^ BERKELEY LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ^^^,^^- .^-^ J^--*- fli2^ tJ>" ul' ROOTS AND RAMIFICATOTS; OR, EXTRACTS PROM VARIOUS BOOKS EXPLANATORY OF THE DERIVATION OR MEANING OF DIVERS WORDS. BY ARTHUR JOHN KNAPP. Verba sunt rerum notse." — Cic. Top. 8. LONDON: PRIVATELY PRINTED, 1856. LONDON : PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAJIFOKD STREET, AND OH A RING CROSS. PREFACE. The author of the following pages, who has for many years taken an interest in antiquarian, his- torical, and genealogical research, acknowledges the gratification afforded him by the perusal of Mr. Trench's book ' On the Study of Words,' which first invited him to explore this new and interesting field, at such occasional and limited intervals as his pro- fessional duties admitted of his devoting to the purpose. He cannot, however, express the same gratification from* the perusal of Mr. Trench's later work, * English Past and Present,' since he there found many words derived or explained which were previously destined to appear in this little volume, and which, in consequence, he has been obliged to reduce, not without regret, since the special object of this publication is to form from the proceeds of its sale the nucleus of a fund for providing church and school accommodation in a rural parish, where, with a population of several thousands, the church will B 2 391 IV PREFACE. accommodate only a few hundreds, and where there is no provision for schools. With such facts as these to recommend his object, the author hesitates not to let the volume go forth in its present form, preferring this course to increasing its size by further delay, which might endanger a further entrenchment upon it. He has generally preserved references to the works from which he has made extracts, but he is conscious that in many instances this has been neglected, especially where he has borrowed from dictionaries or cyclopaedias ; he however acknow- ledges his obligation to every author from whose works he has made extracts without giving the reference. Should any who may peruse this Pre- face feel disposed to contribute to the sum sought to be raised, the author will thankfully receive such contributions. 10, Paragon, Clifton^ Oct. 1855. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Of the Saxon Language in names and places in England 7 CHAPTER II. Of words which we have acquired from the institutions or customs of the Romans 20 CHAPTER III. Of words derived from the names of places or persons . . 40 CHAPTER IV. Of words the etymology of which is obscured by reason of the original spelling ha ving been corrupted .. .. 58 CHAPTER Y. Of the interchange of letters in languages 73 CHAPTER VI. The same subject continued 91 CHAPTER VII. The consideration of words in daily use with us .. .. 112 CHAPTER VIII. Of words derived from the Greek language 133 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS. CHAPTER I. Of the Saxon Language in Names and Places in England. The truth of the words of Cicero which I have selected as the motto for this little book, that " words are the record of things," becomes more and more apparent according to the degree of investigation which we bestow upon the origin and meaning of words. The names of our country, and the dis- tricts, towns, and places in it, will, when examined, bear out this assertion, and I propose in this chapter very briefly to investigate the early description of our country as given by our historians, and to test the fidelity of their narratives by an examination into the origin of the names given to many of the places in it. Mr. Hume, in his first chapter, says, " All ancient writers agree in representing the first inhabitants of Britain as a tribe of the Gauls or Celtse, who peopled that island from the neighbour- ing continent — their language was the same, their manners, their government, their superstitions;" and after describing the successive invasions by the Romans and the Saxons, he adds ; " Thus was esta- 8 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. I. blished, after a violent contest of near a hundred and fifty years, the Heptarchy or seven Saxon king- doms in Britain, and the whole southern part of the island, excepting Wales and Cornwall, had totally changed its inhabitants, language, customs, and political institutions." From this we see that Wales and Cornwall continued to be inhabited by the people styled Gauls or Celtae, who, from Csesar's Commentaries on the wars in Gaul, Book I. c. 1, appear to have been called in their own language Celtae, but in the Roman language Galli. The names of these provinces, Wales and Corn- wall, bear evidence of the fact that they were peopled by the persons called Galli, for the word Wallia (Wales) is but the Saxon corruption of Gallia, by the change of the letter G into TT, in the same manner as the French word ^ardien becomes in our language e^arden, ^arderobe ^^^ardrobe, ^arenne ?^arren, guerre wacc, ^epe z^asp. In the statute of 2 Richard, c. 6 (1378), " against Welshmen taking away women from England, and other abuses," the Welshmen are called " gentz de Gales," and in the statute 2 Hen. IV. c. 12 (1400), "enacting that no Welshman wholly born in Wales shall purchase lands or tenements in Chester," &c., the words are " null homme Galoys entier neez en Gales et aiaux pare et mere neez en Gales purchace terres ou tene- mentz deinx les villes de Cestre," &c. ; and to this day a Welshman is, in the French language, called Chap. I. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. U " Gallois," and the Prince of Wales " le Prince de Galles." So with respect to Cornwall, the Romans gave to this district the name of Cornubia (probably from cornu, a horn or promontory, descriptive of the numerous promontories on the coast), and the Saxons adopted the first syllable of this descriptive word, adding Gallia as descriptive of the people, but in like manner changing g into w, and thus forming the word Cornwall. Antiquarians have perplexed themselves in their endeavours to discover the etymology of the name of the town of Wallingford in Berkshire, but none of their conjectures appear to me satisfactory. I would suggest the possibility of the name being a corruption of Galliaford, and the record of some defeat of the Galli or Gauls at this place, the par- ticulars of which have not descended to us. Our historians, describing the establishment of the Hep- tarchy, say that the Saxon leader, Hengist, laid the foundation of the kingdom of Kent, comprehending Middlesex, Essex, part of Surrey, and Kent. Mid- dlesex, it is evident, was the county of the middle Saxons, Essex that of the East Saxons, Surrey the land south of the river Thames (as St. Mary Overy is St. Mary's over the river), and Kent (written in Domesday Client) is the corruption of Canticum, the Roman name of that province, still preserved in our days in the name of the city of Canterbury. B 3 10 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. I. Mr. Hume says, "The next Saxon kingdom esta- blished in Britain was that of South Saxony by Ella, who brought over an army from Germany in the year 477." We find that Ella died in 504, and was succeeded in the kingdom by his son Cissa. This kingdom of South Saxony we have corrupted into Sussex, and its chief town, founded by Cissa, Cissaciaster, into Chichester. The kingdom of West Saxony was the third which was founded by the Saxons, and adjoined the South Saxons on the west, and was therefore called Wessex, or the country of the West Saxons, and seems originally to have con- sisted of the counties of Hants, Dorset, Wilts, and Berks. The founders of this kingdom attempted to extend their conquests, and laid siege to Mount Badon, or Banes downe, near Bath (where the Bri- tons had retired), so named from the hot springs in the neighbourhood, which have rendered the city so celebrated throughout the world, but which name we have most unreasonably corrupted into Lans- downe. The kingdom of the East Saxons was the fourth in order of the Heptarchy, and seems to have been formed principally out of the kingdom of Kent, and to have comprised Essex, Middlesex, and part of Hertfordshire. The name of Seward, one of the early kings of the East Saxons, is preserved to us in the name of the hamlet of Sewardstone in the parish of Waltham Abbey, as is the name of OiFa, Chap. I. