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'''^"5-Hi,j*#S
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ENGLISH,
PAST AND PRESENT.
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ENGLISH,
PAST AND PRESENT.
EIGHT LECTURES
BY
RICHARD CHENEVIXJTRENCH, D.D.,
ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN.
SEVENTH EDinOlT. '
REVISED AND IMPROVED,
NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER AND COMPANY,
1871.
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K2> \0 ^22^
ChMliiJ.i.x --^
Hamrd UnWersityi
Child Memorial Library.
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PREFACE
THE FIRST EDITION.
A SERIES of four lectures which I delivered
-^^^ last spring to the pupils of King's College
School, London, supplied the foundation to this
present volume. These lectures, which I was obliged
to prepare in haste, on a brief invitation, and under
the pressure of other engagements, being subsequently
enlarged and recast, were delivered in the autumn
somewhat more nearly in their present shape to the
pupils of the Training School, Winchester ; wkh only
those alterations, omissions and additions, which the
diflference in my hearers suggested as necessary or
desirable. I have found it convenient to keep the
lectures, as regards the persons presumed to be ad-
dressed, in that earlier form which I had sketched
out at the first ; and, inasmuch as it helps much to
keep lectures vivid and real that one should have
some well-defined audience, if not actually before
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VI. Pr^ace,
one, yet before the mind's eye, to suppose myself
throughout addressing my first hearers. I have sup-
posed myself, that is, addressing a body of young
Englishmen, all with a fair amount of classical know-
ledge (in my explanations I have sometimes had
others with less than theirs in my eye), not wholly
unacquainted with modern languages; but not yet
with any special designation as to their future work ;
having only as yet marked out to them the duty in
general of living lives worthy of those who have Eng-
land for their native country, and English for their
native tongue. To lead such through a" more inti-
mate knowledge of this into a greater love of that,
has been a principal aim which I have set before my-
self throughout
ItchensToke : Feb, 7, 1855.
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CONTENTS.
LECTURE I.
PAGB
The Enqush Vocabulary 1
LECTURE IL
Enqush as it might have been • • • ^7
LECTURE in.
Gains op the English Language ... 90
LECTURE IV.
Gains of the Engmbh Language — continued • . 132
LECTURE V.
Diminutions op the Engmsh Language . . 182
LECTURE VI.
Diminutions op the English Language — con-
tinued 226
LECTURE VII.
Changes in the Meaning of English Words . 263
LECTURE VIII.
Changes in the Spelling of English Words . 301
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ENGLISH
PAST AND PBESMNT.
LECTURE L
TIf£ ENGLISH VOCABULARY.
' A VERY slight acquaintance with the history of
Jlx. out own language will teach us that the
speech of Chaucer's age is not the speech of Skelton's,
that there is a great diflference between the language
under Elizabeth and that under Charles the First,
between that under Charles the First and Charles the
Second, between that under Charles the Second and
Queen Anne ; that considerable changes had taken
place between the beginning and the middle of the
last centvuy, and that Johnson and Fielding did
not write altogether as we do now. For in the course
^of a nation's progress new ideas are evermore mount-
ing above the horizon, while others are lost sight of
and sink below it : others again change their form and
aspect : others which seemed united, split into parts.
And as it is with ideas, so it is with their symbols,
words. New ones are perpetually coined to me^t tb?
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2 I'he Maglish Vocabulary. lect.
demand of an advanced understanding, of new feel-
ings that have spning out of the decay of old ones, of
ideas that have shot forth from the summit of the tree
of our knowledge ; old works meanwhile fall into dis-
use and become obsolete ; others have their meaning
narrowed and defined ; synonyms diverge from each
other and their property is parted between them ; nay,
whole classes of words will now and then be thrown
overboard, as new feelings or perceptions of analogy
gain ground. A Mstoiy of the language in which all
these vicissitudes should be pointed out, in which the
introduction of every new word should be noted, so
far as it is possible — and much may be done in this
way by laborious and diligent and judicious research
— ^in which such words as have become obsolete
should be followed down to their final extinction, in
which all the^ most remarkable words should be
traced through their successive phases of meaning,
and in which moreover the causes and occasions of
these changes should . be explained, such a work
would not only abound in entertainment, but would
throw more light on the development of the human
mind than all the brainspun systems of metaphysics
that ever were written. '
These words are not n)y own, but the words of a
greatly honoured friend and teacher, who, though we
behold him now no more, still teaches, and will teach,
by the wisdom of his writings, and the remembered
nobleness of his life. They are words of Archdeacon
Hare. I have put thenr in the forefront of my
lectures; anticipating as they do, in the way of
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I. Love of Our Own Tongue. S
masterly sketch, all or nearly all which I shall attempt
to accomplish ; and indeed drawing out the lines of
very much more, to which I shall not venture to put
my hand. At the same time the subject is one which,
-even with my partial and imperfect handling, will, I
trust, find an answer and an echo in the hearts of all
whom I address ; which every Englishman will feel of
near concern and interest to himself. For, indeed,
the love of our native language, what is it in fact, but
the love of our native land expressing itself in one
particular direction ? If the noble acts of that nation
to which we belong are precious to us, if we feel
ourselves made greater by the greatness, summoned
to a nobler life by the nobleness of Englishmen, who
have already lived and died, and have bequeathed to
us a name which must not by us be made less, what
e;cploits of theirs can well be worthier, what can
more clearly point out their native land and ours as
having fulfilled a glorious past, as being destined for
a glorious future, than that they should have acquired
for themselves and for us a clear, a strong, an har-
monious, a noble language ? For all this bears wit-
ness to corresponding merits in those that speak it, to
clearness of mental vision, to strength, to harmony,
to nobleness in them who have gradually shaped and
fiishioned it to be the utterance of their inmost life
and being.
To know concerning this language, the stages which v
it has gone through, the sources fi-om which its riches
have been derived, the gains which it has made or is
now making, the perils which are threatening it, the
losses which it has sustained, the capacities which
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4 The English Vocahuhry. lect.
may be yet latent in it, waiting to be evoked, the
points in which it transcends other tongues, the points
in which it comes short of them, all this may weU be
the object of worthy ambition to eveiy one of us. So
may we hope to be ourselves guardians of its purity,*
and not corruptors of it ; to introduce, it may be,
others into an intelligent knowledge of that, with
which we shall have ourselves more than a merely
superficial acquaintance : to bequeath it to those
who come after us not worse than we received it
ourselves. ' Spartam naetus es ; banc exoma,' — this
should be our motto in respect at once of our country,
and of the speech of our country.
Nor is a study such as this alien or remote from the
purposes which have brought us hither. It is true
that within these walls we are mainly occupied in
learning other tongues than our own. The time we
bestow upon it is small as compared with that bestowed
on those others. And yet one of our main objects in
learning them is that we may better understand this.
Nor ought any other to dispute with it the first and
foremost place in our reverence, our gratitude, and
our love. It has been well and worthily said by an
illustrious German scholar, * The care of the national
language I consider as at all times a sacred trust
and a most important privilege of the higher orders of
society. Every man of education should make it the
object of his unceasing concern, to preserve his
language pure and entire, to speak it, sa fiir as is in
his power, in aUite beauty and perfection A
pation whose language becomes rude and barbarous
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I. Duty to Our Own Tongue 6
must be on the brink of barbarism in r^;ard to every-
thing else. A nation which allows her lai^^s^e
to go to rain, is parting with the best half of her in-
tellectual independence, and testifies her willingness
to cease to exist'*
But this knowledge, like all other knowledge which
is worth attaining, is only to be attained at the price
of labor and pains. The language which at this day
we employ is the result of processes which have been
going forward for hundreds and for thousands of
years. Nay more, — it is not too much to affirm that
processes modifying the English which we now write
and speak, have been operating from the first day that
man, being giiled with discourse of reason, projected
his thoi^ht from himself, and embodied and contem-
plated it in his word. Which things being so, if we
would understand this language as it now is, we must
know something of it as it has been ; we must be able
to measure, however roughly, the forces which have
been at work upon it, moulding and shaping it into
the forms, and bringing it into the conditions under
which it now exists.
At the same time various prudential considerations
must determine for us how far up we will endeavour
to trace the course of its history. There are those
* F. Schlegel, History of Literature, Lecture lo. Milton :
Verba enim partim inscita et putida, partim mendosa et pcr-
pcram prolata, quid si ignayos et oscitantes, et ad servile quid-
vis jam olim paratos incolannn animos haud levi indicio de-
danuit ? I have elsewhere quoted this remaricable passage in
fidl (Study of Words, I2th edit. p. 83 ).
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6 The English Vocabulary. lect.
who may seek to trace our language to the forests of
Germany and Scandinavia, to investigate its relation
to all the kindred tongues that were there spoken ;
again, to follow it up, till it and they are seen de-
scending from an elder stock ; nor once to pause, till
they have assigned to it its proper place not merely in
that smaller group of languages which are immediate-
ly round it, but in respect of all the tongues and lan-
guages of thq earth. I can imagine few studies of a
more surpassing interest than this. Others, however,
must be content with seeking such insight into their
native language as maybe wkhin the reach of all who,
unable to make this the subject of especial research,
possessing neither that vast compass of knowledge,
nor that immense apparatus of • books, not being at
liberty to yield to it that devotion almost of a life
which, followed out to the full, it would require, have
yet an intelligent interest in their mother tongue, and
desire to learn as much of its growth and history and
construction as may be fairly within their reach. To
such I shall suppose myself to be speaking. I assume
no higher ground than this for mj'self
I know, indeed, that some, when invited at all to
enter upon the past history of the English language,
are inclined to answer — 'To what end such studies
to us ? Why cannot we leave them to a few anti-
quaries and grammarians ? Sufficient to us to kn^ow
the laws of our present English, to obtain an ac-
quaintance as accurate as we can with the language
as we now find it, without concerning ourselves with
the phases through which it has previously passed,'
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I. The Past Ikplains the Present. 7
This may sound plausible enough ; and I can quite
understand a real lover of his native tongue, who has
not bestowed much thought upon the subject, taking
up such a position as this. And yet it is one which
cannot be maintained. A sufficient reason why we
should occupy ourselves with the past of our lan-
guage is, that the present is only intelligible in the
light of the past, often of a very remote past indeed.
There are in it anomalies out of number, which the
pure logic of grammar is quite incapable of explain-
ing ; which nothing but an acquaintance with its his-
toric evolutions, and with the disturbing forces which
have made themselves felt therein, will ever enable us
to understand ; not to say that, unless we possess some
such knowledge of the past, we cannot ourselves
advance a single step in the unfolding of the latent
capabilities of the language, without the danger of
doing some outrage to its genius, of committing some
barbarous violation of its very primary laws.*
The plan which I have laid down for jnyself in
these lectures will be as follows. In this my first I
shall invite you to consider the language as now it is,
to decompose some specimens of it, and in this way
* littr€ {Hist, de la Langue Franqaise, vol. ii. p. 485) :
Une langue ne peut 6tre conserve dans sa puret6 qu'autant
qu'elle est ^tudi^e dans son histoire, ramende k ses sources,
appuy^ k ses traditions. Aussi I'^tude de la vieille langue
est un €l6ment n^cessaire, lequel venant h. faire d^faut, la con-
naissance du langage modeme est sans profondeur, et le bon
usage sans racines. Compare Pellissier, La Langue Frati'
gaise, p. 259.
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8 The Mnglish Vocabulary, lect.
to prove, of what elements it is compact, and what
functions in it these elements severally fulfil. Nor
shall I leave this subject without asking you to admire
the happy marriage in our tongue of the languages of
the North and South, a marriage giving to it advan-
tages which no other of the languages of Europe en-
joys. Having thus before us the body which we wish
to submit to scrutiny, and having become acquainted,
however slightly, with its composition, I shall invite
you in my next to consider with me what this actual
language might have been, if that event, which more
than all other put together has affected and modified
the English language, namely, the Norman Conquest,
had never found place. In the lectures which follow
I shall seek to institute firom various points of view a
comparison between the present language and the
past, to point out gains which it has made, losses
which it has endured, and generally to • call your
attention to some of the more important changes
through which it has passed, or is at this present
passing.
I shall, indeed, everywhere solicit your attention not
merely to the changes which have been in time past
effected, but to those also which at this very moment
are going forward. I shall not account the fact that
some are proceeding, so to speak, under our own
eyes, a suflficient ground to excuse me from noticing
them, but rather an additional reason for so doing.
For, indeed, these changes which we are ourselves
helping to bring about, are the very ones which we
are most likely to fail in observing. So many causes
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I. , Alterations Unobserved. 9
contribute to withdraw them from notice, to veil
their operation, to conceal their significance, that,
save by a very few, they will commonly pass isPholly
unobserved. Loud and sudden revolutions attract
and even compel observation ; but revolutions silent
and gradual, although with issues hr vaster in store,
run their course, and it is only when their cycle is
nearly or quite complied, that men perceive what
mighty transforming forces have been at work un-
noticed in their very midst
Thus, in this matter of language, how few aged
persons, even among those who retain the fullest
possession of their faculties, are conscious of any
serious difference between the spoken language of
then: early youth, and that of their old age ; are aware
that words and ways of using words are obsolete now,
which were usual then ; that many words are current
now, which had no existeiu:e at that time. And yet it
is certain that so it must be. A man may fairly be as-
sumed to remember clearly and well for sixty years
back ; and it needs less than five of these sixties to
bring us to the age of Spenser, and not more than
eight to set us in the time of (Shaucer and Wiclif.
No one, contempiating this whole term, will deny the
immensity of the change within these eight memories.
And yet, for all this, we may be tolerably sure that,
had it been possible to interrogate a series of eight
persons, such as together had filled up this time, in-
telligent men, but men whose attention had not been
especially awakeined to this subject, each in his turn
would have denied that there had been any change
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10 TheJEnglish Vocabulary. lect.
worth speaking o^ perhaps any change at all, during
his lifetime. It is not the less sure, considering the
mulfftude of words which have figdlen into oblivion
during these four or five hundred years, that there
must have been some lives in this chain which saw
those words in use at their commencement, and out of
use before their close. And so too, of the multitud^f
words which have sprung up in this period, some, nay,
a vast number, must have come into being within the
limits of each of these lives. *
• See on this subject the deeply interesting chapter, the
23rd, in Sir C. Lyell's Antiquity of Man^ with the title, Ori-
gin and development of Languages and Species compared, I
quote a few words : * Every one may have noticed in his own
lifetime the stealing in of some slight alterations of accent,
pronunciation, or spelling, or the introduction of some words
1x)rrowed ixom. a foreign language to express ideas of which
no native term precisely conveyed the import. He may also
remember hesoing for the first time some cant terms or slang
phrases, which have since forced their way into common use,
in spite of the efforts of the purists. But he may still contend
that "within the range of his experience '* his language has
continued unchanged, and he may believe in its immutability
in spite of minor variations. The real question, however, at
issue is, whether there are any limits to this variability. He
will find on further investigation, that new technical terms are
coined almost daily, in various arts, sciences, professions and
trades, that new names must be found for new mventions ;
that many df these acquire a metaphorical sense, and then
make their way into general circulation, as ** stereotyped "
for instance, which would have been as meaningless to the
men of the seventeenth century as would the new terms and
images derived from steamboat and railway travelling to the
men of the eighteenth.'
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I. Qradual Disuse of Words. 11
Nor is it hard on a little reflection to perceive how
this going and coming have alike been hid from their
eyes. In the nature of things, words which go excite
little or no notice in their going. They drop out of
use litde by litde, no one noticing the fact The
student, indeed, of a past epoch of our literature finds
words to have been freely used in it which are /not
employed in his own ; and these, when all brought
into a vocabulaiy, by no means to be few in number.
But it was only one by one that they fell out of sight,
and this by steps the most gradual ; were first more
seldom used, then only by those who affected a some-
what archaic style, and lastly not at all. And as with
the outgoers, so in a measure also is it with the
incomers. The newness and strangeness of them,
even where there is knowledge and observation suffi-
cient to recognize them as novelties at all, wears oflf
veiy much sooner than would be supposed. They are
but of yesterday ; and men presently employ them as
though they had existed as long as the language itself.
Nor is it words only which thus steal out of the
language and steal into it, unobserved in their coming
and their going. It is the same with numberSj tenses,
and moods, with old laws of the language which
gradually lose their authorily, with new usages which
gradually acquire the force of laws. Thus it would
be curious to know how many have had their atten-
tion drawn to the fact that the subjunctive mood is at
this very moment perishing in English. One who
now says, 'If he call, tell him I am out' — many do
say it still, but they are fewer eveiy day — is Seeking
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12 The English Vocabulary. lect.
to detain a mood which the language is determined to
get rid of. The English-speaking race has come to
perceive that clearness does not require the mainte-
nance of any distinction between the indicative and
subjunctive moods, and has therefore resolved not to
be at the trouble of maintaining it anymore. But the
dropping of the subjunctive, important change as it
is, goes on for the most part unmarked even by those,
who are themselves effecting the change. On this
matter, however, I shall have by and by something
more to say.
With these preliminaiy remarks I address myself
to our special subject of* to-day. And first, starting
from the recognized feet that the English is not a
simple but a composite language, made up of seveml
elements, so fer at least as its vocabulary is concerned,
as are the people who speak it, I would suggest to
you the profit to be derived from a resolving of it into
its component parts — fi-om taking, that is, some
passage of Eiiglish, distributing the words of "w^ich it
is made up according to the sources whence they are
drawn ; estimating the relative numbers and propor-
tion wbich these languages have severally lent us ;
as well as the character of the words which they have
contributed to the common stock.
Thus, suppose the English language to be divided
into a hundred parts ; of these, to make a rough
distribution, sixty might be Saxon ; thirty Latin (in-
cluding of course the Latin which has come to us
through the French) ; five perhaps would be Greek.
We should in this way have allotted ninety-five
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I. Dvich and Scandinavian Words. IS
parts, leaving the other five to be divided among all
•> the other languages which have made their several
smaller contributions to the vocabulary of our English
tongue. It is probable that, all counted, they would
not amount to this five in the hundred. They cer-
tainly would not, unless we include in this list words
which we owe to languages closely allied to the
Anglo-Saxon, but which are not found in the Anglo-
Saxon vocabulary. I refer to those, Scandinavian
we may call them for convenience, for which we are
mainly indebted to the Danish settlements in the
north of*England. Let me speak first of these. It
would be idle to attempt an exhaustive enumeration
of them ; but a small selection will show of how
serviceable a character they are, and what an impor-
tant part of our eveiy-day working English they form.
Thus take these nouns, * bag, ' * bole, ' ' booty, ' ' bn^, '
'brink,* 'bull,' *cake,' 'cripple,' 'dairy,' 'earl,'
'fell,' 'fellow,' 'fool,' 'froth,' 'gable,' *gill,' 'gin,'
'hustings,' 'keg,' 'kid,' 'leg,' 'muck,' 'odds,'
'puck,' ' rump, " root, "sark," scald, "scull,' 'skill,'
'sky,' 'sleight,' 'tarn,' 'thrum,' 'tyke,' 'windlass,'
' window ;' or, again, these verbs, ^to bask,' ' to dip,'
'to cuff,' 'to curl, "to daze,' 'to droop,' 'to dub,' 'to
flit,' 'to grovel,' 'to hale,' 'to hug,' 'to Itftk,' 'to
ransack,' 'to scrub,' 'to skulk,' 'to thrive.' Then
too there are Dutch words, especially sea-terms, which
have found their way into' English, as 'boom,' 'dog-
ger,' 'hoy,' 'lubber,' 'schooner,' 'skates," skipper,'
'sloop,' 'smack,' 'stiver,' 'tafferel,' 'yacht,' 'to luff,'
'to smuggle.'
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14 The English Vocabulary, lect.
But to look now farther abroad. We have a cer-
tain number of Hebrew words, mostly, if not entire-
ly, belonging to religious matters, as ' amen,' ' caba-
la,' 'cherub,' *ephod,' 'gehenna,' 'hallelujah,' 'ho-
sanna,' 'jubilee,' 'leviathan,' 'manna,' 'Messiah,'
'sabbath,' 'Satan,' 'seraph,' 'shibboleth,' 'taimud.'
The Arabic words in our language are more numer-
ous ; we have several arithmetical and astronomical
terms, as 'aldebaran,' 'algebra,' 'almanach,' 'azi-
muth,' 'cypher,'* 'nadir,' 'talisman,' 'zenith,' 'zero;'
and chemical no less; for the Arabs were the chem-
ists, no less than the astronomers and arithmeticians
of the middle j^es ; as 'alcohol,' 'alembic,' ^alkali,'
* elixir. ' Add to these the names of animals, plants,
fruits, or articles of merchandise first introduced by
them to the notice of Western Europe; as 'amber,'
'antimonium,' ' apricot, 'f 'arrack,' 'artichoke,' 'bar-
ragan,' 'boumous,' 'camphor,' 'carmine,' 'coffee,'
'cotton,' 'crimson,' 'endive,' 'gazelle,' 'giraffe,'
* henna,' 'jar,' 'jasmine,' * lake,' (lacca) ' laudanum,'
'lemon,' 'lime,' 'lute,' 'mattress,' 'mummy,*
'musk,' 'popinjay,' 'saffron,' 'senna,' 'sherbet,'
'sirup,' 'shrub,' 'sofa,' 'sugar,* 'sumach,' 'talc,'
'tamarind ;' and some further terms, 'admiral,' 'al-
cove, 'J ^ alguazil, ' ' amulet, ' ' arsenal, ' . ' assassin, '
' barbican ' ' caliph, ' ' caffre, ' ' carat, '§ ' caravan, '
* But see J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologies p. 985.
f See Mahn, EtymoL Untersuch, p. 49.
X See Mahn, p. 156.
§ This is the Greek xepdriov^ which, having travelled to
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I. Oriental Words. 15
'dey/ 'divan/ 'dragoman,'* 'emir/ 'fakir/ 'feluc-
ca,' 'firman,' 'hanger,' 'harem,' 'iiazard,' 'hegira,'
'houri,' 'islam,' 'koran,' 'magazine,' 'mamaluke,'
'marabout,' 'minaret,' 'monsoon,' 'mosque,' 'muf-
ti,' 'mussulman,' 'nabob,' 'otto,' 'quintal,' 'razzia,'
'Sahara,^ 'salaam,' 'scheik,' 'simoom,' 'sirocco/
'sultan,' 'tarif,' 'vizier;' and I believe we shall have
nearly completed the list Of Persian words we have
these : ' azure, ' ' bazaar, ' "* bezoar, * ' caravanserai, '
' check, ' ' chess, ' ' dervish, ' ' jackal, ' ' lilac, ' ' necta-
rine,' 'orange,' 'pdgoda,' 'saraband,' 'sash,' 'scar-
let, ' ' sepoy, ' ' shawl, ' ' taffeta, ' ' tambour, ' ' turban ;'
the East, has in this shape come back to us, just as dtjvdptoy
has returned in the * dinar ' of the Arabian Nights,
• The word hardly deserves to be called Eng^h, yet in
Pope's time it had made some progress towards naturalization.
Of a real or pretended polyglottist, who might thus have served
as an universal interpreter ^ he says :
* Pity you was not druggerman at Babel.*
* Truckman,* or more commonly * truchman,' familiar to all
readers of our early literature, is only another form of this,
which probably has come to us through *turcimanno,* an
Italian form of the word. Let me here observe that in Claren-
don's History of the Rebellion, b. i. § 75, there can be no
doubt that for *■ trustman,' as it is printed in all editions which
I have been able to consult, we should read *truchman.'
Prince Charles at the time of his visit ^to Spain not speaking
Spanish, the king, we are told, summoned the Earl of Bristol
into the coach with them * that he should serve as a trustmany
— a word yielding no kind of sense ; or rather no word at all,
but only the ignorant correction of some scribe or printer, to
whom * truchman ' was strange.
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16 The JEngluh Vocaluhry. LECt.
this last appearing in strange forms, ' toiibant ' (Pat-
tenham), 'tulipant' (Herbert's Trccoels), ^tnrribant'
(Spenser), ' turbat,' 'turbant,' and at length 'turban;'
' zemindar,' ' zenana.' We have also a fewTurJcidi,
such as *bey,' 'caftan,' 'chouse,' 'fez,' 'janisaiy,'
'odalisk,' 'tulip,' 'xebek.' Of 'civet,' 'mohair/
and * scimitar ' I believe it can only be asserted that
th^ are Eastern. 'Bamboo,' 'cassowary,' 'gong,'
' gutta-percha, "oiang-utang,' 'rattan,' 'sago,' 'upas,'
are Malay. The following are Hindostanee : 'avatar,'
'banian,' 'bungalow,' 'calico,' 'chintz,' 'cowrie,'
'jungle,' 'lac,' 'loot,' 'muslin,' 'punch,' ^ rajah,'
'rupee,' 'toddy.' 'Tea,' or 'tcha,' as it was once
spelt, with 'bohea,' 'hyson,' 'souchong,' is Chinese;
so too are 'junk,' 'hc«ig,' 'nankeen.'
To come nearer home — ^we have a certain number
of 'Italian words, as 'ambuscade,' 'bagatelle,' 'bal-
cony,' 'baldachin,' 'balustrade,' 'bandit,' 'bravo,'
'broccoli,' 'buffoon,' 'burlesque,' 'bust' (it was
' busto ' at first, and therefore from the Italian, not
from the French), 'cadence,' 'cascade,' 'cameo,'
'canto,' 'caricature,' 'carnival,' 'cartoon,' 'case-
mate,' 'casino,' 'catafalque,' 'cavalcade,' 'chariatan,'
'citadel,' 'concert,' 'conversazione,' 'corridor,' 'cu-
pola,' 'dilettante,' 'ditto,' 'doge,' 'domino,' 'fiasco,'
'filagree,' 'fresco,' 'gabion,' 'gazette,' 'generalis-
simo,' 'gondola,' 'gonfalon,' 'grotto' ('grotta' in
Bacon), 'gusto,' 'harlequin,' 'imbroglio,' 'inamo-
rato,' 'influenza,' 'lagoon,' 'lava,' 'lavolta,' 'laza-
retto,' 'macaroni,' 'madonna,' 'madrepore,' 'madri-
gal,' 'malaria,' 'manifesto,' 'maraschino,' 'masque-
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I. Italian and Spanish Words. 17
rade ' ( * mascarata ' in Hacket), 'mezzotint,' 'motett,
* motto/ ' moustachio ' ( * mostaccio ' in Ben Jonson),
' ntmcio/ * opera,' ' oratorio,' ' pantaloon,' ' parapet,'
' pedant,' 'pedantry,' 'piano-forte,' 'piaster,' 'piazza,'
' porcelain,' 'portico,' * protocol,' 'proviso,' 'regatta,'
'rocket,' 'ruffian,' 'scaramouch,' 'sequin,' 'seraglio,'
'serenade,' 'sirocco,' 'sketch,' 'solo,' 'sonnet,'
'stanza,' 'stiletto,' 'stucco,' 'studio,' 'terrace,' 'ter-
racotta,' 'torso,' 'trombone,' 'umbrella,' 'vedette,'
'vermicelli,' 'violoncello,' 'virtuoso,' 'vista,' 'vol-
cano,* 'zany.' Others once common enough, as
'becco,' 'comuto,' 'fantastico,' 'impresa' (the ar-
morial device on shields), 'magnifico,' 'saltim-
banco ' (= mountebank), are now obsolete. Sylves-
ter has ' farfalla ' forTjutterfly, but, so far as I know,
this use is peculiar to him.
If this is at all a complete collection of our Italian
words, the Spanish in the language are nearly as
numerous ; nor would it be wonderful if they were
more ; for although our literary relations with Spain
have been slight indeed as compared with those
which we have maintained with Italy, we have had
other points of contact, friendly and hostile, with the
former much more real than we have known with the
latter. Thus we have from the Spanish, 'albino,'
' alligator ' ( ' el lagarto '), ' armada,' ' armadillo,'
'barricade,' 'bastinado,' 'bolero,' 'bravado,' 'buf-
h\o ' ( ' buff ' or ' buffle ' is the proper English word),
'cambist,' 'camisado,' 'cannibal,' 'caracole,' 'cara-
vel,' 'carbonado,' 'cargo,' 'carrack,' 'cartel,' *cigar,'
' cochineal,' ' commodore,' ' Creole,' ' desperado/
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18 The English Vocabulary. lect,
'don,' 'duenna/ 'eldorado,' 'embargo,' 'fandango,'
'farthingale,' 'filibuster,' 'flotilla,' 'gala,' 'garotte,'
'grandee,' 'grenade,' 'guerilla,' 'hackney,' 'hook-
er,'* ' indigo," infanta,' 'jennet,' 'junto,' ' maravedi,'
' maroon, 'f 'merino,' 'molasses,' 'mosquito,' 'mu-
latto,' 'negro,' 'olio,' 'ombre,' 'palaver,' 'parade,'
'paragon,' 'parasol,' 'parroquet,' 'peccadillo,' 'pi-
caroon,' 'pintado,' 'platina,' 'poncho,' 'punctilio'
(for a long time spelt ' puntillo ' in English books),
' quinine, ' ' reformado, ' ' sarsaparilla, ' ' sassafras, '
' sheny, ' ' soda, ' ' stampede, ' ' stoccado, ' ' strappado, '
'tornado,' 'vanilla,' 'verandah.' 'Caprice' too we
obtained rather from Spain than Italy ; it was written
* capricho ' by those who used it first Other Spanish
words, once familiar, are now extinct 'Punctilio'
lives on, but not 'punto,' which is common enough
in Bacon. 'Privado,' a prince's favourite, one ad-
mitted to hv& privacy (frequent in Jeremy Taylor and
Fuller), has disappeared ; so too have ' quirpo '
(cuerpo), a jacket fitting close to the body; ' quellio '
(cuello), a ruflf or neck-coW&x ; ' matachin, ' the title
of a sword-dance ; all frequent in our early dra-
* Not in our dictionaries ; but a kind of coasting vessel well
known to seafaring men, the Spanish * urea ;* thus in Oldys*
^ Life of Raleigh : * Their galleons, galleasses, gallies, ureas,
and zabras were miserably shattered.'
+ A * maroon * is a negro who has escaped to the woods,
and there lives wild. The word is a corruption of * cimar-
ron,* signifying wild in Spanish. In our earlier discoverers it
still retains its shape (Drake writes it * symaron *), though not
its spelling. See Notes and Queries^ 1866, p. 86.
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I. Celtic and Indian Words. 19
matists ; and ' flota,' the constant name of the trea-
sure-fleet from the Indies. 'Intermess,' employed
by Evelyn, is the Spanish ' entremes,' though not re-
cognized as such in our dictionaries. 'Albatross,'
'gentoo,' 'mandarin,' 'marmalade,' 'moidore/ 'pa-
lanquin,' 'yam,'jare Portuguese.
Celtic fh'ngs for the most part we designate by
Celtic words; such as 'bannock,' 'bard,' 'bog,'
'brogues,' 'clan,' 'claymore,' 'fiUibeg,' 'kilt,' 'pi-
broch,' 'plaid,' 'reel,' 'shamrock,' 'slogan,' 'usque-
baugh,' 'whiskey.' The words which I have just
named are for the most part of comparatively recent
introduction ; but many others, how many is yet a
very unsettled question, which at a much earlier date
found admission into our tongue, are derived from
this same quarter.*
Then too the New World has given us a certain
number of words, Indian and other — 'anana' or
' ananas ' (Brazilian), ' cacique ' ( ' cassiqui,' in Ra-
leigh's Guiana), 'caiman,' ' calumet,' 'canoe,' ' cari-
bou,' 'catalpa,' 'caoutchouc' (South American),
'chocolate,' 'cocoa,' 'condor,' 'guano' (Peruvian),
' hamoc ' ( ' hamaca ' in Raleigh), ' hominy,' ' inca,'
'jaguar,' 'jalap,' 'lama,' 'maize' (Haytian), 'ma-
nitee,' ' mocassin,' ' mohawk,' ' opossum,' 'pampas,'
'pappoos,' 'pemmican,' 'pirogue,' 'potato' ('ba-
tata 'in our earlier voyagers), 'puma' (Peruvian),
' raccoon.' ' sachem,' 'samp,' * savannah ' (Haytian),
♦ See Kock, Hist, Gram, der Englischen Sprache^ voL L
p. 4.
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20 The English Vocabulary. lect.
*^unk/ 'squaw/ * tapioca,' 'tobacco/ 'tomaha^/
*tomata' (Mexican), 'wampum,' 'wigwam,' If
^ 'hurricane 'was originally obtained from the Carib-
bean islanders,* it should be included in this
list.
We may notice, finally, languages which have be-
stowed on us some single word, or two perhaps, or
three. Thus 'hussar' is Hungarian; 'hetman,'
Polish; 'lirosky,' 'ukase,' Russian; 'caloyer,' Ro-
maic; * mammoth,' of some Siberian language;
* taboo,' 'tattoo,' Polynesian ; 'caviar,' and 'steppe/
Tartarian; 'gingham,' Javanese; 'assegai,' * chim-
panzee,' 'fetiscb,' 'gnu,' 'kraal,' 'zebra,' belong to
various African dialects ; but 'fetisch ' has reached us
through the channel of.the Portuguese.
Now I have no right to assume that any among
those to whom I speak are equipped with that know-
ledge of other tongues, which shall enable them to
detect at once the nationality of all or most of the
wcwds which they meet — some of these greatiy dis-
guised, and having undergone manifold transform-
ations in the process of their adoption among us ; but
only that you have such helps at command in the
shape of dictionaries and the like, and so much dili-
gence in the use of these, as will enable you to trace
out their birth and parentage. But possessing this
much, I am confident to aflBrm that few studies will
be more fruitful, will suggest more various matter of
* See Washington Irving, Life and Voyages of Columbus,
b. viii. c. 9.
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I. AncUyms of English. 21
reflection, will more lead you into the secrets, of the
English tongue, than an analysis of passages drawn
from diflerent authors, such as I have just now pro-
posed. Thus you will take some passage of English
verse or prose^ — ^say the first ten Hues oi Paradise Lost
— or the Lord's Prayer— ^r the 23rd Psdm; you will
distribute the whole body of words which occur in
that passagie, of course not omitting the smallest, ac-
cording to their nationalities — ^writing, it may be, A
over every Anglo-Saxon word, L over eveiy Latin,
and so on with the (^ets, should any other find room
in the portion submitted to examiBation. This done,
you will count up &e number of diose which each
langu^(« contributes ; again, you will note the char-
ackr of the words derived firom each quarter.
Yet here, before passing further, let me DbOte that
in dealing with Latin words it will be well fiirther to
mark whether they are directly from it, and such might
be marked L\ or only mediately, and to us directly
from the French, which would be L% or Latin at
second hand. A rule holds generally good, by which
you may determine this. If a. word be directly fixu»
the Latin, it will have undexgone little or no modifi-
cation in its form and shape, save: only in the termi-
nation!, * Innocentia' will have become *innoccncy,'
'natio' 'nation,' *firmamentum' 'firmament,' but
thi& will be alL Ou the other hgthd, if it comes
thrmigh the French, it will have undergone a process
of lubrication ; its sharply defined Latin oudine will
in good part have disappeared; thus ' crown' iafi:om
corona,' but through 'couronne,' and in itself a
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22 TAe Mnglish Vocabulary. lect.
dissyllable, ' coroune,' in our earlier English ; * trea-
sure' is from 'thesaurus/ but through 'tresor;'
'emperor' is the Latin 'imperator,' but it was first
' empereur.' It will often happen that the substantive
has thus reached us through the intervention of the
French ; while we have only felt at a later period our
need of the adjective as well, which we have pro-
ceeded to borrow direct from the Latin. Tlius 'peo-
ple' is 'populus,' but it was 'peuple' first, while
'popular' is a direct transfer of a Latin vocable into
our English glossary ; ' enemy' is ' inimicus,' but it
was first softened in the French, and had its Latin
physiognomy in good part obliterated, while ' inimi-
cal ' is Latin throughout ; ' parish ' is ' paroisse,' but
' parochial ' is ' parochialis ;' ' chapter ' is ' chapitre,'
but ' capitular ' is ' capitularis. '
Sometimes you will find a Latin word to have been
twice adopted by us, and now making part of- our
vocabulary in two shapes : ' doppelganger ' the Ger-
mans would call such. There is first the older word,
which the French has given us ; but which, before it
gave, it bad fashioned and moulded ; clipping or
contracting, it may be, by a syllable or more, for the
French devours letters and syllables ; and there is the
younger, boirowed at first hand fi"om the Latin.
Thus 'secure' and 'sure' are both fi-om 'securus,'
but one directly, the other through the French;
'fidelity' and 'fealty,' both from 'fidelitas,' but one
directly, the other at second hand ; ' species ' and
'spice,' both from 'species, 'spices being properly
only kinds of aromatic drugs; 'blaspheme' and
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I. Two Shapes of Words. 23
* blame,' both from ' blasphemare/* but 'blame,'
immediately from ' blamer.' Add to these ' granary '
and * gamer;' 'captain ' (capitaneus) and ' chieftain ;'
* tradition ' and * treason ;' * rapine ' and ' ravin ;'
' abyss ' and ' abysm ;' ' phantasm ' and ' phantom ;'*
' coffin ' and ' coffer ;' * regal ' and ' royal ;' ' legal '
and ' loyal ;' * cadence ' and ' chance ;' ' balsam '
and ' balm ;' ' hospital ' and ' hotel ;' * digit ' and
' doit ;' * pagan ' and ' paynim ;' * captive ' and ' cai-
■ tiff;' ' persecute ' and 'pursue ;' 'aggravate ' and
' aggrieve ;' ' ' superficies ' and ' surface ;' ' sacristan '
and ' sexton ;' * faction ' and ' fashion ;' ' particle '
and 'parcel ;' * redeinption' and ' ransom ;' ' probe '
and ' prove ;' * abbreviate ' and ' abridge ;' ' dormi-
tory ' and * dortoir ' or ' dorter '(this last now obsolete,
but not uncommon in Jeremy Taylor); ''desiderate '
and ' desire ;' * compute' and * count ;' * fact ' and
* feat ;' ' esteem ' and * aim ;' ' major ' and ' mayor ;'
' radius ' and ' ray ;' ' pauper ' and ' poor ;' ' potion '
and ' poison ;' * ration ' and ' reason ;' ' oration 'and.
* orison ;' ' penitence ' and ' penance ;' * zealous '
and ' jealous ;' ' respect ' and ' respite ;' ' fragile ' and
' frail ;' ' calix ' and ' chalice ;' ' fabric ' and ' forge ;'
' tract,' ' treat,' and ' trait 'f I have, in the instancing
* This particular instance of < dimorphism ' as Latham calls
it, * dittology ' as Ileyse, recurs in Itajian, * bestemmiare ' and
*biasimare ;' and in Spanish, 'blasfemar' and 'lastimar.'
+ Somewhat different from this, yet itself also curious, is the
piassipg of an Anglo-Saxon word in two different fprms into
En^ish, and now current in both ; thus * drag * and * draw ;'
'de^'gnd *dish,* both the Anglo-Saxon *disc,' the Germaa
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24 I'he English Vocabulary. lect.
of these^ named always the Latin form before the
French ; but the reverse has been no doubt in every
instance the order in which the words were adopted
by us ; we had ' pursue ' before * persecute/ ' spice '
before 'species/ * royalty' before 'regality/ and so
with the others.*
*tisch;» 'beech' and ♦book,' both the Anglo-Saxon «boc,'
our first books being beechen tablets (See Grimm, Woerierbuek^
&. TV. «buch,* *buche*) ; * girdle' and *kirtle,' the German
« gttriel ; ' already in Anglo-Saxon a double spelling, * gyrdel,'
*cyrtel,' had prepared for the double words ; so too 'shell,'
'shale,' and 'scale;' 'skiff' and 'ship;' 'tenth' and
'tithe;' 'shirt' and 'skirt ;' 'school' and 'shoal ;' 'glass'
and 'glaze;* 'swallow' and 'swill;' 'wine' and* vine;'
'why' and 'how;' 'kill' and 'quell;' 'bcaccm' and
'beckon;' 'flesh' and 'flitch;' 'black' and 'bleak;'
' pond ' and * pound ; ' ' whit ' and * wight ; ' ' deck and
'thatch;' ' deal ' and ' dole ; ' ' weald ' and ' wood ;' 'dew'
and ' thaw ; ' ' wayward ' and ' awkward ; ' • dune ' and
'down;' 'hoo4' and 'hat' ;' 'evil' and 'ill ;' *hcdge*
and ' hay ; ' ' waggon ' and ' wain ; ' ' heathen '^and 'hoy-
den ; ' * ant ' and * emmet ; ' * spray ' and ' sprig ; ' ' thew '
and 'thigh;' 'bow 'and 'bay,' as in hay window. We
have, let me add, another form of double adoption. In
' several instances we possess the same word, first in its more
proper Teutonic shape, and secondly, as the Normans, having
found it in France and made it their own, brought it with
them here. Thus. • wise ' and ' guise ; ' ' wed,* ' wage,' and
♦gage;' 'wile' and 'guile;' 'warden' and 'guardian;'
'warranty' and 'guarantee.'
* We have double adoptions fiom the Greek ; one direct,
one modified in passing through some other language ; thu8»
« adamant * and * diamond ; * 'monastery ' Imd ' minster ; '
•paralysis ' and * palsy ; ' ' scandal ' and « slander ; ' « thcriac *
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I. Assimilation of Words. 25
The explanation of this more thorough change
which the earlier form has undergone, is not far to
seek. Words introduced into a language at a period
when as yet writing is rare, and books are few or, none,
when therefore orthography is unfixed, or being
purely phonetic, cannot properly be said to exist at
all, have for a long time no other life save that which
they live upon the lips of men. The checks there-
fore to alterations in the form of a word which a
written, and still more which a printed, literature im-
poses are wanting, and thus we find words out of
number altogether reshaped and remoulded by the
people who have adopted them, so entirely assimilated
to iheir language in form and termination, as in the
end to be almost or quite undistinguishable from
natives. On the other hand a most effectual check
to this process, a process sometimes barbarizing and
defecing, even while it is the only one which will
make the newly brought in entirely homogeneous
with the old and already existing, is imposed by th^
existence of a much written language and a full-
formed literature. The foreign word, being once
adopted into these, can no longer undergo a thorough
transformation. Generally the utmost which use an^
and * treacle ; * * asphodel * and * daffodil,' or * affodil * (see
I the Fromptorium), as it used to be ; * presbyter * and * priest ; *
* dactyl ' and * date,' the fruit so called deriving its name from
its likeness to a * dactyl ' or finger ; in Bacon it is stiU known
as a 'dactyl;' 'cathedral' and * chair.* 'Cypher' and
'zero,' I may add, are different adoptions of one and the saiQ^
Arabic word.
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26 The Miglish Vocabulary. lect.
femiliarity can do with it now, is to cause the gradual
dropping of the foreign termination ; not that this is
unimportant ; it often goes far to make a home for a
word, and to hinder it from wearing any longer the
appearance of a stranger and intruder.*
* The French language in like manner * teems with Latin
words which under various disguises obtained repeated admit-
tance into its dictionary,' with a double adoption, one popular
and reaching back to the earliest times of the language, the
other belonging to a later and more literary period, * demotic '
and * scholastic * they have been severally called ; on which
subject see Gdnin, Ricriations Philohgiques, vol. i. pp. 162-
166 ; Littr^, Hist, de la Langtie Fran^ise^ vd. i. pp. 24I-244 ;
Fuchs, Die Roman, Spracken^ p. 125 ; Mahn, EiymoL
ForschMng,^ pp. 19, 46, and passim ; Pellissier, La Langue
Frangaise, p. 205. Thus from * separare * is derived * sevrer,'
to separate the child from its mother's breast, to wfean, but
also «s€parer,* without this special sense: from 'pastor,'
' p&tre,' a shepherd in the literal, and < paftteur ' the same in a
tropica], sense ; from • catena,' * chaine * and * caddnc •, / from
'fragilis,' *fr§le' and 'fragile;' from *penaare,' ^peser*
and *penser;' from *gehenna,^ *gSne' and *g^henne;*
from *captivus,' *caitif,' *ch^tif,* and * captif ; ' from < na-
tivus,' * natf,' and * natif ; ' from * immutabilis,' * immutable '
and 'immuable;' from 'designare,' *dessiner' and *ddsir
gner ;' from * dedmare,' * dimer ' and * d^cimer ; ' from * con-
sumere,' *consommer' and 'consumer;' from *simulare,'
*sembler' and *simuler;' from *sollicitare,' *soucier' and
*solliciter ;' from *adamftS,' *aimant' (lodestone) and 'ada-
mant ; from the \ayr Latin *disjejunare,' * diner ' and * d^jeil-
ner ;* from ^acceptare,' *acheter' and 'accepter;* from
*hpmo,' ^on' ^iid *homme;' from *paganus,' *payen*
and 'paysan;' from * obpdieiitift,* * qt?€issance ' and «*ob(5-
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I. Analysis of JEnglish, 27
But to return from this digression. I said just aow
that you would learn much from making an inventorj
of the words of one descent and those of another
occurring in any passage which you analyse ; and
noting die proportion which they bear to one another.
Thus janalysc the diction of the Lord's Prayer. Of
the seventy words whereof it consists only the follow-
ing six claim the rights of Latin citizenship — the
noun 'trespasses,' the verb 'trespass,^' 'temptation/
'deliver/ 'power/ 'glory.' Nor would it be very
difficult to substitute for any one of these a Saxon
word Thus for 'trespasses' might be substituted
'sins ;' for ' tresjMiss ' ' sin ;' for ' deliver ' ' free /
for 'power' 'might;' for 'glory' 'brightness;'
dience;' from 'monast^um,' <xi[u>iHier' and ' mooastere ;'
from *strictus,* *6troit* and * strict;* from 'scintilla,'
*6tincelle* and *scintilie;* from 'sacramentum,' *sennent'
and * sacrement ;' from * ministerium,' * metier * and * minis-
t^re;' from 'parabola,* 'parole* and •parabole ;* from
'tiata^' *Ko%l* and 'natsd;* from 'rigidus,' <raide* and
♦rigide ;' from 'sapidus,' 'sade* and 'sapide;* from *pere-
grinus,* 'pdlerin* and * peregrin;* from *factio,* *&^n*
and 'faction,* and it has no\/ adopted 'factio* in a third
shape, that is, in our English * fashion ;* from * pietas,* * piti6 *
and 'pi^t^ ;' from ^paradisus,* *parvis * and * paradis ;* from
'capitulum,' *chapitre* and 'capitule,* a botanical term;
from * cansa,* * chose * and * caose ;* from • movere,' * muer *
and 'mouYoir^* from 'ponere/ *pos?r* and *pondre;*
while 'attacher * and *attaquer* oinly difier in pronunciation.
So too, in Italian we have * manco,* maimed, and * monco,'
maiined of a hand; * rifutare,' to reftite, and * rifiutare,* to
refrtse ; * dama ' and * donna,' both forms of * domina.*
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28 The Mtglish Vocabulary. lect.
which would only leave 'temptation/ about which
there could be the slightest diflSculty; and 'trials/
though now employed in a somewhat different sense,
would exactly correspond to it This is but a small
percentage, six words in seventy, or less than ten in
the hundred ; and we often light upon a still smaller
jMToportion. Thus take the first three verses of the
23rd Psalm : — * The Lord is my Shepherd ; therefore
can I lack nothing; He shall feed me in a green pas-
fure, and lead me forth beside the waters (^i comfort ;
He shall convert my soul, and bring me forth in the
paths of righteousness for his Name's sake/ Here
are forty-five words, and only the three in italics are
Latin ; for each of which it would be easy to substi-
tute one of 'homer growth ; little more, that is, than
the proportion of seven in the hundred ; while in
five verses out of Genesis, containing one hundred
and thirty words, there are only five not Saxon, — less,
that is, than four in the hundred ; and, more notably
still, the first four verses of St John's (jospel, in
all fifty-four words, have no single word that is not
Saxon.
Shall we therefore conclude that these are the
proportions in which the Anglo-Saxon and Latin
elements of the language stand to one another? If
they are so, then my former proposal to express their
relations by sixty and thirty was greatly at fault ; and
seventy to twenty, or even eighty to ten, would fall
short of adequately representing the real predomi--
nance of the Saxon over the Latin element in the Ian-:
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L The Miglish Bible, etc. 29
guage. But it is not so ; the Anglo-Saxon words by
no means outnumber the Latin in the degree which
the analysis of those passages would seem to imply.
It is not that there are so many more Anglo-Saxon
words, but that the words which there are, being
words of more primary necessity, do therefore so much
more frequently recur. The proportions which the
analysis of the dictionary, that is, of the language a/
rest, would furnish, are very different from those
instanced just now, and which the analysis oi sentences,
or of the language in motion, gives. Thus if we
analyse by aid of a Concordance the total vocabulary
of the English Bible, not more than sixty per cent of
the words are native ; but in the actual translation the
native words are from' ninety per cent in some pas-
sages to ninety-six in others.* The proportion in
Shakespeare's vocabulary of native words to foreign is
* See Marsh, Manual of the English Language, Engl, cd.,
p. 88, sqq.
It is curious to note how very small a part of the language
writers who wield the fullest command over its resources, and
who, from the breadth and variety of the subjects which they
treat, would be likely to claim its help in the most various
directions, call into active employment. Set the words in the
English language at the lowest, and they can scarcely be set
lower than sixty thousand ; and it is certainly surprising to learn
that in our English Bible somewhat less than a tenth of these,
about six thousand, are all that are actually employed, that
Milton in his poetry has not used more than eight thousand
words, nor Shakespeare, with all the immense range of subjects
over which he travels, more than fifteen thousand.
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so The Engilish Vocabulary. lect.
much the same as in the English Bible, that is, about
sixty to forty in every hundred ; while an analysis of
various plays gives a proportion of from eighty-eight
to ninety-one per cent of native among those in actual
employment Milton gives results more remarkable
still. We gather from a Concordance that only thirty-
three per cent of the words employed by him in his
poetical works are of Anglo-Saxon origin ; while an
analysis of a book of Paradise Lost yields eighty per
cent Q^ such, and of L* Allegro ninety. Indeed a vast
multitude of his Latin words are employed by him
only on a single occasion.
The notice of this fact will lead us to some impor-
tant conclusions as to the character of the words
which the Saxon and the Latin severally furnish ; and
principally to this : — ^that while English is thus com-
pact in the main of these two elements, their contri-
butions are of veiy^ different characters and kinds.
The Anglo-Saxon is not so much what I have just
called it, one element of the English language, as the
basis of it. All the joints, the whole articulation, the
sinews and ligaments, the great body of articles,
pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions, numerals, auxi-
liary verbs, all smaller words which serve to knit
together and bind the larger into sentences, these,
not to speak of the grammatical structure, are Saxon.
The Latin may contribute its tale of bricks, yea, of
goodly stones, hewn and polished, to the spiritual
building ; but the mortar, with all which binds Uie
different parts of it together, and constitutes them a
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I. Anglo-Saxon Moments. 31
house, is Saxon throughout. Sdden in his Tadk
Talk uses another comparison ; but to the same
effect : ' If you look upon the language spoken in the
Saxon time, and the language spoken now, you will
find the difference to be just as if a man had a cloak
which he wore plain in Queen Elizabeth's days, and
since, here has put in a piece of red, and there a piece
of blue, and here a piece of green, and there a piece
of ocange-tawny. We borrow words from the French,
Italian, Latin, as every pedantic man pleases.' Whe-
well sets forth the same fact under another image :
* Though our comparison might be bold, it would be
just if we were to say that the English language is a
conglomerate of Latin words bound together in a
Saxoii cement ; the fragments of the Latin being
partly portions introduced directly from the parent
quany, with all their sharp edges, and partly pebbles
of the same material, obscured and shaped by long
rolling in a Norman or some other channel.'
This same law holds good in all composite lan-
guages ; which, composite as they are, yet are only
such in the matter of their vocabulary. There may
be a motley company of words, some coming from
one quarter, some from another ; but there is never
a medley of grammatical forms and inflections. One
or other language entirely predominates here, and
everything has to conform and subordinate itself to
the laws of this ruling and ascendant language. The
Anglo-Saxon is the ruling language in our present
English. This having thought good to drop its
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32 The Muglish Vocabulary, lect.
genders, the French substantives which come among
us must in like manner leave theirs behind them ; so
too the verbs must renounce their, own conjugations,
and adapt themselves to ours.* * The Latin and the
French deranged the vocabulary of our language, but
never its form or structure/f A remarkable parallel
to this might be found in the language of Persia, since
the conquest of that country by the Arabs. The an-
cient Persian religion fell with the government, but
the language remained totally unaflfected by the revo-
lution, and in its grammatical structure and oiganiza-
tion forfeited nothing of its Indo-germanic character.
Arabic vocables, the only exotic words found in
Persian, are found in numbers varying with the object
and quality, style and taste of the writers, but pages
of pure idiomatic Persian may be written without
employing a singJe word from the Arabic.
* W. Schlegel (Indisclie Bibliothek, vol. i. p. 284) : Coeunt
quidem pauUatim in novum corpus peregrina vocabula, sed
grammatica linguarum, unde petitse sunt, ratio perit.
t Guest, Hist, of English Rhythms^ vol. ii. p. 108. * Lan-
guages,* says Max Mailer, * though mixed in their dictionaries,
can never be mixed in their grammar. In the English dic-
tionary the student of the science of language can detect by his
own tests Celtic, Norman, Greek, and Latin ingredients ; but
not a single drop of foreign blood has entered into the organic
system of the English language. The grammar, the blood
and soul of the language, is as pure and unmixed in English
as spoken in the British Isles, as it was when spoken on the
shores of the German Ocean by the Angles, Saxons, and
Jutes of the Continent.'
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I. Its Constitution Saxon. 38
T'At the same time the secondary or superinduced
language, though powerless to force its forms on the
language which receives its words, may yet compel
that other to renounce a portion of its own forms, by
the impossibility which is practically found to exist
of making these fit the new comers ; and thus it may
exert, although not a positive, yet a negative, influence
on the grammar of the other tongue. It has proved so
with us. ' When the English language was inundated
by a vast influx of French words, few, if any, French
forms were received into its grammar : but the Saxon
forms soon dropped away, because they did not suit
the new roots ; and the genius of the language, from
having to deal with the newly imported words in a
rude state, was induced to neglect the inflections of
the native ones. This for instance led to the intro-
duction of the s as the universal termination of all
plural nouns, which agreed with the usage of the
French language, and was not alien from that of the
Saxon, but was merely an extension of the termination
of the ancient masculine to other classes of nouns.'*
K you wish to make actual pr^of of the fact just
now asserted,, namely, that the radical constitution of
the language is Saxon, try to compose a sentence, let
it be only of ten or a dozen words, and the subject
entirely of your own choice, employing therein none
but words of a Latin derivation. You will find it
J< Grimm, quoted in The Philological Museuwt^ vol. L
667.
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S4 The Mfiglish Vocabulary, lect,
. ■ - * I I I ■ ■■ !■■ I I III! I . l it
in^possil^ or next to impossible, to do this. Which-
ever way you turn, some obstacle will meet you in
the face. There are large words in plenty, but no
binding power ; the mortar which should fill up the
interstices, and which is absolutely necessary for the
holding together of the building, is absent altogether.
On the other side, whole pages might be written, not
perhaps on higher or abstruser themes, but on femi-
liar matters of eveiy-day life, jn which every word
should be of Saxon descent ; and these, pages i&om
which, with the exercise of a little patience and in-
genuity, all ai^earance of awkwardness should be
excluded, so that none would know, unless otherwise
informed, that the writer had submitted himself to
this restraint and limitation, and was drawing his
words exclusively from one section of the English
langus^e. Sir Thomas Browne has given several
long paragraphs so constructed. Here is a little
fragment of one of them : * The first and foremost
step to all good works is the dread and fear of the
Lord of heaven and earth, which through the Holy
Ghost enlighteneth the blindness of our sinful hearts
to tread the ways of wisdom, and lead our feet into
the land of blessing.' * This is not stiiFer than the
ordinary English of his time.f
* Works f vol. iv. p. 202.
t *What Ampdre says of Latin as constituting the base of the
French {Formation de la Langue Franqaise, p 196), we may
sly of Anglo-Saxcm as constituting the base of English 3 H ne
s'agit pas ici d'un nombre plus ou moins grand de mots foomis
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I. Latin in Eaglish. 3&
But because it is thus possible to write Engli^,
foregoing altogether the use of the Latin portion of
the language, you must not therefore conclude this
latter portion to be of little value, or that we should
be as rich without it as with it. We should bft very-
far indeed from so being. I urge this, because we
hear sometimes regrets expressed that we have not
kept ^r language more free from the admixture of
Latin, and suggestions made that we should even now
endeavor to restrain our employment of this within
the jiarrowest possible limits. I remember Lord
Brougham urging upon the students at Glasgow that
k notre langae ; 11 s'agit de son fondement tt de sa substance.
II y a en fran^ais, nous le verrons, 4es mots celtiques et
germaniques ; mais le fran9ais est une langue latine, Les
mots celtiques y sont restds, les mots germaniques y sont
venus ; les mots latins n'y sont point rest^s, et n*y sont point
venus ; ils sont la langue elle-m^me, lis la constituent. H ne
pent done fttre question de rechercber quels sont les ^Hments
latins dtt fkan9ais. Ce que j 'aural d, fiEute, ce sera d'indiquer
ceux qui ne le sont pas. Koch, in some words prefixed to his
Historic Grammar pf the English Langttag^^ has put all this
in a lively manner. Having spoken of the larger or smaller,
contingents to the army of English woifds which the various
languages iave furnished, he proceeds : Die Hauptarmee,
besondeis das Volkheet, 1st deutscb, ein grosses franzOsisches
Htlfe- und Luxuscorps hat sich angeschlossen, ^ie andem
Romanen sind nur durch wenige UebcrUufer vertreten, und
sie haben ihre nationale EigenthUmlichkeit seltener bewahrt.
Ein starkeres Corps stellt das Lateinische ; es hat Truppen
stossen lassen znm AngelsSchsischen, zum Alt- mid Mittel-
engliscbeny jand sogar noch zum Neuengllschen.
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36 The JEnglish Vocabulary. lect.
they should do their best to rid their diction of long-
tailed words in 'osity ' and 'ation.' Now, doubtless,
there was sufficient ground and warrant for the warn-
ing against such which he gave them. Writers of a
former age, Samuel Johnson in the last centuiy,
Henry More and Sir Thomas Browne in the century
preceding, gave beyond all question undue prepon-
derance to the learned, or Latin, element in our lan-
guage ; and there have never wanted those who have
trod in their footsteps; while yet it is certain that
very much of the homely strength and beauty of
English, of its most popular and happiest idioms,
would have perished from it, had they succeeded in
persuading the great body ^f English writers to write
as they had written.
But for all this we could almosi as ill spare this
Latin portion of the language as the other* Philo-
sophy and science and the arts of an advanced civili-
zation find their utterance in the Latin words which
we have made our own, or, if not in them, then in
the Greek, which for present purposes may be grouped
with them. Granting too that, all other things
being equal, when a Latin and a Saxon word offer
themselves to our choice, we shall generally do best
to employ the Saxon, to speak of 'happiness' rather
than 'felicity,' 'almighty' rather than 'omnipotent,'
a * forerunner' rather than 'precursor,' a 'fore-
father' than a 'progenitor,' still these latter are as
truly denizens in the language as the former ; no alien
interlopers, but possessing the rights of citizenship as
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!• Latin and Saxon Ukments. 37
fully as the most Saxon word of them alL One part
of the language is not to be unduly favoured at tiie ex-
pense of the other ; the Saxon at the cost of the Latin,
as little as the Latin at the cost of the Saxon. ' Both/
as De Quincey, himself a foremost master of Eng-
lish, has well said, ' are indispensable ; and speaking
generally without stopping to distinguish as to subject,
both are equally indispensable. Pathos, in situations
which are homely, or at all connected with domestic
affections, naturally move by Saxon words. Lyrical
emotion of every kind, which (to merit the name of
lyrical) must be in the state of flux and reflux, or,
generally, of agitation, also requires the Saxon element
of our language. And why ? Because the Saxon is
the aboriginal element ; the basis and not the super-
structure : consequently it comprehends all the ideas
which are natural to the heart of man and to the
elementary situations of life. And although the Latin
often furnishes us with duplicates of these ideas, yet
the Saxon, or monosyllabic part, has the advantage of
precedency in our use and knowledge ; for it is the
language of the nursery whether for rich or poor, in
which great philological academy no toleration is
given to words in ''osity" or '*ation." There is
therefore a great advantage, as regards the consecra-
tion to our feelings, settled by usage and custom upon
the Saxon strands in the mixed yarn of our native
tongue. And universally, this may be remarked — that
wherever the passion of a poem is of that sort which
uses, presumes, oi postulates the ideas, without seeking
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38 The Maglish Vocabulary. lect*
to extend them, Saxon will be the " cocoon " (to speak
by the language applied to silk-worms), which the
poem spins for itself. But on the other hand, where
the motion of the feeling is fy and through the
ideas, where (as in religious or meditative poetry —
Young's for instance or Cowper's), the pathos creeps
and kindles underneath the very tissues pf the thinking,
there the Latin will predominate ; and so much so
that, whilst the flesh, the blood, and the muscle, will
be often almost exclusively Latin, the articulations
only, or hinges of connection, will be Anglo-Saxon.
On this same matter Sir Francis Palgrave has expressed
himself thus : * Upon the languages of Teutonic origin
die Latin has exercised great influence, but most
energetically on our own. The very early admixture
of the Langue d'Oily the never interrupted employment
of the French as 'the language of education, and the
nomenclature created by the scientific and literary
cultivation of advancing and civilized society, have
Romanized our speech; the warp may be Anglo-
Saxon, but the woof is Roman as well as the em-
broidery, and these foreign materials have so en-
tered into the texture, that were they plucked out,
the web would be torn to rags, unravelled and
destroyed.'*
We shall nowhere find a happier example of the
preservation of the golden mean than in our Author-
ized Version of the Bible. Among the minor and
• Histiny of Normandy and England, vol. i. p. 78.
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I. The Ikgliah Bibk, etc. 39
secondary blessings conferred by that Version on the
nations drawing their spiritual Kfe fr<Mn it^ — a blessing
onFy small by comparison with the infinitely greater
blessings whereof it is the vehicle to them, — is the
happy wisdom, the instinctive tact, with which its
authors have kept clear in this matter from all exag-
geration. There has not been on their parts any
futile and mischievous attempt to ignore the full rights
of the Latin element of the language on the one'side,
nor on the other any burdening of the Version with so
many learned Latin terms as should cause it to forfeit
its homely character, and shut up large portions of it
fi*om the understanding of plain and unlearned men.
One of the most eminent among those who in our
own times abandoned the communion of the English
Church for that of the Church of Rome has expressed
in deeply touching tones his sense of all which, in
renouncing our Translation, he felt himself to have
foregone and lost. These are his words : ' Who will
not say that the uncommon beauty and marvellous
English of the Protestant Bible is not one of the great
strongholds of heresy in this country ? It lives on the
ear^ like a music that can never be forgotten, like the
sound of church bells, which the convert hardly knows
how he can forego. Its felicities often seem to be
almost things rather than mere words. It is part of
the national mind, and the anchor of national serious-
ness, r . . . The memory of the dead passes into it
The potent traditions of childhood are stereotyped in
its verses. The power of all the griefs and trials of a
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40 The English Vocabulary. lect.
man is hidden beneath its words. It is the repre-
sentative of his best moments, and all that there has
been about him of soft and gentle and pure and
penitent and good speaks to him for ever out of his
English Bible. .... It is his sacred thing, which
doubt has never dimmed, and controversy never soiled.
In the length and breadth of the land there is not a
Protestant with one spark of religiousness about him,
whose spiritual biography is not in his Saxon Bible.'*
Certainly one has only to compare this Version of
ours with the Rhemish, at once to understand why he
should have thus given the palm and preference to
ours. I urge not here the fact that one translation is
from the ojiginal Greek, the other from the Latin
Vulgate, and thus the translation of a translation,
often reproducing the mistakes of that translation ;
but, putting all such higher advan^ges aside, only the
superiority of the diction in which the meaning, be it
, / correct or incorrect, is conveyed to English readers.
' / t • r - Thus I open the Rhenish Version at Galatians v. 19,
. v'^Vv .where the long list of the 'works of the flesh,' and ot
I y-'l , the 'fruit of the spirit,' is given. But what could a
mere English reader make of terms such as these —
' impudicity, ' ' ebrieties, ' ' comessations, ' * longani-
v<.^
/ i, c
Of
* In former editions of this book I used language which
seemed lo ascribe these words to Dr. Newman, whose I sup-
posed they were. They indeed occur in an Essay by the late
Very Rev. Dr. Faber, on * TA^ Characteristics of the Liver
of the Saints,^ prefixed by him to a Life of St, Francis of
Assist, p. 116.
