ^ sentimentalitat/ 
 of Svesenheit^ for 'essence/ It was Yoss (1786) 
 w'ho first employed ' altertliiimlich^ for ' antik.' 
 Wieland too was the author or reviver of a multi- 
 tude of excellent w'ords, for which often he had to 
 do earnest battle at the first ; such were ' seligkeit/ 
 'anmuth/ ' entziickung/ 'festlich/ 'entwirren/ with 
 many more. For ' maskerade/ Campe would have 
 fain substituted ' larventauz.' It was a novelty 
 when Biisching called his great work on geography 
 ' erdbeschreibung^ instead of ' geographic ;^ while 
 ' schnellpost' instead of ' diligence/ ' zerrbild^ for 
 ' carricatur' are also of recent introduction. In 
 regard of ' worterbuch^ itself, J. Grimm tells us 
 he can find no example of its use dating earlier 
 than 1719. 
 
 Yet at the same time it must be acknowledged 
 that some of these reformers proceeded ^Yith more 
 zeal than knowledge, wdiile others did whatever in 
 them lay to make the whole movement absurd — 
 even as there ever hang on the skirts of a noble 
 movement, be it in literature or politics or higher 
 things yet, those who contribute their little all to 
 bring ridicule and contempt upon it. Thus in the 
 
 with this title, Considerations sur la Culture et la Perfec- 
 tion lie la Langue Allemaiule. 
 
II.] GERMAN PURISTS. 113 
 
 reaction against foreign interlopers which ensued, 
 and in the zeal to purify tlie language from them, 
 some went to such extravagant excesses as to de- 
 sire to get rid of ' testament/ ^ apostel/ which last 
 Campe would have replaced by ' lehrboce/ with 
 other words like these, consecrated by longest use, 
 and to find native substitutes in their room ; or 
 they understood so little what words deserved to 
 be called foreign, or how to draw the line between 
 them and native, that they would fain have gotten 
 rid of 'vater,^ ^mutter,^ ^wein,^ 'fenster,^ ^meister,- 
 * kelch /* the first three of which belong to the 
 German language by just as good a right as they do 
 to the Latin and the Greek ; while the other three 
 have been naturalized so long that to propose to 
 expel them now was as if, having passed an alien 
 act for the banishment of all foreigners, we should 
 proceed to include under that name, and as such 
 drive forth from the kingdom, the descendants of 
 the French Protestants who found refuge here at 
 the Revocation of tlie Edict of Nantes, or even of 
 the Flemings who settled among us in the time of 
 our Edwards. One notable enthusiast in this line 
 proposed to create an entirely new nomenclature 
 for all the mythological personages of the Greek 
 and the Roman pantheon, who, one would think, 
 might have been allowed, if any, to retain their 
 Greek and Latin names. So far however from 
 this, they were to exchange these for equivalent 
 
 * Zur Gescliichte unci Beurtheiluncj der Fremdivbrtcr 
 im Beutschen, von Aug. Fuchs, Dessau, 1842, pp. 85-91. 
 
 I 
 
114 GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [lecT. TI. 
 
 German titles ; Cupid was to be ' Lustkind/ Flora 
 ' Blurainne/ Aurora ' Rothin / instead of Apollo 
 schoolboys were to speak of ' Singbold •' instead of 
 Pan of ' Scliaflieb ;' instead of Jupiter of ' Helfe- 
 vater/ with much else of the same kind. Let 
 us beware (and the warning extends much further 
 than to the matter in hand) of making a good 
 cause ridiculous by our manner of supporting it, 
 of assuming that exaggerations on one side can 
 only be redressed by exaggerations as great upon 
 the other. 
 
115 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 DIMINUTIONS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 I TOOK occasion to observe at the commence- 
 ment of my last lecture that it is the essential 
 character of a living language to be in flux and 
 flow, to be gaining and losing ; the words which 
 constitute it as little continuing exactly the same, 
 or in the same relations to one another, as do 
 the atoms which at any one moment make up our 
 bodies remain for ever without subtraction or ad- 
 dition. As I then undertook for my especial sub- 
 ject to trace some of the acquisitions which our 
 own language had made, I shall consider in the 
 present some of the losses, or at any rate diminu- 
 tions, which during the same period it has endured. 
 But it will be well here, by one or two remarks 
 going before, to avert any possible misapprehen- 
 sions of my meaning. 
 
 It is certain that all languages must, or at least 
 all languages do in the end, perish. They run their 
 course ; not all at the same rate, for the tendency 
 to change is different in different languages, both 
 from internal causes (mechanism and the like), and 
 also from causes external to the language, laid in 
 the varying velocities of social progress and social 
 decline ; but so it is, that whether of shorter or 
 longer life_, they have their youth, their manhood, 
 I 2 
 
116 DIMINUTIONS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 their old age, their decrepitude, their final dissolu- 
 tion. Not indeed that, even when this last hour 
 has arrived, they disappear, leaving no traces be- 
 hind them. On the contrary, out of their death 
 a new life comes forth ; they pass into new forms, 
 the materials of which they were composed more 
 or less survive, but these now organized in new 
 shapes and according to other laws of life. Thus, 
 for example, the Latin perishes as a living lan- 
 guage, but a chief part of the words that composed 
 it live on in the four daughter languages, French, 
 Italian, Spanish, Portuguese ; or the six, if we 
 count the Proven9al and Wallachian ; not a few 
 in our own. Still in their own proper being lan- 
 guages perish and pass away ; there are dead 
 records of what they were in books; not living 
 men who speak them any more. Seeing then 
 that they thus die, they must have had the germs 
 of a possible decay and death in tliem from the 
 beginning. 
 
 Nor is this all ; but in such mighty strong built 
 fabrics as these, the causes which thus bring about 
 their final dissolution must have been actually at 
 work very long before the results began to be 
 visible. Indeed, very often it is with them as 
 with states, which, while in some respects they 
 arc knitting: and strengthening, in others are 
 already unfolding the seeds of their future and, it 
 may be, still remote overthrow. Equally in these 
 and those, in states and in languages, it would be a 
 serious mistake to assume that all up to a certain 
 point and period is growth and gain, while all after 
 
III.] LANGUAGES GAIN AND LOSE. 117 
 
 is decay and loss. On the contrary, there are long 
 periods during which growth in some directions is 
 going hand in hand with decay in others ; losses 
 in one kind are being compensated_, or more than 
 compensated, by gains in another; during which 
 a language changes, but only as the bud changes 
 into the flower, and the flower into the fruit. A 
 time indeed arrives when the growth and gains, 
 becoming ever fewer, cease to constitute any 
 longer a compensation for the losses and the 
 decay ; which are ever becoming more ; when the 
 forces of disorganization and death at work are 
 stronger than those of life and order. It is from 
 this moment the decline of a language may pro- 
 perly be dated. But until that crisis and turning 
 point has arrived, we may be quite justified in 
 speaking of the losses of a language, and may 
 esteem them most real, without in the least thereby 
 implying that the period of its commencing dege- 
 neracy has begun. This may yet be far distant : 
 and therefore when I dwell on certain losses and 
 diminutions which our own has undergone, or is 
 undergoing, you will not conclude that I am seek- 
 ing to present it to you as now travelling the 
 downward course to dissolution and death. This 
 is very far from my intention. If in some respects 
 it is losing, in others it is gaining. Nor is every- 
 thing which it lets go, a loss; for this too, the 
 parting with a word in which there is no true 
 help, the dropping of a cumbrous or superfluous 
 form, may itself be sometimes a most real gain. 
 English is undoubtedly becoming different from 
 
118 DIMINUTIOISIS or ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [leCT. 
 
 what it has been ; but ouly different in that it is 
 passing into another stage of its development ; 
 only different, as the fruit is different" from the 
 flower, and the flower from the bud; having 
 changed its merits, but not having renounced 
 them ; possessing, it may be, less of beauty, but 
 more of usefulness ; not, perhaps, serving the poet 
 so well, but serving the historian and philosopher 
 and theologian better than before. 
 
 One observation more let me make, before enter- 
 ing on the special details of my subject. It is this. 
 The losses and diminutions of a language differ in 
 one respect from its gains and acquisitions — 
 namely, that they are of two kinds, while its gains 
 are only of one. Its gains are only in woy^ds ; it 
 never puts forth in the course of its later evolution 
 a new power ; it never makes for itself a new case, 
 or a new tense, or a new comparative. But its 
 losses are both in words and in powers — in words 
 of course, but in powers also : it leaves behind it, 
 as it travels onward, cases which it once possessed; 
 renounces the employment of tenses which it once 
 used; forgets its dual; is content with one ter- 
 mination both for masculine and feminine, and so 
 on. Nor is this a peculiar feature of one lan- 
 guage, but the universal law of all. " In all lan- 
 guages," as has been well said, " there is a constant 
 tendency to relieve themselves of that precision 
 which chooses a fresh symbol for every shade of 
 meaning, to lessen the amount of nice distinction, 
 and detect as it were a royal road to the inter- 
 change of opinion." For example, a vast number 
 
III.] WORDS BECOME EXTINCT. 119 
 
 of languages had at an early period of their develop- 
 ment, besides the singular and plural, a dual num- 
 ber, some even a trinal, which they have let go at 
 a later. But what I mean by a language re- 
 nouncing its powers will, I trust, be more clear 
 to you before my lecture is concluded. This much 
 I have here said on the matter, to explain and jus- 
 tify a division which I shall make, considering first 
 the losses of the English language in words, and 
 then in powers. 
 
 And first, there is going forward a continual 
 extinction of the words in our language — as indeed 
 in every other. When I speak of this the dying 
 out of words, I do not refer to mere tentative, 
 experimental words, not a few of which I adduced 
 in my last lecture, words offered to the language, 
 but not accepted by it ; I refer rather to such as 
 either belonged to the primitive stock of the lan- 
 guage, or if not so, which had been domiciled in 
 it long, that they might have been supposed to 
 have found in it a lasting home. Thus not a few 
 pure Anglo-Saxon words which lived on into the 
 times of our early English, have subsequently 
 dropped out of our vocabulary, sometimes leaving 
 a gap which has never since been filled, but their 
 places oftener taken by others which have come up 
 in their room. Not to mention those of Chaucer 
 and Wiclif, which are very numerous, many held 
 their ground to far later periods, and yet have 
 finally given way. That beautiful word ' wanhope^ 
 for despair, hope which has so waned that now 
 there is an entire want of it, was in use down to 
 
120 DIMINUTIONS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 the reign of Elizabeth ; it occurs so late as in the 
 poems of Gascoigiie.* ' Skinker' for cupbearer, 
 (an ungraceful word, no doubt) is used by Shake- 
 speare, and lasted to Dry den's times and beyond. 
 Spenser uses often ' to welk' (welken) in the sense 
 of to fade, ' to sty' for to mount, ' to hery' as to 
 glorify or praise, ' to halse' as to embrace, ' teene^ 
 as vexation or grief : Shakespeare ' to tarre^ as to 
 provoke, ' to sperr^ as to enclose or bar in ; 'to 
 sag' for to droop, or hang the head doAvnward. 
 Holland employs 'geir'f for vulture ('S'ultures or 
 ^geirs''), 'specht' for woodpecker, ' reise' for journey, 
 ' frimm^ for lusty or strong. ' To schimmer' 
 occurs in Bishop Hall ; '^ to tind,' that is, to kindle, 
 and surviving in ' tinder,' is used by Bishop San- 
 derson ; ' to nimm,^ or take, as late as by Fuller. 
 A rogue is a ' skellum' in Sir Thomas Urquhart. 
 ' Nesh' in the sense of soft through moisture, ' leer' 
 in that of empty, ' eame^ in that of uncle, mother's 
 brother (the German ' oheim'), good Saxon-Eng- 
 lish once, still live on in some of our provincial 
 
 * It is still used in prose as late as the age of Henry VIH. ; 
 see the State Papers, vol. viii. p. 247. It was the latest 
 survivor of a whole group or famil}^ of words which continued 
 much longer in Scothind than with us ; of which some per- 
 haps continue there still ; these are but a few of them ; * wan- 
 thrift' for extravagance ; ' wanluck,' misfortune ; ' wanlust,' 
 languor; 'wan wit,' lolly; ' wangrace,' wickedness; 'wan- 
 trust' (Chaucer), distrust. 
 
 f We must not suppose that this still survives in '(//>'- 
 falcon ;' which wholly belongs to the Latin element of the 
 language ; being the later Latin ' gyrofalco,' and that, " a 
 gijrando, (j[uia diu yt/rcDido acriter pricdani insequitur." 
 
III.] VIGOROUS COMPOUND WORDS. 121 
 
 dialects ; so does ' flitter- mouse^ or 'flutter-mouse' 
 (mus volitans), where we should use bat. Indeed 
 of those above named several do the same ; it is 
 so with 'frimm/ with ' to sag/ ' to nimm.' ' Heft/ 
 employed by Shakespeare in the sense of w^eight, 
 is still employed in tlie same sense by our peasants 
 in Hampshire. 
 
 A number of vigorous compounds we have 
 dropped and let go. ' Earsports' for entertain- 
 ments of song or music (aKpoajiara) is a con- 
 stantly recurring word in Holland^s Plutarch. 
 Were it not for Shakespeare^ we should have quite 
 forgotten that young men of hasty flery valour 
 were called ' hotspurs / and even now we regard 
 the word rather as the proper name of one than 
 that which would have been once alike the desig- 
 nation of all.* Fuller warns men that they should 
 not ' witwanton^ with God. Severe austere old 
 men, such as, in Falstaff^s words, would " hate us 
 youth/' were ' grimsirs' or ' grimsires' once (Mas- 
 singer). 'Realmrape' ( = usurpation), occurring 
 in The Mirror for Magistrates, is a vigorous 
 word. ' Rootfast' and ' rootfastness'f were ill 
 lost, being worthy to have lived ; so too was Lord 
 Brooke's ' bookhunger / and Baxter's ' word- 
 warriors,' with which term he noted those whose 
 strife was only about words. ' Malingerer' is 
 familiar enough to military men, but I do not find 
 
 * " Some hotspurs there were that gave counsel to go 
 against them with all their forces, and to fright and terrify 
 them, if they made slow haste." (Holland's Liv^, p. 922.) 
 f State Papers, vol. vi, p. 53 1<. 
 
122 DIMINUTIONS or ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 it in onr dictionaries ; being the soldier -who, out 
 of evil ivill (malin gre) to his work, shams and 
 shirks, and is not found in the ranks. 
 
 Those who would gladly have seen the Anglo- 
 Saxon to have predominated over the Latin element 
 in our language, even more than it actually has 
 done, must note with regret that in many instances 
 a word of the former stock has been dropped, and 
 a Latin coined to supply its place ; or where the 
 two once existed side by side, the Saxon has died, 
 and the Latin lived on. Thus Wiclif employed 
 ' soothsaw,^ where we now use proverb; ^sour- 
 dough,^ where we employ leaven ; ' wellwillingness' 
 for benevolence ; ' againbuying^ for redemption ; 
 ' aorainrisino^ for resurrection : ' undeadliness^ for 
 immortality ; ^ uncunniugness ' for ignorance ; 
 ' aftercomer' for descendant ; ' greatdoingly^ for 
 magnificently ; ^ to afterthink' (still in use in Lan- 
 cashire) for to repent ; ' medeful,' which has given 
 way to meritorious ; ' untellable' for ineffable ; 
 ^ dearwortV for precious ; Chaucer has ' foreword' 
 for promise ; Sir John Cheke ' freshman^ for prose- 
 lyte ; ' moonecr for lunatic ; ' foreshewer' for pro- 
 phet ; * hundi-eder' for centurion ; Jewel ^ fore- 
 talk,' where we now employ preface ; Holland 
 
 * sunstead' where we use solstice ; ' leechcraft' in- 
 stead of medicine; and another, ^ wordcraft' for logic ; 
 ^ starconncr' (Gascoigne) did service once, if not 
 instead of astrologer, yet side by side with it ; 
 
 * halfgod' (Golding) had the advantage over ' demi- 
 god,' that it was all of one piece ; ' to cycbite' 
 (Holland) told its story at least as well as to 
 
111.] LOCAL AND niOVlNCLAL ENGLISH. 123 
 
 fascinate ; ' sliriftfather' as confessor ; ' earshrift' 
 (Cartwright) is only two syllables, while auricular 
 confession is eight ; ' waterfright^ is a better word 
 than our awkward Greek hydrophobia. The lam- 
 prey (lambens petram) was called once the ' suck- 
 stone* or the ' lickstone ;* and the anemone the 
 ' windflower.' ' Umstroke/ if it had lived on (it 
 appears as late as Fuller, though our Dictionaries 
 know nothing of it), migh thave made • circum- 
 ference' and 'periphery* unnecessary. ^Wanhope,* 
 as we saw just now, has given place to despair, 
 ' middler* to mediator ; and it would be easy to 
 increase this list. 
 
 I had occasion just now to notice the fact that 
 many words survive in our provincial dialects, 
 long after they have died out from the main body 
 of the speech. The fact is one connected with so 
 much of deep interest in the history of language 
 that I cannot pass it thus slightly over. It is one 
 which, rightly regarded, may assist to put us in a 
 just point of view for estimating the character of 
 the local and provincial in speech, and rescuing it 
 from that unmerited contempt and neglect with 
 which it is often regarded. I must here go some- 
 what further back than I could wish ; but only so, 
 only by looking at the matter in connexion with 
 other phenomena of speech, can I hope to explain 
 to you the worth and significance which local and 
 provincial words and usages must oftentimes possess. 
 
 Let us then first suppose a portion of those 
 speaking a language to have been separated off 
 from the main body of its speakers, either through 
 
124 DIMINUTIONS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 tlieir forsaking for one cause or other of their 
 native seats, or by the intrusion of a hostile people, 
 like a wedge, between them and the others, forci- 
 bly keeping them asunder, and cutting off their 
 communications one with the other, as the Saxons 
 intruded between the Britons of Cornwall and of 
 Wales. In such a case it will inevitably happen 
 that before very long differences of speech will 
 begin to reveal themselves between those to whom 
 even dialectic distinctions may have been once 
 unknown. The divergences will be of various 
 kinds. Idioms will come up in the separated body, 
 which, not being recognized and allowed by those 
 who remain the arbiters of the language, will be 
 esteemed by them, should they come under their 
 notice, violations of its law, or at any rate depar- 
 tures from its purity. Again, where a colony has 
 gone forth into new seats, and exists under new 
 conditions, it is probable that the necessities, phy- 
 sical and moral, rising out of these new conditions, 
 will give birth to words, which there will be nothing 
 to call out among those who continue in the old 
 haunts of the nation. Intercourse with new tribes 
 and people will bring in new words, as, for in- 
 stance, contact with the Indian tribes of North 
 America has given to American English a certain 
 number of words hardly or not at all allowed or 
 known by us ; or as the presence of a large Dutch 
 population at the Cape has given to the English 
 spoken there many words, as 'inspan,' 'outspan/ 
 ' spoor,' of which our home English knows nothing. 
 There is another cause, however, which will pro- 
 
III.] ANTIQUATED ENGLISH. 125 
 
 bably be more effectual than all these, namely, 
 that words will in process of time be dropped by 
 those who constitute the original stock of the 
 nation, which will not be dropped by the offshoot ; 
 idioms which tliose have overlived, and have stored 
 up in the unhonoured lumber-room of the past, will 
 still be in use and currency among the smaller 
 and separated section which has gone forth; and 
 thus it will come to pass that what seems and in 
 fact is the newer swarm, will have many older 
 words, and very often an archaic air and old- 
 world fashion both about the words they use, their 
 way of pronouncing, their order and manner of 
 combining them. Thus after the Conquest we 
 know that our insular French gradually diverged 
 from the French of the Continent. The Prioress 
 in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales could speak her 
 French " full faire and fetishly," but it was French, 
 as the poet slyly adds, 
 
 " After the scole of Stratford atte bow, 
 For French of Paris was to hire unknowe." 
 
 One of our old chroniclers, writing in the reign of 
 Elizabeth, informs us that by the English colonists 
 within the Pale in Ireland numerous words were 
 preserved in common use, '^ the dregs of the old 
 ancient Chaucer English^' as he contemptuously 
 calls it, which had become quite obsolete and for- 
 gotten in England itself. For example they still 
 called a spider an ' attercop' — a word, by the way, 
 still in. popular use in the North ; — a physician a 
 * leech,' as in poetry he still is called ; a dunghill 
 
126 DIMINUTIONS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [leCT. 
 
 was still for tliem a ' mixen / (the word is still 
 common all over England in this sense ;) a quad- 
 rangle or base court was a * bawn ;'* they em- 
 ployed * uncouth^ in the earlier sense of unknown. 
 Nay more, their general manner of speech was so 
 different, though continuing English still, that 
 Englishmen at their first coming over often found 
 it hard or impossible to comprehend. We have 
 another example of the same in what took place 
 after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and 
 the consequent formation of colonies of Protestant 
 Erench emigrants in various places, especially in 
 Amsterdam and other chief cities of Holland. 
 There gradually grew up among these what came to 
 be called " refugee French," which within a gene- 
 ration or two diverged in several particulars from 
 the classical language of France; its divergence 
 being mainly occasioned by this, that it remained 
 stationary, while the classical language was in 
 motion ; it retained usages and words, which the 
 latter had dismissed.f 
 
 Nor is it otherwise in respect of our English 
 provincialisms. It is true that our country people 
 who in the main employ them, have not been 
 separated by distance of space, nor yet by insur- 
 mountable obstacles intervening, from the main 
 
 * The only two writers of whom I am aware as suhse- 
 quently usin^ this word are, both writing in Ireland and of 
 Irish matters, Spenser and Swift. The passages are both 
 quoted in Richardson's Dictionary. 
 
 f There is an exceUent account of this " refugee French" 
 in Weiss' History of the Protestant Refugees of France. 
 
III.] PROVINCIAL ENGLISH. 127 
 
 body of their fellow-countrymen ; but they have 
 been quite as effectually divided by deficient 
 education. They have been, if not locally, yet 
 intellectually, kept at a distance from the onward 
 march of the nation^s mind ; and of them also it 
 is true that many of their words, idioms, turns 
 of speech, which we are ready to set down as 
 vulgarisms, solecisms of speech, violations of the 
 primary rules of grammar, do merely attest that 
 those who employ them have not kept abreast 
 with the advance of the language and nation, but 
 have been left behind by it. The usages are only 
 local in the fact that, having once been employed 
 by the whole body of the English people, they 
 have now receded from the lips of all except 
 those in some certain country districts, who have 
 been more faithful than others to the traditions of 
 the past. 
 
 It is thus in respect of a multitude of isolated 
 words, which were excellent Anglo-Saxon, which 
 were excellent early English, and which only 
 are not excellent present English, because use, 
 which is the supreme arbiter in these matters, 
 has decided against their further employment. 
 Several of these I enumerated just now. It is 
 thus also with several grammatical forms and 
 flexions. For instance, where we decline the 
 plural of ' I sing/ ' we sing,' ' ye sing,' ' they 
 sing/ there are parts of England in which they 
 would decline, Sve singe>z,' 'ye singew,' 'they 
 singe/z.' This is not indeed the original form of 
 the plural^ but it is that form of it which, coming 
 
128 DIMINUTIONS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [leCT. 
 
 lip about Chaucer's time, was just going out iu 
 Spenser's; he, though we must ever keep in mind 
 that he does not fairly represent the language of 
 his time, or indeed of any time, affecting a certain 
 artificial archaism both in words and forms, con- 
 tinually uses it.* After him it becomes ever 
 rarer, the last of whom I am aware as occa- 
 sionally using it being Fuller, until it quite dis- 
 appears. 
 
 Of such as may now employ forms like these 
 we must say, not that they violate the laws of the 
 language, but only that they have taken their 
 peiinantnt stand at a point which was only a 
 point of transition, and which it has now left be- 
 hind, and overlived. Thus, to take examples w^hich 
 you may hear at the present day in almost any 
 part of England — a countryman will say, " He 
 made me afeard ;" or " The price of corn ris last 
 
 * With all its severity, there is some truth in Ben Jonson's 
 observation : " Spenser, in affecting the ancients, writ no lan- 
 guage." In tliis matter, however, Ben Jonson was at one 
 with him ; for he does not hesitate to express his strong regret 
 that this form has not been retained. " The }tersons plural," 
 he says {English Grammar, c. 17), "keep the termination 
 of the first person singular. In former times, till about the 
 reign of King Henry VIII., they were wont to be formed by 
 adding en ; thus, loven, sayen, complainen. But now (what- 
 soever is the cause) it hath quite grown out of use, and that 
 other so generally prevailed, that I dare not presume to set 
 this afoot again ; albeit (to tell you my opinion) I am per- 
 suaded that the lack hereof, well considered, will be Ibund a 
 great blemish to our tongue. For seeing time -aw^ person be 
 as it were the right and left hand of a verb, what can the 
 maiming bring else, but a lameness to the whole body .?" 
 
III.]. EARLIER AND LATER ENGLISH. 129 
 
 market day;" or '' I will axe him his name •" or 
 " I tell ije.*' You would probably set these phrases 
 down for barbarous English, They are not so at 
 all ; in one sense they are quite as good English 
 as " He made me afraid f^ or " The price of corn 
 rose last market day ;" or " I will ask him his 
 name." ^ Afeard/ used by Spenser, is the regular 
 participle of the old verb ' to affear/ still existing 
 as a law term, as ' afraid' is of to ^ affray/ and 
 just as good English ; ' ris' or ' risse' is an old 
 preterite of ^ to rise ;' ' to axe' is not a mispro- 
 nunciation of ^ to ask/ but a genuine English form 
 of the word, the form which in the earlier English 
 it constantly assumed ; in Wiclif s Bible almost 
 without exception ; and indeed ^ axe' occurs con- 
 tinually, I know not whether invariably, in Tyn- 
 dale's translation of the Scriptures; there was 
 a time when * ye' was an accusative, and to have 
 used it as a nominative or vocative, the only per- 
 mitted uses at present, would have been incorrect. 
 Even such phrases as " Put them things away," or 
 " The man what owns the horse," are not bad, 
 but only antiquated English.* Saying this, I 
 would not in the least imply that these forms are 
 open to you to employ, or that they would be good 
 English for you. They would not ; inasmuch as 
 
 * Genin {Recreations Philologiques, vol. i. p. 71) says to 
 the same effect : " II n'y a gueres de f'aute de rran9ais, je dis 
 faute g^nerale, accreditee, qui n'ait sa raison d'etre, et ne put 
 au besoin produire ses lettres de noblesse ; et souvent mieux 
 en regie que celles des locutions qui out usurpe leur place 
 au soleil." 
 
130 DIMINUTIONS OP EKGLISII LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 they are contrar}' to present use and custom, and 
 these must be our standards in \\ hat we speak, and 
 in what we write ; just as in our buying and sell- 
 ing we are bound to employ the current coin of 
 the realm, must not attempt to pass that which 
 long since has been called in, whatever merits or 
 intrinsic value it may possess. All which I 
 affirm is that the phrases just brought forward 
 represent past stages of the language, and are not 
 barbarous violations of it. 
 
 The same may be asserted of certain ways of 
 pronouncing words, which are now in use among 
 the lower classes, but not among the higher ; as, 
 for example, ' contrary,^ 'mischievous,^ ' blasphem- 
 ous/ instead of * contrary,' ' mischievous,' ' blas- 
 phemous.'' It would be abundantly easy to show 
 by a multitude of quotations from our poets, and 
 those reaching very far down, that these are merely 
 the retention of the earlier pronunciation by the 
 people, after the higher classes have abandoned it.* 
 And on the strength of what has just been spoken, 
 let me here suggest to you how well worth your 
 while it will prove to be on the watch for pro- 
 vincial words and inflexions, local idioms and 
 modes of pronunciation, and to take note of these. 
 Count nothing in this kind beneath your notice. 
 Do not at once ascribe anything which you hear 
 to the ignorance or stupidity of the speaker. Thus 
 
 * A single proof may in each case sufl&ce : 
 " Our wills and dxies do so contrdty run." — S/iakespeare. 
 **Ne let mischiSvous witches with their charms." — Speiiser, 
 *' argument hlasphtmous, false and proud." — Milton. 
 
III.] LUNCHEON, NUNCHEON. 131 
 
 if you hear ^ nunclieon/ do not at once set it clown 
 for a malformation of ' lancheon/* nor ' yeePf 
 
 * I cannot doubt that this form which our country people 
 in Hampshire, as in many other parts, always employ, either 
 retains the original pronunciation, our received one being a 
 modern corruption ; or else, as is more probable, that tue have 
 made a confusion between two originally different words, from 
 which they have kept clear. Thus in Howell's Vocabulary/, 
 1659, and in Cotgrave's French and JEnglish Dictionary, 
 both words occur : " nuncion or nuncheon, the afternoon's re- 
 past," (cf. Iludibras, i. 1, 346 : " They took their breakfasts 
 or their nuncheons,'') and " lunchion, a big piece" i.e. of bread ; 
 for both give the old French * caribot,' which has this mean- 
 ing, as the equivalent of 'luncheon.' It is clear that in this 
 sense of lump or ' big piece' Gay uses ' luncheon :' 
 
 " When hungry thou stood'st staring like an oaf, 
 I sliced the luncheon from the barlej'- loaf;" 
 and Miss Baker in her Northamptonshire Glossary explains 
 * lunch' as "a large lump of bread, or other edible; 'He 
 helped himself to a good lunch of cake.' " We may note 
 further that this ' nuntion' may possibly put us on the right 
 track for arriving at the etymology of the word. Richardson 
 has called attention to the fact that it is spelt " noon-shun" 
 in Browne's Pastorals, which must at least suggest as pos- 
 sible and plausible that the ' nuntion' was originally applied 
 to the labourer's slight meal, to which he withdrew for the 
 shunning of the heat of the middle noon : especially when in 
 Lancashire we find a word of similar formation, ' noon-scape,' 
 and in Norfolk ' noon-miss,' for the time when labourers rest 
 after dinner. It is at any rate certain that the dignity to 
 which ' lunch' or ' luncheon' has now arrived, as when we read 
 in the newspapers of a " magnificent luncheon," is altogether 
 modern ; the word belonged a century ago to rustic life, and 
 in literature had not travelled beyond the " hobnailed pasto- 
 rals" which professed to describe that life. 
 
 t See it so written, Holland's Pliny, vol. ii. p. 428, and 
 often. 
 
132 DIMINUTIONS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 of ' eel/ Lists and collections of provincial usage, 
 such as I have suggested, always have their value. 
 If you are not able to turn them to any profit 
 yourselves, and they may not stand in close enough 
 connexion with your own studies for this, yet 
 there always are those who will thank you for 
 them ; and to whom the humblest of these collec- 
 tions, carefully and intelligently made, will be in 
 one Avay or other of real assistance.* And there 
 is the more need to urge tliis at the present, 
 because, notwithstanding the tenacity with which 
 our country folk cling to their old forms and 
 usages, still these forms and usages must now be 
 rapidly grow ing fewer ; and there are forces, moral 
 and material, at work in England, which will 
 probably cause that of those which now survive 
 the greater part will within the next fifty years 
 have disappeared. 
 
 Before quitting this subject, let me instance one 
 example more of that which is commonly accounted 
 ungrammatical usage, but which is really the re- 
 tention of old grammar by some, where others 
 have substituted new ; I mean the constant appli- 
 cation by our rustic population in the south, and 
 I dare say through all parts of England, of ' his' to 
 inanimate objects, and to these not personified, no 
 
 * As a proof of the excellent service which an accurate ac- 
 quaintance with provincial usages may render in the investi- 
 gation of the innumerable perplexing phenomena of the Enjj^- 
 hsh language, I would refer to the admirable article On 
 ^English Pronouns Personal in Trcmsactions of the Philo- 
 logical Socieij/, vol. i. p. 277. 
 
