UC-NRLF 
 
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 1 
 
BERKELEY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY Of 
 CALIFO"-" 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 i>1r, and Mrs. 
 John J. Nathan 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HOWARD WILFORD BELL 
 
 1904 
 
CorYRIGHT 1904 
 
 BY Howard Wiliord Bell 
 
 The Trow Press New York 
 
 fPIFT 
 

 THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 Introductory Lecture 
 
 There are few who would not readily acknowledge that 
 mainly in worthy books are preserved and hoarded the 
 treasures of wisdom and knowledge which the world has 
 accumulated; and that chiefly by aid of books they are 
 handed down from one generation to another. I shall 
 urge on you in these lectures something different from this ; 
 namely, that not in books only, which all acknowledge, nor 
 yet in connected oral discourse, but often also in words con- 
 templated singly, there are boundless stores of moral and 
 historic truth, and no less of passion and imagination, laid 
 up — ^that from these, lessons of infinite worth may be 
 derived, if only our attention is roused to their existence. 
 I shall urge on you how well it will repay you to study the 
 words which you are in the habit of using or of meeting, be 
 they such as relate to highest spiritual things, or our common 
 words of the shop and the market, and of all the familiar 
 intercourse of daily life. It will indeed repay you far 
 better than you can easily believe. I am sure, at least, that 
 for many a young man his first discovery of the fact that 
 words are living powers, are the vesture, yea, even the 
 body, which thoughts weave for themselves, has been like 
 the dropping of scales from his eyes, like the acquiring of 
 another sense, or the introduction into a new world; he is 
 never able to cease wondering at the moral marvels that 
 surround him on every side, and ever reveal themselves 
 more and more to his gaze. 
 
 We indeed hear it not seldom said that ignorance is the 
 
 5 
 
 460 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 mother of admiration. No falser word was ever spoken, 
 and hardly a more mischievous one; implying, as it does, 
 that this healthiest exercise of the mind rests, for the most 
 part, on a deceit and a delusion, and that with larger knowl- 
 edge it would cease ; while, in truth, for once that ignorance 
 leads us to admire that which with fuller insight we should 
 perceive to be a common thing, one demanding no such 
 tribute from us, a hundred, nay, a thousand times, it pre- 
 vents us from admiring that which is admirable indeed. 
 And this is so, whether we are moving in the region of 
 nature, which is the region of God's wonders, or in the 
 region of art, which is the region of man's wonders; and 
 nowhere truer than in this sphere and region of language, 
 which is about to claim us now. Oftentimes here we walk 
 up and down in the midst of intellectual and moral marvels 
 with a vacant eye and a careless mind ; even as some travel- 
 ler passes unmoved over fields of fame, or through cities 
 of ancient renown — unmoved, because utterly unconscious 
 of the lofty deeds which there have been wrought, of the 
 great hearts which spent themselves there. We, like him, 
 wanting the knowledge and insight which would have served 
 to kindle admiration in us, are oftentimes deprived of this 
 pure and elevating excitement of the mind, and miss no 
 less that manifold instruction which ever lies about our path, 
 and nowhere more largely than in our daily words, if only 
 we knew how to put forth our hands and make it our own. 
 ' What riches,' one exclaims, * lie hidden in the vulgar tongue 
 of our poorest and most ignorant. What flowers of para- 
 dise lie under our feet, with their beauties and their parts 
 undistinguished and undiscerned, from having been daily 
 trodden on.' 
 
 And this subject upon which we are thus entering ought 
 not to be a dull or uninteresting one in the handling, or one 
 to which only by an effort you will yield the attention which 
 
 6 
 
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 I shall claim. If it shall prove so, this I fear must be 
 through the fault of my manner of treating it ; for certainly 
 in itself there is no study which may be made at once more 
 instructive and entertaining than the study of the use and 
 abuse, the origin and distinction of words, with an investiga- 
 tion, slight though it may be, of the treasures contained 
 in them; which is exactly that which I now propose to 
 myself and to you. I remember a very learned scholar, 
 to whom we owe one of our best Greek lexicons, a book 
 which must have cost him years, speaking in the preface 
 of his completed work with a just disdain of some, who 
 complained of the irksome drudgery of such toils as those 
 which had engaged him so long, — toils irksome, forsooth, 
 because they only had to do with words. He disclaims any 
 part with those who asked pity for themselves, as so many 
 galley-slaves chained to the oar, or martyrs who had offered 
 themselves for the good of the literary world. He declares 
 that the task of classing, sorting, grouping, comparing, 
 tracing the derivation and usage of words, had been to him 
 no drudgery, but a delight and labour of love.^ 
 
 And if this may be true in regard of a foreign tongue, 
 how much truer ought it to be in regard of our own, of 
 our ' mother tongue,' as we affectionately call it. A great 
 writer not very long departed from us has borne witness 
 at once to the pleasantness and profit of this study. * In 
 a language,' he says, ' like ours, where so many words are 
 derived from other languages, there are few modes of 
 instruction more useful or more amusing than that of accus- 
 toming young people to seek for the etymology or primary 
 meaning of the words they use. There are cases in which 
 more knowledge of more value may be conveyed by the his- 
 tory of a word than by the history of a campaign.' So 
 ■writes Coleridge; and impressing the same truth, Emerson 
 has somewhere characterized language as ' fossil i3oetry.' 
 
 7 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 He evidently means that just as in some fossil^ curious 
 and beautiful shapes of vegetable or animal life, the grace- 
 ful fern or the finely vertebrated lizard, such as now^ it 
 may be, have been extinct for thousands of years, are per- 
 manently bound up with the stone, and rescued from that 
 perishing which would else have been their portion, — so in 
 words are beautiful thoughts and images, the imagination 
 and the feeling of past ages, of men long since in their 
 graves, of men whose very names have perished, there are 
 these, which might so easily have perished too, preserved 
 and made safe for ever. The phrase is a striking one; the 
 only fault one can find with it is that it is too narrow. 
 Language may be, and indeed is, this ' fossil poetry ' ; but 
 it may be affirmed of it with exactly the same truth that it 
 is fossil ethics, or fossil history. Words quite as often and 
 as effectually embody facts of history, or convictions of 
 the moral sense, as of the imagination or passion of men; 
 even as, so far as that moral sense may be perverted, 
 they will bear witness and keep a record of that perversion. 
 On all these points I shall enter at full in after lectures; 
 but I may give by anticipation a specimen or two of what I 
 mean, to make from the first my purpose and plan more 
 fully intelligible to all. 
 
 Language then is ' fossil poetry ' ; in other words, we are 
 not to look for the poetry which a people may possess only 
 in its poems, or its poetical customs, traditions, and beliefs. 
 Many a single word also is itself a concentrated poem, 
 having stores of poetical thought and imagery laid up in it. 
 Examine it, and it will be found to rest on some deep 
 analogy of things natural and things spiritual; bringing 
 those to illustrate and to give an abiding form and body 
 to these. The image may have grown trite and ordinary 
 now: perhaps through the help of this very word may have 
 become so entirely the heritage of all, as to seem little better 
 
 8 
 
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 than a commonplace ; yet not the less he who first discerned 
 the relation, and devised the new word which should 
 express it, or gave to an old, never before but literally 
 used, this new and figurative sense, this man was in his 
 degree a poet — a maker, that is, of things which were not 
 before, which would not have existed but for him, or for 
 some other gifted with equal powers. He who spake first 
 of a ' dilapidated ' fortune, what an image must have risen 
 up before his mind's eye of some falling house or palace, 
 stone detaching itself from stone, till all had gradually 
 sunk into desolation and ruin. Or he who to that Greek 
 word eiXucpivrj^, which signified originally ' the winnowed, 
 the unmingled,' gave first its ethical signification of * sin- 
 cere,' * truthful,' or as we might say, * imadulterated,' can 
 we deny to him the jooet's feeling and eye r Many a man had 
 gazed, we are sure, at the jagged and indented mountain 
 ridges of Spain, before one called them ' sierras ' or ' saws,' 
 the name by which now they are known, as Sierra Morena, 
 Sierra Nevada ; but that man coined his imagination into 
 a word which will endure as long as the everlasting hills 
 which he named. 
 
 But it was said just now that words often contain a wit- 
 ness for great moral truths — God having pressed such a 
 seal of truth upon language, that men are continually utter- 
 ing deeper things than they know, asserting mighty princi- 
 ples, it may be asserting them against themselves, in words 
 that to them may seem nothing more than the current coin 
 of society. Thus to what grand moral purposes Bishop 
 Butler turns the word ' pastime ' ; how solemn the testimony 
 which he compels the world, out of its own use of this 
 word, to render against itself — obliging it to own that its 
 amusements and pleasures do not really satisfy the mind 
 and fill it with the sense of an abiding and satisfying joy: - 
 they are only ' pastime ' ; they serve only, as this word 
 
 9 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 confesses, to pass away the time, to prevent it from hang- 
 ing, an intolerable burden, on men's hands: all which they 
 can do at the best is to prevent men from discovering and 
 attending to their own internal poverty and dissatisfaction 
 and want. He might have added that there is the same 
 acknowledgment in the word ' diversion,' wliich means no 
 more than that which diverts or turns us aside from our- 
 selves, and in this way helps us to forget ourselves for 
 a little. And thus it would appear that, even according 
 to the world's own confession, all which it proposes is — 
 not to make us happy, but a little to prevent us from remem- 
 bering that we are unhappy, to pass away our time, to divert 
 us fronij ourselves. While, on the other hand, we declare 
 that the good which will really fill our souls and satisfy 
 them to the uttermost, is not in us, but without us and above 
 us, in the words which we use to set forth any transcending 
 delight. Take three or four of these words — ' transport,' 
 ' rapture,' ' ravishment,' ' ecstasy,' — ' transport,' that which 
 carries us, as * rapture,' or * ravishment,' that which snatches 
 us out of and above ourselves ; and ' ecstasy ' is very nearly 
 the same, only drawn from the Greek. 
 
 And not less, where a perversion of the moral sense has 
 found place, words preserve oftentimes a record of this per- 
 version. We have a signal example of this in the use, or 
 rather misuse, of the words ' religion ' and ' religious ' dur- 
 ing the Middle Ages, and indeed in many parts of Christen- 
 dom still. A ' religious ' person did not then mean any one 
 who felt and owned the bonds that bound him to God and 
 to his fellow-men, but one who had taken peculiar vows upon 
 him, the member of a monastic Order, of a ' religion ' as 
 it was called. As little did a ' religious ' house then mean, 
 nor does it now mean in the Church of Rome, a Christian 
 household, ordered in the fear of God, but a house in which 
 these persons were gathered' together according to the rule 
 
 10 
 
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 of some man. What a light does this one word so used 
 throw on the entire state of mind and habits of thought in 
 those ages ! That then was ' religion/ and alone deserved 
 the name ! And ' religious ' was a title which might not be 
 given to parents and children, husbands and wives, men 
 and women fulfilling faithfully and holily in the world the 
 duties of their several stations, but only to those who had 
 devised a self-chosen service for themselves.^ 
 
 But language is fossil history as well. What a record of 
 great social revolutions, revolutions in nations and in the feel- 
 ings of nations, the one word ' frank ' contains, which is used, 
 as we all know, to express aught that is generous, straight- 
 forward, and free. The Franks, I need not remind you, were 
 a powerful German tribe, or association of tribes, who gave 
 themselves this proud name of the 'franks' or the free ; and 
 who, at the breaking up of the Roman Empire, possessed 
 themselves of Gaul, to which they gave their own name. They 
 were the ruling conquering people, honourably distinguished 
 from the Gauls and degenerate Romans among whom they 
 established themselves by their independence, their love 
 of freedom, their scorn of a lie ; they had, in short, the vir- 
 tues which belong to a conquering and dominant race in the 
 midst of an inferior and conquered one. And thus it came 
 to pass that by degrees the name * frank ' indicated not 
 merely a national, but involved a moral, distinction as well ; 
 and a * frank ' man was synonymous not merely with a man 
 of the conquering German race, but was an epithet applied 
 to any man possessed of certain high moral qualities, which 
 for the most part appertained to, and were found only in, 
 men of that stock ; and thus in men's daily discourse, when 
 they speak of a person as being ' frank,' or when they use the 
 words * franchise,' * enfranchisement,' to express civil liber- 
 ties and immunities, their language here is the outgrowth, 
 the record, and the result of great historic changes, bears 
 
 11 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 testimony to facts of history, whereof it may well happen 
 that the speakers have never heard.* The word * slave ' has 
 undergone a process entirely analogous, although in an 
 opposite direction. * The martial superiority of the Teu- 
 tonic races enabled them to keep their slave markets sup- 
 plied with captives taken from the Slavonic tribes. Hence, 
 in all the languages of western Europe, the once glorious 
 name of Slave has come to express the most degraded con- 
 dition of men. What centuries of violence and warfare 
 does the history of this word disclose.' ^ 
 
 Having given by anticipation this handful of examples 
 in illustration of what in these lectures I propose, I will, 
 before proceeding further, make a few observations on a sub- 
 ject, which, if we would go at all to the root of the matter, 
 we can scarcely leave altogether untouched, — I mean the ori- 
 gin of language, in which, however, we will not entangle 
 ourselves deeper than we need. There are, or rather there 
 have been, two theories about this. One, and that which 
 rather has been than now is, for few maintain it still, would 
 put language on the same level with the various arts and 
 inventions with which man has gradually adorned and 
 enriched his life. It would make him by degrees to have 
 invented it, just as he might have invented any of these, 
 for himself; and from rude imperfect beginnings, the inar- 
 ticulate cries by which he expressed his natural wants, the 
 sounds by which he sought to imitate the impression of 
 natural objects upon him, little by little to have arrived at 
 that wondrous organ of thought and feeling, which his 
 language is often to him now. 
 
 It might, I think, be sufficient to object to this explana- 
 tion, that language would then be an accident of human 
 nature; and, this being the case, that we certainly 
 should somewhere encounter tribes sunken so low as 
 not to possess it; even as there is almost no human 
 
 12 
 
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 art or invention so obvious, and as it seems to us so indis- 
 pensable, but there are those who have fallen below its 
 knowledge and its exercise. But with language it is not so. 
 There have never yet been found human beings, not the most 
 degraded horde of South African bushmen, or Papuan can- 
 nibals, who did not employ this means of intercourse with 
 one another. But the more decisive objection to this view 
 of the matter is, that it hangs together with, and is indeed 
 an essential part of, that theory of society, which is contra- 
 dicted alike by every page of Genesis, and every notice of 
 our actual experience — ^the * urang-utang ' theory, as it has 
 been so happily termed — that, I mean, according to which the 
 primitive condition of man was the savage one, and the sav- 
 age himself the seed out of which in due time the civilized 
 man was unfolded; whereas, in fact, so far from being 
 this living seed, he might more justly be considered as a 
 dead withered leaf, torn violently away from the great trunk 
 of humanity, and with no more power to produce anything 
 nobler than himself out of himself, than that dead 
 withered leaf to unfold itself into the oak of the forest. 
 So far from being the child with the latent capabilities of 
 manhood, he is himself rather the man prematurely aged, 
 and decrepit, and outworn. 
 
 But the truer answer to the inquiry how language arose, 
 is this: God gave man language, just as He gave him 
 reason, and just because He gave him reason; for what is 
 man's word but his reason, coming forth that it may behold 
 itself .^ They are indeed so essentially one and the same that 
 the Greek language has one word for them both. He gave 
 it to him, because he could not be man, that is, a social 
 being, without it. Yet this must not be taken to affirm that 
 man started at the first furnished with a full-formed vocab- 
 ulary of words, and as it were with his first dictionary and 
 first grammar ready-made to his hands. He did not thus 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 begin the world with names, but with the power of naming: 
 for man is not a mere speaking machine ; God did not teach 
 him words, as one of us teaches a parrot, from without; 
 but gave him a capacity, and then evoked the capacity which 
 He gave. Here, as in everything else that concerns the 
 primitive constitution, the great original institutes, of hu- 
 manity, our best and truest lights are to be gotten from the 
 study of the first three chapters of Genesis; and you will 
 observe that there it is not God who imposed the first names 
 on the creatures, but Adam — Adam, however, at the direct 
 suggestion of his Creator. He brought them all, we are 
 told, to Adam, ' to see what he would call them ; and what- 
 soever Adam called every living creature, that was the name 
 thereof' (Gen. 2: 19). Here we have the clearest intima- 
 tion of the origin, at once divine and human, of speech; 
 while yet neither is so brought forward as to exclude or 
 obscure the other. 
 
 And so far we may concede a limited amount of right 
 to those who have held a progressive acquisition, on man's 
 part, of the power of embodying thought in words. I believe 
 that we should conceive the actual case most truly, if we 
 conceived this power of naming things and expressing their 
 relations^ as one laid up in the depths of man's being, one 
 of the divine capabilities with which he was created: but 
 one (and in this differing from those which have produced 
 in various people various arts of life) which could not 
 remain dormant in him, for man could be only man through 
 its exercise; which therefore did rapidly bud and blossom 
 out from within him at every solicitation from the world 
 without and from his fellow-man; as each object to be 
 named appeared before his eyes, each relation of things 
 to one another arose before his mind. It was not merely 
 the possible, but the necessary, emanation of the spirit with 
 which he had been endowed. Man makes his own language, 
 
 14 
 
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 but he makes it as the bee makes its cells, as the bird its 
 nest; he cannot do otherwise.^ 
 
 How this latent power evolved itself first, how this spon- 
 taneous generation of language came to pass, is a mystery; 
 even as every act of creation is of necessity such; and as a 
 mystery all the deepest inquirers into the subject are eon- 
 tent to leave it. Yet we may perhaps a little help ourselves 
 to the realizing of what the process was, and what it was 
 not, if we liken it to the growth of a tree springing out of, 
 and unfolding itself from, a root, and according to a neces- 
 sary law — that root being the divine capacity of language 
 with which man was created, that law being the law of 
 highest reason with which he was endowed: if we liken it 
 to this rather than to the rearing of a house, which a man 
 should slowly and painfully fashion for himself with dead 
 timbers combined after his own fancy and caprice; and 
 which little by little improved in shape, material, and size, 
 being first but a log house, answering his barest needs, 
 and only after centuries of toil and pain growing for his 
 sons' sons into a stately palace for pleasure and delight. 
 
 Were it otherwise, were the savage the primitive man, 
 we should then find savage tribes, furnished scantily enough, 
 it might be, with the elements of speech, yet at the same time 
 with its fruitful beginnings, its vigorous and healthful 
 germs. But what does their language on close inspection 
 prove? In every case what they are themselves, the rem- 
 nant and ruin of a better and a nobler past. Fearful indeed 
 is the impress of degradation which is stamped on the 
 language of the savage, more fearful perhaps even than 
 that which is stamped upon his form. When wholly letting 
 go the truth, when long and greatly sinning against light 
 and conscience, a people has thus gone the downward way, 
 has been scattered off by some violent catastrophe from 
 those regions of the world which are the seats of advance 
 
 •15 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 and j)rogrt'ss, and driven to its remote isles and further 
 corners, tlien as one nobler thought, one spiritual idea after 
 another has perished from it, the words also that expressed 
 these have perished too. As one habit of civilization has 
 been let go after another, the words which those habits de- 
 manded have droj)ped as well, first out of use, and then out 
 of memory, and thus after a while have been wholly lost. 
 
 Moffat, in his Missionary Labours and Scenes in South 
 Africa, gives us a very remarkable example of the disappear- 
 ing of one of the most significant words from the language 
 of a tribe sinking ever deeper in savagery; and with the 
 disappearing of the word, of course, the disappearing as 
 well of the great spiritual fact and truth whereof that word 
 was at once the vehicle and the guardian. The Bechuanas, 
 a Caffre tribe, employed formerly the word ' Morimo,' 
 to designate * Him that is above,' or ' Him that is in heaven,' 
 and attached to the word the notion of a supreme Divine 
 Being. This word, with the spiritual idea corresponding to 
 it, Moffat found to have vanished from the language of 
 the present generation, although here and there he could 
 m(eet with an old man, scarcely one or two in a thousand, 
 who remembered in his youth to have heard speak of 
 * Morimo ' ; and this word, once so deeply significant, only 
 survived now in the spells and charms of the so-called rain- 
 makers and sorcerers, who misused it to designate a fabu- 
 lous ghost, of whom they told the absurdest and most contra- 
 dictory things. 
 
 And as there is no such witness to the degradation of the 
 savage as the brutal poverty of his language, so is there 
 nothing that so effectually tends to keep him in the depths 
 to which he has fallen. You cannot impart to any man more 
 than the words which lie understands either now contain, 
 or can be made, intelligibly to him, to contain. Language 
 is as truly on one side the limit and restraint of thought, 
 
 16 
 
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 as on the other side that which feeds and unfolds thought. 
 Thus it is the ever-repeated complaint of the missionary that 
 the very terms are well-nigh or wholly wanting in the dia- 
 lect of the savage whereby to impart to him heavenly truths ; 
 and not these only ; but that there are equally wanting those 
 which should express the nobler emotions of the human heart, 
 DobrizhofFer^ the Jesuit missionary, in his curious History 
 of the Abipones, tells us that neither these nor the Guari- 
 nies, two of the principal native tribes of Brazil, possessed 
 any word in the least corresponding to our ' thanks.* But 
 what wonder, if the feeling of gratitude was entirely absent 
 from their hearts, that they should not have possessed 
 the corresponding word in their vocabularies? Nay, how 
 should they have had it there .^ And that in this absence 
 lies the true explanation is plain from a fact which the same 
 writer records, that, although inveterate askers, they never 
 showed the slightest sense of obligation or of gratitude 
 when they obtained what they sought; never saying more 
 than, ' This will be useful to me,' or, * This is what I 
 wanted.' Dr. Krapf, after laborious researches in some 
 widely extended dialects of East Africa, has remarked in 
 them the same absence of any words expressing the idea of 
 gratitude. 
 
 Nor is it only in what they have forfeited and lost, but 
 also in what they have retained or invented, that these lan- 
 guages proclaim their degradation and debasement, and 
 how deeply they and those that speak them have fallen. 
 For indeed the strange wealth and the strange poverty, 
 I know not which the stranger and the sadder, of the lan- 
 guages of savage tribes, rich in words which proclaim their 
 shame, poor in those which should attest the workings of 
 any nobler life among them, not seldom absolutely destitute 
 of these last, are a mournful and ever-recurring surprise, 
 even to those who were more or less prepared to expect 
 
 17 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 nothing else. Thus I have read of a tribe in New Holland, 
 which has no word to signify God, but has one to designate 
 a process by which an unborn child may be destroyed in 
 the bosom of its mother.^ And I have been informed, on 
 the authority of one excellently capable of knowing, an 
 English scholar long resident in Van Diemen's Land, that 
 in the native language of that island there are four words 
 to express the taking of human life — one to express a 
 father's killing of a son, another a son's killing of a father, 
 with other varieties of murder; and that in no one of these 
 lies the slightest moral reprobation, or sense of the deep- 
 lying distinction between to * kill ' and to ' murder ' ; while 
 at the same time, of that language so richly and so fearfully 
 provided with expressions for this extreme utterance of 
 hate, he also reports that a word for * love ' is wanting in 
 it altogether. Yet with all this, ever and anon in the midst 
 of this wreck and ruin, there is that in the language of the 
 savage, some subtle distinction, some curious allusion to a 
 perished civilization, now utterly unintelligible to the 
 speaker; or some other note, which proclaims his language 
 to be the remains of a dissipated inheritance, the rags and 
 remnants of a robe which was a royal one once. The frag- 
 ments of a broken sceptre are in his hand, a sceptre where- 
 with once he held dominion (he, that is, in his progenitors) 
 over large kingdoms of thought, which now have escaped 
 wholly from his sway.® 
 
 But while it is thus with him, while this is the downward 
 course of all those that have chosen the downward path, 
 while with every impoverishing and debasing of personal 
 and national life there goes hand in hand a corresponding 
 impoverishment and debasement of language; so on the 
 contrary, where there is advance and progress, where a 
 divine idea is in any measure realizing itself in a people, 
 where they are learning more accurately to define and dis- 
 
 18 
 
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 tinguish, more truly to know, where they are ruling, as men 
 ought to rule, over nature, and compelling her to give up 
 her secrets to them, where new thoughts are rising up over 
 the horizon of a nation's mind, new feelings stirring at a 
 nation's heart, new facts coming within the sphere of its 
 knowledge, there will language be growing and advancing 
 too. It cannot lag behind; for man feels that nothing is 
 properly his own, that he has not secured any new thought, 
 or entered upon any new spiritual inheritance, till he has 
 fixed it in language, till he can contemplate it, not as him- 
 self, but as his word; he is conscious that he must express 
 truth, if he is to preserve it, and still more if he would 
 propagate it among others. ' Names,' as it has been excel- 
 lently said, ' are impressions of sense, and as such take the 
 strongest hold upon the mind, and of all other impressions 
 can be most easily recalled and retained in view. They 
 therefore serve to give a point of attachment to all the 
 more volatile objects of thought and feeling. Impressions 
 that when past might be dissipated for ever, are by their 
 connexion with language always within reach. Thoughts, 
 of themselves, are perpetually slipping out of the field of 
 immediate mental vision; but the name abides with us, and 
 the utterance of it restores them in a moment.' 
 
 Men sometimes complain of the number of new theolog- 
 ical terms which the great controversies in which the Church 
 from time to time has been engaged, have left behind them. 
 But this could not have been otherwise, unless the gains 
 through those controversies made, were presently to be lost 
 again ; for as has lately been well said : ' The success and 
 enduring influence of any systematic construction of truth, 
 be it secular or sacred, depend as much upon an exact 
 terminology, as upon close and deep thinking itself. 
 Indeed, unless the results to which the human mind arrives 
 are plainly stated, and firmly fixed in an exact phraseology, 
 
 19 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 its thinking is to very little purpose in the end. " Terms," 
 says Whewell, " record discoveries." That which was seen, 
 it may be with crystal clearness, and in bold outline, in the 
 consciousness of an individual thinker, may fail to become 
 the property and possession of mankind at large, because it 
 is not transferred from the individual to the general mind, 
 by means of a precise phraseology and a rigorous termi- 
 nology. Nothing is in its own nature more fugacious and 
 shifting than thought; and particularly thoughts upon the 
 mysteries of Christianity. A conception that is plain and 
 accurate in the understanding of the first man becomes 
 obscure and false in that of the second, because it was not 
 grasped and firmly held in the form and proportions with 
 which it first came up, and then handed over to other minds, 
 a fixed and scientific quantity.' ^ And on the necessity of 
 names at once for the preservation and the propagation of 
 truth it has been justly observed: * Hardly any original 
 thoughts on mental or social subjects ever make their way 
 among mankind, or assume their proper importance in the 
 minds even of their inventors, until aptly selected words 
 or phrases have as it were nailed them down and held them 
 fast.' ^^ And this holds good alike of the false and of the 
 true. I think we may observe very often the way in which 
 controversies, after long eddying backward and forward, 
 hither and thither, concentrate themselves at last in some 
 single word which is felt to contain all that the one party 
 would affirm and the other would deny. After a desultory 
 swaying of the battle hither and thither ' the high places 
 of the field,' the critical position, on the winning of which 
 everything turns, is discovered at last. Thus the whole 
 controversy of the Catholic Church with the Arians finally 
 gathers itself up in a single word, ' homoousion ' ; that with 
 the Nestorians in another, ' theotokos.' One might be bold 
 to affirm that the entire secret of Buddhism is found in 
 
 20 
 
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 * Nirvana ' ; for take away the word, and it is not too much 
 to say that the keystone to the whole arch is gone. So too 
 when the medieval Church allowed and then adopted the 
 word ' transubstantiation ' (and we knew the exact date 
 of this, see p. 123), it committed itself to a doctrine from 
 which henceforward it was impossible to recede. The float- 
 ing error had become a fixed one^ and exercised a far 
 mightier influence on the minds of all who received it, than 
 except for this it would have ever done. It is sometimes 
 not a word, but a phrase, which proves thus mighty in oper- 
 ation. * Reformation in the head and in the members ' was 
 the watchword, for more than a century before an actual 
 Reformation came, of all who were conscious of the deeper 
 needs of the Church. What intelligent acquaintance with 
 Darwin's speculations would the world in general have 
 made, except for two or three happy and comprehensive 
 terms, as * the survival of the fittest,' ' the struggle for exist- 
 ence,' * the process of natural selection ' } Multitudes who 
 else would have known nothing about Comte's system, know 
 something about it when they know that he called it * the 
 positive philosophy.' 
 
 We have been tempted to depart a little, though a very 
 little, from the subject immediately before us. What was 
 just now said of the manner in which language enriches 
 itself does not contradict a prior assertion, that man starts 
 with language as God's perfect gift, which he only impairs 
 and forfeits by sloth and sin, according to the same law 
 which holds good in respect of each other of the gifts of 
 Heaven. For it was not meant, as indeed was then observed, 
 that men would possess words to set forth feelings which 
 were not yet stirring in them, combinations which they 
 had not yet made, obj ects which they had not yet seen, rela- 
 tions of which they were not yet conscious ; but that up to 
 man's needs, (those needs including not merely his animal 
 
 21 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 wants^ but all his higher spiritual cravings,) he would find 
 utterance freely. The great logical, or grammatical, frame- 
 work of language, (for grammar is the logic of speech, 
 even as logic is the grammar of reason,) he would possess, 
 he knew not how; and certainly not as the final result of 
 gradual acquisitions, and of reflexion setting these in order, 
 and drawing general rules from them; but as that rather 
 which alone had made those acquisitions possible; as that 
 according to which he unconsciously worked, filled in this 
 framework by degrees with these later acquisitions of 
 thought, feeling, and experience, as one by one they arrayed 
 themselves in the garment and vesture of words. 
 
 Here then is the explanation of the fact that language 
 should be thus instructive for us, that it should yield us so 
 much, when we come to analyse and probe it; and yield us 
 the more, the more deeply and accurately we do so. It is 
 full of instruction, because it is the embodiment, the incarna- 
 tion, if I may so speak, of the feelings and thoughts and 
 experiences of a nation, yea, often of many nations, and of 
 all which through long centuries they have attained to and 
 won. It stands like the Pillars of Hercules, to mark how 
 far the moral and intellectual conquests of mankind have 
 advanced, only not like those pillars, fixed and immovable, 
 but ever itself advancing with the progress of these. The 
 mighty moral instincts which have been working in the 
 popular mind have found therein their unconscious voice; 
 and the single kinglier spirits that have looked deeper 
 into the heart of things have oftentimes gathered up all 
 they have seen into some one word, which they have launched 
 upon the world, and with which they have enriched it for 
 ever — making in that new word a new region of thought to be 
 henceforward in some sort the common heritage of all. 
 Language is the amber in which a thousand precious and 
 subtle thoughts have been safely embedded and preserved. 
 
INTRODUCTORY LECTI3RE 
 
 It has arrested ten thousand lightning flashes of genius, 
 which, unless thus fixed and arrested, might have been as 
 bright, but would have also been as quickly passing and 
 perishing, as the lightning. ' Words convey the mental 
 treasures of one period to the generations that follow; and 
 laden with this, their precious freight, they sail safely across 
 gulfs of time in which empires have suffered shipwreck, and 
 the languages of common life have sunk into oblivion.' And 
 for all these reasons far more and mightier in every way 
 is a language than any one of the works which may have 
 been composed in it. For that work, great as it may be, 
 at best embodies what was in the heart and mind of a single 
 man, but this of a nation. The Iliad is great, yet not so 
 great in strength or power or beauty as the Greek lan- 
 guage.^^ Paradise Lost is a noble possession for a people 
 to have inherited, but the English tongue is a nobler heri- 
 tage yet.^^ 
 
 And imperfectly as we may apprehend all this, there 
 is an obscure sense, or instinct I might call it, in every 
 one of us, of this truth. We all, whether we have given 
 a distinct account of the matter to ourselves or not, believe 
 that words which we use are not arbitrary and capricious 
 signs, affixed at random to the things which they designate, 
 for which any other might have been substituted as well, 
 but that they stand in a real relation to these. And this 
 sense of the significance of names, that they are, or ought 
 to be, — ^that in a world of absolute truth they ever would 
 be, — the expression of the innermost character and qualities 
 of the things or persons that bear them, speaks out in various 
 ways. It is reported of Boiardo, author of a poem without 
 which we should probably have never seen the Orlando 
 Furioso of Ariosto, that he was out hunting, when the name 
 Rodomonte presented itself to him as exactly fitting a 
 foremost person of the epic he was composing; and that 
 
 23 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 instantly returning home, he caused all the joy-bells of the 
 village to be rung, to celebrate the happy invention. This 
 story may remind us of another which is told of the greatest 
 French novelist of modern times. A friend of Balzac's, 
 who has written some Recollections of him, tells us that he 
 would sometimes wander for days through the streets of 
 Paris, studying the names over the shops, as being sure 
 that there was a name more appropriate than any other 
 to some character which he had conceived, and hoping to 
 light on it there. 
 
 You must all have remarked the amusement and interest 
 which children find in any notable agreement between a 
 name and the person who owns that name, as, for instance, 
 if Mr. Long is tall — or, which naturally takes a still stronger 
 hold upon them, in any manifest contradiction between the 
 name and the name-bearer; if Mr. Strongitharm is a weak- 
 ling, or Mr. Black an albino: the former striking from a 
 sense of fitness, the latter from one of incongruity. Nor is 
 this a mere childish entertainment. It eontinues with us 
 through life; and that its roots lie deep is attested by the 
 earnest use which is often made, and that at the most earnest 
 moments of men's lives, of such agreements or disagree- 
 ments as these. Such use is not unfrequent in Scripture, 
 though it is seldom possible to reproduce it in English, as 
 for instance in the comment of Abigail on her husband 
 Nabal's name : * As his name is, so is he ; Nabal is his name, 
 and folly is with him ' (1 Sam. 25: 25). And again, ' Call 
 me not Naomi,' exclaims the desolate widow — ' call me not 
 Naomi [or pleasantness'] ; call me Marah [or bitterness], 
 for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.' She 
 cannot endure that the name she bears should so strangely 
 contradict the thing she is. Shakespeare, in like manner, 
 reveals his own profound knowledge of the human heart, 
 when he makes old John of Gaunt, worn with long sickness, 
 
 24 
 
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 and now ready to depart, play with his name, and dwell 
 upon the consent between it and his condition ; so that when 
 his royal nephew asks him, ' How is it with aged Gaunt? ' 
 he answers, 
 
 ' Oh, how that name befits my composition, 
 Old Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old — 
 Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as the grave — ' " 
 
 with much more in the same fashion; while it is into the 
 mouth of the slight and frivolous king that Shakespeare 
 puts the exclamation of wonder, 
 
 ' Can sick men play so nicely with their names ? ' " 
 
 Mark too how, if one is engaged in a controversy or 
 quarrel, and his name imports something good, his adver- 
 sary will lay hold of the name, will seek to bring out a real 
 contradiction between the name and the bearer of the name, 
 so that he shall appear as one presenting himself under false 
 colours, affecting a merit which he does not really possess. 
 Examples of this abound. There was one Vigilantius in 
 the early Church ; — ^^his name might be interpreted * The 
 Watchful.' He was at issue with St. Jerome about certain 
 vigils; these he thought perilous to Christian morality, 
 while Jerome was a very eager promoter of them; who 
 instantly gave a turn to his name, and proclaimed that he, 
 the enemy of these watches, the partisan of slumber and 
 sloth, should have been not Vigilantius or The Watcher, 
 but ' Dormitantius ' or The Sleeper rather. Felix, Bishop 
 of Urgel, a chief champion in the eighth century of the 
 Adoptianist heresy, is constantly * Infelix ' in the writings 
 of his adversary Alcuin. The Spanish peasantry during the 
 Peninsular War would not hear of Bonaparte, but changed 
 the name to ' Malaparte,' as designating far better the per- 
 fidious kidnapper of their king and enemy of their inde- 
 
 25 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 pendence. It will be seen then that ^Eschylus is most 
 true to nature, when in his Prometheus Bound he makes 
 Strength tauntingly to remind Prometheus, or The Prudent, 
 how ill his name and the lot which he has made for him- 
 self agreed, bound as he is with adamantine chains to his 
 rock, and bound, as it might seem, for ever. When Napo- 
 leon said of Count Lobau, whose proper name was Mouton, 
 ' Mon mouton e'est un lion,' it was the same instinct at work, 
 though working from an opposite point. It made itself felt 
 no less in the bitter irony which gave to the second of the 
 Ptolemies, the brother-murdering king, the title of Phila- 
 delphus. 
 
 But more frequent still is this hostile use of names, this 
 attempt to place them and their owners in the most intimate 
 connexion, to make, so to speak, the man answerable for his 
 name, where the name does not thus need to be reversed; 
 but may be made as it now is, or with very slightest change, 
 to contain a confession of the ignorance, worthlessness, or 
 futility of the bearer. If it implies, or can be made to 
 imply, anything bad, it is instantly laid hold of as express- 
 ing the very truth about him. You know the story of Helen 
 of Greece, whom in two of his ' mighty lines ' Marlowe's 
 Faust so magnificently apostrophizes: 
 
 ' Was this the face that launched a thousand ships. 
 And burned the topless towers of Ilium ? ' 
 
 It is no frigid conceit of the Greek poet, when one passion- 
 ately denouncing the ruin which she wrought, finds that ruin 
 couched and foreannounced in her name; ^^ as in English it 
 might be, and has been, reproduced — 
 
 'Hell in her name, and heaven in her looks,* 
 
 Or take other illustrations. Pope Hildebrand in one of our 
 Homilies is styled ' Brand of Hell,' as setting the world in 
 
 26 
 
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 a blaze ; as ' Hollenbrand ' he appears constantly in Ger- 
 man. Tott and TeufFel were two officers of high rank in 
 the army which Gustavus Adolphus brought with him into 
 Germany. You may imagine how soon those of the other 
 side declared that he had brought ' death ' and * hell ' in his 
 train. There were two not inconsiderable persons in the 
 time of our Civil Wars, Vane (not the ' young Vane ' of 
 Milton's and Wordsworth's sonnets), and Sterry; and one 
 of these, Sterry, was chaplain to the other. Baxter, having 
 occasion to mention them in his profoundly instructive 
 Narrative of his Life and Times, and liking neither, cannot 
 forbear to observe, that ' vanity and sterility were never 
 more fitly joined together'; and speaks elsewhere of 'the 
 vanity of Vane, and the sterility of Sterry.' This last, let 
 me observe, is an eminently unjust charge, as Baxter him- 
 self in a later volume ^^ has very handsomely acknowl- 
 edged.^^ 
 
 Where, on the other hand, it is desired to do a man hon- 
 our, how gladly, in like manner, is his name seized on, if 
 it in any way bears an honourable significance, or is capable 
 of an honourable interpretation — men finding in that name 
 a presage and phophecy of that which was actually in its 
 bearer. A multitude of examples, many of them very beau- 
 tiful, might be brought together in this kind. How often, 
 for instance, and with what effect, the name of Stephen, 
 the protomartyr, that name signifying in Greek ' the Crown,' 
 was taken as a prophetic intimation of the martyr-crown, 
 which it should be given to him, the first in that noble army, 
 to wear.^^ Irenaeus means in Greek ' the Peaceable ' ; and 
 early Church writers love to remark how fitly the illustrious 
 Bishop of Lyons bore this name, setting forward as he so 
 earnestly did the peace of the Church, resolved as he was, 
 so far as in him lay, to preserve the unity of the Spirit in 
 the bond of peace.^^ The Dominicans were well pleased 
 
 27 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 when their name was resolved into * Domini canes ' — the 
 Lord's watchdogs; who, as such, allowed no heresy to 
 appear without at once giving the alarm, and seeking to 
 chase it away. When Ben Jonson praises Shakespeare's 
 ' well-filed lines ' — 
 
 ' In each of which he seems to shake a lance 
 As brandished in the eyes of ignorance ' — 
 
 he is manifestly playing with his name. Fuller, too, our 
 own Church historian, who played so often upon the names 
 of others, has a play made upon his own in some commenda- 
 tory verses prefixed to one of his books: 
 
 ' Thy style is clear and white ; thy very name 
 Speaks pureness, and adds lustre to the frame.* 
 
 He plays himself upon it in an epigram which takes the 
 form of a prayer: 
 
 ' My soul is stained with a dusky colour : 
 Let thy Son be the soap ; I'll be the fuller.* 
 
 John Careless, whose letters are among the most beautiful 
 in Foxe's Booh of Martyrs, writing to Philpot, exclaims, 
 * Oh good master Philpot, which art a principal pot indeed, 
 filled with much precious liquor, — oh pot most happy! of 
 the High Potter ordained to honour.' 
 
 Herein, in this faith that men's names were true and 
 would come true, in this, and not in any altogether unreason- 
 ing superstition, lay the root of the carefulness of the Ro- 
 mans that in the enlisting of soldiers names of good omen, 
 such as Valerius, Salvius, Secundus, should be the first called. 
 Scipio Africanus, reproaching his soldiers after a mutiny, 
 finds an aggravation of their crime in the fact that one with 
 so ill-omened a name as Atrius Umber should have seduced 
 
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 them, and persuaded them to take him for their leader. 
 So strong is the conviction of men that names are powers. 
 Nay, it must have been sometimes thought that the good 
 name might so react on the evil nature that it should not 
 remain evil altogether, but might be induced, in part at 
 least, to conform itself to the designation which it bore. 
 Here we have an explanation of the title Eumenides, or the 
 Well-minded, given to the Furies; of Euxine, or the kind 
 to strangers, to the inhospitable Black Sea, ' stepmother of 
 ships,' as the Greek poet called it; the explanation too of 
 other similar transformations, of the Greek Egesta trans- 
 formed by the Romans into * Segesta,' that it might not 
 suggest ' egestas ' or penury ; of Epidamnus, which, in like 
 manner seeming too suggestive of ' damnum,' or loss, was 
 changed into * Dyrrachium ' ; of Maleventum, which became 
 
 * Beneventum ' ; of Cape Tormentoso, or Stormy Cape, 
 changed into ' Cape of Good Hope ' ; of the fairies being 
 always respectfully spoken of as ' the good people ' in Ire- 
 land, even while they are accredited with any amount of 
 mischief ; of the dead spoken of alike in Greek and in Latin 
 simply as * the majority '; of the dying, in Greek liturgies 
 remembered as 'those about to set forward upon a jour- 
 ney ' ;-^ of the slain in battle designated in German as ' those 
 who remain,' that is, on the field of battle; of evXoyia, or 
 
 * the blessing,' as a name given in modern Greek to the 
 smallpox! We may compare as an example of this same 
 euphemism the famous ' Vixerunt ' with which Cicero 
 announced that the conspirators against the Roman State 
 had paid the full penalty of their treason. 
 
 Let me observe, before leaving this subject, that not in 
 one passage only, but in passages innumerable. Scripture 
 sets its seal to this significance of names, to the fact that 
 the seeking and the finding of this significance is not a mere 
 play upon the surface of things: it everywhere recognizes 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 the inner band^ which ought to connect^ and in a world of 
 truth would connect, together the name and the person or 
 thing bearing the name. Scripture sets its seal to this by the 
 weight and solemnity which it everywhere attaches to the 
 imposing of names ; this in many instances not being left to 
 hazard, but assumed by God as his own peculiar care. 
 ' Thou shalt call his name Jesus ' (Matt. 1 : 21 ; Luke 1 : 31) 
 is of course the most illustrious instance of all ; but there is a 
 multitude of other cases in point; names given by God, 
 as that of John to the Baptist; or changed by Him, as 
 Abram's to Abraham (Gen. 17:3), Sarai's to Sarah, 
 Hoshea's to Joshua; or new names added by Him to the 
 old, when by some mighty act of faith the man had been 
 lifted out of his old life into a new; as Israel added to 
 Jacob, and Peter to Simon, and Boanerges or Sons of Thun- 
 der to the two sons of Zebedee (Mark 3: 17). The same 
 feeling is at work elsewhere. A Pope on his election always 
 takes a new name. Or when it is intended to make, for 
 good or for ill, an entire breach with the past, this is one of 
 the means by which it is sought to effect as much (2 Chr. 
 36:4; Dan. 1:7). How far this custom reaches, how 
 deep the roots which it casts, is exemplified well in the fact 
 that the West Indian buccaneer makes a like change of 
 name on entering that society of blood. It is in both cases 
 a sort of token that old things have passed away, that all 
 have become new to him. 
 
 But we must draw to a close. Enough has been said to 
 attest and to justify the wide-spread faith of men that 
 names are significant, and that things and persons corre- 
 spond, or ought to correspond, to them. You will not, then, 
 find it a laborious task to persuade your pupils to admit as 
 much. They are prepared to accept, they will be prompt 
 to believe it. And great indeed will be our gains, their gains 
 and ours, — for teacher and taught will for the most part 
 
 30 
 
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
 
 enrich themselves together, — if, having these treasures of 
 wisdom and knowledge lying round about us, so far more 
 precious than mines of Calif ornian gold, we determine that 
 we will make what portion of them we can our own, that 
 we will ask the words which we use to give an account 
 of themselves, to say whence they are, and whither they 
 tend. Then shall we often rub off the dust and rust from 
 what seemed to us but a common token, which as such we 
 had taken and given a thousand times; but which now we 
 shall perceive to be a precious coin, bearing the ' image and 
 superscription ' of the great King: then shall we often stand 
 in surprise and in something of shame, while we behold 
 the great spiritual realities which underlie our common 
 speech, the marvellous truths which we have been witness- 
 ing for in our words, but, it may be, witnessing against in 
 our lives. And as you will not find, for so I venture to 
 promise, that this study of words will be a dull one when you 
 undertake it yourselves, as little need you fear that it will 
 prove dull and unattractive, when you seek to make your 
 own gains herein the gains also of those who may be here- 
 after committed to your charge. Only try your pupils, and 
 mark the kindling of the eye, the lighting up of the counte- 
 nance, the revival of the flagging attention, with which the 
 humblest lecture upon words, and on the words especially 
 which they are daily using, which are familiar to them in 
 their play or at their church, will be welcomed by them. 
 There is a sense of reality about children which makes 
 them rejoice to discover that there is also a reality about 
 words, that they are not merely arbitrary signs, but living 
 powers; that, to reverse the saying of one of England's 
 * false prophets,' they may be the fool's counters, but are the 
 wise man's money; not, like the sands of the sea, innumer- 
 able disconnected atoms, but growing out of roots, cluster- 
 ing in families, connecting and intertwining themselves with 
 
 SI 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 all that men have been doing and thinking and feeling from 
 the beginning of the world till now. 
 
 And it is of course our English tongue, out of which 
 mainly we should seek to draw some of the hid treasures 
 which it contains, from which we should endeavour to remove 
 the veil which custom and familiarity have thrown over it 
 We cannot employ ourselves better. There is nothing that 
 will more help than will this to form an English heart in 
 oursches and in others. We could scarcely have a single 
 lesson on the growth of our English tongue, we could 
 scarcely follow up one of its significant words, without hav- 
 ing unawares a lesson in English history as well, without 
 not merely falling on some curious fact illustrative of our 
 national life, but learning also how the great heart which 
 is beating at the centre of that life was gradually shaped 
 and moulded. We should thus grow too in our sense of 
 connexion with the past, of gratitude and reverence to it; 
 we should rate more highly and thus more truly all which 
 it has bequeathed to us, all that it has made ready to our 
 hands. It was not a small matter for the children of Israel, 
 when they came into Canaan, to enter upon wells which 
 they digged not, and vineyards which they had not planted, 
 and houses which they had not built; but how much vaster 
 a boon, how much more glorious a prerogative, for any one 
 generation to enter upon the inheritance of a language which 
 other generations by their truth and toil have made already 
 a receptacle of choicest treasures, a storehouse of so much 
 unconscious wisdom, a fit organ for expressing the subtlest 
 distinctions, the tenderest sentiments, the largest thoughts, 
 and the loftiest imaginations, which the heart of man has 
 at any time conceived. And that those who have preceded 
 us have gone far to accomplish this for us, I shall rejoice 
 if I am able in any degree to make you feel in the lectures 
 which will follow the present. 
 
 32 
 
LECTURE 2 
 
 On the Poetry in Words 
 
 I said in my last lecture, or rather I quoted another who 
 had said, that language is fossil poetry. It is true that 
 for us very often this poetry which is bound up in words has 
 in great part or altogether disappeared. We fail to recog- 
 nize it, partly from long familiarity with it, partly from 
 insufficient knowledge, partly, it may be, from never having 
 had our attention called to it. None have pointed it out to 
 us; we may not ourselves have possessed the means of 
 detecting it ; and thus it has come to pass that we have been 
 in close vicinity to this wealth, which yet has not been ours. 
 Margaret has not been for us ' the Pearl,' nor Esther * the 
 Star,' nor Susanna ' the Lily,'^^ nor Stephen ' the Crown/ 
 nor Albert ' the illustrious in birth.' * In our ordinary lan- 
 guage,' as Montaigne has said, ' there are several excel- 
 lent phrases and metaphors to be met with, of which the 
 beauty is withered by age, and the colour is sullied by too 
 common handling; but that takes nothing from the relish 
 to an understanding man, neither does it derogate from the 
 glory of those ancient authors, who, 'tis likely, first brought 
 those words into that lustre.' We read in one of Moliere's 
 most famous comedies of one who was surprised to discover 
 that he had been talking prose all his life without being 
 aware of it. If we knew all, we might be much more sur- 
 prised to find that we had been talking poetry, without ever 
 having so much as suspected this. For indeed poetry and 
 passion seek to insinuate, and do insinuate themselves every- 
 where in language; they preside continually at the giving 
 of names; they enshrine and incarnate themselves in these; 
 
 33 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 for ' poetry is the mother tongue of the human race/ as 
 a great German writer has said. My present lecture shall 
 contain a few examples and illustrations, by which I would 
 make the truth of this appear. 
 
 ' Iliads without a Homer/ some one has called, with a 
 little exaggeration, the beautiful but anonymous ballad 
 poetry of Spain. One may be permitted, perhaps, to push 
 the exaggeration a little further in the same direction, 
 and to apply the same language not merely to a ballad but 
 to a word. For poetry, which is passion and imagination 
 embodying themselves in words, does not necessarily demand 
 a combination of words for this. Of this passion and imag- 
 ination a single word may be the vehicle. As the sun can 
 image itself alike in a tiny dewdrop or in the mighty ocean, 
 and can do it, though on a different scale, as perfectly in 
 the one as in the other, so the spirit of poetry can dwell 
 in and glorify alike a word and an Iliad. Nothing in lan- 
 guage is too small, as nothing is too great, for it to fill 
 with its presence. Everywhere it can find, or, not finding, 
 can make, a shrine for itself, which afterwards it can render 
 translucent and transparent with its own indwelling glory. 
 On every side we are beset with poetry. Popular language 
 is full of it, of words used in an imaginative sense, of things 
 called — and not merely in transient moments of high passion, 
 and in the transfer which at such moments finds place of 
 the image to the thing imaged, but permanently, — by names 
 having immediate reference not to what they are, but to 
 what they are like. All language is in some sort, as one has 
 said, a collection of faded metaphors. ^^ 
 
 Sometimes, indeed, they have not faded at all. Thus at 
 Naples it is the ordinary language to call the lesser storm- 
 waves ' pecore,' or sheep ; the larger * cavalloni,' or big 
 horses. Who that has watched the foaming crests, the white 
 manes, as it were, of the larger billows as they advance in 
 
 34 
 
ON THE POETRY IN WORDS 
 
 measured order, and rank on rank, into the bay, but will 
 own not merely the fitness, but the grandeur, of this last 
 image? Let me illustrate my meaning more at length by 
 the word ' tribulation.' We all know in a general way that 
 this word, which occurs not seldom in Scripture and in the 
 Prayer Book, means affliction, sorrow, anguish; but it is 
 quite worth our while to know how it means this, and to 
 question ' tribulation ' a little closer. It is derived from the 
 Latin * tribulum,' which was the threshing instrument or 
 harrow, whereby the Roman husbandman separated the corn 
 from the husks ; and ' tribulatio ' in its primary signification 
 was the act of this separation. But some Latin writer of 
 the Christian Church appropriated the word and image for 
 the setting forth of a higher truth; and sorrow, distress, 
 and adversity being the appointed means for the separating 
 in men of whatever in them was light, trivial, and poor 
 from the solid and the true, their chaff from their wheat,^^ 
 he therefore called these sorrows and trials * tribulations,' 
 threshings, that is, of the inner spiritual man, without which 
 there could be no fitting him for the heavenly garner. Now 
 in proof of my assertion that a single word is often a con- 
 centrated poem, a little grain of pure gold capable of being 
 beaten out into a broad extent of gold-leaf, I will quote, 
 in reference to this very word ' tribulation,' a graceful com- 
 position by George Wither, a prolific versifier, and occa- 
 sionally a poet, of the seventeenth century. You will at 
 once perceive that it is all wrapped up in this word, being 
 from first to last only the explicit unfolding of the image 
 and thought which this word has implicitly given; it is as 
 follows : 
 
 ' Till from the straw the flail the corn doth beat. 
 Until the chaff be purged from the wheat. 
 Yea, till the mill the grains in pieces tear. 
 The richness of the flour will scarce appear. 
 35 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 So, till men's persons great afflictions touch, 
 If worth be found, their worth is not so much, 
 Because, like wheat in straw, they have not yet 
 That value which in threshing they may get. 
 For till the bruising flails of God's corrections 
 Have threshed out of us our vain affections ; 
 Till those corruptions which do misbecome us 
 Are by Thy sacred Spirit winnowed from us ; 
 Until from us the straw of wordly treasures, 
 Till all the dusty chaff* of empty pleasures. 
 Yea, till His flail upon us He doth lay, 
 To thresh the husk of this our flesh away ; 
 And leave the soul uncovered ; nay, yet more. 
 Till God shall make our very spirit poor. 
 We shall not up to highest wealth aspire ; 
 But then we shall ; and that is my desire.' 
 
 This deeper religious use of the word * tribulation * was 
 unknown to classical antiquity, belonging exclusively to the 
 Christian writers; and the fact that the same deepening 
 and elevating of the use of words recurs in a multitude of 
 other, and many of them far more signal, instances, is one 
 well deserving to be followed up. Nothing, I am persuaded, 
 would more mightily convince us of the new power which 
 Christianity proved in the world than to compare the mean- 
 ing which so many words possessed before its rise, and the 
 deeper meaning which they obtained, so soon as they were 
 assumed as the vehicles of its life, the new thought and 
 feeling enlarging, purifying, and ennobling the very words 
 which they employed. This is a subject which I shall have 
 occasion to touch on more than once in these lectures, but 
 is Hself well worthy of, as it would aff"ord ample material 
 for, a volume. 
 
 On the suggestion of this word * tribulation,* I will quote 
 two or three words from Coleridge, bearing on the matter 
 in hand. He has said^ ' In order to get the full sense of a 
 
 36 
 
ON THE POETRY IN WORDS 
 
 word, we should first present to our minds the visual image 
 that forms its primary meaning.' What admirable counsel 
 is here! If we would but accustom ourselves to the doing 
 of this, what a vast increase of precision and force would 
 all the language which we speak, and which others speak 
 to us, obtain; how often would that which is now obscure 
 at once become clear ; how distinct the limits and boundaries 
 of that which is often now confused and confounded ! It 
 is difficult to measure the amount of food for the imagina- 
 tion, as well as gains for the intellect, which the observing 
 of this single rule would afford us. Let me illustrate this by 
 one or two examples. We say of such a man that he is 
 ' desultory.' Do we attach any very distinct meaning to 
 the word.^ Perhaps not. But get at the image on which 
 ' desultory ' rests ; take the word to pieces ; learn that it is 
 from ' desultor,' one who rides two or three horses at once, 
 leaps from one to the other, being never on the back of any 
 one of them long; take, I say, the word thus to pieces, and 
 put it together again, and what a firm and vigorous grasp 
 will you have now of its meaning ! A * desultory ' man is 
 one who jumps from one study to another, and never con- 
 tinues for any length of time in one. Again, you speak of 
 a person as ' capricious,' or as full of * caprices.' But 
 what exactly are caprices ? * Caprice ' is from capra, a goat. 
 If ever you have watched a goat, you will have observed how 
 sudden, how unexpected, how unaccountable, are the leaps 
 and springs, now forward, now sideward, now upward, in 
 which it indulges. A * caprice ' then is a movement of the 
 mind as unaccountable, as little to be calculated on before- 
 hand, as the springs and bounds of a goat. Is not the word 
 so understood a far more picturesque one than it was 
 before .f* and is there not some real gain in the vigour and 
 vividness of impression which is in this way obtained? 
 * Pavaner ' is the French equivalent for our verb ' to strut,' 
 
 37 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 * fourmiller ' for our verb ' to swarm.' But is it not a real 
 gain to know further that the one is to strut as the peacock 
 does, the other to swarm as do ants? There are at 
 the same time, as must be freely owned, investigations, 
 moral no less than material, in which the nearer the words 
 employed approach to an algebraic notation, and the less 
 disturbed or coloured they are by any reminiscences of the 
 ultimate grounds on which they rest, the better they are 
 likely to fulfil the duties assigned to them; but these are 
 exceptions. ^^ 
 
 The poetry which has been embodied in the names of 
 places, in those names which designate the leading features 
 of outward nature, promontories, mountains, capes, and the 
 like, is very worthy of being elicited and evoked anew, 
 latent as it now has oftentimes become. Nowhere do we so 
 easily forget that names had once a peculiar fitness, which 
 was the occasion of their giving. Colour has often sug- 
 gested the name, as in the well-known instance of our own 
 ' Albion,' — * the silver-coasted isle,' as Tennyson so beauti- 
 fully has called it, — which had this name from the white 
 line of cliffs presented by it to those approaching it by the 
 narrow seas. ' Himalaya ' is * the abode of snow.' Often, 
 too, shape and configuration are incorporated in the name, 
 as in ' Trinacria,' or ' the three-promontoried land,' which 
 was the Greek name of Sicily ; in ' Drepanum,' or ' the 
 sickle,' the name which a town on the north-west prom- 
 ontory of the island bore, from the sickle-shaped tongue 
 of land on which it was built. But more striking, as 
 the embodiment of a poetical feeling, is the modern 
 name of the great southern peninsula of Greece. We 
 are all aware that it is called the * Morea ' ; but we 
 may not be so well aware from whence that name is derived. 
 It had long been the fashion among ancient geographers 
 to compare the shape of tliis region to a platane leaf ; ^^ 
 
 38 
 
ON THE POETRY IN WORDS 
 
 and a glance at the map will show that the general outline 
 of that leaf, with its sharply-incised edges, justified the 
 comparison. This, however, had remained merely as a com- 
 parison; but at the shifting and changing of names, that 
 went with the breaking up of the old Greek and Roman civil- 
 ization, the resemblance of this region to a leaf, not now 
 any longer a platane, but a mulberry leaf, appeared so 
 strong, that it exchanged its classic name of Peloponnesus 
 for * Morea,' which embodied men's sense of this resem- 
 blance, morus being a mulberry tree in Latin, and fiopia 
 in Greek. This etymology of ' Morea ' has been called in 
 question ; ^^ but, as it seems to me, on no sufficient grounds. 
 Deducing, as one objector does, ' Morea ' from a Slavonic 
 word 'more/ the sea, he finds in this derivation a support 
 for his favourite notion that the modern population of 
 Greece is not descended from the ancient, but consists in 
 far the larger proportion of intrusive Slavonic races. Two 
 mountains near Dublin, which we, keeping in the grocery 
 line, have called the Great and the Little Sugarloaf, are 
 named in Irish ' the Golden Spears.' 
 
 In other ways also the names of places will oftentimes 
 embody some poetical aspect under which now or at some 
 former period men learned to regard them. Oftentimes 
 when discoverers come upon a new land they will seize 
 with a firm grasp of the imagination the most striking 
 feature which it presents to their eyes, and permanently 
 embody this in a word. Thus the island of Madeira is now, 
 I believe, nearly bare of wood; but its sides were covered 
 with forests at the time when it was first discovered, and 
 hence the name, ' madeira ' in Portuguese having this mean- 
 ing of wood. Some have said that the first Spanish discov- 
 erers of Florida gave it this name from the rich carpeting 
 of flowers which, at the time when first their eyes beheld 
 it, everywhere covered the soil. Surely Florida, as the 
 
; THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 name passes under our eye, or from our lips, is something 
 more than it was before, when we may thus think of it as 
 the land of flowers."' The name of Port Natal also embodies 
 a fact which must be of interest to its inhabitants, namely, 
 that this port was discovered on Christmas Day, the dies 
 natalis of our Lord. 
 
 Then again what poetry is there, as indeed there ought to 
 be, in the names of flowers ! I do not speak of those, the 
 exquisite grace and beauty of whose names is so forced on 
 us that we cannot miss it, such as ' Aaron's rod,' ' angel's 
 eyes,' ' bloody warrior,' * blue-bell,' ' crown imperial,' 
 ' cuckoo-flower,' blossoming as this orchis does when the 
 cuckoo is first heard,^* ' eye-bright,' * forget-me-not,' ' gilt- 
 cup ' (a local name for the butter-cup, drawn from the 
 golden gloss of its petals), * hearts-ease,' ' herb-of -grace,' 
 ' Jacob's ladder,' ' king-cup,' ' lady's fingers,' * Lady's 
 smock,' * Lady's tresses,' ' larkspur,' * Lent lily,' ' loose- 
 strife, ' love-in-idleness,' ' Love lies bleeding,' ' maiden- 
 blush,' ' maiden-hair,' * meadow-sweet,' * Our Lady's man- 
 tle,' ' Our Lady's slipper,' ' queen-of-the-meadows,' ' reine- 
 marguerite,' ' rosemary,' ' snow-flake,' * Solomon's seal,' 
 ' star of Bethlehem,' ' sundew,' ' sweet Alison,' ' sweet 
 Cicely,' ' sweet William,' * Traveller's joy,' ' Venus' looking- 
 glass,' ' Virgin's bower,' and the like ; but take ' daisy ' ; 
 surely this charming little English flower, which has stirred 
 the peculiar affection of English poets from Chaucer to 
 Wordsworth, and received the tribute of their song,^^ be- 
 comes more charming yet, when we know, as Chaucer long 
 ago has told us, that ' daisy ' is day's eye, or in its early 
 spelling ' daieseighe,' the eye of day ; these are his words : 
 
 * That wel by reson men hit calle may 
 The ^^dayesye " or elles the "ye of day." ' 
 
 Chaucer, Legend of Good Women, Prol. 184. 
 
 40 
 
ON THE POETRY IN WORDS 
 
 For only consider how much is implied here. To the sun in 
 the heavens this name, eye of day, was naturally first given, 
 and those who transferred the title to our little field flower 
 meant no doubt to liken its inner yellow disk or shield to the 
 great golden orb of the sun, and the white florets which 
 encircle this disk to the rays which the sun spreads on all 
 sides around him. What imagination was here, to suggest 
 a comparison such as this, binding together as this does 
 the smallest and the greatest ! what a travelling of the poet's 
 eye, with the power which is the privilege of that eye, from 
 earth to heaven, and from heaven to earth, and of linking 
 both together. So too, call up before your mind's eye the 
 ' lavish gold ' of the drooping laburnum when in flower, and 
 you will recognize the poetry of the title, * the golden rain,' 
 which in German it bears. ' Celandine ' does not so clearly 
 tell its own tale; and it is only when you have followed 
 up the ;)(€Ai8ovtov, (swallow- wort), of which ' celandine ' 
 is the English representative, that the word will yield up 
 the poetry which is concealed in it. 
 
 And then again, what poetry is there often in the names 
 of birds and beasts and fishes, and indeed of all the ani- 
 mated world around us; how marvellously are these names 
 adapted often to bring out the most striking and character- 
 istic features of the objects to which they are given. Thus 
 when the Romans became acquainted with the stately 
 giraffe, long concealed from them in the interior deserts of 
 Africa, (which we learn from Pliny they first did in the 
 shows exhibited by Julius Caesar,) it was happily imagined 
 to designate a creature combining, though with infinitely 
 more grace, something of the height and even the proportions 
 of the camel with the spotted skin of the pard, by a name 
 which should incorporate both these its most prominent 
 features,^^ calling it the ' camelopard.' Nor can we, I 
 think, hesitate to accept that account as the true one, which 
 
 41 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 describes the word as no artificial creation of scientific 
 naturalists^ but as bursting extempore from the lips of the 
 common people^ who after all are the truest namers, at the 
 first moment when the novel creature was presented to 
 their gaze. ' Cerf-volant/ a name which the French have 
 so happily given to the horned scarabeus, the same which 
 we somewhat less poetically call the ' stag-beetle/ is another 
 example of what may be effected with the old materials, 
 by merely bringing them into new combinations. 
 
 You know the appearance of the lizard, and the star- 
 like shape of the spots which are sown over its back. Well, 
 in Latin it is called * stellio,' from stella, a star; just as the 
 basilisk had in Greek this name of ' little king ' because of 
 the shape as of a kingly crown which the spots on its head 
 might be made by the fancy to assume. Follow up the 
 etymology of ' squirrel/ and you will find that the graceful 
 creature which bears this name has obtained it as being wont 
 to sit under the shadow of its own tail. Need I remind 
 you of our ' goldfinch/ evidently so called from that bright 
 patch of yellow on its wing ; our ' kingfisher/ having its 
 name from the royal beauty, the kingly splendour of the 
 plumage with which it is adorned? Some might ask why 
 the stormy petrel, a bird which just skims and floats on the 
 topmost wave, should bear this name.^ No doubt we have 
 here the French ' petrel,' or little Peter, and the bird has 
 in its name an allusion to the Apostle Peter, who at his 
 Master's bidding walked for a while on the unquiet surface 
 of an agitated sea. The ' lady-bird ' or ' lady-cow ' is 
 prettily named, as indeed the whole legend about it is full 
 of grace and fancy; but a common name which in many 
 of our country parts this creature bears, the ' golden knob,' 
 is prettier still. And indeed in our country dialects there 
 is a wide poetical nomenclature which is well worthy of 
 recognition; thus the shooting lights of the Aurora Borealis 
 
 42 
 
ON THE POETRY IN WORDS 
 
 are in Lancashire * the Merry Dancers ' ; clouds piled up 
 in a particular fashion are in many parts of England styled 
 * Noah's Ark ' ; the puiF-ball is * the Devil's snuiF-box ' ; the 
 dragon-fly ' the Devil's darning-needle ' ; a large black 
 beetle ' the Devil's coach-horse.' Any one v^^ho has watched 
 the kestrel hanging poised in the air^ before it swoops 
 upon its prey, will acknowledge the felicity of the 
 name * windhover,' or sometimes * windfanner/ which it 
 popularly bears. ^^ 
 
 The amount is very large of curious legendary lore which 
 is everywhere bound up in words, and which they, if duly 
 solicited, will give back to us again. For example, the Greek 
 ' halcyon,' which we have adopted without change, has 
 reference, and wraps up in itself an allusion, to one of the 
 most beautiful and significant legends of heathen antiquity; 
 according to which the sea preserved a perfect calmness 
 for all the period, the fourteen ' halcyon days,' during which 
 this bird was brooding over her nest. The poetry of the 
 name survives, whether the name suggested the legend, or 
 the legend the name. Take again the names of some of 
 our precious stones, as of the topaz, so called, as some said, 
 because men were only able to conjecture (roTra^ctv) the 
 position of the cloud-concealed island from which it was 
 brought.^ ^ 
 
 Very curious is the determination which some words, in- 
 deed many, seem to manifest, that their poetry shall not 
 die ; or, if it dies in one form, that it shall revive in another. 
 Thus if there is danger that, transferred from one language 
 to another, they shall no longer speak to the imagination of 
 men as they did of old, they will make to themselves a new 
 life, they will acquire a new soul in the room of that which 
 has ceased to quicken and inform them any more. Let me 
 make clear what I mean by two or three examples. The 
 Germans, knowing nothing of carbuncles, had naturally 
 
 43 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 no word of their own for them ; and when they first found 
 it necessary to name them, as naturally borrowed the 
 Latin ' carbunculus/ which originally had meant ' a little 
 live coal,' to designate these precious stones of a fiery red. 
 But ' carbunculus/ word full of poetry and life for Latin- 
 speaking men, would have been only an arbitrary sign for as 
 many as were ignorant of that language. What then did 
 these, or what, rather, did the working genius of the lan- 
 guage, do ? It adopted, but, in adopting, modified slightly yet 
 eflfectually the word, changing it into * Karfunkel,' thus 
 retaining the framework of the original, yet at the same 
 time, inasmuch as ' funkeln ' signifies * to sparkle,' repro- 
 ducing now in an entirely novel manner the image of the 
 bright sparkling of the stone, for every knower of the Ger- 
 man tongue. * Margarita,' or pearl, belongs to the earliest 
 group of Latin words adopted into English. The word, 
 however, told nothing about itself to those who adopted it. 
 But the pearl might be poetically contemplated as the sea- 
 stone; and so our fathers presently transformed ' mar- 
 garita ' into ' mere-grot,' which means nothing less. 
 
 Take another illustration of this from another quarter. 
 The French * rossignol,' a nightingale, is undoubtedly the 
 Latin ' lusciniola,' the diminutive of ' luscinia,' with the 
 alteration, due to dissimilation, a result frequently to be 
 observed in the Romance languages, of the commencing * 1 ' 
 into ' r.' Whatever may be the etymology of ' luscinia,' 
 it is plain that for Frenchmen in general the word would 
 no longer suggest any meaning at all, hardly even for 
 French scholars, after the serious transformations which 
 it had undergone ; while yet, at the same time, in the exqui- 
 sitely musical * rossignol,' and still more perhaps in the 
 Italian ' usignuolo,' there is an evident intention and en- 
 deavour to express something of the music of the bird's 
 song in the liquid melody of the imitative name which it 
 
 44 
 
ON THE POETRY IN WORDS 
 
 bears; and thus to put a new soul into the word^ in lieu of 
 that other which had escaped. Or again — whatever may be 
 the meaning of Senlac, the name given by Orderic to the 
 ever-memorable battle^ known to historians as the Battle 
 of Hastings, it certainly was not ' Sanglac/ or Lake of 
 Blood; the word only shaping itself into this significant 
 form subsequently to the battle^ and in consequence of it. 
 One or two examples more of the perishing of the old 
 life in a word, and the birth of a new in its stead, may be 
 added. The old name of Athens, 'A^^vat, was closely linked 
 with the fact that the goddess Pallas Athene was the 
 guardian deity of the city. The reason of the name, with 
 other facts of the old mythology, faded away from the 
 memory of the peasantry of modern Greece; but Athens 
 is a name which must still mean something for them. Ac- 
 cordingly it is not *AOrjvaL now, but 'AvOrjvaiy or the 
 Blooming, on the lips of the peasantry round about; so Mr. 
 Sayce assures us. The same process everywhere meets us. 
 Thus no one who has visited Lucerne can fail to remember 
 the rugged mountain called * Pilatus ' or ' Mont Pilate,* 
 which stands opposite to him; while if he has been among 
 the few who have cared to climb it, he will have been shown 
 by his guide the lake at its summit in which Pontius Pilate 
 in his despair drowned himself, with an assurance that from 
 this suicide of his the mountain obtained its name. Nothing 
 of the kind. * Mont Pilate ' stands for ' Mons Pileatus/ 
 ' the capped hill ' ; the clouds, as one so often sees, gathering 
 round its summit, and forming the shape or appearance of a 
 cap or hat. When this true derivation was forgotten or 
 misunderstood, the other explanation was invented and 
 imposed. An instructive example this, let me observe by 
 the way, of that which has happened continually in the case 
 of far older legends ; I mean that the name has suggested that 
 legend, and not the legend the name. We have an apt 
 
 4.5 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 illustration of this in the old notion that the crocodile 
 (/cpoKoSetAos) could not endure saffron. 
 
 I have said that poetry and imagination seek to penetrate 
 everywhere; and this is literally true; for even the hardest, 
 austerest studies cannot escape their influence; they will 
 put something of their own life into the dry bones of a 
 nomenclature which seems the remotest from them^ the 
 most opposed to them. Thus in Danish the male and female 
 lines of descent and inheritance are called respectively the 
 sword-side and the spindle-side. He who in prosody called 
 a metrical foot consisting of one long syllable followed 
 by two short ("*'*') a ' dactyle ' or a finger, with allusion 
 to the long first joint of the finger, and the two shorter 
 which follow, whoever he may have been, and some one was 
 the first to do it, must be allowed to have brought a certain 
 amount of imagination into a study so alien to it as prosody 
 very well might appear. 
 
 He did the same in another not very poetical region who 
 invented the Latin law-term, * stellionatus.' The word 
 includes all such legally punishable acts of swindling or 
 injurious fraud committed on the property of another as 
 are not specified in any more precise enactment; being 
 drawn and derived from a practice attributed, I suppose 
 without any foundation, to the lizard or * stellio ' we spoke 
 of just now. Having cast its winter skin, it is reported to 
 swallow it at once, and this out of a malignant grudge lest 
 any should profit by that which, if not now, was of old 
 accounted a specific in certain diseases. The term was then 
 transferred to any malicious wrong whatever done by one 
 person to another. 
 