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I. Authorized Version. 41
mity,' all which occur in that passage? while our
Version for ' ebrieties ' has ' drunkenness,' for * comes-
sations' has 'revellings/ for Monganimity' 'long-
suflfering.' Or set over against one another suoh
phrases as these, — in the Rhemish, ' the exemplars of
the celestials ' (Heb. ix. 23), but in ours, ' the patterns
of things in the heavens.' Or suppose if, instead of
what z«;^ read at Heb. xiiL 16, *To do good and to
communicate forget not ; for with such sacrifices God
is well pleased,' we read as in the Rhemish, 'Benefi-
cence and communication do not forget ; for with
such hosts God is promerited ' ! — Who does not feel
that if our Version had been composed in such Latin-
English as this, had been fulfilled with words* like these
' — ' odiblfe, ' ' suasible, ' ' exinanite, ' * contristate, ' ' pos-
tulations,' 'coinquinations,' 'agnition,' 'zealatour,'
'donaiy,' — ^>\'hich all, with many more of the same
mint, are found in the Rhemish Version,— our loss
would have been great and enduring, such as would
have been felt through the whole religious life of our
people, in the ytry depths of the national mind ? *
There was indeed something deeper than love of
sound and genuine English at work in our Translators,
whether they were conscious of it or not, which
hindered them from presenting the Scriptures to their
fellow-countrymen dressed out in such a semi-Latin
garb as this. The Reformation, which they were in
• There is more on this matter in my book, On the Author^
i»ed Version of the New Testament^ pp. 33-35.
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42 The Unglish Vocabulary. lect.
this translation so effectually setting forward, was just
a throwing *t)ff, on the part of the Teutonic nations, of
that everlasting pupilage in which Rome would fain
l»ve held them ; an assertion at length that they were
come to foil age, and that not through her, but directly
through Christ, they would address themselves unto
God, The use of Latin as the language of worship,
as the language in which alone the Scriptures might
be read, had been the great badge of servitude, even
as the Latin habits of thought and feeling which it
promoted had been most important helps to the
continuance of this servitude, through long ages. It
lay deep then in the essential conditions of the con-
flict which they were maintaining, that the Reformers
should develope the Saxon, or essentially national,
element in the language ; while it was just as natural
that the Roman Catholic translators, if they must
render ^ Scriptures into English at all, should yet
render them into such English as should bear the
nearest possible resemblance to that Latin Vulgate,
which Rome, with a wisdom that in such matters has
never foiled her, would gladly have seen as the only
version of the Book in the hands of the faithful.*
♦ Where the word itself which the Rhemish translators em-
ploy is a perfectly good one, it is yet instructive to observe
how often they draw on the Latin portion of the language,
where we have drawn on the Saxon, — thus * corporal ' where
we have * bodily * (I Tim. iv. 8), * coadjutor * where we have
'fellow-worker* (Col. iv. ii), 'prescience' where we have
* foreknowledge ' (Acts ii. 23), * dominator * where we have
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r. Latin and Saxon Ulements. 4^
Let me again, however, recur to the fact that what
oar Reformers did in this matter, they did without ex-
aggeration ; even as they have shown the same wise
tooderation in matters higher than this. They gave
to the Latin element of the language its rights, though
they would not suffer it to encroach upon and usurp
those of the other. It would be difilcuk not to believe,
even if many outward signs did not suggest the same,
that there is an important part in the future for that
one language of Europe to play, which thus serves as
connecting link between the North and the South,
between the languages spoken by the Teutonic
nations of the North and by the Rotnance nations
of the South ; which holds on to and partakes of
both ; which is as a middle term between them^*
There are who venture to hope that the English
Church, having in like manner two aspects, looking
6n the one side toward Rome, being herself truly
Catholic, looking on die other toward the Protestant
communions, being herself also protesting and re-
formed, may have reserved for her in the providence
of God an important share in that reconciling of a
« Lord * (Jud€ 4), * cogitation ' where we have * thought *
(Lake ix. 46), 'fraternity' where we have * brotherhood '
(I Pet. ii. 17), * senior* where we have * elder' (Rev. vii.
13), ^exprobrate * where we have 'upbraid ' (Mark xvi. 14.)
♦ See a paper, Oh the Probable Future Position of the
EngHsh Lof^age, by T* Watts, Esq., in the Proceedings of
tMe Pkiloiogical Society , vol. iv. p. 207 ; and compare the con-
cluding words in Guest's Aist. of English RJ^tkms^ vol. ii.
p. 429.
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44 The English Vocabulary. lect.
divided Christendom, whereof we are bound not to
despair. And if this ever should be so, if, notwith-
standing our sins and unworthiness, so blessed an
office should be in store for her, it will be no small
assistance to this, that the language in which her
mediation will be effected is one wherein both parties
may claim their own, in which neither will feel that it
is receiving the adjudication of a stranger, of one who
must be an alien from its deeper thoughts and habits,
because an alien from its words, but a language in
which both must recognize very much of that which
is deepest and most precious of their own.*
, Nor is this prerogative which I have just claimed
for our English the mere dream and fancy of patriotic
vanity. The scholar most profoundly acquainted with
the great group of the Teutonic languages in Europe,
a devoted lover, if ever there was such, of his native
German, I mean Jacob Grimm, has expressed himself
very nearly to the same effect, and given the palm
over all to our English in words which you will not
• Fowler {English Grammar, p. 135) : The English is a
medium language, and thus adapted to diflfusion. In the
Gothic family it stands midway between the Teutonic and the
Scandinavian branches, touching both, and to some extent
reaching into both. A German or a Dane finds much in the
English which exists in his own language. It unites by cer-
tain bonds of consanguinity, as no other language does, the
Romanic with the Gothic languages. An Italian or a French-
man finds a large class of words in the English, which exist
in his own language, though the basis of the English is
Gothic'
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I. Jdooh Qrimm on Unglish. 45
grudge to hear quoted, and with which I shall bring
this lecture to a close. After ascribing to our language
*a veritable power of expression, such as perhaps
never stood at the command of any other language of
men,' he goes on to say, ' Its highly spiritual genius,
and wonderfully haj^y development and condition,
have been the result of a surprisingly intimate union
of the two noblest languages in modem Europe, the
Teutonic and the Romance^ — It is well known in
what relation these two stand to one another in the
English tongue; the former supplying in far larger
proportion the material groundwork, the latter the
spiritual conceptions. In truth the English language,
which by no mere accident has produced and upborne
the greatest and most predominant poet of modem
times, as distinguished from the -ancient classical
poetry (I can, of course, only mean Shakespeare),
may with all right be called a world-language ; and,
like the English people, appears destined hereafter to
prevail with a sway more extensive even than its
present over all the portions of the globe.* For in
* A little more than two centuries ago a poet, himself
abundantly deserving the title of * well-languaged,' which a
contemporary or near successor gave him, ventured in some
remarkable lines timidly to anticipate this. Speaking of his
native English, which he himself wrote with such vigour and
purity, though deficient in the passion and fiery impulses
which go to the making of a first-rate poet, Daniel exclaims :
* And who, in time, knows whither we may vent
The treasure of our tongue, to what strange shores
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46 The Mtglidh Vocabulary, lect. i.
wealdi, good sense, and closeness of structure no
other of the languages at this day spoken deserves to
be compared with it — ^not even our German, which is
torn, even as we are torn, and must first rid itself of
many defects, before it can enter boldly into the lists,
as a competitor with the English.' f ^^
This gain of our best glory shall be seat,
To enrich unknowing nations with our stores ?
What worlds in the yet unformM Occident
May come refined with the accents that are ours ?
Or who can tell for what great wotk in hand
The greatness of our styk is now ofdained?
What powers it shall bi^g in, what-^irits conunandy
What thoughts let out, what humours keep restrained,
What mischief it may powerfully withstand,
And what fair ends may thereby be attained V
t U(f6fr den Ursprttng der Sprache^ Berlin, 1832, p. 50.
Compare Philardte Chasles, Etudes sur rAllemagne, pp.
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n. English as it might have been. 47
LECTURE IL
ENGUSH AS IT MIGHT HA VE BEEH.
WE have seen that many who have best rjgfht to
speak are strong to maintain that English has
gained far more than it has lost by that violent intenrup-
tion of its orderly development which the Norman Con-
quest brought with it, that it has been permanently
enriched by that immense irruption and settlement of
foreign words within its borders, which followed, diough
not immediately, on that ca.tastrophe. But there here
suggests itself to us an interesting and not uninstructive
subject of speculation ; what, namely, this language
would actually now be, if there had beai no Battle of
Hastings ; or a Battle of Hastings which William had
lost and Harold won. When I invite you to consider
this, you will understand me to exclude any similar
catastrophe, which should in the same way have issued
in the setting up of an intrusive dynasty, supported
by the arms of a foreign soldiery, and speaking a
Bomanic as distinguished from a Gothic langu^e, on
the throne of England. I lay a stress upon this last
point — a people speaking a Romanic language ; inas-
much as the effects upon the language spoken- in
England would have been quite different, would have
fallen far short of those which actually found place, if
the great Canute had succeeded in founding a Danish,
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48 English as it might have been. leot.
or Harold Hardrada a Norwegian, dynasty in England
— ^Danish and Norwegian both being dialects of the
same Gothic language which was already spoken here,
Some differences in the language now spoken by
Englishmen, such issues, — and one and the other were
at different times well within the range of possibility, —
would have entailed ; but differences inconsiderable by
the side of those which have followed the coming in
of a conquering and ruling rac^ speaking one of the
tongues directly formed upon the Latin.
This which I suggest is only one branch of* a fitr
larger speculation. It would be no uninteresting task
ifone thoroughly versed in the whole constitutional
lore of England,^ acquainted as a Pilgrave was with
Anglo-Saxon England, able to look into the seeds of
things and to discern which of these contained the
germs of future development, which would grow and
which would not, should interpret to us by the spirit of
historic divination, what, if there had been no success-
ful Norman invasion, would be now the social and
political institutions of England, what the relations of
the different ranks of society to one another, what the
division and tenure of land, what amount of liberty
at home, of greatness abroad, England would at this
day have achieved. It is only on one branch of this
subject that I propose to enter at all.
It may indeed appear to some that even in this I
am putting before them problems which are in their
very nature impossible to solve, which it is therefore
unprofitable to entertain ; since dealing, as here we
must, with what might have been, not with what
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n. Laws of Language not Capricioits. 49
actually has been or is, all must be mere guesswork for
us; and, however ingenious our guesses, we can
never test them by the touchstone of actual feet, and
so estimate their real worth. Such an objection would
rest on a mistake, though a very natural one. I am
persuaded we can know to a very large extent how,
under such conditions as I have supposed, it would
have fared with our tongue, what the English would
be like, which in such a case the dwellers in this
island would be speaking at this day. The laws
which preside over the development of language are
so fixed and immutable, and capricious as they may
seem, there is really so little caprice in them, that if
we can at all trace the course which other kindred
dialects have followed under such conditions as
English would have then been submitted to, we may
thus arrive at very confident conclusions as to the
road which English would have travelled. And there
are such languages ; more or less the whole group of
Gothic languages are such. Studying any one of
these, and the most obvious of these to study would
be the German, we may learn very much of the forms
which English would now wear, if the tremendous
shock of one ever-memorable day had not changed so
much in this land, and made England and English
both so diflferent from what otherwise they would have
been.
At the same time I would not have you set /ag high
the similarity which would have existed between the
English and other Gothic languages, eyen if no such
huge, catastrophe as that had mixed so many new
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50 English as it might have been. LfiCT.
elements in the one which are altogether foreign to
the other. There are always forces at work among
tribes and people which have parted company, one -
portion of them, as in 'this instance, going forth to
new seats, while the other tarried in the old ; or both
of them travelling onward, and separating more and
more from one another, as in the case of those whom
we know as Greeks and Italians^ who, going forth from
those Illyrian highlands where they once dwelt
together, occupied each a peninsula of its own ;
or, again, as between those who, like the Britons of
Wales and of Cornwall, have been violently thrust
asunder and separated from one another by the
intrusion of a hostile people, like a wedge, between
them ; there are, I say, forces widening slowly but
surely the breach between the languages spoken by the
one section of the divided people and by the other,
multiplying the points of diversity between the speech
of those to whom even dialectic diifereaces may once
have been unknown. This, that they should travel
daily further from one another, comes to pass quite
independently of any such sudden and immense revo-
lution as that of which we have been just speaking. If
there had been no Norman Conquest, nor any event
similar to it, it is yet quite certain that English would
be now a very different language from any at the
present day spoken in Germany or in Holland, Dif-
ferent of course it would be from that purely conven-
tional language, now recognized in Germany as the
only language of literature ; but very different too
from any dialect of that Low German, still popularly
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H. South African English. 51
spoken on the Frisian coast and lower banks of the
Elbe, to which no doubt it would have borne a far
closer resemblance. It was indeed already very dif-
ferent when that catastrophe arrived. The six hun-
dred' years which, on the briefest reckoning, had
elapsed since the Saxon immigration to these shores
— ^that immigration had probably begun very much
earlier — had in this matter, as in others, left their mark.
I will very briefly enumerate some of the dis-
similating forces, moral and material, by the action
of which those who, so long as they dwelt together,
possessed the same language, little by little become
barbarians to one another.
One branch of the speakers of a language engrafts
on the old stock various words which the other does
not; and this from various causes. It does so by
intercourse with new races, into contact and con-
nection with which it, but not the other branch of the
divided family, has been brought. Thus in quite
recent times South African English, spoken in the
presence of a large Dutch population at the Cape,
has acquired such words as 'to treck,' *to ihspan,'
'to outspan,' 'spoor,' 'wildbeest,' 'boor' in the sense
of farmer, of which our English at home knows
nothing. So too the great English colony in India
has acquired 'ayah,' 'bungalow,' 'dunbar,' 'loot,'
'nabob,' 'nautch,' 'nullah,' 'rupee,' 'zeminder,'
with many more. It is true that we too at home have
adopted some of these, and understand them alL
But suppose there were little or no communication
between us at home and our colony in India, no
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52 English as it might have been. lect.
passing from the one to the other, no literature com-
mon to both, here are the germs of what would grow
in lapse of years to an important element of diversity
between the English of England and of India. Or
take another example. The English-speaking race
in America has encountered races which we do not
encounter here, has been brought into relation with
aspects of nature which are quite foreign to English-
men. For most of these it has adopted the words
which it has found ready made to its needs by those
who occupied the land before it, or still occupies it
side by side with itself; has borrowed, for example,
'pampas' and 'savannah' from the Indian ; 'bayou,'
'cache/ 'crevasse,' 'lev6e,' 'portage,' from the
French of Louisiana or of Canada ; 'adobe,' 'can-
yon' (canon), 'chaparral,' 'corral,' 'hacienda,'
'lariat,' 'lasso,' 'mustang,' 'placer,' 'rancho,' or
'ranche,' 'tortilla,' the slang verb 'to vamose' (the
Spanish 'vamos,' let us go), from the Spaniards of
Mexico and California. In like manner ' backwoods-
man,' 'lumberer,' 'squatter,' are words bom of a
natural condition of things, whereof we know nothing.
And this which has thus happened elsewhere, hap-
pened also here. The Britons — not to enter into the
question whether they added much or little — must
have added something, and in the designation of
natural objects in 'aber' and 'pen' and 'straith,'
certainly added a good deal,* to the vocabulary of
• See Isaac Taylor, Words and Places^ 2nd edit. p. 193.
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n. How Languages Diverge. 53
the Saxon immigrants into this island, of which those
who remained in old Saxony knew nothing. Again,
the Danish and Norwegian inroads into England were
inroads not of men only but also of words. In all
this an important element of dissimilation made
itself felt.
Then too, where languages have diverged from one
another before any definite settlement has taken place
in the dictionary, out of the numerous synonyms for
one and the same object which the various dialects of
the common language afford, one people- will perpe-
tuate one, and the other another, each of them after
a while losing sight altogether of that on which their
choice has not fallen. That mysterious sentence of
death which strikes words, we oftentimes know not
why, others not better, it tnay. be worse, taking their
room, will frequently cause in process of time a word
to perish from one branch of what was once a common
language, while it lives on and perhaps imfolds itself
into a whole feimily in the other. Thus of the words
which the Angles and Saxons brought with them
from beyond the sea, some have lived on upon our
English soil, while they have perished in that which
might be called, at least by comparison, their native
soil. Innumerable others, on the contrary, have here
died out, which have continued U> flourish there. As
a specimen of those which have found English air
more healthful than German we may instance 'bairn.'
This, once common to all the Gothic languages, is
now extinct in all of the Germanic group, and has
been so for centuries, ' kind ' having taken its place ;
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54 English as it might have been. lect.
while it lives with us and in the languages of the
Scandinavian family. Others, on the contrary, after
an existence' longer or shorter with us, have finally
disappeared here, while they still enjoy a vigorous life
on the banks of the Elbe and the Eyden A vulture
is not here any more a ^geir' (Holland), nor a rogue
a 'skellum ' (Urquhart), nor an uncle (a mother's
brother) an *eame,' but * geir' and 'schelm' and
' oheim ' still maintain a vigorous existence there.
Each of these words which has perished, and they
may be counted by hundreds and thousands, has
been replaced by another, generally by one which is
strange to the sister language, such as either it never
knew, or of which it has long since lost all recol-
lection. * Languages,' as Max Miiller has said, *so
intimately related as Greek and Latin, have fixed on
different expressions for son, daughter, brother,
woman, man, sky, earth, moon, hand, mouth, tree,
bird, &c. It is clear that when the working of this
principle of natural selection is allowed to extend
more widely, languages, though proceeding from the
same source, may in time acquire a totally different
nomenclature for the commonest objects.' * There
is thus at work a double element of estrangement of
the one from the other. In what has gone a link
between them has been broken ; in what has come in
its room an element of diversity has been introduced.
* On the Science of Language^ ist Ser. p. 271, sqq. See
too on this * divergence of dialects * of which we are treating,
Marsh, Origin and History of the English Language^ p. 82.
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n. How Langudges Diverge. 56
Sometimes even where a word lives on in both lan-
guages, it will have become provincialin one, while
it keeps a place in the classical diction of the other.
Thus *klei' is provincial in German,* while our
'clay' knows no such restriction of the area in which
it moves.
Or where a word has not actually perished in one
division of what was once a common language, it will
have been thrust out of general use in one, but not in
the other* Thus 'ross,' earlier 'hros,' is rare and
poetical in German, having in eveiy-day use given way
to 'pferd;' while 'horse' has suffered no parallel
diminution in the commonness of its use. * Head ' in
like manner has fully maintained its place ; but not
so '•haupt,' which during the last two or three cen-
turies has been more and more giving way to * kopf.
Again, words in one language and in the other will
in tract of time and under the necessities of an ad-
vancing civilization appropriate to themselves a more
exact domain of meaning than they had at the first,
yet will not appropriate exactly the same ; or one will
enlaige its meaning and the other not ; or in some
other way one will drift away from moorings to which
the other remains true. Our 'timber' is the same
word as the German ' zimmer,' but it has not precisely
the same meaning ; nor ' rider ' as ' ritter,' nor ' hide '
as * haut ;' neither is '.beam ' exactly the same as
'baum/nor 'reek' as 'ranch,' nor 'schnecke' (in
German a 'snail') as 'snake ;' nor 'tapfer' as 'dap-
♦ See Grimm's Woerterbuch^ s. v.
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56 JSnglish as it might have been. lect.
per,' nor 'deer' as *thier/ nor /acre' as 'acker,' nor
'to whine 'as 'weinen,' nor 'tide' and 'tidy' as
' zeit ' and ' zeitig. ' ' Booby ' suggests an intellectual
deficiency, 'bube' a moral depravity. *Lust' in
German has ao subaudition of sinful desire ; it has
within the last two hundred years acquired such in
English. 'Knight' and 'knecht,' 'knave' and
'knabe' have travelled in very different directions.
Much of this divergence is the work of the last two
or three hundred years, so that the process of es-
trangement is still going forward. Thus ' elders were
parents in England not veiy long ago, quite as much
as 'eltem' are parents to this day in Germany (see
Luke ii. 41 ; Coh iii. 20, Coverdale). Our 'shine'
is no longer identical in meaning with the German
'schein;' but it too once meant 'show' or 'sem-
blance, ' as the latter does still. * ' Taufer ' in German
is solemn, 'dipper' in English is familiar. The
English of England and the English of America are
already revealing differences of this kind. ' Com ' on
the other side of the Atlantic means always maize,
'grain' means always wheat We know nothing
here of these restrictions of meaning. Nay, the same
differences may be found nearer home. A ' merchant '
in Scotland is not what we know by this name, but a
shopkeeper ^f while in Ireland by a 'tradesman' is
* Thus Col. ii. 23 (Coverdale), « which things have a sMne
of wisdom,
t KiiCTfXo^i not efiitopoi.
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u. How Languages Diverge. 57
indicated not a grocer, butcher, or one following
other similar occupations, but an artisan, a bricklayer,
glazier, carpenter, or the like. Here is another ele-
ment of divergence between sister languages, evermore
working to make two what once had been only one.
But further, in the same way as the bulk and
sinews of an arm rapidly increase, being put to
vigorous use, while other limbs, whose potential
energies have not been equally called forth, show no
corresponding growth, even so it proves with speech.
It is indeed marvellous how quickly a language will
create, adapt, adopt words in any particular line of
things to which those who speak that language are
specially addicted ; so that while it may remain abso-
lutely poor in every other department of speech, it
willj^e nothing less than opulent in this.* It will
* Pott {Etymol. Forschung^ 2nd edit vol. ii. p. 134) sup-
plies some curious and instructive examples of this unfolding
of a language in a particular direction. Thus in the Zulu, a
CaflOre dialect, where the chief or indeed entire wealth consists
in cattle, there are words out of number to express cows of
different ages, colours, qualities. Instead of helping them-
selves out as we do by an adjective, as a white cow, a red cow,
a barren cow, they have a distinctive word for each of these.
We do not think or speak much about cocoa-nuts, and only
seeing them when they are full ripe, have no inducement to
designate them in other stages of their growth ; but in Lord
North's Island, where they are the main support of the in^
habitants, they have five words by which to name the fruit in
its several stages from the first shoot to perfect maturity. In the
Dorsetshire dialect there are distmct names for the four
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58 English as it might have been. lect.
follow that where races separate, and one group or
both seek new seats for themselves, the industrial
tendencies of the separated groups, as suggested by
the different physical aspects and capabilities of the
regions which they occupy, will bring about a large
development in each of words and phrases in which
the other will have no share. Thus the occupants of
this island became by the very conditions of their
existence, and unless they were willing to be indeed,
what the Latin poet called them, altogether divided
from the whole world, a seafering people. It has
followed that the language has grown rich in terms
having to do with the sea and with the whole life of
the sea, far richer in these than the dialects spoken
by the mediterranean people of Germany. They, on
the contrary, poor in this domain of words, are fer
better furnished than we are with terms relating to
those mining operations which they pursued m\ich
earlier, on a scale more extended, and with a greater
application of skill, than we have done.
There has been a vigorous activity of political life
in England which has needed, and needing has
feshioned for itself, a diction of its own. Germany
on the contrary is so poor in corresponding term?,
that when with the weak beginnings of constitutional
forms in our own day some of these terms became
stomachs of ruminant animals (Barnes* Glossary, p. 78). In
Lithuanian there are five different names for five several kinds
of stubble (Grimm, Gesch, cUr Deutschen Sprache, vol. i.
p. 69).
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II. Differences in Pronunciation. 59
necessary^ it was obliged to borrow the word * bill '
from us. It is true that in this it was no more than
reclaiming and recovering a word of its own, which
had been suffered to drop through and disappear.
The same word will obtain a slightly different pro-
nunciation, and a somewhat more marked difference
in spellings in the one language and the other.
Where there is no special philological training, a very
slight variation in the former will often effectually
conceal from the ear, as in the latter from the eye,
an absolute identity, and for all practical purposes
constitute them not one and the same, but two and
different Mpst of us in attempting to speak a foreign
language, or to understand our own as spoken by a
foreigner, have had practical experience of the obsta-
cles to understanding or being understood, which a
very slight departure from the standard of pronun-
ciation recognized by us will interpose. And quite
as effectual* as differences of pronunciation for the
ear, are differences of spelling for the eye, in the way
of rendering recognition hard or even impossible. It
would be curious to know how many Englishmen who
have made fair advances in German, as usually taught,
have recognized the entire identity of 'deed' and
'that,' of 'fowl' and 'vogel,' of 'dough' and 'teig,'
of 'oath 'and 'eid,'of 'durch' and 'through,' of
' dreary ' and ' traurig, ' of ' ivy ' and ' epheu, ' of ' death '
and ' tod, ' of ' quick ' and ' keck, ' of ' deal ' and ' theil, '
of 'clean' and 'klein,' of 'enough' and 'genug.'
It is only too easy for those who are using the very
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60 English as it might have been. lect.
same words, to be, notwithstanding, as barbarians to
one another. .
^ Again, what was the exception at the time of
separation will in one branch of the divided family have
grown into the rule, while perhaps in the other branch
it will have been disallowed altogether. , So too idioms
and other peculiar usages will have obtained allowance
in one branch, which, not finding favour with the other,
will in it be esteemed as violations of the law of the
language, or at any rate declensions from its purity.
Or again idioms, which one people have overlived,
and have stored up in the unhonoured lumber-room
of the past, will 'still be in use and honour with the
other; and. thus it will sometimes come to pass that
what seems, and in fact is, the newer swarm, a
colony which has gone forth, will have older idioms
than the main body of a people which has remained
behind, will retain an archaic air and old-world feshion
about the words they use, their way of pronouncing,
their order and manner of cpmbining them. Thus
after the Conquest our insular French gradually
diverged from the French of the Continent. The
Prioress in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales could speak
her French ' full faire and fetishly ;' but it was French,
as the poet slyly adds,
* After the scole of Stratford atte bow.
For French of Paris was to hire unknowe.'
One of our old chroniclers, writing in the reign of
Elizabeth, informs us that by the English colonists
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n. Colonies preserve Archaisms. 61
within the Pale in Ireland numerous words were
preserved in common use, — *the dregs of the old
ancient Chaucer English,' as he contemptuously calls
them, — ^which were quite obsolete and forgotten in
England itself. Thus they called a spider an *atter-
cop ' — ^a word, by the way, still in popular use in the
North ; a physician a * leech,' as in poetry he is still
styled ; a dunghill a *mixen,' — ^the word is common to
this day all over England; a quadrangle or base-court a
*bawn;'* they employed 'uncouth' in the earlier sense
of 'unknown.' Nay more, their pronunciation and
general manner of speech was so diverse from that of
England, that Englishmen at their first coming over
often found it hard or impossible to comprehend.
Something of the same sort took place after the Re-
vocation of the Edict of Nantes, and the consequent
formation of colonies of French Protestant refugees
in various places, especially in Amsterdam and other
chief cities of Holland. There gradually grew up
among these what was called 'refugee French, 'f
which within a generation or two diverged in several
particulars from the classical language of France ; the
divergence beuig mainly occasioned by the fact that
this remained stationary, while the classical language
* The only two writers whom Richardson quotes as using
this word are Spenser and Swift, both writing in Ireland and
of Irish matters.
t There is an excellent account of this 'refugee French ' in
Weiss* History of the Protestant Refugees of France,
X Lyell {On the Antiquity of Man, p. 466) confirms this
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62 JEnglish as it might have been. lect.
was in motion; this retained words and idioms,
which the other had dismissed.* So too, there is,
I believe, a very considerable difference between
the Portuguese spoken in the Old country and in
Brazil.
Again, the wear and tear of a language, the using
up of its forms and flexions, the phonetic decay
which IS everywhere and in all languages incessantly
* Lyell (Oft th^ Antiquity of Man, p. 466) confinns this
from another quarter : — * A German colony in Pennsylvania
was cut off from frequent communication with Europe, for
about a quarter of a century, during the wars of the French
Revolution between 1792 and 1 81 5. So marked had been the
effect even of tWs brief and imperfect isolation, that when
Prince Bemhard of Saxe Weimar travelled among them a few
years after the peace, he found the peasants speaking as they
had done in Germany in the preceding century, and retaining
a dialect which at home had already become obsolete (see his
Travels in North America, p. 123). Even after the renewal
of the German emigration from Europe, when I travelled in
1 841 among the same people in the retired valleys of the
AHeghanies, I found the newspapers ftdl of terms iialf English
and half German, and many an Anglo-Saxon word which had
assumed a Teutonic dress, as **fencen" to fence, instead of
umzaimen, ** flauer " for flour, instead of " mehl," and so on.
What with the retention of terms no longer in use in the
mother country and the borrowing of new ones from neigh-
bouring states, there might have arisen in Pennsylvania in five
or six generations, but for the influx of new comers from
Germany, a mongrel speech equally unintelligible to the
Anglo-Saxon and to the inhabitants of the European father-
land.' Compare Sir G. C. Lewis, On the Romance Languages^
p. 49-
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II. Phonetic Decay. 63
going forward, will go forward at a faster rate in one
branch of the language than in the other ; or, if not
faster, will light not upon exactly the same forms or
the same words ; or, if on the same, yet not exactly
upon the same letters. Thus the Latin ' sum ' and
the Greek e</ui, the same word, as I need hardly say,
are both greatly worn away, — worn away in compari-
son with words of rarer use, as sixpences passing
oftener from hand to hand, lose their superscription
faster than crowns, — but they are not worn away in
precisely the same letters ; each has kept a letter be-
longing to a more primitive form of the word, which
the other has not kept, and lost a letter which the
other has not lost. This too, the unequal action of
phonetic decay, will account for much.
Nor may w© leave out of sight that which Grimm
has dwelt on so strongly, and brought into so clear a
light — namely, the modifying influence on the throat
and other organs of speech, and thus on human speech
itself, which soil and climate exercise— an influence
which, however slight at any one moment, yet being
evermore in operation produces effects which are
very far from slight in the end. We have here in
great part the explanation of the harsh and guttural
sounds which those dwelling in cold mountainous
districts make their own, of the softer and more
liquid tones of those who dwell in the plains and under
a more genial sky. These climatic influences indeed
reach very far, not merely as they affect the organs of
speech, but the characters of those who speak, which
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64 English as it might have been. lect.
characters will not fail in their turn to express them-
selves in the language. Where there is a general lack
of energy and consequent shrinking from effort, this
will very soon manifest itself in a corresponding
feebleness in the pronunciation of words, while, on
the other hand, a Dorian strength will show itself
in a corresponding breadth of utterance.
But it would lead me too far, were I to attempt to
make an exhaustive enumeration of all the forces
which are constantly at work, to set ever farther from
one another in this matter of language those who
once were entirely at one. These causes which I
have instanced must suffice. The contemplation of
these is enough to make evident that, even could we
abstract all the influences upon English which the
Norman Conquest has exercised, it would still re-
main at this, day a very different language from any
now spoken by Old-Saxon or Frisian,* that it would
• In the contemplation of facts like these it has been some- *
times anxiously asked, whether a day will not arrive when the
language now spoken alike on this side of the Atlantic and on
the other, will divide into two languages, an Old English and
a New. It is not impossible, and yet we can confidently hope
that such a day is far distant. For the present at least, there
are mightier forces tending to keep us together than those
which are tending to divide. Doubdess, if they who went out
from among us to pec^le and subdue a new continent, had
left our shores two or three centuries earlier than they did,
when the language was much farther removed from that ideal
after which it was unconsciously striving, and in which, once
reached, it has in great measure acquiesced ; if they had not
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II. American Mnglish. 65
be easy to set far too high the resemblance which
under other circumstances might have existed between
carried with them to their new hcHnes their English BiUe, their
English Shakespeare, and what else of worth had been already
uttered in the English tongue ; if, having once left us, the
intercourse between Old and New England had been entirely
broken off, or only rare and partial, there would then have
unfolded themselves differences between the language spoken
here and there, which, in tract of time accumulating and
multiplying, might already have gone far to constitute the
languages no longer one, but two. As it is, however, the
joint operation of these three causes, namely, that the separa-
tion did not take place- in the infancy or early youth of the
language, but only in its ripe manhood, that England and
America own a body of literature, to which they alike look up
and appeal as containing the authoritative standards of the
language, that the intercourse between the two people has been
large and frequent, hereafter probably to be larger and more
frequent still, has up to this present time been strong enough
effectually to traverse, repress, and check all those forces
which tend to divergence. At the same time one must own
that there are not wanting some ominous signs. Of late, above
all since the conclusion of their great Civil War, some writers
on the other side of the Atlantic have announced that hence-
forth America will, so to speak, set up for herself, will not
accept any longer the laws and canons of speech which may
here be laid down as of final authority for all members of the
English-speaking race, but travel in her own paths, add words
to her own vocabulary, adopt idioms of her own, as may seem
the best to. her. She has a perfect right to do so. The lan-
guage is as much hers as ours. There are on this matter some
excellent remarks in Dwight's Modem Philology^ ist Ser. p.
141, with which compare Whitney, Language and- the Study of
Language^ p. 173. Still for our own sake, who now read so
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66 English as it might have been, lect,
English and the other dialects of the Gothic stock.
For all this we may be certain that they would have
resembled one another far more nearly than now they .
do. Let us endeavor a litde to realize to ourselves
English as it might then have been; and in view
of this consider the disturbing forces which the
Norman occupation of England brought with it, and
how they acted upon the language; so we shall be
better able to measure what the language except for
these would have been.
The Battle of Hastings had been lost and won.
Whether except for the strange and terrible coinci-
dence of the two invasions of England almost at the
same instant the Saxon battle-axes might not have
proved a match for the Norman spears we cannot now
determine. But the die was cast The invader had
on that day so planted his foot on English soil,
that air aft^r efforts were utterly impotent to dis-
lodge him. But it took nearly three centuries before
the two races, the victors and the vanquished, who
now dwelt side by side in the same land, were
thoroughly reconciled and blended *1nto one people.
many American books with profit and delight, and look for-
ward to a literature grander still unfolding itself there, for our
own sake, that we do not speak of hers, we must hope that
* to donate,' * to placate,' * to berate,' * to belittle,' *to hap-
pify,' 'declinature,' 'resurrected,' * factatively,' and the like,
are not fair specimens of the words which will constitute the
future differentia between the vocabularies of America and
of England.
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n. Nomian Anglo-Saxon. 67
During the first century which followed the Conquest,
the language of the Saxon population was, as they
were themselves, utterly crushed and trodden under
foot. A foreign dynasty, speaking a foreign tongue,
and supported by an army of foreigners, was on the
throne of England ; Norman ecclesiastics filled all the
high places of the Church, filled probably every
place of honour and emolument ; Norman castles
studded the land. During the second century, a
reaction may very distinctly be traced, at first most
feeble, but little by little gathering strength, on the
part of the conquered race to reassert themselves, and
as a part of their reassertion to reassert the right of
English to be the national language of England. In
the third century after the Conquest it was at length
happily evident that Normandy was forever lost
(1206), that for Norman and Englishman, alike there
was no other sphere but England ; this reassertion
Qf the old Saxondom of the land gaining strength
every day ; till, as a visible token that the vanquished
were again the victors, in the year 1349 English and
not French was the language taught in the schools
of this land.
But the English, which thus emerged from this
struggle of centuries in which it had refused to die,
was very different from that which had entered into it.
The whole of its elaborate inflections, its artificial
grammar, showed tokens of thorough disorganization
and decay ; indeed most of it had already disappeared.
How this came to pass I will explain to you in the
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68 English as it might have been. lbct.
excellent words of the late Professor of Anglo-Saxon
at Oxford. ' Great and speedy/ he observes, 'nwist
have been the eflfect of the Norman Conquest in
ruining the ancient grammar. The leading men in
the state having no interest in the vernacular, its
cultivation fell immediately into neglect The chief
of the Saxon clergy deposed or removed, who should
now keep up that supply of religious Saxon literature,
of the copiousness of which we may judge even in
our day by the considerable remains that have out*
liyed hostility and neglect? Now that the Saxon
landowners were dispossessed, who should patronize
the Saxon bard, and welcome the max) of song in the
halls of mirth ? The shock of the Conquest gave a
deathblow to Saxon literature. The English lan-
guage continued to be spoken by the masses who
could speak no other ; and here and there a secluded
student continued to write in it But its honours and
emoluments were gone, and a gloomy period of de-
pression lay before the Saxon language as before the
Saxon people. The inflection system could not live
through this trying period. Just as we accumulate
superfluities about us in prosperity, but in adversity
we get rid of them as encumbrances, and we like to
travel light when we have only our own legs to carry
us-r-just so it happened to the English language. For
now all these sounding terminations that made so
handsome a figure in Saxon courts ; the -an, the -um ;
the -ERA, the -ana ; the -igenne and -igenoum ; all
these, as superfluous as bells on idle horses, were laid
aside when the exercise of power was gone.'
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II. Huin of Anglo-Saxon Qrammar. 69
But another force, that of external violence, had •
been at work also for the breaking up of the grammar
of the language. A conquering race under the ne-
cessity of communicating with a conquered in their
own tongue is apt to make very short work of the
niceties of grammar in that tongue, to brush all
these away, as so much trumpeiy, which they will not
be at the pains to master. If they can make their
commands intelligible, this is all about which they
concern themselves. They go straight to this mark ;
but whether, in so doing, adjective agree with sub-
stantive, or verb with noun, or the proper case be
employed, for this they care nothing if only they are
understood ; jior is this all ; there is a certain satis-
faction, a secret sense of superiority, in thus stripping
the language of its ornament, breaking it up into
new combinations, compelling it to novel forms, and
making thus not merely the wills, but the very speech
of the conquered, to confess its subjection.*
Nor was it the grammar only which had thus be-
come a ruin. Those three centuries had made enor-
mous havoc in the v^xabulary as well. Rich and c\
expressive as this had been in the palmy days of
Anglo-Saxon literature, abundantly furnished as un-
doubtedly then it was with words having to do with
matters of moral and intellectual concern, and in the
nomenclature of the passions and affections, it was
very for from being richly supplied with them now.
Words which dealt with the material interests of every-
• Compare Sir G. C. Lewis, On the Romance Lofiguages.
pp. 21-23.
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70 English as it might have been. lect.
day life could scarcely help remaining familiar arid
vernacular ; but those pertaining to higher domains of
thought, feeling, and passion and to all loftier culture,
either moral or material, had in vast multitudes dropt
out of use arid been forgotten. Curious illustrations
have been given of the destruction which had been
wrought in some of the most illustrious and far
branching families of words, so that of some of these
there did not half a dozen, of others there did not
one representative survive.*
The destruction of grammatical forms was, it is true,
only the acceleration and the more complete carrying
out of what would anyhow have come to pass, although
perhaps not so thoroughly, as certainly not at so early
a date. For indeed there is nothing more certain than
that all languages in their historical peHod are in a
continual process of simplifying themselves, dropping
their subtler distinctions, allowing the mere collocation
of words in their crude state or other devices of the
same kind to do that which once was done by inflec-
tion. To this subject, however, I shall have occasion
by and by to recur ; I will no£ therefore dwell upon
it here. But the insuflficiency of the vocabulary, con-
sequent in part on this impoverishment of it, in part
on the novel thoughts and things claiming to find
utterance through it, was a less tolerable result of
those centuries of depression ; happily too was capable
of remedy ; which the perishing of grammatical
forms, even if remedy had been looked for, was not.
■ ■ ' ' " ■ •
• Thus see Marsh, Origin and History of the English Z^n-
^«^^'» pp. "3» 443- .
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II. ImpoverishmerU of Anglo-Saxon. 71
Two ways were open here. An attempt might have
been made to revive and recover the earlier words
which had been lost and let go ; and where new
needs demanded expression, to fabricate from the
vernacular words which should correspond to these
new needs. Now, if the revival of the English
nationality had meant the expulsion of the dominant
Norman race, this would very probably have been the
course taken ; and the reaction would have put under
a common ban language and institutions alike. But
happily it meant no such thing. It meant the blend-
ing of the two races into one, the forming of a new
English nation by the gradual coalition of the two, by
the growing consciousness that this England was the
equal heritage of both, the welfare of which was the
common interest of both. It was not on either side
a triumph, or rather, as are all reconciliations, it was
on -both sides a triumph. But where under these
circumstances should a supply of the n^w necessities
be so naturally looked for as from the French ? That
was the language of one of. the parties in this.happy
transaction; of the one which, in respect of language,
was given up far the most, and which therefore might
fairly look for this partial compensation. Words of
theirs, few as compared with those which afterwards
found an entrance into the English tongue, but not
few in themselves, had already effected a lodgement
there ; others, if not adopted, had become more or
less familiar to English ears; not to say that the
language which they spoke was in possession of a
literature far in advance at that time of any other in
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72 English as it might have been. lect.
modem Europe, a literature eagerly read here as
elsewhere in originals or translations more or less free,
representing, as it did, that new world which was
springing up, and not, as the Anglo-Saxon did, an
old world which was passing or had passed away.
Now it is a very interesting question, and one
which often has been discussed, What proportion do
the French words which then found their way into the
language, or which have subsequently entered by the
door which was thus opened to them, by the declara-
tion then virtually made that their admission ^^^as not
contrary to the genius of the language, bear to the
original stock of the language, on which they were
engrafted ? A recent enquirer, who professes to have
made an inventory of the whole language, has arrived
at this result, namely, that considerably more than
one half of our words, not indeed of those which we
use in writing, still less in speaking, but more than
one half of those registered in our dictionaries, are
Romanic,* are therefore the result of the Norman
Conquest, and but for it with very few exceptions
would not have found their way to us at all.
I believe the proportion which he indicates to be
quite too high, and the data on which his calculation
proceeds to be altogether misleading. But without
entering upon this question, and assuming proportions
which I am persuaded are more accurate, let us sup-
pose that there are in round numbers one hundred
• Thommcrel, Recherches sur la Fusion du FroHCO*
iformand et de PAnglO' Saxon, Paris, 1841.
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II. Proportion of Romanic Words. 73
thousand words in the English lauguage, — it is easy
to make them any number we please, according to the
scheme of enumeration upon which we start, to bring
them up to half as many again, or to reduce them, as
some have done, to less than one half, — and let us
further suppose that some thirty thousand of 'these
have come to us through that contact with France into
which the Battle of Hastings and its consequences
brought us, and but for these would never have
reached us at all. Let us, I say, assume this ; and
a problem the most interesting presents itself to us —
. namely, how should we, or whoever else might in that
event have been at this moment living in England,
have supplied the absence of these words ? What
would Englishmen have done, if the language had
never received these additions ? It would be a slight
and shallow answer,- in fact no answer at all, to reply,
we should have done without them. We could not
have done without them. The words which we thus
possess, and which it is suggested we might have
done without, express a multitude of facts, thoughts,
feelings, conceptions, which, rising up before a people
growing in civilization, in knowledge, in learning, in
intercourse with other lands, in consciousness of its
own vocation in this world, mtist find their utterance
by one means or another, could not have gone with-
out some words or other to utter them. The problem
^before us is, what these means would have been ; by
what methods the language would have helped itself,
if it had been obliged, like so many sister dialects, to
draw solely on its own resources, to rely on honi^
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74 JEnglish as it might have been. lect.
manufeaures,^ instead of importing, as it was able to
do, so many serviceable articles ready made from
abroad. i^
To this question I answer first and generally, and
shall afterwards enter into particulars, that necessity
is the mother of invention, and that many powers of
the language, which are now in a great measure
dormant, which have been only partially evoked,
would have been called into far more frequent and
far more vigorous exercise, under the stress of those
necessities which would then have made themselves
felt Take, for example, the power of composition,
that is, of forming new words by the combination of
old — a power which the language possesses, though
it is one which has grown somewhat weak and stiff
through disuse. This would doubtless have been
appealed to far more frequently than actually it has
been. Thrown back on itself, the language would
have evolved out of its own bosom, to supply its
various wants, a far larger number of compound
words than it has now produced. This is no mere
guess of mine. You have only to look at the sister
German language — ^^^sister it is now, it would have
been zvAok sister but for that famous field of Hastings
— and observe what it has effected in this line, how
it has stopped the gaps of which it has gradually
become aware by aid of these compound words, and
you may so learn what we, under similar condi^ons,
would have done. Thus, if we had not found it more
convenient to jujqpf the French 'desert,' if English
had been obliged, like the spider, to spin a word out
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n. Compound Words. 76
of its own bowels, it might have put 'sand-waste'
together, as the German actually has done. This
and other words I shall suggest may sound strange to
you at first hearing, but would have long left oflf their
strangeness, had they been current lor some hundreds
of years. If we had not the Low-Latin 'massacre,'
we might have had * blood-bath,' which would not be
a worse word in English than in German. Sop too, if
we had not had 'deluge,' the Latin 'dilmium,' we
too might have lighted on 'sin-flood,' as others have
done. A duel might have been a ' two-fight ' or ' twi-
fig^t,' following the analogy of 'twilight ' and 'twibilL'
Instead of ' pirate ' we might have had ' sea-robber ;'
indeed, if I do not mistake, we have the word. We
should have needed a word for ' hypocrisy ;' but the
German ' scheinheiligkeit ' at any rate suggests that
' shewholiness ' might have effectually served our turn.
This last example is from the Greek, but the Greek
in our tongue entered in the rear of the Latin, and
would not have entered except by the door which
that had opened.
Let me at the same time observe that the fact of
the Gennans having fallen on these combinations
does not make it in the least certain that we should
have feUen upon the same. There is a law of neces-
sity in the evolution of languages ; they pursue certain
courses on which we may confidently count But
there is a law of liberty no less, and this liberty,
making itself felt in this region, together with a thou-
sand other causes, leaves it quite certain that in some,
and possibly in all these instances;, we should have
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76 English as it might have been. legt.
supplied our wants in some other way not travelled
in exactly the same paths as they have struck out for
themselves. Thus, nearly allied as the Dutch is to
the German, and greatly under German influence as it
has been, it has various compound words of which the
German knows nothing. "^ Still the examples which I
have given sufficiently indicate to us the dirution
which the language would have taken.
But we are not here driven to a region of conjec-
tures, or to the suggesting what might have been done.
We can actually appeal to a very numerous company
of these compound words, which have been in the
language ; but which have been suffered to drop, the
Latin competitors for some reason or other having,
in that struggle for existence to which words are as
much exposed as animals, carried the day against it.
Now we may confidently affirm that all, of very
nearly all, of these would have survived to the pre-
sent hour, would constitute a part of our present
vocabulary, if they had actually been wanted ; and
they would have been wanted, if competing French
words, following in the train of the conquering race,
had not first made them not indispensable, and then
wholly pushed them from their places. ^ When I say
this I do not mean to imply that these words were all
actually bom before the Norman Conquest, but only
that the Conquest brought influences to bear^ which
were too strong for them, and in the end cut short
their existence.
* See Jean Paul, MstheHk, § S4.
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n. Words which we have lost. 77
Thus, if we had not proverb, ' soothsaw ' or * by^
word ' would have served our turn ; ' sourdough '
would have supplied the place of leaven ; ' wellwill-
ingness' of beneyolence ; 'againbuying' of redemp-
tion ; 'againrising' of resurrection; * undeadliness '
of immortality ; ' uncunningness' of ignorance ; ' un-
mildness' of asperity; ' forefighter ' of champion;
'earthtilth' of agriculture ; ' earthtiller ' of agricul-
turist; 'comeling' of stranger; 'greatdoingly' of
magnificently ; ' to afterthink ' (still in use in Laa-
cashire) might have stood for to repent; 'medeful'
for meritorious ; 'untellable' for ineffable; 'dearworth'
for precious ; all which are in Wiclif. Chaucer has
'foreword' for promise; 'bodeword' for prohibi-
tion ; and Fters Ploughman 'goldhoard ' for treasure.
'Tongful' (see Bosworth) would have stood for
loquacious ; ' truelessness ' for perfidy ; ' footfast ' for
captive ; ' allwitty ' {Prick ofConscienct) for Omniscient ;
'witword' for testimony. Jewel has 'foretalk' for
preface; Coverdale 'childship' for adoption, 'show-
token' for sign; 'to unhallow' for 'to profane*;'
Holland 'sunstead' for solstice; 'leechcraft' for
medicine; ' wordcraft ' for logic ; Rogers^ ' tumagains '
for reverses ; as little should we have let go ' book-
craft' for literature, or 'shipcrafl' for navigation.
'Starconner' (Gascoigne) did service once side by
side with astrologer; 'redesman' with counsellor;
* half-god' (Golding) has the advantage over demi-
god, that it is all of one piece ; 'to eyebite ' (Holland)
told its story at least as well as to fascinate ; ' weapon-
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78 UnglUh as it might have been, leot,
shew' (the word still lives in Scotland) as review;
'jearday' {Pron^iorwm) as anniversary; 'shrift-
fitther ' as confessor ; * earshrift ' (Tyndale) is only two
syllables, while auricular confession is eight ; * water-
fright ' is preferable to our awkward hydrophobia.
The lamprey (lambens petram) would have been, as
in our country parts it now is, the 'suckstone' or the
' lickstone ;' and the anemone the * windflower. ' For
r^norse of conscience we might have had, and it
exactly corresponds, * ayenbite of inwyt,' being, as this
is, the title of a remarkable religious treatise of the
middle of the fourteenth ceritirry ;* in which I ob-
serve among other noticeable substitutes for our Latin
words, 'unlusthead' for disinclination. Emigrants
would everywhere have been called what Uiey are
now called in districts of the North, * outwanderers '
or ' ou^gangers. ' A preacher who bade us to sacrifice
some of our 'neednots' (the word is in Rogers) in-
stead of some of our superfluities, to the distresses of
others, would not deliver his messages less intelligibly
than now ; as little would he do so if he were to enu-
merate the many 'pullbacks,' instead of the many
obstacles which we find in the way of attaining to
eternal life. It too is a Puritan word.
Then too with the absence from the language of
• The Ayenbite of Jtavyt is, in a philologics4 point of view,
one of the most valuable of the many valuable books which the
Early English Text Society has rendered accessible at an
almost inconceivably low price to all who wish to study the
origins of the' English language.
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ji. Latin Prefixes. 79
the Latin prefixes, the Saxon would have come for more
into play. The Latin which we employ the most fre-
quently, or rather which are oftenest found in words
which we have adopted, are *sub' as in 'subdue,
'subtract;' *de' as in 'descendant,' 'deprive;
'circum'as in 'circumference,' 'circumvent;' and
'prae' or 'pro as in 'predecessor,' 'progenitor.'
Had these been wanting, the Latin words to which
they are prefixed would have been wanting too.
How would the language have fared without them ?
Not so ill. They would have left no chasm which it
would not have been comparatively easy to fill up.
Thus if the speakers of English had not possessed
' subjugate ' they would have had ' undeiyoke,' if not
' subvert,' yet still 'underturn,' and so on with many
more now to be found in Wiclif 's Bible and elsewhere.
There is not at the present moment a single word in
the English language — one or two may perhaps sur-
vive in the dialects — beginning with the prefix ' um. '
There were once a great many. An embrace was an
* umgripe ' or a gripe round (um= ^M<P{), a circuit an
' umgang ;' the circumference or periphery of a circle
was the umstroke ;' to surround was to 'umlapp'
{Prick of Conscience) ; to besiege on every side ' to um-
besiege' (Sibbald, Glossary) The last appearance
of 'umstroke' is in Fuller, while it would be very
difficult to find so late an example of any of the
others. We might have had, and probably should
have had in the case which I am imagining, a large
group of such words, instead of those now beginning
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80 English as it might have been. lect.
with 'circum.' In the absence of 'prae' or 'pro,'
*fore/ which even now enters into so many of our
words, as * foretell,' 'forewarn,' would have entered
into more. As we have just seen, for preface we
should have had * foretalk,' or ' forespeech ' (Ayendt/e);
for predecessor 'foreganger,' for progenitor 'fore-
elder ,' — in all this I am not guessing, but am every-
where bringing forward words whicli existed once in
the language.
The prefix 'for,' conveymg the idea of privation or
deterioration, and corresponding to the German ' ver,'
— not therefore to be confounded with 'fore' — to
which we already owe several excellent words, 'forlorn,'
'forbid,' 'forgo,' would have yielded us many more,
each one of which would have rendered some Latin
word superfluous. We can adduce the participles,
' forwandered ' {Piers Ploughman), 'forwearied,' 'for-
wasted,' ' forpined ' (all in Spenser), 'forwept,' 'for-
welked,' and the verbs ' forfaren,' to go to ruin, ' for-
shapen,' to deform {Piers Ploughman), with other
words not a few, as samples of much more in this
direction, if need had been, which the language could
have effected. ' Mis ' too, which already does much
work, as in ' misplace,' 'mislead,' would have been
called to do more ; instead of to abuse we should
have had ' to miscall ;' and the like. ' Out ' would
have been put to more duty than now it is ; thus
' outtake ' would have kept the place from which now
it has been thrust by 'except/ as 'outdrive' has been
by ' expel ' It would have fared the same with ' after, '
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n. 8axon Svhstitules. 61
Instead of our successors we should speak of our
' aftercomers ;' consequences would have been * after-
comings/ posthumous would have been 'afterbom/
and a postscript an 'aftertale/ All these too existed
once. 'To backjaw ' is current in some of our dia-
lects still, and would have been a vigorous substitute
for * to retort'
Something, again, may be concluded of what the
English-speaking race would have been able to effect,
if thrown exclusively upon such wealth as it possessed
at home, by considering the more or less successful
attempts of some who have chosen, without any such
absolute necessity, to travel the paths, which in that
case there would have been no choice but to tread.
Thus Sir John Cheke, in his Version of St Matthew,
has evidently substituted, as often as he could, Saxon
words for Greek and Latin ; thus for proselyte he has
substituted 'freshman,' for prophet 'foreshewer,' for
lunatic 'mooned.' Puttenham in the terms of art
which he employs in his Art of English Poesy has
made a similar attempt, though with no remarkable
success. Fairfax, author of a curious and in some
aspects an interesting book, The Bulk and Selvedge
of the World, has done better.. He too would fain by
his own example show how very rarely even in a
subject of some considerable range it is necessary to
employ any other words than such as are home-
growths; that 'moreness,' for example does its work
as well as plurality, 'findings' as inventions. I ex-
tract a brief passage from the Introduction, at once for
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82 English as it might have been. lect.
its bearing on the subject which we now have in hand,
and also as itself a testimony of the vigorous English
which it is. possible under such self-imposed limita-
tions to write : * I think it will become those of us,
who have a more hearty love for what is our own, than
wanton longings after what is others', to fetch back
some of our own words that have been jostled out in
wrong, that worse from elsewhere might be hoisted
in ; or else to call in from the fields and waters, shops
and workhousen, ^that well fraught world of words
that answers works, by which all learners are taught
to do, and not to make a clatter.'
I remember once, this subject being under familiar
discussion, and one present vaunting the powers of
our Anglo-Saxon tongue to produce words of its own
which should thus answer any and every need, and
this without being beholden to any foreign tongue,
another present put him to the proof, demanding a
sufficient native equivalent for * impenetrability/ The
challenge was accepted, and without a moment's
delay * unthoroughfaresomeness ' was produced. The
word may not be a graceful one, but take it to pieces,
and you will find that there is nothing wanting to it
For what is impenetrability ? It is the quality in one
thing which does not allow il to be pierced or passed
through by another. And now dissect it3 proposed
equivalent ; and first, detaching from it its two pre-
fixes, and affixes as many, you have ' fare ' or passage
for the body of the word ; you have next ' thorough-
fare ' or place through which there is a passage ; by
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n. Powers of ike Anglo-Saxon. 83
aid of the suffix * some ' you obtain the adjective
* thoroughferesome, ' or affording a passage through ;
the negative prefix ' un ' gives you ' unthorough&re-
some/ the negation of this; and the second suffix
'ness/ 'unthoroughfaresomeness/ or the state which
refuses to afford a passage through, — ^in other words,
impenetrability.
We can thus, I think, trace, and not altogether by
mere guesswork or at random, some of the paths
along which English would have travelled, had it
been left to itself, and to its own natural and orderly
development, instead of being forced by the stress of
external circumstances into paths in part at least alto-
gether new. We can assert with confidence that it
would have been no unserviceable, shiftless, nor
ignoble tongue ; and this, while we gladly and thank-
fully acknowledge that it has done better, being what
it is, that language in which our English Bible is
written, in which Shakespeare and Milton have
garnered for the after world the rich treasure of their
minds.
Let us, before quite dismissing this subject, con-
template two or three points which broadly distinguish
English as it is from English as it would then have
been. The language,, we may be quite sure, would
in that case have been more abundantly supplied
with inflections than at present it is. It was, as we
saw just now, during the period of extreme depression
which followed on the Conquest that it stripped itself
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84 English as it anight have been. lect.
so bare of these. I do not of course mean to imply
that a vast number of inflections would not, according
to the universal law of all languages, have anyhow
fallen away. But continuing as it would have done, /
the language of the Church, the Court, and of litera-
ture, it would never have become that mere torso
which it was, when at length it emerged victorious
from its three hundred years of conflict for supremacy
on this English soil We should assuredly have
possessed a much more complex grammatical sys*
tem, probably as complex or nearly as complex as the
German possesses at the present day. Foreigners
complain that even now English is hard enough to
master ; it would assuredly have been much harder
then. There would have been many more distinctions
to remember. Our nouns substantive, instead of
being all declined in one way, would have been de-
clined some in one way, some in another; they
would probably have had their three genders, — ^mascu-
line, feminine, and neuter; and have modified ac-
cording to these the terminations of the adjectives in
concord with them ; and very much more of this
kind, now dismissed, and on the whole happily dis-
missed, would have been retained.
The language is infinitely richer now in synonyms
than but for this settlement of French and Latin in its
midst it would have been — in words covering the
same, or very nearly the same, spaces of meaning. In
cases almost innumerable it has what we may call
duplicate words ; there can be very few languages in
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n. Dwplicaie Words. 85
the world so amply furnished with these. The way it
has obtained them is this. It has kept the Saxon
word, and superadded to this the Latin, or the French
derived from the Latin. Thus we have kept ' hea-
venly,' but we have added 'celestial J* we have not
dismissed ' earthly,' though we have acquired ' terres-
trial ;' nor ' fieiy,' though we have adopted ' igneous ;'
* providence ' has not put * foresight ' out of use, nor
'flower' 'bloom,' nor 'reign ' 'kingdom,' nor 'om-
nipotent' 'almighty.' I might go on instancing
these almost without end, but I have dwelt more
fully on this matter elsewhere,* and here therefore
will not urge it more.
Nor can it be said that this abundance is a mere
piece of luxury, still less that it is an embarrassment
It gives the opportunity of wearing now a homelier,
now a more scholarly garment of speech, as may seem
most advisable for the immediate need. Poetry is
evidently a gainer by it, in the wider choice of
expressions which it has thus at command, to meet
its manifold exigencies, now of rhyme, now of melody,
and now of sentiment And prose is not less a gainer,
demanding as it does rhythm and modulation, though
of another kind, quite as urgently as poetry does, and
having these much more within its reach through this
choice of words than otherwise it would have had.
Thus most of us have admired in Handel's greatest
composition the magnificent effect of those words
• Study of Pf'ords, 13th edit p. 229.
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86 Englisk a^ ii might have been. lect.
A J .^ I " ■ ! ' J II .1I III— Ml I1MIII. II I I I .
from the Apocalypse, * For the Lord God (minipoteut
?eigneth. ' Now the word which our Translators have
here rendered 'omnipotent/ they have everywhere
else rendered * almighty ;' but substitute 'almighty'
here, and how manifest the loss. What a sublime
variation have they thus found within their reach.*
These are manifest gains ; but for all this I would
not affirm that everything is gain. Thus if our Saxon
had never been disturbed, there would certainly have
been in the language a smaller number of what our
ancestors called, 'inkhorn terms,' the peculiar pro-
• I only know one in modem times, but he is one whose
judgment must always carry great weight, Dr. Guest, who
in his History of English Rhythms takes a less favourable
view of the results of the large importation of French and
Latin words into the language : — * The evils resulting from
these importations have, I think, been generally underrated in
this country. When a language must draw upon its own
wealth for a new term, its forms and analogies are kept fresh
in the minds of those who so often use them. But with the
introduction of foreign terms, not only is the symmetry — the
science — of the language injured, but its laws are brought less
frequently under notice, and are the less used, as their aj^-
cation becomes more difficult. If a new word were added to
any of the purer languages, such as the Sanscrit, the Greek,
or the Welsh, it would soon be the root of numerous offshoots,
substantives, adjectives, verbs, &c., all formed according to
rule, and modifying the meaning of their root according to
well-known analogies. But in a mixed and broken language
few or no such consequences follow. The word remains barren
and the language is ** enriched " like a tree covered over with
wreaths taken from the boughs of its neighbour ; which carries
a goodly show of foliage and withers beneath the shade..
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, n, ''Inhhom Terms J^ 87
petty of the scholar, not used and not understood by
the poor and the illiterate. More words would be
what all words ought to be, and once were, ' thought-
pictures,' transparent with their own meaning, telling
their own story to everybody. Thus if I say that
Christ 'sympathizes' with his people, or even if I say,
*has compassion,' I am not sure that every one
follows me ; but if I were to say. He * fellow-feels,'
and the word existed not long ago, as ' fellow-feeling'
does still, all would understand. * Redemption ' con-
yeys to our poor the vague impression of some great
benefit ; but ' againbuying ' would have conveyed a
far more distinct one. * Middler ' — ^this word also is
to be found in Wiclif— would have the same advan-
tage over mediator. Even our Authorized Version,
comparatively little as we have to complain of there,
would itself not have lost, but gained, if its authors
had been absolutely compelled to use the store of
Saxon vocables at their command, if sometimes they
had been shut in, so to speak, to these ; for instance,
if instead of 'celestial bodies- and bodies terrestrial,'
they had had no choice but to write ' heavenly bodies
and bodies earthly ' (i Cor. xv. 40). All would have
understood them then ; I very much doubt whether
all understand them now.
Other advantages too might have followed, if the
language had continued all of one piece. Thus in the
matter of style, it would not have been so fetally ea^
to write bad English, and to fancy this bad to be good,
as now it is. That worst and most offensive kind of
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88 English as it might have been. lect.
bad English, which disguises poverty of thought, and
lack of any real command over the language, by the
use of big, hollow, lumbering Latin words, would not
have been possible. It is true that on the other hand
the opportunities of writing a grand, sustained, stately
English would not have been nearly so great, but for
the incoming of that multitude of noble words which
Latin, the stateliest of all languages, has lent us.
Something not veiy different indeed, not immeasurably
remote from Swift's or Dryden's prose might have
existed ; but nothing in the least resembling the stately
march of Hooker's, of Milton's, or of Jeremy Taylor's.
A good style would have been a much simpler, less
complex matter than now it is ; the language would
have been an instrument with not so many strings, an
organ with fewer pipes and stops, of less compass,
with a more limited diapason, wanting many of the
grander resonances which it now possesses ; but
easier to play on, requiring infinitely less skill ; not
so likely to betray into gross absurdities, nor to make
an open show of the incapacity of such as handled it
On the whole, then, while that Norman Conquest,
in the disturbing forces which it has exerted on the
English language, has no doubt brought with it losses
no less than gains, we may boldly affirm that the gains
very fer transcend the losses. As so many things have
wrought together to make England what she is, as
we may trace in our 'rough island-story' so many
wonderful ways in which good has been educed from
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n. Mnglish benefited by the Conquest 89
evil, and events the most unpromising have left their
blessing behind them, not otherwise has it been here.
That which brought down our English tongue from
its pride of place, stript it of so much in which it
gloried, condemned it, as might have seemed, if not to
absolute extinction, yet to serve henceforward as the
mere patois of an illiterate race of subject bondsmen
and hinds, it was even that very event which in its
ultimate consequences wrought out for it a complete-
ness and a perfection which it would never else have
obtained. So strange in their ultimate issues are the
ways of Providence with men.
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90 Gains of the Unglish Language, lbct.
LECTURE III.
GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE,
X
IT is with good right that we speak of some
languages as living, of others as dead. All
spoken languages may be ranged in the first class ;
for as men will never consent to use a language with-
out more or less modifying it in their use, will never
so far forgo their own activity as to leave it exactly
where they found it, there follows from this that so
long as it is thus the utterance of human thought and
feeling, it will inevitably show itself alive, and that by
many infallible proofs, by growth and misgrowth, by
acquisition and loss, by progress and decay. This
title therefore of living, a spoken language abun-
dantly deserves ; for it is one in which, spoken as it
is by living men, vital energies are still in operation.
It is one which is in course of actual evolution ;
which, if the life that animates it be a healthy one, is
appropriating and assimilating to itself what it any-
where finds congenial to its own life, multiplying its
resources, increasing its wealth ; while at the same
time it is casting off useless and cumbersome forms,
dismissing from its vocabulary words of which it finds
no use, rejecting by a reactive energy the foreign and
heterogeneous, which may for a while have forced
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m. Vital Energy of Languages. 91
themselves upon it In the process of all this it may
easily make mistakes; in the desire to simplify, it
may let go distinctions which were not useless, and
^ which it would have been better to retain ; the
acquisitions which it makes are very far from being all
gains ; it sometimes rejects as worthless, and suflfers
to die out, words which were most worthy to have
lived. So far as it commits any of these feults its life
is not hcaltTiy ; it is not growing richer but poorer ;
there are here tokens, however remote, of disoi^ganiza-
tion, decay, and ultimate death. But still it lives, and
even these misgrowths and malformations, the re-
jection of this good, the taking up into itself of that
bad, even these errors are themselves the utterances
and evidences of life. A dead language knows
nothing of all this. It is dead, because books, and
not now any generation of living men, are the
guardians of it, and what they guard, they guard
without change. Its course has been completely run,
and it is now equally incapable of gaining and of
losing. We may come to know it better; but in
itself it is not, and never can be, other than it was
before it ceased from the lips of men. In one sense it
is dead, though in another it may be more true to
say of it that it has put on immortality.
Our own is, of course, a living language still. It
is therefore gaining and losing. It is a tree in which
the vital sap is circulating yet; and as this works,
new leaves are continually being put forth by it, old
are dying and dropping away. I propose to consider
some of the evidences of this life at work in it stilL
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92 Gains of the English Language, lbct.