III.] ' its' of late introduction. 133 
 
 less tlian to persons; where 'its' would be employed 
 by others. This was once the manner of speech 
 among all; for 'its' is a word of very recent 
 introduction, many would be surprised to learn 
 of how recent introduction, into the language. 
 You will look for it in vain through the whole 
 of our Authorized Version of the Bible ; the office 
 which it now fulfils being there accomplished, as 
 our rustics accomplish it at the present, by ' his' 
 (Gen.i. 11; Exod. xxxvii. 17 ; Matt. v. 15) or 'her' 
 (Jon. i. 15 ; Rev. xxii. 2) apphed as freely to 
 inanimate things as to persons, or else by ' there- 
 of (Ps. Ixv. 10) or ' of it' (Dan. vii. 5). Nor may 
 Lev. XXV. 5 be urged as invalidating this assertion ; 
 for reference to the exemplar edition of 1611, or 
 indeed to any earlier editions of King James' 
 Bible, will show that in them the passage stood, 
 " of it own accord."* ' Its' occurs very rarely 
 in Shakespeare, in many of his plays it will not 
 once be found. Milton also for the most part 
 avoids it, and this, though in his time others freely 
 allowed it. How soon all this was forgotten we 
 
 * This last very curious usage, which served as a kind of 
 stepping-stone to ' its,' and of which another example occurs 
 in the Geneva Version (Acts xii. 10), and three or four in 
 Shakespeare, has been abundantly iUustrated by those who 
 have lately written on the early history of the word * its ;' 
 thus see Craik, On the English of Shakespeare, p. 91 ; 
 Marsh, Manual of the English Language (Eng. Edit.), 
 p. 278; Transactions of the Philological Society, vol. i. 
 p. 280 ; and my book On the Authorized Version of the 
 New Testament, p. 59. 
 
134 DIMINUTIONS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 have striking evidence in the fact that when 
 Dryden, in one of his fault-finding moods with 
 the great men of the preceding generation, is 
 taking Ben Jonson to task for general inaccuracy 
 in his English diction, among other counts of his 
 indictment, he quotes this line from Catiline 
 
 " Though heaven should speak with all his wrath at once," 
 
 and proceeds, " heaven is ill syntax with his ;'' 
 while in fact up to within forty or fifty years o 
 the time Avhen Dryden hegan to write, no other 
 syntax was known ; and to a much later date was 
 exceedingly rare. Curious also, is it to note that 
 in the earnest controversy which followed on Chat- 
 terton^s publication of the poems ascribed by him 
 to a monk Rowlie, who should have lived in the 
 fifteenth century, no one appealed to such lines as 
 the following, 
 
 *' Life and all its goods I scorn," 
 
 as at once deciding that the poems were not of the 
 age which they pretended. Warton, who denied, 
 though with some hesitation, the antiquity of 
 the poems, giving many and sufficient reasons for 
 this denial, failed to take note of this little word ; 
 while yet there needed no more than to point it 
 out, for the disposing of the whole question ; the 
 forgery at once was betrayed. 
 
 What has been here affirmed concerning our 
 provincial English, namely that it is often old 
 English rather than bad English, may be affirmed 
 with equal right of many so called Americanisms, 
 There are parts of America where ' lict' is used. 
 
III.] AMERICAN ENGLISH. 135 
 
 or was used a few years since, as the perfect of 
 ' to heat / ' holp' as the perfect of ' to help ;' 
 ' stricken^ as the participle of ' to strike/ Again, 
 there are words which have become obsolete here 
 during the last two hundred years, which have not 
 become obsolete there, although many of them 
 probably retain only a provincial existence. Thus 
 ' slick,^ which indeed is only another form of 
 ' sleek,^ was employed by our good writers of the 
 seventeenth century.* Other words again, which 
 have remained current on both sides of the 
 Atlantic, have yet on our side receded from their 
 original use, while they have remained true to it 
 on the other. ' Plunder^ is a word in point. 
 
 In the contemplation of facts like these it has 
 been sometimes asked, whether a day will ever 
 arrive when the language spoken on this side of 
 the Atlantic and on the other, will divide into two 
 languages, an old English and a new. We may 
 confidently answer. No. Doubtless, if those who 
 went out from us to people and subdue a new 
 continent, had left our shores two or three cen- 
 turies earlier than they did, when the language was 
 very much farther removed from that ideal after 
 which it was unconsciously striving, and in which, 
 once reached, it has in great measure acquiesced ; 
 if they had not carried with them to their distant 
 homes their English Bible, and what else of 
 
 * Thus Fuller {Pisgah Sight of Palestine, vol. ii. p. 190) : 
 " Sure I am this city [the New Jerusalem] as presented by 
 the prophet, was fairer, finer, slicker, smoother, more exact, 
 than any fabric the earth afi'orded." 
 
136 DIMINUTIONS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 wortli had been already uttered in the English 
 tongue ; if, having once left us, the intercourse 
 between Old and New England had been entirely 
 broken oft*, or only rare and partial ; there would 
 then have unfolded themselves diff'erences between 
 the language spoken here and there, which in 
 tract of time accumulating and multiplying, might 
 in the end have justified the regarding of the lan- 
 guages as no longer one and the same. It could 
 not have failed but that such difi'erences should 
 have displayed themselves ; for while there is a 
 law of necessity in the evolution of languages, 
 while they pursue certain courses and in certain 
 directions, from which they can be no more turned 
 aside by the will of men than one of the heavenly 
 bodies could be pushed from its orbit by any engines 
 of ours, there is a law of liberty no less ; and this 
 liberty must inevitably have made itself in many 
 ways felt. In the political and social condition 
 of America, so far removed from our own, in the 
 many natural objects which are not the same with 
 those which surround us here, in efforts indepen- 
 dently carried out to rid the language of imper- 
 fections, or to unfold its latent powers, even in the 
 different effects of soil and climate on the organs 
 of speech, there would have been causes enough to 
 have provoked in the course of time not imma- 
 terial divergencies of language. 
 
 As it is, however, the joint operation of those 
 three causes referred to already, namely, that the 
 separation did not take place in the infancy or 
 youth of the language, but only in its ripe man- 
 
III.] EXTINCT ENGLISH. 137 
 
 hood, that England and America owned a body of 
 literature, to which they alike looked up and ap- 
 pealed as containing the authoritative standards 
 of the language, that the intercourse between the 
 one people and the other has been large and fre- 
 quent, hereafter probably to be larger and more 
 frequent still, has effectually wrought. It has been 
 strong enough so to traverse, repress, and check 
 all those causes which tended to divergence, that 
 the written language of educated men on both 
 sides of the water remains precisely the same, 
 their spoken manifesting a few trivial differences of 
 idiom ; while even among those classes which do 
 not consciously acknowledge any ideal standard of 
 language, there are scarcely greater differences, in 
 some respects far smaller, than exist between 
 inhabitants of different provinces in this one island 
 of England ; and in the future we may reasonably 
 anticipate that these differences, so far from mul- 
 tiplying, will rather diminish and disappear. 
 
 But I must return from this long digression. 
 It seems often as if an almost unaccountable 
 caprice presided over the fortunes of words, and 
 determined which should live and which die. 
 Thus in instances out of number a word lives on 
 as a verb, but has ceased to be employed as a 
 noun ; we say ' to embarrass,^ but no longer an 
 ' embarrass / ^ to revile,^ but not, with Chapman 
 and Milton, a ' revile / ' to dispose,^ but not a 
 * dispose / ^ to retire' but not a ' retire ;^ ' to wed,' 
 but not a ' wed / we say ' to infest,* but use no 
 
138 DIMINUTIONS or ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 longer the adjective ' infest/ Or with a reversed 
 fortune a word lives on as a noun, but has perished 
 ?.s a verb — thus as a noun substantive, a ' slug/ 
 but no longer '' to slug' or render slothful ; a 
 ' child/ but no longer ' to chikl/ ['^ childmg 
 autumn/' Shakespeare) ; a ' rape/ but not ' to 
 rape' (South) ; a ' rogue/ but not ' to rogue / 
 'malice/ but not 'to malice/ a 'path/ but not 
 ' to path / or as a noun adjective, ' serene/ but 
 not ' to serene,' a beautiful word, which we have 
 let go, as the French have ' sereiuer /* ' meek/ 
 hut not 'to meek' (Wiclif ) ; ' fond/ but not ' to 
 fond' (Dryden); 'dead/ but not ' to dead / 'intri- 
 cate,' but ' to intricate' (Jeremy Taylor) no 
 longer. 
 
 Or again, the affirmative remains, but the nega- 
 tive is gone ; thus ' wisdom,' ' bold,' ' sad/ but 
 not any more ' unwisdom,' ' unbold,' ' unsad' (all 
 in AViclif ) ; 'cunning/ but not 'uncunning/ 
 ' manhood/ ' wit/ ' mighty/ ' tall/ but not ' un- 
 manhood,' ' unwit/ ' unmighty,' ' untall' (all in 
 Chaucer); 'buxom,' but not ' unbuxom' (Dryden); 
 ' hasty/ but not ' unhasty' (Spenser) ; ' blithe,' 
 
 * How many words modern French has lost which are most 
 vigorous and admirable, the absence of which can only now 
 be supplied by a circumlocution or by some less excellent 
 word — 'Oseur,' *atfrancliisseur' (Amyot), 'mepriseur,' ' mur- 
 murateur,' ' blandisseur' (Bossuet), 'abuseur' (Rabelais), 
 * d6sabusement,' ' rancoeur,' are all obsolete at the present. 
 So ' desaimer,' to cease to love ('disamai-e' in Italian), ' <;uir- 
 lander,' ' steriliser,' * blandissant/ ' ordounement' (Mon- 
 taigne), with innumerable others. 
 
III.] EXTINCT ENGLISH. 139 
 
 but not 'unblithe/ 'ease/ but not 'unease' 
 (Hacket) ; ' repentance/ but not ' unrepentance / 
 ' remission/ but not ' irremissiou' (Donne) ; 
 'science/ but not ' nescience' (Glanvill); 'to know/ 
 but not ' to unknow' (Wiclif ) ; ' to give/ but not 
 ' to ungive/ Or once more, with a curious varia- 
 tion from this, the negative survives, wliile the 
 affirmative is gone ; thus ' wieldy' (Chaucer) sur- 
 vives only in ' unwieldy ; ' couth' and ' couthly' 
 (both in Spenser), only in 'uncouth' and ' un- 
 conthly / ' ruly' (Foxe) only ' in unruly / 'gainly' 
 (Henry More) in ' ungainly / these last tvvo were 
 both of them serviceable words, and have been ill 
 lost ; ' gainly' is indeed still common in the West 
 Riding of Yorkshire; ' exorable' (Holland) and 
 ' evitable' only in ' inexorable' and ' inevitable / 
 ' faultless' remains, but hardly ' faultful' (Shake- 
 speare). In like manner ' semble' (Foxe) has, ex- 
 cept as a technical law term, disappeared ; while 
 ' dissemble' continues. So also of other pairs one 
 has been taken and one left ; ' height/ or ' highth,' 
 as Milton better spelt it, remains, but ' lowth' 
 (Becon) is gone ; ' righteousness,' or ' rightwise- 
 ness,' as it would once more accurately have 
 been written, for ' righteous' is a corruption of 
 'rightwise/ remains, but its correspondent 'wrong- 
 wiseness' has been taken ; ' inroad' continues, but 
 ' outroad' (Holland) has disappeared ; ' levant' 
 lives, but ' ponent' (Holland) has died ; ' to ex- 
 tricate' continues, but, as we saw just now, ' to 
 intricate' does not ; ' parricide/ but not ' filicide' 
 (Holland). Again, of whole groups of words 
 
140 DIMINUTIONS or ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 formed on some particular sclieme it may be 
 only a single specimen will survive. Thus ' gain- 
 say/ that is, again say, survives; but 'gainstrive' 
 (Foxe), ' gainstand/ ' gaincope' (Golding), and 
 other similarly formed vrords exist no longer. It 
 is the same with ' foolhardy/ which is but one, 
 though now indeed the only one remaining, of at 
 least five adjectives formed on the same principle ; 
 thus ' foollarge/ quite as expressive a word as 
 prodigal, occurs in Chaucer, and ^ foolhasty,^ found 
 also in him, lived on to the time of Holland ; 
 while ' foolhappy' is in Spenser ; and ' foolbold' 
 in Bale. ^ Steadfast* remains, but ' sharaefast,* 
 ' rootfast/ 'bedfast* ( = bedridden), Miomefast/ 
 ' housefast/ ' masterfast* (Skelton), with others_, 
 are all gone. ' Exhort* remains ; but ' dehort,* a 
 word whose place neither ' dissuade* nor any other 
 exactly supplies, has escaped us. We have ' twi- 
 light/ but ' twibill* = bipennis (Chapman) is 
 extinct. 
 
 Let me mention another real loss, where in like 
 manner there remains in the present language 
 something to remind us of that which is gone. 
 The comparative ' rather* stands alone, having 
 dropped on one side its positive ' rathe,* and on the 
 other its superlative ' rathest.* ' Rathe/ having 
 the sense of early, though a graceful word, and not 
 fallen quite out of popular remembrance, inasmuch 
 as it is embalmed in the Lyc'idas of Milton, 
 
 "And the rathe primrose, which forsaken dies, 
 
 might still be suffered without remark to share 
 
HI.] RATHE, RATHER, RATHEST. 141 
 
 the common lot of so many words which have 
 perished, though w^orthy to have lived ; but the 
 disuse of ^ rathest^ has left a real gap in the lan- 
 guage, and the more so, seeing that ' liefest' is 
 gone too. ' Rather' expresses the Latin ' potius/ 
 but ' rathest' being out of use, we have no word, 
 unless ' soonest' may be accepted as such, to 
 express ' potissimum/ or the preference not of one 
 way over another or over certain others, but of 
 one over all ; which we therefore effect by aid of 
 various circumlocutions. Nor has * rathest' been 
 so long out of use, that it would be playing the 
 antic to attempt to revive it. It occurs in the 
 Sermons of Bishop Sanderson, who in the opening 
 of that beautiful sermon from the text, " When my 
 father and my mother forsake me, the Lord taketh 
 me up," puts the consideration, " why these," 
 that is, father and mother, '' are named the rathest, 
 and the rest to be included in them."* 
 
 It is sometimes easy enough, but indeed oftener 
 hard, and not seldom quite impossible, to trace 
 the causes which have been at work to bring about 
 that certain words, little by little, drop out of the 
 language of men, come to be heard more and more 
 rarely, and finally are not heard any more at all 
 — to trace the motives which have induced a whole 
 people thus to arrive at a tacit consent not to em- 
 ploy them any longer ; for without this tacit con- 
 sent they could never have thus become obsolete. 
 
 * For other passages in which 'rathest' occurs, see the 
 State Papers, vol. ii. pp. 92, 170. 
 
142 DIMINUTIONS or ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [leCT. 
 
 That it is not accident, that there is a law here at 
 ^vork, however hidden it may be from us, is plain 
 from the fact that certain families of words, words 
 formed on certain patterns, have a tendency thus 
 to fall into desuetude. 
 
 Thus, I think, we may trace a tendency in 
 words ending in ' some,^ the Anglo-Saxon and 
 early English 'sum,' theGerman ' sam' ('friedsam,' 
 'seltsam') to fall ont of use. It is true that a vast 
 number of these survive, as 'gladsome,' 'hand- 
 some,' ' w earisome,' ' buxom' (this last spelt better 
 ' bncksome,' by our earlier w riters, for its present 
 spelling altogether disguises its true character, and 
 the family to which it belongs ; being the same 
 word as the German 'beugsam' or 'biegsam,' bend- 
 able, compliant) ; but a larger number of these 
 •words than can be ascribed to accident, many 
 more than the due proportion of them, are either 
 quite or nearly extinct. Thus in Wiclif's Bible 
 alone you might note the following. •' lovesum,' 
 ' hatesum,' ' lustsum,' ' gilsum' (guilesome), ' weal- 
 sum,' ' heavysum,' ' lightsum,' ' delightsum ;' of 
 these ' lightsome' long survived, and indeed still 
 survives in provincial dialects -, but of the others 
 all save ' delightsome' are gone ; and that, altliougli 
 used in our Authorized Version (Mai. iii. 12), is 
 now only employed in poetry. So too 'might- 
 some' (see Coleridge's Glossary), ' brightsomo,' 
 (Marlowe), ' wieldsome,' and ' vuiwieldsome' 
 (Golding), ' unlightsome' (Milton), ' healthsome' 
 (Homilies), ' ugsome' and ' ugglesome' (both in 
 Foxe), ' laboursome' (Shakespeare), 'friendsome/ 
 
III.] WORDS ENDING IN SOME. 113 
 
 ' longsorae' (Bacon), ^ quietsorae/ '^ m irksome^ 
 (both in Spenser), * toothsome' (Beaumont and 
 Fletcher), ' gleesome/ '^ joysome' (both in Browne's 
 Pastorals), ' gay some' [Mirror for Magistrates), 
 
 * roomsome/ ' bigsome,' ' avvsorae,' ' timersome/ 
 'winsome,' ' viewsome/ ' dosome' ( = prosperous), 
 'flaysome' ( = fearful), ' auntersome' ( = adven- 
 turous), ' claraorsome' (all these still surviving in 
 the North), ' playsome' (employed by the historian 
 Hume), lissome,' have nearly or quite disappeared 
 from our English speech. They seem to have 
 held their ground in Scotland in considerably 
 larger numbers than in the south of the Island.* 
 
 Neither can I esteem it a mere accident that of 
 a group of depreciatory and contemptuous words 
 ending in ' ard,' at least one half should have 
 dropped out of use; I refer to that group of 
 which * dotard,' ' laggard,' ' braggard,' now spelt 
 ' braggart,' ' sluggard,' ' buzzard,' ^ bastard,' 
 'wizard,' may be taken as surviving specimens; 
 
 * blinkard' [Homilies), ' dizzard' (Burton), ' dul- 
 lard' (Udal), ' musard ' (Chaucer), ^trichard' 
 [Political Songs), 'shreward' (Robert of Glou- 
 cester), ' ballard' (a bald-headed man, Wiclif ) ; 
 ' puggard,' ' stinkard' (Ben Jonson), ' haggard,' 
 a worthless hawk, as extinct. 
 
 Thus too there is a very curious province of our 
 
 * Jamieson's Dictionary gives a large number of words 
 with this termination which T should suppose were always 
 peculiar to Scotland, as 'bangsome,' i.e. quarrelsome, ' freak- 
 some,' ' drysome,' * grousome' (the German * grausam'). 
 
144 DIMINUTIONS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 language, in ^Thich we were once so rich, that 
 extensive losses here have failed to make us poor j 
 so many of its words still surviving, even after as 
 many or more have disappeared. T refer to those 
 double words which either contain within them- 
 selves a strong rhyming modulation, such for ex- 
 ample as Svilly-nilly,^ 'hocus-pocus,' 'helter-skelter,' 
 'tag-rag,' 'namby-pamby,' 'pell-mell,' 'hodge- 
 podge ;' or with a slight difference from this, 
 though belonging to the same group, those of 
 which the characteristic feature is not this in- 
 ternal likeness with initial unlikeness, but initial 
 likeness with internal unlikeness ; not rhyming, 
 but strongly alliterative, and in every case with a 
 change of the interior vowel from a weak into a 
 strong, generally from i into a or o ; as ' shilly- 
 shally,' 'mingle-mangle,' 'tittle-tattle,' ' prittle- 
 prattle,' ' riff-raff,' ' see-saw,' ' slip-slop.' No one 
 who is not quite out of love with the homelier yet 
 more vigorous portions of the language, but will 
 acknowledge the life and strength which there is 
 often in these and in others still current among 
 us. But of the same sort what vast numbers 
 have fallen out of use, some so fallen out of all 
 remembrance that it may be difficult almost to 
 find credence for them. Thus take of rhyming 
 the following : ' hugger-mugger,' ' hurly-burly,' 
 ' kicksy-wicksy' (all in Shakespeare) ; ' hibber- 
 gibbcr,' ' rusty-dusty,' ' liorrcl-lorrcl,' ' slaump- 
 paump' (all in Gabriel Harvey), ' roystcr-doyster' 
 (Old Play), ' hoddy-doddy' (Ben Jonson) ; while 
 of alliterative might be instanced these : ' skimble- 
 
III.] WORDS UNDER BAN. 145 
 
 skamble/ ' bibble-babble' (both in Shakespeare), 
 ' twittle-twattle/ ' kim-kam' (both in Holland), 
 ' hab-naV (Lilly), ' trim-tram/ ' trish-trash/ 
 ' swish-swash' (all in Gabriel Harvey), ' whim- 
 wham' (Beaumont and Fletcher), ' mizz-mazz' 
 (Locke), 'snip-snap' (Pope), 'flim-flam' (Swift), 
 ' tric-trac,' and others. 
 
 Again, there was once a whole family of words, 
 whereof the greater number are now under ban ; 
 which seemed at one time to have been formed 
 almost at pleasure, the only condition being that 
 the combination should be a happy one — I mean 
 all those singularly expressive words formed by a 
 combination of verb and substantive, the former 
 governing the latter; as 'telltale,' 'scapegrace,' 
 ' turncoat,' ' turntail,' ' skinflint,' ' spendthrift,' 
 'spitfire,' 'lickspittle,' 'daredevil' ( = wagehals), 
 'makebate' ( = storenfried), 'marplot,' 'killjoy.' 
 These with a certain number of others, have held 
 their ground, and may be said to be still more or 
 less in use ; but what a number more are for- 
 gotten ; and yet, though not always elegant, they 
 constituted a very vigorous portion of our lan- 
 guage, and preserved some of its most genuine 
 idioms.* It could not well be otherwise ; they 
 
 * Many languages have groups of words formed upon the 
 same scheme, although, singularly enough, they are altogether 
 absent from the Anglo-Saxon. (J. Grimm, Deutsche Gramm., 
 vol. ii. p. 976.) The Spaniards have a great many very ex- 
 pressive words of this formation. Thus with allusion to the 
 great struggle in which Christian Spain was engaged for so 
 many centuries, a vaunting hraggart is a 'matamoros,' a 
 L 
 
146 DIMINUTIONS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 are almost all -^orcls of abuse^ and the abusive 
 words of a language are always among the most 
 picturesque and vigorous and imaginative which 
 it possesses. The whole man speaks out in them, 
 and often the man under the influence of passion 
 and excitement, which always lend force and fire 
 to his speech. Let me remind you of a few of 
 them ; ' smellfeast/ if not a better, is yet a more 
 graphic, word than our foreign parasite ; as gra- 
 phic indeed for us as rpiy^i^mrvoq to Greek ears ; 
 ^ claw^back^ (Racket) is a stronger, if not a more 
 graceful, word than flatterer or sycophant ; *" toss- 
 pof (Fuller), or less frequently ' reel-pot^ (Middle- 
 ton), tells its own tale as well as drunkard ; and 
 ' pinchpenny' (Holland), or ' nipfarthing^ (Drant), 
 as well as or better than miser. And then what 
 a multitude more there are in like kind ; ^ spin- 
 text,^ * lacklatin,^ ' mumblematins,' all applied to 
 ignorant clerics ; ' bitesheep^ (a favourite word 
 with Foxe) to such of these as were rather wolves 
 tearing, than shepherds feeding, the flock ; ' slip- 
 string' = pendard (Beaumont and Fletcher), ^ slip- 
 gibbet,* ' scapegallows ;' all names given to those 
 who, however they might have escaped, were justly 
 owed to the gallows, and might still " go upstairs 
 to bed.'' 
 
 How many of these words occur in Shake- 
 speare. The following list makes no pretence to 
 
 * slaymoor ;' he is a ' matasieie,' a * slayseven ;' a * perdona- 
 vidas,' a ' sparelives.' Others may be added to these, a^j 
 
 * azotacalles,' * picapleytos,' * saltaparedes,' * rorapeesquinas,' 
 
 * ganapan,' * cascatreguas.' 
 
III.] GROUP OF DISUSED WORDS. 147 
 
 completeness ; ' martext/ ' carrytale/ ^pleaseman/ 
 ^ sneakcup/ '^mumbleiievvs/ Svantwit/ ^lackbrain/ 
 Mackbeard/ ' lacklove/ ' ticklebrain/ ^ cutpurse/ 
 ' cutthroat/ ' crackhemp/ ' breedbate/ ' swinge- 
 buckler/ ^ pickpurse/ ^ pickthank/ * picklock/ 
 ^ scarecrow/ ^ breakvow/ ' breakpromise/ ' make- 
 peace^ — this last and ' telltruth' (Fuller) being the 
 only ones in the whole collection, wherein reproba- 
 tion or contempt is not implied. Nor is the list ex- 
 hausted yet ; there are further ' dingthrift' = pro- 
 digal (Herrick), * wastegood^ (Cotgrave), ' stroy- 
 good' (Golding), ' wastethrift' (Beaumont and 
 Fletcher), ^ scapethrift/ ' swashbuckler' (both in 
 Holinshed), ' shakebuckler/ ' rinsepitcher' (both in 
 Becon), ^ crackrope' (Howell), ' waghalter/ ' wag- 
 feather' (both in Cotgrave), ' blabtale' (Hacket), 
 ' getnothing' (Adams), ' findfault' (Florio), ' tear- 
 throat' (Gayton), ' marprelate/ ' spitvenom/ ' nip- 
 cheese,' ' nipscreed,' ' killman' (Chapman), ' lack- 
 land,' ^pickquarrel,' "^ pickfaults,' ^pickpeuny' 
 (Henry More), ' makefray' (Bishop Hall), ' make- 
 debate' (Richardson's Letters), ' kindlecoal' (at- 
 tisefeu), 'kindlefire' (both in Gurnall), Hurntippet' 
 (Cranmer), ' swillbowl' (Stubbs), ^ smellsmock,' 
 'cumberwold' (Drayton), ^ curryfavor/ 'pinchfist/ 
 ' suckfist, ' ^ hatepeace ' (Sylvester), ' hategood ' 
 (Bunyan), ' clutchfist,' ' sharkgull' (both in Mid- 
 dleton), 'makesport' (Fuller), 'hangdog' ("He- 
 rod's hangdogs in the tapestry," Pope), ' catchpoll/ 
 ' makeshift' (used not impersonally, as now), 
 ' pickgoose' (" the bookworm was never but a 
 pickgoose'^), ' killcow' (these three last in Gabriel 
 L 2 
 
148 DIMINUTIONS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 Harvey), ^ rakesliame' (Milton, prose), with others 
 which it will be convenient to omit. ' Eakehell/ 
 whicli used to be spelt ' rakeP or ^rakle' (Chaucer), 
 a good English word, would be only through an 
 error included in this list, although Cowper, when 
 he writes ' rakehelP ("rake-hell baronet^^) evidently 
 regarded it as belonging to this group.* 
 
 Perhaps one of the most frequent causes which 
 leads to the disuse of words is this : in some in- 
 explicable way there comes to be attached some- 
 thing of ludicrous, or coarse, or vulgar to them, 
 out of a feeling of which they are no longer used 
 in earnest serious writing, and at the same time 
 fall out of the discourse of those who desire to 
 speak elegantly. Not indeed that this degrada- 
 tion which overtakes words is in all cases inexpli- 
 cable. The unheroic character of most men's 
 minds, with their consequent intolerance of that 
 heroic which they cannot understand, is con- 
 stantly at work, too often with success, in taking 
 down words of nobleness from their high pitch ; 
 and, as the most effectual way of doing this, in 
 casting an air of mock-heroic about them. Thus 
 '^to dub,^ a word resting on one of the noblest 
 usages of chivalry, has now something of ludicrous 
 about it ; so too has ^ dou<:!;hty ;^ they belong to 
 that serio-comic, mock-heroic diction, the multi- 
 
 * The mistake is far earlier; long before Cowper wrote 
 the sound suggested first this sense, and then this spelling. 
 Thus Stanihurst, Description of Ireland, p. 28: "They are 
 taken for no better than ralcehels, or the deviVs black 
 guard;" and often elsewhere. 
 
III.] WORDS BECOME VULGAU. 149 
 
 plication of whicli, as of all parodies on greatness, 
 and the favour with which it is received, is always 
 a sign of evil augury for a nation, is at present a 
 sign of evil augury for our own. 
 
 ' Pate^ in the sense of head is now comic or 
 ignoble ; it was not so once ; as is plain from its 
 occurrence in the Prayer Book Version of the 
 Psalms (Ps. vii. 17); as little was ^noddle/ which 
 occurs in one of the few poetical passages in 
 Hawes. The same may be said of ^ sconce/ in 
 this sense at least ; of ' nowF or ' noil/ which 
 Wiclif uses ; of ' slops^ for trousers (Marlowe's 
 Lucan) ; of ' cocksure' (Rogers), of ' smug,' which 
 once meant no more than adorned (" the smug 
 bridegroom," Shakespeare). 'To nap' is now a 
 word without dignity ; while yet in Wiclif's Bible 
 it is said, '* Lo he schall not nappe, nether slepe 
 that kepeth Israel" (Ps. cxxi. 4). 'To punch/ ' to 
 thump,' botli which, and in serious writing, occur 
 in Spenser, could not now obtain the same use, 
 nor yet ' to wag,' or ' to buss.' Neither would 
 any one now say that at Lystra Barnabas and 
 Paul " rent their clothes and skipped out among 
 the people" (Acts xiv. 14), which is the language 
 that Wiclif employs; nor yet that "the Lord 
 trounced Sisera and all his host" as it stands in 
 the Bible of 1551 . "A sight of angels/' for which 
 phrase see Cranmer's Bible (Heb. xii. 22), would 
 be felt as a vulgarism now. We should scarcely 
 call now a delusion of Satan a " flamoi the devil" 
 (Henry More). It is not otherwise in regard of 
 phrases. '' Through thick and thin/' occurring 
 
150 DIMINUTIONS or ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 in Spenser, ' cheek by jowP in Dubartas, do not 
 now belong to serious poetry. In the glorious 
 ballad of Chevy Chase, a noble warrior whose legs 
 are hewn off, is described as being '* in doleful 
 dumps ;" just as, in Holland's Livy, the Romans 
 are set forth as being " in the dumps" as a con- 
 sequence of their disastrous defeat at Cannse. In 
 Golding's Ovid, one fears that he will ^' go to pot.'^ 
 In one of the beautiful letters of John Careless, 
 preserved in Foxe's Martyrs, a persecutor, who 
 expects a recantation from him, is described as 
 " in the wrong box.'^ And in the sermons of 
 Barrow, who certainly intended to write an elevated 
 style, and did not seek familiar, still less vulgar, 
 expressions, we constantly meet such terms as ' to 
 rate,^ ' to snub,' ' to gull,^ ' to pudder,' ' dumpish,^ 
 and the like; which we may confidently affirm 
 were not vulgar when he used them. 
 