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 1 1 one of its later kings, in the name of Offley, near Hitchin, where he had a palace. Next to the kingdom of the East Saxons was the kingdom of the East Angles, containing the coun- ties of Cambridge, Norfolk, and Suffolk, and founded by Uffa, whose name is still perpetuated in that of the village of Ufford (Uffa's ford) in Suffolk, on the river Deben. The two latter counties still preserve, with a trifling alteration in orthography and pro- nunciation^ their original Saxon names of the North- folk and the Southfolk. In Norfolk also the name of the chief Saxon town, Northwic, is continued in the name of Norwich, and in Suffolk the Saxon town of Southberi is preserved in the modern name of Sudbury. The sixth kingdom of the Heptarchy was the kingdom of the North Humber, and comprised the whole of the district lying north of the river Hum- ber, known to us as Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland, Durham, Lancashire, and Yorkshire. This kingdom was originally two, one founded by Ida, comprising the four former counties, and called Bernicia, and the other by Ella, comprising Lanca- shire and Yorkshire, and called Deira. The grand- son of Ida married the daughter of Ella, and the two kingdoms became united. Traces of Ella's name still continue in Yorkshire in the name of the parish of Ella Kirk, and the township of Ella West, Ella East, and Ellerby in the East Riding ; 12 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. I. also in the West Riding in the Chapelry of Ellard, and in the township of Ellerbeck and the parish of Ellerburn in the North Riding. Cumberland derived its name from tribes of Celtic origin known by the name of Cymri or Kymri, who were its inhabitants at the time of the Saxon inva- sion : by this same name are the Welsh still known in the Principality, and from them it received, by the Romans, the appellation of Cambria, by which it is still known to us. The last and greatest of the seven kingdoms of the Heptarchy was that of Mercia, so called since, being situated in the middle of the whole country, it formed a March or border upon all the rest which abutted on it. It was situated southward of the kingdom of North Humber, and was bounded on the east by the kingdom of East Anglia and East Saxony, west by Wales, and south by the kingdoms of Wessex and South Saxony. In the name of the town of Oswestry in this kingdom we have a record of the battle fought there in 642 between Oswald, king of the North Humbers, and Penda, king of the Mercians, in which the former was defeated and slain ; and in the parish of Offenham in Worcester- shire we have a record of a subsequent king of Mercia, Offa, who resided there. In the Chapelry of St. Kenelm's, in the parish of Hales Owen, Shrop- shire, we have a memento of a later king of Mercia, St. Kenelm, who is reported to have been murdered Chap. 1. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 13 in 819 at this place by liis sister, and to which Shenstone alludes in his 23rd elegy : — " Born near the scene for Kenelm's fate renowned I take my plaintive reed, and range the grove And raise the lay, and bid the rocks resound The savage force of empire and of love." Kennett, in his ' Parochial Antiquities,' p. 31, says, that though these usurpers of the country were swallowed up in the same common name of Saxons, yet they were three different sorts of people, Saxons, Jutes, and Angles, of which the latter took posses- sion of the midland country, and were the most noble of all the intruding party. The Venerable Bede also calls the invaders Jutes, Saxons, and Angles. These Angles seem to have come from a small province in the kingdom of Denmark and duchy of Sleswick, north of the Elbe, which to this day is called Angeln. They are mentioned by Tacitus in his book on the ' Manners of the Germans,' ch. 40. We know that the kingdom of Wessex by degrees subdued the other six kingdoms of the Hep- tarchy, until, in the year 827, the whole country formed one kingdom under Egbert, shortly prior to which date Mr. Trench is of opinion that its earlier name of Britain was changed into that of Anglia. But I apprehend that the country must have been known by the name of Anglia at an earlier date ; for the Venerable Bede published 14 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. I. about 734 his work, entitled * Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum,' a title which he would hardly have adopted unless the nation had at that time been commonly called Angles. In Lewis's * Topo- graphical Dictionary of Wales,' Egbert is also said to have taken possession of the island for- merly called Mona, and to have changed its name into Anglesea, or the Isle of Angles, Ey being the Saxon word denoting an island. It is somewhat singular that we should have preserved the original spelling and pronunciation of the name of Anglesea, when we have corrupted the spelling of Anglia into England, and its pronuncia- tion into /ngland. As Anglesea signified the Isle of Angles, so Athelney, in Somersetshire, signified the Isle of Athels, or nobles, the name having been given by Alfred to that small isolated spot in the moors, which he fortified. So Sheppy signifies the Isle of Sheep, Ely the Isle of Eels, Hertsey the Isle of Herts, Bermondsey the Isle of St. Bermond, Bard- sey the Isle of Bards, formerly called the Isle of Saints, who in the monkish legends were stated to have enjoyed, whilst they continued virtuous, the privilege of dying in regular succession, the oldest going first, a privilege which was withdrawn when they became corrupt ; which legend I imagine the monks framed from Gen. ii. 28, where Abram's brother Haran is recorded as the first man who died Chap. I. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 15 before his father. The meadow at Chester, also, between the walls of the city on the west side, and the river Dee, now used as a race-course, is called Roodey, or the Island of the Rood or Cross. The monuments of our Saxon ancestors are thickly studded through our land in the names of our villages and towns. Thus, the Saxon word wold or weald, a forest, is preserved to us in the names of Waltham, in Essex, in the Cotswold Hills, in Gloucestershire, the Weald of Kent, and Stow-in- the-Wold in Gloucestershire, which were no doubt formerly extensive forests. Stow was the Saxon word for a place, and we still use it in our word "stowing away;" and the word is largely intro- duced into the names of our towns, of which Bristol, formerly Brightstowe, and Chepstow are instances. The prefix Chep to the latter name, denoted that the place was a market-town, from the Saxon word cyppan, to buy and sell, a word which we preserve in our word cheap, and when we talk of " chopping and changing ;" also, in our word " chapman," one who buys and sells. A market, or place where goods were bought and sold, was called a "chipping." In Wiclifs translation of the Bible in 1380, the passage at the 7th chap, of St. Luke, v. 32, is thus rendered : " Thei ben like to children sitting in chepinge and spekinge togidre," &c. ; and again, at 20th chap, of St. Matthew, v. 3 : " And he zede out about the thridde oure, and size othere stand- 16 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. I. ynge idil in the chepin^ ; " so again at the 7th chap, of St. Mark, v. 4 : " And whanne thei turnen again fro chepinge," &c. It would be tedious to give a list of the places in which this word is incor- porated, and I will only mention a few, such as Chipping Ongar, Cheapside, Chapmanslade, Chip- penham. The termination of the latter place, ham (which word we still retain in our word hamlet, a little village), is of very general occurrence, and signified a habitation or village, as Keynsham, the village of St. Keyna ; Farnham, the village of Ferns ; Horsham, the village of Horsa, brother of Hengist ; Shoreham, the village near the shore ; Denham, the village in the dale — den being the Saxon word for a valley or dale — whence places situated in valleys frequently had this termination, such as Ambrosden, Hampden, Missenden. Names of places beginning with Der indicate that they were formerly the resort of wild beasts, from Deor^ a wild beast, such as Derby, Derwent, Deerhurst — the termination of the latter word hurst, or hirst, is used in Domesday Book, to denote a little wood, and so we find the word joined to names of places where wood formerly abounded, as Hurst Mon- ceaux, Hurst Courtney, Hurst Pierpoint, denoting the woods of the families of Monceaux, Courtney, and Pierpoint, and Chiselhurst, the wood abounding with pebbles — Chesyl signifying gravel or pebbles. For the same reason this latter word is affixed to Chap. I. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 17 the name of the parish of Chiselhampton, in Oxford- shire ; and to the Chesyl bank near Weymouth, which is an immense bank of pebbles thrown up by the sea, nine miles in length. We meet with this word in the ' Country Mysteries :' — " As sond in the Se doth ebbe and flowe Hath chesyls many innumerablle, So shall thi sede thou mayst me trowe Encres and be evyr prophytabylle," — and it appears to me that we still preserve this an- cient name for pebbles in our word shingle. When names of places terminate in gate, it dis- closes to us that they were situated on a thorough- fare, "gate" being the Saxon word for a way or path ; thus, Sandgate is the sandy way ; Highgate, the high way ; Margate, the way to the sea. Hence, also, comes our word " gait," the manner of walk- ing, and, as I fancy, our word "gaiters," though Richardson says that the latter word is of no great antiquity in English. The names of places termi- nating in ford, evidently indicate their position on a river passable on foot, examples of which are Oxford, the ford of an ox (synonymous with the name Bosphorus), Knutsford, Canute's ford ; Bradford, the Broad ford ; and Hereford, the ford of an army, from the Saxon word her, an army, of which word we preserve a record in our word Herring, expressive of the number and order in which the shoals of these fishes arrive in our seas. Lord Coke says 18 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. I. that " wic " signifies a place on the sea-shore, or on the banks of a river: hence we have Ipswich, Sandwich, Greenwich, Norwich, &c. In Cheshire the houses appropriated to the making of salt are called Wych-houses ; and the chief towns where the salt trade flourishes are called by the same name, as Nantwich, Middlewich, Northwich, Droitwich, Shirleywich, and Wicham ; and it would seem, therefore, that this word has some reference to salt. We need not, however, refer to counties and towns for evidence of Saxon remains, for every parish and farm furnishes such testimony. A very large portion of the fields of almost every farm bears the name of the Tyning, or the middle or upper Tyning, the word being derived from the Anglo-Saxon verb Tynan, to enclose, and thus the word signifies an enclosure, or close, as distinguished fi'om the waste, or un-enclosed land. From the same origin, also, we get our word town, now signiiying habitation, enclosed by walls, but which seems originally to have signified an enclosure of land, for where in our translation of the passage of St. Matthew, ch. 22, v. 5 : " But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise " — in Wiclif s translation in 1380, the passage is : " But they dispiseden and wenten forth, oon to his town, another to his marchandise." And again in St. Luke, chap. 14, v. 18, the passage in our Bible : Chap. I. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 19 " I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it,'* is in WicKf s translation : " I have bougt a town, and I have nede to go out and se it." From the same source, also, we have the word Tunnel, signifying an enclosed or covered way. The word "holme" denotes a river island, or a place surrounded by rivers : thus we have the several holmes in Derwentwater, Windermere, and Ulswater; the "Flat Holmes" and the "Steep Holmes," in the Bristol Channel, and Axholme in Lincolnshire, a district of land bounded by the rivers Don, Trent, Tone, and Idle, the name being an abbreviation of Axelholme, from Axel, formerly the principal place in the district, but now a mere village called Haxey. The word lade signified flowing water, and was used by the Saxons to de- scribe a town at the mouth of a river ; thus Lechlade is the town at the mouth of the river Leach, and Cricklade, the town where the rivers Churn and Key join the Thames. We also preserve a record of this word in our verb " to ladle." 20 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. II. CHAPTEE II. Of Words which we have acquired from the Institu- tions OR Customs of the Romans. I PURPOSE in this chapter to consider some words which the institutions, customs, and habits of the Romans have supplied us with. The word prero- gative is one of these, and is used by us to signify an exclusive or peculiar privilege. The Romans, when they assembled to elect magistrates, make laws, or deliberate upon any public affairs, divided the people into centuries or hundreds, and in order that the votes might be more easily collected, they were taken by centuries. The names of the cen- turies were thrown into a box, and the box shaken, so that the lots might lie equally, and the century whose name was first drawn, was first asked its opi- nion, and was therefore called Prcerogativa^ from the Latin words proe, before or first, and rogo^ to ask. So when we speak of the royal prerogative, we speak of the right which appertains to the King or Queen of being first asked or consulted in what- ever concerns the business of the nation, and Lord Coke says that the word was adopted because, though an Act of Parliament passes both houses of Parliament, yet in order to make it a law, the Royal assent must be first asked and obtained. From this. Chap. II. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 21 the great prerogative of the crown, other powers and rights enjoyed by the ruling authority came to be called by the same name. We use the word corollary to denote a consequence or a conclusion deduced from something previously demonstrated, but the word in its earlier use signified a surplus, or addition, and is so used by Shakspeare in ' The Tempest,' Act iv., Scene 1. Prospero says, — " Well Now come, my Ariel, bring a corollary Rather than want a spirit." The word is handed down to us from the Romans, and was used by them in their dramatic entertain- ments to signify a reward given to the players, over and above their just hire, and was derived from the word corolla, a little crown or garland, such being the reward usually given. Our word confiscate comes from the Latin word fiscus, which originally signified a wicker-basket, used for squeezing olives or grapes. It afterwards signified a basket for holding money, and was sub- sequently used to denote the treasury of the Emperor, and then the money itself: thus confiscate now means to transfer private money or goods, as forfeited to the public treasury or exchequer. From the same source the French get their word fisc, the treasury or exchequer, and we and they the word fiscal. Amongst the Romans, those slaves who were emancipated, were called liherti and lihertini, de- 22 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. II. noting that they were freed, and had the power of doing what they pleased, and so we now adopt the word libertine, to denote one who is free from all moral and religious restraint. Slaves who were bom in the house of their masters were called verncc: hence vernaculus, from whence we get our word ver- nacular, came to signify proper and peculiar to one's own country. Slaves employed to accompany boys to and from school were called Pcedagogiy from the Greek words Tratj-, pais, a boy, and ayw, ago, to lead ; and hence the word pedagogue with us came to signify an instructor of boys. Slaves who were branded with a hot iron, as a punish- ment for theft, were called Stigmatiei, from the Greek word anyfMx, stigma, a brand, and hence we get our word stigmatize. AVhen a Roman made his will, it was tied up with thread, and sealed; if he desired to alter it, he broke the seal and unsealed it, which was called resignare, to break the seal. The word resign thus came to signify to yield up, in order to be can- celled. Thus we say to resign the crown, when the king gives up the kingdom ; and resignation to the will of Providence is a submissive yielding up of ourselves to the Divine authority. In using the words tribe, tribune, tribunal, tribute, contribute, we little think that they all derive their origin from the Latin word tres, three ; and that in using these words we preserve a record of the ear- Chap. II. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 23 liest state of the Romans under Romulus, who divided the people into three divisions, and called them tribes, from their number. The tribune was an officer at the head of each tribe, the tribunal was the place of his residence, and came to signify a seat of justice ; the tribute was the sum paid by each tribe to the common stock, towards the main- tenance of the state ; and contribution was the act of paying the tribute to this common stock. From the same source we get our words tributary/, that which pays tribute ; distribute, to allot or portion out, attribute in its early sense signifying to give a part or portion ; and hence the substantive attribute, something given, assigned, or ascribed. How often do we hear the word palliate made use of, without discerning the antiquity which it covers. As the Toga was the distinguishing part of the Roman dress, so was the Pallium that of the Greeks, and these habits were so peculiar to the two nations respectively, that " Palliatus" was used by the Romans to signify a Greek, as distinguished from " Togatus," a Roman. Palliatse was the name of plays in which the scene was laid in Greece, as Togatae was of those in which the scene was laid in Rome. The Pallium consisted of a short cloak, and thence to palliate is literally to cover with a cloak. At the age of seventeen the Roman youth of quality assumed the toga virilis, but up to that age, they wore the dress called toga prcetexta, which was a 24 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. IL white garment bordered or edged with purple, the word prcetexta literally meaning, woven before. As the toga froetexta was the dress used to cover the body, so in process of time the word prcetextus was used to signify a cover to conceal the thoughts, and hence our word pretext, a colour or motive for doing something. To assess, to impose a rate or tax, is by Johnson and Richardson derived from the Italian assesso, and we may have obtained the word immediately from this source, but the word comes originally from the Latin, censeo, to number. The census, among the Romans, did not at first signify the actual taxa- tion, but the numbering of the people, and the va- luation of their property, prior to the making of the rate. The latter no doubt followed the former very quickly, and so the word census afterwards came to denote the tax itself. In our translations of St. Luke ii..l, the passage is, "that there went out a decree from Csesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed,^^ — the word so translated, taxed, is in the Greek aTroy^aipsaOat, apograp^hestJiai, which merely means, should be enrolled or registered. In Wiclif's Bible, 1380, the passage is rendered, " that all the world should be described,^ ^ and in the Rheims Bible, 1582, " that the whole world should be enrolled," so that the decree of the Emperor really was, that the census or enrolment should be taken, in order that the tax might afterwards be Chap. U. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 25 imposed. It is quite clear that there is some fur- ther confusion in the translation of our Bibles, at this passage, for in the next verse it is thrown in by way of parenthesis, that this taxing (or numbering or enrolment, for the Greek word is the same as that used before) was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria. Now Cyrenius, or Quirinus, was not made governor of Syria until many years after the birth of our Saviour, and this enrolment, here mentioned by St. Luke, took place before our Saviour's birth. The solutions of this difficulty in the notes to Mant's Bible by Archdeacon Paley, Dean Prideaux, and Dr. Hammond, are not satis- factory ; neither do the notes to Scott's Bible satisfy me. The true solution seems to be, that our trans- lators did not select the appropriate meaning of the word TTpcoTfi in this passage which they translated first. The word signifies not only first, but before, and former, when used adverbially ; and had the passage been rendered, " this taxing was made before Cyrenius was governor," or, " that this was a prior taxing to that made when Cyrenius was go- vernor," it would have removed all difficulty. It is evident that the passage was thrown in by the Evan- gelist, by way of parenthesis, and is not at all neces- sary to the sense of the passage. The reason of its introduction seems to have been, to distinguish this taxation of which he was speaking from that which subsequently took place, and which he records in 26 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. II. the passage, Acts v. 37, " After this man, rose up Judas of Gahlee in the days of the taxing, and drew away much people after him." That the taxation spoken of Acts v. took place when Cyrenius was Governor of Syria, we know from " The Antiquities" of Josephus, Book xviii., ch. 1, where he says that Cyrenius came into Syria, being sent by Ceesar to be a judge of that nation, and to take an account of their substance," adding immediately, ''yet was there one Judas, a Gaulonite, who became zealous to draw the people to a revolt, who both said that this taxation was no better than an introduction to slavery, and exhorted the nation to assert their liberty," thus clearly identifying the taxation under Cyrenius with the taxing at which Judas revolted. There is no question, therefore, but that the taxa- tion referred to in Acts v. took place many years after the taxation referred to in Luke ii., and the second verse of the latter chapter was evidently in- serted to distinguish the one from the other. The masculine of the adjective Trpuro?^ protos (the femi- nine of which is, in the second chap, of St. Luke, translated first), occurs at 1 St. John xv. 30, where it is translated before. " He that cometh after me is preferred before me, for he was before me ;" and, again, in the 15th chap, of St. John 18, we find the neuter of this adjective used adverbially, and trans- lated before. " If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you." Chap. II. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 27 We meet with the word cense, signifying a tax, in many old writers, which seems first to have been corrupted into cess, and then into assess. The officer at Rome whose duty it was to take the ac- count of the different families and their possessions was called the Censor, and it was part of his duty to correct ill manners and punish misdemeanours of a private nature, which did not come under the cog- nisance of the civil magistrate ; thus, if one did not cultivate his ground properly, if a horse-soldier did not take proper care of the horse provided for him by the state, or if one lived too long unmarried, the duty of the Censor arose, and hence from the name of this officer, and his judgment in such matters, we acquired the words censure and censorious. In our word auspicious, derived from the Latin word auspex, a compound of avis, a bird, and specio, to behold, we preserve a record of Roman super- stition. The auspex was an officer who foretold future events by observing the flight, chirping, or feeding of birds. In early times the different works of the husbandman were governed or regulated by observing the arrival and departure of birds, and in later times no affair of moment was undertaken by the Romans, nor did any magistrate among them enter upon the duties of his office until the birds had been consulted by means of these officers. If chickens fed greedily, it was considered a good omen ; if, on the contrary, they declined to eat, the omen was c 2 28 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. II. deemed bad. In the first Punic War, the Roman Consul, Pulcher Claudius, consulted the officer in charge of the chickens, who reported that they would not eat, upon which the Consul ordered them to be thrown into the sea, saying, " Then let them drink." After this he engaged the enemy, was defeated, with the loss of his fleet, and was disgraced on his return to Rome. Though the word omen was used by the Romans indifferently, to signify good or ill luck, we use the word, and the adjective ominous, as indi- cative only of ill ; and we use the word ahominable as descriptive of a thing, or of conduct which should be turned from, as from an ill omen. We popularly use the word annals to denote a simple record of events, as, when Gray speaks of " the short and simple annals of the poor ;" but among the Romans it had a much more important signification, and denoted the account of the public transactions of each year drawn up in form by the chief priest, and was derived from the Latin word annus, a year, and were consequently called annales. As these annales were the record of the year, so the kalendares among the Romans (whence our word calendar) signified the first days of each month, being derived by them from the Greek word xqcKsu, kaleo, to call, because the priests were accustomed to call the people together on the first day of each month, and to apprise them of the festivals, or days that were to be kept sacred during the month. Chap. II. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 29 Again, the words mimic and pantomime have descended to us from the Roman mimi, buffoons who entertained the people with representations by dumb show, in which everything was expressed by dancing and gestures, without speaking. With us the word discuss has no other meaning than to debate, but this is really the metaphorical meaning of the word, which comes from the Latin discutio, to shake apart ; and so to discuss is properly to shake apart, and thoroughly sift and examine a subject. The word is frequently found in Holland's Pliny in its primary meaning; thus in book xx. ch. ix. he says, "The sudden mists and dimness which cometh over the eyesight is discussed and dispatched cleane, in case one do no more but chew cabbage in vinegar." Again, book xx. ch. xiii. he says, " that the juice of wild rue helpeth those that are hard of hearing, and discusseth the ringing sound in the ears." We use the word second in a variety of senses, yet if we investigate the derivation of the word, we shall perceive an uniformity of meaning in them all. The word comes from the Latin sequor, to follow ; thus second is that which followeth the first ; a second in a duel is he who followeth the principal ; a seconder of a motion is he that followeth the mover of it. The man who is second to none is one who followeth nobody ; a secondary or second-rate person is one who is contented to follow in an inferior place. The Romans used the word scrupulum, to denote a 30 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. II. minute of time, the scrupulum being a small pebble (originally, no doubt, used in reckoning), and they called the sixtieth part of a minute secundum scru- pulum, whence, by dropping the word scrupulum, we have applied the word second to denote the sexagesimal division of the minute. The scrupulum is described as a small pebble, such as found its way between the sandal and the foot, and occasioned difficulty or vexation to the foot-passenger; and hence the word scruple with us is applied to express a doubt or perplexity about small matters ; and scru- pulous, signifying literally full of little gravel stones, came to signify full of little doubts or hesita- tions. Abstemious comes from the two Latin words abs, without, and temetum, wine. It was a term applied to those who, from their natural aversion to wine, could not partake of the cup of the Eucharist, and the Calvinists allowed such to partake of the bread only. Pliny tells us, book xiv. ch. xiii. that "in ancient time women at Rome were not permitted to drink any wine," and he adds, that Fabius Pictor in his ' Annales,' reporteth, " that a certain Roman dame, a woman of good worship, was by her own kinsfolke famished and pined to death, for opening a cupboard wherein the keys of the wine-cellar lay, and that Cato doth record that hereupon arose the manner and custom that kinsfolk should kiss women when they met them, to know by their breath Chap. II. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 31 whether they smelled of temetum, for so they used in those days to term wine." We preserve a record of the primitive mode of making payment of the price of an article, by weigh- ing the silver to be given for it, in our verb to spend, from the Latin word pendo, to weigh ; and the same record is preserved in our word expenses. Again, the word pensive, which we use to signify thoughtful, literally signifies one who weighs well a subject, and is near of kin to our word ponder, which comes from the same source. So also stipend is also de- rived from the same Latin word to weigh, and stips, the Latin word for money (which was so called from being stowed away in a cellar, that it might occupy less room), being derived from the Latin word stipo, to fill up close. We use the word pecuniary as re- lating to money, the word being derived from the Latin word pecus, cattle, which represented the wealth of the ancients. Servius Tullius stamped pieces of brass with the images of cattle, oxen, swine, &c., which pieces passed current as money ; so the word peculate is derived from the same source, and though now used to denote the pilfering of the public money, formerly denoted the stealing of cattle. Peculiar, belonging to any one, to the ex- clusion of all others, comes from the Latin word pecu- lium, which is derived from the same word pecus, cattle, and was that stock of cattle which a son, with the consent of his father, or a slave, with the consent 32 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. 