In my present lecture and in that which follows I
shall take for my subject, the sources from which the
English language has enriched its vocabulary, the
periods at which it has made the chief additions to
this, the character of the additions which at different
periods it has made, and the motives which induced it
to seek them.
In my first lecture I dwelt with some emphasis on
the fact, that the core, the radical constitution, of our
language, is Anglo-Saxon; so that, composite or
"^ningled as it is, it is such only in its vocabulary, not
in its construction, inflections, or generally its gram-
matical forms. These are all of one piece ; there is
indeed no amalgamation possible in these ; and what-
ever of new has come in has been compelled to con-
form itself to the old. The framework is native;
only a part of the filling in is exotic ; and of this
filling in, of these comparatively more recent acces-
sions, I now propose to speak.
The first great augmentation by foreign words of
our Anglo-Saxon vocabulary, and that which in im-
portance has very far exceeded all the others put
together, was a consequence, although not an im-
mediate one, of the Battle of Hastings. You will
have gathered from what I have said already that I
am unable to share in the sentimental regrets over
the results of that battle in which Thierry has led
the way. With the freest acknowledgment of the
miseries entailed for a while on the Saxon race by the
Norman Conquest, I can regard that Conquest in no
other light than as the making of England ; a judg-
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in. RemUs of the Noi^man Conquest 93
ment, it is true, but a judgment and a mercy in one.
It was a rough and rude, and yet most necessary
discipline, to which the race which for so many
hundred years had occupied the English soil was
thereby submitted ; a great tribulation, yet one not
undeserved, and which could not have been spared ;
so grievously relaxed were all the moral energies of
Saxon England at the time of the Conquest, so fer
had all the vigour of those institutions by which alone
a nation lives, decayed and departed. God never
showed more plainly that he had a great part for
England to play in the world's story than when He
brought hither that aspiring Norman race. Heavily
as for a while they laid their hand on the subject
people, they did at the same time contribute elements
absolutely essential to the future greatness and glory
of the land which they made their own. But it is
only of their contributions in one particular direction
that we have here to speak.
Neither can it be said of these that they followed
at once. The actual interpenetration of our Anglo-
Saxon with any large amount of French words did not
find place till a very much later day. Some French
words we find very soon after; but in the main
the two .streams of language continued for a long
while separate and apart, even as the two nations
remained aloof from one another, a conquering and
a conquered, and neither forgetting the fact It was
not till the middle of the fourteenth century that
French words began to find their way in any very
large number into English. Then within a period of
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94 Qaina of the English Language, lect,
same fifty years very many more eflfected a permanent
settlement among us than had so done during the
three hundred preceding. In the bringing in of these
too much has been ascribed to the influence and
authori^of a single man. Some have praised, others
have blamed^''' Chaucer overmuch for his ^are in this
work. Standiog in the forefront of his time, he no
doubt fell in with and set forward tendencies in the
language, yet these such, it is plain, as were in active
operation already. To assume that the greater num-
ber of French vocables which he employed had
never been employed before, were strange to Engli^
ears, is to assume, as Tyrwhitt urges well, that his
poetry presented to his contemporaries a motley
patchwork of language, and is quite irreconcilable
with the fact that he took his place at once as the
popular poet of the nation, f
It would be hardlv too much to affirm that there
* Thus Alexander Gil, head-master of St Paul's School, in
his book, Lcgonomia Anglica^ 1621, Preface : Hue usque pere-
grinse voces in lingu4 Anglic4 inauditse. Tandem circa annum
1400 Galfridas Chaucems, infausto omine, vocabulus GaUicis
et Latinis poSsin suam .famosam reddidit. The whole passage,
which is too long to quote, as indeed the whole book, is
curious.
t In his Testament of Love he expresses his contempt of
Englishmen who would not be content to clothe their thoughts
in an English garb : * Let these clerkes eudyten in Latyn, for
they have the propertye in science and the knowinge in that
facultye, and lette Frenchmen in their Frenche also endyte
their queynt termes, for it is kyndly to theyr mouthes ; and let
us shewe our ftntasyes as we leameden of our dames tonge.'
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in. Chaucer^s Influence and Example, 95
is quite as large a proportion of Latin words in Piers
Ploughman as in Chaucer,— certainly a veiy remarkable
fact, when we call to mind that Piers Ploughman dates
some twenty or thirty years earlier than Chaucer's
more important poems, that in form it cleaves to the
old alliterative scheme of versification, and in sub-
Stance evidently addresses itself not to the courtier or
the churchman, but claims to find, as we know it
actually found, an audience from the commonalty of
the realm. Its religious, ecclesiastical, and ethical
terminology is abundant, and with rare exceptions is
Latin throughout— *which, when we keep in mind the
opulence in such terras of the earlier Anglo-Saxon^
signally attests the havoc which had bden wrought
during the centuries of depression in all the finer
elements of the language. We meet there with * ab-
stinence,' 'ampulle,' *assoil,' 'avarice,' 'benigne,'
' bount^e, ' * cardinal vertues, ' * conscience, * * charit6e, '
*cbastit6e,' 'confession,' 'consistory,' ' contemplatif/
' contrition, ' ' indulgence, ' ' leaut^e, ' ' mitigation, '
'monial,' 'recreant,' 'relic,' 'reverence,' 'sanctit^e,'
'spiritual,' 'temporalt^e,' ' unit6e.' Already we find
in Piers Pht/tghman French words which the English
language has finally proved unable to take up into
itself, as 'bienfait,' 'brocage,' 'chibolles,' 'creaunt,'
'devoir,' 'entremetten,' 'fille,' ' losengerie ;' 'mestier,'
' pain ' (=4)read), ' prest' (=pret). The real differ-
ence between Langlande and Chaucer is that the
former seems to us, as we read, only to have partially
fused into one harmonious whole the two elements
whereof the language which he writes is composed ;
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96 Gains of the English Language leot,
while the mightier artist, — though he too was a great
one, — has brought them into so perfect a chemical
combination, that we never pause to consider from
what quarter the ore which he has wrought into such
current money was extracted, whether from the old
mines of the land, or imported from other new ones,
opened beyond the sea. But the Romance of William
of Palerne supplies evidence more remarkable still
Madden puts J350, nearly half a century earlier than
the Canterbury Tales, as about the date of this poem.
Here are some of the words which it yields, 'aunter,'
'bachelor,' 'defaute,' 'deraine/ 'digne,' 'duresse,'
'cmperice,' 'eritage,', 'facioun,' 'feyntise,' 'hautcin,'
'merciabul,' 'mesurabul,' 'paramour,' 'queyntise,'
'scowmfit,' 'travail,' with very many more of like
kind.
Other considerations will tend to the abating of the
exclusive merit or demerit of Chaucer in this matter.
There were other forces beside literature which at this
time were helping to saturate English with as much
of French as it could healthily absorb. ' It is,' Marsh
says, ' a great but very widely spread error, to suppose
that the influx of French words in the fourteenth
century was die alone to poetry and other branches
of pure literature. The law, which now first became
organized into a science, introduced very many terms
borrowed from the nomenclature of Latin and French
jurisprudence; the glass-worker, the enameller, the
architect, the brass-founder, the Flemish clothier, and
the other handicraftsmen, whom Norman taste and
luxury invited, or domestic oppression expelled from
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in. Quotation from Marsh. 97
the Continent, brought with them the vocabularies of
their respective arts ; and Mediterranean commerce —
which was stimulated by the demand for English
wool, then the finest in Europe — imported from the
harbours of a sea where French was the predominant
language, both new articles of merchandise and the
French designation of them. The sciences too, medi-
cine, physics, geography, alchemy, astrology, all of
which became known to England chiefly through
French channels, added numerous specific terms to the
existing vocabulary, and very many of the words, first
employed in English writings as a part of the technical
phraseology of these various arts and knowledges,
soon passed into the domain of common life, in
modified or untechnical senses, and thus became in-
corporated into the general tongue of society and of
books,'
It is true that there happened here what will happen
in every attempt to transplant on a large scale the
words of one language into another. The new soil
will not prove equally favourable for all. Some will
take root and thrive; but others, after a longer or
shorter interval, will pine and wither and die. Not all
the words which Langlande or Chaucer employed, and
for which they stood sponsors, found final allowance
with us,* At the same time, such an issue as this
* Plautus in the same way uses a multitude of Greek words,
which Latin did not want, and therefore refiised to absorb :
plus, *clepta,' *zamia,' *danista,' *harpagare,' *apolactizare,*
•nauclerus,* *strategus,' *drapeta,' * moras,' *morologus,*
fphylaca,* «malacus,' *sycophantia,* *euscheme* (evd^y/iof)^
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98 Gains of the JEnglish Language, lect.
was no condemnation of their attempt. Nothing but
actual proof could show whether the language needed,
and would therefore absorb these ; or, not needing, in
due time reject them. How little in excess Chaucer
in this matter was, how admirable his choice of words,
is singularly attested by the fact — I state it on Marsh's
authority — that there are not more than a hundred
French words used by him, such for example as
'misericorde,' 'malure' (malheur), 'penible,' 'ayel,'
(aieul), 'tas,' 'fine' (fin), 'meubles,' *hautain,'
'gipon,' 'racine,' which have failed to win a perma*
nent place among us. I cannot say how many Piers
Ploughman would yield, but we saw just now that it
would yield several ; and Gower in like manner —
such, for example, as 'feblesse,' 'tristesse,' ^mestier,'
'pelerinage.' Wiclif would furnish a few, as for
instance 'creansur,' 'roue,' 'umbre;' though very
far fewer than either of those other ; for indeed the
non-English element in him, which the language has
finally refused to take up, does not so much consist
of words from the French, as of words drawn by him
directly from his Latin Vulgate, such as had never
undergone a shaping process in their passage through
any intermediate language. Of these the necessities,
or if not the necessities, yet the difiiculties, of the case
* dulice ' {dovXiXfSi^y [so * scymnus ' by Lucretius], none of
which, I believe, are employed except by him ; while others,
as 'mastigia' and *techna,' he shares with Terence. Yet
only experience could show that they were superfluous ; and it
was well done to put them on trial.
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ni» French Words now extinct. 99
drove him to employ not a few, as *simulacre/
'bilibre,' 'cyconye,' 'argentarie/ 'signacle/ 'eruke'
(enica), 'amfore' (amphora) 'architriclyn/ and
others.
It is curious to observe to how late a day some of
those adoptions from the French kept their ground ;
which, for all this, they have proved unable to keep
to the end. Thus ' mel ' (Sylvester) struggled hard
and long for a place. side by side with honey ; 'roy '
with king ; this last quite obtaining one in Scotch.
It has fared not otherwise with ' egal ' (Puttenham) ;
with 'ouvert,' 'mot,' *baine,' 'mur,' 'ecurie,' 'sacre,'
'baston,' 'gite,' 'to cass' (all in Holland); with
'rivage,' 'jouissance,' 'noblesse,' 'tort,' 'accoil' (ac-
cueillir), 'sell (=saddle), 'conge,' 'surquedry,'
'foy,' 'duresse,' 'spalles' (^paules), 'gree' (gr^),
all occurring in Spenser ; with ' outrecuidance ;' with
'to serr' (serrer), ' vive,' ' brocage,' 'reglement,' used
all by Bacon; with 'esperance,' 'orgillous' (or-
gueilleux), 'rondeur,' 'scrimer,' 'amort,' * maugre,'
'sans' (all in Shakespeare). 'Devoir,' 'dimes,'
' puissance,' * bruit' (this last used often in our Bible)
were English once ; they are not so any longer. The
same holds true of 'dulce,' ' aigredoulce ' (=sour-
sweat), of 'volupty' (Sir Thomas Elyot), 'volunty'
(Evelyn), 'medisance' (Montagu)' 'pucelle' (Ben
Jonson), 'petit' (South), 'aveugle,' 'colline' (both
in S/aU Papers), of 'defailance' 'plaisance,' 'pay-
sage,' 'pareil' (all in Jeremy Taylor) ; of 'eloign'
(Hacket), and of others, more than I can here enu-
merate.
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100 Gains of the English Language, lect.
But to return. With Chaucer English literature
had made a burst, which it was not able to maintain.
Dreary days were before it still. Our morning star,
he yet ushered in no dawn which was at the point of
breaking. Chaucer has by Warton been well compared
to some warm bright day in the very early spring,
which seems to announce that the winter is over and
gone ; but its promise is deceitful ; the full bursting
and blossoming of the spring-time is yet far off. The
long struggle with France, the hundred years' War,
which began so gloriously, but which ended so disas-
trously, even with the loss of our whole ill-won do-
minion there, the savagery of our wars of the Roses,
wars which were a legacy bequeathed to us by that
unrighteous conquest, leave a huge gap in our literary
history, nearly a century during which very little was
done for the cultivation of our native tongue, few im-
portant additions to its wealth were made.
The period, however, is notable as that during which
for the first time we received a large accession of
words directly drawn from the Latin. A small settle-
ment of these, for the most part ecclesiastical, had
long since found their home in the bosom of the
Anglo-Saxon itself, and had been entirely incorporated
with it The fact that we had received our Christianity
from Rome, and that Latin was the constant language
of the Church, sufficiently accounts for these. Such
were *monk,' 'bishop,' (it was not as Greek but as
Latin that these words reached us), 'priest,' 'provost,'
'minster,' 'cloister,' 'candle,' 'devil,' 'psalter,'
' mass,' and the names of certain foreign animals, as
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in. Importations from the Latin. 101
'camel,' *lion,' or plants or other productions, as
Mily,' 'pepper,', 'fig;' which are all, with slightly
different spelling, words whose naturalization in Eng-
land reaches back to a period anterior to the Con-
quest* These, however, were exceptional, and stood
to the main body of the language, not as the Ro-
mance element of it does now to the Gothic, one
power over against another, but as the Spanish or
Italian or Arabic words in it stand to the remainder
of the language, and could not be afiirmed to affect
it more.
So soon, however, as French words were brought
largely into it, and were found to coalesce kindly with
the native growths, this very speedily suggested the
going straight to the Latin, and drawing directly from
it; and thus in the hundred years after Chaucer no
small amount of Latin had penetrated, if not into our
speech, yet into our books — ^words not introduced
through the French, for they are not, and some of
them have at no time been, French ; but yet such as
would never have established themselves here, if the
French, already domesticated among us, had not pre-
pared their way, bridged over the gulf that would have
otherwise been too wide between them and the Saxon
vocables of our tongue ; and suggested the models on
which these later adoptions should be framed.
They were not for the most part words which it was
any gain to acquire. The period was one of great
* Guest, Hist, of English Rhythms, vol. ii. p. 109 ; Koch,
iTut, Gramm, der Engl, Sprache, vol. i. p. 5.
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102 Gains of the English Language, lect.
depression of the national spirit ; and nothing sym-
pathizes more intimately with this, rising when it
rises^ and sinking when it sinks, than does language.
Not first at the revival of learning, but already at this
time began the attempt to flood the language with
pedantic words from the Latin ; take as specimens of
these *iacundious/ 'tenebrous/ 'solacious,' 'pulcri-
tude/ 'consuetude' (all these occur in Hawes), with
a multitude more of the same fashion which the lan-
guage has long since disallowed ; while others which
have maintained their ground, and have deserved to
maintain it, were yet employed in numbers quite out
of proportion to the Saxon vocables with which they
were mingled, and which they altogether overtopped
and overshadowed. Chaucer's hearty English feeling,
his thorough sympathy with the people, the fact that,
scholar as he was, he was yet the poet not of books
but of life, and drew his best inspuration from life, all
this had kept him, in the main, clear of this fault But
it]was otherwise with those who followed. The diction
of Lydgate, Hawes, and the other versifiers, — for to
the title of poets they have little or no claim, — who
filled up the interval between Chaucer and Surrey, is
immensely inferior to his ; being all stuck over with
long and often ill-selected Latin words. The worst
offenders in this line, as Campbell himself admits,
were the Scotch poets of the fifteenth century. ' The
prevailing feult,' he says, 'of English diction, in the
fifteenth century, is redundant ornament, and a^
affectation of anglicising Latin words. In this
pedantry and use of "aureate terms" the Scottish
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ni. Influence of the Reformation. 103
versifiers went even beyond their brethren of the
south When they meant to be eloquent,
they tore up words from the Latin, which never took
root in the language, like children making a mock
garden with flowers and branches stuck in the ground,
which speedily wither.' * It needs but to turn over a
few pages of the Scotch poetry of the fifteenth and
sixteenth century to find proof abundant of what
Campbell has here observed.
This tendency to latinize our speech received a new
impulse from the revival of learning, and the familiar
re-acquaintance with the master-pieces of ancient
literature which went along with this revival. Happily
another movement accompanied, or followed hard on
this ; a movement in England essentially national ;
and one which stirred our people at far deeper depths
of their moral and spiritual life than any mere revival
of learning could have ever done ; I refer, of.course,
to the Reformation. It was only among the Germa-
nic nations of Europe, as has often been remarked,
that the Reformation struck lasting roots ; it found its
strength therefore in the Teutonic element of the na-
tional character, which also it in turn further strength-
ened, purified, and called out. And thus, though
Latin came in upon us now faster than ever, and in a
certain measure also Greek, yet this found redress and
counterpoise in the contemporaneous unfolding of the
more fundamentally popular side of the language.
Popular preaching and discussion, the necessity of
♦ Essay on English Poetry, p. 93.
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104 Gains of the English Language, lect.
dealing with truths the most transcendant in a way to
be understood not by scholars only, but by * idiots ' as
well, all this served to evoke the native resources of
our tongue ; and thus the relative proportion between
the one part of the language and the other was not
dangerously disturbed, the balance was not de-
stroyed ; as it might easily have been, if only the
Humanists had been at work, and not the Reformers
as well.
The revival of learning, which made itself first felt
in Italy, extended to England, and was operative here, .
during the reigns of Henry the Eighth and his imme-
diate successors. Having thus slightly anticipated in
time, it afterwards ran exactly parallel with, the period
during which our .Reformation was working itself out
The epoch was in all respects one of immense mental
and moral acti\'ity, and such epochs never leave a
language where they found it. Much in it is changed ;
much probably added ; for the old garment of speech,
which once served all needs, has grown too narrow,
and serves them now no more. The old crust is
broken up, and what was obscurely working before
forces itself into sight and recognition. ' Change in
language is not, as in many natural products, conti-
nuous ; it is not equable, but eminently by fits and
starts ;' and when the foundations of the mind of a
nation are heaving under the operation of truths
which it is now for the first time making its own, more
important changes will follow in fifty years than in
two centuries of calmer or more stagnant existence.
Thus the activities and energies which the Reforma-
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in. Times of Rapid Change. 105
tion awakened among us, as they made themselves
felt far beyond the domain of our directly religious
life, so they did not fail to make themselves effect-
ually felt in this region of language among the rest*
'^/the Reformation had a scholarly, we might say, a
scholastic, as well as a popular, aspect. Add this fact
to that of the revived interest in classical learning,
and you will not wonder that a stream of Latin, now
larger than ever, began to flow into our language.
Thus Puttenham, writing in Queen Elizabeth's reign, f
* Some lines of Waller reveal to us the sense which in his
time scholars had of the rapidity with which the langus^e was
changing under their hands. Looking back at changes which
the last hundred years had wrought in it, he checked with mis-
givings'such as these his own hope of immortality :
*Who can hope his lines should long
Last in a daily changing tongue?
While they are new, envy prevails,
And as that dies, our language fails.
* Poets that lasting marble seek.
Must carve in Latin or in Greek:
IVe write in sand ; our language grows,
And like the tide our work overflows.'
How his misgivings, which assume that the rate of change
would continue what it had been, have been fulfilled, every
one knows. The two centuries which have elapsed since he
wrote, have hardly antiquated a word or a phrase in his poems.
If we care very little for them now, this is owing to quite
other causes— to their want of moral earnestness more than to
luiy othen
t In his Art of English Poesy, London, 15S9, republished
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106 Gains of the JEnglish Language, lect.
gives a long list of words, some Greek, a few French
and Italian, but far the most Latin, which, as he
affirms, were of quite recent introduction into the
language ; and though he may be here and there
mistaken about some single word, it cannot be
doubted that in the main what he asserts is correct.
And yet some of these it is difficult to understand
how the language could so long have done without ;
as 'compendious,' 'delineation,' 'dimension,' 'figur-
ative,' 'function,' 'idiom,' 'impression,' 'indignity,'
'inveigle,' 'method,' 'methodical,' 'metrical,' 'nume-
rous,' 'penetrable,' 'penetrate,' 'prolix,' 'savage,'
'scientific,' 'significative.' All these he adduces
with praise. Others, not less commended by him, have
failed to hold their ground, as 'placation,' ' numero-
sity,' ' harmonical. ' In his disallowance of 'facun-
dity,' ' implete/ 'attemptat ' (attentat), he only antici-
pated the decision of a later day. Other words which
he condemned no less, as 'audacious,' 'compatible,'
'egregious,' have maintained their ground. These
have done the same : ' despicable, ' ' destruction, ' ' ho-
micide,' 'obsequious,' 'ponderous,' 'portentous,'
' prodigious ;' all of them by another writer a little
earlier condemned as ' inkhorn terms, smelling too
much of the Latin. '
It is curious to note the ' words of art,' as he calls
them, which Philemon Holland, a voluminous transla-
tor at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the
seventeenth centufy, counts it needful to explain in
in Haslewood's Ancient Critical Essa)u upon English Poets
and Poesy ^ London, i8ii, vol. i. pp. 122, 123.
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m. Times of rapid Change. 107
a glossary appended to his translation of Pliny's
Natural History,^ One can hardly understand how
any who cared to consult the book at all would be
perplexed by words like these : * acrimony/ 'austere/
'bulb/ 'consolidate/ 'debility/ 'dose/ 'ingredient/
'opiate/ 'propitious/ 'symptom/ all of which as
novelties he carefully explains. Certainly he has
words in his glossary harder and more technical than
these ; but a vast majority present no greater diffi-
culty than those just adduced.f The Rhemish Bible,
* London, 1601. Besides this work Philemon Holland
translated the whole of Plutarch's Moralia^ the Cyropadia of
Xenophon, Livy, Suetonius, Ammianus Marcellinus, and Cam-
den's Britannia, His works make a part of the * library of
dulness * in Pope's Dunciad :
* De Lyra there a dreadful front extends,
And here the groaning shelves Philemon bends ' —
very unjustly ; and Southey shows a far juster estimate of his
merits, when he finds room for two of these, Plutarch's MorcUia
and Pliny's Natural History ^ in the select library of The
Doctor, The works which Holland has translated are all more
or less important, and his versions of them a mine of genuine
idiomatic English, neglected by most of our lexicographers,
wrought with eminent advantage by Kichardson ; yet capable
of yielding much more than they have yielded yet.
t So too in French it is surprising to find how new are many
words which now constitute an integral part of the language.
* D6sint^ressement,' * exactitude,' * sagacity,' * bravoure,'
were not introduced till late in the seventeenth century.
'Renaissance/ * emportement,' *S9avoir-faire,' *ind^l€bile,'
<d€sagr6ment/ were all recent in 1675 (Bouhours) ; 'inddvot,*
'intolerance/ 'impardonnable,' *irr61igieux,' were struggling
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108 Gains of the English Language, lect.
published in 1582, has a table consisting of fifty-five
terms *not familiar to th.e vulgar reader; among
which are 'acquisition,' 'advent/ * allegory, ' 'co-
operate,' 'evangelize,' 'eunuch,' 'holocaust,' 'neo-
phyte,' 'resuscitate,' 'victim.' More than one of
these was denounced by the assailants of this Version,
as for instance by our own Translators, who say in
into allowance at the end of the seventeenth century, and not
established till the beginning of the eighteenth. < Insidieux '
was invented by Malherbc ; * frivolity * is wanting in the earlier
editions of the Dictionary of the Academy ; the Abb^ de
St. -Pierre was the first to employ *bienfaisance,* the elder
Balzac *fdliciter,* Sarrasin 'burlesque,' Rousseau 'investiga-
tion * (see Guesses at Truth, 1866, p. 220), the Abb€ de Pons
* ^rudit.' Mme. de S€vign€ exclaims against her daughter for
employing * eflfervescence ' (Comment dites-vous cela, ma fille ?
Voili un mot dont je n'avais jamais oul parler). * Demagogue '
was first hazarded by Bossuet, and coimted so bold a novelty
that for long none ventured to follow him in its use. Mon-
taigne introduced 'diversion' and 'enfantillage,' the last not
without rebuke from contemporaries. It is a singularly
characteristic fact, if he invented, as he is said to have done,
* enjou6.' Desfontaines first employed * suicide ;* Caron gave
to the language *avant-propos,' Ronsard 'avidity,* Joachim
Dubellay 'patrie,* Denis Sauvage 'jurisconsulte,* Manage
•gracieux' (at least so Voltaire aflirms) and *pros.ateur,'
Desportes 'pudeur,' Chapelain 'urbanity,' and Etienne first
brought in, apologizing at the same time for the boldness of it,
'analogie,* (si les oreilles fran9oises peuvent porter ce mot).
*Accaparer' first appeared in the Dictionary of the Academy
in 1787 ; *pr€liber' (pralibare) is a word of our own day ;
and Charles Nodier, if he did not coin, yet revived the obso-
lete * simplesse.'— See G6nin, Variations du Langage Frangais,
PP- 30^319-
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in. Quotation from Dry den. 109
their Pre/ace, *We have shunned the obscurity of
the Papists in the azims, tunicke, rational, holo-
causts, prepuce, pasche, and a number of such like,
whereof their late translation is full.' It is curious
that three out of the six which they thus denounce
should have kept their place in the language.
The period during which this naturalization of Latin
words in the English language was going actively
forward, extended to the Restoration of Charles the
Second, and beyond it. It first received a check
from the coming up of French tastes, fashions, and
habits of thought consequent on that event The
writers whose style was already formed, such as
Cudworth and Barrow, continued still to write their
stately sentences, Latin in structure, and Latin in
diction, but not so those of a younger generation.
We may say of this influx of Latin that it left the
language vastly more copious, with greatly enlarged
capabilities, but somewhat burdened with its new
acquisitions, and not always able to move gracefully
under their weight ; for, as Dryden has happily said,
it is easy enough to acquire foreign words, but to
know what to do with them after you have acquired,
is the difficulty.
Few, let me here observe by the way, have borne
themselves in this hazardous enterprise at once as
discreetly and as boldly as Dryden himself has done ;
who has thus admirably laid down the motives which
induced him to look abroad for words with which to en-
rich his vocabulary, and the principles which guided
him in the selection of such , * If sounding words
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110 Ijfaina of the English Language, lect.
are not of our growth and manufacture, who shall
hinder me to import them from a foreign country ? 1
carry not out the treasure of the nation which is never
to return, but what I bring from Italy I spend in
England. Here it remains and here it circulates, for,
if the coin be good, it will pass from one hand to
another. I trade both with the living and the dead,
for the enrichment of our native language. We have
enough in England to supply our necessity, but if we
will have things of magnificence and splendour, we
must get them by commerce. Poetry requires adorn-
ment, and that is not to be had from our old
Teuton monosyllables ; therefore if I find any elegant
word in a classic author, I propose it to be naturalized
by using it myself ; and if the public approves of it,
the bill passes. But every man cannot distinguish
betwixt pedantry and poetry : every man therefore is
not fit to innovate. Upon the whole matter a poet
must first be certain that the word he would introduce
is beautiful in the Latin j and is to consider in the next
place whether it will agree with the English idiom :
after this, he ought to take the opinion of judicious
friends, such as are learned in both languages ; and
lastly, since no man is infallible, let him use this
licence very sparingly ; for if too many foreign words
are poured in upon us, it looks as if they were
designed not to assist the natives, but to conquer
them.'*
♦ Dedication of the translation of the JEneid. I cannot say
that I have observed very many of these words there. * Ine-
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ni. Pedantic Words. Ill
It would indeed have fared ill with the language, if
all the words which the great writers of this second
Latin period proposed as candidates for admission
into it, had received the stamp of popular allowance.
But happily this was not the case. The re-active
energy of the language, enabling it to throw off that
which was foreign to it, did not fail to display itself
now, as it had done on former occasions ; nor is it
too much to affirm that in almost every instance
during this period, where the Alien Act was enforced,
the sentence of banishment was a just one. Either
the word violated the analogy of the language, or was
not intelligible, or was not needed, or looked ill, or
sounded ill ; or some other valid reason existed for
its exclusion. A lover of his native tongue might
well tremble to think what his tongue would have
become, if all the innumerable vocables introduced
or endorsed by illustrious names, had been admitted
to a free course among us on the strength of their
recommendation; if 'torve' and 'tetric' (Fuller),
'cecity' (Hooker), 'fastide' and 'trutinate' {Stale
Papers), 'immanity' (Shakespeare), 'insulse' and
'insulsity' (Milton, prose), *scelestick' (Feltham),
' splendidous ' (Drayton), * pervicacy ' (Baxter), * stra-
mineous,' *ardelion' (Burton), Mepid,' *sufflami-
nate' (Barrow), *facinorous' (Donne), *immoriger-
ous,' *funest' 'clancular,' 'ferity,' 'ustulation,' *stul-
tiloquy,' 'lipothymy' (XetTtoQv^ia) ' hyperaspist '
meable * (^n. vi. 575) is the only one which I could adduce
at the instant.
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112 Gains of the Baglish Language, lect.
'deturpate,' Mntenerate,' *efl5giate' (all in Jeremy
Taylor), if 'mulierosity,' 'subsannation/ *coaxation/
Mudibundness/ *delinition/ * sanguinolenqr/ * sep-
temfluous/ * medioxumous/ *mirificent/ 'palmifer-
ous' (all in Henry More), * pauciloquy,' 'multiloquy '
(Beaumont, Psyche); if *dyscolous' (Foxe), 'ata-
raxy' (Allestree), * moliminously ' (Cudworth), 'lu-
ciferously,'. * meticulous,' * lapidifical,' * exenteration,'
' farraginous ' (Sir Thomas Browne), ' immarcescible '
(Bishop Hall), 'exility,' 'spinosity,' *incolumity,'
'solertiousness,' 'lucripetous,' *inopious,' *eximious,'
'eluctate' (all in Hacket), 'arride' (ridiculed by
Ben Jonson), with hundreds of other births, as mon-
strous or more monstrous than are some of these, had
not been rejected and disallowed by the sound lin-
guistic instincts of the national mind.
Many words too were actually adopted, but not
precisely as they had been first introduced among us.
They were compelled to drop their foreign termina-
tion, or whatever else indicated them as strangers, to
conform themselves to English ways, and only thus
were finally incorporated into the great family of Eng-
lish.* Thus of Greek words take the following :
* pyramis ' and * pyramides,' forms often employed by
Shakespeare ( * pyramises ' in Jeremy Taylor), became
' pyramid ' and ' pyramids ;' ' dosis ' (l^con) ' dose ;'
♦ J. Grimm ( Woerterbuch, p. xxvi.) : Ffillt von ungefahr ein
firemdes Wort in den Brunnen einer Sprache, so wird es so
lange darin umgetrieben, bis es ihre Farbe annimmt, und seiner
fiemden Art zum trotze wie ein Heimisches aussieht.
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m. Naturalization of Words. 113
* aspis ' (Latimer) ' asp ;' ' distichoii ' * distich ' (Hol-
land), * aristocratia ' and * democratia ' (the same)
' aristocracy ' and ' democracy ;' ' hemistichon '(North)
'hemistich;' *apogaeon' (Fairfax) or 'apogeum'
(Browne) 'apogee;' 'sumphonia' (Lodge) 'sym-
phony;' 'myrrha' (Golding) 'myrrh;' 'prototypon'
( Jackson ) ' prototype ;' ' synonymon ' ( Jeremy
Taylor) or ' synonymum ' (Hacket), and 'synonyma'
(Milton, prose), became severally 'synonym' and
' synonyms ;' ' parallelon ' (North) ' parallel ;' * syn-
taxis' (Fuller) became 'syntax ;'. 'extasis' (Burton)
'ecstasy;' 'parallelogrammon ' (Holland) 'parallel-
ogram;' 'programma' (Warton) 'program;' 'epi-
theton ' (Cowell) ' epithet ;' ' epocha ' (South)
'epoch;' ' disenteria ' and 'epilepsis' (both in Syl-
vester) 'dysentery' and 'epilepsy;' 'biographia'
(Dr)'den) 'biography;' 'apostata' (Massinger)
' apostate ;' ' despota ' (Fox) ' despot ;' ' misanthro-
pos' (Shakespeare, &c., 'misamhropi,' Bacon) 'mis-
anthrope ;' 'psalterion' (North) 'psaltery;' 'chasma'
(Henry More) 'chasm;' 'idioma' and 'prosodia'
(both in Daniel, prose) ' idiom ' and ' prosody ;'
'energia' (Sidney) 'energy,' 'Sibylla' (Bacon)
'Sibyl; 'zoophyton' (Henry More) 'zoophyte;'
* enthousiasmos ' (Sylvester) 'enthusiasm;' 'phan-
tasma ' (Shakespeare) ' phantasm ;' ' paraphrasis '
(Ascham) ' paraphrase ;' ' magnes ' (Gabriel Harvey)
' magnet ;' ' cynosura ' ( Donne) ' cynosure ;' ' galax-
ias'(Fox) 'galaxy; 'heros' (Henry More) 'hero.
The same process has gone on in a multitude of
Latin words which testify by their terminations that
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114 Gains of the English Language, leot.
they were, and were felt to be, Latin at their first em-
ployment ; though now they are such no longer. It
will be seen that in this list I include Greek words
which came to us through the medium of the Latin,
and with a Latin termination. Thus Bacon has * in-
secta' for 'insects;' aequinoctia' for 'equinoxes;'
' chylus ' for * chyle ;' Coverdale ' tetrarcha ' for
' tetrarch ;' Latimer * basiliscus ' for * basilisk ;' Frith
' syllogi^mus ' for syllogism ;' Bishop Andrews * nar-
dus ' for * nard ;' Milton * asphaltus ' for * asphalt ;'
Clarendon * classis ' for * class ;' Spenser ' zephyrus '
for * zephyr.' So too 'dactylus' (Ascham) preceded
*dactyle;' * interstitium ' (Fuller) 'interstice;' *phil-
trum ' (Culverwell) * philtre;' *expansum' (Jeremy
Taylor) 'expanse;' 'vestigium' (Culverwell) 'ves-
tige;' 'preludium' (Beaumont, Psyche) 'prelude;'
* precipitium ' (Coryat) ' precipice ;' ' aconitum ' and
' balsamum ' (both in Shakespeare) ' aconite ' and
* balsam ;' ' idyllium ' (Dryden) ' idyl ;' ' heliotro-
pium ' (Holland) ' heliotrope ; ' * helleborum '
(North) 'hellebore;' 'vehiculum' (Howe) 'vehicle;'
'trochaeus' and 'spondaeus' (Holland) 'trochee'
and 'spondee;' 'transitus' (Howe) ' transit ;' and
'machina' (Henry More) 'machine.' We meet
'intervalla,' not 'intervals,' in Chillingworth ; *pos-
tulata,' not 'postulates,' in Swift; 'archiva,' not
'archives,' in Baxter; 'adulti,' not 'adults/ in
Rogers ; 'plebeii,' not 'plebeians,' in Shakespeare ;
'helotae,' not 'helots,' in Holland; 'triumviri,' not
' triumvirs,' in North ; ' demagogi,' not * dema-
gogues,' in Hacket ; * elegi,' not 'elegies,' in Holland ;
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in. Naturalization of Words. • 115
* pantomimus ' in Lord Bacon and Ben Jonson for
'pantomime;* 'mystagogus' for * m)rstagogue/ in
Jackson and Heniy More ; ' atomi ' in Lord Brooke
for 'atoms.' In like manner, 'aedilis' (North) went
before 'edile;' 'effigies' and 'statua' (both in Shake-
speare) before 'effigy 'and 'statue;' 'abyssus' (Jack-
son) before 'abyss;' ' postscripta ' {State Papers)
before * postscript ;' ' commentarius ' (Chapman)
before 'commentary;' 'vestibulum' (Howe) before
'vestibule;' 'symbolum' (Hammond) before 'sym-
bol;' 'spectrum' (Burton) before 'spectre;' while
only after a while ' quaere ' gave place to ' query ;'
'audite' (Hacket) to /audit;' 'plaudite' (Henry
More) to ' plaudit ;' ' remanent ' {Paston Letters) to
* remnant ;' and the low Latin ' mummia ' (Webster)
became ' mummy.' The change of ' innocency,' ' in-
dolency/ 'temperancy/ and the large family of words
with the same termination, into 'innocence,' 'indo-
lence,' * temperance,' and the like, is part of the
same process of completed naturalization. So too it
is curious to note how slowly the names of persons
drop their Greek or Latin, and assume an English,
form. Aristotle indeed had so lived through the
Middle Ages that we nowhere find his name in any
but this popular shape ; but Ascham speaks of ' He-
siodus,' Bacon of ' Sallustius,' 'Appianus,' 'Livius,'
Milton of 'Pindarus,' and this in prose no less than
verse. It is the same with places. North writes
* Creta ' and ' Syracusae,' Ascham ' Sicilia ;' while our
English Bible has 'Palestina,' 'Grecia,' 'Tyrus.'
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116 Gains of the English Language, lect.
Spenser speaks of the 'Ilias and *Odysseis/ and
Dryden, not indeed always of the 'iEneis. '
The plural very often tells the secret of the foreign
light in which a word is still regarded, when the sin-
gular, being less capable of modification, would have
failed to do this. Thus when Holland writes ' pha-
langes,' *bisontes,' *archontes,' 'sphinges,' *ideae,'it
is clear that 'phalanx,' 'bison/ *archon,' 'sphinx,'
' idea,' had in no sense become English, but continued
Greek words for him ; as was 'rhinoceros' for Purchas,
when he wrote ' rhinocerotes ' for the plural; and
* dogma ' for Hammond, when he made ' dogmata '
the plural.* In the same way Spenser using * heroes '
as a trisyllable, f plainly implies that it is not yet
thoroughly English for him ; indeed, as we have just
seen, the singular was ' heros ' half a century later.
'Cento ' is no English word, but a^Latin one used in
English, so long as the plural is not 'centos,' but
'centones,' as in the old anonymous translation of
Augustin's City of God; ' specimen ' in like manner
is Latin, so long as it owns the plural * specimina '
(Howe) ; so too 'asylum,' so long as its plural is
'asyla,' as in Clarendon it is. Pope employing
' satellites ' as a quadrisyllable —
* Have we here an explanation of the * battalia * of Jeremy
Taylor and others ? Did they, without reflecting on the matter,
regard * battalion ' as word with a Greek neuter termination ?
It is difficult to think so ; yet more difficult to suggest any
other explanation.
t « And old heroes, which their world did daimt.'
Sonnet on Scanderheg,
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ni. Words refuse Naturalization. 117
* Why Jove's satellites are less than Jove * —
intimates that it is still Latin for him ; just as 'ter-
minus,' which the necessities of railways have intro-
duced among us, will not be truly naturalized till it
has * terminuses,' and not 'termini' for a plural;
nor 'phenomenon,' till we have renounced 'pheno-
mena;' nor 'crisis,' while it makes 'crises.' Some-
times both plurals have been retained, with only the
assignment of different meanings to them, as in the
case of 'indices' and 'indexes,' of 'genii' and
'geniuses,' of 'stamina' and 'stamens' (botanical).
The same process has gone on with words from
other languages, as from the Italian and the Spanish ;
thus 'bandetto' (Shakespeare), or 'bandito' (Jeremy
Taylor), becomes 'bandit;' 'porcellana' (so we read
it in Fuller) becomes 'porcelain ;' 'ruflfiano' (Coryat),
'ruffian;' 'concerto' 'concert;' 'busto' (Lord Ches-
terfield) 'bust;' 'caricatura' (Sir Thomas Browne)
'caricature;' 'princessa' (Hacket) 'princess;' 'scara-
mucha'.(Dryden) 'scaramouch;' 'pedante' (Bacon)
'pedant;' 'pedanteria' (Sidney) 'pedantry;' 'mas-
carata' (Hacket) 'masquerade;' 'impresa' 'impress;'
'caprichio' (Shakespeare) becomes first 'caprich'
(Butler), then 'caprice;' 'duello' (Shakespeare)
' duel ;' ' alligarta' (Ben Jonson) ' alligator ;' ' parro-
quito ' ( Webster ' parroquet ' Not otherwise ' scalada '
(Heylin) or 'escalado' (Holland) becomes 'escalade;'
'granada' (Hacket) 'grenade;' 'parada' (Jeremy
Taylor) 'parade;' 'emboscado' (Holland) 'stoccado/
*barricado,' 'renegado,' 'hurricano' (all in Shake-
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118 Gains of the Maglish Language, lect.
speare), *brocado'(Hackluyt), 'palissado' (Howell),
these all drop their foreign terminations, and severally
become 'ambuscade,' * stockade,' 'barricade,' 'rene-
gade,' 'hurricane,' 'brocade,' 'palisade;' 'croisado'
(Bacon) in like manner becomes first 'croisade'
(Jortin), and then * crusade ;' * quinaquina ' or 'quin-
quina,' 'quinine.' Other modifications of spelling,
not always in the termination, but in the body of a
word, will indicate its more entire incorporation into
the English language. Thus ' shash, ' a Turkish word,
becomes 'sash;' 'tulippa' (Bacon) 'tulip;' 'quel-
ques choses,' ' kickshaws ;' * restoration ' was at first
spelt ' restauration ;' and so long as * vicinage ' was
spelt 'voisinage'* (Sanderson), 'mirror' 'mhoir'
(Fuller), ' recoil ' ' recule,' ' voyage ' * viage,' and
'^ career' 'carriere' (all by Holland), they could
scarcely be esteemed the thoroughly English words
which now they are.
Here and there even at this later period awkward
foreign words will have been recast in a more
thoroughly English mould ; ' chirurgeon' will become
^surgeon;' 'hemorrhoid.' 'emerod;* 'squinancy,'
first 'squinzey' (Jeremy Taylor), and then 'quinsey ;'
'porkpisce' (Spenser), or hogfish, will be 'porpesse,'
and then 'porpoise,' as now. Yet the attempt will
not always be successful. 'Physiognomy' will not
give place to 'visnomy,' though Spenser and Shake-
♦ Skinner {Etymologicon^ 1 671) protests against the word
altogether, as purely French, and having no right to be con-
sidered English at all.
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in. Words refuse Naturalization. 119
speare employ this familiar form ; nor * hippopotamus '
to ' hippodame ' at Spenser's bidding ; nor * avant-
courier' to 'vancurrier' at Shakespeare's. Other
words also have finally refused to take a more popular
shape, although such was current once. Chaucer
wrote 'sawter* and *sawtrie/ but we 'psalter' and
* psaltery;' Holland 'cirque,' revived by Keats, but
we 'circus;' 'cense,' but we ''census;' 'interreign,'
but we 'interregnum;' Sylvester 'cest,' but we
'cestus;' 'quirry,' but we 'equerry;' 'colosse' (so
also Henry More), but we 'colossus;' Golding 'ure,'
but we 'urus;' 'metropole,' but we 'metropolis;'
Dampier ' volean,' but this has not superseded 'vol-
cano ;' nor 'pagod' (Pope) 'pagoda;' nor 'skelet'
(Holland) 'skeleton;' nor 'stimule' (Stubbs) 'stimu-
lus.' Bolingbroke wrote 'exode,' but we hold fast to
'exodus;' Burton 'funge,'but we 'fungus;' Henry
More 'enigm,' but we 'enigma ;' and 'analyse,' but
we 'analysis.' 'Superfice* (Dryden) has not put
'superficies,' nor 'sacrary' (Hacket) 'sacrarium,'
nor 'limbeck' 'alembic,' out of use. Chaucer's
' potecary ' has given place to a more Greek forma-
tion, 'apothecary;* so has 'ancre' to 'anchorite,'
'auntre'to 'adventure.' Yet these are exceptions;
the set of language is all in the other direction^
Looking at this process of the reception of foreign
words, with their after assimilation in feature to our own,
we may trace a certain conformity between the genius
of our institutions and that of our language. It is the
very cbarggter pf our institutions to repel none, but
rather to afford a shelter and a refuge to all, from what-
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120 Gains of the English Language, lect.
ever quarter they come ; and after a longer or shorter
while all the strangers and incomers have been incor-
porated into the English nation, within one or two
generations have forgotten that they were ever extra-
neous to it, have retained no other reminiscence of
I their foreign extraction than some slight difference of
name, and that often disappearing or having dis-
appeared. Exactly so has it been with the English
language. No language has shown itself less exclu-
sive ; none has stood less upon niceties ; none has
thrown open its doors wider, with a fuller confidence .
that it could make truly its own, assimilate and sub-
due to itself, whatever it received into its bosom ; and
in none has this confidence been more fully justified
by the result
Such are the two great augmentations from without
of our vocabulary. All other are minor and sub-
ordinate. Thus the Italian influence has been far
more powerful on our literature than on our language.
In Chaucer it makes itself very strongly felt on the
former,* but very slightly upon the latter; and, as
compared with that of French, it may be counted as
none at all. And this remained very much the
condition of things for the whole period during which
the star of Italy was in the ascendant here. When
we consider how potent its influences were, and how
long they lasted, it is only surprising that the deposit
left in the language has not been larger. There was
♦ See Kessner, Chaucer in seinen Beziehtmgen zttr Itali€i^
ischen Literature Bonn, 1867.
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m. Italian Influence, 121
a time when Italian was far more studied in England,
and Italian books far more frequently translated, than
they are at this present. Thus Ascham complains of
the immense number of wicked Italian books, such
as those of that 'poisonous Italian ribald,' Aretine,
which were rendered into English ; * and it is not less
abundantly evident that for a period extending from
the reign of Henry the Eighth to the ^nd of that of
Elizabeth, it more concerned an accomplished cour-
tier and man of the world to be familiar with Italian
than with French.
Almost every page of Spenser bears witness to his
intimate acquaintance with Ariosto, and with his. own
contemporary, Tasso. His sonnets are 'amoretti.*
In the choice of names for persons in his Fairy
Queen, such as Orgoglio, Archimago, Braggadocchio,
Malbecco, Fradubio, Gardante, Parlante, Jocante,
Fidessa, Duessa, Dispetto, Difetto, Speranza, Hu-
milti, and the like, he assumes the same familiarity
with the language of Italy on the part of his readers,
He introduces words purely Italian, as ' basciomani *
(handkissings), 'capuccio' (hood), or only not
Italian, because clipped of their final letter, as ' maU
talent ' for ill will, ' intendiment ' for understanding,
* fomiment ' for furniture ; or words formed on
Italian models, as 'to aggrate' (aggratare), and
I sometimes only intelligible when referlred to their
Italian source, as *afFret' (=encounter), from 'affret^
tare,' 'to afFrap,' the Italian ' afFrappare ;' or words
* The Schoolmaster, editecTby Rev. J. E. Mayor, 1863, p. 8?,
y Google
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122 Oains of the English Language, lect.
employed not in our sense, but altogether in an
Italian, as 'to revolt' in that of *i:ivoltare' {F, Q,
iii. II, 25).
Milton in his prose works frequently avouches the
I)eculiar affection to the Italian literature and language
which he bore, so that, next to those of Greece and
of Rome, he was most addicted to these.* And his
poetry without such declarations would itself attest
the same. He too calls his poems by Italian names,
*L* Allegro,* ^11 PenserosoJ His diction is enriched
with Italian words, as 'gonfalon,' 'libecchio,' or
with words formed on Italian models, as * to impara-
dise,' which beautiful word, however, was not of his
invention ; he employs words in their Italian, not
their English acceptation; thu3 'to assassinate,' in
the sense not of to kill, but grievously to maltreat
His adjectival use of 'adorn,' as equivalent to
'adorned,' he must have justified by the Italian
' adorno ;' so too his employment of ' to force ' in that
of 'sforzare,' to vanquish or reduce {S, A, 1096),
His orthography, departing fi:om the usual, approxi-
mates to the Italian ; thus be writes ' arpi^iral ' (am-
miraglio) for admiral,' 'haralt' (araldo) for herald,
'gonfalon' for gonfai^on,' sovran' (sovrano) for
sovereign; 'd^sertrice' (prose) where another would
have written desertress. 'Soldan,' for sultan, he has
in common with others who went before him ; so too
* Thus see his beautiful letter Benedicto Bor^matthaq^
Fhrentino,
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in. Spanish known in England. 123
* to 'sdeign/ a form no doubt suggested by the Italian
'sdegnare.'
Jeremy Taylor's acquaintance with Italian, even if
it were not asserted in his Funeral Sermon^ with his
assumption of the same acquaintance on the part of
his readers, is testified by his frequent use of Italian
proverbs and Italian words. He sometimes gives
these an English shape, as ' to picqueer ' in the sense
of to skirmish ; but oftener leaves them in their own.
It would be easy to gather out of his writings a con-
siderable collection of these ; such as 'amorevolezza,'
'grandezza,' 'sollevamento,' 'avisamente,' 'incura-
bili' (can it be that 'incurables,' was in his time
wanting in our language?) ; while, scattered up and
down our literature of the first half of the seventeenth
century, we meet other Italian words not a few ; as
'farfalla' for butterfly (Dubartas) ; 'amorevolous,'
' mascarata,' 'gratioso' (=favourite), ' bugiard '
(==liar), all in Hacket, 'leggiadrous,' in Beaumont's
Psyche and elsewhere. A list, as complete as I could
make it, of such as have finally obtained a place in
the language was given in my first lecture ; * they
are above a hundred, and doubtless many have
escaped me.
There is abundant evidence that Spanish was during
the latter half of the sixteenth and the first half of the
seventeenth century Teiy widely known in England,
indeed far more familiar than it eVer since has been.
The wars in the Low Countries, in which so many of
• See p. i6.
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124 Gains of the English Language, lect.
our countrymen served, the probabilities at one period
of a match with Spain, the fact that Spanish was
almost as serviceable at Brussels, at Milan, at Naples,
and for a time at Vienna, not to speak of Lima
and Mexico, as at Madrid itself, and scarcely less
indispensable, the many points of contact, friendly
and hostile, of England with Spain for well-nigh a
century, all this had conduced to an extended know-
ledge of Spanish in England. It was popular at
court. Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth were both
excellent Spanish scholars. A passage in Howell's
Letters would imply that at the time of Charles the
First's visit to Madrid, his Spanish was imperfect,
and Clarendon aflSrms the same ; but at a later date,
that is in 1635, a Spanish play was acted by a Spanish
company before him. The statesmen and scholars of
the time were rarely ignorant of the language. We
might have confidently presumed Raleigh's acquaint-
ance with it ; but in his Discovery of Guiana and
other writings there is abundant proof of this. Lord
Bacon gives similar evidence, in the Spanish proverbs
which he quotes, and in the skilful employment
which'he'sometimes makes of a Spanish word. * It was
among the many accomplishments of Archbishop
Williams, who, when the Spanish match was pending,
caused the English Liturgy to be translated under his
own eye into Spanish. Whether Shakespeare's know-
ledge of the language was not limited to the few chance
words which occasionally he introduces, as 'palabras,'
* As for instance of * desenvbltura ' in bis Essay, Of Fortune,
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m. JSfaturaUzation of Words. 126
' passado, ' ' duello, ' it is difficult to say. But Jonson's
familiarity with it is evident. More than once, as in
The Alchemist (Act iv. Sc. 2), he introduces so large
an amount of Spanish that he must have assunaed this
would not be altogether strange to his audience. Of
the Spanish words which have effected a settlement in
English, so far as I know them, I have given a list
already.* ^
The introduction of French tastes by Charles the
Second and his courtiers returning froiri their en-
forced residence abroad, rather modified the struc-
ture of our sentences than seriously affected our
vocabulary ; yet it gave us some new words. In one
of* Dryden's plays. Marriage h la Mode, a lady shows
her affectation by constantly employing French idioms
in .preference to English, French words rather than
native. Curiously enough, of these, thus put into her
mouth to render her ridiculous, several, as 'repartee,'
'grimace,' 'chagrin,' to be in the 'good graces' of
another, are excellent English now, and have nothing
far-sought or affected about them : for so it frequently
proves that what is laughed at in the beginning, is by
all admitted and allowed at the last. * Fougue ' and
' fraischeur,' which Dryden himself employed — ^being,
it is true, a very rare offender in this line, and for
' fraischeur' having Scotch if not English authority —
have not been justified by the same success.
Nor indeed can it be said that this adoption and
naturalization of foreign words has ever wholly ceased.
See page 17.
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126 Gains of the English Language, lect.
There are periods, as we have seen, when a language
throws open its doors, and welcomes strangers with an
especial freedom ; but there is never a time, when
one by one these foreigners and strangers are not
slipping into it. The process by which they do this
eludes for the most part our observa,tion. Time, the
greatest of all innovators, manages his innovations so
dexterously, spreads them over periods so immense,
and is thus able to bring them about so gradually, that
often, while he is effecting the mightiest changes,
we have no suspicion that he is effecting any at all.
Thus how nearly imperceptible are the steps by which
a foreign word is admitted into the full rights of an
English one. Many Greek words, for example, quite
unchanged in form, have in one way or another ended
in obtaining a home and acceptance among us. We
may in almost every instance trace step by step the
stealthy naturalization of these. We may note them
spelt for a while in Greek letters, and avowedly
employed as Greek and not English vocables. Hav-
ing .thus won a certain allowance, and ceased to be
altogether unfamiliar, we note them next exchanging
Greek for English letters, and finally obtaining recog-
nition as words which, however drawn from a foreign
source, are yet themselves English. Thus 'acme,'
'apotheosis,^ 'euthanasia,' 'iota,' 'criterion,' 'chrysa-
lis,' 'dogma,' 'encyclopaedia,' 'metropolis,' 'oph-
thalmia,' 'phenomenon,' 'pathos,' are all English
now, while yet South with many others always wrote
dnpt^i, Jeremy Taylor dTeoQeaodiSy evQavadia, ioora,
Cudworth x/otr^pioy, Heniy More a:/)t;tfaAi5; Ham-,
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m. Naiuralizalion of Words. 127
mond speaks of doyfiara, Ben Jonson of ' the know-
ledge of the liberal arts, which the Greeks call
iyKVKXoTtaideiav,^ Culverwell writes pirirpoTCoXii
and 6<p0aXjuia, Preston <paiv6pieyaj Sylvester ascribes
to Baxter not 'pathos/ but TtdBo^.-^ ^mo% is at the
present moment preparing for this passage from
Greek characters to English, and certainly before
long will be acknowledged as English. The only
cause which for some time past has stood in the way
of this is the misgiving whether it will not be read
'ethos,' and not 'ethos,' and thus not be the word
intended.
Let us endeavor to trace this same process in some
French word, which is at this moment gaining a foot-
ing among us. For ' prestige ' we have manifestly no
equivalent of our own. It expresses something which
only by a long circumlocution we could express ;
namely, that real though undefinable influence on
others, which past successes, as the pledge and
promise of future ones, breed. It has thus naturally
• He is not perfectly accurate here ; the Greeks spoke of
BV KvxXcp TtaiSeia and iyHvxXto^ Ttatdeia but had no
such compound word as iyKVHXoTtaideia.. We gather, how-
ever, from his statement, as from Lord Bacon's use of * circle -
leammg ' (=* orbis doctrinse,* Quintilian), that * encyclopaedia '
did not exist in their time. * Monomania * is in like manner
a modem formation, of which the Greek language knows
nothing.
t See the passages quoted in my paper, On some DefidencUs
in our English Dictionaries^ p. 38, published separately and in
the Transactions of the Philological Society^ 1857.
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128 Gains of the English Language, lect.
passedjnto frequent use. No one could feel that in
employing it he was slighting as good a word of our
own. At first all used it avowedly as French, writing
it in italics to indicate this. Some write it so still,
others do not ; some, that is, count it still as foreign,
others consider that it is not so to be regarded any
more.* Little by little the number of those who
write it in italics will diminish ; and finally none will
do so. It will then only need that the accent be
shifted as far back as it will go, for such is the in-
stinct of all English words, that for 'prestige,' it
should be pronounced ' pr6stige,' even as within these
few years for ' dep(5t' we have learned to say 'd^pot,'
and its naturalization will be complete. I have no
doubt that before many years it will be so pronounced
by the majority of educated Englishmen, — some pro-
nounce it so already, — and that the pronunciation com-
mon' now will pass away, just as 'obk^e,' once
universal, has everywhere given place to ' obhge.'f
* We trace a similar progress in Greek words which were
passing into Latin. Thus Caesar {B, G, iii. 103) writes, quae
Graeci adyra appellant ; but Horace {Carm. i. 16. 5), non
adytis quatit. In like manner Cicero writes oivmCO^B^ {Acad,
ii. 39. 123), but Seneca {Ep. 122), * antipodes ;* that is, the
word for Cicero was still Greek, while in the period that
elapsed between him and Seneca, it had become Latin. So
too Cicero writes ci'cJfijApy, but the Younger Pliny *idolon,*
and'TertuUian *idolum ;' Cicero drpavjjyTfjj.a (//. Z>. 3. 6),
but Valerius Maximus * strategema.'
t See in Coleridge's Tad/e Talk^ p. 3, the amusing story of
John JCemble's stately correction of the Prince of Wales for
adhering to the earlier pronunciation, 'obk^e,* — *It will
become your royal mouth better to say obbge.*
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III. Shifting of Accents. 129
I observe in passing, that the process of throwing
the accent of a word as far back as it will go, is one
which has been constantly proceeding among us. In .
the time and writings of Chaucer there was much
vacillation in the placing of the accent; as was to be
expected, while the adoptions from the French were
comparatively recent, and had not yet unlearned their
foreign ways or made themselves perfectly at home
among us. Some of his French words are still ac-
cented on the final syllable, thus ' honodr,' 'creatdre,'
'sentence,' 'pendnce,' 'beaut6,' 'manure,' 'service/
others, as 'tr^sour,' 'cdlour,' 'cdnseil,' on the first;
while this vacillation displays itself still more mark-
edly in the fact that the same word is accented by him
sometimes on the one syllable, and sometimes upon
the other ; he writing at one time ' natdre ' and at
another ndture,' at one time 'vertde' and at another
' virtue ;' so too * visage ' and ' visdge,' ' fortune ' and
'fortdne;' 'service,' and 'service,' with many more.
The same disposition to throw back the accent is
visible in later times. Thus 'presdge,' 'captive,'
'envy,' 'cru^l,' 'trespass,' 'for6st,' in Spenser, and
these, 'prostrate,' 'advfce,' 'asp6ct,' 'proc&s,' 'in-
stinct,' 'insdit,' 'impdlse,' 'pretext,' 'contrite,' 'sur-
face,' 'proddct,' 'upr(5ar,' 'edict,' ' contest,' in Mil-
ton, had all their accent once on the last syllable ;
they have it now on the first. So too, ' acddemy ' was
' academy ' for Cowley and for Butler ;* while ' theatre '
♦ In this great academy of mankind.'
To ike Memory of Du Fa/*
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130 Gains of the JSnglish Language, lect.
was * theatre ' with Sylvester, this American pronun-
ciation being archaic and not vulgar. 'Produce'
was 'prodiice' for Diyden : '^ssay' was 'essdy' both
for him and for Pope ; he closes heroic lines with both
these words ; Pope does the same with ' barrier ' * and
'eifdrt' We may note the same process going for-
ward still. Middle-aged men may remember that it
was a question in their youth whether it should be
'*rev6nue ' or ' revenue ;' it is always * r6venue ' now.
' Contemplate ' has in like manner given way to ' cdn-
template.' Rogers bewailed the change which had
taken place in his memory from ' balcdny * to * bdl-
cony.' *Bdlcony/ he complains, * makes me sick ;'
but it has effectually won the day. Nor is it, I think,
difficult to explain how this should be. The speaker,
conscious that somewhere or other the effort must be
made, is glad to have it over as soon as possible.
'Apostdlic,' which in Diyden's use was 'apostolic'
(he ends an heroic line with it), is a rare instance of
the accent moving in the opposite direction.
Other French words not a few, besides ' prestige '
which I instanced just now, are at this moment
hovering on the confines of English, hardly knowing
whether they shall become such altogether or not.
Such are 'ennui,' * exploitation,' 'verve,' 'persiflage,'
'badinage,' 'chicane,' 'finesse,' 'm616e' (Tennyson
already spells it ' mellay '), and others. All these are
often employed by us, — and it is out of such frequent
employment that adoption proceeds, — ^because ex-
♦ « Twixt that and reason what a nice hamVr.'
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m. Scientific and Technical Terms. 131
pressing shades of meaning not expressed by any
words of our own. Some of them will no doubt com-
plete their naturalization ; others will after a time
retreat again, like some which were named just now,
and become for us once more avowedly French.
* Solidarity/ which we owe to the French Com-
munists, — it signifies a fellowship in gain and loss,
in honour and dishonour, in victory and defeat, a
being, so to speak, all in the same boat, — is so con-
venient that it would be idle to struggle against it
It has established itself in German, and in other
European languages as well.
Or take an example of this progressive naturalization
from another quarter. In an English glossary, of date
1 67 1, 1 do not find 'tea,' but *cha,' 'the leaf of a tree
in China, whkh being infiised into water, serves for
their ordinary drink.' Thirteen years later the word
is no longer a Chinese one, but already a French one
for us; Locke in his Diary vfuiing it 'th6,' Early
in the next century the word is spelt in an entirely
English fashion, in fact as we spell it now, but still
retains a foreign pronunciation, — ^Pope rhymes it
with 'obey,' — and this it has only lately altogether
let go.
- Greek.and Latin words we still continue to adopt,
although now no longer in troops and companies,
but only one by one. The lively interest which
always has been felt in classical studies among
us, and which will continue to be felt, so long as
Ei^lishmen present to themselves a high culture of
their Realties and powers as an object of ambition,
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132 Oains of the JSnglish Language, lect.
80 long as models of what is truest and loveliest in .
art have any attraction for them, is itself a pledge
that accessions from these quarters can never cease
altogether. I refer not here to purely scientific terms ;
these, so long as they do not pass beyond the thresh-
old of the science for whose use they were invented,
have no proper right to be called words at all. They
are a kind of shorthand, or algebraic notation of the
science to which they belong ; and will find no place
in a dictionary constructed upon true principles, but
will constitute rather a technical dictionaiy by them-
selves. They are oftentimes drafted into a dictionary
of the language ; but this for the most part out of a
barren ostentation, and that so there may be room
for boasting of the many thousand words by which it
excels all its predecessors. But such additions are
very cheaply made. Nothing is easier than to turn
to modern treatises on chemistry or electricity, or on
some other of the sciences which hardly existed, or
did not at all exist, half a century ago, or which have
been in later times wholly new-named — as botany,
for example, — and to transplant new terms from these
by the hundred and the thousand, with which to
crowd and deform the pages of a dictionary. The
labour is little more than that of transcription ; but the
gain is nought ; or indeed is much less than nought ;
for it is not merely that half a dozen genuine English
words recovered from our old authors would be a
truer gain, a more real advance toward^ the complete
inventory of the wealth which we possess in words
than a hundred or a thousand of these ; but additions
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in. Words from the German. 133
of this kind are mere disfigurements of the work
which they profess to complete.
When we call to mind the near affinity between
English and German, which, if not sisters, are at any
rate first cousins, it is remarkable that almost since
the day when they parted company, each to fulfil its
own destiny, there has been little further commerce,
little giving or taking, between them. Adoptions on
our part firom the German have been extremely rare. ,
The explanation of this lies no doubt in the fact that
the literary activity of Germany did not begin till very
late, nor our interest in it till later still, nor indeed till
the beginning of the present centur}'. Literature,
however, is not the only channel by which words pass
from one language to another ; thus ' plunder ' was
brought back from Germany about the beginning of
our Civil War by the soldiers who had served under
Gustavus Adolphus and his captains ; while ' trigger '
('tricker' inHudibras)^ which reached us at the same
time, and by the same channel, is manifestly the
German 'driicker,' though none of our dictionaries
have marked it as such, ' Crikesman' ( ' kriegsmann' ) ,
common enough in the State Papers of the sixteenth
century, found no permanent place in the language ;
and 'braiidshat' ('brandschatz'), being the ransom
paid to an enemy for not burning down your house or
your city, as little. * Iceberg' we must have taken
whole from the German, since a word of our own
construction would have been not ^ict-herg/ but
' ict-mountain,' I have not met with it in our earlier
voyagers. An English 'swindler' is not exactly a
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134 Gains of the English Language. lect»
German * schwindler ;' yet a subaudition oT the
knave, though ntore latent in German, is common to
both ; and we must have drawn the word from Ger-
many (it is not in Johnson) late in the last century.
Why, by the way, do we not adopt 'shwarmer'?
' Enthusiast ' does not in the least supply its place.
If ' li/egyxaxd ' was originally, as Richardson sugg;ests,
* Z?ii5garde,' or * ^^y-guard,' and from that transformed,
by the determination of Englishmen to make in sig-
nificant in English, into '///^-guard,' or guard de-
fending the Ii/e of the sovereign, this will be another
word from the same quarter. Yet I have my doubts ;
' leibgarde ' would scarcely have found its way hither
before the accession of the House of Hanover, or at
any rate beforfe the arrival of William with his memo-
rable Guards ; while ' life-guard,' in its present shape,
is older in the language ; we hear often of the ' Kfe-
guards' during our Civil War; and Fuller. writes,
'The Cherethites were a kind of lifegard to king
David.'*
There is only one province of words in which we
are recent debtors to the Germans to any considerable
extent. Of the terms used by the mineralogist many
have been borrowed, and in comparatively modem
times, from them; thus 'quartz,' 'felspar,' 'cobalt,'
nickel, ''zinc,' ' hornblend ;' while other of the terms
employed by us are a direct translation from the same ;
such for instance as 'fuller's earth' (walkererde),
'pipeclay' (pfeifenthon), 'pitchstone' (pechstein.)