 Then too the advance of refinement causes 
 words to be foregone, which are felt to speak too 
 plainly. It is not here merely that one age has 
 more delicate ears than another ; and that matters 
 are freely spoken of at one time which at another 
 are withdrawn from conversation. This is some- 
 thing; but besides this, and even if this delicacy 
 were at a standstill, there would still be a con- 
 tinual process going on, by M'hich the words, 
 which for a certain while have been employed to 
 designate coarse or disagreeable facts or things, 
 would be disallowed, or at all events relinquished to 
 the lower classes of society, and others adopted in 
 their place. The former by long use being felt 
 
III.] COARSENESS ATTACHED TO WORDS. 151 
 
 to have come into too direct and close relation 
 with that which they designate, to summon it up 
 too distinctly before the mind's eye, they are 
 thereupon exchanged for others, which, at first at 
 least, indicate more lightly and allusively the 
 offensive thing, rather hint and suggest than paint 
 and describe it : although by and bye these new 
 will also in their turn be discarded, and for exactly 
 the same reasons which brought about the dis- 
 missal of those which they themselves superseded. 
 It lies in the necessity of things that I must leave 
 this part of my subject, very curious as it is, with- 
 out illustration * But no one, even moderately 
 acquainted with the early literature of the Refor- 
 mation, can be ignorant of words freely used in it, 
 which now are not merely coarse and as such 
 under ban, but which no one would employ who 
 did not mean to speak impurely and vilely. 
 
 Thus much in respect of the words, and the 
 character of the words, which we have lost or let 
 go. Of these, indeed, if a language, as it travels 
 onwards, loses some, it also acquires others, and 
 probably many more than it loses ; they are leaves 
 
 * As not, however, turning- on a very coarse matter, and 
 illustrating the subject with infinite wit and humour, I 
 might refer the Spanish scholar to the discussion between 
 Don Quixote and his squire on the dismissal of ' regoldar,' 
 from the language of good society, and the substitution of 
 ' erutar' in its room {Bon Quijcote, 4. 7. 43). In a letter 
 of Cicero to Pastus {Fam. ix. 22) there is a subtle and 
 interesting disquisition on forbidden words, and their philo- 
 sophy. 
 
152 DIMINUTIONS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 on the tree of language, of which if some fall 
 away, a new succession takes their place. But 
 it is not so, as I already observed, with the forms 
 or powers of a language, that is, with the various 
 inflections, moods, duplicate or triplicate formation 
 of tenses ; which the speakers of a language come 
 gradually to perceive that they can do without, 
 and therefore cease to employ ; seeking to suppress 
 grammatical intricacies, and to obtain grammatical 
 simplicity and so far as possible a pervading 
 uniformity, sometimes even at the hazard of letting 
 go what had real worth, and contributed to the 
 more lively, if not to the clearer, setting forth of 
 the inner thought or feeling of the mind. Here 
 there is only loss, with no compensating gain ; or, 
 at all events, diminution only, and never addition. 
 In regard of these inner forces and potencies of a 
 language, there is no creative energy at work in 
 its later periods, in any, indeed, but quite the 
 earliest. They are not as the leaves, but may be 
 likened to the stem and leading branches of a 
 tree, whose shape, mould and direction are deter- 
 mined at a very early stage of its growth ; and 
 which age, or accident, or violence may diminish, 
 but which can never be multiplied. I have already 
 slightly referred to a notable example of this, 
 namely, to the dropping of the dual number in 
 the Greek language. Thus in all the New Testa- 
 ment it doesnot once occur, having quite fallen out 
 of the common dialect in which that is composed. 
 Elsewhere too it has been felt that the dual was 
 not worth preserving, or at any rate, that no 
 
III.] EXTINCTION OF POWERS. 153 
 
 serious inconvenience would follow on its loss. 
 There is no such number in the modern German, 
 Danish or Swedish; in the old German and Norse 
 there was. 
 
 How many niceties, delicacies, subtleties of lan- 
 guage, we, speakers of the English tongue, in the 
 course of centuries have got rid of; how bare 
 (whether too bare is another question) we have 
 stripped ourselves ; what simplicity for better or 
 for worse reigns in the present English, as com- 
 pared with the old Anglo-Saxon. That had six 
 declensions, our present English but one ; that had 
 three genders, English, if we except one or two 
 words, has none; that formed the genitive in a 
 variety of ways, we only in one ; and the same 
 fact meets us, wherever we compare the grammars 
 of the two languages. At the same time, it can 
 scarcely be repeated too often, that in the estimate 
 of the gain or loss thereupon ensuing, we must 
 by no means put certainly to loss everything which 
 the language has dismissed, any more than every- 
 thing to gain which it has acquired. It is no real 
 wealth in a language to have needless and super- 
 fluous forms. They are often an embarrassment 
 and an encumbrance to it rather than a help. 
 The Finnish language has fourteen cases. Without 
 pretending to know exactly what it is able to 
 effect, I yet feel confident that it cannot effect 
 more, nor indeed so much, with its fourteen as the 
 Greek is able to do with its five. It theiefore 
 seems to me that some words of Otfried Miiller, 
 in many ways admirable, do yet exaggerate the 
 
154 DIMINUTIONS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 losses consequent on the reduction of the forms 
 of a language. " It may be observed/^ he says, 
 " that in the lapse of ages, from the time that the 
 progress of language can be observed, grammatical 
 forms, such as the signs of cases, moods and tenses 
 have never been increased in number, but have 
 been constantly diminishing. The history of the 
 Komance, as well as of the Germanic, languages 
 shows in the clearest manner how a grammar, 
 once powerful and copious, has been gradually 
 weakened and impoverished, until at last it pre- 
 serves only a few fragments of its ancient inflec- 
 tions. Now there is no doubt that this luxuriance 
 of grammatical forms is not an essential part of a 
 language, considered merely as a vehicle of thought. 
 It is well known that the Chinese language, which 
 is merely a collection of radical words destitute of 
 grammatical forms, can express even philosophical 
 ideas with tolerable precision ; and the English, 
 which, from the mode of its formation by a mixture 
 of different tongues, has been stripped of its 
 grammatical inflections more completely than any 
 other European language, seems, nevertheless, 
 even to a foreigner, to be distinguished by its 
 energetic eloquence. All this mus^t be admitted 
 by every unprejudiced inquirer; but yet it can- 
 not be overlooked, that this copiousness of gram- 
 matical forms, and the flne shades of meaning 
 which they express, evince a nicety of observation, 
 and a faculty of distinguishing, which unquestion- 
 ably prove that the race of mankind among whom 
 these languages arose was characterized by a re- 
 
III.] TERMINATION IN ESS. 155 
 
 raarkable correctness and subtlety of thought. 
 Nor can any modern European, who forms in his 
 mind a lively image of the classical languages in 
 their ancient grammatical luxuriance, and com- 
 pares them with his mother tongue, conceal from 
 himself that in the ancient languages the words, 
 with their inflections, clothed as it were with 
 muscles and sinews, come forward like living bodies, 
 full of expression and character, while in the 
 modern tongues the words seem shrunk up into 
 mere skeletons/'* 
 
 Whether languages are as much impoverished 
 by this process as is here assumed, may, I think, 
 be a question. I will endeavour to give you some 
 materials which shall assist you in forming your 
 own judgment in the matter. And here I am 
 sure that I shall do best in considering not forms 
 which the language has relinquished long ago, but 
 mainly such as it is relinquishing now; which, 
 touching us more nearly, will have a far more 
 lively interest for us all. For example, the female 
 termination which we emplovin certain words, such 
 asfrom Hieir' ' heiress,' from 'prophet' 'prophetess,' 
 from ' sorcerer' ' sorceress,' was once far more 
 widely extended than at present ; the words which 
 retain it are daily becoming fewer. It has already 
 fallen away in so many, and is evidently becoming 
 of less frequent use in so many others, that, if we 
 may augur of the future from the analogy of the 
 past, it will one day altogether vanish from our 
 
 * Literature of Greece, p. 5. 
 
156 DIMINUTIONS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 tongue. Thus all these occiu' in WicliPs Bible ; 
 'techeress' as the female teacher (2 Chron. xxxv. 
 25) ; ' friendess^ (Prov. vii. 4) ; ' servautess' 
 (Gen. xvi. 2); Meperess^ ( = saltatrix, Ecclus. ix. 
 4) ; ' daunceress' (Ecclus. ix. 4) ; ' neiglibouress' 
 (Exod. iii. 22) ; ' sinneress^ (Luke vii. 37) ; ' pur- 
 puress^ (Acts xvi. 14) ; ' cousiness' (Luke i. 36) ; 
 ' slayeress^ (Tob. iii. 9) ; ' devouress^ (Ezek. xxxvi. 
 13) ; * spousess^ (Prov. v. 19) ; thralless^ (Jer. 
 xxxiv. 16) ; ^ dwelleress^ (Jer. xxi. 13) ; ' waileress' 
 (Jer. ix. 17); ' cheseress' ( = electrix, Wisd. viii. 
 4) ; ' singeress/ ' breakeress/ ^ waiteress/ this last 
 indeed having recently come up again. Add to 
 these * chideress/ the female chider, ' herdess/ 
 ' constabless/ ' moveress/ ^ jangleress/ ' soudaness/ 
 ( = sultana), ' guideress / ' charmeress^ (all in 
 Chaucer) ; and others, -which however we may have 
 now let them fall, reached to far later periods of 
 the language; thus Sanqueress^ (Fabyan) ; ^ poi- 
 soneress^ (Greneway) ; ' knightess' (Udal) ; ' ped- 
 leress,^ 'championess^ ^ vassaless,^ ' avengeress,' 
 ' warriouress,^ ' victoress,' ^ creatress^ (all in Spen- 
 ser) ; 'fornicatress,^ 'cloistress,^ 'jointress' (all in 
 Shakespeare) ; ' vowess^ (Holinshed) ; ' miuistress,^ 
 'flatteress^ (both in Holland) ; ' captainess' (Sidney); 
 'saintess^ (Sir T. Urquhart) ; ' heroess,^ ' dragoness,' 
 
 * butleress,^ ' contendress,' ' waggoness,^ ' rectress' 
 (all in Chapman); 'shootress^ (Fairfax); ' archeress' 
 (Fanshawe) ; ' clientess,^ ' pandress' (both in 
 Middleton) ; ' papess,' ' Jesuitess^ (Bishop Hall) ; 
 
 * incitress' (Gayton) ; ' soldieress,^ ' guardianess/ 
 ' votaress' (all in Beaumont and Fletcher) ; ' com- 
 
III.] TERMINATION IN STER. 157 
 
 fortress/ ' fosteress^ (Ben Jonson) ; ' soveraintess' 
 (Sylvester) ; ^ preserveress' (Daniel) ; ^ soiioitress/ 
 *impostress/ ' buildress/ *^intrudress^ (all in Fuller) ; 
 ' favouress' (Hakewell) ; ' cornmandress' (Burton); 
 ' raonarchess/ ' discipless' (Speed) ; ' auditress/ 
 ' cateress/ ' chantress/ ' tyranness^ (all in Mil- 
 ton) ; ' citess/ ' divineress' (both in Dryden) ; 
 ' deaness ' (Sterne) ; ' detractress ' (Addison) ; 
 ' hucksteress' (Howell) ; ' tutoress' (Shaftesbury) ; 
 ^ farmeress' (Lord Peterborough, Letter to Pope) ; 
 ' laddess/ which however still survives in the 
 contracted form of ^ lass ■/ with more which, I 
 doubt not, it would not be very hard to bring 
 together.* 
 
 Exactly the same thing has happened with 
 another feminine affix. I refer to ' ster,' taking 
 the place of ' er' where a feminine doer is in- 
 tended.t ' Spinner' and * spinster' are the only 
 pair of such words, which still survive. There 
 were formerly many such ; thus ' baker' had 
 ' bakester,' being the female who baked : ' brewer, 
 ' brewster ;' ' sewer' ' sewster / ' reader' ' readster;' 
 ' seamer' ' seamster ;' ' fruiterer' ' fruitester ;' 
 ' tumbler' ' tumblester ;' ' hopper' * hoppester' 
 (these last three in Chaucer ; " the shippes hop- 
 pesteres/' about which so much difficulty has been 
 made, are the ships dancing, i.e., on the waves), 
 
 * In Cotgrave's Dictionary I find * praiseress,' * commen- 
 dress,' ' fluteress,' ' possesseress,' ' loveress/ but have never 
 met them in use. 
 
 t On this termination see J. Grimm, Deutsche Gramm., 
 voL ii. p. 134; vol. iii. p. 339. 
 
158 DIMINUTIONS or ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 ' knitter^ ' knitster, (a word, I am told, still alive 
 in Devon). Add to these ' whitster' (female 
 bleacher^ Shakespeare), M^empster^ (pectrix), ^dry- 
 ster^ (siccatrix), 'brawdster, (I suppose embroi- 
 deress), and ^ salster^ (salinaria).* It is a singular 
 example of the richness of a language in forms at 
 the earlier stages of its existence, tliat not a few 
 of the words which had, as we have just seen, a 
 feminine termination in ' ess,' had also a second 
 in ' ster/ Thus ' daunser,' beside ' daunseress/ 
 had also ^ daunster' (Ecclus. ix. 4) ; ' wailer/ be- 
 side 'waileress,' had ' wailster' (Jer. ix. 17); 
 'dweller' 'dwelster' (Jer. xxi. 13); and *' singer' 
 ' singster' (2 Kin. xix. 35) ; so too, ' chider' had 
 ' chidester' (Chaucer), as well as ' chideress,' 
 'slayer' 'slayster' (Tob. iii. 9), as well as 'slayeress,' 
 'chooser' ' chesister,' (Wisd. viii. 4), as well as 
 ' cheseress,' with others that might be named. 
 
 It is difficult to understand how Marsh, with 
 these examples before him should affirm,"! find no 
 positive evidence to show that the termination 'ster' 
 was ever regarded as a feminine termination in 
 English." It may be, and indeed has been, urged that 
 the existence of such words as 'seamstr<?^5,' 'song- 
 stre55,'is decisive proof that the ending'ster' of itself 
 was not counted sufficient to designate persons as 
 female ; for if, it has been said, ' seam^/e^r^ and 
 ' song^/er' had been felt to be already feminine, 
 no one would have ever thought of doubling on 
 
 * I am indebted for these last four to a Notninale in the 
 National Antiquities, vol. i. p. 21G. 
 
III.] TERMINATION IN STER. 159 
 
 this^ and adding a second female termination ; 
 ' seamstress/ ' songstress.' But all which can 
 justly be concluded from hence is, that when this 
 final ^ess^ was added to these already feminine 
 forms, and examples of it will not, I think, be 
 found till a comparatively late period of the lan- 
 guage, the true principle and law of the words 
 had been lost sight of and forgotten * The same 
 may be affirmed of such other of these feminine 
 forms as are now applied to men, such as ' game- 
 ster,^ ' youngster,^ ' oldster,^ ^ drugster' (South), 
 ^ huckster,^ ^ hackster,^ (= swordsman, Milton, 
 prose), 'teamster,^ ^throwster/ 'rhymester,^ 
 * punster^ {Spectator), ^ tapster,-' ^ whipster^ (Shake- 
 speare) , ^ trickster.' Either like ' teamster/ and 
 ' punster/ the words first came into being, when 
 the true significance of this form was altogether 
 lost ;t or like ' tapster,' which was female in 
 
 * The earliest example which Richardson gives of * seam- 
 stress' is from Gay, of ' songstress,' from Thomson. I find 
 however 'sempstress' in the translation of Olearius' Voyages 
 and Travels, 1669, p. 43. It is quite certain that as late as 
 Ben Jonson, ' seamster' and ' songster' expressed i\\e female 
 seamer and singer; a single passage from his Masque of 
 Christmas is evidence to this. One of the children of Christ- 
 mas there is " Wassel, like a neat sempster and songster ; 
 her page bearing a brown bowl." Compare a passage from 
 Holland's Leaguer, 1632 : " A tyre-iooman of phantastical 
 ornaments, a sempster for ruffes, cuffes, smocks and waist- 
 coats." 
 
 t This was about the time of Henry VIII. In proof of 
 the confusion which reigned on the subject in Shakespeare's 
 time, see his use of ' spinster' as = * spinner,' the man spin- 
 
160 DIMINUTIONS or ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 Chaucer {" the gay tapstere''), as it is still in 
 Dutch and Frisian, and distinguished from 
 ' tapper/ the 7nan who keeps the inn, or has charge 
 of the tap, or as 'bakester,' at this day used in Scot- 
 land for ' baker,^ as ' dyester' for ' dyer,^ the word 
 did originally belong of right and exclusively to 
 ■women; but with the gradual transfer of the 
 occupation to men, and an increasing forgetful- 
 ness of what this termination implied, there went 
 also a transfer of the name,* just as in other 
 words, and out of the same causes, the exact con- 
 verse has found place ; and ' baker^ or ' brewer,^ 
 not ' bakester' or ^ brewster,^ would be now in 
 
 ning, Henri/ VIII., Act i. Sc. 2 ; and I have no doubt that 
 it is the same in Othello, Act i. Sc. 1. And a little later, in 
 Howell's Vocabulary, 1659, ' spinner' and ' spinster' are both 
 referred to the male sex, and the barbarous ' spinstress' in- 
 vented for the female. 
 
 * I have included ' huckster,' as will be observed, in this 
 list. I certainly cannot produce any passage in which it is 
 employed as theyewaZe pedler. We have only, however, to 
 keep in mind the existence of the verb * to huck,' in the sense 
 of to peddle (it is used by Bishop Andrews), and at the same 
 time not to let the present spelling of ' hawker' mislead us, 
 and we shall confidently recognize * hucker' (the German 
 
 * hoker' or ' hocker'), in hawker, that is, the man who 
 
 * hucks,' 'hawks,' or peddles, as in 'huckster' the female 
 who does the same. When therefore Howell and others 
 employ * hucksteress,' they fall into the same barbarous 
 excess of expression, whereof we are all guilty, when we use 
 
 * seamstress' and ' songstress.' — The note stood thus in the 
 third edition. Since that was published, I have met in the 
 Nominale referred to p. 158, the following, " ha3C auxiatrix, 
 a /mkstcr." 
 
ITI.] DECEPTIVE ANALOGIES. 161 
 
 England applied to the woman baking or brewing. 
 So entirely has this power of the language died 
 out, that it survives more apparently than really 
 even in ' spinner' and ' spinster ;' seeing that 
 'spinster' has obtained now quite another meaning 
 than that of a woman spinnings whom, as well as 
 the man, we should call not a ' spinster/ but a 
 ' spinner/* It would indeed be hard to believe, 
 if we had not constant experience of the fact, how 
 soon and how easily the true law and significance 
 of some form, which has never ceased to be in 
 everybody's mouth, may yet be lost sight of by 
 all. No more curious chapter in the history of 
 language could be written than one which should 
 trace the violations of analogy, the transgressions 
 of the most primary laws of a language, which fol- 
 low hereupon ; the plurals like ' welkin' ( = wolken, 
 the clouds), ' chicken,'t which are dealt with as 
 singulars, the singulars, like ' riches' (richesse),J 
 
 * Notes and Queries, No. 157. 
 
 f When Wallis wrote, it was only beginning to be for- 
 gotten that * chick' was the singular, and ' chicken' the 
 plural : " Sunt qui dicunt in singulari * chicken,' et in plurali 
 * chickens ;' " and even now the words are in many country 
 parts correctly employed. In Sussex, a correspondent writes, 
 they would as soon think of saying * oxens' as ' chickens.' 
 
 ;j: See Chaucer's Eomaufit of the Hose, 1032, where Rich- 
 esse, " an high lady of great noblesse," is one of the persons 
 of the allegory ; and compare Rev. xviii. 17, Authorized Ver- 
 sion. This has so entirely escaped the knowledge of Ben 
 Jonson, English scholar as he was, that in his Grammar he 
 cites ' riches' as an example of an English word wanting a 
 singular. 
 
 M 
 
162 DIMINUTIONS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 ^ pease' (pisum, pois),* ^alms/ 'eaves/ \vliich are 
 assumed to be plurals. 
 
 There is one example of this, familiar to us all; 
 probably so familiar that it would not be worth 
 while adverting to it_, if it did not illustrate, as no 
 other word could, this forgetfulness which may 
 overtake a whole people, of the true meaning of 
 a grammatical form which they have never ceased 
 to employ. I refer to the mistaken assumption 
 that the ' s' of the genitive, as ' the king's 
 countenance,' was merely a more rapid way of 
 pronouncing ' the king his countenance,' and that 
 the final ' s' in * king's' was in fact an elided 
 ' his.' This explanation for a long time prevailed 
 almost universally ; I believe there are many who 
 accept it still. It was in vain that here and there 
 a deeper knower of our tongue protested against 
 this '^ monstrous syntax," as Ben Jonson in his 
 Grammar justly calls it.f It was in vain that 
 "Wallis, another English scholar of the seventeenth 
 century, pointed out in his Grammar that the 
 slightest examination of the facts revealed the un- 
 tenable character of this explanation, seeing that 
 we do not merely say ^' the king\s countenance," 
 but " the queen^s countenance ;" and in this case 
 the final ' s' cannot stand for ' his,' for " the queen 
 
 * " Set shallow brooks to surging seas, 
 An orient pearl to a white />ease." 
 
 PuUenliam. 
 f It is curious that despite of this protest, one of his plays 
 lias for its name, Sejanus his Fall, 
 
III.] UNGRAMMATICAL TORM. 163 
 
 his countenance'^ cannot be intended ;* we do not 
 say merely *Hhe child's bread/' but ''the children's 
 bread/' where it is no less impossible to resolve the 
 phrase into " the children his bread.^f Despite of 
 these protests the error held its ground. This 
 much indeed of a plea it could make for itself, 
 that such an actual employment of * his' had 
 found its way into the language, as early as the 
 fourteenth century, and had been in occasional, 
 though rare use, from that time downward. J 
 Yet this, which has only been elicited by the re- 
 searches of recent scholars, does not in the least 
 
 * Even this does not startle Addison, or cause him any 
 misgiving; on the contrary he boldly asserts [Spectator y 
 No. 135), " The same single letter ' s' on many occasions 
 does the office of a whole word, and represents the ' his' or 
 * her^ of our forefathers." 
 
 t Nothing can be better than the way in which Wallis 
 disposes of this scheme, although less successful in showing 
 what this ' s' does mean than in showing what it cannot 
 mean {Gramm. Ling. Anglic, c. 5); Qui autem arbitrantur 
 illud s, loco his adjunctum esse (priori scilicet parte per 
 aphseresim abscissa), ideoque apostrophi notam semper vel 
 pingendaia esse, vel saltem subintelligendam, omnino errant. 
 Quamvis enim non negem quin apostrophi nota commode 
 nonnunquam affigi possit, ut ipsius litterse s usus distinctius, 
 ubi opus est, percipiatur j ita tamen semper fieri debere, aut 
 etiara ideo fieri quia vocem his innuat, omnino nego. Ad- 
 jungitur enim et fceminarum nominibus propriis, et substan- 
 tivis pluralibus, ubi vox his sine soloecismo locum habere non 
 potest : atque etiam in possessivis ours, yours, theirs, herSy 
 ubi vocem his innui nemo somniaret. 
 
 X See the proofs in Marsh's Manual of the English Lan- 
 guage, English Edit., pp. 280, 293. 
 M 2 
 
164 DIMINUTIONS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 justify those who assumed that in the habitual 
 * s^ of the genitive were to be found the remains 
 of ^ his^ — an error from which the books of scho- 
 lars in the seventeenth, and in the early decades 
 of the eighteenth, century are not a whit clearer 
 than those of others. Spenser, Donne, Fuller, 
 Jeremy Taylor, all fall into it ; I cannot say con- 
 fidently whether Milton does. Dryden more than 
 once helps out his verse with an additional syllable 
 gained by its aid. It has even forced its way into 
 our Prayer Book itself, where in the " Prayer for 
 all sorts and conditions of men," added by Bishop 
 Sanderson at the last revision of the Liturgy in 
 1661, we are bidden to say, "and this we beg for 
 Jesus Christ his sake."* I need hardly tell you 
 that this ' sMs in fact the one remnant of flexion 
 surviving in the singular number of our English 
 noun substantives ; it is in all the Indo-Germanic 
 languages the original sign of the genitive, or at 
 any rate the earliest of which we can take cogni- 
 zance ; and just as in Latin ^ lapis' makes * lapidis' 
 
 * I cannot think that it would exceed the authority of our 
 University Presses, if this were removed from the Prayer 
 Books which they put forth, as certainly it is supprest by 
 many of the clergy in the reading. Such a liberty they have 
 already assumed with the Bible. In all earher editions of 
 the Authorized Version it stood at 1 Kin. xv. 24 : " Never- 
 theless Asa his heart was perfect with the Lord;" it is 
 " Asas heart" now. In the same way " Mordecai his 
 matters" (Esth. iii. 4) has been silently changed into " Mor- 
 decai s matters ;" and in some modern editions, but not in 
 all, " Holofernes his head" (Judith xiii. 9} into " Kolo- 
 feinies head." 
 
III.] ADJECTIVES IN EN. 165 
 
 in the genitive, so ^ king/ ' queen/ ' cliild/ make 
 severally ' kings/ ' queens/ ' chilcls/ the comma, 
 an apparent note of elision, heing a mere modern 
 expedient, '^ a late refinement," as Ash calls it,* 
 to distinguish the genitive singular from the plural 
 cases.f 
 
 Notice another example of this willingness to 
 dispense with inflection, of this endeavour on the 
 part of the speakers of a language to reduce its 
 forms to the fewest possible, consistent with the 
 accurate communication of thought. Of our adjec- 
 tives in 'en/ formed on substantives, and expressing 
 the material or substance of a thing, some have 
 gone, others are going, out of use ; while we con- 
 tent ourselves with the bare juxtaposition of the 
 substantive itself, as sufficiently expressing our 
 meaning. Thus instead of " (/olden pin" we say 
 "gold pin/^ instead of "earthen works" we say 
 " earth works." ' Golden^ and ' earthen,^ it is 
 true, still belong to our living speech, though 
 mainly as part of our poetic diction, or of the 
 solemn and thus stereotyped language of Scrip- 
 ture ; but a whole company of such words have 
 nearly or quite disappeared ; some lately, some 
 long ago. ' Steelen^ and ' flowren^ belong only to 
 the earliest period of the language ; ' rosen^ also 
 went early. Chaucer is my latest authority for it 
 (" 7'osen chapelet"). ' Hairen^ is in Wiclif and in 
 
 * In a good note on the matter, p. 6, in the Comprehensive 
 Grammar prefixed to his Dictionary, London, 1775. 
 f See Grimm, Deut. Gramm., vol. ii. pp. 609, 944. 
 
166 DIMINUTIONS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 Chaucer ;' stonen^ in the former (John iii. 6),* 
 * Silvern' stood originally in WicliPs Bible {" sil- 
 verne housis to Diane/' Acts xix. 24) ; but already 
 in the second recension of this was exchanged for 
 ' silver / ^ hornen/ still in provincial use, he also 
 employs, and ^ clayen' (Job iv. 19) no less. ' Tinnen' 
 occurs in Sylvester's Du Bartas ; where also we 
 meet w^ith *' Jove's milken alley," as a name for 
 the Via Lactea, in Bacon also not " the Milky/' 
 but " the Milken Way." In the coarse polemics 
 of the Beformation the phrase, " breaden god," 
 provoked by the Romish doctrine of transubstan- 
 tiation, was of frequent employment, and occurs 
 as late as in Oldham. " Mothen parchments" is 
 in Fulke ; " twiggen bottle" in Shakespeare ; 
 ' yewen/ or, according to earlier spelling, " eivghen 
 bow," in Spenser ; " cedarn alley," and '^ azurn 
 sheen" are both in Milton ; " boxen leaves" in 
 Dryden ; " a treeyi cup" in Jeremy Taylor ; 
 '^ eldern popguns" in Sir Thomas Overbury ; '^ a 
 glassen breast," in Whitlock ; " a reeden hat" in 
 Coryat ; ' yarnen' occurs in Turberville ; ^ fiirzen' 
 in Holland ; ' threaden' in Shakespeare ; and 
 ' bricken,' * papern ' appear in our provincial 
 glossaries as still in use. 
 
 It is true that many of these adjectives still 
 
 * The existence of * stony' = ' lapidosus,' ' steinig,' does 
 not make ' stonen' = * lapideus,' ' steinern,' superfluous any 
 more than * earthy' makes * earthen.' That part of the field 
 in which the good seed withered so quickly (Matt. xiii. 5) was 
 * stony.' The vessels which held the water that Christ 
 turned into wine (John iii. 6) were ' stonen.' 
 
III.] LANGUAGE SIMPLIFIES ITSELF. 167 
 
 hold their ground; but it is curious to note how the 
 roots which sustain even these are being gradually 
 cut away from beneath them. Thus ' brazen^ 
 might at first sight seem as strongly established in 
 the language as ever ; it is far from so being ; its 
 supports are being cut from beneath it. Even now 
 it only lives in a tropical and secondary sense, as 
 ^ a brazen face -^ or if in a literal, in poetic diction 
 or in the consecrated language of Scripture, as 
 ^ the brazen serpent ;' otherwise we say ' a brass 
 farthing,^ ^a brass candlestick.^ It is the same 
 with ' oaten,^ ^ oaken,^ ' birchen,^ ^ beechen,^ 
 ' strawen,^ and many more, whereof some are ob- 
 solescent, some obsolete, the language manifestly 
 tending now, as it has tended for a long time past, 
 to the getting quit of these, and to the satisfying 
 of itself with an adjectival apposition of the sub- 
 stantive in their stead. 
 
 Let me illustrate by another example the way 
 in which a language, as it travels onward, simpli- 
 fies itself, approaches more and more to a gram- 
 matical and logical uniformity, seeks to do the 
 same thing always in the same manner ; where it 
 has two or three ways of conducting a single opera- 
 tion, lets all of them go but one ; and thus becomes, 
 no doubt, easier to be mastered, more handy, more 
 manageable ; for its very riches were to many an 
 embarrassment and a perplexity; but at the same 
 time imposes limits and restraints on its own 
 freedom of action, and is in danger of forfeiting 
 elements of strength, variety and beauty, which 
 it once possessed. I refer to the tendency of our 
 
168 DIMINUTIONS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [leCT. 
 
 verbs to let go their strong prseterites, and to sub- 
 stitute weak ones in their room ; or, where they 
 have two or three prseterites, to retain only one of 
 them, and that invariably the weak one. Thougli 
 many of us no doubt are famihar with the terms 
 ^strong' and 'weak^ prseterites, which in all our 
 better grammars have put out of use the wholly 
 misleading terms, * irregular' and ' regular/ I may 
 perhaps as well remind you of the exact meaning 
 of the terms. A strong prseterite is one formed 
 by an internal vowel change ; for instance the verb 
 ' to drive' forms the prseterite ' drove' by an in- 
 ternal change of the vowel ' i' into ^ o.' But why, 
 it may be asked, called ' strong'? In respect of 
 the vigour and indwelling energy in the word, 
 enabling it to form its past tense from its own 
 resources, and with no calling in of help from 
 without. On the other hand ^ lift' forms its prse- 
 terite 'Yiited,' not by any internal change, but by 
 the addition of ' ed ;' ' grieve' in like manner has 
 'grievec?.' Here are weak tenses; as strength 
 was ascribed to the other verbs, so weakness to 
 these, which can only form their prseterites by ex- 
 ternal aid and addition. You will see at once that 
 these strong praeterites, while they witness to a 
 vital energy in the words which are able to put 
 them forth, do also, as must be allowed by all, 
 contribute much to the variety and charm of a 
 language.* 
 
 * .1. Grimm {Deutsche Gramm.voX. i. p. 1010) : Dass die 
 starke form die illtere, kviiftigere, iniiere ; die scliwache die 
 
III.] WEAK AND STRONG PR^ETERITES. 169 
 
 The point, however, which I am urging now is 
 this, — that these are becoming fewer every day; 
 multitudes of them having disappeared, while others 
 are in the act of disappearing. Nor is the balance 
 redressed and compensation found in any new 
 creations of the kind. The power of forming strong 
 prseterites is long ago extinct; probably no verb 
 which has come into the language since the Con- 
 quest has asserted this power, while a whole legion 
 have let it go. For example, ' shape' has now a 
 weak prseterite, ' shaped,' it had once a strong one, 
 ' shope ;' ^ bake' has now a weak prseterite, ' baked,' 
 it had once a strong one, ' boke ;' the prseterite of 
 ' glide' is now ' glided,' it was once ' glode' or 
 * glid ;' ' help' makes now * helped,' it made once 
 'halp' and ' holp.' ^ Creep' made ' crope,' still 
 current in the north of England ; ^ weep' ' wope ;' 
 ' yeir ' yoU' (both in Chaucer) ; ' seethe' ^ soth' or 
 ' sod' (Gen. xxv. 29) ; ^ sheer' in like manner once 
 made ^ shore ;' as ' leap' made ' lope ;' ^ w' ash' 
 ' wishe' (Chaucer); ' snow' ^ snew ;' ^ sow' ^ sew ;' 
 ' delve' ' dalf and ' dolve ;' ' sweat' ' swat ;' ' yield' 
 ' yold' (both in Spenser); ' mete' ' mat' (Wiclif ) ; 
 ^stretch' 'straught;' ^melt' *molt;' Svax' Svex' and 
 
 spafcere, gehemmtere und mehr ausserliche sey, leuchtet ein. 
 Elsewhere, speaking generally of inflections by internal vowel 
 change, he characterizes them as a ' chief beauty' (haupt- 
 schonheit)of the Teutonic languages. Marsh {Manual of the 
 English Language, p. 233, English ed.) protests, though, as 
 it seems to me, on no sufficient grounds, against these terms 
 * strong' and ' weak,' as themselves fanciful and inappropriate. 
 