11. of his master, acquired and retained to his own use ; and when money became more plentiful, the signifi- cation of the word became extended from cattle to money, and other property. In the Roman Catholic convents the word peculium means those goods which each religious member of a house reserves to and possesses for his particular use. The word retaliate also comes to us from the Romans, being derived from the Latin word talis, like, and among the Romans the lex talionis, law of retaliation, awarded a punishment similar to the in- jury inflicted, such as an eye for an eye, a limb for a limb, &c. But this punishment, though decreed by the Twelve Tables, was rarely inflicted, since the law also allowed the redemption of the punishment by a money payment. This legislation seems to have been almost identical with the Levitical law, which in words authorised the authorities to execute a punishment similar to the offence, but also per- mitted, except in the case of murder, pecuniary satisfaction to be substituted for the punishment. The Romans had an officer called the Prefect of the Praetorian Cohorts. This office was originally a military one ; but the Emperor Constantine created four of these officers, and made their offices civil, taking from them the command of the soldiers, and dividing among them the care of the whole empire. Under each of these were several substitutes or deputies, who had the charge of certain districts, Chap. II. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 33 which they called dioceses, from the Greek word ^loiKGco, dioikeo, to govern ; from whence, in the ecclesiastical division of our country, we have adopted the word diocese, to denote a district presided over by a bishop. Johnson derives the word porcelain from the French pour cent annSes, for a hundred years, and Richardson says that China dishes were so called, perhaps be- cause they are believed to be buried for many years in cells. Neither of these derivations seems to be very satisfactory. The true derivation will, I think, be found to be from poreus, the Latin word for a pig. In consequence of the aid afforded by the Portuguese to the Chinese against the pirates who infested their coasts, they obtained from the Chinese liberty to establish a settlement at Macao, and from thence by way of Portugal China ware was first im- ported into Europe, and was called porcellana, the name given by the Portuguese in the East to the cowrie shells (called by the Germans porcellanen, and by the French porcelaines), and which name was so transferred to the Chinese cups, as indicative of their transparent shell-like texture. In our own language these shells bear the same name. In Holland's translation of Pliny, book ix. ch. li., speaking of fishes, he mentions porcelains, and in book xiii. ch. xii., speaking of the manufacture of paper, he says, " It is polished with some tooth, or else with a porcellane shell." Mr. Gray, the c 3 34 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. II. naturalist, states that these shells are called porcelU in Italy, and adds, that porcellain^ the common name of the cowries, is taken from the fancied resemblance of these shells to pigs ; thus we see that our porcelain cups and our porkers are both derived from the same Latin Yfor^porcus, a pig. In like manner the Romans gave the name porca to the ridge of land raised by the action of the plough, from the same fancied re- semblance to a pig's back ; such ridges were also called lira, and the Romans were at great pains to make the furrows straight, and of equal breadth. The ploughman who went crooked was said delirare, to depart from the straight ridge, and thus by a metaphor the word was applied to a person com- mitting an error, or deviating from the right course. We meet with the word so used in Horace, book i. epistle i. ver. 14 — " Quicquid delirant reges plec- tuntur Achivi" ("Whatever errors kings commit, the people suffer for them"), and we have extended the application of the word still further ; for we say that a person of wandering mind is delirious. The ploughman who went crooked was also by the Romans said prcevaricare, derived from the Latin word varus, not walking straight Horace, book i. sat. iii. ver. 47, says, "that an affectionate father conceals as much as possible the bodily defects of his children. If he has a son who squints, he says he merely blinks ; he calls another who is a dwarf his chicken, and calls the third varus, walking crooked, Chap. II. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 35 when the boy is bandy-legged. This word varus came to be applied to a person who did not go straight in anything he had undertaken, and thus prcevaricator was applied by the Romans to an advocate who be- trayed the cause of his client, and by neglect or collu- sion assisted his opponent, and we now apply the word to denote a shuffler, or one who plays fast and loose. The French use the word in the same sense as we do, but it also has with them its former meaning, namely, one who betrays his trust. The word varicose has the same origin, and sig- nifies veins unnaturally tortuous. The Romans gave the name of interpretes to per- sons employed by candidates for office to bargain with the people for their votes, and hence we get our word interpreter, denoting one who acts between two persons, to explain the words of the one to the other. The act of the candidate going round to the houses of the voters to solicit votes was called ambiendo, going round, and hence the word am- bition with us has acquired the signification of a desire for preferment or honour ; and from the same source we get our word ambient, going round, or surrounding. The word province, in such general use with us, comes, as I believe, from the Latin words pro, far, and vinco, to conquer, and signified with the Romans a distant country conquered by them, and to which 36 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. II. the Senate sent a governor from Rome. The district in France now called Provence derives its name from the designation Provineia, given to it by the Romans after its conquest, and from being at first a mere descriptive term has now come to be appro- priated as a proper name. The word Provincia was also used by the Romans metaphorically to signify the office or business of any one. Thus, if a Consul was charged with the conduct of a war, it was called his province or duty ; and we retain the word in this sense also in our language. Thus Pope, in the ' Rape of the Lock,' chap. 2, says : " Our humbler province is to tend the fair, Not a less pleasing, though less glorious care." Among the Romans books were not divided into pages and bound up as they now are, but a skin was written on continuously and rolled up upon a staff or cylinder, fastened at one end of it, in the same manner as large maps are now with us ; and from the Latin word, describing this process of roll- ing, volvo, came their word volumen, from whence we have obtained our word volume, and also our word voluble, meaning in its primary sense easy to be rolled, and afterwards expressing fluency, or words rolling out without difficulty. The act of unrolling a book for the purpose of reading was called evolvere, and hence we get our w^ord evolve, to unfold or disentangle. If one skin Chap. II. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 37 were not large enough to contain the whole writing, another skin was joined on at the end, and this additional skin was called scheda, from whence we get our word sheet and schedule. The Romans adopted the word papyrus to denote paper made from that rush, but when it ceased to be so made it acquired another name, for Pliny (book xiii., ch. 12), after giving a full description of making paper in Egypt, says "that papyrus was the material from which the Roman paper was pre- pared, but when that material was taken away, the manufactured article received the name of charta ; this word they derived from the Greek xa-prris^ ehartes, from x'^qccaaco, eharasso, to inscribe, and signified an article on which letters were inscribed. From this word we get our words charts charter^ cartel^ eartoon, a painting on thick paper. From the same source we get character and characteristic ; character, from its general sense, signifying an engraved mark or figure, as numeral characters engraved to express numbers, each figure conveying a distinct meaning ; and when the word is applied as descriptive of a person, it denotes something peculiar to such person, distinguishing him from others, and as it were engraved upon him ; and when used as a verb it preserves its original mean- ing ; thus Shakspeare says, — " Eosalind ! these trees shall be my books, And in these books my thoughts I'll character." 