* Pisgak Sight of Palestine^ 1650, p. 217.
r
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in. Recent Acquisitions. 185
Of very recent importations I hardly know one";
unless, indeed, we adopt the ingenious suggestion
that 'to loaf and * loafer,' which not very long ago
arrived in England by way of America, are the Oer-
man Maufen'and Maufer.'
But if we have not imported, we have been some-
what given of late to the copying of, German words,
that is to the forming of words of our own on the
scheme and model of some, which having taken our
fancy, we have thought to enrich our own vocabulary
with the lilie. I cannot consider that we have always
been very happy in those thus selected for imita-
tion. Possessing 'manual,' we need not have called
* hand-book ' back from an oblivion of nine hundred
years ; and one can only regret that ' standpoint '
has succeeded in forcing itself on the language. * Ein-
seitig ' (itself modem, if I mistake not), is the pattern
on which we have formed 'one-sided' — z. word to
which a few years ago something of affectation was
attached ; none using it save those who dealt more or
less in German wares ; it has however its manifest
conveniences, and will hold its ground ; so too, as it
seems, will ' fatherland,' though a certain note of affec-
tation cleaves to it still. The happiest of these com-
pounded words, of which the hint has been taken
from the German, is ' folk-lore ;' the substitution of •
this for * popular superstitions,' is an unquestionable
gain.
It is only too easy to be mistaken in such a matter ;
but, if I do not err, the following words have all been
bom during the present century, some within quite
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136 Gains of the English Language, lect.
the later decades of this century. A distribution of
them according to the languages from which they are
drawn will show that Greek and Latin are the lan-
guages from which at the present day our own is
mainly recruited; 'abnormal/ 'acrobat/ 'aeon/
'aesthetics ' (Tennyson has given allowance to 'aeon ;'
but it and 'aesthetics' must both renounce their
initial diphthong, as 'either/ 'economy/ and other
words have done, before they can be regarded as
quite at home with us);* 'bus/ 'cab/ 'clipper/
'demonetize,' 'demoralize,' 'demoralization,' 'de-
plete,' 'depletion,' 'desirability,' 'dissimilation,' 'edu-
cational,' 'eurasian,' 'excursionist,' 'exploitation,' 'ex-
tradition,' 'fatherland,' '^flange,' 'flunkey,' 'folk-lore,'
'garotte,' 'garotter,' 'grandiose/ 'hymnal,' 'immi-
grant,' 'international,' 'linguistic,' 'loot,' 'myth,'
' neutralization, ' ' normal, ' ' oldster, ' ' one-sided, '
' ornamentation, ' ' outsider, ' ' parafl&n, ' ' pervert, '
* photograph,' 'prayerful,' 'pretentious,' 'realistic,'
'recoup,' 'reformatory,' 'reliable,' 'revolver,' 'san-
itary,' 'sensational,' 'shrinkage,' 'shunt,' 'solidarity,'
'squatter,' 'standpoint,' 'statistics,' 'stereotype' (the
word was invented by Didot), 'suggestive,' 'tele-
gram,' 'tourist,' 'transliteration,' 'utilize,' 'utiliza-
tion,' 'watershed.' It must be confessed of several
• A writer in the Philological Museum^ so late as 1832,
p. 369, was doubtful whether 'aesthetics*- would establish
itself in the language ; but this it must be confessed to have
done.
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m. Recent Acquisitions, 137
among these that we could want them (in the old
sense of 'to want') without the want being very
seriously felt ; others like the last in this list are mani-
fest acquisitions of the language.
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138 Gains of the English Language, lect.
LECTURE IV.
GAINS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
(continued. )
TAKING up the subject where in my last lecture
I left off, I proceed to enumerate some other
sources from which we have made additions to our
vocabulary. "t)f course the period when absolutely
new roots are generated will have passed away very
long indeed before men begin by a reflective act to
take notice of processes going forward in the language
which they speak. That pure productive energy,
creative we might call it, belongs to times quite out
of the ken of history. It is only from materials
already existing that it can enrich itself in the later,
or historical stages of its development
This it can do in many ways. And first, it can
bring what it has already, two words or more, into
new combinations, and form a new word out of these.
Much more is wanted here than merely to link them
together by a hyphen ; they must really coalesce and
grow together. Difierent languages, and even the
same language at difierent epochs of its life, will
possess this power in very difierent degrees. The
eminent felicity of the Greek has been always ac-
knowledged. * The joints of her compounded words, '
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17. Compound English Words. 139
says Fuller, 'are so naturally oiled, that they run
nimbly on the tongue, which makes them, though
long, never tedious, because significant'* Sir Philip
Sidney makes the same claim for our English, namely
that ' it is particularly happy in the composition of
two or three words together, near equal to the Greek.'
No one has done more than Milton to justify this
praise, or to show what may be effected by this hap-
py marriage of words. Many of his compound epi-
thets, as 'grey-hooded even,' 'coral-paven floor,'
' flowry-kirtled Naiades,' 'golden- winged host,'
• Holy Statgy b. ii. c. 6. Latin promised at one time to
display an almost equal freedom in forming new words by the
happy marriage of old. But at the period of its highest cul-
ture it seemed possessed with a timidity, which Caused it
voluntarily to abdicate this with many of its own powers. In
the Augustan period we look in vain for epithets like these,
both occurring in a single line of Catullus : * Ubi cerva
silvicultrix, ubi aper nemoriuagus /* or again, as his * fluenti*
sonus ' or as the * imbricitor ' of Ennius. Nay, of those com-
pound epithets which the language once had formed, it let
numbers drop: * parcipromus,* * turpilucricupidus,* and many
more, do not extend beyond Plautus. Quintilian (i. 5. 70) :
Res totamagis Grsecos decet, nobis minus succ%dit ; nee id. fieri
nature puto, sed alienis favemus ; ideoque cum xvpravx^ya
mirati sumus, incurvicervicum vix a risu defendimus. Else-
where he complains of the little generative power of the Latin,
its continual losses being compensated by no equivalent gains
(viii. 6. 32) : Deinde, tanquam consummata sint omnia, nihil
generare audemus ipsi, quum multa quotidie ab antiquis ficta
moriantur. Still the silver age of the language did recover to
some extent the abdicated energies of its earlier times, reas-
serted among other powers that of combining words, with a
certain measure of success.
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140 Gains of the English Language, lect.
* Night's drowsy-flighted steeds,' ' tinsel-slippered feet,'
'.violet-embroidered vale,' * dewy-feathered sleep,'
'sky-tinctured grain,' 'vermeil-tinctured lip,' 'amber-
dropping hair,' 'night-foundered skiff,' are them-
selves poems in miniature. Not unworthy to be set
beside these are Sylvester's 'opal-coloured mom,'
Drayton's 'silver-sanded shore,' Marlowe's 'golden-
fingered Ind,' Beaumdnt and Fletcher's 'golden-
tressed Apollo,' Shakespeare's ' heavy-gaited toad,'
and Chapman's (for Pope owed it to Chapman) 'rosy-
fingered mom. ' At the same time combinations like
these remain to so great a degree flie peculiar prop-
erty of their first author, they so little pass into any
further use, that they must rather be regarded as
augmentations of its poetical wealth than its linguistic.
Such words as 'intemational,' or as 'folk-lore,' in-
stanced already, are better examples of real additions
to our vocabulary. ' Intemational 'we owe to Jeremy
Bentham, one of the boldest, yet, in the main, least
successful among the coiners of new words. But
otrange and formless as is for the most part this pro-
geny of his brain, lie has given us here a word which
does such e^fcellent service, that it is diflficult to
understand how we contrived so long to do without it
We have further increased our vocabulary by form-
ing new words according to the analogy of formations
which in parallel cases have been already allowed.
Thus upon the substantives, 'congregation,' 'conven-
tion,' were formed * congregational,' * conventional ;'
yet these at a comparatively modem date ; ' congrega-
tional ' first rising up in the Assembly of Divines, or
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IV. Formation of New Words. 141
during the time of the Commonwealth.* These
having found allowance, the process is repeated, not
always with very gratifying results, in the case of other
words with the same ending. We are now used to
* educational,' and the word is serviceable enough ;
but I can remember when a good many years ago an
^Educational Magazine ' was started, one's first impres-
sion was, that a work having to do with education
should not thus bear upon its front an offensive, at
best a very questionable, novelty in the English lan-
guage. These adjectives are now multiplying fast.
We have 'inflexional,' 'seasonal,' 'denominational,'
and on this, in dissenting magazines at least, the
monstrous birth,' ' denominationalism ;' 'emotional'
is creeping into books ; 'sensational,' name and thing,
has found only too ready a welcome among us;
so that it is hard to say whether all words with this
termination will not finally generate an adjective.
Convenient as you may sometimes find these, you
will do well to abstain from all but the perfectly well
recognized formations. For as many as have no claim
to be arbiters of the language Pope's advice is good,
as certainly it is safe, that they be not among the last
to use a word which is going out, nor among the first
to employ one that is coming in.
' Its,' the anomalously formed genitive of ' it,' was
created with the object of removing an inconvenience,
which for a while made itself seriously felt in the lan-
* Collection of Scarce Tracts, edited by Sir W. Scott, voL
vii. p. 91.
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142 Gains of the English Language, lect.
guage. The circumstances of the rise of this little
word, and of the place which it has secured itself
among us, are sufficiently curious to justify a treat-
ment which might seem out of proportion with the
importance that it has ; but which none will deem so,
who are at all acquainted with the remarkable facts of
our language bound up in the story of the word.
Within the last few years attention has been drawn
to the circumstance that 'its' is of comparatively
recent introduction into the language. The earliest
example which has yet been adduced is from Florio's
World 0/ Words, 1598 ; the next from the translation
of Montaigne by the same author, 1603. You will
not find it once in our English Bible, the office which
it fulfils for us now being there fulfilled either by 'his'
(Gen. i. 11 ; Exod. xxxvii. 17; Matt v. 15) or
'her' (Jon. i! 15; Rev. xxii. 2), these applied as
freely to inanimate things as to persons ; or else by
'thereof (Gen. iil 6; Ps. Ixv. 10) or 'of it' (Dan.
vii. 5). Nor may Lev. xxv. 5 be urged as invalidat-
ing this assertion, as there will presently be occasion
to show. To Bacon ' its ' is altogether unknown ; he
too had no scruple about using ' his ' as a neuter ; as
in the following passage : ' Learning hath his infancy,
when it is but beginning and almost childish ; then
his youth, when it is luxuriant and juvenile ; then his
strength of years, when it is solid and reduced ; and
lastly his old age, when it waxeth dry and exhaust.' *
*Its' occurs very rarely in Shakespeare, in far the
* Essay 58.
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rr. * /te/ a recent Word in English. 143
larger number of his plays not once ; indeed, all
counted, I do not believe more than ten times in the
whole ; though singularly enough, three of these uses
occur in one speech of twelve lines in The Winter's
Tale,*' Milton for the most part avoids it; yet we
find it a few times in his poetry, f
It is not hard to trace the motives which led to the
generation of this genitive, or the causes which have
enabled it against much tacit opposition to hold its
own. A manifest inconvenience attended the em-
ployment of ' his ' both for masculine and neuter, or
to speak more accurately, for persons and for things ;
this namely, that the personifying power of 'his,' no
unimportant power for the poet, was seriously im-
paired, almost destroyed thereby. It would be often
difficult, nay impossible, to determine whether such a
personification was intended or not ; and even where
the context made perfectly evident that such was
meant, the employment of the same form where
* Act I. Sc. 2.
t As in P. L. i. 254 ; iv. 813. At the same time it is em-
ployed by him so rarely, that the use of it four times in the
little poem which has been recently ascribed to him, seems to
me of itself nearly decisive against his authorship. It is worth
while, however, to see what has been said on the other side in
Mr. Morley*s The King and the Commons, Unluckily, neither
Mrs. Cowden Clarke, to whom we owe so invaluable a Con-
cordance of Shakespeare's Plays (but why not of his Poems as
well ? ) nor Mr. Prendergast, to whom we are indebted for one
of Milton's Poetical Works, were aware of the importance of
registering the very rare occurrences of * its * in either author,
and we look in vain for any notice oi the word in them.
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144 Gains of the Mftglish Language, lbct.
nothing of the kind was intended, contributed greatly
to diminish its effect Craik has noticed as a conse-
quence of this that Milton prefers, wherever it is
possible, the feminine to the masculine personifica-
tion,* as if he felt that the latter was always obscure
from the risk of 'his' being taken for the neuter
pronoun. There was room too for other confusions.
When we read of the Ancient of Days, that *hii
throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as
burning fire' (Dan. vii. 9), who does not now refer
the second * his ' as well as the first to * the Ancient
of Days ' ? It indeed belongs to the throne.
So strongly had these and other inconveniences
made themselves felt, that there was already, and had
been for a long while, a genitival employment of 'it,'
whereby it was made to serve all the uses which * its '
served at a later day. In some dialects, in the West
Midland for example, this dates very far back.f We
have one example of ' it,' so used, in the Authorized
Version of Scripture, Lev. xxv. 5 : * That which grow-
eth of ^y own accord thou shalt not reap' — ^which has
silently been changed in later editions to ^tfs own
accord ;' but ' it ' was the reading in the exemplar
edition of 161 1, and for a considerable time following. -
Exactly the same phrase, ' of it own accord,' occurs
in the Geneva Version at Acts xii. 10. J There are
♦ Thus, see P. L, ii. 4, I75» 5^4 ; ix. "03 ; Comus, 396,
468.
f See Guest, Hist, of English Rhythms^ vol. i. p. 280.
X And also in Hooker, EccUs. Pol. i. 3, 5. In Keble's
edition this is printed *of its own accord.* Were this tlte
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IV. * Its ' reluctantly accepted. 145
several examples, thirteen have been counted, of this
use of ' it ' in Shakespeare ; thus in The Winter's Tale,
iii. 2 : * The innocent milk in ii most innocent
mouth;' and again in King John, ii. 3 : 'Go to it
grandame.' And they are by no means unfrequent
in other writers of the eariier half of the seventeenth
century. Thus in Rogers' Naaman ike Syrian, pub-
lished in 1642, but the lectures delivered some eight
years earlier, 'its' nowhere occurs, but a genitival
' it' often ; thus, ' I am at this mark, to withdraw the
, soul from the life of it own hand ' {Preface, p. i ) ;
aijd again, * The power of the Spirit is such that it
blows at it own pleasure ' (p. 441 ) ; and again, ' The
scope which mercy propounds to herself of the turn-
ing of the soul to God, even the glory of it own self
(p. 442) *
No doubt we have here m this use of * it ' a step-
ping-stone by. which the introduction of * its ' was
greatly aided. And yet for a long while the word
was very reluctantly allowed, above all in any statelier
style. It was evidently regarded as a distaste&l
makeshift not always to be dispensed with, but to
original leading, then, as tlie book was first published in 1594,
we shoi^d have an earlier example of * its * by four years than
that in ^orio pbut in all editions up to that of 1632, * of it
\ own accord ' is the reading.
* See upon this whole subject Craik, On the English of
Shakespeare, 2nd edit. p. 97 ; Marsh, Manual of the English
Language, lEngl. edit. p. 278 ; Transactions of the Philological
Society, vol. i. p. 280 ; and Wright, The Bible fVbrdbooh^
p, y. 'it.'
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146 Oains of the English Language, lect.
■ 'I ' ■
which recourse should be had only when this was
unavoidable. This feeling is not even now extinct
I remeniber hearing Lord Macaulay'say that he always
avoided 'its' when he could ; while to every writer of
English verse, who has any sense of melody, the
necessity of using it is often most unwelcome. It is
in fact z. parvenu^ which forced itself into good society
at last, but not with the good will of those who in the
end had no choice but to a^mit it
There is indeed a very singular period in our
literature, extending over more than the first half of
the seventeenth century, during which the old gram- -
matical usages, namely, 'his' applied to neuters as
freely as to masculines, or instead of this, 'thereof,'
or 'of it,' were virtually condemned — ^the first as
involving many possible confusions, the others as
clumsy and antiquated contrivances for escaping these
confusions, while yet at the same time the help of 'its '
is claimed as sparingly as possible, by some is not
claimed at all. Thus I have carefully examined large
portions of Daniel and Drayton— the fiu:st died in 1619, ,
the second in 1631 — ^without once lighting upon the.
word, and am inclined to believe that -it occurs in
neither ; but, which is very much more noticeable, I
have (Jone this without lighting upon more than one
or two passages where there was even the temptation,
if the poet shrunk from the employment of ' its,' to
employ any of the earlier substitutes; so that it is
hardly too much to say that the whole fashion of their
sentence^ must have been often shaped by a conscious
or unconscious seeking to avoid the alternative neces-
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IV* Noveliy of ' its^ soon forgotten 147
sities either of using, or else evidently finding a
substitute for, this unwelcome little monosyllable.
Diyden, I suppose, had no conscious scruple about
employing 'its,' and yet how rarely he did so, as
compared with a modem writer under the same
inducements, a fact like this remarkably attests,
namely, that in his rendering of the second book of
the JEneid^ on which I made the experiment, 'its'
occurs only three-times, while in Conington's transla-
tion of the same no fewer times than twenty-six. We
may further note that many who employ the newly
invented possessive, ever and anon fall back on 'his,'
or 'her,' or 'thereof,' as though the other did not
exist. It is thus continually with Fuller, and, though
not so often, with Jeremy Taylor. Thus the former
says of Solomon's Temple : ' Twice was ii pillaged by
foreign foes, and four times by her own friends before
the final destruction thereof,' * He turns to ' thereof
for help ten times for once that * its ' finds allowance
with him. And in Jeremy Taylor a construction
such as the following is not unusual : ' Death hath
not only lost the sting, but ii bringeth a coronet in
her hand.'
How soon, with all this, the actual novelty of 'its '
was forgotten is strikingly evidenced by the fact that
when Dryden, in one of his moods of fault-finding
with the poets of the preceding generation, is taking
Ben Jonspn to task for general inaccuracy in his
* Pisgah Sight of Palestine, p. 40. Compare Marsh, Lec-
tures m thf English Language, New York, i860, p. 399.
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148 Gains of the English Language, lect.
English diction, among other counts of his indict-
ment, he quotes this line from Catiline,
* Though heaven should speak with all his wrath at once,*
and proceeds, * heaven is ill syntax with his/ and
this, while in fact till within forty or fifty years of the
time when Diyden begau to write, no other syntax
was known ; and to a much later date was exceed-
ingly rare. Curious, too, is it to note that in the
earnest controversy which followed on the publication
by Chatterton of the poems ascribed by him to the
monk Rowley, who should have lived in the fifteenth
century, no one appealed to the following line,
* Life and all its goods I scom,'
as at once deciding that the poems were not of the
age which they pretended., Warton, who denied,
though with some hesitation, the antiquity of the
poems,* giving many and sufficient reasons for this
denial, failed to take note of this little word, which
betrayed the forgery at once.
\gain, languages enrich their vocabulary, our own
has largely done so, by recovering treasures which
had escaped them for a while. Not that all which
drops out of use and memory is loss ; there are words
which it is gain to be rid of, and which none would
wish to revive ; words of which Dryden says truly,
though in a somewhat ingracious comparison — ^they
do * not deserve tiiis redemption, any more than the
* History of English Toetry^ vol. ii. p. 463 sqq.
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IV. Recovery of lost Words. 14A
crowds of men who daily-die, or are slain for sixpence
in a battle, merit to be restored to life, if a wish could
revive them/* But there are others which it is a real
advantage to draw back again from the temporary ob-
livion into which they had fallen; and such recoveries
are more numerous than might at first be supposed.
You may remember that Horace, tracing in a few
memorable lines the fortune of words, and noting
that many, once current, were in his time no longer
in use, did not therefore count that of necessity their
race was for ever run. So far fi-om this, he confi-
dently anticipated 2. palingenesy or renewed existence
for many among them.f They had set, but they
should rise again : what seemed death was only sus-
pended animation. Such indeed is constantly the
fact. Words slip almost or quite as imperceptibly
back into use as they once slipped out of it There
is abundant evidence of this. Thus in the contem-
porary gloss which an anonymous friend of Spenser
furnishes to his Shepherds Calendar, first publi^ed
in 1579, 'for the exposition of old words,' as he de-
clares, he includes the following in his list : 'askance,'
'bevy,' 'coronal,' 'dapper,' 'embellish,' '&in,'
'flowret,' 'forlorn,' 'forestall,' 'glee,' 'keen,'
'scadie,' 'seer,' 'surly,' 'welter,' 'wizard,' with
others quite as familiar as these. In Speght's Chau-
* Postcript to his Translation of the jETieid, For Gray's
judgment on .the words recovered or recalled by Dryden see
Letter 43, to West.
t Multa renascentur, quae jam cecidere.
Ars Poet^ 46-72 ; cf. Ep, ii. 2. 115,
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150 Gains of the JEnglish Language, legt.
cer (1667), there is a long- list of 'old and obscure
words in Chaucer explained ;' these ' old and obscure
words/ including * anthem/ 'blithe/ 'bland/ 'chap-
let/ 'carol/ 'deluge/ 'franchise/ 'illusion/ 'prob-
lem/ 'recreant/ 'sphere/ 'tissue/ ' transcend/ with
very many easier than these. In Skinner's Etyniolo-
gicm ( 1 671 ), there is another such list of words which
have gone out of use,* and among these he includes
'to [dovetail/ 'to interlace/ 'elvish/ 'encumbred/
'phantom/ 'gawd/ 'glare/ 'malison/ 'mas(^ue-
rade/ (mascarade), 'oriental/ 'plumage/ 'pummel/
(pomell), 'shapely/ Again, there is prefixed to
Thomson's CastU of Indolence^ in which, as is well
known, he affects the antique, an ' explanation of the
obsolete words used in this poem. ' They are not very
many, but they include 'appal,' 'aye,' 'bale,' 'bla-
zon,' 'carol,' 'deftly,* 'gear,' 'glee,' 'imp,' 'nms-
ling,' 'prankt,' 'sere/ 'sheen,' 'sweltry,' 'thrall,'
' unkempt,' ' wight ;' many of which would be used
without scruple in the prose, the remainder belong-
ing to the recognized poetical diction, of the present
day. West, a contemporary of Thomson, whose
works, have found their way into Johnson's PoeiSy and
who imagined, like Thomson, that he was writing ' in
the manner of Spenser,' counts it necessary to explain
'assay,' 'astound,' 'caitiff,' 'dight,' 'emprise,'
'guise,' 'kaiser,' 'palmer,' 'paragon,' 'paramour,'
* Etymologicon vocum omniam antiquarum qua usque a
Wilheimo Victor e invalueruni et jam ante parentiftn atatem
in usu esse desierunt.
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IV. Words come back into Use. 151
*paynim/ 'prowess,' 'trenchant,' 'welkin;* with all
which our poetry is familiar now^
It is well-nigh incredible what words it has been
sometimes proposed to dismiss from our English
Bible on the plea that they 'are now almost or
entirely obsolete.' Wemyss, writing in 1816, desired
to get rid of 'athirst,' ' ensample,' ' gamer,' 'haply,'
'^jeopardy,' 'lack,' 'passion,' 'straightway,' 'twain,'
' wax,' with a multitude of other words not a whit more
aloof from our ordinaiy use. Purver, whose New and
Literal Translation of the Old and New Testament 2:^-
peared in 1 764, has an enormous list of expressions
that are ' clownish, barbarous, base, hard, technical,
misapplied, or new coined ;' and among these are ' be-
guile,' 'boisterous,' ' lineage,' 'perseverance,' ' poten-
tate,' 'remit,' 'seducer,' 'shorn,' 'swerved,' 'vigilant,'
' unloose,' 'unction,' 'vocation.' And the same wor-
ship of the fleeting present, of the transient feshions of
the hour in language, with the same contempt of that
stable past which in all likelihood will be the endur-
ing future, long after these fashions have passed away
and are forgotten, manifests itself to an extravagant de-
gree in the new Version of the American Bible Union.
It needs only for a word to have the slighest suspi-
cion of age upon it, to have ceased but for the moment
to be the current money of the street and the mar-
ket-place, and there is nothing for it but peremptory
exclusion. ' To chasten ' and ' chastening, ' ' to better, '
'to faint,' 'to quicken,' 'conversation,' 'saints,'
'wherefore,' 'straitly,' 'wroth,' with hundreds more,
are thrust out, avowedly upon this plea ; and modem
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152 Gains of the JEJnglish Language, lect.
substitutes introduced in their room. I can fancy no
more effectual scheme for debasing the Version, nor,
if it were admitted as the law of revision, for the
lasting impoverishment of the English tongue. One
can only liken it to a custom of the Fiji islanders,
who, as soon as their relatives begin to show tokens
of old age, bury them alive, or by some other means
put them out of the way. They, however,- might
plead this, that their old would grow older still, more
useless, more burdensome, every day. It is nothing
of the kind with the words which, on somewhat simi-
lar grounds, are forcibly dismissed. A multitude of
these, often the most precious ones, after a period of
semi-obsoleteness, of withdrawal from active service
for a while, obtain that second youth, pass into free
and unquestioned currency again. But nothing
would so eflfectually hinder this rejuvenescence as the
putting a ban upon them directly they have passed
out of vulgar use ; as this resolution, that if they
have withdrawn for ever so brief a time from the
every-day service of men, they shall never be per-
mitted to return to it again. A true lover of his native
tongue will adopt another course :
Obscurata diu populo bonus eruet,
and valuable words which are in danger of disappear-
ing, instead of bidding to be gone, he will do his best
to detain or recover.
Who would now afl&rm of the verb * to hallow ' that
it is even obsolescent ? yet Wallis two hundred years
ago observed — * it has almost gone out of use ' (fere
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£7. Dry den on Spenser, etc. 153
desuevit). It would be difficult to find an example
of the verb 'to advocate ' between Milton and Burke.
Franklin, an admirable master of the homelier Eng-
lish style, considered the word to have sprung up
during his own residence in Europe. In this indeed
he was mistaken ; it had only during this period re-
vived. Johnson says of ' jeopardy ' that it is a ' word
not now in use ;' which certainly is not any longer
true.*
I am persuaded that in facility of being understood,
Chaucer is not merely as near, but much nearer, to
us than he was felt by Dryden and his contemporaries
to be to them. They make exactly the same sort of
complaints, only in still stronger language, about his
archaic phraseology and the obscurities which it in-
volves, which we still sometimes hear at the present
day. Thus in the Pre/ace to his Tales from Chancery
having quoted some not very difficult lines from the
earlier poet whom he was modernizing, he proceeds :
* You have here a specimen of Chaucer's language,
which is so obsolete that his sense is scarce to be
understood. 'f Nor did it fare thus with Chaucer
* In like manner La Bruydre {Caractlres^ c. 14) laments
the extinction of a large number of French words which he
names. At least half of these have now free course in the
language, as *valeureux,* *haineux,* *peineux,* *fructueux,*
*mensonger,' *coutumier,* *vantard,* <courtois,' 'jovial,*
*f(§toyer,* *larmoyer,* *verdoyer.* Two or three of these
may be rarely used, but every one would be found in a dic-
tionary of the living language.
t But for all this Dryden thought him worth understanding.
Not so Addison. In a rapid review of English poets he ac-
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164 Oaina of the English Language, lbot.
^~~ — p
only. These wits and poets of the Court of Charles
the Second were conscious of a greater gulf between
themselves and the Elizabethan aera, separated from
them by little more than fifty years, than any of which
we are aware, separated from it by two centuries more.
It was not merely that they felt themselves more re-
moved from its tone and spirit ; their altered circum-
stances explain this ;* but I am convinced that they
found more difficulty and strangeness in the language
of Spenser and Shakespeare than we find at this
present ; that it sounded more uncouth, more old-
feshioned, more crowded with obsolete terms than it
does in our ears at the present Only so can one
explain the tone in which they are accustomed to
speak of these worthies of the near past I must
again cite Dryden, the truest representative for good
and for evil of literary England during the later de-
counts * the merry bard * — this is his chai-acteristic epithet for
the most pathetic poet in the language — as one the whole sig-
nificance of whose antiquated verse has for ever passed away :
But age has rusted what the poet writ,
Worn out his language, and obscured his wit.
In vain he jests in his unpolished strain,
And tries to make his readers laugh in vain.'
• Addison takes credit for this inability of his own age to
find any satisfaction in that which Spenser sung for the delight
of his :
« But now the mystic tale, that pleased of yore,
Can charm our understanding age no more ;
The long-spun allegories fulsome grow,
While the dull moral lies too plain below.'
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IV. Dryden on Spenser ^ etc. 155
cades of the seventeenth century. Of Spenser, whose
death was separated from his own birth by little more
than thirty years, he speaks as of one belonging to
quite a different epoch, counting it much to say,
'notwithstanding his obsolete language, he is still
intelligible; at least after a little practice.'* Nay, hear
his judgment of Shakespeare himself, as fer as
language is concerned : 'It must be allowed to the
present age that the tongue in general is so much
refined since Shakespeare's time, that many of his
words and more of his phrases are scarce intelligible.
And of those which we understand, some are un-
grammatical, others coarse ; and his whole style is so
pestered with figurative expressions, that it is as
affected as it is obscure. 'f
Sometimes a word emerges from the lower strata
of society, not indeed new, but yet to most seeming
new, its very existence having been forgotten by
the larger number of those speaking the language ;
although it must hzve somewhere lived on upon the
lips of men. - Thus, since the gold-fields of California
and Australia have been opened, we hear often of a
' nugget ' of gold ; being a lump of the pure metal ;
and it has been debated whether the word is a new
birth altogether, or a popular recasting of ' ingot' It
* Preface to yteVencU,
t Preface to Troilus and Cressida. In justice to Dryden,
and lest he should seem to speak poetic blasphemy, it should
not be forgotten that < pestered ' had in his time no such offen-
sive a sense as it has now. It meant no more than incon-
veniently crowded. See my Select Glossary^ s. v.
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156 Gains of the Miglish Language, lect.
is most probably this last ; and yet scarcely a recent
one, framed for the present need, seeing that ' nugget,'
or * niggot ' as it is spelt by them, occurs in our elder
writers.''' There can be little doubt of the identity of
* niggot ' and ' nugget'; all the consonants, the s/a-
mina of a word, being the same ; whilst that earlier
form makes plausible the suggestion that 'nugget'
is only ' ingot ' a little disguised, since it wants no-
thing but the very common transposition of the first
two letters to bring them to an almost absolute iden-
tity.
There is another very fruitful source of increase in
the vocabulary of a language. What was once one
word separates into two, takes two forms, or even
more, and each of these asserts an existence indepen-
dent of the other. The impulse and suggestion to
this is in general first given by differences in pronun-
ciation, which are presently represented by differences
in spelling ; or it will sometimes happen that what at
first were no more than precarious and arbitrary
variations in spelling come in the end to be regarded
as words altogether distinct; they detach themselves
from one another, not again to reunite ; just as acci-
dental varieties in fruits or flowers, produced at hazard.
* Thus in North's Plutarch^ p. 499: 'After the fire was
quenched, they found in tdggots of gold and silver mingled
together, about a thousand talents ;* and again, p. 323 :
* There was brought a marvellous great mass of treasure in
tdggots of gold.* The word has not found its way into our
dictionaries or glossaries.
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IV. Different Spelling of Words. 157
have permanently separated off, and settled into dif-
ferent kinds. They have each its own distinct domain
of meaning, as by general agreeqxent assigned to it ;
dividing the inheritance between them, which before
they held in common. No one who has not watched
and catalogued these words as they have feUen under
his notice, would believe how numerous they are.
Sometimes as the accent is placed on one syllable
of a word or another, it comes to have different signi-
fications, and those so distinctly marked, that the
separation may be regarded as complete. Examples
of this are the following: 'divers,' and diverse;
cdnjure' and 'conjiire;' 'dntic' and 'antique;'
*hdman ' and 'humdne ;' ' drban ' and 'urbdne ;'
* g6ntle ' ' gentile ' and ' genteel ;' ' cdstom ' and ' cos-
ttSme ;' ' ^say ' and ' assdy ;' * prdperty ' and ' pro-
priety.' Or again, a word is pronounced at full, or
somewhat more shortly : thus ' spirit ' and ' sprite ;'
' blossom ' and ' bloom ;' * courtesy ' and ' curtsey ;' '
' chaloupe ' and ' sloop ; ' nourish ' and ' nurse ;'
' personality ' and ' personalty';' ' fantasy ' and * fancy; '
' triumph ' and ' trump ' (the winning card*) ; * hap-
pily ' and ' haply ;' * ordinance ' and ' ordnance ;
' shallop' and ' sloop ;' ' brabble ' and ' brawl ;»
' syrup ' and ' shrub ;' ' bal^m ' and ' balm ;' ' dame '
and ' dam ;' ' cape ' and ' cap ;' ' eremite ' and ' her-
mit;' 'nighest' and 'next;' 'poesy' and 'posy;'
'achievement' and 'hatchment;' 'manoeuvre' and
"^ See Latimer's famous Sermon on Cards, where * triumph *
and < trump ' are interchangeably used.
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158 Gains of the English Language, lect*
'manure;' and, older probably than any of these,
' other' and * or ;' — or, with the dropping of the first
letter or letters: 'history' and 'story;' 'harbour'
and ' arbour ; ' etiquette ' and ' ticket ;' ' escheat ' and
'cheat;' 'estate' and 'state;' — or with a dropping
of'the last syllable, as ' Britany ' and ' Britain ;' ' crony '
and 'crone;' — or, without losing a syllable, with
more or less stress laid on the close ; ' regiment ' and
' regimen ;' ' corpse ' and ' corps ;' ' bite ' and ' bit ;'
'sire' and 'sir;' 'land' or 'laund' and 'lawn;
' suite ' and ' suit ;' ' swinge ' and ' swing ;' ' gulph '
and 'gulp.;' 'launch 'and 'lance;' 'wealth' and
' weal ;' * stripe ' and ' strip ;' ' borne ' and ' bom ;'
'glaze' and 'glass;' 'stave' and 'staff;' 'clothes'
and 'cloths.' Or sometimes a slight internal vowel
change finds place, as between ' dent ' and * dint ;'
' rant ' and ' rent ' (a ranting actor tears or rends a
passion to tatters) ; ' creak ' and ' croak ;' ' float ' and
' fleet :' ' lill ' (Spenser) and ' loll ;' ' reel ' and ' roll ;'
'^cross ' and ' cruise ;' ' sleek ' and ' slick ;' , ' sheen '
and ' shine ;' ' shriek ' and ' shrike ;' ' pick ' and
' peck :' ' peak ' ' pique ' and ' pike ;' ' snip ' ' snib '
and ' snub ;' ' plot ' and ' plat ;' ' weald ' and ' wold ;'
' drip ' and ' drop ; ' wreathe ' and ' writhe ;' ' spear '
and ' spire ' (' the least spire of grass, ' South) ; ' trist '
and ' trust ;' ' band ' ' bend ' and ' bond ;' ' cope '
' cape ' and ' cap ;' ' tip ' and ' top ;' ' slent ' (now
obsolete). and ' slant ;' 'sweep ' and ' swoop ;' ' wrest '
and ' wrist ;' ' neb ' and ' nib ;' ' gad ' (now surviving
only in gadfly) and 'goad;' 'complement' and
' compliment ;' ' spike ' and ' spoke ;* ' tamper ' and
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IV. Different Spelling of Words. 169
'temper;' 'flutter' and 'flatter;' 'ragged' and
* rugged ;' ' gai;gle ' and * guigle ;' ' snake ' and
*^sneak ' (both crawl) ; ' deal ' and ' dole ;' 'giggle '
and 'gaggle' (this last is now commonly spelt
' cackle ') ; ' scribble ' and * scrabble ;' ' flicker ' and
'flacker' (now obsolete) ; 'gourmand' and 'gor-
mand ;' ' sip ' ^ ' sop ' ' 50up ' and ' sup ;' ' clack '
' click ' and ' clock ;' ' tetchy ' and ' touchy ; ' sauce'
and ' souse ;' 'spoil ' and ' spill ;' 'halt ' and ' hold ;'
' vendor ' and * vender ;' ' visitor ' and ' visiter ;'
\neat ' and ' nett ;' * stud ' and ' steed ;' ' then ' and
' than ;'♦ ' grits ' and ' grouts ;' ' spirt ' and ' sprout ;'
* prune ' and ' preen ;' ' mister ' and ' master ;' 'allay '
and '-alloy ;' ' ghostly ' and ' ghastly ;' ' person ' and
'parson;' 'cleft' and 'clift' (now written 'cliff')
' travel ' and ' travail ;' ' truth ' and ' troth ;' ' pennon '
and ' pinion ;' ' quail ' 'quell ' and ' kill ;' ' metal '
and ' mettle ;' ' ballad ' and ' ballet ;' ' chagrin ' and
' shagreen ;' 'can ' and ' ken ;' * Francis ' and ' Fran-
ces ;'t 'chivalry' and 'cavalry;' 'oaf and 'elf;'
* thresh ' and ' thrash ;' ' lose ' and ' loose ;' ' taint '
and 'tint.' Sometimes the difference is mainly or
entirely in the initial consonants, as between ' phial '
• On these words see a learned discussion in English
Retraced, Cambridge, 1862.
t The appropriating of * France * to women and * Franc/s '
to men b quite modem ; it was formerly as often Sir France
Drake as Sir Francis, while Fuller {Holy State, b. iv. c. 14)
speaks of Francis Brandon, eldest daughter of Charles Bran-
don, Duke of Suffolk ; and see Ben Jonson, New Itm, Act ii.
Sc. i.
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160 Gains of the English Language, lect.
and ' vial ; ' pother ' and ' bother ;' * bursar ' and
* purser ;' ' thrice ' and * trice ;' ' fitch ' and * vetch ;
' strinkle ' (now obsolete) and * sprinkle ; * shatter '
and * scatter ;' ' chattel ' and ' cattle ;' ' chant ' and
' cant ;' * champaign ' and ' campaign ;' ' zealous ' and
* jealous ;' ' channel ' and * kennel ;* ' quay ' and
* key ;' ' thrill '' trill' and ' drill ;* — or in the con-
sonants in the middle of the word, as between * can-
cer' and 'canker' 'nipple' and 'nibble;' 'tittle'
and * title ;' * price ' and ' prize ;' * consort ' and
' concert ;' — or there is a change in both consonants,
as in ' pipe ' and ' fife.'
Or a word is spelt now with a final k and now with
a final ch ; out of this variation two different words
have been formed, with, it may be, other slight
differences superadded ; thus is it with ' poke ' and
' poach ; * dyke ' and ' ditch ;' * stink ' and * stench ;'
' prick ' and ' pritch ' (now obsolete) ; ' milk ' and
' milch ;' * break ' ' breach ' and ' broach ;' ' lace ' and
'latch;' 'stick' and 'stitch;' 'lurk' and 'lurch;'
' bank ' and ' bench ;' ' stark ' and ' starch ;' ' wake '
and 'watch.' So too / and </are easily exchanged ;
as in ' clod ' and ' clot ;' ' vend ' and ' vent ;' ' brood '
and ' brat ;' ' sad ' and ' set ;' ' card ' and ' chart ;'
'medley and 'motley.' Or there has grown up,
beside the accurate pronunciation, a popular as well;
and this in the end has formed itself into another
word ; thus it is with ' housewife ' and ' hussey ;'
' ©randfether ' and ' gaffer ;' ' grandmother ' and
' gammer ;' ' hanaper ' and ' hamper ;' ' puisne ' and
' puny ;' ' patron ' and ' pattern ;' ' spital ' (hospital)
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IV. Words in two Forms. 161
and 'spittle' (house of correction) ; *accompt' and
' account ;' * polity ' and * policy ;' * donjon ' and
* dungeon ;' ' nestle' and * nuzzle ' (now obsolete) ;
'Egyptian 'and 'gypsy ;' 'Bethlehem 'and 'Bedlam;'
' Pharaoh ' and ' faro ' (this last so called because the
winning card bore the likeness of the Egyptian king ;)
' exemplar ' and ' sampler ;' ' procuracy ' and * proxy ;'
' dolphin ' and ' dauphin ;' ' iota ' and 'jot ;' ' synoda-
man ' and ' sidesman. '
Other changes cannot perhaps be reduced exactly
under any of these heads ; as between ' ounce ' and
* inch ;' ' errant ' and ' arrant ;' * slack ' and ' slake ;'
' twang ' and ' tang ;' ' valet ' and ' varlet ;' * slow '
and ' slough ;' ' bow ' and ' bough ;' ' hurl ' and
'whirl;' 'hew' and 'hough;' 'dies' and 'dice'
(both plurals of 'die'); 'plunge' and 'flounce;'
'Q%g* and 'edge;* 'staflf' and 'stave;' 'scull'
'school' and 'shoal;' 'frith' and 'firth;' 'benefit'
and ' benefice.'* Or, it may be, the difference is in
• A singular characteristic trait of Papal policy once turned
upon the £eict that * beneficium ' contained in itself both < bene-
fice* and 'benefit.* Pope Adrian the Fourth writing to
Frederic the First to complain of certain conduct of his, re-
minded the Emperor that he had placed the imperial crown
upon his head, and would willingly have conferred even
greater *beneficia* upon him than this. Had this been al-
lowed to pass, it would no doubt have been afterwards
appealed fo as an admission on the Emperor's part, that he
held the Empire as a feud or fief (for < beneficium * was then
the technical word for this, though the meaning has much
narrowed since) from the Pope— the very point in dispute
between them. The word was indignantly repelled by the
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162 Gains of the English Language, lbct.
the spelling only, appreciable by the eye, but escap-
ing altogether the ear. It is thus with ' draft ' and
* draught ;' * plain ' and ' plane ;' * coign ' and ' coin ;'
* flower ' and * flour ;' * check ' and * cheque ;'
'straight' and 'strait;' * ton 'and *tun;' *road' and
* rode ;' ' throw ' and * throe ;' ' wrack ' and * rack ;'
'gait' and 'gate;' 'hoard' and 'horde;' 'knoll'
and ' noil ;' ' chord ' and ' cord ;' * drachm ' and
*dram;' 'license' and 'licence;' 'sergeant' and
'Serjeant;' 'mask' and 'masque;' 'villain' and
'villein.'
Now, if you will put the matter to proof, you will
find, I believe, in every case that there has attached
itself to the different forms of a word a modification
of meaning more or less sensible, that each as won
an independent sphere of meaning, which remains
peculiarly its own. Thus ' divers' implies difference
only, but ' diverse ' difference with opposition ; thus
the several Evangelists narrate the same event in
' divers ' manners, but not in ' diverse.' * Antique'
is ancient, but ' antic ' is this same ancient regarded
as overlived, out of date, and so in our days grotes-
que, ridiculous ; and then, with a dropping of the
reference to age, the grotesque, the ridiculous alone.
' Human ' is what every man is, ' humane ' is what
every man ought to be ; for Johnson's suggestion that
Emperor and the whole German nation, whereupon the Pope
appealed to the etymology, that * beneficium * was but * bonum
factum,' and protested that he meant no more than to remind
the Emperor of the various 'benefits ' which he had dojie him
(Neander, Kirck, Geschichtey vol. v. p. 318).
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IV. Words in two Forms. 163
'humane' is from the French feminine *humaine,'
and * human ' from the masculine, is contrary to all
the analogies of language. * Ingenious ' expresses a
mental, * ingenuous ' a moral excellence. A gardener
* prunes * or trims his trees, properly indeed his vines
{prcmgner), birds * preen' or trim their feathers. We
'allay' wine with water ; we 'alloy 'gold with platina.
' Bloom ' is a finer and yet more delicate effloitescence
even than 'blossom ;' thus the 'bloom,' but not the
* blossom,' of the cheek. It is now always ' clots ' of
blood and ' clods ' of earth ; a ' float ' of timber, and
a 'fleet 'of ships; men 'vend' wares, and 'vent'
complaints. 'A curtsey ' is one, and that merely an
external, manifestation of 'courtesy.' 'Gambling'
may be, as with a fearful irony it is called, play, but
it is nearly as distant fixnn * gambolling ' as hell is
frcfm heaven. Nor would it be hard, in almost every
pair or larger group of words which I have adduced,
to detect shades of meaning which one word has ob-
tained and not the other.*
* The same happens in other languages. Thus m Gre<k
dydBB/ia and dvdBtffia both signify that which is devoted,
though in very different senses, to the higher powers ;
Sdpdo?, boldness, and BpddoSf temerity, were at first but
different spellings of the same word ; so too yptrioS and
ypt<poS, sBoi and 77O0S, fipvKon and fip-vx^ • ^^^ probably
opEkoi and 6/3 0X6?, 6opoi and doopdi. In Latin *penna*
and < pinna ' differ only in form, and signify alike a * wing ;*
while yet * penna * has come lo be used for the wing of a bird,
* pinna' (its diminutive * pinnaculum,* has given us 'pin-
nacle*) for that of a building; so is it with *Thrax' a
Thracian, and 'Threx' a gladiator; with 'codex' and <cau-
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164 Qain^ of the English Language, lect.
There is another very sensible gain which the
language has made, although of a different kind alto-
gether. For a long time past there has been a
tendency to bring the component parts of a word into
linguistic harmony, so that it shall not any longer be
made up of a Saxon prefix or suffix, joined to a Latin
root, but shall be all homogeneoys ; and if Latin in
the body of the word, then such throughout This
evidently was not the case with 'unsatiable,' *un-
glorious,' ' undiscreet,' * uncredible,' * unvisible,' * un-
tolerable,' *unreligious ' (all in Wiclif ) ; which have
now severally given place to ' insatiable,' ' inglorious,'
'indiscreet,' and the rest ; while * untimely,' 'unwit-
ting,' and many more, in which there existed no such
discord between the parts, remain as they were. In
dex ;* * forfex ' and * forceps ;* * anticus ' and * antiquos ;'
* celeber ' and * creber ;* < infacetus ' and * inficetus ;* * mulgeo '
and *mulceo;* *providentia,' *prudentia,- and 'provincia ;'
* columen * and * culmen ; * coXtus ' and * coetus ;* * segrimonia *
and * serumna ;' * Lucina * and * luna ;* * cohors ' and * cors ;'
* navita * and * nauta ;* in German with • rechtlich * and
< redlich ;* * schlecht ' and * schlicht ;^ * golden ' and * gulden ;'
* hOfisch ' and * htibsch ;* * ahnden * and * ahnen * (see a very
interesting notice in Grimm*s Woerterbttch) ; * biegsam ' and
* beugsam ;* * f ttrsehung ' and * vorsehung ;* * deich ' and
* teich ;' * trotz * and * trutz ;* < bom ' and * brunnen ;* * athem '
and * odem :* in French with * hamois,* the armour or « har-
ness * of a soldier, and * hamais ' of a horse ; with * foible '
and * faible ;' with * Z^phire ' and * zephyr ; with * chaire *
and < chaise,' the latter having been at the first nothing else
but a vicious and affected pronunciation of the former, and
with many more.
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IV. Words become homogeneous. 165
the same way 'unpure' (Barnes) has been replaced
by * impure/ 'unfirm' (Shakespeare) by 'infirm,'
'unmoveable' (Coverdale) by 'immoveable/ *un-
noble' (Drayton) by 'ignoble/ ' unmeasurable '
(NorA) by 'immeasurable/ 'uncapable' (Hooker)
by 'incapable/ 'unpatient' (Coverdale) by 'impa-
tient/ 'unportial' (Jackson) by impartial/ 'unde-
cent' (Cowley) by ' indecent/ * unactive ' (Milton) by
'inactive/ ' Unpossible/ which is the proper read-
ing of our Authorized Version at Matt xvii. 20 ; xix.
26, and, I believe, throughout, has been silently
changed into 'impossible/ Here and there, but very
rarely, the tendenqr has been in the opposite .direc-
tion — to create these anomalies, not to jremove them.
Thus Milton's 'inchastity' (prose), 'ingrateful,'
have given place to the less correct ' unchastity,' * un-
grateful/
And as with the prefix, so also it has fiired with the
suffix. A large group of our Latin words for a long
while had not a Latin, but a Saxon terminatioh. We
have several of these in the Bible and in the Prayer
Book; 'pureness,' for example, 'fiailness,' 'dis-
quietness,"perfectness,' and 'simpleness.' 'Pure-
ness ' may perhaps still survive ; but for the others we
have substituted ' frailty' (recalled it, we may say, for
it was already in Piers Ploughman), 'disquietude,'
'perfection,' 'simplicity.' The same has happened
with a multitude of others ; ' gayness ' {Piers Plough-
man) has given way to 'gaiety,' 'poverness {ibid,) to
'poverty,' 'subtleness' (Sidney) to 'subtlety,' 'able-
ness ' (Spenser) to ' ability ;' ' ferventness ' (Coverdale)
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166 Gains of the Mnglisih Language, lect.
to 'fervency;' 'cruelness' (Golding) to 'craelty;*
' desolateness ' (Andrews) to 'desolation;' 'partial-
ness' (Frith) to 'partiality;' 'spiritualness,' 'vain-
ness/ 'realness,' 'vulgamess/ ' immoralness ' (all in
Rogers), severally to 'spirituality,' 'vanity,' 'reality,'
'vulgarity,' 'immorality;' 'stableness' (Coverdale)
to 'stability;' 'dejectedness' (Bishop Hall) to 'de-
jection,' ' insensibleness ' (Mahton) to ' insensibility ;'
'doubleness' (Hawes) to 'duplicity;' so too *furi-
ousness,' 'terribleness,' 'valiantness,' have all been
felt to be words ill put together, and have silently
been dropped; nor would it be difficult to augment
this list Thus too, though we have not at this day
altogether rejected words in which the French termin-
ation ' able ' is combined with a Saxon root, as ' un-
speakable' and the like, still there has been an evi-
dent disposition among us to diminish their number.
There were once far more of these, as 'findable,'
'unlackable,' ' ungainsayable ' (all in Pecock),
*matchable' (Spenser), 'mockable' (Shakespeare),
'woundable' (Fuller), 'speakable' (Milton), than
there are now. ' The rejection of these hybrid words, '
as has been well said,* 'from the modem vocabulary
is curious, as an instance of the unconscious exercise
of a linguistic instinct by the English people. The
objection to such adjectives is their mongrel character,
the root being Saxon, the termination Romanic ; and
it is an innate feeling of the incongruity of such al-
♦ Marsh, Origin and History of the English La$iguage,
P- 475-
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IV. Change of Termination. 167
liances, not the speculative theories of philologists,
which has driven so many of them out of circulation, ^i^^"^^
But changes not unlike to those which I have just •
noted have come over words, where there was no
such inducement arising from want of congruity in
their component parts ; where, on the contrary, they
were already homogeneous in the quarters from which
they were derived. In these instances the language
seems, so to say, to have hesitated for a while before
it made up its mind which suffix it would employ, and
has often in later times rejected one which in earlier
it appeared disposed to adopt, and in the stead of
this adopted another. The termination * ness,' which,
as we just now saw, has lost its hold on a great many
Latin words, with which it certainly had no right to
be joined, has more than made good these losses by
gains in other directions. Many words that ended for
a while in ' ship,' now end in * ness,' as * gladship '
(Orinulurn)^ 'mildship,' *meekship,' 'idleship' (all*
in Halt MeMenhad), ' guiltship ' (Geneva Bible) ;
which are now severally 'gladness,' 'mildness,' 'meek-
ness,' 'idleness,' and 'guiltiness.' More numerous ♦
are those which, terminating once in 'head ' or ' hood,'
have finally settled down with that same termination.
I adduce a few, ' busihede,' ' wearihede,' 'holihede,'
'newhede,' 'godlihede,' 'swifthede,' 'greenhede,'
' vilehede, ' ' blisedhede ' (all in The Ayenbite) ; ' wicked-
hed,' 'pensivehed,' 'lowlihed' (all in Chaucer);
'manhhed,' 'noblehed' (both in The Tale of Melu-
sine) ; 'onehed,' ' worldlihood ' (Pecock); 'fulsome-
hed,' 'fairhed' (both in King Horn); 'sinfulhed,'
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168 Oains of the English Language, lect.
'rightwisehed,' 'tamehed,' (all in the Siory of
Genesis); 'wantonhed,' 'evenhood' {Promptorium
Parvulomm) ; ' fulhed, ' * mightihed, ' ' filthihed '
* drankenhed' (all in Wiclif); 'headlesshood/ 'seem-
lihed,' 'drearihed/ 'drowsihed,' 'livelihed/ 'goodli-
hed ' ' beastlihed, ' (all in Spenser). In place of these
we have * business/ * weariness/ * holiness/ and so on
with the rest
Then again, words not a few, once ending in
* hood,' have relinquished this in fiivour of 'ship;'
thus 'apostlehood,' 'disciplehood,' 'headhood' (all
in Pecock), have done this. Others, but they are
fewer, for *hood' have taken ' dom ;' thus 'Christen-
hood' (Pecock) is 'Christendom 'now; or for 'rick,'
which survives only in 'bishoprick' ('hevenriche,'
or kingdom of heaven, having long since disappeared),
have taken the same ; thus ' kingrick ' {Piers Plough-
man) or 'kunneriche' {Proclamation of Henry III.) is
' kingdom ' now. As between ' head ' and ' hood,'
which are no more than variations of the same form,
the latter has seriously encroached on the domain of
words once occupied by the former. I quote a few
instances, 'childbed,' 'manhed,' 'womanhed' 'bre-
thered' (all in Chaucer); 'felsehed' (Tyndal),
'widowhed' (Sibbald's Glossary). I am unable to
adduce any instances in which the opposite tendenqr,
'head' taking the place of 'hood,' has displayed
itsel£ Then too many adjectives ending in 'ful'
have changed this for ' ly ' (=like) ; thus 'gastful,'
'loveful,' 'grisful' (all in Wiclif), are severally now
'ghastly,' 'lovely,' 'grisly.' I shall note elsewhere
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IV. Creation of Words. 109
the extensive perishing of adjectives ending in *some/
Many of these, however, still survive, but with some
other suffix — often with one which brings their com-
ponent parts into harmony with one another ; thus
' humoursome ' survives in ' humorous,' ' laboursome'
in 'laborious,' * clamoursome ' in 'clamorous;' or
sometimes where no such motive of making the word
all of one piece can be traced, as in 'hatesum,'
which is now 'hateful,' friendsome,' which is now
'friendly,' 'mirksome' (Spenser), which is now
' murky ;' and ' thoughtsome,' which is now 'thought-
ful' This part of the history of our language haa
hitherto attracted almost no attention. No catalogues
of th^se words, which I know of, have yet been so
much as attempted.
Let me trace, before this lecture comes to an end,
the history of the rise of some words in the lan-
guage, noting briefly the motives which may have
first induced their creation br adoption, the resistance
which they may have met, the remonstrances against
them which were sometimes made, the authors who
first introduced them. It is a curious chapter in the
history of the language, and even a few scattered con-
tributions to it will not be Without their value.
Sometimes a word has been created to supply an
urgent want, to fill up a manifest gap in the language.
For example, that sin of sins, the undue lo^e of self,
with the postponing of the interests of all others to
our own, being a sin as old as the Fall, had yet for a
long time no word to express it in English. Help
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170 Oaini of the English Language, lect.
was first sought from the Greek, and 'philauty'
(^qrtXavzia) more than once put forward by our
scholars ; but it found no popular acceptance. This
foiling, men turned 16 the Latin ; one writer pro-
posing to supply the want by calling the sin * suicism,'
and the man a *suist,' as one seeking his cwn things
(*sua'), but this with no better success; and our
ethical terminology was here still incomplete, till
some of the Puritan divines, drawing on native re-
sources, devised 'selfish' and 'selfishness,' words to
us seeming obvious enough, but which yet are little
more than two hundred years old. A passage in
Racket's Life of Archbishop Williams^ marks the first
rise of 'selfish,' and the quarter in which it rose:
* When they [the Presbyterians] saw that he was not
selfish (it is a word of their own new mint),' &c In
Whitlock's ZooUmia (1654, p. 364), there is another
indication of its novelty: 'If constancy may be
tainted with this selfishness (to use our new wordings
of old and general actings).' It is he who in his
Grand Schismatic, <fr Suist Anatomized, puts forward
the words ' suist' and ' suicism.' ' Suicism ' had not
in his time the obvious objection of resembling
' suicide ' too nearly, and being liable to be con-
fused with it ; for ' suicide ' did not exist in the lan-
guage till some twenty years later. Its coming up is
marked by this protest in Phillips' New World of
Words, 3rd edit, 1671 : 'Nor less to be exploded is
the word ^'suicide," which may as well seem to par-
• Part II. p. 144.
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w. Philauty and Suicism. 171
ticipate of ^ms a sow, as of the pronoun sui* In the
Index to Jackson's Works, published two years later,
it is still ^ sutctdium' — 'the horrid suiddium of the
Jews at York. '*
I should greatly like to see a collection, as nearly
complete as the industry of the collectors could make
it, of all the notices in our literature, which serve as
dates for the first appearance of new words in the
language. These notices are of the most various
kinds. Sometimes they are protests and remon-
strances, as that just quoted, against a new word's
introduction ; sometimes they are gratulations at the
same; while many, neither approving nor disap-
proving, merely state, or allow us to gather, the fact
of a word's recent apparition. Many such notices
are brought together in Richardson's IHcfionafy.f Nor
* * Suicide ' is of later introduction into French. G^nin
{JRicriaiions Philol, vol. i. p. 194) places it about the year
1738, and makes* the Abb6 Desfontaines its first sponsor. He
is wrong, as we have just seen, in assuming that we borrowed
it from the French, and that it did not exist in English till the
middle of last century. The French complain that the fashion
of suicide was borrowed from England. It is probable that
the word was so.
t Thus one from Lord Bacon under * essay ;' from Swift
under * banter ;' from Sir Thomas Elyot under *mansuetude ;*
from Lord Chesterfield under * flirtation ;' from The Spectator,
No. 537, under * caricature ;* from Davies and Marlowe's*
Epigrams under * gull ;' from Roger North under * sham '
(Appendix) ; from Dryden under * mob,' * philanthropy,' and
* witticism,' which last word Dryden claims for his own ; from
Evelyn under *miss;' and from Milton under * demagogue.*
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172 Gains of the Mfiglish Language, lect.
■ — -^
are they wanting in ToMs Johnson. But the work is
one which could only be accomplished by many
lovers of their native tongue throwing into a common
stock the results of their several studies.* Our Eliza-
* As a slight sample of what might be accomplished here
by the joint contributions of many, let me throw together
references to a few such passages, which I do not think have
found their way into our dictionaries. Thus add to that which
Richardson has quoted on * banter ' another from The Toiler,
No. 230, marking the disfavor with which it was regarded at
the first. On * plunder ' there are two instructive passages in
Fuller's Church History, b. xi. §§ 4, 33 ; and b. ix. § 4 ;
and one in Heylin*s Animadversions thereupon, p. 196 ; on
* admiralty ' see a note in Harrington's Ariosto, b. xix. ; on
* maturity ' Sir Thomas Elyot*s Governor, i. 22 ; and on
'industry' the same, i. 23 ; on * neophyte,' which made its
first appearance in the Rheims Bible, a notice in Fulke's
Defence of the English Bible, Parker Society's edition, p. 586,
where he says * neophyte is neither Greek, X.atin, nor English ;'
on * fanatic' a passage in Fuller, Mixt Contemplations in
Better Times, p. 212, ed. 1841, and another in Clarendon's
History of the Rebellion; and on 'panorama,' and marking its
recent introduction (it is not in Johnson), a passage in Pegge's
Anecdotes of the English Language, first published in 1803,
but my reference is to the edition of 1814, p. 306 ; on * accom-
modate,' and supplying a date for its first coming into popular
use, see Shakespeare's 2 Henry IV. Act 3, Sc. 2 ; on * shrub,'
Junius' Etymologicon, s. v. * syrup ;' on 'sentiment ' and * ca-
jole,' Skinner, s. w., in his Etymologicon (* vox nuper civitate
donata ') ; and on * opera,' Evelyn's Memoirs and Diary,
1827, vol. i. pp. 189, 190 ; on 'umbrella,' Torriano's Italian
Proverbs, 1666, p. 58 : ' ombrella is a certain canopy that in
Italy we use to shelter ourselves with from the sun and the
rain.' ' Starvation ' may have been an old word in Scotland,
but it was unknown in England until used by Mr. Dundas, the
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IF. Early Notices of New Words. 173
bethan dramatists would yield much ; even the worth-
less plays of Charles the Second's time might prove
of some service here. Early classical scholars like
Sir Thomas Elyot, who wrote when Latin words, good,
bad, and indifferent, were pouring into the language
like a flood, and who from time to time passed their
judgment on these ; the early translators, Protestant
and Roman Catholic, of the Bible, who when they
had exhausted more serious invective, fell foul of one
another's English, and charged each other with bring-
ing in new and un-English words ; the Spectator, the
Tatter, the Guardian, and even the second and third-
rate imitations of these, might all be consulted with
advantage. Indeed it is hard beforehand to say in
what unexpected quarter, notices of the kind might
not occur.
Let me observe that in such a collection should
be included passages which supply imptidt evidence
for the non-existence of a word up to a certain date.
It may be urged that it is difficult, nay impossible,
first Lord Melville, therefore called * Starvation Dundas,' in
a debate on American affairs in 1775 (see Letters of Horace
Walpole and Mamt, vol. ii. p. 396, and Pegge's Anecdotes of
the English Language, 18 14, p. 38). We learn from a pro-
test in The Spectator^ No. 165, that * pontoon,' * fascine,* *to
reconnoitre,' were in 1704 novelties, which under the influence
of the frequent bulletins were creeping into English. In Bar-
low's Columbiad, published in 1807, we on this side of the
Atlantic first made acquaintance with the verb * to utilize.* In
a review of the poem which appeared shortly after in the
Edinburgh Review, there is an earnest, but as it has proved an
ineffectual, remonstcance against the word.
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174 Gains of the English Language. lect»
to prove a negative ; yet when Bolingbroke wrote
as follows, it is certain that ^ isolated ' did not exist
in our language : ' The events we are witnesses of
in the course of the longest life, appear to us very
often original, unprepared, signal and unrekUtDe : if I
may use such a word for want of a better in English.
In French I would say tso/es/* Compare Lord Ches-
terfield in a letter to Bishop Chenevix, of date March
12, 1767: 'I have survived almost all my contem-
poraries, and as I am too old to make new acquaint-
ances, I find myself «-(?/<?/ Fuller would have scarcely
spoken of a * meteor of foolish fire,'f if * ignis fatuus,'
which has now quite put out *firedrake,' the older
name for these meteors, had not been, when he wrote,
still strange to the language. So too when Sir Walter
Raleigh spoke of ' strange visions which are also called
panta terroreSy\ it is tolerably plain that ' panic ' was
not yet recognized among us. In like manner when
Holland, translating Pliny's long account of the sculp*
tors and sculpture of antiquity, never once uses the
word 'sculptor,' but always * imager' in its room, I
feel tolerably sure that 'sculptor' had not yet come
into existence. The use of * noctambulones ' by
Donne makes me pretty certain that in his time
'somnambulist' had not been invented. When
Hacket§ speaks of 'the cimid in our bedsteads,'
these unsavoury creatures had scarcely gotten the
• Notes and Queries^ No. 226. f Comm, on Ruth^ p. 38.
X Hist, of the World, iii. 5, 8. ^
§ Life of Archbishop Williams^ vol. ii. p. 182*
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IV. Early Notices of New Wo^^ds. 176
name which now they bear. So, too, it is pretty
certain that ' amphibious ' was not yet English, when
one writes (in 1618) ; *We are like those creatures
called afitpipta^ which live in water or on land.' Zojo.
Xoyia^ as the title of an English book published in
1649, makes it clear that 'zoology' was not yet in
our vocabulary, as Zoootpvrov (Jackson) proves the
same for 'zoophyte,' ^xAcxrtxoif for 'eclectics,' Oco-
xparia (Jeremy Taylor) for 'theocracy,' aSeot
(Ascham) for 'atheist,' and itoXvOetdinoi (Gell, it is
a word of his own invention) for pol}theism.'J
It is not merely new words, but new uses of old
ones, which should thus be noted, with the time of
their first appearing. Thus take the two following
♦ Rust, Funeral Sermon on J, Taylor.
t One precaution, let me observe, would be necessary in the
collecting, or rather in the adopting, of any statements about
the newness of a word — for the passages themselves, even
when erroneous, should not the less be noted — namely, that
no one's aflSrmation ought to be accepted simply and at once
as to this novelty, seeing that all here are liable to error.
Thus more than one which Sir Thomas Elyot indicates as new
in his time, * magnanimity ' for example ( The Governor ^ ii.
14), are frequent in Chaucer. 'Sentiment,' which. Skinner
affirmed to«have only recently obtained the rights of English
citizenship from the translators of French books, continually
recurs in the same. Wotton, using * character,' would imply
that it was a novelty in the language {^Survey of Education^
p. 321) ; it is of constant recurrence in Spenser, and is used
by Wiclif. In Notes and Queries, No. 225, there is a useful
catalogue of recent neologies in our speech, while yet at least
half a dozen in the list have not the smallest right to be so
x:(Misidered.