170 DIxMIXUTIONS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 ' wox ;' ' laugV ' leugli ;' with others more than 
 can be enumerated here.* 
 
 Observe further that where verbs have not 
 actually renounced their strong prseterites, and 
 contented themselves with weak in their room, 
 yet, once possessing two, or, it might be three of 
 these strong, they now retain only one. The 
 others, on the principle of dismissing whatever can 
 be dismissed, they have let go. Thus ' cliide^ had 
 once ' chid^ and ' chode,' but though ' chode^ is in 
 our Bible (Gen. xxxi. 36), it has not maintained 
 itself in our speech ; ' sling^ had ^ slung^ and ' slang' 
 (1 Sam. xvii. 49); only ^ slung' remains; 'fling' 
 had once ' flung' and ' flang ;' ' strive' had ' strove' 
 and ' strave ;' ' stick' had ' stuck' and ' stack ;' 
 'hang' had 'hung' and ' hing' (Golding); 'tread' 
 had ' trod' and ' trad ;' ' choose' had ' chose' and 
 ' chase ;' ' give' had ' gave' and ' gove ;' ' lead' had 
 ' led' ' lad' and ' lode ;' ' write' had ' wrote' ' writ' 
 and ' wrate.' In all these cases, and more miglit 
 
 * The entire ignorance as to the past historic evolution of 
 the language, with which some have undertaken to write 
 about it, is curious. Thus the author of Observafions vpon 
 the English Language, without date, but publislicd about 
 1730, treats all these strong praeteritcs as of recent introduc- 
 tion, counting ' knew' to have lately expelled ' knowed,' * rose' 
 to have acted the same part toward ' rised,' and of course 
 esteeming them as so many barbarous violations of the laws 
 of the language; and concluding with the warning that 
 ** great care must be taken to prevent their increase."!! — 
 p. 24. Cobbett does not fall into this absurdity, yet ])roposes 
 in his English Grammar, that they should all be abolished 
 3s inconvenient. 
 
III.] LANGUAGES SIMPLIFY THEMSELVES. 171 
 
 easily be cited, only the prseterites wliicli I have 
 named, the first remains in use. 
 
 Observe too that in every instance where a con- 
 flict is now going on between weak and strong 
 forms, which shall continue, the battle is not to 
 the strong ; on the contrary the weak is carrying 
 the day, is getting the better of its stronger com- 
 petitor. Thus ^ climbed^ is gaining the upper hand 
 of ' clomb/ ' swelled' of ^ swoll/ ' hanged^ of 
 ^ hung.^ It is not too much to anticipate that a 
 time will come, although it may be still far off, 
 when all English verbs will form their prseterites 
 weakly ; not without serious damage to the fulness 
 and force which in this respect the language even 
 now displays, and once far more eminently dis- 
 played.* 
 
 Take another proof of this tendency in our own 
 language to drop its forms and renounce its own 
 inherent powers; though here also the renuncia- 
 tion, threatening one day to be complete, is only 
 partial at the present. I refer to the formation 
 of our comparatives and superlatives ; and I will 
 ask you again to observe here that curious law 
 of language, namely, that wherever there are two 
 or more ways of attaining the same result, there 
 is always a disposition to drop and dismiss all of 
 these but one, so that the alternative or choice of 
 ways once existing, shall not exist any more. If 
 only it can attain a greater simplicity, it seems 
 
 * J. Grimm {Deutsche Gramm. vol. i. p. 839) : " Die starke 
 flexion stufenweise versinkt und ausstirbt, die schwacheaber 
 um sich greift." Cf. i. 994, 1040 3 ii. 5 3 iv. 509. 
 
172 DIMINUTIONS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 to grudge no self-impoverishment by which this 
 result may be brought about. We have two ways 
 of forming our comparatives and superlatives, one 
 dwelling in the word itself, which we have inherited 
 from our old Gothic stock, as ^ bright/ ' brighter/ 
 ' brighter// the other supplementary to this, by 
 prefixing the auxiliaries ' more' and ' most/ The 
 first, organic we might call it, the indwelling power 
 of the word to mark its own degrees, must needs 
 be esteemed the more excellent way ; which yet, 
 already disallowed in almost all adjectives of more 
 than two sylla])les in length, is daily becoming of 
 narrower and more restrained application. Com- 
 pare in this matter our present with our past. 
 Wiclif for example forms such comparatives as 
 ' grievouser/ 'gloriouser,' 'patienter/ 'profitabler,'' 
 such superlatives as ' grievousest/ ^ famousest / 
 this last occurring also in Bacon. We meet in 
 Tyndale, ^ excellenter/ ' miserablest / in Shake- 
 speare, ' violentest / in Gabriel Harvey, ' vendi- 
 blest,^ ' substantialest/ ' insolentest / in Rogers, 
 ' insufficienter,^ ^goldener/ in Beaumont and 
 Fletcher, ' valiantest.' Milton uses ' virtuosest,^ 
 and in prose * vitiosest,' ' elegantest/ * artificialest,' 
 ' servilest,' ^ sheepishest,^ ^ resolutest,^ ^sensualest/ 
 Fuller has ^ fertilest / Baxter ' tediousest / Butler 
 ' preciousest/ ' intolerablest / Burnet ' copionsest/ 
 Gray ^ impudentest.' Of these forms, and it 
 would be easy to adduce almost any number, we 
 should hardly employ any now. In participles 
 and adverbs in ' ly,' these organic comparatives 
 and superlatives hardly survive at all. Wc do 
 
III.] COMPARATIVES AND SUPEKLATIVES. 173 
 
 not say * vvillinger^ or ' lovinger/ and still less 
 ' flourishingest/ or ' shiningest/ or ' surmounting- 
 e.*t/ all which Gabriel Harvey, a foremost 
 master of the English of his time, employs ; 
 ' plenteouslyer_, ' ' fuUiest^ (Wiclif), ' easiliest' 
 (Fuller), 'plainliest^ (Dryderi), would be all inad- 
 missible at present. 
 
 In the manifest tendency of English at the pre- 
 sent moment to reduce the number of words in 
 which this more vigorous scheme of expressing 
 degrees is allowed, we must recognize an evidence 
 that the energy which the language had in its 
 youth is in some measure abating, and the stiff- 
 ness of age overtaking it. Still it is with us here 
 only as it is with all languages, in which at a 
 certain time of their life auxiliary words, leaving 
 the main word unaltered, are preferred to inflections 
 of this last. Such preference makes itself ever 
 more strongly felt; and, judging from analogy, I 
 cannot doubt that a day, however distant now, will 
 arrive, when the only way of forming comparatives 
 and superlatives in the English language will be 
 by prefixing ' more' and ' most ' or, if the other 
 survive, it will be in poetry alone. 
 
 It will fare not otherwise, as I am bold to predict, 
 with the flexional genitive, formed in '^s' or ' es' (see 
 p. 162). This too will finally disappear altogether 
 from the language, or will survive only in poetry, 
 and as much an archaic form there as the 'pictai' 
 of Yirgil. A time will come when it will not any 
 longer be free to say, as now, either, " the king's 
 sons/' or " the sons of the king/' but when the 
 
174 DIMINUTIONS or ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 latter will be the only admissible form. Tokens 
 of this are already evident. Tlie region in which 
 the alternative forms are equally good is daily 
 narrowing. We should not now any more write, 
 " when man's son shall come" (Wiclif), but 
 " when the Son of man shall come," nor yet, ^' the 
 hypocrite's hope shall perish" (Job viii. 13, Autho- 
 rized Version), but, " the hope of the Jnjpocrite 
 shall perish ;'^ not with Barrow, " No man can 
 be ignorant of human life's brevity and uncertainty" 
 but " No man can be ignorant of the brevity and 
 uncertainty of human life." The consummation 
 which I anticipate may be centuries off, but will 
 assuredly arrive. 
 
 Then too diminutives are fast disappearing 
 from the language. If we desire to express small- 
 ness, we prefer to do it by an auxiliary word ; 
 thus a little fist, and not a ' fistock' (Golding), a 
 little lad, and not a * ladkin,^ a little worm, rather 
 than a ' wormling^ (Sylvester). It is true that of 
 diminutives very many still survive, in all our four 
 terminations of such, as ' hillock, ' streamlet,' 
 * lambkin/ 'gosling;' but those which have 
 perished are many more. Where now is ' king- 
 ling' (Holland), * whimling' (Beaumont and Flet- 
 cher), ' godling,' * loveling,' ' dwarfling,' ' sherperd- 
 ling' (all in Sylvester), * chasteling' (Becon), 
 ' niceling' (Stubbs), * fosterling' (Ben Jonson), and 
 'masterling' ? Where now 'porelet' ( = paupercula, 
 Isai. X. 30, Vulg.), ' bundelet,' (both in Wiclif) ; 
 ' cushioned (Henry More), * havenet,' or little 
 'haven,' ' pistolct,' ' bulkin' (Holland), and a 
 
III.] THE QUAKER USE OF THOU. 175 
 
 hundred more? Even of those which remain many 
 are putting off, or have long since put off, their 
 diminutive sense ; a ' pocket^ being no longer a 
 small poke_, nor a ' latchet^ a small lace, nor a 
 ' trumpet' a small trump, as once they were. 
 
 Once more — in the entire dropping among the 
 higher classes of 'thou/ except in poetry or in 
 addresses to the Deity, and as a necessary conse- 
 quence, the dropping also of the second singular of 
 the verb with its strongly marked flexion, as 'lovest,' 
 * lovedst,' we have another example of a force once 
 existing in the language, which has been, or is 
 being, allowed to expire. In the seventeenth 
 century * thou' in English, as at the present ' du' 
 in German, ' tu' in French, was the sign of fami- 
 liarity, whether that familiarity was of love, or of 
 contempt and scorn.* It was not unfrequently 
 the latter. Thus at Sir Walter Kaleigh's trial 
 (1603), Coke, when argument and evidence failed 
 him, insulted the defendant by applying to him 
 the term ' thou' : — *' All that Lord Cobham did 
 was at thy instigation, tliou viper ! for I thou thee, 
 thou traitor." And when Sir Toby Belch in 
 Twelfth Night is urging Sir Andrew Aguecheek 
 to send a sufficiently provocative challenge to 
 Viola, he suggests to him that he " taunt him 
 with the licence of ink -, if thou thou'st him some 
 thrice, it shall not be amiss." To keep this in 
 
 * Thus Wallis {Gramm. Ling. Anglic, 1654): Singular! 
 nuraero siquis alium compellet, vel dedignantis iilud esse solet, 
 vel familiariter blandientis. 
 
176 DIMINUTIONS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE. [lecT. 
 
 mind will throw much light on one peculiarity of 
 the Quakers, and give a certain dignity to it, as 
 once maintained, which at present it is very far 
 from possessing. However needless and unwise 
 their determination to ' thee' and ' thou' the whole 
 world was, yet this had a significance. It was not, 
 as now to us it seems, and, through the silent 
 changes which language has undergone, as now it 
 indeed is, a gratuitous departure from the ordinary 
 usage of society. Right or wrong, it meant some- 
 thing, and had an ethical motive : being indeed 
 a testimony upon their parts, however misplaced, 
 that they would not have high or great or rich 
 men's persons in admiration ; nor give the obser- 
 vance to some which they withheld from others. 
 It was a testimony too which cost them something ; 
 at present we can very little understand the 
 amount of courage wdiich this ' thou-ing' and 
 * thee-ing' of all men must have demanded on 
 their parts, nor yet the amount of indignation and 
 offence which it stirred up in them w ho w-ere not 
 aware of, or would not allow for, the scruples 
 which obliged them to it.* It is, however, in its 
 
 * What the actual position of the compellation ' thou' was 
 at that time, we may perhaps best learn from this passage in 
 Fuller's Church History, Dedication of Book vii. : " In 
 opposition whereunto [i.e. to the Quaker usage] we maintain 
 that thou from superiors to inferiors is proper, as a sign of 
 command ; from equals to equals is passable, as a note of 
 familiarity ; but from inferiors to superiors, if proceeding 
 from ignorance, hath a smack of clownishness ; if from affec- 
 tation, a tone of contempt." 
 
III.] FEMALE AND FEMININE. 177 
 
 otlier aspect that we must chiefly regret the dying 
 out of the use of ' tliou^ — that is, as the pledge of 
 peculiar intimacy and special affection, as between 
 husband and wife, parents and children, and such 
 other as might be knit together by bands of more 
 than common aff'ection. 
 
 I have preferred during this lecture to find my 
 theme in changes which are now going forward 
 in En^ilish, but I cannot finish it without drawing 
 one illustration from its remoter periods, and 
 bidding you to note a force not now waning and 
 failing from it, but extinct long ago. I cannot 
 well pass it by ; being as it is by far the boldest 
 step which in this direction of simplification the 
 English languaoje has at anv time taken. I refer 
 to the renouncing of the distribution of its nouns 
 into masculine, feminine, and neuter, as in German, 
 or even into masculine and feminine, as in French ; 
 and with this, and as a necessary consequence of 
 this, the dropping of any flexional modification in 
 the adjectives connected with them. Natural sex 
 of course remains, being inherent in all language ; 
 but grammatical gender, with the exception of ' he,' 
 ' she,' and ' it,' and perhaps one or two other frag- 
 mentary instances, the language has altogether 
 foregone. An example will make clear the dis- 
 tinction between these. Thus it is not the word 
 ' poetess' which is feminine^ but the person indi- 
 cated who is female. So too ' daughter,' ' queen,' 
 are in English not feminine nouns, but nouns 
 designating female persons. Take on the con- 
 trary * filia' or ' regina,' ' fille' or ' reine,' there 
 
178 DIMINUTIONS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE, [lect. 
 
 you have feminine nouns as well as female persons. 
 I need hardly say to you that we did not inherit 
 this simplicity from others, but, like the Danes, in 
 so far as they have done the like, have made it for 
 ourselves. Whether we turn to the Latin, or, 
 which is for us more important, to the old Gothic, 
 we find gender; and in all daughter languages which 
 have descended from the Lratin, in most of those 
 which have descended from the ancient Gothic 
 stock, it is fully established to this day. The 
 practical business-like character of the English 
 mind asserted itself in the rejection of a distinc- 
 tion, which in a vast proportion of words, that 
 is, in all which are the signs of inanimate objects, 
 and as such incapable of sex, rested upon a fiction, 
 and had no ground in the real nature of things. 
 It is only by an act and effort of the imagination 
 that sex, and tlius gender, can be attributed to a 
 table, a ship, or a tree ; and there are aspects, this 
 being one, in which the English is among the least 
 imaginative of all languages, even while it has been 
 employed in some of the mightiest works of imagi- 
 nation which the world has ever seen.* 
 
 What, it may be asked, is the meaning and ex- 
 planation of all this ? It is that at certain earlier 
 periods of a nation^s life its genius is synthetic, 
 and at later becomes analytic. At earlier periods 
 all is by synthesis ; and men love to contemplate 
 
 * See on this subject of the dropping of grammatical 
 gender, Pott, Elijmologische Forschungen, part 2, pp. 401, 
 8^q. 
 
III.] FEMALE AND TEMININE. 179 
 
 the thing, and the mode of the thing, together, as 
 a single idea, bound up in one. But a time arrives 
 when the intellectual obtains the upper hand of 
 the imaginative, when the tendency of those 
 that speak the language is to analyse, to distin- 
 guish between these two, and not only to dis- 
 tinguish but to divide, to have one word for the 
 thing itself, and another for the quality of the 
 thing ; and this^ as it would appear, is true not of 
 some languages only, but of all. 
 
 N 2 
 
180 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 CHANGES IN THE MEANING OE ENGLISH WOllDS. 
 
 I PROPOSE, according to the plan sketched 
 out in my first lecture, to take for my subject 
 in the present those changes which in the course 
 of time have found place, or now are finding 
 place, in the meaning of many among our English 
 words ; so that, whether we are aware of it or 
 not, we employ them at this day in senses very 
 different from those in which our forefathers 
 employed them of old. You will observe that it is 
 not obsolete words, words quite fallen out of present 
 ■use, which I propose to consider ; but such, rather, 
 as are still on the lips of men, but with mean- 
 ings more or less removed from those which once 
 they possessed. My subject is far more practical, 
 has far more to do with your actual life, than if 
 I had taken obsolete words, and considered them. 
 These last have an interest indeed, but it is an 
 interest of an antiquarian character. They cqn- 
 stituted a part of the intellectual money with 
 which our ancestors carried on the business of 
 their life; but now they are rather medals for the 
 cabinets and collections of the curious than cur- 
 rent money for the needs and pleasures of all. 
 Their wings are clipped, so that they are^ivhif/ed 
 words^^ no more ; the spark of thought or feeling. 
 
DUTCH OR GERMAN. 181 
 
 kindling from mind to mind, no longer runs along 
 them, as along the electric wires of the soul. 
 
 And then, besides this, there is little or no danger 
 that any should be misled by them. A reader 
 lights for the first time on one of these obsolete 
 English words, as ^frampold,^ or ^garboil,' or 
 'brangle / he is at once conscious of his ignorance ; 
 he has recourse to a glossary, or if he guesses from 
 the context at the word^s signification, still his gness 
 is as a guess to him, and no more. But words that 
 have changed their meaning have often a deceiv- 
 ableness about them ; a reader not once doubts 
 but that he knows their intention, has no mis- 
 giving but that they possess for him the same force 
 which they possessed for their writer, and con- 
 veyed to his contemporaries, when indeed it is 
 quite otherwise. The old life has gone out of 
 them and a new life entered in. 
 
 Thus, for example, a reader of our day lights 
 upon such a passage as the following (it is from 
 the Preface to HowelPs Lexicon, 1660) : "Though 
 the root of the English language be Dutch, yet 
 it may be said to have been inoculated afterwards 
 on a French stock.^^ He may know that the 
 Dutch is a sister language or dialect to our own ; 
 but this that it is the mother or root of it will 
 certainly perplex him, and he will hardly know 
 what to make of the assertion ; perhaps he 
 ascribes it to an error in his author, who is thereby 
 unduly lowered in his esteem. But presently in 
 the course of his reading he meets with the follow- 
 ing statement, this time in Fuller's Holy War, 
 
182 CHANGED MEANING OF ENGLISH WORDS. [leC. 
 
 being a history of the Crusades : " The French, 
 J)?//f//, Italian, and English were the four elemental 
 nations, whereof this army [of the Crusaders] was 
 compounded." If the student has sufficient his- 
 torical knowledge to know that in the time of the 
 Crusades there were no Dutch in our use of the 
 word, this statement would merely startle him ; 
 and probably before he had finished the chapter, 
 having his attention once roused, he would per- 
 ceive that Fuller with the writers of his time used 
 ' Dutch^ for German ; even as it was constantly so 
 used up to the end of the seventeenth century ; 
 and as the Americans use it to this present day ; 
 what we call now a Dutchman being then a 
 Hollander. But a young student might very pos- 
 sibly want that amount of previous knowledge, 
 which should cause him to receive this announce- 
 ment with misgiving and surprise; and thus he 
 might carry away altogether a wrong impression, 
 and rise from a perusal of the book, persuaded that 
 the Dutch, as we call them, played an important 
 part in the Crusades, while the Germans took 
 little or no part in them at all. 
 
 And as it is here with an historic fact, so still 
 more often will it happen with the subtler changes 
 which words have undergone. Out of this it will 
 continually happen that they convey now much 
 more blame and condemnation, or convey now 
 much less, than formerly they did ; or of a diffe- 
 rent kind ; and a reader not aware of the altered 
 value which they now possess, may be in con- 
 tinual danger of misreading his author, of mis- 
 
IV.] MISCREANT, TINSEL. 183 
 
 understanding his intention^ while he has no 
 doubt whatever that he perfectly apprehends and 
 takes it in. Thus when Shakespeare in 1 Henry 
 VI. makes the gallant York address Joan of 
 Arc as a ^ miscreant/ how coarse a piece of in- 
 vective this sounds ; how unlike what the chival- 
 rous soldier would have uttered ; or what one 
 might have supposed Shakespeare, even with 
 his unworthy estimate of the holy warrior Maid, 
 would have put into his mouth. But a ' mis- 
 creant' in Shakespeare's time had nothing of the 
 meaning which now it has. It was simply, in 
 agreement with its etymology, a misbeliever, one 
 who did not believe rightly the articles of the 
 Catholic Faith. And 1 need not remind you that 
 this was the constant charge which the English 
 brought against Joan, — namely, that she was a 
 dealer in hidden magical arts, a witch, and as such 
 had fallen from the faith. On this plea they 
 burnt her, and it is this which York means when 
 he calls her a ^ miscreant,' and not what we should 
 intend by the name. 
 
 In reading of poetry above all what beauties 
 are often missed^ what forces lost, through this 
 assumption that the present of a word is always 
 equivalent to its past. How often the poet is 
 wronged in our estimation ; that seeming to us 
 now flat and pointless, which at once would lose 
 this character, did we know how to read into some 
 word the emphasis which it once had, but which 
 now has departed from it. For example, Milton 
 ascribes in Comus the ^^ tmsel-slippe7^ed feet" to 
 
184 CHANGED MEANING OF ENGLISH WORDS [lec. 
 
 Thetis, the goddess of the sea. How compara- 
 tively poor an epithet this ' tinsel-slippered^ sounds 
 for those who know of ' tinsel' only in its modern 
 acceptation of mean and tawdry finery, affecting 
 a splendor which it does not really possess. But 
 learn its earlier use by learning its derivation, 
 bring it back to the French ' etincelle,' and the 
 Latin 'scintillula/ see in it. as Milton and the 
 writers of his time saw, ' the sparkling/ and how 
 exquisitely beautiful a title does this become 
 applied to a goddess of the sea ; how vividly does 
 it call up before our mind^s eye the quick glitter 
 and sparkle of the waves under the liglit of 
 sun or moon.* It is Homer's ' silver- footed^ 
 {apyvp6'in:Z,a), not servilely transferred, but repro- 
 duced and made his own by the English poet, 
 dealing as one great poet will do with another; 
 who will not disdain to borrow, but to what he 
 borrows will add often a further grace of his 
 own. 
 
 Or, again, do we keep in mind, or are we even 
 aware, that whenever the word ^ influence^ occurs 
 in our English poetry, down to comparatively a 
 modern date, there is always more or less remote 
 allusion to invisible illapses of power, skyey, 
 planetary effects, supposed to be exercised by the 
 heavenly luminaries upon the lives of men? How 
 many a passage starts into new life and beauty 
 
 * So in Herrick's Electra : 
 
 " More white than are the whitest creams, 
 Or moonlight tinselling the streams." 
 
IV.] FORCE OF TO BAFFLE. 185 
 
 and fulness of allusion, when this is present with 
 us ; even Milton^s 
 
 " store of ladies, whose bright eyes 
 Eain influence" 
 
 as spectators of the tournament, gain something, 
 when we regard them — and using this language, 
 he intended we should — as the luminaries of this 
 lower sphere, shedding by their propitious pre- 
 sence strength and valour into the hearts of their 
 knights. 
 
 The word even in its present acceptation may- 
 yield, as here, a convenient and even a correct 
 sense ; we may fall into no positive misapprehen- 
 sion about it ; and still, through ignorance of its 
 past history and of the force which it once pos- 
 sessed, we may miss a great part of its significance. 
 We are not beside the meaning of our author, 
 but we are short of it. Thus in Beaumont and 
 Fletcher^s King and no King, (Act iii. Sc. 2,) a 
 cowardly braggart of a soldier describes the treat- 
 ment he experienced, when like Parolles he was at 
 length found out, and stripped of his lion's skin : — 
 " They hung me up by the heels and beat me with 
 hazel sticks, . . . that the whole kingdom took 
 notice of me for a baffled whipped fellow.^' The 
 word to which I wish here to call your attention 
 is ^ baffled.' Were you reading this passage, there 
 would probably be nothing here to cause you to 
 pause ; you would attach to ' baffled' a sense which 
 sorts very well with the context — " hung up by 
 the heels and beaten, all his schemes of being 
 
186 CHANGED MEANING OF ENGLISH WOUDS. [leC. 
 
 tliought much of were baffled and defeated/^ But 
 ' baffled^ implies far more than this ; it contains 
 allusion to a custom in the days of chivalry, accord- 
 ing to which a perjured or recreant knight was 
 either in person, or more commonly in effigy, 
 hung up by the heels, his scutcheon blotted, his 
 spear broken, and he himself or his effigy made 
 the mark and subject of all kinds of indignities ; 
 such a one being said to be ' baffled/* Twice in 
 Spenser recreant knights are so dealt with. 1 can 
 only quote a portion of the shorter passage, in 
 which this infamous punishment is described : 
 
 " And after all, for greater infamy 
 He by the heels him hung upon a tree, 
 And hafflecl so, that all which passed by 
 The picture of his punishment might see."f 
 
 Probably when Beaumont and Fletcher wrote, men 
 were not so remote from the days of chivalry, or 
 at any rate from the literature of chivalry, but 
 that this custom was still fresli in their minds. 
 How much more to them than to us, so long as 
 we are ignorant of the same, would those words 
 I just quoted have conveyed ? 
 
 There are several places in tlie Authorized Ver- 
 sion of Scripture, where those who are not aware 
 of the changes which have taken place during the 
 last two hundred and fifty years in our language, 
 can hardly fail of being to a certain extent misled 
 
 * See llolinshed's Chronicles, vol. iii. pp. 827, 1218 : 
 Ann. 1513, 1570. 
 
 f Fairy Queen, vl. 7, 27 ; cf. v, 3, 37. 
 
IV.] RELIGION AND GODLINESS. 187 
 
 as to the intention of our Translators ; or, if tliey 
 are better acquainted with Greek than with early 
 English, will be tempted to ascribe to them, though 
 unjustly, an inexact rendering of the original. 
 Thus the altered meaning of a word involves a 
 serious misunderstanding in that well known 
 statement of St. James, '^ Pure religion and unde- 
 filed before God and the Father is this, to visit 
 the fatherless and widows in their affliction.'^ 
 " There," exclaims one who wishes to set up St. 
 James against St. Paul, that so he may escape 
 the necessity of obeying either, " listen to what 
 St. James says ; there is nothing mystical in what 
 he requires ; instead of harping on faith as a con- 
 dition necessary to salvation, he makes all religion 
 to consist in practical deeds of kindness from one 
 to another." But let us pause for a moment. 
 Did ' religion,^ when our translation was made, 
 mean godliness ? did it mean the sum total of our 
 duties towards God ? for, of course, no one would 
 deny that deeds of charity are a necessary part of 
 our Christian duty, an evidence of the faith which 
 is in us. There is abundant evidence to show 
 that ' religion' did not mean this ; that, like the 
 Greek OprjaKua, for which it here stands, like the 
 Latin ' religio,' it meant the outward forms and 
 embodiments in which the inward principle of 
 piety arrayed itself, the external service of God : 
 and St. James is urging upon those to whom he 
 is writing something of this kind : " Instead of 
 the ceremonial services of the Jews, which con- 
 sisted in divers washings and in other elements of 
 
188 CHANGED MEANING OF ENGLTSHWORDS. [lec. ] 
 
 this world, let our service, our OprfdKt'ia, take a 
 nobler shape, let it consist in deeds of j^ity and 
 of love'^ — and it was this which our Translators 
 intended, when they used ' religion' here and 
 'religious' in the verse preceding. How little 
 ' religion' once meant godline-s, how predominantly 
 it was used for the outward service of God, is plain 
 from many passages in our Homilies, and from 
 other contemporary literature. 
 
 Again, there are words in our Liturgy which 
 I have no doubt are commonly misunderstood. 
 The mistake involves no serious error ; yet still in 
 our own language, and in words which we have 
 constantly in our mouths, and at most solemn 
 times, it is certainly better to be right than 
 wrong. In the Litany we pray God that it would 
 please Him " to give and preserve to our use the 
 kindly fruits of the earth." What meaning do 
 we attach to this epithet, " the kindly fruits of 
 the earth" ? Probably we understand by it those 
 fruits in which the kindnesa of God or of nature 
 towards us finds its expression. This is no un- 
 worthy explanation, but still it is not the right 
 one. The " kindly fruits" are the " naturaHnuts,'^ 
 those which the earth according to its kind should 
 naturally bring forth, which it is appointed to 
 produce. To show you how little * kindly' meant 
 once benignant, as it means now, I will instance 
 an employment of it from Sir Thomas More's 
 Life of Richard the Third. He tells us that 
 Kichard calculated by murdering his two nephews 
 in the Tower to make himself accounted " a kindly 
 
IV.] OLD SENSE OF TO WORSHIP. 189 
 
 king" — not certainly a ^ kindly^ one in our present 
 usage of the word ; but, having put them out of 
 the \\ ay_, that lie should then be lineal heir of the 
 Crown^ and shoidd thus be reckoned as king by 
 kind or natural descent ; and such was of old the 
 constant use of the word. 
 