 In other regions it was only to be expected that we should 
 find poetry. Thus it is nothing strange that architecture, 
 which has been called frozen music, and which is poetry 
 embodied in material forms, should have a language of its 
 
 46 
 
ON THE POETRY IN WORDS 
 
 own^ not dry nor hard,, not of the mere intellect alone, but 
 one in the forming of which it is evident that the imaginative 
 faculties were at work. To take only one example — this, 
 however, from Gothic art, which naturally yields the most 
 remarkable — what exquisite poetry in the name of * the rose- 
 window,' or better still, ' the rose,' given to the rich circular 
 aperture of stained glass, with its leaf-like compartments, 
 in the transepts of a Gothic cathedral ! Here indeed we 
 may note an exception from that which usually finds place; 
 for usually art borrows beauty from nature, and very 
 faintly, if at all, reflects back beauty upon her. In this 
 present instance, however, art is so beautiful, has reached 
 so glorious and perfect a development, that if the associ- 
 ations which the rose supplies lend to that window some 
 hues of beauty and a glory which otherwise it would not 
 have, the latter abundantly repays the obligation; and even 
 the rose itself may become lovelier still, associated with 
 those shapes of grace, those rich gorgeous tints, and all 
 the religious symbolism of that in art which has borrowed 
 and bears its name. After this it were little to note the 
 imagination, although that was most real, which dictated 
 the term ' flamboyant ' to express the wavy flame-like out- 
 line, which, at a particular period of art^ the tracery in the 
 Gothic window assumed. 
 
 * Gottesacker ' (or God's field) is the German name for 
 a burial-ground, and once was our own, though we unfor- 
 tunately have nearly, if not quite, let it go. What a hope 
 full of immortality. does this little word proclaim! how rich 
 is it in all the highest elements of poetry, and of poetry in 
 its noblest alliance, that is, in its alliance with faith — able 
 as it is to cause all loathsome images of death and decay 
 to disappear, not denying them, but suspending, losing, 
 absorbing them in the sublimer thought of the victory over 
 death, of that harvest of life which God shall one day so 
 
 47 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 gloriously reap even there where now seems the very 
 triumphing place of death. Many will not need to be 
 reminded how fine a poem in Longfellow's hands unfolds 
 itself out of this word. 
 
 Lastly let me note the pathos of poetry which lies often 
 in the mere tracing of the succession of changes in meaning 
 which certain words have undergone. Thus ' elend ' in Ger- 
 man, a beautiful word, now signifies wretchedness, but at 
 first it signified exile or banishment. The sense of this 
 separation from the native land and from all home delights, 
 as being the woe of all woes, the crown of all sorrows, 
 little by little so penetrated the word, that what at first 
 expressed only one form of misery, has ended by signify- 
 ing all. It is not a little notable, as showing the same feel- 
 ing elsewhere at work, that ' essil ' (= exilium) in old 
 French signified, not only banishment, but ruin, destruction, 
 misery. In the same manner vooTt/tos; meaning at first 
 no more than having to do with a return, comes in the end 
 to signify almost anything which is favourable and 
 auspicious. 
 
 Let us then acknowledge man a born poet; if not every 
 man himself a * maker,' yet every one able to rej oice in 
 what others have made, adopting it freely, moving gladly 
 in it as his own most congenial element and sphere. For 
 indeed, as man does not live by bread alone, as little is he 
 content to find in language merely the instrument which 
 shall enable him to buy and sell and get gain, or otherwise 
 make provision for the lower necessities of his animal life. 
 He demands to find in it as well what shall stand in a real 
 relation and correspondence to the higher faculties of his 
 being, shall feed, nourish, and sustain these, shall stir him 
 with images of beauty and suggestions of greatness. Neither 
 here nor anywhere else could he become the mere utilitarian, 
 even if he would. Despite his utmost efforts, were he so 
 
 48 
 
ON THE POETRY IN WORDS 
 
 far at enmity with his own good as to put them forth, he 
 could not succeed in exhausting his language of the poet- 
 ical element with which it is penetrated through and 
 through; he could not succeed in stripping it of blossom, 
 flower, and fruit, and leaving it nothing but a bare and 
 naked stem. He may fancy for a moment that he has suc- 
 ceeded in doing this ; but it will only need for him to become 
 a little better philologer, to go a little deeper into the story 
 of the words which he is using, and he will discover that he 
 is as remote as ever from such an unhappy consummation, 
 from so disastrous a success. 
 
 For ourselves, let us desire and attempt nothing of the 
 kind. Our life is not in other ways so full of imagination 
 and poetry that we need give any diligence to empty it 
 of that which it may possess of these. It will always have 
 for us all enough of dull and prosaic and commonplace. 
 What profit can there be in seeking to extend the region of 
 these .^ Profit there will be none, but on the contrary infi- 
 nite loss. It is stagnant waters which corrupt themselves; 
 not those in agitation and on which the winds are freely 
 blowing. Words of passion and imagination are, as one so 
 grandly called them of old, 'winds of the soul' («/^v;(^s 
 avefjioi), to keep it in healthful motion and agitation, to lift 
 it upward and to drive it onward, to preserve it from that 
 unwholesome stagnation which constitutes the fatal pre- 
 paredness for so many other and worse evils. 
 
 49 
 
LECTURE 3 
 
 On the Morality in Words 
 
 Is man of a divine birth and of the stock of heaven? 
 coming from God, and;, when he fulfils the law of his being, 
 and the intention of his creation, returning to him again? 
 We need no more than the words he speaks to prove it; so 
 much is there in them which could never have existed on any 
 other supposition. How else could all those words which 
 testify of his relation to God, and of his consciousness of 
 this relation, and which ground themselves thereon, have 
 found their way into his language, being as that is the veri- 
 table transcript of his innermost life, the genuine utter- 
 ance of the faith and hope that are in him ? In what other 
 way can we explain that vast and preponderating weight 
 thrown into the scale of goodness and truth, which, despite 
 of all in the other scale, we must thankfully acknowledge 
 that his language never is without? How else shall we 
 account for that sympathy with the right, that testimony 
 against the wrong, which, despite of all aberrations and 
 perversions, is yet the prevailing ground-tone of all? 
 
 But has man fallen, and deeply fallen, from the heights 
 of his original creation? We need no more than his lan- 
 guage to prove it. Like everything else about him, it bears 
 at once the stamp of his greatness and of his degradation, 
 of his glory and of his shame. What dark and sombre 
 threads he must have woven into the tissue of his life, 
 before we could trace those threads of darkness which run 
 through the tissue of his language ! What facts of wicked- 
 ness and woe must have existed in the one, ere such words 
 could exist to designate these as are found in the other! 
 
 50 
 
ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS 
 
 There have never wanted those who would make light of 
 the moral hurts which man has inflicted on himself^ of the 
 sickness with which he is sick; who would persuade them- 
 selves and others that moralists and divines, if they have 
 not quite invented, have yet enormously exaggerated, these. 
 But are statements of the depth of his fall, the malignity 
 of the disease with which he is sick, found only in Scripture 
 and in sermons ? Are those who bring forward these state- 
 ments libellers of human nature? Or are not mournful 
 corroborations of the truth of these assertions imprinted 
 deeply upon every province of man's natural and spiritual 
 life, and on none more deeply than on his language? It 
 needs but to open a dictionary, and to cast our eye thought- 
 fully down a few columns, and we shall find abundant 
 confirmation of this sadder and sterner estimate of man's 
 moral and spiritual condition. How else shall we explain 
 this long catalogue of words, having all to do with sin or 
 with sorrow, or with both? How came they there? We 
 may be quite sure that they were not invented without being 
 needed, and they have each a correlative in the world of 
 realities. I open the first letter of the alphabet; what means 
 this ' Ah,' this 'Alas,' these deep and long-drawn sighs 
 of humanity, which at once encounter me there ? And then 
 presently there meet me such words as these, * Affliction,' 
 ' Agony,' ' Anguish,' ' Assassin,' ' Atheist,' * Avarice,' and 
 a hundred more — words, you will observe, not laid up in 
 the recesses of the language, to be drawn forth on rare 
 occasions, but many of them such as must be continually 
 on the lips of men. And indeed, in the matter of abundance, 
 it is sad to note how much richer our vocabularies are in 
 words that set forth sins, than in those that set forth graces. 
 When St. Paul (Gal. 5:19-23) would range these over 
 against those, * the works of the flesh ' against * the fruit 
 of the Spirit,' those are seventeen, these only nine; and 
 
 51 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 where do we find in Scripture such lists of graces, as we do 
 at 2 Tim. 3: 2, Rom. 1 : 29-31, of their contraries? ^'^ 
 
 Nor can I help noting, in the oversight and muster from 
 this point of view of the words which constitute a language, 
 the manner in which its utmost resources have been taxed 
 to express the infinite varieties, now of human suffering, 
 now of human sin. Thus, what a fearful thing is it that 
 any language should possess a word to express the pleasure 
 which men feel at the calamities of others; for the exist- 
 ence of the word bears testimony to the existence of the 
 thing. And yet such in more languages than one may be 
 found.^* Nor are there wanting, I suppose, in any lan- 
 guage, words which are the mournful record of the strange 
 wickednesses which the genius of man, so fertile in evil, has 
 invented. What whole processes of cruelty are sometimes 
 wrapped up in a single word ! Thus I have not travelled 
 down the first column of an Italian dictionary before I 
 light upon the verb * abbacinare,' meaning to deprive of 
 sight by holding a red-hot metal basin close to the eye- 
 balls. Travelling a little further in a Greek lexicon, I 
 should reach dKpwTT/pta^ctv, to mutilate by cutting off all the 
 extremities, as hands, feet, nose, ears; or take our English 
 * to ganch.' And our dictionaries, while they tell us much, 
 cannot tell us all. How shamefully rich is everywhere the 
 language of the vulgar in words and phrases which, seldom 
 allowed to find their way into books, yet live as a sinful 
 oral tradition on the lips of men, for the setting forth of 
 things unholy and impure. And of these words, as no less 
 of those dealing with the kindred sins of revelling and 
 excess, how many set the evil forth with an evident sympa- 
 thy and approbation, and as themselves taking part with 
 the sin against Him who has forbidden it under pain of his 
 highest displeasure. How much ability, how much wit, yes, 
 and how much imagination must have stood in the service 
 
ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS 
 
 of sin, before it could possess a nomenclature so rich, so 
 varied, and often so Heaven-defying, as that which it actu- 
 ally owns. 
 
 Then further I would bid you to note the many words 
 which men have dragged downward with themselves, and 
 made more or less partakers of their own fall. Having 
 once an honourable meaning, they have yet with the dete- 
 rioration and degeneration of those that used them, or of 
 those about whom they were used, deteriorated and degener- 
 ated too. How many, harmless once, have assumed a harm- 
 ful as their secondary meaning; how many worthy have 
 acquired an unworthy. Thus * knave ' meant once no more 
 than lad (nor does ' Knabe ' now in German mean more) ; 
 
 * villain ' than peasant ; a ' boor ' was a farmer, a * varlet ' 
 a serving-man, which meaning still survives in * valet,' the 
 other form of this word,^^ a * menial ' was one of the house- 
 hold ; a * paramour ' was a lover, an honourable one it might 
 be ; a ' leman ' in like manner was simply a lover, and might 
 be used of either sex in a good sense ; a * beldam ' was a 
 fair lady, and is used in this sense by Spenser ; ^^ a * minion ' 
 was a favourite (man in Sylvester is * God's dearest 
 minion*) ; a * pedant ' in the Italian from which we bor- 
 rowed the word, and for a while too with ourselves, was 
 simply a teacher of young children, a tutor ; a * proser ' 
 was one who wrote in prose ; an ' adventurer ' one who set 
 before himself perilous, but very often noble ventures, what 
 the Germans call a ' Gliicksritter ' ; a ' swindler,' in the 
 German, from which we got it, one who entered into danger- 
 ous mercantile speculations, without implying that this was 
 done with any intention to defraud others. Christ, accord- 
 ing to Bishop Hall, was the * ringleader ' of our salvation. 
 
 * Time-server ' two hundred years ago quite as often desig- 
 nated one in an honourable as in a dishonourable sense 
 
 * serving the time.' ^^ ' Conceits * had once nothing con- 
 
 53 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 ceited in them. An ' officious ' man was one prompt in offices 
 of kindness, and not, as now, an uninvited meddler in things 
 that concern him not; something indeed of the older mean- 
 ing still survives in the diplomatic use of the word. 
 
 ' Demure ' conveyed no hint, as it does now, of an over- 
 doing of the outward demonstrations of modesty ; a * leer ' 
 meant once a countenance simply, with nothing amiss in 
 it {Piers Plowman, Glossary, s. v. lere). ' Daft ' was mild, 
 meek ; * orgies ' were religious ceremonies ; the Blessed Vir- 
 gin speaks of herself in an early poem as ' God's wench.' 
 In ' crafty ' and ' cunning ' no crooked wisdom was implied, 
 but only knowledge and skill ; ' craft,' indeed, still retains 
 very often its more honourable use, a man's ' craft ' being 
 his skill, and then the trade in which he is skilled. ' Artful ' 
 was skilful, and not tricky as now.^^ Could the Magdalen 
 have ever bequeathed us * maudlin ' in its present con- 
 temptuous application, if the tears of penitential sorrow 
 had been held in due honour by the world? ' Tinsel,' the 
 French ' etincelle,' meant once anything that sparkled or 
 glistened ; thus, ' cloth of tinsel * would be cloth inwrought 
 with silver and gold ; but the sad experience that ' all is 
 not gold that glitters,' that much showing fair to the eye 
 is worthless in reality, has caused that by ' tinsel,' literal 
 or figurative, we ever mean now that which has no realities 
 of sterling worth underljang the specious shows which it 
 makes. ' Specious ' itself, let me note, meant beautiful at 
 one time, and not, as now, presenting a deceitful appearance 
 of beauty. * Tawdry,' an epithet applied once to lace or 
 other finery bought at the fair of St. Awdrey or St. Ethel- 
 dreda, has run through the same course : it at one time con- 
 veyed no suggestion of mean finery or shabby splendour, 
 as now it does. * Voluble ' was an epithet which had nothing 
 of slight in it, but meant what ' fluent ' means now ; ' dapper ' 
 was what in German * tapfer ' is; not so much neat and 
 
 54 
 
ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS 
 
 spruce as brave and bold ; ' plausible ' was worthy of ap- 
 plause ; ^^ ' pert ' is now brisk and lively, but with a very 
 distinct subaudition, which once it had not, of sauciness 
 as well ; * lewd ' meant no more than unlearned, as the lay 
 or common people might be supposed to be. ' To carp * 
 is in Chaucer's language no more than to converse ; * to 
 mouth ' in Piers Plowman is simply to speak ; * to garble ' 
 was once to sift and pick out the best ; it is now to select and 
 put forward as a fair specimen the worst. 
 
 This same deterioration through use may be traced in 
 the verb ' to resent.' Barrow could speak of the good man 
 as a faithful * resenter ' and requiter of benefits, of the 
 duty of testifying an affectionate * resentment ' of our obli- 
 gations to God. But the memory of benefits fades from 
 us so much more quickly than that of injuries; we remember 
 and revolve in our minds so much more predominantly the 
 wrongs, real or imaginary, men have done us, than the 
 favours we owe them, that * resentment ' has come in our 
 modern English to be confined exclusively to that deep 
 reflective displeasure which men entertain against those that 
 have done, or whom they fancy to have done, them a wrong. 
 And this explains how it comes to pass that we do not speak 
 of the ' retaliation ' of injuries. ' To retaliate ' signifies 
 no more than to render again as much as we have received; 
 but this is so much seldomer practised in the matter of 
 benefits than of wrongs, that ' retaliation,' though not wholly 
 strange in this worthier sense, has yet, when so employed, 
 an unusual sound in our ears. ' To retaliate ' kindnesses 
 is a language which would not now be intelligible to all. 
 ' Animosity,' as originally employed in that later Latin 
 which gave it birth, was spiritedness ; men would speak of 
 the * animosity ' or fiery courage of a horse. In our early 
 English it meant nothing more ; a divine of the seventeenth 
 century speaks of ' due Christian animosity.' Activity and 
 
 o5 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 vigour are still implied in the word; but now only as dis- 
 played in enmity and hate. There is a Spanish proverb 
 which says, ' One foe is too many; a hundred friends are 
 too few.' The proverb and the course which this word 
 ' animosity ' has travelled may be made mutually to illus- 
 trate one another. 
 
 How mournful a witness for the hard and unrighteous 
 judgments we habitually form of one another lies in the 
 word ' prejudice.' It is itself absolutely neutral, meaning 
 no more than a judgment formed beforehand; which judg- 
 ment may be favourable, or may be otherwise. Yet so pre- 
 dominantly do we form harsh unfavourable judgments of 
 others before knowledge and experience, that a ' prejudice,' 
 or judgment before knowledge and not grounded on evi- 
 dence, is almost always taken in an ill sense; ' prejudicial ' 
 having actually acquired mischievous or injurious for its 
 secondary meaning. 
 
 As these words bear testimony to the siii of man, so 
 others to his infirinity, to the limitation of human faculties 
 and human knowledge, to the truth of the proverb, that 
 ' to err is human.' Thus * to retract ' means properly no 
 more than to handle again, to reconsider. And yet, so 
 certain are we to find in a subject which we reconsider, or 
 handle a second time, that which was at first rashly, imper- 
 fectly, inaccurately, stated, which needs therefore to be 
 amended, modified, or withdrawn, that *to retract' could not 
 tarry long in its primary meaning of reconsidering; but has 
 come to signify to withdraw. Thus the greatest Father of the 
 Latin Church, wishing toward the close of his life to amend 
 whatever he might then perceive in his various published 
 works incautiously or incorrectly stated, gave to the book 
 in which he carried out this intention (for authors had then 
 no such opportunities as later editions afford us now), this 
 very name of ' Retractations,' being literally ' rehandlings,' 
 
 56 
 
ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS 
 
 but in f act^ as will be plain to any one turning to the work^ 
 withdrawings of various statements by which he was no 
 longer prepared to abide. 
 
 But urging, as I just now did^ the degeneration of words, 
 I should seriously err, if I failed to remind you that a paral- 
 lel process of purifying and ennobling has also been going 
 forward, most of all through the influences of a Divine faith 
 working in the world. This, as it has turned men from 
 evil to good, or has lifted them from a lower earthly good- 
 ness to a higher heavenly, so has it in like manner elevated, 
 purified, and ennobled a multitude of the words which they 
 employ, until these, which once expressed only an earthly 
 good, express now a heavenly. The Gospel of Christ, as 
 it is the redemption of man, so is it in a multitude of in- 
 stances the redemption of his word, freeing it from the 
 bondage of corruption, that it should no longer be subject 
 to vanit3^, nor stand any more in the service of sin or of the 
 world, but in the service of God and of his truth. Thus 
 the Greek had a word for ' humility ' ; but for him this 
 humility meant — that is, with rare exceptions — meanness of 
 spirit. He who brought in the Christian grace of humility, 
 did in so doing rescue the term which expressed it for nobler 
 uses and a far higher dignity than hitherto it had attained. 
 There were ' angels ' before heaven had been opened, but 
 these only earthly messengers ; ' martyrs ' also, or witnesses, 
 but these not unto blood, nor yet for God's highest truth; 
 * apostles,' but sent of men ; ' evangels,' but these good 
 tidings of this world, and not of the kingdom of heaven; 
 ' advocates,' but not ' with the Father.' Paradise was a 
 word well known to the ancient Persians; but it was for 
 them only some royal park or garden of delights; till for 
 the Jew it was exalted to signify the mysterious abode of 
 our first parents ; while higher honours awaited it still, when 
 on the lips of the Lord, it signified the blissful waiting- 
 
 57 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 place of faithful departed souls (Luke 23:43); yea, the 
 heavenly blessedness itself (Rev. 2:7). A 'regeneration/ 
 or palingenesy, was not unknown to the Greeks ; they would 
 speak of the earth's ' regeneration ' in spring-time, of 
 recollection as the ' regeneration ' of knowledge ; the Jewish 
 historian could describe the return of his countrymen from 
 the Babylonian Captivity, and their re-establishment in their 
 own land, as the ' regeneration ' of the Jewish State. But 
 still the word, whether as employed by Jew or Greek, 
 was a long way off from that honour reserved for it in the 
 Christian dispensation — namely, that it should be the vehi- 
 cle of one of the most blessed mysteries of the faith. **^ And 
 many other words in like manner there are, ' fetched from 
 the very dregs of paganism,' as Sanderson has it (he 
 instances the Latin * sacrament,' the Greek * mystery '), 
 which the Holy Spirit has deigned to employ for the setting 
 forth of the glorious facts of our redemption; and, revers- 
 ing the impious deed of Belshazzar, who profaned the 
 sacred vessels of God's house to sinful and idolatrous uses 
 (Dan. 5: 2), has consecrated the very idol-vessels by Baby- 
 lon to the service of the sanctuary. 
 
 Let us now proceed to contemplate some of the attesta- 
 tions to God's truth, and then some of the playings into the 
 hands of the devil's falsehood, which lurk in words. And 
 first, the attestations to God's truth, the fallings in of our 
 words with his unchangeable Word; for these, as the true 
 uses of the word, while the other are only its abuses, have a 
 prior claim to be considered. 
 
 Thus, some modern ' false prophets,' willing to explain 
 away all such phenomena of the world around us as declare 
 man to be a sinner, and lying under the consequences of sin, 
 would fain have us to believe that pain is only a subordinate 
 kind of pleasure, or, at worst, a sort of needful hedge and 
 guardian of pleasure. But a deeper feeling in the universal 
 
 58 
 
ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS 
 
 heart of man bears witness to quite another explanation of 
 the existence of pain in the present economy of the world — 
 namely, that it is the correlative of sin, that it is punish- 
 ment; and to this the word * pain/ so closely connected with 
 * poena/ bears witness. Pain is punishment ; for so the word, 
 and so the conscience of every one that is suffering it, 
 declares. Some will not hear of great pestilences being 
 scourges of the sins of men; and if only they can find out 
 the immediate, imagine that they have found out the ulti- 
 mate, causes of these ; while yet they have only to speak of a 
 ' plague ' and they implicitly avouch the very truth which 
 they have set themselves to deny ; for a * plague,' what is 
 it but a stroke; so called, because that universal conscience 
 of men which is never at fault, has felt and in this way con- 
 fessed it to be such? For here, as in so many other cases, 
 that proverb stands fast, ' Vox populi, vox Dei ' ; and may 
 be admitted to the full; that is, if only we keep in mind 
 that this ' people ' is not the populace either in high place 
 or in low ; and this ' voice of the people ' no momentary 
 outcry, but the consenting testimony of the good and wise, 
 of those neither brutalized by ignorance, nor corrupted by 
 a false cultivation, in many places and in various times. 
 
 To one who admits the truth of this proverb it will be 
 nothing strange that men should have agreed to call him a 
 ' miser ' or miserable, who eagerly scrapes together and 
 painfully hoards the mammon of this world. Here too 
 the moral instinct lying deep in all hearts has borne testi- 
 mony to the tormenting nature of this vice, to the gnawing 
 pains with which even in this present time it punishes its 
 votaries, to the enmity which there is between it and all joy; 
 and the man who enslaves himself to his money is proclaimed 
 in our very language to be a ' miser,' or miserable man.^^ 
 
 Other words bear testimony to great moral truths. St. 
 James has, I doubt not, been often charged with exaggera- 
 
 59 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 tion for saying, ' Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and 
 yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all' (2: 10). The 
 charge is an unj ust one. The Romans with their ' integ- 
 ritas ' said as much ; we too say the same who have adopted 
 ' integrity ' as a part of our ethical language. For what is 
 * integrity ' but entireness ; the ' integrity ' of the body be- 
 ing, as Cicero explains it, the full possession and the perfect 
 soimdness of all its members ; and moral ' integrity,' though 
 it cannot be predicated so absolutely of any sinful child of 
 Adam, is this same entireness or completeness transferred 
 to things higher. * Integrity ' was exactly that which Herod 
 had not attained, when at the Baptist's bidding he ' did 
 many things gladly (Mark 6:20), but did not put away 
 his brother's wife; whose partial obedience therefore prof- 
 ited nothing; he had dropped one link in the golden chain 
 of obedience, and as a consequence the whole chain fell to 
 the ground. 
 
 It is very noticeable, and many have noticed that the 
 Greek word signifying wickedness (Trovyjpia) comes of 
 another signifying labour (ttoj/os). How well does this 
 agree with those passages in Scripture which describe sin- 
 ners as ' wearying themselves to commit iniquity,' as ' labour- 
 ing in the very fire ' ; * the martyrs of the devil,' as South 
 calls them, being at more pains to go to hell than the martyrs 
 of God to go to heaven. ' St. Chrysostom's eloquence,' 
 as Bishop Sanderson has observed, * enlarges itself and 
 triumphs in this argument more frequently than in almost 
 any other; and he clears it often and beyond all exception, 
 both by Scripture and reason, that the life of a wicked or 
 worldly man is a very drudgery, infinitely more toilsome, 
 vexatious, and unpleasant than a godly life is.' ^- 
 
 How deep an insight into the failings of the human 
 heart lies at the root of many words ; and if only we would 
 attend to them, what valuable warnings many contain 
 
 60 
 
ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS 
 
 against subtle temptations and sins ! Thus, all of us have 
 felt the temptation of seeking to please others by an 
 unmanly assenting to their opinion, even when our own 
 independent convictions did not agree with theirs. The 
 existence of such a temptation, and the fact that too many 
 yield to it, are both declared in the Latin for a flatterer — 
 * assentator ' — that is, * an assenter ' ; one who has not cour- 
 age to say No, when a Yes is expected from him; and quite 
 independently of the Latin, the German, in its contemptuous 
 and precisely equivalent use of ' Jaherr,' a ' yea-Lord,' 
 warns us in like manner against all such unmanly compli- 
 ances. Let me note that we also once possessed ' assenta- 
 tion ' in the sense of unworthy flattering lip-assent ; the 
 last example of it in our dictionaries is from Bishop Hall: 
 ' It is a fearful presage of ruin when the prophets conspire 
 in assentation '; but it lived on to a far later day, being 
 found and exactly in the same sense in Lord Chesterfield's 
 Letters to his son; he there speaks of ' abject flattery and 
 indiscriminate assentation.' *^ The word is well worthy to 
 be revived. 
 
 Again, how well it is to have that spirit of depreciation, 
 that eagerness to find spots and stains in the characters 
 of the noblest and the best, who would otherwise oppress 
 and rebuke us with a goodness and a greatness so immensely 
 superior to our own, — met and checked by a word at once 
 so expressive, and so little pleasant to take home to our- 
 selves, as the French ' denigreur,' a ' blackener.' This also 
 has fallen out of use; which is a pity, seeing that the race 
 which it designates is so far from being extinct. Full too 
 of instruction and warning is our present employment of 
 '' libertine.' A ' libertine,' in earlier use, was a speculative 
 free-thinker in matters of religion and in the theory of 
 morals. But as by a process which is seldom missed free- 
 thinking does and will end in fvee-acting, he who has cast 
 
 61 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 off one yoke also casting off the other, so a ' libertine ' came 
 in two or three generations to signify a profligate, espe- 
 cially in relation to women, a licentious and debauched 
 person. 
 
 Look a little closely at the word * passion.' We sometimes 
 regard a ' passionate ' man as a man of strong will, and 
 of real, though ungoverned, energy. But ' passion ' teaches 
 us quite another lesson; for it, as a very solemn use of it 
 declares, means properly ' suffering ' ; and a ' passionate ' 
 man is not one who is doing something, but one suffering 
 something to be done to him. When then a man or child 
 is ' in a passion,' this is no outcoming in him of a strong 
 will, of a real energy, but the proof rather that, for the 
 time at least, he is altogether wanting in these; he is suffer- 
 ing, not doing; suffering his anger, or whatever evil temper 
 it may be, to lord over him without control. Let no one then 
 think of ' passion ' as a sign of strength. One might with 
 as much justice conclude a man strong because he was often 
 well beaten ; this would prove that a strong man was putting 
 forth his strength on him, but certainly not that he was 
 himself strong. The same sense of * passion ' and feeble- 
 ness going together, of the first as the outcome of the sec- 
 ond, lies, I may remark by the way, in the twofold use of 
 ' impotens ' in the Latin, which meaning first weak, means 
 then violent, and then weak and violent together. For a 
 long time * impotent ' and ' impotence ' in English embodied 
 the same twofold meaning. 
 
 Or meditate on the use of ' humanitas,' and the use (in 
 Scotland at least) of the ' humanities,' to designate those 
 studies which are esteemed the fittest for training the true 
 humanity in every man. We have happily overlived in Eng- 
 land the time when it was still in debate among us whether 
 education is a good thing for every living soul or not; the 
 only question which now seriously divides Englishmen being, 
 
 62 
 
ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS 
 
 in what manner that mental and moral training, which is 
 society's debt to each one of its members, may be most 
 effectually imparted to him. Were it not so, were there 
 any still found to affirm that it was good for any man to 
 be left with powers not called out and faculties untrained, 
 we might appeal to this word * humanitas,' and the use to 
 which the Roman put it, in proof that he at least was not of 
 this mind. By ' humanitas ' he intended the fullest and 
 most harmonious developmment of all the truly human fac- 
 ulties and powers. Then, and then only, man was truly 
 man, when he received this; in so far as he did not receive 
 this, his 'humanity' was maimed and imperfect; he fell 
 short of his ideal, of that which he was created to be. 
 
 In our use of * talents,' as when we say ' a man of 
 talents,' there is a clear recognition of the responsibilities 
 which go along with the possession of intellectual gifts and 
 endowments, whatever these may be. We owe our later use 
 of 'talent' to the parable (Matt. 25:14), in which more 
 or fewer of these are committed to the several servants, 
 that they may trade with them in their master's absence, 
 and give account of their employment at his return. Men 
 may choose to forget the ends for which their ' talents ' 
 were given them; they may count them merely something 
 which they have gotten; ** they may turn them to selfish 
 ends ; they may glorify themselves in them, instead of glori- 
 fying the Giver; they may practically deny that they were 
 given at all ; yet in this word, till they can rid their vocabu- 
 lary of it, abides a continual memento that they were so 
 given, or rather lent, and that each man shall have to render 
 an account of their use. 
 
 Again, in ' oblige ' and ' obligation,' as when we speak of 
 ' being obliged,' or of having ' received an obligation,' a 
 moral truth is asserted — this namely, that having received a 
 benefit or a favour at the hands of another, we are thereby 
 
 63 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 morally bound to show ourselves grateful for the same. We 
 cannot be ungrateful without denying not merely a moral 
 truth, but one incorporated in the very language which we 
 employ. Thus South, in a sermon, Of the odious Sin of 
 Ingratitude, has well asked, * If the conferring of a kind- 
 ness did not bijid the person upon whom it was conferred 
 to the returns of gratitude, why, in the universal dialect of 
 the world, are kindnesses called obligations? * ^^ 
 
 Once more — the habit of calling a woman's chastity her 
 
 * virtue ' is significant. I will not deny that it may spring 
 in part from a tendency which often meets us in language, 
 to narrow the whole circle of virtues to some one upon which 
 peculiar stress is laid ; *® but still, in selecting this peculiar 
 one as the ' virtue ' of woman, there speaks out a true sense 
 that this is indeed for her the citadel of the whole moral 
 being, the overthrow of which is the overthrow of all; that 
 it is the keystone of the arch, which being withdrawn, the 
 whole collapses and falls. 
 
 Or consider all which is witnessed for us in ' kind.' We 
 speak of a ' kind ' person, and we speak of man-* kind,' and 
 perhaps, if we think about the matter at all, fancy that we 
 are using quite different words, or the same words in senses 
 quite unconnected. But they are connected, and by closest 
 bonds ; a ' kind ' person is one who acknowledges his kin- 
 ship with other men, and acts upon it ; confesses that he owes 
 to them, as of one blood with himself, the debt of love.*^ 
 Beautiful before, how much more beautiful do ' kind ' and 
 
 * kindness ' appear, when we apprehend the root out of 
 which they grow, and the truth which they embody; that 
 they are the acknowledgment in loving deeds of our kin- 
 ship with our brethren; of the relationship which exists 
 between all the members of the human family, and of the 
 obligations growing out of the same. 
 
 But I observed just now that there are also words bear- 
 
 64 
 
ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS 
 
 ing on them the slime of the serpent's trail; uses, too, of 
 words which imply moral perversity — not upon their parts 
 who employ them now in their acquired senses, but on theirs 
 from whom little by little they received their deflection, and 
 were warped from their original rectitude. A ' prude ' is 
 now a woman with an over-done affectation of a modesty 
 which she does not really feel, and betraying the absence 
 of the substance by this over-preciseness and niceness about 
 the shadow. Goodness must have gone strangely out of 
 fashion, the corruption of manners must have been pro- 
 found, before matters could have come to this point. 
 
 * Prude,' a French word, means properly virtuous or pru- 
 dent. But where morals are greatly and generally relaxed, 
 virtue is treated as hypocrisy; and thus, in a dissolute 
 age, ,and one incredulous of any inward purity, by the 
 
 * prude ' or virtuous woman is intended a sort of female 
 Tartuffe, affecting a virtue which it is taken for granted 
 none can really possess; and the word abides, a proof of 
 the world's disbelief in the realities of goodness, of its 
 resolution to treat them as hypocrisies and deceits. 
 
 Again, why should * simple ' be used slightingly, and 
 
 * simpleton ' more slightingly still ? The ' simple ' is one 
 properly of a single fold ; a Nathanael, whom as such Christ 
 honoured to the highest (John 1 : 47) ; and, indeed, what 
 honour can be higher than to have nothing double about us, 
 to be without duplicities or folds .^ Even the world, which 
 despises * simplicity,' does not profess to admire ' duplicity,' 
 or double-foldedness. But inasmuch as it is felt that a 
 man without these folds will in a world like ours make him- 
 self a prey, and as most men, if obliged to choose between 
 deceiving and being deceived, would choose the former, 
 it has come to pass that ' simple,' which in a kingdom of 
 righteousness would be a word of highest honour, carries 
 with it in this world of ours something of contempt.*® Nor 
 
 65 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 can we help noting anotlier involuntary testimony borne 
 by human language to human sin. I mean this, — that an 
 idiot, or one otherwise deficient in intellect, is called an 
 ' innocent,' or one who does no hurt; this use of ' innocent ' 
 assuming that to do hurt and harm is the chief employment 
 to which men turn their intellectual powers, that, where they 
 are wise, they are oftenest wise to do evil. 
 
 Nor are these isolated examples of the contemptuous use 
 which words expressive of goodness gradually acquire. 
 Such meet us on every side. Our ' silly ' is the Old-English 
 ' saelig,' or blessed. We see it in a transition state in our 
 early poets, with whom * silly ' is an affectionate epithet 
 which sheep obtain for their harmlessness. One among 
 our earliest calls the new-born Lord of Glory Himself, ' this 
 harmless silly babe.' But * silly ' has travelled on the« same 
 lines as * simple,' ' innocent,' and so many other words. 
 The same moral phenomenon repeats itself continually. 
 Thus 'sheepish' in the Ormulum is an epithet of honour: 
 it is used of one who has the mind of Him who was led as 
 a sheep to the slaughter. At the first promulgation of the 
 Christian faith, while the name of its Divine Founder was 
 still strange to the ears of the heathen, they were wont, 
 some in ignorance, but more of malice, slightly to mispro- 
 nounce this name, turning ' Christus ' into ' Chrestus ' — ^that 
 is, the benevolent or benign. That these last meant no hon- 
 our thereb}^ to the Lord of Life, but the contrary, is certain ; 
 this word, like ' silly,' ' innocent,' * simple,' having already 
 contracted a slight tinge of contempt, without which there 
 would have been no inducement to fasten it on the Saviour. 
 The French have their ' bonhomie ' with the same undertone 
 of contempt, the Greeks their ev-^Oita. Lady Shiel tells 
 us of the modern Persians, * They have odd names for 
 describing the moral qualities ; " Sedakat " means sincerity, 
 honesty, candour; but when a man is said to be possessed 
 
 66 
 
ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS 
 
 of " sedakat/' the meaning is that he is a credulous, con- 
 temptible simpleton.' *^ It is to the honour of the Latin 
 tongue, and very characteristic of the best aspects of Roman 
 life, that ' simplex ' and * simplicitas ' never acquired this 
 abusive signification. 
 
 Again, how prone are we all to ascribe to chance or 
 fortune those gifts and blessings which indeed come directly 
 from God — to build altars to Fortune rather than to Him 
 who is the author of every good thing which we have gotten. 
 And this faith of men, that their blessings, even their high- 
 est, come to them by a blind chance, they have incorporated 
 In a word ; for ' happy ' and ' happiness ' are connected with 
 ' hap,' which is chance ; — how unworthy, then, to express 
 any true felicity, whose very essence is that it excludes 
 hap or chance, that the world neither gave nor can take 
 it away."^*^ Against a similar misuse of ' fortunate,' ' un- 
 fortunate,' Wordsworth very nobly protests, when, of one 
 who, having lost everything else, had yet kept the truth, 
 he exclaims: 
 
 ' Call not the royal Swede unfortunate, 
 Who never did to Fortune bend the knee.' 
 
 There are words which reveal a wrong or insufficient esti- 
 mate that men take of their duties, or that at all events 
 others have taken before them; for it is possible that the 
 mischief may have been done long ago, and those who now 
 use the words may only have inherited it from others, not 
 helped to bring it about themselves. An employer of labour 
 advertises that he wants so many ' hands ' ; but this lan- 
 guage never could have become current, a man could never 
 have thus shrunk into a * hand ' in the eyes of his fellow- 
 man, unless this latter had in good part forgotten that, 
 annexed to those hands which he would purchase to toil 
 for him, were also heads and hearts ^^ — a fact, by the way. 
 
 67 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 of which, if he persists in forgetting it, he may be re- 
 minded in very unwelcome ways at the last. In Scripture 
 there is another not unfrequent putting of a part for the 
 whole, as when it is said, ' The same day there were added 
 unto them about three thousand souls* (Acts 2:41). 
 ' Hands ' here, ' souls ' there — the contrast may suggest 
 some profitable reflections. 
 
 There is another way in which the immorality of words 
 mainly displays itself, and in which they work their worst 
 mischief; that is, when honourable names are given to dis- 
 honourable things, when sin is made plausible; arrayed, 
 it may be, in the very colours of goodness, or, if not so, 
 yet in such as go far to conceal its own native deformity. 
 ' The tongue,' as St. James has said, ' is a world of iniquity ' 
 (3:7); or, as some would render his words, and they are 
 then still more to our purpose, 'the ornament of iniquity,' 
 that which sets it out in fair and attractive colours. 
 
 How much wholesomer on all accounts is it that there 
 should be an ugly word for an ugly thing, one involving 
 moral condemnation and disgust, even at the expense of a 
 little coarseness, rather than one which plays fast and loose 
 with the eternal principles of morality, makes sin plausi- 
 ble, and shifts the divinely reared landmarks of right and 
 wrong, thus bringing the user of it under the woe of them 
 ' that call evil good, and good evil, that put darkness for 
 light, and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet, and 
 sweet for bitter' (Isai. 5:20). On this text, and with 
 reference to this scheme. South has written four of his 
 grandest sermons, bearing this striking title. Of the fatal 
 Imposture and Force of Words.^- How awful, yea, how 
 fearful, is this ' imposture and force ' of theirs, leading 
 men captive at will. There is an atmosphere about them 
 which they are evermore diffusing, a savour of life or of 
 death, which we insensibly inhale at each moral breath 
 
 68 
 
ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS 
 
 we draw.^^ ' Winds of the soul/ as we have already heard 
 them called, they fill its sails, and are continually impelling 
 it upon its course, to heaven or to hell. 
 
 Thus how diiFerent the light in which we shall have 
 learned to regard a sin, according as we have been wont 
 to designate it, and to hear it designated, by a word which 
 brings out its loathsomeness and deformity ; or by one which 
 palliates this and conceals; men, as one said of old, being 
 wont for the most part to be ashamed not of base deeds, 
 but of base names affixed to those deeds. In the murder 
 trials at Dublin, 1883, those destined to the assassin's knife 
 were spoken of by approvers as persons to be removed, 
 and their death constantly described as their ' removal.' 
 In Sussex it is never said of a man that he is drunk. He 
 may be ' tight,' or * primed,' or ' crank,' or ' concerned in 
 liquor,' nay, it may even be admitted that he had taken as 
 much liquor as was good for him; but that he was drunk, 
 oh never. ^* Fair words for foul things are everywhere 
 only too frequent; thus in ' drug-damned Italy,' when poi- 
 soning was the rifest, nobody was said to be poisoned; it 
 was only that the death of this one or of that had 
 been ' assisted ' (aiutata). Worse still are words which seek 
 to turn the edge of the divine threatenings against some sin 
 by a jest; as when in France a subtle poison, by whose 
 aid impatient heirs delivered themselves from those who 
 stood between them and the inheritance which they coveted, 
 was called ' poudre de succession.' We might suppose 
 beforehand that such cloaks for sin would be only found 
 among people in an advanced state of artificial cultivation. 
 But it is not so. Captain Erskine, who visited the Fiji 
 Islands before England had taken them into her keeping, 
 and who gives some extraordinary details of the extent 
 to which cannibalism then prevailed among their inhabitants, 
 pork and human flesh being their two staple articles of food, 
 
 69 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 relates in his deeply interesting record of his voyage that 
 natural pig they called ' short pig/ and man dressed and 
 prepared for food, ' long pig.' There was doubtless an 
 attempt here to carry off with a jest the revolting character 
 of the practice in which they indulged. For that they were 
 themselves aware of this, that their consciences did bear 
 witness against it, was attested by their uniform desire to 
 conceal, if possible, all traces of the practice from European 
 eyes. 
 
 But worst, perhaps, of all are names which throw a 
 flimsy veil of sentiment over some sin. What a source, for 
 example, of mischief without end in our country parishes 
 is the one practice of calling a child born out of wedlock a 
 ' love-child,' instead of a bastard. It would be hard to 
 estimate how much it has lowered the tone and standard 
 of morality among us; or for how many young women it 
 may have helped to make the downward way more sloping 
 still. How vigorously ought we to oppose ourselves to all 
 such immoralities of language. This opposition, it is true, 
 will never be easy or pleasant; for many who will endure 
 to commit a sin, will profoundly resent having that sin 
 called by its right name. Pirates, as Aristotle tells us, 
 in his time called themselves * purveyors.' ^^ Buccaneers, 
 men of the same bloody trade, were by their own account 
 ' brethren of the coast.' Shakespeare's thieves are only 
 true to human nature, when they name themselves ' St. 
 Nicholas' clerks,' * michers,' ' nuthooks,' ' minions of the 
 moon,' anything in short but thieves; when they claim for 
 their stealing that it shall not be so named, but only con- 
 veying (' convey the wise it call ') ; the same dislike to look 
 an ugly fact in the face reappearing among the voters in some 
 of our corrupter boroughs, who receive, not bribes — ^they 
 are hugely indignant if this is imputed to them — but ' head- 
 money ' for their votes. Shakespeare indeed has said that 
 
 70 
 
ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS 
 
 a rose by any other name would smell as sweet ; but there are 
 some things which are not roses, and which are counted to 
 smell a great deal sweeter being called by any other name 
 than their own. Thus, to deal again with bribes, call a 
 bribe ' palm oil,' or a ' pot de vin,' and how much of its 
 ugliness disappears. Far more moral words are the English 
 ' sharper ' and ' blackleg ' than the French ' chevalier 
 d'industrie ' : "^ and the same holds good of the English 
 equivalent, coarse as it is, for the Latin * conciliatrix.' In 
 this last word we have a notable example of the putting of 
 sweet for bitter, of the attempt to present a disgraceful 
 occupation on an amiable, almost a sentimental side, rather 
 than in its own proper deformity.^^ 
 
 Use and custom soon dim our eyes in such matters as 
 these ; else we should be deeply struck by a familiar instance 
 of this falsehood in names, one which perhaps has never 
 struck us at all — I mean the profane appropriation of * eau 
 de vie ' (water of life), a name borrowed from some of the 
 Saviour's most precious promises (John 4: 14; Rev. 22: 
 17), to a drink which the untutored savage with a truer in- 
 stinct has named ' fire-water ' ; which, sad to say, is known in 
 Tahiti as * British water ' ; and which has proved for thou- 
 sands and tens of thousands, in every clime, not * water of 
 life,' but the fruitful source of disease, crime, and madness, 
 bringing forth first these, and when these are finished, bring- 
 ing forth death. There is a blasphemous irony in this 
 appropriation of the language of heaven to that which, 
 not indeed in its use, but in its too frequent abuse, is the 
 instrument of hell, that is almost without a parallel."^ 
 
 If I wanted any further evidence of this, the moral atmos- 
 phere which words diffuse, I would ask you to observe how 
 the first thing men do, when engaged in controversy with 
 others, be it in the conflict of the tongue or the pen, or of 
 weapons more wounding yet, if such there be, is ever to 
 
 71 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 assume some honourable name to themselves^ such as^ if 
 possible, shall beg the whole subject in dispute, and at the 
 same time to affix on their adversaries a name which shall 
 place them in a ridiculous or contemptible or odious light."*® 
 A deep instinct, deeper perhaps than men give any account 
 of to themselves, tells them how far this will go; that mul- 
 titudes, utterly unable to weigh the arguments on one side 
 or the other, will yet be receptive of the influences which 
 these words are evermore, however imperceptibly, diffus- 
 ing. By argument they might hope to gain over the reason 
 of a few, but by help of these nicknames they enlist what 
 at first are so much more potent, the prejudices and pas- 
 sions of the many, on their side. Thus when at the breaking 
 out of our Civil War the Parliamentary party styled them- 
 selves ' The Godly,' while to the Royalists they gave the 
 title of * The Malignants,' it is certain that, wherever they 
 could procure entrance and allowance for these terms, the 
 question upon whose side the right lay was already decided. 
 The Royalists, it is true, made exactly the same employment 
 of what Bentham used to call question-begging words, of 
 words steeped quite as deeply in the passions which ani- 
 mated them. It was much when at Florence the ' Bad 
 Boys,' as they defiantly called themselves, were able to affix 
 on the followers of Savonarola the title of Piagnoni or The 
 Snivellers. So, too, the Franciscans, when they nicknamed 
 the Dominicans ' Maculists,' as denying, or at all events 
 refusing to affirm as a matter of faith, that the Blessed 
 Virgin was conceived without stain (sine macula), perfectly 
 knew that this title would do much to put their rivals in 
 an odious light. The copperhead in America is a peculiarly 
 venomous snake. Something effectual was done when this 
 name was fastened, as it lately was, by one party in America 
 on its political opponents. Not otherwise, in some of our 
 northern towns, the workmen who refuse to join a trade 
 
 72 
 
ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS 
 
 union are styled ' knobsticks/ * crawlers/ * scabs/ ' black- 
 legs.' Nor can there be any question of the potent influence 
 which these nicknames of contempt and scorn exert. 
 
 Seeing, then, that language contains so faithful a record 
 of the good and of the evil which in time past have been 
 working in the minds and hearts of men, we shall not err, 
 if we regard it as a moral barometer indicating and perma- 
 nently marking the rise or fall of a nation's life. To study 
 a people's language will be to study them, and to study 
 them at best advantage; there, where they present them- 
 selves to us under fewest disguises, most nearly as they are. 
 Too many have had a hand in the language as it now is, 
 and in bringing it to the shape in which we find it, it is 
 too entirely the collective work of a whole people, the result 
 of the united contributions of all, it obeys too immutable 
 laws, to allow any successful tampering with it, any making 
 of it to witness to any other than the actual facts of the 
 case.^^ 
 
 Thus the frivolity of an age or nation, its mockery of 
 itself, its inability to comprehend the true dignity and mean- 
 ing of life, the feebleness of its moral indignation against 
 evil, all this will find an utterance in the employment of 
 solemn and earnest words in senses comparatively trivial 
 or even ridiculous. ' Gehenna,' that word of such terrible 
 significance on the lips of our Lord, has in French issued 
 in ' gene,' and in this shape expresses no more than a slight 
 and petty annoyance. * Ennui ' meant once something very 
 different from what now it means. Littre gives as its orig- 
 inal signification, ' anguish of soul, caused by the death of 
 persons beloved, by their absence, by the shipwreck of hopes, 
 by any misfortunes whatever.' ' Honnetete,' which should 
 mean that virtue of all virtues, honesty, and which did mean 
 it once, standing as it does now for external civility and for 
 nothing more, marks a willingness to accept the slighter 
 
 73 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 observances and pleasant courtesies of society in the room 
 of deeper moral qualities. ' Verite ' is at this day so worn 
 out^ has been used so often where another and very different 
 word would have been more appropriate, that not seldom a 
 Frenchman at this present who would fain convince us of 
 the truth of his communication finds it convenient to assure 
 us that it is ' la vraie verite.' Neither is it well that words, 
 which ought to have been reserved for the highest mysteries 
 of the spiritual life, should be squandered on slight and 
 secular objects, — * spirituel ' itself is an example in point, — 
 or that words implying once the deepest moral guilt, as is 
 the case with ' perfide,' ' malice,' * malin,' in French, should 
 be employed now almost in honour, applied in jest and in 
 play. 
 
 Often a people's use of some single word will afford us 
 a deeper insight into their real condition, their habits of 
 thought and feeling, than whole volumes written expressly 
 with the intention of imparting this insight. Thus ' idiot,* 
 a Greek word, is abundantly characteristic of Greek life. 
 The ' idiot,' or tStwT>^9, was originally the private man, as 
 contradistinguished from one clothed with office, and taking 
 his share in the management of public affairs. In this its 
 primary sense it was often used in the English of the seven- 
 teenth century ; as when Jeremy Taylor says, ' Humility 
 is a duty in great ones, as well as in idiots.' It came then to 
 signify a rude, ignorant, unskilled, intellectually unexer- 
 cised person, a boor; this derived or secondary sense bear- 
 ing witness to a conviction woven deep into the Greek mind 
 that contact with public life, and more or less of participa- 
 tion in it, were indispensable even to the right development 
 of the intellect,^^ a conviction which could scarcely have 
 uttered itself with greater clearness than it does in this 
 secondary use of * idiot.' Our tertiary, in which the ' idiot ' 
 is one deficient in intellect, not merely with intellectual 
 
 74 
 
ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS 
 
 powers unexercised, is only this secondary pushed a little 
 farther. Once more, how wonderfully characteristic of the 
 Greek mind it is that the language should have one and the 
 same word (KaAo?), to express the beautiful and the good — 
 goodness being thus contemplated as the highest beauty; 
 while over against this stands another word (ato-x/aos), used 
 alike for the ugly to look at and for the morally bad. 
 Again, the innermost differences between the Greek and 
 the Hebrew reveal themselves in the several salutations of 
 each, in the ' Rejoice ' of the first, as contrasted with the 
 ' Peace ' of the second. The clear, cheerful, world-enjoying 
 temper of the Greek embodies itself in the first; he could 
 desire nothing better or higher for himself, nor wish it for 
 his friend, than to have joy in his life. But the Hebrew 
 had a deeper longing within him, and one which finds utter- 
 ance in his ' Peace.' It is not hard to perceive why this 
 latter people should have been chosen as the first bearers 
 of that truth which indeed enables truly to rejoice, but only 
 through first bringing peace; nor why from them the word 
 of life should first go forth. It may be urged, indeed, that 
 these were only forms, and such they may have at length 
 become ; as in our * good-by ' or ' adieu ' we can hardly be 
 said now to commit our friend to the Divine protection; 
 yet still they were not forms at the beginning, nor would 
 they have held their ground, if ever they had become such 
 altogether. 
 
 How much, again, will be sometimes involved in the 
 gradual disuse of one name, and the coming up of another 
 in its room. Thus, little as the fact, and the moral signifi- 
 cance of the fact, may have been noticed at the time, what 
 an epoch was it in the history of the Papacy, and with 
 what distinctness marking a more thorough secularizing of 
 its whole tone and spirit, when ' Ecclesia Romana,' the offi- 
 cial title by which it was wont at an earlier day to designate 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 itself, gave place to the later title, ' Curia Romana/ the 
 Roman Church making room for the Roman Court.^^ 
 
 The modifications of meaning which a word has under- 
 gone as it has been transplanted from one soil to another, 
 so that one nation borrowing it from another, has brought 
 into it some force foreign to it before, has deepened, or 
 extenuated, or otherwise modified its meaning, — this may- 
 reveal to us, as perhaps nothing else would, fundamental 
 diversities of character existing between them. The word in 
 Greek exactly corresponding to our ' self-sufficient ' is one 
 of honour, and was applied to men in their praise. And 
 indeed it was the glory of the heathen philosophy to teach 
 man to find his resources in his own bosom, to be thus suffi- 
 cient for himself; and seeing that a true centre without 
 him and above him, a centre in God, had not been 
 revealed to him, it was no shame for him to seek it 
 there; far better this than to have no centre at all. But 
 the Gospel has taught us another lesson, to find our suffi- 
 ciency in God : and thus ' self-sufficient,' to the Greek 
 suggesting no lack of modesty, of humility, or of any good 
 thing, at once suggests such to us. * Self-sufficiency ' no 
 man desires now to be attributed to him. The word carries 
 for us its own condemnation; and its different uses, for 
 honour once, for reproach now, do in fact ground themselves 
 on the innermost differences between the religious condi- 
 tion of the world before Christ and after. 
 
 It was not well with Italy, she might fill the world with 
 exquisite specimens of her skill in the arts, with pictures 
 and statues of rarest loveliness, but all higher national life 
 was wanting to her during those centuries in which she 
 degraded ' virtuoso,' or the virtuous man, to signify one 
 skilled in the appreciation of painting, music, and sculpture ; 
 for these, the ornamental fringe of a people's life, can 
 never, without loss of all manliness of character, be its 
 
 76 
 
ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS 
 
 main texture and woof — not to say that excellence in them 
 has been too often dissociated from all true virtue and moral 
 worth. The opposite exaggeration of the Romans, for 
 whom ' virtus ' meant predominantly warlike courage, the 
 truest * manliness ' of men, was more tolerable than this ; 
 for there is a sense in which a man's * valour ' is his value, 
 is the measure of his worth ; seeing that no virtue can exist 
 among men who have not learned, in Milton's glorious 
 phrase, ' to hate the cowardice of doing wrong.' ®^ It could 
 not but be morally ill with a people among whom ' morbi- 
 dezza ' was used as an epithet of praise, expressive of a 
 beauty which on the score of its sickly softness demanded to 
 be admired. There was too sure a witness here for the 
 decay of moral strength and health, when these could not 
 merely be dissevered from beauty, but implicitly put in 
 opposition to it. Nor less must it have fared ill with 
 Italians, there was little joy and little pride which they 
 could have felt in their country, at a time when ' pelegrino,' 
 meaning properly the strange or the foreign, came to be 
 of itself a word of praise, and equivalent to beautiful. Far 
 better the pride and assumption of that ancient people who 
 called all things and persons beyond their own pale barba- 
 rous and barbarians ; far better our own ' outlandish,' used 
 with something of the same contempt. There may be a 
 certain intolerance in our use of these; yet this how much 
 healthier than so far to have fallen out of conceit with one's 
 own country, so far to affect things foreign, that these 
 last, merely on the strength of being foreign, commend 
 themselves as beautiful in our sight. How little, again, 
 the Italians, until quite later years, can have lived in the 
 spirit of their ancient worthies, or reverenced the most illus- 
 trious among these, we may argue from the fact that they 
 should have endured so far to degrade the name of one 
 among their noblest, that every glib and loquacious hire- 
 
 77 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 ling who shows strangers about their picture-galleries, pal- 
 aces, and ruins, is called ' cicerone/ or a Cicero ! It is unfor- 
 tunate that terms like these, having once sprung up, are not 
 again, or are not easily again, got rid of. They remain, 
 testifying to an ignoble past, and in some sort helping to 
 maintain it, long after the temper and tone of mind that 
 produced them has passed away.^^ 
 
 Happily it is nearly impossible for us in England to 
 understand the mingled scorn, hatred, fear, suspicion, con- 
 tempt, which in time past were associated with the word 
 ' sbirri ' in Italian. These ' sbirri ' were the humble, but 
 with all this the acknowledged, ministers of justice; while 
 yet everything which is mean and false and oppressive, 
 which can make the name of justice hateful, was implied 
 in this title of theirs, was associated with their name. There 
 is no surer sign of a bad oppressive rule, than when the titles 
 of the administrators of law, titles which should be in 
 themselves so honourable, thus acquire a hateful undermean- 
 ing. What a world of concussions, chicane and fraud, must 
 have found place, before tax-gatherer, or exciseman, ' pub- 
 lican,' as in our English Bible, could become a word steeped 
 in hatred and scorn, as alike for Greek and Jew it was ; while, 
 on the other hand, however unwelcome the visits of the one 
 or the interference of the other may be to us, yet the sense 
 of the entire fairness and justice with which their exactions 
 are made, acquits these names for us of the slightest sense 
 of dishonour. ' Policeman ' has no evil subaudition with 
 us; though in the last century, when a Jonathan Wild was 
 possible, * catchpole,' a word in Wiclif 's time of no dishon- 
 our at all, was abundantly tinged with this scorn and con- 
 tempt. So too, if at this day any accidental profits fall or 
 * escheat ' to the Crown, they are levied with so much fair- 
 ness and more than fairness to the subject, that, were not 
 the thing already accomplished, * escheat ' would never yield 
 
 78 
 
ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS 
 
 * cheat/ nor ' escheator ' ' cheater/ as through the extortions 
 and injustices for which these dues were formerly a pretext, 
 they actually have done. 
 
 It is worse, as marking that a still holier sanctuary than 
 that of civil government has become profane in men's 
 sight, when words which express sacred functions and offices 
 become redolent of scorn. How thankful we may be that 
 in England we have no equivalent to the German ' Pfaffe,' 
 which, identical with ' papa ' and ' pope,' and a name given 
 at first to any priest, now carries with it the insinuation of 
 almost every unworthiness in the forms of meanness, servil- 
 ity, and avarice which can render the priest's office and 
 person base and contemptible. 
 
 Much may be learned by noting the words which nations 
 have been obliged to borrow from other nations, as not 
 having the same of home-growth — this in most cases, if not 
 in all, testifying that the thing itself was not native, but 
 an exotic, transplanted, like the word that indicated it, 
 from a foreign soil. Thus it is singularly characteristic 
 of the social and political life of England, as distinguished 
 from that of the other European nations, that to it alone 
 the word ' club ' belongs ; France and Germany, having been 
 alike unable to grow a word of their own, have borrowed 
 ours. That England should have been the birthplace of 
 ' club ' is nothing wonderful ; for these voluntary associ- 
 ations of men for the furthering of such social or political 
 ends as are near to the hearts of the associates could have 
 only had their rise under such favourable circumstances 
 as ours. In no country where there was not extreme per- 
 sonal freedom could they have sprung up; and as little in 
 any where men did not know how to use this freedom with 
 moderation and self-restraint, could they long have been 
 endured. It was comparatively easy to adopt the word; 
 but the ill success of the ' club ' itself everywhere save here 
 
 79 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 where it is native, has shown that it was not so easy to 
 transplant or, having transplanted, to acclimatize the thing. 
 While we have lent this and other words, political and indus- 
 trial for the most part, to the French and Germans, it would 
 not be less instructive, if time allowed, to trace our corre- 
 sponding obligations to them. 
 
 And scarcely less significant and instructive than the 
 presence of a word in a language, will be occasionally its 
 absence. Thus Fronto, a Greek orator in Roman times, 
 finds evidence of an absence of strong family affection on 
 the part of the Romans in the absence of any word in the 
 Latin language corresponding to the Greek (juXoa-Topyos. 
 How curious, from the same point of view, are the conclu- 
 sions which Cicero in his high Roman fashion draws from 
 the absence of any word in the Greek answering to the 
 Latin * ineptus ' ; not from this concluding, as we might have 
 anticipated, that the character designated by the word was 
 wanting, but rather that the fault was so common, so uni- 
 versal with the Greeks, that they failed to recognize it as 
 a fault at all.*^^ Very instructive you may find it to note 
 these words, which one people possess, but to which others 
 have nothing to correspond, so that they have no choice 
 but to borrow these, or else to go without altogether. Here 
 are some French words for which it would not be easy, 
 nay, in most cases it would be impossible, to find exact 
 equivalents in English or in German, or probably in any 
 language : ' aplomb,' ' badinage,' * borne,' * chic,' ' chicane,' 
 ' cossu,' * coterie,' * egarement,' * elan,' * espieglerie,' * etour- 
 derie,' ' friponnerie,' * gentil,' * ingenue,' * liaison,' ' malice,' 
 
 * parvenu,' ' persiflage,' * prevenant,' * ruse,' ' tournure,' 
 
 * tracasserie,' 'verve.' It is evident that the words just 
 named have to do with shades of thought which are to a 
 great extent unfamiliar to us; for which, at any rate, we 
 have not found a name, have hardly felt that they needed 
 
 80 
 
ON THE MORALITY IN WORDS 
 
 one. But fine and subtle as in many instances are the 
 thoughts which these words embody , there are deeper 
 thoughts struggling in the bosom of a people^ who have 
 devised for themselves such words as the following: 
 ' Gemiith/ ' Heimweh/ ' Innigkeit/ * Sehnsucht/ ' Tief- 
 sinn/ * Sittsamkeit/ ' Verhangniss/ * Weltschmerz/ ' Zucht ' ; 
 all these being German words which, in a similar manner, 
 partially or wholly fail to find their equivalents in French. 
 
 The petty spite which unhappily so often reigns between 
 nations dwelling side by side with one another, as it embodies 
 itself in many shapes, so it finds vent in the words which 
 they borrow from one another, and the use to which they 
 put them. Thus the French, borrowing * hablar ' from the 
 Spaniards, with whom it means simply to speak, give it in 
 * habler ' the sense of to brag ; the Spaniards paying them 
 off in exactly their own coin, for of ' parler,' which in like 
 manner in French is but to speak, they make ' parlar,' which 
 means to prate, to chat. 
 
 But it is time to bring this lecture to an end. These 
 illustrations, to which it would be easy to add more, justify 
 all that has been asserted of a moral element existing in 
 words; so that they do not hold themselves neutral in that 
 great conflict between good and evil, light and darkness, 
 which is dividing the world; that they are not satisfied to 
 be passionless vehicles, now of the truth, and now of lies. 
 We see, on the contrary, that they continually take their 
 side, are some of them children of light, others children of 
 this world, or even of darkness; they beat with the pulses 
 of our life ; they stir with our passions ; we clothe them with 
 light; we steep them in scorn; they receive from us the 
 impressions of our good and of our evil, which again they 
 are most active still further to propagate and diffuse.^^ 
 Must we not own then that there is a wondrous and myste- 
 rious world, of which we may hitherto have taken too little 
 
 81 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 account, around us and about us? Is there not something 
 very solemn and very awful in wielding such an instrument 
 as this of language is, with such power to wound or to heal, 
 to kill or to make alive ? and may not a deeper meaning than 
 hitherto we have attached to it, lie in that saying, ' By thy 
 words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt 
 be condemned ' ? 
 
 82 
 
LECTURE 4 
 
 On the History in Words 
 
 Language, being ever in flux and flow, and, for nations 
 to which letters are still strange, existing only for the ear 
 and as a sound, we might beforehand expect would prove 
 the least trustworthy of all vehicles whereby the knowledge 
 of the past has reached our present; that ojie which would 
 most certainly betray its charge. In actual fact it has not 
 proved so at all. It is the main, oftentimes the only, con- 
 necting link between the two, an ark riding above the water- 
 flopds that have swept away or submerged every other 
 landmark and memorial of bygone ages and vanished gen- 
 erations of men. Far beyond all written records in a 
 language, the language itself stretches back, and off'ers 
 itself for our investigation — * the pedigree of nations,' as 
 Johnson calls it ®^ — itself in its own independent existence 
 a far older and at the same time a far more instructive 
 document than any book, inscription, or other writing which 
 employs it. The written records may have been falsified 
 by carelessness, by vanity, by fraud, by a multitude of 
 causes; but language never deceives, if only we know how 
 to question it aright. 
 
 Such investigations as these, it is true, lie plainly out 
 of your sphere. Not so, however, those humbler yet not 
 less interesting inquiries, which by the aid of any tolerable 
 dictionary you may carry on into the past history of your 
 own land, as attested by the present language of its people. 
 You know how the geologist is able from the diff*erent strata 
 and deposits, primary, secondary, or tertiary, succeeding 
 one another, which he meets, to arrive at a knowledge of 
 
 83 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 the successive physical changes through which a region 
 has passed; is, so to say, in a condition to preside at those 
 past changes, to measure the forces that were at work to 
 produce them, and almost to indicate their date. Now with 
 such a language as the English before us, bearing as it 
 does the marks and footprints of great revolutions pro- 
 foundly impressed upon it, we may carry on moral and 
 historical researches precisely analogous to his. Here too 
 are strata and deposits, not of gravel and chalk, sandstone 
 and limestone, but of Celtic, Latin, Low German, Danish, 
 Norman words, and then once more Latin and French, with 
 slighter intrusions from many other quarters: and any one 
 with skill to analyze the language might, up to a certain 
 point, re-create for himself the history of the people speak- 
 ing that language, might with tolerable accuracy appre- 
 ciate the divers elements out of which that people was 
 made up, in what proportion these were mingled, and in 
 what succession they followed, one upon the other. 
 
 Would he trace, for example, the relation in which the 
 English and Norman occupants of this land stood to one 
 another? An account of this, in the main as accurate as it 
 would be certainly instructive, might be drawn from an 
 intelligent study of the contributions which they have 
 severally made to the English language, as bequeathed to 
 us jointly by them both. Supposing all other records to have 
 perished, we might still work out and almost reconstruct 
 the history by these aids ; even as now, when so many docu- 
 ments, so many institutions survive, this must still be 
 accounted the most important, and that of which the study 
 will introduce us, as no other can, into the innermost heart 
 and life of large periods of our history. 
 
 Nor, indeed, is it hard to see why the language m,ust con- 
 tain such instruction as this, when we a little realize to 
 ourselves the stages by which it has reached us in its present 
 
 84 
 
ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS 
 
 shape. There was a time when the languages which the 
 English and the Norman severally spoke, existed each by 
 the side of, but unmingled with, the other ; one, that of the 
 small dominant class, the other that of the great body 
 of the people. By degrees, however, with the reconcili- 
 ation and partial fusion of the two races, the two languages 
 eifected a transaction; one indeed prevailed over the other, 
 but at the same time received a multitude of the words of 
 that other into its own bosom. At once there would exist 
 duplicates for many things. But as in popular speech two 
 words will not long exist side by side to designate the same 
 thing, it became a question how the relative claims of the 
 English and Norman word should adjust themselves, which 
 should remain, which should be dropped ; or, if not dropped, 
 should be transferred to some other object, or express some 
 other relation. It is not of course meant that this was ever 
 formally proposed, or as something to be settled by agree- 
 ment; but practically one was to be taken and one left. 
 Which was it that should maintain its ground.'^ Evidently, 
 where a word was often on the lips of one race, its equiva- 
 lent seldom on those of the other, where it intimately cohered 
 with the whole manner of life of one, was only remotely in 
 contact with that of the other, where it laid strong hold on 
 one, and only slight on the other, the issue could not be 
 doubtful. In several cases the matter was simpler still: 
 it was not that one word expelled the other, or that rival 
 claims had to be adjusted; but that there never had existed 
 more than one word, the thing which that word noted 
 having been quite strange to the other section of the nation. 
 Here is the explanation of the assertion made just now — 
 namely, that we might almost reconstruct our history, so 
 far as it turns upon the Norman Conquest, by an analysis 
 of our present language, a mustering of its words in groups, 
 and a close observation of the nature and character of 
 
 85 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 those which the two races have severally contributed to it. 
 Thus we should confidently conclude that the Norman was 
 the ruling race^ from the noticeable fact that all the words 
 of dignity, state, honour, and pre-eminence, with one remark- 
 able exception (to be adduced presently), descend to us 
 from them — * sovereign,' ' sceptre,' ' throne,' ' realm,' 
 * royalty,' ' homage,' ' prince,' ' duke,' * count ' (' earl ' in- 
 deed is Scandinavian, though he must borrow his ' countess ' 
 from the Norman), ' chancellor,' * treasurer,' ' palace,' 
 ' castle,' ' dome,' and a multitude more. At the same time 
 the one remarkable exception of ' king ' would make us, 
 even did we know nothing of the actual facts, suspect that 
 the chieftain of this ruling race came in not upon a new 
 title, not as overthrowing a former dynasty, but claiming to 
 be in the rightful line of its succession; that the true con- 
 tinuity of the nation had not, in fact any more than in word, 
 been entirely broken, but survived, in due time to assert 
 itself anew. 
 
 And yet, while the statelier superstructure of the lan- 
 guage, almost all articles of luxury, all having to do with 
 the chase, with chivalry, with personal adornment, are Nor- 
 man throughout; with the broad basis of the language, 
 and therefore of the life, it is otherwise. The great features 
 of nature, sun, moon, and stars, earth, water, and firfe; the 
 divisions of time ; three out of the four seasons, spring, sum- 
 mer, and winter; the features of natural scenery, the words 
 used in earliest childhood, the simpler emotions of the mind ; 
 all the prime social relations, father, mother, husband, wife, 
 son, daughter, brother, sister, — these are of native growth 
 and unborrowed. ' Palace ' and ' castle ' have reached us 
 from the Norman, but to our English forefathers we owe 
 far dearer names, the * house,' the ' roof,' the ' home,' the 
 ' hearth.' His ' board ' too, and often probably it was no 
 more, has a more hospitable sound than the * table ' of his 
 
 86 
 
ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS 
 
 lord. His sturdy arms turn the soil ; he is the * boor/ the 
 ' hind/ the ' churl ' ; or if his Norman master has a name 
 for him, it is one which on his lips becomes more and 
 more a title of opprobrium and contempt, the ' villain.' 
 The instruments used in cultivating the earth, the ' plough/ 
 the * share/ the ' rake/ the ' scythe/ the * harrow/ the 
 ' wain/ the ' sickle/ the ' spade/ the ' sheaf/ the ' barn/ 
 are expressed in his language; so too the main products 
 of the earth, as wheat, rye, oats, here, grass, flax, hay, 
 straw, weeds; and no less the names of domestic animals. 
 You will remember, no doubt, how in the matter of these 
 Wamba, the Saxon jester in Ivanhoe, plays the philologer, 
 having noted that the names of almost all animals, so long 
 as they are alive, are Saxon, but when dressed and pre- 
 pared for food become Norman — a fact, he would intimate, 
 not very wonderful ; for the Saxon hind had the charge and 
 labour of tending and feeding them, but only that they 
 might appear on the table of his Norman lord. Thus * ox,' 
 ' steer,' * cow,' are Saxon, but ' beef ' Norman ; ' calf ' is 
 Saxon, but ' veal ' Norman ; ' sheep ' is Saxon, but ' mutton ' 
 Norman : so it is severally with ' swine ' and * pork,' ' deer ' 
 and ' venison,' ' fowl ' and ' pullet.' ' Bacon,' the only flesh 
 which perhaps ever came within the hind's reach, is the 
 single exception. Putting all this together, with much more 
 of the same kind, which has only been indicated here, we 
 should certainly gather, that while there are manifest tokens 
 preserved in our language of the Saxon having been for a 
 season an inferior and even an oppressed race, the stable 
 elements of English life, however overlaid for a while, had 
 still made good their claim to be the ground-work of the 
 after nation as of the after language; and to the justice of 
 this conclusion all other historic records, and the present 
 social condition of England, consent in bearing witness. 
 Then again, who could doubt, even if the fact were not 
 
 87 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 historically attested^ that the Arabs were the arithmeti- 
 cians, the astronomers, the chemists, tlie merchants of the 
 Middle Ages, when he had once noted that from them we 
 have gotten these words and so many others like them — 
 * alchemy,' * alcohol,' ' alembic,' ' algebra,' ' alkali,' ' alma- 
 nack,' ' azimuth,' ' cypher,' ' elixir,' ' magazine,' ' nadir,' 
 ' tariff,' ' zenith,' * zero ' ? — for if one or two of these were 
 originally Greek, they reached us through the Arabic, and 
 with tokens of their transit cleaving to them. In like 
 manner, even though history were silent on the matter, we 
 might conclude, and we know that we should rightly con- 
 clude, that the origins of the monastic system are to be 
 sought in the Greek and not in the Latin branch of the 
 Church, seeing that with hardly an exception the words 
 expressing the constituent elements of the system, as 
 ' anchorite,' * archimandrite,' ' ascetic,' ' cenobite,' ' hermit,' 
 ' monastery,' ' monk,' are Greek and not Latin. 
 
 But the study of words will throw rays of light upon a 
 past infinitely more remote than any which I have sug- 
 gested here, will reveal to us secrets of the past, which else 
 must have been lost to us for ever. Thus it must be a ques- 
 tion of profound interest for as many as count the study 
 of man to be far above every other study, to ascertain what 
 point of culture that Indo-European race of which we come, 
 the stirps generosa et historica of the world, as Coleridge 
 has called it, had attained, while it was dwelling still as one 
 family in its common home. No voices of history, the very 
 faintest voices of tradition, reach us from ages so far 
 removed from our own. But in the silence of all other voices 
 there is one voice which makes itself heard, and which can 
 tell us much. Where Indian, and Greek, and Latin, and 
 Teutonic designate some object by the same word, and 
 where it can be clearly shown that they did not, at a later 
 day, borrow that word one from the other, the object, we 
 
 88 
 
ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS 
 
 may confidently conclude, must have been familiar to the 
 Indo-European race, while yet these several groups of it 
 dwelt as one undivided family together. Now they have 
 such common words for the chief domestic animals — for 
 ox, for sheep, for horse, for dog, for goose, and for many 
 more. From this we have a right to gather that before the 
 migrations began, they had overlived and outgrown the 
 fishing and hunting stages of existence, and entered on 
 the pastoral. They have not all the same words for the main 
 products of the earth, as for corn, wheat, barley, wine; 
 it is tolerably evident therefore that they had not entered 
 on the agricultural stage. So too from the absence of 
 names in common for the principal metals, we have a right 
 to argue that they had not arrived at a knowledge of the 
 working of these. 
 