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176 Qaina of the Ikglish Language . lect.
quotations, in proof that the modem use of 'edify'
and * edification ' began among the Puritans ; and
first this from Oldham :
* The graver sort dislike all poetry,
Which does not, as they call it, edify ; '
and this from South : '■ All being took up and busied,
some in pulpits and some in tubs, in the grand work
of preaching and holding forth, and that of edification,
as the word then went,' &c. Here too the evidence
may not be positive, but negative. Thus when I read
in Fuller of * that beast in the Brazile which in four-
teen days goes no further than a man may throw a
stone, called therefore by the Spaniards /i^r/]fta,' I am
tolerably certain that the ai, as the natives call it, had
not yet found among us the name * sloth,' which now
it bears.
A few observations in conclusion on the deliberate
introduction of words to supply felt omissions in a
language, and the limits within which this or any
other conscious interference with it is desirable or
possible. Long before the time when a people
begin to reflect upon their language, and to give an
account to themselves either of its merits or defects,
it has been fixed as regards structure in immutable
forms ; the sphere in which any alterations or modifi-
cations, addition to it, or subtraction from it, deli-
berately devised and carried out, are possible, is vei}'
limited indeed. The great laws that rule it are so
firmly established that almost nothing can be taken
from it, which it has got ; almost nothing added to it,
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IV. Mrly Notices of New Words. 177
which it has not got It will travel indeed in certain
courses of change ; but it would be almost as easy
for us to alter the course of a planet as to alter these.
This is sometimes a subject of regret with those who
see what appear to them manifest defects or blemishes
in their language, and at the same time ways by which,
as they fancy, these could be remedied or removed.
And yet this is well ; since for once that these re-
dressers of real or fancied wrongs, these suppliers of
things lacking, would mend, we may be tolerably
confident that ten times, probably a hundred times,
they would mar ; letting go that which would better
have been retained ; retaining that which was over-
lived and out of date ; and in manifold ways interfer-
ing with those processes of a natural logic, which in
a living language are evermore working themselves
out The genius of a language, unconsciously pre-
siding over all its transformations, and conducting
them to definite issues, will prove a far truer and far
safer guide, than the artificial wit, however subtle, of
any single man, or of any association of men. For
the genius of a language is the sense and inner con-
viction entertained by all who speak it, of what it
ought to be, and of the methods by which it will
most nearly approach its ideal of perfection; and
while a pair of eyes, or two or three pairs of eyes,
may see much, a million of eyes will certainly see
more.
It is only with the words, and not with the forms
and laws of a language, that any interference is
possible. Something, indeed much, may here be
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178 Gains of the English Language, lect.
accomplished by wise masters, in the rejecting of that
which deforms or mars, the allowing and adopting of
that which will complete or enrich. Those who have
set such objects before them, and who, knowing the
limits of the possible, have kept within these, have
often effected much. No language affords a better
proof and illustration of this than the German. When
the patriotic Germans began to wake up to a con-
sciousness of the enormous encroachments which
foreign languages, Latin, French, and Italian, had
made on their native tongue, the lodgements which
they had therein effected, and the danger which lay
so near, that it should cease to be a language at all,
but only a mingle-mangle, a variegated patchwork of
many tongues, without any unity or inner coherence,
various Societies were instituted among them, at the
beginning and during the course of the seventeenth
century, for the recovering of what was lost of their
own, for the expelling of that which had intruded
upon it from abroad \ and these with excellent results.
But more effectual than these learned Societies
were the efforts of single writers, who in this merited
eminently well of their country.* Numerous words
now accepted by the whole nation are yet of such
recent introduction that it is possible to designate the
writer who first substituted them for some affected
• There is an admirable Essay by Leibnitz with this view
(Operay vol. vi. part 2, pp. 6-51) in French and German, with
this title, Considirations sur la Culture et la Perfection de la
Jjmgue AUemande,
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IV. German Purists. 179
9
Gallicism or pedantic Latinism. Thus to Lessing his
fellow-countrymen owe the substitution of 'zartge-
fuhr for ' d^licatesse,' of * wesenheit ' for ' essence.' It
was he who suggested to the translator of Sterne's Sm-
iimental Journey^ * empfindsam ' as a word which would
correspond to our * sentimental ;' he too who recalled
' bieder/ with which every schoolboy is femiliar now,
from the forgetfulness of centuries. Voss ( 1 786) first
employed ' alterthtimlich' for 'antik/ Winkelmann
'denkbild' for 'id6e.' Wieland was the author or
reviver of a multitude of excellent words, for some of
which he had to do earnest battle at the first ; such
were 'seligkeit,' 'anmuth,' * entziickung,' 'festlich/
'entwirren,' with many more. But no one was so
jealous for the cleansing of the temple of German
speech from unworthy intruders as Campe, the author
of the Dictionary. For 'maskerade,' he was fiiin to
substitute ^larventanz,' for 'ballet' 'schautanz,' for
* lauvine' ' schneesturz, ' for ' detachement' * abtrab, ' for
'electridtat' 'reibfeuer.' It was a novelty when
Busching called his great work on geography * Erd-
beschreibung* (1754) instead of ' Geographic ;' while
'schnellpost'for 'diligence,'* 'zerrbild' for 'carricatur,'
are almost of recent introduction. Of ' worterbuch'
itself Jacob Grirrlm tells us he can find no example
dating earlier than 171 9.
Some of these reformers, it must be owned, pro-
ceeded with more zeal than knowledge, while others
did what in them lay to make the whole movement ab-
surd — even as there ever hang on the skirts of a noble
movement, be it in literature or politics or higher
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180 Gains of the English Language, usffi
things yet, those who by extravagance and excess
contribute their little all to bring ridicule and con-
tempt upon it Thus in the reaction against foreign
interiopers, and in the zeal to rid the language of them,
some would have disallowed words consecrated by
longest use ; thus Campe, who in the main did such
good service here, desired to replace 'apostel' by
* lehrbote ;' or they understood so little what words
deserved to be called foreign, that they would fain
have gotten rid of such words as these, ' vater,' 'mut-
ter,' *wein,' 'fenster,' *meister,' 'kelch;'* the three
former belonging to the Gothic dialects by exactly
the same right as they do to the Latin and the Greek ;
while the other three have been naturalized so long
that to propose at this day to expel them is as though
having passed an Alien Act for the banishment of
all foreigners, we should proceed. to include under
that name, and drive from the kingdom, the descen-
dants of the French Protestants who found refuge
here when Rochelle was taken, or even of the Flem-
ings who came over in the time of our Edwards. One
notable enthusiast proposed to create an entirely new
nomenclature for all the mythological personages of
the Greek and Roman pantiieons, although these, one
would think, might have been allowed, if any, to
retain their Greek and Latin names. Cupid was to
be 'Lustkind,' Flora 'Bluminne,* Aurora 'Rdthin ;'
• Fuchs, Zur Geschichte und Beurthdlung der Fremdwoerter
im Deutschen, Dessau, 1842, pp. 85-91. Compare Jean Paul,
Msthetik, §§ 83-85.
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tv. German Purists. 181
instead of Apollo schoolboys were to speak of
' Singhold ;' instead of Pan of * Schaflieb ;' instead
of Jupiter of * Helfevater/ with other absurdities to
match. We may well beware (and the warning ex-
tends much further than to the matter in hand) of
making a good cause ridiculous by our manner of
supporting it, by taking for granted that exaggerations
on one side are best r^ressed by ^ual exaggerations
upon the other. ^
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182 DiminiUions of our Language, lect.
LECTURE V.
DIMINUTION OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
I OBSERVED in my latest lecture but one that it
is the essential character of a living language to
be in flux and flow, to be gaining and losing ; and
indeed no one who has not given some attention to
the subject, would at all imagine the enormous amount
of these gains, and not less the enormous amount of
these losses — or, for reasons already stated, and be-
cause all that comes is not gain, and all is not
loss that goes, let us say the enormous additions and
diminutions which in a few centuries find place in the
vocabulary of a people. It is not indeed with a lan-
guage altogether as it is with a human body, of which
the component parts are said to be in such unceasing
change, with so much taken from it, and so much
added to it, that in a very few years no particle of it
remains the same. It is not, I say, exactly thus.
There are stable elements, and so to speak, constant
quantities in a language which secure its identity, and
attest its continuity ; but at {he same time the fluctuat-
ing element in it, that is in its vocabulary, is much in
excess of aught which most of us beforehand would
have supposed. Of acquisitions which our language
has made something has been said already. Of the
diminutions it is now our business to speak.
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V. Languages gain and lose. 183
It is certain that all languages must, or at least all
languages do in the end, perish. They run their
course ; not all at the same rate, for the tendency to
change is different in different languages, both from
internal causes (mechanism and the like), and also
from causes extemai to the language, and laid in the
varying velocities of social progress and social decline ;
but so it is, that, sooner or later, they have all their
youth, tiieir manhood, their old age, their decrepitude,
their final dissolution. Not indeed that they dis-
appear, leaving no traces behind them, even when
this last has arrived. On tiie contrary, out of their
death a new life comes forth; they pass into other
forms, tiie materials of which they were composed are
organized in new shapes and according to other laws
of life. Thus, for example,' the Latin perishes as a
living language ; and yet perishes only to live again,
though under somewhat different conditions, in the
four daughter languages, French, Italian, Spanish,
Portuguese ; or the six, if we count the Proven9al and
Wallachian. Still in their own proper being they pass
away. There are dead records of what they were in
books ; not living men who speak them any more.
Seeing then that they thus perish, the possibilities of
this decay and death must have existed in them from
the beginning.
Nor is this all ; but in such strong-birilt fabrics as
these, the causes which thus bring about their final
dissolution must have been actually at work very long
before the results are so visible as that they cannot
any longer be mistaken. Indeed, very often it is
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184 Diminutions of our Langimge. leot.
■ ' • ■ ■' ■■ — — .-^— .^______
with them as with states, which, while in some respects
they are knitting and strengthening, in others are
already unfolding the seeds of their future and, it may
be, still remote dissolution. Equally in these and those,
in states and in languages, it would be a serious
mistake to assume that all up to a certain point and
period is growth and gain, while all after is decay and
loss. On the contrary, there are long periods during
which growth in some directions is going hand in
hand with decay in others; losses in one kind are
being compensated, or more than compensated, by
gains in another ; during which a language changes^
but only as the bud changes into the flower, and the
flower into the fruit A time indeed arrives when the
growth and gains, becoming ever fewer, cease to
constitute any longer a compensation for the losses
and the decay, which are ever becoming more ; when
the forces of disorganization and death at work are
stronger than those of life and order. But until that
crisis and turning-point has arrived, we may be quite
justified in speaking of the losses of a language, and
may esteem them most real, without in the least
thereby implying that its climacteric is passed, and its
downward course begun. This may yet be far dis-
tant: and therefore when I dwell on certain losses
and diminutions which our own has undergone or is
undergoing, you will not suppose that I am presenting
it to you as now travelling that downward course to
dissolution and death. L have no such intention. If
in some respects it is losing, in others it is gaining.
Nor is everything which it lets go, a loss ; for this too.
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IV. Words become extinct. 185
the parting with a word in which there is no true
help, Ae dropping of a cumbrous or superfluous form,
may itself be sometimes a most real gain. English is
undoubtedly becoming different from what it has
been ; but only different in tiiat it is passing into
another stage of its development ; only different, as
the fruit is different from the fiower, and the flower
from the bud; not having in all points the same
excellencies which it once had, but with excellencies
as many and as real as it ever had ; possessing, it
may be, less of beauty, but more of usefulness ; not,
perhaps, serving the poet so well, but serving the
historian and philosopher better than before.
With one observation more I will enter on the
special details of my subject It is this. The losses
or diminutions of a language differ in one respect \ v^'^
from the gains or acquisitions — namely, that those \
are of two kinds, while these are only of one. The
gains are only in words; it never puts forth in the
course of its later evolution a new power ; it never
makes, for itself a new case, or a new tense, or a new
comparative. But the losses are both in words and
in powers. In addition to the words which it drops,
it leaves behind it, as it travels onward, cases which
it once possessed ; renounces the employment of
tenses which it once used ; forgets its dual ; is con-
tent with one termination both for masculine and
feminine, and so on. Nor is this a peculiar feature
of one language, but the universal rule in all. * In
all languages,* as has been well said, * there is a con-
stant tendency to relieve themselves of that precision
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186 Diminutions of our Language, lect.
which chooses a fresh symbol for every shade of mean-
ing, to lessen the amount of nice distinction, and
detect as it were a royal road to the interchange of
opinion.' For example, a vast number of languages
had at an early period of their development, besides
the singular and plural, a dual number, some even a
trinal, which they have let go at a later. But what I
mean by a language renouncing its powers I hope to
make clearer in my next lecture. This much I have
here said on the matter, to explain and justify a
division which I propose to make, considering first
the losses of the English language in words, and then
in powers, the former constituting my theme in the
present lecture, and the latter in one that will suc-
ceed it.
And first, there is going forward a continual extinc-
tion of the words in our language — as indeed in every
other. When we ask ourselves what are the causes
which have led to this, why in that great struggle for
existence which is going on here as in every other
domain of life, this still makes part of the living army
of words, while that has fellen dead, or been dismissed
to drag out an obscure provincial existence ; why
oftentimes one word has- been displaced by another,
as it seems to us not better but worse ; or, again, why
certain femilies of words, or words formed after certain
schemes and patterns, seem exposed to more than the
ordinary chances of mortality, it is not always easy to
give a satisfactory answer to these questions. Causes
no doubt in every case there are. We can ascribe
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V. Reasons for Perishing of Words. 187
little, if indeed anything here, to mere hazard or
caprice. Hazard might cause one man to drop the
use of a word, but not a whole people to arrive at
a tacit consent to employ it no more : while without
tills tacit consent it could not have become obsolete.
Caprice, too, is an element which may be eliminated
when we have to do with multitudes ; for in such case
the caprice of one will traverse and defeat the caprice
of another, leaving matters veiy much where they
were. But the causes oftentimes are hard to discover ;
they lie deep-hidden in the genius of the language
and in the tendencies of it at particular periods, these
affecting speakers and writers who are quite uncon-
scious of the influence thus exercised upon them.*
Much here must remain unexplained : but some sug-
gestion may be offered, which shall account for some,
though by no means all, of the &cts which here come
under the eye.
And first, men do not want, or fency that they do
not want certain words, and so suffer them to drop out
of use. A language in the vigorous acquisitive periods
* Dwight {Modem Phonology^ 2nd series, p. 208) : * Great,
silent, yet determinative laws of criticism, and so, of general
acceptance or condemnation, are ever at work upon words,
deciding their position among mankind at large, as if before a
court without any appeal. Their action is certain, though
undefinable to our vision, like the seemingly blind laws of the
weather ; which yet, however multiplied in their sources, or
subtle in their action, rule infallibly not only the questions of
human labour and of human harvests, but also, to a great ex-
tent, those of human health, power, and enjoyment.
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188, Diminutions of our Language, lect.
of its existence has generated, or has otherwise got
together from different quarters, a larger number of
words, each, it may be, with its separate shade of
meaning, at all events with its separate etymology, to
connote some single object, than can be taken into
actual use, more at any rate than the great body of
the speakers of a language, with their lazy mental
habits, are prepared to take up. Thus we speak at
this day of a ' miser,' and perhaps in popular lan-
guage of a 'hunks' and a 'skinflint;' but what has
become of a 'gripe,' a 'huddle,' a 'snudge,' a
'chinch,' a ' pinch-penny,' a 'penny&ther,'a 'nip-
cheese,' a nipscreed,' a 'nipfarthing,' a 'clutch-
fest,' a' kumbix ' {xipifitk) ? They have all or nearly
all quite dropped out of the living language of men,
and, as I cannot doubt, for the reason just suggested,
namely, that they were more and more various than
men would be at pains to discriminate, and having
discriminated, to employ.*
Let me indicate another cause of the disappearance
of words. Arts, trades, amusements in the course of
time are superseded by others. These had each more
or less a nomenclature peculiarly its own. But with
* Diez {Gram. d. Roman, Sprachcn, vol. i. p. 53) if aces to
the same cause the disappearance in the whole group of Ro-
manic languages, of so many words which from their wide use
in Latin we might have expected to remain ; thus * arx ' was
rendered unnecessary by *castellum,' *equus* by 'caballus,'
*gramen' by *herba,* *janua* by 'ostium* and 'porta,'
*sidus' by *astrum,' *magnus' by *grandis,' *pulcher' by
*bellus,* *ssevus* by *ferox,* and have thus vanished out of
the languages descended from the Latin.
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V. Words which have perished. 189
these a large number of words, which in the first in-
stance were proper and peculiar to them, will have
vanished likewise. Archery in all its more serious
aspects is how extinct ; and the group of words is by
no means small, which with it have ceased to belong
to our living language any more. How many readers
would need to turn to a glossary, if they would know
so much as what a ' fletcher Ms.* Or turn to any old
treatise on hawking. How many terms are there
assumed as familiar to the reader, which have quite
dropped out of our common knowledge. Nor let it
be urged that these can have constituted no very real
loss, seeing that they were only used within the
narrow circle, and comparatively narrow it must have
ialways been, of those addicted to this sport This
is not the case. Words travel beyond their proper
sphere ; are used in secondary senses, and in these
secondary senses are everybody's words, while in their
primary sense they may remain the possession only
of a few.
When I spoke a little while ago of the extinction
of such a multitude of words, I did not, as you will
have observed already, refer merely to tentatwe words,
candidates for admission into the language, offered
to, but never in any true sense accepted by it, such
as those of which I quoted some in an earlier lecture ;
but to such as either belonged to its primitive stock,
or, if not this, had yet been domiciled in it so long,
that they seemed to have found there a lasting home.
• Marsh, Lectures on the English Language^ i860, p. 267.
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190 Diminutions of our Language, lect.
The destruction has reached these quite as much as
those. Thus not a few words of the purest old Eng-
lish stock, some having lived on into the Elizabethan
period or beyond it, have finally dropped out of our
vocabulary ; sometimes leaving a gap which has never
since been filled ; but their places oftener taken by
others which have come up in their room. That
beautiful word 'wanhope,' hope, that is, which has
wholly wanedy or despair, long held its ground ; it
occurs in Gascoigne ; being the latest survivor of a
whole family of words which continued much longer
in Scotland than with us ; of which some perhaps
continue there still. These are but a few of them :
* wanthrift ' for extravagance ; * wanluck ' or ' wanhap/
misfortune;' 'wanlust,' languor; *wanwit,' folly;
*wangrace,' wickedness; 'wantrust' (Chaucer), sus-
picion; *wantruth' {Metrical Homilies), 'falsehood.'
'Skinker' (no very graceful word), for cupbearer, is
used by Shakespeare, and lasted to Dryden's time
and beyond it. Spenser uses often ' to welk ' (welken)
as to fade, ' to sty ' as to mount, * to hery ' as to glorify
or praise, 'to halse' as to embrace,' *teene' as vexa-
tion or grief ; Shakespeare ' to tarre ' as to provoke,
' to sperr ' as to enclose or bar in. Holland has
'specht^ for woodpecker, or tree-jobber as it used
oftener to be called ; ' reise ' for journey, ' frimm ' for
lusty or strong. 'To tind,' surviving in 'tinder,'
occurs in Bishop Sanderson ; 'to nimm' (nehmen)
in Fuller. 'Nesh,' soft through moisture, good
Saxon-English once, still lives on in some of our
provincial dialects, with not a few of the other words
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T. Words which have perished. 191
which I have just named. Thus ' leer ' for empty,
and 'heft/ that which only by an eififort can be
heaved up (used by Shakespeare), 'to fettle' (the
verb is employed by Swift), are common on the lips
of our southern peasantry to this day.
A number of vigorous compounds we have lost and
let go. Except for Shakespeare we might haye quite
forgotten that young men of hasty fieiy valour were
once named 'hotspurs/ and this even now is for us
rather the proper name of one than the designation
of all.* Austere old men, such as, in Falstaflf's
words, 'hate us youth,' were 'grimsirs' or 'grim-
sires' once (Massinger) ; a foe that wore the sem-
blance of a friend was a ' heavy friend ;' a mischief-
maker a ' coal-carrier ;' an impudent railer a ' saucy
jack;' pleasant drink ' merrygodown ' (all these in
Golding) ; a cockered favorite was a * whiteboy '
(Fuller) ; a drunkard an 'aleknight,' a * maltworm ;'
an old woman an * old trot ;' an ill-behaved girl a
' naughty pack ;' a soldier who of evil will (* malin
gr6') shirked his share of duty ahd danger a
' malingerer ' — ^the word is familiar enough to military
men, but not in our dictionaries; — a sluggard a
' slowback ;' an ignoble place of refuge a * creephole '
(Henry More) ; entertainments of song or' music
were 'earsports' (Holland); a hideous assemblage
of all most discordant sounds a ' black-sanctus ;'
well-merited punishment * whipping-cheer ' (Stubbs).
♦.See Holland, Livy, p. 922; Baxter, Life and Ti$nes,
p. 39 ; Rogers, Matrimonial Honour, p. 233.
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192 DiminiUions of our Langiuige. lect.
'Double-diligent' (Golding) was as much as ncfed-
lessly officious; 'snout&ir' an epithet applied to a
woman who, having beauty, had no other giils men-
tal or moral to commend her; * mother-naked '
(revived by Carlyle) finds its explanation at Job i. 21;
I Tim. vi. 7. Who too but must acknowledge
the beauty of such a phrase as 'weeping-ripe'
(Shakespeare), ready, that is, to burst into tears, the
drtSaxpvs of Euripides?
And as words, so also phrases are forgotten.
'From the teeth outward' to express professions
which have no root in the heart of him who speaks
them, has so q)proved itself to Carlyle that he has
called it bade into use. How expressive too are
many other of the proverbial phrases which we have
sufifered to fall through ; as for instance ' to mak^, a
coat for the moon,' to attempt something in its
nature every way impossible; 'to tread the shoe
awry,' to make a /hux pas ; ' to play rex,' to domi-
neer ; 'to weep Irish,' to affect a grief which is not
felt within, as do the hired mourners at an Irish wake.
But these are legion, and quite impossible to enu-
merate, so that we must content ourselves with the
examples here given.
An almost unaccountable caprice seems often to
preside over tiie fortunes of words, and to determine
which should live and which die. Of them quite as
much as of books it may be affirmed, /laden/ sua /a/a.
Thus in instances out of number a word lives on as
a verb, but has perished as a noun ; we say ' to em-
barrass,' but no longer. an 'embarrass;' 'to revile,'
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V. Mctind English. 193
but not, with Chapman and Milton, a ' revile ;' ' to
dispose,' but not a 'dispose;' 'to retire,' but not a
'retire' (Milton) ; 'to wed,' but not a 'wed;' 'to
' infest,' but use no longer the adjective ' infest' Or
with a reversed fortune a word lives on as a noun,
but has perished as a verb ; thus as a noun substan-
tive, a Jslug/ but no longer * to slug,' or render sloth-
ful ; a 'child,' but no longer 'to child' {' childing
autumn,' Shakespeare) ; a ^ rape, 'but not 'to rape'
(South) ; a ' rogue, ' but not ' to rogue ;' ' malice, ' but
not ' to malice ;' a 'path,' but not ' to path ;' or as a
noun adjective, 'serene,' but not 'to serene,' a beau-
tiful word, which we have let go, as the French have
'sereiner;'* 'meek,' but not 'to meek' (Wiclif) ;
'fond,' but not ' to fond ' (Dryden) ; ' dead,' but not
'to dead;' 'intricate,' but 'to intricate' (Jeremy
Taylor) no longer. So too we have still the adjective
*plashy,' but a 'plash,' signifying a wet place, no
more.
Or again, the affirmative remains, but the negative
is gone; thus 'wisdom,' 'bold,' 'sad,' but not any
more 'unwisdom,' 'unbold,' 'unsad' (all in Wiclif);
* How many words modem French has lost which are most
vigorous and admhrable, the absence of which can only now
be supplied by a circumlocution or by some less excellent
word — *Oseur,* * affranchisseur ' (Amyot), *m€priseur,' *mur-
murateur,' * blandisseur ' (Bossuet), *abilseur' (Rabelais),
*d6sabusement,' *rancoeur,* are all obsolete at the present;
and so <d6saimer,' to cease to love (*disamare' in Italian),
*guirlander,* 'steriliser,' 'blandissant,' * ordonn6ment ' (Mon-
taigne), with innumerable others.
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194 Diminutions of our Language, lect.
•cunning,' but not * uncunning ;' 'manhood,' 'wit,'
'mighty,' 'tall, 'but not 'unmanhood,' 'unwit,' 'un-
might}",' 'untall' (all in Chaucer); 'tame,' but not
' untame ' (Jackson) ; ' buxom, 'but not * unbuxom '
(Dryden) ; 'hasty,' but not 'unhasty' (Spenser) ;
* blithe,' but not * unblithe ;' ' idle,' but not * unidle '
(Sir P. Sidney) ; * base,' but not * unbase ' (Daniel);
'ease,' but not 'unease' (Hacket) ; 'repentance,'
but not * unrepentance ;' 'remission,' but not 'irre-
mission' (Donne); 'science,' but not 'nescience'
(Glanvill) ; ' to know, ' but not ' to unknow ' ( WicliQ ;
' to give,' but not 'to ungive ;' 'to hallow,' but not
'to unhallow' (Coverdale). Or, with a curious
variation from this, the negative survives, while the
affirmative is gone ; thus ' wieldy ' (Chaucer) sur-
vives only in 'unwieldy;' 'couth' and 'couthly'
(both in Spenser), only in 'uncouth 'and 'uncouthly;*
'speakable' (Milton), in 'unspeakable;' 'ruly'
(Foxe), in 'unruly;' 'gainly' (Henry More), in
' ungainly ;' these last two were serviceable words,
and have been ill lost ; < gainly ' is still common in
the West Riding of Yorkshire ; 'exorable ' ( Holland "i
and ' evitable ' survive only in ' inexorable ' and ' in-
evitable ;' * fauUless ' remains, but hardly ' faultful '
(Shakespeare) ; 'semble' (Foxe), except as a tech-
nical law term, has disappeared, while 'dissemble'
continues ; ' simulation ' (Coverdale) in like manner
is gone, but dissimulation remains. So also of
other pairs one has been taken, and one left ; ' height, '
or 'bighth,' as Milton better spelt it, remains, but
'lowtb' (Becon) is gone; 'underling' remains, but
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V. Extinct English. 195
'overling' has perished. 'Exhort' continues, but
'dehort/ a word whose place 'dissuade' does not
exactly supply, has escaped us; 'righteousness,' or
' rightwiseness,' as once more accurately written,
remains, but ' wrongwiseness ' has been taken ; ''in-
road' continues, but 'outroad' ( Holland ^ has disap-
peared ; 'levant' lives, but 'ponent' (Holland) has
died ; ' to extricate ' continues, but, as we saw just
now, 'to intricate' does not; 'parricide,' but not
' filicide ' (Holland) ; ' womanish,' but not • mannish '
(Shakespeare). Again, of whole groups of words
• formed on some particular scheme it may be only a
single specimen will survive. Thus 'gainsaj'*
(=:againsay) survives; but 'gainstrive' (Foxe),
'gainstand,' 'gaincope' (Golding), and other sim-
ilarly formed words exist no longer. 'Praiseworthy,'
'trustworthy,' 'noteworthy,' are the only survivors of
a family that numbered once ' shameworthy ' (Wiclif),
'japewprthy' (Chaucer), 'kissworthy' (Sidney),
'thankworthy' (English Bible), 'crownworthy ' (Ben
Jonson), ' painworthy ' (Spenser), ' deathworthy '
(Shakespeare), and very probably more. In like
manner ' foolhardy ' alone remains out of at least fiyt
adjectives formed on the same pattern; thus 'fool-
large,' as expressive a word as prodigal, occurs in
Chaucer, and ' foolhasty,' found also in him, lived on
to the time of Holland ; while ' foolhappy ' is in
Spenser, and ' foolbold ' in Bale. ' Laughing-stock '
we still use; but ' gazing-stock ' (English Bible),
'wondring-stock,' 'jesting-stock' (both in Cover-
dale), ' mocking-stock ' (Latimer), ' playing-stock '
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196 Diminutions of our Language, lect.
(North), have all disappeared. ' Steadfast ' remains,
but *shamefast,' 'rootfast,' 'bedfast' (=bed-ridden),
' homefast/ 'housefast,' * masterfast, ' or engaged to a
master (Skelton), * weatherfast/ or detained by stress
of weather (Cleaveland dialect), 'trothfast' (Cum-
brian), 'handfast' (= betrothed), with others, are all
gone. We have ' twilight,' but ' twibil ' (=bipennis.
Chapman), Uwifight' (=duel), are extinct
It is a real loss that the comparative 'rather'
should now stand alone, having dropped alike the
positive, 'rathe,' and the superlative, 'rathest'.
'Rathe,' or early, though a graceful word, and not-
fellen quite out of popular remembrance, being em-
balmed in the Lycidas of Milton,
* And the rathe primrose, which forsaken dies,'
might be suffered to share the common lot of so
many others which have perished, though worthy to
live ; but the disuse of ' rathest ' is a real loss to the
language, and the more so, that ' liefest ' is gone too.
' Rather ' expresses the Latin ' potius ;' but ' rathest '
being obsolete, we have no word, unless 'soonest' may
be accepted as such, to express 'potissimum,' or the
preference not of one way over another or over
certain others, but of one over all ; which we there-
fore effect by aid of various circumlocutions. Nor
has' ' rathest ' been so long out of use, that it would
be hopeless to attempt to revive it. Sanderson, in
his beautiful sermon on the text, * When my father
and my mother forsake me, the Lord taketh me up,'
puts the consideration, ' why father and mother are
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V. Wo7'd$ ending in * some.^ 197
named the ra/hesf, and the rest to be included in
them:'*
I observed just now that words formed on certain
patterns had a tendency to fall into desuetude, and
are evidently exposed to more than the ordinary
chances of mortality. It has been thus with adjec-
tives ending in 'some/ the Anglo-Saxon and early
English 'sum/ the German 'sam' ('friedsam/ 'selt-
sam') ; and reappearing as an independent word in
'same.' It is true that of these many survive, as
'gladsome,' 'handsome,' 'wearisome,' 'buxom'
('bucksome,' in our earlier writers, the German
' beugsam ' or ' biegsam,' bendable, complaint) ; but
of these far more than a rateable proportion are nearly
or quite extinct. Thus 'wansum,' or sorrowful, is
in the S/ory of Genesis ; while in Wiclif 's Bible you
may note 'lovesum,' 'hatesum,' 'lustsum,' 'gilsum'
(guilesome), 'wealsum,' 'heavysum,' 'lightsum,'
' delightsum ;' of these ' lightsome ' survived long,
and indeed still survives in provincial dialects ; but
of the others all save * delightsome ' are gone ; while
that, although used in our Authorized Version (Mai.
iii. 12), is now only employed in poetry. So too
'mightsome' (see Herbert Coleridge's Glossarial
Index) J ' willsome ' {Prompiorium), ' hearsome '
(=obedient), 'needsome,' 'wantsome,' 'brightsome,'
(Marlowe), 'wieldsome,' ' unwieldsome ' (Golding),
' unlightsome ' (Milton), 'thoughtsome,' 'growth-
• For other passages in which * rathest * occurs see the State
Papers ^ vol. ii. pp. 92, J70.
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198 J)imimUion8 of our Langudge. lect.
some' (both in Fairfax), 'healthsome' {JHomUies)^
'ugsome/ *ugglesome' (both in Foxe), 'labour-
some ' (Shakespeare), ' ' friendsome, ' * longsome '
(Bacon),' *quietsome,' *mirksome' (both in Spen-
ser), 'toothsome' (Beaumont and Fletcher), 'glee-
some' 'joysome' (both in Browne's Pastorals)^
' gaysome ' {Mirror for Magistrates), ' likesome '
(Holinshed), ' roomsome,' ' bigsome,' ' awsome,'
'timersome,' 'winsome,' 'viewsome,' 'dosome'
(=prosperous), 'flaysome' (=fearful), 'aunter-
some' (=adventurous), ' drearisome,' 'dulsome,'
'doubtsome,' ' wranglesome,' 'clamorsome' (all
these still surviving in the North), 'playsome' (em-
ployed by the historian Hume), ' lissome,' ' meltsome, '
'heedsome,' 'laughsome,' 'clogsome,' 'fearsome,'
have nearly or quite disappeared from our English
speech. More of them have held their ground in
Scotland than in the south of the Island. *
Nor can it be mere accident that of a group of words,
almost all of them depreciatory and contemptuous,
ending in ' ard,' the German ' hart,' the Gothic
' hardus,'"!* more than: one half should have dropped
♦ Thus see in Jamieson's Dictionary < bangsome,' * freak-
some,' * drysome,* * grousome,* with others out of number.
t This, though a German form, reached us through the
French ; having been early adopted by the Neo-latin languages.
In. Italian words of this formation are frequent, <bugiardo,'
•falsardo,* *leccardo,* *testardo,' * vecchiardo ;* and certainly
not less so in French : *goliart,* *pifart,' *bavard,* *fuyard,'
with many more ; and in these languages, no less than our
own, they have almost always, as Diez observes ijGrani, d.
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V. Rhyming Words. 199
out of use ; I refer to that group of which ' dotard/
'laggard,' 'braggart,' 'sluggard,' 'buzzard,' 'bas-
tard,' ' wizard,' may be taken as surviving specimens ;
while 'blinkard' {Homilies), 'dizzard' (Burton),
'dullard' (Udal), 'musard' (Chaucer), 'trichard'
{Political Songs), 'haskard,' 'shreward' (Robert of
Gloucester), * ballard ' (a bald-headed man, Wiclif ) ;
'palliard,' 'pillard,' * snivtlasdi* {Promptorium Par-
vularum) ; ' bosard,' ' puggard,' ' stinkard ' (Ben
Jonson), 'haggard' (a worthless hawk), are extinct
There is a curious province of our vocabulaiy, in
which we were once so rich, that extensive losses
have £iiled to make us poor. I refer to those
double words which either contain within themselves
a strong rhyming modulation, such, for example, as
'willy-nilly,' 'hocus-pocus,' ' helter-skdter,' 'tag-
rag,' 'namby-pamby,' * pell-mell,' 'hab-nab,' 'hodge-
podge,' 'hugger-mugger,' 'hurly-burly;'* or, with
Jiom, Sprachetty vol. ii. p. 359), *eine ungUnstige Bedeutung.*
Compare M&tzner, vol. i. p. 439.
♦ The same pleasure in a swiftly recturing rh3rme has helped
to form such phrases as these : ' scot and lot,' *top and lop,'
< creep and leap,' * rape and scrape,' * draff and chaff,' *■ shame
and blame.* Fairly numerous in English, there are far more
of them in German ; thus *gut und blut,' Mug und trug,'
*steg und weg,* *httlle und fulle,' 'hege und pflege,' *saus
und braus,' *rath und that,' *tritt und schritt,' *schutz und
trutz,' *sack und pack,' *weit und breit,' 'band und rand,'
* dach und fach,' * sichten und richten,' * handel und wandel,'
* schalten imd walten,' *leben und weben.' For some earlier
and mainly juristic forms of the like kind see Grimm, DetUschc
Rechtsalterthunier^ p. 13.
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200 Diminviions of our Language, lect.
a slight difiference from this, those whose characteristic
feature is not this internal likeness with initial unlike-
ness, but initial likeness with internal unlikeness ;
not rhyming, but strongly alliterative, and in every
case with a change of the interior vowel from a weak
into a strong, generally from * i ' into ' a ' or ' o ' ; as
'shilly-shally,' 'mingle-mangle,' 'tittle-tattle,' 'prittle-
prattle,' 'riff-raiF,' * see-saw,' 'slip-slop.' No one
who is not quite out of love with the homelier por-
tions of* the language, but will acknowledge the life
and strength which there is often in these and in
others still current among us. But of this sort what
vast numbers have fallen out of use, some so &llen
out of all remembrance that it may be difficult to find
credence for them. Thus take of rhyming the fol-
lowing : 'kaury-maury,* 'trolly-lolly' {Piers Plough-
man), ' tuzzie-muzzie ' (Promptorium), ' kicksy-wick-
sy' (Shakespeare); ' hibber-gibber,' 'rusty-dusty/
'horrel-lorrel,' ' slaump-paump ' (all in Gabriel Har-
vey), 'royster-doyster' {Old Play), 'hoddy-doddy,'
(Ben Jonson) ; while of alliterative might be in-
stanced these : 'skimble-skamble,' ' bibble-babble '
(both in Shakespeare), ' twittle-twatde,' 'kim-kam'
(both in Holland), 'trim-tram,' 'trish-trash,' 'swish-
swash ' (all in Gabriel Harvey), ' whim-wham '
(Beaumont and Fletcher), 'mizz-mazz' (Locke),
'snip-snap' (Pope,) 'flim-flam' (Swift,) 'tric-trac,'
and others.*
* A Dictionary of Reduplicated Words in the English Lan-
guage, by Henry B. Wheatley, published as an appendix to
The Transactions of the Philological Society, 1865, contains
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V. Words under Ban. 201
Again, there is a whole family of words, — ^many of
them are now under ban, — ^which were at one time
formed almost at pleasure, the only condition being
that the combination should be a happy one. I refei*
to those singularly expressive words formed by a com-
bination of verb and substantive, the former governing
the latter; as 'telltale,' 'scapegrace,' 'turncoat,'
'tumtail,' 'skinflint,' 'spendthrift,' 'spitfire,' 'lick-
spittle,' 'daredevil' (=wagehals), 'makebate' (=sto-
renfried), 'marplot,' 'killjoy.' These, with some
others, have held their ground, and are current still ;
but how many are forgotten ; while yet, though not
always elegant, they preserved some of the most gen-
uine and vigorous idioms of 'the language.* Nor is
nearly six hundred of these words, and the collector believes
that there are some hundreds more which he has not ingathered.
I very much doubt whether he has left any such gleaning to
those who follow him. I have lighted upon several, in what
seemed to me out of the way comers of English literature, but
have invariably found t^m duly registered by him. Words
constructed on a similar scheme are to be found in the Romance
languages ; but are less numerous there, and not indigenous ;
their existence in these being rather the result of Germanic
influences, which the Neo-latin languages did not altogether
escape (Diez, Gram, d. Rom» Sprachen^ vol. i. p. 71).
♦ Many languages have groups of words formed upon the
same scheme, although, singularly enough, they are altogether
absent from the Anglo-Saxon (Grimm, Deutsche Gram, vol. ii.
p. 976). Thus in Spanish a vaunting braggart is a < mata-
moros,' a slay moor; he is a 'matasiete,' a slayseven (the
* ammazzasiete ' of the Italians) ; a *perdonavidas,' a spare-
lives. Others may be added to these, as * azotacalles,*
*picapleytos,' 'saltaparedes,' < rompeesquinas,' *ganapan,'
^*cascatreguas.' So in French, *attisefeu,* * coupegorge,'
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202 Diminutioiis of our Language, lect.
this strange ; they are almost all words of abuse or
contempt, and these are invariably among the most
picturesque and imaginative which a language pos-
sesses. The whole man speaks out in them, and
often the man under the influence of passion and
excitement, which always lend force and fire to his
speech. Let me of these recount a few: 'smell-
feast' (Davies),— it may remind us of the Greek
rpexeSstTtroi, — if not a better, is a more graphic,
word than our foreign parasite ; 'clawback' (Hacket)
is stronger, if not more graceful, than flatterer or
sycophant ; * tosspot ' (Fuller), it is sometimes 'reel-
pot' (Middleton), or 'swillpot' (Cotgrave), tells its
tale as well as drunkard; and 'pinchpenny' (Hol-
land), or * nipfarthing ' (Drant), as well or better
than miser. 'Spintext,' 'lacklatin,' 'mumblematins,'
were all applied to ignorant clerics ; ' bitesheep ' (a
favourite word with Foxe), to bishops who were
rather wolves tearing, than shepherds feeding, the
flock ; 'slipstring' (Beaumont^d Fletcher, =pend-
ard), 'slipgibbet,' 'scapegallows,' were all names
given to those who, however they might have escaped,
were justly owed to the gallows, and might still, a£
our common people say, 'go up stairs to bed.'
How many of these words occur in Shakespeare.
The following list makes no pretence to com-
pleteness : * martext,' ' can^tale,' ' pleaseman,'
'sneakcup,' 'mumblenews,' 'wantwit,' 'lackbrain,'
•faineant,' 'vaurien,' * troublefgte.' In Italian * accattapane,*
•cercabrighe,' 'rubacuori' (Diez, Gram, d, Rom. Sprachm^
vol. ii. p. 410).
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V. Group of disused Words. 203
* lackbeard, ' ' lacklove, ' * ticklebiain, ' ' cutpuise, '
'cutthroat/ 'crackhemp,' 'tearsheet, 'breedbate/
*swingebuckler,' 'pickpurse,' 'pickthank/ 'pick-
lock,' 'scarecrow/ 'breakvow/ 'breakpromise/ 'find-
fault/ 'choplogic/ 'makepeace' — this last and 'tell-
truth' (Fuller) being the only two in the whole
collection, wherein reprobation or contempt is not
implied. Nor is the list exhausted yet ; there are
further 'dingthrift' (=prodigal, Herrick), 'waste-
good,' 'spendair (both in Cotgrave), 'stroygood'
(Golding), 'scattergood,' 'wastethrift' (Beaumont
and Fletcher), 'scapethrift,' 'swashbuckler' (both in
Holinshed), 'rushbuckler,' 'shakebuckler,' 'rinse-
pitcher' (both in Becon), 'drawlatch' (Awdeley),
' crackrope ' (Howell), ' waghalter,' ' wagfeather '
(both in Cotgrave), 'blabtale' (Racket), 'get-
nothing' (Adams), 'tearthroat' (Gayton), 'spit-
poison' (South), 'spitvenom/ 'marprelate,' 'nip-
cheese,' 'nipscreed,' 'killman' (Chapman), lack-
land,' 'pickquarrel,' 'pickfault,' 'pickpenny' (Henry
More), 'makefray' (Bishop Hall,) 'makedebate
(Richardson's Letters), 'quenchcoal' (an enemy to
all zeal in religion, Rogers,) 'kindlecoal,' 'kindle-
fire' (both in Gumall), 'tumtippet' (Cranmer),
'swillbowl' (Stubbs), 'smellsmock' (=mulierarius),
'cumberworld' (Drayton), ' curryfavor,' 'pinchfist,'
' suckfist,' ' hatepeace ' (Sylvester), ' hategood '
(Bunyan), ' clusterfist ' (Cotgrave), ' clutchfist,'
'sharkguir (both in Middleton), 'makesport' (Ful-
ler), ' hangdog' (' Herod's hangdcgs in the tapestry,'
Pope), 'catchpoll,' 'makeshift' (used not imperson-
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204 Diminutions of our Language, lect.
ally, as now), 'pickgoose' ('the bookworm was
never but a ptckgoose*), 'killcow ' (these three last in
Gabriel Harvey), 'frayboggard' (=scarecrow. Cover-
dale), 'letgame' (=spoilsport, Chaucer), * rake-
shame ' (Milton, prose), with others which it will be
convenient to omit 'Rakehell,' which used to be
spelt 'raker or 'rakle' (Chaucer), a good English
word, would be wrongly included in this list, although
Cowper, when he writes 'rakehell' {'rake-hell baro-
net'),* must evidently have regarded it as belonging
to this family of words, f
'VThere is another frequent cause of the disuse of
words. In some inexplicable way there comes to be
attached something of ludicrous, or coarse, or vulgar
to them, out of a sense of which they are no longer
used in earnest writing, and fall out of the discourse
* I regret by too much brevity to have here led astray Dr.
G. Schneider, who has written a History of the English Lan-
gttage, Freiburg, 1863, and done me the honour to transfer
with slight acknowledgment whatever he found useful in my
little book to his own. He has at p. 159, this wonderful para-
graph : * Rakehell bedeutete ehemals baronet ; bald verl)and
sich damit der BegrifF von " wohllebender Mensch ;" und da
derjenige, welcher mehr an's Wohlleben denkt, leicht ein
Wohlltlstling wird, ging die anfangs gute Bedeutung in diese
letztere Ober ; der Ausdruck ward desshalb aufgegeben, um
nicht mit dem Gedanken an baronet stets die Idee von einem
ausschweifenden wohllttstigen Menschen zu verbinden.'
t The mistake is far earlier ; long before Cowper wrote the
sound suggested first this sense, and then this -spelling. Thus
Stanihurst, Description of Ireland^ p. 28 : * They are taken
for no better than rakehelsy or the deviPs black guard;* and
often elsewhere.
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V. Words and Phrases become vulgar. 205
of those who desire to speak elegantly. * Not indeed
that this degradation which overtakes words is in all
cases inexplicable. The unheroic character of most
men's minds, with their consequent intolerance of
that heroic which they cannot understand, is con-
stantly at work, too often with success, in taking down
words of nobleness from their high pitch ; and, as the
most effectual way of doing this, in casting an air of
mock-heroic about them. Thus *to dub,' a word
resting on one of the noblest uses of chivalry, has
now something of ludicrous about it ; so too has
' doughty.' ' They belong to that serio-comic, mock-
heroic diction, the multiplication of which, as of all
parodies on greatness, is evermore a sign of evil
augury for a nation that receives it with favor, is at
present such a sign of evil augury for our own.
'Pate' is now comic or ignoble; it was not so
once; else we should not meet it in the Psalms
(vii. 17) ; as little was 'noddle,' which occurs in one
of the few poetical passages in Hawes. The same
may be affirmed of 'sconce/ of 'nowl' or 'noil'
(Wiclif); of 'slops' for trousers (Marlowe's Lucan) ;
of 'cocksure ' (Rogers), of * smug,' which once meant
adorned ( ' the smug bridegroom, ' Shakespeare) . ' To
nap' is now a word without dignity ; while in Wiclif s
Bible w^ read, * Lo He schall not nappe, neither slepe
that kepeth Israel' (Ps. cxxi. 4). *To punch,' 'to
thump,' both occurring in Spenser, could not now
obtain the same serious use ; as little 'to wag* (Matt
xxvii. 39), or ' to buss' (Shakespeare). Neither would
any one now say with Wiclif diat at Lystra Barnabas
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206 Diminutions of our Language, lect.
and Paul ' ihnt their clothes and shaped out among
the people ' (Acts xiv. 14) ; nor with Coverdale, ' My
beloved cometh hopping upon the mountains ' (Cant
ii. 8); nor yet that *the Lord trounced Sisera and
all his host/ as it stands in the Bible of 1551. * A sigh/
of angels ' (as Tyndale has it at Heb. xiL 22), would
be felt to be a vulgarism now. ' A blulfbered fiice '
(Spenser) would scarcely appeal to our pity. We
should not call now a delusion of Satan a ^ftam of the
devil ' (Henry More) ; nor our Lord's course through
the air to the pinnacle of the temple ' his aery jaunt'
(Milton). 'Verdant' is tio longer a name which
Spenser could give to one of the knights of Fairyland.
It is the same with phrases. 'Through thick and
thin' (Spenser), 'cheek by jowl' (Dubartas), do not
now belong to serious literature. In the glorious
ballad ()i Chevy Chase^ a noble warrior whose 1^ are
hewn off, is ' in doleful dumps ;' just as, in Holland's
Lwyy the Romans are 'in the dumps' after their
disastrous defeat at Cannae. In Grolding's Ovid^ one
fears that he will 'go to pot.' . In one of the beautiful
letters of John Careless, preserved in Foxe's Martyrs,
he announces that a persecutor, who expects a recan-
tation from him, is ' in the wrong box.' And in the
sermons of Barrow, who certainly did not seek feimiliar,
still less vulgar, expressions, we constantly meet such
terms as 'to rate,' 'to snub,' 'to gull,' 'to pudder,'
'dumpish,' and the like ; words, we may be sure, not
vulgar when he used them..
Then too the advance of refinement causes words
to be dismissed, which are felt to speak too plainly.
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V. Possibility of recalling Words. 207
It is not here merely that one age has more delicate
ears than another; and that subjects are freely spoken
of at one period which at another are withdrawn from
conversation. There is something of this ; but even
if this delicacy were at a standstill, there would still be
a continual disallowing of words, which for a certain
while have been employed to designate coarse or
disagreeable facts or things ; or, where not a disallow-
ing, a relinquishing of them to the lower classes of
society, with the adoption of others in their stead.
The former words being felt to have come by long use
into too direct and close relation with what they de-
signate, to summon it up too distinctly before the
mind's eye, they are thereupon exchanged for others,
which, at first at least, indicate more lightly and
allusively the offensive thing, rather hint and suggest
than paint and describe it : although by and by
these new will in their turn be discarded, and for
exactly the same reasons which brought about the
dismissal of those which they themselves superseded.
It lies in the necessity of things that I must leave this
part of my subject, curious as it is, without illustra-
tion ;* but no one even moderately acquainted with
" • As not, however, turning on a v^ coarse matter, and
Ulostrating the subject with infinite wit and humour, I might
refer the Spanish scholar to the discussion between Don Quix-
6te and his squire on the dismissal of *regoldar' from the
language of good society, and the substitution of ' erutar ' in
its roopi (Don OrnxoU^ 4. 7. 43). Li a letter pf Cicero to
Paetus {Fam, ix. 22) there is a subtle and interesting disquisi-
tion on the philosophy of these forbidden words.
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208 Diminutions of our Language, lect.
the early literature of the Reformation can be ignorant
of words having free course therein, which now are
not merely coarse, and as such under ban,, but which
no one would employ who did not mean to speak
impurely and vilely.*
I spoke in a former lecture of the many words
which have come back to us after a temporary
absence, and of the extent to which the language has
been reinforced and recruited* by these. For there
is this difference between words and flexions, that of
the last what is once gone is gone for ever ; they are
irrevocable ; no human power could ever recall them.
A poet indeed may use 'pictai'for 'pictae* (Virgil),
or 'glitterand' for glittering (Spenser) ; but it is
not in their power to call these back, even if they
would ; and when a German writer suggests that to
abate the too great sibilation of our language we should
recover the plurals in n, Vejnie/ * housen,' and the like,
he betrays his ignorance of the inexorable laws of lan-
guage, and of the impossibility of controlling these.
But it is not so with words ; and I cannot but think, in
view of this disposition of theirs to return, in view
also of the havoc which, as we have seen, various
causes are evermore effecting in the ranks of a lan-
guage, that much might be done by writers of autho-
rity and influence in the way of bringing back deser-
ters, where they are capable of yielding good service
still, and placing them in the ranks again ; still more
* See Grimm's Deutsches Woerterbuck^ s. v. Koih^ for some
good remarks on this matter. .'
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V. Words which have been ill Lost 209
in that of detaining words, which, finding no honour-
able employment, seem more or less disposed to be
gone, though they have not as yet actually disap-
peared. This would be less difficult from the fact
that in almost every instance these words, obsolete or
obsolescent, which our literary English knows, or is
about to know, no more, live on, as has been already
noted, in one or more of our provincial dialects ;
they need not therefore, as dead, that life should be
breathed into them anew; but only, as having re-
tired into obscurity for a while, some one to draw
them forth from this Obscurity again. Of these there
are multitudes. If I instance a very few, it is not as
specially recommending them for rehabilitation,
though some of them are well worthy of it, and capable
of good service still ; but as showing to what kind of
work I invite.
It is indeed to the poet that mainly, although not
exclusively, this task must be committed, 'That
high-flying liberty of conceit ' which is proper to him
will justify liberties on his part which would be
denied to the writer of less impassioned prose. ►* It
is felt by all that with the task which is-bfefore him, he
♦ Jean Paul {/Esthetik, § 83) : Ueberhaupt bildet und nahrt
die Prose ihre Sprachkraft an der Poesie, denn diese muss im-
mer mit neuen Fedem steigen, wenn die alten, die ihren
FlOgeln ausfallen, die Prose zum Schreiben nimmt. Wie diese
aus Dichtkunst entstand, so wachst sie auch an ihr.
Ewald (Die poet. Bucher des Alten BundeSj p. 55) : * End-
lich aber ist der Dichter nicht bloss so der freieste Herrscher
und SchOpfer im Gebiete der Sprache seiner Zeit, er spricht
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210 Diminutions of our Langunge. lect.
has a right to all the assistance which the language
trained to the uttermost is capable of yielding. What-
ever resources it oflfers, he has a claim to draw upon
them all. This liberty Tennyson has used. Thus ' to
burgeon' had pretty nearly disappeared from the
language since the time of Dryden, but has by him
on several occasions been employed. But not to the
poet only is such a privilege conceded. The verb *to
hearten * was as good as dead till Mr. Grote, by his
frequent employment of it in his Hisiopy of' Greece,
gave it life again. * To sagg/ a Shakespearian word,
and one too good to lose, is alive everywhere in Eng-
land, except in our literary dialect ; thus a tired horse
*saggs' his head; an ill-hung gate 'saggs' on its
hinges. 'To gaster ' and 'to.flayte,' — they are
synonyms, but the first is rather to terrify, and the
second to scare, — ^are frequent in the Puritan writers
of East Anglia ; so is 'to fellow-feel ;' the two former
auch am warmsten und frischesten aus der Zeit und dem Orte,
woran seine ^mpfindungen zunOchst geknttpft sind ; seine
Sprache ist bei aller Wurde und Hohe zugleich die heimischste
und eigenthtUnlischste, weil sie am reinsten und anspruchlosesten
aus dem ganzen menschlichen Sein des Einzelnen fliesst. Der
Dichter kann also freier und leichter abweichende Farben und
Stoflfe der Sprache seiner nachsten Heimath und seiner eigenen
Zeit einfliessen lassen, und .wfthrend die Prosa eine einmal
festgewordene Form schwer andert, bereichert imd veijQngt sich
die Dichtersprache bestandig durch Aufnahme des Dialect-
ischen, welches in die herrschendc Prosa nicht tlbergegangen,
und durch den Eindrang von Stoffen der Volkssprache, welche
doch immer mannigfaltiger ist, weil die unerschOpfliche Quelle
lebendiger Sprache auch unvermerkt sich immer verandert und
fortbildet.
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V. Words which have been ill Lost. 211
are still alive upon the lips of the people. Perhaps
' to fleck ' is not gone ; nor yet * to shimmer ;' but
both are certainly in danger of going. Coleridge
supposed that he had invented ' aloofness ;' it is well
worthy of acceptance ; but if it has been accepted,
which is not yet perfectly clear, he only revived a
word which was in use two hundred years ago.
* Lithemess/ as expressing a want of moral backbone
in the character, has gone without leaving a substi-
tute behind it 'Elfish 'and 'elfishness,' these last
expressing a certain inborn and mischievous way-
wardness, have done the same.
' Damish ' (Rogers) applied in blame to proud im-
perious women, *wearish' in the sense of small,
weak, shrunken (thus, *a wearish old man,' (Bur-
ton), * masterous' or * maistrous,' as Milton spells it,
in that of overbearing, 'kittle,' an epithet given to
persons of a cer^in delicate organization, and thus
touchy and easily offended, * birdwitted,' or incapable
of keeping the attention fixed for long on any single
point (Bacon); 'afterwitted,' applied by Tyndale to
one having what the French now call Vesprii de
rescalier^ who always remembers what he should have
said when, having left the room, it is too late to say
it, with numberless others, may each of them singly
be no serious loss, but when these losses may be
counted by hundreds and thousands, they are no
slight impoverishment of our vocabulary; and as-
suredly it would not be impossible to win some of
these back again. There are others, such as Baxter's
' wordwarriors,' strivers, that is, about words, as Lord
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212 Diminutions of our Language, lect.
Brooke's ' bookhunger,' as a 'little-ease/ or place of
discomfortable restraint, as *realmrape ' (=usurpation,
Mirror /or Magistrates) as *to witwanton' (Fuller
warns men that they do not ' witwanton with God ')
' to cankerfret' (*sin cankerfrets the soul/ (Rogers),
which, though never popular, seem to me happier
than that they should be allowed to die.
We have to thank the American branch of the
English-speaking race that we have not lost 'freshet'
(an exquisite word and used by Milton), *snag,'
'bluff,' 'tedge,' ' slick, '♦ 'to whittle,' 'to cave in,'
'to rile,' 'to snarl' that is, to entangle). They are
counted as American inventions, but are indeed
nothing of the kind. There is scarcely one of them,
of which examples could not be found in our earlier
literature, and in provincial dialects they are current
every one to this present day.f Even 'the fall ' as
equivalent to the autumn is not properly American ;
being as old as Dryden, J and older.
* 'Slick* is indeed only another form of * sleek.* Thus
Fuller {Pisgah Sight of Palestine^ vol. ii. p. 190) : *Sure I am
this city [the New Jerusalem] as presented by the prophet, was
fairer, finer, slicker^ smoother, more exact, than any fabric the
earth afforded.*
t See Nail, Dialect and Provincialisms of East Anglia^,
s. w.
X * What crowds of patients the towndoctor kills^
Or how Izsi fall he raised the weekly bills.*
So in the answer to Marlowe*s Passionate Pilgrim^ ascribed
to Raleigh:
* A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fallJ*
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V. Need of New Words. 213
But besides these deserters, of which some at least
might with great advantage be recalled to the ranks,
there are other words, which have never found a place
in our literary English, that yet might be profitably
adopted into it. A time arrives for a language, when,
apart from the recoveries I have been speaking of
just now, its own local and provincial dialects are
almost the only source from which it can derive addi-
tions, such as shall really constitute an increase of its
wealth ; while yet such additions from one quarter or
another are most needful, if it is not daily to grow
poorer, if it is ta find any compensation for the
waste which is evermore going forward of the wealth
that in time past it possessed. We have seen how
words wear out, become unserviceable, how the glory
that clothed them once disappears, as the light fades
from the hills ; how they drop away from the stock
and stem of the language as dead leaves from their
parent tree; so that others, a later growth, must
supply their place, if the foliage is not to grow sparser
and thinner every day.
Before, however, we turn to the dialects as likely
to yield here any effectual help, we must form a
juster estimate of what these really are, than is com-
monly entertained ; they must be redeemed in our
minds from that unmerited contempt and neglect with
which they are by too many regarded. We too often
On this matter of American -English compare a very interesting
paper, with the title, * Inroads upon English,* in Blackwood^ s
Magazine^ Oct. 1867, p. 399, sqq.
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214 Diminutions of our Language, lect.
think of a dialect, as of a degraded, distorted, and vul-
garized form of the classical language ; all its depar-
tures from this being for us violations of grammar, or
wrongs which in one kind or another it has suffered
from the uneducated and illiterate by whom mainly
it is employed. But it is nothing of the kind. It
may not have our grammar, but it has a grammar of
its own. If it have here and there a distorted or
mutilated word, much oftenerwhat we esteem such
embodies some curious fact in the earlier histoiy of
the language. A dialect is one of the many forms in
which a language once existed ; but one, as an eminent
French writer has expressed it, which has had misfor-
tunes ;* or which at any rate has not had the good
fortune that befell High-German in Germany, Cas-
tilian in Spain, Tuscan in Italy, that namely of being
* Sainte-Beuve : Je ddfinis un patois, une ancienne langae
qui a eu des malheurs. Littr6 {^Hist, de la Langue Fran^se^
vol. ii. p. 93) : Les faits de langue abondent dans les patois.
Parce qu'ils offrent parfois un mot de la langue litt^raire estropi6
ou quelque perversion manifeste de la syntaxe r^gulidre, on a
€\& port6 It conclure que le reste est & I'avenant, et qu'ils sont,
non pas une formation ind^pendante et originale, mais une
corruption de I'idiome cultiv6 qui, tomb^ en des bouches mal
apprises, y subit tous les supplices de la distorsion. II n'en est
rien ; quand on dte ces taches peu nombreuses et peu profondes,
on trouve un noyau sain et entier. Ce serait se faire une id€e
erron6e que de consid^rer un patois comme du fran9ais alt^r^ ;
il n'y a eu aucun moment oti ce que nous appelons aujourd'hui
le fran9ais ait 6t6 uniform^ment parl6 sur toute la surface de la
France ; et, par cons^uent, il n*y a pas eu de moment non
plus oil il ait pu s'alt^rer chez les paysans et le peuple des
villes pour devenir un patois. Elsewhere the same writer says
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V. The Importance of Dialects. 215
elevated above its compeers and competitors to the
dignity of the classical language of the land. As a
consequence it will not have received the develop-
ment, nor undergone the elaboration, which have been
the portion of its more successful rival ; but for these
very reasons will have often retained a freedom, a
freshness, and a natve/e which the other has in good
measure forgone and lost.*
(vol. ii. p. 150) : Sauf I'usage des bons ^crivains et de la
soci6t6 polie, sauf P^laboration grammaticale (double avantage
que je suis loin de vouloir attdnuer), la langue litt^raire n'est,
non plus, qu*un patois ou dialecte €\ew6 h la supr^matie, et
elle a, comme les autres, ses fautes et ses mdprises.
* Littrd {J/lsi. de la Langue FrauQaise, vol. ii. p. 130) : Un
patois n'a pas d'^crivains qui le fixent, dans le sens oti Ton dit
que les bons auteurs fixent une langue ; un patois n'a^pas les
termes de haute po6sie, de haute Eloquence, de haut style, vu
qu'il est plac^ sur un plan oti les sujets qui comportent tout cela
ne lui appartiennent plus. C*est ce qui lui donne une appa-
rence de familiarity naive, de simplicity narquoise, de rudesse
grossidre, de grace rustique. Mais, sous cette apparence, qui
provient de sa condition mSme, est un fonds solide de bon et
vieux fran9ais, qu'il faut toujours consulter. Compare Ampdre,
La Formation de la Langue Franqaise^ P* 3^1 » ^iiid Schleicher
{pie Deutsche Sprache^ p. no) : Die Mundarten nun sind die
natttrlichen, nach den Gesetzen der sprachgeschichtlichen
Veranderungen gewordenen Formen der deutschen Sprache,
im Gegensatze zu der mehr oder minder gemachten und schul-
meisterisch geregelten und zugestutzten Sprache der Schrift.
Schon hieraus folgt der hohe Werth derselben fOr die wissen-
schaftliche Erforschung unserer Sprache ; hier ist eine reiche
FttUe von Worten und Formen, die, an sich gut und echt, von
der Schriftsprache verschmaht wttrden ; hier finden wir
manches, was wir zur Erklftrung der filteren Sprachdenkmale,
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216 Diminutions of our Language, lect.
Of its words, idioms, turns of speech, many which
we are ready to set down as vulgarisms, solecisms of
speech, violations of the primary rules of grammar, do
no more than attest that those who employ them
have from some cause or another not kept abreast
with the advances which the language has made. The
usages are only local in the fact that, having once
been employed by the great body of a people, they
have now receded from the lips of all except those in
some certain country districts, who have been more
feiithful than others to the traditions of the past.
Thus there are districts of England where for * we
sing' ' ye sing' * they sing,' they decline their plurals,
'we singen' 'ye singen' 'they singen.' This was
not indeed the original plural, but was that form of it
which, coming up about Chaucer's time, was dying
out in Spenser's. He indeed constantly employs it,*
ja zur Erkenntniss der jetzigen Schriftsprache verwerthen kOn-
nen, abgesehen von dem sprachgeschichtlichen, dem lautphy-
siologischen Interesse, welches die aberaus reiche Mannigfal-
tigkeit unserer Mundarten bietet.
* It must be owned that Spenser does not fairly represent
the language of his time, or indeed of any time, affecting as
he does a certain artificial archaism both of words and forms.
Some call in question the justice of this charge, and will fain
have it that he does but write the oldest English of his time.
I cannot so regard it. Jonson, bom only twenty years later,
could not have been mistaken ; and with all its severity there
is a truth in his observation, * Spenser, in affecting the ancients,
writ no language.' And Daniel, bom some ten years later,
implicitly repeats the charge :
< Let others sing of knights and Paladins
In aged accents and untimely words.*
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V. JSarlier and later English 217
but after him it becomes ever rarer in our literary
English. In ^the Homilies I have met it once, in
Drayton,* and even so late as in Fuller; but in his
time it quite disappears.
Now of those who retain such forms you should
esteem not that they violate the laws of the language,
but that they have taken i\it\r permanent stand at that
which was only a point of transition for it, and which
it has now left behind. A countryman will nowadays
say, 'He made me afeard, or *The price of com
ris last market-day,' or 'I will axe him his name ;'
or *I tellj/^,' and you will be tempted to set these
phrases down as barbarous English. They are not
such at all. ' Afeard ' is the regular participle of an
Anglo-Saxon verb ' a-faeran,' as ' afraid ' of ' to affray ;'
See too the remarkable Epistle prefixed by the anonymous
Editor to his Shepfurd^s Calendar^ where the writer glories in
the archaic character of the author, on whom he is annotating.
In the matter, however, which is treated above, Ben Jonson
was at one with him, himself expressing a strong regret that
these flexions had not been retained. * The persons plural,* he
says {English Gramtnary c. xvii.), 'keep the termination of
the first person singular. In former times, till about the reign
of King Henry VIII., they were wont to be formed by adding
en; thus, loven^ say en, complainen. But now (whatsoever is
the cause) it hath quite grown out of use, and that other so
generally prevailed, that I dare not presume to set this afoot
again ; albeit (to tell you my opinion) I am persuaded that
the lack hereof, well considered, will be found a great blemish
to our tongue. For seeing time and person be as it were the
right and left hand of a verb, what can the maiming bring
else, but a lameness to"the whole body ? '
* < The happy shepherds tninsen on the plain.'
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218 Diminutions of our Language, lect.