38 BOOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. II. The manufacture of paper in England is com- paratively of recent date. A paper-mill is said to have existed in Hertfordshire in the reign of Henry VII. ; however this may be, coarse brown paper was manufactured in England in the year 1588, by John Spielman, a German, who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in that year, and to whom she granted the manor of Portbridge or Bycknore, near Dartford in Kent, and a license for the sole gather- ing, for ten years, of all rags necessary for the making of such paper. He erected a paper-mill at Dartford, and died in the year 1607. Fuller, who was born 1608 and died 1661, com- plains that the making of paper in England was not sufficiently encouraged, " considering the vast sums of money expended in our land for paper out of Italy, France, and Germany, which might be lessened were it made in our own nation." The manufacture of paper seems shortly afterwards to have received some protection, for we find a statute in the reign of William and Mary, imposing duties on foreign paper ; and by a statute passed in the tenth year of Queen Anne's reign certain duties are imposed on all paper imported from abroad ; and amongst other descriptions of paper we find in this statute " Genoa foolscap fine " and " Genoa foolscap second," the word foolscap being a corruption of the Italian foglio capa, a chief or large sheet of paper, or first- sized sheet; and so this word has no connexion. Chap. II. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 39 as is too often supposed, with the persons in the French epigram, of which I have somewhere met with the following translation : — " The world of fools has such a store, That he who would not see an ass Must bide at home, and holt his door, And break his looking-glass." The Italian word foglio^ before mentioned, is derived from the Latin folium^ a leaf of a tree, leaves having been originally used for writing upon — the record of which we preserve in speaking of the leaves of a book ; from the same Latin word folium, derived from the Greek word ^yXXov, a leaf, we get our word foliage. 40 EOOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. III. CHAPTER III. Of Words derived from the Names of Places or Persons. Many articles derive their names from places or persons ; thus, the wine which we call Madeira^ is from the Spanish word Madera, a wood, such having been the name which Gonzalves Zarco gave on its discovery, in 1420, to the island from whence we obtain that wine, the island being then covered by an immense forest. In like manner. Sherry derives its name from Xeres, a town of An- dalusia in Spain, pronounced Jeres. The cherry, called by the French Cerise, from Cerasus (now Kheresoun), a seaport in Asiatic Turkey, situated on a gulf in the Black Sea, from whence it was introduced into Europe by the Romans under Lucullus, in the year 73 b.c. Pliny, in book XV. ch. 25, says: "Before the time that Lu- cullus defeated King Mithridates, there were no cherry trees in Italy ; he was the man that first brought them out of Pontus, and furnished Italy so well with them, that in six and twenty years other lands had part thereof, even as far as Bri- tain, beyond the ocean." From the Dalmatian MarascM, cherry, we get the name Maraschino, given to the liquo- gf European celebrity, which Chap. III. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 41 the Austrians distil from it In like manner, Jalap derives its name from Xalapa, a town in Mexico, and the seat of government for the state of Vera Cruz, in the neighbourhood of which the plant was discovered, being the root of the Ipomea. Choeo- late comes from Choco, a province in Mexico, where the Cocoa tree abounds, and from whence it was imported into Europe, about 1520. Pheasant, from the river Phasis, in Colchis, as we learn from Mar- tial, book XXX. ep. 72. Pistol, from the town of Pistoja, in Tuscany, where. Sir James Turner (in his 'Pallas Armata,' pub. 1670) informs us, this weapon was first manufactured in the reign of Henry VIII., by Camillo Vitelli. It is probable that in 1541 this weapon was unknown in England, as it is not mentioned in an Act of Parliament passed in that year, "concerning crossbows and hand-guns;" but it would seem was shortly after- wards introduced, as we meet with the word in a proclamation by Queen Elizabeth, 1575 ; and pistols are mentioned as articles of English manufacture and export, in the act of 12 Charles II. chap. 4 (1660). In our word chalybeate, which we obtain from the Greek xaXv\j/, in Latin chalyhs, signifying iron, we preserve the name of Chalybes, once a very powerful people of Asia Minor, who harassed the 10,000 Greeks in their retreat from Cunaxa, and whose country abounded in iron mines. Again, we learn from Arethas, who wrote an account of Bi- 42 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. III. thynia, that the stone which we call Oalcedony, de- rived its name from Chalcedon, an ancient city of Bithynia, opposite Constantinople. In like manner, Agate is derived from the Greek word xx. In our word Spaniel we preserve the record that this species of dog originally came from Spain, though at what period cannot now be ascertained. The Latin poet Nemesianus, who flourished about the year 281 of our era, in his * Cynegeticon, or book concerning hunting -dogs,' apparently speaking of the spaniel, says, " Quorum proles de sanguine manat Ihero " (whose stock sprung from Spanish blood) ; and the celebrated naturalist, Ulysses Al- drovandus, who was born in 1527 and died in 1605, gives two sketches of the spaniel, both of which he calls Canis Hispanicus, " the Spanish dog." Mummery is derived from Mahomeiia, the temple of Mahomet, and was the term used in ridicule of the gestures and songs practised by the followers Chap. III. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 45 of Mahomet, and the word afterwards came to de- note any kind of foolery ; and gibberish^ anciently written gehrisJi, took the name from G-eher, a Sabean of Harran, in Mesopotamia, who lived in the eighth century, and wrote four tracts on Chemistry, having the object of teaching the method of finding the philo- sopher's stone. We learn from Pliny, book vi. ch. 20, that the Topaz derives its name from Topazos^ an island in the Red Sea, where this gem was found in abundance. The fruit which we call Currants derives its name from Corinth, and was formerly spelt Corintlis. Stowe mentions them as Corinths, commonly called Currants. Ermine derives its name from Armenia^ and in 1660 we find, in the statute of 12 Charles II. chap. 4, this fur written Armins ; so in Littleton's Latin Dictionary, seventeen years later, it is called pellis Armeniana, Armenian skin. In Italian, the weasel producing the fur is called ArmeUina, and in the Spanish Armino and Armelina. Grin, the contraction of the name Geneva, we are told was first made in that city, and thence derived its name. A similar spirit was afterwards manu- factured by the Dutch, and acquired the name of Hollands, from which country, also, the linen, called by us Holland, derives its name. Galvanism took its name from Aloysius Galvani, who was born at Bologna, 1737, and who, about 46 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. III. 1763, was appointed public lecturer in the Univer- sity of that city, and who, by a mere accident, dis- covered that all animals have within them an elec- tricity of a peculiar nature, to which he gave the name of " animal electricity," but which has since acquired the name of Galvanism, from its dis- coverer. Alessandro Volta, professor of natural philosophy, in the university of Pavia, made further discoveries in the science of electricity, and from him we acquire the name of Voltaic battery. The Carraway plant preserves in its name a record of its native country, Caria, as we learn from Pliny, book xix. ch, 8. The name which we have given to the Turhey indicates that we ob- tained it from that country, though it was not a native of it, the bird being peculiar to the con- tinent of America, from whence it was probably introduced into Europe by the Spaniards. This bird is called by the Italians and Spaniards Gallo d!India, by the French Coq cflnde, and by the Germans Indianische Hahn, all preserving the name of India, originally given by the Europeans to America. Robertson, in his ' History of America,' says that Columbus, on landing on this continent, found gold, cotton, and a root resembling rhubarb, the alligator, and rich plumaged birds ; and consi- dering that these productions were peculiar to the East Indies, tenaciously adhered to the opinion that Chap. III. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 47 he had landed at the eastern extremity of India, and the Spaniards and all other nations in Europe adopted that opinion ; and, accordingly, in an agreement made by Ferdinand and Isabella with Columbus, the name of Indies was given to the newly discovered countries ; and after the error which gave rise to this opinion was detected, and the true position of the new world ascertained, the name was continued, and the name of West Indies was given by all the people of Europe to the coun- try, and that of Indians to the inhabitants, by which name the American aborigines continue to be called to this day. The name of the drug which we call Rhuharh, is the corruption of the Latin words Bha barhara (foreign Rha), and preserves a record of the river known to the ancients as the Rha (now the Volga, in Russia), on the banks of which the plant producing the root furnishing the drug was sup- posed to grow. This drug is mentioned as Rha- barharum in the statute 12 Charles II. ch. 4 (1660). It is somewhat surprising that although this drug has been used for centuries, the native place of the plant producing it is still unknown to us. Our word Shallot, frequently written eschalot, comes to us from the French, but the word is de- rived from the name given to the vegetable by the Romans ascalonia, and which was so given because the plant was a native of AsJcelon, in Palestine, one of the fenced cities of the Philistines, and was pro- 48 ROOTS AND EAMIFICATIONS