 On the other hand, identical names for dress, for house, 
 for door, for garden, for numbers as far as a hundred, 
 for the primary relations of the family, as father, mother, 
 brother, sister, son, daughter, for the Godhead, testify that 
 the common stock, intellectual and moral, was not small 
 which they severally took with them when they went their 
 way, each to set up for itself and work out its own destinies 
 in its own appointed region of the earth.^^ This common 
 stock may, indeed, have been much larger than these investi- 
 gations declare; for a word, once common to all these lan- 
 guages, may have survived only in one ; or possibly may have 
 perished in all. Larger it may very well, but poorer it 
 cannot, have been.^^ 
 
 This is one way in which words, by their presence or 
 their absence, may teach us history which else we now can 
 never know. I pass to other ways. 
 
 There are vast harvests of historic lore garnered often 
 in single words; important facts which they at once pro- 
 claim and preserve; these too such as sometimes have sur- 
 
 89 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 vived nowhere else but in them. How much history lies 
 in the word ' church.' I see no sufficient reason to dissent 
 from those who derive it from the Greek KvptaKov, ' that 
 which pertains to the Lord/ or ' the house which is the 
 Lord's.' It is true that a difficulty meets us at the threshold 
 here. How explain the presence of a Greek word in the 
 vocabulary of our Teutonic forefathers ? for that we do not 
 derive it immediately from the Greek_, is certain. What 
 contact, direct or indirect, between the languages will 
 account for this.^ The explanation is curious. While 
 Angles, Saxons, and other tribes of the Teutonic stock were 
 almost universally converted through contact with the Latin 
 Church in the western provinces of the Roman Empire, or 
 by its missionaries, some Goths on the Lower Danube had 
 been brought at an earlier date to the knowledge of Christ 
 by Greek missionaries from Constantinople; and this 
 KvpiaKov, or ' church,' did, with certain other words, pass 
 over from the Greek to the Gothic tongue; these Goths, 
 the first converted and the first therefore with a Christian 
 vocabulary, lending the word in their turn to the other Ger- 
 man tribes, to our Anglo-Saxon forefathers among the rest; 
 and by this circuit it has come round from Constantinople 
 to us.^« 
 
 Or again, interrogate * pagan ' and * paganism,' and you 
 will find important history in them. You are aware that 
 ' pagani,' derived from ' pagus,' a village, had at first no 
 religious significance, but designated the dwellers in ham- 
 lets and villages as distinguished from tlie inhabitants of 
 towns and cities. It was, indeed, often applied to all 
 civilians as contradistinguished from the military caste ; and 
 this fact may have had a certain influence, when the idea 
 of the faithful as soldiers of Christ was strongly realized 
 in the minds of men. But it was mainly in the following 
 way that it grew to be a name for those alien from the 
 
 90 
 
ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS 
 
 faith of Christ. The Church fixed itself first in the seats 
 and centres of intelligence, in the towns and cities of the 
 Roman Empire; in tliem its earliest triumphs were won; 
 while, long after these had accepted the truth, heathen 
 superstitions and idolatries lingered on in the obscure ham- 
 lets and villages ; so that * pagans/ or villagers, came to 
 be applied to all the remaining votaries of the old and 
 decayed superstitions, although not all, but only most of 
 them, were such. In an edict of the Emperor Valentinian, 
 of date A. D. 368, ' pagan ' first assumes this secondary 
 meaning. ' Heathen ' has run a course curiously similar. 
 When the Christian faith first found its way into Germany, 
 it was the wild dwellers on the heaths who were the slowest 
 to accept it, the last probably whom it reached. One hardly 
 expects an etymology in Piers Plowman; but this is there; 
 
 'Hethene is to mene after heth, 
 And untiled erthe.' 
 
 B. XV. 451, Skeat's ed. (Clarendon Press). 
 
 Here, then, are two instructive notices — one, the historic 
 fact that the Church of Christ planted itself first in the 
 haunts of learning and intelligence; another, morally more 
 significant, that it did not shun discussion, feared not to 
 encounter the wit and wisdom of this world, or to expose 
 its claims to the searching examination of educated men; 
 but, on the contrary, had its claims first recognized by them, 
 and in the great cities of the world won first a complete 
 triumph over all opposing powers."^^ 
 
 I quoted in my first lecture the saying of one who, magni- 
 fying the advantage to be derived from such studies as 
 ours, did not fear to affirm that oftentimes more might be 
 learned from the history of a word thajj, from the history 
 of a campaign. Thus follow some Latin word, * imperator ' 
 for example; as Dean Merivale has followed it in his 
 
 91 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 History of the Romans,"'^ and you will own as much. But 
 there is no need to look abroad. Words of our own out of 
 number, such as ' barbarous/ ' benefice/ * clerk/ ' common- 
 sense/ ' romance/ * sacrament,' * sophist/ ^^ would prove the 
 truth of the assertion. Let us take ' sacrament ' ; its his- 
 tory, while it carries us far, will yet carry us by ways full 
 of instruction; and these not the less instructive, while we 
 restrict our inquiries to the external history of the word. 
 We find ourselves first among the forms of Roman law. 
 The * sacramentum ' appears there as the deposit or pledge, 
 which in certain suits plaintiff and defendant were alike 
 bound to make, and whereby they engaged themselves to 
 one another; the loser of the suit forfeiting his pledge to 
 sacred temple uses, from which fact the name ' sacramen- 
 tum,' or thing consecrated, was first derived. The word, 
 as next employed, plants us amidst the military affairs of 
 Rome, designating the military oath by which the Roman 
 soldiers mutually engaged themselves at the first enlist- 
 ing never to desert their standards, or turn their backs 
 upon the enemy, or abandon their general, — ^this employ- 
 ment teaching us the sacredness which the Romans attached 
 to their military engagements, and going far to account 
 for their victories. The word was then transferred from 
 this military oath to any solemn oath whatsoever. These 
 three stages * sacramentum ' had already passed through, 
 before the Church claimed it for her own, or indeed her- 
 self existed at all. Her early writers, out of a sense of the 
 sacredness and solemnity of the oath, transferred this name 
 to almost any act of special solemnity or sanctity, above 
 all to such mysteries as intended more than met eye or ear. 
 For them the Incarnation was a * sacrament,' the lifting 
 up of the brazen serpent was a ' sacrament,' the giving of 
 the manna, and many things more. It is well to be 
 acquainted with this phase of the word's history, depriving 
 
 92 
 
ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS 
 
 as it does of all convincing power those passages quoted by 
 Roman Catholic controversialists from early church-writers 
 in proof of their seven sacraments. It is quite true that 
 these may have called marriage a ' sacrament,' and con- 
 firmation a ' sacrament/ and we may reach the Roman 
 seven without difficulty; but then they called many things 
 more, which even the theologians of Rome do not include 
 in the * sacraments ' properly so called, by the same name; 
 and this evidence, proving too much, in fact proves nothing 
 at all. One other stage in the word's history remains; its 
 limitation, namely, to the two ' sacraments,' properly so 
 called, of the Christian Church. A reminiscence of the 
 employment of ' sacrament,' an employment which still 
 survived, to signify the plighted troth of the Roman soldier 
 to his captain and commander, was that which had most to 
 do with the transfer of the word to Baptism; wherein we, 
 with more than one allusion to this oath of theirs, pledge 
 ourselves to fight manfully under Christ's banner, and to 
 continue his faithful soldiers and servants to our life's 
 end; while the mysterious character of the Holy Eucharist 
 was mainly that which earned for it this name. 
 
 We have already found history imbedded in the word 
 * frank ' ; but I must bring forward the Franks again, to 
 account for the fact with which we are all familiar, that in 
 the East not Frenchmen alone, but all Europeans, are so 
 called. Why, it may be asked, should this be? This wide 
 use of ' Frank ' dates from the Crusades ; Michaud, the 
 chief French historian of these, finding evidence here that 
 his countrymen took a decided lead, as their gallantry well 
 fitted them to do, in these romantic enterprises of the Middle 
 Ages; impressed themselves so strongly on the imagination 
 of the East as the crusading nation of Europe, that their 
 name was extended to all the warriors of Christendom. He 
 is not here snatching for them more than the honour which 
 
 93 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 is justly theirs. A very large proportion of the noblest 
 Crusaders, from Godfrey of Bouillon to St. Lewis, as of 
 others who did most to bring these enterprises about as 
 Pope Urban II., as St. Bernard, were French, and thus 
 gave, in a way sufficiently easy to explain, an appellation 
 to all.'^ 
 
 To the Crusades also, and to the intense hatred which 
 they roused throughout Christendom against the Mahom- 
 edan infidels, we owe ' miscreant,' as designating one to 
 whom the vilest principles and practices are ascribed. A 
 ' miscreant,' at the first, meant simply a misbeliever. The 
 name would have been applied as freely, and with as little 
 sense of injustice, to the royal-hearted Saladin as to the 
 vilest wretch that fought in his armies. By degrees, how- 
 ever, those who employed it tinged it more and more with 
 their feeling and passion, more and more lost sight of its 
 primary use, until they used it of any whom they regarded 
 with feelings of abhorrence, such as those which they enter- 
 tained for an infidel; just as ' Samaritan ' was employed by 
 the Jews simply as a term of reproach, and with no thought 
 whether he on whom it was fastened was in fact one of 
 that detested race or not; where indeed they were quite sure 
 that he was not (John 8:4-8). 'Assassin,' also, an Arabic 
 word whose story you will find no difficulty in obtaining, — 
 you may read it in Gibbon,^" — connects itself with a 
 romantic chapter in the history of the Crusades. 
 
 Various explanations of ' cardinal ' have been proposed, 
 which should account for the appropriation of this name to 
 the parochial clergy of the city of Rome with the subor- 
 dinate bishops of that diocese. This appropriation is an 
 outgrowth, and a standing testimony, of the measureless 
 assumptions of the Roman See. One of the favourite com- 
 parisons by which that See was wont to set out its relation 
 of superiority to all other Churches of Christendom was 
 
 94 
 
ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS 
 
 this ; it was the hinge^ or ' cardo/ on which all the rest of 
 the Church, as the door, at once depended and turned. It 
 followed presently upon this that the clergy of Rome were 
 ' cardinales/ as nearest to, and most closely connected 
 with, him who was thus the hinge, or ' cardo,' of all.^® 
 
 * Legend ' is a word with an instructive history. We 
 all have some notion of what at this day a ' legend ' means. 
 It is a tale which is not true, which, however historic in form, 
 is not historic in fact, claims no serious belief for itself. 
 It was quite otherwise once. By this name of ' legends * 
 the annual commemorations of the faith and patience of 
 God's saints in persecution and death were originally 
 called; these legends in this title which they bore proclaim- 
 ing that they were worthy to be read, and from this worthi- 
 ness deriving their name. At a later day, as corruptions 
 spread through the Church, these * legends ' grew, in 
 Hooker's words, ' to be nothing else but heaps of frivolous 
 and scandalous vanities,' having been ' even with disdain 
 thrown out, the very nests which bred them abhorring them.' 
 How steeped in falsehood, and to what an extent, accord- 
 ing to Luther's indignant turn of the word, the ' legends ' 
 (legende) must have become * lyings ' (liigende), we can 
 best guess, when we measure the moral forces which must 
 have been at work, before that which was accepted at the 
 first as ' worthy to be read,' should have been felt by this 
 very name to announce itself as most unworthy, as belonging 
 at best to the region of fable, if not to that of actual 
 untruth. 
 
 An inquiry into the pedigree of * dunce ' lays open to us 
 an important page in the intellectual history of Europe. 
 Certain theologians in the Middle Ages were termed School- 
 men; having been formed and trained in the cloister and 
 cathedral schools which Charlemagne and his immediate 
 successors had founded. These were men not to be lightly 
 
 95 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 spoken of, as they often are by those who never read a line 
 of their works, and have not a thousandth part of their wit ; 
 who moreover little guess how many of the most familiar 
 words which they employ, or misemploy, have descended to 
 them from these. * Real,' * virtual,' ' entity,' * nonentity,' 
 'equivocation,' 'objective,' 'subjective,' with many more 
 unknown to classical Latin, but now almost necessities to us, 
 were first coined by the Schoolmen ; and, passing over from 
 them into the speech of others more or less interested in 
 their speculations, have gradually filtered through the suc- 
 cessive strata of society, till now some of them have reached 
 to quite the lowest. At the Revival of Learning, however, 
 their works fell out of favour: they were not written in 
 classical Latin: the forms into which their speculations 
 were thrown were often unattractive ; it was mainly in their 
 authority that the Roman Church found support for her 
 perilled dogmas. On all these accounts it was esteemed 
 a mark of intellectual progress to have broken with them, 
 and thrown off their yoke. Some, however, still clung to 
 these Schoolmen, and to one in particular, John Duns 
 Scotus, the most illustrious teacher of the Franciscan Order. 
 Thus it came to pass that many times an adherent of the 
 old learning would seek to strengthen his position by an 
 appeal to its famous doctor, familiarly called Duns; while 
 those of the new learning would contemptuously rejoin, 
 ' Oh, you are a Dunsman/ or more briefly, ' You are a 
 Duns/ — or, ' This is a piece of duncery *j and inasmuch 
 as the new learning was ever enlisting more and more of 
 the genius and scholarship of the age on its side, the title 
 became more and more a term of scorn. * Remember ye 
 not,' says Tyndale, * how within this thirty years and far 
 less, the old barking curs. Dunce's disciples, and like draff 
 called Scotists, the children of darkness, raged in every 
 pulpit against Greek, Latin, and Hebrew? * And thus from 
 
 9Q 
 
ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS 
 
 that conflict long ago extinct between the old and the new 
 learning, that strife between the medieval and the modern 
 theology, we inherit * dunce ' and ' duncery.' The lot of 
 Duns, it must be confessed, has been a hard one, who, 
 whatever his merits as a teacher of Christian truth, was 
 assuredly one of the keenest and most subtle-witted of men. 
 He, the * subtle Doctor ' by pre-eminence, for so his 
 admirers called him, ' the wittiest of the school-divines,' as 
 Hooker does not scruple to style him, could scarcely have 
 anticipated, and did not at all deserve, that his name should 
 be turned into a by-word for invincible stupidity. 
 
 This is but one example of the singular fortune waiting 
 uiDon words. We have another of a parallel injustice, in 
 the use which ' maumetrye,' a contraction of * Mahometry,' 
 obtained in our early English. Mahomedanism being the 
 most prominent form of false religion with which our 
 ancestors came in contact, ' maumetrye ' was used, up to 
 and beyond the Reformation, to designate first any false 
 religion, and then the worship of idols; idolatry being 
 proper to, and a leading feature of, most of the false 
 religions of the world. Men did not pause to remember 
 that Mahomedanism is the great exception, being as it is 
 a protest against all idol-worship whatsoever; so that it 
 was a signal injustice to call an idol a ' maumet ' or a 
 Mahomet, and idolatry * maumetrye.' 
 
 A misnomer such as this may remind us of the immense 
 importance of possessing such names for things as shall 
 not involve or suggest an error. We have already seen this 
 in the province of the moral life; but in other regions also 
 it nearly concerns us. Resuming, as words do, the past, 
 shaping the future, how important it is that significant 
 facts or tendencies in the world's history should receive 
 their right names. It is a corrupting of the very springs 
 and sources of knowledge, when we bind up not a truth, 
 
 97 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 but an error, in the very nomenclature which we use. It 
 is the putting of an obstacle in the way, which, however 
 imperceptibly, is yet ever at work, hindering any right 
 apprehension of the thing which has been thus erroneously 
 noted. 
 
 Out of a sense of this, an eminent German scholar of 
 the last century, writing On the Influence of Opinions on 
 Language, did not stop here, nor make this the entire title 
 of his book, but added another and further clause — and on 
 the Influence of Language on Opinions;'" the matter which 
 fulfils the promise of this latter clause constituting by far 
 the most interesting and original portion of his work: for 
 while the influence of opinions on words is so little called 
 in question, that the assertion of it sounds almost like a 
 truism, this, on the contrary, of words on opinions, would 
 doubtless present itself as a novelty to many. And yet 
 it is an influence which has been powerfully felt in every 
 region of human knowledge, in science, in art, in morals, 
 in theology. The reactive energy of words, not merely on 
 the passions of men (for that of course), but on their 
 opinions calmly and deliberately formed, would furnish a 
 very curious chapter in the history of human knowledge 
 and human ignorance. 
 
 Sometimes words with no fault of theirs, for they did 
 not originally involve any error, will yet draw some error 
 in their train; and of that error will afterwards prove the 
 most efl'ectual bulwark and shield. Let me instance — the 
 author just referred to supplies the example — the word 
 ' crystal.' The strange notion concerning the origin of the 
 thing, current among the natural philosophers of antiquity, 
 and which only two centuries ago Sir Thomas Browne 
 thought it worth while to place first and foremost among 
 the Vulgar Errors that he undertook to refute, was plainly 
 traceable to a confusion occasioned by the name. Crystal, 
 
 98 
 
ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS 
 
 as men supposed, was ice or snow which had undergone 
 such a process of induration as wholly and for ever to have 
 lost its fluidity :'^^ and Pliny, backing up one mistake by 
 another, affirmed that it was only found in regions of ex- 
 treme cold. The fact is, that the Greek word for crystal 
 originally signified ice; but after a while was also imparted 
 to that diaphanous quartz which has so much the look of 
 ice, and which alone rve call by this name; and then in a 
 little while it was taken for granted that the two, having the 
 same name, were in fact the same substance; and this mis- 
 take it took ages to correct. 
 
 Natural history abounds in legends. In the word 
 * leopard ' one of these has been permanently bound up ; 
 the error, having first given birth to the name, being after- 
 wards itself maintained and propagated by it. The leopard, 
 as is well known, was not for the Greek and Latin zoologists 
 a species by itself, but a mongrel birth of the male panther 
 or pard and the lioness ; and in * leopard ' or * lion-pard,' 
 this fabled double descent is expressed. ' Cockatrice ' 
 embodies a somewhat similar fable; the fable however in 
 this case having been invented to account for the name. 
 
 If was Eichhorn who first suggested the calling of a 
 certain group of languages, which stand in a marked contra- 
 distinction to the Indo-European or Aryan family, by the 
 common name of ' Semitic' A word which should include 
 all these was wanting, and this one was handy and has 
 made its fortune ; at the same time implying, as ' Semitic ' 
 does, that these are all languages spoken by races which 
 are descended from Shem, it is eminently calculated to mis- 
 lead. There are non-Semitic races, the Phoenicians for 
 example, which have spoken a Semitic language; there are 
 Semitic races which have not spoken one. Against ' Indo- 
 European ' the same objection may be urged; seeing that 
 several languages are European, that is, spoken within the 
 
 99 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 limits of Europe, as the Maltese, the Finnish, the Hungarian, 
 the Basque, the Turkish, which lie altogether outside of 
 this group. 
 
 * Gothic ' is plainly a misnomer, and has often proved 
 a misleader as well, when applied to a style of architecture 
 which belongs not to one, but to all the Germanic tribes; 
 which, moreover, did not come into existence till many cen- 
 turies after any people called Goths had ceased from the 
 earth. Those, indeed, who first called this medieval archi- 
 tecture ' Gothic,' had no intention of ascribing to the Goths 
 the first invention of it, however this language may seem 
 now to bind up in itself an assertion of the kind. * Gothic ' 
 was at first a mere random name of contempt. The Goths, 
 with the Vandals, being the standing representatives of the 
 rude in manners and barbarous in taste, the critics who 
 would fain throw scorn on this architecture as compared 
 with that classical Italian which alone seemed worthy of 
 their admiration,"® called it * Gothic,' meaning rude and 
 barbarous thereby. We who recognize in this Gothic archi- 
 tecture the most wondrous and consummate birth of genius 
 in one region of art, find it hard to believe that this wa? 
 once a mere title of slight and scorn, and sometimes wrongly 
 assume a reference in the word to the people among whom 
 first it arose. 
 
 ' Classical ' and ' romantic,' names given to opposing 
 schools of literature and art, contain an absurd antithesis; 
 and either say nothing at all, or say something erroneous. 
 * Revival of Learning ' is a phrase only partially true when 
 applied to that mighty intellectual movement in Western 
 Europe which marked the fifteenth century and the begin- 
 ning of the sixteenth. A revival there might be, and indeed 
 there was, of Greek learning at that time; but there could 
 not be properly affirmed a revival of Latin, inasmuch as it 
 had never been dead; or, even as those who dissent from this 
 
 100 
 
ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS 
 
 statement must own, had revived nearly two centuries before. 
 
 * Renaissance/ applied in France to the new direction which 
 art took about the age of Francis the First, is another 
 question-begging word. Very many would entirely deny that 
 the bringing back of an antique pagan spirit, and of pagan 
 forms as the utterance of this, into Christian art was a 
 
 * renaissance ' or new birth of it at all. 
 
 But inaccuracy in naming may draw after it more serious 
 mischief in regions more important. Nowhere is accuracy 
 more vital than in words having to do with the chief facts 
 and objects of our faith; for such v/ords, as Coleridge has 
 observed, are never inert, but constantly exercise an immense 
 reactive influence, whether men know it or not, on such 
 as use them, or often hear them used by others. The so- 
 called * Unitarians,' claiming by this name of theirs to be 
 asserters of the unity of the Godhead, claim that which 
 belongs to us by far better right than to them; which, 
 indeed, belonging of fullest right to us, does not properly 
 belong to them at all. I should, therefore, without any 
 intention of offence, refuse the name to them; just as I 
 should decline, by calling those of the Roman Obedience 
 ' Catholics,' to give up the whole question at issue between 
 them and us. So, also, were I one of them, I should never, 
 however convenient it might sometimes prove, consent to 
 call the great religious movement of Europe in the sixteenth 
 century the ' Reformation.' Such in our esteem it was, and 
 in the deepest, truest sense; a shaping anew of things that 
 were amiss in the Church. But how any who esteem it a 
 disastrous, and, on their parts who brought it about, a most 
 guilty schism, can consent to call it by this name, has always 
 surprised me. 
 
 Let me urge on you here the importance of seeking in 
 every case to acquaint yourselves with the circumstances 
 under which any body of men who have played an important 
 
 101 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 part in history, above all in the history of your own land, 
 obtained the name by which they were afterwards them- 
 selves willing to be known, or which was used for their 
 designation by others. This you may do as a matter of his- 
 torical inquiry, and keeping entirely aloof in spirit from 
 the bitterness, the contempt, the calumny, out of which 
 very frequently these names were first imposed. What- 
 ever of scorn or wrong may have been at work in them who 
 coined or gave currency to the name, the name itself can 
 never without serious loss be neglected by any who would 
 truly understand the moral significance of the thing; f©r 
 always something, oftentimes much, may be learned from it. 
 Learn, then, about each one of these names which you meet 
 in your studies, whether it was one that men gave to them- 
 selves ; or one imposed on them by others, but never recog- 
 nized by them; or one that, first imposed by others, was 
 yet in course of time admitted and allowed by themselves. 
 We have examples in all these kinds. Thus the ' Gnostics ' 
 call themselves such; the name was of their own devising, 
 and declared that whereof they made their boast; it was 
 the same with the ' Cavaliers ' of our Civil War. ' Quaker,' 
 * Puritan,' * Roundhead,' were all, on the contrary, names 
 devised by others, and never accepted by those to whom 
 they were attached. To the third class * Whig ' and * Tory ' 
 belong. These were nicknames originally of bitterest party 
 hate, withdrawn from their earlier use, and fastened by 
 two political bodies in England each on the other,^*^ the 
 ' Whig ' being properly a Scottish covenanter, the ' Tory ' 
 an Irish bog-trotting freebooter; while yet these nicknames 
 in tract of time so lost and let go what was offensive about 
 them, that in the end they were adopted by the very parties 
 themselves. Not otherwise the German * Lutherans ' were 
 originally so called by their antagonists.^^ ' Methodist,' 
 in like manner, was a title not first taken by the followers 
 
 102 
 
ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS 
 
 of Wesley, but fastened on them by others, while yet they 
 have been subsequently willing, though with a certain 
 reserve, to accept and to be known by it. ' Momiers ' or 
 ' Mummers,' a name in itself of far greater offence, has 
 obtained in Switzerland something of the same allowance. 
 Exactly in the same way ' Capuchin ' was at first a jesting 
 nickname, given by the gamins in the streets to that re- 
 formed branch of the Franciscans which afterwards accepted 
 it as their proper designation. It was provoked by the 
 peaked and pointed hood (' cappuccio,' * cappucino ') which 
 they wore. The story of the ' Gueux,' or ' Beggars,' of 
 Holland, and how they appropriated their name, is familiar, 
 as I doubt not, to many. 
 
 A ' Premier ' or * Prime Minister,' though unknown to 
 the law of England, is at present one of the institutions 
 of the country. The acknowledged leadership of one mem- 
 ber in the Government is a fact of only gradual growth 
 in our constitutional history, but one in which the nation 
 has entirely acquiesced, — nor is there anything invidious 
 now in the title. But in what spirit the Parliamentary 
 Opposition, having coined the term, applied it first to Sir 
 Robert Walpole, is plain from some words of his spoken 
 in the House of Commons, Feb. 11, 1742: ' Having invested 
 me with a kind of mock dignity, and styled me a Prime 
 Minister, they [the Opposition] impute to me an unpardon- 
 able abuse of the chimerical authority which they only 
 created and conferred.' 
 
 Now of these titles some undoubtedly, like ' Capuchin ' 
 instanced just now, stand in no very intimate connexion 
 with those who bear them; and such names, though seldom 
 without their instruction, yet plainly are not so instructive 
 as others, in which the innermost heart of the thing named 
 so utters itself, that, having mastered the name, we have 
 placed ourselves at tlie central point, from whence best to 
 
 103 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 master everything besides. It is thus with * Gnostic ' and 
 * Gnosticism ' ; in the prominence given to gnosis or knowl- 
 edge, as opposed to faith, lies the key to the whole system. 
 The Greek Church has loved ever to style itself the Holy 
 ' Orthodox ' Church, the Latin, the Holy * Catholic ' Church. 
 Follow up the thoughts which these words suggest. What 
 a world of teaching they contain; above all when brought 
 into direct comparison and opposition one with the other. 
 How does all which is innermost in the Greek and Roman 
 mind unconsciously reveal itself here; the Greek Church 
 regarding as its chief blazon that its speculation is right, 
 the Latin that its empire is universal. Nor indeed is it 
 merely the Greek and Latin Churches which utter them- 
 selves here, but Greece and Rome in their deepest distinc- 
 tions, as these existed from their earliest times. The key 
 to the whole history. Pagan as well as Christian, of each 
 is in these words. We can understand how the one estab- 
 lished a dominion in the region of the mind which shall 
 never be overthrown, the other founded an empire in the 
 world whose visible effects shall never be done away. This 
 is an illustrious example; but I am bold to affirm that, in 
 their degree, all parties, religious and political, are known 
 by names that will repay study; by names, to understand 
 which will bring us far to an understanding of their 
 strength and their weakness, their truth and their error, 
 the idea and intention according to which they wrought. 
 Thus run over in thought a few of those which have risen 
 up in England. ' Puritans,' ' Fifth-^Ionarchy men,' ' Seek- 
 ers,' * Levellers,' ' Independents,' * Friends,' ' Rationalists,' 
 ' Latitudinarians,' ' Freethinkers,' these titles, v/ith many 
 more, have each its significance; and would you get to the 
 heart of things, and thoroughly understand what any of 
 these schools and parties intended, you must first under- 
 stand what they were called. From this as from a central 
 
 104 
 
ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS 
 
 point you must start; even as you must bring back to this 
 whatever further knowledge you may acquire ; putting your 
 later gains, if possible, in subordination to the name; at all 
 events in connexion and relation with it. 
 
 You will often be able to glean information from names, 
 such as, if not always important, will yet rarely fail to 
 be interesting and instructive in its way. Thus what a 
 record of inventions, how much of the past history of com- 
 merce do they embody and preserve. The ' magnet ' has 
 its name from Magnesia, a district of Thessaly; this same 
 Magnesia, or else another like-named district in Asia Minor, 
 yielding the medicinal earth so called. ' Artesian ' wells 
 are from the province of Artois in France, where they 
 were long in use before introduced elsewhere. The ' bald- 
 achin ' or * baudekin ' is from Baldacco, the Italian form 
 of the name of the city of Bagdad, from whence the costly 
 silk of this canopy originally came. The * bayonet ' sug- 
 gests concerning itself, though perhaps wrongly, that it was 
 first made at Bayonne — the ' bilbo,' a finely tempered 
 Spanish blade, at Bilbao — the ' carronade ' at the Carron 
 Ironworks in Scotland — ' worsted ' that it was spun at a 
 village not far from Norwich — ' sarcenet ' that it is a Sara- 
 cen manufacture — ' cambric ' that it reached us from Cam- 
 bray — ' copper ' that it drew its name from Cyprus, so 
 richly furnished with mines of this metal — * fustian ' from 
 Fostat, a suburb of Cairo — * frieze ' from Friesland — * silk ' 
 or * sericum ' from the land of the Seres or Chinese — 
 ' damask ' from Damascus — ' cassimere ' or * kersemere ' 
 from Cashmere — ' arras ' from a town like-named — ' duffel,* 
 too, from a town near Antwerp so called, which Wordsworth 
 has immortalized — ' shalloon ' from Chalons — ' j ane ' from 
 Genoa — * gauze ' from Gaza. The fashion of the * cravat ' 
 was borrowed from the Croats, or Crabats, as this wild 
 irregular soldiery of the Thirty Years' War used to be 
 
 105 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 called. The * biggen/ a plain cap often mentioned by our 
 early writers^ was first worn by the Beguines^ communities 
 of pietist women in the Low Comitries in the twelfth cen- 
 tury. The ' dalmatic ' was a garment whose fashion was 
 taken to be borrowed from Dalmatia. (See Marriott.) 
 England now sends her calicoes and muslins to India and 
 the East; yet these words give standing witness that we 
 once imported them from thence ; for ' calico ' is from 
 Calicut^ a town on the coast of Malabar, and * muslin ' 
 from Mossul, a city in Asiatic Turkey. * Cordwain ' or 
 
 * cordovan ' is from Cordova — * delf ' from Delft — ' indigo ' 
 (indicum) from India — ' gamboge ' from Cambodia — the 
 ' agate ' from a Sicilian river, Achates — the ' turquoise ' 
 from Turkey — ^the * chalcedony ' or onyx from Chalcedon — 
 
 * jet ' from the river Gages in Lycia, where this black stone 
 is found. * Rhubarb ' is a corruption of Rha barbarum, 
 the root from the savage banks of the Rha or Volga — 
 ' jalap ' is from Jalapa, a town in Mexico — ' tobacco ' from 
 the island Tobago — ' malmsey ' from Malvasia, for long a 
 flourishing city in the Morea — ' sherry,' or * sherris ' as 
 Shakespeare wrote it, is from Xeres — ' macassar ' oil from 
 a small Malay kingdom so named in the Eastern Archi- 
 pelago — ' dittany ' from the mountain Dicte, in Crete — 
 'parchment' from Pergamum — 'majolica' from Majorca 
 — ' faience ' from the town named in Italian Faenza. A 
 little town in Essex gave its name to the ' tilbury ' ; another, 
 in Bavaria, to the ' landau.' The * bezant ' is a coin of 
 Byzantium; the 'guinea' was originally coined (in 1663) 
 of gold brought from the African coast so called ; the pound 
 ' sterling ' was a certain weight of bullion according to the 
 standard of the Easterlings, or Eastern merchants from 
 the Hanse Towns on the Baltic. The ' spaniel ' is from 
 Spain; the ' barb ' is a steed from Barbary; the pony called 
 a ' galloway ' from the county of Galloway in Scotland. 
 
 106 
 
ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS 
 
 The * pheasant ' reached us from the banks of the Phasis ; 
 the ' bantam ' from a Dutch settlement in Java so called ; 
 the ' canary,' bird and wine, both from the island so named ; 
 the 'peach' (persica) declares itself a Persian fruit; 
 ' currants ' derived their name from Corinth, whence these 
 small dried grapes were mostly shipped ; the ' damson ' is 
 the ' damascene,' or plum of Damascus ; the * bergamot ' 
 pear is named from Bergamo in Italy ; the ' quince ' has 
 undergone so many changes in its progress through Italian 
 and French to us, that it hardly retains any trace of Cydon 
 (malum Cydonium), a town of Crete, from which it was 
 supposed to proceed. ' Solecisms,' if I may find room for 
 them here, are from Soloe, an Athenian colony in Cilicia, 
 whose members soon forgot the Attic refinement of speech, 
 and became notorious for the ungrammatical Greek which 
 they talked. Lastly, the ' tarantula ' (It. * tarantola ') is 
 said to be common in the neighbourhood of Taranto. 
 
 And as things thus keep record in the names which they 
 bear of the quarters from which they reached us, so also 
 will they often do of the persons, who, as authors, inventors, 
 or discoverers, or in some other way, stood in near connexion 
 with them. A collection in any language of all the names 
 of persons which have since become names of things — from 
 nomina apellativa have become nomina realia — would be 
 very curious and interesting. I will enumerate a few. 
 Where the matter is not familiar to you, it will not be 
 unprofitable to work back from the word or thing to the 
 person, and to learn more accurately the connexion between 
 them. 
 
 To begin with mythical antiquity — ^the Chimaera has 
 given us ' chimerical,' Hermes * hermetic,' Pan ' panic,' 
 Paean, being a name of Apollo, the ' peony,' Tantalus ' to 
 tantalize,' Hercules ' herculean,' Proteus ' protean,' Vulcan 
 * volcano ' and * volcanic,' and Daedalus ' daedale,' if this 
 
 107 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 word, which Spenser, Wordsworth, and Keats have all used, 
 may find allowance with us. The demi-god Atlas figures 
 with a world upon his shoulders in the title-page of some 
 early works on geography; and has probably in this way 
 lent to our map-books their name. Gordius, the Phrygian 
 king who tied the famous ' gordian ' knot which Alexander 
 cut, will supply a natural transition from mythical to his- 
 torical. The * daric,' a Persian gold coin, very much of 
 the same value as our own rose noble, had its name from 
 Darius. Mausolus, a king of Caria, has left us ' mauso- 
 leum,' Academus ' academy,' Epicurus ' epicure,' Philip of 
 Macedon a * philippic,' being such a discourse as Demos- 
 thenes once launched against the enemy of Greece, and 
 Cicero 'cicerone.' Mithridates, who had made himself 
 poison-proof, gave us the now forgotten ' mithridate ' (Dry- 
 den) for antidote; as from Hippocrates we derived ' hip- 
 pocras,' or * ypocras,' often occurring in our early writers, 
 being a wine supposed to be mingled after the great physi- 
 cian's receipt. Gentius, a king of Illyria, gave his name 
 to the plant ' gentian,' having been, it is said, the first to 
 discover its virtues.^" Glaubers, who has bequeathed his 
 salts to us, was a Dutch chemist of the seventeenth century. 
 A grammar used to be called a * donat ' or ' donet ' 
 (Chaucer), from Donatus, a Roman grammarian of the 
 fourth century, whose Latin grammar held its place as a 
 school-book during a large part of the Middle Ages. Oth- 
 man, more than any other the grounder of the Turkish 
 dominion in Europe, reappears in our * Ottoman ' ; and Ter- 
 tullian, strangely enough, in the Spanish ' tertulia.' The 
 beggar Lazarus has given us ' lazar ' and ' lazaretto ' ; 
 Veronica and the legend connected with her name, a 
 ' vernicle,' being a napkin with the Saviour's face impressed 
 upon it. Simon Magus gave us ' simony ' ; this, however, as 
 we understand it now, is not a precise reproduction of his 
 
 108 
 
ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS 
 
 sin as recorded in Scripture. A common fossil shell is 
 called an ' ammonite ' from the fanciful resemblance to the 
 twisted horns of Jupiter Ammon which was traced in it; 
 Ammon again appearing in ' ammonia.' Our * pantaloons * 
 are from St. Pantaleone; he was the patron saint of the 
 Venetians, who therefore very commonly received Panta- 
 leon as their Christian name; it was from them transferred 
 to a Venetian garment consisting of hose reaching up to 
 the waist. ' Dunce/ as we have seen, is derived from Duns 
 Scotus. To come to more modern times, and not paus- 
 ing at Ben Jonson's ' chaucerisms/ Bishop Hall's * scogan- 
 isms/ from Scogan, Edward the Fourth's jester, or his 
 * aretinisms,' from Aretin ; these being probably not intended 
 even by their authors to endure; a Roman cobbler named 
 Pasquin has given us the * pasquil ' or ' pasquinade.' Der- 
 rick was the common hangman in the time of James I. ; he 
 bequeathed his name to the crane used for the lifting and 
 moving of heavy weights. * Patch,' a name of contempt 
 not unfrequent in Shakespeare, was, it is said, the proper 
 name of a favourite fool of Cardinal Wolsey's. Colonel 
 Negus in Queen Anne's time is reported to have first mixed 
 the beverage which goes by his name. Lord Orrery was the 
 first for whom an ' orrery ' was constructed ; Lord Spencer 
 first wore, or first brought into fashion, a * spencer ' ; and the 
 Duke of Roquelaure the cloak which still bears his name. 
 Dahl, a Swede, introduced from Mexico in 1789 the culti- 
 vation of the * dahlia ' ; the * fuchsia ' is named after Fuchs, 
 a German botanist of the sixteenth century ; the * mag- 
 nolia ' after Magnol, a distinguished French botanist of 
 the beginning of the eighteenth ; while the * camellia ' was 
 introduced into Europe from Japan in 1731 by Camelli, 
 a member of the Society of Jesus ; the ' shaddock ' by Cap- 
 tain Shaddock, who first transplanted this fruit from the 
 West Indies. In * quassia ' we have the name of a negro 
 
 109 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 sorcerer of Surinam^ who in 1730 discovered its properties, 
 and after whom it was called. An unsavoury jest of 
 Vespasian has attached his name in French to an unsavoury 
 spot. * Nicotine,' the alkaloid drawn from tobacco, goes 
 back for its designation to Nicot, a physician^ who first 
 introduced the tobacco-plant to the general notice of Eu- 
 rope. The Gobelins were a family so highly esteemed in 
 France that the manufactory of tapestry which they had 
 established in Paris did not drop their name, even after 
 it had been purchased and was conducted by the State. A 
 French Protestant refugee, Tabinet, first made * tabinet ' 
 in Dublin; another Frenchman, Goulard, a physician of 
 Montpellier, gave his name to the soothing lotion, not 
 unknown in our nurseries. The ' tontine ' was conceived 
 by Tonti, an Italian; another Italian, Galvani, first noted 
 the phenomena of animal electricity or * galvanism ' ; while 
 a third, Volta, lent a title to the * voltaic ' battery. Dolo- 
 mieu, a French geologist, first called attention in 1794 to 
 a peculiar mineral in Eastern Tyrol, called ' dolomite ' after 
 him. Colonel Martinet was a French officer appointed by 
 Louvois as an army inspector; one who did his work excel- 
 lently well, but has left a name bestowed often since on 
 mere military pedants. * Macintosh,' ' doily,' ' brougham,' 
 ' hansom,' ' to mesmerize,' ' to macadamize,' ' to burke,' * to 
 boycott,' are all names of persons or words formed from 
 their names, and then transferred to things or actions, on 
 the ground of some sort of connexion between the one and 
 the other.®^ To these I may add ' guillotine,' though Dr. 
 Guillotin did not invent this instrument of death, even as 
 it is a baseless legend that he died by it. He strongly 
 advocated the use of it, and thus it happened that it was 
 called after him. 
 
 Nor less shall we find history, at all events literary his- 
 tory, in the noting of the popular characters in books, 
 
 110 
 
ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS 
 
 who have supplied words that have passed into common 
 speech. 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 talk 
 about him, he has given us ' to hector ' f* while the medieval 
 romances about the siege of Troy ascribe to Pandarus 
 that shameful traffic out of which his name has passed into 
 the words * to pander ' and * panderism.' * Rodomontade ' 
 is from Rodomonte, a hero in the ' Orlando Furioso ' of 
 Ariosto; who yet, it must be owned, does not bluster and 
 boast, as the word founded on his name seems to imply. 
 
 * Thrasonical ' is from Thraso, the braggart in Terence's 
 
 * Eunuch.' Cervantes has given us ' quixotic '; Swift ' lilli- 
 putian ' ; to Moliere the French language owes * tartuife ' and 
 
 * tartuiferie.' * Reynard ' with us is a sort of duplicate for 
 fox, while in French ' renard ' has quite supplanted the old 
 ' goupil,' being originally no more than the proper name of 
 the fox-hero, the vulpine Ulysses, in that famous beast- 
 epic of the Middle Ages, ' Reynart the Foxe,' translated 
 and printed by William Caxton. The immense popularity 
 of this poem we gather from many evidences — from none 
 more clearly than from this. ' Chanticleer ' is the name of 
 the cock, and ' Bruin ' of the bear in the same poem.^^ 
 These have not made fortune to the same extent of actually 
 putting out names which before existed, but contest the 
 right of existence with them. 
 
 Occasionally a name will embody and give permanence 
 to an error ; as when in ' America ' the discovery of the 
 New World, which belonged to Columbus, is ascribed to 
 another eminent discoverer, but one who had no title to this 
 honour, even as he was entirely guiltless of any attempt 
 to usurp it for himself.^^ Our * turkeys ' are not from 
 Turkey, as was assumed by those who so called them, but 
 from that New World where alone they are native. This 
 
 111 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 error the French in another shape repeat with their ' dinde/ 
 originally ' poule d'Inde,' or Indian fowl. There lies in 
 ' gipsy/ or Egyptian^ the assumption that Egypt was the 
 original home of this strange people ; as was widely believed 
 when they made their first appearance in Europe early in 
 the fifteenth century. That this^ however, was a mistake, 
 their language leaves no doubt; proclaiming as it does that 
 they are wanderers from a more distant East, an outcast 
 tribe from Hindostan. * Bohemians/ as they are called by 
 the French, testifies to a similar error, to the fact that at 
 their first apparition in Western Europe they were sujd- 
 posed by the common people in France to be the expelled 
 Hussites of Bohemia. 
 
 Where words have not embodied an error, it will yet 
 sometimes happen that the sound or spelling will to us sug- 
 gest one. Against such in these studies it will be well to 
 be on our guard. Thus there has been a stage in most boys' 
 geographical knowledge, when they have taken for granted 
 that * Jutland ' was so called, not because it was the land of 
 the Jutes, but on account of its jutting out into the sea 
 in so remarkable a manner. Who is there that has not men- 
 tally put the Gulf of Lyons in some connexion with the city 
 of the same name.^ W^e may be surprised that the Gulf 
 should have drawn its title from a city so remote and so 
 far inland, but we accept the fact notwithstanding: the 
 river Rhone, flowing by the one, and disemboguing in the 
 other, seems to offer to us a certain link of connexion. 
 There is indeed no true connexion at all between the two. 
 In old texts this Gulf is generally called Sinus Gallicusj 
 in the fourteenth century a few writers began to call it Sinus 
 Leonis, the Gulf of the Lion, possibly from the fierceness 
 of its winds and waves, but at any rate by a name having 
 nothing to do with Lyons on the Rhone. The oak, in 
 Greek Spy's, plays no inconsiderable part in the Ritual of 
 
 112 
 
ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS 
 
 the Druids ; it is not therefore wonderful if most students 
 at one time of their lives have put the two in etymological 
 relation. The Greeks, who with so characteristic a vanity 
 assumed that the key to the meaning of words in all lan- 
 guages was to be found in their own, did this of course. 
 So, too, there have not been wanting those who have traced 
 in the name * Jove ' a heathen reminiscence of the great 
 name now miswritten ' Jehovah ' ; while yet, however spe- 
 cious this may seem, on closer scrutiny the words declare 
 that they have no connexion with one another, any more 
 than ' lapetus ' and * Japheth,' or, I may add, than * God ' 
 and * good,' which yet by an honourable moral instinct men 
 can hardly refrain from putting into an etymological rela- 
 tion with each other. 
 
 Sometimes a falsely-assumed derivation of a word has 
 reacted upon and modified its spelling. Thus it may have 
 been with ' hurricane.' In the tearing up and hurrying away 
 of the canes in the sugar plantations by this West-Indian 
 tornado, many have seen an explanation of the name; just 
 in the same way as the Latin ' calamitas ' has been derived 
 from * calamus,' the stalk of the corn. In both cases the 
 etymology is faulty ; ' hurricane,' originally a Carib word, 
 is only a transplanting into our tongue of the Spanish 
 * huracan.' 
 
 It is a signal evidence of the conservative powers of 
 language, that we may continually trace in speech the record 
 of customs and states of society which have now passed 
 so entirely away as to survive in these words alone. For 
 example, a * stipulation ' or agreement is so called, as many 
 affirm, from * stipula,' a straw ; and tells of a Roman cus- 
 tom, that when two persons would make a mutual engage- 
 ment with one another,^ ^ they would break a straw between 
 them. We all know what fact of English history is laid 
 up in * curfew,' or * couvre-feu.' The * limner,' or ' illu- 
 
 113 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 miner/ for so we find the word in Fuller, throws us back 
 on a time when the illumination of manuscripts was a 
 leading occupation of the painter. By ' lumber/ we are 
 reminded that Lombards were the first pawnbrokers, even 
 as they were the first bankers, in England : a ' lumber '-room 
 being a ' lombard '-room, or a room where the pawnbroker 
 stored his pledges. ^^ Nor need I do more than remind 
 you that in our common phrase of ' signing our name,' 
 we preserve a record of a time when such first rudiments 
 of education as the power of writing, were the portion of 
 so few, that it was not as now an exception, but the custom, 
 of most persons to make their mark or ' sign ' ; great barons 
 and kings themselves not being ashamed to set this sign 
 or cross to the weightiest documents. To ' subscribe ' the 
 name would more accurately express what now we do. As 
 often as we term arithmetic the science of calculation, we 
 implicitly allude to that rudimental stage in this science, 
 when pebbles (calculi) were used, as now among savage 
 tribes they often are, to help the practice of counting; the 
 Greeks made the same use of one word of theirs (j/^7;^t{etv) 
 while in another (Tre/xTra^etv) they kept record of a period 
 when the five fingers were so employed. * Expend,' 
 ' expense,' tell us that money was once weighed out (Gen. 
 23:16), not counted out as now; ' pecunia,' ' peculatus,' 
 M.E. * feo,' O.E. * feoh,' money, cattle (cp. German * Vieh ') 
 keep record all of a time when cattle were the main circu- 
 lating medium. In * library ' we preserve the fact that 
 books were once written on the bark (liber) of trees; in 
 * volume,' that they were mostly rolls ; in * paper,' that the 
 Egyptian papyrus, ' the paper-reeds by the brooks,' fur- 
 nished at one time the ordinary material on which they 
 were written. 
 
 Names thus so often surviving things, we have no right 
 to turn an etjmiology into an argument. There was a nota- 
 
 114 
 
ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS 
 
 ble attempt to do this in the controversy so earnestly carried 
 on between the Greek and Latin Churches^ concerning the 
 bread, whether it should be leavened or unleavened, that 
 was used at the Table of the Lord. Those of the Eastern 
 Church constantly urged that the Greek word for bread 
 (and in Greek was the authoritative record of the first 
 institution of this sacrament), implied, according to its 
 root, that which was raised or lifted up; not, therefore, 
 unleavened bread; such rather as had undergone the process 
 of fermentation. But even if the etymology on which they 
 relied (a/oros from aipw, to raise) had been as certain as 
 it is impossible, they could draw no argument of the slightest 
 worth from so remote an etymology, and one which had so 
 long fallen out of the consciousness of those who employed 
 the word. 
 
 Theories too, which long since were utterly renounced, 
 have yet left their traces behind them. Thus ' good 
 humour,' ' bad humour,' * humours,' and, strangest contra- 
 diction of all, ' dry humour,' rest altogether on a now ex- 
 ploded, but a very old and widely accepted, theory of 
 medicine; according to which there were four principal 
 moistures or ' humours ' in the natural body, on the due 
 proportion and combination of which the disposition alike 
 of body and mind depended.^® Our present use of ' temper ' 
 has its origin in the same theory; the due admixture, or 
 right tempering, of these humours gave what was called 
 the happj^ temper, or mixture, which thus existing inwardly, 
 manifested itself also outwardly ; while * distemper,' which 
 we still employ in the sense of sickness, was that evil frame 
 either of a man's body or his mind (for it was used of 
 both), which had its rise in an unsuitable mingling of these 
 humours. In these instances, as in many more, the great 
 streams of thought and feeling have changed their course, 
 flowing now in quite other channels from those which once 
 
 115 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 they filled, but have left these words as abiding memorials 
 of the channels wherein once they ran. Thus ' extremes/ 
 
 * golden mean/ ' category/ ' predicament/ ' axiom/ ' habit/ 
 — what are these but a deposit in our ethical terminology 
 which the schoolmen have left behind them? 
 
 But we have not exhausted our examples of the way in 
 which the record of old errors, themselves dismissed long 
 ago, will yet survive in language — being bound up in words 
 that grew into use when those errors found credit, and 
 that maintain their currency still. The mythology which 
 Saxons or Danes brought with them from their German 
 or Scandinavian homes is as much extinct for us as are the 
 Lares, Larvae, and Lemures of heathen Rome; yet the 
 deposit it has permanently left behind it in the English 
 language is not inconsiderable. ' Dwarf,' * oaf,' * droll,' 
 'wight,' 'puck,' 'urchin,' 'hag,' 'night-mare,' ' gramary,' 'Old 
 Nick,' 'changeling' (Wechselkind), suggest themselves, as 
 all connected with those old Teutonic beliefs. Few now 
 have any faith in astrology, or count that the planet under 
 which a man is born will affect his temperament, make him 
 for life of a disposition grave or gay, lively or severe. Yet 
 our language affirms as much; for we speak of men as 
 
 * jovial' or 'saturnine,' or 'mercurial' — 'jovial,' as being 
 born under the planet Jupiter or Jove, which was the joy- 
 fullest star, and of happiest augury of all: ^'^ a gloomy 
 severe person is said to be ' saturnine,' born, that is, under 
 the planet Saturn, who makes those that own his influence, 
 having been born when he was in the ascendant, grave and 
 stern as himself : another we call * mercurial,' or ' light- 
 hearted,' as those born under the planet Mercury were 
 accounted to be. The same faith in the influence of the 
 stars survives in ' disastrous,' * ill-starred,' ' ascendancy,' 
 ' lord of the ascendant,' and, indeed, in ' influence ' and 
 the Italian form of it ' influenza.' What a record of old 
 
 116 
 
ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS 
 
 speculations, old certainly as Aristotle, and not yet exploded 
 in the time of Milton/^ does the word ' quintessence ' con- 
 tain ; and ' arsenic ' the same ; no other namely than this 
 that metals are of different sexes, some male (dpo-ei/c/ca), 
 and some female. Again, what curious legends belong to 
 the ' sardonic,'^^ or Sardinian, laugh ; a laugh caused, as 
 was supposed, by a plant growing in Sardinia, of which 
 they who ate, died laughing; to the 'barnacle' goose,^^ to 
 the ' amethyst,' esteemed, as the word implies, a preventive 
 or antidote of drunkenness*; and to other words not a few, 
 which are employed by us still. 
 
 A question presents itself here, and one not merely specu- 
 lative; for it has before now become a veritable case of 
 conscience with some whether they ought to use words which 
 originally rested on, and so seem still to affirm, some super- 
 stition or untruth. This question has practically settled 
 itself; the words will keep their ground: but further, they 
 have a right to do this; for no word need be considered 
 so to root itself in its etymology, and to draw its sap and 
 strength from thence, that it cannot detach itself from this, 
 and acquire the rights of an independent existence. And 
 thus our weekly newspapers commit no absurdity in calling 
 themselves 'jowrnals,' or ' diurnals ' ; and we as little when 
 we name that a * journey ' which occupies not one, but several 
 days. We involve ourselves in no real contradiction, speak- 
 ing of a * quarantine ' of five, ten, or any number of days 
 more or fewer than forty; or of a population * decimated ' 
 by a plague, though exactly a tenth of it has not perished. 
 A stone coffin may be still a * sarcophagus,' without thereby 
 implying that it has any special property of consuming 
 the flesh of bodies which are laid within it.^* In like 
 manner the wax of our ' candles ' (* candela,' from 'candeo') 
 is not necessarily white; our ' rubrics ' retain their name, 
 though seldom printed in red ink ; neither need our ' minia- 
 
 117 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 tures ' abandon theirs, though no longer painted with minium 
 or carmine ; our ' surplice ' is not usually worn over an 
 undergarment of skins ; our ' stirrups ' are not ropes by 
 whose aid we climb upon our horses ; nor are ' haversacks ' 
 sacks for the carrying of oats ; it is not barley or here only 
 which we store up in our 'barns/ nor hogs' fat in our 'larders' ; 
 a monody need not be sung by a single voice ; and our lucu- 
 brations are not always by candlelight ; a ' costermonger ' 
 or * costardmonger ' does not of necessity sell costards or 
 apples ; there are * palaces ' which are not built on the 
 Palatine Hill ; and ' nausea ' which is not sea-sickness. I 
 remember once asking a class of school-children, whether 
 an announcement which during one very hard winter 
 appeared in the papers, of a ' white hlachhird. ' having been 
 shot, might be possibly correct, or was on the face of it 
 self-contradictory and absurd. The less thoughtful mem- 
 bers of the class instantly pronounced against it; while 
 after a little consideration, two or three made answer that 
 it might very well be, that, while without doubt the bird 
 had originally obtained this name from its blackness, yet 
 ' blackbird ' was now the name of a species, and a name so 
 cleaving to it, as not to be forfeited, even when the black- 
 ness had quite disappeared. We do not question the right of 
 the ' New Forest ' to retain this title of New, though it 
 has now stood for eight hundred years ; nor of ' Naples ' 
 to be New City (Neapolis) still, after an existence three 
 or four times as long. 
 
 It must, then, be esteemed a piece of ethical prudery, 
 and an ignorance of the laws which languages obey, when 
 the early Quakers refused to employ the names commonly 
 given to the days of the week, and substituted for these, 
 ' first day,' ' second day,' and so on. This they did, as is 
 well known, on the ground that it became not Christian 
 men to give that sanction to idolatry which was involved in 
 
 118 
 
ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS 
 
 the ordinary style — as though every time they spoke of 
 Wednesday they were rendering homage to Woden, of 
 Thursday to Thor_, of Friday to Friga, and thus with the 
 rest;''^ or at all events recognizing their existence. Now 
 it is quite intelligible that the early Christians, living in 
 the midst of a still rempant heathenism, should have 
 objected, as we know they did, to ' dies Solis/ or Sunday, 
 to express the first day of the week, their Lord's-Day. But 
 when the later Friends raised their protest, the case was 
 altogether different. The false gods whose names were 
 bound up in these words had ceased to be worshipped in 
 England for about a thousand years; the words had wholly 
 disengaged themselves from their etymologies, of which 
 probably not one in a thousand had the slightest suspicion. 
 Moreover, had these precisians in speech been consistent, 
 they could not have stopped where they did. Every new 
 acquaintance with the etymology or primary use of words 
 would have entangled them in some new embarrassment, 
 would have required a new purging of their vocabulary. 
 
 * To charm,' ' to bewitch,' ' to fascinate,' ' to enchant,' would 
 have been no longer lawful words for those who had out- 
 lived the belief in magic, and in the power of the evil eye; 
 nor * lunacy,' nor ' lunatic,' for such as did not count the moon 
 to have anything to do with mental unsoundness; nor 
 ' panic ' fear, for those who believed that the great god Pan 
 was indeed dead ; nor ' auguries,' nor ' auspices,' for those 
 to whom divination was nothing; while to speak of ' initiat- 
 ing ' a person into the * mysteries ' of an art, would have 
 been utterly heathenish language. Nay, they must have 
 found fault with the language of Holy Scripture itself; 
 for a word of honourable use in the New Testament express- 
 ing the function of an interpreter, and reappearing in our 
 
 * hermeneutics,' is directly derived from and embodies the 
 name of Hermes, a heathen deity, and one who did not, 
 
 119 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 like Woden, Tlior, and Friga, pertain to a long extinct 
 mythology, but to one existing in its strength at the very 
 time when the Evangelist wrote. And how was it, as might 
 have been fairly asked, that St. Paul did not protest against 
 a Christian woman retaining the name of Phoebe (Rom. 
 16: 1), a goddess of the same mythology? 
 
 The rise and fall of words, the honour which in tract 
 of time they exchanged for dishonour, and the dishonour 
 for honour — all which in my last lecture I contemplated 
 mainly from an ethical point of view — is in a merely his- 
 toric aspect scarcely less remarkable. Very curious is it 
 to watch the varying fortune of words — the extent to which 
 it has fared with them, as with persons and families; some 
 having improved their position in the w^orld, and attained 
 to far higher dignity than seemed destined for them at the 
 beginning, while others in a manner quite as notable have 
 lost caste, have descended from their high estate to common 
 and even ignoble uses. Titles of dignity and honour have 
 naturally a peculiar liability to be some lifted up, and some 
 cast down. Of words which have risen in the world, the 
 French ' marechal ' affords us an excellent example. 
 
 * Marechal,' as Howell has said, ' at first was the name of 
 a smith-farrier, or one that dressed horses ' — which indeed 
 it is still — ' but it climbed by degrees to that height that 
 the chief est commanders of the gendarmery are come to be 
 called marshals.' But if this has risen, our ' alderman ' 
 has fallen. Whatever the civic dignity of an alderman 
 may now be, still it must be owned that the word has lost 
 much since the time that the ' alderman ' was only second 
 in rank and position to the king. Sometimes a word will 
 keep or even improve its place in one language, while at 
 the same time it declines from it in another. Thus 
 
 * demoiselle ' (dominicella) cannot be said to have lost 
 ground in French, however ' donzelle ' may ; while * dam- 
 
 120 
 
ON THE HISTORY IN WORDS 
 
 hele/ being the same word^ designates in Walloon the farm- 
 girl who minds the cows.^*^ ' Pope ' is the highest ecclesi- 
 astical dignitary in the Latin Church; every parish priest 
 is a ' pope ' in the Greek. ' Queen/ a cognate of ywrj^ 
 has had a double fortune. Spelt as above it has more than 
 kept the dignity with which it started, being the title given 
 to the lady of the kingdom ; while spelt ' quean ' it is a desig- 
 nation not untinged with contempt. ' Squatter ' remains 
 for us in England very much where it always was ; in Aus- 
 tralia it is now the name by which the landed aristocracy 
 are willing to be known.®^ 
 
 After all that has thus been adduced, you will scarcely 
 deny that we have a right to speak of a history in words. 
 Now suppose that the pieces of money which in the inter- 
 course and traffic of dailj^ life are passing through our hands 
 continually, had each one something of its own that made 
 it more or less worthy of note ; if on one was stamped some 
 striking maxim, on another some important fact, on the 
 third a memorable date; if others were works of finest art, 
 graven with rare and beautiful devices, or bearing the head 
 of some ancient sage or hero king; while others, again, were 
 the sole surviving monuments of mighty nations that once 
 filled the world with their fame ; what a careless indifference 
 to our own improvement — to all that men hitherto had felt 
 or wrought — would it argue in us, if we were content that 
 these should come and go, should stay by us or pass from 
 us, without our vouchsafing to them so much as one serious 
 regard. Such a currency there is, a currency intellectual 
 and spiritual of no meaner worth, and one with which we 
 have to transact so much of the higher business of our 
 lives. Let us take care that we come not in this matter 
 under the condemnation of any such incurious indifference 
 as that which I have imagined. 
 
 121 
 
LECTURE 5 
 
 On the Rise of New Words 
 
 If I do not much mistake, you will find it not a little 
 interesting to follow great and significant words to the time 
 and place of their birth. And not these alone. The same 
 interest, though perhaps not in so high a degree, will cleave 
 to the upcoming of words not a few that have never played 
 a part so important in the world's story. A volume might 
 be written such as few would rival in curious interest, which 
 should do no more than indicate the occasion upon which 
 new words, or old words employed in a new sense — being 
 such words as the world subsequently heard much of — first 
 appeared; with quotation, where advisable, of the passages 
 in proof. A great English poet, too early lost, the ' young 
 Marcellus of our tongue,' as Dryden so finely calls him, 
 has very grandly described the emotion of 
 
 ' some watcher of the skies. 
 When a new planet swims into his ken.' 
 
 Not very different will be our feeling, as we watch, at the 
 moment of its rising above the horizon, some word destined, 
 it may be, to play its part in the world's story, to take 
 its place for ever among the luminaries in the moral and 
 intellectual firmament above us. 
 
 But a caution is necessary here. We must not regard 
 as certain in every case, or indeed in most cases, that the 
 first rise of a word will have exactly consented in time with 
 its first appearance within the range of our vision. Such 
 identity will sometimes exist; and we may watch the actual 
 birth of some word, and may affirm with confidence that 
 
 122 
 
ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS 
 
 at such a time and on such an occasion it first saw the light — 
 in this book, or from the lips of that man. Of another we 
 can only sa}^ About this time and near about this spot it 
 first came into being, for we first meet it in such an author 
 and under such and such conditions. So mere a fragment 
 of ancient literature has come down to us, that, while the 
 earliest appearance there of a word is still most instructive 
 to note, it cannot in all or in nearly all cases be affirmed 
 to mark the exact moment of its nativity. And even in 
 the modern world we must in most instances be content to 
 fix a period, we may perhaps add a local habitation, within 
 the limits of which the term must have been born, either in 
 legitimate scientific travail, or the child of some flash of 
 genius, or the product of some generatio osquivoca, the 
 necessary result of exciting predisposing causes; at the 
 same time seeking by further research ever to narrow more 
 and more the limits within which this must have happened. 
 To speak first of words religious and ecclesiastical. 
 Very noteworthy, and in some sort epoch-making, must be 
 regarded the first appearance of the following : — ' Chris- 
 tian ' ; ^^ ' Trinity ' ; ^^ ' Catholic,' as applied to the 
 Church ; '^^^ ' canonical,' as a distinctive title of the received 
 Scriptures; ^^^ ' New Testament,' as describing the complex 
 of the sacred books of the New Covenant ; ^^^ * Gospels,' 
 as applied to the four inspired records of the life and min- 
 istry of our Lord.^"^^ We notice, too, with interest, the first 
 coming up of ' monk ' and ' nun,' ^^^ marking as they do the 
 beginnings of the monastic system ; — of * transubstantia- 
 tion,' ^^^ of ' concomitance,' ^^° expressing as does this word 
 the grounds on which the medieval Church defended com- 
 munion in one kind only for the laity ; of ' limbo ' in its 
 theological sense; ^'^'" witnessing as these do to the consoli- 
 dation of opinions which had long been floating in the 
 Church. 
 
 123 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 Not so profound an interest, but still very instructive 
 to note, is the earliest apparition of names historical and 
 geographical, above all of such as have since been 
 often on the lips of men; as the first mention in books of 
 *Asia';io« of * India ';i<>« of ' Europe ';^^« of ' Mace- 
 donia ';^^^ of ' Greeks ';^^" of ' Germans' and' 'Ger- 
 many '; ^^^ of ' Alemanni '; ^^* of ' Franks '; ^^^ of ' Prus- 
 sia ' and ' Prussians'; ^^^ of ' Normans'; ^^^ the earliest 
 notice by any Greek author of Rome;^^^ the first use of 
 * Italy ' as comprehending the entire Hesperian penin- 
 sula; ^^^ of 'Asia Minor' to designate Asia on this side 
 Taurus. ^-^ ' Madagascar ' may hereafter have a history, 
 which will make it interesting to know that this name was 
 first given, so far as we can trace, by Marco Polo to the huge 
 African island. Neither can we regard with indifference 
 the first giving to the newly-discovered continent in the 
 West the name of * America ' ; and still less should we Eng- 
 lishmen fail to take note of the date when this island 
 exchanged its earlier name of Britain for ' England ' ; or 
 again, when it resumed ' Great Britain ' as its official desig- 
 nation. So also, to confirm our assertion by examples from 
 another quarter, it cannot be unprofitable to mark the exact 
 moment at which * tyrant ' and ' tyranny,' forming so dis- 
 tinct an epoch as this did in the political history of Greece, 
 first appeared; ^^^ or again, when, and from whom, the 
 fabric of the external universe first received the title of 
 ' cosmios,' or beautiful order ; ^^^ a name not new in itself, 
 but new in this application of it; with much more of the 
 same kind. 
 
 Let us go back to one of the words just named, and 
 inquire what may be learned from acquaintance with the 
 time and place of its first appearance. It is one the coming 
 up of which has found special record in the Book of life: 
 ' The disciples,' as St. Luke expressly tells us, ' were called 
 
 124 
 
ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS 
 
 Christians first in Antioch ' (Acts 11:26). That we have 
 here a notice which we would not willingly have missed all 
 will acknowledge^ even as nothing can be otherwise than 
 curious which relates to the infancy of the Church. But 
 there is here much more than an interesting notice. Ques- 
 tion it a little closer, and how much it will be found to con- 
 tain, how much which it is waiting to yield up. What 
 light it throws on the whole story of the apostolic Church 
 to know where and when this name of * Christians ' was 
 first imposed on the faithful; for imposed by adversaries 
 it certainly was, not devised by themselves, however after- 
 wards they may have learned to glory in it as the name of 
 highest dignity and honour. They did not call themselves, 
 but, as is expressly recorded, they ' were called,' Christians 
 first at Antioch; in agreement with which statement, the 
 name occurs nowhere in Scripture, except in connexion with 
 those alien from, or opposed to, the faith (Acts 36:28; 
 1 Pet. 4: 16). And as it was a name imposed by adver- 
 saries, so among these adversaries it was plainly heathens, 
 and not Jews, who were its authors ; for Jews would never 
 have called the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, ' Christians,' 
 or those of Christ, the very point of their opposition to Him 
 being, that he was not the Christ, but a false pretender to 
 the name.^^^ 
 
 Starting then from this point, that ' Christians ' was a 
 title given to the disciples by the heathen, what may we 
 deduce from it further } At Antioch they first obtained this 
 name — at the city, that is, which was the head-quarters of 
 the Church's missions to the heathen, in the same sense as 
 Jerusalem had been the head-quarters of the mission to the 
 seed of Abraham. It was there, and among the faithful 
 there, that a conviction of the world-wide destination of 
 the Gospel arose ; there it was first plainly seen as intended 
 for all kindreds of the earth. Hitherto the faithful in 
 
 125 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 Christ had been called by their adversaries, and indeed 
 often were still called, * Galileans/ or ' Nazarenes/ — ^both 
 names which indicated the Jewish cradle wherein the Church 
 had been nursed, and that the world saw in the new Society 
 no more than a Jewish sect. But it was plain that the 
 Church had now, even in the world's eye, chipped its Jewish 
 shell. The name ' Christians,' or those of Christ, while 
 it told that Christ and confession of Him was felt even by 
 the heathen to be the sum and centre of this new faith, 
 showed also that they comprehended now, not all which the 
 Church would be, but something of this ; saw this much, 
 namely, that it was no mere sect and variety of Judaism, 
 but a Society with a mission and a destiny of its own. Nor 
 will the thoughtful reader fail to observe that the coming 
 up of the name is by closest juxtaposition connected in 
 the sacred narrative, and still more closely in the Greek than 
 in the English, with the arrival at Antioch, and with the 
 preaching there, of that Apostle, who was God's appointed 
 instrument for bringing the Church to a full sense that 
 the message which it had, was not for some men only, but 
 for all. As so often happens with the rise of new names, 
 the rise of this one marked a new epoch in the Church's 
 life, and that it was entering upon a new stage of its devel- 
 opment.^^* It is a small matter, yet not without its own 
 significance, that the invention of this name is laid by St. 
 Luke, — for so, I think, we may confidently say, — to the 
 credit of the Antiochenes. Now the idle, frivolous, and 
 witty inhabitants of the Syrian capital were noted in all 
 antiquity for the invention of nicknames ; it was a manufac- 
 ture for which their city was famous. And thus it was 
 exactly the place where beforehand we might have expected 
 that such a title, being a nickname or little better in their 
 mouths who devised it, should first come into being. 
 
 This one example is sufficient to show that new words will 
 126 
 
ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS 
 
 often repay any amount of attention which we may bestow 
 upon them, and upon the conditions under which they were 
 born. I proceed to consider the causes which suggest or 
 necessitate their birth, the periods when a language is most 
 fruitful in them, the sources from which they usually pro- 
 ceed, with some other interesting phenomena about them. 
 
 And first of the causes which give them birth. Now of 
 all these causes the noblest is this — namely, that in the 
 appointments of highest Wisdom there are epochs in the 
 world's history, in which, more than at other times, new 
 moral and spiritual forces are at work, stirring to their 
 central depths the hearts of men. When it thus fares with 
 a people, they make claims on their language which were 
 never made on it before. It is required to utter truths, to 
 express ideas, remote from it hitherto; for which therefore 
 the adequate expression will naturally not be forthcoming 
 at once, these new thoughts and feelings being larger and 
 deeper than any wherewith hitherto the speakers of that 
 tongue had been familiar. It fares with a language then, 
 as it would fare with a river bed, suddenly required to 
 deliver a far larger volume of waters than had hitherto 
 been its wont. It would in such a case be nothing strange, 
 if the waters surmounted their banks, broke forth on the 
 right hand and on the left, forced new channels with a cer- 
 tain violence for themselves. Something of the kind they 
 must do. Now it was exactly thus that it fared — for there 
 could be no more illustrious examples — ^with the languages 
 of Greece and Rome, when it was demanded of them that 
 they should be vehicles of the truths of revelation. 
 
 These languages, as they already existed, might have 
 sufficed, and did suffice, for heathenism, sensuous and finite ; 
 but they did not suffice for the spiritual and infinite, for the 
 truths at once so new and so mighty which claimed now to 
 find utterance in the language of men. And thus it continu- 
 
 127 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 ally befel, that the new thought must weave a new garment 
 for itself^ those which it found ready-made being narrower 
 than that it could wrap itself in them; that the new wine 
 must fashion new vessels for itself, if both should be pre- 
 served, the old being neither strong enough, nor expan- 
 sive enough, to hold it.^~^ Thus, not to speak of mere 
 technical matters, which would claim an utterance, how 
 could the Greek language possess a word for ' idolatry,' 
 so long as the sense of the awful contrast between the 
 worship of the living God and of dead things had not 
 risen up in their minds that spoke it? But when Greek 
 began to be the native language of men, to whom this dis- 
 tinction between the Creator and the creature was the most 
 earnest and deepest conviction of their souls, words such 
 as * idolatry,' ' idolater,' of necessity appeared. The hea- 
 then did not claim for their deities to be ' searchers of 
 hearts,' did not disclaim for them the being * accepters of 
 persons ' ; such attributes of power and righteousness en- 
 tered not into their minds as pertaining to the objects of 
 their worship. The Greek language, therefore, so long as 
 they only employed it, had not the words corresponding.^-^ 
 It, indeed, could not have had them, as the Jewish Hellen- 
 istic Greek could not be without them. How useful a word 
 is ' theocracy ' ; what good service it has rendered in pre- 
 senting a certain idea clearly and distinctly to the mind; 
 yet where, except in the bosom of the same Jewish Greek, 
 could it have been born? ^^^ 
 
 These difficulties, which were felt the most strongly when 
 the thought and feeling that had been at home in the 
 Hebrew, the original language of inspiration, needed to be 
 transferred into Greek, reappeared, though not in quite so 
 aggravated a form, when that which had gradually woven 
 for itself in the Greek an adequate clothing, again 
 demanded to find a suitable garment in the Latin. An 
 
 128 
 
ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS 
 
 example of the difficulty, and of the way in which the diffi- 
 culty was ultimately overcome, will illustrate this far better 
 than long disquisitions. The classical language of Greece 
 had a word for * saviour/ which, though often degraded 
 to unworthy uses, bestowed as a title of honour not merely 
 on the false gods of heathendom, but sometimes on men, 
 such as better deserved to be styled ' destroyers ' than 
 
 * saviours ' of their fellows, was yet in itself not unequal 
 to the setting forth the central office and dignity of Him, 
 who came into the world to save it. The word might be 
 likened to some profaned temple, which needed a new con- 
 secration, but not to be abolished, and another built in its 
 room. "With the Latin it was otherwise. The language 
 seemed to lack a word, which on one account or another 
 Christians needed continually to utter: indeed Cicero, than 
 whom none could know better the resources of his own 
 tongue, remarkably enough had noted its want of any single 
 equivalent to the Greek * saviour.' ^-^ . ' Salvator ' would 
 have been the natural word; but the classical Latin of the 
 best times, though it had ' salus ' and * salvus,' had neither 
 this, nor the verb ' salvare ' ; some, indeed, have thought 
 that ' salvare ' had always existed in the common speech. 
 ' Servator ' was instinctively felt to be insufficient, even as 
 
 * Preserver ' would for us fall very short of uttering all 
 which ' Saviour ' does now. The seeking of the strayed, 
 the recovery of the lost, the healing of the sick, would all 
 be but feebly and faintly suggested by it, if suggested at 
 all. God ' preserveth man and beast,' but He is the 
 
 * Saviour ' of his own in a more inward and far more endear- 
 ing sense. It was long before the Latin Christian writers 
 extricated themselves from this embarrassment, for the 
 
 * Salutificator ' of Tertullian, the ' Sospitator ' of another, 
 assuredly did not satisfy the need. The strong good sense 
 of Augustine finally disposed of the difficulty. He made no 
 
 129 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 scruple about using * Salvator ' ; observing with a true in- 
 sight into the conditions under which new words should be 
 admitted, that however ' Salvator ' might not have been 
 good Latin before the Saviour came, He by his coming and 
 by his work had made it such; for, as shadows wait upon 
 substances, so words wait upon things. ^"^ Take another 
 example. It seemed so natural a thing, in the old heathen 
 world, to expose infants, where it was not found convenient 
 to rear them, the crime excited so little remark, was so little 
 regarded as a crime at all, that it seemed not worth the while 
 to find a name for it; and thus it came to pass that the word 
 * infanticidium ' was first born in the bosom of the Christian 
 Church, Tertullian being the earliest in whose writings it 
 appears. 
 