* ris ' or * risse ' is an old preterite of * to rise ;* ' to
axe' is not a mispronunciation of 'to ask/ but the
constant form which in eariier English the verb
assumed. Even such, a phrase as ' Put ihem things
away/ is not bad, but only antiquated English.*
* Ourn/ which our rustics in the South of England so
freely employ (cf. Gen. xxvi. 20, Wiclif), has been
disallowed by those classes with which rests the final
decision as to what shall stand in a language, and
what shall not ; but it is in itself as correct, it would
hardly be too much to say, more correct than ' ours,'
You are not indeed therefore to conclude that these
* G^nin {Kicriations Philologiques^ vol. i. p. 71) says to the
same effect : II n'y a gudres de faute de fran9ais, je dis faute
g^n^rale, accr^itde, qui n'ait sa raison d'etre, et ne pflt au
besoin produire ses lettres.de noblesse ; et souvent mieux en
rdgle que celles des locutions qui ont usurps leur place au
soleil. The French Academy, in the Preface to the last edition
of the Dictionnaire Historique de la Langue FranqaisCy p. xv.,
has some excellent remarks in respect of acts of similar injus-
tice, into which in our judgment of old authors, and trying the
past by the rules of the present, we are in danger of falling :
Ces ^crivains y seront quelquefois d^fendus contre d*indiscrdtes
critiques, qui leur ont reproch^ comme des fautes de langage
ce qui n*^tait que I'emploi legitime d^ la langue de leur temps.
A chaque 6poque s*6tablissent des habitudes, des conventions,
des rdgles mgme, auxquelles n'ont pu assur^ment se conformer
par avance les 6crivains des ^poques ant^rieures, et qu*il n'est
ni juste ni raisonnable de leur opposer, comme s'il s'agissait de
ces premiers principes dont Pautorit^ est absolue et universelle.
C'est pourtant en vertu de cette jurisprudence retroactive
qu*ont 6t6 condamn^es, chez d'excellents auteurs, des manidres
de parler alors admises, et auxquelles un long abandon n'a pas
toujours enlev6 ce qu*elles avaient de gr^ce et de vivacite.
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V. Mispronunciation. 219
forms are open to you to employ, or that they would
be good English now. They would not ; being de-
partures from that present use and custom, which must
be our standard in what we speak and write ; just as
in our buying and selling we must use the current
coin of the realm, not attempt to pass that which
long since has been called in, whatever intrinsic value
it mayj)ossess.
The same may be asserted of certain ways of pro-
nouncing words, not now in use, except among the
lower classes ; thus, *contrdiy,' 'mischievous,' 'blas-
phemous,' instead of 'cdntrary,' 'mischievous,' 'blas-
phemous.' It would be eapy to show by quotations
from our poets that these are no mispronunciations,
but only the retention of an earlier pronunciation by
the people, after the higher classes have abandoned
it,* And let me here say how well worth your while
it will prove to watch for provincial words and inflec- *
tions, local idioms and modes of pronunciation.
Count nothing, in this kind beneath your notice. Do
not at once ascribe any departure from^what you have
been used to, either in grammar, or pronunciation,
or meaning ascribed to words, to the ignorance or
stupidity of the speaker. If you hear 'nuncheon,'f
do not at once set it down for a malformation of
* A single proof may in each case sufiSce :
* Our wills and fates do so contrdry run.* — Shakespere,
* Ne let mischiivotis witches with their charms.* — Spenser.
* O argument blasphimous, false and iproud.^—Mt/^on.
t This form, which our country people in Hampshire always
employ, either retains the original pronunciation, our received
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220 Diminutioyis of our Language, lect.
'luncheon,' nor 'yeel'* of 'eel/ Lists and collec-
tions of provincial usage, such as I have suggested,
always have their value. If you cannot turn them to
profit yourselves, and they may not stand in close
enough connection with your own studies for this,
there always are those who will thank you for them ;
and to whom the humblest of these collections, care-
one being a modem corruption ; or else, as is more probable,
we have confounded two different words, from which confusion
they have kept clear. In Howell's Vocabulary, 1659, and in
Co^grave*s French and English Dictionary, both words occur :
'nuncion or nuncheon, the afternoon's repast,' (cf. Hudibras^
i. I. 346 : * They took their breakfasts or their nuncheons^),
and < lunchion, a big piece,' i,e» of bread ; both giving * cari-
bot,' which has this meaning, as the French equivalent ; and
compare Gay :
* When hungry thou stood'st staring like an oaf,
I sliced the luncheon from the barley loaf ;'
and Miss Baker (Northamptonshire Glossary) explains * lunch '
as a large lump of bread, or other edible ; " He helped him-
self to a good lunch of cake." * This * nuntion ' may possTbly
help us to the secret of the word. Richardson notes that it is
spelt * noon-shun ' in Browne's Pastorals, which must suggest
as plausible, if nothing more, that the * nuntion ' was origin-
ally the labourer's slight meal, to which he withdrew for the
shunning of the heat of noon : above all when in Lancashire
we find * noon-scape,' and in Norfolk * noon-miss,' for the time
when labourers rest after dinner. The dignity at which
* lunch ' or * luncheon ' has now arrived, as when we read in
the newspapers of a 'magnificent luncheon,^ is quite modem ;
the word belonged a century ago to rustic life, and in literature
had not travelled beyond the * hobnailed pastorals' which
professed to describe that life.
* Holland {Pliny , vol. ii. p. 428, and often) writes it so.
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V. Luncheon^ TeeL 221
fully and conscientiously made, will be in one way or
other of real assistance. * There is the more need to
urge this at the presient, because, notwithstanding the
tenacity with which our country folk cling to their old
forms and usages, still these must now be rapidly
growing fewer ; and there are forces, moral and
material, at work in England, which will probably
cause that of those which now survive the greater
part will within the next fifty years have disappeared.
Many of them even now are only to be gleaned from
such scattered and remote villages as have not yet
been reached by the ravages of the schoolmaster, or
the inroads of the railway.
What has been just now said of our provincial
English, namely, that it is often c?^ English rather
than dad English, is riot less true of many so-called
Americanisms, f There are parts of America where
' het ' is still the participle of * to heat ;' if our Autho-
rized Version had not been meddled with, we should
so read it at Dan. iii. 19 to this day ; where ' holp '
still survives as the perfect of * to help;' *pled' (as
in Spenser) of 'to plead.' Longfellpw use3 'dove'
as the perfect of *to dive;' nor is this a poetical
* An article On English JYtmouns Personal in the Trans-
actions of the Philological Society^ vol. i. p. 277, will attest the
excellent service which an accurate acquaintance with provin-
cial usages may render in the investigation of perplexing
phenomena in English grammar. Compare Guest, Hist, of
English Rhythms, vol. ii. p. 207.
t See Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms^ passim.
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222 Diminutions of our Language, lect.
license, for I lately met the same in a well-written
book of American prose. "
The dialects then are worthy of respectful attention
— and if in their grammar, so in their vocabulary no
less. If the sage or the scholar were required to
invent a word which should designate the slight meal
claimed in some of our southern counties by the
labourer before he begins his mowing in the early
morning, they might be sorely- perplexed to-do it
The Dorsetshire labourer, who demands his 'dew-
bit,' has solved the difiiculty. In the same dialect
they express in a single word that a house has a
northern aspect; it is 'backsunned.' You have
marked the lighting of the sky just above the horizon
when clouds are about to break up and disappeiar.
Whatever name you gave it you would hardly improve
on that of the * weather-gleam,' which in some of our
dialects it bears. And this is what we find con-
tinually, namely that the true art of word-making,
which is hidden from the wise and learned of this
world, is revealed to the husbandman, the mechanic,
the child. Spoken as the dialects are by the actual
cultivators of the soil, they will often be inconceivably
rich in words having to do with the processes of
husbandry ; thus ripe com blown about, or beaten
down by rain or hail, may in East Anglia be said
either to be 'baffled,' or 'nickled,' or 'snaffled,' or
'shuckled,' or 'wilted,'* each of these words having
* See Nail, Dialect of 'East AngH'a^ s. w. * To wilt,' pro-
vincial with us, is not so in America (Marsh, Lectures, i860,
p. 668).
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v. The Richness of Dialects. 223
its own shade of meaning. Spbken by thos6 who are
in constant and close contact with external nature, the
dialects will often possess a fal richer and more
varied nomenclature to set forth the various and
changing features of this than the literaiy language
itself Max Muller has said in a passage 6^ singular
eloquence on the subject of ' dialectical regene-
ration,'* and of dialects as the true feeders of a
language, * We can hardly form an idea of the un-
bounded resources of dialects. When literary lan-
guages have stereotyped one general term, these
dialects will supply fifty, each ^ith its own special
shade of meaning. If new combinations of thought
are evolved in the progress of society, dialects will
readily supply the required names from the store of
their so-called superfluous words. 'f Thus a brook,
a streamlet, a rivulet are all very well, but what dis-
criminating power do they possess as compared with
a 'beck,' a 'bum,' a 'gill/ a 'force,' North-country
words, with each a special signification of its own ?
Words from the local dialects are continually slip-
ping into the land's language. * Poney,' a northern
word, has crept into English during the last century ;
'gruesome,' which has always lived in Scotland, is
creeping back into English, being used by Browning ;
and with it not a few other words firom the same
quarter, as 'blink,' 'canny,' 'douce,' 'daft,' 'feck-
less ' ' eerie ' ' foregather, ' ' glamour, ' ' gloaming, '
^ On the Science of Language, 1st part, p. 60.
t Compare Heyse, System der Sprackwissensckaft^ p. 229.
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224 Diminutions of our Language, lect.
'glower/ 'uncanny/ all excellent in their kind.
Wordsworth has given allowance to ' force/ which I
just now cited as the North-country name for a water-
fall ; and, if my memory do not err, to ' beck,' and
* bum ' as well* * Clever, ' is an excellent example of
a low-bom word which almost without observation
has passed into general allowance. Sir Thomas
Browne noted it two centuries ago as an East Anglian
provincialism, and Ray as dialectic. Johnson pro-
tests against it as 'a low word, scarcely ever used but
in burlesque or conversation.' The fects of the case
do not quite bear his statement out, but there can be
no doubt that it is a parvenu, which has little by little
been struggling up to the position which it has now
obtained, f *Fun' too, a word not to be found in
• What use Luther made of the popular language in his
translation of the Bible he has himself told us, and here is one
secret of its epoch-marking character. These are his words :
< Man muss nicht die Buchstaben in der lateinischen Sprache
fragen, wie man soil deutsche reden ; sondem man muss die
Mutter im Hause, die Kinder auf den Gassen, den gemeinen
Mann auf dem Markte darum fragen, und denselben auf das
Maul sehen, wie sie reden.' Montaigne, who owes not a little
of his reputation to his wonderful style, pleads guilty to the
charge brought in his lifetime against him, that he employed
not a few words and idioms which, till he gave them a wider
. circulation, belonged to his native Gascony alone. Goethe too
has given general currency to words not a few, which were
only provincial before him.
t Nisard (Curiositis de VEtymol. Franq. p. 90) : Les patois
sont k la fois I'asile oti s'est r^fiig^^e en partie Pancienne langue
fran9aise et le d^pdt oti se gardent les 6l6ments de la nouvelle.
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V. Dialects yield us New Words. 225
our earlier Dictionaries, was 'a low cant word' in
Johnson's time and in his estimation.
So much has been done in this matter, the language
has been so largely reinforced, so manifestly enriched
by words which either it has received back after a
longer or shorter absence^ or which in later days it
has derived from the dialects and enlisted for the first
time, as to afford abundant encouragement for at-
tempting much more in the same direction. But these
suggestions must for the present suffice. I reserve
for my lecture which follows the other half of a sub-
ject which is very fiir from being half exhausted^
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226 Diminutions of our Language, lect.
LECTURE VI.
DIMINUTIONS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE,
«
(continued. )
WHAT in my last preceding lecture has been
said must suffice in respect of the words, and
the character of the words, which we have lost or let
go. Of these, indeed, if a language, as it travels on-
wards, loses some, it also acquires others, and pro-
bably many more than it loses ; they are leaves, on
the tree of language, of which if some fall away, a
new succession takes their place. But it is not so, as
I already observed, with \}!\t forms or powers of a lan-
guage, that is, with the various inflections, moods,
duplicate or triplicate formation of tenses. These
the speakers of a language come gradually to per-
ceive that they can do without, and therefore cease
to employ; seeking to suppress. grammatical intri-
cacies, and to obtain grammatical simplicity and, so
far as possible, a pervading uniformity, sometimes
even at the cost of letting go what had real worth,
and contributed to the more lively, if not to the
clearer, setting forth of the inner thought or feeling
of the mind.* Here there is only loss, with no cdm-
• It has been well said, « There is nothing more certain than
tills, that the earlier we can trace l?ack any one language, the
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VI. No New Forms. 227
pensating gain ; or, at all events, diminution only, and
never addition. In this region no creative energy is
at work during the later periods of a language, during
'any, indeed, but quite the eariiest, and such as are
withdrawn from our vision altogether. These are not
as the leaves, but may be. likened to the stem and
leading branches of a tree, whose shape, mould, and
direction are determined at a very early stage of its
growth ; and which age, or accident, or violence may
make fewer, but which cannot become more numer-
ous than they are. I have already slightly referred to
a notable example of this, namely, to the dropping
within historic times of the dual in Greek. And not in
Greek only has it been felt that this was not worth
more full, complete, and consistent are its forms : that the later
we find it existing, the more compressed, colloquial and busi-
nesslike it has become. Like the trees of our forests-, it grows
at first wild, luxuriant, rich in foliage, full of light and shadow,
and flings abroad in its vast branches the fruits of a youthful
and vigorous nature j transplanted to the garden of civilisation
and trained for the purposes of commerce, it becomes regulated,
trimmed, pruned — nature indeed still gives it life, but art pre-
scribes the direction and extent of its vegetation. Always we
perceive a compression, a gradual loss of fine distinctions, a
perishing of form^ terminations, and conjugations in the
younger state of the language. The truth is, that in a language
up to a certain period, there is a real indwelling vitality, a
principle acting unconsciously, but pervasively in every part :
men wield their forms of speech as they do their limbs — spon-
taneously, knowing nothing of their construction or the means
by which these instruments possess their power. It may be
even said that the commencement of the age of self-conscious-
ness is identical with the close of that of vitality in language.*
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228 Diminutions of our Language, lect.
preserving, or at all events that no serious incon-
venience would follow from its dismissal. There is
no such number in the modem German, Danish, or
Swedish ; in the old German and Norse there was.-
In other words, the stronger logic of a later day has
* found no reason for splitting the idea of moreness
into iwoness and muchness,' as Mommsen has quaintly
put it
How many niceties, delicacies, subtleties of lan-
guage, we, speakers of the English tongue, in the
course of centuries have got rid of; how bare (whether
too bare is another question) we have stripped our-
selves ; what simplicity, for better or for worse, reigns
in the present English, as compared with the earlier
forms of the language. Once it had six declensions,
our present English has but one ; it had three genders,
English as it now is, if we except one or two words,
has none ; and the same &ct meets us, at what point
soever we compare the grammar of the past with that
of the present Let me here repeat, that in an esti-
mate of Ihe gain or loss, we mtist not put certainly to
loss everything which a language has dismissed, any
more than everything to gain which it has acquired.
Unnecessary and superfluous forms are no real wealth.
They are often an embarrassment and an encumbrance
rather than a help. The Finnish language has fifteen
cases.* Without pretending to know exactly what it
can effect by them, I feel confident that it cannot
effect more with its fifteen than the Greek is able to
* Barnes, Philological Grammar, p. io6.
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VI. Mdinction qf Powers. 229
do with five. The half here may indeed be more
than the whole. It therefore seems to me that some
words of Otfried Muller, in many ways admirable,
exaggerate the disadvantages consequent on a reduc-
tion of the forms of a language. * It may be ob-
served/ he says, ' that in the lapse of ages, from the
time that the progress of language can be observed,
grammatical forms, such as the signs of cases, moods
and tenses, have never been increased in number, but
have been constantly diminishing. The history of the
Romance, as well as of the Germanic, languages
shows in the clearest manner how a grammar, once
powerful and copious, has been gradually weakened
and impoverished, until at last it preserves only a few
fragments of its ancient inflections. Now there is no
doubt that this luxuriance of grammatical forms is not
an essential part of a language, considered merely as
a vehicle of thought. It is well known that the
Chinese language, which is merely a collection of
radical words destitute of grammatical forms, can ex-
press even philosophical ideas with tolerable precision ;
and the English, which from the mode of its forma-
tion by a mixture of different tongues, has been
stripped of its grammatical inflections more completely
than any other European language, seems, neverthe-
less, even to a foreigner, to be distinguished by its
energetic eloquence. All this must be admitted by
every unprejudiced inquirer ; but yet it cannot be
overlooked, that this copiousness of grammatical
forms, and the fine shades of meaning which they
express, evince a nicety of observation, and a faculty
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230 Diminvtions of our Languctge. lect.
of distinguishing, which unquestionably prove that
the race of mankind among whom these languages
arose was characterized by a remarkable correctness
and subdety of thought Nor can any modem
European, who forms in his mind a lively image of
the classical languages in their ancient grammatical
luxuriance, and compares them with his mother
tongue, conceal from himself that in the ancient lan-
guages the words, with their inflections, clothed as it
were with muscles and sinews, come forward like
living bodies, full of expression and character, while
in the modern tongues the words seem shrunk up
into mere skeletons.'*
"Whether languages are as much impoverished by
this process as is here assumed, may be fairly ques-
tioned. I will endeavor to give you some materials
which shall assist you in forming your own judgment
in the matter ;f not bringing before you forms which
• Literature of Greece, p. 5.
t I will also append the judgment of another scholar (Renan,
Les Langues Sitmtiques, p. 412) : Bien lorn de se reprdsenter
r^tat actuel comme le d6veloppeinent d'un germe primitive
moins complet et plus simple que P6tat qui a suivi, les plus
profonds linguistes sont unanimes pour placer k Penfance de
Tesprit humain des langues S3mth€tiques, obscures, compliqu^,
si compliqu€es mSme que c'est le besoin d'un langage plus
facile qui a port^ les generations posterieures k abandonner la
langue savante des anc6tres. II serait possible, en prenant
Tune aprds Tautre les langues de presque tous les pays oii
Thumanite a une histoire, d'y verifier cette marche constaate
de la S3mthdse & -I'analyse. Partout une langue ancienne a
fait place d, une langue vulgaire, qui ne constitue pas, & vrai
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VI. Terminations in * eas.^ 231
the language has relinquished long ago, but mainly
such as it is relinquishing at the present instant ;
these, touching us so nearly, will have more than a
merely archaic interest for us. Thus the words which
retain the Romance female termination in ' ess,'* as
* heir, 'which makes 'heiress,' and 'prophet' 'pro-
phetess,' are every day becoming fewer. This has
already fallen away in so many instances, and is
evidently becoming of unfrequent use in so many
more, that, if we may augur of the future from the
analogy of the past, it will one day wholly vanish from
our tongue. Thus all these occur in Wiclif s Bible :
'techeress' (2 Chron. xxxv. 25) ; 'friendess' (Prov.
vii. 4) ; ' servantess' (Gen. xvi. 2) ; 'leperess' (=sal-
tatrix, Ecclus. ix. 4) ; 'daunceress' (Ecclus. ix. 4) ;
^neighboress' (Exod. iii. 22) ; ' sinneress ' (Luke vii.
37) ; 'purpuress' (Acts xvi. 14) ; 'cousiness' (Luke
i. 36) ; 'slayeress ' (Tob. iii. 9) ; * devouress ' (Ezek.
xxxvi. 13); 'spousess' (Prov. v. 19); 'ihralles?'
dire, un idiome nouveau, mais plutdt une transformation de
celle qui Pa prdcdd^ : celle-ci, plus savante, chargde de
flexions pour exprimer les rapports infiniment ddlicats de la
pens^e, plus riche m6me dans son ordre d'iddes, bien que cet
ordre fi^t comparativement moins ^tendu, image en un mot de
la spontaneity primitive, oti I'esprit accumulait les elements
dans une confuse unite, et perdait dans le tout la vue analy-
tique des parties ; le dialecte modeme, au contraire, corres-
pondant k un progrds d'analyse, plus clair, plus cxplicite,
s^parant ce que les anciens assemblaient, brisant les m^canismes
de Tancienne langue pour donner k chaque idde et k chaque
relation son expression isol^e.
• Diez, Rom, Gram, vol. iii. pp. 277, 326, 344.
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232 Diminutions of our Language, lect.
(Jer. xxxiv. i6) ; ' dwelleress ' (Jen xxi. 13) ; 'wailer-
ess ' (Jer. xix. 1 7) ; ' cheseress ' (==electrix, Wisd. viii.
4); 'singeress' (2 Chron. xxxv. 25); 'breakeress/
'waiteress/ this last indeed having recently come up
again. Add to these * souteress ' {Piers Ploughman),
' chideress, ' * constabless, ' ' moveress, ' ' jangleress,
'vengeress/ 'soudaness' (=sultana), 'guideress,'
* charmeress ' (all in Chaucer). Others reached to far
later periods of the language ; thus * vanqueress '
(Fabyan), *Ethiopess' (Raleigh), * exactress ' (Isai.
xiv. 4, margin), * inhabitress ' ( Jer. x. 17); 'poisoner-
ess' (Greneway) ; 'knightess' (Udal) ; 'pedleress,'
* championess,' 'vassaless,' *avengeress,' 'warriour-
ess,' 'victoress,' 'creatress,' 'tyranness,' 'Titaness,'
* Britoness ' (all in Spenser) ; 'offendress,' 'fornica-
tress,' 'cloistress,' 'jointress' (all in Shakespeare) ;
' vowess ' (Holinshed) ; * ministress,' ' flatteress ' (both
in Hplland) ; 'captainess' (Sidney); 'treasuress'
{The Goldtn Poke)] 'saintess' (Sir T. Urquhart) ;
'leadress' (F. Thynne) ; 'hcroess,' 'dragoness,' 'but-
leress,' ' contendress, 'waggoness,' 'rectress' (all in
Chapman) ; 'shootress' (Fairfax) ; 'archeress' (Fan-
shawe) ; ' architectress ' (Sandys) ; 'clientess,' 'pan-
dress' (both in Middleton) ; 'papess,' 'Jesuitess'
(Bishop Hall); 'incitress' (Gayton) ; 'mediatress'
(H. More) ; ' fautress,' 'herdess' (both in Browne) ;
'neatress' (=neat-herdess, Warner); 'soldieress,'
' guardianess,' ' votaress ' (all in Beaumont and Fletch-
er) ; 'comfortress,' 'fosteress' (Ben Jonson) ; 'fac-
tress' (Ford); ' soveraintess ' (Sylvester); 'preser-
veress' (Daniel; 'hermitress'(Drummond); 'emula-
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VI. Terminations in ' sterJ 233
tress' (Skelton) ; * solicitress,' * impostress/ *build-
ress/ * intrudress ' (all in Fuller) ; * favouresis ' (Hake-
well) ; ' commandress ' (Burton) ; ' monarchess,'
*discipless' (Speed) ; 'auditress/ 'cateress/ *chant-
ress,' 'prelatess' (all in Milton); *saviouress'
(Jeremy Taylor); 'citess/ *divineress' (both in
Dryden) ; *deaness' (Sterne) ; 'detractress' (Addi-
son); * hucksteress ' (Howell); 'tutoress,' 'legisla-
tress' (both . in Shaftesbury); 'farmeress' (Lord
Peterborough, Ze//er to Pope) ; * suitress ' (Rowe) ;
* nomenclatress ' {Guardian) ; 'pilgrimess,' Maddess/
still surviving in the contracted form of ' lass ;' with
others which, I doubt not, a completer catalogue
would contain.'*
The same has happened with another feminine
suffix, with the Saxon *ster,' which takes the place of
*er,' where a female doer is intended. f 'Spinner'
and ' spinster' are the only pair of such words which
still survive. There were formerly many such ; thus
'baker' had ' bakester,' being the female who baked ;
' brewer ' had ' brewster ' {Piers Ploughman, 3087) ;
'sewer' 'sewster;' 'reader', 'readster;', 'seamer'
'seamster;' 'weaver' 'webster' (Golding, Ovid,
p. 77); 'hopper' 'hoppester;' 'fruiterer' ' fruitester ;'
' tumbler ' ' tumblester ' (all in Chaucer) ; ' host '
• In Cotgrave's Dictionary I note *praiseress,' *com-
mendress,' *fluteress,* * possesseress,* *loveress,* *regentess,'
but have never met them in use.
t On this termination see J. Grimm, Deutsche Gram,, vol.
ii. p. 134 ; vol. iii. p. 339 ; Donaldson, New Cratylus, 3rd
edit. p. 419.
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234 Diminutions of our Language, lect.
' hotestre ' {Ayenhik) ; 'knitter' ' knitster ' (the word
still lives in Devon) : * harpster ' I have never met in
use ; but I have seen it quoted. Add to these * whit-
ster' (a female bleacher, Shakespeare), 'bandster,'the
woman who binds up the sheaves (Cleveland dialect),
* wafrester,' the woman who made wafers for the priest
( Piers Ploughman) ; * kempster ' (pectrix), ' diyster '
(siccatrix), 'brawdster' (=embroideress), and * sal-
ster' (salinaria).* It is a singular evidence of the
richness of a language in forms at the earlier stages of
its existence, that not a few of the words which had,
as we have just seen, a feminine termination in ' ess,'
had also a second in 'ster.' Thus, 'daunser,' beside
*daunseress,' had also 'daunster' (Ecclus. ix. 4) •
*wailer,' beside 'waileress,' had *wailster' -(Jen ix.
17); 'dweller' *dwelster' (Jer. xxi. 13); and
* singer' 'singster' (2 Kin. xix. 35); so too,
*chider' had *chidester' (Chaucer), as well as
*chideress,' 'slayer' *slayster' (Tob. iii. 9), as well
as 'slayeress,' 'chooser' 'chesister' (Wisd. viii. 4),
as well as 'cheseress,' with others that might be
named.
It is impossible then to subscribe to Marsh's state-
ment, high as his authority on a matter of English
scholarship must be, when he afl&rms, 'I find no
positive evidence to show that the termination " ster"
was ever regarded as a feminine termination in Eng-
lish. 'f It has indeed been urged that th© existence
* I am indebted for these last four to a Nominale in the
Naticnal Antiquities y vol. i. p. 216.
t Matzher, Er^l, Gram, p. 243.
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VI. Significance of ' ater ' forgotten. 235
of such words as ' seamstr^jj/ 'songstwj^f,' is decisive
proof that the ending 'ster' or *estre,' of itself was
not counted sufficient to designate persons as females ;
since if 'seanw/^' and * songj/fer ' had been felt to be
already feminine, no one would have thought of
doubling on these, and adding a second female ter-
mination; seamj/r^jj,' *songj/r^j.' But all which
this proves is, that when the final * ess ' was super-
added to these already feminine forms, and all exam-
ples of it belong to a comparatively late period of the
language, the true significance of this ending had
been lost sight of and forgotten.* The same may be
affirmed of such other of these feminine forms as are
now applied to men, such as * gamester,' 'youngster,'
•oldster,' *drugster' (South), 'huckster,' *hackster'
(=swordsman, Milton, prose), 'teamster,' 'throwster,'
'rhymester,' 'punster' (^Spectator), 'tapster, 'malster,'
'whipster,' ' lewdster ' (Shakespeare), 'trickster.'
Either like ' teamster,' and ' punster,' the words did
not come into being till the force of this termination
was altogether forgotten ;f or like 'tapster,' which
* Richardson's earliest example of < seamstress ' is from Gay,
of * songstress,' from Thomson. I find however * sempstress *
in Olearius' Voyages and Travels, 1669, p. 43. As late as
Ben Jonson, * seamster ' and * songster ' expressed the female
seamer and singer ; in his Masque of Christmas , one of the
children of Christmas is «Wassel, like a neat sempster and
songster : her page bearing a brown bowl.* Compare a pas-
sage from Holland's Leaguer, 1632 : <A tyre-woman of
phantastical ornaments, a sempster for ruffes, cuffes, smocks
and waistcoats.'
t This was about the time of Henry VIII. In proof of the
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236 Dimiyiviions of our Language, lect.
was still female in Skelton's time ( ' a tapster like a
lady bright'), as it is now in Dutch and Frisian, and
distinguished from * tapper/ the man who has charge
of the tap, or as *bakester,' at this day used in Scot-
land for 'baker,' as 'dyester,' for 'dyer,' the word
did originally belong of right and exclusively to
women ; ♦ but with the gradual transfer of the occu-
pation to men, and an increasing forgetfulness of
what this termination implied, there went also a trans-
fer of the name,f just as in other words, and out of
confusion which reigned on the subject in Shakespeare's time,
see his use of 'spinster' as == 'spinner,* the man spinning,
Henry VIIL^ Act i. Sc. 2 ; and doubtless too in Othello^ Act i.
Sc. I. And a little later in HowelPs Vocabulary^ 1659,
•spinner* and 'spinster* are both referred to the male sex,
and the barbarous * spinstress ' invented for the female.
* The Latin equivalent for * malster * in the Promptorium
Parvidorum is 'brasia/rw:.*
t In the Nominate referred to, p. 234, the words, *haec
auxiatrix, a hutister,* occur. That the huckster is properly tjje
female pedlar is sufficiently plain. * To hawk ' was formerly
* to huck * — it is so used by Bishop Andrews, and the * hucker *
or hawker (the German * h5ker * or * hOcker *) is the man who
* bucks,* * hawks,* or peddles, the * huckster ' the woman who
does the same. Howell then and others employing * huck-
ster^xj,* fall into the same barbarous excess of expression,
whereof we ate all guilty in 'seamstress* and 'songstress.* I
take the opportunity of noting another curious excess of ex-
pression that has succeeded in establishing itself in the lan-
guage. In books of two or three hundred years ago, we find
'adulter* (Tyndale), 'poulter,* (Shakespeare), 'cater* (Dray-
ton), ' roystfer * (Gascoigne), * upholster * (Strype), * embroider '
(Holland) ; and these all sufficiently justify themselves ;
* adulter,* a transfer of a Latin word into English, * poulter *
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VI. Significance of Forms forgotten. 237
the same causes, the converse finds place; and
* baker' or 'brewer/ not 'bakester' or 'brewster/
would be now applied to the woman baking or brew-
ing. So entirely has this power of the language
died out, that it survives more apparently than really
even in * spinner ' and * spinster ;' seeing that * spin-
ster ' has now quite another meaning than that of a
woman spinning ; whom, as well as the man, we
should call, not a 'spinster,' but a 'spinner.'* It
would be hard to believe, but for the constant expe-
rience we have of the fact, how soon and how easily
the true law and significance of some form, which
has never ceased to be in everybody's mouth, may
yet be lost sight of by all. No more curious chapter
one dealing in poults, 'cater,* in cates, and so on ; but the
sense of this final * er,* the remnant of the Anglo-Saxon * wer,'
a man, and of what it indicates, namely the habitual doer of a
thing, is so strong, that men have not been content without
adding it a second time to all these words ; and they are sever-
ally now 'adulterer,' 'poulterer,' 'caterer,' 'roysterer,'^* up-
holsterer,' ' embroiderer.' ' Launder ' in like manner became
'launderer,* though both one and the other have now given
way to ' laundress.' That this superaddition has its root in the
linguistic instinct of our people is evident from the fact that
the same has been attempted in other words, though without
the same success ; thus * fisherer * (it occurs in Cotgrave) is in
provincial usage for 'fisher' (see Forby and other local glos-
saries) ; and the same has extended to words of a different
formation as to 'burglarer' for 'burglar' (^M\\&r' s ffudibras) ;
to ' musicianer,' * physicianer,' 'masoner' (all in Forby) ; to
'politicianer,' a vulgar Americanism; to 'poeter,' a vulgar
Anglicism, and to others.
♦ Notes and Queries^ No. 157.
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238 Diminutions of our Language, lect.
in the history of language could be written than one
which should trace the transgressions of its most
primary laws, the violations of analogy and the like,
which follow hereupon ; the plurals, as 'chicken,'*
which are dealt with as singulars, the singulars, like
'riches' (richesse),f 'pease' (pisum, pois),J 'alms'
( ' almesse ' in Coverdale, ) * eaves,' * summons '
(summoneas), * Cyclops,' which on the score of the
final 's' are assumed to be plurals.
One example of the kind is familiar to us all ; to
which yet it may be worth adverting as a signal
example of this forgetfulness which may overtake a
whole people, of the true meaning of a grammatical
form which they have never ceased to employ, I
refer to the mistaken assumption that the * s ' of the
• When Wallis wrote, it was only beginning to be forgotten
that * chick' was the singular, and * chicken' the plural:
< Sunt qui dicutU in singulari '* chicken,'' et in plural!
"chickens;" and even now the words are in many country
parts correctly employed. In Sussex, a correspondent writes,
they would as soon think of saying * oxens ' as * chickens.'
t See Chaucer, Romance of the Rose^ 1032, where Richesse,
*an hi^h lady of great noblesse,' is one of the persons of the
allegory.. In Tyndale's Version of the Bible we read at
James v. 2, * Your riches is corrupte ;* in the Geneva * is '
gives place to * are,' which stands in our Version. This has so
entirely escaped Ben Jonson, English scholar as he was, that
in his Grammar he cites * riches as an example of an English
word wanting a singular ; and at a later day Wemyss {Biblicai
Gleanings^ p. 212) complains of a false concord at Rev. xviii.
17 : * For in one hour so great riches is come to nought.'
X * Set shallow brooks to surging seas.
An orient pearl to a white /ror^. — Futtenham.
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VI. The Unglish Genitive. 239
genitive, as, the king's countenance,' was merely a
more rapid way of pronouncing *the king his coun-
tenance,' and that the final 's' in king's was in fact
an elided 'his.' This explanation for a long time
prevailed almost universally; I believe there are
many who accept it still. It was in vain that here
and there one more accurately acquainted with the
past history of ojur tongue protested against this
'monstrous syntax,' as Ben Jonson justly calls it*
It was in vain that Wallis, another English scholar of
the seventeenth century, pointed out that the slightest
examination of the facts revealed the untenable
character of this explanation, seeing that we do not
merely say *the king^s countenance,' but *the queen's
countenance,' where 'the queen his countenance
cannot be intended ;f we do not say merely ' the child's
bread,' but 'the ^MtZr^'j' bread,' where it is iio less
impossible to resolve the phrases into ' the children his
bread. J Notwithstanding these protests, the error
• It is curious that, despite this protest, one of his plays has
for its name, Sefanus Ms Fall,
t Even this does not startle Addison, or cause him any mis-
giving ; on the contrary he boldly asserts {^Spectator, No. 135),
*The same single letter " s " on many occasions does the ofl&ce
of a whole word, and represents the " his " or " Iter " of our
forefathers.'
X Wallis excellently well disposes of this scheme, although
less successful in showing what this * s ' does mean than in
showing what it cannot mean {jGram, Ling, Anglic,^ c. v.) :
Qui autem arbitrantur illud s, loco his adjunctum esse (priori
scilicet parte per aphseresim absciss^), ideoque apostrophi
notam semper vel pingendam esse, vel saltem subintelligendam,
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240 BiminiUions of our Language, lect.
held its ground. This much indeed of a plea it could
make for itself, that such an actual employment of
* his ' had found its way into the language, as early as
the fourteenth century, and had been in occasional,
though rare use, from that time downward.* Yet
this, which has only been elicited by the researches of
recent scholars, does not in the least justify those who
assumed that in the ordinary ' s ' of the genitive were
to be found the remains of * his ' — an error from which
the books of scholars in the seventeenth, and in the
early decade of the eighteenth century are -not a
whit clearer than those of others. Spenser, Donne,
Fuller, Jeremy Taylor, all fell into it; Diyden more
than once helps out his verse with an additional
syllable in this way gained. It has forced itself into
our Prayer Book where the * Prayer for all sorts and
conditions of men, 'added by Bishop Sanderson to the
last revision of the Liturgy in 1661, ends with these
words, *and this we beg for Jesus Christ his sake.'f
omnino errant. Quamvis enim non negem quin apostrophi
nota commode nonnunquam affigi possit, ut ipsius litterse s usus
distinctitts, ubi opus est, percipiatur ; ita tamen semper fieri
debere, aut etiam ideo fieri quia vocem his imiuat, omnino
nego. Adjungitur ehim et foeminarum nominibus propriis, et
substantivis pluralibus, ubi vox his sine solcecismo locum
habere non potest : atque etiam in possessivis ours, yours^
th^irs^ herSf ubi vocem his innui nemo somniaret.
• See the proofs in Marsh, Manual of the English Language^
English Edit., pp. 280, 293.
t It would not exceed the authority of our University Presses,
if this were removed from the Prayer Book. Such a liberty
they have already assumed with the Bible. In all earlier edi-
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VI. Adjectives in ' en/ 241
I need hardly tell you that this ' s ' is in fact the one
remnant of flexion surviving in the singular number
of our English noun substantives; it is in all the
Indo-European languages the orignal sign of the
genitive, or at any rate the earliest of which we can
take cognizance ; and just as in Latin * lapis ' makes
' lapidis ' in the genitive, so ' king,' ' queen,' ' child,'
make severally * kings,' 'queens,' 'childs,' the
apostrophe, an apparent note of elision, being a mere
modern expedient, *a late a refinement,' as Ash calls
it,* to distinguish the genitive singular from the
plural cases, f
I will call to your notice another example of this
willingness to dispense with inflection, of this en-
deavour to reduce the forms of a language to the
fewest possible, consistent with the accurate commu-
nication of thought Of our adjectives in ' en, ' formed
on substantives, and expressing the material or sub-
stance of a thing, the Greek tvoz, a vast number have
tions of the Authorized Version it stood at I Kin. xv. 14:
* Nevertheless Asa his heart was perfect with the Lord ;' it is
* Asa's heart * now. In the same way * Mordecai his matters *
(Esth. iii. 4) has been silently changed into * Mordecat's mat-
ters ;* while * by Naomi her instruction Ruth lieth at Boaz his
feet,' in the heading of Ruth iii. has been as little allowed to
stand.
* In a good note on the matter, p. 6, in the Comprehensive
Grammar prefixed to his Dictionary^ London, 1775.
t See Grimm, Deutsche Gram,y vol. ii. pp. 609, 944 ; and
on the remarkable employment of it not merely as the sign of
the genitive singular, but also of the plural, Loth, Angelsach*
sisck-Englische Grammatih, p. 203.
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242 JDimintUions of our Language, lect.
gone, many others are going, out of use ; we having
learned to content ourselves with the bare juxtaposi-
tion of the substantive itself, as sufficiently expressing
our meaning. Thus instead of * go/den pin ' we say
*goId pin ;' instead of * earthen works ' we say * earth-
works/ 'Golden' and 'earthen,' it is true, still
belong to our living speech, though mainly as part of
our poetic diction, or of the solemn and thus stereo-
typed language of Scripture ; but a whole company of
such words have nearly or quite disappeared ; some
recently, some long ago. * Steelen,' ' flowren,'
'thomen,' 'clouden,' 'rocken,' 'firen,' belong, so
for as I know, only to a very early period of the lan-
guage. ' Rosen ' also went early ; Chaucer is my
latest authority for it ( ' rosen chapelet ') ; as also for
* iven,' or of ivy ; * hairen ' is in Wiclif and in Chau-
cer; 'stonen' in the former (John ii. 6).* 'Silvern'
stood originally in Wiclif 's Bible ( ' silverne housis to
Diane,' Acts viv. 24) ; but already in the second re-
cension this was exchanged for 'silver;' 'homen,'
still in our dialects, he also employs, with ' clayen '
(Job 'w. 19), and 'iverene' (Cant vi. 4) or made of
ivory. ' Tinnen ' occurs in Sylvester!s Du Bartas ;
in Bacon it is never ' the Milky Way ' but ' the Milken, '
In the coarse polemics of the Reformation the phrase,
'breaden god,' provoked by the Romish doctrine of
• The existence or < stony ' (=lapidosus, steinig) does not
make * stonen * (=lapideus, steinem) superfluous any more
than ^earthy* makes * earthen' and * earthly.' That part
of the field in which the good seed withered so quickly (Matt.
xiii. 5) was * stony ;' the vessels which held the water turned
into wine (John ii. 6) were * stonen.*
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VI. Adjectives ending in ^en.^ 243
transubstantiation, is of frequent recurrence, and is
found as late as in Oldham. ' Mothern parchments
is in Fulke ; ' iwiggen bottle ' and * ihreaden sail ' in
Shakespeare; ^yewen* or ^ewghen bow/ in Spenser ;
' cedarn alley ' and ' azurn sheen * in Milton ; * boxen
leaves' in Dryden; *"a corden ladder' in Arthur
Brooke; *a ireen cup' in Jeremy Taylor; ^eldern
popguns ' in Sir Thomas Overbury ; * a glassen breast '
in Whitlock ; ' a reeden hat ' in Coryat ; ' a wispeti
garland' in Gabriel Harvey; 'yamen' occurs in
Turberville; 'fursen' in Holland; while 'bricken,'
'papem,' *elmen,' appear from our provincial glos-
saries to be still in use.*
It is true that some of these adjectives still hold
their ground ; but the roots which sustain even these
are being gradually cut away from beneath them.
Thus * brazen ' might at first sight seem as strongly
established in the language as ever ; but this is very
for from the case. Even now it only lives in a trop-
ical and secondary sense, as * a brazen face ;' or if in
a literal, in poetic diction or in the consecrated lan-
guage of Scripture, as * the brazen serpent ;' otherwise
we say * a brass ferthing,' ' a brass candlestick.' It is
the same with 'oaten,' 'oaken,' 'birchen,' 'beechen,'
'strawen,' and many more, whereof some are obso-
lescent, some obsolete, the language manifestly
tending now, as it has tended for centuries past, to
the getting quit of all these, and to the satisfying of
• For a long list of words of this formation which never
passed from the Anglo-Saxon into the English, see Loth,
Afigelsachsisch-EngliscJu Grammatiky p. 332.
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244 Diminutions of our Language, lect.
itself with an adjectival apposition of the substantive
instead.
There are other examples of the manner in which
a language, as it travels onward, simplifies itself,
approaches more and more to a grammatical and
logical uniformity, seeks to do the same thing always
in the same manner ; where it has two or more ways
of conducting a single operation, disuses, and so
•loses, all save one ; and thus becomes, no doubt,
easier to be mastered, more handy and manageable ;
for its veiy riches were to many an embarrassment
and a perplexity; but at the same time limits and
restrains its own freedom of action, and is in danger
of forfeiting elements of strength, variety and beauty,
which it once possessed. Take for instance the ten-
dency of our verbs to let go their strong preterites,
and to substitute weak ones in their room ; or, where
they have two or three preterites, to retain only one
of these, and that almost invariably the weak.
But before proceeding further let me trace the steps
by which it has come to pass that of our preterites
some are strong and some weak, and explain what
these terms, objected to by some, but as I think
WTongly, severally mean. The Indo-European lan-
guages at the earliest period that we know formed
their preterites by reduplication ; of which not incon-
siderable traces still remain in the Latin, as in *cano'
' cecini, ' ' tundo ' ' tutudi, * and though not so clearly in
'video' *vidi' (=*vevidi'), while the same is a
regular part of the Greek conjugation. But this re-
duplication only survived in one of the Gothic lan-
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VI. Strong and weak Preterites. 245
guages. From the Anglo-Saxon it had died out, and,
if leaving any, yet certainly the very faintest traces
behind it, long before it comes within the scope of
our vision. With the perishing of this, the internal
vowel-change, or variation of the radical vowel (we
want some good equivalent for the German 'ablaut')
which appears to have been properly no more than an
euphonic process, was adopted as a meatis of marking
flexion, and as the sign of the past ; thus ' grow
*grew,' 'cleave* 'clove,' 'dive' 'dove.' At the
same time there must have been that of indeterminate
and capricious about this which caused the language-
speakers to seek for some plainer and more obvious
sign, and as often as new verbs were introduced into
the language, they marked the preterite in these by
adding to the verb in its crude state the auxiliary
' did ;' thus 'I love,' in the perfect, * I love did,' or
when the words had grown together, ' I loved ;'
leaving in most instances the radical vowel unchanged.
It will follow from this that the strong verbs are in-
variably the older, the weak the newer, in the lan-
guage.*
* J. Grimm ijOetUsche Gram,, vol. i. p. 1040) : Dass die
Starke Form die altere, kraftigere, innere ; die schwache die
spatere, gehemmtere und mehr fiusseriiche sey, leuchtet ein.
Elsewhere, speaking generally of inflections by internal vowel
change, he characterizes them as a < chief beauty ' (hauptschOn-
heit) of the Teutonic languages. Marsh {Mamial of the 'Eng-
lish iMttguage, p. 233, English ed.) protests, though, as it
seems to me, on no sufficient grounds, against these 'terms
'strong ' and ' weak,' as themselves fanciful and inappropriate.
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246 Diminutions of our Language, lect.
But for all this the battle is not to the strong.
Multitudes of these have already disappeared, many
more are in process of disappearing. For example,
'shape' has now a weak preterite, 'shaped,' it had
once a strong one, ' shope ' (Coverdale) ; ' bake ' has
now a weak preterite, * baked,' it had once a strong
one, ' boke ;' the preterite of * glide ' is now ' glided ;'
it was once *glod^' or *glid;* 'help' makes now
* helped,' it made once ' halp ' and * holp.' ' Creep '
made *crope,' still current in the north of England,
and * crep ' {S/ory of Genesis) ; * weep ' * wope ' and
' wep ;' 'yell ' * yoU ;' * starve ' ' storve ;' ' washe '
* wishe ' (all in Chaucer) ; * seethe ' * soth ' or ' sod '
(Gen. XXV. 29) ; * sheer ' once made * shore ;' as
' leap ' made ' lep ' and ' lope ' (Spenser) ; *snow '
' snew ;' * thaw ' * thew ;' * gnaw ' * gnew ;' ^ sow '
* sew ;' ' delve ' ' dalf ' and * dolve ;' * sweat ' * swat ;'
'yield' 'yold' (both in Spenser) and also *yald;'
* reach ' ' raught ;' * melt ' ' molt ;' ' wax ' ' wex ' and
' wox ;' * squeeze ' * squoze ;' ' laugh ' ' leugh ;'
'knead' 'kned,' 'beat' 'bet' (Coverdale) ; with
others more than can be enumerated here. * A very
* The entire ignorance as to the past historic evolution of
the language, with which some have undertaken to write about
it, is curious. Thus the author of Observations upon the Eng-
Usk Language^ without date, but published about 1730, treats
all these strong preterites as of recent introduction, counting
*knew' to have lately expelled *knowed,' <rose' to have
acted the same part » toward *rised,' and of course esteeming
them so many barbarous violations of the laws of the language ;
and concluding with the warning that • great care must be
taken to prevent their increase.' I !— p. 24. Cobbett does not
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VI. Strong Preterites now escthid. 247
lai^ge number of these still survive in our provincial
dialects.
Observe further that where verbs have not actually •
renounced their strong preterites, and contented them-
selves with weak in their room, yet, once possessing
two, perhaps three of these strong, they now retain
only one. The others they have let go. Thus * chide '
had once *chid ' and *chode,' but though 'chode' is
in our Bible (Gen. xxxi. 36), it has not maintained
itself in our speech ; ' sling ' had * slung ' and * slang '
(i Sam. xvii. 49) ; only ' slung ' remains ; * fling 'had
once ' flung ' and * flang ;' * strive ' had * strove ' and
*strave' (Holland); 'smite' had * smote' and
'smate;' 'stick' had 'stuck' and 'stack;' 'tread'
had * trod ' and ' trad ;' * choose ' had ' chose ' and
'chase' (Elyot) ; 'give' had 'gove' and 'gave;'
' spin ' ' spun ' and ' span ;' ' steal ' 'stole ' and ' stale ;'
'lead' had 'lode' 'led' and 'lad;' 'write' 'writ'
'wrote' and 'wrate.' In these instances, and in
many more, only one preterite remains in use.
Observe too that wherever a struggle is now going
forward between weak and strong forms, which at the
present shall continue, the weak are carrying the day :
'climbed' is gaining the upper hand of 'clomb,'
fall into this absurdity, yet proposes in his English Grammar ^
that they should all be abolished as incbnvenient. There are
two letters in Th^ Spectator, Nos. 78 and 80, on the relations
between *who,' * which,* and *that,' singularly illustrative of
the same absolute ignorance of the whole past of the language.
The writers throughout assume * that ' to have recently dis-
placed * which,* as a relative pronoun !
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248 Diminutiona of our Language, lect.
* swelled ' of * swoll, ' * hanged ' of * hung. ' There are,
it is true, exceptions to this ; and these not quite so
few as at first one might suppose. Thus ' they have
digged a pit ' stands in our Bibles ; we should now say
* dug. ' * Shaked ' . shined ' and * shrinked ' in like
manner are there ; while we only admit ' shook '
* shone ' and * shrunk ' or ' shrank ;' ' to catch ' had
*catched' (Bacon) as well as 'caught;' 'to stick'
makes 'sticked' in Coverdale's Bible; it has only
' stuck ' for a preterite now ; in the same ' to swim '
had * swimmed ;' it has now only ' swum ^ or * swam.'
' Growed ' and not ' grew ' is in Piers Ploughman the
perfect of Ho grow ;' * spended ' and not ' spent ' of
* to spend ' in Wiclif. But these are the exceptions ;
and we may anticipate a time, though, still far off,
when all English verbs will form their preterites
weakly ; not without serious detriment to the fulness,
variety, and force, which in this respect the language
even now displays, and once far more signally dis-
played. *
It is found in practice that men care very little for
a grammatical right or wrong, if by the ignoring of
this they can procure a handier implement of use.
The consideration of convenience will override for
them every other. Our English verbs formed on the
passive participle past of the Latin verb, as for in-
stance *to devote,' 'to corrupt,' * to circumcise,' have
t J. Grimm, Deutsche Gram,^ vol. i. p. 839) : Die starke
Flexion stufenweise versinkt and ausstirbt, die schwache aber
um sich greift. Cf. i. 994, 1040 ; ii. 5 ; iv. 509.
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VI. Strong Preterites disappearing. 249
in a large number of instances been preceded by
verbs which formed themselves more correctly from
the present tense active; thus 'to devove' (Holland)
preceded 'to devote ;* 'to corrump' (Wiclif, Mai. iii.
1 1 ) * to corrnpt ;' ' to circumcide ' (Coverdale, Ezek.
xvi. 30) 'to circumcise;' though these with others
like them, ' to compromit ' (Capgrave), 'tosuspeck,'
'to correck,' 'to instruck' (all in Coverdale), have
been unable to make good . their footing in the lan-
guage, having every one given place to those which
we now employ. We need not look hx for the motive
which led to the taking of the participle past of the
Latin verb as that on which to form the English. In
many cases it was difficult, in some apparently impos-
sible, to form this on the Latin present ' To devove,'
'to corrump,' 'to circumcide' might pass; but 'to
suspeck,' ' to correck,' 'to instruck,' did not commend
themselves much, while yet nothing better could he
done with 'suspicio,' 'corrigo,' 'instruo ;' not to say
that other verbs out of number, as 'accipio,' 'exhaurio,'
'addico,' 'macero,' 'polluo,' lent themselves hardly
or not at all to the forming in the same way of an
English verb upon them. But all was easy if the
participle past were recognized as the starting-point ;
and thus we have the verbs, * to accept,' ' to exhaust,'
'to addict,' 'to macerate,' 'to pollute,' with a multi-
tude of others. It is true that these words could not
a^ at once forget that they were already participles
past.; and thus side by side with that other usage they
continued for a long while to be employed as such ;
and instead of 'instructed,' 'dejected,' 'accepted,'
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250 Dimimdions of our Language, lect.
*■ exhausted,' and the rest, as now in use, we find ' in-
struct' ('elephants instruct for war/ Milton), 'ex-
haust' (Bacon), 'distract' (the fellow \% distract*
Shakespeare), 'attaint' (Holland), 'addict' (Frith),
'convict' (Habington), ' infect '(Capgrave), 'pollute,'
' disjoint' (both in Milton), with many more. Little
by litde, however, it passed out of men's conscious-
ness that these were past participles already ; and this
once forgotten, no scruple was then made of adding
to them a second participial sign, and we thus have
them in their present shape and use; 'instruct^,'
'exhaust^^,' and the like.
I return to the subject from which these last
remarks have a little led away ; and will uige another
proof of the manifest disposition in our language to
drop forms and renounce its own inherent powers ;
though here also the renunciation, however it may
threaten one day to be complete, is only partial at
the present. I refer to the formation of our com-
paratives and superlatives ; and will ask you to ob-
serve once more that ever-recurring law of language,
namely, that wherever two or more methods of attain-
ing the same result exist, there is always a disposition
to drop and dismiss all of these but one, so that the
alternative, or choice of ways, once existing shall not
exist any more. If only a language can attain -a
greater simplicity, it seems to grudge no self-im-
poverishment by which this result may be brought
about We have two ways of forming our compara-
tives and superlatives, one inherent in the word itself,
and derived from our old Gothic stock, thus 'bright,'
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VI. Comparatives and Swperlatwes. 251
'brighter,' 'hrightes/; the other supplementaiy to
this, by aid of the auxiliaries 'more' and 'most.'
The first, organiq we might call it, the indwelling
power of the word to mark its own degrees, must
needs be esteemed the more excellent way; which
yet, already disallowed in almost all adjectives of
more than two syllables in length, is daily becoming
of more restrained application. Compare in this mat-
ter our present position with our past. Wiclif forms
without scruple such comparatives as 'g^^evouser,'
'gloriouser,' 'patienter,' 'profitabler,' such superlatives
as 'grievousest,' 'famousest,' * preciousest ' We
meet in Tyndale, 'excellenter,' ' miserablest ;' in
Roger Aflcham, * inventivest,' 'shiningest ;' in Shake-
speare, 'ancientest,' ' violentest ;' in Gabriel Harvey,
'vendiblest,' 'substantialest,' ' insolentest ;' in Ro-
gers, 'insufficienter,' 'goldenest;' in Beaumont and
Fletcher, * valiantest ;' in Bacon, ' excellentest ;' in
Sylvester, * infamousest ;' in North, 'unfortunatest'
Milton uses *sensualest,' *resolutest,' ' exquisitest,'
'virtuosest,' and in prose 'vitiosest,' * elegantest,'
' artificialest,' ' servilest,' ' sheepishest,* * moralist ;'
Fuller has ' fertilest ;' Baxter * tediousest ;' Butler
'^dangerouser,' 'preciousest,' ' intolerablest,' 'prepos-
terousest;' Burnet 'copiousest ;' Gray 'impudentest'
Of these forms, and it would be easy to adduce almost
•any number, we should hardly now employ one. In
participles and adverbs in * ly ' these organic compara-
tives and superlatives hardly survive at all. We do not
say * willinger ' or 'lovinger,' and still less 'flourish-
ingest,' or ' shiningest,' or * surmountingest,' all which
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252 Diminutions of our Language, lect,
Gabriel Harvey, a foremost master of the English
of his time, employs ; ' plenteouslyer,' 'charitablier
(Barnes), *amplier' (Milton), 'easliest' (Fuller),'
* plainliest ' (Dryden), *fulliest' (Baxter), would be
all inadmissible at present
In the evident disposition of English at the present
moment to reduce the number of words in which this
more vigorous scheme of expressing degrees is al-
lowed, we must recognize an evidence that youthful
energies in the langu^e are abating, and the stiffness
of advancing age making itself felt. Still it &res
with us here only as it fares with all languages, in
which at a certain stage of their existence auxiliary
words, leaving the main word unaltered, are preferred
to inflections of this last. Such preference makes
itself ever more strongly felt ; and, judging from
analogy, I cannot doubt that a day, however distant
now, will arrive, when the only way of forming com-
paratives and superlatives in the English language will
be by prefixing *more' and 'most ;' or, if the other
survive, it will be in poetry alone. Doubtless such
a consummation is to be regretted ; for our language
is too monosyllabic already ; but it is one which no
regrets will avert
It will not fare otherwise, as I am bold to predict,
with the flexional genitive, formed in *s' or *es.*
This too will finally disappear, or will survive only inj
the diction of poetry. A time will arrive, when it
will no longer be free to say as now, either ^the king's
sans,' or *fhe sons of the king* but when the latter will
be the only admissible form. Tokens of this are
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VI. The Genitive. * 253
already evident The region in which the alternative
forms are equally good is daily narrowing. We
should not now any more write, 'when man*s son
shall come ' (Wiclif ), but ' when fhe Son of' man
shall come ;' nor yet, 'the hypocrite's ^^: shall perish'
(Job viii. 13), but ^the hope of the hypocrite shall
perish;' nor Uhe Philistines' land* (Gen. xxi. 34),
but ^the land of the Philistines / not with Barrow,
* No man can be ignorant of human life's brevity and
umertainty* but 'No man can be ignorant of the
brevity and uncertainty of human life,^ Already in our
Authorized Version the more modem form displaces
in passages out of number the earlier. Thus at John
xviii. 15, it is 'the palace of the High Priest ;' but in
Coverdale,' 'the High Priest's palace ;' at Heb. ii. 17,
* the sins of the people,' but in earlier Versions ' the
people's sins;' at i Pet iv. 13, 'partakers of the
sufferings of Christ,' but in earlier Versions 'par-
takers of Christ's passions.' This change finds place
in cases innumerable, but never, so far as I have
observed, the converse. The consunmiation which I
have here anticipated may be centuries off, but with
other of a like character will assuredly arrive.*
• Schleicher in his masterly treatise, DU Deutsche Sprache^
i860, p. 69, notes the same as going forward in Oerman : Das
Schwinden der Casus und ihren Ersatz durch Pr^positionen
kOnnen wir in unsrer jetzigen deutschen Sprache recht deutlich
beobachten. Anstatt sttssen Weines vol! u. dgl. pflegen wir
im gewOhnKchen Leben sclion zu sagen, voll Ton sUssem
Weine ja manche deutsche Volksmundarten haben den Genitiv
£sist spurlos verloren, und sagen z. B. anstatt * meines Bruders
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254 Diminutions of our Language, lect.
Then too diminutives are fest disappearing. If we
desire to express smallness, we prefer to do it by an
auxiliary word ; thus, a little fist, and not a * fistock '
(Ciolding), a litde lad, apd not a Madkin,' a little
drop, and not a 'droplet' (Shakespeare), a little
worm, and not a ' wormling * (Sylvester). It is true
that of diminutives a good many still survive, in all
our four terminations of such, as * hillock,' * stream-
let,' * lambkin,' 'gosling;' but they are few as com*
pared with those which have perished, and are eveiy
day becoming fewer. Where now is 'kingling'
(Holland), 'friarling' (Foxe), 'twinling' (si^emel-
lus, Old Vocabulary^ 'beamling' (Vaughan), 'whim-
ling ' (Beaumont and Fletcher), 'popeling' (Racket),
' streamling, ' ' godling, ' ' loveling, ' ' dwarfling, '
< shepherdling ' (all in Sylvester), 'chasteling' (Be-
con), 'niceling' (Stubbs), 'poetling,' 'fosterling'
(both in Ben Jonson), and * masterling ' ? Where
now 'porelet' (^rpaupercula, Isai. x. 30, Vulg.),
' bundelet' (both in Wiclif ) ; ' chastilet' or little cas-
tle i^Piers Ploughman), 'cushionet' (Henry More),
'riveret' (Drayton), 'closulet,' 'orphanet,' 'lionet'
(all in Phineas Fletcher), 'herblet' (Shakespeare),
'dragonet' (Spenser),' 'havenet' or little haven,
' pistolet, ' bulkin ' (Holland), ' thumbkin,' ' cana-
kin,' 'bodikin' (both in Skakespeare), 'ladykin,'
'slamkin' (a slovenly girl), 'pillock' a little pill
(Levins), ' laddock;' ' wifock,' and a hundred more ?
Even of those remaining to us still many are putting
Sohn * entweder * der Sohn von meinem Brader,' oder * meinem
Bruder sein Sohn.'
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VI. DiminiUives growing fewer. 255
off, or have long since put off, their diminutive
sense ; a ' pocket ' being no longer a smali poke^ nor
a 'latchet ' a smali lace, nor a 'trumpet a small trump,
as formerly they were.
Once more — in the entire dropping among the
higher classes, and in some parts of England among
all classes, of * thou/ except in poetry or in addresses
to the Deity, and, consequent on this, in the dropping
of the second singular of the verb with its strongly
marked flexion, as * lovest,' 'lovedst,' we have another
example of a power which has been allowed to expire.
In the seventeenth century ' thou ' in English, as at
the present * du ' in German, * tu ' in French, was the
sign of femiliarity, whether that familiarity was of love
or of contempt* It was not unfrequently the latter.
ThusatSir Walter Raleigh's trial (1603), Coke, when
argument and evidence &iled him, insulted, and
meant to insult, the illustrious prisoner by applying to
him the. term *thou': — * AH that Lord Cobham did
was at /^v instigation, Ikou viper! for I /kou thee,
Zhou traitor ! ' And when Sir Toby Belch in 7^eI//A
Nighi is urging Sir Andrew Aguecheek to send a
sufficiently provocative challenge to Viola, he suggests
' that he taunt him with the licence of ink ; if thou
thotist him some thrice, it shall not be amiss. ' To
keep this in mind will throw much • light on one
peculiarity of the Quakers, and give a certain dignity
to it, as once maintained, which at present it is veiy
• Thus WaUis {Gramm. Lwg, Angiic^ 1654): Singulari
ntiHiero siquis alium compellet, vel dedignantis illud esse solet,
vel familiariter blandientifi.
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256 Diminutions of our Language, lect.
fiir from possessing. However needless and unwise
their determination to * thee ' and * thou ' the whole
world, this was not then, as it seems now to us, and,
through the silent changes which language has under-
gone, as now it indeed is, a gratuitous departure from
the ordinary usage of society. Right or wrong, it
meant something, and had an ethical motive : being
indeed a testimony upon their parts, however mis-
placed, that they would not have high or great or rich
men's persons in admiration ; nor render the obser-
vance to some which they withheld from others. It
was a testimony too which cost them something. At
present we can very little understand the amount of
courage which this *thou-ing' and *thee-ing ' of all
the woild demanded on their parts, nor yet the
amount of indignation and offence which it stirred up
where men were not aware of, or would not allow for,
the scruples which, as they considered, obliged them
to this.* It is, however, in its other aspect that we
* What the actual position of the compellation * thou ' was
at that time, we learn from Fuller {Church History y Dedication
of JBookyW.) : 'In opposition whereunto \i.e. to the Qu^er
usage] we maintain that thou from superiors to inferiors is
proper, as a sign of command ; from equals to equals is passa-
ble, as a note of familiarity ; but from inferiors to superiors,
if proceeding from ignorance, hath a smack of clownishness ;
if from affectation, a tone of contempt. See a brief but in-
structive disquisition hi Skeat*s edition of The Romance of
William of Paleme, p. xli., in proof that in early English
Literature the distmction between *thou' and *ye,* as here
laid down, was accurately observed. There is a most inter-
esting and exhaustive treatment of the past relation between
* thou ' and * you ' in Guesses at Truth, 1866, pp. 120-133.
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VI. The Plural in^n^ or * en.' 257
must chiefly regret the dying out of the use of 'thou'
— ^that is as the pledge of peculiar intimacy and
special affection, as between husband and wife,
parents and children, and such others as might be
knit together by bands of more than a common love.
I have more than once remarked that nothing can
be imagined more stealthy, more calculated to elude
observation, than the disappearance of an old form,
and the usurpation of its place by a new. Take for
instance the getting rid of the plural in 'n' or 'en.'
This, originally the Saxon plural in ' an ' of the first
decleasion, had, during the anarchical period of the
language, spread over a much larger group of words ;
but, as we all know, has long since given way to *s,'
which, with a few exceptions, is now the universal sign
of the plural.* By steps so slow as to be almost im-
perceptible, diffused as they have been over large
spaces of time, this dismissing of one and adopting of
another has been effected. Long before Chaucer,
' already in the Rhymed Chronicle of Kobert of Glou-
cester, written before 1300, it is evident that the
termination in ' n' or 'en' is giving way, and that in
's' has virtually won the day ; but we do not the less
meet in this 'arwen' (arrows), 'steden,' .^sterren,'
'ameten' (emmets), 'chyrchen,' 'massen,' 'been,'
'heveden' (heads), 'applen,' 'cahdlen,' ^honden,'
'soulen,' 'unclen,' 'lancen,'and others; as in The
Romance of King Alexander of the same date we have
'crabben/ 'hawen,' 'slon' (sloes), 'noten' (nuts).
See Matzner, p. 220.
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258 Diminutions of our Language, lect.
In Chaucer's time they are very far fewer, while yet
he has * doughteren/ 'sistren/ 'fone,' * ashen,' 'been,'
*schoon,' ' eyne ;' but all these side by side with our
present 'daughters,' 'sisters,' 'foes,' 'ashes,' 'bees,'
'shoes,' 'eyes ;' now one and now the other. Thus
the plural in ' n ' has narrowed still further the region
which it occupies, but still is holding a certain ground
of its own. Two centuries later 'sistem' is still alive,
it is frequent in Coverdale's Bible and in our early
Reformers; 'hosen' too appears in our Englidi
Version (Dan. iii. 21), with 'fone' and 'schoon' and
' eyne ' in the diction of poetry, but chiefly in that of
poets who, like Spenser, affect the archaic At the
present day, setting aside four or five words which
have preserved and will now probably preserve to the
end the termination in 'en,' as 'oxen,' 'chicken,'
'kine' (kyen), 'brethren,' perhaps 'eyne' is the only
one of tiiese plurals which even the poets would feel
at liberty to employ; while a few others, as * housen,'
'fuzzen' (furzes), 'cheesen' (Dorsetshire), and possi-
bly one or two more, maintain a provincial existence.