 A phrase in one of our occasional Services, 
 " with my body I thee worship/' has sometimes 
 offended those who are unacquainted with the 
 early uses of English words, and thus with the 
 intention of the actual framers of that Service. 
 Clearly in our modern sense of ^ worship/ this 
 language would be unjustifiable. But ' Avorship^ 
 or ' v\ orthship' meant ' honour' in our early Eng- 
 lish, and ' to worship' to honour, this meaning of 
 ' worship' still very harmlessly surviving in the 
 title of " your worship/' addressed to the magis- 
 trate on tlie bench. So little was it restrained of 
 old to the honour which man is bound to pay to 
 God, that it was employed by Wiclif to express 
 the honour which God will render to his faithful 
 servants and friends. Thus our Lord's declaration, 
 "If any man serve Me, him will my Father honour/' 
 in Wiclit's translation reads thus, " If any man 
 serve Me, my Father shall ivorship him." I do 
 not say that there is not sufficient reason to change 
 the words, " with my body I thee ivorship/' if only 
 there were any means of changing anything which 
 is now antiquated and out of date in our services 
 or arrangements. I think it would be very well 
 if they were changed, liable as they are to mis- 
 understanding and misconstruction now ; but still 
 
190 CIIAXGED MEANING OPEN GLISH WORDS. [leC. 
 
 tliey did not mean at the first_, and therefore do 
 not now really mean, any more than, " with my 
 body I thee honour ^^ and so you may reply to 
 any fault-finder here. 
 
 Take another example of a very easy misappre- 
 hension, although not now from Scripture or the 
 Prayer Book. Fuller, our Church historian, having 
 occasion to speak of some famous divine that was 
 lately dead, exclaims, ^^ Oh the pawfulness of his 
 preaching !" If we did not know the former uses 
 of ' painfulness,^ we might take this for an excla- 
 mation wrung out at the recollection of the tedious- 
 ness which he inflicted on his hearers. Far from 
 it ; the words are a record not of the j!?«i72 which 
 he caused to others, but of the pains which he 
 bestowed himself: and I am persuaded, if we had 
 more * painfuP preachers in the old sense of the 
 word, that is, who took pains themselves, we should 
 have fewer ^painfuP ones in the modern sense, 
 who cause pain to their hearers. So too Bishop 
 Grosthead is recorded as " the painful writer of 
 two hundred books^' — not meaning hereby that 
 these books were painful in the reading, but that 
 he was laborious and painful in their composing. 
 
 Here is another easy misapprehension. Swift 
 wrote a pamphlet, or, as he called it, a Letter to the 
 Lord Treasurer J with this title, *' A proposal for 
 correcting, improving, and ascertaining the Eng- 
 lish Tongue.^' Who that brought a knowledge of 
 present English, and no more, to this passage, 
 would doubt that " ascertaining the English 
 Tongue'^ meant arriving at a certain knowledge of 
 
IV.] ASCERTAIN, TREACLE. 191 
 
 what it was ? Swift, however, means something 
 quite different from this. " To ascertain the Eng- 
 lish tongue" is not with him to arrive at a sub- 
 jective certainty in our own minds of what that 
 tongue is, but to give an objective certainty to 
 that tongue itself, so that henceforth it shall 
 uot alter nor change. For even Swift liimself, 
 with all his masculine sense, entertained a dream 
 of this kind, as is more fully declared in the 
 work itself.* 
 
 In other places unacquaintance with the changes 
 in a word^s usage will not so much mislead, as 
 leave you nearly or altogether at a loss in respect 
 of the intention of an author whom you may be 
 reading. It is evident that he has a meaning, but 
 what it is you are unable to divine, even though 
 all the words he employs are words in familiar 
 employment to the present day. For example, 
 the poet Waller is congratulating Charles the 
 Second on his return from exile, and is describing 
 the way in which all men, even those formerly 
 most hostile to him, were now seeking his favour, 
 and he writes : 
 
 " Offenders now, the chiefest, do begin 
 To strive for grace, and expiate their sin : 
 All winds blow fair that did the world embroil, 
 Your vipers treacle yield, and scorpions oil." 
 
 Many a reader before now has felt, as I cannot 
 doubt, a moment^s perplexity at the now courtly 
 poet's assertion that "vipers treacle yieW — who 
 
 * See Sir W. Scott's edition of Swift's Works, vol. ix. p. 139. 
 
192 CHANGED MEANING OF ENGLISH WORDS. [leC. 
 
 yet lias been too indolent, or who has not had the 
 opportunity, to search out what his meaning might 
 be. There is in fact allusion here to a curious 
 piece of legendary lore. ' Treacle/ or ' triacle,^ as 
 Chaucer wrote it, was originally a Greek word, and 
 wrapped up in itself the once popular belief (an 
 anticipation, by the way, of homoeopathy), that a 
 confection of the viper's flesh was the most potent 
 antidote against the viper's bite.* Waller goes 
 back to this the word^s old meaning, familiar 
 enough in his time, for Milton speaks of " the 
 sovran treacle of sound doctrine,^'t while " Venice 
 treacle,^' or " viper wine,*' as it sometimes was 
 called, was a common name for a supposed anti- 
 dote against all poisons ; and he would imply that 
 regicides themselves began to be loyal, vipers not 
 now yielding hurt any more, but rather healing for 
 the old hurts which they themselves had inflicted. 
 To trace the word down to its present use, it may 
 
 * QrjpLGKT), from 6r}plov, a desij^nation given to the viper, 
 see Acts xxviii. 4. ' Theriac' is only the more rigid form of 
 the same word, the scholarly, as distinguished from the 
 popular, adoption of it. Augustine {Con. duas Epp. Pelacf. 
 iii. 7) : Sicut fieri consuevit autidotum etiam de serpentibus 
 contra venena serpentum. 
 
 t And Chaucer, more solemnly still : 
 
 " Christ, which that is to every harm triacle." 
 
 The antidotal character of treacle comes out yet more in 
 these lines of Lydgate : 
 
 " There is no venom so parlious in sliarpncs, 
 As whan it hath of treacle a likenes." 
 
IV.] TREACLE, BLACKGUARD. 193 
 
 be observed that, designating first this antidote, it 
 then came to designate any antidote, then any 
 medicinal confection or sweet syrup; and lastly 
 that particular syrup, namely, the sweet syrup of 
 molasses, to which alone it is now restricted. 
 
 I will draw on the writings of Fuller for one 
 more example. In his Holij War, having enume- 
 rated the rabble rout of fugitive debtors, runaway 
 slaves, thieves, adulterers, murderers, of men 
 laden for one cause or another with heaviest cen- 
 sures of the Church, who swelled the ranks, and 
 helped to make up the army, of the Crusaders, 
 he exclaims, " A lamentable case, that the deviFs 
 black guard should be God^s soldiers !" What 
 does he mean, we may ask, by " the deviFs black 
 guard" ? Nor is this a solitary mention of the 
 '' black guard.^^ On the contrary, the phrase is 
 of very frequent recurrence in the early drama- 
 tists and others down to the time of Dryden, 
 who gives as one of his stage directions in Don 
 Sebastian, " Enter the captain of the rabble, with 
 the Black guard." What is this ' black guard^ ? 
 Has it any connexion with a word of our home- 
 liest vernacular ? We feel that probably it has so ; 
 yet at first sight the connexion is not very appa- 
 rent, nor indeed the exact force of the phrase. Let 
 me trace its history. In old times, the palaces 
 of our kings and seats of our nobles were not so 
 well and completely furnished as at the present 
 day : and thus it was customary_, when a royal 
 progress was made, or when the great nobility 
 exchanged one residence for another, that at such 
 o 
 
194 CHANGED MEANING OE ENGLISH WORDS, [lec. 
 
 a removal all kitchen utensils^ pots and pans, and 
 ' even coals, should be also carried with them 
 where they went. Those who accompanied and 
 escorted these, the lowest, meanest, and dirtiest 
 of the retainers, were called ' the black guard /* 
 then any troop or company of ragamuffins ; and 
 lastly, when the origin of the word was lost sight 
 of, and it was forgotten that it properly implied 
 a company, a rabble rout, and not a single person, 
 one would compliment another, not as belonging 
 to, but as himself being, the ^ blackguard/ 
 
 The examples which I have adduced are, I am 
 persuaded, sufficient to prove that it is not a use- 
 less and unprofitable study, nor yet one altogether 
 without entertainment, to which I invite you ; 
 that on the contrary any one who desires to read 
 with accuracy, and thus with advantage and plea- 
 sure, our earlier classics, who would avoid con- 
 tinual misapprehension in their perusal, and 
 would not often fall short of, and often go astray 
 from, their meaning, must needs bestow some 
 attention on the altered significance of Enghsh 
 words. And if this is so, we could not more 
 usefully employ what remains of this present lec- 
 ture than in seeking to indicate those changes 
 which words most frequently undergo; and to 
 trace as far as we can the causes, mental and 
 moral, at work in the minds of men to bring these 
 
 * " A slave that within these twenty years rode with the 
 hlacTc guard in the Duke's carriage, 'mongst spits and drip- 
 ping pans." (Webster's White Devil.) 
 
IV.] FIXED LAWS OF CHANGE. 195 
 
 cliaiiges aboutj with the good and evil out of 
 which they have sprung, and to which they bear' 
 witness. 
 
 For indeed these changes to which words in 
 the progress of time are submitted are not changes 
 at random, but for the most part are obedient to 
 certain laws, are capable of being distributed into 
 certain classes, being the outward transcripts and 
 witnesses of mental and moral processes inwardly 
 going forward in those who bring them about. 
 Many, it is true, will escape any classification of 
 ours, the changes which have taken place in their 
 meaning being, or at least seeming to us, the 
 result of mere caprice ; and not explicable by any 
 principle which we can appeal to as habitually at 
 work in the mind. But, admitting all this, a 
 majority will still remain which are reducible to 
 some law or other, and with these we will occupy 
 ourselves now. 
 
 And first, the meaning of a word oftentimes 
 is gradually narrowed. It was once as a generic 
 name, embracing many as yet unnamed species 
 within itself, which all went by its common desig- 
 nation. By and bye it is found convenient that 
 each of these should have its own more special 
 sign allotted to it.* It is here just as in some 
 newly enclosed country, where a single household 
 
 * Genin {Lexique de la Langue de Moliere, p. 367) says 
 well : " En augraentant le iiombre des mots, il a fallu re- 
 streindre leur signification, et faire aux nouveaux un apanage 
 aux depens des anciens," 
 
 o 2 
 
196 CHANGED MEANING OF ENGLISH WORDS, [lec. 
 
 'svill at first loosely occupy a whole district ; while, 
 as cultivation proceeds, this district is gradually 
 parcelled out among a dozen or twenty, and under 
 more accurate culture employs and sustains them 
 all. Thus, for example, all food was once called 
 ^ meat / it is so in our Bible, and ^ horse-meat' for 
 fodder is still no unusual phrase ; yet ' meat' is 
 now a name given only to flesh. Any little book 
 or writing was a ' libeP once ; now only such a 
 one as is scurrilous and injurious. Any leader 
 was a ' duke' (dux) ; thus ^' duke Hannibal" (Sir 
 Thomas Elyot), '' duke Brennus" (Holland), " duke 
 Theseus" (Shakespeare), '^ duke Amalek," with 
 other 'dukes' (Gen. xxxvi.). Any journey, by 
 land as much as by sea, was a ' voyage.' * Fairy' 
 was not a name restricted, as now, to the Gothic 
 mythology ; thus " the fairy Egeria" (Sir J. Har- 
 rington). A 'corpse' might be quite as well 
 living as dead. * AVeeds' were whatever covered 
 the earth or the person ; while now as respects 
 the earth, those only are ' weeds' which are 
 noxious, or at least self-sown ; as regards the 
 person, we speak of no other ' weeds' but the 
 widow's. In each of these cases, the same con- 
 traction of meaning, the separating ofi' and assign- 
 ing to other words of large portions of this, has 
 found place. ' To starve' (the German ' sterben,' 
 and generally spelt ' sterve' up to the middle of 
 the seventeenth century), meant once to die any 
 manner of death ; thus Chaucer says, Christ 
 ^' sterved upon the cross for our redemption;" it 
 now is restricted to the dying by cold or by hun- 
 
IV.] WORDS USED- MORE ACCURATELY. 197 
 
 ger. Words not a few were once applied to both 
 sexes alike, which are now restricted to the female. 
 It is so even with ' girl/ which was once a young 
 person of either sex ;* while other words in this 
 list, such for instance as 'hoyden' (Milton, prose), 
 ' shrew' (Chaucer), ' coquet' (Phillips, New World 
 of Words), ' witch' (Wiclif), ' termagant' (Bale), 
 'scold,' 'jade,' 'slut' (Gower), must be regarded 
 in their present exclusive appropriation to the 
 female sex as evidences of men's rudeness, and 
 not of women's deserts. 
 
 The necessities of an advancing civilization 
 demand a greater precision and accuracy in the 
 use of words having to do with weight, measure, 
 number, size. Almost all such words as ' acre,' 
 ' furlong,' ' yard,' ' gallon,' ' peck,' were once of a 
 vague and unsettled use, and only at a later day, 
 and in obedience to the requirements of commerce 
 and social life, exact measures and designations. 
 Thus every field was once an ' acre ;' and this 
 remains so still with the German ' acker,' and in 
 our " God's acre," as a name for a churchyard ; 
 it was not till about the reign of Edward the First 
 that 'acre' was commonly restricted to a deter- 
 mined measure and portion of land. Here and 
 
 * And no less so in French with ' dame,' \>y which form 
 not * domina' only, but ' dominus,' was represented. Thus in 
 early French poetry, " Dame Dieu" for " Dominus Deus" 
 continually occurs. We have here the key to the French 
 exclamation, or oath, as we now perceive it to be, ' Dame !' of 
 which the dictionaries give no account. See Genin's Varia- 
 tions dio Laiigage Frangais, p. 347. 
 
198 CHANGED MEANING OF ENGLISH WORDS, [lec. 
 
 there even now a glebeland will be called " the 
 acre ;" and this^ even while it contains not one 
 but many of our measured acres. A * furlong' 
 was a ^ furroAvlong/ or length of a furrow.* 
 Any pole was a * yard/ and this vaguer use sur- 
 vives in ^ s?ii\yard,' ' h?dya7^d/ and in other sea- 
 terms. Every pitcher was a ' galon' (Mark xiv. 13, 
 Wiclif), while a ^ peck^ was no more than a ' poke' 
 or bag. And the same h^s no doubt taken place 
 in all other languages. 1 will only remind you 
 how the Greek ' drachm' was at first a handful 
 (^jOa;)^^// = ^manipulus/from S|Oa(7(70j, to grasp); its 
 later word for ' ten thousand' (juvpioi) implied in. 
 Homer's time any great multitude ; and with the 
 accent on a different syllable always retained this 
 meaning. 
 
 Opposite to this is a counter-process by which 
 words of narrower intention gradually enlarge the 
 domain of their meaning, becoming capable of 
 much wider application than any which once they 
 admitted. Instances in this kind are fewer than 
 in that which we have just been considering. The 
 main stream and course of human thoughts and 
 human discourse tends the other way, to discern- 
 ing, distinguishing, dividing ; and then to the per- 
 manent fixing of the distinctions gained, by the 
 aid of designations which shall keep apart for ever 
 in word that which has been once severed and sun- 
 
 * " k furlo)ig, (\\\?i^\ furrotvlong,\)e\\\Q^o much as a team 
 in England plougheth going Ibrward, before they return back 
 again. (Fuller, Pisgah Sight of Palestine, p. 12.) 
 
IV.] WORDS USED LESS ACCURATELY. 199 
 
 dered in thought. Nor is it hard to perceive why 
 this process should be the more frequent. Men 
 are first struck with the likenesses between those 
 things which are presented to them, with their 
 points of resemblance ; on the strength of which 
 they bracket them under a common term. Further 
 acquaintance reveals their points of unlikeness, 
 the real dissimilarities which lurk under superficial 
 resemblances, the need therefore of a different 
 notation for objects which are essentially different. 
 It is comparatively much rarer to discover real 
 likeness under what at first appeared as unlikeness ; 
 and usually when a word moves forward, and from 
 a specialty indicates now a generality, it is not in 
 obedience to any such discovery of the true inner 
 likeness of things, — the steps of successful gene- 
 ralizations being marked and secured in other 
 ways. But this widening of a word's meaning 
 is too often a result of those elements of dis- 
 organization and decay which are at work in a 
 language. Men forget a word's history and etymo- 
 logy ; its distinctive features are obliterated for 
 them, with all which attached it to some thought 
 or fact which by right was its own. Appropriated 
 and restricted once to some striking specialty 
 which it vigorously set out, it can now be used in 
 a wider, vaguer, more unsettled way. It can be 
 employed twenty times for once when it would 
 have been possible formerly to employ it. Yet 
 this is not gain, but pure loss. It has lost its 
 place in the disciplined army of words, and be- 
 come one of a loose and disorderly mob. 
 
200 CHANGED MEANING OF ENGLISH W011DS.[lec. 
 
 Let me instance the word ^ preposterous/ It is 
 now no longer of any practical service at all in the 
 language^ being merely an ungraceful and slipshod 
 synonym for absurd. But restore and confine it to 
 its old use; let it designate that one peculiar branch 
 of absurdity which it designated once, namely the 
 reversing of the true order of things, the putting 
 of the last first, and, by consequence, of the first 
 last, snrl of what excellent service the word would 
 be capable. Thus it is ^preposterous,^ in the most 
 accurate use of the word, to put the cart before 
 the horse, to expect wages before the work is 
 done, to hang a man first and try him afterwards ; 
 and in this strict and accurate sense the word was 
 always used by our elder writers. 
 
 In like manner * to prevaricate' was never 
 employed by good writers of the seventeenth 
 century without nearer or more remote allusion 
 to the uses of the word in the Roman law courts, 
 where a ^ prsevaricator' (properly a straddler with 
 distorted legs) did not mean generally and loosely, 
 as now wdth us, one who shuffles, quibbles, and 
 evades ; but one who plays false in a particular 
 manner ; who, undertaking, or being by his office 
 bound, to prosecute a charge, is in secret collusion 
 with the opposite party ; and, betraying the cause 
 which he afl'ects to support, so manages the accu- 
 sation as to obtain not the condemnation, but the 
 acquittal, of the accused ; a " feint pleader," as, 
 I think, in our old law language he would have 
 been termed. IIow much force would the keep- 
 ing of this in mind add to many passages in our 
 elder divines. 
 
IV.] EQUIVOCATE, IDEA. 201 
 
 Or take ' equivocal/ ' equivocate/ ' equivoca- 
 tion/ These words, which belonged at first to 
 logic, have slipped down into common use, and in 
 so doing have lost all the precision of their first 
 employment. ' Equivocation' is now almost any 
 such dealing in ambiguous words with the inten- 
 tion of deceiving, as falls short of an actual lie ; 
 but according to its etymology and in its primary 
 use ' equivocation/ this fruitful mother of so much 
 error, is the calling by the same name, of things 
 essentially diverse, hiding intentionally or other- 
 wise a real difference undor a verbal resemblance.* 
 Nor let it be urged in defence of its present looser 
 use, that only so could it have served the needs 
 of our ordinary conversation; on the contrary, 
 had it retained its first use, how serviceable an 
 implement of thought would it have been in 
 detecting our own fallacies, or those of others ; 
 all which it can now be no longer. 
 
 What now is ' idea' for us ? How infinite the 
 fall of this word since the time when Milton sang 
 of the Creator contemplating his newly created 
 world, 
 
 " how it showed, 
 Answering his great idea," 
 
 to its present use when this person " has an idea 
 that the train has started,'' and the other " had 
 no idea that the dinner would be so bad." But 
 this word ' idea' is perhaps the worst case in the 
 
 * Thus Barrow : " Which [courage and constancy] he that 
 wanteth is no other than equivocally a gentleman, as an 
 imag-e or a carcass is a man." 
 
202 CHANGED MEANING OF ENGLISH WORDS, [lec. 
 
 English language. Matters have not mended 
 here since the times of Dr. Johnson ; of whom 
 Boswell tells us : " He was particularly indignant 
 against the almost universal use of the word idea 
 in the sense of notion or ojnnion, when it is clear 
 that idea can only signify something of which an 
 image can be formed in the mind.^^ There is 
 perhaps no word in the whole compass of English, 
 so seldom used with any tolerable correctness; 
 in none is the distance so immense between the 
 frequent sublimity of the word in its proper use, 
 and the triviality of it in its slovenly and its 
 popular. 
 
 This tendency in words to lose the sharp, rigidly 
 defined outline of meaning which they once pos- 
 sessed, to become of wide, vague, loose application 
 instead of lixed, definite, and precise, to mean 
 almost anything, and so really to mean nothing, 
 is among the most fatally effectual which are at 
 w^ork for the final ruin of a language, and, I do not 
 fear to add, for the demoralization of those that 
 speak it. It is one against which we shall all do 
 well to watch ; for there is none of us who cannot 
 do something in keeping words close to their own 
 proper meaning, and in resisting their encroach- 
 ment on the domain of others. 
 
 The causes which bring this mischief about are 
 not hard to trace. We all know that when a 
 piece of our silver money has long fulfilled its 
 part, as '^pale and common drudge Hween man and 
 man/' whatever it had at first of sharper outline 
 and livelier impress is in the end wholly obliterated 
 
IV.] BOMBAST. 203 
 
 from it. So it is with words, above all with words 
 of science and theology. These getting into general 
 use, and passing often from mouth to mouth, lose 
 the '^ image and superscription" which they had, 
 before they descended from the school to the 
 market-place, from the pulpit to the street. 
 Being now caught up by those who understand 
 imperfectly and thus incorrectly their true value, 
 who will not be at the pains of understanding 
 that, or who are incapable of doing so, they are 
 obliged to accommodate themselves to the lower 
 sphere in which they circulate, by laying aside 
 much of the precision and accuracy and depth 
 which once they had ; they become weaker, shal- 
 lower, more indefinite; till in the end, as ex- 
 ponents of thought and feeling, they cease to be 
 of any service at all. 
 
 Sometimes a word does not merely narrow or 
 extend its meaning, but altogether changes it ; 
 and this it does in more ways than one. Thus a 
 secondary figurative sense will quite put out of 
 use and extinguish the literal, until in the entire 
 predominance of that it is altogether forgotten 
 that it ever possessed any other. I may instance 
 ' bombast' as a word about which this forgetful- 
 ness is nearly complete. What ^ bombast' now 
 means is familiar to us all, namely inflated words, 
 "full of sound and fury,'' but "signifying nothing." 
 This, at present its sole meaning, was once only 
 the secondary and superinduced ; ' bombast' being 
 properly the cotton plant, and then the cotton 
 
204 CHANGED MEANING OE ENGLISH WORDS. [leC. 
 
 wadding witli which garments were stuffed out 
 and lined. You remember perhaps how Prince 
 Hal addresses Falstaff, " How now_, my sweet 
 creature of bombast;'' using the word in its 
 literal sense ; and another early poet has this 
 line : 
 '* Thy body's bolstered out with homhast and with bags." 
 
 * Bombast^ was then transferred in a vigorous 
 image to the big words without strength or solidity 
 wherewith the discourses of some were stuffed 
 out, and has now quite foregone any other mean- 
 ing. So too ^ to garble^ was once " to cleanse 
 from dross and dirt, as grocers do their spices, to 
 pick or cull out.^^* It is never used now in this 
 its primary sense, and has indeed undergone this 
 further change, that while once ' to garble^ was to 
 sift for the purpose of selecting the best, it is now 
 to sift with a view of picking out the worst.f 
 ' Polite^ is another word which in the figurative 
 sense has quite extinguished the literal. We still 
 speak of ' polished' surfaces ; but not any more, 
 with Cudworth, of "polite bodies, as looking 
 glasses.'-* Neither do w^e now ' exonerate' a ship 
 (Burton); nor ' stigmatize,' at least otherwise than 
 figuratively, a ' malefactor' (the same) ; nor ' cor- 
 roborate' our health (Sir Thomas Elyot). 
 
 * Phillips, New World of Words, 1706. 
 f "But his [Gideon's] army must be garbled, as too great 
 for God to give victory thereby; all the fearful return home 
 by proclamation." (Fuller, Pisgah Sight of Palestine, 
 b. ii. c. 8.) 
 
IV.] GRADUAL CHANGE IN MEANING. 205 
 
 Again, a word will travel on by slow and regu- 
 larly progressive courses of change, itself a faithful 
 index of changes going on in society and in the 
 minds of men, till at length everything is changed 
 about it. The process of this it is often very 
 curious to observe ; capable as not seldom it is of 
 being watched step by step in its advances to the 
 final consummation. There may be said to be 
 three leading phases which the word successively 
 presents, three steps in its history. At first it 
 grows naturally out of its own root, is filled with 
 its own natural meaning. Presently the word 
 allows another meaning, one superinduced on the 
 former, and foreign to its etymology, to share 
 with the other in the possession of it, on the 
 ground that where the former exists, the latter 
 commonly co-exists with it. At the third step, 
 the newly introduced meaning, not satisfied with 
 its moiety, with dividing the possession of the 
 word, has thrust out the original and rightful pos- 
 sessor altogether, and remains in sole and exclu- 
 sive possession. The three successive stages may 
 be represented by a, ab, b; in which series b, 
 which was wanting altogether at the firs.t stage, 
 and was only admitted as secondary at the second, 
 does at the third become primary and indeed 
 alone. 
 
 We are not to suppose that in actual fact the 
 transitions from one signification to another are so 
 strongly and distinctly marked, as I have found it 
 convenient to mark them here. Indeed it is hard 
 to imagine anything more gradual, more subtle and 
 
206 CHANGED MEANING OF ENGLISH WOIIDS. [leC. 
 
 imperceptible, than the process of change. The 
 manner in which the new meaning first insinuates 
 itself into the old, and then drives out the old, can 
 only be compared to the process of petrifaction, as 
 rightly understood — the water not gradually turn- 
 ing what is put into it to stone, as we generally 
 take the operation to be; but successively dis- 
 placing each several particle of that which is 
 brought within its power, and depositing a stony 
 particle in its stead, till, in the end, while all 
 appears to continue the same, all has in fact been 
 thoroughly changed. It is precisely thus, by such 
 slow, gradual, and subtle advances that the new 
 meaning filters through and pervades the word, 
 little by little displacing entirely that which it 
 before possessed. 
 
 No word would illustrate this process better than 
 that old example, familiar probably to us all, of 
 ' villain.' The ' villain' is, first, the serf or peasant, 
 ' villanus,' because attached to the ^ villa' or farm. 
 He is, secondly, the peasant who, it is further 
 taken for granted, will be churlish, selfish, dis- 
 honest, and generally of evil moral conditions, 
 these having come to be assumed as always be- 
 longing to him, and to be permanently associated 
 with his name, by those higher classes of society 
 who in the main commanded the springs of lan- 
 guage. At the third step, nothing of the mean- 
 ing which the etymology suggests, nothing of 
 'villa,' survives any longer; the peasant is wholly 
 dismissed, and the evil moral conditions of him 
 who is called by this name alone remain ; so that 
 
IV.] GOSSIPS SPONSORS. 207 
 
 the name would now in this its final stage be 
 applied as freely to peer, i£ he deserved it^ as to 
 peasant. ^Boor^ has had exactly the same his- 
 tory j being first the cultivator of the soil ; then 
 secondly, the cultivator of the soil who, it is 
 assumed, will be coarse, rude, and unmannerly ; 
 and then thirdly, any one who is coarse, rude, and 
 unmannerly. So too ' pagan / which is first vil- 
 lager, then heathen villager, and lastly heathen. 
 You may trace the same progress in ' churl,' 
 ' clown,' ' antic,' and in numerous other words. 
 The intrusive meaning might be likened in all 
 these cases to the e^^ which the cuckoo lays in 
 the sparrow's nest ; the young cuckoo first sharing 
 the nest with its rightful occupants, but not rest- 
 ing till it has dislodged and ousted them altogether. 
 I will illustrate by the aid of one word more 
 this part of my subject. T called your attention 
 in my last lecture to the true character of several 
 words and forms in use among our country people, 
 and claimed for them to be in many instances 
 genuine English, although English now more or 
 less antiquated and overlived. ' Gossip' is a word 
 in point. I have myself heard this name given 
 by our Hampshire peasantry to the sponsors in 
 baptism, the godfathers and godmothers. I do 
 not say that it is a usual word ; but it is occa- 
 sionally employed, and well understood. This is 
 a perfectly correct employment of ' gossip,' in fact 
 its proper and original one, and involves moreover 
 a very curious record of past beliefs. ^ Gossip,' 
 or 'gossib,' as Chaucer spelt it, is a compound 
 
208 CHANGED MEANING OE ENGLISH WORDS. [leC. 
 
 ■word^ made up of the name of ' God/ and of an old 
 Anglo-Saxon word, ' sib/ still alive in Scotland, as 
 all readers of Walter Scott will remember, and in 
 some parts of England, and which means, akin ; 
 they were said to be ' sib/ who are related to one 
 another. But why, you may ask, was the name 
 given to sponsors? Out of this reason; — in the 
 middle ages it was the prevailing belief (and the 
 Romish Church still affirms it), that those who 
 stood as sponsors to the same child, besides con- 
 tracting spiritual obligations on behalf of that child, 
 also contracted spiritual affinity one with another; 
 they became sib, or akin, in God; and thus 'gos- 
 sips;^ hence ^gossipred/ an old word, exactly analo- 
 gous to ' kindred/ Out of this faith the Roman. 
 Catholic Church will not allow (unless indeed by 
 dispensations procured for money), those who have 
 stood as sponsors to the same child, afterwards to 
 contract marriage with one another, affirming them 
 too nearly related for this to be lawful. 
 
 Take ' gossip' however in its ordinary present 
 •use, as one addicted to idle tittle-tattle, and it 
 seems to bear no relation whatever to its etymology 
 and first meaning. The same three steps, however, 
 which we have traced before will bring us to its pre- 
 sent use. 'Gossips' are, first, the sponsors, brought 
 by the act of a common sponsorship into affinity 
 and near familiarity with one another; secondly, 
 these sponsors, who being thus brought together, 
 allow themselves one with the other in familiar, and 
 then in trivial and idle, talk; thirdly, any who 
 allow themselves in this trivial and idle talk, — 
 
IV.] CHANGE IS ALWAYS GOING ON. 209 
 
 called in Freiicli ' commerage/ from the fact that 
 ^ commere^ has run through exactly the same stages 
 as its English equivalent. 
 
 It is plain that words which designate not things 
 and persons only, but these as they are contem- 
 plated more or less in an ethical light, words which 
 tinge with a moral sentiment what they designate, 
 are peculiarly exposed to change ; are constantly 
 liable to take a new colouring, or to lose an old. 
 The gauge and measure of praise or blame, honour 
 or dishonour, admiration or abhorrence, which they 
 convey, is so purely a mental and subjective one, 
 that it is most difficult to take accurate note of 
 its rise or of its fall, while yet there are causes 
 continually at work leading it to the one or the 
 other. There are words not a few, but ethical 
 words above all, which have so imperceptibly 
 drifted away from their former moorings, that 
 although their position is now very different from 
 that which they once occupied, scarcely one in a 
 hundred of casual readers, whose attention has not 
 been specially called to the subject, will have 
 >bserved that they have moved at all. Here too 
 we observe some words conveying less of praise 
 >r blame than once, and some more; while some 
 aave wholly shifted from the one to the other. 
 Some were at one time words of slight, almost of 
 offence, which have altogether ceased to be so 
 now. Still these are rare by comparison with 
 those which once were harmless, but now are 
 harmless no more; which once, it may be, were 
 terms of honour, but which now imply a slight or 
 p 
 
210 CHANGED MEANING OF ENGLISH WORDS. [leC. 
 
 even a scorn. It is only too easy to perceive why 
 these should exceed those in number. 
 