 Yet it is not only when new truth, moral or spiritual, has 
 thus to fit itself to the lips of men, that such enlargements 
 of speech become necessary: but in each further unfolding 
 of those seminal truths implanted in man at the first, in 
 each new enlargement of his sphere of knowledge, outward 
 or inward, the same necessities make themselves felt. The 
 beginnings and progressive advances of moral philosophy 
 in Greece,^^^ the transplantation of the same to Rome, the 
 rise of the scholastic, and then of the mystic, theology in 
 the Middle Ages, the discoveries of modern science and 
 natural philosophy, these each and all have been accom- 
 panied with corresponding extensions in the domain of lan- 
 guage. Of the words to which each of these has in turn 
 given birth, many, it is true, have never travelled beyond 
 their own peculiar sphere, having remained purely technical, 
 or scientific, or theological to the last; but many, too, have 
 passed over from the laboratory and the school, from the 
 cloister and the pulpit, into everyday use, and have, with 
 the ideas which they incorporate, become the common heri- 
 tage of all. For however hard and repulsive a front any 
 
 130 
 
ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS 
 
 study or science may present to the great body of those 
 who are as laymen in regard of it, there is yet inevitably 
 such a detrition as this continually going forward, and one 
 which it would be well worth while to trace in detail. 
 
 Where the movement is a popular one, stirring the heart 
 and mind of a people to its depths, there these new words 
 will for the most part spring out of their bosom, a free 
 spontaneous birth, seldom or never capable of being referred 
 to one man more than another, because in a manner they 
 belong to all. Where, on the contrary, the movement is 
 more strictly theological, or has for its sphere those regions 
 of science and philosophy, where, as first pioneers and dis- 
 coverers, only a few can bear their part, there the additions 
 to the language and extensions of it will lack something of 
 the freedom, the unconscious boldness, which mark the 
 others. Their character will be more artificial, less spon- 
 taneous, although here also the creative genius of a single 
 man, as there of a nation, will oftentimes set its mark; and 
 many a single word will come forth, which will be the result 
 of profound meditation, or of intuitive genius, or of both 
 in happiest combination — many a word, which shall as a 
 torch illuminate vast regions comparatively obscure before, 
 and, it may be, cast its rays far into the yet unexplored 
 darkness beyond; or which, summing up into itself all the 
 acquisitions in a particular direction of the past, shall fur- 
 nish a mighty vantage-ground from which to advance to 
 new conquests in those realms of mind or of nature, not 
 as yet subdued to the intellect and uses of man. 
 
 * Cosmopolite ' has often now a shallow or even a mis- 
 chievous use ; and he who calls himself a * cosmopolite ' may 
 mean no more than that he is not a patriot, that his native 
 country does not possess his love. Yet, as all must admit, 
 he could have been no common man who, before the preach- 
 ing of the Gospel, launched this word upon the world, and 
 
 131 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 claimed this name for himself. Nor was he a common 
 man; for Diogenes the Cynic^ whose sayings are among 
 quite the most notable in antiquity, was its author. Being 
 demanded of what city or country he was, Diogenes 
 answered that he was a ' cosmopolite ' ; in this word widen- 
 ing the range of men's thoughts, bringing in not merely a 
 word new to Greek ears, but a thought which, however com- 
 monplace and familiar to us now, must have been most novel 
 and startling to those whom he addressed. I am far from 
 asserting that contempt for his citizenship in its narrower 
 sense may not have mingled with this his challenge for him- 
 self of a citizenship wide as the world; but there was not 
 the less a very remarkable reaching out here after truths 
 which were not fully born into the world until He came, in 
 whom and in whose Church all national differences and 
 distinctions are done away. 
 
 As occupying somewhat of a middle place between those 
 more deliberate word-makers and the multitude whose words 
 rather grow of themselves than are made, we must not 
 omit him who is a maker by the very right of his name — 
 I mean, the poet. That creative energy with which he is 
 endowed, * the high-flying libe ty of conceit proper to the 
 poet,' will not fail to manifest itself in this region as in 
 others. Extending the domain of thought and feeling, he 
 will scarcely fail to extend that also of language, which 
 does not willingly lag behind. And the loftier his moods, 
 the more of this maker he will be. The passion of such 
 times, the all-fusing imagination, will at once suggest and 
 justify audacities in speech, upon which in calmer moods 
 he would not have ventured, or, venturing, would have failed 
 to carry others with him : for it is only the fluent metal that 
 runs easily into novel shapes and moulds. Nor is it merely 
 that the old and the familiar will often become new in the 
 poet's hands; that he will give the stamp of allowance, as 
 
 132 
 
ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS 
 
 to him will be free to do, to words which hitherto have lived 
 only on the lips of the people, or been confined to some sin- 
 gle dialect and province ; but he will enrich his native tongue 
 with words unknown and non-existent before — non-existent, 
 that is, save in their elements ; for in the historic period of a 
 language it is not permitted to any man to do more than work 
 on pre-existent materials; to evolve what is latent therein, 
 to combine what is apart, to recall what has fallen out of 
 sight. 
 
 But to return to the more deliberate coining of words. 
 New necessities have within the last few years called out 
 several of these deliberate creations in our own language. 
 The almost simultaneous discovery of such large abundance 
 of gold in so many quarters of the world led some nations 
 so much to dread an enormous depreciation of this metal, 
 that they ceased to make it the standard of value — Hol- 
 land for instance did so for a while, though she has since 
 changed her mind; and it has been found convenient to 
 invent a word, ' to demonetize,' to express this process of 
 turning a precious metal from being the legal standard into 
 a mere article of commerce. So, too, diplomacy has recently 
 added more than one new word to our vocabulary. I sup- 
 pose nobody ever heard of ' extradition ' till within the 
 last few years ; nor of ' neutralization,' except, it might be, 
 in some treatise upon chemistry, till in the treaty of peace 
 which followed the Crimean War the ' neutralization ' of 
 the Black Sea was made one of the stipulations. ' Secu- 
 larization,' in like manner, owes its birth to the long and 
 weary negotiations which preceded the Treaty of West- 
 phalia (1648). Whenever it proved difficult to find any- 
 where else compensation for some powerful claimant, there 
 was always some abbey or bishopric which with its revenues 
 might be seized, stripped of its ecclesiastical character, and 
 turned into a secular possession. Our manifold points of 
 
 133 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 contact with the East, the necessity that has thus arisen 
 of representing oriental words to the western world by 
 means of an alphabet not its own, with the manifold dis- 
 cussions on the fittest equivalents, all this has brought with 
 it the need of a word which should describe the process, and 
 ' transliteration ' is the result. 
 
 We have long had ' assimilation ' in our dictionaries ; 
 ' dissimilation ' has as yet scarcely found its way into them, 
 but it speedily will. Advances in philology have rendered 
 it a matter of necessity that we should possess a term to 
 designate a certain process which words unconsciously 
 undergo, and no other would designate it at all so well. 
 There is a process of ' assimilation ' going on very exten- 
 sively in language; the organs of speech finding themselves 
 helped by changing one letter for another which has just 
 occurred, or will just occur in a word; thus we say not 
 ' adfiance,' but ' affiance/ not ' renowTW,' as our ancestors 
 did when ' renom ' was first naturalized, but * renown ; we 
 say too, though we do not write it, * cupboard ' and not 
 ' cupboard,' ' subtle ' and not * su6tle.' But side by side 
 with this there is another opposite process, where some letter 
 would recur too often for euphony or ease in speaking, 
 were the strict form of the word too closely held fast; and 
 where consequently this letter is exchanged for some other, 
 generally for some nearly allied ; thus ' caeruleus ' was once 
 ' caeZuleus,' from caelum ; ^^^ ' meridies ' is for ' mec?idies,' 
 or medius dies. In the same way the Italians prefer ' veZeno ' 
 to * veweno * ; the Germans ' Xartoffel ' to ' ^artiiff el,' from 
 Italian * tartufola '= Latin terrae tuber, an old name of the 
 potato ; and we cinnamon ' to ' cinnamom ' (the earlier 
 form). So too in 'turtle,' 'marble,' 'purple,' we have 
 shrunk from the double ' r' of ' turtur,' ' marmor,' 
 ' purpura.' ^^^ 
 
 New necessities, new evolutions of society into more com- 
 134. 
 
ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS 
 
 plex conditions, evoke new words ; which come forth, because 
 they are required now; but did not formerly exist, because 
 in an anterior period they were not required. For example, 
 in Greece, so long as the poet sang his own verses, * singer ' 
 (aoiSo?) sufficiently expressed the double function; such a 
 * singer ' was Homer, and such Homer describes Demodocus, 
 the bard of the Pheeacians; that double function, in fact, 
 not being in his time contemplated as double, but each of its 
 parts 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 to 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; but when the investigation of 
 nature and natural causes detached itself from the art of 
 healing, became an independent study, the name * physician ' 
 remained to that which was as the stock and stem of the 
 art, while the new offshoot sought out and obtained a new 
 name for itself. 
 
 But it is not merely new things which will require new 
 names. It will often be discovered that old things have 
 not got a name at all, or, having one, are compelled to share 
 it with something else, often to the serious embarrassment 
 of both. The manner in which men became aware of such 
 deficiencies, is commonly this. Comparing their own lan- 
 guage with another, and in some aspects a richer, compelled, 
 it may be, to such comparison through having undertaken 
 to transfer treasures of that language into their own, they 
 become conscious of much worthy to be uttered in human 
 speech, and plainly utterable therein, since another lan- 
 guage has found utterance for it; but which hitherto has 
 found no voice in their own. Hereupon with more or less 
 success they proceed to supply the deficiency. Hardly in 
 
 135 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 any other way would the wants in this way revealed make 
 themselves felt even by the most thoughtful; for language 
 is to so large an extent the condition and limit of thought, 
 men are so little accustomed, indeed so little able, to con- 
 template things, except through the intervention, and by the 
 machiner}^, of words, that the absence of words from a 
 language almost necessarily brings with it the absence of 
 any sense of that absence. Here is one advantage of 
 acquaintance with other languages besides our o^vn, and of 
 the institution that will follow, if we have learned those 
 other to any profit, of such comparisons, namely, that we 
 thus become aware that names are not, and least of all the 
 names in any one language, co-extensive with things (and 
 by ' things ' I mean subjects as well as objects of thought, 
 whatever one can thi?ik about), that innumerable things and 
 aspects of things exist, which, though capable of being 
 resumed and connoted in a word, are yet without one, 
 unnamed and unregistered; and thus, vast as may be the 
 world of names, that the world of realities, and of realities 
 which are nameable, is vaster still. Such discoveries the 
 Romans made, when they sought to transplant the moral 
 philosophy of Greece to an Italian soil. They discovered 
 that many of its terms had no equivalents with them; which 
 equivalents thereupon they proceeded to devise for them- 
 selves, appealing for this to the latent capabilities of their 
 own tongue. For example, the Greek schools had a word, 
 and one playing no unimportant part in some of their phil- 
 osophical systems, to express ' apathy,' or the absence of 
 all passion and pain. As it was absolutely necessary to pos- 
 sess a corresponding word, Cicero invented ' indolentia,' as 
 that ' if I may so speak ' with which he paves the way to 
 his first introduction of it, sufficiently declares. ^^^ 
 
 Sometimes, indeed, such a skilful mint-master of words, 
 such a subtle watcher and weigher of their force as was 
 
 136 
 
ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS 
 
 Cicero/^^ will have noticed even apart from this compari- 
 son with other languages, an omission in his own, which 
 thereupon he will endeavour to supply. Thus the Latin 
 had two adjectives which, though not kept apart as strictly 
 as they might have been, possessed each its peculiar mean- 
 ing, ' invidus,' one who is envious, ' invidiosiis,' one who 
 excites envy in others ; ^^* at the same time there was only 
 one substantive, * invidia,' the correlative of them both ; with 
 the disadvantage, therefore, of being employed now in an 
 active, now in a passive sense, now for the envy which men 
 feel, and now for the envy which they excite. The word 
 he saw was made to do double duty; under a seeming unity 
 there lurked a real dualism, from which manifold confu- 
 sions might follow. He therefore devised * invidentia,' to 
 express the active envy, or the envying, no doubt desiring 
 that ' invidia ' should be restrained to the passive, the being 
 envied. * Invidentia ' to all appearance supplied a real 
 want; yet Cicero himself did not succeed in giving it cur- 
 rency ; does not seem himself to have much cared to employ 
 it again. ^^^ 
 
 We see by this example that not every word, which even 
 an expert in language proposes, finds acceptance; ^^® for, 
 as Dryden, treating on this subject, has well observed, * It 
 is one thing to draw a bill, and another to have it accepted.* 
 Provided some words live, he must be content that others 
 should fall to the ground and die. Nor is this the only 
 unsuccessful candidate for admission into the language 
 which Cicero put forward. His * indolentia,' which I men- 
 tioned just now, hardly passed beyond himself; ^^^ his 
 ' vitiositas,'^^^ * indigentia,'^^^ and ' mulierositas,'^*^ not at 
 all. ' Beatitas ' too and * beatitudo,*^*^ both of his coining, 
 yet, as he owns himself, with something strange and unat- 
 tractive about them, found almost no acceptance at all in 
 the classical literature of Rome : ' beatitude,' indeed, 
 
 137 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 obtained a home, as it deserved to do, in the Christian 
 Church, but ' beatitas ' none. Coleridge's ' esemplastic/ by 
 which he was fain to express the all-atoning or unifying 
 power of the imagination, has not pleased others at all in 
 the measure in which it pleased himself; while the words 
 of Jeremy Taylor, of such Latinists as Sir Thomas Browne 
 and Henry More, born only to die, are multitudinous as 
 the fallen leaves of autumn.^'*^ Still even the word which 
 fails is often an honourable testimony to the scholarship, 
 or the exactness of thought, or the imagination of its author ; 
 and Ben Jonson is overhard on * neologists,' if I may bring 
 this term back to its earlier meaning, when he says : ' A man 
 coins not a new word without some peril, and less fruit; 
 for if it happen to be received, the praise is but moderate; 
 if refused, the scorn is assured. '^*^ 
 
 I spoke just now of comprehensive words, which should 
 singly say what hitherto it had taken many words to say, 
 in which a higher term has been reached than before had 
 been attained. The value of these is incalculable. By the 
 cutting short of lengthy explanations and tedious circuits 
 of language, they facilitate mental processes, such as would 
 often have been nearly or quite impossible without them; 
 and such as have invented or put these into circulation, are 
 benefactors of a high order to knowledge. In the ordinary 
 traffic of life, unless our dealings are on the smallest scale, 
 we willingly have about us our money in the shape rather 
 of silver than of copper; and if our transactions are at all 
 extensive, rather in gold than in silver: while, if we were 
 setting forth upon a long and costly journey, we should 
 be best pleased to turn even our gold coin itself into bills 
 of exchange or circular notes; in fact, into the highest 
 denomination of money which it was capable of assuming. 
 How many words with which we are now perfectly familiar 
 are for us what the circular note or bill of exchange is for 
 
 138 
 
ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS 
 
 the traveller or the merchant. As innumerable pence, a 
 multitude of shillings, not a few pounds are gathered up 
 and represented by one of these, so have we in some single 
 word the quintessence and final result of an infinite number 
 of anterior mental processes, ascending one above the other, 
 until all have been at length summed up for us in that single 
 word. This last may be compared to nothing so fitly as 
 to some mighty river, which does not bring its flood of 
 waters to the sea, till many rills have been swallowed up in 
 brooks, and brooks in streams, and streams in tributary 
 rivers, each of these affluents having lost its separate name 
 and existence in that which at last represents and contains 
 them all. 
 
 Science is an immense gainer by words which thus say 
 singly, what whole sentences might with difficulty have suc- 
 ceeded in saying. Thus ' isothermal ' is quite a modern 
 invention ; but how much is summed up by the word ; what a 
 long story is saved, as often as we speak of ' isothermal ' 
 lines. Physiologists have given the name of ' atavism ' to 
 the emerging again of a face in a family after its disappear- 
 ance during two or three generations. What would have 
 else needed a sentence is here accomplished by a word. 
 Francis Bacon somewhere describes a certain candidate for 
 the Chair of St. Peter as being * papable.' There met, that 
 is, in him all the conditions, and they were many, which 
 would admit the choice of the Conclave falling upon him. 
 When Bacon wrote, one to be ' papable ' must have been 
 born in lawful wedlock; must have no children nor grand- 
 children living; must not have a kinsman already in the 
 Conclave; must be already a Cardinal; all which facts this 
 single word sums up. When Aristotle, in the opening 
 sentences of his Rhetoric, declares that rhetoric and logic 
 are * antistrophic,' what a wonderful insight into both, and 
 above all into their relations to one another, does the word 
 
 139 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 impart to those who have any such special training as 
 enables them to take in all which hereby he intends. Or 
 take a word so familiar as ' circle/ and imagine how it would 
 fare with us, if, as often as in some long and difficult math- 
 ematical problem we needed to refer to this figure, we were 
 obliged to introduce its entire definition, no single word 
 representing it ; and not this only, but the definition of each 
 term employed in the definition ; — how well nigh impossible 
 it would prove to carry the whole process in the mind, or 
 to take oversight of all its steps. Imagine a few more words 
 struck out of the vocabulary of the mathematician, and if 
 all activity and advance in his proper domain were not alto- 
 gether arrested, yet would it be as effectually restrained and 
 hampered as commercial intercourse would be, if in all its 
 transactions iron or copper were the sole medium of ex- 
 change. Wherever any science is progressive, there will be 
 progress in its nomenclature as well. Words will keep pace 
 with things, and with more or less felicity resuming in them- 
 selves the labours of the past, will at once assist and abridge 
 the labours of the future; like tools which, themselves the 
 result of the finest mechanical skill, do at the same time 
 render other and further triumphs of art possible, often- 
 times such as would prove quite unattainable without them.^*^ 
 It is not merely the widening of men's intellectual hori- 
 zon, which, bringing new thoughts within the range of their 
 vision, compels the origination of corresponding words; 
 but as often as regions of this outward world hitherto closed 
 are laid open, the novel objects of interest which these 
 contain will demand to find their names, and not merely to 
 be catalogued in the nomenclature of science, but, so far as 
 they present themselves to the popular eye, will require to 
 be popularly named. When a new thing, a plant, or fruit, 
 or animal, or whatever else it may be, is imported from some 
 foreign land, or so comes within the sphere of knowledge 
 
 140 
 
ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS 
 
 that it needs to be thus named, there are various ways by 
 which this may be done. The first and commonest way is 
 to import the name and the thing together, incorporating 
 the former, unchanged, or with slight modification, into the 
 language. Thus we did with the potato, which is only 
 another form of * batata,' in which shape the original Indian 
 word appears in our earlier voyagers. But this is not the 
 only way of naming; and the example on which I have just 
 lighted affords good illustration of various other methods 
 which may be adopted. Thus a name belonging to some- 
 thing else, which the new object nearly resembles, may be 
 transferred to it, and the confusion arising from calling 
 different things by the same name disregarded. It was 
 thus in German, ' Kartoffel ' being only a corruption, which 
 found place in the last century, of ' Tartuffel,' from the 
 Italian ' tartufFolo ' (Florio), properly the name of the 
 truffle ; but which not the less was transferred to the potato, 
 on the ground of the many resemblances between them. Or 
 again this same transfer may take place, but with some 
 qualifying or distinguishing addition. Thus in Italy also 
 men called the potato ' tartufo,' but added * bianco,' the 
 white truffle; a name now giving way to * patata.' Thus 
 was it, too, with the French ; who called it apple, but ' apple 
 of the earth ' ; even as in many of the provincial dialects 
 of Germany it bears the name of ' Erdapfel ' or earth-apple 
 to this day. 
 
 It will sometimes happen that a language, having thus to 
 provide a new name for a new thing, will seem for a season 
 not to have made up its mind by which of these methods 
 it shall do it. Two names will exist side by side, and only 
 after a time will one gain the upper hand of the other. Thus 
 when the pineapple was introduced into England, it brought 
 with it the name of ' ananas,' erroneously ' anana,' under 
 which last form it is celebrated by Thomson in his Seasons. 
 
 141 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 This name has been nearly or quite superseded by ' pine- 
 apple/ manifestly suggested by the likeness of the new fruit 
 to the cone of the pine. It is not a very happy formation ; 
 for it is not likeness, but identity, which ' pineapple ' sug- 
 gests, and it gives some excuse to an error, which up to a 
 very late day ran through all German-English and French- 
 English dictionaries; I know not whether even now it has 
 disappeared. In all of these ' pineapple ' is rendered as 
 though it signified not the anana, but this cone of the pine ; 
 and not very long ago, the Journal des Debats made some 
 uncomplimentary observations on the voracity of the Eng- 
 lish, who could wind up a Lord Mayor's banquet with fir- 
 cones for dessert. 
 
 Sometimes the name adopted will be one drawn from 
 an intermediate language, through which we first became 
 acquainted with the obj ect requiring to be named. ' Alli- 
 gator ' is an example of this. When that ugly crocodile 
 of the New World was first seen by the Spanish discoverers, 
 they called it, with a true insight into its species, ' el 
 lagarto,' the lizard, as being the largest of that lizard spe- 
 cies to which it belonged, or sometimes ' el lagarto de las 
 Indias,* the Indian lizard. In Sir Walter Raleigh's Dis- 
 covery of Guiana the word still retains its Spanish form. 
 Sailing up the Orinoco, ' we saw in it,' he says, ' divers 
 sorts of strange fishes of marvellous bigness, but for 
 lagartos it exceeded ; for there were thousands of these ugly 
 serpents, and the people call it, for the abundance of them, 
 the river of lagartos, in their language.' We can explain 
 the shape which with us the word gradually assumed, by 
 supposing that English sailors who brought it home, and 
 had continually heard, but may have never seen it written, 
 blended, as in similar instances has often happened, the 
 Spanish article ' el ' with the name. In Ben Jonson's 
 * alligarta,' we note the word in process of transformation.^*^ 
 
 142 
 
ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS 
 
 Less honourable causes than some which I have men- 
 tioned, give birth to new words ; which will sometimes reflect 
 back a very fearful light on the moral condition of that 
 epoch in which first they saw the light. Of the Roman 
 emperor, Tiberius, one of those * inventors of evil things/ 
 of whom St. Paul speaks (Rom. 1:30), Tacitus informs 
 us that under his hateful dominion words, unknown before, 
 emerged in the Latin tongue, for the setting out of wicked- 
 nesses, happily also previously unknown, which he had 
 invented. It was the same frightful time which gave birth 
 to ' delator,' alike to the thing and to the word. 
 
 The atrocious attempt of Lewis XIV. to convert the Prot- 
 estants in his dominions to the Roman Catholic faith by 
 quartering dragoons upon them, with license to misuse to 
 the uttermost those who refused to conform, this ' booted 
 mission ' (mission bottee), as it was facetiously called at 
 the time, has bequeathed ' dragonnade ' to the French lan- 
 guage. * Refugee ' had at the same time its rise, and owed 
 it to the same event. They were called ' refugies ' or 
 ' refugees ' who took refuge in some land less inhospitable 
 than their own, so as to escape the tender mercies of these 
 missionaries. * Convertisseur ' belongs to the same period. 
 The spiritual factor was so named who undertook to con- 
 vert the Protestants on a large scale, receiving so much a 
 head for the converts whom he made. 
 
 Our present use of ' roue ' throws light on another curious 
 and shameful page of French history. The * roue,' by which 
 word now is meant a man of profligate character and con- 
 duct, is properly and primarily one broken on the wheel. 
 Its present and secondary meaning it derived from that 
 Duke of Orleans who was Regent of France after the death 
 of Lewis XIV. It was his miserable ambition to gather 
 round him companions worse, if possible, and wickeder than 
 himself. These, as the Duke of St. Simon assures us, he 
 
 143 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 was wont to call his * roues '; every one of them abundantly 
 deserving to be broken on the wheels — which was the punish- 
 ment then reserved in France for the worst malefactors/"^^ 
 When we have learned the pedigree of the word, the man 
 and the age rise up before us, glorying in their shame, and 
 not caring to pay to virtue even that hypocritical homage 
 which vice finds it sometimes convenient to render. 
 
 The great French Revolution made, as might be expected, 
 characteristic contributions to the French language. It 
 gives us some insight into its ugliest side to know that, 
 among other words, it produced the following: ' guillotine,' 
 ' incivisme,' ' lanterner,' ' noyade,' * sans-culotte,' * terror- 
 isme.' Still later, the French conquests in North Africa, 
 and the pitiless severities with which every attempt at resist- 
 ance on the part of the free tribes of the interior was put 
 down and punished, have left their mark on it as well; 
 ' razzia,' which is properly an Arabic word, having been 
 added to it, to express the swift and sudden sweeping away 
 of a tribe, with its herds, its crops, and all that belongs to 
 it. The Communist insurrection of 1871 bequeathed one 
 contribution almost as hideous as itself, namely * petroleuse,' 
 to the language. It is quite recently that we have made any 
 acquaintance with * recidivist ' — one, that is, who falls back 
 once more on criminal courses. 
 
 But it would ill become us to look only abroad for ex- 
 amples in this kind, when perhaps an equal abundance 
 might be f oimd much nearer home. Words of our own keep 
 record of passages in our history in which we have little 
 reason to glory. Thus ' mob ' and ' sham ' had their birth 
 in that most disgraceful period of English history, the 
 interval between the Restoration and the Revolution. * I 
 ^nay note,' says one writing towards the end of the reign of 
 Charles II., ' that the rabble first changed their title, and 
 were called " the mob " in the assemblies of this [The Green 
 
 14 i 
 
ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS 
 
 Ribbon] Club. It was their beast of burden, and called 
 first " mobile vulgus/' but fell naturally into the contrac- 
 tion of one syllable, and ever since is become proper Eng- 
 lish.' ^^^ At a much later date a writer in The Spectator 
 speaks of ' mob ' as still only struggling into existence. ' I 
 dare not answer/ he says, ' that mob, rap, pos, incog., and 
 the like, will not in time be looked at as part of our tongue.' 
 In regard of * mob,' the mobile multitude, swayed hither and 
 thither by each gust of passion or caprice, this, which The 
 Spectator hardly expected, while he confessed it possible, 
 has actually come to pass, * It is one of the many words 
 formerly slang, which are now used by our best writers, 
 and received, like pardoned outlaws, into the body of 
 respectable citizens.' Again, though the murdering of poor 
 helpless lodgers, afterwards to sell their bodies for dis- 
 section, can only be regarded as the monstrous wickedness 
 of one or two, yet the verb * to burke,' drawn from the 
 name of a wretch who long pursued this hideous traffic, will 
 be evidence in all after times, unless indeed its origin should 
 be forgotten, to how strange a crime this age of ours could 
 give birth. Nor less must it be acknowledged that ' to 
 ratten ' is no pleasant acquisition which the language within 
 the last few years has made ; and as little * to boycott,' 
 which is of still later birth. 
 
 We must not count as new words properly so called, al- 
 though they may delay us for a minute, those comic words, 
 most often comic combinations formed at will, wherein, as 
 plays and displays of power, writers ancient and modern 
 have delighted. These for the most part are meant to do 
 service for the moment, and, this done, to pass into oblivion ; 
 the inventors of them themselves having no intention of 
 fastening them permanently on the language. Thus Aris- 
 tophanes coined /xeXAoi/tKtaw, to loiter like Nicias, with allu- 
 sion to the delays by whose aid this prudent commander 
 
 145 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 sought to put off the disastrous Sicilian expedition^ with 
 other words not a few, familiar to every scholar. The 
 humour will sometimes consist in their enormous length/^® 
 sometimes in th^ir mingled observance and transgression 
 of the laws of the language, as in the Savawraro?, in the 
 aiuToraros of the Greek comic poet, the ' patruissimus ' 
 and ' oculissimus/ comic superlatives of patruus and 
 oculus, ' occisissimus ' of occisus ; ' dominissimus ' of dom- 
 inus; ' asinissimo ' (Italian) of asino; or in superlative piled 
 on superlative, as in the ' minimissimus ' and ' pessimissimus ' 
 of Seneca, the * ottimissimo ' of the modern Italian ; so too 
 in the ' dosones,' ' dabones,' which in Greek and in medieval 
 Latin were names given to those who were ever promising, 
 ever saying ' I will give,' but never crowning promise with 
 performance. Plautus, with his exuberant wit, and exulting 
 in his mastery of the Latin language, is rich in these, ' fus- 
 titudinus,' * f erricrepinus ' and the like ; will put together 
 four or five lines consisting wholly of comic combinations 
 thrown off for the occasion.^^® Of the same character is 
 Chaucer's * octogamy,' or eighth marriage ; Butler's ' cyn- 
 arctomachy,' or battle of a dog and bear ; Southey's ' matri- 
 arch,' for by this name he calls the wife of the Patriarch 
 Job; but Southey's fun in this line of things is commonly 
 poor enough; his want of finer scholarship making itself 
 felt here. What humour for example can any one find in 
 * philof elist ' or lover of cats ? Fuller, when he used ' to 
 avunculize,' meaning to tread in the footsteps of one's uncle, 
 scarcely proposed it as a lasting addition to the language; 
 as little did Pope intend more than a very brief existence 
 for ' vaticide,' or Cowper for ' extraf oraneous,' or Carlyle 
 for ' gigmanity,' for ' tolpatchery,' or the like. 
 
 Such are some of the sources of increase in the wealth 
 of a language; some of the quarters from which its vocabu- 
 lary is augmented. There have been, from time to time, 
 
 146 
 
ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS 
 
 those who have so little understood what a language is, 
 and what are the laws which it obeys, that they have sought 
 by arbitrary decrees of their own to arrest its growth, have 
 pronounced that it has reached the limits of its growth, and 
 must not henceforward presume to develop itself further. 
 Even Bentley with all his vigorous insight into things is 
 here at fault. * It were no difficult contrivance,' he says, 
 ' if the public had any regard to it, to make the English 
 tongue immutable, unless hereafter some foreign nation shall 
 invade and overrun us.'^^^ But a language has a life, as 
 truly as a man, or as a tree. As a man, it must grow to its 
 full stature; unless indeed its life is prematurely abridged 
 by violence from without ; even as it is also submitted to his 
 conditions of decay. As a forest tree, it will defy any 
 feeble bands which should attempt to control its expansion, 
 so long as the principle of growth is in it; as a tree too it 
 will continually, while it casts off some leaves, be putting 
 forth others. And thus all such attempts to arrest have 
 utterly failed, even when made under conditions the most 
 favourable for success. The French Academy, numbering 
 all or nearly all the most distinguished writers of France, 
 once sought to exercise such a domination over their own 
 language, and might have hoped to succeed, if success had 
 been possible for any. But the language heeded their 
 decrees as little as the advancing tide heeded those of 
 Canute. Could they hope to keep out of men's speech, 
 or even out of their books, however they excluded from their 
 own Dictionary, such words as 'blague,' 'blaguer,' 'blagueur,' 
 because, being born of the people, they had the people's 
 mark upon them } After fruitless resistance for a time, they 
 have in cases innumerable been compelled to give way — 
 though in favour of the words just cited they have not 
 yielded yet — and in each successive edition of their Diction- 
 ary have thrown open its doors to words which had estab- 
 
 147 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 lished themselves in the language, and would hold their 
 ground there, altogether indifferent whether they received 
 the Academy's seal of allowance or not.^^^ 
 
 Littre, the French scholar who single-handed has given 
 to the world a far better Dictionary than that on which 
 the Academy had bestowed the collective labour of more 
 than two hundred years, shows a much juster estimate of 
 the actual facts of language. If ever there was a word 
 born in the streets, and bearing about it tokens of the place 
 of its birth, it is * gamin ' ; moreover it cannot be traced 
 farther back than the year 1801, being admitted into the 
 Dictionary of the Academy in 1835, though it may have lived 
 some while before on the lips of the people. Littre found 
 room for the word in his Dictionary. He did the same for 
 * flaneur,' and for * rococo,' and for many more, bearing 
 similar marks of a popular origin. ^^^ And with good right; 
 for though fashions may descend from the upper classes to 
 the lower, words, such I mean as constitute real additions to 
 the wealth of a language, ascend from the lower to the 
 higher ; and of these not a few, let fastidious scholars oppose 
 or ignore them for a while as they may, will assert a place 
 for themselves therein, from which they will not be driven 
 by the protests of all the scholars and all the academicians 
 in the world. The world is ever moving, and language has 
 no choice but to move with it.^^^ 
 
 Those who make attempts to close the door against all 
 new comers are strangely forgetful of the steps whereby 
 that vocabulary of the language, with which they are so 
 entirely satisfied that they resent every endeavour to enlarge 
 it, had itself been gotten together — namely by that very 
 process which they are now seeking by an arbitrary decree 
 to arrest. We so take for granted that words with which 
 we have been always familiar, whose right to a place in 
 the language no one dreams now of challenging or disput- 
 
 148 
 
ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS 
 
 ing, have always formed part of it, that it is oftentimes a 
 surprise to discover of how very late introduction many of 
 these actually are; what an amount, it may be, of remon- 
 strance and resistance some of them encountered at the first. 
 To take two or three Latin examples : Cicero, in employing 
 * favor,' a word soon after used by everybody, does it with 
 an apology, evidently feels that he is introducing a ques- 
 tionable novelty, being probably first applied to applause 
 in the theatre ; ' urbanus,' too, in our sense of urbane, had 
 in his time only just come up; * obsequium ' he believes 
 Terence to have been the first to employ/^* ' Soliloquium ' 
 seems " to us so natural, indeed so necessary, a word, this 
 ' soliloquy,' or talking of a man with himself alone, some- 
 thing which would so inevitably demand and obtain its ade- 
 quate expression, that we learn with surprise that no one 
 spoke of a ' soliloquy ' before Augustine ; the word having 
 been coined, as he distinctly informs us, by himself.^^^ 
 
 Where a word has proved an unquestionable gain, it is 
 interesting to watch it as it first emerges, timid, and doubt- 
 ful of the reception it will meet with; and the interest is 
 much enhanced if it has thus come forth on some memorable 
 occasion, or from some memorable man. Both these inter- 
 ests meet in the word ' essay.' Were we asked what is the 
 most remarkable volume of essays which the world has 
 seen, few, capable of replying, would fail to answer. Lord 
 Bacon's. But they were also the first collection of these 
 which bore that name; for we gather from the following 
 passage in the (intended) dedication of the volume to 
 Prince Henry, that ' essay ' was itself a recent word in 
 the language, and, in the use to which he put it, perfectly 
 novel: he says — 'To write just treatises requireth leisure 
 in the writer, and leisure in the reader; . . . which is the 
 cause which hath made me choose to write certain brief 
 notes set down rather significantly than curiously, which 
 
 149 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 I have called Essays. The word is late, but the thing is 
 ancient.' From this dedication we gather that, little as 
 ' essays ' now can be considered a word of modesty, depre- 
 cating too large expectations on the part of the reader, it 
 had, as ' sketches ' perhaps would have now, as ' com- 
 mentary ' had in the Latin, that intention in its earliest use. 
 In this deprecation of higher pretensions it resembled the 
 ' philosopher ' of Pythagoras. Others had styled them- 
 selves, or had been willing to be styled, ' wise men.' 
 * Lover of wisdom,' a name at once so modest and so beauti- 
 ful, was of his devising.^^^ 
 
 But while thus some words surprise us that they are so 
 new, others surprise us that they are so old. Few, I should 
 imagine, are aware that * rationalist,' and this in a theolog- 
 ical, and not merely a philosophical sense, is of such early 
 date as it is; or that we have not imported quite in these 
 later times both the name and the thing from Germany. 
 Yet this is very far from the case. There were ' rationalists ' 
 in the time of the Commonwealth; and these challenging 
 tlie name exactly on the same grounds as those who in later 
 times have claimed it for their own. Thus, the author of a 
 newsletter from London, of date October 14, I6i6, among 
 other things mentions : ' There is a new sect sprung up 
 among them [the Presbyterians and Independents], and 
 these are the Rationalists, and what their reason dictates 
 them in Church or State stands for good, until they be con- 
 vinced with better; '^^" with more to the same effect. 
 ' Christology ' has been lately characterized as a monstrous 
 importation from Germany. I am quite of the remon- 
 strant's mind that English theology does not need, and can 
 do excellently well without it; yet this novelty it is not; 
 for in the Preface to the works of that illustrious Arminian 
 divine of the seventeenth century, Thomas Jackson, written 
 in 1673 by Benjamin Oley, his friend and pupil, the follow- 
 
 150 
 
ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS 
 
 ing passage occurs : ' The reader will find in this author an 
 eminent excellence in that part of divinity which I make 
 bold to call Christology, in displaying the great mystery of 
 godliness, God the Son manifested in human flesh. '^^^ 
 
 In their power of taking up foreign words into healthy 
 circulation and making them truly their own, languages 
 differ much from one another, and the same language from 
 itself at different periods of its life. There are languages 
 of which the appetite and digestive power, the assimilative 
 energy, is at some periods almost unlimited. Nothing is 
 too hard for them; everything turns to good with them; 
 they will shape and mould to their own uses and habits 
 almost any material offered to them. This, however, 
 is in their youth; as age advances, the assimilative 
 energy diminishes. Words are still adopted; for this proc- 
 ess of adoption can never wholly cease; but a chemical 
 amalgamation of the new with the old does not any longer 
 find place; or only in some instances, and very partially 
 even in them. The new comers lie upon the surface of the 
 language; their sharp corners are not worn or rounded off; 
 they remain foreign still in their aspect and outline, and, 
 having missed their opportunity of becoming otherwise, will 
 remain so to the end. Those who adopt, as with an inward 
 misgiving about their own gift and power of stamping them 
 afresh, make a conscience of keeping them in exactly the 
 same form in which they have received them; instead of 
 conforming them to the laws of that new community into 
 which they are now received. Nothing will illustrate this 
 so well as a comparison of different words of the same 
 family, which have at different periods been introduced 
 into our language. We shall find that those of an earlier 
 introduction have become English through and through, while 
 the later introduced, belonging to the same group, have been 
 very far from undergoing the same transforming process. 
 
 151 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 Thus 'bishop/ a word as old as the introduction of Christian- 
 ity into England, though derived from ' episcopus/ is thor- 
 oughly English; while 'episcopal/ which has supplanted 
 ' bishoply/ is only a Latin word in an English dress. 
 ' Alms/ too, is thoroughly English, and English which has 
 descended to us from far ; the very shape in which we have 
 the word, one syllable for ' eleemosyna ' of six, sufficiently 
 testifying this ; ' letters,' as Home Tooke observes, ' like 
 soldiers, being apt to desert and drop off in a long march.' 
 The seven-syllabled and awkward * eleemosynary ' is of far 
 more recent date. Or sometimes this comparison is still 
 more striking, when it is not merely words of the same 
 family, but the very same word which has been twice 
 adopted, at an earlier period and a later — ^the earlier form 
 will be thoroughly English, as ' palsy ' ; the later will be 
 only a Greek or Latin word spelt with English letters, as 
 
 * paralysis.' ' Dropsy,' * quinsy,' * megrim,' ' squirrel,' 
 
 * rickets,' ' surgeon,' * tansy,' ' dittany,' ' daffodil,' and many 
 more words that one might name, have nothing of strangers 
 or foreigners about them, have made themselves quite at 
 home in English. So entirely is their physiognomy native, 
 that it would be difficult even to suspect them to be of Greek 
 descent, as they all are. Nor has ' kickshaws ' anything 
 about it now which would compel us at once to recognize 
 in it the French * quelques choses '^"^ — * French kickshose/ 
 as with allusion to the quarter from which it came, and while 
 the memory of that was yet fresh in men's minds, it was 
 often called by our early writers. 
 
 A very notable fact about new words, and a very signal tes- 
 timony of their popular origin, of their birth from the bosom 
 of the people, is the difficulty so often found in tracing their 
 pedigree. \Vlien the causae vocinn are sought, as they very 
 fitly are, and out of much better than mere curiosity, for 
 the causce rerum are very often wrapt up in them, those 
 
 152 
 
ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS 
 
 continually elude our research. Nor does it fare thus merely 
 with words to which attention was called, and interest about 
 their etymology awakened, only after they had been long 
 in popular use — for that such should often give scope to 
 idle guesses, should altogether refuse to give up their secret, 
 is nothing strange — but words will not seldom perplex and 
 baffle the inquirer even where an investigation of their origin 
 has been undertaken almost as soon as they have come into 
 existence. Their rise is mysterious; like almost all acts of 
 becoming, it veils itself in deepest obscurity. They emerge, 
 they are in everybody's mouth ; but when it is inquired from 
 whence they are, nobody can tell. They are but of yester- 
 day, and yet with inexplicable rapidity they have already 
 lost all traces of the precise circumstances under which 
 they were born. 
 
 The rapidity with which this comes to pass is nowhere 
 more striking than in the names of political or religious 
 parties, and above all in names of slight or of contempt. 
 Thus Baxter tells us that when he wrote there already 
 existed two explanations of ' Roundhead,'^^^ a word not 
 nearly so old as himself. How much has been written about 
 the origin of the German ' Ketzer ' (=: our ' heretic '), 
 though there can scarcely be a doubt that the Cathari make 
 their presence felt in this word. Hardly less has been 
 disputed about the French 'cagot.' Is 'Lollard,' or 'Loller' 
 as we read it in Chaucer, from ' lollen,' to chaunt ? that is, 
 does it mean the chaunting or canting people? or had the 
 Lollards their title from a principal person among them of 
 this name, who suffered at the stake? — to say nothing of 
 ' lolium,' found by some in the name, these men being as 
 tares among the wholesome wheat.^^^ The origin of 
 ' Huguenot,' as applied to the French Protestants, was al- 
 ready a matter of doubt and discussion in the lifetime of 
 those who first bore it. A distinguished German scholar 
 
 153 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 has lately enumerated fifteen explanations which have been 
 offered of the word.^^^ How did the lay sisters in the Low 
 Countries^ the ' Beguines/ get their name? Many deriva- 
 tions have been suggested, but the most probable account 
 is that given in Ducange, that the appellative was derived 
 from * le Begue/ the Stammerer, the nickname of Lambert, 
 a priest of Liege in the twelfth century, the founder of 
 the order. Were the ' Waldenses ' so called from one 
 Waldus, to whom these ' Poor Men of Lj^ons,' as they were 
 at first called, owed their origin ? As little can any one tell 
 us with any certainty why the ' Paulicians ' and the ' Pater- 
 ines ' were severally named as they are ; or, to go much 
 further back, why the ' Essenes ' were so called.^®^ From 
 whence had Johannes Scotus, who anticipated so much of 
 the profoundest thinking of later times, his title of 
 ' Erigena,' and did that title mean Irish-born, or what? 
 ' Prester John ' was a name given in the Middle Ages to 
 a priest-king, real or imaginary, of wide dominion in Cen- 
 tral Asia. But whether there was ever actually such a 
 person, and what was intended by his name, is all involved 
 in the deepest obscurity. How perplexing are many of the 
 Church's most familiar terms, and terms the oftenest in 
 the mouth of her children ; thus her * Ember ' days ; her 
 * Collects ' ; ^*^^ her ' Breviary ' ; her * Whitsunday ' : the deri- 
 vation of ' Mass * itself not being lifted above all question. 
 As little can any one inform us why the Roman military 
 standard on which Constantine inscribed the symbols of the 
 Christian faith should have been called * Labarum.' And 
 yet the inquiry began early. A father of the Greek Church, 
 almost a contemporary of Constantine, can do no better 
 than suggest that * labarum ' is equivalent to ' laborum,' 
 and that it was so called because in that victorious standard 
 was the end of labour and toil (finis laborum) ! ^^^ The 
 ' ciborium ' of the early Church is an equal perplexity; ^^'^ 
 
 154 
 
ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS 
 
 and ' chapel ' (capella) not less. All later investigations 
 have failed effectually to dissipate the mystery of the ' San- 
 graal.' So too, after all that has been written upon it, the 
 true etymology of ' mosaic ' remains a question still. 
 
 And not in Church matters only, but everywhere, we meet 
 with the same oblivion resting on the origin of words. The 
 Romans, one might beforehand have assumed, must have 
 known very well why they called themselves * Quirites,' but 
 it is manifest that this knowledge was not theirs. Why they 
 were addressed as Patres Conscripti is a matter unsettled 
 still. They could have given, one would think, an expla- 
 nation of their naming an outlying conquered region a 
 
 * province.' Unfortunately they offer half a dozen expla- 
 nations, among which we may make our own choice. * Ger- 
 man ' and ' Germany ' were names comparatively recent 
 when Tacitus wrote ; but he owns that he has nothing trust- 
 worthy to say of their history; ^*^^ later inquirers have not 
 mended the matter.^^* 
 
 The derivation of words which are the very key to the 
 understanding of the Middle Ages, is often itself wrapt 
 in obscurity. On * fief ' and * feudal ' how much has been 
 disputed.^^'^ * Morganatic ' marriages are recognized by the 
 public law of Germany, but why called * morganatic ' is 
 unsettled still. Gypsies in German are ' Zigeuner ' ; but 
 when this is resolved into * Ziehgauner,' or roaming thieves, 
 the explanation has about as much scientific value as the 
 not less ingenious explanation of ' Saturnus ' as satur 
 annis ; ^~^ of ' severitas ' as saeva Veritas (Augustine) ; of 
 
 * cadaver ' as composed of the first syllables of caro data, 
 vermihus.^^^ Littre has evidently little confidence in the 
 explanation commonly offered of the ' Salic ' law, namely, 
 that it was the law which prevailed on the banks of the 
 Saal.1^2 
 
 And the modern world has unsolved riddles innumerable 
 
 155 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 of like kind. Why was ' Canada ' so named ? And whence 
 is * Yankee/ a title little more than a century old ? having 
 made its first appearance in a book printed at Boston, U.S., 
 1765. Is ' Hottentot ' an African word, or, more probably, 
 a Dutch or Low Frisian; and which, if any, of the current 
 explanations of it should be accepted.^ ^"^ Shall we allow 
 Humboldt's derivation of ' cannibal,' and find ' Carib ' in 
 it? Whence did the * Chouans,' the insurgent royalists of 
 Brittany, obtain their title .^ When did California obtain 
 its name, and wliy.^ Questions such as these, to which we 
 can give no answer or a very doubtful one, might be multi- 
 plied without end. Littre somewhere in his great Dictionary 
 expresses the misgiving with which what he calls ' anecdotal 
 etymology ' fills him ; while yet it is to this that we are 
 continually tempted here to have recourse. 
 
 But consider now one or two words which have not lost 
 the secret of their origin, and note liow easih^ they might 
 have done this, and having once lost, how unlikely it is 
 that any searching would have recovered it. The traveller 
 Burton tells us that the coarse cloth which is the medium of 
 exchange, in fact the money of Eastern Africa, is called 
 * merkani.' The word is a native corruption of ' American,' 
 the cloth being manufactured in America and sold under 
 this name. But suppose a change should take place in the 
 country from which this cloth was brought, men little by 
 little forgetting that it ever had been imported from Amer- 
 ica, who then would divine the secret of the word.'* So too, 
 if the tradition of the derivation of ' paraffin ' were once 
 let go and lost, it would, I imagine, scarcely be recovered. 
 Mere ingenuity would scarcely divine the fact that a certain 
 oil was so named because ' parum affinis,' having little affin- 
 ity which chemistry could detect, with any other substance. 
 So, too, it is not very probable that the derivation of ' lico- 
 rice,' once lost, would again be recovered. It would exist, 
 
 156 
 
ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS 
 
 at the best, but as one guess among many. There can be 
 no difficulty about it when we find it spelt, as we do in 
 Fuller, ' glycyrize or liquoris.' 
 
 Those which I cite are but a handful of examples of the 
 way in which words forget, or under predisposing condi- 
 tions might forget, the circumstances of their birth. Now 
 if we could believe in any merely arbitrary/ words, standing 
 in connexion with nothing but the mere lawless caprice of 
 some inventor, the impossibility of tracing their derivation 
 would be nothing strange. Indeed it would be lost labour 
 to seek for the parentage of all words, when many probably 
 had none. But there is no such thing; there is no word 
 which is not, as the Spanish gentleman loves to call himself, 
 an * hidalgo,* or son of something. All are embodiments, 
 more or less successful, of a sensation, a thought, or a fact; 
 or if of more fortuitous birth, still they attach themselves 
 somewhere to the already subsisting world of words and 
 things,^^'* and have their point of contact with it and depart- 
 ure from it, not always discoverable, as we see, but yet 
 always existing. ^^^ And thus, when a word entirely refuses 
 to tell us anything about itself, it must be regarded as a 
 riddle which no one has succeeded in solving, a lock of which 
 no man has found the key — but still a riddle which has a 
 solution, a lock for which there is a key, though now, it may 
 be, irrevocably lost. And this difficulty — it is oftentimes an 
 impossibility — of tracing the genealogy even of words of a 
 very recent formation, is, as I observed, a strong argument 
 for the birth of the most notable of these out of the heart 
 and from the lips of the people. Had they first appeared 
 in books, something in the context would most probably 
 explain them. Had they issued from the schools of the 
 learned, these would not have failed to leave a recognizable 
 stamp and mark upon them. 
 
 There is, indeed, another way in which obscurity may rest 
 
 157 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 on a new word, or a word employed in a new sense. It 
 may tell the story of its birth, of the word or words which 
 compose it, may so bear these on its front, that there can be 
 no question here, while yet its purpose and intention may be 
 hopelessly hidden from our eyes. The secret once lost, 
 is not again to be recovered. Thus no one has called, or 
 could call, in question the derivation of * apocryphal,' that 
 it means * hidden away.' When, however, we begin to in- 
 quire why certain books which the Church either set below 
 the canonical Scriptures, or rejected altogether, were called 
 ' apocryphal,' then a long and doubtful discussion com- 
 mences. Was it because their origin was hidden to the early 
 Fathers of the Church, and thus reasonable suspicions of 
 their authenticity entertained.'^ ^'^ Or was it because they 
 were mysteriously kept out of sight and hidden by the 
 heretical sects which boasted themselves in their exclusive 
 possession? Or was it that they were books not laid up in 
 the Church chest, but hidden away in obscure corners? Or 
 were they books worthier to be hidden than to be brought 
 forward and read to the faithful? — for all these explana- 
 tions have been offered, and none with such superiority of 
 proof on its side as to have deprived the others of all right 
 to be heard. In the same way there is no question that 
 ' tragedy ' is the song of the goat ; but why this, whether 
 because a goat was the prize for the best performers of that 
 song in which the germs of Greek tragedy lay, or because 
 the first actors were dressed like satyrs in goatskins, is a 
 question which will now remain unsettled to the end.^^^ 
 You know what ' leonine ' verses are ; or, if you do not, it 
 is very easy to explain. They are Latin hexameters into 
 which an internal rhyme has forced its way. The follow- 
 ing, for example, are all * leonine ' : 
 
 Qui pingit JIore?n non pingit floris odorem : 
 
 Si quis det nuumos, ne quaere in dentibus amies, 
 
 Una avis in dextrd melior quam quattuor extra. 
 
 158 
 
ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS 
 
 The word has plainly to do with ' leo ' in some shape or 
 other ; but are these .verses leonine from one Leo or Leo- 
 linuSj who first composed them? or because, as the lion is 
 king of beasts, so this, in monkish estimation, was the king 
 of metres? or from some other cause which none have so 
 much as guessed at? ^^^ It is a mystery which none has 
 solved. That frightful system of fagging which made in 
 the seventeenth century the German Universities a sort of 
 hell upon earth, and which was known by the name of 
 ' pennalism,' we can scarcely disconnect from ' penna ' ; 
 while yet this does not help us to any effectual scattering of 
 the mystery which rests upon the term.^^^ The connexion 
 of * dictator ' with * dicere,' * dictare,' is obvious ; not so the 
 reason why the * dictator ' obtained his name. * Sycophant ' 
 and * superstition ' are words, one Greek and one Latin, of 
 the same character. No one doubts of what elements they 
 are composed, and yet their secret has been so lost, that, 
 except as a more or less plausible guess, it can never now be 
 recovered.^®^ 
 
 But I must conclude. I may seem in this present lecture 
 a little to have outrun your needs, and to have sometimes 
 moved in a sphere too remote from that in which your future 
 work will lie. And yet it is in truth very difficult to affirm 
 of any words, that they do not touch us, do not in some way 
 bear upon our studies, on what we shall hereafter have to 
 teach, or shall desire to learn ; that there are any conquests 
 which language makes that concern only a select few, and 
 may be regarded indifferently by all others. For it is here 
 as with many inventions in the arts and luxuries of life; 
 which, being at the first the exclusive privilege and posses- 
 sion of the wealthy and refined, gradually descend into 
 lower strata of society, until at length what were once the 
 elegancies and luxuries of a few, have become the decencies, 
 wellnigh the necessities, of all. Not otherwise there are 
 words, once only on the lips of philosophers or theologians, 
 
 159 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 of the deeper thinkers of their time, or of those directly 
 interested in their speculations, which step by step have 
 come down, not debasing themselves in this act of becom- 
 ing popular, but training and elevating an ever-increasing 
 number of persons to enter into their meaning, till at length 
 they have become truly a part of the nation's common stock, 
 ' household words,' used easily and intelligently by nearly 
 aU. 
 
 I cannot better conclude this lecture than by quoting a 
 passage, one among many, which expresses with a rare elo- 
 quence all I have been labouring to utter; for this truth, 
 which many have noticed, hardly any has set forth with 
 the same fulness of illustration, or the same sense of its 
 importance, as the author of The Philosophy of the Induc- 
 tive Sciences. * Language,' he observes, * is often called 
 an instrument of thought, but it is also the nutriment of 
 thought; or rather, it is the atmosphere in which thought 
 lives; a medium essential to the activity of our speculative 
 powers, although invisible and imperceptible in its oper- 
 ation; and an element modifying, by its qualities and 
 changes, the growth and complexion of the faculties which 
 it feeds. In this way the influence of preceding discoveries 
 upon subsequent ones, of the past upon the present, is 
 most penetrating and universal, although most subtle 
 and difficult to trace. The most familiar words and 
 phrases are connected by imperceptible ties with the reason- 
 ings and discoveries of former men and distant times. 
 Their knowledge is an inseparable part of ours : the present 
 generation inherits and uses the scientific wealth of all 
 the past. And this is the fortune, not only of the great and 
 rich in the intellectual world, of those who have the key 
 to the ancient storehouses, and who have accumulated treas- 
 ures of their own, but the humblest inquirer, while he puts 
 his reasonings into words, benefits by the labours of the 
 
 160 
 
ON THE RISE OF NEW WORDS 
 
 greatest. WTien he counts his little wealth, he finds he has 
 in his hands coins which bear the image and superscription 
 of ancient and modern intellectual dynasties, and that in 
 virtue of this possession acquisitions are in his power, solid 
 knowledge within his reach, which none could ever have 
 attained to, if it were not that the gold of truth once dug 
 out of the mind circulates more and more widely among 
 mankind.' 
 
 161 
 
LECTURE 6 
 
 On the Distinction of Words 
 
 Synonyms, and the study of synonyms, with the advan- 
 tages to be derived from a careful noting of the distinction 
 between them, constitute the subject with which in my pres- 
 ent Lecture I shall deal. But what, you may ask, is meant 
 when, comparing certain words with one another, we affirm 
 of them that they are synonyms? We imply that, with 
 great and essential resemblances of meaning, they have at 
 the same time small, subordinate, and partial differences — 
 these differences being such as either originally, and on the 
 strength of their etymology, were born with them ; or differ- 
 ences which they have by usage acquired ; or such as, though 
 nearly or altogether latent now, they are capable of receiv- 
 ing at the hands of wise and discreet masters of language. 
 Synonyms are thus words of like significance in the main; 
 with a large extent of ground which they occupy in common, 
 but also with something of their own, private and peculiar, 
 which they do not share with one another. ^^^ 
 
 So soon as the term * synonym ' is defined thus, it will 
 be at once perceived by any acquainted with its etymology, 
 that, strictly speaking, it is a misnomer, and is given, with 
 a certain inaccuracy and impropriety, to words which stand 
 in such relations as I have just traced to one another; since 
 in strictness of speech the terms, ' synonyms ' and * synon- 
 ymous,' applied to words, affirm of them that they cover 
 not merely almost, but altogether, the same extent of mean- 
 ing, that they are in their signification perfectly identical 
 and coincident; circles, so to speak, with the same centre 
 
 162 
 
ON THE DISTINCTION OP WORDS 
 
 and the same circumference. The term, however, is not 
 ordinarily so used; it evidently is not so by such as under- 
 take to trace out the distinction between synonyms; for, 
 without venturing to deny that there may be such perfect 
 synonyms, words, that is, with this absolute coincidence of 
 the one with the other, yet these could not be the objects of 
 any such discrimination; since, where no real difference 
 exists, it would be lost labour and the exercise of a perverse 
 ingenuity to attempt to draw one out. 
 
 There are, indeed, those who assert that words in 
 one language are never exactly synonymous, or in all 
 respects commensurate, with words in another; that, when 
 they are compared with one another, there is always 
 more, or something less, or something different, in one 
 as compared with the other, which hinders this com- 
 plete equivalence. And, those words being excepted which 
 designate objects in their nature absolutely incapable 
 of a more or less and of every qualitative difference, I should 
 be disposed to consider other exceptions to this assertion 
 exceedingly rare. ' In all languages whatever,' to quote 
 Bentley's words, * a word of a moral or of a political signifi- 
 cance, containing several complex ideas arbitrarily joined 
 together, has seldom any correspondent word in any other 
 language which extends to all these ideas.' Nor is it hard 
 to trace reasons sufficient why this should be so. For what, 
 after all, is a word, but the enclosure for human use of a 
 certain district, larger or smaller, from the vast outfield of 
 thought or feeling or fact, and in this way a bringing of it 
 under human cultivation, a rescuing of it for human uses? 
 But how extremely unlikely it is that nations, drawing quite 
 independently of one another these lines of enclosure, 
 should draw them in all or most cases exactly in the same 
 direction, neither narrower nor wider; how almost inevita- 
 ble, on the contrary, that very often the lines should not 
 
 163 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 coincide — and this, even supposing no moral forces at work 
 to disturb the falling of the lines. 
 
 How immense and instructive a field of comparison be- 
 tween languages does this fact lay open to us; while it is 
 sufficient to drive a translator with a high ideal of the task 
 which he has undertaken well-nigh to despair. For indeed 
 in the transferring of any matter of high worth from one 
 language to another there are losses involved, which no 
 labour, no skill, no genius, no mastery of one language or 
 of both can prevent. The translator may have worthily 
 done his part, may have ' turned ' and not * overturned ' his 
 original (St. Jerome complains that in his time many ver- 
 siones deserved to be called eversiones rather) ; he may have 
 given the lie to the Italian proverb, ' Traduttori Traditori/ 
 or * Translators Traitors,' men, that is, who do not * render ' 
 but ' surrender ' their author's meaning, and yet for all this 
 the losses of which I speak will not have been avoided. 
 Translations, let them have been carried through with what 
 skill they may, are, as one has said, belles infideles at the 
 best. 
 
 How often in the translation of Holy Scripture from the 
 language wherein it was first delivered into some other which 
 offers more words than one whereby some all-important word 
 in the original record may be rendered, the perplexity has 
 been great which of these sliould be preferred. Not, indeed, 
 that there was here an embarrassment of riches, but rather 
 an embarrassment of poverty. Each, it maj^^ be, has advan- 
 tages of its own, but each also its own drawbacks and short- 
 comings. There is nothing but a choice of difficulties any- 
 how, and whichever is selected, it will be found that the 
 treasure of God's thought has been committed to an earth- 
 en vessel, and one whose earthiness will not fail at this 
 point or at that to appear ; while yet, with all this, of what 
 far-reaching importance it is that the best, that is, the least 
 
 164 
 
ON THE DISTINCTION OF WORDS 
 
 inadequate, word should be chosen. Thus the missionary- 
 translator, if he be at all aware of the awful implement 
 which he is wielding, of the tremendous crisis in a people's 
 spiritual life which has arrived, when their language is 
 first made the vehicle of the truths of Revelation, will often 
 tremble at the work he has in hand; he will tremble lest 
 he should permanently lower or confuse the whole spiritual 
 life of a people, by choosing a meaner and letting go a 
 nobler word for the setting forth of some leading truth of 
 redemption ; and yet the choice how difficult, the nobler itself 
 falling how infinitely below his desires, and below the truth 
 of which he would make it the bearer. 
 
 Even those who are wholly ignorant of Chinese can yet 
 perceive how vast the spiritual interests which are at stake 
 in China, how much will be won or how much lost for the 
 whole spiritual life of its people, it may be for ages to come, 
 according as the right or the wrong word is selected by 
 our missionaries there for designating the true and the liv- 
 ing God. As many of us indeed as are ignorant of the 
 language can be no judges in the controversy which on this 
 matter is, or was lately, carried on ; but we can all feel how 
 vital the question, how enormous the interests at stake ; while, 
 not less, having heard the allegations on the one side and 
 on the other, we must own that there is only an alternative 
 of difficulties here. Nearer home there have been difficulties 
 of the same kind. At the Reformation, for example, when 
 Latin was still more or less the language of theology, how 
 earnest a controversy raged round the word in the Greek 
 Testament which we have rendered * repentance ' ; whether 
 ' poenitentia ' should be allowed to stand, hallowed by long 
 usage as it was, or ' resipiscentia,' as many of the Reformers 
 preferred, should be substituted in its room, and how much 
 on either side could be urged. Not otherwise, at an earlier 
 date, * Sermo ' and ' Verbum ' contended for the honour of 
 
 165 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 rendering the ' Logos ' of St. John ; though here there can 
 be no serious doubt on which side the advantage lay, and 
 that in ' Verbum ' the right word was chosen. 
 
 But this of the relation of words in one language to words 
 in another, and of all the questions which may thus be 
 raised, is a sea too large for me to launch upon now; and 
 with thus much said to invite you to have open eyes and ears 
 for such questions, seeing that they are often full of teach- 
 ing,^ ^^ I must leave this subject, and limit myself in this 
 Lecture to a comparison between words, not in different lan- 
 guages, but in the same. 
 
 Synonyms then, as the term is generally understood, and 
 as I shall use it, are words in the same language with 
 slight differences either already established between them, 
 or potentially subsisting in them. They are not on the one 
 side words absolutely identical, for such, as has been said 
 already, afford no room for discrimination; but neither on 
 the other side are they words only remotely similar to one 
 another; for the differences between these last will be self- 
 evident, will so lie on the surface and proclaim themselves 
 to all, that it would be as superfluous an office as holding a 
 candle to the sun to attempt to make this clearer than it 
 already is. It may be desirable to trace and fix the differ- 
 ence between scarlet and crimson, for these might easily 
 be confounded; but who would think of so doing between 
 scarlet and green? or between covetousness and avarice; 
 while it would be idle and superfluous to do the same for 
 covetousness and pride. They ipQUst be words more or less 
 liable to confusion, but which jet ought not to be con- 
 founded, as one has said; in which there originally inhered 
 a difference, or between which, though once absolutely 
 identical, such has gradually grown up, and so established 
 itself in the use of the best writers, and in the instinct 
 of the best speakers of the tongue, that it claims to be 
 openly recognized by all. 
 
 166 
 
ON THE DISTINCTION OF WORDS 
 
 But here an interesting question presents itself to us: 
 How do languages come to possess synonyms of this latter 
 class^ which are differenced not by etymology, nor by any 
 other deep-lying cause, but only by usage? Now if lan- 
 guages had been made by agreement, of course no such syn- 
 onyms as these could exist; for when once a word had been 
 found which was the adequate representative of a thought, 
 feeling, or fact, no second one would have been sought. 
 But languages are the result of processes very different 
 from this, and far less formal and regular. Various tribes, 
 each with its own dialect, kindred indeed, but in many 
 respects distinct, coalesce into one people, and cast their 
 contributions of language into a common stock. Thus the 
 French possess many synonyms from the langue d'Oc and 
 langue d'Oil, each having contributed its word for one and 
 the same thing ; thus ' atre ' and * foyer,' both for hearth. 
 Sometimes different tribes of the same people have the same 
 word, yet in forms sufficiently different to cause that both 
 remain, but as words distinct from one another; thus in 
 French ' chaire ' and * chaise ' are dialectic variations of 
 the same word; just as in German, * Odem ' and * Athem ' 
 were no more than dialectic differences at the first. Or 
 again, a conquering people have fixed themselves in the 
 midst of a conquered; they impose their dominion, but do 
 not succeed in imposing their language; nay, being few in 
 number, they find themselves at last compelled to adopt the 
 language of the conquered; yet not so but that a certain 
 compromise between the two languages finds place. One 
 carries the day, but on the condition that it shall admit as 
 naturalized denizens a number of the words of the other; 
 which in some instances expel, but in many others subsist 
 as synonyms side by side with, the native words. 
 
 There are causes of the existence of synonyms which 
 reach far back into the history of a nation and a language; 
 but other causes at a later period are also at work. When a 
 
 167 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 written literature springs up, authors familiar with variou.'? 
 foreign tongues import from one and another words which 
 are not absolutely required, which are oftentimes rather 
 luxuries than necessities. Sometimes, having a very suffi- 
 cient word of their own, they must needs go and look for a 
 finer one, as they esteem it, from abroad; as, for instance, 
 the Latin having its own expressive ' succinum ' (from * suc- 
 cus '), for amber, some must import from the Greek the 
 ambiguous * electrum.' Of these thus proposed as candi- 
 dates for admission, some fail to obtain the rights of citizen- 
 ship, and after longer or shorter probation are rejected; it 
 may be, never advance beyond their first proposer. Enough, 
 however, receive the stamp of popular allowance to create 
 embarrassment for a while ; until, that is, their relations with 
 the already existing words are adjusted. As a single illus- 
 tration of the various quarters from which the English has 
 thus been augmented and enriched, I would instance the 
 words ' craft,' * guile,' * trick,' ' artifice,' and ' stratagem,' 
 and remind you of the various sources frofti which we have 
 drawn them. Here ' craft ' is Old-English, * trick ' is 
 Dutch, ' guile ' is Old-French, * artificium ' is Latin, and 
 (TTpaTyyrjfjia Greek. 
 
 By and by, however, as a language becomes itself an 
 object of closer attention, at the same time that society, 
 advancing from a simpler to a more complex condition, has 
 more things to designate, more thoughts to utter, and more 
 distinctions to draw, it is felt as a waste of resources to 
 employ two or more words for the designating of one and 
 the same thing. Men feel, and rightly, that with a bound- 
 less world lying around them and demanding to be cata- 
 logued and named, and which they only make truly their 
 own in the measure and to the extent that they do name it, 
 with infinite shades and varieties of thought and feeling 
 subsisting in their own minds, and claiming to find utter- 
 
 168 
 
ON THE DISTINCTION OF WORDS 
 
 ice in words, it is a wanton extravagance to expend two or 
 ore signs on that which could adequately be set forth by 
 jne — an extravagance in one part of their expenditure, 
 which will be almost sure to issue in, and to be punished by, 
 a corresponding scantness and straitness in another. Some 
 thought or feeling or fact will wholly want one adequate 
 3ign, because another has two.^®^ Hereupon that which has 
 been well called the process of ' desynonymizing ' begins — 
 that is, of gradually discrimination in use between words 
 which have hitherto been accounted perfectly equivalent, 
 and, as such, indifferently employed. It is a positive en- 
 riching of a language when this process is at any point felt 
 to be accomplished; when two or more words, once promis- 
 cuously used, have had each its own peculiar domain assigned 
 to it, which it shall not itself overstep, upon which others 
 shall not encroach. This may seem at first sight only as 
 a better regulation of old territory; for all practical pur- 
 poses it is the acquisition of new. 
 
 This desynonymizing process is not carried out accord- 
 ing to any prearranged purpose or plan. The working 
 genius of the language accomplishes its own objects, causes 
 these synonymous words insensibly to fall off from one an- 
 other, and to acquire separate and peculiar meanings. The 
 most that any single writer can do, save indeed in the termi- 
 nology of science, is to assist an already existing inclination, 
 to bring to the clear consciousness of all that which already 
 has been obscurely felt by many, and thus to hasten the 
 process of this disengagement, or, as it has been well 
 expressed, ' to regulate and ordinate the evident nisus and 
 tendency of the popular usage into a severe definition ' ; 
 and establish on a firm basis the distinction, so that it shall 
 not be lost sight of or brought into question again. Thus 
 long before Wordsworth wrote, it was obscurely felt by 
 many that in * imagination ' there was more of the earnest, 
 
 169 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 in ' fancy ' of tlic play^ of the spirit, that the first was a 
 loftier faculty and power than the second. The tendency 
 of the language was all in this direction. None would for 
 some time back have employed ' fancy ' as Milton employs 
 it,^®* ascribing to it operations which we have learned to 
 reserve for ' imagination ' alone, and indeed subordinating 
 
 * imaginations ' to fancy, as a part of the materials with 
 which it deals. Yet for all this the words were continually, 
 and not without injury, confounded. Wordsworth first, in 
 the Preface to his Lyrical Ballads, rendered it impossible 
 for any, who had read and mastered what he had written 
 on the matter, to remain unconscious any longer of the 
 essential difference between them.^^^ This is but one ex- 
 ample, an illustrious one indeed, of what has been going 
 forward in innumerable pairs of words. Thus in Wiclif's 
 time and long after, there seems to have been no difference 
 recognized between a * famine ' and a ' hunger ' ; they both 
 expressed the outward fact of a scarcity of food. It was 
 a genuine gain when, leaving to ' famine ' this meaning, 
 by ' hunger ' was expressed no longer the outward fact, 
 but the inward sense of the fact. Other pairs of words 
 between which a distinction is recognized now which was 
 not recognized some centuries ago, are the following : ' to 
 clarify ' and ' to glorify ' ; ' to admire ' and * to wonder ' ; 
 
 * to convince ' and * to convict ' ; ' reign ' and ' kingdom ' ; 
 ' ghost ' and ' spirit ' ; ' merit ' and ' demerit ' ; * mutton ' and 
 
 * sheep ' ; * feminine ' and * effeminate ' ; ' mortal ' and 
 
 * deadly ' ; ' ingenious ' and * ingenuous ' ; ' needful ' and 
 
 * needy '; ' voluntary ' and 'wilful. '^^^ 
 
 A multitude of words in English are still waiting for a 
 similar discrimination. Many in due time will obtain it, 
 and the language prove so much the richer thereby; for 
 certainly if Coleridge had right when he affirmed that * every 
 new term expressing a fact or a difference not precisely 
 
 170 
 
ON THE DISTINCTION OF WORDS 
 
 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/^^^ we are justified in regarding these distinctions 
 which are still waiting to be made as so much reversionary 
 wealth in our mother tongue. Thus how real an ethical 
 gain would it be, how much clearness would it bring into 
 men's thoughts and actions, if the distinction which exists 
 in Latin between * vindicta ' and ' ultio,' that the first is a 
 moral act, the just punishment of the sinner by his God, of 
 the criminal by the judge, the other an act in which the self- 
 gratification of one who counts himself injured or offended 
 is sought, could in like manner be fully established (vaguely 
 felt it already is) between our * vengeance ' and * revenge '; 
 so that ' vengeance ' (with the verb * to avenge ') should 
 never be ascribed except to God, or to men acting as the 
 executors of his righteous doom; while all retaliation to 
 which not zeal for his righteousness, but men's own sinful 
 passions have given the impulse and the motive, should be 
 termed * revenge.' As it now is, the moral disapprobation 
 which cleaves, and cleaves justly, to * revenge,' is oftentimes 
 transferred almost unconsciously to * vengeance ' ; while yet 
 without vengeance it is impossible to conceive in a world 
 so full of evil-doing any effectual assertion of righteousness, 
 any moral government whatever. 
 