A history very nearly similar might be traced of the
process by which the southern termination of the
participle present in ' ing' has superseded and dis*
placed the northern in 'and,' so that we say now
'doing,' 'sitting,' 'leaping,' not 'doand,' 'sittand,'
' leapand. ' We have here, it is true, a further circum-
stance helping to conceal and keep out of sight the
progress of the change ; namely, the only gradual
melting, through intermediate steps, of the one form
into the other, of 'and' into 'end,' into 'ind,'and
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VI. Terminations of the Participle. 259
finally into *ing/ examples of all these four forms
sometimes occurring side by side in the same poem ;
for example in The Romance of William of Pakrne,
of date about 1350. Spenser's 'glitterand ' {F, Q, i.
7, 29) is about the last surviving specimen of the
northern form, that is in English ; in Scotch it main-
tained its ground to a far later day, in some sort
maintains it still.
It is thus, and by steps such as these, that a change
is brought about. That which ultimately is to win all
comes in, it may be, at first as an exception ; it then
just obtains a footing and allowance ; it next exists
side by side and on equal terms with the old ; then
overbears it ; and finally, it may be, claims the whole
domain of the language as its own ; so that sometimes
a single isolated word, like the * paterfamiliar ' of the
Latins, keeps record of what was once the law of all
the words of some certain class in a language.
I will not conclude this lecture without one further
illustration of the same law, which, as I have sought to
show, is evermore working, and* causing this and that
to be dismissed fiom a language, so soon as ever the
speakers feel that it is not absolutely indispensable,
that they can attain their end, which is, to convey
their meaning, without it ; though having dwelt on the
subject so fully, I shall do little more than indicate
this. I refer not here to any change in English
now going forward, but to one which completed
its course several centuries ago ; namely, to the
renouncing upon its part, of any distribution of nouns
into masculine, feminine, and neuter, as in German,
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260 Dirmnutions of our Language, lect.
or even into masculine and feminine, as in French :
and with this, and as a necessary consequence of
this, the dropping of any flexional modification of
the adjectives in regimen with them. It was the
boldest step in the way of simplification which the
language has at any time taken ; and, after what has
lately been said, I need not observe was one which it
took centuries to accomplish. Natural seXy of course,
remains, being inherent in all language ; but gram-
matical ^^«^r, with the exception of 'he,' *she,' and
'it,' and perhaps one or two other fragmentary
instances, the languge has altogether forgone. An
example will make clear the distinction between
these. Thus it is riot the word * poetess ' which is
feminine, but the person indicated who \^ female. So
too ' daughter,' * queen,' are in English not feminine
liouns, but nouns designating /^»w/<? persons. Take
on the contrary 'filia,' or 'regina,' 'fille' or 'reine,'
there you have feminine nouns as well as female
persons. We did not inherit this simplicity from
others, but, like the Danes, in so far as they have
done the like, have made it for ourselves. Whether
we turn to the Latin, or, which is for us more
important, to the old Gothic, we find gender ; and in
all the daughter languages which were bom of the
Latin, in most of those which have descended from
the ancient Gothic stock, it is fully established to this
day. Th« practical businesslike character of the
English mind asserted itself in the rejection of a
distinction, which in a vast proportion of words, that
is, in all which are the signs of inanimate objects, and
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n. No Gender of Nouns in English. 261
as such incapable of sex, rested upon a fiction, and
had no ground in the real nature of things. It is
only by an act and effort of the imagination that sex,
and thus gender, can be attributed to a table, a ship,
or a tree ;* and there are aspects, this being one, in
which the English is among the least imaginative of
all languages, even while it has been epaployed in some
of the mightiest works of imagination which the world
has ever seen, f
What, ^ it may be asked, is the meaning and ex-
planation of all this? It is that at certain earlier
periods of a nation's life its genius is synthetic, an-d at
later becomes analytic. At earlier periods the ima-
gination is more than the understanding ; men love
to contemplate the thing and the moTle of the thing
• Compare Pott, Etymologis'che Forschungen^ part 2, p. 404.
The entirely arbitrary character of the attribution of gender to
sexless things is illustrated well by the way in which different
genders are ascribed in the same book to one and the same
thing ; thus in our Authorized Version, * the tree his fruit '
(Dan. iv. 14), *the tree her fruit* (Rev. xxii. i) ; and the
different Versions vary, thus * the vine her roots * (Ezek. xvii. 7,
E. v.), *the vine his roots' (ibid. Coverdale, *the salt his
savour * (Matt. v. 13, E. V.), * the salt her saltness ' (ibid.
Tyndale). But at a much earlier date it had become to a great
extent a matter of subjective individual feeling whether his
(masculine and neuter) or her (feminine should be employed.
The two recensions of Wiclif frequently differ from one
another ; thus at Job xxxix. 14, the first, * the ostridge her
eggs,' the second, * the ostridge his eggs ;* so too at Gen, viii.
9, the first, * the culver his foot,' the second, *the culver her
toot.'.
t Compare Chasles, Etudes sur PAllefnagne^ p. 25.
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262 Dimimdions of our Language, lect.
together, as a single idea, bound up in one. But a
time arrives when the intellectual obtains the upper
hand of the imaginative, when the inclination of those
that speak a language is to analyse, to distinguish
between these two, and not only to distinguish, but to
divide, to have one word for the thing itself, and
another for the quality or manner of the thing ; and
this, as it would appear, is true not of some languages
only, but of all.
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vn. Changed Meaning of our Words. 263
LECTURE VII.
CHANGES IN THE MEANING OF ENGLISH
WORDS.
I PROPOSE in my present lecture a little to con-
sider those changes which have found or are
now finding place in the meaning of English words ;
so that, whether we are aware of it or not, we employ
them at this day in senses very different from those in
which our forefathers employed them of old. You
will observe that it is not obsolete words, such as have
quite fallen out of present use, which I propose to
consider ; but such, rather, as are still on the lips of
men, although with meanings more or less removed
from those which once they possessed. My subject
is hx more practical, has fiir more to do with your
actual }ife, than if I were to treat of words at the
present day altogether out of use. These last have
an interest indeed, but so long as they remain what
they are, and are to be found only in our glossaries,
it is an interest of an antiquarian character. They
constitute a part of the intellectual money with which
our ancestors carried on the business of their lives ;
but now they are rather medals for the cabinets and
collections of the curious than current money for the
service of all. Their wings are clif^d ; they are
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264 Changed Meaning of Words. lbcTo
* winged words ' no more ; the spark of thought or
feeling, kindling from mind to mind, no longer runs
along them, as along the electric wires of the soul.
And then, besides this, there is little danger that any
should be misled by them. They are as rocks which,
standing out from the sea, declare their presence,
and are therefore easily avoided ; while those other are
as hidden rocks, which are the more dangerous, that
their very existence is unsuspected. A reader lights
for the first time on some word which has now passed
out of use, as 'frampold,' or *garboil,'or 'brangle;'
he is at once conscious of his ignorance ; he has re-
course to a glossaiy, or if he guesses from the context
at the signification, still his guess is a guess to him,
and no more.
But words that have changed their meaning have
often a deceivableness about them ; a reader not once
doubts but that he knows their intention ; he is
visited with no misgivings that they possess for him
another force than that which they possessed for the
author in whose writings he finds them, and which
they conveyed to his contemporaries. He little
dreams how far the old life may have gone out of
them, and a new life entered in. Let us suppose a
student to light on a passage like the following (it is
from the Preface to Howell's Lexicon, 1660) :
'Though the root of the English language be Dutch,
yet it may be said to have been inoculated afterwards
on a French stock.' He may know that the Dutch
is a sister dialect to our own ; but this that it is the
mother or root of it will certainly peiplex him, and he
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vn. Former Use of * Dutch.^ 265
will hardly know what to make of the assertion ;
perhaps he ascribes it to an error in. his author, who
is thereby unduly lowered in his esteem. But pre-
sently in the course of his reading he meets with the
following statement, this time in Fuller's Holy War,
being a history of the Crusades: 'the French,
Dutch, Italian, and English were the four elemental
nations, whereof this army [of the Crusaders] was
compounded. ' If the student has suflficient historical
knowledge to know that in the time of the Crusades
there were no Dutch, in our use of the word, this
statement would merely startle him ; and probably
beforc/he had finished the chapter, having his atten-
tion once roused, he would perceive that Fuller with
the writers of his time used * Dutch ' for German ;
even as it was constantly so used up to the end of
the seventeenth century, — ^what we call now a Dutch-
man being then a Hollander, — and as the Americans
use it to this present day. But a young student
might very possibly want that amount of previous
knowledge, which should cause hin^ to receive this
announcement with misgiving and surprise ; and thus
he might carry away altogether a wrong impression,
and rise from a perusal of the book, persuaded that
the Dutch, as we call them, played an important part
in the Crusades, while the Germans took little or pp
I part in them at all.
And as it is here with an historic &ct, so still more
often will it happen with the subtler moral and
ethical transformations which words have undergone.
Out of these it will continually happen that worcfe
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266 Changed Meaning of Words, lect.
convey now much more reprobation, or convey now
much less, or of a different kind, than once they did ;
and a reader not aware of the altered value which
they now possess, may be in constant danger of mis-
reading his author, of misunderstanding his intention,
and this, while he has no doubt whatever that he
perfectly apprehends and takes it in. Thus when
Shakespeare makes the gallant York address Joan of
Arc as a 'miscreant,' how coarse a piece of invective
this sounds ; how unlike what the chivalrous soldier
would have uttered ; or what one might have sup-
posed that Shakespeare, even with his unworthy
estimate of the holy warrior-maid, would have put into
his mouth. But the 'miscreant' of Shakespeare's time
was not the * miscreant ' of ours. He was simply, in
agreement with the etymolog}' of the word, a misbe-
liever, one who did not believe rightly the articles of the
Catholic Faith. This I need not repii^id you was the
constant charge which the Engli3h brought against the
Pucelle, — namely, that she Wfis ^ dealer in hidden
magical art, a witch, and as such had fallen from the
faith. On this plea they burnt her, and it is this which
York intends when he calls her a 'miscreant,' and
not what we should intend by the name.
\ In poetry above all what beauties are often missed,
what forces lost, through this assumption that the
present meaning of a word accurately represents the
past How often the poet is wronged in our estima-
tion ; that seeming to \is now flat and pointless, which
would assume quite another aspect, did we know how
to read voXo some word the emphasis which it once had,
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vn. Tinsel, Influence. 267
but which now has departed from it For example,
Milton ascribes in Comus the ^ tinsd'sUppered' feet to
Thetis, the goddess of the sea. How comparatively
poor an epithet this * tinsel-slippered ' sounds for those
who know of 'tinsel ' only in its modem acceptation of
mean and cheap fineiy, affecting a splendour which it
does not really possess. But learn its earlier use by
learning its derivation, bring it back to the French
*6tincelle,' and the Latin ' scintillula ;' see in it as
Milton and the writers of his time saw, 'the spark-
ling,' and how exquisitely beautiful a title does this
become applied to a sea-goddess ; how vividly does
it call up before our mind's eye the quick glitter and
sparkle of the waves under the light of sun or moon.*
It is the 'silver-footed' {dpyvpdieeZa) of Homer; but
this is not servilely transferred, rather reproduced and
made his own by the English poet, dealing as one
great poet will do with another; who w^ill not disdain
to borrow, yet to what he borrows will add often a
further grace of his own.
Or, again, do we keep in mind, or are we even
aware, that whenever the word ' influence ' occurs in
our English poetry, down to comparatively a modem
date, there is always more or less remote allusion to
invisible illapses of power, skyey, planetary effects,
supposed to be exercised by the heavenly luminaries
upon the disposidons and the lives of men ? The ten
So in Herrick's Electra :
< More white than are the whitest creams.
Or moonlight tinselling the streams.'
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268 Changed Meaning of Words, lect.
occasions on which the word occurs in Shakespeare do
not offer a single exception. How many a passage
starts into a new life and beauty and fulness of allusion,
when this is present with us ; even Milton's
* store of ladies, whose bright eyet
Rain injluaue^*
as spectators of the tournament, gain something,
when we regard them — and using this language, he
intended we should — as the luminaries of this Iowct
sphere, shedding by their propitious presence strength
and valour into the hearts of their knights.
A word will sometimes even in its present accep-
tation yield a convenient and even a correct sense ;
the last I have cited would do so ; we may fell into no
positive misapprehension about it ; and still, through
ignorance of its past history and of the force which it
once possessed, we may miss much of its signifi-
cance. We are not beside the meaning of our au^
thor, but we are short of it Thus in Beaumont
and Fletcher's King and no King (Act iii. Sc. 2 ), a
cowardly braggart of a soldier describes the treatment
he experienced, when, like Parolles, he was at length
found out, and stripped of his lion's skin : — ' They
hung me up by the heels and beat me with hazel
sticks, . . . that the whole kingdom took notice of
me for a baffled whipped fellow.' Were you reading
this passage, there is probably nothing which would
make you pause; you would attach to *bafiled' a
sense which sorts very well with the context — ' hung
up by the heels and beaten, all his schemes of being
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vn. Religion not Godliness. 269
thought much of were baffled and defeated.' But
* baffled ' implies far more than this ; it contains allu-
sion to a custom in the days of chivalry, according to
which a perjured or recreant knight was either in
person, or more commonly in effigy, hung up by the
heels, his scutcheon blotted, his spear broken, and he
himself or his effigy made the subject of all kinds of
indignities; such a one being said to be 'baffled.'*
Twice in Spenser recreant knights are so treated. I
can only quote a portion of the shorter passage in
which this infamous punishment is described : .
* And after all, for greater infamy
He by the heels him hung upon a tree,
And baffled so, that all which passed by
The picture of his punishment might see.* f
Probably when Beaumont and Fletcher wrote, men
were not so remote from the days of chivalry, or at
any rate from the literature of chivalry, but that this
custom was still fresh in their minds. How much
more to them than to us, so long as we are ignorant
of the same, must their words just quoted have con-
veyed ?
There are several places in the Authorized Version
of Scripture, where those who are not aware of the
changes which have taken place during the last two
hundred and fifty years in our language, can hardly
fail of being to a certain extent misled as to the
* See Holinshed, Chronicles^ vol. iii. pp. 827, 1218 : Ann.
I5i3» 1570.
t Fairy Queerty vi. 7, 27 ; cf. v. 2, 37.
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270 Changed Meaning of Words, lect.
intention of our Translators ; or, if they are better
acquainted with Greek than with early English, will
be tempted to ascribe to them, though unjustly, an
inexact rendering of the original; Thus jthe altered
meaning of ' religion ' may very easily draw after it a
serious misunderstanding in that well-known state-
ment of St James, ' Pure religion and undefiled before
God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and
widows in their affliction. ' * There !' exclaims one who
wishes to set up St James against St Paul, that so he
may escape the necessity of obeying cither, * listen to
what St James says ; there is nothing mystiail in
what he requires ; instead of harping on faith as a
condition necessary to salvation, he makes all religion
to consist in deeds of active well-doing and kindness
one to another.' But let us pause for a moment
Did ' religion,' when our Version was made, mean
godliness ? did it mean the sum total of our duties
towards God ? for, of course, no one would deny that
deeds of charity are a necessary part of our Christian
duty, an evidence of the faith which is in us. There
is abundant evidence to show that ' religion ' did not
mean this ; that, like the Greek Opr^dxeia, for which
it here stands, like the Latin 'religio,' it meant the
outward forms and embodiments in which the inward
principle of piety arrayed itself, the external service
of God : and St. James is urging upon those to whom
he is writing something of this kind : * Instead of the
ceremonial services otthe Jews, which consfeted in
divers washings and in other elements of this world,
let our service, our QpT^dxeia, take a nobler shape.
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vn. Religion not Godliness . 271
let it consist in deeds of pity and of love ' — ^and it was
this which our Translators ititended, when they used
' religion ' here and ' religious ' in the verse preceding.
How little 'religion' was formerly in meaning co-
extensive with godliness, how predominantly it was
used for the outward service of God, is plain from
many passages in our Homilies, and from other con-
temporary literature.
You remember the words in the Sermon on the
Mount, * Take no thought for your life, what ye shall
eat or what ye shall drink ' (Mat. vi. 25). They have
been often found fault widi ; and, to quote one of the
fault-finders, ' most English critics have lamented the
inadvertence of our Authorized Version, which in
bidding us take no thought for the necessaries of life
prescribed to us what is impracticable in itself, and
would be a breach of Christian duty even if possible.'*
But there is no 'inadvertence' here. When our
Translation was made, 'Take no thought' was a
perfectly correct rendering of the words of the original.
'Thought' was then constantly used for painful soli-
citude and care. Thus Bacon writes, 'Harris an
alderman was put in trouble and died of thought and
and anxiety before his business came to an end ; and
in one of the Somers Tracts (its date is of the reign
of Elizabeth) these words occur : ' In five hundred
years only two queens have died in childbirth. Queen
Catherine Parr died rather of thought,' A still better
example occurs in Shakespeare's Julius Qssar — ^take
Scrivener, Notes on the New Testament^ wl. i. p. 162.
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272 Changed Meaning of Words, leg*,
thought, and die for Caesar' — where *to take thought
is to take a matter so seriously to heart that death
ensues.
Again, there are some words in our Liturgy which
are not unfrequently misunderstood. In the Litany
we ask of God that it would please Him ' to give and
preserve to our use the kindly fruits of the earth. '
What is commonly understood by these ' kindly fruits
of the earth'? The fruits, if I mistake not, in which
the kindness of God or of nature towards us finds its
expression. This is no unworthy meaning to give to
the words, but still it is not the right one. The
* kindly fruits ' are the ' natural fruits,' those which the
earth according to its kind should naturally bring
forth, which it is appointed to produce. To show
you how little ' kindly ' meant once benignant, as it
means now, I will instance an employment of it from
Sir Thomas More's Li/e of Richard the Third, He tells
us that Richard calculated by murdering his two
nephews in the Tower to make himself accounted ' a
kindly king' — not certainly a 'kindly' one in our
present usage of the word ; but, having put them out
of the way, that he should then be lineal heir of the
Crown, and should thus be reckoned as king by kind
or natural descent ; and such was of old the constant
use of the word. And Bishop Andrews, preaching on
the Conspiracy of the Gowries, asks concerning the
conspirators, * Where are they ? Gone to their own
place, to Judas their brother ; as is most kindly, the
sons to the fether of wickedness, there to be plagued
with him forever.'
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vn. Thought, Kindly. 273
A phrase in one of our occasional Services, 'with
my body I thee worships has perplexed and some-
times offended those who were unacquainted with
the early uses of the word, and thus with the inten-
tion of the actual framers of that Service. Clearly
in our modem sense of ' worship, ' this language would
be inadmissible. But ' worship ' or ' worthship ' meant
'honour' in our early English, and *to worship ' to
honour, this meaning of 'worship' still very harm-
lessly surviving in 'worshipful^' and in the title of
'your worship' addressed to the magistrate on the
bench. So little was it restrained of old to the honour
which man is bound to pay to God, that it is employed
by Wiclif to express the honour. which God will render
to his faithful servants and friends. Thus our Lord's
declaration, 'If any man serve Me, him will my
Father honour^' in Wiclif 's translation reads thus:
' If any man serve Me, my Father shall worship him. '
I do not mean that the words, 'with my body I thee
worships' might not profitably be changed, if only it
were possible to touch things indifferent in the Prayer
Book without giving room for a meddling with things
which could not be touched without extremest hazard
to the peace of the Church. I think they would be
very well changed, liable as they are to misconstruc-
tion now ; but for all this they did not mean at the
first, and therefore do not now really mean, any other
than, 'with my body I thee honour ^ and so you may
reply to any gainsayer here.
T^ke another example of a misapprehension, which
lies veiy near. Fuller, our Chufch historian, praising
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some &mous divine that was lately dead, exclaims,
* Oh the pain/ulness of his preaching ! ' How easily
we might take this for an exclamation wrung out at
the recollection of the tediousnais which he inflicted
on his hearers. It is nothing of the kind ; the words
are a record not of ihtpain which he caused to others,
bnt of the pains which he bestowed himself; and I
cannot doubt, if we had more * painful ' preachers in
the old sense of the word, that is, who took pains them-
selves, we should have fewer 'painful' ones in the
modem sense, who came pain to their hearers. So
too Bishop Grosthead is recorded as 'the painful
writer of two hundred books ' — not meaning hereby
that these books were * painful ' in the reading, but that
he was laborious and ' painful ' in their composing.
Here is another easy misapprehension. Swift wrote
a pamphlet, or, as he called it, a Letter to the Lord
Treasurer y with this title, ' A proposal for correcting,
improving, arid ascertaining the English Tongue.'
Who that brought a knowledge of present English,
and no more, to this passage, would doubt that * ascer-
taining the English Tongue,' meant arriving at a
certain knowledge of what it was? Swift, however,
means something quite different from this. * To as-
certain the English tongue ' was not with him to arrive
at a subjective certainty in our own minds of what
that tongue is, but to give an objective certainty to
that tongue itself, so that henceforth it should not
change any more. For even Swift himself, with all
his masculine sense, entertained a dream of this kind,
fancied that the growth of a language might be ar-
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vn. PainfulnesSj Ascertaining. 275
rested, as is more fully declared in the work it-
self.*
In other places unacquaintance with the changes in
a word's usage~ may leave you sorely perplexed and
puzzled as to your author's meaning. It is evident
that he has a meaning, but what it is you are unable
to divine, even though all the words he employs are
femiliarly employed to the present day. Thus * courtly
Waller,' congratulating Charles the Second on his
return from exile, and describing how men, once his
bitterest enemies, were now the most earnest to offer
themselves to his service, writes thus :
* Offenders now, the chiefest, do begin
To strive for grace, and expiate their sin :
All winds blow fair that did the world embroil,
Your vipers treacle yield, and scorpions oil.*
Readers not a few before now will have been per-
plexed at the poet's statement that *v^s treacle yield*
— ^who yet have been too indolent, or who have npt
had the opportunity, to search out what his meaning
was. There is in fact allusion here to a curious piece
of legendary lore. ' Treacle, ' or * triacle, ' as Chaucer
wrote it, was originally a Greek word, and wrapped up
in itself the once popular belief (an anticipation, by
the way, of homoeopathy), that a confection of the
viper's flesh was the most potent antidote against the
viper's bite. * Waller serves himself of this old legend.
♦ Works (Sir W. Spott's edition), vol. ix. p. 139.
t &TffnocKij^ from Offpiev, a designation given to the
viper (Acts xxviii. 4). * Theriac ' is only the more rigid form
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276 Changed Meaning of Words, lect.
familiar enough in his time, for Milton speaks of *the
sovran treacle of sound doctrine,'* while 'Venice
treacle,' or * viper-wine,' was a common name for a
supposed antidote against all poisons ; and he would
say that regicides themselves began to be loyal, vipers
not now yielding hurt any more, but rather a healing
medicine for the old hurts which they themselves had
inflicted. 'Treacle,' it may be observed, designating
first this antidote, came next to designate any antidote,
then any medicinal confection or sweet syrup, and
lastly that particular syrup, namely, the sweet syrup of
molasses, to which alone we restrict it now.
I will draw on Fuller for one more illustration. In
his Holy War, having enumerated the rabble rout of
fugitive debtors, runaway slaves, thieves, adulterers,
murderers, of men laden for one cause or another with
heaviest censures of the Church, who swelled the ranks,
and helped to make up the army, of the Crusaders,
he exclaims, *A lamentable case, that the devil's
black guard should be God's soldiers 1' What does
of the same word, the scholarly, as distinguished ftom the
popular, adoption of it. Augustine {Con, duos Epp, Pelag, iii.
7) : Sicut fieri consuevit antidotum etiam de serpentibus contra
venena serpentum. See the Promptorium Parvulorum^ s. v.,
Way's edition.
* And Chaucer, more solemnly still :
* Christ, which that is to every harm triacle,*
The antidotal character of treacle comes out yet more in those
lines of Lydgate :
* There is iio venom so parlious in sharpnes.
As whan it hath of treacle a likenes.'
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vn. Treacle, Triade. 277
he mean, we may ask, by *the devil's black guard*?
The phrase does not stand here alone ; it is, on the
contrary, of frequent recurrence in the early dramatists
and others down to the time of Dryden ; in whose
Dan Sebastian, 'Enter the captain of the rabble, with
the Black guard,' is a stage direction. What is this
* black guard ? Has it any connection with a word
of our homeliest vernacular ? None which is very
apparent, ahd yet such as may very clearly be traced.
In old times, the palaces of our kings and seats of our
nobles were not so well and completely furnished as
at the present day : and thus it was customary, when
a royal progress was made, or when the great nobility
exchanged one residence for another, that at such a
removal all kitchen utensils, pots and pans, and even
coals, should be also carried with them where they
went Those who accompanied and escorted these,
the meanest and dirtiest of the retainers, were called
* the black guard ;'* then any troop or company of '
ragamuffins ; and lastly, when the word's history was
obscured and men forgot that it properly belonged to
a company, to a rabble rout, and not to a single
person, one would compliment another, not as belong-
ing to, but as himself being, 'the black guard.'
These examples are sufficient to prove that it is not
a useless and unprofitable study, nor yet one altogether
without entertainment, to which I invite you. It is a
* *A slave, that within these twenty years rode with the
iiack guard in the Duke's carriage, *mongst spits and dripping
pans ' (Webster, White Devil, Act i. Sc. i). ,
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278 Changed Meaning of Words, lbct;
study indeed so far from unprofitable, that any one
who desires to read with accuracy, and thus with
advantage and pleasure, our earlier classics, who
would not often fell short of, and often go astray from,
their meaning, must needs bestow some attention on
the altered significance of English words. And if
this is so, we could not more usefully employ what
remains of this present lecture than in seeking to
indicate those changes which words most frequently,
undergo J and to trace as far as we can the causes,
moral and material, which bring these changes about,
with the good and the evil out of which they have
sprung, and to which they bear witness. For indeed
these changes are not changes at random, but for
the most part are obedient to certain laws, are ca-
pable of being distributed into certain classes, being
the outward transcripts and attestations of mental and
moral processes which have inwardly gone forward in
those who bring them about Many, it is true, will
escape any classification of ours ; will seem to us the
result of mere caprice, and not to be accounted for
by any principle to which we can appeal. But all this
admitted freely, a majority will remain which are
reducible to some law or other, and with these we
will occupy ourselves now.
And first the meaning of a word oftentimes is
gradually narrowed. It was once as a generic name,
embracing many as yet unnamed species within itself,
which all went by its common designation. By and
by it is found convenient that each of these should
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vn. Altered Significance of Words. 279
have its own more special sign allotted to it* It is
here just as in some newly enclosed country, where a
single household will at first loosely occupy a whole
district ; this same district being in the course of time
parcelled out among twenty proprietors, and under
more accurate culture employing and sustaining them
all. Thus all food was once called ' meat ;' it is so in
our Bible, and 'horse-meat' for fodder is still no
unusual phrase; yet 'meat' is now a name given
only to flesh. Any little book or writing was a
* libel ' once ; now only such a one as is scurrilous
and injurious. Every leader was a *duke' (dux);
flius * <&/fc? Hannibal ' (Sir Thomas Elyot), ' duJtc
Brennus' (Holland), 'duke Theseus* (Shakespeare),
*d«^ Amalek,' with other 'dukes' in Scripture (Gen.
xxxvi.) Every journey, by land as much as by sea,
was a ' voyage.' ' Faiiy ' was not a name restricted,
as now, to the Go/Aic mythology ; thus * the /airy
Egeria' (Sir J. Harringtcwi). A 'corpse' might
quite as well be a body living as one dead. In each
of these cases, the same contraction of meaning, the
separating ofif and assigning to other words of large
portions of this, has found place. ' To starve ' (the
German ' sterben,' and generally spelt * sterve ' up to
the middle of the seventeeth century), meant once to
die any manner of death ; thus Chaucer says, Christ
♦ G€nin {Lexique df la Langm d^ la Molihre^ p. 367) says
well : En augmentant le nombre des mots, il a fallu restreindre
lenr signification, et faire aux nouveaux un apanage aux ddpens
des anciens.
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280 Changed Meaning of Words, lect.
' sferved upon the cross for our redemption ;' it now
is restricted to the d3dng by cold or by hunger.
Words not a few were once applied to both sexes alike,
which are now restricted to the female. It is so even
with ' girl/ which was once, as in Piers Ploughman, a
young person of either sex ; * while other words in
this list, such for instance as ' hoyden ' (Milton,
prose), 'shrew,' 'harlot,' Meman' (all in Chaucer),
'coquet' (Phillips, New World of Words), 'witch'
(Wiclif), 'slut' (Gk)wer), 'termagant' (Bale),
'scold,' 'jade,' 'hag' (Golding), must, in their
present exclusive appropriation to the female sex, be
regarded as evidences of men's rudeness, and not of
women's deserts.
The necessities of an advancing civilization demand
more precision and accuracy in the use of words
having to do with weight, measure, number, size.
Almost all such words as 'acre,' 'furlong,' 'yard,'
'gallon,' 'peck,' were once of a vague and unsettled
use, and only at a later day, and in obedience to the
necessities of commerce and social life, exact mea-
sures and designations. Thus every field was once
an ' acre ;' and this remains so still with the German
' acker,' and with us when we "give the name of ' God's
acre ' to ground where we lay our dead ; it was not
till about the reign of Edward the First that 'acre'
* And no less so in French with * dame/ by which form not
'domina' only, but *dominus,* was represented. Thus in
early French poetry, • Dame Dieu * for * Dominus Deus ' con-
tinually occurs.
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vn. . Aore, Furlong^ &c. 281
was commonly restricted to a determined measure and
portion of land . Here and there even now a glebe-
land will be called ' the acre ;' and this, though it
should contain not one but many of our measured
acres. A ' furlong' was a ' furrowlong/ or length of
a furrow.* Any pole was a 'yard/ and this vaguer
use survives in ^ssilyard,* * halyard,* and in other
sea-terms. Every pitcher was a ' galon ' ( Mark xiv. 1 3,
Wiclif ), while a ' peck * was no more than a * poke '
or bag. And the same has taken place in all other
languages. The Greek ' drachm ' was at first a hand-
ful, f The word which stood at a later day for ten
thousand {/ivptoi), implied in Homer's time any
great multitude ; and, differently accented, retained
this meaning in the later periods of the lan-
guage.
Opposite to this is a counter-process by which words
of narrower intention gradually enlarge the domain of
their meaning, becoming capable of much wider ap-
plication than any which once they admitted. In-
stances in this kind are fewer than in the last The
main stream and course of human thoughts and
human discourse tends the other way, to discenung,
distinguishing, dividing ; and then to the permanent
fixing of the distinctions gained, by the aid of desig-
♦ * A furlongs quasi furronolong^ being so much as a team
in England plougheth going forward, before they return back
again ' (Fuller, Pisgah Sight of Palestine, p. 42).
t ^paxfJtp = *manipulus,' firom dpdddojitat, to grasp as
much as one can hold in the fingers.
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282 Changed Meaning of Words, lect.
nations which shall keep apart for ever in word that
which has been once severed and sundered in thought.
Nor is it hard to perceive why this process should be
the more frequent Men are first struck with the
likeness between those things which are prescoted to
them ; on the strength of which likeneaB they men-
tally bracket them under a commcm term. Further
acquaintance reveals their points of unlikeness, the
real dissimilarities which lurk under superficial resem-
blances, the need therefore of a different notation for
<^>jects which are essentially different It is compa-
ratively much rarer to discover real likeness under
what at first appeared as unlikeness; and usually
when a word moves forward, and from a special ac-
quires a general significance, it is not in obedience to
any such discovery of the true inner likeness of things,
— the steps of successful generalizations being marked
and secured in other ways — ^but this widening of a
word's meaning is too often a result of quite other
causes. Men forget a word's history and etymology ;
its distinctive features are obliterated for them, with
all which attached it to some thought or feet which
by right was its own. All words in some sort are
feded metaphors, but this is one of which the feding
has become absolute and complete. Appropriated
and restricted once to some striking speciality which
it vigorously set out, it can now be used in a wider,
vaguer, more indefinite way. It can be employed
twenty times for once when it would have been
possible formerly to employ it Yet this is not gain,
but pure loss. It has lost its place in the disciplined
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vn. Words enlarge their Meaning. 283
army of words, and become one of a loose and dis-
orderly mob,*
Let me instance 'preposterous/ It is now no
longer of any practical service at all in the language,
being merely an ungraceful and slipshod synonyn
for absurd. But restore and confine it to its old use ;
let it designate that one peculiar branch of absurdity
which it designated once, namely the reversing of the
true order of things, the putting of the last first, and,
by consequence, of the first last, and whit excellent
service it would yield. Thus it is * preposterous ' to
put the cart before the horse, to expect wages before
the work is done, to hang a man first and try him
afterwards ; and in this stricter .sense ^ fiqpoB k ao as '
was always used by our elder writers.
In like manner ' to prevaricate ' was never employed
by good writers of the seventeenth century without
nearer or more remote allusion to the uses of the
word in the Roman law courts, where a * praevarica-
tor ' (properly a straddler with distorted legs) did not
mean generally and loosely, as now with us, one who
shuffles, quibbles, and evades ; but one who played
felse in a particular manner; who, undertaking, or
being by his office bound, to prosecute a charge, was
in secret collusion with the opposite party ; and,
betraying the cause which he affected to support, so
* The exact opposite of this will sometimes take place.
Beaucoup de mots, qui du temps de Comeille se pliaient k
plusieurs significations, se sont, de la fa9on la plus bizarre,
immobilises et petrifies, si Ton ose le dire, dans des sens ^troits
et restreints (Lexique de Id Langue de ComdUe^ p. xxii.).
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284 Changed Meaning of Words, lect.
managed the accusation as to obtain not the condem-
nation, but the acquittal, of the accused ; a ' feint
pleader,' as in our old law language he would have
been termed. How much force would the keeping of
this in mind add to many passages in our elder
divines.
Or take 'equivocal,' 'equivocate,' 'equivocation.'
These words, which belonged at first to logic, have
slipped into common use, and in so doing have lost
all the precision of their first employment * Equivo-
cation ' is now almost any such ambiguous dealing in
words with the intention of deceiving, as &lls short of
an actual lie ; but according to etymology and in
primary use 'equivocation,' this fruitful mother of so
much error, is the calling by the same name of things
essentially diverse, hiding intentionally or otherwise
a real difference under a verbal resemblance.* Nor
let it be urged in defence of the present looser use,
that only so could it serve the needs of our ordinary
conversation ; so far from this, had it retained its
first use, how serviceable an implement of thought
might it have been in detecting our own fallacies, or
those of others ; all which it can now be no longer.
What now is ' idea' for us I How.infinite the fell
of this word since the time when Milton sang of the
Creator contemplating his newly created world,
* how it showed,
Answering his great idea^^
* Thus Barrow : * Which [courage and constancy] he that
wanteth is no other \Htaji equivocally a gentleman, as an image
or a carcass is a man.'
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VII. Equivocation^ Idea. 285
to the present use, when this person * has an idea that
the train has started, ' and the other ' had no no idea that
the dinner would be so bad.' But * idea ' is perhaps
the worst treated word in the English language.
Matters have not mended since the times of Dr. John-
son ; who, as Boswell tells us, 'was particularly indig-
nant against the almost universal use of the word idea
in the sense of notion or opinion, when it is clear that
idea can only signify something of which an image can
be formed in the mind.' There is perhaps-no word in
the whole compass of the language so seldom em-
ployed with any tolerable correctness ; in none is the
distance so immense between what properly it means,
and the slovenly uses which popularly it is made to
serve.
This tendency in words to lose the sharp, rigidly
defined outline of meaning which they once possessed,
to become of wide, vague, loose application instead of
fixed, definite, and precise, to mean almost anything,
and so really to mean nothing, is among the most
fetally effectual which are at work for the final ruin of
a language, and, I do not fear to add, for the demor-
alization of those that speak it. It is one against
which we shall all do well to ^tch ; for there is none
of us who cannot do something in keeping words
close to their own proper meaning, and in resisting
their encroachments on the domain of others.
The causes which bring this mischief about are not
hard to trace. We all know that when a piece of our
silver money has for a long time been fulfilling its
part as * pale and common drudge 'tween man and
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286 Changed Meaning of Words, lbct.
man/ whatever it had at first of sharper outline and
livelier impress is in the end nearly or altogether worn
away. So it is with words, above all with words of
science and theology. These, getting into general
use, and passing often from mouth to mouth, lose the
'image and superscription' which they had before
they descended firom the school to the market-place,
from the pulpit to the street Being now caught up
by those who understand imperfectly and thus in-
correctly their true value, who will not be at the
pains of learning what that is, or who are incapable of
so doing, they are obliged to accommodate themselves
to the lower sphere in which they circulate, by laying
aside much of the precision and accuracy and- fulness
which once they had ; they become weaker, shallower,
more indistinct; till in the end, as exponents of^
thought and feeling, they cease to be of any. service
at all.
Sometimes a word does not merely narrow or ex-
tend its meaning, but altogether changes it ; and this
it does in more ways than one. Thus a secondary
figurative sense will quite put out of use and ex-
tinguish the literal, urIlU in the entire predominance
of that it is altogether forgotten that it ever possessed
any other. In 'bombast' this forgetfulness is nearly
complete. What * bombast * now means is ^miliar to
us all, namely inflated words, ' full of sound and fury,'
but 'signifying nothing.' This, at present the sole
meaning, was once only the secondary and superin-
duced; 'bombast' being properly the cotton plant,
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VII. Words change their Meaning. 287
and then the cotton wadding with which garments were
stuffed out and lined. You remember perhaps how
Prince Hal addresses Falstaff, * How now, my sweet
creature of bombast ; using the word in its literal
sense ; and another early poet has this line :
* Thy body's bolstered out with bombast and with bags.'
' Bombast ' was then transferred in a vigorous image
to the big words .without strength or solidity where-
with the discourses of some were stuffed out, and has
now quite forgone any other meaning. So too * to
garble ' was once ^to cleanse from dross and dirt, as
grocers do their spices, to pick or cull out'* It is
never used now in this its primary sense, and has
indeed undergone this further change, that while once
* to garble ' was to sift for the purpose of selecting the
best, it is now to sifl with a view of picking out the
wojst f * Polite ' is another word which in the figurative
sense has quite extinguished the literal. We still speak
of * polished ' surfaces ; but not any more, with Cud-
worth, of * polite bodies, as looking glasses.' Neither
do we now 'exonerate 'a ship (Burton); nor 'stigma-
tize,' otherwise than figuratively, a 'malefactor' (the
same) ; nor * corroborate ' our health (Sir Thomas
Elyot) any more.
Again, a word will travel on by slow and regularly
progressive courses of change, itself a faithful index
♦ Phillips, New World of Words, 1706.
t * But his [Gideon's] army must be garbled, as too great for
God to give victory thereby ; all the fearful return home by
prpcljimation ' (Fuller, Pisgah Sight of Palestinf^ b. ii. c 8).
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288 Changed Meaning of Words, lect.
of changes going on in society and in the minds of
men, till at length everything is changed about it
The process of this it is often very curious to observe ;
being one which it is possible to watch as step by step
it advances to the final consummation. There may
be said to be three leading phases which the word
successively presents, three stages in its history. At
first it grows naturally out of its own root, is filled with
its own natural meaning. Presently it allows another
meaning, one foreign to its etymology, and superin-
duced on the earlier, to share possession with this, on
the ground that where one exists, the other commonly
exists with it. At the third step, the newly intro-
duced meaning, not satisfied with a moiety, with
dividing the possession of the word, has thrust out
the original and rightful possessor altogether, and
reigns henceforward alone. The three successive
stages may be represented by a, ab, b ; in which series
bj which was wanting altogether at the first stage, and
was only admitted as secondary at the second, does at
the third become primary, and indeed remains in sole
and exclusive possession.
We must not suppose that in actual feet the tran-
sitions from one signification to another are so
strongly and distinctly marked, as I have found it
convenient to mark them here. Indeed it is hard to
imagine anything more gradual, more subtile and im-
perceptible, than the process of change. The manner
in which the new meaning first insinuates itself into
the old, and. then drives out the old, can only be
compared to the process of petrifaction, as rightly
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vn, Ghradual Change in Meaning. 289
understood — the water not gradually turning what has
fallen into it to stone, as we generally take the opera-
tion to be ; but successively displacing each several
particle of that which is brought within its power, and
depositing a stony particle in its stead, till, in the end,
while all appears to continue the same, all has in fact
been thoroughly changed. It is precisely thus, by
such slow, gradual, iind subtle advances that the new
meaning filters through and pervades the word, little
by little displacing entirely that which it formerly
No word would illustrate this process better than
that old example, familiar probably to us all, of * vil-
lain.' The * villain ' is, first, the serf or peasant, * vil-
lanus,' because attached to the * villa' or farm. He
is, secondly, the peasant who, it is further taken for
granted, will be churlish, selfish, dishonest, and gen-
erally of evil moral conditions, these having come
to be assumed as always belonging to him, and to be
permanentiy associated with his name, by those
higher classes of society, the xdkoi xdXaBoi, who in the
main commanded the springs of language. At the
third step, nothing of the meaning which the etymo-
logy suggests, nothing of * villa,' survives any longer ;
the peasant is wholly dismissed, and the evil moral
conditions of him who is called by thi^ name alone
remain ;* so that the name would now in this its final
• Epigrams and proverbs like the following, and they are
innumerable in the middle ages, sufficiently explain the succes-
sive phases of meaning through which * villain ' has passed :
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290 Changed Meaning of Words, lbot.
stage be applied as freely to peer, if he deserved it, as
to peasant ' Boor ' has had exactly the same history ;
being first the cultivator of the soil ; then secondly,
the cultivator of the soil, who, it is assumed, will be
coarse, rude, and unmannerly ; and then thirdly, any
one who is coarse, rude, and unmannerly. So too
* pagan ; which is first villager, then heathen villager,
and lastly heathen.* You may trace the same pro-
gress in 'churl,' 'clown,' 'antic,' and in numerous
other words. The intrusive meaning might be likened
in all these cases to the ^g^ which the cuckoo lays
in the sparrow's nest ; the young cuckoo first sharing
the nest with its rightful occupants, but not resting till
it has dislodged and ousted them altogether.
I will illustrate by the aid of one word more this
part of my subject I called your attention in my
last lecture to the true character of several words and
forms in use among our country people, and claimed
for them to be in many instances genuine English,
although English now more or less antiquated and
overlived. * Gossip ' is a word in point This name
is given by our Hampshire peasantry to the sponsors
in baptism, the godfathers and godmothers. We have
here a perfectly correct employment of 'gossip,' in
fact its proper and original one, one involving more-
over a very curious record of past beliefs. ' Gossip '
or * gossib,' as Chaucer spelt it, is a compound word.
Quando mulcetur villanusf pejor habetur :
Ungentem pungit, pungentem rosticus ungit.
+ See my Study of Words^ 13th edit., p. 119.
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vn. History of Gossip. 291
made up of the name of 'God,' and of an old Anglo-
Saxon word, 'sib,' still aliva in Scotland, as all
readers of Walter Scott will remember, and in some
parts of England, and which means, akin ; they
being *sib,' who are related to one another. But
why, you may ask, was the name given to sponsors ?
Out of this reason : — in the Middle Ages it was the
prevailing belief (and the Romish Church still affirms
it), that those who stood as sponsors to the same
child, besides contracting spiritual obligations on
behalf of that child, also contracted spiritual affinity
one with another ; they became sid, or akin, in God,
and thus 'gossips ;' hence 'gossipred,' an old word,
exactly analogous to 'kindred.' Out of this feith
the Roman Catholic Church will not allow (unless
by dispensation), those who have stood as sponsors
to the same child, afterwards to contract marriage with
one another, affirming them too nearly related for
this to be lawful.
Take ' gossip ' however in its ordinary present use,
as one addicted to idle tittle-tattle, and it seems to
bear no relation whatever to its etymology and first
meaning. Jhe same three steps, however, which we
have traced before will bring us to its pre^gnt-^use,
- Gossips' are, first, the sponsors, brought by the act of
a common sponsorship into affinity and near familiarity
with one another; secondly, these sponsors, whp
being thus brought together, allo^y themselves with
one another in familiar, aiid then in trivial and idle,
talk ; thirdly, they are any who allow themselves in
this trivial and idle talk^ — called in French 'copfj?
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292 Changed Meaning of Words, lect.
mirage,' from the fact that 'comm^re' has run
through exactly the same stages as its English equi-
valent
It is plain that words which designate not things
and persons only, but these as they are contemplated
more or less in an ethical light, words which are
tinged with a moral sentiment, are peculiarly exposed
to change ; are constantly liable to take a new colour-
ing or to lose an old. The gauge and measure of praise
or blame, honour or dishonour, admiration or abhor-
rence, which they convey, is so purely a mental and
subjective one, that it is most difficult to take accurate
note of its rise or of its fell, while yet there are causes
continually at work to bring about the one or the
other. There are words not a few, ethical words
above all, which have so imperceptibly drifted away
from their former moorings, that although their posi-
tion is now veiy different from that which they once
occupied, scarcely one in a hundred of casual readers,
whose attention has not been specially called to the
subject, will have observed that they have moved at
all. Here too we observe some words conveying less
of praise or blame than once, and some more ; while
some have wholly shifted from the one to the other.
Some were at one time words of slight, almost of
offence, which have altogether ceased to be so now.
Still these are rare by comparison with those which
once were harmless, but now are harmless no more ;
which once, it may be, w*re terms of honour, but
which now imply a slight or even a scorn. It is only
too easy to perceive why these should exceed those in
number.
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vn. /mp, Brat. 293
Let us take an example or two. To speak now of
royal children as 'royal imps,' would sound, and ac-
cording to our present usage would be, impertinent ;
and yet *imp' was once a name of dignity and
honour, and not of slight ol of undue familiarity.
Thus Spenser addresses the Muses,
* Ye sacred imps that on Pamassa dwell ;'
and ' imp ' was especially used of the scions of royal
or illustrious houses. More than one epitaph, still
existing, of our ancient nobility might be quoted,
beginning in such language as this, ' Here lies that
noble imp,* Or what should we say of a poet who
commenced a solemn poem in this fashion,
* Oh Israel, oh household of the Lord,
Oh Abraham's brats^ oh brood of blessed.seed ' ?
Could we conclude but that he meant, by using low
words on lofty occasions, to turn sacred things into
ridicule ? Yet this was veiy far from the intention of
Gascoigne, the poet whose liijes I have just quoted.
'Abraham's brats' was used by him in perfect good
faith, and without the slightest -feeling that anything
ludricous or contemptuous adhered to 'brat,' as indeed
in his time there did not, any more than now adheres
to 'brood,' which is another form of the same word
now.
Call a person 'pragmatical,' and you now imply
not merely that he is busy, but over-husyj officious,
self-important and pompous to boot Biit it once
meant nothing of the kind, and a man ' pragmatical '
(like itpayjuATtxoi) was one engaged in affairs, and the
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294 Changed Meaning of Words, lect.
title an honourable one, given to a man simply and
industriously accomplishing the business which prop-
erly concerned him.* So too to say that a person
'meddles' or is a 'meddler' implies now that he
interferes unduly in other men's matters, without a
call mixing himself with them. This was not in-
sinuated in the earher uses of the word. On the
contrary three of our earlier translators of the Bible
have, * Meddle with your own business ' (i Thes. iv.'
ii) ; and Barrow in one of his sermons draws
at some length the distinction between 'meddling'
and * being meddlesome,* and only condemns the
latter.
Or take again the words, * to prose ' or a ' proser.
It cannot indeed "be affirmed that they involve any
moral condemnation, yet they certainly convey no
compliment now ; and are almost among the last
which any one would desire should with justice be
applied either to his talking or his writing. For ' to
prose,' as we all now know too well, is to talk or
write heavily and tediously, without spirit or anima-
tion ; but once it was simply the antithesis of to
versify, and a ' proser ' the antithesis of a versifier or
a poet It will follow that the most rapid and live-
liest writer who ever wrote, if he did not write in
verse would have 'prosed' and been a 'proser,' in
* * We cannot always be contemplative, or pragmatical
abroad: but have need of some delightful intermissions,
wherein the enlarged soul may leave off awhile her severe
schooling* (Milton, Tetrachordon).
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vn. Proser, Knave^ ViUain. 295
the language of our ancestors. Thus Drayton writes
of his contemporary Nashe :
* And surely Nashe, though he z.proser were,
A branch of laurel yet deserves to bear ;'
that is, the ornament not of a *proser' but of a poet
The tacit assumption that vigour, animation, rapid
movement, with all the precipitation of the spirit,
belong to verse rather than to prose, and are the
exclusive possession of it, must explain the changed
uses of the word.
Still it is according to a word's present signification
that we must employ it now. It would be no excuse,
having applied an insulting epithet to any, if we
should afterwards plead that, tried by its etymology
and primary usage, it had nothing offensive or insult-
ing about it ; although indeed Swiil assures us that in
his time such a plea was made and was allowed. * I
remember,' he says, 'at a trial in Kent, where Sir
George Rooke was indicted for calling a gentkman
"knave " and ** villain," the lawyer for the defendant
brought off his client by alledging that the words were
not injurious ; for ** knave" in the old and true sig-
nification imported only a servant ; and " villain " in
Latin is villicus, which is no more than a man em-
ployed in a country labour, or rather a baily.' The
lawyer may have deserved his success for the ingenuity
and boldness of his plea ; though, if Swift reports
him aright, not certainly on the ground of the strict
accuracy either of his Anglo-Saxon or his Latin.
The moral sense and conviction of men is often at
work upon their words, giving them new turns in
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296 Changed Meaning of Words, lect.
obedience to these convictions, of which their changed
use will then remain a permanent record. The history
of * sycophant ' will illustrate this. You probably are
acquainted with the story which the Greek scholiasts
invented by way of explaining a word of whose history
they knew nothing,— namely that the ' sycophant ' was
a 'manifester of figs,' one who detected and de-
nounced others in the act of exporting figs from
Attica, an ,act forbidden, they asserted, by the
Athenian law ; and accused them to the people. Be
this explanation worth what it may, the word obtained .
in Greek a more general sense ; any accuser, and
then zxsf false accuser, was a ' sycophant ;' and when
the word was first adopted into English, it was in
this meaning : thus an old poet speaks of * the railing
route of sycophants ;' and Holland : * The poor man
that hath nought to lose, is not afraid of the sycophant,^
But it has not kept this meaning; a 'sycophant' is
now a fawning flatterer ; not one who speaks ill of
you fcehind your back ; rather one who speaks good
of you before your face, but good which he does not
in his heart believe. Yet how true a moral instinct
has presided over this changed signification. The
calumniator and the flatterer, although they seem so
opposed to one another, how closely^ united they
really are. They grow out of the same root. The
same baseness of spirit which shall lead one to speak
evil of you behind your back,, will lead him to fawn
on you and flatter you before your face. There is a
profound sense in that Italian proverb, ' Who flatters
me before, spatters me behind.'
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VJi. Shrew, Shrewd, Shrewdness, 297
But it is not the moral sense only of men which is
thus at work, modifying their words ; but the immoral
as well. If the good which men have and feel, pene-
trates into their speech, and leaves its deposit there,
so does also the evil. Thus we may trace a constant
tendency — in too many cases it has been a successful
one — to empty words employed in the condemnation
of evil, of the depth and earnestness of the moral
reprobation which they once conveyed. Men's too
easy toleration of sin, the feebleness of their moral
indignation against it, brings this about, namely that
the blame which words expressed once, has in some
of them become much weaker now than once, from
others has vanished altogether. *To do a shrewd
turn,' was once to do a wicked turn ; Chaucer employs
' shrewdness ' to render the Latin * improbitas ;' nay,
two murderers he calls two ' shrews,' — for there were,
as has been already noticed, male * shrews ' once as
well as female. But *a shrewd turn' now, while it
implies a certain amount of sharp dealing, yet implies
nothing more ; and ' shrewdness ' is applied to men
rather in their praise than in their dispraise. And
not these only, but a multitude of other words,— I
will only instrance 'prank,' 'flirt,' 'luxury,' 'luxu-
rious,' 'peevish,' 'wayward,' 'loiterer,' 'uncivil,' —
involved once a much more earnest moral disappro-
bation than they do at this present
But i must bring this lecture to a close. I have
but opened to you paths, which you, if you are so
minded, can follow up for yourselves. We have
learned lately to speak of men's 'antecedents ;' the
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298 Changed Meaning of Words, lect.
phrase is newly come np ; and it is common to say
that if we would know what a man really now is, we
must know his 'antecedents/ that is, what he has
been and what he has done in time past This is
quite as true about words. If we would know what
they now are, we must know what they have been ;
we must know, if possible, the date and place of their
birth, the successive stages of their subsequent history,
the company which they have kept, all the road which
they have travelled, and what has brought them to
the point at which now we find them ; we must know
in short their antecedents.
And let me say, without attempting to bring back
school into these lectures which are out of school,
Xhat, seeking to do this, we might add an interest to
our researches in the lexicon and the dictionary which
otherwise they could never have ; that taking such
words for example as ixxXT/dia, or leaXivyyeyedia, or
evrpaieeXtaj or do^ptdiif?, or 6xoXadrtM6i in Greek ; as
*religio,'or *sacramentum,'or 'imperator,' or *ur-
banitas,' or 'superstitio,' in Latin ; as 'casuistry/
or 'good-nature,' or 'humorous,' or 'danger,' or
' romance,' in English, and endeavoring to trace the
manner in which one meaning grew out of and super-
seded another, and how they arrived at the use in
which they have finally rested (if indeed before these
English words there be not a fiiture still), we shall
derive, I believe, amusement, I am sure, instruction ;
we shall feel that we are really getting something, in-
creasing the moral and intellectual stores of our
minds ; furnishing ourselves with that which may
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vn. Changed Meaning of Words. 299
hereafter be of service to ourselves, may be of service
to others — than which there can be no feeling more
pleasurable, none more delightful.*
* For a fuller treatment of the subject of this lecture,
my Select Glossary ^ 3rd ed., 1865.
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300 Changed Spelling of Words, lect.
LECTURE VUI.
CHANGES IN THE SPELUNG OF ENGLISH
WORDS.
THE subject of my lecture to-day will be English
orthography, and it will be mainly taken up
with notices of some changes which this has under-
gone. You may think perhaps that a weightier, or at
all events a more interesting, subject might have
claimed our attention to-day. But it is indeed one
wanting neither in import?ince nor in interest Un-
important it is not, having often engaged the attention
of the foremost scholai^ among us. Uninteresting it
may be, through faults in the manner t)f its treatment ;
but would never prove so in competent hands.* Let
me hope that even in mine it may yield some pleasure
and profit.
It is Hobbes who has said, *The invention of
printing, though ingenious, compared with the inven-
tion of letters is no great matter.' Use and £imiliarity
had not obliterated for him the wonder of tha^ at
which we probably have loilg ceased to wonder, if
• Let me refer in proof, to a paper, On Orthographical
ExpedUfUs^ by Edwin Guest, Esq., in the Transactions of the
Philological Society y vol. iii. p. I.
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vni. Writing and Printing. 301
indeed the marvel of it ever presented itself to our
minds at all — the power, namely, of representing
sounds by written signs, of reproducing for the eye
what existed at first only for the ear. Nor was the
estimate which he formed of the relative value of
these two inventions other than a just one. Writing
stands more nearly on a level with speaking, and
deserves better to be compared with it, than with
printing ; which last, with all its utility, is yet of quite
another and inferior type of greatness : or, if this be
too much to claim for writing, it may at all events be
affirmed to stand midway between the other two, and
to be ias much superior to the one as it is inferior to
the other.
The intention of the written word, the end whereto
it is a mean, is by aid of signs agreed on beforehand,
to represent to the eye with as much accuracy as
possible the spoken word. This intention, however,
it never fulfils completely. There is always a chasm
between these two, and much going forward in a
language to render this chasm ever wider and wider.
Short as man's spoken word often falls of his
thought, his written word falls often as short of his
spoken. Several causes contribute to this. In the
first place, the marks of imperfection and infirmity
cleave to writing, as to every other invention of man. -
It feres with most alphabets as with our own. They
have superfluous letters, letters which they do not
want, because others already represent their sound ;
thus ' q ' in English is perfectly useless,' * c ' ' k ' and
's' have only two sounds between them; they have
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302 Changed Spelling of Words, lect.
dubious letters, such, that is, as say nothing certain
about the sounds they stand for, because more than
one sound is represented by them, our own ' a ' for
example ; they are deficient in letters, that is, the
language has elementary sounds such as our own * th '
which have no corresponding letters appropriated to
them, and can only be represented by combinations
of letters. This then, being, as one called it long ago,
*an apendix to the curse of Babel,' is one reason of
the imperfect reproduction of the spoken word by the
written. But another is, that the human voice is so
wonderfully fine and flexible an organ, is able to mark
such subtle and delicate distinctions of sound, so
infinitely to modify and vary these sounds, that were
an alphabet complete as human art could make it, did
it possess twice as many letters as our own possesses,
— the Sanscrit, which has fifty, very nearly does so, —
there would soon remain a multitude of sounds which
it could only approximately give back.
But there is a further cause for the divergence which
little by little becomes apparent between men's spoken
words and their written. What men do often, they
will seek to do with the least possible trouble. There
is nothing which they do oftener than repeat words ;
they will seek here then to save themselves pains ;
they will contract two or more syllables into one ;
' vuestra merced ' will become ' usted ;' and * topside
the other way,' 'topsy-turvy;'* or draw two or
three syllables together,' 'itiner'will become 'iter,'
• Sec StanihursVs Ireland, p. 33, in Holinshed's ChromcUs.
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vin. Spohen and written Words. 303
*hafoc' 'hawk/ 'cyning' 'king, 'and 'almesse' 'alms;'
they will assimilate consonants; * subfero ' will become
* sujQfero ;' they will slur over, and thus after a while
cease to pronounce certain letters, especially at the
close of words, where the speaking effort has in a
manner exhausted itself; for hard letters they will
substitute soft; for those which require a certain
effort to pronounce, they will substitute those which
require little or almost none.* Under the operation
of these causes a gulf between the written and spoken
word will not merely exist; but it will have the
tendency to grow ever wider and wider. This ten-
• Schleicher (Die Deutsche Spracke^ p. 49) : Alle Verand-
erung der Laute, die im Verlaufe des sprachlichen Lebens
eintritt, ist zun^lchst und unmittelbar Folge des Strebens,
unseren Sprachorganen die Sache leicht zu machen. Bequem-
lichkeit der Aussprache, Ersparung an Muskelth&tigkeit ist
das hier wirkende Agens. Who does not feel, for instance,
how much the miter es of Greek, with its thrice recurring * e,'
has gained in facility of being spoken over the earlier tnataras^
with its thrice recurring * a,' of the Sanscrit ? Ampdre {For-
motion de la Langue Frangaise) describes well the forces, and
this among the rest, which are ever at work for the final
destruction of a language : Les mots en vieillissent, tendent
d. remplacer .les consonnes fortes et dures par des consonnes
faibles et douces, les voyelles sonores, d'abord par des voy^lles
muettes. Les sons pleins s'^teignent peu & peu et se perdent.
Les finales disparaissent et les mots se contractent. Par suite,
les langues deviennent moins mdlodieuses ; les mots qui
charmaient et remplissaient I'oreille n'offrent plus qu'un signe
mn^monique, et comme un chiffre. Les langues en g6n6ral
ccmmencent par 6tre une musique et finissent par ^tre une
olgdbre.
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804 Changed Spelling of Words, legt.
dency indeed will be partially traversed by approxi-
mations which from time to time will by silent consent
be made of the written word to the spoken ; abso-
lutely superfluous letters will be got rid of ; as the
final *k ' in 'civic/ 'politic,' and such like words ;
the * Engleneloande ' of Henry the Third's famous
proclamation (1258) will become the England 'which
we now write, seven letters instead of thirteen ; here
and there a letter dropped in speech will be dropped
also in writing, as the * s ' in so many French words,
where its absence is marked by a circumflex ; a new
shape, contracted or briefer, which a word has taken
on the lips of men, will find its representation in their
writing ; as ' chirurgeon * will not merely be pro-
nounced, but also spelt, 'surgeon,' 'squinancy'
'quinsey,' and 'Euerwic' 'York.' Still, notwith-
standing these partial readjustments of the relations
between the two, the anomalies will be infinite ; there
will be a multitude of written letters which have
ceased to be sounded letters ; words not a few will
exist in one shape upon our lips, and in quite
another in our books. Sometimes, as in such proper
names as ' Beauchamp ' and * Belvoir,' even the pre-
tence of a consent between the written word and
the spoken will have been abandoned.
It is ine\atable that the question should arise — Shall
these anomalies be meddled with? shall it be at-
tempted to remove them, and to bring writing and
speech into harmony and consent — a harmony and
consent which never indeed in actual fact at any
period of the language existed, but which yet may be
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VIII. Phonetic Words. 305
regarded as the object of written speech, as the idea
which, however imperfectly realized, has, in the re-
duction of spoken sounds to written, floated before
the minds of men ? If the attempt is to be made, it
is clear that it can only be made in one way. There
is not the alternative here that either Mahomet shall
go to the mountain, or the mountain to Mahomet
The spoken word is the mountain ; it will not stir ; it
will resist all attempts to move it Conscious of
superior rights, that it existed the first, that it is, so to
say, the elder brother, it will never consent to become
diflferent from what it has been, that so it may more
closely conform and comply with the written word.
Men will not be persuaded to pronounce 'wou/d'and
*de^t,' because they write these words severally with
an 'T and with a *.b'; but what if they could be
induced to write 'woud' and 'det,' because they so
pronounce ; and to adopt the same course wherever a
discrepancy existed between the word as spoken, and
as written ? Might not the gulf between the two be
in this way made to disappear ?
Here we have the explanation of that which in the
history of almost all literatures has repeated itself
more than once, namely, the endeavour to introduce
phonetic writing. It has certain plausibilities to rest
on; it appeals to the unquestionable fact that the
written word was intended to picture to the eye what
the spoken word sounded to the ear. For all this I
believe that it would be impossible to introduce it ;
and, even if possible, that it would be most unde-
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306 Changed Spelling of Words. lecjt.
sirable, and this for two reasons ; the first being Aat
the losses consequent upon its introduction would far
outweigh the gains, even supposing those gains as
large as the advocates of the scheme promise ; the
second, that these promised gains would themselves
be only very partially realized, or not at all.
I believe it to be impossible. It is clear that such
a scheme must begin with the reconstruction of the
alphabet The first thing that the phonographers
have perceived is the necessity for the creation of a
vast number of new signs, the poverty of all existing
alphabets, at any rate of our own, not yielding a
several sign for all the several sounds in the language.
Our English phonographers have therefore had to
invent ten of these new signs or letters, which are
henceforth to take their place with our a, 3, r, and to
enjoy equal rights with them. Rejecting two {q, x),
and adding ten, they have raised their alphabet from
twenty-six letters to thirty-four. But to procure the
reception of such a reconstructed alphabet is simply
an impossibility, as much an impossibility as would be
the reconstitution of the structure of the language in
any points where it was manifestly deficient or illogical.
Sciolists or scholars may sit down in their studies, and
devise these new letters, and prove that we need them,
and that the introduction of them would be a manifest
gain ; and this may be all very true : but if they
imagine that they can persuade a people to adopt
them, they know little of the ways in which its alpha-
bet is entwined with the whole innermost life of a
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vra. Spelling by the Ear. 307
people.* One may freely own that most present
alphabets are redundant here, are deficient there ;
our English perhaps is as greatly at fault as any, and
with that we have chiefly to do. Unquestionably it
has more letters than one to express one and the
same sound ; it has only one letter to express two or
three sounds ; it has sounds which are only capable
of being expressed at all by awkward and roundabout
expedients. Yet at the same time we must accept
the fact, as we accept any other which it is out of our
pow^r to change — with regret, indeed, but with a
perfect acquiescence : as one accepts the fact that
Ireland is not some thirty of forty miles nearer to
England — that it is so difficult to get round Cape
Horn — ^that the climate of Africa is so fatal to Euro-
pean life. A people will no more quit their alphabet
than they will quit their language ; they will no more
consent to modify the one at a command from with-
out than the other. Caesar avowed that with all his
power he could not introduce a new word, and
• Of course it is quite a diflferent thing when philologers,
for their own special purposes, endeavour to construct an
alphabet which shall cover all sounds of human speech, and
shall enable them to communicate to one another in all parts
of the world what is the true pronunciation, or what they
believe to be true pronunciation, of the words with which they
are dealing. But alphabets like these are purely scientific and
must remain such. A single fact will sufficiently prove this.
The Standard Alphabet of the German scholar Lepsius, in-
tended, it is true, to furnish written equivalents for sounds, not
of one human speech, but of all, has two hundred and eighty-
ux signs, every one of them having a distinct phonetic value.
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308 Changed Spelling of Words, lect.
certainly Claudius could not introduce a new letter.
Centuries may bring about and sanction the intro-
duction of a new one, or the dropping of an old. But
to imagine that it is possible suddenly to introduce a
group of ten new letters, as these reformers propose —
they might just as feasibly propose that the English
language should form its comparatives and superla-
tives on some entirely new schemo, say in Greek
feshion, by the terminations ' oteros ' and ' otatos ;' or
that we should agree to set up a dual ; or that our
substantives should return to our Anglo-Saxon declen-
sions. Any one of these or like proposals would not
betray a whit more ignorance of the eternal laws which
regulate human speech, and of the limits within which
deliberate action upon it is possible, than does this
of increasing our alphabet by ten entirely novel signs.