 Let us take an example or two. If any were 
 to speak now of royal children as "royal imps,*' 
 it would sound, and with our present use of the 
 word would be, impertinent and unbecoming 
 enough ; and yet * imp' was once a name of 
 dignity and honour, and not of slight or of undue 
 familiarity. Thus Spenser addresses the Muses 
 in this language, 
 
 " Ye sacred imps that on Parnasso dwell ;" 
 
 and ^imp' was especially used of the scions of 
 royal or illustrious houses. More than one epi- 
 taph, still existing, of our ancient nobility might 
 be quoted, beginning in such language as this, 
 " Here lies that noble imp.*' Or what should we 
 say of a poet who commenced a solemn poem in 
 this fashion, 
 
 "Oh Israel, oh household of the Lord, 
 Oh Abraham's brats, oh brood of blessed seed" ? 
 
 Could we conclude anything else but that he meant, 
 by using low words on lofty occasions, to turn 
 sacred things into ridicule? Yet this was very 
 far from the intention of Gascoigne, the poet 
 whose lines I have just quoted. *' Abraham's 
 brats'' was used by him in perfect good faith, and 
 without the slightest feeling that anything ludi- 
 crous or contemptuous adhered to the word * brat,' 
 as indeed in his time there did not, any more 
 than adheres to ' brood,' which is another form of 
 the same word now. 
 
IV.] PRAGMATICAL, PROSE, PROSER. 211 
 
 Call a person ' pragmatical/ and you now im- 
 ply not merely that he is busy, but over-busy, 
 officious, self-important, and pompous to boot. 
 But it once meant nothing of the kind, and 
 ' pragmaticaP (like irpay/^iaTiKog), was one en- 
 gaged in affairs, being an honourable title, given 
 to a man simply and industriously accomplishing 
 the business which properly concerned him.* So 
 too to say that a person ' meddles' or is a 'meddler' 
 implies now that he interferes unduly in other 
 men's matters, without a call mixing himself up 
 with them. This was not insinuated in the 
 earlier uses of the word. On the contrary three 
 of our earlier translations of the Bible have, 
 '' Meddle with your own business" (1 Thess. iv. 
 11) ; and Barrow in one of his sermons draws at 
 some length the distinction between ' meddling' 
 and " being meddlesome/' and only condemns the 
 latter. 
 
 Or take again the words, ' to prose' or a 
 'proser.' It cannot indeed be affirmed that 
 they convey any moral condemnation, yet they 
 certainly convey no compliment now ; and are 
 almost among the last which any one would desire 
 should with justice be applied either to his talk- 
 ing or his writing. For ' to prose,' as we all now 
 know too well, is to talk or write heavily and 
 
 * *'We cannot always be contemplative, or pragmatical 
 abroad: but have need of some delightful intermissions, 
 wherein the enlarged soul may leave off awhile her severe 
 schooling." (Milton, TetracJiordon.) 
 p 2 
 
212 CHANGED MEANING OF ENGLISH WORDS, [lec. 
 
 tediously, without spirit and without animation ; 
 but once it was simply the antithesis of to versify, 
 and a ' proser^ the antithesis of a versifier or a 
 poet. It will follow that the most rapid and live- 
 liest writer who ever wrote, if he did not write in 
 verse would have ' prosed^ and been a ' proser,' iu 
 the language of our ancestors. Thus Drayton 
 writes of his contemporary Nashe : 
 
 " And surely Nashe, though he a proser were, 
 A branch of laurel yet deserves to bear ;" 
 
 that is, the ornament not of a ^ proser,' but of a 
 poet. The tacit assumption that vigour, anima- 
 tion, rapid movement, with all the precipitation 
 of the spirit, belong to verse rather than to prose, 
 and are the exclusive possession of it, is that 
 which must explain the changed uses of the 
 word. 
 
 Still it is according to a word's present signi- 
 fication that we must apply it now. It would be 
 no excuse, having applied an insulting epithet to 
 any, if we should afterwards plead that, tried by 
 its etymology and primary usage, it had nothing 
 offensive or insulting about it ; although indeed 
 Swift assures us that in his time such a plea was 
 made and was allowed. '^ I remember," he says, 
 *' at a trial in Kent, where Sir George Rooke was 
 indicted for calling a gentleman ^ knave' and 
 ' villain,^ the lawyer for the defendant brought off 
 liis client by alledging that the words were not in- 
 jurious ; for' knave' in the old and true significa- 
 tion imported only a servant ; and ' villain' in 
 
TV.] VILLAIN, SYCOPHANT. 213 
 
 Latin is villicus, which is no more than a man 
 employed in country labour, or rather a baily/' 
 The lawyer may have deserved his success for 
 his ingenuity and his boldness ; though, if Swift 
 reports him aright, not certainly on the ground of 
 the strict accuracy either of his Anglo-Saxon or 
 his Latin. 
 
 The moral sense and conviction of men is often 
 at work upon their words, giving them new turns 
 in obedience to these convictions, of which their 
 changed use will then remain a permanent record. 
 Let me illustrate this by the history of our word 
 ^ sycophant.^ You probably are acquainted with 
 the story which the Greek scholiasts invented by 
 way of explaining a word of which they knew 
 nothing, namely that the * sycophant^ was a 
 " manifester of figs,^^ one who detected others in 
 the act of exporting figs from Attica, an act for- 
 bidden, they asserted, by the Athenian law ; and 
 accused them to the people. Be this explanation 
 worth what it may, the word obtained in Greek 
 a more general sense ; any accuser, and then any 
 false accuser, was a ^ sycophant ;^ and when the 
 word was first adopted into the English lan- 
 guage, it was in this meaning : thus an old 
 English poet speaks of " the railing route of 
 sycophants ;" and Holland : " The poor man that 
 hath nought to lose, is not afraid of the syco- 
 phant.'^ But it has not kept this meaning ; a 
 * sycophant' is now a fawning flatterer ; not one 
 who speaks ill of you behind your back ; rather 
 one who speaks good of you before your face, 
 
214 CHANGED MEANING OF ENGLISH WORDS. [leC. 
 
 but good which he does not in his heart believe. 
 Yet how true a moral instinct has presided over 
 the changed signification of the word. The 
 calumniator and the flatterer, although they seem 
 so opposed to one another, how closely united 
 they really are. They grow out of the same 
 root. The same baseness of spirit which shall 
 lead one to speak evil of you behind your back, 
 will lead him to fawn on you and flatter you 
 before your face ; there is a profound sense in that 
 Italian proverb, " Who flatters me before, spatters 
 me behind." 
 
 But it is not the moral sense only of men 
 which is thus at work, modifying their words ; 
 but the immoral as well. If the good which men 
 have and feel, penetrates into their speech, and 
 leaves its deposit there, so does also the evil. 
 Thus we may trace a constant tendency — in too 
 many cases it has been a successful one — to 
 empty words employed in the condemnation of 
 evil, of the depth and earnestness of the moral 
 reprobation which they once conveyed. Men^s 
 too easy toleration of sin, the feebleness of their 
 moral indignation against it, brings about that the 
 blame which words expressed once, has in some 
 of them become much weaker now than once, 
 has from others vanished altogether. ^' To do a 
 shrewd turn,'^ was once to do a wicked turn ; 
 and Chaucer, using ^ shrewdness' by which to 
 translate the Latin ^ improbitas,' shows that it 
 meant wickedness for him ; nay, two murderers 
 he calls two ' shrews,' — for there were, as already 
 
IV.] ANTECEDENTS OF WOllDS. 215 
 
 noticed, male shrews once as well as female. 
 But " a shrewd turn^^ now, while it implies a cer- 
 tain amount of sharp dealing, yet implies nothing 
 more ; and ' shrewdness' is applied to men rather 
 in their praise than in their dispraise. And not 
 ' shrewd' and * shrewdness' only, but a multitude 
 of other words, — I will only instance ' prank/ 
 ' flirt,' * luxury,' ^ luxurious/ ' peevish,' ' way- 
 ward,' ' loiterer,' ^ uncivil/ — conveyed once a 
 much more earnest moral disapproval than now 
 they do. 
 
 But I must bring this lecture to a close. I 
 have but opened to you paths, which you, if 
 you are so minded, can follow up for your- 
 selves. We have learned lately to speak of men's 
 ' antecedents / tbe phrase is newly come up ; and 
 it is common to say that if we would know what 
 a man really now is, we must know his ' antece- 
 dents,' that is, what he has been in time past. This 
 is quite as true about words. If we would know 
 what they now are, we must know what they have 
 been ; we must know, if possible, the date and 
 place of their birth, the successive stages of their 
 subsequent history, tlie company which they have 
 kept, all the road which they have travelled, and 
 what has brought them to the point at which now 
 we find them ; we must know, in short, their an- 
 tecedents. 
 
 And let me say, without attempting to bring 
 back school into these lectures which are out of 
 school, that, seeking to do this, we might add an 
 interest to our researches in the lexicon and the 
 
216 CHANGED MEANING OF ENGLISH WORDS. 
 
 dictionary which otherwise they could never have ; 
 that taking such words, for example, as iKKXr](Tia, 
 or waXiyjEVicJia, or evTpair^Xia, or aocjuari^q, or 
 ayoXaGTLicoQ, in Greek ; as * religio/ or ' sacra- 
 mentum/ or ' urbanitas/ or ' superstitio/ in Latin ; 
 as ' libertine/ or ' casuistry/* or ^ humanity/ or 
 ' humourous/ or ' danger/ or ' romance/ in Eng- 
 lish, and endeavouring to trace the manner in 
 which one meaning grew out of and superseded 
 another, and how they arrived at that use in 
 which they have finally rested (if indeed before 
 our English w^ords there is not a future still), we 
 shall derive, I believe, amusement, I am sure, 
 instruction ; we shall feel that we are really get- 
 ting something, increasing the moral and intel- 
 lectual stores of our minds ; furnishing ourselves 
 with that which may hereafter be of service to 
 ourselves, may be of service to others — than which 
 there can be no feeling more pleasurable, none 
 more delightful. I shall be glad and thankful, 
 if you can feel as much in regard of that lecture, 
 which I now bring to its end.f 
 
 * See Wbewell, Sisiory of Moral Philosophy in Eng- 
 land, pp. xxvii. — xxxii. 
 
 t For a fuller treatment of the subject of this lecture, see 
 my Select Glossary of English Words used formerly in 
 senses different from their present, 2nd Ed., London, 
 1859. 
 
217 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 CHANGES IN THE SPELLING OF ENGLISH WORDS. 
 
 WHEN T announce to you that the subject of 
 my lecture to-clay will be English ortho- 
 graphy, or the spelling of words in our native 
 langruasre, with the alterations which this has un- 
 dergone, you may perhaps think with yourselves 
 that a weightier, or, if not a weightier, at all 
 events a more interesting, subject might have 
 occupied this our concluding lecture. I cannot 
 admit it to be wanting either in importance or 
 in interest. Unimportant it certainly is not, but 
 might well engage, as it often has engaged, the 
 attention of those with far higher acquirements 
 than any which I possess. Uninteresting it may 
 be, by faults in the manner of treating it ; but I 
 am sure it ought as little to be this ; and 
 would never prove so in competent hands.* Let 
 us then address ourselves to this matter, not with- 
 out good hope that it may yield us both profit 
 and pleasure. 
 
 I know not who it was that said, " The inven- 
 
 * In proof that it need not be so, I would only refer to a 
 paper, On OrtJiocfraphical E.x^ecUents, by Edwin Guest, 
 Esq., in the Transactions of the Philological Society^ 
 vol. iii., p. 1. 
 
218 CHANGED SPELLING or ENGLISH WORDS, [leg. 
 
 tion of printing was very well ; but, as compared 
 to the invention of writing, it was no such great 
 matter after all/* Whoever it was who made 
 this observation, it is clear that for him use and 
 familiarity had not obliterated the wonder which 
 there is in that, whereat we probably have long 
 ceased to wonder at all — the power, namely, of 
 representing sounds by written signs, of repro- 
 ducing for the eye that which existed at first only 
 for the ear : nor was the estimate which he formed 
 of the relative value of these two inventions other 
 than a just one. Writing indeed stands more nearly 
 on a level with speaking, and deserves rather to be 
 compared with it, than with printing ; which, with 
 all its utility, is yet of altogether another and 
 inferior type of greatness : or, if this is too much 
 to claim for writing, it may at any rate be 
 affirmed to stand midway between the other two, 
 and to be as much superior to the one as it is 
 inferior to the other. 
 
 The intention of the written word, that which 
 presides at its first formation, the end whereunto 
 it is a mean, is by aid of symbols agreed on before- 
 hand, to represent to the eye with as much accuracy 
 as possible the spoken word. 
 
 It never fulfils this intention completely, and 
 by degrees more and more imperfectly. Short as 
 man's spoken word often falls of his thought, his 
 written word falls often as short of his spoken. 
 Several causes contribute to this. In the first 
 place, the marks of imperfection and infirmity 
 cleave to writing, as to every other invention of 
 
v.] PHONETIC ALPHABET. 219 
 
 man. All alphabets have been left incomplete. 
 They have superfluous letters, letters, that is, 
 which they do not want, because other letters 
 already represent the sound which they represent ; 
 they have dubious letters, letters, that is, which 
 say nothing certain about the sounds they stand 
 for, because more than one sound is represented 
 by them — our ' c' for instance, which sometimes 
 has the sound of 's,' as in ' city,' sometimes of 'k,' 
 as in ' cat ;' they are deficient in letters, that is, 
 the language has elementary sounds which have no 
 corresponding letters appropriated to them, and 
 can only be represented by combinations of letters. 
 All alphabets, I believe, have some of these faults, 
 not a few of them have all, and more. This then 
 is one reason of the imperfect reproduction of 
 the spoken word by the written. But another 
 is, that the human voice is so wonderfully fine 
 and flexible an organ, is able to mark such subtle 
 and delicate distinctions of sound, so infinitely 
 to modify and vary these sounds, that were an 
 alphabet complete as human art could make it, 
 did it possess eight and forty instead of four and 
 twenty letters, there would still remain a multi- 
 tude of sounds which it could only approximately 
 give back. 
 
 But there is a further cause for the divergence 
 which comes gradually to find place between 
 men's spoken and their written words. What 
 men do often, they will seek to do with the least 
 possible trouble. There is nothing which they do 
 oftener than repeat words; they will seek here 
 
220 CHANGED SPELLING OF ENGLISH WORDS. [leC. 
 
 then to save themselves pains; they will contract 
 two or more syllables into one ; {' toto opere' will 
 become ' topper f ' vuestra merced/ ' usted ;^ and 
 ' topside the other way/ ' topsy-turvey/*) they will 
 slur over^ and thus after a while cease to pro- 
 nounce, certain letters ; for hard letters they will 
 substitute soft ; for those which require a certain 
 effort to pronounce, they will substitute those 
 which require little or none. Under the opera- 
 tion of these causes a gulf between the written 
 and spoken word will not merely exist; but it 
 will have the tendency to grow ever wider and 
 wider. This tendency indeed will be partially 
 counterworked by approximations which from time 
 to time will by silent consent be made of the 
 written word to the spoken ; here and there a 
 letter dropped in speech will be dropped also in 
 writing, as the ^ s' in so many French words, 
 where its absence is marked by a circumflex ; a 
 new shape, contracted or briefer, which a word has 
 taken on the lips of men, will find its representa- 
 tion in their writing ; as ' chirurgeon^ will not 
 merely be pronounced, but also spelt, ' surgeon/ 
 and ' synodsman' ' sidesman/ Still for all this, 
 and despite of these partial readjustments of the 
 relations between the two, the anomalies will be 
 infinite ; there will be a multitude of written 
 
 * I have not observed this noticed in our Dictionaries as 
 the original form of the phrase. There is no doubt however 
 of the lact; see Stanihwrsfs Ireland, p. 33, iu Holinshed's 
 Chronicles, 
 
v.] SPOKEN AND WRITTEN. 221 
 
 letters which have ceased to be sounded letters ; 
 a multitude of words will exist in one shape upon 
 our lips, and in quite another in our books. 
 
 It is inevitable that the question should arise — 
 Shall these anomalies be meddled with ? shall it 
 be attempted to remove them, and bring writing 
 and speech into harmony and consent — a harmony 
 and consent which never indeed in actual fact at 
 any period of the language existed, but which yet 
 may be regarded as the object of written speech, 
 as the idea which, however imperfectly realized, 
 has, in the reduction of spoken sounds to written, 
 floated before the minds of men ? If the attempt 
 is to be made, it is clear that it can only be made 
 in one way. The alternative is not open, whether 
 Mahomet shall go to the mountain, or the moun- 
 tain to Mahomet. The spoken word is the moun- 
 tain ; it will not stir ; it will resist all interference. 
 It feels its own superior rights, that it existed the 
 first, that it is, so to say, the elder brother; 
 and it will never be induced to change itself for 
 the purpose of conforming and complying with the 
 written word. Men will not be persuaded to pro- 
 nounce ' wou/d' and ' de6t,' because they write 
 * would^ and ' debt^ severally with an ^ P and with 
 a ^ b^: but what if they could be induced to write 
 ' woud^ and ' det,' because they pronounce so ; and 
 to deal in like manner with all other words, in 
 which there exists at present a discrepancy between 
 the word as it is spoken, and the word as it is 
 written ? 
 
 Here we have the explanation of that which ia 
 
222 CHANGED SPELLING OFENGLTSH WORDS, [lec. 
 
 the history of almost all literatures has repeated 
 itself more than once^ namely, the endeavour to 
 introduce phonetic writing. It has certain plausi- 
 bilities to rest on ; it has its appeal to the unques- 
 tionable fact that the written word was intended 
 to picture to the eye what the spoken word 
 sounded in the ear. At the same time I believe 
 that it would be impossible to introduce it ; and, 
 even if it were possible, that it would be most un- 
 desirable, and this for two reasons ; the first being 
 that the losses consequent upon its introduction 
 would far outweigh the gains, even supposing those 
 gains as great as the advocates of the scheme pro- 
 mise ; the second, that these promised gains would 
 themselves be only very partially realized, or not 
 at all. 
 
 In the first place, I believe it to be impossible. 
 It is clear that such a scheme must begin with 
 the reconstruction of the alphabet. The first thing 
 that the phonographers have perceived is the 
 necessity for the creation of a vast number of new 
 signs, the poverty of all existing alphabets, at any 
 rate of oar own, not yielding a several sign for all 
 the several sounds in the language. Our English 
 phonographers have therefore had to invent ten 
 of these new signs or letters, which are henceforth 
 to take their place with our a, b, c, and to enjoy 
 equal rights with them. Rejecting two (q, x), 
 and adding ten, they have raised their alphabet 
 from twenty-six letters to thirty-four. But to pro- 
 cure the reception of such a reconstructed alphabet 
 is simply au impossibility, as much an impossi- 
 
v.] ALPHABETS IMPERFECT. 223 
 
 "bility as would be the reeonstitutiori of the struc- 
 ture of the language in any points where it was 
 manifestly deficient or illogical. Sciolists or 
 scholars may sit down in their studies, and devise 
 these new letters^ and prove that we need them, 
 and that the introduction of them would be a 
 great gain, and a manifest improvement ; and this 
 may be all very true : but if they think they can 
 induce a people to adopt them, they know little of 
 the ways in which its alphabet is entwined with 
 the whole innermost life of a people. One may 
 freely own that all present alphabets are redun- 
 dant here, are deficient there; our Engbsh per- 
 haps is as greatly at fault as any, and with that 
 we have chiefly to do. Unquestionably it has 
 more letters than one to express one and the same 
 sound ; it has only one letter to express two or 
 three sounds ; it has sounds which are only capable 
 of being expressed at all by awkward and round- 
 about expedients. Yet at the same time we must 
 accept the fact, as we accept any other which it is 
 out of our power to change — with regret, indeed, 
 but with a perfect acquiescence : as one accepts 
 the fact that Ireland is not some thirty or forty 
 miles nearer to England — that it is so difficult to 
 get round Cape Horn — that the climate of Africa 
 is so fatal to European life. A people will no more 
 quit their alphabet than they will quit their lan- 
 guage ; they will no more consent to modify the 
 one ab extra than the other. Csesar avowed that 
 with all his power he could not introduce a new 
 word, and certainly Claudius could not introduce 
 
224 CHANGED SPELLING OFENGLISH WORDS, [lec. 
 
 a new letter. Centuries may sanction the bring- 
 ing in of a new one, or the dropping of an old. 
 But to imagine that it is possible suddenly to 
 introduce a group of ten new letters, as these 
 reformers propose — they might just as feasibly 
 propose that the English language should form its 
 comparatives and superlatives on some entirely 
 new scheme, say in Greek fashion, by the termi- 
 nations ^ oteros^ and ' otatos •/ or that we should 
 agree to set up a dual; or that our substantives 
 should return to our Anglo-Saxon declensions. 
 Any one of these or like proposals would not 
 betray a whit more ignorance of the eternal laws 
 which regulate human language, and of the limits 
 within which deliberate action upon it is possible, 
 than does this of increasing our alphabet by ten 
 entirely novel signs. 
 
 But grant it possible, grant our six and twenty 
 letters to have so little sacredness in them that 
 Englishmen would endure a crowd of upstart 
 interlopers to mix themselves on an equal footing 
 with them, still this could only be from a sense of 
 the greatness of the advantage to be derived from 
 this introduction. Now the vast advantage claimed 
 by the advocates of the system is, that it would 
 facilitate the learning to read, and wholly save the 
 labour of learning to spell, which " on the present 
 plan occupies,'' as they assure us, " at the very 
 lowest calculation from three to five years." 
 Spelling, it is said, would no longer need to be 
 learned at all ; since whoever knew the sound, 
 would necessarily know also the spelling, this 
 
 \ 
 
v.] SPELLING BY THE EAR. 225 
 
 being in all cases in perfect conformity with that. 
 The anticipation of this gain rests upon two 
 assumptions which are tacitly taken for granted, 
 but both of them erroneous. 
 
 The first of these assumptions is, that all men 
 pronounce all words alike, so that whenever they 
 come to spell a word, they will exactly agree as to 
 what the outline of its sound is. Now we are sure 
 men will not do this from the fact that, before 
 there was any fixed and settled orthography in our 
 language, when therefore everybody was more or 
 less a phonographer, seeking to write down the 
 word as it sounded to Mm, (for he had no other 
 law to guide him,) the variations of spelling were 
 infinite. Take for instance the word ^ sudden;^ 
 which does not seem to promise any great scope 
 for variety. I have myself met with this word 
 spelt in the following fifteen ways amOng our early 
 writers : ' sodain,^ ' sodaine,^ ' sodan,^ ' sodayne,^ 
 ' sodden,' ' sodein,^ '' sodeine,' ' soden,^ ' sodeyn/ 
 ' suddain,' ' suddaine,' ^ suddein,' ^ suddeine/ ' sud- 
 den/ ' sudeyn.' Again, in how many ways was 
 Raleigh^s name spelt, or Shakespeare^s ? The 
 same is evident from the spelling of uneducated 
 persons in our own day. They have no other 
 rule but the sound to guide them. How is it 
 that they do not all spell alike; erroneously, it 
 may be, as having only the sound for their guide, 
 but still falling all into exactly the same errors? 
 What is the actual fact ? They not merely spell 
 wrong, which might be laid to the charge of our 
 perverse system of spelling, but Y.ith an inex- 
 Q 
 
226 CHANGED SPELLING OF ENGLISH WORDS, [lec, 
 
 haustible diversity of error, and that too in the 
 case of simplest words. Thus the little town of 
 Woburn would seem to give small room for caprice 
 in spelling, while yet the postmaster there has 
 made, from the superscription of letters that have 
 passed through his hands, a collection of two 
 hundred and forty-four varieties of ways in which 
 the place has been spelt.* It may be replied that 
 these were all or nearly all from the letters of the 
 ignorant and uneducated. Exactly so ; — but it is 
 for their sakes, and to place them on a level with 
 the educated, or rather to accelerate their education 
 by the omission of a useless yet troublesome dis- 
 cipline, that the change is proposed. I wish to 
 show you that after the change they would be just 
 as much, or almost as much, at a loss in their 
 spelling as now. 
 
 And another reason which would make it quite 
 as necessary then to learn orthography as now, is 
 the following. Pronunciation, as I have already 
 noticed, is far too fine and subtle a thing to be 
 more than approximated to, and indicated in the 
 written letter. In a multitude of cases the diffi- 
 culties which pronunciation presented would be 
 sought to be overcome in different ways, and thus 
 different spellings w^ould arise; or if not so, one 
 would have to be arbitrarily selected, and would 
 have need to be learned, just as much as the 
 spelling of a word now has need to be learned. I 
 will only ask you, in proof of this which I affirm, 
 
 * Notes and Queries, No. 147. 
 
v.] PRONOUNCING DICTIONARIES. 227 
 
 to turn to any Pronouncing Dictionary. That 
 greatest of all absurdities, a Pronouncing Dic- 
 tionary, may be of some service to you in this 
 matter ; it will certainly be of none in any other. 
 When you mark the elaborate and yet ineffectual 
 artifices by which it toils after the finer distinc- 
 tions of articulation, seeks to reproduce in letters 
 what exists, and can only exist, as the spoken 
 tradition of pronunciation, acquired from lip to 
 lip by the organ of the ear, capable of being 
 learned, but incapable of being taught; or when 
 you compare two of these Dictionaries with one 
 another, and mark the entirely different schemes 
 and combinations of letters which they employ for 
 representing the same sound to the eye ; you 
 will then perceive how idle the attempt to make 
 the written in language commensurate with the 
 sounded; you will own that not merely out of 
 human caprice, ignorance, or indolence, the former 
 falls short of and differs from the latter ; but that 
 this lies in the necessity of things, in the fact 
 that man^s voice can effect so much more than 
 ever his letter can.* You will then perceive that 
 there would be as much, or nearly as much, of 
 the arbitrary in spelling which calls itself pho- 
 netic as in our present, that spelling would have 
 to be learned just as really then as now. We 
 should be unable to dismiss the spelling card even 
 after the arrival of that great day, when, for ex- 
 
 * See Boswell's Life of Johnson, Crolver's edit. 1848, 
 p. 233. 
 
 q2 
 
228 CHANGED SPELLING OF ENGLISH WORDS, [lec. 
 
 ample, those lines of Pope which hitherto we have 
 thus spelt and read^ 
 
 " But errs not nature from this gracious end, 
 From burning suns when livid deaths descend, 
 When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep 
 Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep ?" 
 
 ■when, I say, instead of this they should present 
 themselves to our eyes in the following attractive 
 form : 
 
 "But S erz not netiur from dis greens end, 
 from burnii) sunz when hvid debs disend, 
 when erbkweks swolec, or when tempests swip 
 tonnz tu wnn grsv, hed neconz tu de dip." 
 
 The scheme would not then fulfil its promises. 
 Its vaunted gains, when we come to look closely 
 at them, disappear. And now for its losses. There 
 are in every language a vast number of words, 
 which the ear does not distinguish from one 
 another, but which are at once distinguishable to 
 the eye by the spelling. 1 will only instance a 
 few which are the same parts of speech ; thus 
 ' sun^ and ^son / Sdrge^ ('virga,^ now obsolete) and 
 
 * verge -^ ' reign,' ^ rain,' and ' rein ;' ' hair' and 
 ' hare ;' ' plate' and ' plait ;' ' moat' and ' mote ;' 
 ' pear' and ' pair ;' ^ pain' and ' pane ;' ' raise' and 
 ' raze ;' ' air' and ' heir ;' * ark' and ' arc ;' ' mite' 
 and ' might ;' * pour' and 'pore ;' 'veil' and 'vale j' 
 
 * knight' and ' night ;' ' knave' and ' nave ;' ' pier' 
 and ' peer ;' ' rite' and ' right ;' ' site' and ' sight ;' 
 ' aisle' and ' isle ;' * concent' and ' consent ;' 
 *■ signet' and ' cygnet.' Now, of course, it is a real 
 
v.] LOSSES OP PHONETIC SPELLING. 229 
 
 disadvantage, and may be the cause of serious 
 confusion, that there should be words in spoken 
 language of entirely different origin and meaning, 
 which yet cannot in sound be differenced from 
 .one another. The phonographers simply propose 
 to extend this disadvantage ah-eady cleaving to our 
 spoken language, to the written language as well. 
 It is fault enough in the French language, that 
 ' mere' a mother, ' mer' the sea, ' maire' a mayor 
 of a town, should have no perceptible difference 
 between them in the spoken tongue ; or again that 
 in some there should be nothing to distinguish 
 ' sans,' ' sang,' ' sent,' ' sens,' ' s'en,' ' cent ;' nor 
 yet between ' ver,' 'vert/ ' verre' and 'vers.' 
 Surely it is not very wise to propose gratuitously 
 to extend the same fault to the written language as 
 well. 
 
 This loss in so many instances of the power to 
 discriminate between words, which, however liable 
 to confusion now in our spoken language, are 
 liable to none in our written, would be serious 
 enough ; but far more serious than this would be 
 the loss which would constantly ensue, of all which 
 visibly connects a word with the past, which tells 
 its history, and indicates the quarter from which 
 it has been derived. In how many English words 
 a letter silent to the ear, is yet most eloquent to 
 the eye — the g for instance in ' deign,' ' feign,' 
 ' reign,' ' impugn,' telling as it does of ' dignor,' 
 'fingo,' 'regno,' ' impugno ;' even as the b in 
 ' debt,' ' doubt,' is not idle, but tells of ' debitum' 
 and ' dubium.' 
 
230 CHANGED SPELLING OF ENGLISH WORDS, [lec. 
 
 At present it is the written word which is in all 
 languages their conservative element. In it is the 
 abiding witness against the mutilations or other 
 capricious changes in their shape which affectation, 
 folly, ignorance, and half- knowledge would intror 
 duce. It is not indeed always able to hinder the 
 final adoption of these corrupter forms, but does 
 not fail to oppose to them a constant, and very 
 often a successful, resistance. "With the adoption 
 of phonetic spelling, this witness would exist no 
 longer; whatever was spoken would have also to 
 be written, let it be never so barbarous, never so 
 great a departure from the true form of the word. 
 Nor is it merely probable that such a barbarizing 
 process, such an adopting and sanctioning of a 
 vulgarism, might take place, but among phonogra- 
 phers it already has taken place. We all probably 
 are aware that there is a vulgar pronunciation of 
 the word ' 'Eiwrope' as though it were ' Eur?//;.^ 
 Now it is quite possible that numerically more 
 persons in England may pronounce the word in 
 this manner than in the right ; and therefore the 
 phonographers are only true to their principles 
 when they spell it in the fashion which they do, 
 ' Eurup,^ or indeed omitting the E at the begin- 
 ning, ' Urup,^* with thus the life of the first syllable 
 assailed no less than that of the second. What 
 are the consequences ? First, its relations with 
 
 * A chief phonographer writes to me to deny that this is the 
 present spelling (1856) of 'Europe.' It was so when this 
 paragraph was written. 
 
v.] PRONUNCIATION ALTERS. 231 
 
 the old mythology are at once and entirely broken 
 off; secondly, its most probable etymology from 
 two Greek words, signifying ' broad^ and ' face/ 
 Europe being so called from the broad line or face 
 of coast which our continent presented to the 
 Asiatic Greek, is totally obscured. But so fc\r from 
 the spelling servilely following the pronunciation, I 
 should be bold to affirm that if ninety-nine out of 
 every hundred persons in England chose to call 
 Europe ' Urup,^ this would be a vulgarism still, 
 against which the written word ought to maintain 
 its protest, not sinking down to their level, but 
 rather seeking to elevate them to its own.* ' 
 
 And if there is much in orthography which is 
 unsettled now, how much more would be unsettled 
 then. Inasmuch as the pronunciation of words is 
 
 * Quintilian has expressed himself with the true dignity of 
 a scholar ou this matter {Inst. 1. 6. 45) : Consuetudinem 
 sermonis vocabo consensum eruditorum ; sicut vivendi con- 
 sensum bonorum. — How different from innovations like this 
 the changes in the spelling of German which J. Grimm, so 
 far as his own example may reach, has introduced ; and the 
 still bolder and more extensive ones which in the Preface to 
 his Deutsclies Worterbuch, pp. liv. — Ixii., he avows his 
 desire to see introduced ; — as the employment ofy, not merely 
 where it is at present used, but also wherever v is now em- 
 ployed ; the substituting of the v, which would be thus dis- 
 engaged, for w, and the entire dismissal of w. They may be 
 advisable, or they may not ; it is not for strangers to offer 
 an opinion ; but at any rate they are not a seizing of the 
 fluctuating, superficial accidents of the present, and a seeking 
 to give permanent authority to these, but they all rest on a 
 deep historic study of the language, and of the true genius 
 of the language. 
 