 The causes mentioned above, namely, that our modern 
 English, Teutonic in its main structure, yet draws so large 
 a portion of its verbal wealth from the Latin, and has fur- 
 ther welcomed, and found place for, many later accessions, 
 these causes have together effected that we possess a great 
 many duplicates, not to speak of triplicates, or of such a 
 quintuplicate as that which I adduced just now, where the 
 Greek, Latin, French, Dutch, and English had each yielded 
 us a word. Let me mention a few duplicate substantives, 
 Old-English and Latin : thus we have * shepherd ' and * pas- 
 
 171 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 tor ' ; * feeling ' and ' sentiment ' ; ' handbook ' and ' man- 
 ual ' ; ' ship ' and * nave ' ; ' anger ' and ' ire ' ; * grief ' and 
 ' sorrow ' ; ' kingdom/ ' reign/ and ' realm ' ; ' love ' and 
 ' charity ' ; * feather ' and ' plume ' ; ' forerunner ' and * pre- 
 cursor ' ; ' foresight ' and ' providence ' ; ' freedom ' and 
 
 * liberty ' ; * bitterness ' and * acerbity ' ; * murder ' and 
 ' homicide ' ; ' moons ' and ' lunes.' Sometimes, in theology 
 and science especially, we have gone both to the Latin and 
 to the Greek, and drawn the same word from them both ; thus 
 ' deist ' and * theist ' ; * numeration ' and * arithmetic ' ; 
 ' revelation ' and ' apocalypse ' ; * temporal ' and ' chronic ' ; 
 
 * compassion * and * sympathy ' ; ' supposition ' and ' hypoth- 
 esis ' ; ' transparent ' and ' diaphanous ' ; * digit ' and ' dac- 
 tyle.' But to return to the Old-English and Latin (with 
 French), the main factors of our tongue. Besides duplicate 
 substantives, we have duplicate verbs, such as * to whiten ' 
 and ' to blanch ' ; ' to soften ' and * to mollify ' ; * to unload ' 
 and ' to exonerate ' ; ' to hide ' and ' to conceal ' ; with many 
 more. Duplicate adj ectives also are numerous, as ' shady * 
 and ' umbrageous ' ; ' unreadable ' and ' illegible ' ; * un- 
 friendly ' and ' inimical ' ; * almighty ' and ' onmipotent ' ; 
 ' wholesome ' and * salubrious ' ; * unshunnable ' and * inevita- 
 ble.' Occasionally our modern English, not adopting the 
 Latin substantive, has admitted duplicate adjectives; thus 
 
 * burden * has not merely ' burdensome,' but also * onerous,' 
 while yet * onus ' has found no place with us ; * priest ' has 
 
 * priestly ' and ' sacerdotal ' ; * king ' has ' kingly ' ' regal,' 
 which is purely Latin, and ' royal,' which is Latin distilled 
 through the French. * Bodily ' and ' corporal,' * boyish ' 
 and * puerile,' * fiery ' and * igneous,' * wooden ' and * ligne- 
 ous,' ' worldly ' and * mundane,' ' bloody ' and ' sanguine,' 
 ' watery ' and ' aqueous,' ' fearful ' and * timid,' * manly ' 
 and * virile/ ' womanly ' and * feminine,' * sunny ' and 
 ' solar,' * starry ' and * stellar,' ' yearly ' and * annual,' 
 
 172 
 
ON THE DISTINCTION OF WORDS 
 
 ' weighty ' and ' ponderous/ may all be placed in the same 
 list. Nor are these more than a handful of words out of the 
 number which might be adduced. You would find both 
 pleasure and profit in enlarging these lists, and, as far as 
 you are able, making them gradually complete. 
 
 If we look closely at words which have succeeded in 
 thus maintaining their ground side by side, and one no less 
 than the other, we shall note that in almost every instance 
 they have little by little asserted for themselves separate 
 spheres of meaning, have in usage become more or less 
 distinct. Thus we use ' shepherd ' almost always in its 
 primary meaning, keeper of sheep ; while * pastor ' is used 
 exclusively in the tropical sense, one that feeds the flock 
 of God; at the same time the language having only the one 
 adjective, * pastoral,' that is of necessity common to both. 
 ' Love ' and ' charity ' are used in our Authorized Version 
 of Scripture promiscuously, and out of the sense of their 
 equivalence are made to represent one and the same Greek 
 word ; but in modern use ' charity ' has come predominantly 
 to signify one particular manifestation of love, the ministry 
 to the bodily needs of others, ' love ' continuing to express 
 the affection of the soul. ' Ship ' remains in its literal 
 meaning, while * nave ' has become a symbolic term used 
 in sacred architecture alone. ' Kingdom ' is concrete, as the 
 ' kingdom ' of Great Britain ; ' reign ' is abstract, the 
 * reign ' of Queen Victoria. An * auditor ' and a ' hearer ' 
 are now, though they were not once, altogether different 
 from one another. * Illegible ' is applied to the hand- 
 writing, * unreadable ' to the subject-matter written; a man 
 writes an ' illegible ' hand ; he has published an ' unread- 
 able ' book. ' Foresight ' is ascribed to men, but ' provi- 
 dence ' for the most part designates, as Trpovoua also came 
 to do, the far-looking wisdom of God, by which He governs 
 and graciously cares for his people. It becomes boys to 
 
 173 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 be ' boyish/ but not men to be ' puerile.' * To blanch ' is 
 to withdraw colouring matter : we * blanch ' almonds or 
 linen; or the cheek by the withdrawing of the blood is 
 
 * blanched ' with fear ; but we ' whiten ' a wall, not by with- 
 drawing some other colour, but by the superinducing of 
 white; thus ' whited sepulchres.' When we 'palliate' our 
 own or other people's faults, we do not seek * to cloke ' 
 them altogether, but only to extenuate the guilt of them in 
 part. 
 
 It might be urged that there was a certain preparedness 
 in these words to separate off in their meaning from one 
 another, inasmuch as they originally belonged to different 
 stocks; and this may very well have assisted; but we find 
 the same process at work where original difference of stock 
 can have supplied no such assistance. * Astronomy ' and 
 
 * astrology ' are both words drawn from the Greek, nor is 
 there any reason beforehand why the second should not be 
 in as honourable use as the first; for it is the reason, as 
 ' astronomy ' the law, of the stars. ^®® But seeing there is a 
 true and a false science of the stars, both needing words 
 to utter them, it has come to pass that in our later use, 
 ' astrology ' designates always that pretended science of 
 imposture, which affecting to submit the moral freedom of 
 men to the influences of the heavenly bodies, prognosticates 
 future events from the position of these, as contrasted with 
 ' astronomy,' that true science which investigates the laws of 
 the heavenly bodies in their relations to one another and 
 to the planet upon which we dwell. 
 
 As these are both from the Greek, so * despair ' and ' diffi- 
 dence ' are both, though the second more directly than the 
 first, from the Latin. At a period not very long past the 
 difference between them was hardly appreciable; one was 
 hardly stronger than the other. If in one the absence of 
 all hope, in the other that of all faith, was implied. In 
 
 174. 
 
ON THE DISTINCTION OF WORDS 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress, a book with which every English 
 schoolmaster should be familiar, ' Mistress Diffidence ' is 
 ' Giant Despair's ' wife, and not a whit behind him in deadly 
 enmity to the pilgrims; even as Jeremy Taylor speaks of 
 the impenitent sinner's ' diffidence in the hour of death,' 
 meaning, as the context plainly shows, his despair. But to 
 what end two words for one and the same thing ? And thus 
 ' diffidence ' did not retain that energy of meaning which 
 it had at the first, but little by little assumed a more miti- 
 gated sense, (Hobbes speaks of * men's diffidence,' meaning 
 their distrust ' of one another,') till it has come now to 
 signifiy a becoming distrust of ourselves, a humble estimate 
 of our own powers, with only a slight intimation, as in the 
 later use of the Latin ' verecundia,' that perhaps this dis- 
 trust is carried too far. 
 
 Again, ' interference ' and * interposition ' are both from 
 the Latin; and here too there is no anterior necessity that 
 they should possess those different shades of meaning which 
 actually they have obtained among us; — ^the Latin verbs 
 which form their latter halves being about as strong one 
 as the other. And yet in our practical use, * interference ' 
 is something offensive; it is the pushing in of himself be- 
 tween two parties on the part of a third, who was not asked, 
 and is not thanked for his pains, and who, as the feeling 
 of the word implies, had no business there ; while ' inter- 
 position ' is employed to express the friendly peace-making 
 mediation of one whom the act well became, and who, even 
 if he was not specially invited thereunto, is still thanked for 
 what he has done. How real an increase is it in the wealth 
 and efficiency of a language thus to have discriminated such 
 words as these; and to be able to express acts outwardly 
 the same by different words, according as we would praise 
 or blame the temper and spirit out of which they sprung.^®^ 
 
 Take now some words not thus desynonymized by usage 
 175 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 only, but having a fundamental etymological distinction, — 
 one, however, which it would be easy to overlook, and which, 
 so long as we dwell on the surface of the word, we shall 
 overlook ; and try whether we shall not be gainers by bring- 
 ing out the distinction into clear consciousness. Here are 
 * arrogant,' * presumptuous,' and * insolent ' ; we often use 
 them promiscuously; yet let us examine them a little more 
 closely, and ask ourselves, as soon as we have traced the 
 lines of demarcation between them, whether we are not 
 now in possession of three distinct thoughts, instead of a 
 single confused one. He is * arrogant,' who claims the 
 observance and homage of others as his due (ad rogo) ; 
 who does not wait for them to offer, but himself demands 
 all this ; or who, having right to one sort of observance, 
 claims another to which he has no right. Thus, it was 
 ' arrogance ' in Nebuchadnezzar, when he required that all 
 men should fall down before the image which he had reared. 
 He, a man, was claiming for man's work the homage which 
 belonged only to God. But one is * presumptuous ' who 
 takes things to himself before he has acquired any title to 
 them (prae sumo) ; as the young man who already usurps 
 the place of the old, the learner who speaks with the author- 
 ity of the teacher. By and by all this may very justly be 
 his, but it is * presumption ' to anticipate it now. ' Insolent ' 
 means properly no more than unusual ; to act ' insolently ' is 
 to act unusually. The offensive meaning which * insolent ' 
 has acquired rests upon the sense that there is a certain 
 well-imderstood rule of society, a recognized standard of 
 moral and social behaviour, to which each of its members 
 should conform. The ' insolent ' man is one who violates 
 this rule, who breaks through this order, acting in an 
 unaccustomed manner. The same sense of the orderly being 
 also the moral, is implied in ' irregular ' ; a man of * irreg- 
 ular ' is for us a man of immoral life ; and yet more strongly 
 
 176 
 
ON THE DISTINCTION OF WORDS 
 
 in Latin, which has but one word (mores) for customs and 
 morals. 
 
 Or consider the following words : ' to hate/ * to loathe/ 
 * to detest/ ' to abhor.' It would be safe to say that our 
 blessed Lord ' hated ' to see his Father's house profaned, 
 when, the zeal of that house consuming Him, He drove forth 
 in anger the profaners from it (John 2:15) ; He ' loathed ' 
 the lukewarmness of the Laodiceans, when He threatened 
 to spue them out of his mouth (Rev. 3:l6) ; He ' detested ' 
 the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and Scribes, when He 
 affirmed and proclaimed their sin, and uttered those eight 
 woes against them (Matt. 23) ; He ' abhorred ' the evil 
 suggestions of Satan, and He bade the Tempter to get be- 
 hind Him, shrinking from him as one would shrink from a 
 hissing serpent in his path. 
 
 Sometimes words have no right at all to be considered 
 synonyms, and yet are continually used one for the other; 
 having through this constant misemployment more need than 
 synonyms themselves to be discriminated. Thus, what con- 
 fusion is often made between * genuine ' and * authentic ' ; 
 what inaccuracy exists in their employment. And yet the 
 distinction is a very plain one. A * genuine * work is one 
 written by the author whose name it bears ; an * authentic * 
 work is one which relates truthfully the matters of which 
 it treats. For example, the apocryphal Gospel of St. Thomas 
 is neither * genuine ' nor * authentic' It is not * genuine/ 
 for St. Thomas did not write it; it is not * authentic/ for 
 its contents are mainly fables and lies. The History of the 
 Alexandrian War, which passes under Caesar's name, is not 
 ' genuine,' for he did not write it ; it is * authentic,' being in 
 the main a truthful record of the events which it professes 
 to relate. Thiers' History of the French Empire, on the 
 contrary, is * genuine,' for he is certainly the author, but 
 very far indeed from ' authentic ' ; while Thucydides' His- 
 
 177 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 tory of the Peloponnesian War is both ' authentic ' and 
 * genuine.' 
 
 You will observe that in most of the words just adduced, 
 I have sought to refer their usage to their etymologies, to 
 follow the guidance of these, and by the same aid to trace 
 the lines of demarcation which divide them. For I cannot 
 but think it an omission in a very instructive little volume 
 upon synonyms edited by the late Archbishop Whately, and 
 a partial diminution of its usefulness, that in the valuation 
 of words reference is so seldom made to their etymologies, 
 the writer relying almost entirely on present usage and 
 the tact and instinct of a cultivated mind for the appreci- 
 ation of them aright. The accomplished author (or author- 
 ess) of this book indeed justifies this omission on the ground 
 that a work on synonyms has to do with the present relative 
 value of words, not with their roots and derivations; and, 
 further, that a reference to these often brings in what is only 
 a disturbing force in the process, tending to confuse rather 
 than to clear. But while it is quite true that words will 
 often ride very slackly at anchor on their etymologies, will 
 be borne hither and thither by the shifting tides and currents 
 of usage, yet are they for the most part still holden by them. 
 Very few have broken away and drifted from their moor- 
 ings altogether. A * novelist,' or writer of new tales in the 
 present day, is very different from a * novelist ' or upholder 
 of new theories in politics and religion, of two hundred years 
 ago; yet the idea of newness is common to them both. A 
 ' naturalist ' was once a denier of revealed truth, of any 
 but natural religion; he is now an investigator, often a 
 devout one, of nature and of her laws; yet the word has 
 remained true to its etymology all the while. A ' methodist ' 
 was formerly a follower of a certain * method ' of philosoph- 
 ical induction, now of a ' method ' in the fulfilment of 
 religious duties ; but in either case * method,' or orderly pro- 
 
 178 
 
ON THE DISTINCTION OF WORDS 
 
 gression, is the central idea of the word. Take other words 
 which have changed or modified their meaning — ' planta- 
 tions,' for instance, which were once colonies of men (and 
 indeed we still * plant ' a colony), but are now nurseries of 
 trees, and you will find the same to hold good. ' Ecstasy ' 
 was madness ; it is intense delight ; but has in nowise thereby 
 broken with the meaning from which it started, since it is 
 the nature alike of madness and of joy to set men out of 
 and beside themselves. 
 
 And even when the fact is not so obvious as iij these cases, 
 the etymology of a word exercises an unconscious influence 
 upon its uses, oftentimes makes itself felt when least 
 expected, so that a word, after seeming quite to have for- 
 gotten, will after longest wanderings return to it again. 
 And one main device of great artists in language, such as 
 would fain evoke the latent forces of their native tongue, 
 will very often consist in reconnecting words by their use 
 of them with their original derivation, in not suffering 
 them to forget themselves and their origin, though they 
 would. How often and with what signal effect does Milton 
 compel a word to return to its original source, * antiquam 
 exquirere matrem ' ; while yet how often the fact that he is 
 doing this passes even by scholars unobserved.^^^ Moreover, 
 even if all this were not so, yet the past history of a word, 
 a history that must needs start from its derivation, how soon 
 soever this may be left behind, can hardly be disregarded, 
 when we are seeking to ascertain its present value. What 
 Barrow says is quite true, that ' knowing the primitive mean- 
 ing of words can seldom or never determine their meaning 
 anywhere, they often in common use declining from it ' ; 
 but though it cannot * determine,' it can as little be omitted 
 or forgotten, when this determination is being sought. A 
 man may be wholly different now from what once he was; 
 yet not the less to know his antecedents is needful, before 
 
 179 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 we can ever perfectly understand his present self; and the 
 same holds good with words. 
 
 There is a moral gain which synonyms will sometimes 
 yield us, enabling us, as they do, to say exactly what we 
 intend, without exaggerating or putting more into our speech 
 than we feel in our hearts, allowing us to be at once courteous 
 and truthful. Such moral advantage there is, for example, 
 in the choice which we have between the words ' to felici- 
 tate ' and * to congratulate,' for the expressing of our senti- 
 ments and wishes in regard of the good fortune that may 
 happen to others. To ' felicitate ' another is to wish him 
 happiness, without aflBrming that his happiness is also ours. 
 Thus, out of that general goodwill with which we ought to 
 regard all, we might ' felicitate ' one almost a stranger to 
 us ; nay, more, I can honestly * felicitate ' one on his appoint- 
 ment to a post, or attainment of an honour, even though 
 I may not consider him the fittest to have obtained it, though 
 I should have been glad if another had done so ; I can desire 
 and hope, that is, that it may bring all joy and happiness 
 to him. But I could not, without a violation of truth, * con- 
 gratulate ' him, or that stranger whose prosperity awoke no 
 lively delight in my heart ; for when I * congratulate ' a per- 
 son (congratulator), I declare that I am sharer in his joy, 
 that what has rejoiced him has rejoiced also me. We have 
 all, I dare say, felt, even without having analysed the dis- 
 tinction between the words, that ' congratulate ' is a far 
 heartier word than * felicitate,' and one with which it much 
 better becomes us to welcome the good fortune of a friend; 
 and the analysis, as you perceive, perfectly j ustifies the feel- 
 ing. * Felicitations * are little better than compliments ; 
 * congratulations ' are the expression of a genuine sympathy 
 and joy. 
 
 Let me illustrate the importance of synonymous distinc- 
 tions by another example, by the words, ' to invent ' and ' to 
 
 180 
 
ON THE DISTINCTION OF WORDS 
 
 discover '; or ' invention ' and ' discovery.' How slight may 
 seem to us the distinction between them, even if we see any 
 at all. Yet try them a little closer, try them, which is the 
 true proof, by aid of examples, and you will perceive that 
 they can by no means be indifferently used; that, on the 
 contrary, a great truth lies at the root of their distinction. 
 Thus we speak of the ' invention ' of printing, of the ' dis- 
 covery ' of America. Shift these words, and speak, for 
 instance, of the ' invention ' of America ; you feel at once 
 how unsuitable the language is. And why ? Because Colum- 
 bus did not make that to be, which before him had not been. 
 America was there, before he revealed it to European eyes ; 
 but that which before was, he showed to be; he withdrew 
 the veil which hitherto had concealed it ; he * discovered ' 
 it. So too we speak of Newton ' discovering ' the law of 
 gravitation ; he drew aside the veil whereby men's eyes were 
 hindered from perceiving it, but the law had existed from 
 the beginning of the world, and would have existed whether 
 he or any other man had traced it or no; neither was it in 
 any way affected by the discovery of it which he had made. 
 But Gutenberg, or whoever else it may be to whom the 
 honour belongs, ' invented ' printing ; he made something to 
 be, which hitherto was not. In like manner Harvey ' dis- 
 covered ' the circulation of the blood ; but Watt * invented ' 
 the steam-engine; and we speak, with a true distinction, 
 of the ' inventions ' of Art, the * discoveries ' of Science. In 
 the very highest matters of all, it is deeply important that 
 we be aware of and observe the distinction. In religion 
 there have been many ' discoveries,' but (in true religion I 
 mean) no ' inventions.' Many discoveries — ^but God in each 
 case the discoverer; He draws aside the veils, one veil after 
 another, that have hiddem Him from men; the discovery or 
 revelation is from Himself, for no man by searching has 
 found out God; and therefore, wherever anything offers 
 
 181 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 itself as an ' invention ' in matters of religion^ it proclaims 
 itself a lie, — as are all self-devised worships, all religions 
 which man projects from his own heart. Just that is known 
 of God which He is pleased to make known, and no more; 
 and men's recognizing or refusing to recognize in no way 
 affects it. They may deny or may acknowledge Him, but 
 He continues the same. 
 
 As involving in like manner a distinction which cannot 
 safely be lost sight of, how important the difference, the 
 existence of which is asserted by our possession of the two 
 words, ' to apprehend ' and ' to comprehend,' with their sub- 
 stantives ' apprehension ' and ' comprehension.' For indeed 
 we * apprehend ' many truths, which we do not * compre- 
 hend.' The great mysteries of our faith — the doctrine, for 
 instance, of the Holy Trinity, we lay hold upon it, we hang 
 on it, our souls live by it ; but we do not * comprehend ' it, 
 that is, we do not take it all in; for it is a necessary attri- 
 bute of God that He is incomprehensible; if He were not 
 so, either He would not be God, or the Being that compre- 
 hended Him would be God also (Matt. 11:27). But it 
 also belongs to the idea of God that He may be ' appre- 
 hended,' though not ' comprehended,' by his reasonable 
 creatures ; He has made them to know Him, though not to 
 know Him all, to ' apprehend,' though not to ' comprehend ' 
 Him. We may transfer with profit the same distinction to 
 matters not quite so solemn. Thus I read Goldsmith's 
 Traveller, or one of Gay's Fables, and I feel that I * com- 
 prehend ' it ; — I do not believe, that is, that there was any- 
 thing stirring in the poet's mind or intention, which I have 
 not in the reading reproduced in my own. But I read 
 Hamlet, or King Lear; here I * apprehend ' much ; I have 
 wondrous glimpses of the poet's intention and aim; but I 
 do not for an instant suppose that I have ' comprehended,' 
 taken in, that is_, all that was in his mind in the writing; 
 
 182 
 
ON THE DISTINCTION OF WORDS 
 
 or that his purpose does not stretch in manifold directions 
 far beyond the range of my vision; and I am sure there 
 are few who would not shrink from affirming, at least if 
 they at all realized the force of the words they were using, 
 that they ' comprehended ' Shakespeare ; however much they 
 may * apprehend ' in him. 
 
 How often * opposite * and ' contrary ' are used as if there 
 was no difference between them, and yet there is a most 
 essential one, one which perhaps we may best express by 
 saying that ' opposites ' complete, while * contraries ' exclude 
 one another. Thus the most * opposite ' moral or mental 
 characteristics may meet in one and the same person, while 
 to say that the most * contrary ' did so, would be manifestly 
 absurd ; for example, a soldier may be at once prudent and 
 bold, for these are opposites ; he could not be at once prudent 
 and rash, for these are contraries. We may love and fear at 
 the same time and the same person; we pray in the Litany 
 that we may love and dread God, the two being opposites, 
 and thus the complements of one another; but to pray that 
 we might love and hate would be as illogical as it would be 
 impious, for these are contraries, and could no more co-exist 
 together than white and black, hot and cold, in the same sub- 
 j ect at the same time. Or to take another illustration, sweet 
 and sour are ' opposites,' sweet and bitter are ' contraries. '^®^ 
 It will be seen then that there is always a certain relation 
 between * opposites ' ; they unfold themselves, though in 
 different directions, from the same root, as the positive and 
 negative forces of electricity, and in their very opposition 
 uphold and sustain one another ; while * contraries ' en- 
 counter one another from quarters quite diverse, and one 
 only subsists in the exact degree that it puts out of working 
 the other. Surely this distinction cannot be an unimportant 
 one either in the region of ethics or elsewhere. 
 
 It will happen continually, that rightly to distinguish 
 183 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 between two words will throw a flood of light upon some 
 controversy in which they play a principal part, nay, may 
 virtually put an end to that controversy altogether. Thus 
 when Hobbes, with a true instinct, would have laid deep 
 the foundations of atheism and despotism together, resolv- 
 ing all right into might, and not merely robbing men, if 
 he could, of the power, but denying to them the duty, of 
 obeying God rather than man, his sophisms could stand only 
 so long as it was not perceived that ' compulsion ' and * obli- 
 gation,' with which he j uggled, conveyed two ideas perfectly 
 distinct, indeed disparate, in kind. Those sophisms of his 
 collapsed at once, so soon as it was perceived that what 
 pertained to one had been transferred to the other by a 
 mere confusion of terms and cunning sleight of hand, the 
 former being a physical, the latter a moral, necessity. 
 
 There is indeed no such fruitful source of confusion and 
 mischief as this — two words are tacitly assumed as equiva- 
 lent, and therefore exchangeable, and then that which may 
 be assumed, and with truth, of one, is assumed also of the 
 other, of which it is not true. Thus, for instance, it often 
 is with ' instruction ' and ' education.' Cannot we ' instruct ' 
 a child, it is asked, cannot we teach it geography, or arith- 
 metic, or grammar, quite independently of the Catechism, 
 or even of the Scriptures } No doubt you may ; but can you 
 ' educate,' without bringing moral and spiritual forces to 
 bear upon the mind and affections of the child.'* And you 
 must not be permitted to transfer the admissions which we 
 freely make in regard of ' instruction,' as though they also 
 held good in respect of ' education.' For what is ' educa- 
 tion ' ? Is it a furnishing of a man from without with knowl- 
 edge and facts and information? or is it a drawing forth 
 from within and a training of the spirit, of the true humanity 
 which is latent in him? Is the process of education the 
 filling of the child's mind, as a cistern is filled with water 
 
 184 
 
ON THE DISTINCTION OF WORDS 
 
 brought in buckets from some other source? or the opening 
 up for that child of fountains which are already there? 
 Now if we give any heed to the word ' education,' and to 
 the voice which speaks therein, we shall not long be in doubt. 
 Education must educe, being from * educare,' which is but 
 another form of ' educere ' ; and that is to draw out, and not 
 to put in. ' To draw out ' what is in the child, the immortal 
 spirit which is there, this is the end of education; and so 
 much the word declares. The putting in is indeed most 
 needful, that is, the child must be instructed as well as edu- 
 cated, and ' instruction ' means furnishing ; but not instructed 
 instead of educated. He must first have powers awakened 
 in him, measures of value given him ; and then he will know 
 how to deal with the facts of this outward world; then 
 instruction in these will profit him ; but not without the higher 
 training, still less as a substitute for it. 
 
 It has occasionally happened that the question which 
 out of two apparent synonyms should be adopted in some 
 important state-document has been debated with no little 
 earnestness and passion ; as at the great English Revolution 
 of 1688, when the two Houses of Parliament were at issue 
 whether it should be declared of James II. that he had 
 ' abdicated,' or had ' deserted,' the throne. This might 
 seem at first sight a mere strife about words, and yet, in 
 reality, serious constitutional questions were involved in the 
 debate. The Commons insisted on the word * abdicated,' 
 not as wishing to imply that in any act of the late king there 
 had been an official renunciation of the crown, which would 
 have been manifestly untrue ; but because ' abdicated ' in 
 their minds alone expressed the fact that James had so 
 borne himself as virtually to have entirely renounced, dis- 
 owned, and relinquished the crown, to have forfeited and 
 separated himself from it, and from any right to it for ever ; 
 while ' deserted ' would have seemed to leave room and an 
 
 185 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 opening for a return, which they were determined to de- 
 clare for ever excluded; as were it said of a husband that 
 he had ' deserted ' his wife, or of a soldier that he had 
 ' deserted ' his colours, this language would imply not only 
 that he might, but that he was bound to return. The speech 
 of Lord Somers on the occasion is a masterly specimen of 
 synonymous discrimination, and an example of the uses in 
 highest matters of state to which it may be turned. As 
 little was it a mere verbal struggle when, at the restoration 
 a good many years ago of our interrupted relations with 
 Persia, Lord Palmerston insisted that the Shah should ad- 
 dress the Queen of England not as ' Maleketh ' but as 
 ' Padishah,' refusing to receive letters which wanted this 
 superscription. 
 
 Let me impress upon you, in conclusion, some few of the 
 many advantages to be derived from the habit of distin- 
 guishing synonyms. These advantages we might presume 
 to be many, even though we could not ourselves perceive 
 them; for how often do the greatest masters of style in 
 every tongue, perhaps none so often as Cicero, the greatest 
 of all,^®^ pause to discriminate between the words they are 
 using; how much care and labour, how much subtlety of 
 thought, they have counted well bestowed on the operation ; 
 how much importance they avowedly attach to it ; not to say 
 that their works, even where they do not intend it, will 
 afford a continual lesson in this respect: a great vrriter 
 merely in the precision and accuracy with which he em- 
 ploys words will always be exercising us in synonymous 
 distinction. But the advantages of attending to synonyms 
 need not be taken on trust; they are evident. How large 
 a part of true wisdom it is to be able to distinguish between 
 things that differ, things seemingly, but not really, alike, 
 is very remarkably attested by our words ' discernment ' 
 and ' discretion ' ; which are now used as equivalent, the first 
 
 186 
 
ON THE DISTINCTION OF WORDS 
 
 to ' insight/ the second to ' prudence ' ; while yet in their 
 earlier usage, and according to their etymology, being both 
 from ' discerno,' they signify the power of so seeing things 
 that in the seeing we distinguish and separate them one 
 from another.^^^ Such were originally ' discernment ' and 
 * discretion/ and such in great measure they are still. And 
 in words is a material ever at hand on which to train the 
 spirit to a skilfulness in this; on which to exercise its sa- 
 gacity through the habit of distinguishing there where it 
 would be so easy to confound.^^* Nor is this habit of dis- 
 crimination only valuable as a part of our intellectual train- 
 ing; but what a positive increase is it of mental wealth 
 when we have learned to discern between things which 
 really diifer, and have made the distinctions between them 
 permanently our own in the only way whereby they can be 
 made secure, that is, by assigning to each its appropriate 
 word and peculiar sign. 
 
 In the effort to trace lines of demarcation you may little 
 by little be drawn into the heart of subjects the most 
 instructive; for only as you have thoroughly mastered a 
 subject, and all which is most characteristic about it, can 
 you hope to trace these lines with accuracy and success. 
 Thus a Roman of the higher classes might bear four 
 names : ' praenomen,' ' nomen,' * cognomen,' * agnomen ' ; 
 almost always bore three. You will know something of the 
 political and family life of Rome when you can tell the 
 exact story of each of these, and the precise difference be- 
 tween them. He will not be altogether ignorant of the 
 Middle Ages and of the clamps which in those ages bound 
 society together, who has learned exactly to distinguish 
 between a ' fief ' and a ' benefice.' He will have obtained 
 a firm grasp on some central facts of theology who can 
 exactly draw out the distinction between * reconciliation,' 
 ' propitiation,' * atonement,' as used in the New Testament ; 
 
 187 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 of Church history, who cin trace the difference between a 
 ' schism ' and a * heresy.' One who has learned to dis- 
 criminate between ' detraction ' and ' slander/ as Barrow 
 has done before him/^*"' or between * emulation ' and ' envy/ 
 in which South has excellently shown him the way/^® or 
 between ' avarice ' and ' covetousness/ with Cowley, will 
 have made no unprofitable excursion into the region of 
 ethics. 
 
 How effectual a help, moreover, will it prove to the writ- 
 ing of a good English style, if instead of choosing almost 
 at hap-hazard from a group of words which seem to us 
 one about as fit for our purpose as another, we at once know 
 which, and which only, we ought in the case before us to 
 employ, which will prove the exact vesture of our thoughts. 
 It is the first characteristic of a well-dressed man that his 
 clothes fit him: they are not too small and shrunken here, 
 too large and loose there. Now it is precisely such a prime 
 characteristic of a good style, that the words fit close to 
 the thoughts. They will not be too big here, hanging like 
 a giant's robe on the limbs of a dwarf; nor too small there, 
 as a boy's garments into which the man has painfully and 
 ridiculously thrust himself. You do not, as you read, feel 
 in one place that the writer means more than he has suc- 
 ceeded in saying; in another that he has said more than he 
 means; in a third something beside what his precise inten- 
 tion was; in a fourth that he has failed to convey any 
 meaning at all ; and all this from a lack of skill in employ- 
 ing the instrument of language, of precision in knowing 
 what words would be the exactest correspondents and aptest 
 exponents of his thoughts. ^®^ 
 
 What a wealth of words in almost every language lies 
 inert and unused; and certainly not fewest in our own. 
 How much of what might be as current coin among us, is 
 shut up in the treasure-house of a few classical authors, 
 
 188 
 
ON THE DISTINCTION OF WORDS 
 
 or is never to be met at all but in the columns of the dic- 
 tionary, we meanwhile, in the midst of all this riches, con- 
 demning ourselves to a voluntary poverty; and often, with 
 tasks the most delicate and difficult to accomplish, — for 
 surely the clothing of thought in its most appropriate gar- 
 ment of words is such, — needlessly depriving ourselves or 
 a large portion of the helps at our command; like some 
 workman who, being furnished for an operation that will 
 challenge all his skill with a dozen different tools, each 
 adapted for its own special purpose, should in his indolence 
 and self-conceit persist in using only one; doing coarsely 
 what might have been done finely; or leaving altogether 
 undone that which, with such assistances, was quite within 
 his reach. And thus it comes to pass that in the common 
 intercourse of life, often too in books, a certain restricted 
 number of words are worked almost to death, employed in 
 season and out of season — a vast multitude meanwhile being 
 rarely, if at all, called to render the service which they 
 could render far better than any other; so rarely, indeed, 
 that little by little they slip out of sight and are forgotten 
 nearly or altogether. And then, perhaps, at some later 
 day, when their want is felt, the ignorance into which we 
 have allowed ourselves to fall, of the resources offered by 
 the language to satisfy new demands, sends us abroad in 
 search of outlandish substitutes for words which we already 
 possess at home.^^* It was, no doubt, to avoid so far as 
 possible such an impoverishment of the language which 
 he spoke and wrote, for the feeding of his own speech with 
 words capable of serving him well, but in danger of falling 
 quite out of his use, that the great Lord Chatham had 
 Bailey's Dictionary, the best of his time, twice read to him 
 from one end to the other. 
 
 And let us not suppose the power of exactly saying what 
 we mean^ and neither more nor less than we mean^ to be 
 
 189 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 merely a graceful mental accomplishment. It is indeed 
 this, and perhaps there is no power so surely indicative of 
 a high and accurate training of the intellectual faculties. 
 But it is much more than this : it has a moral value as well. 
 It is nearly allied to morality, inasmuch as it is nearly 
 connected with truthfulness. Every man who has himself 
 in any degree cared for the truth, and occupied himself in 
 seeking it, is more or less aware how much of the false- 
 hood in the world passes current under the concealment of 
 words, how many strifes and controversies, 
 
 ' Which feed the simple, and oiFend the wise,* 
 
 find all or nearly all the fuel that maintains them in words 
 carelessly or dishonestly employed. And when a man has 
 had any actual experience of this, and at all perceived how 
 far this mischief reaches, he is sometimes almost tempted 
 to say with Shakespeare, ' Out, idle words, servants to shal- 
 low fools ' ; to adopt the saying of his clown, * Words are 
 grown so false I am loathe to prove reason with them.' He 
 cannot, however, forego their employment; not to say that 
 he will presently perceive that this falseness of theirs 
 whereof he accuses them, this cheating power, is not of their 
 proper use, but only of their abuse; he will see that, how- 
 ever they may have been enlisted in the service of lies, 
 they are yet of themselves most true; and that, where the 
 bane is, there the antidote should be sought as well. If 
 Goethe's Faust denounces words and the falsehood of 
 words, it is by the aid of words that he does it. Ask then 
 words what they mean, that you may deliver yourselves, 
 that you may help to deliver others, from the tyranny of 
 words, and, to use Baxter's excellent phrase, from the strife 
 of ' word- warriors.' Learn to distinguish between them, for 
 you have the authority of Hooker, that ' the mixture of those 
 things by speech, which by nature are divided, is the mother 
 
 190 
 
ON THE DISTINCTION OF WORDS 
 
 of all error.' ^^^ And although I cannot promise you that 
 the study of synonyms, or the acquaintance with deriva- 
 tions, or any other knowledge, but the very highest knowl- 
 edge of all, will deliver you from the temptation to misuse 
 this or any other gift of God — a temptation always lying 
 so near us — yet I am sure that these studies rightly pur- 
 sued will do much in leading us to stand in awe of this 
 gift of speech, and to tremble at the thought of turning it 
 to any other than those worthy ends for which God has 
 endowed us with a faculty so divine. 
 
 191 
 
LECTURE 7 
 
 The Schoohnaster' s Use of Words 
 
 At the Great Exhibition of 1851, there might be seen 
 a collection, probably by far the completest which had ever 
 been got together, of what were called the material helps of 
 education. There was then gathered in a single room all the 
 outward machinery of moral and intellectual training; all 
 by which order might be best maintained, the labour of the 
 teacher and the taught economized, with a thousand ingen- 
 ious devices suggested by the best experience of many 
 minds, and of these during many years. Nor were these 
 material helps of education merely mechanical. There were 
 in that collection vivid representations of places and ob- 
 jects; models which often preserved their actual forms and 
 proportions, not to speak of maps and of books. No one 
 who is aware how much in schools, and indeed everywhere 
 else, depends on what apparently is slight and external, 
 would lightly esteem the helps and hints which such a col- 
 lection would furnish. And yet it would be well for us to 
 remember that even if we were to obtain all this apparatus 
 in its completest form, at the same time possessing the most 
 perfect skill in its application, so that it should never en- 
 cumber but always assist us, we should yet have obtained 
 very little compared with that which, as a help to education, 
 is already ours. When we stand face to face with a child, 
 that spoken or imspoken word which the child possesses in 
 common with ourselves is a far more potent implement and 
 aid of education than all these external helps, even though 
 they should be accumulated and multiplied a thousandfold. 
 A reassuring thought for those who may not have many of 
 
 192 
 
SCHOOLMASTER'S USE OF WORDS 
 
 these helps within their reach, a warning thought for those 
 who might be tempted to put their trust in them. On the 
 occasion of that Exhibition to which I have referred, it 
 was well said, * On the structure of language are impressed 
 the most distinct and durable records of the habitual oper- 
 ations of the human powers. In the full possession of lan- 
 guage each man has a vast, almost an inexhaustible, treas- 
 ure of examples of the most subtle and varied processes of 
 human thought. Much apparatus, many material helps, 
 some of them costly, may be employed to assist education; 
 but there is no apparatus which is so necessary, or which 
 can do so much, as that which is the most common and the 
 cheapest — which is always at hand, and ready for every 
 need. Every language contains in it the result of a greater 
 number of educational processes and educational experi- 
 ments, than we could by any amount of labour and ingenu- 
 ity accumulate in any educational exhibition expressly con- 
 trived for such a purpose.' 
 
 Being entirely convinced that this is nothing more than 
 the truth, I shall endeavour in my closing lecture to suggest 
 some ways in which you may eiFectually use this marvel- 
 lous implement which you possess to the better fulfilling 
 of that which you have chosen as the proper task of your 
 life. You will gladly hear something upon this matter; 
 for you will never, I trust, disconnect what you may your- 
 selves be learning from the hope and prospect of being 
 enabled thereby to teach others more effectually. If you 
 do, and your studies in this way become a selfish thing, if you 
 are content to leave them barren of all profit to others, of 
 this you may be sure, that in the end they will prove not 
 less barren of profit to yourselves. In one noble line Chau- 
 cer has characterized the true scholar: — 
 
 * And gladly would he learn, and gladly teach.' 
 
 193 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 Print these words on your remembrance. Resolve that in 
 the spirit of this line you will work and live. 
 
 But take here a word or two of warning before we ad- 
 vance any further. You cannot^ of course, expect to make 
 any original investigations in language; but you can follow 
 safe guides, such as shall lead you by right paths, even as 
 you may follow such as can only lead you astray. Do not 
 fail to keep in mind that perhaps in no region of human 
 knowledge are there such a multitude of unsafe leaders as 
 in this ; for indeed this science of words is one which many, 
 professing for it an earnest devotion, have done their best 
 or their worst to bring into discredit, and to make a laugh- 
 ing-stock at once of the foolish and the wise. Niebuhr has 
 somewhere noted ' the unspeakable spirit of absurdity ' 
 which seemed to possess the ancients, whenever they med- 
 dled with this subject; but the charge reaches others beside 
 them. Their mantle, it must be owned, has in after times 
 often fallen upon no unworthy successors. 
 
 What is commoner, even now, than to find the investigator 
 of words and their origin looking round about him here and 
 there, in all the languages, ancient and modern, to which 
 he has any access, till he lights on some word, it matters 
 little to him in which of these, more or less resembling that 
 which he wishes to derive.^ and this found, to consider his 
 problem solved, and that in this phantom hunt he has suc- 
 cessfully run down his prey. Even Dr. Johnson, with his 
 robust, strong, English common-sense, too often offends in 
 this way. In many respects his Dictionary will probably 
 never be surpassed. We shall never have more concise, 
 more accurate, more vigorous explanations of the actual 
 meaning of words, at the time when it was published, than 
 he has furnished. But even those who recognize the most 
 fully this merit, must allow that he was ill equipped by any 
 preliminary studies for tracing the past history of words; 
 
SCHOOLMASTER'S USE OF WORDS 
 
 that in this he errs often and signally; sometimes where 
 the smallest possible amount of knowledge would have pre- 
 served him from error; as for instance when he derives the 
 name of the peacock from the peak, or tuft of pointed 
 feathers, on its head! while other derivations proposed or 
 allowed by him and others are so far more absurd than this, 
 that when Swift, in ridicule of the whole band of philol- 
 ogers, suggests that * ostler ' is* only a contraction of oat- 
 stealer, and * breeches ' of bear-riches, these etymologies 
 are scarcely more ridiculous than many which have in sober 
 earnest, and by men of no inconsiderable reputation, been 
 proposed. 
 
 Oftentimes in this scheme of random etymology, a word 
 in one language is derived from one in another, in bold 
 defiance of the fact that no points of historic contact or 
 connexion, mediate or immediate, have ever existed between 
 the two; the etymologist not caring to ask himself whether 
 it was thus so much as possible that the word should have 
 passed from the one language to the other ; whether in fact 
 the resemblance is not merely superficial and illusory, one 
 which, so soon as they are stripped of their accidents, dis- 
 appears altogether. Take a few specimens of this manner 
 of dealing with words; and first from the earlier etymolo- 
 gists. Thus, what are men doing but extending not the 
 limits of their knowledge but of their ignorance, when they 
 deduce, with Varro, ' pavo ' from ' pavor,' because of the 
 fear which the harsh shriek of the peacock awakens; or 
 with Pliny, ' panthera ' from ttSv Orjpiovy because proper- 
 ties of all beasts meet in the panther; or persuade them- 
 selves that ' formica,' the ant, is ' f erens micas,' the grain- 
 bearer? Medieval suggestions abound, as vain, and if 
 possible, vainer still. Thus Sirens, as Chaucer assures us, 
 are * sereyns,' being fair-weather creatures only to be seen 
 in a calm. ' Apis,' a bee, is olttovs or without feet, bees being 
 
 195 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 born without feet, the etymology and the natural history 
 keeping excellent company together. Or what shall we say 
 of deriving * mors ' from ' amarus/ because death is bitter ; 
 or from ' Mars/ because death is frequent in war ; or ' a 
 morsu vetiti pomi/ because that forbidden bite brought 
 death into the w^orld; or with a modern investigator of lan- 
 guage, and one of higli reputation in his time, deducing 
 ' girl ' from ' garrula/ because girls are commonly talka- 
 tive? 2o« 
 
 All experience, indeed, proves how perilous it is to ety- 
 mologize at random, and on the strength of mere surface 
 similarities of sound. Let me illustrate the absurdities into 
 which this may easily betray us by an amusing example. 
 A clergyman, who himself told me the story, had sought, 
 and not unsuccessfully, to kindle in his schoolmaster a pas- 
 sion for the study of derivations. His scholar inquired of 
 him one day if he were aware of the derivation of ' crypt ' ? 
 He naturally replied in the affirmative, that * crypt ' came 
 from a Greek word to conceal, and meant a covered place, 
 itself concealed, and where things which it was wished to 
 conceal were placed. The other rejoined that he was quite 
 aware the word was commonly so explained but he had no 
 doubt erroneously ; that ' crypt,' as he had now convinced 
 himself, was in fact contracted from * cry-pit ' ; being the 
 pit where in days of Popish tyranny those who were con- 
 demned to cruel penances were plunged, and out of which 
 their cry was heard to come up — therefore called the ' cry- 
 pit,' now contracted into ' crypt ' ! Let me say, before quit- 
 ting my tale, that I would far sooner a schoolmaster made a 
 hundred such mistakes than that he should be careless and 
 incurious in all which concerned the words which he was 
 using. To make mistakes, as we are in the search of knowl- 
 edge, is far more honourable than to escape making them 
 through never having set out in this search at all. 
 
 196 
 
SCHOOLMASTER'S USE OF WORDS 
 
 But while errors like his may very well be pardoned, of 
 this we may be sure, that they will do little in etymology, 
 will continually err and cause others to err, who in these 
 studies leave this out of sight for an instant — namely, that 
 no amount of resemblance between words in different lan- 
 guages is of itself sufficient to prove that they are akin, even 
 as no amount of apparent unlikeness in sound or present 
 form is sufficient to disprove consanguinity. * Judge not 
 according to appearances,' must everywhere here be the 
 rule. One who in many regions of human knowledge antic- 
 ipated the discoveries of later times, said well a century and 
 a half ago, * Many etymologies are true, which at the first 
 blush are not probable ' ; ^^^ and, as he might have added, 
 many appear probable, which are not true. This being 
 so, it is our wisdom on the one side to distrust superficial 
 likenesses, on the other not to be repelled by superficial 
 differences. Have no faith in those who etymologize on 
 the strength of sounds, and not on that of letters, and of 
 letters, moreover, dealt with according to fixed and recog- 
 nized laws of equivalence and permutation. Much, as was 
 said so well, is true, which does not seem probable. Thus 
 ' dens ' ^^^ and ' Zahn ' and ' tooth ' are all the same word, 
 and such in like manner are x^*'> * anser,* ' Gans,' and 
 ' goose; ' and again, haKpv and 'tear.' Who, on the other 
 hand, would not take for granted that our * much ' and the 
 Spanish * mucho,' identical in meaning, were also in etymol- 
 ogy nearly related ? There is in fact no connexion between 
 them. Between * vulgus ' and * Volk ' there is as little. 
 
 * Auge,* the German form of our ' eye,' is in every letter 
 identical with a Greek word for splendour [avyrj ) ; and yet, 
 intimate as is the connexion between German and Greek, 
 these have no relation with one another whatever. Not 
 many years ago a considerable scholar identified the Greek 
 
 * holos ' (0A05) and our ' whole ; ' and few, I should imag- 
 
 197 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 ine, have not been tempted at one stage of their knowledge 
 to do the same. These also are in no way related. Need 
 I remind you here of the importance of seeking to obtain 
 in every case the earliest spelling of a word which is attain- 
 able .^^^^ 
 
 Here then, as elsewhere, the condition of all successful 
 investigation is to have learned to disregard phenomena, 
 the deceitful shows and appearances of things; to have 
 resolved to reach and to grapple with the things themselves. 
 It is the fable of Proteus over again. He will take a thou- 
 sand shapes wherewith he will seek to elude and delude 
 one who is determined to extort from him that true answer, 
 which he is capable of yielding, but will only yield on 
 compulsion. The true inquirer is deceived by none of these. 
 He still holds him fast; binds him in strong chains; until 
 he takes his proper shape at the last; and answer as a true 
 seer, so far as answer is possible, whatever question may 
 be put to him. Nor, let me observe by the way, will that 
 man's gain be small who, having so learned to distrust the 
 obvious and the plausible, carries into other regions of 
 study and of action the lessons which he has thus learned; 
 determines to seek the ground of things, and to plant his 
 foot upon that; believes that a lie may look very fair, and 
 yet be a lie after all; that the truth may show very unat- 
 tractive, very unlikely and paradoxical, and yet be the 
 very truth notwithstanding. 
 
 To return from a long, but not unnecessary digression. 
 Convinced as I am of the immense advantage of following 
 up words to their sources, of * deriving ' them, that is, of 
 tracing each little rill to the rivei* from whence it was first 
 drawn, I can conceive no method of so effectually defac- 
 ing and barbarizing our English tongue, of practically 
 emptying it of all the hoarded wit, wisdom, imagination, 
 and history which it contains, of cutting the vital nerve 
 
 198 
 
SCHOOLMASTER'S USE OF WORDS 
 
 which connects its present with the past, as the introduction 
 of the scheme of phonetic spelling, which some have lately- 
 been zealously advocating among us. I need hardly tell 
 you that the fundamental idea of this is that all words 
 should be spelt as they are sounded, that the writing should, 
 in every case, be subordinated to the speaking.^^* This, 
 namely that writing should in every case and at all costs 
 be subordinated to speaking, which is everywhere tacitly 
 assumed as not needing any proof, is the fallacy which runs 
 through the whole scheme. There is, indeed, no necessity 
 at all for this. Every word, on the contrary, has two exist- 
 ences, as a spoken word and a written; and you have no 
 right to sacrifice one of these, or even to subordinate it 
 wholly, to the other. A word exists as truly for the eye 
 as for the ear; and in a highly advanced state of society, 
 where reading is almost as universal as speaking, quite as 
 much for the one as for the other. That in the written 
 word moreover is the permanence and continuity of lan- 
 guage and of learning, and that the connexion is most inti- 
 mate of a true orthography with all this, is affirmed in our 
 words, ' letters,' ' literature,' ' unlettered,' as in other lan- 
 guages by words exactly corresponding to these.^*^^ 
 
 The gains consequent on the introduction of such a change 
 in our manner of spelling would be insignificantly small, 
 the losses enormously great. There would be a gain in the 
 saving of a certain amount of the labour now spent in 
 learning to spell. The amount of labour, however, is ab- 
 surdly exaggerated by the promoters of the scheme. I 
 forget how many thousand hours a phonetic reformer lately 
 assured us were on an average spent by every English child 
 in learning to spell ; or how much time by grown men, who, 
 as. he assured us, for the most part rarely attempted to 
 write a letter without a Johnson's Dictionary at their side. 
 But even this gain would not long remain, seeing that pro- 
 
 199 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 nunciation is itself continually changing; custom is lord 
 here for better and for worse ; and a multitude of words are 
 now pronounced in a manner different from that of a hun- 
 dred years ago, indeed from that of ten years ago ; so that, 
 before very long, there would again be a chasm between 
 the spelling and the pronunciation of words; — unless in- 
 deed the spelling varied, which it could not consistently 
 refuse to do, as the pronunciation varied, reproducing each 
 of its capricious or barbarous alterations ; these last, it must 
 be remembered, being changes not in the pronunciation 
 only, but in the word itself, which would only exist as 
 pronounced, the written word being a mere shadow servilely 
 waiting upon the spoken. When these changes had multi- 
 plied a little, and they would indeed multiply exceedingly 
 on the removal of the barriers to change which now exist, 
 what the language before long would become, it is not easy 
 to guess. 
 
 This fact, however, though sufficient to show how inef- 
 fectual the scheme of phonetic spelling would prove, even 
 for the removing of those inconveniences which it proposes 
 to remedy, is only the smallest objection to it. The far 
 more serious charge which may be brought against it is, 
 that in words out of number it would obliterate those clear 
 marks of birth and parentage, which they bear now upon 
 their fronts, or are ready, upon a very slight interrogation, 
 to reveal. Words have now an ancestry; and the ancestry 
 of words, as of men, is often a very noble possession, mak- 
 ing them capable of great things, because those from whom 
 they are descended have done great things before them; 
 but this would deface their scutcheon, and bring them all 
 to the same ignoble level. Words are now a nation, grouped 
 into tribes and families, some smaller, some larger; this 
 change would go far to reduce them to a promiscuous and 
 barbarous horde. Now they are often translucent with 
 
 200 
 
CHOOLMASTER'S USE OF WORDS 
 
 their inner thought, lighted up by it; in how many cases 
 would this inner light be then quenched! They have now 
 a body and a soul, the soul quickening the body ; then often- 
 times nothing but body, forsaken by the spirit of life, 
 would remain. These objections were urged long ago by 
 Bacon, who characterizes this so-called reformation, ' that 
 writing should be consonant to speaking,' as ' a branch of 
 unprofitable subtlety ; ' and especially urges that thereby 
 ' the derivations of words, especially from foreign lan- 
 guages, are utterly defaced and extinguished.' ^^^ 
 
 From the results of various approximations to phonetic 
 spelling, which at different times have been made, and the 
 losses thereon ensuing, we may guess what the loss would 
 be were the system fully carried out. Of those fairly ac- 
 quainted with Latin, it would be curious to know how many 
 have seen * silva ' in ' savage,' since it has been so written, 
 and not ' salvage,' as of old ; or have been reminded of the 
 hindrances to a civilized and human society which the 
 indomitable forest, more perhaps than any other obstacle, 
 presents. When ' fancy ' was spelt ' phant'sy,' as by Syl- 
 vester in his translation of Du Bartas, and other scholarly 
 writers of the seventeenth century, no one could doubt of 
 its identity with ' phantasy,' as no Greek scholar could miss 
 its relation with (^avTaa-ta. Spell ' analyse ' as I have some- 
 times seen it, and as phonetically it ought to be, ' annalize,' 
 and the tap-root of the word is cut. How many readers will 
 recognize in it then the image of dissolving and resolving 
 aught into its elements, and use it with a more or less con- 
 scious reference to this.^ It may be urged that few do so 
 even now. The more need they should not be fewer; for 
 these few do in fact retain the word in its place, from which 
 else it might gradually drift; they preserve its vitality, and 
 the propriety of its use, not merely for themselves, but 
 also for the others that have not this knowledge. In pho- 
 
 201 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 netic spelling is, in fact, the proposal that the learned and 
 the educated should of free choice place themselves under 
 the disadvantages of the ignorant and uneducated, instead 
 of seeking to elevate these last to their own more favoured 
 condition. 
 
 On this subject one observation more. The multitude 
 of difficulties of every sort and size which would beset the 
 period of transition, and that no brief period, from our 
 present spelling to the very easiest form of phonetic, seem 
 to me to be almost wholly overlooked by those who are 
 the most eager to press forward this scheme; while yet it 
 is very noticeable that so soon as ever the ' Spelling Reform ' 
 approaches, however remotely, a practical shape, the Re- 
 formers, who up to this time were at issue with all the rest 
 of the world, are at once at issue among themselves. At 
 once the question comes to the front. Shall the labour-pangs 
 of this immense new-birth or transformation of English be 
 encountered all at once ? or shall they be spread over years, 
 and little by little the necessary changes introduced.'' It 
 would not be easy to bring together two scholars who 
 have bestowed more thought and the results of more labo- 
 rious study on the whole subject of phonetic spelling than 
 Mr. Ellis and Dr. Murray have done, while yet at the 
 last annual meeting of the Philological Society (May 20, 
 1881) these two distinguished scholars, with mutual respect 
 undiminished, had no choice but to acknowledge that, while 
 they were seeking the same objects, the means by which 
 they sought to attain them were altogether different, and 
 that, in the judgment of each, all which the other was doing 
 in setting forward results equally dear to both was only 
 tending to put hindrances in the way, and to make the 
 attainment of those results remoter than ever. 
 
 But to return. Even now the relationships of words, 
 so important for our right understanding of them, are con- 
 
 202 
 
SCHOOLMASTER'S USE OF WORDS 
 
 tinually overlooked; a very little matter serving to conceal 
 from us the family to which they pertain. Thus how many 
 of our nouns are indeed unsuspected participles, or are 
 otherwise most closely connected with verbs, with which we 
 probably never think of putting them in relation. And yet 
 with how lively an interest shall we discover those to be of 
 closest kin, which we had never considered but as entire 
 strangers to one another; what increased mastery over our 
 mother tongue shall we through such discoveries obtain. 
 Thus ' wrong ' is an adj ective related to the verb ' to wring,' 
 that which has been ' wrung ' or wrested from the right ; 
 as in French ' tort,' Latin ' tortus,' from ' torqueo,' is ' the 
 twisted.' The ' brunt ' of the battle is its heat, where it 
 ' burns ' the most fiercely ; the ' haft ' of a knife, probably 
 that whereby you ' have ' or hold it. 
 
 This exercise of putting words in their true relation and^ 
 connexion with one another might be carried much further.' 
 Of whole groups of words, which may seem to acknowledge 
 no kinship with one another, it will not be difficult to show 
 that they had the same parentage, or, if not this, a cousin- 
 ship in common. For instance, here are ' shire,' ' shore,' 
 ' share,' * shears,' ' shred,' ' sherd ' ; all most closely con- 
 nected with the verb ' to shear,' which made once the three 
 perfects, * shore,' ' share,' ' sheared.' ' Shire ' is a district 
 in England, separated from the rest ; a ' share ' is a portion 
 of anything thus divided off ; * shears ' are instruments 
 effecting this process of separation ; the ' shore ' is the place 
 where the continuity of the land is interrupted or separated 
 by the sea ; a ' shred ' is that which is ' shered ' or shorn 
 from the main piece; a * sherd,' as a pot ' sherd ' (also * pot- 
 share,' Spenser), that which is broken off and thus divided 
 from the vessel; these not at all exhausting this group or 
 family of words, though it would occupy more time than we 
 can spare to put some other words in their relation with it. 
 
 203 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 But this analysing of groups of words for the detecting 
 of the bond of relationship between them, and their common 
 root, may require more etymological knowledge than you 
 possess, and more helps from books than you can always 
 command. There is another process, and one which may 
 prove no less useful to yourselves and to others, which will 
 lie more certainly within your reach. You will meet in 
 books, sometimes in the same book, and perhaps in the same 
 page of this book, a word used in senses so far apart from one 
 another that at first it will seem to you absurd to suppose any 
 bond of connexion between them. Now when you thus fall 
 in with a word employed in these two or more senses so far 
 removed from one another, accustom yourselves to seek out 
 the bond which there certainly is between these several 
 , uses. This tracing of that which is common to and connects 
 all its meanings can only be done by getting to its centre and 
 heart, to the seminal meaning, from which, as from a fruit- 
 ful seed, all the others unfold themselves; to the first link 
 in the chain, from which every later one, in a direct line or 
 a lateral, depends. We may proceed in this investigation, 
 certain that we shall find such, or at least that such there 
 is to be found. For nothing can be more certain than this 
 (and the non-recognition of it is a serious blemish in John- 
 son's Dictionary) , that a word has originally but one mean- 
 ing, that all other uses, however widely they may diverge 
 from one another and recede from this one, may yet be 
 affiliated to it, brought back to the one central meaning, 
 which grasps and knits them all together; just as the sev- 
 eral races of men, black, white, and yellow and red, despite 
 of all their present diversity and dispersion, have a central 
 point of unity in that one pair from which they all have 
 descended. 
 
 Let me illustrate this by two or three familiar examples. 
 How various are the senses in which 'post' is used; as 
 
 204> 
 
SCHOOLMASTER'S USE OF WORDS 
 
 ' post '-office ; ' post '-haste ; a ' post ' standing in the ground ; 
 a military ' post ' ; an official * post ' ; ' to post ' a ledger. 
 Is it possible to find anything which is common to all these 
 uses of * post ' ? When once we are on the right track, 
 nothing is easier. ' Post ' is the Latin ' positus/ that which 
 is placed; the piece of timber is ' placed ' in the ground, 
 and so a * post ' ; a military station is a ' post/ for a man 
 is ' placed ' in it, and must not quit it without orders ; to 
 travel ' post,' is to have certain relays of horses ' placed ' 
 at intervals, that so no delay on the road may occur; the 
 ' post '-office avails itself of this mode of communication ; 
 to * post ' a ledger is to * place ' or register its several items. 
 Once more, in what an almost infinite number of senses 
 * stock ' is employed ; we have live * stock,' ' stock ' in trade 
 or on the farm, the village ' stocks,' the * stock ' of a gun, 
 the ' stock '-dove, the ' stocks,' on which ships are built, the 
 ' stock ' which goes round the neck, the family * stock,' the 
 ' stocks,' or public funds, in which money is invested, with 
 other ' stocks ' besides these. What point in common can 
 we find between them all ? This, that being all derived from 
 one verb, they cohere in the idea of fixedness which is 
 common to them all. Thus, the * stock ' of a gun is that in 
 which the barrel is fixed ; the village * stocks ' are those 
 in which the feet are fastened ; the ' stock ' in trade is the 
 fixed capital ; and so too, the ' stock ' on the farm, although 
 the fixed capital has there taken the shape of horses and 
 cattle ; in the ' stocks ' or public funds, money sticks fast, 
 inasmuch as those who place it there cannot withdraw or 
 demand the capital, but receive only the interest ; the ' stock ' 
 of a tree is fast set in the ground ; and from this use of the 
 word it is transferred to a family ; the * stock ' is that from 
 which it grows, and out of which it unfolds itself. And 
 here we may bring in the * stock '-dove, as being the * stock ' 
 or stirps of the domestic kind. I might group with these, 
 
 205 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 ' stake ' ; a ' stake ' is stuck in the hedge and there remains ; 
 the ' stakes ' which men wager against the issue of a race 
 are paid down, and thus fixed or deposited to answer the 
 event. 
 
 When we thus affirm that the divergent meanings of a 
 word can all be brought back to some one point from which, 
 immediately or mediately, they every one proceed, that none 
 has primarily more than one meaning, it must be remem- 
 bered that there may very well be two words, or, as it will 
 sometimes happen, more, spelt as well as pronounced alike, 
 which yet are wholly different in their derivation and pri- 
 mary usage ; and that, of course, between such homonyms or 
 homographs as these no bond of union on the score of this 
 identity is to be sought. Neither does this fact in the least 
 invalidate our assertion. We have in them, as Cobbett 
 expresses it well, the same combination of letters, but not 
 the same word. Thus we have ' page,' the side of a leaf, 
 from ' pagina,' and * page,' a small boy ; ' league,' a treaty 
 (F. ligue), from ' ligare,' to bind, and 'league' (O.F. 
 legue), from leuca, a Celtic measure of distance; 'host' 
 (hostis), an army, ' host ' (O.F. hoste), from the Latin 
 hospitem, and 'host' (hostia), in the Roman Catholic sac- 
 rifice of the mass. We have two * oimces ' (uncia and It. 
 onza) ; two ' seals ' (sigillum and O.E. seolh) ; two ' moods ' 
 (modus and O.E. mod) ; two ' sacks ' (saccus and siccus) ; 
 two ' sounds ' (sonus and O.E. sund) ; two ' lakes ' (lac 
 and laque) ; two ' kennels ' (canalis and canile) ; two ' par- 
 tisans ' (partisan and It. parteggiana) ; two * quires * 
 (choeur and cahier) ; two ' corns ' (corn and cornu) ; two 
 ' ears ' (Ohr and Ahre) ; two ' doles ' (deuil and Germ. 
 Theil) ; two ' perches ' (pertica and perca) ; two ' races ' 
 (Icel. ras and the Fr. race) ; two ' rocks,' two ' rooks,' two 
 ' sprays,' two ' saws,' two ' strains,' two ' trunks,' two 
 'helms,' two 'quarries'; three 'moles,' three 'rapes' (as 
 
 '206 
 
SCHOOLMASTER'S USE OF WORDS 
 
 the ' rape ' of Proserpine^ the * rape ' of Bramber, ' rape '- 
 seed) ; four ' ports,' three ' vans/ three * smacks.' Other 
 homonyms in the language are the following: ' ash,' * barb/ 
 
 * bark/ ' barnacle/ ' bat/ ' beetle/ ' bill/ * bottle/ * bound/ 
 
 * breeze/ ' bugle,' ' bull/ * cape/ * caper,' ' chap,' * cleave,' 
 
 * club,' ' cob,' * crab,' * cricket,' ' crop,' ' culver,' * dam,' 
 
 * elder,' * flag,' ' fold,' ' font,' * fount,' * gin,' * gore,' ' grain,' 
 
 * grin,' ' gulf,' * gum,' * gust,' ' herd,' ' hind,' * hip,' * j ade,' 
 *jar,' *jet,' 'junk,' 'lawn/ 'lime,' 'link,' 'mace,' 'main,' 
 ' mass,' ' mast,' ' match,' ' meal,' ' mint,' * moor,' * paddock,' 
 
 * painter,' ' pawn,' ' pernicious,' ' plot,' * pulse,' * punch,' 
 
 * rush,' ' scale,' ' scrip,' ' shingle,' ' shock,' * shrub,' ' smack,' 
 
 * soil,' * stud,' ' swallow,' ' tap,' * tent,' ' toil,' ' trinket,' ' tur- 
 tle.' You will find it profitable to follow these up at home, 
 to trace out the two or more words which have clothed them- 
 selves in exactly the same outward garb, and on what ety- 
 mologies they severally repose; so too, as often as you sus- 
 pect the existence of homonyms, to make proof of the matter 
 for yourselves, gradually forming as complete a list of these 
 as you can.^^^ You may usefully do the same in any other 
 language which you study, for they exist in all. In them 
 the identity is merely on the surface and in sound, and it 
 would, of course, be lost labour to seek for a point of con- 
 tact between meanings which have no closer connexion with 
 one another in reality than they have in appearance. 
 
 Let me suggest some further exercises in this region of 
 words. There are some which at once provoke and promise 
 to reward inquiry, by the evident readiness with which they 
 will yield up the secret, if duly interrogated by us. Many, 
 as we have seen, have defied, and will probably defy to the 
 end, all efforts to dissipate the mystery which hangs over 
 them; and these we must be content to leave; but many an- 
 nounce that their explanations cannot be very far to seek. 
 Let me instance * candidate.' Does it not argue an incuri- 
 
 207 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 ous spirit to be content that this word should be given and 
 received by us a hundred times, as at a contested election 
 it is, and we never ask ourselves, What does it mean? why 
 is one offering himself to the choice of his fellows called 
 a 'candidate'? If the word lay evidently beyond our 
 horizon, we might acquiesce in our ignorance; but resting, 
 as manifestly it does, upon the Latin ' candidus,' it chal- 
 lenges inquiry, and a very little of this would at once put 
 us in possession of the Roman custom for which it witnesses 
 — namely, that such as intended to claim the suffrages of 
 the people for any of the chief offices of the State, pre- 
 sented themselves beforehand to them in a white toga, be- 
 ing therefore called ' candidati.' And as it so often happens 
 that in seeking information upon one subject we obtain it 
 upon another, so will it probably be here; for in fully 
 learning what this custom was, you will hardly fail to learn 
 how we obtained * ambition,' what originally it meant, and 
 how Milton should have written — 
 
 ' To reign is worth ambition, though in hell.' 
 
 Or again, any one who knows so much as that ' verbum * 
 means a word, might well be struck by the fact (and if 
 he followed it up would be led far into the relation of the 
 parts of speech to one another), that in grammar it is not 
 employed to signify any word whatsoever, but is restricted 
 to the verb alone ; ' verbum ' is the verb. Surely here is 
 matter for reflection. What gives to the verb the right to 
 monopolize the dignity of being * the word ' ? Is it because 
 the verb is the animating power, the vital principle of every 
 sentence, and that without which understood or uttered, no 
 sentence can exist? or can you offer any other reason? I 
 leave this to your own consideration. 
 
 We call certain books ' classics.' We have indeed a dou- 
 ble use of the word, for we speak of the Greek and Latin 
 
 208 
 
SCHOOLMASTER S USE OF WORDS 
 
 as the ' classical ' languages, and the great writers in these 
 as ' the classics ' ; while at other times you hear of a * class- 
 ical ' English style, or of English ' classics.' Now * classic ' 
 is connected plainly with ' classis.' What then does it mean 
 in itself, and how has it arrived at this double use ? ' The 
 term is drawn from the political economy of Rome. Such 
 a man was rated as to his income in the third class, such 
 another in the fourth, and so on; but he who was in the 
 highest was emphatically said to be of the class, " classicus " 
 — a class man, without adding the number, as in that case 
 superfluous ; while all others were " infra classem." Hence, 
 by an obvious analogy, the best authors were rated as 
 " classici," or men of the highest class; just as in English 
 we say " men of rank " absolutely, for men who are in the 
 highest ranks of the state.' The mental process by which 
 this title, which would apply rightly to the best authors in 
 all languages, came to be restricted to those only in two, 
 and these two to be claimed, to the seeming exclusion of all 
 others, as the classical languages, is one constantly recur- 
 ring, making itself felt in all regions of human thought; 
 to which therefore I would in passing call your attention, 
 though I cannot now do more. 
 
 There is one circumstance which you must by no means 
 suffer to escape your own notice, nor that of your pupils — 
 namely, that words out of number, which are now employed 
 only in a figurative sense, did yet originally rest on some 
 fact of the outward world, vividly presenting itself to the 
 imagination ; which fact the word has incorporated and knit 
 up with itself for ever. If I may judge from my own 
 experience, few intelligent boys would not feel that they 
 had gained something, when made to understand that ' to 
 insult ' means properly to leap as on the prostrate body of 
 a foe ; * to affront,' to strike him on the face ; that ' to suc- 
 cour ' means by running to place oneself under one that is 
 
 209 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 falling; 'to relent/ (connected with ' lentus/) to slacken 
 the swiftness of one's pursuit ; ^^® * to reprehend/ to lay hold 
 of one with the intention of forcibly pulling him back; 
 ' to exonerate/ to discharge of a burden, ships being exon- 
 erated once ; that ' to be examined ' means to be weighed. 
 They would be pleased to learn that a man is called ' super- 
 cilious/ because haughtiness with contempt of others ex- 
 presses itself by the raising of the eyebrows or ' supercil- 
 ium'; that 'subtle' (subtilis, connected with texere) is 
 literally ' fine-spun '; that ' crucial ' (from crux) implies an 
 * instance ' which points the way to an enquirer like a sign- 
 post ; ^^^ that a ' companion ' is one with whom we share 
 our bread, a messmate ; that a ' sarcasm ' is properly such 
 a lash inflicted by the ' scourge of the tongue ' as brings 
 away the flesh after it; with much more in the same 
 kind. 
 
 * Trivial ' is a word borrowed from the life, Mark three 
 or four persons standing idly at the point where one street 
 bisects at right angles another, and discussing there the idle 
 nothings of the day; there you have the living explanation 
 of ' trivial/ ' trivialities,' such as no explanation not rooting 
 itself in the etymology would ever give you, or enable you 
 to give to others. You have there the ' tres viae,' the 
 ' trivium ' ; and ' trivialities ' properly mean such talk as 
 is holden by those idle loiterers that gather at this 
 meeting of three roads. ^^^ * Rivals ' properly are those 
 who dwell on the banks of the same river. But as all experi- 
 ence shows, there is no such fruitful source of contention as 
 a water-right, and these would be often at strife with one 
 another in regard of the periods during which they sever- 
 ally had a right to the use of the stream, turning it off into 
 their own fields before the time, or leaving open the sluices 
 beyond the time, or in other ways interfering, or being 
 counted to interfere, with the rights of their neighbours. 
 
 210 
 
SCHOOLMASTER'S USE OF WORDS 
 
 And in this way * rivals ' came to be applied to any who 
 were on any grounds in unfriendly competition with one 
 another. 
 
 By such teaching as this you may often improve, and 
 that without turning play-time into lesson-time, the hours 
 of relaxation and amusement. But * relaxation/ on which 
 we have just lighted as by chance, must not escape us. 
 How can the bow be ' relaxed ' or slackened (for this is the 
 image), which has not been bent, whose string has never 
 been drawn tight? Having drawn tight the bow of our 
 mind by earnest toil, we may then claim to have it from time 
 to time * relaxed.' Having been attentive and assiduous 
 then, but not otherwise, we may claim ' relaxation ' and 
 amusement. But ' attentive ' and ' assiduous ' are them- 
 selves words which will repay us to understand exactly what 
 they mean. He is ' assiduous ' who sits close to his work ; 
 he is ' attentive,' who, being taught, stretches out his neck 
 that so he may not lose a word. ' Diligence ' too has its 
 lesson. Derived from ' diligo,' to love, it reminds us that 
 the secret of true industry in our work is love of that work. 
 And as truth is wrapped up in * diligence,' what a lie, on 
 the other hand, lurks in ' indolence,' or, to speak more accu- 
 rately, in our present employment of it ! This, from ' in ' 
 and * doleo/ not to grieve, is properly a state in which we 
 have no grief or pain; and employed as we now employ it, 
 suggests to us that indulgence in sloth constitutes for us 
 the truest negation of pain. Now no one would wish to 
 deny that ' pain ' and ' pains ' are often nearly allied ; but 
 yet these pains hand us over to true pleasures; while indo- 
 lence is so far from yielding that good which it is so for- 
 ward to promise, that Cowper spoke only truth, when, 
 perhaps meaning to witness against the falsehood I have 
 just denounced, he spoke of 
 
 ' Lives spent in indolence, and therefore sad/ 
 211 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 not ' therefore glad/ as the word ' indolence ' would fain 
 have us to believe. 
 
 There is another way in which these studies I have been 
 urging may be turned to account. Doubtless you will seek 
 to cherish in your scholars, to keep lively in yourselves, that 
 spirit and temper which find a special interest in all relat- 
 ing to the land of our birth, that land which the providence 
 of God has assigned as the sphere of our life's task and of 
 theirs. Our schools are called ' national/ ^^^ and if we 
 would have them such in reality, we must neglect nothing 
 that will foster a national spirit in them. I know not 
 whether this is sufficiently considered among us; yet cer- 
 tainly we cannot have Church-schools worthy the name, 
 least of all in England, unless they are truly national as 
 well. It is the anti-national character of the Roman Cath- 
 olic system which perhaps more than all else offends Eng- 
 lishmen; and if their sense of this should ever grow weak, 
 their protest against that system would soon lose much of 
 its energy and strength. But here, as everywhere else, 
 knowledge must be the food of love. Your pupils must 
 know something about England, if they are to love it; they 
 must see some connexion of its past with its present, of 
 what it has been with what it is, if they are to feel that 
 past as anything to them. 
 