But grant it possible, grant our six and twenty
letters to have so little sacredness in them that Eng-
lishmen would endure a crowd' of upstart interlopers
to mix themselves on an equal footing with them,
still this could only arise from a sense of the great-
ness of the advantage to be derived from this intro-
duction. Now the vast advantage claimed by the
advocates of the system i^ that it would facilitate the "
learning to read, and wholly save the labor of learning
to spell, which 'on the present plan occupies,' as they
assure us, ' at the very lowest calculation from three
to five years.' Spelling, it is said, would no longer
need to be learned at all ; since whoever knew the
sound, would necessarily know also the spelling, these
being in all cases in perfect conformity with one an-
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vra. Spelling by the Ear. 309
other. The anticipation of this gain rests upon two
assumptions which are tacitly taken for granted, but
both of them erroneous.
The first of these assumptions is, that all men pro-
nounce all words alike, and thus that whenever they
come to spell a word, they will exactly agree as to
what the outline of its sound is. Now we are sure
men will not do this from the fact that, before there
was any fixed and settled orthography in our language,
when therefore everybody was more or less a phono-
grapher, seeking to write down the word as it sounded
io htm, (for he had no other law to guide him, ) the
variations of spelling were mfinite. Take for instance
the word ' sudden ;' which does not seem to promise
any great scope for variety. I have myself met with
this word spelt in the following sixteen ways among
our early writers : *sodain,' *sodaine,' 'sodan,' 'so-
dane,' 'sodayne,' 'sodden,' 'sodein,' 'sodeine,'
*soden,' 'sodeyn,' 'suddain,' 'suddaine,' 'suddein,'
* suddeine, ' * sudden, ' ' sudeyn. ' Shakespeare's name
is spelt I know not in how many ways, and Raleigh's
in hardly fewer. The same is evident from the spell-
ing of uneducated persons in our own day. They
have no other rule but the sound to guide them.
How is it that they do not all spell alike ; erroneously,
it may be, as having only the sound for their guide,
but still falling all into exactly the same errbrs ? What
is the actual fact They not merely spell wrongly,
which might be laid to the charge of our perverse
system of spelling, but with an inexhaustible diversity
of erfor, and that too in the case of simplest words.
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810 Changed Spelling of Words, lect.
Thus the town of Woburn would seem to give small
room for caprice in spelling, while yet the postmaster
there has made, from the superscription of letters that
have passed through his hands, a collection of two
hundred and forty-four varieties of ways in which the
place has been spelt* It may be replied that these
were all or nearly all collected from the letters of the
ignorant and uneducated. Exactly so ; — but it is for
their sakes, and to place them on a level with the
educated, or rather to accelerate their education by
the omission of a useless yet troublesome discipline,
that the change is proposed. I wish to show you that
after the change they would be just as much, or
almost as much, at a loss in their spelling as now.
Another reason would make it quite as necessaiy
then to learn orthography as now. Pronunciation, as
I have already noticed, is oftentimes fer too'subtie a
thing to be more than approximated to, and indicated
in the written letter. Different persons would attempt
by different methods to overcome the difficulties which
the reproduction of it for the eye presented, and thus
different spellings would arise ; or, if not^o, one must
be arbitrarily selected, and would have need to be
learned, just as much as spelling at present has need
to be learned. I .will only ask you, in proof of this
which I affirm, to turn to any Pronouncing Dictionary.
Thatabsurdest of all books, a Pronouncing Dictionary,
may be of some service to you in this matter ; it will
certainly be of none in any other. When you mark
• NoUs and Queries, No. 147.
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vm. Spelling hy the Ear. 311
the elaborate and yet ineflfectual artifices by which it
toils after the finer distinctions of articulation, seeks
to reproduce in letters what exists, and can only
exist, as the spoken tradition of pronunciation, ac-
quired from lip to lip by the organ of the ear, capable
of being learned, but incapable of being taught ; or
when you compare two of these Dictionaries with one
another, and note the entirely different schemes and
combinations of letters which they employ for repre-
senting the same sound to the eye ; you will then
perceive how idle the attempt to make the written in
language commensurate with the sounded ; you will
own that not merely out of human caprice, ignorance,
or indolence, the former falls short of and differs firom
the latter ; but that this lies in the necessity of things,
in the fact that man's voice can effect so much more
than ever his letter can. * You will then perceive that
there would be as much, or nearly as much, of arbi-
trary in spelling which calls itself phonetic as there is
in our present We. should be as little able to dismiss
the spelling card then as now. But to what extent
English writing would be transformedr-whether for
the better or the worse each may judge for himself—
a single specimen will prove. Take as the first sample
which comes to my hand these ibur lines of Pope,
which hitherto we have thus spelt and read,
* But errs not nature from this gracious end.
From burning suns when livid deaths descend.
♦ See Boswell, Ufe of Johnson^ Croker's edit., X84S;
P- 233.
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312 Changed Spelling of Words, lect.
When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep
Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep ? *
Phonetically written, they present themselves to us in
the following feshion :
' But ^ erz not netiw from dis greens end,
from bnniiQ siiiiz when livid debs disend,
when erbkweks swol«r, or when tempests swip
tonnz tD won grtv, hcrl neconz tu de dip.*
The scheme would not then fulfil its promises. The
gains ^hich it vaunts, when we come to look closely at
them, disappear. And how for the losses. There are
in every language a vast number of words, which the
ear does* not distinguish from one another, but which
are at once distinguishable to the eye by the spelling.
I will only instance a few which are the same parts of
speech ; thus * sun ' and * son ;* ' viige ' ( * virga,' now
obsolete) and 'verge;' 'reign,' 'rain,' and 'rein;'
„ ' hair ' and ' hare ;' ' plat^ ' and ' plait ;' ' moat ' and
'mote;' 'pear' and 'pair;' 'pain' and 'pane;'
'raise' and 'raze;' 'air' and 'heir;' 'ark' and
'arc;' 'mite 'and 'might;' 'pour 'and 'pore;' 'tail'
and ' tale ;' ' veil ' and 'vale ;' ' knight ' and * night ;'
' knave ' and ' nave ;' ' pier ' and ' peer ;' ' rite ' and
'right,;' ' site ' and ' sight ;' ' aisle ' and ' isle ;' 'con-
cent' and 'consent;' 'signet' and 'cygnet' Now,
of course, it is a real disadvantage, and may be the
cause of serious confusion, that there should be words
in spoken language of entirely different origin and
meaning, which yet cannot in sound be differenced
from one another. The phpnographers simply pro-
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vra. Phonetic Spelling. 313
pose to extend this disadvantage already cleaving to
our spoken language, to the written language as well.
It is fault enough in the French language, that ' m^re '
a mother, ' mer ' the sea, ' maire ' a mayor of a town,
should have no perceptible difference between them
in the spoken tongue; or again that there should be
nothing to distinguish 'sans,' 'sang,' 'sent,' 'sens,'
's'en,' 'cent;' and as little 'ver,' 'vert/ 'verre'and
'vers.' Surely it is not very wise to propose gra-
tuitously to extend the same imperfection to the
written language as well.
This loss in so many instances of tbe power to dis-
criminate between words, which, however liable to
confusion now in our spoken language, are liable to
none in our written, would be serious enough ; but
more serious still would be the loss which would con-
stantly ensue, of all which visibly connects a word
with the past, which tells its histor)', and indicates the
quarter from which it has been derived. In how
many English words a letter silent to the ear, is yet
most eloquent to the eye — ^the 'g' for instance in
'deign,' 'feign,' 'reign,' 'impugn,' tellingas it does of
'dignor,' 'fingo,' 'regno,' 'impugno;' even as the 'b'
in 'debt,' ' doubt,' is not idle, but tells of ' debitum '
and 'dubium.'
It is uiged indeed as an answer to this, that the
scholar does not need these indications to help him
to the pedigree of the words with which he deals, that
the ignorant is not helped by them ; that the one
knows without, and that the other does not know with
tb^m ; so that in either case they are profitable for
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314 ' Changed SpeUing of Words, lect.
nothing. Let it be freely granted that this in both
these cases is true ; but between these two extremes
there is a multitude of persons, neither accomplished
scholars on the one side, nor yet wholly without the
knowledge of all languages save their own on the
other ; and I cannot doubt that it is of great value
that these should have all helps enabling them to
recognize the .words which they are using, whence
they came, to what words in other languages they
are nearly related, and what is their properest and
strictest meaning.
At present it is the written word which in all lan-
guages constitutes their conservative element In it
is the abiding witness against the mutilations or other
capricious changes in shape which affectation, folly,
laziness, ignorance, and half-knowledge would intro-
duce. Not seldom it proves unable to hinder the
final adoption of these corrupter forms, but it does not
faiVXo oppose to them a constant, and often a success-
ful, resistance. ^ In this way for example the ' coco-
drill ' of our earlier English has given place to the
' crocodile ' of our later. With the adoption of phb-
netic spelling, this witness would exist no longer.
Whatever was spoken would have also to be written,
were it never so barbarous, never so wide a departure
from the true form of the word. Nor is it nierely
probable that such a barbarizing process, suqh an
adopting and sanctioning of a vulgarism, might take
place, but among phonographers it has taken place
already. There is a vulgar pronunciation of the word
* Y^nrope, * as though it were * Eur«/. ' Now it is quite
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possible that a larger number of persons in England
may pronounce the word in this manner than in the
right ; and therefore the phonographers are only true
to their principles when they spell it 'Eurup/ or,
indeed, omitting the first letter, 'Urup,' the life of the
first syllable being assailed no less than that of the
second. What are the consequences ? First, all con-
nection with the old mythology is entirely broken off* ;
secondly, its most probable etymology from two Greek
words, signifying ' broad' and 'face,' — Europe being
so called fi'om the droad line or /ace of coast which it
presented to the Asiatic Greek, — ^is totally obscured. *
But so &r from the spelling servilely following the
pronunciation, I should be bold to affirm that if
ninety-nine out of every hundred persons in England
chose to call Europe * Urup,' this would be a vulgar-
ism still, against which the written word ought to
maintain its protest, not lowering itself to their level,
but rather seeking to elevate them to its own.*}*
* Ampdre has well said, Eflfacer les signes ^tymologiques
d*une langue, c*est effacer ses titres g^n^alogiques ct gratter
son 6nisson.
t Quintilian has expressed himself with the true dignity of a
scholar on this matter {Inst, i. 6. 45) : Consuetudinum ser-
mon is vocabo consfftsum eruditorum ; sicut vivendi consensum
bonorum. — How different from innovations like this the changes
in German spelling which J. Grimm, so far as his own example
may reach, has introduced ; and the still bolder which in the
Preface to his DetUsches Woerterbuch^ pp. liv.-lxii., he avows
his desire to see introduced ; — ^as the employment of /, not
merely where at present used, but wherever v is now em-
ployed ; the substituting of the v^ which would be thus dis-
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Then too, if there is much in orthography which is
imsettled now, how much more would be unsettled
then I Inasmuch as the pronunciation of words is
continually altering, their spelling would of course
have continually to alter too. What I here assert,
namely, that pronunciation is undergoing constant
changes, although changes for the most part unmarked,
or marked only by a few, it would be abundantly ea^
to prove. Take a Pronouncing Dictionary of fifiy or a
hundred years ago ; in almost every page, you will
observe schemes of pronunciation there recommended
which are now merely vulgarisms, or which have been
dropped altogether. We gather from a discussion in
Boswell's Life o/yohnson* that in his time * great ' was
by some of the best speakers of the language pro-
nounced 'gr^rt,'not 'gr^zte; Pope usually rhymes it
with 'cheat,' 'complete,' and the like; thus in the
Dunciad:
• Here swells the shelf with Ogilby the great.
There, stamped with arms, Newcastle shines complete /*
while Spenser's constant use a century and a half
earlier, leaves no doubt that such was the established
pronunciation of his time. Again, Pope rhymes
' obliged ' with * besieged ;' and it has only ceased to
engaged, for w, and the entire dismissal of w. These may be
advisable, or they may not ; it is not for strangers to ofifer an
opinion ; but at any rate they all rest on a deep historic study
of the language, and of its true genius ; and are not a seeking
to give permanent authority to the fleeting accidents of the
present hour.
♦ Croker's edit., 1848, pp. 57, 61, 233.
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VIII. Pronunciation Alters. 317
l>e ' obk^ed ' almost in our own time. * Key ' in our
Elizabethan literature always rhymes with such words
as ' survey ' (Shakespeare, Sonnets), Who now drinks
a cup of 'tay'? yet it is certain that this was the
fashionable pronunciation in the first half of the last
century. This couplet of Po^'s is one proof out of
many.:
* Here thou, great Anna, whom three realms obey^
Dost sometimes comisel take, and sometimes tea*^
Rhyme is a great detector of changes like these, which
but for the help that it affords we should faiil to
detect, which indeed we should often have no means
of detecting, which not seldom we should not sus-
pect in the least. Thus when * should ' rhymes with
'cooled' (Shakespeare), with 'hold' (Daniel), with
'cold' (Ben Jonson), 'would 'with 'bold' (Ford),
with 'mpuld' (Chapman), with 'old' (Fletcher),
'could' with 'gold' (Ben Jonson), it is plain that
our ' shou'd,' ' wou'd,' ' cou'd,' had not yet established
themselves in the language. And how little our words
ending in ' ough ' are pronounced now as they were
once we gather from the fact that Golding in his trans-
lation of Ovid's Metamorphoses rhymes ' tough ' and
'through,' 'trough' and 'through,' 'rough' and
' plough.' Or a play on words may inform us how
the case once stood. Thus there would be no point
in the complaint of Cassius that in all Rome there was
room but for a single man,
* Now is it Rome indeed, and rootn enough,'
if Rome had not been pronounced in Shakespeare's
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318 Changed Spelling of Words, lect.
time, as some few pronounce it still, as I believe John
Kemble pronounced it to the last, but as the educated
classes of society have now consented not to pro-
nounce it any more. Samuel Rogers assures us that
in his youth * everybody said **Lonnon," not "Lon-
don ;" that Fox said ^* Lonnon " to the lasL'-
Swift long ago urged the same objection against the
phonographers of his time : * Another cause which
has contributed not a little to the maiming of our
language, is a foolish opinion advanced of late years
that we ought to spell exactiy as we speak : which,
besides the obvious inconvenience of utterly destroy-
ing our etymology, would be a thing we should never
see an end o£ Not only the several towns and coun-
ties of England have a different way of pronouncing,
but even here in London they clip their words after
one manner about the court, another in the city, and
a third in the suburbs ; and in a few years, it is
probable, will all differ from themselves, as fancy or
fashion shall direct ; all which, reduced to writing,
would entirely confound orthography/*
Let this much suffice by way of answer to those
who would fain revolutionize our English orthography
altogether. Dismissing them and their rash innova-
tions, let me call your attention now to those changes
in spelling which are constantly going forward, at
some periods more rapidly than at others, but which
never wholly cease; while at the same time I en-
* A proposal for correcting^ improving and ascertaining the
English Tongue, 171 1, Works ^ vol. ix. pp. 139-159.
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vni. Alterations in. Spelling. 319
deavor to trace, where this is possible, the motives
and inducements which bring them about It is a
subject which none can neglect, who desire to obtain
an accurate acquaintance with their native tongue.
Some principles have been laid down in the course of
what has been said already, ^ that may help us to
judge whether these changes are for better or for
worse. We shall find, if I mistake not, of both
kinds.
There are alterations in spelling which are for the
worse. Thus an altered spelling will sometimes
obscure the origin of a word, concealing it from those
who would else at once have known whence and what
it was, and would have found both pleasure and
profit in this knowledge. In all those cases where the
earlier spelling revealed the secret of the word, told
its history, which the latter defaces or obscures, the
change has been injurious, and is to be regretted ;
while yet, where this is thoroughly established, any
attempt to undo it would be absurd. Thus, when
^ grower' was spelt 'grojjer,' it was comparatively easy
to see that he first had his name, because he sold his
wares not by retail, but in the gross, ' Co.rcomb ' tells
us nothing now ; but it did when spelt 'co^^comb,'
the comb of a cockhting an ensign or token which the
fool was accustomed to wear. In ' grogra;» ' we are
entirely to seek for the derivation ; but in ' grogra;* '
or *grogra/*«,' as earlier it was spelt, one could
scarcely miss 'grosgrain,' the stuff of a coarse grain or
woof. What a mischievous alteration in spelling is
'devest' instead of 'd^est.' The change here is so
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320 Changed Spelling of Words, lect.
recent that surely it would not be impossible to return
to the only intelligible spelling.
*P/gmy' used once to be spelt 'pygmy/ and no
Gteek scholar could then fail to perceive that by
'pigmies' were indicated manikins of no greater
height than that of a man's arm from the elbow to the
closed fist* Now he may know this in other ways ;
but the word itself tells him nothing. Or again, the
old spelling, 'diama«/,' was preferable to the modem
'diam^wflf/ It was so, because it told more of the
past history of the word. ' Diamant ' and ' adamant '
are in fact no more than different adoptions by the
English tongue, of one and the same Greek, which
afterwards became a Latin, word. The primary
meaning of 'adamant' is, as you are aware, the
indomitable, and it was a name given at first to steel
as the hardest of metals ; but afterwards transferredf
to the most precious among all the precious stones, as
that which in power of resistance surpassed everything
besides.
Neither are new spellings to be commended, which
* Pygmaei, quasi cubitales (Augustine). '
t First so used by Theophrastus in Greek, and by Pliny in
Latin. The real identity of the two words explains Milton's
use of * diamond * in Paradise Lost, b. vi. ; and also in that
sublime passage in his Apology for Smectymnuus : * Then Zeal,
whose substance is ethereal, arming in complete diamond
ascends his fiery chariot.* — Diez {Woerterbuch d. Roman,
Sprachen, p. 123) supposes, not very probably, that it was
under a certain influence of *d/afano,' the translucent, that
* adamante * was in the Italian, from whence we have derived
the word, changed into * ^/omante.*
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vni. Cousin, Bran-new, Scrip. 321
obliterate or obscure the relationship of a word with
others to which it is teally allied; separating from
one another, for those not thoroughly acquainted
with the subject, words of the same family. Thus
when V^w' was spelt 'rhaw,' no one could miss its
connection with the verb 'to chew.' Now probably
ninety-nine out of a hundred are unaware of any
relationship between theto. It is the same with
* cousin' (consanguineus), and 'to cozen/ 1 do not
say which of these should conform to the spelling of
the other. The spelling of both was irregular from the
first ; while yet it was then better than now, when a
permanent distinction has established itself between
them, keeping out of sight that 'to cozen' is in all
likelihood to deceive under show of affinity ; which
if it be so, Shakespeare's words,
* Cousins indeed, and by their uncle cozened
Of comfort,* *
will contain not a pun, but an etymology. The real
relation between ' bliss ' and to ' bless ' is in like man-
ner at present obscured.
The omission of a letter, or the addition of a letter,
may each effectually work to keep out of sight the
true character and origin of a word. Thus the
omission of a letter. When for 'bran-new,' it was
'branflf-new' with a final ' d,' how vigorous was the
image here. The 'brand 'is the fire, and 'brand-
new,' equivalent to 'fire-new' (Shakespeare), is that
which is fresh and bright, as being newly come from
♦ Richard IIL Act iv. Sc. 4.
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322 Changed Spelling of Words. lect.
the forge and fire. As now spelt, it conveys to us no
image at all. Again, you have the word ' scrip ' — as
a 'scrip' of paper, -government 'scrip.' Is this the
Saxon 'scrip,' a wallet, which has in some strange
manner obtained these meanings so diflferent and so
remote ? Have we here only two different applica-
tions of one and the same word, or two homonyms,
wholly different words, though spelt alike? It is
sufficient to note how the first of these * scrips ' used
to be written, namely with a final 't,' not ' scrip ' but
'scrip/,' and the question is answered. This 'scrip'
is a Latin, as the other is an Anglo-Saxon, word, and
meant at first simply a writien (scripta) piece of paper
— a circumstance which since the omission of the final
* t ' may easily escape our knowledge. ' Afraid ' was
spelt much better in old times with the double ' ff,'
than with the single ' f ' as now. It was then clear
that it was not another form of ' afeared,' but wholly
separate from it, the participle of the verb ' to affray,'
'affrayer,' or, as it is now written, 'effrayer.'
In these cases it has been the omission of a letter
which has clouded and concealed the etymology.
The intrusion of a letter sometimes does the same.
Thus in the early editions oi Paradise Lost, and in the
writings of that age, you will find 'scent,' an odour,
spelt ' sent. ' It was better so ; .there is no other noun
substantive 'sent,' with which it is in danger of being
confounded ; while its relations with 'sentio/ with
' rejw^//* ' ^\%sent* ' consent* and the like, is put out
How close the relationship was once, not merely in respect
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vm. Whole, Island. 323
of sight by its novel spelling ; the intrasive ' c ' serving
only to mislead. The same thing was attempted with
'site,' 'situate/ 'situation,' spelt for for a time by
many, 'snte, 'sntuate,' 'situation;' but it did not
continue with these. Again, 'whole,' in Wicliflf's
Bible, and indeed much later, sometimes as £ir down
as Spenser, is spelt 'hole,' without the 'w'at the
beginning. The present orthography may have the
advantage of at once distinguishing the word to the
eye from any other ; but at the same time the initial
'w' hides its relation to the verb 'to heal.' The
' whole ' man is he whose hurt is ' healed ' or covered
(we say of the convalescent that he 'recovers') ;
' whole ' being closely allied to * hale ' (integer),
from which also by its modem spelling it is divided.
' Wholesome ' has naturally followed the fortunes of
' whole :' it was spelt ' holsome ' once.
Of * island ' too our present spelling is inferior to
the old, inasmuch as it suggests a hybrid formation, as
though the word were made up of the Latin * insula,'
and the Saxon ' land.' It is quite true that ' isle ' is
in relation with, and descent from 'insula,' *isola/
' lie ;' and hence probably the misspelling of 'island.
This last however has nothing to do with 'insula,'
of etymology, but also of significance, a passage like this will
prove : * Perchance, as vultures are said to smell the earthiness
of a dying corpse ; so this bird of prey [the evil spirit which,
according to Fuller, personated Samuel, i Sam. xxviii. 14]
resented a worse than earthly savor in the soul of Saul, as
evidence of his death at hand ' (Fuller, Tke Profane State,
b. v. c. 4).
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324 Changed Spelling of Words, lect.
being identical with the German ieiland,' the Anglo^
Saxon * ealand/ and signifying either the land apart,*
or land girt round with the sea. And it is worthy of
note that this ' s ' is of quite modem introduction.
In the earlier Versions of the Scriptures, and in the
Authorized Version as first set forth it is 'iland;'
which is not accidental, seeing that * isle ' has the * s,'
which * iland ' has not (see Rev. i. 9) ; and the cor-
rect spelling obtained far down into the seventeenth
century.
One of the most frequent causes of alteration in
the spelling of a word is a wrongly assumed deriva-
tion ; as has been the case with the word which we
dealt with. It is then sought to bring the word into
harmony with, and to make it by its spelling suggest,
this derivation, which has been erroneously thrust
upon it Here is a subject which, followed out as it
deserves, would form an interesting and instructive
chapter in the history of language. Very remarkable
is the evidence which we have here to the way in
which learned and unlearned alike crave to have a
meaning in the words which they employ, to have
these not body only, but body and souL Where for
the popular sense the life has died out from a word,
men will put into it a life of their own devising, rather
than that it should henceforth be a mere dead and
inert sign for them. Much more will they be tempted
to this in the case of foreign words, which have been
adopted into the language, but which have not
* Eiland ' for < einlant,' see Grimm» Woerterbtuky s. v.
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Till. Pyramid, JEKerosolyma. 325
brought with them, at least for the popular mind, the
secret of their origin. These shall tell something
about themselves ; and when they cannot tell what is
true, or when that true is not intelligible any more,
then, rather than that they should say nothing, men
compel them to suggest what is false, moulding and
shaping them into some new form, until at least they
shall appear to do this.*
There is probably no language in which such a
process has not been going forward ; in which it is
not the explanation, in a vast number of instances, of
changes in spelling and even in form, which words
have undergone. I will offer a few examples of it
from foreign tongues, before adducing any from our
own. 'Pyramid' is a word, whose spelling was
affected in the Greek by an erroneous assumption of
its derivation ; the consequences of this error sur-
viving to the present day. It is spelt by us with a * y '
in the first syllable, as it was spelt with the corre-
sponding letter in the Greek. But why was this? It
was because the Greeks assumed that the pyramids
were so named from their having the appearance of
fiame going up into a point, f and so they spelt ' E>Ta-
mid,' that they might find TCvp or *pyre ' in it ; while
in fact * pyramid ' has nothing to do with flame or fire
at all ; being, as those best qualified to speak on the
* Ammianus MarceUinus, xxii. 15, 28.
t Diez looks with much favour on this process, and calls
it, cin sinnreiches Mittel Fremdlinge ganz heimisch zu machcn.
Compare Schleicher, Die DetUsche Sprache, pp. 114-117;
M&tzner, EngL Gramtnatik^ vol. i. p. 483.
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826 Changed SpeUing of Words. lbct.
matter declare to us, an Egyptian word of quite a
different signification, and the Coptic letters being
much better represented by the diphthong 'ei' than
by the letter *y/ as no doubt, but for this mistaken
notion of what the word was intended to mean, they
would have been.
Once more — the form ' Hierosolyma, ' the Greek
reproduction of the Hebrew * Jerusalem,' was in-
tended in all probability to express that the city so
called was the sacred city of the Solymu^ At all
events the intention not merely of reproducing the
Hebrew word, but also of making it significant in
Greek, of finding Up6v in it, is plainly discernible.
For indeed the Greeks were exceedingly intolerant of
foreign words, till these had laid aside their foreign
appearance, — intolerant of all words which they could
not quicken with a Greek soul; and, with a very
characteristic vanity and an ignoring of all other
tongues but their own, assumed with no apparent
misgivings that all words, from whatever quarter de-
rived, were to be explained by Greek etymologies, f
♦ Tacitus, Hist. v. 2.
t Let me illustrate this by further instancies in a note. Thus
fiovTvpov^ from which, through the Latin, our * butter * has
reached us, is borrowed (Pliny, II, JV, xxviii, 9) from a Scythian
word, now to us unknown : yet it is sufficiently plain that the
Greeks so shaped and spelt it as to contain apparent allusion to
caw and cheese ; there is in fiovrvpov an evident feeling after
fiovi and rvpdv, Bozra, meaning citadel in Hebrew and
Phoenician, and the name, no doubt, which the citadel of
Carthage bore, becomes Bvpda on Greek lips ; and then the
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vm. Tartar, Tartarus. 327
'Tartar' is another word, of which it is at least
possible that a wrongly assumed derivation has modi-
fied the spelling, and not the spelling only, but the
veiy shape in which we now possess it To many
among us it may be known that the people designated
by this appellation are not properly 'Tartars,' but
* Tatars ;' and you may sometimes have noted the
omission of the *r' on the part of some who are
well-known legend of the ox-hide was invented upon the
name ; not having suggested, but being itself suggested by it
Herodian (v. 6) reproduces the name of the Syrian goddess
Astarte in a shape significant for Greek toxs—^AdrpodpxVt
The Star-ruler or Star-queen. When the apostate hellenizing
Jews assumed Greek names, • Eliakim * or * Whom God has
set,' became *Alcimus* (aXxtjiioi) or The Strong (i Mace,
vii. 5), Latin examples in like kind are <comtssatio,' spelt
continually ^conurssatio,* and * com^ssation ' by those who
sought to naturalize it in England, as though connected with
* comedo,* to eat, being indeed the substantive from the verb
* comissari ' {=:x(ojiidt^£tv), to revel; as Plutarch, whose Latin
is in general not very accurate, long ago correctly observed ;
and <orichalcum,' spelt often ^azmchalcum,* as though it were
a composite metal of mingled gv/d and brass ; being indeed the
ntotmtain brass (opfiz;farAxoS). The miracle play, which is
* mystSre * in French, whence our English * mystery,' was
originally written *mistdre,' being derived from *ministdre,'
and having its name because the clergy, the minisierium or
ministri Ecclesise, conducted it. This was forgotten, and it
then became 'mystery,' as though so called because the mys-
teries of the faith were in it set out. The mole in German was
*moltwurf,' our English *moldwarp,' once, one that cast up
the mould ; but * molte ' faded out of the language, and the
word became, as it now is, * maulwurf,' one that casts up with
the * maul * or mouth ;— which indeed the creature does not.
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828 Changed Spelling of Words, lbct.
curious in their spelling. How then, it may be asked,
did the form * Tartar ' arise ? When the terrible
hordes of middle Asia burst in upon civilized Europe
in the thirteenth century, many beheld in the ravages
of their innumerable cavaliy a fulfilment of that pro-
phetic word in the Revelation (chap. ix. ) concerning
the opening of the bottomless pit ; and from this
belief ensued the change of their name from * Tatars '
to 'Tartars,' which was tiius put into closer relation
with * Tartarus' or hell, whence their multitudes were
supposed to have proceeded.*
Another good example in the same kind is the
German word 'siindflut,' the Deluge, which is now
so spelt as to signify a 'sinflood,' the plague ox flood
of waters brought on the world by the sins of man-
kind ; and some of us may before this have admired
the pregnant significance of the word. Yet the old
High German word had originally no such intention ;
it was spelt 'sinfluot,' that is, the gjeat flood; and
as late as Luther, indeed in Luther's own translation
of the Bible, is so spelt as to make plain that the
notion of a ' J7«-flood ' had not yet found its way
into, as it had not affected the spelling of, the word.f
♦ We have here, in this bringing of the words by their sup-
posed etymology together, the explanation of the fact that
Spenser {Fairy Queen^ i. 7, 44), Middleton ( Works^ vol. v.
pp. 524, 528, 538), and others employ * Tartary * as equivalent
to*Tartarus'orhell.
t For a full discussion of this matter and fixing of the period
at which « sinfluot * became 'sttndflut,' see the TheoL Stud, u,
Krii,j vol. ii. p. 613 ; and Delitzsch, Genesis, 2nd ed. vol. ii.
p. 210.
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vm. Transformation of Words. 329
But to look nearer home for our examples : ' Ceil-
ing' was always 'sealing,' that which seals or closes
the roof, in our early English ; but, as is easy to
explain, coelum (ciel) made itself unconsciously felt,
intruded into the word and changed the spelling to
our present The little raisins brought from Greece,
which play so important a part in one of our national
dishes, the Christmas plum-pudding, used to be
called * corinths ;' and this name they bear in mer-
cantile lists of a hundred years ago : either that for
the most part they were shipped from Corinth, the
principal commercial city in Greece, or because they
grew in large abundance in the immediate district
round about it Their likeness in shape and size and
general appearance to our own currants, working
together with the ignorance of the great majority of
English people about any such place as Corinth,
soon transformed ' corinths ' into * currants,' the name
which now with a certain unfitness they bear ; being
not currants at all, but dried grapes, though grapes of
diminutive size.
* Courf-csLidSy' that is, the^king, queen, and knave
in each suit, were once ' coaf-csiids ;' * having their
name from the long splendid * coat ' with which they
were arrayed. Probably * coat ' after a while did not
perfectly convey its original meaning and intention ;
being no more in common use for the long garment
(the vestis talaris) reaching down to the heels ; and
then 'coat' was easily exchanged for 'court,' as the
* Ben Tonson, TA^ New Jtm^ Act i. Sc. i.
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330 Changed Spelling of Words, lect.
word is now both spelt and pronounced, seeing that
nowhere so fitly as in a Court should such' splendidly
arrayed personages be found. A public house in the
neighbourhood of London having a few years since
for its sign *The George Cannings' is already 'The
George and Cannon,* — so rapidly do these transfor-
mations proceed, so soon is that forgotten which we
suppose would never be forgotten. * Welsh rarebit '
becomes 'Welsh rabbit; and ^farced* or stuffed
* meat ' becomes * forced meat. ' Even the mere deter-
mination to make a word look English, to put it into
an English shape, without thereby so much as seem-
ing to attain any result in the way of etymology, is
often sufficient to bring about a change in its spelling,
and even in its form. * It is thus that ' sipahi ' has
become ' sepoy ; and only so could * weissager ' have
taken its present form of ' wiseacre ;'f or 'hausen-
blase ' become ' isinglass. '
* * Leghorn ' is sometimes quoted as an example of this ;
but erroneously ; for, as Admiral Smyth has shown (^TAe
Mediterranean, p. 409), * Livomo ' is itself rather the modem
corruption, and * Ligomo ** the name foimd on the earlier
charts.
t Exactly the same happens in other languages ; thus, * arm-
brust,' a crossbow, looks German enough, and yet has nothing
to do with *ann* or *brust,' being a contraction of 'arcuba-
lista,' but a contraction under these influences. As little has
abenteuer * anything to do with * abend ' or * theuer,* however
it may seem to be connected with them, being indeed the
Proven9al * adventura.* And * weissagen ' in its earlier forms
had nothing in conmion with * sagen.' On this subject see
Schleicher, Die Deutsche Sprache, p. 116.
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Not uncommonly a word, derived from one word,
will receive a certain impulse and modification from
another. This extends sometimes beyond the spell-
ing, and where it does so, would hardly belong to our
present theme. Still I may notice an instance or two.
Thus our * obsequies' is the Latin 'exequiae,' but
formed under a certain impulse of 'obsequium,' and
seeking to express and include the observant honour
implied in that word. * To refuse' is 'recusare,'
while yet it has derived the * f ' of its second syllable
from * refutare ; it is a medley of the two. The
French 'rame,' an oar, is *remus,' but that modified
by an unconscious recollection of * ramus.' The
old French * candekr^r^ ' is 'candelabrum/ but with
' arbre ' seeking to intrude itself into the word. So
too the French has adopted the German 'sauerkraut,'
but in the form of * chou<xo\xity* of which the explana-
tion is obvious. The Italian * convitare ' is the Latin
* invitare,' but with * convivium ' making itself felt in
the first syllable. ' Orange' is a Persian word, which
has reached us through the Arabic, and which the
Spanish ' naranja ' more nearly repres^ts than the
form existing in other languages of Europe. But
what so natural as to contemplate the orange as the
golden fruit, especially when the ' aurea mala ' of the
Hesperides were femiliar to all antiquity? In this
way ' aurum,* ' oro,' 'or,' made itself felt in the various
shapes which the word assumed in languages of the
West, and we have here the explanation of the change
in the first syllable, as in the low Latin 'aurantium,'
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in 'orangia,' in the French 'orange/ and in our
own.*
It is foreign words, or words adopted from foreign
languages, as already has been said, which asre es-
pecially subjected to such transformations as these.
The soul which they once had in their own language,
having, for as many as do not know that language,
departed from them, men will not rest till they have
put another soul into them again. Thus — to take
first one or two popular and ^miliar instances, than
which none serve better to illustrate the laws which
preside over human speech, — ^the Bellerophon be-
comes for our sailors the ' Billy Rufl&an,' for what can
they know of the Greek mythology, or of the slayer
of Chimaera ? an iron steamer, the Hirondelle, which
plied on the Tyne, was the 'Iron Devil' * Confre-
danse,' or dance in which the parties sta.nd/ace/o/'aci
with one another, and which ought to have appeared
in English as ^counter dance,' becomes ^country
dance, 'f as though it were the dance of the country
* See Mahn, Etym. Unlersuch. p. 157.
t On this word De Quincey {JJfe and Manners^ p. 70,
American Ed.) says well : * It is in fact by such corruptions,
by off-sets upon an old stock, arising through ignorance or
mispronunciation originally, that every language is frequently
enriched ; and new modifications of thought, unfolding them-
selves in the progress of society, generate for themselves con-
currently appropriate expressions. ... It must not be
allowed to weigh against a word once fairly naturalized by all,
that originally it crept in upon an abuse or a corruption.
Prescription is as strong a ground of legitimation in a case of
this nature, as it is in law. And the old axiom is applicable —
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folk and rural districts, as distinguished from the
quadrille and waltz and more artificial dances of the
town.* A well-known rose, the rose of the four
seasons, or 'rose des quatre saisons,' becomes on
the lips of our gardeners, the * rose of the quarter
j^jj-w^r,' though here the eye must have misled, rather
than the ear. The cherry of M6doc becomes pres-
ently a 'may-duke/ 'Dent de lion' (it is spelt
* dentdelyon ' in our early writers) becomes ' dande-
lion,' chaude m616e,' or an affray in hot hloo^y
* chancemtdXtyy' ' causey ' (chauss^e, or via calceata)
becomes 'causeway,' 'rachitis' 'rickets,* 'mandra-
gora ' in French ' main de gloire,' and ' hammock '
(a native Indian word) is in Dutch ' hangmat'
'Necromancy' for a long time was erroneously
spelt, under the influence of an erroneous derivation ;
which, perhaps even now, has left traces behind it in
our popular phrase, 'the Black Art' Prophecy by
aid of the dead, as I need not tell you, is the proper
meaning of the word ; assuming as it does that these
may be raised by potent spells, and compelled to give
answers about things to come. Of such ' necromancy'
Fieri non debuit, factum valet. Were it otherwise, languages
would be robbed of much of their wealth.*
* Unless indeed according to the rights of the case it should
prove the exact converse of this, and the French * contredanse *
be derived from our country dance : see ChappelPs argument
to prove this in his Popular Music^ vol. ii. p. 627, with his
reference to the Encyclopidie Mithodique of 1791. Whether
we derived from the French, or the French from us, the
illustration of the matter in hand remains equally good.
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334 Changed Spelling of Words, lbct.
we have a very awful example in the story of the
witch of Endor, and a very horrid one in Lucan.*
But the Latin medieval writers, whose Greek was
either little or none, spelt the word, *«/^^mantia/
while at the same time getting round to the original
meaning, though by a wrong process, they understood
the dead by these 'nigri,' or blacks, whom they had
brought into the word.f Down to a late day we
find ' negrom2Jicei * and * negromBXicy ' frequent in
English.
'Pleurisy' used often to be spelt (it is hardly so
now) without an * e ' in the first syllable, evidently on
the tacit assumption that it was from plus pluris.
When Shakespeare ^Is into an error, he ' makes the
offence gracious ;' yet, I think, he would scarcely
have written,
* For goodness growing to 2^plurisy
^ Dies of his own too much^*
but that he too derived 'plurisy' irom pluris. This,
even with the 'small Latin and less Greek,' which
Ben Jonson allows him, he scarcely would have done,
had the word presented itself in that form, which by
right of its descent from TtXsvpd (being a pain, stitch,
or sickness tn the side) it ought to have possessed.
Those who for * crucible ' wrote 'chrysoble ' (Jeremy
Taylor does so), must evidently have assumed that
♦ JPhars, vi. 720-830.
t Thus in a Vocabulary ^ 1475 • Nigromansia dicitur divin-
atio facta /^r nigros.
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vni. Pleurisy, Crucible. 335
the Greek for gold, and not the Latin for cross, lay at
the foundation of the word. ' Anthymn ' instead of
'anthem' (Barrow so spells it), rests plainly on a
wrong etymology, even as this spelling clearly be-
^ trays what that wrong et}Tnology is, * Lanthorn '
(Fuller) for 'lantern,' not less clearly does the same.
* Rhyme ' with a * y ' is a modem misspelling ; and
would never have been but for the undue influence;
which the Greek 'rhythm' has exercised upon it'
Spenser and his contemporaries spelt it 'rime.'
'Abominable' was not unfrequently in the seven-
teenth century spelt *ab^ominable,' as though it were
that which departed from the human {a5 komine) into
the bestial or devilish. * Posthumous ' owes the * h '
which has found its way into it to the notion that,
instead of being a superlative of 'posterus,' it has
something to do with 'post humum.'
In all these instances but one the correct spelling
has in the end resumed its sway. Not so however
'frontispfke,' which ought to be spelt * frontispi be, '
(it was so by Milton and others, ) being the low Latin
* frontispicium,' from ' frons ' and ' aspicio,' the fore-
front of the building, that side which presents itself
to the view. The entirely ungrounded notion that
' piece ' constitutes the last syllable, has given rise to
our present orthography.*
* As * orthography ' itself means ^ right spelling/ it might
be a curious question whether it is permissible to speak of an
incorrect otho^xz:^y, that is, of a wrong r/^^/-spelling. The
question thus started is one of frequent recurrence, and it is
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336 Changed Spelling of Words, lect.
• • • ''
You may, perhaps, wonder that I have dwelt so
long on these details of spelling ; but I have bestowed
on them so much of my own attention, that I have
vrorthy of note how often his contradictio in adjecto is found to
occur. Thus the Greeks, having no convenient word for rider,
apart from rider on a horse, did not scruple to speak of the
bfrsexoasi {),fCicevi) upon an elephant. They are often as inac-
curate and with no necessity ; as in using dvdpidi of the sta-
tue of a woman,' where eixoov or dyaX/ia would have
served as well. So too their table {rpcLTteZa^sTerpdieeZa)
involved probably the/<7«r feet which commonly support one ;
yet they did not shrink from speaking of a Mr^^-footed ta-
ble (rpiieovi rpdiCEt^a), in other words, a * three-iooitdifour*
footed ;' much as though we should speak of a < Mr^^-footed
qtiadru^^,^ Homer's < hecatomb' is not of a hundred^\iQ\.
of twelve, oxen ; and elsewhere of Hebe he says, in words not
reproducible in English, yixvap koovox^Bt. His ixriderf
xwitj, a helmet of weasel-skin, but more strictly a weaselskin
dogskin, contains a like contradiction. *'Axparoi, the un-
mingle^y had so come to stand for wine, that St. John speaks
of *ixxparo% xexepad/iavoi (Rev. xiv. lo), or the mingled
unmingled. Boxes to hold precious ointments were so com-
monly of alabaster, that they bore this name whether they were
so or not ; and Theocritus celebrates * golden alabasters ;* as
one might now speak of a * silver pyx,' that is a silver boxwood,
or of an iron box. Cicero has no choice but to call a water-
clock a w^i/^.XMM-dial (solarium ex aqu^)^ Columella speaks
of a ^vintage of honey ' (vindemia mellis), and Horace invites
his friend to ivapede, not his foot, but his head, with myrtle
{caput iTdpeditQ myrto). A German who should desire to tell
of the golden shoes with which the folly of Caligula adorned
his horse, could scarcely avoid speaking of golden hoof-irons.
Ink in some German dialects is * blak,' but red ink is 'rood
blak,' or red black. The same inner contradiction is involved
in such language as our own, a */alse verdict,* a * steel pen '
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vm. Wrong Spelling. 337
claimed for them. so much of yours ; yet in truth I
cannot regard them as unworthy of our very closest
heed. For indeed of how much beyond itself is
accurate or inaccurate spelling the certain indication.
Thus when we meet *s^en,'for *s/ren/ as so strangely
often we do, almost always in newspapers, and often
where we should hardly have expected (I met it lately
in the Quarterly J^ezfiew, znd again in Gifford's Mas-
singer), how difficult it is not to be * judges of evil
thoughts,' and to take this slovenly misspelling as the
specimen and evidence of an inaccuracy and ignorance
which reaches very far wider than the single word
which is before us. But why is it that so much signi-
ficance is ascribed to a wrong spelling ? Because
ignorance of a word's spelling at once argues igno-
rance of its origin and derivation. I do not mean that
one who spells rightly may not be ignorant of it too,
but hd who spells wrongly is certainly so. We are
quite sure that he who for 's/'ren' writes 'syren/
knows nothing of the magic knots and entanglements
{deipai) of song, by which those Mr enchantresses
were supposed to draw those that heard them to their
ruin ; and from which they most probably had their
name.
Correct or incorrect orthography being, then, this
note of accurate or inaccurate knowledge, we may
(penna), a * steel cuirass * (* coriacea * from corium, leather),
* antics new ' (Harington*s Ariosto\ * Xo^mg-glasses of brass *
(Exod. xxxviii. 8), a * sweet sauce ' (salsa), an * erroneotis ety-
mology,* * rat/ter /ate,' * rather * being the comparative of
* rathe ;* and in others.
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338 Changed Spelling of Words, lect.
confidently conclude where two spellings of a word
exist, and are both employed by persons who gene-
rally write with precision, that there must be some-
thing to account for this. It will be worth your while
to inquire into the causes which enable both spellings
to hold their ground and to find their supporters, not
ascribing either one or the other to mere carelessness
or error. You will commonly find that two spellings
exist, because two views of the word's origin exist,
which those two spellings severally express. The
question therefore which way of spelling should con-
tinue, and wholly supersede the other, and which, so
long as both are allowed, we should ourselves employ,
can only be settled by determining .which of these
etymologies deserves the preference. It is thus with
'clp^mist' and 'chnnist,' neither of which has ob-
tained in our common use a complete ascendancy
over the other. It is not here, that one mode is cer-
tainly right, the other certainly wrong : • but they
severally represent two different etymologies of the
word, and each is correct according to its own. When
we spell * chemist' and *ch>inistry,' we implicitly
afl&rm the words to be derived from the Greek x^Moi,
sap ; and the chymic art will then have occupied itself
first with distilling the juice and sap of plants, and
will from this have drawn its name. Many however
object to this, that it was not with the distillation of
herbs, but with the amalgamation of metals, that
chemistry occupied itself at the first, and find in the
word a reference to Egypt, the land of Ham or
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vm. Wrong 8pelliiig. 339
*Cham/* in which this art was first practised with
success. In this case 'chonist/ and not 'ch>inist/
would be the only correct spelling.
Of how much confusion the spelling which used to
be so common, * satyr' for 'satire/ is at once the
consequence, the expression, and again the cause.
Not indeed that this confusion first began with us ; f
' sat>Ticus ' in the Latin was no less continually written
for ' sat/ricus ' ; and this out of an assumed identity
of the Roman satire and the Greek satyric drama ;
while in fact satire was the only form of poetry which
the Romans did not borrow from the Greeks. The
Roman 'satira,' — I speak of things familiar to many
of my hearers, — is properly 2. full dish (lanx being
understood) — a dish heaped up with various ingre-
dients, a *ferce,' or hodge-podge ; the name being
* Xijfiia^ the name of Egypt ; see Plutarch, De Is, ei Os.
c. 33. For reasons against this, the favorite etymology at pre-
sent, see Mahn, EtymoL Untersueh, p. 8i. There is some
doubt about the speUing of * hybrid.* If from vfipi^t this
would of course at once settle the question.
t We have a notable evidence how deeply rooted this error
was, of the way in which it was shared by the learned as well
as the unlearned, in Milton's Apology for Smectymnuus^ sect.
7, which everywhere presumes the identity of the * satjrr * and
the *" satirist.' It was Isaac Casaubon who first effectually dis-
sipated it even for the learned world. The results of his inves-
tigations were made popular by Dryden, in a. very instructive
Discourse on Satirical Poetry ^ prefixed to his translations from
Juvenal ; but the confusion still survives, and * satyrs ' and
* satires,' the Greek * satyric ' drama, the Latin * satirical ' poet-
ry, are still assumed by many to have something to do with
one another.
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340 Changed Spelling of Words, lect.
transferred from this to a form of poetry which at first
admitted the utmost variety in the materials of which
it was composed, and the shapes into which these
materials were wrought iip. Wholly different from
this, having no one point of contact with it in form,
history, or intention, is liie 'satyric' drama of Greece,
so called because Silenus and the 'satyrs' supplied
the chorus ; and in their naive selfishness, and mere
animal instincts, held up before men a mirror of what
they would be, if only the divine, which is also the
truly human, element of humanity, were withdrawn ;
what man, all that properly constituted him such
being withdrawn, would prove.
And then what light, as we have already seen, does '
the older spelling often cast upon a word's etymology ;
how often clear up the mystery, which would other-
wise have hung about it, or which had hung about it
till some one had noticed and turned to profit this its
earlier spelling. Thus ' dirge ' is always spelt * dirige '
in early English. Now this * dirige ' may be the first
word in a Latin psalm or prayer once used at funerals ;
there is a reasonable likelihood that the explanation
of 'dirge '.is here ; at any rate, if it is not here, it is
nowhere. The derivation*of 'midwife' is uncertain,
and has been the subject of discussion ; but when we
find it spelt 'medewife' and 'meadwife,' in Wiclifs
Bible, this leayes hardly a doubt that it is the wife or
woman who acts for a tnead or reward. In cases too
where there was no mystery hanging about a word,
how often does the early spelling make clear to all
that which was before only known to those who had
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vin. Midwife, Nostril 341
made the language their special study. Thus if an
early edition of Spenser should come into your hands,
or a modem one in which the early spelling is re-
tained, what continual lessons in English might you
derive from it Thus ' nostril ' is always spelt by him
and his contemporaries * nosethrill ;' a little earlier it
was 'nosethirle.' Now *to thrill' is the same as to
drill or pierce ; it is plain then here at opce that the
word signifies ^the orifice or opening with which the
nose is thrUhd^ drilled, or pierced. We might have
read the word for ever in our modem impelling without
being taught this. ' Ell * gives us no clue to its own
meaning; but in *eln,' used in Holland's translation
of Camden, we recognize 'ulna' at once. Again,
the 'morris' or * morrice-dance,' of which in our
early poets we hear so much, as it is now spelt tells us
nothing about itself; but read ^moriske dance,' as
Holland and his contemporaries spell it, and you will
scarcely fail to perceive, that it was so called either
because it was really, or was supposed to be, a dance
in use among the moriscoes of Spain, and from Spain
introduced into' England.* Once more, we are told
that our *cray-fish,'or * craw-fish,' is the French *dcre-
visse.' This is quite trae, but it is not self-evident
Trace it however through these successive spellings,
* krevys ' (Lydgate), 'crevish' (Gascoigne), 'craifish'
(Holland), and the chasm between *cray-fish* or
* I have seen him
Caper upright, like a wild MoriscOy
Shaking the bloody darts, as he his bells.'
Shakespeare, 2 Henfy VL Act iii. Sc. i.
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* craw-fish ' and ' 6crevisse ' is by aid of these .three
intermediate spellings bridged over at once ; and in
the fact of our Gothic * fish ' finding its way into this
French vocable we see one example more of a law,
which has been already abundantly illustrated in this
lecture.*
* In the reprinting of old books it is often hard to determine
how far the earlier spelling of words should be retained, how
far they should be conformed to present usage. It is compara-
tively easy to lay down as a rule that in books intended for
popular use, wherever the form of the word is not affected by
the modernizing of the spelling, there it shall take place ; (who,
for example, would wbh pur Bibles to be now printed letter
for letter after the edition of 161.1, or Shakespeare with the or-
thography of the first folio ?) but wherever the shape, outline,
and character of the word have been affected by the changes
which it has undergone, there the earlier form shall be held fast.
The rule is a judicious one ; but in practice it is not always easy
to determine what affects the form and essence of a word, and
what does not. About some words there can be no doubt ; and
therefore when a modem editor of Fuller's Church Hisiorycom-
placently announces that he has changed * dirige * into * dirge,'
* barreter ' into * barrister,' * synonyinas * into * synonymous ' 1,
'extempory' into 'extemporary,' *scited' into 'situated,'
* vancurrier ' into * avant-courier,' and the like, he at the same
time informs us that for all purposes of the study of English
(and few writers are for this more important than Fuller), his
edition is worthless. Or again, when modem editors of Shake-
speare print, giving at the same time no intimation of the fact,
* Like quills upon the fretfal forcupim^*
the word in his first folio and quarto standing,
* like quilk upon the firetful parpetUine^
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vm. Strange Words naturalized. 343
In other ways also an accurate taking note of the
successive changes which words have undergone, v/ill
often throw light upon them. Thus we may know,
others having assured us of the fact, that ' emmet '
and ' ant ' were originally only two different spellings
of the same word ; but we may be perplexed to
understand how two forms, now so different, could
ever have diverged from a single root When how-
ever we find the different speUings, 'emmet,' * emet,'
*amet,' *amt,' * ant, 'the gulf which appeared to sepa-
rate 'emmet' from 'ant' is bridge^ over at once, and
we not merely accept on the assurance of others that
these two are identical, but we perceive clearly in
what manner they are so.
Even apart from any close examination of the
matter, it is hard not to suspect that 'runagate' is
another form of 'renegade,' this being slightly trans-
formed, as so many words, to put an English significa-
tion into its first syllable; and then the meaning
gradually modified under the influence of the new
derivation, which was assumed to be its original and
true one. Our suspicion of this is strengthened (for
we see how very closely the words approach one
anothei:), by the fact that 'renegade' is constantly
spelt ' renega/e ' in our old authors, while at the same
time the denial of feith, which is now a necessary
and this being in Shakespeare's time the current form of the
word, they have taken an unwarranted liberty with his text ;
and no less, when they substitute * Kenilworth * for * Killing-
worth,* which was his, Marlowe's, and generally the earlier
form of the name.
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344 Changed Spelling of Words, lbot.
element in 'renegade/ and one differencing it in-
wardly from * runagate/ is altogether wanting in early
use — the denial of country and of the duties thereto
owing being all that is implied in it Thus it is
constantly employed in Holland's Lrvy as a render*
ing of ' perfuga ;' * while in the one passage where
* runagate ' occurs in the Prayer Book Version of the
Psalms (Ps. Ixviii. 6), a reference to the original will
show that the Translators could only have employed
it there on the ground that it also expressed rebel,
revolter, and not runaway merely.
I might easily occupy your attention much longer,
so little barren or unfruitful does this subject of
spelling appear likely to prove ; but all things must
have an end ; and as I concluded my Ifirst lecture with
a remarkable testimony borne by an illustrious German
scholar to the merits of our English tongue, I will
conclude my last with the words of another, not
indeed a German, but still of the great Germanic
stock ; words resuming in themselves much of which
we have been speaking upon this and upon former
occasions: *As our bodies,' he says, *have hidden
resources and expedients, to remove the obstacles
which the very art of the physician puts in its way, so
language, ruled by an indomitable inward principle,
triumphs in some degree over the folly of gram-
marians. Look at the English, polluted by Danish
* * The Carthaginians shall restore and deliver back all the
remgates [perfugas] and fugitives that have fled to their side
from us.* — ^p. 751.
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vni. Strange Words Naturalized. 345
and Norman conquests, distorted in its genuine and
noble features by old and recent endeavours to mould
it after the French fashion, invaded by a hostile
entrance of Greek and Latin words, threatening by
increasing hosts to overwhelm the indigenous terms.
In these long contests against the combined power
of so many forcible enemies, the language, it is true,
has lost some of its power of inversion in the structure
of sentences, the means of denoting the difference of
gender, and the nice distinctions by inflection and
termination — almost every word is attacked by the
spasm of the accent and the drawing of consonants to
wrong positions ; yet the old English principle is not
overpowered. Trampled down by the ignoble feet of
strangers, its springs still retain force enough to
restore itself It lives and plays through all the veins
of the language ; it impregnates the innumerable
strangers entering its dominions with its temper, and
stains them with its colour, not unlike the Greek,
which, in taking up Oriental words, stripped them of
their foreign costume, and bid them to appear as
native Greeks.'*
• Halbertsma, quoted by Bosworth, Origin of the English
and Germanic Languages, p. 39.
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INDEX. OF WORDS.
PAGE
Abenteuer 330
Abnormal 235
Abomioable 33^^
X08
X72
380
Accaparer.
Accommodate.
Acre
Adamant 320
Admiral xas
Admiralty 172
Adorn 223
Advocate 153
JEon X36
Esthetics X36
Afeard , 3x7, 333
Affirap xax
Affiret «•• ••.........•, xax
Afraid 137
Afterthink 77
Afterwitted axx
Aldmus 337
Alcove X5
Aleknight xqx
Aloofness ,, 3xx
Amphibious X75
Analogic. xo8
Ant 343
Antecedents 398
Anthem 355 j
Antipodes. xsB
Apotheosis 126
Apricot X4
Armbrust *•...« 330
Arride. xxa
PAGB
Ascertain 274
Ask 2x7
Assassinate ,. xas
Astarte 327
Atheist X7S
Attercop..4 6x
Aurantium 331
Aurichalcum 337
Asee 2x7
Backjaw 8x
Backstmned. , 333
BaflBe 268,369
Bairn 53
Baker, bakester 333
Balcony' 130
Banter. X7x
Barrier 130
Battalion* xx6
Bawn 6x
Benefice, benefit x6x
Bieder X79
Birdwitted axx
Bitesheep 203
BlackArt ',. 333
Bladcgtiard 276
Black-sanctus X9X
Blasphemous 2x9
Blubbered 206
Bombast 286
Booby 56
Book * 24
Boor ago
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348
Index of Words.
PAGB
Borra i 3^6
Brandshat 133
Bran-new 321
Brat 393
Brazen 343
Breaden ; 343
Bruit. ..>.... ..* 99
Buffalo %7
Burgeon t^. aio
Bust x6
Butter 336
Buxom X97
Candelarbre 331
Cankerfret..... 3ia
Caprice x8
Carat 14
Casuistry 398
Causey 333
Ceiling 329
Chagrin 159
Chaise 164
Chance-medley 333
Character 175
Chemist 338
Chicken ^ 338
Chou-croute 331
Chymist, chymistry ......... . 338
Cimici X74
Clawback aos
Clever. 334
Coal-carrier. X9X
Cocodrill 314
Commiteitio 397
Commdrage 292
Congr^ational 140
Contrary 3x9
Com 56
Corpse 379
Countrydance ^. 322
Court*card 329
Coxcomb* ••...... «... 319
Cozen .••*•••.... .••.. 32Z
Crawfish* .••**.•*•*• 34X
Creansur..*. 98
PACK
Creephole X9X
Crikesman 133
Criteri<m - 126
Crone, crony* X58
Crucible 334
Crusade.... zx8
Cuirass 337
Currant. « 329
Cypher. 14.25
Daffodil 35
Dame 380
Damish 2zx
Dandelion 333
Dearworth 77
Deh«rt X95
Demagogue. .\ xo8
Denominatibnalism X4X
Depot. X38
Desenvoltura X24
Dewbtt 323
Diamond 320
Dinar xs
Dirge 340
Dive, dove.* . . .' aax
Divest 39
Dorter 35
Double-diligent 192
Doughty 305
Drachm 381
Druggerman 15
Dub 305
Duke 379
Dumps 306
Dutch ..^.* 364
Earsport 191
Eclectics. c X75
Edify, edification. X76
Educational X4Z
Effervescence r xo8
EInseitig 135
Elfish, elfishnesB. 3xx
Kliakim ^37
EU 34f
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Index of Words.
349
PAGE
Eltern 65
Emmet 343
Emotional X41
Empfindsam 179
Encyclopaedia zaj
Enfantillage. 108
Equivocation 284
Erutar aoj
Europe 3x4
Eyebite 77
Fairy 279
Fall 2X2
Fanatic 172
Farfalla X7» Z93
Faro. x6z
Fascine X73
Fatherland Z36
Fellow-feel 87,2x0
Fetisch so
Flam : 906
Flayte 2x0
Fleck 9XZ
Flota Z9
Folklore 136
Foolhappy 195
Foolhardy 195
Foolhasty 195
Foollarge X95
Force 224
Forced meat 305
Foretalk 80
Fougue X25
Fraischeur 125
Frances. 159
Francis 159
Frimm z^z
Frivolite xo8
Frontispiece 335
Fun 224
Furlong 28x
Gainly Z94
Gallon ....* 280
PAGR
Garble 287
Gaster , 2x0
Girdle 24
GirU 280
Glassen..^ 243
Goldhoard 77
Gonfalon 122
Gossip 29X
Grain 56
Great 3x6
Grimsire Z9Z
Grocer •• 3x9
Grogram 3x9
Gruesome. 223
Halfgod \ 77
Hallow.... X52
Hammock 333
Handbook X35
Hangdog 203
Hearten 2x0
Heat,het » 22z
Heavy friend Z9Z
Heft i Z9Z
Hero zz6
Hery Z90
Hierosolyma 326
Hippodame ZZ9
His 239, 24Z
Hooker z8
Hotspur Z9Z
Huck 236
Huckster, hucksteress 236
Hurricane 20
Iceberg. Z33
Idea 285
Idolum Z28
Ignis fatuus 174
InTager -» X74
Imp ; 293
Imparadise zaa
Incurabili Z23
Industry • Z72
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350
Index of Words.
PAGE
Interm«ss 29
International ,r... 140
Island 334
Isle 323
Isolated 174
It i44» X4S
Its Z4X, 146
Jaw , «. 321
Jeopardy «... 153
Kenilworth.. 343
Kindly 272
Kirtle 34
Kittle 3IZ
Klei 55
Knave 295
Knitster 334
Lantern 335
Leech 6z
Leghorn 330
Libel 379
Lifeguard.... « 184
Lithemess 2zz
Loaf , Loafer Z35
London 318
Lunch, luncheon 2Z9, 320
Malingerer. Z9Z
Makter 235
Maltworm Z9Z
Mandragora.... 333
Maroon x8
Matachin z8
Matamoros 20Z
Maulwurf 327
Mayduke 333
Meat 279
Meddle, meddlesome 394
Mel 99
Mellay Z30
Merrygodown Z9Z
Middler 87
Midwife 340
PAGB
Milken 349
Mischievous 3Z9
Miscreant 266
Mixen 6z
Morris-dance 34Z
Mother-naked Z92
Mystery, mystere 327
Myth 136
l*fap 205
Naughty pack X9Z
Necromancy 334
Neednot..... 78
Nemorivagus Z39
Neophyte Z72
Nesh Z90
Niggot Z56
Nim Z90
Noctambulo X74
Noddle 305
Noonscape 320
Noonshun^ 220
Normal Z36
Nostril 34Z
Nugget 156
Nuntion 2x9
Oblige Z2B
Obsequies..... 33Z
Old trot Z9Z
Omnipotent 85
Opera 272
Orange 33Z
Orichalcum 327
Ornamentation Z36
Orthography 335
Oum 2z8
Outganger 78
Outwanderer 78
Pagan 290
Painful, painf ulness 274
Panic Z74
Panorama ; Z7S
Pate S05
Pease 338
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Index of Words.
351
PAGB
Peck 380
Pester X5S
Philauty 170
Photograph 136
Picqueer p 123
Pigmy.... 320
Pinchpenny 202
Plead, pled aaz
Pleurisy 334
Plunder 233, 172
Polite * 287
Poly tjieism •175
Poney 233
Pontoon 173
Porcupine 343
Porpoise zi8
Posthumous 335
Potecary 2x9
Praevaricator 383
Pragmatical 393
Pr61iber r. xo8
Preposterous 383
Prestige .« 137
Prevaricate 383
Privado x8
Prose, proser 394
PuUback 78
Punctilio x8
Punto x8
Pyramid 335
Quellio x8
Quinsey iz8
Quirpo x8
Quirry 2x9
Rakehell 304
Rame 332
Rathe, rathest 296
Realmra^ 3x3
Reconnoitre 173
Refuse 332
Regoldar 307
Reise 190
Religion.... 370
PAGB
Renegade. ..i 343
Resent 333
Revenue 230
Revolt X33
Rhyme • 335
Riches 238
Righteousness X95
Rome 317
Rosen 343
Roy...... 99
Ruly X94
Runagate 343
Sagg ,••—«•>« 320
Sa^. 2x8
Satellites 226
Satire, satirical 339
Satyr, satyric 339
Saucyjack 292
Scent..... 333
Schwftrmer 234
Scrip 323
Sculptor 274
'Sdeign 223
Seamster, seamstress 235
Selfish, selfishness X70
Sentiment i, X72
S«poy 330
Serene 193
Shew<»token 77
Shine 56
Shrewd, shrewdne^ «.. 297
Shrub « 272
Silvern 243
Silvicultrix 239
Siren 337
Skinker 290
Skip ao6
Slick 322
.Sloth 176
Slowback 191
Smellfeast soa
Smug 905
Snoutfair 293
Soldan 223
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352
Index of Words.
PAGE
Solidarity X3x
Somnambulist 174
Songster, songstress 335
Specht X90
Sperr 190
Spinner, spinster 336
Standpoint 136
Starconner 77
Starvation i ij2
Starve 379
Stereotype. » 136
Stonen 343
Suckstone ^ 78
Sudden 309
Suicide xjo
Suicism, suistt.. 170
Sum 63
Sttndflut 338
Sunstead...^ jj
Swindler. , 133
Sycophant 396
Tapster 335
Tarre , 190
Tartar 327
Tartarus 338
Tartary 328
Tea x3r, 317
That 247
Theocracy , X75
Theriac 375
Thou 355,357
Thought 371
Tind X90
Tinnen 343
Tin^l 367
Tinsel-slippered 367
Topsy-turvy 303
Tosspot ao3
Tradesman 56
Treacle 376
Trigger 133
Trounce 306
Truchman 15
PACB
Turban x6
Umbrella 173
Umgripe jg
Umstroke. jg
Uncouth 61
Unthoroughfaresomeness 83
Utilixe X73
Varndse 53
Vancurrier 119, 343
Verdunt 306
Vicinage xx8
Villain 389, 395
Voyage 379
Wanhope 190
Waterfright 78
Weaponshew 77
Wearish 3x6
Weather-gleam 333
Weeping-ripe 193
Welk X90
Welsh rabbit 330
Which. 347
Whiteboy X9X
Whole. 333
WUt 333
Windflower 78
Wiseacre 330
Witwanton 3x3
Wobum 3x0
Wordwarrior. 3x1
Worship 373
Woerterbuch X79
Yard 381
Yeel 330
York 304
Youngster 335
Zero 35
Zoology X75
Zoc^hyte 175
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