232 CHANGED SPELLING OF ENGLISH WORDS. [leC. 
 
 continually altering, their spelling would of course 
 have continually to alter too. For the fact that 
 pronunciation is undergoing constant changes, 
 although changes for the most part unmarked, or 
 marked only by a few, would be abundantly easy 
 to prove. Take a Pronouncing Dictionary of fifty 
 or a hundred years ago ; turn to almost any page, 
 and you will observe schemes of pronunciation 
 there recommended, which are now merely vul- 
 garisms, or which have been dropped altogether. 
 We gather from a discussion in Boswell's Life of 
 Johnson,^ that in his time ' great' was by some 
 of th^e best speakers of the language pronounced 
 ^ gr^et/ not ' grate :' Pope usually rhymes it with 
 ' cheat/ ' complete/ and the like ; thus in the 
 Dimciad : 
 
 " Here swells the shelf with Ogilby the great, 
 There, stamped with arms, Newcastle shines complete." 
 
 Spenser's constant use of the word a century and 
 a half earlier, leaves no doubt that such was the 
 invariable pronunciation of his time. Again, Pope 
 rhymes ' obliged' with ' besieged / and it has only 
 ceased to be ' oble^ged' almost in our own time. 
 AVho now drinks a cup of ' tay' ? yet there is 
 abundant evidence that this was the fashionable 
 pronunciation in the first half of the last century ; 
 the word, that is, was still regarded as French : 
 Locke writes it ' the / and in Pope's time though 
 no longer written, it was still pronounced so. 
 Take this couplet of his in proof: 
 
 * Croker's edit. 1818, pp. 57, 61, 233. 
 
v.] SWIFT ON PHONETIC SPELLING. 233 
 
 " Here thou, great Anna, whom three reahiis ohey. 
 Dost sometimes counsel take, and sometimes tea^^ 
 
 So too a pronunciation which still survives, 
 though scarcely among well-educated persons, I 
 mean ^ Rooni^ for ^ Rome,' must have been in 
 Shakespeare's time the predominant one, else 
 there would have been no point in that play on 
 words where in Julius Caesar Cassius, complaining 
 that in all Rome there was not room for a single 
 man, exclaims, 
 
 "Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough." 
 
 Samuel Kogers too assures us that in his youth 
 " everybody said ' Lonnon' not ^ London / that 
 Fox said ' Lonnon^ to the last." 
 
 The following quotation from Swift will prove 
 to you that T have been only employing here an 
 argument, which he employed long ago against 
 the phonographers of his time. He exposes thus 
 the futility of their scheme* : '' Another cause 
 which has contributed not a little to the maiming 
 of our language, is a foolish opinion advanced of 
 late years that we ought to spell exactly as we 
 speak : which, besides the obvious inconvenience 
 of utterly destroying our etymology, would be a 
 thing we should never see an end of. Not only 
 the several towns and counties of England have 
 a different way of pronouncing, but even here in 
 London they clip their words after one manner 
 
 '^ A proposal for correcting, improving and ascertaining 
 the English Tongue, 1711, Works, vol. ix, pp. 139 — 159. 
 
234 CHANGED SPELLING OF ENGLISH WORDS, [lec. 
 
 about the court, anotlier in the city, and a third 
 in the suburbs ; and in a few years, it is probable, 
 will all differ from themselves, as fancy or fashion 
 shall direct ; all which, reduced to writing, would 
 entirely confound orthography/^ 
 
 This much I have thought good to say in re- 
 spect of that entire revolution in English ortho- 
 graphy, which some rash innovators have proposed. 
 Let me, dismissing them and their innovations, 
 call your attention now to those changes in 
 spelling which are constantly going forward, at 
 some periods more rapidly than at others, but which 
 never wholly cease out of a language ; while at 
 the same time I endeavour to trace, where this is 
 possible, the motives and inducements which bring 
 them about. It is a subject which none can 
 neglect, who desire to obtain even a tolerably ac- 
 curate acquaintance with their native tongue. 
 Some principles have been laid down in the course 
 of what has been said ah^eady, that may help us 
 to judge whether the changes which have found 
 place in our own have been for better or for worse. 
 We shall find, if I am not mistaken, of both kinds. 
 
 There are alterations in spelling which are for 
 the worse. Thus an altered spelling will some- 
 times obscure the origin of a word, concealing it 
 from those who, but for this, would at once have 
 known whence and what it was, and would have 
 found both pleasure and profit in this knowledge. 
 I need not say that in all those cases where the 
 earlier spelling revealed the secret of the word, 
 
v.] GROGRAM, PIGMY. 235 
 
 told its history, whicli the latter defaces or con- 
 ceals, the change has been injurious, and is to be 
 regretted ; while, at the same time, where it has 
 thoroughly established itself, there is nothing to 
 do but to acquiesce in it : the attempt to undo 
 it would be absurd. Thus, when ' grocer ^ was 
 spelt ' grosser,' it was comparatively easy to see 
 that he first had his name, because he sold his 
 wares not by retail, but in the gross. ' Co<rcomV 
 tells us nothing now ; but it did when spelt, as 
 it used to be, ^ cockseomh/ the comb of a cock 
 being then an ensign or token which the fool was 
 accustomed to wear. In ^ grogra?/*^ we are en- 
 tirely to seek for the derivation ; but in ' grogra?^^ 
 or ' grograi/z,^ as earlier it was spelt, one could 
 scarcely miss ^ grosgrain,^ the stuff of a coarse 
 gram or woof. How many now understand 
 ' woodbine T but who could have helped under- 
 standing ^ woodbinf/^ (Ben Jonson) ? What a 
 mischievous alteration in spelling is ^ divest^ in- 
 stead of ^ devest/ This change is so recent that 
 I am tempted to ask whether it would not here 
 be possible to return to the only intelligible 
 spelling of this word? 
 
 ^ Pigmy^ used formerly to be spelt ' p?/gmy,' 
 and so long as it was so, no Greek scholar could 
 see the word, but at once he knew that by it 
 were indicated manikins whose measure in height 
 was no greater than that of a man's arm from the 
 elbow to the closed fist.^ Now he may know 
 
 * Pygrasei, quasi cuhitales (Augustine). 
 
236 CHANGED SPELLING OF ENGLISH WORDS, [lec. 
 
 this in other ways ; but the word itself, so long 
 as he assumes it to be rightly spelt, tells him 
 nothing. Or again, the old spelling, ^ diamant/ 
 was preferable to the modern 'diamond.' It 
 was preferable, because it told more of the quarter 
 from whence the word had reached us. ' Dia- 
 mant' and ' adamant^ are in fact only two different 
 adoptions on the part of the English tongue, of 
 one and the same Greek, which afterwards became 
 a Latin, word. The primary meaning of ^ ada- 
 mant^ is, as you know, the indomitable, and it 
 was a name given at first to steel as the hardest 
 of metals ; but afterwards transferred* to the most 
 precious among all the precious stones, as that 
 which in power of resistance surpassed everything 
 besides. 
 
 Neither are new spellings to be commended, 
 which obliterate or obscure the relationship of a 
 word with others to which it is really allied ; sepa- 
 rating from one another, for those not thoroughly 
 acquainted Avith the subject, words of the same 
 family. Thus when ^^aw' was spelt ' diaw,' no 
 
 * First so used by Theophrastus in Greek, and by Pliny 
 in Latin, — The real identity of the two words explains 
 Milton's use of ' diamond' in Paradise Lost, b. 7 ; and also 
 in that subHme passage in his A2:)ology for Smectymnuus : 
 "Then zeal, whose substance is ethereal, arming in complete 
 diamond." — Diez {Worterhuch d. Roman. Sprachen, p. 123) 
 supposes, not very probably, that it was under a certain 
 influence of ' c^mfano,' the translucent, that * adamante' was 
 in the Italian, from whence we have derived the word, 
 chan'^ed into * c//canante.' 
 
v.] COUSIN, BRAND-NEW. 237 
 
 one could miss its connexion with tlie verb ' to 
 
 chew/ Now probably ninety-nine out of a 
 
 hundred who use both words, are entirely unaware 
 
 of any relationship between them. It is the same 
 
 with * cousin^ (consanguineus), and * to cozen^ or 
 
 to deceive. I do not propose to determine which 
 
 of these words should conform itself to the spelling 
 
 of the other. There was great irregularity in 
 
 the spelling of both from the first ; yet for all this, 
 
 it was then better than now, when a permanent 
 
 distinction has established itself between them, 
 
 keeping out of sight that ' to cozen' is in all 
 
 likelihood to deceive under show of kindred 
 
 and affinity; which if it be so^ Shakespeare's 
 
 words, 
 
 " Cousins indeed, and by their uncle cozened 
 Of comfort, '* 
 
 will be found to contain not a pun, but an 
 etymology. The real relation between ' bliss' 
 and ' to bless' is in like manner at present ob- 
 scured. 
 
 The omission of a letter, or the addition of a 
 letter^ may each effectually do its work in keep- 
 ing out of sight the true character and origin of 
 a word. Thus the omission of a letter. When 
 the first syllable of ' bran-new,' was spelt ^ brauc^' 
 with a final ' d/ ^ bran^Z-new,^ how vigorous an 
 image did the word contain. The ' brand' is the 
 fire, and ' brand-new' equivalent to ' fire-new' 
 (Shakespeare), is that which is fresh and bright; 
 
 * Blchard III Act iv. Sc. 4. 
 
238 CHANGED SPELLING OF ENGLISHWORDS. [lec. 
 
 as being newly come from the forge and fire. 
 As now spelt, ' bran-new' conveys to us no image 
 at all. 
 
 Again, you have the word ' scrip' — as a ' scrip' 
 of paper, ji,overnraent ' scrip.' Is this the same 
 Avord with the Saxon ^ scrip/ a wallet, having in 
 some strange manner obtained these meanings so 
 different and so remote ? Have we here only two 
 different applications of one and the same word, 
 or two homonyms, wholly different words, though 
 spelt alike ? We have only to note the way in 
 which the first of these ' scrips' used to be 
 written, namely with a final ' t,' not ' scrip' but 
 ' scrip/,' and we are at once able to answer the 
 question. This ' scrip' is a Latin, as the other 
 is an Anglo-Saxon, word, and meant at first 
 simp)ly a ivydtien (scripta) piece of paper — a cir- 
 cumstance which since the omission of the final 
 ' t' may easily escape our knowledge. ^ Afraid' was 
 spelt much better in old times with the double ' ff,' 
 than with the single ' f as now. It w^as then clear 
 that it was not another form of ' afeared,' but 
 wholly separate from it, the participle of the verb 
 ' to aftray,' ' affrayer,' or, as it is now written, 
 ' effrayer.^ 
 
 In the cases hitherto adduced, it has been the 
 omission of a letter which has clouded and con- 
 cealed the etymology. The intrusion of a letter 
 sometimes does the same. Thus in the early edi- 
 tions of Paradise Lost, and in all writers of that 
 time, you will find ' scent,' an odour, spelt 
 ^sent.' It was better so; there is no other noun 
 
v.] WHOLE, HALE, HEAL. 239 
 
 substantive ' sent/ with which it is in danger of 
 being confounded ; while its relation witli ^ sentio/ 
 with ' YQsent,'^ ' dissent/ and the like, is put out 
 of sight by its novel spelling ; the intrusive ' c' 
 serves only to mislead. The same thing was at- 
 tempted with ' site/ ' situate/ ' situation,' spelt for 
 a time by many, ' sc'ite/ ' scituate/ ^ scituation / 
 but it did not continue with these. Again, ' whole,^ 
 in Wiclif s Bible, and indeed much later, occa- 
 sionally as far down as Spenser, is spelt ' hole/ 
 without the ' w' at the beginning. The present 
 orthography may have the advantage of at once 
 distinguishing the word to the eye from any other ; 
 but at the same time the initial ' w/ now prefixed, 
 hides its relation to tlie verb ' to heal/ with which 
 it is closely allied. The ' whole' man is he whose 
 hurt is ' healed' or covered (we say of the conva- 
 lescent that he ' recovers') ; ' whole' being closely 
 aUied to ' hale' (integer), from which also by its 
 modern spelling it is divided. ' Wholesome' has 
 naturally followed the fortunes of ^ whole / it was 
 spelt ^ holsome' once. 
 
 Of ^ island' too cur present spelling i^^inferior to 
 the old, inasmuch as it suggests a hybrid forma- 
 
 * How close this relationship was once, not merely in 
 respect of etymolo.^^y, but also of significance, a passage like 
 this will prove : " Perchance, as vultures are said to smell the 
 earthiness of a dying corpse ; so this bird of prey [the evil 
 spirit which personated Samuel, 1 Sam. xxviii. 14] resented 
 a worse than earthly savor in the soul of Saul, as evi- 
 dence of his death at hand." (Fuller, The Profane State, 
 b. 5. c. 4.) 
 
240 CHANGED SPELLING OF ENGLISH WORDS. [leC. 
 
 tion, as though the word were made up of the 
 Latin ' insula/ and the Saxon ' land/ It is quite 
 true that ' isle' is in relation with^ and descent 
 from, ' insula/ ' isola/ ^ ile / and hence probably 
 the misspelling of ' island/ This last however has 
 nothing to do with ' insula/ being identical with 
 the German ' eiland/ the Anglo-Saxon ' ealand/ 
 and signifying the sea-land, or land girt round 
 with the sea. And it is worthy of note that this 
 ' s' in the first syllable of Msland' is quite of 
 modern introduction. In all the earlier versions 
 of the Scriptures, and in the Authorized Version 
 as at first set forth, it is ^ iland / while in proof 
 that this is not accidental, it may be observed 
 that, while ' iland' has not the ^ s,' ' isle' has it 
 (see Rev.' i. 9). Hland' indeed is the spelling 
 which we meet Avith far down into the seventeenth 
 century. 
 
 What has just been said of ^ island' leads me as 
 by a natural transition to observe that one of the 
 most frequent causes of alteration in the spelling 
 of a word is a wrongly assumed derivation. It is 
 then souglft to bring the word into harmony with, 
 and to make it by its spelling suggest, this deriva- 
 tion, which has been erroneously thrust upon it. 
 Here is a subject which, followed out as it deserves, 
 would form an interesting and instructive chapter 
 in the history of language. Let me off*er one or 
 two small contributions to it ; noting first by the 
 way how remarkable an evidence we have in this 
 fact, of the manner in which not the learned only, 
 but a]i persons learned and unlearned alike, crave 
 
v.] PYRAMID WHY SO SPELT. 241 
 
 to have a meaning in the words which they employ, 
 crave to have these words not body only, but 
 body and soul. What an attestation, I say, of 
 this lies in the fact that where a word in its proper 
 derivation is unintelligible to them, they will shape 
 and mould it into some other form, not enduring 
 that it should be a mere inert sound without sense 
 in their ears ; and if they do not know its right 
 origin, will rather put into it a wrong one, than 
 that it should have for them no meaning, and 
 suggest no derivation at all.* 
 
 There is probably no language in which such a 
 process has not been going forward ; in which it is 
 not the explanation, in a vast number of instances, 
 of changes in spelling and even in form, which, 
 words have undergone. I will offer a few exam- 
 ples of it from foreign tongues, before adducing any 
 from our own. ' Pyramid^ is a word, the spelling 
 of which was affected in the Greek by an erroneous 
 assumption of its derivation ; the consequences of 
 this error surviving in our own word to the present 
 day. It is spelt by us with a ^ y' in the first sylla- 
 ble, as it was spelt with the v corresponding in the 
 Greek. But why was this ? It was because the 
 Greeks assumed that the pyramids were so named 
 from their having the appearance of flame going 
 up into a point,t and so they spelt * p?/ramid,^ that 
 they might find ttu^ or ^ pyre^ in it ; while in fact 
 
 * Diez looks with much favour on this process, and calls it, 
 ein sinnreiches mittel fremdlinge ganz heimisch zu machen. 
 f Ammianus Marcellinus, xxii. 15, 28 
 R 
 
242 CHANGED SPELLING OF ENGLISH WORDS, [lec. 
 
 ' pyramid' has nothing to do with flame or fire at 
 all ; being, as those best qualified to speak on the 
 matter declare to us, an Egyptian word of quite 
 a diff'erent signification, and the Coptic letters 
 being much better represented by the diphthong 
 ' ei' than by the letter ' j/ as no doubt, but for 
 this mistaken notion of what the word was intended 
 to mean, they would have been. 
 
 Once more — the form ' Hierosolyma,' wherein 
 the Greeks reproduced the Hebrew ^ Jerusalem,' 
 was intended in all probability to express that the 
 city so called was the sacred city of the Solymi.^ 
 At all events the intention not merely of repro- 
 ducing the Hebrew word, but also of making it 
 significant in Greek, of finding lepou in it, is plainly 
 discernible. For indeed the Greeks were exceed- 
 ingly intolerant of foreign words, till they had laid 
 aside their foreign appearance — of all words which 
 they could not thus quicken with a Greek soul ; 
 and, with a very characteristic vanity, an ignoring 
 of all other tongues but their own, assumed with no 
 apparent misgivings that all words, from whatever 
 quarter derived, were to be explained by Greek 
 etymologies. t 
 
 * Tacitus, Hist. v. 2. 
 f Let me illustrate this by further instances in a note. 
 Thus ^ovTvpov, from which, through the Latin, our ' butter* 
 has descended to us, is borrowed (Pliny, S.N. xxviii. 9) from 
 a Scythian word, now to us unknown : yet it is sufficiently 
 plain that the Greeks so shaped and spelt it as to contain 
 apparent allusion to cow and cheese ; there is in jiovrvpov an 
 evident feeling after I^ovq and rvpov. Bozra, meaning citadel 
 
v.] ♦ TARTAR. 243 
 
 ' Tartar' is another word, of which it is at least 
 possible that a wrongly assumed derivation has 
 modified the spelling, and indeed not the spelling 
 only, but the very shape in which we now possess 
 it. To many among us it may be known that the 
 people designated by this appellation are not pro- 
 perly ' Tartars,^ but ' Tatars / and you sometimes 
 perhaps have noted the omission of the * r' on the 
 part of those who are curious in their spelling. 
 How then, it may be asked, did the form ' Tartar^ 
 
 in Hebrew and Phoenician, and the name, no doubt, which 
 the citadel of Carthage bore, becomes 'Qvpo-a on Greek lips ; 
 and then the well known legend of the ox-hide was invented 
 upon the name ; not having suggested it, but being itself sug- 
 gested by it. Herodian (v. 6) reproduces the name of the 
 Syrian goddess Astarte in a shape that is significant also for 
 Greek ears — 'Aarpoapxr], The Star-ruler,or Star-queen. When 
 the apostate and hellenizing Jews assumed Greek names, 
 ' Eliakim' or " Whom God has set," became ' Alcimus' 
 {aXKLfios) or The Strong (1 Mace. vii. 5). Latin examples 
 in like kind are ' comy'ssatio,' spelt continually * comessatio,' 
 and ' comessation' by those who sought to naturalize it in 
 England, as though it were connected with 'comedo,' to eat, 
 beng indeed the substantive from the verb 'comissari' 
 (= KcofMaCeiv), to revel ; as Plutarch, whose Latin is in 
 general not very accurate, long ago correctly observed, and 
 ' orichalcum,' spelt often ' «2^richalcum,' as though it were a 
 composite metal of mingled cfold and brass ; being indeed the 
 mountain brass {opeixcOiKos). The miracle play, which is 
 
 * mystere,' in French, whence our English ' mystery,' was 
 originally written ' mistere,* being properly derived from 
 
 * ministere,' and having its name because the clergy, the 
 ministri Ecclesise, conducted it. This was forgotten, and it 
 then took its present form of ' mystery,' as though so called 
 because the mysteries of the faith were in it set out. 
 
 r2 
 
244 CHANGED SPELLING OFENGLISH WORDS, [lec. 
 
 arise ? When tlie terrible hordes of middle Asia 
 burst iu upon civilized Europe in the thirteenth 
 century, many beheld in the ravages of their innu- 
 merable cavalry a fulfilment of that prophetic word 
 in the Revelation (chap, ix.) concerning the open- 
 ing of the bottomless pit; and from this belief 
 ensued the change of tlieir name from * Tatars^ to 
 ^ Tartars/ which was thus put into closer relation 
 with ' Tartarus^ or hell, out of which their multi- 
 tudes were supposed to have proceeded.* 
 
 Another good example in the same kind is the 
 German word ' siindflut/ the Deluge, which is now 
 so spelt as to signify a ' sinflood,^ the plague or 
 flood of waters brought on the world by the sins 
 of mankind ; and probably some of us have before 
 this admired the pregnant significance of the word. 
 Yet the old High German word had originally no 
 such intention ; it was spelt ' sinfluot/ that is, the 
 great flood ; and as late as Luther, indeed in 
 Luther^s own translation of the Bible, is so spelt 
 as to make plain that the notion of a ' si^i-flood' 
 had not yet found its way into, even as it had 
 not affected the spelling of, the word.f 
 
 * We have here, in this bringing of the words by their 
 supposed etymology together, the explanation of the fact that 
 Spenser {Fairy Queen, i. 7, 44), Middleton {Worlds, vol. 5. 
 pp. 524, 528, 538), and others employ ' Tartary' as equivalent 
 to ' Tartarus' or hell. 
 
 f For a full discussion of this matter and fixin<^ of the 
 period at which * sinlluot' became * siindflut,' see the Theol. 
 Stud. u. Krit. vol. ii. p. G13; and Delitzsch, Genesis, 2nd 
 (!d. vol. ii. p. 210. 
 
v.] COURT-CARDS ONCE COAT-CARDS. 245 
 
 But to look now nearer home for our examples. 
 The little raisins brought from Greece, which play- 
 so important a part in one of the national dishes 
 of England, the Christmas plum-pudding, used to 
 be called ' corinths ;' and so you would find them 
 in mercantile lists of a hundred years ago : either 
 that for the most part they were shipped from 
 Corinth, the principal commercial city in Greece, 
 or because they grew in large abundance in the 
 immediate district round about it. Their likeness 
 in shape and size and general appearance to our 
 own currants, working together with the ignorance 
 of the great majority of English people about any 
 such place as Corinth, soon brought the name 
 ' corinths^ into ' currants,^ which now with a cer- 
 tain unfitness they bear ; being not currants at all, 
 but dried grapes, though grapes of diminutive size. 
 
 ' Court -cards/ that is, the king, queen, and knave 
 in each suit, were once ' coat-cards ;'* having their 
 name from the long splendid ' coat' (vestis talaris) 
 with which they were arrayed. Probably 'coat' 
 after a while did not perfectly convey its original 
 meaning and intention ; being no more in common 
 use for the long garment reaching down to the 
 heels ; and then ' coat' was easily exchanged for 
 ' court,' as the word is now both spelt and pro- 
 nounced, seeing that nowhere so fitly as in a Court 
 should such splendidly arrayed personages be found. 
 A public house in the neighbourhood of London 
 having a few years since for its sign " The George 
 
 * Ben Jonson, The New Inn, Act i. Sc. i. 
 
246 CHANGED SPE]>LING OF ENGLISH WORDS, [lec. 
 
 Canning'^ is already " The George and Cannon" 
 — so rapidly do these transformations proceed, so 
 soon is that forgotten which we suppose would 
 never be forgotten. ^' Welsh rarebit" becomes 
 "Welsh rabbit;" and ^farced' or stuffed ' meat^ 
 becomes "forced meat/^ Even the mere deter- 
 mination to make a word look English, to put it 
 into an English shape, without thereby so much as 
 seeming to attain any result in the way of etymo- 
 logy, this is very often sufficient to bring about a 
 change in its spelling, and even in its form.* It 
 is thus that ' sipahi^ has become ' sepoy ;' and 
 only so could ^ weissager^ have taken its present 
 form of ' wiseacre.^t 
 
 It is not very uncommon for a word, while it is 
 derived from one word, to receive a certain impulse 
 and modification from another. This extends 
 sometimes beyond the spelling, and in cases where 
 it does so, would hardly belong to our present 
 theme. Still I may notice an instance or two. 
 
 * 'Leghorn' is sometimes quoted as an example of this; 
 but erroneously; for, as Admiral Smyth has shown {The 
 Mediterranean,^. 409) 'Livorno'is itself rather the modern 
 corruption, and ' Ligorno' the name found on the earlier 
 charts. 
 
 t Exactly the same happens in other languages ; thus, 
 *armbrust,' a crossbow, looks German enough, and yet has 
 nothing to do with ' arm' or ' brust,' being a contraction of 
 'arcubalista,' but a contraction under these influences. As 
 little has * abenteuer' anything to do with 'abend' or ' theuer,* 
 however it may seem to be connected with them, being indeed 
 the Provencal ' adventura.' And * weissagen' in its earlier 
 forms had nothing in common with ' sajjen.' 
 
v.] TRANSFORMATION OF WORDS. 247 
 
 Thus our ' obsequies' is the Latin ^ exequise/ but 
 formed under a certain impulse of * obsequium/ 
 and seeking to express and include the observant 
 honour of that word. ' To refuse' is ' recusare/ 
 while yet it has derived the ^ f ' of its second syllable 
 from ^ refutare ;' it is a medley of the two. The 
 French ' rame/ an oar^ is * remus/ but that modi- 
 fied by an unconscious recollection of ^ ramus.' 
 ' Orange' is no doubt a Persian word, which has 
 reached us through the Arabic, and which the 
 Spanish * naranja' more nearly represents than 
 any form of it existing in the other languages of 
 Europe. But what so natural as to thiuk of the 
 orange as the golden fruit, especially when the 
 " aurea mala" of the Hesperides were familiar to 
 all antiquity ? There cannot be a doubt that 
 ' aurum,' ^ oro,' ^ or,' made themselves felt in the 
 shapes which the word assumed in the languages 
 of the West, and that here we have the explana- 
 tion of the change in the first syllable, as in the 
 low Latin ^aurantium,' '^orangia,' and in the French 
 ' orange,' which has given us our own. 
 
 It is foreign words, or words adopted from 
 foreign languages, as might beforehand be ex- 
 pected, which are especially subjected to such 
 transformations as these. The soul which the 
 word once had in its own language, having, for as 
 many as do not know that language, departed from 
 it, or at least not being now any more to be recog- 
 nized by such as employ the word, these are not 
 satisfied till they have put another soul into it, 
 and it has thus become alive to them again. Thus 
 
248 CHANGED SPELLIN G OF ENGLISH WORDS, [lec. 
 
 — to take first one or two very familiar instances, 
 but which serve as well as any other to ilhistrate 
 my position — the Bellerophon becomes for our 
 sailors the ' Billy Kufhan/ for what can they know 
 of the Greek mythology, or of the slayer of 
 Chimsera? an iron steamer, the Hirondelle, now 
 or lately plying on the Tyne, is the ^ Iron Devil/ 
 * Contre danse/ or dance in which the parties stand 
 face to face with one another, and which ought to 
 have appeared in English as ' counter dance,^ does 
 become ' country dance,^* as though it were the 
 dance of the country folk and rural districts, as 
 distinguished from the quadrille and waltz and 
 more artificial dances of the town. A well known 
 rose, the ^* rose des quatre saisons'^ or of the four 
 seasons, becomes on the lips of some of our gar- 
 deners, the '^ rose of the quarter sessions," though 
 here it is probable that the eye has misled, rather 
 than the ear. ' Dent de lion,' (it is spelt ' dent- 
 
 * It is upon this word that De Quincey [Life and Man- 
 ners, p. 70, American Ed.) sa3^s excellently well : " It is in 
 fact by such corruptions, by off-sets upon an old stock, arising 
 through ignorance or mispronunciation originally, that every 
 language is frequently enriched ; and new modifications of 
 thought, unfolding themselves in the progress of society, 
 generate for themselves concurrent!}'' appropriate expressions. 
 .... It must not be allowed to weigh against a word once 
 fairly naturalized by all, that originally it crept in upon an 
 abuse or a corruption. Prescription is as strong a ground of 
 legitimation in a case of this nature, as it is in law. And the 
 old axiom is applicable — Fieri non debuit, factum valet. 
 Were it otherwise, languages would be robbed of much of 
 their wealth." 
 
v.] NECROMANCY. 249 
 
 delyon' in our early writers) becomes ' clanclylion/ 
 " chaucle melee," or an affray in hot blood, " chance- 
 medley," ' causey' (cbaussee) becomes ' causeway/ 
 ' racbitis' ^ rickets/ and in Frencb ' mandragora' 
 ' main de gloire/ 
 
 * Necromancy' is anotber word wbicb, if not 
 now, yet for a long period was erroneously spelt, 
 and indeed assumed a different sbape, under tbe 
 influence of an erroneous derivation ; wbich, 
 curiously enougb, even now that it bas been dis- 
 missed, bas left bebind it tbe marks of its pre- 
 sence, in our common pbrase, " tbe Black Art/' 
 I need bardly remind you tbat ' necromancy' is a 
 Greek word, wbicb signifies, according to its 
 proper meaning, a propbesying by aid of tbe dead, 
 or tbat it rests on tbe presumed power of raising 
 up by potent spells tbe dead, and compelling 
 tbem to give answers about tbings to come. We 
 all know tbat it was supposed possible to exercise 
 sucb power ; we bave a very awful example of it 
 in tbe story of tbe witcb of Endor, and a very 
 borrid one in Lucan.* But tbe Latin medieval 
 writers, wbose Greek was either little or none, 
 spelt tbe word, ' nigromantia/ as if its first sylla- 
 bles bad been Latin : at tbe same time, not wbolly 
 forgetting tbe original meaning, but in fact getting 
 round to it tbougb by a wrong process, tbey 
 understood tbe dead by tbese ^ nigri/ or blacks, 
 wbom tbey had brought into the word.f Down 
 
 * Phars. vi. 720—830. 
 f Thus in a Vocabulary, 1475: Nigromansia dicitur 
 divinatio facta per nigros. 
 
250 CHANGED SPELLING OF ENGLISH WORDS, [lec. 
 
 to a rather late period we find the forms, ' negro- 
 mancer' and ' negromdmcy' frequent in English. 
 