 And as no impresses of the past are so abiding, so none, 
 when once attention has been awakened to them, are so self- 
 evident as those which names preserve; although, without 
 this calling of the attention to them, the most broad and 
 obvious of these foot-prints which the past time has left 
 may continue to escape our observation to the end of our 
 lives. Leibnitz tells us, and one can quite understand, the 
 delight with which a great German Emperor, Maximilian 
 I., discovered that * Habsburg,' or ' Hapsburg,' the ances- 
 tral name of his house, really had a meaning, one more- 
 
 212 
 
SCHOOLMASTER S USE OF WORDS 
 
 over full of vigour and poetry. This he did, when he heard 
 it by accident on the lips of a Swiss peasant, no longer cut 
 short and thus disguised, but in its original fulness, 
 * Habichtsburg,' or * Hawk's-Tower,' being no doubt the 
 name of the castle which was the cradle of his race.^^^ Of 
 all the thousands of Englishmen who are aware that Angles 
 and Saxons established themselves in this island, and that 
 we are in the main descended from them, it would be curi- 
 ous to know how many have realized to themselves a fact 
 so obvious as that this ' England ' means * Angle-land,' or 
 that in the names * Essex,' ' Sussex,' and * Middlesex,' we 
 preserve a record of East Saxons, South Saxons, and Middle 
 Saxons, who occupied those several portions of the land; or 
 that * Norfolk ' and ' Suffolk ' are two broad divisions of 
 ' northern ' and ' southern folk,' into which the East Ang- 
 lian kingdom was divided. ' Cornwall ' does not bear its 
 origin quite so plainly upon its front, or tell its story so 
 that every one who runs may read. At the same time its 
 secret is not hard to attain to. As the Teutonic immigrants 
 advanced, such of the British population as were not either 
 destroyed or absorbed by them retreated, as we all have 
 learned, into Wales and Cornwall, that is, till they could 
 retreat no further. The fact is evidently preserved in the 
 name of ' Wales,' which means properly ' The foreigners,' 
 — the nations of Teutonic blood calling all bordering tribes 
 by this name. But though not quite so apparent on the 
 surface, this fact is also preserved in ' Cornwall,' written 
 formerly * Cornwales,' or the land inhabited by the Welsh 
 of the Corn or Horn. The chroniclers uniformly speak of 
 North Wales and Corn- Wales. These Angles, Saxons, and 
 Britons or Welshmen, about whom our pupils may be read- 
 ing, will be to them more like actual men of flesh and blood, 
 who indeed trod this same soil which we are treading now, 
 when we can thus point to traces surviving to the present 
 
 218- 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 day, which they have left behind them, and which England, 
 as long as it is England, will retain. 
 
 The Danes too have left their marks on the land. We 
 all probably, more or less, are aware how much Danish 
 blood runs in English veins ; what large colonies from Scan- 
 dinavia (for as many may have come from Norway as from 
 modern Denmark) settled in some parts of this island. 
 It will be interesting to show that the limits of this Danish 
 settlement and occupation may even now be confidently 
 traced by the constant recurrence in all such districts of the 
 names of towns and villages ending in ' by,' which signified 
 in their language a dwelling or single village; as Netherb^, 
 Appleby, Derby, Whitby, Rugby. Thus if you examine 
 closely a map of Lincolnshire, one of the chief seats of the 
 Danish settlement, j^ou will find one hundred, or well nigh 
 a fourth part, of the towns and villages to have this ending, 
 the whole coast being studded with them — they lie nearly 
 as close to one another as in Sleswick itself; -^^ while here 
 in Hampshire ' by,' as such a termination, is utterly un- 
 known. Or again, draw a line transversely through Eng- 
 land from Canterbury by London to Chester, the line, that 
 is, of the great Roman road, called Watling Street, and 
 north of this six hundred instances of the occurrence of the 
 same termination may be found, while to the south there 
 are almost none. ' Thorpe,' equivalent to the German 
 ' Dorf,' as a Bishopsthorpe, Althorp, tells the same tale of a 
 Norse occupation of the soil; and the terminations, some- 
 what rarer, of ' thwaite,' ' haugh,' ' garth,' ' ness,' do the 
 same no less. On the other hand, where, as in this south 
 of England, the * hams ' abound (the word is identical with 
 our * home '), as Buckingha?)!, 'Egham, Shoreham, there you 
 may be sure that not Norsemen but West Germans took 
 possession of the soil. ' Worth,' or ' worthy,' tells the same 
 story, as Bostvorth, Kingstvorthy; "^"^ the ' stokes ' in like 
 
 214 
 
SCHOOLMASTER'S USE OF WORDS 
 
 manner^ as Basingstoke, Itchenstoke, are Saxon, being (as 
 some suppose) places stockaded, with stocks or piles for 
 defence. 
 
 You are yourselves learning, or hereafter you may be 
 teaching others, the names and number of the English 
 counties or shires. What a dull routine task for them and 
 for you this may be, supplying no food for the intellect, 
 no points of attachment for any of its higher powers to 
 take hold of ! And yet in these two little words, ' shire ' 
 and ' county,' if you would make them rejider up even a 
 small part of their treasure, what lessons of English his- 
 tory are contained! One who knows the origin of these 
 names, and how we come to possess such a double nomencla- 
 ture, looks far into the social condition of England in that 
 period when the strong foundations of all that has since 
 made England glorious and great were being laid; by aid 
 of these words may detect links which bind its present to 
 its remotest past ; for of lands as of persons it may be said, 
 ' the child is father of the man.' * Shire ' is connected with 
 ' shear,' ' share,' and is properly a portion * shered ' or 
 ' shorn ' off. When a Saxon king would create an earl, it 
 did not lie in men's thoughts, accustomed as they were to 
 deal with realities, that such could be a merely titular cre- 
 ation, or exist without territorial jurisdiction; and a ' share ' 
 or ' shire ' was assigned him to govern, which also gave him 
 his title. But at the Conquest this Saxon officer was dis- 
 placed by a Norman, the ' earl ' by the ' count ' — this title 
 of ' count,' borrowed from the later Roman empire, mean- 
 ing originally ' companion ' (comes), one who had the 
 honour of being closest companion to his leader; and the 
 * shire ' was now the * county ' (comitatus), as governed by 
 this ' comes.' In that singular and inexplicable fortune of 
 words, which causes some to disappear and die out under 
 the circumstances apparently most favourable for life, 
 
 215 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 others to liold their ground when all seemed against them, 
 * count ' has disappeared from the titles of English nobility, 
 while ' earl ' has recovered its place ; although in evidence 
 of the essential identity of the two titles, or offices rather, 
 the wife of the earl is entitled a ' countess ' ; and in further 
 memorial of these great changes that so long ago came over 
 our land, the two names * shire ' and ' county ' equally sur- 
 vive as in the main interchangeable words in our mouths. 
 
 A large part of England, all that portion of it which 
 the Saxons ocoupied, is divided into ' hundreds.' Have 
 you ever asked yourselves what this division means, for 
 something it must mean. The * hundred ' is supposed to 
 have been originally a group or settlement of one hundred 
 free families of Saxon incomers. If this was so, we have 
 at once an explanation of the strange disproportion be- 
 tween the area of the ' hundred ' in the southern and in 
 the more northern counties — the average number of square 
 miles in a * hundred ' of Sussex or Kent being about four 
 and twenty; of Lancashire more than three hundred. The 
 Saxon population would naturally be far the densest in 
 the earlier settlements of the east and south, while more to 
 west and north their tenure would be one rather of conquest 
 than of colonization, and the free families much fewer and 
 more scattered.-^^ But further you have noticed, I dare 
 say, the exceptional fact that the county of Sussex, besides 
 the division into hundreds, is divided also into six ' rapes ' ; 
 thus the ' rape ' of Bramber and so on. 
 
 Let us a little consider, in conclusion, how we may use- 
 fully bring our etymologies and other notices of words to 
 bear on the religious teaching which we would impart in 
 our schools. To do this with much profit we must often 
 deal with words as the Queen does with the gold and silver 
 coin of the realm. When this has been current long, and 
 by often passing from man to man, with perhaps occasional 
 
 216 
 
SCHOOLMASTER'S USE OF WORDS 
 
 clipping in dishonest hands, has lost not only the clear 
 brightness, the well-defined sharpness of outline, but much 
 of the weight and intrinsic value which it had when first 
 issued from the royal mint, it is the sovereign's prerogative 
 to recall it, and issue it anew, with the royal image stamped 
 on it afresh, bright and sharp, weighty and full, as at first. 
 Now to a process such as this the true mint-masters of 
 language, and all of us may be such, will often submit 
 the words which they use. Where use and custom have 
 worn away their significance, we too may recall and issue 
 them afresh. With how many it has thus fared ! — for ex- 
 ample, with one which will be often in your mouths. You 
 speak of the ' lessons ' of the day ; but what is * lessons * 
 here for most of us save a lazy synonym for the morning 
 and evening chapters appointed to be read in church ? But 
 realize what the Church intended in calling these chapters 
 by this name ; namely, that they should be the daily instruc- 
 tion of her children; listen to them yourselves as such; lead 
 your scholars to regard them as such, and in this use of 
 * lessons ' what a lesson for every one of us there may be ! 
 ' Bible ' itself, while we not irreverently use it, may yet 
 be no more to us than the verbal sign by which we designate 
 the written Word of God. Keep in mind that it properly 
 means ' the book ' and nothing more ; that once it could be 
 employed of any book (in Chaucer it is so),^^^ and what 
 matter of thought and reflection lies in this our present 
 restriction of ' bible ' to one book, to the exclusion of all 
 others ! So strong has been the sense of Holy Scripture 
 being ' the Book,' the worthiest and best, that book which 
 explains all other books, standing up in their midst, — like 
 Joseph's kingly sheaf, to which all the other sheaves did 
 obeisance, — that this name of ' Bible ' or * Book ' has been 
 restrained to it alone: just as * Scripture' means no more 
 than ' writing ' ; but this inspired Writing has been acknowl- 
 
 217 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 edged so far above all other writings, that this name also 
 it has obtained as exclusively its own. 
 
 Again, something may be learned from knowing that the 
 * surname/ as distinguished from the ' Christian ' name, is 
 the name over and above, not ' sire '-name, or name received 
 from the father, as some explain, but ' sur '-name (super 
 nomen). There was never, that is, a time when every bap- 
 tized man had not a Christian name, the recognition of his 
 personal standing before God ; while the surname, the name 
 expressing his relation, not to the kingdom of God, but to 
 a wordly society, is of much later growth, superadded to 
 the other, as the word itself declares. What a lesson at once 
 in the growing up of a human society, and in the contrast 
 between it and the heavenly Society of the Church, might 
 be appended to this explanation ! There was a period when 
 only a few had surnames; had, that is, any significance 
 in the order of things temporal; while the Christian name 
 from the first was the possession of every baptized man. 
 All this might be brought usefully to bear on your exposi- 
 tion of the first words in the Catechism. 
 
 There are long words from the Latin which, desire as 
 we may to use all plainness of speech, we cannot do without, 
 nor find their adequate substitutes in homelier parts of our 
 language; words which must always remain the vehicles of 
 much of that truth whereby we live. Now in explaining 
 these, make it your rule always to start, where you can, 
 from the derivation, and to return to that as often as you 
 can. Thus you wish to explain * revelation.' How much 
 will be gained if you can attach some distinct image to 
 the word, one to which your scholars, as often as they hear 
 it, may mentally recur. Nor is this difficult. God's ' reve- 
 lation ' of Himself is a drawing back of the veil or curtain 
 which concealed Him from men; not man finding out God, 
 but God discovering Himself to man; all which is contained 
 
 218 
 
SCHOOLMASTER'S USE OF WORDS 
 
 in the word. Or you wish to explain ' absolution.' Many- 
 will know that it has something to do with the pardon of 
 sins; but how much more accurately will they know this, 
 when they know that * to absolve ' means * to loosen from ' ; 
 God's ' absolution ' of men being His releasing of them from 
 the bands of those sins with which they were bound. Here 
 every one will connect a distinct image with the word, such 
 as will always come to his help when he would realize what 
 its precise meaning may be. That which was done for Laz- 
 arus naturally, the Lord exclaiming, * Loose him, and let 
 him go,' the same is done spiritually for us, when we receive 
 the * absolution ' of our sins. 
 
 Tell your scholars that ' atonement ' means * at-one-ment ' 
 — the setting at one of those who were at twain before, 
 namely God and man, and they will attach to * atonement ' 
 a definite meaning, which perhaps in no way else it would 
 have possessed for them; and, starting from this point, 
 you may muster the passages in Scripture which describe 
 the sinner's state as one of separation, estrangement, alien- 
 ation, from God, the Christian's state as one in which he 
 walks together with God, because the two have been set 
 ' at one.' Or you have to deal with the following, * to 
 redeem,' * Redeemer,' * redemption.' Lose not yourselves 
 in vague generalities, but fasten on the central point of 
 these, that they imply a * buying,' and not this merely, 
 but a * buying back ' ; and then connect with them, so ex- 
 plained, the whole circle of statements in Scripture which 
 rest on this image, which speak of sin as a slavery, of 
 sinners as bondsmen of Satan, of Christ's blood as a ransom, 
 of the Christian as one restored to his liberty. 
 
 Many words more suggest themselves; I will not urge 
 more than one; but that one, because in it is a lesson more 
 for ourselves than for others, and with such I would fain 
 bring these lectures to a close. How solemn a truth we ex- 
 
 219 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 press when we name our work in this world our ' vocation/ 
 or, which is the same in homelier Anglo-Saxon, our * calling.' 
 What a calming, elevating, ennobling view of the tasks ap- 
 pointed us in this world, this word gives us. We did not come 
 to our work by accident; we did not choose it for ourselves; 
 but, in the midst of much which may wear the appearance 
 of accident and self -choosing, came to it by God's leading 
 and appointment. How will this consideration help us to 
 appreciate justly the dignity of our work, though it were 
 far humbler work, even in the eyes of men, than that of any 
 one of us here present ! What an assistance in calming 
 unsettled thoughts and desires, such as would make us wish 
 to be something else than that which we are ! What a source 
 of confidence, when we are tempted to lose heart, and to 
 doubt whether we shall carry through our work with any 
 blessing or profit to ourselves or to others ! It is our 
 * vocation,' not our choosing, but our ' calling ' ; and He who 
 ' called ' us to it, will, if only we will ask Him, fit us for it, 
 and strengthen us in it. 
 
 220 
 
PREFACE 
 TO THE FIRST EDITION 
 
 These lectures will not^ I trust, be found anywhere to 
 have left out of sight seriously, or for long, the peculiar 
 needs of those for whom they were originally intended, and 
 to whom they were primarily addressed. I am conscious, 
 indeed, here and there, of a certain departure from my first 
 intention, having been in part seduced to this by a circum- 
 stance which I had not in the least contemplated when I 
 obtained permission to deliver them, by finding, namely, 
 that I should have other hearers besides the pupils of the 
 Training-School. Some matter adapted for those rather 
 than for these I was thus led to introduce — which after- 
 wards I was unwilling, in preparing for the press, to 
 remove; on the contrary adding to it rather, in the hope 
 of obtaining thus a somewhat wider circle of readers than I 
 could have hoped, had I more rigidly restricted myself in 
 the choice of my materials. Yet I should greatly regret 
 to have admitted so much of this as should deprive these 
 lectures of their fitness for those whose profit in writing and 
 in publishing I had mainly in view, namely, schoolmasters, 
 and those preparing to be such. 
 
 Had I known any book entering with any fulness, and in 
 a popular manner, into the subject-matter of these pages, 
 and making it its exclusive theme, I might still have deliv- 
 ered these lectures, but should scarcely have sought for 
 them a wider audience than their first, gladly leaving the 
 matter in their hands, whose studies in language had been 
 fuller and riper than my own. But abundant and ready 
 to hand as are the materials fo^ such a book, I did not; 
 while yet it seems to me that the subject is one to which it 
 
 221 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 is beyond measure desirable that their attention^ who are 
 teaching, or shall have hereafter to teach, others should 
 be directed; so that they shall learn to regard language 
 as one of the chiefest organs of their own education and 
 that of others. For I am persuaded that I liave used no ex- 
 aggeration in saying,,that ' for man}^ a young man his first 
 discovery that words are living powers, has been like the 
 dropping of scales from his eyes, like the acquiring of 
 another sense, or the introduction into a new world,' — while 
 yet all this may be indefinitely deferred, may, indeed, never 
 find place at all, unless there is some one at hand to help 
 for him, and to hasten the process; and he who so does, 
 will ever after be esteemed by him as one of his very fore- 
 most benefactors. Whatever may be Home Tooke's short- 
 comings (and they are great), whether in details of etymol- 
 ogy, or in the philosophy of grammar, or in matters more 
 serious still, yet, with all this, what an epoch in many a stu- 
 dent's intellectual life has been his first acquaintance with 
 The Diversions of Purley. And they were not among the 
 least of the obligations which the young men of our time 
 owed to Coleridge, that he so often himself weighed words 
 in the balances, and so earnestly pressed upon all with whom 
 his voice went for anything, the profit which they would 
 find in so doing. Nor, with the certainty that I am antici- 
 pating much in my little volume, can I refrain from quoting 
 some words which were not present with me during its 
 composition, although I must have been familiar with them 
 long ago; words which express excellently well why it is 
 that these studies profit so much, and which will also explain 
 the motives which induced me to add my little contribution 
 to their furtherance: 
 
 ' A language will often be wiser, not merely than the 
 vulgar, but even than the wisest of those who speak it. 
 Being like amber in its efficacy to circulate the electric spirit 
 
 222 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 
 
 of truth, it is also like amber in embalming and preserving 
 the relics of ancient wisdom, although one is not seldom 
 puzzled to decipher its contents. Sometimes it locks up 
 truths, which were once well known, but which, in the course 
 of ages, have passed out of sight and been forgotten. In 
 other cases it holds the germs of truths, of which, though 
 they were never plainly discerned, the genius of its framers 
 caught a glimpse in a happy moment of divination. A 
 meditative man cannot refrain from wonder, when he digs 
 down to the deep thought lying at the root of many a 
 metaphorical term, employed for the designation of spiritual 
 things, even of those with regard to which professing phi- 
 losophers have blundered grossly; and often it would seem 
 as though rays of truth, which were still below the intel- 
 lectual horizon, had dawned upon the imagination as it was 
 looking up to heaven. Hence they who feel an inward call 
 to teach and enlighten their countrymen, should deem it 
 an important part of their duty to draw out the stores of 
 thought which are already latent in their native language, 
 to purify it from the corruptions which Time brings upon 
 all things, and from which language has no exemption, and 
 to endeavour to give distinctness and precision to whatever 
 in it is confused, or obscure, or dimly seen.' — Guesses at 
 Truth, First Series, p. 295. 
 
 Itchenstoke: Oct. 9, 1851. 
 
 SS3 
 
AUTHOR'S NOTES 
 
 * It is well worth the while to read on this same subject 
 the pleasant causerie of Littre, ' Comment j'ai fait mon 
 Dictionnaire.' It is to be found pp. 390-442 of his 
 Glanures. 
 
 ^ Sermon xiv. ' Upon the Love of God.' Curiously- 
 enough, Montaigne has, in his Essays, drawn the same tes- 
 timony out of the word : ' The ordinary phrase of Pass- 
 time, and passing away the time, represents the custom of 
 those wise sort of people, who think they cannot have a 
 better account of their lives, than to let them run out and 
 slide away, to pass them over and to baulk them, and as 
 much as they can, to take no notice of them and to shun 
 them, as a thing of troublesome and contemptible quality. 
 But I know it to be another kind of thing, and find it both 
 valuable and commodious even in its latest decay, wherein 
 I now enjoy it, and nature has delivered it into our hands 
 in swch and so favorable circumstances that we commonly 
 complain of ourselves, if it be troublesome to us or slide 
 unprofitable away.' 
 
 ^A reviewer in Eraser's Magazine, Dec. 1851, doubts 
 whether I have not here pushed my assertion too far. So 
 far from this, it was not merely the * popular language ' 
 which this corruption had invaded, but a decree of the 
 great Fourth Lateran Council (a. d. 1215), forbidding the 
 further multiplication of monastic Orders, runs thus: Ne 
 nimia religionum diversitas gravem in Ecclesia Dei con- 
 fusionem inducat, firmiter prohibemus, ne quis de cetero 
 novam religionem inveniat, sed quicunque voluerit ad re- 
 ligionem converti, unam de approbatis assumat. [Lest 
 overmuch diversity of religions bring dire confusion upon 
 the Church of God, we strongly forbid any to find out 
 more a new religion, but whosoever wisheth to be joined 
 to a religion, let him take one of those now approved.] 
 
 224 
 
AUTHOR'S NOTES 
 
 * * Frank/ though thus originally a German word^ only 
 came back to Germany from France in the seventeenth 
 century. With us it is found in the sixteenth; but scarcely 
 earlier. 
 
 ^ Gibbon^ Decline and Fall, c. 55. 
 
 ^ Renan has much of i«nterest on this matter, both in his 
 work De VOrigine du Langage, and in his Hist, des 
 Langues Semitiques. I quote from the latter, p. 445: 
 ' Sans doute les langues, comme tout ce qui ect organise, 
 sont sujettes a la loi du developpement graduel. En sou- 
 tenant que le langage primitif possedait les elements 
 necessaires a son integrite, nous sommes loin de dire que 
 les mecanismes d'un age plus avance y fussent arrives a 
 leur pleine existence. Tout y etait, mais confusement et 
 sans distinction. Le temps seul et les progres de I'esprit 
 humain pouvaient operer un discernement dans cette ob- 
 scure synthese, et assigner a chaque element son role 
 special. La vie, en un mot, n'etait ici, comme partout, 
 qu'a la condition de revolution du germe primitif, de la 
 distribution des roles et de la separation des organes. Mais 
 ces organes eux-memes furent determines des le premier 
 jour, et depuis Facte generateur qui le fit etre, le langage 
 ne s'est enrichi d'aucune fonction vraiment nouvelle. Un 
 germe est pose, renfermant en puissance tout ce que Fetre 
 sera un jour; le germe se developpe, les formes se con- 
 stituent dans leurs proportions regulieres, ce qui etait en 
 puissance devient en acte; mais rien ne se cree, rien ne 
 s'ajoute: telle est la loi commune des etres soumis aux 
 conditions de la vie. Telle fut aussi la loi du langage.' 
 [Doubtless languages, like every other organized thing, 
 are subject to the law of gradual development. While we 
 hold that primitive language had all the characteristics 
 necessary to keep it intact, we do not mean that the ma- 
 chinery of a more mature period was fully developed in 
 primitive language. It did, indeed, contain all this, but in 
 confusion and indistinctly. Time and the growth of man- 
 kind were the only things that could bring order out of 
 
 225 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 this chaotic compound and give each part its proper place. 
 In brief, in this case, as in all others, life was merely the 
 circumstance in the development of the primal germ, in 
 the allotment of proper places and the specialization of 
 organs. But these very vocal organs were from the begin- 
 ning determined, and language has not been the richer by 
 one really new function from the time it was called into 
 being. A germ was implanted containing potentially all 
 that the future will bring, and as this germ unfolds, the 
 forms of language take on their normal proportions and 
 what was potential becomes actual. But there has been 
 neither creation nor addition. Such is the general law of 
 all things submitted to the conditions of life, and such 
 was the law governing language.] 
 
 ^ A Wesleyan missionary, communicating with me from 
 Fiji, assures me I have here understated the case. He 
 says : ' I could write down several words, which express 
 as many different ways of killing an unborn child.' He 
 has at the same time done me the favour to send me dread- 
 ful confirmation of all which I have here asserted. It is 
 a list of some Fiji words, with the hideous meanings which 
 they bear, or facts which they imply. He has naturally 
 confined himself to those in one domain of human wicked- 
 ness — that, namely, of cruelty; leaving another domain, 
 which borders close on this, and which, he assures me, 
 would yield proofs quite as terrible, altogether luitouched. 
 It is impossible to imagine a record more hideous of 
 what the works of the arch-murderer are, or one more 
 fitted to stir up missionary zeal in behalf of those dark 
 places of the earth which are full of the habitations of 
 cruelty. A very few specimens must suffice. The lan- 
 guage of Fiji has a word for a club which has killed a man; 
 for a dead body which is to be eaten; for the first of such 
 bodies brought in at the beginning of a war; for the flesh 
 on each side of the backbone. It has a name of honour 
 given to those who have taken life; it need not have been 
 the life of an enemy; if only they have shed blood — it 
 
 226 
 
AUTHOR'S NOTES 
 
 may have been the life of a woman or a child — the title 
 has been earned. It has an hideous word to express the 
 torturing and insulting of an enemy, as by cutting off any 
 part of his body — his nose or tongue, for instance — roast- 
 ing and eating it before his face, and taunting him the 
 while ; the aKpwTT/pta^etv of the Greeks, with the cannibalism 
 added. But of this enough. 
 
 ® See on this matter Tylor, Early History of Mankind, 
 pp. 150-190; and the Duke of Argyll, On Primeval Man. 
 Among some of the Papuans the faintest rudiments of 
 the family survive; of the tribe no trace whatever; while 
 yet of these one has lately written : * Sie haben religiose 
 Gebrauche und Uebungen, welche, mit einigen anderen 
 Erscheinungen in ihrem Leben, mit ihrem jetzigen Cul- 
 turzustande ganz unvereinbar erscheinen, wenn man darin 
 nicht die Spuren einer friiher hohern Bildung erkennen 
 will.' [They have religious customs and practices which 
 taken with some other facts in their lives seem quite in- 
 consistent with their present condition of civilization unless 
 these be recognized as the remains of an earlier and supe- 
 rior culture.] 
 
 ® Shedd, History of Christian Doctrine, vol. 1, p. 362; 
 compare Guesses at Truth, 1866, p. 217; and Gerber, 
 Sprache als Kunst, vol. 1, p. 145. 
 
 ^^ Mill, System of Logic, vol. 2, p. 291. 
 
 ^^ On the Greek language and its merits, as compared 
 with the other Indo-European languages, see Curtius, His- 
 tory of Greece, English translation, vol. 1, pp. 18-28. 
 
 ^2 Gerber (Sprache als Kunst, vol. 1, p. 274) : Es ist ein 
 bedeutender Fortschritt in der Erkenntniss des Menschen 
 dass man jetzt Sprachen lernt nicht bloss, um sich den 
 Gedankeninhalt, den sie offenbaren, anzueignen, sondern 
 zugleich um sie selbst als herrliche, architektonische Geis- 
 teswerke kennen zu lernen, und sich an ihrer Kunstschon- 
 heit zu erfreuen. [It is a marked advance in human 
 knowledge that languages are no longer learned merely for 
 the sake of appropriating the thought they disclose but so 
 
 227 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 as to know them as splendid architectonic productions and 
 to enjoy their artistic beauties.] 
 
 ^^Ajax, or Ata? in the play of Sophocles, which bears 
 his name, does the same with the atat which lies in that 
 name (422, 423); just as in the Bacchoe of Euripides, not 
 Pentheus himself, but others for him, indicate the prophecy 
 of a mighty ttcV^os or grief, which is shut up in his name. 
 A tragic writer, less known than Euripides, does the same 
 TlevOiv^ icrofievrjs (rvix<f>opa<s iTnovvfxo'S. [Pentheus, his name 
 the promise of ill to come (ttcV^os, penthos, means woe)]. 
 Eteocles in the Phoenissce of Euripides makes a play of 
 the same kind on the name of Polynices. 
 
 ^* ' Hus ' is Bohemian for * goose ' ; and here we have 
 the explanation of the prophetic utterance of Hus, namely, 
 that in place of one goose, tame and weak of wing, God 
 would send falcons and eagles before long. 
 
 ^^ 'EXcVas |^= cXevaos], cXavSpo?, cAeTrroXi?, iEschylus, 
 Agamemnon, QSQ. [Ship-destroyer, man-destroyer, city- 
 destroyer.'] 
 
 "^^ Catholic Theology, pt. 3, p. 107. 
 
 ^^ A few more examples, in a note, of this contumely of 
 names. Antiochus Epiphanes, or ' the Illustrious,' is for 
 the Jews, whom he so madly attempted to hellenize, Anti- 
 ochus Epimanes, or 'the Insane.' Cicero, denouncing Verres, 
 the infamous praetor of Sicily, is too skilful a master of 
 the passions to allow the name of the arch-criminal to 
 escape him. He was indeed Verres, for he swept the prov- 
 ince; he was a sweep-net for it (everriculum in provincia) ; 
 and then presently, giving altogether another turn to his 
 name. Others, he says, might be partial to ' jus verrinum ' 
 (which might mean either Verrine law or boar-sauce), 
 but not he. Tiberius Claudius Nero, charged with being 
 a drunkard, becomes in the popular language * Biberius 
 Caldius Mero.' The controversies of the Church with 
 heretics yield only too abundant a supply, and that upon 
 both sides, of examples in this kind. The ' royal-hearted ' 
 Athanasius is ' Satanasius ' for the Arians ; and some of 
 
 228 
 
AUTHOR'S NOTES 
 
 S. Cyprian's adversaries did not shrink from so foul a 
 perversion of his name as to call him KoTrptavos, or ' the 
 Dungy.' But then how often is Pelagius declared by the 
 Church Fathers to be a pelagus, a very ocean of wicked- 
 ness. It was in vain that the Manichaeans changed their 
 master's name from Manes to ^lanichaeus, that so it might 
 not so nearly resemble the word signifying madness in the 
 Greek (devitantes nomen insaniae^ Augustine, De Hoer. 
 46) ; it did not thereby escape. The Waldenses, or Wal- 
 lenses, were declared by Roman controversialists to be 
 justly so called, as dwelling * in valle densa,' in the thick 
 valley of darkness and ignorance. Cardinal Clesel was 
 active in setting forward the Roman Catholic reaction in 
 Bohemia with which the dismal tragedy of the Thirty 
 Years' War began. It was a far-fetched and not very 
 happy piece of revenge, when they of the other side took 
 pleasure in spelling his name ' CLesel,' as much as to say, 
 He of the 150 ass-power. Berengar of Tours calls a Pope 
 who had taken sides against him not pontif ex, but * pompi- 
 fex.' Metrophanes, Patriarch of Constantinople, being 
 counted to have betrayed the interests of the Greek Church, 
 his spiritual mother, at the Council of Florence, saw his 
 name changed by popular hate into * Metrophonos,' or the 
 * Matricide.' In the same way of more than one Pope 
 Urbanus it was declared that he would have been better 
 named ' Turbanus ' (quasi turbans Ecclesiam). Mahomet 
 appears as ' Bafomet,' influenced perhaps by ' bafa,' a lie, 
 in Proven9al. Shechem, a chief city of the heretical 
 Samaritans, becomes ' Sychar,' or city of lies (see John 4: 
 5), so at least some will have it, on the lips of the hostile 
 Jews; while Toulouse, a very seedplot of heresies, Albigen- 
 sian and other, in the Middle Ages, is declared by writers 
 of those times to have prophesied no less by its name 
 (Tolosa = tota dolosa). In the same way adversaries of 
 Wiclif traced in his name an abridgement of * wicked- 
 belief.' Metternich was ' Mitternacht,' or Midnight, for 
 the political reformers of Germany in the last generation. 
 
 229 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 It would be curious to know how often the Sorbonne has 
 been likened to a ' Serbonian ' bog; some ' privilegium ' 
 declared to be not such indeed, but a ' pravilegium ' rather. 
 Baxter complains that the Independents called presbyters 
 ' priestbiters/ Presbyterian ministers not ' divines ' but 
 ' dry vines,' and their Assembly men * Dissembly men.' 
 ^^ Thus in a sublime Latin hymn by Adam of St. Victor: 
 
 Nomen habes Coronati; 
 Te tormenta decet pati 
 Pro corona gloriae. 
 
 [In name thou art a crowned one; it befits thee to suffer 
 torture for the crown of glory.] Elsewhere the same illus- 
 trious hymnologist plays in like manner on flie name of St. 
 Vincentius : 
 
 Qui vincentis habet nomen 
 
 Ex re probat dignum omen 
 
 Sui fore nominis; 
 
 Vincens terra, vincens mari 
 
 Quidquid potest irrogari 
 
 Poenae vel formidinis. 
 
 [He who is conqueror (vincens) in name, indeed proves 
 the true promise of his name; conquering on land and sea 
 every pain or fear that could be put upon him.] In the 
 bull for the canonization of Sta. Clara, the Pope does not 
 disdain a similar play upon her name : Clara claris praeclara 
 meritis, magnae in caelo claritate gloriae, ac in terra miracu- 
 lorum sublimium, clare claret. On these ' prophetic ' names 
 in the heathen world see Pott, Wurzel-Worterhuch, vol. 2, 
 part 2, p. 522. 
 
 ^^ We cannot adduce S. Columba as another example in 
 the same kind, seeing that this name was not his birthright, 
 but one given to him by his scholars for the dove-like 
 gentleness of his character. So indeed we are told ; though 
 it must be owned that some of the traits recorded of him 
 are not columbine at all. 
 
 230 
 
AUTHOR'S NOTES 
 
 ^^ ol i^oSevovres, 
 
 ^^ See Jacob Grimm^ Ueher Frauennamen aus Blumen, 
 in his Kleiner e Schriften, vol. 2, pp. 366-401 ; and on the 
 subject of this paragraph more generally, Schleicher, Die 
 Deutsche Sprache, p. 115 sqq. 
 
 ^^ Jean Paul: 1st jede Sprache in Riicksicht geistiger Be- 
 ziehungen eine Worterbuch erblassten Metaphorn. [E very- 
 language, as far as spiritual and intellectual matters are 
 concerned, is a dictionary of faded metaphors.] We re- 
 gret this, while yet it is not wholly matter of regret. 
 Gerber {Sprache als Kunst, vol. 1, p. 387) urges that lan- 
 guage would be quite unmanageable, that tlie words which 
 we use would be continually clashing with and contradict- 
 ing one another, if every one of them retained a lively 
 impress of the image on which it originally rested, and 
 recalled this to our mind. His words, somewhat too 
 strongly put, are these: Fiir den Usus der Sprache, fiir 
 ihren Verstand und ihre Verstandlichkeit ist allerdings das 
 Erblassen ihrer Lautbilder, so dass sie allmahlich als blosse 
 Zeichen fiir BegrifFe fungiren, nothwendig. Die Ueber- 
 zahl der Bilder wiirde, wenn sie alle als solche wirkten, 
 nur verwirren und jede klarere Auifassung, wie sie die prak- 
 tischen Zwecke der Gegenwart fordern, unmoglich machen. 
 Die Bilder wiirden ausserdem einander zum Theil zer- 
 storen, indem sie die Farben verschiedener Spharen zusam- 
 menfliessen lassen, und damit fiir den Verstand nur Unsinn 
 bedeuten. [In the use of language and for its intelligence 
 and intelligibility it is absolutely necessary that its figures 
 grow faded so that they gradually become mere symbols 
 for ideas. The excessive number of figures, if all these 
 remained figurative, would only be confusing and make 
 impossible all such definite concepts as are demanded by 
 the practical needs of the present. Moreover these figures 
 would be in a degree mutually destructive, since the colors 
 of diverse spheres would be permitted to commingle and 
 in this way these conflicting figures would be mere non- 
 sense.] 
 
 231 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 23 'Triticum ' itself may be connected with ' tero, tritus.' 
 2* A French writer, Adanson, in his Natural History of 
 Senegal complains of the misleading character which names 
 so often have, and urges that the only safety is to give to 
 things names which have and can have no meaning at all. 
 His words are worth quoting as a curiosity, if nothing else : 
 L'experience nous apprend, que la plupart des noms sig- 
 nificatifs qu'on a voulu donner a differens objets d'histoire 
 naturelle, sont devenus faux a mesure qu'on a decouvert 
 des qualites, des proprietes nouvelles ou contraircs a celles 
 qui avaient fait donner ces noms: il faut done, pour se 
 mettre a I'abri des contradictions, eviter les termes figures, 
 et meme faire en sorte qu'on ne puisse les rapporter a 
 quelque etymologic, afin que ceux, qui ont la fureur des 
 etymologies, ne soient pas tenus de leur attribuer une idee 
 fausse. II en doit etre des noms, comme des coups des jeux 
 de hazard, qui n'ont pour I'ordinaire aucune liaison entre 
 eux: ils seraient d'autant meilleurs qu'ils seraient moins 
 significatifs, moins relatifs a d'autres noms, ou a des choses 
 connues, parce que I'idee ne se fixant qu'a un seul objet, 
 le saisit beaucoup plus nettement, que lorsqu'elle se lie avec 
 d'autres objets qui y ont du rapport. [Experience proves 
 that most descriptive names used in natural history have 
 proved false, inasmuch as qualities and characteristics, 
 either new or contrary to those on account of which the 
 names were given, have come to light. So, then, to avoid 
 such contradictions a figurative terminology must be 
 shunned, and only such terms should be used as can not 
 be explained by any etymology; thus the critics that are 
 etymology-mad shall be unable to find any false idea in 
 these terms. Nomenclature in the sciences, like plays in 
 games of chance, should be for the most part unrelated. 
 Names would be the better, the less significance they had, 
 and the less relation to other words or to objects already 
 known, since the mind if it could fix itself on one single 
 object would comprehend it much more clearly than when 
 it was boimd up with other objects bearing some relation 
 
 232 
 
AUTHOR^S NOTES 
 
 to it.] There is truth in what he says, but the remedy he 
 proposes is worse than the disease. 
 
 2^ Strabo, 8:2; Pliny, H. N. 4:5; Agathemerus, 1. 1. p. 
 1 5 ; €X€t,v Be o/xoiov <r)(rjfJLa <^vAAa) TrAaravov. 
 
 ^^ By Fallmerayer, Gesch. der Halbinsel Morea, p. 240, 
 sqq. The island of Ceylon, known to the Greeks as Tapro- 
 bane, and to Milton as well (P. L. 4: 75), owed this name 
 to a resemblance which in outline it bore to the leaf of 
 the betel tree. 
 
 ^^ An Italian poet, Fazio degli Uberti, tells us that Flo- 
 rence has its appellation from the same cause: 
 
 * Poiche era posta in un prato di fiori, 
 Le denno il nome bello, onde s' ingloria.* 
 
 [For that it lies in a flowery meadow, they gave it the fair 
 name that is its boast.] It would be instructive to draw 
 together a collection of etymologies which have been woven 
 into verse. These are so little felt to be alien to the spirit 
 of poetry, that they exist in large numbers, and often lend 
 to the poem in which they find a place a charm and interest 
 of their own. In five lines of Paradise Lost, Milton intro- 
 duces four such etymologies, namely, those of the four 
 fabled rivers of hell, though this will sometimes escape the 
 notice of the English reader: 
 
 ' Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate. 
 Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep, 
 Cocytus, named of lamentation loud 
 Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon, 
 Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage.* 
 
 That great master of the proprieties, Virgil, as Bishop 
 Pearson has so happily called him, does not shun, but 
 rather loves to introduce them, as witness his etymology of 
 Byrsa, Mn. 1: 367, 368; 5: 59, QS; of Silvius, Mn. 6: 763, 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 765 ; of ' Latium/ with reference to Saturn having re- 
 mained latent there (vEn. 8:322; of. Ovid, Fasti, 1:238): 
 
 * Latiumque vocari 
 Maluit^ his quoniam latuisset tutus in oris : ' 
 
 and again of ' Avernus ' (= aopvo<s, Mn. 6: 243); being, 
 indeed in this anticipated by Lucretius (6: 741): 
 
 * quia sunt avibus contraria cunctis.' 
 
 Ovid's taste is far from faultless, and his example can not 
 go for much; but he is always a graceful versifier, and 
 his Fasti swarm with etymologies, correct and incorrect; 
 as of ' Agonalis ' (1: 322), of ' AiDrilis ' (4: 89), of 'Au- 
 gustus' (1: 609-614), of ' Februarius ' (2: 19-22), of 
 'hostia' (1: 336), of 'Janus' (1: 120-127), of 'Junius' 
 (6: 22), of ' Lemures ' (5: 479-484), of ' Lucina ' (2: 449), 
 of * majestas ' (5 : 26), of ' Orion ' (5 : 5S5), of ' pecunia ' 
 (5: 280, 281), of ' senatus ' (5: 64), of ' Sulmo ' (4: 79; 
 cf. Silius Italicus, 9: 70); of 'Vesta' (6: 299), of ' vic- 
 tima ' (1 : 335). He has them also elsewhere, as of ' Tomi ' 
 (Trist. 3. 9: 33). Lucilius, in like manner, gives us the 
 etymology of ' iners ' : 
 
 * Ut perhibetur iners, ars in quo non erit ulla; * 
 
 and Propertius (4. 2:3) of 'Vertumnus'; and Lucretius 
 of 'Magnes' (6: 909). 
 
 ^^ In a catalogue of English Plant Names I count thirty 
 in which ' cuckoo ' formed a component part. 
 
 ^^ ' Fair fall that gentle flower, 
 
 A golden tuft set in a silver crown,' 
 
 as Brown exclaims, whose singularly graceful Pastorals 
 should not be suffered to fall altogether to oblivion. In 
 Ward's recent English Poets, vol. 2. p. 65, justice has been 
 done to them, and to their rare beauty. 
 
 ^^ Varro : Quod erat figura ut camelus, maculis ut pan- 
 thera [Because it was shaped like a camel nnd sjDotted like 
 
 234 
 
AUTHOR'S NOTES 
 
 a panther] ; and Horace (Ep. 2. 1 : 196) : Diversum confusa 
 genus panthera camelo [A varying kind, panther mixed 
 with camel] . 
 
 ^^ In Wallace's Tropical Nature there is a beautiful 
 chapter on humming birds, and the names which in various 
 languages these exquisite little creatures bear. 
 
 22 Pliny, H.N. 27: 32. [More probably the name is 
 due to the brightness of the stone; in Sanskrit tapas means 
 heat.] 
 
 22 Of these last the most exhaustive collection which I 
 know is in Philo, De Merced. Meret. § 4. There are here 
 one hundred and forty-six epithets brought together, each 
 of them indicating a sinful mol'al habit of mind. It was 
 not without reason that Aristotle wrote: * It is possible to 
 err in many ways, for evil belongs to the infinite; but to 
 do right is possible only in one way ' (Ethic. Nic. 2. 6: 14). 
 
 ^'^ In the Greek, eVtxatpeKaActa, in the German, ' Scha- 
 denfreude.' Cicero so strongly feels the want of such a 
 word, that he gives to * malevolentia ' the significance * volup- 
 tas ex malo alterius ' [i. e., makes ' ill-will ' mean 'joy in 
 another's ill fortune '], which lies not of necessity in it. 
 
 2^ Yet this itself was an immense fall for the word (see 
 Ampere, La Langue Frangaise, p. 219, and Littre^ Diet, 
 de la Langue Frangaise, preface, p. 25). 
 
 26 F. Q. 3. 2:43. 
 
 27 See in proof Fuller, Holy State, b. 3. c. 19. 
 
 2^ Not otherwise ' leichtsinnig ' in German meant cheer- 
 ful once ; it is frivolous now ; while in French a * rapporteur ' 
 is now a bringer back of malicious reports, the malicious 
 having little by little found its way into the word. 
 
 2^ Having in mind what * Dime,' connected with ' dienen,' 
 * Dienst,' commonly means now in German, one almost 
 shrinks from observing that it was once a name of honor 
 which could be and was used of the Blessed Virgin Mary 
 (see Grimm, Worterbuch, s. v.). * Schalk ' in like manner 
 had no evil subaudition in it at first; nor had it ever such 
 during the time that it survived in English; thus in Sir 
 
 235 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 Gawayne and the Green Knight the peerless Gawayne is 
 himself on more than one occasion a ' schalk ' (424, 1776). 
 The word survives in the last syllable of ' seneschal/ and 
 indeed of ' marshal ' as well. 
 
 ^^ See my Synonyms of the New Testament, §18. 
 
 *^ ' Misery ' and * miserable ' do not any longer signify 
 avarice and avaricious; but these meanings they also once 
 possessed (see my Select Glossary, s. vv.). In them we 
 once said, and in ' miser ' we still say, in one word what 
 Seneca when he wrote, — ' Nulla avaritia sine poena est, quam- 
 vis satis sit ipsa pcenarum ' [no greed goes unpunished, 
 though itself punishment enough] — took a sentence to say. 
 
 *^ Sermons, London, l67*l, vol. 2. p. 244. 
 
 *2 August 10, 1749. 
 
 ** An €^i? [possession], as the heathen did, not a Sd^prjfjia 
 [gift, present], as the Christian does; see a remarkable 
 passage in Bishop Andrews' Sermons, vol. 3. p. 384. 
 
 ^^ Sermons, London, 1737, vol. 1. p. 407. 
 
 ^^ Thus in Jewish Greek iXerjixocrvvrf stands often for 
 hiKaioavvq (Deut. 6: 25; Ps. 102: 6, LXX), or almsgiving 
 for righteousness. 
 
 ^^ Thus Hamlet does much more than merely play on 
 words when he calls his father's brother, who had married 
 his mother, * A little more than hin, and less than hind.' 
 
 *® * Schlecht,' which in modern German means bad, good 
 for nothing, once meant good, — good, that is, in the sense 
 of right or straight, but has passed through the same stages 
 to the meaning which it now possesses ; ' albern ' has done 
 the same (Max Miiller, Science of Language, 2nd series, p. 
 274). ^ 
 
 *^ Life and Manners in Persia, p. 247. 
 
 ^'^ The heathen with their evhaiixovia [the state of being 
 blessed by a kindly divinity or genius; thus, happiness], 
 inadequate as this word must be allowed to be, put iis here 
 to shame. 
 
 ^^ A similar use of o-w/Aara for slaves in Greek rested 
 originally on the same forgetfulness of the moral worth 
 
 236 
 
AUTHOR^S NOTES 
 
 of every man. It has found its way into the Septuagint 
 and Apocrypha (Gen. 36: 6; 2 Mace. 8: 11; Tob. 10: 10); 
 and occurs once in the New Testament (Rev. 18: 13). [This 
 is true only so far as the Greeks had no notion of, and hence 
 no word for, man's moral nature. The use of o-w/xara 
 bodies, of slaves, is then little more than the figure of speech 
 called synecdoche, as may be seen from the fact that in 
 classic Greek the word regularly means ' person,' ' indi- 
 vidual ' ; iEschines uses to, (^tArara o-wyaara, literally ' dear- 
 est bodies,' to mean children. In fine the word does not 
 connote body as distinct from spirit, but individual as dis- 
 tinct from multitude. So ' people,' or ' folks ' is sometimes 
 used of servants. To introduce an ethical significance is 
 as if one should comment on the fleshly and sensuous tone 
 of the word ' body ' in the line 
 
 * If a body meet a body coming thro' the rye.'] 
 
 ^^ Sermons, 1737, vol. ^. pp. 313-351; vol. 6. pp. 3-120. 
 Thus on those who pleaded that their ' honour ' was en- 
 gaged, and that therefore they could not go back from 
 this or that sinful act : — ' Honour is indeed a noble thing, 
 and therefore the word which signifies it must needs be 
 very plausible. But as a rich and glistening garment may 
 be cast over a rotten body, so an illustrious commanding 
 word may be put upon a vile and an ugly thing — for words 
 are but the garments, the loose garments of things, and so 
 may easily be put off and on according to the humour of 
 him who bestows them. But the body changes not, though 
 the garments do.' 
 
 ^^ Bacon's words have been often quoted, but they will 
 bear being quoted once more : Credunt enim homines rationem 
 suam verbis imperare. Sed fit etiam ut verba suam super 
 intellectum retorqueant et reflectant. [For men think their 
 reason is lord over their words. But it happens too that 
 words exercise a reciprocal and reactionary power over the 
 intellect. ] 
 
 ^* ' Pransus ' [dined] and ' potus * [wined], in like man- 
 
 237 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 ner, as every Latin scholar knows, mean much more than 
 they say. 
 
 ^^ Rhet. 3. 2: oi Xtjo-toI ovtovs iropia-Tas KaXovcn vvv [Pirates 
 now call themselves purveyors]. 
 
 ^^ For the rise of this phrase, see Lemontey, Louis XIV, 
 p. 43. 
 
 ^^ This tendency of men to throw the mantle of an hon- 
 ourable word over a dishonourable thing, or, vice versa, to 
 degrade an honourable thing, when they do not love it, by 
 a dishonourable appellation, has in Greek a word to describe 
 it, vTroKopL^ca-OaL [of uncertain origin and derivation, but 
 perhaps first * to talk baby talk,' then * to flatter,* ' to mis- 
 call,' and finally to call bad good or good bad], itself a word 
 with an interesting history ; while the great ethical teachers 
 of Greece frequently occupy themselves in detecting and 
 denouncing this most mischievous among all the impostures 
 of words. Thus, when Thucydides (3:82) would paint 
 the fearful moral ruin which her great Civil War had 
 wrought, he adduces this alteration of the received value 
 of words, this fitting of false names to everything — names 
 of honour to the base, and of baseness to the honourable — 
 as one of the most remarkable tokens of this, even as it 
 again set forward the evil, of which it had been first the 
 result. 
 
 ^^ Milton in a profoundly instructive letter, addressed 
 by him to one of his friends whom he made during his 
 Italian tour, encourages him in those philological studies to 
 which he had devoted his life by such words as these : Neque 
 enim qui sermo, purusne an corruptus, quaeve loquendi pro- 
 prietas quotidiana populo sit, parvi interesse arbitrandum 
 est, quae res Athenis non semel saluti fuit; immo vero, quod 
 Platonis sententia est, immutato vestiendi more habituque 
 graves in Republica motus mutationesque portendi, equidem 
 potius collabente in vitium atque errorem loquendi usu occa- 
 sum ejus urbis remque humilem et obscuram subsequi credi- 
 derim : verba enim partim inscita et putida, partim mendosa 
 et perperam prolata, quid si ignavos et oscitantes et ad 
 
 238 
 
AUTHOR'S NOTES 
 
 servile quidvis j am olim paratos incoiarum animos haud levi 
 indicio declarant? Contra nullum unquam audivimus im- 
 perium^ nullam civitatem non mediocriter saltem floruisse, 
 quamdiu linguae sua gratia, suusque cultus constitit. [It 
 is to b3 reckoned important what a people's language is, 
 whether pure or corrupt, and how correct is its daily habit 
 of speech; attention to this very thing was often the saving 
 of Athens, Plato thought that changes in customs and 
 costumes threatened serious changes in the republic; I 
 should prefer to believe that the fall of the city and its low 
 and unimportant position were consequent upon a verbal 
 usage that sank into error and fault. For words, partly 
 base and foul and partly faulty and wrongly used, bear 
 important witness to minds that are ignorant, sluggish, and 
 all too ready for any slavery. But, on the other hand, we 
 never heard of empire or state that did not flourish, moder- 
 ately at least, so long as its language kept its charm and 
 refinement.] Compare an interesting Epistle (the 114th) 
 of Seneca. 
 
 ^^ See p. 25. 
 
 ^^ Terrien Poncel, Du Langage, p. 231 : Les langues sont 
 faites a I'usage des peuples qui les parlent; elles sont ani- 
 mees chacune d'un esprit different, et suivent un mode par- 
 ticulier d'action, conforme a leur principe. * L'esprit d'une 
 nation et le caractere de sa langue,' a ecrit G. de Humboldt, 
 sont si intimement lies ensemble, que si Fun etait donne, 
 I'autre devrait pouvoir s'en deduire exactement. La langue 
 n'est autre chose que la manifestation exterieure de l'esprit 
 des peuples; leur langue est leur esprit, et leur esprit est 
 leur langue, de telle sorte qu'en developpant et perfection- 
 nant I'un, ils developpent et perfectionnent necessairement 
 I'autre. [Languages are made for the use of the peoples 
 that speak them, and each is animated by a different spirit 
 and follows a peculiar manner of action suited to its funda- 
 mental principle. Wilhelm von Humboldt wrote : ' The 
 spirit of a nation and the nature of its language are so 
 closely interrelated that if either were given the other 
 
 239 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 might be precisely deduced from it.' Language is merely 
 the outward manifestation of national characteristics; a 
 national language is a nation's characteristics and its char- 
 acteristics are its language. This is so true that when a 
 nation develops and perfects either characteristics or lan- 
 guage_, it necessarily develops and perfects the other.] 
 And a recent German writer has well said, Die Sprache, das 
 selbstgewebte Kleid der Vorstellung, in welchem jeder 
 Faden wieder eine Vorstellung ist, kann uns, richtig be- 
 trachet, offenbaren, welche Vorstellungen die Grundfaden 
 bildeten (Gerber, Die Sprache als Kunst). [Language, 
 the self-woven garb of thought, with each thread in its 
 turn a thought, can reveal to us, if it be rightly considered, 
 the thoughts composed by the main-warp threads.] 
 
 ''^ Hare, Mission of the Comforter, p 552. 
 
 ®^ See on this matter. The Pope and the Council, by 
 Janus, p. 215. 
 
 ^^ It did not escape Plutarch, imperfect Latin scholar as 
 he was, that * virtus ' far more nearly corresponded to avSpcta 
 than to dper-q (Coriol. 1). 
 
 ®* See on this matter Marsh, On the English Language, 
 New York, I860, p. 224. 
 
 ®° De Orat. 2:4: Quem enim nos ineptum vocamus, is 
 mihi videtur ab hoc nomen habere ductum, quod non sit 
 aptus. Idque in sermonis nostri consuetudine perlate patet. 
 Nam qui aut tempus quid postulet, non videt, aut plura 
 loquitur, aut se ostentat, aut eorum quibuscum est vel dig- 
 nitatis vel commodi rationem non habet, aut denique in 
 aliquo genere aut inconcinnus aut multus est, is ineptus esse 
 dicitur. Hoc vitio cumulata est eruditissima ilia Graecorum 
 natio. Itaque quod vim hujus mali Graeci non vident, ne 
 nomen quidem ei vitio imposuerunt. Ut enim quaeras omnia, 
 quomodo Graeci ineptum appellent, non invenies. [He 
 whom we call inept seems to me to be so named because he 
 is not apt, and this is perfectly evident in the usage of our 
 speech, for a man is called inept if he fails to see what the 
 occasion demands, or talks overmuch, or is boastful, or does 
 
 240 
 
AUTHOR'S NOTES 
 
 not consider the position and comfort of his fellows^ or, 
 in fine, no matter how, is awkward and tedious. The 
 Greeks, accomplished as they are, are overburdened with 
 this fault; but because they do not see the nature of this 
 vice they have never put a name to it. And you can not 
 learn a Greek word for inept, although you search every- 
 where.] 
 
 ^^ Two or three examples of what we have been affirming, 
 drawn from the Latin, may fitly here find place. Thus 
 Cicero (Tusc. 3: 7) laments of ' confidens ' that it should 
 have acquired an evil signification, and come to mean bold, 
 over-confident in oneself, unduly pushing (compare Virgil, 
 Georg. 4: 444), a meaning which little by little had been 
 superinduced on the word, but etymologically was not in- 
 herent in it at all. In the same way ' latro,' having left 
 two earlier meanings behind, one of these current so late 
 as in Virgil {Mn. 12: 7), settles down at last in the mean- 
 ing of robber. Not otherwise ' f acinus ' begins with being 
 simply a fact or act, something done; but ends with being 
 some act of outrageous wickedness. ' Pronuba ' starts with 
 meaning a bridesmaid; it ignobly ends with suggesting a 
 procuress. 
 
 ^~ This statement of his must be taken with a certain 
 amount of qualification. It is not always that races are 
 true to the end to their language ; external forces are some- 
 times too strong. Thus Celtic disappeared before Latin 
 in Gaul and Spain. Slavonic became extinct in Prussia 
 two centuries ago, German taking its room; the negroes of 
 Hayti speak French, and various American tribes have 
 exchanged their o^vn idioms for Spanish and Portuguese. 
 See upon this matter Sayce's Principles of Comparative 
 Philology, pp. 175-181. 
 
 ^^ See Brugmann, Grundriss der vergleichenden Gram- 
 matik der indogermanischen Sprachen (1886), § 2. 
 
 ^^ Ozanam (^Les Germains avant le Christianisme, p. 
 155): Dans le vocabulaire d'une langue on a tout le spec- 
 tacle d'une civilisation. On y voit ce qu'un peuple sait 
 
 241 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 des choses invisibles, si les notions de Dieu, de Fame, du 
 devoir, sont assez pures chez lui pour ne soiiffrir que des 
 termes exacts. On mesure la puissance de ses institutions 
 par le nombre et la propriete des termes qu'elles veulent 
 pour Icur service; la liturgie a ses paroles sacramentelles, 
 la procedure a ses formules. Enfin, si ce peuple a etudie 
 la nature, il f aut voir a quel point il en a penetre les secrets, 
 par quelle variete d'expressions, par quels sons flatteurs ou 
 energiques, il a cherclie a decrire les divers aspects du ciel 
 et de la terre, a f aire, pour ainsi dire, I'inventaire des rich- 
 esses temporelles dont il dispose. [In the vocabulary of 
 a language, a civilization is completely mirrored, and it is 
 possible to see what a people thinks of the things that are 
 unseen, and whether its ideas of God, the soul, and duty 
 are so pure as be satisfied only by well-defined names. The 
 power of its institutions can be judged by the number and 
 clearness of the terms required to serve these institutions; 
 its liturgy may be estimated by its sacramental phraseology, 
 and its law by its legal forms. And if the people in ques- 
 tion has studied Nature, we must needs see how far it has 
 penetrated her secrets, and how various are the expressions, 
 how servile or how bold the words it has used in its attempt 
 to describe the varying look of sky or earth, or in other 
 words its attempt to make an inventory of the worldly 
 riches it possesses.] 
 
 '° The passage most illustrative of the parentage of the 
 word is from Walafrid Strabo (about a. d. 840) : Ab ipsis 
 autem Graecis Kyrch a Kyrios, et alia multa accepimus. 
 Sicut domus Dei Basilica, i. e. Regia a Rege, sic etiam 
 Kyrica, i. e. Dominica a Domino, nuncupatur. Si autem 
 quaeritur, qua occasione ad nos vestigia haec graecitatis 
 advenerint, dicendum praecipue a Gothis, qui et Getae, ciim 
 eo tempore, quo ad fidem Christi perducti sunt, in 
 Graecorum provinciis commorantes, nostrum, i. e. theotiscum 
 sermonem habuerint. [From the Greeks themselves we get 
 the word 'kirk' from Kvptos (lord), and many other 
 words. As God's house is called a Basilica, that is a royal 
 
 242 
 
AUTHOR'S NOTES 
 
 dwelling from the Greek word for king, so * kirk ' or 
 ' church ' is called the Lord's Day, from the Greek for lord. 
 If the question arises how the traces of this Greek word 
 came into our language, the answer is, from the Goths or 
 Getae, for at the time they were brought to Christ they were 
 living in Greek provinces but used a Teutonic tongue.] 
 Cf. Rudolf von Raumer, Einwirkung des Christenthums 
 auf die Althochdeutsche Sprache, p. 288; Niedner, Kirch. 
 Geschichte, p. 2. 
 
 ^^ There is a good note on ' pagan ' in Gibbon's Decline 
 and Fall, c. 21, at the end; and in Grimm's Deutsche 
 Mythol. p. 1198; and the history of the changes in the 
 word's use is well traced in another interest by Mill, Logic, 
 vol. 2. p. 271. 
 
 ^2 Vol. 3. pp. 441-452. 
 
 ^^ For a history of * sophist ' see Sir Alexander Grant's 
 Ethics of Aristotle, 2nd ed. vol. 1. p. 106, sqq. 
 
 ^* See Fuller, Holy War, b. 1. c. 13. 
 
 ^^ Decline and Fall, c. 64. 
 
 "^^ Thus a letter professing to be of Pope Anacletus the 
 First in the first century, but really belonging to the ninth : 
 Apostolica Sedes cardo et caput omnium Ecclesiarum a 
 Domino est constituta; et sicut cardine ostium regitur, sic 
 hujus S. Sedis auctoritate omnes EcclesiEE reguntur. [The 
 Apostolic See has been constituted by the Lord the hinge 
 and head of all churches; and as the door is governed by 
 the hinge, so by the authority of this Holy See all churches 
 are governed.] And we have * cardinal ' put in relation 
 with this ' cardo ' in a genuine, letter of Pope Leo IX. : 
 Clerici summae Sedis Cardinales dicuntur, cardini utique 
 illi quo cetera moventur, vicinius adhaerentes. [The clergy 
 of the highest rank are called cardinals, inasmuch as they 
 cling the closer to that hinge that moves all else.] 
 
 ^^ Von dem Einfluss der Meinungen in der Sprache, und 
 der Sprache in den Meinungen, von J. D. Michaelis, Berlin, 
 1760. 
 
 ^® Augustine : Quid est crystallum ? Nix est glacie durata 
 243 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 per multos annos^ ita ut a sole vel igne facile dissolvi non 
 possit. [What is crystal? It is snow hardened into ice by- 
 long time^ so that it can not easily be dissolved by sun or 
 fire.] So too in Beaumont and Fletcher's tragedy of Valen- 
 tinian, a chaste matron is said to be * cold as crystal never 
 to be thawed again/ 
 
 ^^ The name^ as the designation of a style of architec- 
 ture, came to us from Italy. Thus Fuller in his Worthies: 
 ' Let the Italians deride our English and condemn them for 
 Gothish buildings.' See too a very curious expression of 
 men's sentiments about Gothic architecture as simply equiv- 
 alent to barbarous, in Phillip's Ne?v World of Words, 1706, 
 s. V. * Gothick.' 
 
 ^^ In North's Examen, p. 321, is a very lively, though 
 not a very impartial, account of the rise of these names. 
 
 ®^ Dr. Eck, one of the earliest who wrote against the 
 Reformation, first called the Reformed ' Lutherani.' 
 
 «2 Pliny, H. N. 25:34. 
 
 ^^ Several other such words we have in common with 
 the French. Of their own they have ' sardanapalisme,' any 
 piece of profuse luxury, from Sardanapalus. For ' 1am- 
 biner,' to dally or loiter over a task, they are indebted to 
 Denis Lambin, a worthy Greek scholar of the sixteenth 
 century, but accused of sluggish movement and wearisome 
 diffuseness in style. Every reader of Pascal's Provincial 
 Letters will remember Escobar, the famous casuist of the 
 Jesuits, whose convenient devices for the relaxation of the 
 moral law have there been made famous. To the notoriety 
 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 equivo- 
 cation. A pale green colour is in French called ' celadon ' 
 from a personage of this name, of a feeble and fade tender- 
 ness, who figures in Astree, a popular romance of the seven- 
 teenth century. An unpopular minister of finance, ^I. de 
 Silhouette, unpopular because he sought to cut down unnec- 
 essary expenses in the State, saw his name transferred to 
 
 244 
 
AUTHOR'S NOTES 
 
 the slight and thus cheap black outline portrait called a 
 ' silhouette ' (Sismondi^ Hist, des Frangais, vol. 19- pp- 94, 
 95). In the ' mansarde ' roof we are reminded of Mansart, 
 the architect who introduced it. In ' marivaudage ' the 
 name of Marivaux is bound up, who was noted for the 
 affected euphuism which goes by this name; very much as 
 the sophist Gorgias gave yopyia^etv to the Greek. The point 
 of contact between the * fiacre ' and St. Fiacre is well 
 known: hackney carriages, when first established in Paris, 
 waited for their hiring in the court of an hotel which was 
 adorned with an image of the Scottish saint. 
 
 ^* See Col. Mure, Language and Literature of Ancient 
 Greece, vol. i. p. 350. 
 
 *^ See Genin, Des Variations du Langage Frangais, p. 12. 
 
 ^^ Humboldt has abundantly shown this (Kosmos, vol. 2. 
 note 457). He ascribes its general reception to its intro- 
 duction into a popular work on geography, published in 
 1507. The subject has also been very carefully treated by 
 Major, Life of Prince Henry the Navigator, 1868, pp. 
 382-388. 
 
 ^^ See on this disputed point, and on the relation between 
 the Latin ' stipulatio ' and the old German custom not alto- 
 gether dissimilar, J. Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthiimer, 
 p. 121, sqq. 
 
 ^® See my Select Glossary, s. v. Lumber. 
 
 ^^ See the Prologue to Ben Jonson's Every Man out of 
 His Humour, and Select Glossary, s. v. 
 
 ^^ ' Jovial ' in Shakespeare's time (see Cymheline, 5. 4.) 
 had not forgotten its connexion with Jove. 
 
 ^"^ Paradise Lost, 3: 714-719- 
 
 ^^ See an excellent history of this word, in Rost and 
 Palm's Greek Lexicon, s. v. o-ap8ovto9. 
 
 ®^ For a full and most interesting study on this very curi- 
 ous legend, see Max Miiller's Lectures on Language, vol. 2. 
 pp. 533-551. 
 
 «^ See Pliny, 2V. iJ. 2 : 96; 36: 17. 
 
 ^^ It is curious to find Fuller prophesying, a very few 
 245 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 years before^ that at some future day such a protest as 
 theirs might actually be raised (Church History, b. 2. cent. 
 6) : * Thus we see the whole week bescattered with Saxon 
 idols, whose pagan gods were the godfathers of the days, 
 and gave them their names. This some zealot may behold 
 as the object of a necessary reformation, desiring to have 
 the days of the week new dipt, and called after other names. 
 Though, indeed, this supposed scandal will not offend the 
 wise, as beneath their notice; and cannot offend the igno- 
 rant, as above their knowledge.' 
 
 ^^ See Littre, Etudes et Glanures, p. l6; compare p. 23. 
 Elsewhere he says : Les mots ont leurs decheances commes 
 les families. [Words, like families, sometimes come down 
 in the world.] 
 
 ^^ Dilke, Greater Britain, vol. 2. p. 40. 
 
 »^ Acts 11:26. 
 
 «^ Tertullian, Adv. Prax. 3. 
 
 ^^^ Ignatius, Ad. Smyrn. 8. 
 
 101 Origen, 0pp. vol. 3. p. SQ (ed. De la Rue). 
 
 1*^2 Tertullian, Adv. Marc. 4: 1 ; Adv. Prax. 15: 20. 
 
 1^3 Justin Martyr, Apol. 1 : m. 
 
 10* * Nun ' (nonna) first apj^ears in Jerome {Ad Eustoch. 
 Ep. 22); 'monk' (monachus) a little earlier: Rutilius, a 
 Latin versifier of the fifth century, who still clung to the 
 old Paganism, gives the derivation: 
 
 Ipsi se monachos Graio cognomine dicunt. 
 Quod soli nullo vivere teste volunt. 
 
 [They call themselves by a Greek name ' monks ' or soli- 
 taries, because they wish to live alone, with none to see 
 them]. 
 
 10^ Hildebert, Archbishop of Tours (f 1134), is the first 
 to use it (Serm. 93). 
 
 106 Thomas Aquinas is reported to have been the first 
 to use this word. 
 
 10"^ Thomas Aquinas first employs * limbus ' in this sense. 
 
 108 JEschylus, Prometheus Vinctus, 412. 
 246 
 
AUTHOR'S NOTES 
 
 1^^ Id. Swppl. 282. 
 
 11*^ Herodotus, 4:36. 
 
 Ill Id. 5:17. 
 
 11^ Aristotle, Meteor. 1. 14. But his VpcuKoi are only an 
 insignificant tribe, near Dodona. How it came to pass that 
 Graeci, or Graii, was the Latin name by which all the Hel- 
 lenes were known, must always remain a mystery. 
 
 11^ Probably first in the Commentaries of Caesar ; see 
 Grimm, Gesch. d. Deutschen Spraclie, p. 773. 
 
 11* Spartian, Caracalla, c. 9- 
 
 11^ Vopiscus, Aurel. 7; about a. d. 240. 
 
 116 ' Pruzia ' and * Pruzzi ' first appear in the Life of 
 S. Adalbert, written by his fellow-labourer Gaudentius, be- 
 tween 997-1006. 
 
 11" The Geographer of Ravenna. 
 
 11^ Probably in Hellanicus, a contemporary of Hero- 
 dotus. 
 
 11^ In the time of Augustus Caesar; see Niebuhr, History of 
 Rome, Engl. Translation, vol. 1. p. 12. 
 
 1^*^ Orosius, 1:2: in the fifth century of our era. 
 
 1^1 In the writings of Archilochus, about 700 b. c. A * ty- 
 rant ' was not for Greeks a bad king, who abused a rightful 
 position to purposes of lust or cruelty or other wrong. It was 
 of the essence of a ' tyrant ' that he had attained supreme 
 dominion through a violation of the laws and liberties of 
 the state; having done which, whatever the moderation of 
 his after-rule, he would not escape the name. Thus the 
 mild and bounteous Pisistratus was ' tyrant ' of Athens, 
 while a Christian II. of Denmark, ' the Nero of the North,' 
 would not in Greek eyes have been one. It was to their 
 honour that they did not allow the course of the word to be 
 arrested or turned aside by occasional or partial exceptions 
 in the manner of the exercise of this ill-gotten dominion ; but 
 in the hateful secondary sense which ' tyrant ' with them 
 acquired, and which has passed over to us, the moral con- 
 viction, justified by all experience, spake out, that the ill- 
 gotten would be ill-kept ; that the * tyrant ' in the earlier 
 
 247 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 sense of the word, dogged by suspicion, fear, and an evil 
 conscience, must, by an almost inevitable law, become a 
 ' tyrant ' in our later sense of the word. 
 
 ^" Pythagoras, born b. c. 570, is said to have been the 
 first who made this application of the word. For much of 
 interest on its history see Humboldt, Kosmos, 1846, English 
 edit., vol. 1. p. 371. 
 
 ^"^ Compare Tacitus (Annal. 15:44): Quos vulgus . . . 
 Christianos appellabat. It is curious too that, although a 
 Greek word and coined in a Greek city, the termination 
 is Latin. Xpto-rtavo? is formed on the model of Romanus, 
 Albanus, Pompeianus, and the like. [This is uncertain; to 
 take only two examples given by Trench himself, do not 
 the Greek originals of the words * pheasant ' (^ao-tavo?) 
 and ' gentian ' (Pevriav^), both derived, by the way, from 
 proper names, show that the ending in question was Greek?] 
 
 ^'^ Renan (Les Apotres, pp. 233-236) has much instruc- 
 tion on this matter. I quote a few words; though even 
 in them the spirit in which the whole book is conceived 
 does not fail to make itself felt: L'heure ou une creation 
 nouvelle re9oit son nom est solennelle; car le nom est le 
 signe definitif de I'existence. C'est par le nom qu'un etre 
 individuel ou collectif devient lui-meme, et sort d'un autre. 
 La formation du mot * chretien ' marque ainsi la date 
 precise ou I'Eglise de Jesus se separa du judaisme. . . . 
 Le christianisme est completement detache du sein de sa 
 mere; la vraie pensee de Jesus a triomphe de I'indecision 
 de ses premiers disciples; I'Eglise de Jerusalem est depassee; 
 I'Arameen, la langue de Jesus, est inconnue a ime partie 
 de son ecole ; le christianisme parle grec ; il est lance defini- 
 tivement dans le grand tourbillon du monde grec et remain ; 
 d'oii il ne sortira plus. [The hour in which a new being is 
 named is a solemn one, for the name is the clear mark of 
 life and it is by being named that a being, whether individ- 
 ual or collective, becomes itself and is separated from an- 
 other organism. So the formation of the word ' Christian ' 
 marks the exact date when the Church of Jesus broke with 
 
 248 
 
AUTHOR'S NOTES 
 
 Judaism. . . . Christianity is now thoroughly weaned from 
 its mother's breast. The true thought of Jesus has tri- 
 umphed over the wavering of his earliest disciples, and the 
 Church of Jerusalem is left behind. Aramaic, Jesus' own 
 tongue, is unknown to some of his followers, and Greek 
 becomes the language of Christianity. Thus Christianity 
 is definitely launched in the stormy waters of the Greek 
 and Roman world, never to leave them again.] 
 
 ^^^ Renan, speaking on this matter, says of the early 
 Christians: La langue leur faisait defaut. Le Grec et le 
 Semitique les trahissaient egalement. De la cette enorme 
 violence que le Christianisme naissant fit au langage {Les 
 Apotres, p. 71). [Language failed them: Greek and Sem- 
 itic alike played them false. Hence the monstrous violence 
 done language by Christianity at its birth.] 
 
 ^^•^ Ilpocr(D7ro\-r]7rTr]S, KapStoyvioa-Trjs. 
 
 ^^' We preside at its birth in a passage of Josephus, Con. 
 Apion. 2: 16. 
 
 ^^^ Hoc [o-wrrj/a] quantum est ? ita magnum ut Latine uno 
 verbo exprimi non possit. [How much does this word 
 ' saviour ' mean ? So much that it can not be expressed in 
 a single Latin word.] 
 
 ^-^ Serm. 299- 6: Christus Jesus, id est Christus Salvator: 
 hoc est enim Latine Jesus. Nee quaerant grammatici quam 
 sit Latinum, sed Christiani, quam verum. Salus enim Lat- 
 inum nomen est ; salvare et salvator non f uerunt haec Latina, 
 antequam veniret Salvator: quando ad Latinos venit, et hsec 
 Latina fecit. [Christ Jesus, that is, Christ the Saviour, for 
 such is the meaning of Jesus. And grammarians need not 
 ask how the word Salvator (Saviour) is good Latin; rather 
 let Christians ask how true the word is. For salus (safety) 
 is a Latin word, but the verb salvare and the noun of agent 
 salvator were not Latin words before the coming of the 
 Saviour. When he came to the Latins he made these words 
 also good Latin.] Cf. IDe Trin. 13: 10: Quod verbum [sal- 
 vator] Latina lingua antea non habebat, sed habere poterat; 
 sicut potuit quando voluit. [This word salvator, the Latin 
 
 249 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 language did not formerly have, but might well have had it, 
 and so could have it, when there was need of it.] Other 
 words which we owe to Christian Latin, probably to the 
 Vulgate or to the earlier Latin translations, are these — 
 ' carnalis/ * clarifico,' ' compassio,' ' deitas ' (Augustine, 
 Civ. Dei, 7: 1)^ * glorifico,' ' idololatria,' ' incarnatio,' * jus- 
 tifico,' ' justificatio,' * longanimitas,' ' mortifico,' ' magnalia,' 
 'mundicors,' 'passio,' 'praedestinatio,' 'refrigerium' (Ronsch, 
 Vulgata, p. 321), * regeneratio,' ' resipiscentia,' ' revelatio,' 
 ' sanctificatio,' ' soliloquium,' ' sufficientia,' ' supererogatio,' 
 ' tribulatio.' Many of these may seem barbarous to the 
 Latin scholar, but there is hardly one of them which does 
 not imply a new thought, or a new feeling, or the sense of 
 a new relation of man to God or to his fellow-man. Strange 
 too and significant that heathen Latin could get as far as 
 ' peccare ' and * peccatum,' but stopped short of ' peccator ' 
 and * peccatrix.' 
 
 ^^° See Lobeck, Phrynichus, p. 350. 
 
 ^^^ See Dwight, Modern Philology, 2d Series, p. 100; 
 Heyse, System der Sprachwissenschaft, § 139— 1 4-1 ; and 
 Peile, Introduction to Greek and Latin Etymology, pp. 
 357-379. 
 
 ^^^ Fin. 2:4; and for * qualitas ' see Acad. 1 : 6. 
 
 ^^^ Ille verborum vigilantissimus appensor ac mensor, as 
 Augustine happily terms him. 
 
 ^^* Thus the monkish line : 
 
 Invidiosus ego, non invidus esse laboro. 
 
 [I strive to rouse others' envy, not my own.] 
 
 135 Tusc. 3: 9; 4: 8; cf. Doderlein, Synon. vol. 3. p. 68. 
 13® Quintilian's advice, based on this fact, is good (1. 6: 
 42) : Etiamsi potest nihil peccare, qui utitur iis verbis quae 
 summi auctores tradiderunt, multum tamen ref ert non solum 
 quid dixerint, sed etiam quid persuaserint. [Although 
 there can be no mistake in using words given us by the 
 greatest writers, it is of importance not merely that they used 
 the word but that they brought it into use.] He himself, 
 
 250 
 
AUTHOR'S NOTES 
 
 as he informs us, invented ' vocalitas ' to correspond with 
 the Greek cvcfxuvia (Instit. 1:5. 24), but I am not conscious 
 that he found any imitators here. 
 
 ^^^ Thus Seneca a little later is unaware, or has forgotten, 
 that Cicero made any such suggestion. Taking no notice 
 of it, he proposes ' impatientia ' as an adequate rendering 
 of (XTra^cta. There clung this inconvenience to the word, as 
 he himself allowed, that it was already used in exactly the 
 opposite sense (Ep. 9). Elsewhere he claims to be the in- 
 ventor of * essentia ' {Ep. 38). 
 
 i2« Tusc. 4: 15. 
 
 ^^^Ibid. 4:9. 21. 
 
 ^^""Ibid. 4:11. 
 
 "1 Nat Deor. 1 : 34. 
 
 ^^^ See my English Past and Present, ISth edit. p. US. 
 
 ^*^ Therefore the maxim : 
 
 Moribus antiquis, praesentibus utere verbis. 
 
 [Use the morals of the past, but the words of the present.] 
 
 ^^* See Mill, System of Logic, iv. 6, 3. 
 
 ^^^ ' Alcoran ' supplies another example of this curious 
 annexation of the article. Examples of a like absorption 
 or incorporation of it are to be found in many languages; 
 in our own, when we write * a newt,' and not an ewt, or 
 when our fathers wrote ' a nydiot ' (Sir T. More), and not 
 an idiot ; but they are still more numerous in French. Thus 
 ' lierre,' ivy, was written by Ronsard, * I'hierre,' which is 
 correct, being the Latin ' hedera.' ' Lingot ' is our * ingot,' 
 but with fusion of the article ; in * larigot ' and ' loriot ' the 
 word and the article have in the same manner grown to- 
 gether. In old French it was * Tendemain,' or, le jour en 
 demain : * le lendemain,' as now written, is a barbarous 
 excess of expression. ' La Pouille,' a name given to the 
 southern extremity of Italy, and in which we recognize 
 ' Apulia,' is another variety of error, but moving in the 
 same sphere (Genin, Recreations Philologiques, vol. 1. pp. 
 102-105); of the same variety is 'La Natolie/ which was 
 
 251 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 written ' L'Anatolie ' once. An Irish scholar has observed 
 that in modern Irish 'an' (= * the ') is frequently thus 
 absorbed in the names of places, as in ' Nenagh ' (the fair), 
 ' Naul ' (the cliff), ' Newry ' (the yew-tree) ; while some- 
 times an error exactly the reverse of this is committed, and 
 a letter supposed to be the article, but in fact a part of the 
 word, dropt: thus ' Oughaval,' instead of ' Noughhaval ' or 
 New Habitation. 
 
 ^^^ The ' roues ' themselves declared that the word ex- 
 pressed rather their readiness to give any proof of their 
 affection, even to the being broken upon the wheel, to their 
 protector and friend. 
 
 ^^^ North, Examen, p. 574'; for the origin of ' sham ' see 
 p. 2S1. Compare Swift in The Taller, No. 230. ' I have 
 done the utmost,' he there says, ' for some years past to 
 stop the progress of " mob " and " banter "; but have been 
 plainly borne down by numbers, and betrayed by those who 
 promised to assist me.' 
 
 ^^^ As in the d/x^tTrroXe/xoTTTySr/a-io-rpaTos of Eupolis ; the 
 (TTTipixayopaioXeKLBoXa^avoTruiXL's of Aristophanes. There are 
 others a good deal longer than these. 
 
 "^^^ Persa, 4:6, 20-23. 
 
 15^ Works, vol. 2. p. 13. 
 
 ^"^^ Nisard {Curiosites de VEtym. Frang. p. 195) has an 
 article on these words, where with the epigrammatic neat- 
 ness which distinguishes French prose, he says, Je regrette 
 que I'Academie repousse de son Dictionnaire les mots 
 blague, blagueur, laissant gronder a sa porte ces fils 
 effrontes du peuple, qui finiront par I'enf oncer. [I regret 
 that the Academy keeps out of its Dictionary the words 
 blague and blagueur ('humbug'), but leaves muttering at 
 the door these insolent children of the common people, who 
 will break in sooner or later.] On this futility of strug- 
 gling against popular usage in language Montaigne has 
 said, ' They that will fight custom with grammar are fools ' ; 
 and, we may add, not less fools, as engaged in as hopeless 
 a conflict, they that will fight it with dictionary. 
 
 252 
 
AUTHOR'S NOTES 
 
 ^^^ A work by Darmesteter, Be la Creation actuelle de 
 Mots nouveaux dans la Langue Frangaise, Paris, 1877, is 
 well worth consulting here. 
 
 ^^^ One has well said, ' The subject of language, the in- 
 strument, but also the restraint, of thought, is endless. 
 The history of language, the mouth speaking from the 
 fulness of the heart, is the history of human action, faith, 
 art, policy, government, virtue, and crime. When society 
 progresses, the language of the people necessarily runs even 
 with the line of society. You cannot unite past and present, 
 still less can you bring back the past ; moreover, the law of 
 progress is the law of storms, it is impossible to inscribe 
 an immutable statute of language on the periphery of a 
 vortex, whirling as it advances. Every political develop- 
 ment induces a concurrent alteration or expansion in con- 
 versation and composition. New principles are generated, 
 new authorities introduced; new terms for the purpose of 
 explaining or concealing the conduct of public men must 
 be created: new responsibilities arise. The evolution of 
 new ideas renders the change as easy as it is irresistible, 
 being a natural change indeed, like our own voice under 
 varying emotions or in different periods of life: the boy 
 cannot speak like the baby, nor the man like the boy, the 
 wooer speaks otherwise than the husband, and every alter- 
 ation in circumstances, fortune or misfortune, health or 
 sickness, prosperity or adversity, produces some corre- 
 sponding change of speech or inflection of tone. 
 
 ^^* On the new words in classical Latin, see Quintilian, 
 Inst. 8 : 3. 30-37. 
 
 1^^ Solil. 2 : 7. 
 
 ^^® Diogenes Laertius, Procem. § 12. 
 
 ^^^ Clarendon State Papers, vol. 2. p. 40 of the Appendix. 
 
 158 Preface to Dr. Jackson's Works, vol. 1. p. 27. A work 
 of Fleming's published in 1700, bears the title, Christology. 
 
 ^^® * These cooks have persuaded us their coarse fare is 
 the best, and all other but what they dress to be mere 
 quelques choses, made dishes of no nourishing ' (Whitlock^ 
 Zootomia, p. 147). 
 
 /iOO 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 160 Narrative of my Life and Times, p. 34; ' The original 
 of which name is not certainly known. Some say it was 
 because the Puritans then commonly wore short hair, and 
 the King's party long hair; some say, it was because the 
 Queen at Strafford's trial asked who that round-headed 
 man was, meaning Mr. Pym, because he spake so strongly.' 
 
 ^^^ Hahn, Ketzer im Mittelalter, vol. 2. p. 534. 
 
 ^^2 Mahn, Etymol. Untersuch. p. 92. Littre, who has 
 found the word in use as a Christian name two centuries 
 before the Reformation, has no doubt that here is the expla- 
 nation of it. At any rate there is here what explodes a 
 large number of the proposed explanations, as for instance 
 that Huguenot is another and popular shape of * Eidge- 
 nossen * [confederates]. 
 
 ^^^ Lightfoot, On the Colossians, p. 144 sqq. 
 
 ^^* Freeman, Principles of Divine Service, vol. 1. p. 145, 
 and the English Dictionary, s. v. 
 
 ^^^ Mahn, Etym. Untersuch. p. 65 ; ct. Kurtz, Kirchen- 
 geschichte, 3d edit. p. 115. 
 
 ^^® The word is first met in Chrysostom, who calls the 
 silver models of the temple at Ephesus (Acts 19: 24) i/xt/cpa 
 KtySwpta. 
 
 ^^^ Germania, 2. 
 
 i^« Pott, Etymol. Forsch. vol. 2. pt. 2, pp. 860-872. 
 
 ^*® Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, vol. 1. p. 
 251. 
 
 i^« Cicero, Nat. Deor. 2:25. 
 
 ^^^ Dwight, Modern Philology, 1st series, p. 288. 
 
 ^^^ For a full and learned treatment of the various deri- 
 vations of ' Mephistopheles ' which have been proposed, 
 and for the first appearance of the name in books, see 
 Ward's Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, p. 117. 
 
 ^^^ See Transactions of the Philological Society, 1866, 
 pp. 6-25. 
 
 ^^* Grimm, in an interesting review of a little volume 
 dealing with what the Spaniards call ' Germania ' with 
 no reference to Germany, the French ' argot,' and we 
 
 254 
 
AUTHOR'S NOTES 
 
 ' Thieves' Language/ finds in this language the most 
 decisive evidence of this fact {Kleine Schrift. vol. 4. p. 
 165) : Der nothwendige Zusammenhang aller Sprache mit 
 Ueberlieferung zeigt sich auch hier; kaum ein Wort dieser 
 Gaunermundart scheint leer erfunden, und Menschen eines 
 GelichterS;, das sich sonst kein Gewissen aus Liigen macht, 
 beschamen manchen Sprachphilosophen^ der von Erdich- 
 tung einer allgemeinen Sprache getraumt hat. [The nec- 
 essary relation of all languages to tradition is evident even 
 here. Scarcely a word in this rogues' argot seems actually 
 invented, and men of a class that nowhere else makes any 
 scruple of lying put to shame many a linguist, who has 
 dreamed of fabricating a universal language.] Van Hel- 
 mont indeed, a sort of modern Paracelsus, is said to have 
 invented the word * gas ' ; but it is difficult to think that there 
 was not a feeling here after ' geest ' or ' geist,' whether 
 he was conscious of this or not. [He says himself that he 
 had in mind the Greek word x^^^> — ^whence English 
 ' chaos.*] 
 
 ^^^ Some will remember here the old dispute — Greek I 
 was tempted to call it, but in one shape or another it emerges 
 everywhere — whether words were imposed on things Secret or 
 <f>v(T€L, by arbitrary arrangement or by nature. We may 
 . boldly say with Bacon, Vestigia certe rationis verba sunt, 
 and decide in favour of nature. If only they knew their 
 own history, they could always explain, and in most cases 
 justify, their existence. See some excellent remarks on 
 this subject by Renan, De VOrigine du Langage, pp. 
 14-6-149; and an admirable article on 'Slang' in the 
 Times, Oct. 18, 1864. 
 
 ^^^ Augustine (De Civ. Dei, 15:23): Apocrypha nuncu- 
 pantur eo quod eorum occulta origo non claruit Patribus. 
 [They are called apocryphal because their hidden origin 
 was not manifest to the Church Fathers.] Cf. Con. Faust. 
 11:2. 
 
 1" See Bentley, Works, vol. 1. p. 337. 
 
 ^^® See my Sacred Latin Poetry, 3rd edit. p. 32. 
 255 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 ^"^^ See my Gustavus Adolphus in Germany, p. 131. 
 
 180 jtqj. jj good recapitulation of what best has been 
 written on ' superstitio/ see Pott^ Etym, Forschungenj vol. 
 2. p. 921. 
 
 ^®^ The word ' synonym ' only found its way into the 
 English language about the middle of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury. Its recent incoming is marked by the Greek or Latin 
 termination which for a while it bore; Jeremy Taylor writ- 
 ing ' synonymon/ Hacket ' synonymum^' and Milton (in 
 the plural) ' synonyma.' Butler has ' synonymas.' On 
 the subject of this chapter see Marsh, Lectures on the 
 English Language, New York, I860, p. 571, sqq. 
 
 ^^- Pott in his Etymol. Forschungen, vol. 5. p. 69, and 
 elsewhere, has much interesting instruction on the subject. 
 There were four attempts to render cipwvcto, itself, it is 
 true, a very subtle word. They are these : ' dissimulatio ' 
 (Cicero) ; * illusio ' (Quintilian) ; * simulatio ' and ' irrisio.' 
 
 183 -yy^ have a memorable example of this in the history 
 of the great controversy of the Church with the Arians. 
 In the earlier stages of this, the upholders of the orthodox 
 faith used ova-la and virocrTaa-LS as identical in force and 
 meaning with one another, Athanasius, in as many words, 
 affirming them to be such. As, however, the controversy 
 went forward, it was perceived that doctrinal results of 
 the hightest importance might be fixed and secured for the 
 Church through the assigning severally to these words dis- 
 tinct modifications of meaning. This, accordingly, in the 
 Greek Church, was done; while the Latin, desiring to move 
 pari passu, did yet find itself most seriously embarrassed 
 and hindered in so doing by the fact that it had, or assumed 
 that it had, but the one word, ' substantia,' to correspond 
 to the two Greek. 
 
 ^^'^ Paradise Lost, 5: 102-105; so too Longinus, De 
 Subl. 15. 
 
 ^^^ Thus De Quincey (Letters to a Young Man whose 
 Education has been neglected) : ' All languages tend to 
 clear them.sclves of synonyms, as intellectual culture ad- 
 
 9.56 
 
AUTHOR'S NOTES 
 
 vances; the superfluous words being taken up and appro- 
 priated by new shades and combinations of thought evolved 
 in the progress of society. And long before this appropri- 
 ation is fixed and petrified^ as it were, into the acknowledged 
 vocabulary of the language, an insensible clinamen (to 
 borrow a Lucretian word) prepares the way for it. Thus, 
 for instance, before ^Ir. Wordsworth had unveiled the great 
 philosophic distinction between the powers of fancy and 
 imagination, the two words had begun to diverge from each 
 other, the first being used to express a faculty somewhat 
 capricious and exempted from law, the other to express 
 a faculty more self-determined. When, therefore, it was 
 at length perceived, that under an apparent unity of mean- 
 ing there lurked a real dualism, and for philosophic pur- 
 poses it was necessary that this distinction should have its 
 appropriate expression, this necessity was met half way 
 by the clinamen which had already affected the popular 
 usage of the words.' Compare what Coleridge had before 
 said on the same matter, Biogr. Lit. vol. 1. p. 90; and what 
 Ruskin, Modern Painters, part 3, § 2, ch. 3, has said since. 
 It is to Coleridge that we owe the word * to desynonymize ' 
 (Biogr. Lit. p. 87) — which is certainly preferable to Pro- 
 fessor Grote's ' despecificate.' Purists indeed will object 
 that it is of hybrid formation, the prefix Latin, the body 
 of the word Greek; but for all this it may very well stand 
 till a better is offered. Coleridge's own contributions, 
 direct and indirect, in this province are perhaps more in 
 number and in value than those of any other English 
 writer; thus to him we owe the disentanglement of ' fanat- 
 icism ' and 'enthusiasm' (Lit. Rem. vol. 2. p. 365); of 
 'keenness' and 'subtlety' (Table-Talk, p. 140); of 
 'poetry' and 'poesy' (Lit. Rem. vol. 1. p. 219); of 
 'analogy' and 'metaphor' (Aids to Reflection, 1825, p. 
 198) ; and that on which he himself laid so great a stress^ 
 of ' reason ' and ' understanding.' 
 
 186 jtqj. ^jjg exact difference between these, and other pairs 
 or larger groups of words, see my Select Glossary. 
 
 257 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 i«^ Church and State, p. 200. 
 
 ^^^ So entirely was any determining reason wanting, that 
 for some while it was a question which word should obtain 
 the honourable employment, and it seemed as if * astrology ' 
 and ' astrologer ' would have done so, as this extract from 
 Bishop Hooper makes abundantly plain {Early Writings, 
 Parker Society, p. 331) : ' The astrologer is he that knoweth 
 the course and motions of the heavens and teacheth the 
 same ; which is a virtue if it pass not its bounds, and become 
 of an astrologer an astronomer, who taketh upon him to 
 give judgment and censure of these motions and courses of 
 the heavens, what they prognosticate and destiny unto the 
 creature.' 
 
 ^®^ If in the course of time distinctions are thus created, 
 and if this is the tendency of language, yet they are also 
 sometimes, though far less often, obliterated. Thus the 
 fine distinctions between * yea ' and ' yes,' ' nay ' and ' no,' 
 once existing in English, has quite disappeared. * Yea ' 
 and * Nay,' in Wiclif 's time, and a good deal later, were 
 the answers to questions framed in the affirmative. ' Will 
 he come ? ' To this it would have been replied, ' Yea ' or 
 ' Nay,' as the case might be. But ' Will he not come ? * 
 — to this the answer would have been, * Yes,' or * No.' Sir 
 Thomas More finds fault with Tyndale, that in his trans- 
 lation of the Bible he had not observed this distinction, 
 which was evidently therefore going out even then, that 
 is in the reign of Henry VIII., and shortly after it was 
 quite forgotten. 
 
 ^^^ Everyone who desires, as he reads Milton, thoroughly 
 to understand him, will do well to be ever on the watch 
 for such recalling, upon his part, of words to their primitive 
 sense; and as often as he detects, to make accurate note 
 of it for his own use, and, so far as he is a teacher, for 
 the -use of others. Take a few examples out of many: 
 'afflicted' (P. L. 1:186); 'alarmed' (P. L. 4:985); 
 ' ambition ' (P. L. 1 : 262; S. A. 24-7) ; ' astonished ' (P. L. 
 1 : 266) ; ' chaos ' (P. L. 6: 55) ; * diamond ' (P. L. 6: 364^) ; 
 
 258 
 
AUTHOR'S NOTES 
 
 'emblem' (P. L. 4:703); 'empiric' (P. L. 5:440); 
 'engine' (P. L. 1:750); 'entire' ( = integer, P. L. 9: 
 292); 'extenuate' (P. L. 10:645); 'illustrate' (P. L. 5: 
 739) ; ' implicit ' (P. L. 7: 323) ; ' indorse ' (P. R. 3: 329) ; 
 ' infringe ' (P. i?. 1 : 62) ; ' mansion ' (Com. 2) ; ' moment ' 
 (P. L. 10:45); 'oblige' (P. L. 9:980); 'person' (P. L. 
 10:156); 'pomp' (P. L. 8:6l); 'sagacious' (P. L. 10: 
 281); 'savage' (P. L. 4:172); 'scene' (P. L. 4:140); 
 'secular' (S. A. 1707); 'secure' (P. L. 6:638); 'sedi- 
 tious ' (P. L. 6:152) ; ' transact ' (P. L. 6: 286) ; ' voluble ' 
 (P. L. 9: 436). We may note in Jeremy Taylor a similar 
 reduction of words to their origins ; thus, ' insolent ' for 
 unusual, ' metal ' for mine, ' irritation ' for a making vain, 
 'extant' for standing out (applied to a bas-relief), 'con- 
 trition' for bruising ('the contrition of the serpent'); 
 ' probable ' for worthy of approval (' a probable doctor.') 
 The author of the excellent Lexique de la Langue de Cor- 
 neille claims the same merit for him and for his great con- 
 temporaries or immediate successors : Faire rendre aux mots 
 tout ce qu'ils peuvent donner, en varier habilement les ac- 
 ceptions et les nuances, les ramener a leur origine, les 
 retremper frequemment a leur source etymologique, con- 
 stituait un des secrets principaux des grands ecrivains du 
 dix-septieme siecle. [To get words to yield up all they 
 had in them to give, to vary skilfully their significances 
 and shades of meaning, to carry them back to their origin, 
 and to dip them again in the etymological source from 
 which they first flowed was one of the main secrets of the 
 great authors of the eighteenth century.] It is this putting of 
 old words in a new light, and to a new use, though that will 
 be often the oldest of all, on which Horace sets so high a 
 store: 
 
 Dixeris egregie, notum si callida verbum 
 
 Reddiderit junctura novum; 
 
 [You shall be highly praised if your skilled composition 
 gives a new meaning to a familiar word] and not less 
 
 259 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 Montaigne : ' The handling and utterance of fine wits is 
 that which sets off a language; not so much by innovating 
 it, as by putting it to more vigorous and various service, 
 and by straining, bending and adapting it to this. They do 
 not create words, but they enrich their own, and give them 
 weight and signification by the uses they put them to.' 
 
 ^^^ See Coleridge, Church and State, p. 18. 
 
 ^^^ Thus he distinguishes between * voluntas ' and ' cu- 
 piditas'; ' cautio ' and ' metus ' (Tusc. 4:6); ' gaudium,' 
 ' laetitia,' ' voluptas ' (Tusc. 4:6; Fin. 2:4); ' prudentia ' 
 and ' sapientia ' (Off. 1:43); ' caritas ' and 'amor' (De 
 Part. Or. 25); * ebrius ' and * ebriosus,' * iracundus ' and 
 
 * iratus,' ' anxietas ' and * angor ' (Tusc. 4:12); * vitium,' 
 'morbus' and ' aegrotatio ' (Tusc. 4:13); 'labor' and 
 ' dolor ' (Tusc. 2: 15) ; ' furor ' and ' insania ' (Tusc. 3:5); 
 
 * malitia ' and ' vitiositas ' (Tusc. 4:15); ' doctus ' and 
 ' peritus ' (Off. 1:3). Quintilian also often bestows atten- 
 tion on synonyms, observing well (6:3. 17): ' Pluribus 
 nominibus in eadem re vulgo utimur, quae tamen si didu- 
 cas, suam quandam propriam vim ostendent.' [We com- 
 monly use several words for the same thing, but if you dis- 
 criminate, you will see a peculiar force in each] ; he ad- 
 duces ' salsum,' ' urbanum,' 'facetum'; and elsewhere (5: 
 3) ' rumor ' and * fama ' are discriminated happily by him. 
 Among Church writers Augustine is a frequent and suc- 
 cessful discriminator of words. Thus he separates off 
 from one another ' flagitium ' and ' f acinus ' (De Doct. 
 Christ 3:10); ' aemulatio ' and ' invidia ' (Expl. ad Gal. 
 10: 20) ; * arrha ' and ' pignus ' (Serm. 23: 8, 9) ; * studio- 
 sus ' and * curiosus ' (De Util. Cred. 9) ; ' sapientia ' and 
 ' scientia ' (De Div. Quces. 2, qu. 2); * senecta ' and 
 ' senium ' (Enarr. in Ps. 70: 18) ; ' schisma ' and ' haeresis ' 
 (Con. Cresc. 2:7); with many more (see my Synonyms of 
 the N. T. Preface, p. xi). Among the merits of the 
 Grimms' Worterhuch is the care which they, and those who 
 have taken up their work, bestow on the discrimination of 
 synonyms ; distinguishing, for example, * Degen ' and 
 
 260 
 
AUTHOR'S NOTES 
 
 ' Schwert ' ; ' Feld/ ' Acker ' and ' Heide ' ; ' Aar ' and 
 ' Adler ' ; ' Antlitz ' and ' Angesicht ' ; ' Kelch/ ' Becher ' 
 and ' Glas ' ; ' Frau ' and ' Weib ' ; ' Butter/ ' Schmalz ' and 
 ' Anke ' ; * Kopf ' and ' Haupt ' ; ' klug ' and ' weise ' ; 
 ' geben ' and * schenken ' ; ' Heirath' and ' Ehe.' 
 
 ^^^ L'esprit consiste a connaitre la ressemblance des choses 
 diverses, et la difference des choses semblables [Wit con- 
 sists in knowing the similarity between unlike things, and 
 the difference between like things] (Montesquieu). Saint- 
 Evremond says of a reunion of the Precieuses at the Hotel 
 Rambouillet, with a raillery which is not meant to be dis- 
 respectful — 
 
 * La se font distinguer les fiertes des rigueurs^ 
 Les dedains des mepris, les tourments des langueurs; 
 On y sait demeler la crainte et les alarmes, 
 Discerner les attraits, les appas et les charmes.* 
 
 [There haughtiness is distinguished from severity, disdain 
 from scorn, pangs from pining; there they can discern be- 
 tween fear and alarm, and distinguish attraction, allure- 
 ment, and charms.] 
 
 ^^* I will suggest here a few pairs or larger groups of 
 words on which those who are willing to exercise them- 
 selves in the distinction of synonyms might perhaps profit- 
 ably exercise their skill ; — * fame,' * popularity,' ' celebrity,' 
 
 * reputation,' ' renown ' ; — ' misfortune,' * calamity,' ' disas- 
 ter ' ; — ' impediment,' ' obstruction,' ' obstacle,' * hindrance ' ; 
 — ' temerity,' * audacity,' ' boldness ' ; — * rebuke,' ' repri- 
 mand,' ' censure,' * blame ' ; — ' adversary,' * opponent,' 
 ' antagonist,' ' enemy ' ; — * rival,' ' competitor ' ; — * afflu- 
 ence,' ' opulence,' ' abundance,' ' redundance ' ; — ' conduct,' 
 
 * behaviour,' ' demeanour,' ' bearing ' ; — ' execration,' * male- 
 diction,' ' imprecation,' ' anathema ' ; — * avaricious,' ' covet- 
 ous,' ' miserly,' ' niggardly ' ; — ' hypothesis,' ' theory,' * sys- 
 tem ' (see De Quincey, Lit. Rem. American ed. p. 229) ; — 
 ' masculine,' ' manly ' ; — * effeminate,' ' feminine ' ; — ' wom- 
 anly,' ' womanish ' ; — * malicious,' ' malignant ' ; — ' savage/ 
 
 261 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 * barbarous/ * fierce/ ' cruel/ * inhuman ' ; — ' low/ * mean,* 
 
 * abject/ ' base '; — * to chasten/ * to punish/ ' to chastise '; 
 — ' to exile/ ' to banish ' ; — * to declare/ ' to disclose/ ' to 
 reveal/ * to divulge ' ; — * to defend/ * to protect/ ' to shel- 
 ter ' ; — ' to excuse/ * to palliate ' ; — ' to compel/ ' to coerce,' 
 ' to constrain/ * to force.' 
 
 ^^^ ' Slander involveth an imputation of falsehood, but de- 
 traction may be couched in truth, and clothed in fair lan- 
 guage. It is a poison often infused in sweet liquor, and 
 ministered in a golden cup.' Compare Spenser, Fairy 
 Queen, 5: 12. 28-43. 
 
 ^^^ Sermons, 1737, vol. 5. p. 403. His words are quoted 
 in my Select Glossary, s. v, ' Emulation.' 
 
 ^^' La propriete des termes est le caractere distinctif des 
 grands ecrivains; c'set par la que leur style est toujours au 
 niveau de leur sujet; c'est a cette qualite qu'on reconnait 
 le vrai talent d'ecrire, et non a I'art futile de deguiser par 
 un vain coloris les idees communes. [The precise use of 
 words is the distinguishing mark of great writers ; this makes 
 their style always fit their theme; and this quality is the 
 test of true literary ability, whereas the futile art of dis- 
 guising commonplace ideas by empty ornament is no such 
 test.] So D'Alembert; but Caesar long before had said. 
 Delectus verborum, eloquentiae origo [The choice of words 
 is the source of eloquence]. 
 
 ^^^ Thus I observe in modern French the barbarous 
 ' derailler,' to get off the rail ; and this while it only needed 
 to recall ' derayer ' from the oblivion into which it had been 
 allowed to fall. 
 
 ^^^ See on all this matter in Locke's Essay on Human 
 Understanding, chapters 9, 10 and 1 1 of the 3rd book, cer- 
 tainly the most remarkable in the Essay; they bear the 
 following titles: Of the Imperfection of Words, Of the 
 Abuse of Words, Of the Remedies of the Imperfection and 
 Abuse of Words. 
 
 ^^^ Menage is one of these ' blind leaders of the blind,' 
 of whom I have spoken above. With all their real, though 
 
 262 
 
AUTHOR'S NOTES 
 
 not very accurate, erudition, his three folio volumes, two 
 on French, one on Italian etymologies, have done nothing 
 but harm to the cause which they were intended to further. 
 Genin {Recreations Philologiques, pp. 12-15) passes a 
 severe but just judgment upon them. Menage, comme tons 
 ses devanciers et la plupart de ses successeurs, semble 
 n'avoir ete dirige que par un seul principe en fait d'etymol- 
 ogie. Le voici dans son expression la plus nette. Tout mot 
 vien du mot qui lui ressemble le mieux. Cela pose. Menage, 
 avec son erudition polyglotte, s'abat sur le grec, le latin, 
 I'italien, I'espagnol, I'allemand, le celtique, et ne fait diffi- 
 culte d'aller jusqu'a I'hebreu. C'est dommage que de son 
 temps on ne cultivat pas encore le Sanscrit, I'hindoustani, 
 le thibetain et I'arabe: il les eut contraints a lui livrer des 
 etymologies fran^aises. II ne se met pas en peine des 
 chemins par oil un mot hebreu ou carthaginois aurait pu 
 passer pour venir s'etablir en France. II y est, le voila, 
 suffit ! L'identite ne pent etre mise en question devant la 
 ressemblance, et souvent Dieu salt quelle ressemblance ! 
 [Menage, like all his predecessors and the majority of his 
 successors, seems to have been guided by a single principle 
 in etymologizing. This may be briefly summed up as fol- 
 lows: Every word comes from the word most like it. This 
 settled, Menage, with his varied knowledge of languages, 
 fell to at Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, German, and Cel- 
 tic, and did not scruple to go to Hebrew. Too bad that in his 
 time people did not study Sanskrit, Hindustani, Thibetan, 
 and Arabic ! For he would have made each of them give 
 him etymologies for French words. He did not worry him- 
 self how a Hebrew or Carthaginian word could have got to 
 France and established itself there. There it is. Well, that is 
 enough. The identity of the two words can not be ques- 
 tioned in view of the similarity — and what did the similarity 
 actually amount to, often enough.^] Compare Ampere, 
 Formation de la Langue Frangaise, pp. 19^, 195. 
 
 2^^ Leibnitz (0pp. vol. 5. p. 61) : Saepe fit ut etymologiae 
 verae sint, quae primo aspectu verisimiles non sunt. 
 
 263 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 2^2 Compare Max Miiller, Chips from a German Work- 
 shop, vol. 4. p. 25 ; Heyse, System der Sprachwissenschaft, 
 p. 307. 
 
 203 \yiiat signal gains may in this way be made no one 
 has shown more remarkably than Skeat in his Etymological 
 Dictionary. 
 
 ^^^ I do not know whether the advocates of phonetic 
 spelling have urged the authority and practice of Augustus 
 as being in their favour. Suetonius, among other amusing 
 gossip about this Emperor, records of him: Videtur eorum 
 sequi opinionem, qui perinde scribendum ac loquamur, ex- 
 istiment {Octavius. c. 88). [It seems that he agreed with 
 those who think that words should be spelled just as pro- 
 nounced.] 
 
 205 ^g ypa/x/Aaro, dypa/x/xaros, litterce, belles-lettres. 
 
 ^^^ The same attempt to introduce phonography has been 
 several times made, once in the sixteenth century, and again 
 some thirty years ago in France. What would be there 
 the results.'* We may judge of these from the results of 
 a partial application of the system. * Temps ' is now 
 written ' tems/ the p having been ejected as superfluous. 
 What is the consequence.'' at once its visible connexion with 
 the Latin * tempus/ with the Spanish ' tiempo/ with the 
 Italian * tempo/ with its own * temporel ' and ' temporaire/ 
 is broken, and for many effaced. Or note the result from 
 another point of view. Here are ' poids ' a weight, ' poix ' 
 pitch, ' pois ' peas. No one could mark in speaking the 
 distinction between these ; and thus to the ear there may be 
 confusion between them, but to the eye there is none; not 
 to say that the d in ' poic?s ' puts it for us in relation with 
 ' ponc^us,' the x in ' poi.r ' with ' pio*/ the s in * poi* ' with 
 the Low Latin * pi^um.' In each case the letter which these 
 reformers would dismiss as useless, and worse than useless, 
 keeps the secret of the word. On some other attempts in 
 the same direction see in D'Israeli, Amenities of Literature, 
 an article On Orthography and Orthoepy; and compare 
 Diez, Romanische Sprache, vol. 1. p. 52. 
 
 264 
 
AUTHOR^S NOTES 
 
 2^^ For a nearly complete list of homonyms in English 
 see List of Homonyms at the end of Skeat's Etym. Diet.; 
 Kock's Historical Grammar of the English Language, vol. 
 1. p. 223; Matzner's J^wgZ. Grammatik, vol. 1. pp. 187-204; 
 and compare Dwight's Modern Philology, vol. 2. p. 311. 
 
 ^^^ ' But nothing might relent his hasty flight/ Spenser, 
 F. Q. 3:4. 
 
 -^^ See Bacon's Novum Organon, 2: 36. 
 
 ^^^ But * trivial ' may be from ' trivium ' in another sense : 
 that is, from the * trivium/ or three preparatory disciplines, 
 — grammar, arithmetic, and geometry, — as distinguished 
 from the four more advanced, or ' quadrivium ' ; these and 
 those together being esteemed in the Middle Ages to consti- 
 tute a complete liberal education. Preparatory schools were 
 often called ' trivial schools,' as occupying themselves with 
 the ' trivium.' 
 
 ^^^ This was written in England, and in the year 1851. 
 
 212 0pp. vol. 6. pt. 2. p. 20. 
 
 213 Pott, Etym. Forsch. vol. 2. pt. 2. p. 1172. 
 21* See Sweet's Oldest English Texts (index). 
 
 21^ Kemble, The Saxons in England, vol. 1. p. 420; 
 Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, p. 98. 
 
 265 
 
LIFE OF THE AUTHOR 
 
 Both the Chenevixes and the Trenches, earlier La 
 Tranche, were Huguenot refugees, and Richard Chenevix 
 Trench had in him besides some Spanish blood, enough to 
 account for his early interest in Spanish literature, and per- 
 haps for his Celtic and almost morbid melancholy. His 
 father was a lawyer and a brother of the first Lord Ash- 
 town; and his mother, Melesina Chenevix, daughter of the 
 Bishop of Waterford, was a beautiful and witty woman, 
 whose letters her son edited in 1862 and Edward Fitzgerald 
 ranked with Walpole's and Southey's. 
 
 Born in Dublin Sept. 9, 1807, the boy was taken to 
 Eton Lodge, Bursledon, in 1810, and was entered in his 
 tenth year at Troyford School, and three years afterwards 
 at Harrow, where he met Manning, later Cardinal, always 
 his cordial friend. He went up to Trinity College, Cam- 
 bridge, in lo2o, and there read so discursively as to win 
 no academic honors. Spanish literature particularly at- 
 tracted him aiid he became the proprietor and editor of 
 The Translator. His tutor, Julius Hare, influenced him 
 greatly, but the greatest personal factor in his university 
 life was the Apostles' Club with its brilliant membership 
 of Sterling, F. D. Maurice, Tennyson, Hallam, and 
 Trench's bosom friend, the philologian, John M. Kemble. 
 The early part at least of Trench's life in Cambridge 
 was occupied with a gloomy struggle for the solution of 
 the mystery of human life. That this difficulty was removed 
 by his growing Christian faith may be seen in the auto- 
 biographic Ode to Poetry. In 1829 he was graduated 
 A. M., left Cambridge for travel in Spain, and with Kemble 
 joined in the ill-fated patriot expedition of Torrijo, whether 
 
 266 
 
LIFE OF THE AUTHOR 
 
 because of Kemble's enthusiasm or of some soldier stirrings 
 in his own heart is uncertain, for he studiously attempted 
 to conceal this incident in later years. 
 
 He took deacon's orders in the Church of England in 
 1832, being settled at Norwich; a year afterwards identi- 
 fied himself with the High Church party by becoming vicar 
 to Rose at Hadleigh, in Suffolk, whence, after a year in 
 Italy for his health, he went to Cudbridge, Hants, in 1835. 
 He took no thought of church politics himself, but Samuel 
 Wilberforce made him his curate in 1841, he was special 
 preacher at Cambridge in 1843 and Hulsean lecturer in 
 1845 and 1846, received the living of Itchenstoke in 1844, 
 and in 1846 was elected professor of divinity at King's 
 College, London, where he renewed his friendship with 
 F. D. Maurice. This chair was changed in 1854 to one of 
 New Testament exegesis, and in 1858 he became dean of 
 Westminster, a post in which he laid the splendid founda- 
 tions of Dean Stanley's work for workingmen. All this 
 time he seems to have been unambitious and quite content 
 with his lot. Both Wilberforce and Monckton Milnes, how- 
 ever, were scheming for his advancement in the Church, and 
 the story is told that Milnes, upon the death of the bishop 
 of Gloucester and Bristol, wrote to the Times that Trench 
 had been chosen to fill the vacancy, and descanted upon his 
 qualifications, — in the hope of forcing the premier's hand.' 
 The ruse was unsuccessful, if ever attempted. Trench was 
 not appointed and the report was spread that he had been 
 nominated, but that the nomination was of necessity with- 
 drawn, since it had been gazetted before it received the 
 formal approval of the Queen. But on Whately's death in 
 1863, Trench was named bishop of Dublin, and on January 
 1, 1864, was consecrated. 
 
 This appointment was none too popular. Trench's rec- 
 ord, his erudition, his patristic knowledge, his repute as a 
 
 267 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 poet, his popularity as a philologist, gave no evidence of 
 any fitness for this peculiarly trying task; and a constitu- 
 tional shyness and reserve seemed disqualifications, as did 
 his small experience as an administrator. But Trench 
 showed unusual ability, if not force and power, as leader 
 of the fight agamst the disestablishment of the Irish Church. 
 He opposed this measure with quiet dignity, although his own 
 trick of gloomy foreboding told him, what Whately's worldly 
 wisdom had seen thirty years before, that disestablishment 
 was inevitable. Less heroic were the possibilities of the 
 no less difficult years that followed disestablishment, in 
 which Trench successfully withstood the efforts of the Low 
 Church majority in Ireland to alter service and government 
 of the now independent body. His place as a leader in the 
 Irish Church for twenty years was little appreciated in 
 England during his life time; indeed, to a certain degree, 
 he was forgotten there. But as time goes his work bulks 
 larger in the ecclesiastical history of the century ; and in the 
 study of his character nothing is more illuminating than 
 this period, in which it was shown that he was more than 
 the mere literary dean or academic bishop, and that only the 
 occasion was necessary to make him the man of affairs. 
 An accident on the Irish Channel boat in November, 1875, 
 fractured both his knees and seriously affected his health. 
 He resigned from his bishopric in 1884, and died in Lon- 
 don at 23 Eton Square on March 28, 1886. He was buried 
 in Westminster Abbey, in the very scene of his own labors 
 for workingmen. 
 
 Trench married in May, 1832, his cousin Frances Mary 
 Trench. They had eleven children; two of the sons died 
 in boyhood — a great blow to their father, whose melancholy 
 was aggravated by this sorrow; another, Frederick Charles 
 Trench (1837-94), was an able and brilliant soldier and 
 diplomat, stationed first in India and then in the diplomatic 
 
 268 
 
LIFE OF THE AUTHOR 
 
 corps in Russia, and the author of expert studies on cavalry- 
 tactics, the Indian question, etc. 
 
 Personally Trench was a striking looking man, with a 
 grim, sad face bearing the trace of his morbid nature, and 
 with a splendid trumpet-like voice, very effective in 
 reading the Church service, but breaking into a great indis- 
 tinct roar in the excitement of his preaching. His fastidi- 
 ousness was almost painful, not only in his discriminating 
 exegesis of the synonyms of the New Testament and in 
 certain over-niceties in the Study of Words, but in the 
 lecture-room, where, says one of his pupils, * he used to 
 make up each sentence and say it to himself silently with 
 his lips before uttering it.' But, just as his work in Ire- 
 land proved that he was man of affairs as well as scholar, 
 it is equally evident that he was an idealist and a deeply 
 spiritual nature, and not merel}'- a man of rare erudition. 
 In the Study of Words with its wide range of topics alluded 
 to, practically the only philosophy towards which he is 
 unsj^mpathetic is rationalism or materialism — its preachers 
 he calls * false prophets ' ; dnd, on the other side, the only- 
 criticism that the present day student of words would offer 
 of Trench's discussion of words is a proneness to over- 
 spiritualize his material. 
 
 269 
 
STORY OF THE BOOK 
 
 The Study of Words is doubtless Trench's most popular 
 bookj though he would probably have ranked his works in 
 divinity and theology above it; although the literary critic 
 would prefer his poetical to his prose style ; and though the 
 modern student of language sees more actual value in 
 Trench's lexical studies than in this volume of lectures. 
 
 History and literary criticism^ notably translation^ were 
 his first essay, as the contents of the Translator show. The 
 main titles in this field are Sacred Latin Poetry, 184-9, 
 2. ed. 1864; Life's a Dream, from the Spanish of Calderon, 
 1856, new ed. 1880; Gustavus Adolphus, 1865, 2. ed. 1872; 
 Household Book of English Poetry, 1868, 4. ed. 1888; 
 Plutarch : his Life, his Lives and his Morals, Four Lectures, 
 1873, 2. ed. 1888; and Lectures on Medieval Church His- 
 tory, 1877:, 2. ed. 1879. These are all marked by deep 
 erudition and good taste. 
 
 His poetry was confined to his earlier period, and in 
 later years it is conceivable that his reserve and constitu- 
 tional frigidity were accentuated by his abstention from 
 poetic expression. Justin Martyr, 1835; Sabbation, 1838; 
 Poems from Eastern Sources, 1842; Genoveva, 1851; Alma, 
 1855; Poems Collected Anew, 1865, 9- ed. 1888; and 
 Poems, new edition, 2 volumes, 1885, is the bibliographical 
 outline of his graceful and technically excellent verse, 
 which reaches its highest in the sonnet form, and has for 
 its main vice a complete absence of humor which makes 
 him at his worst more banal than his master, Wordsworth. 
 Dr. Garnett says rather cynically that he is unoriginal, but 
 remembering his period none the worse for that. Justin 
 Martyr seems to have been scarcely less a subjective ex- 
 
 270 
 
STORY OF THE BOOK 
 
 pression of the poet's spiritual experience than the Ode to 
 Poetry; but Mr. F. W. H. Myers sees in it and the Poems 
 from Eastern Sources a remarkable objective power of 
 identification with remote characters, — in brief, attributes 
 to him some of the dramatic verity of Browning's lyrics. 
 Myers shows clearly that the poet's message is " elevation 
 through sorrow." 
 
 There is no mark of school or brand of particular dogma 
 in Trench's divinity and theology, whose illuminating and 
 truly catholic quality is due to thorough knowledge of Ger- 
 man theological thought interpreted in the light of his wide 
 patristic reading. The most valuable of his books in divin- 
 ity are the Notes on the Parables, 1841, 15. ed. 1886, and 
 Notes on Miracles, 1846, 13. ed. 1886. The Exposition of 
 the Sermon on the Mount, Drawn from St. Augustine, 
 1844, 4. ed. 1888 was typical of Trench's command of the 
 Fathers; the Hulsean Lectures on the Fitness of Holy 
 Scripture for unfolding the Spiritual Life of Men, 5. ed. 
 1880, and the Commentary on the Epistles to the Seven 
 Churches, 1861, 4. ed. 1888, and the Studies in the Gos- 
 pels, 1867, 5. ed. 1888, should also be mentioned. 
 
 The study of New Testament synonyms lies half with 
 Trench's divinity and half with his philology, and the 
 same may be said of the letter urging a revision of the 
 version of the New Testament. In English philology 
 Trench was no less erudite and no more original than in his 
 theology, and thus escaped many of the freakish errors of 
 Home Tooke or others of his too audacious predecessors. 
 From the point of view of the modern philologist the lack 
 of the sane restraint of phonetic law is Trench's greatest 
 fault; but it is to be borne in mind that the severe develop- 
 ment of the principle of the invariability of phonetic law is 
 later than Trench's prime, — and on the other hand that the 
 present school overstresses the fundamental principles of 
 
 271 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 phonics at the expense of semantics or semasiology, the 
 science of the evolution of the derived meanings of words. 
 And it is in the latter province, the fascinating field of the 
 curiosities of lexicography that our present book falls as 
 well as English Past and Present: Five Lectures, 1855, 
 14'. ed., revised by A. L. Mayhew, 1889. Apart from five 
 lectures On the Lessons in Proverbs, 1853, 7. ed. 1888, the 
 other studies are purely lexicographical, including the 
 Select Glossary of English Words, Used Formerly in 
 Senses Different from their Present, 1859, 7. ed., revised by 
 A. L. Mayhew, 1890, and the pamphlet On some Defi- 
 ciencies in our English Dictionaries, 1857, 2. ed. I860, 
 which was the direct stimulus to the New Oxford Dic- 
 tionary. 
 
 On the Study of Words was first printed in 1851, consist- 
 ing then of five lectures; in 1852 a second edition appeared 
 with an additional lecture (the fifth in this volume) ; and 
 the lecture on the poetry in words was inserted soon after- 
 wards. To trace the changes made in this little book would 
 be per se an interesting collation ; suffice it to say here that 
 no two of the twenty-two editions which appeared during 
 the author's life are verbally identical. Trench conscien- 
 tiously insisted that none of his books should be electro- 
 typed lest he have excuse to leave an early and inferior text 
 unchanged, and the Study of Words has been revised, 
 pruned, augmented, and constantly emended in such minor 
 points as the turn of a phrase, the punctuation of a sen- 
 tence, or the division of a paragraph. 
 
 All seven lectures were delivered at the Diocesan Train- 
 ing School at Winchester in 1851, when Trench held the 
 living of Itchenstoke near Winchester. Although later re- 
 visions changed the book considerably, it is still a book of 
 lectures, and even the copious footnotes, though making it 
 less lecture-like, do not make it any the less a book for a 
 
 272 
 
STORY OF THE BOOK 
 
 diocesan training school. That is. Trench would have cast 
 it into different form had he intended it for a general hand- 
 book, or even for lectures for a more general audience; and 
 to judge the book from the exigencies of any other demand 
 would be as ill considered as to take Quintilian's Tenth Book 
 out of its setting in his instructions to orators as to their 
 reading, and to make that famous essay a mere study in 
 literary criticism. Which is to say that much of the charm 
 and point of the book will be lost if it be not treated as the 
 spoken word, and if it be read without keeping in mind the 
 author's personality. 
 
 273 
 
NOTES ON THE TEXT 
 
 5 Ignorance is the mother of admiration. Apparently 
 Tacitus's phrase omne ignotum pro mirifico in English 
 dress. 
 
 7 Fossil poetry. In the essay called The Poet. 
 
 9 Poet. The Greek word is literally maker, as is the 
 Scotch. 
 
 Dilapidated. The figure of the Latin word is not that of 
 a house in ruins, but of money flung away, ' played ducks 
 and drakes with.' The other explanation is impossible, 
 since the preposition is not compounded with the noun stem 
 (so that it would mean ruined) but with the derived verb_, 
 which means to stone or to pelt. The true is the more 
 picturesque meaning. 
 
 1 1 ' Franks * or the free. Franks is now supposed to 
 be derived from a word for javelin or spear, cognate with 
 Old English franca, just as the Saxons were so named be- 
 cause of their knives, seax in Old English. Hence the 
 use of frank to mean free is derived from the name 
 of this conquering tribe, not the tribe from the adjec- 
 tive; moreover, frank and free have no etymological con- 
 nection. 
 
 11 Slave. Both Gibbon and Trench are wrong in sug- 
 gesting that the glorious name of Slave has in it any root 
 idea of glory; it is probably a mere local name. 
 
 13 Urang Utang theory. Each theory of the origin of 
 language has been hit off by its opponents with a derisive 
 phrase; thus the inter jective theory, by which primeval 
 man first spoke in exclamations is called the * ah-ha ' theory ; 
 the theory that the first sounds made by man are explicable 
 as the mere reflex of impressions on him is called the ' ding 
 
 274 
 
NOTES ON THE TEXT 
 
 dong ' theory, as if man, like a bell gave out a sound when 
 struck ; and the mimetic hypothesis, in accordance with which 
 the objects of the senses were named by primal man, as 
 by his present type, the child learning to talk, with names 
 imitating the sounds made by the object, has been ridiculed 
 under the name of the ' bow-wow ' theory, as if the dog 
 were originally called a * bow-wow.' So too the theory of 
 Noire, adapted in part by Max Miiller, that language origi- 
 nated in the rhythmic cries of early communities at their 
 communal tasks is called the * yo-heave-ho ' theory. The 
 
 * urang utang ' theory is explained in the text ; Archbishop 
 Trench's view that the characterization is a happy one 
 would scarcely be taken by the modern critic, who would 
 compare it in point of infelicity with that criticism of the 
 Darwinian theory which consisted in summing it up as 
 
 * descent from monkeys.' The ' urang utang ' theory comes 
 closer to being the consensus of present thought than any 
 other, perhaps. 
 
 1 3 Greek language has one word, namely Xoyos. This 
 notion of the identity of thought and language is the thesis 
 of Max Miiller's Science of Thought and Science of Lan- 
 guage. Moncaem in his L'Origine de la Pensee et de la 
 Parole puts it epigrammatically : * Thought is language 
 minus sound; language is not thought plus sound.' This 
 position is attacked in Whitney's Language and the Study 
 of Language. The most notable argument against it is 
 such cases as those of Laura Bridgeman and Helen Keller. 
 
 Not with names hut with the power of naming. This 
 theory, escaping the extreme hypothesis that man's very 
 vocabulary was divinely given to him, was enunciated in 
 the fourth century by that orthodox theologian and subtle 
 dialectician, St. Gregory of Nyssa. 
 
 15 He cannot do otherwise. Renan's idea that language 
 is an innate faculty is styled nativism and was held by Wil- 
 
 275 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 helm von Humboldt (see the quotation from him in Trench's 
 note 60)^ Max Miiller, Lazarus and Steinthal. The con- 
 trary theory of empiricism, that is of language as the 
 product of experience and outward circumstance, is more 
 plausible in view of modern evolutionary notions; W. D. 
 Whitney, Taylor, Madvig and Regnaud have been its lead- 
 ing defenders. The matter is entertainingly treated in 
 Farrar's Origin of Language, the argument against inneity 
 being strongly stated in Chapter 1. 
 
 16 Moffat, Robert (1795-1883), a Scotch gardener, one 
 of the first great missionaries to Africa, and father-in-law 
 of David Livingstone. He wrote a grammar and spelling- 
 book for the Bechuana language, into which he translated 
 the Bible. 
 
 17 Dohrizhoffer, Martin (1717-91)- His Historia de 
 Abiponibus, equestri bellicosaque Paraguarice natione, in 
 three volumes, 1783, does not rank as a first authority, as 
 much of the information in it is second hand. The book 
 owes most of its fame to the exquisite English version made 
 in 1822 by Sara Coleridge to accompany the Tale of Para- 
 guay by her uncle, Robert Southey. In this poem occur 
 the famous lines in which the joy of the Jesuit priest is 
 imagined, if 
 
 ' He could in Merlin's glass have seen 
 By whom his tomes to speak our tongue were taught/ 
 
 17 Krapf, Johann Ludwig (1810-81), a German mis- 
 sionary sent to British East Africa by the English Church 
 Missionary Society. He was a great explorer and one of 
 the foremost authorities on African philology, made partial 
 translations of the Bible into Swahili and other native 
 tongues, and wrote dictionaries and grammars which are 
 still standard. 
 
 276 
 
NOTES ON THE TEXT 
 
 18 The fragments of a broken sceptre, etc. The argu- 
 ment here summed up is met by Farrar in his Origin of 
 Language, p. 28^ as follows: Though many existing lan- 
 guages^ and even those of some savage nations are but 
 " degraded and decaying fragments of nobler formations^" 
 yet there are proofs as decisive that they rose to gradual 
 perfection^ as that they subsequently fell from perfection 
 to decay. 
 
 20 Arians. The followers of Arius^ presbyter of Alex- 
 andria (c. 256-S36), held that Christ was similar in nature 
 (homoiousion) to God the Father, and not of identical 
 nature (homoousion). This heresy, which came near deny- 
 ing the divinity of Christ and was at least distinctly anti- 
 Trinitarian, spread among the Goths and in the East, was 
 condemned in 325 by the Council of Nice. 
 
 The Nestorians denied the applicability of the title of 
 * theotokos ' or Mother of God to Mary, inasmuch as it 
 was incongruous with the divinity of Christ that He be born 
 of a woman ; hence they believed that the divine and human 
 natures of Christ are distinct and that any union between 
 them is merely moral and spiritual, not personal and actual 
 as is the orthodox belief. 
 
 21 Nirvana. See the excellent article in the New Inter- 
 national Encyclopaedia. 
 
 22 Pillars of Hercules, the Greek name for Gibraltar 
 and the opposite African promontory of Abyla, conceived 
 to be the limits of the civilized world. The Greeks took 
 the name from the Phoenicians, who called the straits the 
 pillars of Melkarth; Melkarth was the guardian of Tyre, 
 a god of the sun, of navigation, and of travel, identified by 
 the Greeks with Hercules, patron of travelers, whose very 
 name in the Greek form, Herakles, may have been derived 
 from Melkarth or Melkar, read backwards, as it might have 
 been since the Phoenicians wrote from right to left. 
 
 277 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 23 Boiardo, Matteo Maria, Count of Scandiano (c. 
 1434-1494). The poem referred to is Orlando Innamorato 
 written in I486, published in 1495, and frequently sup- 
 plemented and rewritten by various Italian poets of the 
 l6th century; its relationship with Ariosto's epic is treated 
 in Panizzi's Boiardo, Orlando Innamorato; Ariosto, Orlando 
 Furioso in nine volumes, 1830, a book with which Trench 
 was probably familiar. 
 
 24 Naomi. See Ruth 1 : 20. 
 
 Gaunt is a mere Anglicized form of Ghent, John's birth- 
 place. 
 
 26 Philadelphus does not, however, mean ' lover of his 
 brother,' but ' lover of his sister '; Ptolemy II. was the fond 
 husband of his own sister Arsinoe. 
 
 27 Dominicans . . . . ' Domini canes.* Hence the arms 
 of the order is a dog holding a blazing torch. 
 
 28 Valerius, Salvius, Secundus. The root ideas in these 
 three names are respectively health, safety and favouring 
 fortune. 
 
 Atrius Umber, connecting the first word with ater, black, 
 gloomy, and the second with umbra, shade. 
 
 29 Segesta, however, may be merely another form of 
 Egesta, the initial s having dropped in Greek without even 
 leaving the rough breathing (or h) as it commonly does. 
 
 29 Epidamnus in Platus's Mencechmi is collocated 
 with damnum (line 270). 
 
 Maleventum in Greek meant nothing worse than ' rich 
 in orchards,' but transliterated into Latin it spelled ' ill-come ' 
 and so was changed to Beneventum, * welcome.' This and 
 the preceding instances of the change of a name because 
 of evil omen were commonly explained by the ancients on 
 the strange and entirely untrue principle of lucus a non 
 lucendo, that is of names applied because they did not fit, 
 as if lucus, the word for ' grove,' were derived from lux, 
 
 278 
 
NOTES ON THE TEXT 
 
 light, because a grove is not light, or, an actual instance of 
 euphemism, the Fates were called Parcae, the Sparers, be- 
 cause they did not spare. 
 
 Vixerunt. The use is much commoner and more general 
 than the single instance here given would seem to show, 
 being a commonplace of Roman sepulchral inscriptions, 
 where vbci or vixit means * lived ' in the sense of ' is dead/ 
 
 30 Jesus, the Greek form of Joshua (See Hebrews 4: 
 8), means ' God is salvation.' Ahram is supposed to signify 
 *a high father,' Abraham 'father of a multitude'; Sarai 
 may mean ' contentious ' and Sarah, ' a princess ' ; Hoshea 
 is * salvation,' Joshua, ' Jehovah is salvation ' ; Israel, a 
 soldier of God,' Jacob, ' supplanter ' ; Simon, possibly 
 
 * hearkening,' and Peter, ' rock.' 
 
 31 'False prophet.* Hobbes in the Leviathan says: 
 
 * Words are wise men's counters — they do not reckon by 
 them — but they are the money of fools.' Hobbes is one of 
 the ' false prophets ' in Trench's eyes as the first great 
 English rationalist. 
 
 33 Moliere. Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, acte 2, scene 
 4, 179, * Par ma foi! II y a plus de quarante ans que je 
 dis de la prose sans que j'en susse rien.' 
 
 34 Pecore, cavalloni. A like bold figure is recorded in 
 one of Tennyson's letters : ' I have known an old fish-wife, 
 who had lost two sons at sea, clench her fist at the advancing 
 tide on a stormy day and cry out — " Ay ! roar, do ! how I 
 hates to see thee show thy white teeth ! " ' 
 
 37 Desultor. The meaning of the word is well shown 
 in Seneca (the elder), Suasorice, 1. 7j, where the Dellius to 
 whom Horace addressed the third ode of the second book 
 is called desultor bellorum civilium as having thrice changed 
 his allegiance in the civil wars. 
 
 Caprices. The etymology here given is uncertain, but is 
 the most likely of those proposed. 
 
 279 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 38 Albion, like * Alps ' is supposed to be from a Celtic 
 root meaning white. 
 
 39 Morea . . . more. The objector seems to be Fall- 
 merayer^ whose work is mentioned in Trench's note. 
 
 Florida. Besides the explanation given in the text the 
 Spanish historian Herrera gives another, namely that Ponce 
 de Leon called the peninsula so because he came to it on 
 Easter Day (March 27, 1513), which the Spanish call 
 ' Pascua de Flores ' or ' Pascua Florida.' The text is in- 
 correct in saying that * the first Spanish discoverers of 
 Florida gave it this name. Ponce de Leon gave it the 
 name in 1513; the Spanish had mapped the coast before 
 November, 1502, as John Fiske shows conclusively in The 
 Discovery of America, vol. 2, p. 76. 
 
 40 Port Natal, now called Natal, was discovered by 
 Vasco da Gama in 1497. La Navidad was the name given 
 by Columbus to the fort he built in Hayti on a harbour 
 discovered on Christmas Day, 1492. So continually did 
 the Portuguese and Spanish name their discoveries after 
 the saint upon whose day the discovery was made that it is 
 often possible to learn the exact day of a discovery by this 
 very means. La Navidad, for instance, referring either to 
 St. John's Day, June 24th, or to Christmas. Thus, the 
 Bay of Honduras was called Baia de Navidad by Pinzon 
 and Solis, who sailed from the Canaries on May 25th, 
 1497; hence the date of discovery is set at June 24th. 
 
 41 ' Golden rain.' Goldregen. 
 
 42 Squirrel, a Latin diminutive of sciurus, Greek a-KiovpoSy 
 ' shadow-tailed.' 
 
 46 Crocodile. The etymology of the word is uncertain, 
 but the early Greek use, applying it to lizards in general, 
 shows that this popular etymology, saffron (or crocus) 
 fearing, can not be correct. The analogy of * alligator ' 
 from the Spanish * el lagarto,' the lizard, is interesting. 
 
 280 
 
NOTES ON THE TEXT 
 
 Sword-side and . . . spindle-side. Trench seems igno- 
 rant of the similar usage in English of spear-side (or spear- 
 half) and distafF-side, distaff-half, or spindle-side. 
 
 47 ' Gottesacker/ The figure in the word we have kept 
 for burial-ground is no less spiritually significant ; * ceme- 
 tery ' is from Greek KOL/xrjTrjpiovy a sleeping place, first used 
 by ecclesiastical authors of a graveyard. 
 
 54 Maudlin. This, it is to be noted, is an early English 
 pronunciation of Magdalen, no doubt influenced by French 
 Madeleine; the name of Magdalen College, Oxford, is still 
 so pronounced. 
 
 55 Retaliation does not mean * to render again as much 
 as we have received ' but ' to repay in kind ' ; talis, ' such/ 
 the root word being correlative with the word quality. * Tit 
 for tat ' is then a vernacular equivalent and exemplifies the 
 altered usage only of repaying ill in kind. 
 
 5Q Retract. Trench here much overstates the case. In 
 classic Latin, Cicero, for example, retracto was used to 
 mean ' withdraw ' as well as ' reconsider,' the inseparable 
 prefix re- signifying * back ' as well as * again.' In Vergil, 
 Mneid 12: 10, the verb is used exactly in the modern 
 English sense. Reconsidering is therefore no more a pri- 
 mary meaning of the word than is withdrawal. 
 
 58 ' False prophets/ alluding to the theory, apparently 
 pretty commonly accepted now, and evidently true at least 
 of some sorts of pain, notably those produced by temper- 
 ature, that the stimulus producing pleasure differs only in 
 quantity or intensity from that resulting in pain. It is 
 Fechner, the founder of the monistic doctrine of psycho- 
 physics, who *' defends the disagreeable as of direct aes- 
 thetic value, because it augments pleasure through con- 
 trast." The materialistic basis of this psychological theory 
 is what prompts Trench to call its upholders " false 
 prophets," and the same is true of the evolutionary doctrine 
 
 281 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 that pain in its origin is a physical or nervous reflex making 
 for assured existence. This latter theory is here stated in 
 its hedonistic form. 
 
 59 Plague . . . stroke. The argument here is falla- 
 cious. ' Plaga ' in Latin does mean ' stroke/ but with no 
 such connotation as in our * stroke of God/ and with no 
 implication of an agent, divine or otherwise, who sends the 
 stroke; blow, wound, misfortune, disaster, loss are the derived 
 and frequent meanings in Latin. Here, as often in this 
 chapter there is, to the lay mind at least, a straining after 
 ethical meanings in words. To quote Trench himself (Lec- 
 ture 4), we have no right to turn an etymology into an 
 argument. 
 
 62 Humanities. Probably this term originated as a 
 contrast to divinity, meaning the study of philology, that 
 is literature and language yer se, opposed to theology; 
 literoB humanoe (or humaniores) contrasted with literce 
 divincBj thus the word grows out of the difference between 
 human and divine. The student of the humanities, in the 
 early Renaissance especially, is styled a humanist. The idea 
 of humanizing is the secondary and not the primary one, 
 therefore, and the Archbishop's explanation is incorrect. 
 See Marsh, Lectures on the English Language, lecture 3. 
 
 66 Christus . . . Chrestus. Tertullian in his Apology 
 (early in the second century) meets this sneer by afi'ecting 
 to know only the early and better meaning' of xPW^^'^i 
 he says, chap, iii, about the middle: Sed et cum perperam 
 Chrestianus pronuntiatur a vobis (nam nee nominis certa 
 est notitia penes vos), de suavitate vel benignitate composi- 
 tum est. [But even if you incorrectly call us Chrestian 
 for Christian — for you are so ignorant of us that you don't 
 know quite certainly our name — the word you use expresses 
 gentleness or goodness.] 
 
 73 Ennui. The original signification of the word was 
 282 
 
NOTES ON THE TEXT 
 
 simply annoyance ; indeed ' ennui ' and * annoy ' are merely 
 the different forms taken in French and English by the 
 Latin phrase in odio, ' in hate,' * offensive,' ' distasteful,' 
 
 * unpleasant.' The explanation given by Littre and re- 
 peated in the text is then incorrect. 
 
 79 Club. The adoption of the word ' sport ' in both 
 German and French is another case in point. In Germany 
 one of the most fin de siecle of greetings is the absurd 
 
 * Sports Griiss.' ' Bifteck ' in French is an instance of the 
 adoption of an English name for a very un-French thing, 
 and the use in French of the English word ' home ' is also 
 to be noticed. 
 
 86 ' King/ ' Queen ' too is often a Saxon word. 
 
 The divisions of time. This is true of ' year,' * month,' 
 and ' day.' The words for the lesser divisions, ' hour,' 
 
 * minute ' and * second ' are of French origin. 
 
 Three out of the four seasons. The exception is 'autumn,' 
 from the Norman French, in place of which the word * fall,' 
 of Saxon origin, is now commonly used in America and was 
 once sanctioned by literary usage in England. See Trench's 
 English Past and Present, lecture 5. 
 
 Husband is sometimes reckoned as of Scandinavian ori- 
 gin, but it occurs in Anglo-Saxon and is a parallel to the 
 Icelandic, Swedish and Danish forms, rather than derived 
 from any one of them. 
 
 87 Plough. In these lists there is no attempt to dis- 
 tinguish between different * native ' elements ; * plough ' is 
 not Anglo-Saxon (save in the sense of arable land), but 
 Norse. 
 
 87 Bere, or bear, modern English ' barley,' which ety- 
 mologically is ' bere-like,' ' here ' being cognate with Latin 
 far. 
 
 Bacon is not an exception, being Old French and not 
 Anglo-Saxon. The French word in turn is a loan-word 
 
 283 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 from the German and is traceable to the same word as 
 English ' back/ bacon being cut from the back and sides ; 
 it is probably because of the ultimately German origin of 
 the word that the misstatement in the text was made. 
 
 89 Before the migrations began. For a good reconstruc- 
 tion of the early civilization and suggestions as to its loca- 
 tion, all based on such a comparison of common words in 
 the different Aryan languages, see Clark, Manual of Lin- 
 guistics, pp. xv-lxv. 
 
 91 Heathen . . . heaths. This etymology has been 
 doubted because of the resemblance in spelling and mean- 
 ing to the Greek word iOvr) (ethne) or c^vca (ethnea), 
 which is commonly used in ecclesiastical Greek for heathen, 
 as for example in the first verse of the second Psalm, which 
 begins IvarC i(f>pva^av eOvrj (the Latin Cur fremuer- 
 unt gentes). But the resemblance is only slight; the word 
 occurs in Gothic in a form difficult to explain as a Greek 
 loan-word; and the similarity must therefore be reckoned 
 fortuitous. It is possible, however, that the use of the word 
 was influenced by the Latin pagani, of which it might be a 
 translation even. — The reader who wishes to get a notion 
 of how Trench polished and turned and changed his sen- 
 tences will do well to compare the dozen lines preceding 
 this as they are found in the text with the form given in 
 the Century Dictionary, the second quotation under the word 
 ' pagan.* 
 
 94 Cardinal. The more matter-of-fact explanation of 
 this use of the word is that the adjective was extended in 
 meaning from ' pertaining to a hinge,' and ' pivotal,' to 
 * important,' ' principal,' a meaning it had in non-ecclesi- 
 astical Latin in the last part of the fourth century ; and that 
 this high rank in the Roman hierocracy was so-called be- 
 cause of its prominence. Nothing can be much more puz- 
 zling in tracing the meaning of a word than this question 
 
 284 
 
NOTES ON THE TEXT 
 
 as to when the ' metaphor ' began to * f ade^' and whether 
 the figure was forgotten in this or that especial case; and 
 the difficulty is increased when^ as here, there are quota- 
 tions, bearing on the use of the word, which may equally 
 well be reckoned to prove that the figure was still alive or 
 be held to show only an attempt to revivify and recall the 
 long forgotten first meaning. 
 
 95 Legends, The stress put on the word * worthiness ' 
 in the definition is fallacious, doubly so, indeed; for the 
 Church at an early date distinguished between Credenda, 
 ' things to be believed ' and Legenda, ' things to be read ' ; 
 a contrast which suggests no great worthiness for the 
 legends ; and secondly ' worthy to be read ' is a strained and 
 unfortunate version of the Latin legenda, which, no matter 
 how miscalled in grammars, is merely a future passive par- 
 ticiple meaning nothing more than * to be read,' and in later 
 Latin * readings,' with no necessary subaudition of worthi- 
 ness or duty. 
 
 97 Maumetrye. The explanation of this word now com- 
 monly given is that it started with a misconception, being de- 
 rived from * maumet ' (for 'Mahomet'), meaning 'idol,' 
 because of the belief that the Moslems were idolaters. This 
 would seem to be borne out by the fact that ' maumetry ' is 
 exclusively used of idolatry, and not of false worship in 
 general. 
 
 99 ' Cockatrice ' seems derived from * crocodile,' proba- 
 bly in some one of its mutilated forms such as * cokodril,' 
 and in its early English use meant either ' serpent ' or 
 ' crocodile.' Thanks to the mere sound of the word it came 
 to mean a creature hatched by a serpent from a cock's egg ! 
 
 Non-Semitic . . . Phoenicians. The Phoenicians were 
 once considered Hamitic, because of some resemblances to 
 the Egyptian civilization (and because the Biblical account 
 in Genesis 10: vs. 6 and 15, make Canaan and Sidon the 
 
 285 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 descendants of Ham), but modern scholars, almost without 
 exception put them down as Semitic, not merely because 
 of their language but by reason of their religion and racial 
 characteristics. In general, it is considered unsafe to argue 
 that a nation does not belong racially to a family with which 
 it has a common language, unless there is historic evidence, 
 as in the case of the non- Aryan Parthians who learned Per- 
 sian, that the nation learned the language. 
 
 101 Reformation. 'Deformation' was the name ap- 
 plied by the Roman Catholics in accordance with the princi- 
 ple here suggested. 
 
 105 Magnesia, almost certainly the district in Thrace 
 and not that in Asia Minor. 
 
 Bayonet. The derivation of the name from Bayonne is 
 now pretty thoroughly established. 
 
 Gauze , . . Gaza. This etymology, often given before 
 and since, is a mere guess based on verbal similarity, as 
 there seems to be nothing to connect the town with the manu- 
 facture of the cloth. Perhaps gauze is the Persian gazi, 
 a thin cotton cloth. 
 
 106 ' Tobacco * . . . . Tabago. Several derivations 
 equally likely have been suggested. 
 
 ' Sterling ' may be a formation like * shilling,' ' farthing,' 
 * penny ' (earlier ' pening '), but the meaning of the root- 
 syllable ' ster-' or * sterl-' is quite unknown. It has also 
 been suggested that the name is due to the stamping on an 
 early coin of the figure of a starling. 
 
 107 Peony, because Apollo Paean was a god of healing 
 and the plant was medicinal; it "still has some repute as 
 a nervine." 
 
 108 Mithridates is of double interest to the student of 
 words, for this opponent of Rome, who died in 63 b. c. 
 after being thrice defeated by Roman armies, left his name 
 as a synonym of antidote, a circumstance due to the fact 
 
 286 
 
NOTES ON THE TEXT 
 
 that he had so drugged himself in fear of being poisoned 
 that his attempt at suicide by taking poison was unsuccess- 
 ful; and besides this he was a great linguist, knowing 
 twenty languages or dialects. Hence his name became 
 proverbial and by a natural figure was used as the title of 
 works on language, as for instance the notable book by 
 Johann Christoph Adelung (1732-1806), entitled Mithri- 
 dates: a General History of Languages, a book in many 
 respects the forerunner of Trench's own Study of Words. 
 
 Donet .... Donatus. Compare what has been said in 
 the preceding note about the transference of the proverbial 
 name of a person to a book dealing with the person's spe- 
 cialty. This same phenomenon supplies the hypothesis by 
 which two brilliant modern classical scholars have explained 
 the incorrect attribution, respectively of a Greek sketch of 
 mythology to Apollodorus, and of certain Latin grammatical 
 works to Probus. In the one instance Apollodorus was so 
 famous a name in the history of Greek mythology that (it 
 is conjectured) his name was used as a book title by a later 
 author ; at a still later time this book title was misconstrued 
 to be the author's name. Such misconstruction was partic- 
 ularly common in the early Renaissance when Italian schol- 
 ars searched eagerly for famous works of the classical 
 period and recognized as such manuscripts with the slight- 
 est external (and no internal) evidence. So too a later 
 grammatical treatise is supposed to have borne the name of 
 Probus as a title, just because he was so famous a gram- 
 marian, and later to have been reckoned because of its title 
 as one of the actual works of Probus. 
 
 Tertulia is more probably from the Italian * tras- 
 tullo,' pastime, delight, than from Tertullian. 
 