 ' Pleurisy' used often to be spelt, (I do not think 
 it is so now,) without an ^ e ' in the first syllable, 
 evidently on the tacit assumption that it was from 
 plus pluris. When Shakespeare falls into an 
 error, he " makes the offence gracious /' yet, I 
 think, he would scarcely have written, 
 
 " For goodness growing to a plurisy 
 Dies of his own too much," 
 
 but that he too derived ' plurisy' from pluris. 
 This, even with the " small Latin and less Greek," 
 which Ben Jonson allows him, he scarcely would 
 have done, had the word presented itself in that 
 form, which by right of its descent from irXivpa 
 (being a pain, stitch, or sickness in the side) it 
 ought to have possessed. Those who for ' cru- 
 cible' wrote 'chrysoble' (Jeremy Taylor does so,) 
 must evidently have done this under the assump- 
 tion that the Greek for gold, and not the Latin 
 for cross, lay at the foundation of this word. 
 ' Anthymn' instead of ' anthem' (Barrow so spells 
 the word), rests plainly on a wrong etymology, 
 even as this spelling clearly betrays what that 
 wrong etymology is. ^ Rhyme' with a ^ y' is a 
 modern misspelling ; and would never have been 
 but for the undue influence which the Greek 
 ' rhythm' has exercised upon it. Spenser and his 
 cotemporaries spell it ' rime.' ^ Abominable' was 
 by some etymologists of the seventeenth century 
 spelt ' abhominablc,' as though it were that which 
 
v.] WRONG SPELLING. 251 
 
 departed from the human (ab homine) into the 
 bestial or devilish. 
 
 In all these words which I have adduced last^ 
 the correct spelling has in the end resumed its 
 sway. It is not so with ' frontispiece/ which ought 
 to be spelt ' frontispice/ (it was so by Milton and 
 others), being the low Latin ' frontispicium/ from 
 ' frons' and ' aspicio/ the forefront of the building, 
 that part which presents itself to the view. It 
 was only the entirely ungrounded notion that the 
 word ' piece^ constitutes the last syllable, which 
 has given rise to our present orthography.* 
 
 * As ' orthography' itself means properly " right spelling," 
 it might be a curious question whether it is permissible to 
 speak of an incorrect orMography, that is, of a wrong right- 
 spelling. The question which would be thus started is one of 
 not unfrequent recurrence, and it is very worthy of observa- 
 tion how often, so soon as we take note of etymologies, this 
 co7itradictio in adjer.to is found to occur. I will here adduce 
 a few examples from the Greek, the Latin, the German, and 
 from our own tongue. Thus the Greeks having no con- 
 venient word to express a rider, apart from a rider on a 
 horse, did not scruple to speak of the /ior^eman (lirirevs) 
 upon an elephant. They often allowed themselves in a like 
 inaccuracy, where certainly there was no necessity ; as in 
 using hvbpids of the statue of a woman ; where it would have 
 been quite as easy to have used elKcov or ayaX^a. So too 
 their ' table' (rpa7re^a=Terpa7re^a) involved probably the four 
 feet which commonly support one ; yet they did not shrink 
 from speaking of a three-iooted table {rpLTrovs rpoTre^a), in 
 other words, a " three-footed foiir-footed ;" much as though 
 we should speak of a " i^Aree-footed quadruped" Homer 
 writes of a ' hecatomb' not of a hundred, but of twelve, 
 oxen; and elsewhere of Hebe he says, in words not repro- 
 
252 CHANGED SPELLING OF ENGLISH WORDS, [lec. 
 
 You may, perhaps, wonder that I have dwelt so 
 long on these details of spelling ; that I have be- 
 stowed on them so much of my own attention, that 
 I have claimed for them so much of yours ; yet in 
 truth I cannot regard them as unworthy of our 
 very closest heed. For indeed of how much beyond 
 itself is accurate or inaccurate spelling the certain 
 indication. Thus when we meet ' s?/ren,' for ' seren,' 
 as so strangely often we do, almost always in news- 
 papers, and ofteu where we should hardly have 
 expected (I met it lately in the Quarterly Review, 
 
 ducible in Enghsh, vkmrap ecovoxo^i-. ' Tetrarchs' were 
 often rulers of quite other than fourth parts of a land. 
 "AKparoi had so come to stand for wine, without any thought 
 more of its signifying originally the u)i>mngled,i\\ix.t'&i. ^oXin 
 speaks oi^oKparos Kexepao-/jeVos(Rev, xiv. 10), or the unmingled 
 mingled. Boxes in which precious ointments were con- 
 tained were so commonly of alabaster, that the name came to 
 be applied to them whether they were so or not; and 
 Theocritus celebrates "golden alabasters." Cicero having to 
 mention a water-clock is obliged to call it a toaier sund\a\ 
 (solarium ex aqua). Columella speaks of a " vintage of 
 honey" (vindemia mellis), and Horace invites his friend to 
 im/jef/e, not his /bo/', but his head, with myrtle {caput ini- 
 ped'wQ myrto.) Thus too a German writer who desired to 
 tell of the golden shoes with which the folly of Caligula 
 adorned his horse could scarceh' avoid speaking of golden 
 \\oo^-irons. The same inner contradiction is involved in 
 such languMge as our ovvn, a "false verdict," a " steel cuirass" 
 {' coriacea' from corium, leather), " antics new" (Harrington's 
 Ariosto), an " erroneous c^^wology," a " com chandler," 
 that is, a " corn candle-\\\?ikQY,' " rather late" ' rather' being 
 the comparative of * rathe,* early, and thus "rather late" 
 being indeed " more early late ;" and in others. 
 
v.] WRONG SPELLING. 253 
 
 and again in GifforcVs Massinger)^ how difficult it 
 is not to be ^'^ judges of evil thoughts/^ and to 
 take this slovenly misspelling as the specimen and 
 evidence of an inaccuracy and ignorance which 
 reaches very far wider than the single word which 
 is before us. But why is it that so much signifi- 
 cance is ascribed to a wrong spelling ? Because 
 ignorance of a vvord^s spelling at once argues igno- 
 rance of its origin and derivation. I do not mean 
 that one who spells rightly may not be ignorant of 
 it too, but he who spells wrongly is certainly so. 
 Thus, to recur to the example I have just adduced, 
 he who for ' siren^ writes ' s?/ren/ certainly knows 
 nothing of the magic coy^ds {(reipai) of song, by 
 which those fair enchantresses were supposed to 
 draw those that heard them to their ruin. 
 
 Correct or incorrect orthography being, then, 
 this note of accurate or inaccurate knowledge, we 
 may confidently conclude where two spellings of a 
 word exist, and are both employed by persons who 
 generally write with precision and scholarship, 
 that there must be something to account for this. 
 It will generally be worth your while to inquire 
 into the causes which enable both spellings to hold 
 their ground and to find their supporters, not 
 ascribing either one or the other to mere careless- 
 ness or error. It will in these cases often be 
 found that two spellings exist, because two views 
 of the word^s origin exist, and each of those 
 spellings is the correct expression of one of these. 
 The question therefore which way of spelling 
 should continue, and wholly supersede the other, 
 
254 CHANGED SPELLING OF ENGLISH WORDS, [lec. 
 
 and which, while the alternative remains, we should 
 ourselves employ, can only be settled by settling 
 which of these etymologies deserves the preference. 
 So is it, for example, with ' chz/mist^ and ' chemist,' 
 neither of which has obtained in our common use 
 the complete mastery over the other. It is not 
 here, as in some other cases, that one is certainly 
 right, the other as certainly wrong : but they seve- 
 rally represent two different etymologies of the 
 word, and each is correct according to its own. If 
 we are to spell ' ch?/mist' and ' chz/mistry,^ it is 
 because these words are considered to be derived 
 from the Greek word, ^i»^og, sap; and the chymic 
 art will then have occupied itself first with distil- 
 ling the juice and sap of plants, and will from this 
 have derived its name. I have little doubt, how- 
 ever, that the other spelling, ' chemist,^ not 
 ' chymist,^ is the correct one. It was not with the 
 distillation of herbs, but with the amalgamation 
 of metals, that chemistry occupied itself at its 
 rise, and the word embodies a reference to Egypt, 
 the land of Ham or * Cham,^* in which this art 
 was first practised with success. 
 
 Of how much confusion the spelling which used 
 to be so common, ^ satyr' for * satire/ is at once 
 the consequence, the expression, and again the 
 cause ; not indeed that this confusion first began 
 with us ;t fo^* the same already found place in the 
 
 * Xrjfxia, the name of Egypt ; see Plutarch, De Is. et Os. 
 c. 33. 
 
 f We have a notable evidence how deeply rooted this error 
 was, how long this confusion endured, of the way in which it 
 
v.] ' satyr/ ' SATIRE.' 255 
 
 Latin, where ' satyricus' was continually written 
 for ' satiricus^ out of a false assumption of the 
 identity between the Roman satire and the Greek 
 satyric drama. The Roman ^ satira/ — I speak of 
 things familiar to many of my hearers, — is pro- 
 perly a/w// dish (lanx being understood) — a dish 
 heaped up with various ingredients, a * farce^ (ac- 
 cording to the original signification of that word), 
 or hodge-podge ; and the word was transferred 
 from this to a form of poetry which at first ad- 
 mitted the utmost variety in the materials of which 
 it was composed, and the shapes into which these 
 materials were wrought up; being the only form 
 of poetry which the Romans did not borrow from 
 the Greeks. Wholly different from this, having 
 no one point of contact with it in its form, its 
 history, or its intention, is the ' satyric' drama of 
 Greece, so called because Silenus and the ' Satyrs-' 
 supplied the chorus; and in their naive selfish- 
 ness, and mere animal instincts, held up before 
 men a mirror of what they would be, if only the 
 divine, which is also the truly human, element of 
 
 was shared by the learned as well as the unlearned, in Milton'i? 
 Apology for Smectymnuus , sect. 7, which everywhere pre- 
 sumes the identity of the ' satyr' and the * satirist.* It was 
 Isaac Casaubon who first effectually dissipated it even for the 
 learned world. The results of his investigations were made 
 popular for the unlearned reader by Dryden, in the very 
 instructive Discow^se on Satirical Poetry, prefixed to his 
 translations of Juvenal ; but the confusion still survives, and 
 
 * satyrs' and ' satires,' the Greek * satyric' drama, the Latin 
 
 * satirical' poetry, are still assumed by most to have some- 
 thing to do with one another. 
 
256 CHANGED SPELLING OF ENGLISH WORDS, [lec. 
 
 humanity, were withdrawn ; what man, all that 
 properly made him man being withdrawn, would 
 prove. 
 
 And then what light, as w^e have already seen, 
 does the older spelling of a word often cast upon 
 its etymology; how often does it clear up the 
 mystery, which would otherwise have hung about 
 it, or which had hung about it till some one had 
 noticed and turned to profit this its earlier spelling. 
 Thus ^ dirge^ is always spelt ' dirige' in early 
 English. This ' dirige' may be the first word in 
 a Latin psalm or prayer once used at funerals ; 
 there is a reasonable probability that the explana- 
 tion of the word is here ; at any rate, if it is not 
 here, it is nowhere. The derivation of ' midwife^ 
 is uncertain, and has been the subject of discus- 
 sion j but when we find it spelt ' medewife' and 
 ' meadwife,^ in Wiclif^s Bible, this leaves hardly a 
 doubt that it is the wife or woman who acts for a 
 mead or reward. In cases too where there was 
 no mystery hanging about a word, how often does 
 the early spelling make clear to all that which was 
 before only known to those who had made the 
 language their study. For example, if an early 
 edition of Spenser should come into your hands, 
 or a modern one in which the early spelling is 
 retained, what continual lessons in English might 
 you derive from it. Thus ' nostriF is always spelt 
 by him and his cotemporaries ' nosctlu'ill / a little 
 earlier it w^is ' nosethirle.' Now ' to thrilP is the 
 same as to drill or pierce ; it is plain then here at 
 once that the word signifies the orifice or opening 
 
v.] MORRIS-DANCE, CRAY-FISH. 257 
 
 with which the 7iose is thrilled, drilled, or pierced. 
 We might have read the word for ever in our 
 modern spelling without being taught this. ' EIF 
 tells us nothing about itself ; but in ^ eln,^ used 
 in Holland's translation of Camden^ we recognize 
 ' ulna^ at once. 
 
 Again, the ' morris' or ' morrice-dance,' which 
 is alluded to so often by our early poets, as it is 
 now spelt informs us nothing about itself; but 
 read ' moriske dance,' as it is generally spelt by 
 Holland and his cotemporaries, and you will 
 scarcely fail to perceive that of which indeed 
 there is no manner of doubt ; namely, that it was 
 so called either because it was really, or was 
 supposed to be, a dance in nse among the moris- 
 coes of Spain, and from thence introduced into 
 England.* 
 
 Again, philologers tell ns, and no doubt 
 rightly, that our ' cray-fish,^ or ' craw-fish,' is the 
 French ^ ecrevisse.' This is true, but certainly it 
 is not self-evident. Trace however the word 
 through these successive spellings, ' krevys' (Lyd- 
 gate), ^crevish' (Gascoigne), ' craifish' (Holland), 
 and the chasm between ^ cray-fish' or ' craw-fish' 
 and ' ecrevisse' is by aid of these three inter- 
 mediate spellings bridged over at once ; and in 
 the fact of our Gothic ' fish' finding its way into 
 
 * " I have seen him 
 Caper upright, hke a wild Morisco, 
 Shaking the hloody darts, as he his bells." 
 
 Shakespeare, 2 Henry VI. Act iii. Sc. 1. 
 
258 CHAT^GED SPELLING OF ENGLISH WORDS, [lec. 
 
 this French word we see only another example of a 
 law, which has been already abundantly illustrated 
 in this lecture.* 
 
 * In the reprinting of old books it is often very difficult to 
 determine how far the old shape in which words present 
 themselves should be retained, how far they should be con- 
 formed to present usage. It is comparatively easy to lay 
 down as a rule that in books intended for popular use, wherever 
 the form of the word is not affected by the modernizing of 
 the spelling, as where this modernizing consists merely in the 
 dropping of -superfluous letters, thei'e it shall take place; as 
 .whp would wish our Bibles to be now printed letter for letter 
 after the edition of 1611, or Shakespeare with the orthography 
 ■ of the first folio ; but wherever more than the spelling, the 
 actual shape, outline, and character of the word has been 
 affected by the changes which it has undergone, that in all 
 such cases the earlier form shall be held fast. The rule is a 
 judicious one; but when it is attempted to carry it out, it is 
 not always easy to draw the line, and to determine what 
 affects the form and essence ot a word, and what does not. 
 About some words there can be no doubt ; and therefore when 
 a -modern editor of Fuller's Church History complacently 
 announces that he has allowed himself in such changes as 
 * dirige' into ' dirge,' * barreter' into * barrister,' ' synonymas' 
 into ' synonymous' !, ' extempory' into ' extemporary,' ' scited' 
 into ' situated,' ' vancurrier' into ' avant-courier ;' he at the 
 same time informs us that for all purposes of the study of 
 the English language (and few writers are for this more 
 important than Fuller), he has made his edition utterly worth- 
 less. Or again, when modern editors of Shakespeare print, 
 and that without giving any intimation of the fact, 
 
 " Like quills upon the fretful porcupine" 
 
 he having written, and in his first folio and quarto the words 
 standing, 
 
 "Like quills upon the ^veih\[ porpeniine," 
 
 this being the earlier, and in Shakespeare's time the more 
 
v.] RENEGADE, RUNAGATE. 259 
 
 In otlier ways also an accurate taking note of 
 the spelling of words^ and of the successive changes 
 which it has undergone, will often throw Hght 
 upon them. Thus we may know, others having 
 assured us of the fact, that ' ant' and ' emmet' 
 were originally only two different speUings of one 
 and the same word ; but we may be perplexed to 
 understand how two forms of a word, now so 
 different, could ever have diverged from a single 
 root. When however we find the different 
 spellings, 'emmet/ 'emet/ 'amet/ 'amt/ 'ant/. the 
 gulf which appeared to separate ' emmet' from- 
 ' ant' is bridged over at once, and we not merely, 
 know on the assurance of others that these two 
 are in fact identical, their differences being • only 
 superficial, but we perceive clearly in what manner 
 they are so. 
 
 Even before any close examination of the mat- 
 ter, it is hard not to suspect that ' runagate' is in 
 fact another form of ' renegade,' slightly trans- 
 formed, as so. many words, to put an English 
 signification into its first syllable; and then the 
 meaning gradually modified in obedience to the 
 new derivation which was assumed to be its ori- 
 ginal and true one. Our suspicion of this is very 
 greatly strengthened (for we see how very closely 
 the words approach one another), by the fact that 
 
 common form of the word, they must be considered as taking 
 , a very unwarrantable liberty with his text ; and no less, when 
 they substitute 'Kenilworth' for ' Killingworth,' which he 
 wrote, and which was his, Marlowe's, and generally the earlier 
 form of the name. 
 
 s 2 
 
260 CHANGED SPELLING OE ENGLISH WORDS, [lec. 
 
 ' renega^e^ is constantly spelt ' renegade' in our 
 old authors, while at the same time the denial of 
 faith, which is now a necessary element in ' rene- 
 gade/ and one differencing it inwardly from 
 'runagate/ is altogether wanting in early use — 
 the denial of country and of the duties thereto 
 owing being all that is implied in it. Thus it is 
 constantly employed in Holland^s Livy as a ren- 
 dering of ' perfuga /* while in the one passage 
 where 'runagate^ occurs in the Prayer Book 
 Version of the Psalms (Ps. Ixviii. 6), a reference 
 to the original will show that the translators could 
 only have employed it there on the ground that 
 it also expressed rebel_, revolter, and not runaway 
 merely. 
 
 I might easily occupy your attention much 
 longer, so little barren or unfruitful does this sub- 
 ject of spelling appear likely to prove ; but all 
 things must have an end ; and as I concluded my 
 first lecture with a remarkable testimony borne hy 
 an illustrious German scholar to the. merits of our 
 English tongue,, I will conclude my last with the 
 words of another, not indeed a German, but still of 
 the great Germanic stock; words resuming in them- 
 selves much of which we have been speaking upon 
 this and upon former occasions : " As our bodies/' 
 he says, " have hidden resources and expedients, to 
 remove the obstacles which the very art of the 
 
 * " The Cavtlia<]^inians shall restore and deliver back all 
 the renecfates [perfuj^'as] and fugitives that have fled to their 
 side I'roni us." — p. 751. 
 
v.] STRANGE WORDS NATURALIZED. 261 
 
 physician puts in its way, so language, ruled by an 
 indomitable inward principle^ triumphs in some 
 degree over the folly of grammarians. Look at 
 the English, polluted by Danish and Norman con- 
 quests, distorted in its genuine and noble features 
 by old and recent endeavours to mould it after 
 the French fashion_, invaded by a hostile entrance 
 of Greek and Latin words, threatening by increas- 
 ing hosts to overwhelm the indigenous terms. In 
 these long contests against the combined power of 
 so many forcible enemies, the language, it is true, 
 has lost some of its power of inversion in the 
 structure of sentences, the means of denoting the 
 difference of gender, and the nice distinctions by 
 inflection and termination — almost every word is 
 attacked by the spasm of the accent and the draw- 
 ing of consonants to wrong positions ; yet the old 
 English principle is not overpowered. Trampled 
 down by the ignoble feet of strangers, its springs 
 still retain force enough to restore itself. It lives 
 and plays through all the veins of the language; 
 it impregnates the innumerable strangers entering 
 its dominions with its temper, and stains them 
 with its colour, not unlike the Greek which in 
 taking up oriental words, stripped them of their 
 foreign costume, and bid them to appear as native 
 Greeks.^^* 
 
 * Halbertsma, quoted by Bosworth, Origin of the English 
 and Gerinanic Languages, p. 39. 
 
INDEX OF WOKDS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Abenteuer . . . . . 246 
 
 Abnormal 74 
 
 Abominable ...... 250 
 
 Academy 71 
 
 Accommodate .... 108 
 
 Acra 197 
 
 Adamant 236 
 
 Admiralty 108 
 
 Advocate 83 
 
 ^on 73 
 
 Esthetic 73 
 
 Afeard 128 
 
 Affluent 105 
 
 Afraid 129 
 
 Affcertbink 122 
 
 Alcimus 243 
 
 Alcove 15 
 
 Amphibious 108 
 
 Analogic 57 
 
 Ant 259 
 
 Anthem 250 
 
 Antipodes 70 
 
 Apotheosis 69 
 
 Armbrust 246 
 
 Arride 60 
 
 Ascertain 190 
 
 Ask 129 
 
 Astarte 243 
 
 Attercop 125 
 
 Aurantium 247 
 
 Aurichalcum .... 243 
 
 Avunculize 92 
 
 Axe 129 
 
 Baffle 185 
 
 Baker, bakester . . .160 
 
 Banter 107 
 
 Barrier 72 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Battalion , , . . . 63 
 
 Bawn 126 
 
 Benefice, benefit ... 97 
 
 Bitesheep 146 
 
 Black Art 249 
 
 Blackguard 193 
 
 Blasphemous .... 130 
 
 Bombast 203 
 
 Book 20 
 
 Boor 207 
 
 Bozra 242 
 
 Bran-new 237 
 
 Brat . . . . . . .210 
 
 Brazen 167 
 
 Breaden 166 
 
 Bruin 90 
 
 Buffalo 16 
 
 Butter . . .... .242 
 
 Buxom . . . . . . 142 
 
 Casuistry 216 
 
 Chagrin 96 
 
 Chance-medley .... 249 
 
 Chanticleer 90 
 
 Chemist, chemistry . . 249 
 
 Chicken 161 
 
 Chouse 92 
 
 Chymist, chymistry . . 254 
 
 Clawback 146 
 
 Coraissatio 243 
 
 Commerage 209 
 
 Confluent 105 
 
 Congregational .... 80 
 
 Contrary 130 
 
 Corpse ...... 196 
 
 Country dance .... 248 
 
 Court card 245 
 
 Coxcomb 235 
 
264 
 
 INDEX OF WORDS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Cozen 237 
 
 Crawfish 257 
 
 Creansur 47 
 
 Criterion. ..... 69 
 
 Crone, crony .... 95 
 
 Crucible 250 
 
 Crusade 64 
 
 Cuirass 252 
 
 Currant 245 
 
 Cynarctomachy . ... 92 
 
 Dahlia 89 
 
 Dame 197 
 
 Dandylion 249 
 
 Dearworth 122 
 
 Dedal .87 
 
 Dehort 140 
 
 Demagogue 57 
 
 Denominationalism . , 80 
 
 Depot 71 
 
 Diamond 236 
 
 Dirge 256 
 
 Dissimilation .... 103 
 
 Divest 235 
 
 Donat 88 
 
 Dorter 20 
 
 Dosones 91 
 
 Doughty 148 
 
 Drachm 198 
 
 Dragoman 12 
 
 Dub 148 
 
 Duke 196 
 
 Dumps 150 
 
 Dutch .' 181 
 
 Eame 120 
 
 Earsport 121 
 
 Educational 80 
 
 Effervescence .... 57 
 
 Einseitig 76 
 
 Eliakim 243 
 
 Ell 257 
 
 Emet 259 
 
 Emotional ..... 80 
 Encyclopedia .... 69 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Enfantillage 57 
 
 Equivocation .... 201 
 
 Ei-utar 151 
 
 Escobarder 89 
 
 Europe 230 
 
 Eyebite 122 
 
 Fairy 196 
 
 Farfalla 15 
 
 Fatherland 76 
 
 Flitter-mouse .... 121 
 
 Flota 16 
 
 Folklore 77 
 
 Foolhappy 140 
 
 Foolhardy 140 
 
 Foolhasty 140 
 
 Foollarge . . . . . 140 
 
 Foretalk 122 
 
 Fougue ...... 68 
 
 Fraischeur 68 
 
 Frances .96 
 
 Francis 96 
 
 Frimm . . . . . . 121 
 
 Frivolite ..*... 57 
 
 Frontispiece 251 
 
 Furlong 197 
 
 Gainly 139 
 
 Gallon 197 
 
 Galvanism 9 
 
 Garble 204 
 
 Geir 120 
 
 Gentian 88 
 
 Girdle 20 
 
 Girfalcon 120 
 
 Girl 197 
 
 Glassen 166 
 
 Gordian 87 
 
 Gossip 207 
 
 Great 232 
 
 Grimsire 121 
 
 Grocer 235 
 
 Grogram 235 
 
 Ilalfgod 122 
 
INDEX OF WORDS. 
 
 265 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Hallow 83 
 
 Handbook 76 
 
 Hangdog 147 
 
 Hector 90 
 
 Heft 121 
 
 Hermetic 87 
 
 Hery 120 
 
 Hierosolyma 242 
 
 HijDOcras 87 
 
 Hippodame 65 
 
 His 162 
 
 Hooker 15 
 
 Hoppester 157 
 
 Hotspur 121 
 
 Huck 160 
 
 Huckster, hucksteress . . 160 
 Hurricane 14 
 
 Iceberg 75 
 
 Icetield 75 
 
 Idea 201 
 
 Imp 210 
 
 Influence 184 
 
 International .... 79 
 
 Island 239 
 
 Isle 240 
 
 Isolated 108 
 
 Isothermal 103 
 
 Its . 133 
 
 Jaw 236 
 
 Jeopardy 84 
 
 Kenilworth 259 
 
 Kindly 188 
 
 Kirtle 20 
 
 Knave 212 
 
 Knitster 158 
 
 Knot 87 
 
 Lambiner 89 
 
 Lazar 88 
 
 Leer 120 
 
 Leghorn ^ 246 
 
 Libel 196 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Lifeguard 75 
 
 London 233 
 
 Lunch, luncheon . . . 131 
 
 Malingerer 121 
 
 Mammet, mammetry . . 88 
 
 Mandragora 249 
 
 Mansarde 90 
 
 Matachin 16 
 
 Matamoros 145 
 
 Mausoleum 87 
 
 Meat 196 
 
 Meddle, meddlesome . . 211 
 
 Middler 123 
 
 Midwife 256 
 
 Milken 166 
 
 Mischievous 130 
 
 Miscreant 183 
 
 Mithridate 87 
 
 Mixen 126 
 
 Morris-dance .... 257 
 Mystery, mystere . . . 243 
 Myth 73 
 
 Nap 149 
 
 Necromancy .... 249 
 
 Negus 88 
 
 Nemorivagus . . . . 78 
 Neophyte . . . . .108 
 
 Nesh • . 120 
 
 Niggot 86 
 
 Nimm 121 
 
 Noonscape . . ... .131 
 
 Noonshun . , . . . 131 
 
 Normal 74 
 
 Nostril ....... 256 
 
 Nugget 86 
 
 Nuntion 131 
 
 Oblige 71 
 
 Obsequies 247 
 
 Oculissimus 91 
 
 Orange 247 
 
 Orichalcum 243 
 
 Ornamentation . , . ; 74 
 
266 
 
 INDEX OF WORDS. 
 
 Orrery . . 
 Orthography 
 
 Pagan .... 
 Painful, painfuhiess 
 Pandar, pandarism 
 Panorama 
 Pasquhiade . . . 
 Patch .... 
 
 Pate 
 
 Pease 
 
 Pester 
 
 Philauty . . 
 Photography 
 Physician . , 
 Pigmy . . 
 Pinclipenny . 
 Pleurisy . . 
 Plunder . . 
 Poet . . . 
 Polite . . . 
 Polytheism . 
 Porcupine 
 Porpoise . . 
 Postremissimus 
 Potecary . . 
 Prsevaricator 
 Pragmatical . 
 Preliber . . 
 Preposterous 
 Prestige . . 
 Prevaricate . 
 Privado . 
 Prose, proser 
 Punctilio . . 
 Punto . . 
 Pyramid . . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 , 88 
 , 246 
 
 207 
 , 190 
 
 90 
 108 
 
 88 
 
 88 
 . 149 
 . 162 
 
 85 
 , 105 
 
 74 
 , 103 
 . 235 
 . 146 
 . 250 
 ', 108 
 . 102 
 . 204 
 . 109 
 . 258 
 
 65 
 
 92 
 , 66 
 . 200 
 . 211 
 , 57 
 . 200 
 . 70 
 . 200 
 
 16 
 . 2)1 
 . 16 
 , 16 
 . 241 
 
 Quellio 16 
 
 Quinsey 65 
 
 Quirpo 16 
 
 Quirry 66 
 
 Eakehell .148 
 
 Kame 247 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Rathe, rathest . . 14-0, 141 
 
 Realmrape 121 
 
 Redingote ..... 65 
 
 Refuse 247 
 
 Regoldar 151 
 
 Religion 187 
 
 Renegade .... 260 
 
 Renown 103 
 
 Resent 239 
 
 Reynard 90 
 
 Rhyme 250 
 
 Rodomontade .... 90 
 
 Riches ...... 161 
 
 Righteousness . . . .139 
 
 Rome 233 
 
 Rootftist ...... 121 
 
 Rosen ....... 165 
 
 Ruly 139 
 
 Runagate 260 
 
 Sag , 121 
 
 Sardanapalisme ... 89 
 
 Sash 64 
 
 SateUites 63 
 
 Satire, satirical . . . .255 
 Satyr, satyric . . 254, 255 
 
 Scent 238 
 
 iSchimmer 120 
 
 Scrip 238 
 
 Seamster, seamstress 158, 159 
 Selfish, selfishness . . . 106 
 
 Sentiment 109 
 
 Sepoy 246 
 
 Serene 138 
 
 Shrewd, shrewdness . .215 
 
 Silhouette 89 
 
 Silvern 166 
 
 Silvicultrix 78 
 
 Siren 252 
 
 Skinker 120 
 
 Skip 149 
 
 Slick 135 
 
 Smellfcast 146 
 
 Snnig 149 
 
 Solidarity 72 
 
INDEX OF WORDS, 
 
 267 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Songster, songstress 158, 159 
 
 Sorcerer ...... 102 
 
 Spencer 89 
 
 Sperr 120 
 
 Spheterize 74 
 
 Spinner, spinster . . .159 
 
 Starconner 122 
 
 Starve 196 
 
 Starvation . . . , . 81 
 
 Stereotype 74 
 
 Stonen 166 
 
 Suckstone 123 
 
 Sudden 225 
 
 Suicide 106 
 
 Suicism, suist .... 106 
 
 Siindflut 244 
 
 Sunstead 122 
 
 Swindler 75 
 
 Sycophant 213 
 
 Tabinet 89 
 
 Tapster 159 
 
 Tarre 120 
 
 Tartar 243 
 
 Tartary 244 
 
 Tea 232 
 
 Theriac 192 
 
 Thou 175 
 
 Thrasonical ..... 90 
 
 Tind 120 
 
 Tinnen 166 
 
 Tinsel 184 
 
 Tinsel-slippered . . . 184 
 
 Tontine 89 
 
 Topsy-turvy 220 
 
 Tosspot 146 
 
 Tram 89 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Treacle 192 
 
 Trigger 75 
 
 Trounce . . . . . .149 
 
 Turban 13 
 
 Umstroke 123 
 
 Van currier ..... 65 
 
 Vicinage 64 
 
 Villain .... 206, 212 
 
 Volcano 87 
 
 Voltaic 89 
 
 Voyage 196 
 
 Wanhope 119 
 
 Waterfright 123 
 
 Watershed 104 
 
 Weed 196 
 
 Welk 120 
 
 Welkin 161 
 
 Whole 239 
 
 Windflower 123 
 
 Wiseacre 246 
 
 Witch 102 
 
 Witticism 107 
 
 Witwanton 121 
 
 Woburn 226 
 
 Woodbine 235 
 
 Worship 189 
 
 Worterbuch 112 
 
 Yard 198 
 
 Youngster 159 
 
 Zoology 109 
 
 Zoophyte 109 
 
 THE END. 
 
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