 109 Patch. This name may be due to the parti-coloured 
 dress of the fool. If it is, then the story of the cardinal's 
 jester named Patch is an cetiological myth, that is one manu- 
 
 287 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 factured to give an explanation of a name or custom; such 
 are particularly common in folk-lore and mythology. Far- 
 rar in his Origin of Language gives an excellent example: 
 Shotover Hill, 4 miles east of Oxford, England, actually 
 owes its name to the Anglicization of the French Chateau 
 Vert ; but since Shotover sounds English the story has grovrn 
 up that Little John, or another of Robin Hood's men, per- 
 formed the feat of shooting over the hill, and hence its 
 name, Shotover. 
 
 Dahlia . . . fuchsia . . . magnolia . . . camelia, etc. 
 In no plant name is there as much history as in Cinchona 
 or Chinchona, also called Jesuit bark, or Peruvian bark. 
 A Jesuit missionary in Peru learned in l638 from a native 
 of the qualities of this bark in time to save the life of the 
 Countess of Chinchon, wife of the viceroy of Peru. 
 
 110 Volta . . . voltaic. The electrical unit called the 
 volt also perpetuates Volta's name, and in the same way 
 the ohm and the henry, also electrical units, are named, 
 respectively, for a German and an American physicist. 
 
 Martinet. As this general seems to have been rather a 
 notable organizer and tactician, rather than a stern dis- 
 ciplinarian, and as the word is not used in the same sense 
 in French as in English, this derivation of the common noun 
 can not be reckoned firmly established. Moreover the resem- 
 blance of martinet to the proper name Martin, a derivative 
 of Mars, the name of the Latin god of war, is so striking 
 as scarcely to be a coincidence; and if the ending "-et " is 
 taken as a diminutive of contempt perhaps martinet means 
 etymologically something like ' poor little war divinity,' 
 * one who thinks himself the very personification of martial 
 principles.' General Martinet's very historical existence, it 
 may be said in passing, seems to hang on a few vague lines 
 in Voltaire's Louis XIV. 
 
 111 Reynard is identical with German Reinhard and 
 
 288 
 
NOTES ON THE TEXT 
 
 seems to signify ' strong in counsel,' * crafty.' The reverse 
 process from the French, where the fox has come to be 
 called by a personal name suggesting craft, is seen in the 
 English colloquial figure by which a sly or crafty person 
 is called ' a fox.' 
 
 America. The very general misconception as to America's 
 being named by * an error ' has been clearly and charmingly 
 put to rights by John Fiske in the second volume of * The 
 Discovery of America.' Briefly, he shows that Columbus's 
 " discoveries " were esteemed in his own day parts of the 
 coast of Asia; that Amerigo Vespucci's exploration of the 
 coast of South America, especially Brazil, in the autumn of 
 1501 and the winter of 1502, showed that the land "dis- 
 covered" by him was not Asia; but that it was still sup- 
 posed that the country to the north was Asia; that this 
 unknown southern land (Terra Incognita) explored by Ves- 
 pucci was therefore actually reckoned a discovery, whereas 
 the land first reached by Columbus was identified with Asia, 
 Japan, etc. ; and that the name America was originally pro- 
 posed, half -j ocularly perhaps, for the equatorial region of 
 Brazil, whence very gradually it spread first to South 
 America and not until long afterwards (probably first in 
 1541) to North America, too. But this outline is inadequate 
 and the reader is referred to Fiske's chapter vii, " Mundus 
 Novus." 
 
 ' Turkeys '....' dinde/ " The name of this fowl 
 preserves a curious illustration," says Fiske, " of the mix- 
 ture of truth and error which had led to the discovery of 
 America. When it was first introduced into European barn- 
 yards in 1530, people named it on the theory that it was an 
 Asiatic fowl. The Germans for a while called it Cale- 
 cutische Hahn or Calcutta cock; the French still call it 
 dinde, which at first was poulet d'Inde or India fowl; but 
 the Oriental country which it came from was really Mexico, 
 
 289 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 many thousand miles east of Asia." In fine, the bird was 
 named on the assumption that it came from Asia because 
 Mexico was still identified with India and Asia. 
 
 112 Oak . . . Druids. The connection seems all the 
 more likely because of the Welsh word derrv, oak; but this 
 is mere coincidence and the true etymology of Druid is 
 doubtless from a Celtic word for magician, drui, genitive 
 druad. — Milton in his ' History of England ' says " Druides 
 from the Greek name of an Oke." 
 
 113 Calamity. The Latin grammarians Donatus and 
 Servius thus explain the word, which modern etymologers 
 suggest may be connected with the Latin adjective incolu- 
 mis, safe, unharmed, the root meaning then being harm. 
 The trick of popular etymologizing (Volhsetymologie) is 
 very productive in the change of forms so that it often 
 results in deforming a word past recognition. Calamitas 
 in Latin, if it be connected with the root syllable of 
 incolumis, probably underwent vowel changes because of 
 the popular etymology which connected it with calamus. 
 The process of such change on a small and individual scale 
 is amusingly illustrated by Farrar in his Origin of Lan- 
 guage: because of "the dislike of terms with which they 
 are unacquainted " he says, " sailors corrupt Bellerophon 
 into Billy Ruffian; and ... a groom, . . . having the 
 charge of two horses called Othello and Desdemona, christ- 
 ened them respectively Old Fellow and Thursday Morning. 
 Lamprocles, the name of a horse of Lord Eglintoun's was 
 converted by the ring into Lamb and Pickles." A little 
 boy christened Eugen by his German parents had the 
 German pronunciation of his name converted into Ikey 
 by his American play-fellows and was registered as Isaac 
 on the school-roll of his first teacher in American public 
 schools. 
 
 114 Lumber . . , * lombard '-room. For a more likely 
 
 290 
 
NOTES ON THE TEXT 
 
 etymology connecting lumber with the verb ' to lumber ' 
 and possibly with ' lump/ see the Century Dictionary. 
 
 Library . . . bark. So too the word book has been re- 
 ferred to the Anglo-Saxon boc, beech, supposing that the 
 early German runes were written on tablets of wood (on 
 ash, says Venantius Fortunatus), but the explanation is very 
 dubious. Bible, meaning merely book in Greek (and in 
 early English, as Trench himself remarks) is the same word 
 as Pv/3\os (byblos), the Greek name for papyrus. 
 
 115 No argument of the slightest worth from so remote 
 an etymology. The general principle is an excellent one. 
 But Trench himself failed to follow it in his argument that 
 " pain is punishment," as has been noted above, and in his 
 ethical explanation of the meaning of " plague." 
 
 116 'Urchin/ * gramary.* "Not of Teutonic origin," 
 says A. L. Mayhew, ..." urchin means properly ' a 
 hedgehog,' being the old French erigon (in modern French 
 herisson), a derivative from the Latin ericius, ' a hedgehog '; 
 gramary is simply Old French gramaire, ' grammar ' = Lat. 
 grammatica (ars), just as Old French mire, ' a medical 
 man = Lat. medicum.* '* 
 
 118 * First day,* 'second day.* Walt Whitman regu- 
 larly used these names, and as well * first month,' etc. ; not 
 because of the Quaker colony, Hicksville, named after Elias 
 Hicks, near his boyhood home, but because he objected to 
 any save distinctly American names, in short he disliked 
 the commonly accepted names for the days and months be- 
 cause they were un-American, — not, like the Quakers, 
 because they were un-Christian. For others of Whitman's 
 notions on the use of words see the article by him in the 
 Atlantic Monthly for April, 1904. 
 
 119 A word of honourable use. The word is translated 
 * by interpretation ' in the English version and occurs Jolm 
 1 : 38, 42 (39, 43 in the Greek) and 9:7. 
 
 291 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 121 Queen . . . quean. The two words differ in their 
 origin and were distinct in both Anglo-Saxon and Gothic; 
 the latter has no relationship to yvvrj. 
 
 122 English poet. The reading of the text is a literary 
 curiosity. The author of the lines quoted is John Keats, 
 who died in 1821, nearly a century and a quarter after the 
 death of Dryden. The faulty allusion does not occur in 
 the earlier editions, and in the 1903 edition the editor, A. L. 
 Mayhew, has changed the text so as to read "the 'Marcellus 
 of our tongue ' (to use the words of Dryden on Mr. Old- 
 ham)." It does not appear whether this error, corrected 
 by Mr. Mayhew, occurs in any editions earlier*than Trench's 
 death and antecedent to Mayhew's editorial care. 
 
 128 A suitable garment in Latin. Dr. Westcott, Bishop 
 of Durham and one of the New Testament revisers, with 
 a fine sense for the fundamental difference in character 
 between Greek and Latin, held that many of the schisms 
 and doctrinal difficulties of the early Church arose from this 
 very translation into Latin, which was so much less meta- 
 physical and more matter of fact and inelastic than the 
 Greek ; any Latin version of the Greek ' theotokos,' God- 
 bearing, mother of God, as applied to Mary so materialized 
 the notion as to suggest immediate doubt or disbelief. 
 
 143 Roue. Both the explanation of the text and that 
 given in the author's note seem fanciful. By a natural fig- 
 ure roue, either with or without de fatigue, meant worn, 
 weary, jaded. 
 
 147 Bentley with his vigorous insight. The strange 
 misconception of the nature of the English language as 
 quoted in the text naturally suggests Bentley's dismal fail- 
 ure in his edition of Paradise Lost, which he attempted to 
 improve by conjectures, working on the fantastic basis that 
 the poem had been carelessly written by an ignorant aman- 
 uensis and then deformed by an editor. The result is all 
 the more absurd as coming from one of the greatest classical 
 
 292 
 
NOTES ON THE TEXT 
 
 scholars that ever lived. Bentley's own use of English was 
 vigorous and masterly, with no trace of pedantry. Consult 
 Jebb's life of Bentley, the chapter " English Style — Edi- 
 tion of ' Paradise Lost.' " 
 
 153 ' Lollard/ or ' Loller/ The first form undoubtedly 
 comes from ' lollen/ and so means a hymn-singer ; the sec- 
 ond is due to a popular etymology twisting the word to 
 mean loafer or idler. 
 
 154 ' Waldenses.' The name is almost certainly derived 
 from Waldus, Waldo, or, as he was probably called origi- 
 nally, Peter Valdez. 
 
 Paulicians. An eleventh century opponent of the sect, 
 hence none too creditable a witness, derived the name from 
 Paul of Samosata, a lieretic of the third century, for whom 
 his orthodox enemies could find no names hard enough. 
 The doctrines of the Paulicians seem to have a slight tinge 
 of adoptionism, and we know that Paul of Samosata was an 
 adoptionist, that is believed that Christ's sonship was only 
 due to his adoption. The more prevalent view is that they 
 were so called " from their high regard for the apostle 
 Paul." 
 
 Paterines. Paterini, or Patarini is said to be from 
 Pataria, the ragmen's quarter in Milan, where the sect held 
 meetings. 
 
 Prester John. The best summary of the legends about him 
 is given by Colonel Yule in his article " Prester John " in 
 the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 
 
 Ember days . . . Collects . . . Breviary . . . Whit- 
 sunday , . . Mass. Satisfactory derivations of each of 
 these words may be found in the Century Dictionary. The 
 same is true of chapel and ciboriumj see the same work for 
 sangraal, under the heading grail. 
 
 155 Mosaic. The derivation from Latin mosaicus or 
 musaicus, artistic, belonging to the Muses, is commonly ac- 
 cepted now. 
 
 293 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 156 Canada is presumed to be from an Iroquoian word 
 Kanada, meaning cabin; but this explanation does not ex- 
 plain. 
 
 Hottentot. The word is probably mimetic of the native 
 speech with its dull guttural ' clicks/ 
 
 156 California seems to have its name from a fabled 
 island in a Spanish romance of about 1520. 
 
 157 Arbitrary rvords. Neckar is said to have proposed 
 the word " sepal^" which looks, however, like a combination 
 of separ, the root of " separate/' with the ending in the word 
 " petal." 
 
 Hidalso does not mean * son of some one ' nor ' son of 
 
 o 
 
 wealth/ another popular explanation, but was originally 
 filiiis Italicus, a son of Italy, an adopted Roman citizen. 
 
 A point of contact always existing. This decision in 
 favour of nature rather than arbitrary arrangement as the 
 manner in which names were given seems contradictory with 
 the material explanation given by Trench in the first lec- 
 ture of Genesis 2: 19^ 20, in accordance with which the 
 naming w^as by " arbitrary arrangement." Quite apart 
 from any Scriptural narratives, it is worth remark that the 
 argument against natural naming seems the stronger. See, 
 for instance, Professor Whitney in the early part of his 
 article on Philology in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, or 
 the same author's Language and the Study of Language. 
 
 158 Apocryphal. The first explanation, identical with 
 Augustine's derivation as given in the author's note, seems 
 indubitably correct. 
 
 159 Pennalism . . . penna. The fagging or hazing was 
 called pennalism, because pennal, literally " pen-case," was 
 a slang name among the students for the more industrious 
 ' fresh ' students. — So Mayhew explains the word. 
 
 160 The author of " The Philosophy of the Inductive 
 Sciences."— Wmiam WheweW (1794-1866). 
 
 l62 Lecture 6. The best hand-books on Synonyms 
 294 
 
NOTES ON THE TEXT 
 
 are the old Dictionary of English Synonyms by George 
 Crabbe, first published in 1816 and frequently revised; 
 Roget's Thesaurus, which appeared in 1852 and in many 
 enlarged editions; and, the best modern work, Fernald's 
 Synonyms and Antonyms. 
 
 l65 Repentance . . . pcenitentia . . . resipiscentia. 
 The Greek word /x^erdvoia means ' after-thought/ ' change 
 of mind, or of purpose/ and so has a more active and forci- 
 ble meaning than pcenitentia in Latin, except as this word 
 has been theologically drawn to the same meaning as the 
 Greek word; originally pcenitentia, cognate to "pain," 
 " punishment," etc., has merely the idea of regret in it. 
 The lacking element, it was claimed, was supplied in resi- 
 piscentia, a rough equivalent, in the meaning of its compo- 
 nent parts, to the Greek word ; but according to Latin usage, 
 following the verb resipisco, the noun resipiscentia would 
 mean no more than * coming to one's senses again.' Ety- 
 mologically ' repentance ' has none of the drawbacks of 
 either of these words, since the prefix re- often implies 
 * duly,' ' as is right,' so that to the mere sorrow implied in 
 pcenitentia and ' penitence ' is superadded the notion of the 
 due results, a change of purpose, a reformation. But in 
 spite of this a certain theological set still urges the inade- 
 quacy of any English word to translate /nerdvoLa as it is 
 used in the New Testament. 
 
 172 Onus has nov/ found a place, even if it had not when 
 Trench wrote; the Century Dictionary quotes it from Char- 
 lotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, which was written in 1847, sev- 
 eral years before The Study of Words. But the Latin 
 phrase onus probandi is so common, that it is difficult to 
 decide whether in any given instance the word is natural- 
 ized English or borrowed Latin. 
 
 175 'Interference ' . . . 'interposition.' In saying 
 that " the Latin verbs which form the latter halves " of 
 these two words are " about as strong one as the other," 
 
 295 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 Trench must have derived * interfere ' from Latin ferre, for 
 the correct original ferire, to strike, is plainly more forcible 
 than ponere, to place or put. 
 
 177 Authentic . . . genuine. The distinction, as here 
 stated and as previously made by Richard Watson, bishop 
 of Llandaff (1737-1816), like many others resulting from 
 the rather arbitrary and artificial process of ' desynonymi- 
 zation,' may hold when the two words are used together; 
 but when used separately the distinction is rarely (and not 
 necessaril}^) observed. 
 
 185 Education must educe, etc. This may be an excel- 
 lent piece of pedagogy, but as etymology it is incorrect, for 
 educare, although a frequentative of educere, to lead out, 
 does not mean in Latin to draw out or unfold the powers 
 of the child, but to train, bring up, rear, — lead out of child- 
 hood, perhaps. In short, if the verb has in it a notion of 
 * leading out ' or ' drawing out,' the idea is that the person 
 to be educated is to be brought out of something and not 
 that something is to be brought out of him. The Latin syn- 
 tactician would prove this by showing that the Latin verb 
 takes a direct object in the accusative case of the person 
 educated, showing that the relation is that of the root notion 
 of the verb and the person; not a dative, indirect object, as 
 would be the case if the object depended not on the verb 
 but on the preposition compounded with it, which of course 
 would be the construction if the verb meant to draw informa- 
 tion out of the pupil. 
 
 195 Sirens ..." sereyns.' Chaucer, * Romaunt of the 
 Rose,' lines 681-685: 
 
 That, for her [their] singing is so clere. 
 Though we mermaj^dens clepe hem [them] here 
 In English, as in our usaunce. 
 Men clepe hem sereyns in Fraunce. 
 ^9Q 
 
NOTES ON THE TEXT 
 
 That is^ Chaucer's explanation of the use of the word is, 
 not that they are fairweather creatures to be seen only in 
 a calm, but " for their singing is so clear." Probably 
 Trench quoted from memory. His editor, Mr. A. L. May- 
 hew, has added a note in which he (quite inexplicably) says: 
 ' No etymology is given or implied.' 
 
 197 Fixed and recognized laws of equivalence and per- 
 mutation. The fixity and absolute invariability of phonetic 
 laws, that is of generalizations based on phonetic phenom- 
 ena, is essentially a tenet of the ' new ' school of etymolo- 
 gers, founded in Germany by Brugmann, OsthofF, and 
 Streitberg in the late '80's. Its result is that any modern 
 scholar approaching Trench's task would have written on 
 the study of sounds, not words. 
 
 197 ' Holos' (oAos) .... 'whole' The Greek word 
 KttXos (' kalos '), beautiful, good, hale, is possibly cognate 
 with the English word. 
 
 198 ' The earliest spelling.* The earliest usage is equally 
 important, especially as middle English spellings are often 
 fancifully malformed by popular etymology. For lists of 
 early uses the student will find the New English Dictionary 
 invaluable; its etymologies too make it a safe guide. 
 
 199 Phonetic spelling would not in every instance conceal 
 the etymological origin of a word, inasmuch as many 'cor- 
 rect' English spellings, as has just been remarked in the 
 preceding note, being the outgrowth of incorrect explana- 
 tions, serve to misguide the student. Such spellings based 
 on folk-etymologies are particularly common in French; 
 and one is wrongly cited by Trench (in note 206, at the 
 end), for ' poic?s ' is a false spelling, due to an attempt to 
 make the word look like Latin ' ponc?us,' whereas its true 
 derivation is from ' pensum.' 
 
 200 Pronunciation is itself continually changing. No bet- 
 ter evidence of this can be desired than what we rudely and 
 
 297 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 incorrectly call the ' false ' rhymes of the 1 8th century 
 poets^ most of which are cases where pronunciation has 
 changed one (or both) of the rhyming words so that they 
 no longer coincide. An illuminating exercise would be to 
 take Pope's version of the Iliad, list the "false" rhymes, and 
 then run down the contemporary pronunciation in each case 
 in some such book as A. J. Ellis or A. M. Bell on English 
 pronunciation. An even better argument against phonetic 
 spelling than the variation in pronunciation at different 
 times is the variation in different mouths and in different 
 ears: Bell and Ellis not only pronounce simple English 
 sounds differently, but hear them differently, as may be 
 instructively seen from Ellis's article on "Speech Sounds" 
 in the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. 
 Strangely enough this same argument has been used in fa- 
 vour of phonetic spelling, the notion being that a man's 
 written word would then exactly produce his peculiarities of 
 pronunciation, and every written letter would be phono- 
 graphic in its reproduction of the individual. A sane and 
 witty treatment of the subject is the essay called ' The 
 Progress of "Fonetik Refawrm" ' in Harry Thurston Peck's 
 What is Good English? and Other Essays. 
 
 211 Indolence. The etymological meaning occurs in med- 
 ical parlance where a painless wound or tumour is still styled 
 indolent. Technically Trench is incorrect in saying that 
 in doleo means * not to grieve ' ; for in — the Latin negative 
 prefix is never used in composition with a verb to give it a 
 negative force; the apparent exceptions are due to the deri- 
 vation of verbs from negative adjectives or substantives, the 
 prefix occurring in the noun. 
 
 214 ' By ' . . . village. In the word * by-law,' by has 
 this meaning, the by-law being a municipal rule, and not as 
 popular explanation makes it a secondary law as if the 
 word * by ' in this compound were the same as that in * by- 
 
 298 
 
NOTES ON THE TEXT 
 
 product.' On the early meaning of ' by/ * shire/ ' county/ 
 ' town/ etc., consult the first chapters of John Fiske, Civil 
 Government in the United States. 
 
 219 Redeem . . . ' buying bach.' The word is used 
 in this sense in other than a theological meaning in the King 
 James Version of the Bible; so in Ephesians 5 : Q, and Colos- 
 sians 4:5 the phrase 'redeem the time.' Perhaps 'buy 
 up ' or * ransom ' is rather nearer the meaning than ' buy 
 back/ ' re- ' having other meanings than ' back/ notably 
 ' duly.' 
 
 222 Home Tooke. John Home (17S6-1812), a bold 
 liberal politician of the period of the American war, which 
 he opposed. In 1782 he assumed the name of Tooke from 
 a patron and friend, Mr. William Tooke, whose place at 
 Purley in Surrej^ was immortalized by figuring in the title 
 of Home Tooke's Epea Pteroenta [winged words], or Di- 
 versions of Purley. This book, written in the form of a 
 dialogue, is very ingenious, very learned, especially in Teu- 
 tonic dialects, and to a certain degree valuable as correct- 
 ing the faults of his predecessors ; but it is full of positive 
 blunders, of the rashest guesses at etymologies, and espe- 
 cially of complete confusion of the parts of speech. Philo- 
 sophically the book is nominalistic, as in its famous conten- 
 tion that truth is merely relative and has only a subjective 
 meaning, because of the (incorrect) etymology of ' truth ' 
 from ' trow,' to think. But the Archbishop, strangely 
 enough, since his own philosophy is the other extreme neither 
 attacks the book nor warns his readers against it. Home 
 Tooke is frequently alluded to as the Philosopher of Wimble- 
 don, because his last years were spent in Wimbledon, 
 Surrey. 
 
 22s Guesses at Truths the joint production of Julius 
 Charles Hare, Trench's tutor at Cambridge, and his brother, 
 Augustus William Hare. 
 
 299 
 
READING LIST 
 
 The Making of English (1904). Henry Bradley. 
 
 The History of the English Language (1894). O. F. 
 
 Emerson. 
 Words and their Ways in English Speech (1901). Green- 
 
 ough and Kittredge. 
 English Etymology (1898). Kluge and Lutz. 
 History of the English Language (1894). T. R. Louns- 
 
 bury. 
 Standard of Pronunciation in English (1904). T. R. 
 
 Lounsbury. 
 Words— Their Use and Abuse (1876). William Matthew. 
 Lectures on the Science of Language (1891). Max 
 
 Muller. 
 The Sources of Standard English (1873). T. L. K. 
 
 Oliphant. 
 Old and Middle English (1893). T. L. K. Oliphant. 
 New English (1886). T. L. K. Oliphant. 
 Folk Etymology (1882). Palmer. 
 What is Good English (1899). H. T. Peck. 
 Introduction to the Science of Language (1900). Sayce. 
 Principles of English Etymology (1887-91). Skeat. 
 Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (1898). 
 
 Skeat. 
 Translation of Paul's Principien der Sprachgeschichte 
 
 (1888). Strong. 
 Outlines of the History of the English Language (1900). 
 
 Toller. 
 Dictionary of English Etymology (1872). Wedgwood. 
 Words and their Uses in Every-Day English (1870). R. G. 
 
 White. 
 Language and Study of Language (1875). W. D. 
 
 Whitney. 
 
 300 
 
INDEX 
 
 Aaron's rod, 40 
 
 abbacinare, 52 
 
 abdicate, 185 
 
 abhor, 177 
 
 aborigines, 112 
 
 Abram, Abraham, 30 
 
 absolution, 219 
 
 academy, 108 
 
 acerbity, 172 
 
 Acheron, 233 
 
 Adanson, 232 
 
 adieu, 75 
 
 admiration and igno- 
 rance, 5 
 
 admire, wonder, 170 
 
 adventurer, 53 
 
 affront, 209 
 
 agate, 106 
 
 agnomen, 187 
 
 al(Txpos, 75 
 
 aiutare, 69 
 
 Ajax, 228 
 
 aKpMTTipid^eiv, 52, 227 
 
 alchemy, alcohol, alem- 
 bic, algebra, alkali, 
 almanack, 88 
 
 Albert, 33 
 
 Albion, 38 
 
 Alcoran, 251 
 
 alderman, 120 
 
 Alemanni, 124 
 
 alhgator, 142 
 
 almighty, 172 
 
 alms, 152 
 
 amarus, 196 
 
 ambition, 208 
 
 America, 111, 124 
 
 amethyst, 117 
 
 ammonia, ammonite, 
 109 
 
 analogy, 257 
 
 analyse, 201 
 
 ananas, 141 
 
 anchorite, 88 
 
 ancient etymologies 
 absurd, 194 
 
 angel, 57 
 
 angel's eyes, 40 
 
 anger, 172 
 
 animosity, 55 
 
 annual, 172 
 
 'AuOrjvai, 45 
 
 Antioch, 126 
 
 antistrophic, 139 
 
 "apathy," Latin trans- 
 lations of, 132 
 
 apis, 195 
 
 aplomb, 80 
 
 apocalypse, 172 
 
 apocryphal, 158 
 
 apprehend, 182 
 
 aqueous, 172 
 
 Arabic in English, 88 
 
 arbitrary words, 157 
 
 archimandrite, 88 
 
 aretinism, 109 
 
 argument from ety- 
 mology, 114 
 
 Argyll, Duke of, 227 
 
 Arian controversy, 20 
 
 Aristophanes 's comic 
 compounds, 145 
 
 arithmetic, 172 
 
 arras, 105 
 
 301 
 
 arrogant, 176 
 arsenic, 117 
 artesian, Artois, 105 
 artful, 54 
 
 article compounded 
 with noun, 142, 251 
 artifice, 168 
 
 &pT05, 115 
 
 ascendancy, 116 
 
 ascetic, 88 
 
 Asia, 124 
 
 Asia Minor, 124 
 
 asinissimo, 146 
 
 assassin, 94 
 
 assentation, assenta- 
 tor, 61 
 
 assiduous, 211 
 
 assimilation, 134 
 
 astrological beliefs, 116 
 
 astrology, astronomy, 
 174 
 
 atavism, 138 
 
 Athanasius, 228 
 
 Athem, 167 
 
 Athenae, 45 
 
 atlas, 108 
 
 atonement, 187, 219 
 
 atre, 167 
 
 Atrius Umber, 28 
 
 attentive, 211 
 
 auditor, 173 
 
 augury, auspices, 119 
 
 Augustine, 243, 260 
 
 Australian native vo- 
 cabulary, 18 
 
 authentic, 177 
 
 avTOTaros, 
 
 146 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 avarice, 188 
 avenge, 171 
 avunculize, 146 
 axiom, 116 
 azimuth, 88 
 
 Bacon quoted, 149, 
 
 201, 237, 255 
 bacon, 87 
 badinage, 80 
 Bafomet, 229 
 baldachin, Baldacco, 
 
 105 
 ballads, Spanish, 34 
 Balzac, 24 
 bantam, 107 
 barb, 106 
 barbarous, 92 
 barn, 87, 118 
 barnacle, 117 
 Barrow quoted, 179 
 basilisk, 42 
 
 Baxter quoted, 27, 190 
 bayonet, Bayonne, 105 
 beatitas, beatitudo, 
 
 137 
 beef, 87 
 Beguines, 154 
 beldam, 53 
 benefice, 92, 187 
 Beneventum, 29 
 Bentley quoted, 147, 
 
 163 
 bergamot, 107 
 bewitch, 119 
 bezant, 106 
 Bible, 217 
 biggen, 106 
 Bilbao, bilbo, 105 
 bishop, 152 
 bitterness, 172 
 blackbird, 118 
 blackleg, 71, 73 
 blague, blagueur, 148 
 blanch, 172 
 bloody, 172 
 bloody warrior, 40 
 
 blue-bell, 40 
 
 Boanerges, 30 
 
 board, 86 
 
 Bohemian, 112 
 
 Boiardo, 23 
 
 Bonaparte, 25 
 
 bonhomie, 66 
 
 boor, 53, 87 
 
 borne, 80 
 
 bottee, mission, 143 
 
 boycott, 110, 145 
 
 boyish, 172 
 
 Brazilian native vo- 
 cabularies, 17 
 
 brethren of the coast, 
 70 
 
 Breviary, 154 
 
 Britain, 124 
 
 British water, 71 
 
 brougham, 110 
 
 Brugmann, 241 
 
 Bruin, 111 
 
 brunt, 203 
 
 Buddhism, 20 
 
 burdensome, 172 
 
 biu-ke, 110, 145 
 
 Burton cited, 156 
 
 — by, in place names, 
 214 
 
 cadaver, 155 
 Csesar, 262 
 cagot, 153 
 calamitas, 113 
 calculation, 114 
 calf, 87 
 
 calico, Calicut, 106 
 California, 156 
 calling, 220 
 cambric, 105 
 camelia, 109 
 camelopard, 41 
 Canada, 156 
 canary, 107 
 candidate, 208 
 candle, 117 
 cannibal, 156 
 
 302 
 
 canonical, 123 
 caprice, 37 
 Capuchin, 103 
 carbunculus, 43 
 cardinal, cardo, 94 
 Careless cited, 28 
 carp, 55 
 carronade, 105 
 cassimere, 105 
 castle, 86 
 catchpole, 78 
 Catholic, 101, 104, 123 
 Cavaliers, 102 
 cavalloni, 34 
 celadon, 244 
 celandine, 40 
 cenobite, 88 
 cerf volant, 42 
 chaire, chaise, 167 
 chalcedony, 106 
 chancellor, 86 
 changeling, 116 
 chapel, 155 
 charity, 172 
 charm, 119 
 Chaucerisms, 109 
 Chaucer's etymologies, 
 
 40, 195 
 cheat, cheater, 79 
 XeXtSJvioi', 41 
 chevalier d'industrie, 
 
 71 
 chic, 80 
 chicane, 80 
 chimerical, 107 
 Chouans, 156 
 Christian, 123, 124 
 Christology, 151 
 chronic, 172 
 church, 90 
 churl, 87 
 ciborium, 154 
 Cicero as word-coiner, 
 
 136 sqq., 149, 186, 
 
 235 
 cicerone, 78, 108 
 circle, 140 
 
INDEX 
 
 Clara, 2S0 
 clarify, glorify, 170 
 classical, classics, 100, 
 
 208 
 clerk, 92 
 Clesel, 229 
 club, 79 
 cockatrice, 99 
 Cocytus, 233 
 cognomen, 187 
 Coleridge cited, 36, 
 
 138, 170, 257 
 collect, 154 
 Columba, 230 
 comic compound 
 
 words, 145 
 common sense, 92 
 companion, 210 
 compassion, 172 
 comprehend, 182 
 compulsion, 184 
 Comte, 21 
 conceal, 172 
 conceit, 54 
 conciliatrix, 71 
 concomitance, 123 
 confidens, 241 
 congratulate, 180 
 contrary, opposite, 183 
 convertisseur, 143 
 convey, 70 
 
 convince, convict, 170 
 copper, 105 
 Copperhead, 72 
 cordovan, cordwain, 
 
 106 
 Cornwall, 213 
 Coronatus, 230 
 cosmopolite, 131 
 cosmos, 124 
 cossu, 80 
 
 costard-monger, 118 
 coterie, 80 
 
 count, county, 86, 215 
 covetousness, 188 
 cow, 87 
 craft, 168 
 
 crafty, 54 
 crank, 69 
 cravat, Croat, 105 
 crawler, 73 
 crocodile, 46 
 crown imperial, 40 
 Crusades, 94 
 crypt, 196 
 crystal, 98 
 cuckoo-flower, 40 
 cunning, 54 
 curfew, 113 
 Curia Romana, 76 
 currant, 107 
 Curtius, 227 
 cynarctomacby, 146 
 cypher, 88 
 Cyprian, 229 
 
 dabones, 146 
 dactyle, 46, 172 
 dsedale, 107 
 daffodil, 152 
 daft, 54 
 dahlia, 109 
 daisy, 40 
 D'Alembert, 262 
 dalmatic, 106 
 damask, 105 
 damhele, 121 
 damson, 107 
 SavacaraTOS, 146 
 Danish place names, 
 
 214 
 dapper, 54 
 daric, Darius, 108 
 Darmesteter, 152 
 Darwin, 21 
 days of the week, 118 
 deadly, mortal, 170 
 decimate, 117 
 dedal, dsedale, 107 
 deer, 87 
 deist, 172 
 delator, 143 
 delf, 106 
 demerit, merit, 170 
 
 demoiselle, 120 
 
 demonetize, 133 
 
 demure, 54 
 
 denigreur, 61 
 
 DeQuincey, 256 
 
 derailler, derayer, 262 
 
 derrick, 109 
 
 desert, 184 
 
 despair, 174 
 
 despecificate, 257 
 
 desultory, 37 
 
 desynonymizing, 169 
 
 deterioration of mean- 
 ing, 54, 55 
 
 detest, 177 
 
 detraction, 188 
 
 Devil's snuff-box, 
 darning-needle, 
 coach-horse, 43 
 
 diaphanous, 172 
 
 dictator, 159 
 
 diflSdence, 174 
 
 digit, 172 
 
 dilapidated, 9 
 
 diligence, 211 
 
 dinde, 112 
 
 Diogenes, 132 
 
 Dirne, 235 
 
 disastrous, 116 
 
 discernment, 186 
 
 discover, 181 
 
 discretion, 186 
 
 D'Israeli, 284 
 
 dissimilation, 134 
 
 distemper, 115 
 
 dittany, 106, 152 
 
 diversion, 10 
 
 Diversions of Purley, 
 _222 
 
 divines, 230 
 
 Dobrizhoffer cited, 17 
 
 Doderlein, 250 
 
 doily, 110 
 
 dolomite, 110 
 
 dome, 86 
 
 Dominican, 27 
 
 dominissimus, 146 
 
 303 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 donat, donet, 108 
 donzelle, 121 
 SdofjTjfxa, 236 
 Dormitantius, 25 
 dosones, 146 
 dragonnade, 143 
 Drepanura, 38 
 droll, 116 
 dropsy, 152 
 dmid, 5pvs, 112 
 Dryden quoted, 122, 
 
 137 
 dufJel, 105 
 duke, 86 
 
 dunce. Duns, 95, 109 
 duplicity, 65 
 dwarf, 116 
 Dwight, 250, 254 
 Dyrrachium, 29 
 
 earl, 86,216 
 
 eau de vie, 71 
 
 ecstasy (ecstacy), 10, 
 
 179 
 education, 184 
 effeminate, feminine, 
 
 170 
 egarement, 80 
 Egesta, 29 
 ei\iKpiP'f)S, 9 
 flpwvda, 256 
 elan, 80 
 electrum, 168 
 eleemosvna, 152 
 elend, 48 
 elixir, 88 
 Ember, 154 
 Emerson quoted, 7 
 emulation, 188 
 enchant, 119 
 enfranchisement, 11 
 England, 124, 213 
 ennui, 73 
 enthusiasm, 257 
 entity, 96 
 envy, 88 
 eTTixai/xKoiKia, 235 
 
 epicure, 108 
 
 Epidamnus, 29 
 
 Epiphanes, 228 
 
 episcopal, 152 
 
 equivocation, 96 
 
 Erdapfel, 141 
 
 Erigena, 154 
 
 escheat, 78 
 
 escobarder, 244 
 
 esemplastic, 138 
 
 espieglerie, 80 
 
 essay, 149 
 
 Essenes, 154 
 
 essentia, 251 
 
 Essex, 213 
 
 essil, 48 
 
 Esther, 33 
 
 ethics in etymology, 9, 
 10 
 
 etom-derie, 80 
 
 etymological signifi- 
 cance in poetry, 179 
 
 etymology not dull, 6 
 
 etymology as educative 
 factor, 192 
 
 evSaiixovla, 236 
 
 ev-fiOeia, 66 
 
 €v\oyia, name of small- 
 pox, 29 
 
 Eumenides, 29 
 
 euphemy, 69 
 
 Europe, 124 
 
 Euxine, 29 
 
 evangel, 57 
 
 eversio, 164 
 
 exaltation of words' 
 meanings, 57, 58 
 
 exonerate, 172 
 
 expend, expense, 114 
 
 extradition, 133 
 
 extraforaneous, 146 
 
 extremes, 116 
 
 eye-bright, 40 
 
 facinus, 241 
 faded metaphors in 
 words, 34 
 
 304 
 
 faience, 106 
 
 Fall, proof of, in lan- 
 guage, 50 
 
 false prophets, 31, 58 
 
 family names descrip- 
 tive, 24 
 
 famine, 170 
 
 fanaticism, 257 
 
 fancy, 170, 201 
 
 fascinate, 119 
 
 favor, 149 
 
 feather, plume, 172 
 
 fee, 114 
 
 feeling, 172 
 
 felicitate, 180 
 
 Felix, 25 
 
 feminin^s, 170, 172 
 
 fiacre, 245 
 
 fief, feudal, 155, 187 
 
 fiery, 172 
 
 Fifth-Monarchy, 104 
 
 Fiji vocabulary, 18, 
 226 
 
 fire-water, 71 
 
 flamboyant, 47 
 
 flaneur, 148 
 
 Florence, 233 
 
 Florida, 39 
 
 flowers, poetical names 
 of, 40 
 
 folk-etymology, poetry 
 in, 43, 44 
 
 "fool's counters," 31 
 
 forerunner, 172 
 
 foresight, 172 
 
 forget-me-not, 40 
 
 formica, 195 
 
 fortunate, 67 
 
 fossil poetry, 7, 32 
 
 fourmiller, 37 
 
 foyer, 167 
 
 fowl, 87 
 
 franchise, 11 
 
 Frank, frank, 11, 93, 
 124 
 
 freedom, 172 
 
 Freethinkers, 104 
 
INDEX 
 
 French words without 
 equivalents, 80 
 
 Friends, 104 
 
 frieze, 105 
 
 fripponerie, 80 
 
 fuchsia, 109 
 
 Fuller, puns on name, 
 28 
 
 fustian, 105 
 
 Galileans, 126 
 
 galloway, 106 
 
 galvanism, 110 
 
 gamboge, 106 
 
 gamin, 148 
 
 ganch, 52 
 
 garble, 55 
 
 gas, 255 
 
 Gaunt, 24 
 
 gauze, 105 
 
 Gemuth, 81 
 
 gene, 73 
 
 Genesis on birth of 
 language, 13, 14 
 
 gentian, 108 
 
 gentil, 80 
 
 genuine, 177 
 
 Gerber, 227, 231, 240 
 
 German, Germanv, 
 124, 155 
 
 German words with- 
 out equivalents in 
 English, etc., 81 
 
 ghost, spirit, 170 
 
 Gibbon, 225, 242 
 
 gigmanity, 146 
 
 gilt-cup, 40 
 
 gipsy, 112 
 
 girl, 196 
 
 Glaubers, 108 
 
 glorify, clarify, 170 
 
 glycyrize, 157 
 
 Gnostic, 102, 104 
 
 Gobehn, 110 
 
 God, good, 113 
 
 "Godly," 72 
 
 Godsacre, 47 
 
 golden knob, 42 
 golden mean, 116 
 golden rain, 41 
 Golden Spears, 39 
 goldfinch, 42 
 good-by, 75 
 . Good Hope, 29 
 good people, 29 
 goose, 197 
 gordian, 108 
 yopyid^eiv, 245 
 Gospels, 123 
 Gothic, 100 
 goulard, 110 
 goupil. 111 
 gramary, 116 
 Great Britain, 124 
 Greeks, 124 
 Greek Church, 104 
 grief, 172 
 Grimm, 231, 242, 254, 
 
 260 
 Guesses at Truth, 223 
 Gueux, 103 
 guile, 168 
 guillotine, 110, 144 
 guinea, 106 
 Gulf of Lyons, 112 
 
 habit, 116 
 hablar, habler, 81 
 Habsburg, 212 
 haft, 203 
 hag, 116 
 halcyon, 43 
 handbook, 172 
 hands, 67 
 hansom, 110 
 happiness, happy, 67 
 harrow, 87 
 hate, 177 
 haversack, 118 
 head-money, 70 
 hearer, 173 
 hearth, 86 
 hearts-ease, 40 
 heathen, 91 
 
 305 
 
 hector, 111 
 
 Heimweh, 81 
 
 Helen, 26, 228 
 
 Helmont, 255 
 
 herb-of -grace, 40 
 
 Herculean, 107 
 
 heresy, 188 
 
 hermeneutics, hermet- 
 ic, 107, 119 
 
 hermit, 88 
 
 e|ts, 236 
 
 Heyse, 250, 264 
 
 hidalgo, 157 
 
 hide, 172 
 
 Hildebrand, 26 
 
 Himalaya, 38 
 
 hind, 81 
 
 hippocras, 108 
 
 Hobbes, 31, 184 
 
 '6\os, 197 
 
 homage, 86 
 
 home, 86 
 
 homicide, 172 
 
 homoiousion, homo- 
 ousion, 20 
 
 homonyms, 206 
 
 honnetete, 73 
 
 Hooker quoted, 190 
 
 Horace, 259 
 
 Hoshea, Joshua, 30 
 
 Hottentot, 156 
 
 house, 86 
 
 Huguenot, 153 
 
 humanitas, 63 
 
 Humboldt, 239, 248 
 
 humility, 57 
 
 humour, humours, 115 
 
 hundred, 216 
 
 hunger, 170 
 
 vTroKopiC^adai, 238 
 
 hurricane, 113 
 
 Hus, 228 
 
 hypothesis, 172 
 
 lapetus, 113 
 
 idiot, iSKoT-nsy 74, 251 
 
 idolatry, 128 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 igneous, 172 
 
 Iliads without a Ho- 
 mer, 34 
 
 illegible, 172 
 
 ill-starred, 116 
 
 imagination, 169 
 
 imperator, 91 
 
 impotens, impotent, 62 
 
 incivisme, 144 
 
 incog, 145 
 
 Independents, 104 
 
 India, 124 
 
 indigentia, 137 
 
 indigo, 106 
 
 Indo-European, 99 
 
 Indo-European vocab- 
 ulary, 88, 89 
 
 indolence, indolentia, 
 211 
 
 ineptus, 240 
 
 ine\atable, 172 
 
 infanticidium, 130 
 
 Infelix, 25 
 
 influence, influenza, 
 116 
 
 ingenue, 80 
 
 ingenuous, ingenious, 
 186 
 
 inimical, 172 
 
 inneity of language, 14 
 
 Innigkeit, 81 
 
 innocent, 66 
 
 insolent, 176 
 
 instruction, 184 
 
 insult, 209 
 
 integrity, 60 
 
 interference, interposi- 
 tion, 175 
 
 invent, discover, 181 
 
 invidia, invidentia, 
 137 
 
 ire, 172 
 
 Irenaeus, 27 
 
 irregular, 176 
 
 isothermal, 138 
 
 Israel, Jacob, 30 
 
 Italy, 124 
 
 Jacob, Israel, 30 
 
 Jacob's ladder, 40 
 
 Jaherr, 61 
 
 jalap, 106 
 
 jane, 105 
 
 Japheth, 113 
 
 Jean Paul, 231 
 
 Jehovah, 112 
 
 Jerome quoted, 164 
 
 Jesus, meaning o f 
 name, 30 
 
 jet, 106 
 
 Johnson a poor ety- 
 mologer, 194 
 
 John the Baptist, 30 
 
 Jonson quoted, 28, 138 
 
 Joshua, 30 
 
 journal, 117 
 
 journey, 117 
 
 Jove, 113 
 
 jo\aal, 116 
 
 Jutland, 112 
 
 Ka\6s, 75 
 Karfunkel, 43 
 Kartoffel, ]34, 141 
 Keats quoted, 122 
 Kemble, 265 
 Kerseymere, 105 
 Ketzer, 153 
 kickshaws, kickshose, 
 
 152 
 kind, 64 
 king, 86 
 king-cup, 40 
 kingdom, reign, 170, 
 
 172 
 kingfisher, 42 
 kingly, 172 
 knave, Knabe, 53 
 knobstick, 73 
 Krapf cited, 17 
 Kvpiandv, 90 
 
 labarum, 154 
 laburnum, 41 
 lady-bird, lady-cow, 42 
 
 306 
 
 lady's fingers, lady's 
 smock, etc., 40 
 
 lambiner, 244 
 
 landau, 106 
 
 language, theories of 
 its origin, 12 sqq. 
 
 lanterner, 144 
 
 larder, 118 
 
 larkspur, 40 
 
 Latin and Saxon 
 doublets, 171 
 
 Latin Church, 104 
 
 Latin poets as etymol- 
 ogists, 234 
 
 Latitudinarians, 104 
 
 latro, 241 
 
 lazar, lazaretto, 108 
 
 leei, 54 
 
 legend, 95 
 
 Leibnitz, 263 
 
 leichtsinnig, 235 
 
 leman, 53 
 
 lendemain, 251 
 
 Lent lily, 40 
 
 leonine verses, 158 
 
 leopard, 99 
 
 lesson, 217 
 
 Levellers, 104 
 
 lewd, 55 
 
 haison, 80 
 
 hbertine, 61 
 
 hberty, freedom, 172 
 
 library, 114 
 
 licorice, 156 
 
 Lightfoot, 163 
 
 ligneous, 1 72 
 
 lierre, 251 
 
 lilliputian, 111 
 
 limbo, 123 
 
 limner, illuminer, 113 
 
 lingot, 251 
 
 Littre, 224, 246, 254 
 
 loathe, 177 
 
 Lobau, 26 
 
 Locke, 262 
 
 Logos, 166 
 
 Lollard, Loller, 153 
 
INDEX 
 
 Longfellow en Gods- 
 acre, 48 
 
 long pig, 70 
 
 loose-strife, 40 
 
 loss of precise etymo- 
 logical meaning, 117 
 
 love, charity, 172 
 
 love-child, 70 
 
 love-in-idleness, love 
 lies bleeding, 40 
 
 lucubration, 118 
 
 lumber, 114 
 
 lunacy, 119 
 
 lunes, 172 
 
 luscinia, lusciniola, 44 
 
 Lutheran, 102 
 
 Lyons, Gulf of, 112 
 
 macadamize, 110 
 
 macassar, 106 
 
 Macedonia, 124 
 
 macintosh, 110 
 
 Maculist, 72 
 
 Madagascar, 124 
 
 Madeira, 39 
 
 magazine, 88 
 
 magnesia, 105 
 
 magnet, 105 
 
 magnolia, 109 
 
 Mahn, 254 
 
 Mahomet, 229 
 
 maiden-blush, maiden- 
 hair, 40 
 
 majolica, 106 
 
 majority, name for 
 dead, 29 
 
 maker, 48 
 
 Malaparte, 25 
 
 Maleketh, 186 
 
 Maleventum, 29 
 
 malice, 74, 80 
 
 Malignant, 72 
 
 malin, 74 
 
 Malmsey, 106 
 
 Manes, Manichseus, 
 229 
 
 manly, 172 
 
 Mansarde, 245 
 manual, 172 
 Marah, 24 
 marechal, 120 
 Margaret, 33 
 Marivaudage, 245 
 Marlowe quoted, 26 
 Marsh, 256 
 marshal, 120 
 martinet, 110 
 martjT, 57 
 mass, 154 
 materials named from 
 
 places, 105 
 matriarch, 146 
 maudUn, 54 
 mausoleum, 108 
 maumet, 97 
 Max Muller, 263 
 megrim, 152 
 /neWoviKidco, 145 
 Menage, 262 
 menial, 53 
 mentor. 111 
 Mephistopheles, 254 
 mercurial, 116 
 mere-grot, 44 
 merit, demerit, 170 
 Merkani, 156 
 Merry Dancers, 43 
 mesmerize, 110 
 metaphor, 257 
 Methodist, 102, 178 
 Metrophanes, 229 
 Metternich, 229 
 Michaelis, 243 
 michers, 70 
 Middlesex, 213 
 Mill, 227, 242, 251 
 Milton, 179, 238, 258 
 miniature, 118 
 minimissimus, 146 
 minion, 53 
 
 minions of the moon, 70 
 miscreant, 94 
 miser, miserable, 59, 
 
 236 
 
 307 
 
 mithridate, 108 
 mob, 144 
 Moffat cited, 16 
 Moliere quoted, 33 
 mollify, 172 
 Momiers, 103 
 Monachus, monk, 123 
 monastery, monk, 88 
 monody, 118 
 Mons Pileatus, 45 
 Montaigne, 38, 224, 
 
 252, 260 
 Montesquieu, 261 
 moons, 172 
 morality of words, 9, 
 
 10, 50 sqq. 
 morbidezza, 77 
 Morca, 38 
 mores. 177 
 morganatic, 155 
 Morimo, 16 
 mors, 196 
 mortal, deadly, 170 
 mosaic, 155 
 mouth, 55 
 Mouton, 26 
 much, mucho, 197 
 mulierositas, 137 
 Mummer, 103 
 mundane, 172 
 murder, 172 
 muslin, Mossul, 106 
 mutton, 87, 170 
 mystery, 58, 119 
 
 Nabal, 24 
 nadir, 88 
 
 names really descrip- 
 tive, 25 
 Naomi, 24 
 Naples, 118 
 Napoleon quoted, 26 
 Natal, 40 
 Natolie, 251 
 naturalist, 178 
 natural selection, 21 
 nausea, 118 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 nave, 172 
 nay, no, 258 
 Nazarenes, 126 
 Neapolitan metaphors, 
 
 34 
 needy, needful, 170 
 negus, 109 
 neologist, 138 
 Nestorian controversy, 
 
 20 
 neutralization, 133 
 New Forest, 118 
 newt, 251 
 new words for new 
 
 thoughts, 19, 127 
 New Testament, 123 
 nicotine, 110 
 Niebuhr quoted, 194 
 night-mare, 116 
 Nirvana, 21 
 Nisard, 252 
 no, nay, 258 
 Noah's Ark, 43 
 nomen, 187 
 nonna, nun, 123 
 Norman elements in 
 
 English, 84 
 Normans, 124 
 North, 244, 251 
 vSffrifios, 48 
 novelist, 178 
 noyade, 144 
 numeration, 172 
 nun, 123 
 nydiot, 251 
 
 oaf, 116 
 objective, 96 
 obligation, oblige, 64, 
 
 184 
 obsequium, 149 
 occisissimus, 146 
 octogamy, 146 
 oculissimus, 146 
 Odem, 167 
 officious, 54 
 Old Nick, 116 
 
 omens in names, 29 
 omnipotent, 172 
 onerous, 172 
 opposite, 183 
 orgies, 54 
 origin of language, 
 
 12 sqq. 
 orrery, 109 
 orthodox, 104 
 ottimissimo, 146 
 Ottoman, 108 
 Our Lady's mantle. 
 
 Our Lady's slipper, 
 
 40 
 ox, 87 
 Ozanam, 241 
 
 Padishah, 186 
 pagan, 90 
 pain, 58 
 palace, 86, 118 
 palm oil, 70 
 palsy, 152 
 pander, 111 
 panic, 107, 119 
 pantaloons, 109 
 panther, 195 
 papable, 139 
 paper, 114 
 Paradise, 57 
 paraffin, 156 
 paralysis, 152 
 paramour, 53 
 parchment, 106 
 parlar, parler, 81 
 party nicknames, 102 
 parvenu, 80 
 pasquinade, 109 
 passion, 62 
 pastime, 9 
 pastor, 171 
 patata, 141 
 patch, 109 
 Paterine, 154 
 Patres Conscripti, 155 
 patruissimus, 146 
 raulician, 154 
 
 308 
 
 Paul's Hsts of virtues 
 and \ices, 51 
 
 pavaner, 37 
 
 pavo, 195 
 
 Peace, 75 
 
 peach, 107 
 
 pecore, 34 
 
 pecunia, 114 
 
 pedagogical value of 
 words, 31 
 
 pedant, 53 
 
 Peile, 250 
 
 pelegrino, 77 
 
 pcnnalism, 159 
 
 Pentheus, 228 
 
 peony, 107 
 
 perfide, 74 
 
 persiflage, 80 
 
 pert, 55 
 
 pessimissimus, 146 
 
 Peter, Simon, 30 
 
 petrel, 42 
 
 petroleuse, 144 
 
 Pfaffe, 79 
 
 phantasy, fancy, 201 
 
 pheasant, 107 
 
 Philadelphus, 26 
 
 phihppic, 108 
 
 philofelist, 146 
 
 (piXScTTopyos, 80 
 
 Philpot, name punned 
 on, 28 
 
 Phlegethon, 233 
 
 Phoebe, 120 
 
 phonetic spelling, 199, 
 200 
 
 physician, 134 
 
 Piagnoni, 72 
 
 Piers Plowman quo- 
 ted, 91 
 
 Pilatus, Pileatus, 45 
 
 pineapple, 142 
 
 plague, 59 
 
 plantation, 179 
 
 plausible, 55 
 
 plough, 87 
 
 plume, 172 
 
INDEX 
 
 poena, 59 
 
 pa?nitentia, 165 
 
 poesy, poetry, 257 
 
 poet, 48, 132, 135 
 
 poetic folk-etymolo- 
 gies, 43, 44 
 
 policeman, 78 
 
 pompifex, 229 
 
 Poncel, 239 
 
 Tfov-qpia, itSvos, 60 
 
 pope, 121 
 
 pork, 87 
 
 positive philosophy, 
 21 
 
 post, 204 
 
 potato, 141 
 
 pot de vin, 71 
 
 Pott, 255, 256 
 
 potus, 237 
 
 poudre de succession, 
 69 
 
 prsenomen, 187 
 
 pransus, 237 
 
 precursor, 172 
 
 predicament, 116 
 
 prejudice, prejudicial, 
 56 
 
 Premier, 103 
 
 Prester John, 154 
 
 presumptuous, 176 
 
 prevenant, 80 
 
 priestly, 172 
 
 primed, 69 
 
 Prime Minister, 103 
 
 prince, 86 
 
 Prometheus, 26 
 
 pronuba, 241 
 
 propitiation, 187 
 
 proser, 53 
 
 protean, 107 
 
 province, 155 
 
 prude, 65 
 
 prudence, 172 
 
 Prussians, 124 
 
 publicans, 78 
 
 puck, 116 
 
 puerile, 172 
 
 pullet, 87 
 
 puns on names, 26-28 
 Puritan, 102, 104 
 purveyors, 70 
 Pythagoras, 150, 248 
 
 Quaker, 102 
 
 Quaker nomenclature, 
 118 
 
 quarantine, 117 
 
 quassia, 109 
 
 quean, queen, 121 
 
 queen - of - the - mead- 
 ows, 40 
 
 quelques choses, kick- 
 shaws, 152 
 
 quince, 107 
 
 quinsy, 152 
 
 quintessence, 117 
 
 Quintilian, 250, 253, 
 260 
 
 Quirites, 155 
 
 quixotic. 111 
 
 rake, 87 
 
 rape, 216 
 
 rapture, 10 
 
 rationalist, 150 
 
 ratten, 145 
 
 ravishment, 10 
 
 razzia, 144 
 
 real, 96 
 
 realm, 86, 172 
 
 reason, understanding, 
 257 
 
 reason and word, 13 
 
 recidivist, 144 
 
 reconciliation, 187 
 
 Redeemer, redemp- 
 tion, 219 
 
 Reformation, 21 
 
 refugee, 143 
 
 regal, 172 
 
 regeneration, 58 
 
 reign, kingdom, 170, 
 172 
 
 309 
 
 reine-marguerite, 40 
 Rejoice, 75 
 relaxation, 211 
 relent, 210 
 religion, 10 
 remaining, name for 
 
 slain, 29 
 removal, 69 
 Renaissance, 101 
 Renan, 225, 248, 249, 
 
 255 
 repentance, 165 
 reprehend, 210 
 resent, resentment, 55 
 resipiscentia, 165 
 retaliation, 55 
 retract, 56 
 revelation, 172, 218 
 revenge, 171 
 Revival of Learning, 
 
 100 
 Reynard, 111 
 rhubarb, 106 
 rickets, 152 
 ringleader, 53 
 rise and fall of words, 
 
 120 
 rivals, 210 
 rococo, 148 
 rodomontade. 111 
 Rodomonte, 24, 111 
 romance, 92 
 romantic, 100 
 Rome, 124 
 roof, 86 
 
 roquelaure, 109 
 rose-marguerite, 40 
 rosemary, 40 
 rose-window, 47 
 rossignol, 44 
 roue, 143 
 
 Roundhead, 102, 153 
 royal, 172 
 royalty, 86 
 rubric, 117 
 ruse, 80 
 Rutilius, 246 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 sacerdotal, 172 
 
 sacrament, 92 
 
 sselig, 66 
 
 Saint E\Temond, 261 
 
 St. Nicholas' clerks, 70 
 
 Salic, 155 
 
 salubrious, 172 
 
 salutificator, salvator, 
 129 
 
 Sahius, 28 
 
 Samaritan, 94 
 
 Sanderson quoted, 60 
 
 Sangraal, 155 
 
 sanguine, 172 
 
 sans-culotte, 144 
 
 Sarai, Sarah, 30 
 
 sarcasm, 210 
 
 sarcenet, 105 
 
 sarcophagus, 117 
 
 sardanapalisme, 244 
 
 sardonic, 117 
 
 Satanasius, 228 
 
 saturnine, 116 
 
 Satm-nus, 155 
 
 savage, 201 
 
 savage vocabulary de- 
 graded, 16 
 
 sa\aoiu", 129 
 
 Saxon elements in Eng- 
 lish, 84 
 
 Sayce, 241 
 
 sbirri, 78 
 
 scab, 73 
 
 sceptre, 86 
 
 Schadenfreude, 225 
 
 Schalk, 235 
 
 scliism, 188 
 
 Schlecht, 236 
 
 Schleicher, 231 
 
 Scipio Africanus quo- 
 ted, 28 
 
 scoganisms, 109 
 
 scripture, 217 
 
 scythe, 87 
 
 secularization, 133 
 
 Secundus, 28 
 
 Sedakat, 66 
 
 Seekers, 104 
 Segesta, 29 
 Sehnsucht, 81 
 self-sufficient, 76 
 Semitic, 99 
 Seneca, 251 
 Senlac, Sanglac, 45 
 sentiment, 172 
 sermo, 165 
 servator, 129 
 severitas, 155 
 shaddock, 109 
 shady, 172 
 Shakespeare, pun on 
 
 name, 28 
 Shakespeare quoted, 
 
 24, 70, 71 
 shalloon, 106 
 sham, 145 
 share, 87, 203 
 sharper, 71 
 sheaf, 87 
 shear, 203 
 Shechem, 229 
 Shedd, 227 
 sheep, 87, 170 
 sheepish, 66 
 shepherd, 171 
 sherd, 203 
 sherry, 106 
 ship, 172 
 shire, 203, 215 
 short pig, 70 
 sickle, 87 
 sierra, 9 
 sign, 114 
 silhouette, 244 
 silk, 105 
 silly, 66 
 
 Simon Peter, 30 
 simony, 108 
 simple, 65 
 Siren, 195 
 Sittsamkeit, 81 
 slander, 188 
 slave, 12 
 sniveller, 72 
 
 310 
 
 snow-flake, 40 
 soften, 172 
 solar, 172 
 solecism, 107 
 soliloquium, 149 
 Solomon's seal, 40 
 adijjtaTa, 236 
 sophist, 92 
 Sorbonne, 230 
 sorrow, 172 
 sospitator, 129 
 South quoted, 60, 64, 
 
 68 
 sovereign, 86 
 spade, 87 
 spaniel, 106 
 Spanish ballad poetry, 
 
 34 
 specious, 54 
 spelling, earliest, guide 
 
 to derivation, 198 
 spelling, phonetic, 199, 
 
 200 
 Spencer, 109 
 spindle-side, 46 
 spirit, ghost, 170 
 spirituel, 74 
 squatter, 121 
 squirrel, 42 
 stag-beetle, 42 
 stake, 206 
 
 star of Bethlehem, 40 
 starry, 172 
 steer, 87 
 stellar, 172 
 stelho, 42, 46 
 stellionatus, 46 
 stentorian, 111 
 Stephen, 27, 33 
 sterhng, 106 
 Sterry, 27 
 stipulation, 113 
 stirrups, 118 
 stock, 205 
 -stoke, in place names, 
 
 214 
 stratagem, 168 
 
INDEX 
 
 Stubbs, 254, 265 
 
 Styx, 233 
 
 subjective, 96 
 
 subscribe, 114 
 
 subtle, 210 
 
 succinum, 168 
 
 succour, 209 
 
 sundew, 40 
 
 sunny, 172 
 
 supercilious, 210 
 
 superstition, 159 
 
 superstition, traces of, 
 in words, 119 
 
 supposition, 172 
 
 surgeon, 152 
 
 siu'name, 218 
 
 surplice, 118 
 
 sur\ival of fittest, 21 
 
 Susanna, 33 
 
 Sussex, 213 
 
 Sweet, 264 
 
 sweet Alison, sweet 
 William, etc., 40 
 
 Swift's etymologies, 
 195 
 
 swindler, 53 
 
 swine, 87 
 
 sword-side, 46 
 
 Sychar, 229 
 
 sycophant, 159 
 
 synonjTns, 162 
 
 synonyms discrimi- 
 nated, 173 
 
 tabinet, 110 
 table, 86 
 Tacitus, 248 
 talent, 63 
 tansy, 152 
 tantalize, 107 
 tapfer, 54 
 Taprobane, 38 
 tarantula, 107 
 tariff, 88 
 tartuffe. 111 
 Tasmanian native vo- 
 cabulary, 18 
 
 tawdry, 54 
 
 temper, 115 
 
 temporal, 172 
 
 terrorisme, 144 
 
 tertulia, 108 
 
 Teuffel, 27 
 
 Teutonic mythology, 
 116 
 
 theist, 172 
 
 theocracy, 128 
 
 theotokos, 20 
 
 -thorpe, suffix, 214 
 
 thrasonical. 111 
 
 throne, 86 
 
 Thucydides, 238 
 
 Tiberius Claudius 
 Nero, 228 
 
 Tiefsinn, 81 
 
 tight, 69 
 
 tilbury, 106 
 
 time-server, 53 
 
 timid, 172 
 
 tinsel, 54 
 
 tobacco, 106 
 
 Tolosa, 229 
 
 tolpatchery, 146 
 
 tontine, 110 
 
 Tooke, 152, 222 
 
 tooth, 197 
 
 topaz, 43 
 
 Tormentoso, 29 
 
 tort, 203 
 
 Tory, 102 
 
 Tott, 27 
 
 tournure, 80 
 
 tracasserie, 80 
 
 tragedy, 158 
 
 translations, inade- 
 quacy of, 164 
 
 transhteration, 134 
 
 transport, 10 
 
 transubstantiation, 21, 
 123 
 
 Traveller's joy, 40 
 
 treasurer, 86 
 
 tribulation, 35 
 
 Trinacria, 38 
 
 311 
 
 Trinity, 123 
 triticum, 232 
 trivial, trivium, 210 
 Turbanus, 229 
 turkey. 111 
 
 turquoise, Turkey, 106 
 Tylor, 227 
 Tyndale quoted, 96 
 tyrant, tyranny, 124 
 
 Uberti, Faglio degli, 
 
 233 
 ultio, 171 
 umbrageous, 172 
 understanding, 257 
 understatement, 69 
 unfriendly, 172 
 Unitarian, 101 
 unload, 172 
 unreadable, 172 
 unshunnable, 172 
 "urang-utang" theory 
 
 of language, 13 
 urbanus, 149 
 Urbanus, 229 
 urchin, 116 
 usignuolo, 44 
 
 Valerius, 28 
 
 valet, 53 
 
 Vane, 27 
 
 varied 53 
 
 vaticide, 146 
 
 veal, 87 
 
 vengeance, 170 
 
 venison, 87 
 
 Venus' looking-glass, 
 
 40 
 verb, 208 
 verbum, 165 
 Verhangniss, 81 
 verite, 74 
 vernicle, 108 
 Verres, 228 
 versio, 164 
 verve, 80 
 Vespasian, 110 
 
THE STUDY OF WORDS 
 
 Vigilantius, 25 
 
 villain, 53, 87 
 
 Vincentius, 230 
 
 vindicta, 171 
 
 Virgil, 233 
 
 Virgin's bower, 40 
 
 virile, 172 
 
 virtual, 96 
 
 virtue, 64 
 
 virtuoso, 76 
 
 virtus, 77 
 
 \itiositas, 137 
 
 vixerunt, 29 
 
 vocabulary limits de- 
 velopment, 16 
 
 vocabulary, too scant, 
 188 
 
 vocalitas, 250 
 
 vocation, 220 
 
 volcanic, 107 
 
 voltaic, 110 
 
 voluble, 54 
 
 volume, 114 
 
 voluntary, wilful, 170 
 
 wain, 87 
 
 Walafrid Strabo, 242 
 
 Waldenses, 154, 229 
 
 watery, 172 
 
 wearying in wicked- 
 ness, 60 
 
 Wechselkind, 116 
 
 Weltschmerz, 81 
 
 wench, 54 
 
 Whewell cited, 20 
 
 Whig, 102 
 
 whiten, 172 
 
 Whitsunday, 154 
 
 whole, 197 
 
 wholesome, 172 
 
 Wiclif, 229 
 
 wight, 116 
 
 wilful, voluntary, 170 
 
 windfanner, w i n d - 
 hover, 43 
 
 winds of the soml, 
 49 
 
 Wither's poem on trib- 
 ulation, 35 
 
 womanly, 172 
 wonder, admire, 170 
 word and reason, 13 
 words' influence on 
 
 opinion, 98 
 Wordsworth, 169, 
 
 257 
 worldly, 172 
 worsted, 105 
 -worth, -worthy, in 
 
 place names, 214 
 wrong, 203 
 
 Yankee, 156 
 yea, yes, 258 
 yearly, 172 
 ypocras, 108 
 
 zenith, 88 
 zero, 88 
 Zigeuner, 155 
 Zucht. 81 
 
 312 
 
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 It is this principle of proportionate prices which the gen- 
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 serted in the cloth and leather bindings in such a way as 
 to permit its removal without damaging the book. 
 
 This new system of publishing is more logical than the 
 system of fixed prices for reprints. Other things being 
 equal, it costs less to produce a short book than a long one. 
 Hitherto the selling price of the short book has been as high 
 as that of the long. And even the longest book has not 
 been sold to you at a loss. We give you the benefit of the 
 saving on the sliorter book. Our prices are regulated by 
 the cost of the actual materials and workmanship which go 
 toward the making of the book. 
 
 316 
 
WITH WHAT BOOKS DOES THE UNIT SERIES 
 BEGIN? In compiling this list of the first 100 books the 
 publisher attempted to produce a catholic collection of books, 
 in which every person, however unusual his literary tastes, 
 may find at least one book to satisfy and profit him. This 
 list will be amended and added to from time to time. The 
 texts will appear on the first day of each month. As the 
 lengths and jDrices of The Unit Books are determined, an- 
 nouncements will be made in these bulletins. 
 
 The Unit Books may be had separately or in any com- 
 bination you may prefer. 
 
 The list is tentative. We invite suggestions from every 
 lover of good books. If you would like to see a reprint of 
 any book write us about It. 
 
 Where price is not given below you may remit 40 cents 
 for paper, 70 cents for cloth, 90 cents for leather. 
 
 ADD 8 CTS. PER VOLUME FOR POSTAGE 
 
 1 The Marble Faun Nathaniel Hawthorne 1 Sept. 1903 
 
 21 units (524 pages) cloth 72 cts. 
 paper 42 cts. leather 92 cts. 
 
 2 Letters and Addresses Abraham Lincoln 1 Oct. 1903 
 
 16 units (399 pages) cloth 62 cts. 
 paper 32 cts. leather 82 cts. 
 
 3 Tales of Mystery Edgar Allan Poe 1 Nov. 1903 
 
 21 units (507 pages) cloth 72 cts. 
 paper 42 cts. leather 92 cts. 
 
 4 Life of Jesus Ernest Renan 1 Dec. 1903 
 
 19 units cloth 68 cts. 
 
 paper 38 cts. leather 88 cts, 
 
 5 Prue and I George William Curtis 1 Jan. 1904 
 
 8 units (176 pages) cloth 46 cts. 
 paper l6 cts. leather 66 cts. 
 
 6 Domestic Manners of the Americans Mrs. Trollope 
 
 1 Feb. 1904 
 
 17 units (402 pages) cloth 64 cts. 
 paper 34 cts. leather 84 cts. 
 
 317 
 
7 Study of Words Archbishop Trench 1 Mch. 1904 
 
 13 units (320 pages) cloth 56 cts. 
 paper 26 cts. leather 76 cts. 
 
 8 National Documents (collection of state 
 
 papers) 1 April 1904 
 21 units (504 pages) cloth 72 cts. 
 paper 42 cts. leather 92 cts. 
 
 9 Intellectual Life P. G. Hamerton 1 May 1904 
 
 10 Nonsense Books Edward Lear 1 June 1904 
 
 11 The Journals of Lewis and Clark 1 July 1904 
 
 12 De Quincey's Essays 1 Aug. 1904 
 
 13 Familiar Letters of James Howell 1 Sept. 1904 
 
 14 Life of Benvenuto Cellini 1 Oct. 1904 
 
 15 Pater's Marius the Epicurean 1 Nov. 1904 
 
 16 Boker's Francesca da Rimini (with a com- 
 
 parative study of other versions) 1 Dec. 1904 
 
 17 Rejected Addresses and other prose paro- 
 
 dies and burlesques 1 Jan. 1905 
 
 18 Goethe's Faust 1 Feb. 1905 
 
 19 The Old Red Sandstone Hugh Miller 1 Mch. 1905 
 
 20 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen 1 April 1905 
 
 21 Hertzka's Trip to Freeland 1 May 1905 
 
 22 Horace in Latin and English 1 June 1905 
 
 23 Swinburne's Poems 1 July 1905 
 
 24 The Philippines in the 17th Century 1 Aug. 1905 
 
 25 The Yemassee W. G. Simms 1 Sept. 1905 
 
 26 Knickerbocker's New York Irving 1 Oct. 1905 
 
 27 Democracy in America De Tocqueville 1 Nov. 1905 
 
 28 Unit Book of Facts 1 Dec. 1905 
 
 29 Poems of Walt Whitman 1 Jan. 1906 
 
 30 Autobiography and Poor Richard's 
 
 Almanac by Franklin 1 Feb. 1906 
 
 Vanity Fair Thackeray 
 Arthur Mervyn Charles Brockden Brown 
 
 Law for Every Day 
 
 The Conspiracy of Pontiac Parkman 
 318 
 
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table Holmes 
 
 Geoffrey Hamlyn Henry Kingsley 
 
 Doctor Thorne Anthony Trollope 
 Eothen Kinglake 
 
 The Conquest of Mexico Prescott 
 
 A First Book on Electricity 
 A Sentimental Journey Sterne 
 
 On the Origin of Species Darwin 
 
 The Buccaneers of America Lieut. Burney 
 The Poems of Robert Browning 
 Pickwick Papers Dickens 
 Margaret Sylvester Judd 
 Tales Gaboriau 
 
 Two Years Before the Mast Dana 
 A Pronouncing Dictionary 
 A Tale of Two Cities Dickens 
 Monarchs Retired from Business John Doran 
 Chemical History of a Candle Faraday 
 
 Our Village (first series) Mary Mitford 
 Confessions of Rousseau 
 Past and Present Carlyle 
 The Last Days of Pompeii Lytton 
 Noctes Ambrosianae John Wilson 
 Some Fruits of Solitude William Penn 
 The Microscope P. H. Gosse 
 
 Last of the Mohicans Cooper 
 
 The Comedies of Sheridan 
 Familiar Colloquies of Erasmus 
 The Rise of the Dutch Republic Motley 
 Voyage of a Naturalist Darwin 
 
 Typee Herman Melville 
 
 Natural History of Selborne Gilbert White 
 The Three Musketeers Dumas 
 
 Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green Cuthbert Bede 
 
 Physical Geography of the Sea Lieut. Maury 
 
 A Cyclopedia of Literary Allusions 
 Discourses on Painting Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 319 
 
A Dictionary of Classical Quotations 
 A Handbook ol" Proverbs 
 Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry 
 Plutarcli's Lives 
 Dante's Divine Comedy 
 Homer's Odyssey 
 Virgil in Latin and English 
 The Essays of Sainte-Beuve 
 Hakluyt's Principal Navigations 
 Ivanhoe Scott 
 
 Don Quixote Cervantes 
 
 The Plays of Shakesi)eare 
 Fairy Tales The Brothers Grimm 
 
 Notre Dame Victor Hugo 
 
 Paul and Virginia Saint Pierre 
 
 Monks of Thelema Besant and Rice 
 
 The Bible in Spain George Borrow 
 
 Legends of the Madonna Mrs. Jameson 
 
 Essays of Elia Charles Lamb 
 
 "The Cloister and the Hearth Charles Reade 
 
 Adam Bede George Eliot 
 
 Aurora Leigh Mrs. Browning 
 
 On Compromise John Morley 
 
 Villette Charlotte Bronte 
 
 Marjorie Fleming and Rab and his Friends John 
 
 Brown 
 St. Winifred's F. W. Farrar 
 
 Fable of the Bees Bernard de Mandeville 
 
 The Apocrypha 
 
 Apologia Pro Vita Sua Newman 
 
 Froissart's Chronicles 
 
 ADD 8 CTS. PER VOL. FOR POSTAGE 
 
 Howard Wilford Bell 
 
 publisher of The Unit Books 
 
 259 Fifth avenue New York 
 1 March 1904 
 
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