Chap. III. bably introduced into Rome after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. How completely have the words Bedlam and Bridewell become incorporated into our language to denote places for the reception of insane persons and vagrants, and how currently do we use these words without considering the modes by which they acquired their present signification. Stowe tells us that Simon Fitzmary, sheriff of London, 1247, founded the Priory of St Mary of Bethlehem, to consist of canons, with brethren and sisters, to re- ceive the Bishop of Bethlehem and the canons and messengers of the church of Bethlehem, whensoever they should have occasion to travel to England. On the dissolution of monastic establishments in England, King Henry VHI. (1545) granted this priory to the city of London, who converted it into a house or hospital for the cure of lunatics, and this name Bethlehem, corrupted into Bedlam, came to signify a lunatic asylum. Then as regards Bride- well, I would observe that before the Reformation there existed in London and various parts of the country holy wells, the waters of which were sup- posed to be endowed with peculiar virtues, and which were, in consequence, much resorted to by devotees and superstitious persons. St. Bride^s well, near the church of St. Bride, in Fleet Street, London, was one of these. In the vicinity of this well anciently stood a royal palace, which from this well took the Chap. III. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 49 name of Bridewell Palace, where King John held his courts, and where succeeding monarchs resided. Henry VIII. repaired it, and resided in it as late as 1529, but it shortly afterwards fell into decay, and in 1552 the martyr Ridley, then Bishop of London, petitioned Secretary Cecil to grant it to the city of London, which petition being granted, the city, in 1553, converted it into a house of correction for disorderly persons, and thus such houses acquired the name of Bridewells. It is somewhat curious to trace the origin of the word farriers. Johnson says it came to us from the French ferrier, and it is true that it is of French origin, for we acquired the word from the name of the noble Norman family of Ferrers. Stowe, in treating of the "Farriers' Company," tells us that Henry de Ferrariis or Ferrers, a Norman born, came over into England with William the Con- queror, who gave to him, as being his farrier or master of the horse, the honour of Tutbury in the county of Stafford. Robert de Ferrers, his son, succeeded to his father's possessions, and was created, in 1137, Earl of Derby, and his family bore for arms six horseshoes, in allusion to their original vocation. The word farrier was formerly spelt with us ferrer. Blundeville, in his ' Address to the Gentlemen of England,' written in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, says in his fourth book, " All horses for the most part come into their decay D 50 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. III. sooner than they should do by one of these four ways, that is to say, either for the lack of being well bred, or through the rashness of the rider, the negligence of the keeper, or else through the un- skilfulness of the ferrer ;" and again he mentions '' Martin Ghelly of Aston, called Martin Alman, chief /err^r to the Queen's Majesty." In Holland's ' Pliny,' book 33, ch. 11, we find the following pas- sage, " and within the remembrance of man, even in this age, Poppsea the Empress, wife to Nero the Emperor, was known to cause \\qv ferrers ordinarily to shoe her coach-horses and other palfries for her saddle with cleane gold." The Bezant, which was the chief gold coin cur- rent throughout Europe for many centuries, appears to have been first coined at Constantinople, the an- cient Byzantium of the western Emperors, and thence acquired its name. The Sedan chair takes its name from^the town of Sedan in France, where they were first invented, and were introduced into England in 1634 by Sir Saunders Duncombe, who, in the ' Straffbrd Letters,' vol. i. p. 336, is stated to have obtained a patent for their manufacture. Mr. Trench, in his book ' On the Study of Words,' dismisses the word calico by informing us that it took its name from Calicut in the East. The word, however, seems entitled to a little further notice. Dr Buchanan Hamilton, in his work en^ Chap. III. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 51 titled * A Journey through Mysore, Canara, and Malabar,' says that " when Cherusman Permal (the first monarch of Malabar) had divided the country among his nobles, and had no principality remaining to bestow on the ancestor of the Tamuri (i. e. the Rajah), he gave that chief his sword, with all the territory in which a cock crowing at a small temple in the town could be heard. This formed the original dominions of the Tamuri, and was called Calicudo, or the Cock-crowing." Thus, therefore, we arrive at the meaning of the word Calico. We learn from Robertson's ' India,' that the seaport town of Calicut was the place at which the Portuguese under Vasco de Gama landed on the 22nd May, 1498, and they probably gave the name to the article so called, and communicated it to the Spaniards, in whose language it is called Calicud or Calicut, and we in all probability obtained it through Spain, and corrupted the word into calico. Mr. Trench also informs us that the word tariff is derived from Tarifa, a fortified promontory in Spain commanding the entrance of the Mediterranean Sea, from whence the Moors watched merchant ships frequenting that sea, and levied duties on the mer- chandise passing in and out of the straits, according to a fixed scale ; and he adds that the word is of Moorish origin, but does not give us that origin. Richardson, in his Dictionary, quoting Menage, says that the word is Arabic, from d'araf, to know. The D 2 52, ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. III. word, indeed, is of Moorish origin, but the etymo- logy of Menage is not the true one. The word is a monument of the conquest of Spain by the Arabs, the town Tarifa (from which it is derived) taking its name from Tarif Ibn Malek Almaferi, the Arabian Viceroy of Africa, who on the 30th of April, a.d. 711, landed at the promontory (then called Calpe), and shortly afterwards conquered Spain. The Arabs changed the name of Calpe to Jezira Tarif (the Island of Tarif), and in later times it became Tarif. In like manner the Rock of Gibraltar is another record of the same conquest, the name Gibraltar being the corruption of the Moorish words Gibel Tarif (the Mountain of Tarif). Lydius lapis was the name given by the Romans to the stone which attracts iron, from the circum- stance of its being found in Lydia, and which we have corrupted into our loadstone. Pliny, in his 34th book, tells us " that this stone is to be found in Biskay scattered here and there in small quan- tities, but it is not that true magnet or loadstone indeed which groweth in one continued rock." This word magnet^ in Latin magnes, took its name from the city of Magnesia in Lydia, where it was found. This kingdom of Lydia was anciently called Maeonia, through which ran the river Mccander, remarkable for its tortuous course, and hence we have acquired our word meayider. We read that Eumenes, the second king of Per- Chap. III. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 53 gamus, died b.c. 159, having embellished the city of Pergamus and founded a library there, which became second in importance only to that of Alex- andria, and that Ptolemy Epiphanes, becoming jealous lest the library at Pergamus should rival that of Alexandria, prohibited the export of papyrus from Egypt. The art of preparing skins for writing consequently improved at Pergamus, and such skins were called by the Romans Qharta Pergamena^ from which the Spaniards acquired their word per- gamino, the French their word parchemin, and we our word parchment. In like manner our word cordwainer is derived from the city of Cordova (anciently spelt Cordova), the capital of Andalusia, where was manufactured a celebrated leather, cordoban, which was a prepara- tion of goat-skins. From this source the French get their word for shoemaker, cordonnier, and we our word cordwainer. This celebrated leather, having been first prepared at Cordova by the Moors when masters of Granada, is still manufactured by them in their empire of Morocco, and has now taken that name. We find this leather mentioned in the ' Coventry Mysteries' — " Of ffine Cordewan, a goodly peyre of long pikyd Schon Hosyn enclosyd of the most costlyous cloth of crenseyn " (crimson) : the word also occurs in most of our early writers. We use the word milliner, to describe one who 54 EOOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. III. sells ladies' dresses and ribbons. In Littleton's ' Latin and English Dictionary,' published in 1677, a milliner is defined to be "a Jack of all trades," and "one who sells a thousand different sorts of things," as if the word were derived from mille^ a thousand ; but this derivation is, 1 think, clearly erroneous, for Stowe tells us these persons were so called from Milan, in Italy, whence the commo- dities they dealt in chiefly came, such as " owches, brooches, agglets, spurs, caps, glasses, &c." He adds, " that in Edward VI.'s reign there were not above a dozen of them in all London ; but within forty years after, about the year 1580, from the City of Westminster along to London, every street be- came full of them." He states that some of the wares sold by these shopkeepers were, " gloves made in France or Spain ; kerseys of Flanders' dye, French cloth or Fruzado ouches, brooches, aggletts, made in Venice or Milan ; daggers, swords, knives, girdles of the Spanish make ; glasses, painted cruses, dials, tables, cards, balls, puppets, penners, ink- hornes, toothpicks, silk bottoms, silver bottoms, fine earthen pots, pins, points, hawksbells, saltcellars, spoons, and dishes of tin, which made such a show in the passengers' eyes, that they could not but gaze on them and buy some of these knicknacks, though to no purpose necessary ; of which trade and trifles, a writer in the middle of Queen Elizabeth's reign, makes this complaint, — I mervail no man taketh Chap. III. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 55 heed to it, what number of trifles cometh hither from beyond the seas, that we might either clean spare, or else make them within our realm, for the which we either pay inestimable treasure every year, or else exchange substantial wares, and necessary for them, for the which we might receive great treasure/' These persons so called milliners^ were also called haberdashers or hurrers, and were incor- porated in the year 1447. I shall conclude this chapter with the word ala- baster, which almost all the dictionaries, Greek, Latin, and English, derive from the Greek a, a, without ; and Xa^-w, labe (a handle), and render the word into English, as a box without handles for holding ointment ; but this seems to be a fanciful derivation, as the material from which these boxes were made seems to have been called alabaster, when in its rough unmanufactured state. It is true that the boxes were called alabasters, no doubt from their having been originally made of this stone, and they were so called, although made of gold, or of any other material. In the passages St. Matt. xxvi. 7, St. Mark xiv. 3, and St. Luke vii. 37, ren- dered in our translation an alabaster box, the Greek words used are aXx^acaTqov iA,upov, alabastron murou, literally, an alabaster of myrrh, the word being used as a substantive, and the same words pre- cisely occur, in the third book of Herodotus, ch. XX., wherein he records the presents sent by Cam- 56 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. III. byses to the king of Ethiopia ; and in Theocritus, Idyll XV., line 114, we read of ^^ golden alabasters, full of myrrh of Syria" — 2v§/a; V^ ^v^co xpua^C aXx- Qdirpac. It would seem from the following passages, that this peculiar stone derived its name from a place in Egypt called Alabastrum, where it was found. Pliny, in his 36th book, ch. viii., speaking of the onyx-stone, says, " this onyx-stone, or ony- chites, some name alabastrites, whereof they use for to make hollow boxes and pots, to receive sweet perfrunes and ointments. This cassidronic, or ala- baster, is found about Thebes in Egypt, and Da- mascus in Syria, and this alabaster is whiter than the rest ;" and again, in his 37th book, ch. x., he says, " The stone alabastrites is found about Ala- bastrum, a citie in Egypt, and Damasco in Syria ; white of colour it is, and entermeddled with sundry colours." Pliny, in book v., ch. 9, gives us pretty nearly the situation of this city Alabastrum ; he commences by describing the towns of Egypt from Syene, its ancient southern boundary, and following the course of the Nile he reaches Ptolemais and Panapolis : he then proceeds, " Also on the Libyan coast, Lycon, where the hills do bound Thebais, soon after, these towns of Mercury, Alabastron, Canum, and that of Hercules, before spoken of," so that it is clear that Alabastron was situated between Pano- polis and Heracleopolis, and could not have been far from Hermopolis, lat. 28, Ion. 31. What the Chap. III. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 57 shape of these alabasters was we also learn from Pliny, who, in his 9th book, ch. xxxv., describing the pearls called Elenchi, says they were " fastigiata longitudine alabastrorum figura in pleniorem orbem desinentes," which Holland translates "long and pointed upwards, growing downward broader and broader like a pear, or after the manner of alabaster boxes." ^fr. Layard, in his ' Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon,' published in 1853, gives at p. 197, a drawing of an alabaster vase found at Nimroud, which he describes as being seven inches high, and adds, " and was probably used for holding some ointment or cosmetic." It appears from p. 200 of the same work, that after Mr. Layard's de- parture from Assyria, a similar alabaster jar was discovered, and Colonel Rawlinson states, "that remains of preserves were found in it, and conjec- tured from this circumstance that the room in which it was found had been a kitchen. The drawing which Mr. Layard has given of the jar found by him, may weU be said to be "pear-shaped," and why therefore should not these jars be the same as the alabasters containing ointments referred to by Pliny and St Matthew, by Herodotus and Theo- critus? That which Colonel Rawlinson took for preserves was much more likely to have been oint- ment, as the latter would endure longer than the former, D 3 58 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. IV. CHAPTER IV. Of Words the Etymology of which is obscured by reason of the original spelling having been cor- RUPTED. In many instances we have abridged words in our language by dropping a letter or syllable, and in others we have changed one or more letters, and in consequence the origin of such words has become somewhat obscured. The word strange is one of these. This word was formerly written estrange, and its origin was then apparent as coming from the French estrange, from the Latin extraneus, of ano- ther country. In Hollingshed, vol. vi. p. 446, we find the word as originally spelt. " This prelate (the Archbishop of Dublin), after that he had con- tinued well near the space of five years in the see, was sore appalled by reason of an estrange and wonderful dream;" so stranger wsL^hrmerly estr anger. In Nicolls's translation of Thucydides, published in 1550, fol. 58, he says, "And having with them souldyars, estrangers, which Pissithnes and the Ar- cadians had sent them." We still preserve the original spelling in our word estrange, and it would seem that Shakspeare well knew the connexion be- tween the words estrange and strange when he wrote this passage — Chap. IV. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 59 " How comes it now, my husband, oh ! How comes it ; That thou art thus estranged from thyself? Thyself I call it, being strange to me." We may in vain search for the origin of our word dropsy, unless we first restore it to its original spell- ing, hydropsy, and then we at once get the derivation of it from the Greek v^up, udor (water). Holling- shed, voL vi. p. 8, speaking of the virtues of brandy, says, *'it lighteneth the mind, it quickeneth the spirits, it cureth the hydropsy,'^ &c. The French, in their word hydropisie, and the Spaniards, in their word hidropesia, still preserve the original spelling ; so our word licorice will not yield up its meaning, unless we first restore it to its original spelling of lycorys, which we meet with in the ' Coventry Mysteries,* p. 22 ; and then we see that the word is corrupted from glycorys, i. e. glycyrhiza, from the Greek y)^uxuf, gluhus (sweet), and ^/§a, riza (root). Again, we must restore molasses to its original spell- ing, melasses, in order to get at its derivation from the Spanish word melaza (the dregs of honey), from the Latin word mel (honey). This article is spelt meZasses in the schedule to the Act of 12 Car. II. c. 9, where it is described as an article of export and import. To arrive at the derivation of the word clover, we must return to the way in which it was ori- ginally spelt, claver ; and then we see that the 60 EOOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. IV. name is descriptive of the plant, as cleaved or cloven grass. Pliny, in his 18th book, eh. xvi., treats of Spanish trefoil, or horned c^avergrasse, called in Latin medica, and says, "As for the grasse or hearb medica (a kind of claver or trefoile), the Greeks held it in old time for a meere straunger, as being brought into Greece from Media during the Persian wars, which King Darius levied against Greece ;" he adds, "Now, when this hearbe medica^ or clavergrasse^ beginneth once to flour, cut it downe, and so often as it floureth againe, down with it. Thus you may have sixe mathes in one year, or foure at least." Sir Richard Weston, our ambassador to the Elector Palatine and King of Bohemia, in 1619, has the merit of being the person who introduced clover into English agriculture. Our word quinine, Peruvian or Jesuits' bark, is the corruption of quinaquina, the name by which it is known in Peru, whence it was introduced into Europe by the Spaniards in 1640. In 1738 La Condamlne first printed a detailed account of this bark, under the name of quinquina, as it was then called ; a name which it still retained in 1796, as we meet with the word in ' Robertson's America,' vol. iii. p. 302. The drug saffron (manufactured from the crocus) is chiefly imported from France and Spain, that from the latter country being preferred. It is in the Spanish language called azafron, which we Chap. IV. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 61 have corrupted into saffron. The word was pro- bably introduced into Spain by the Moors, as it seems of Arabic origin. Our word lettuce^ as now spelt, conveys to us no idea of its signification or derivation ; but written, as it used to be of old, lectuce, it at once gives us a clue to its origin from the Latin word lactuca, from lac (milk), and then we immediately see the ap propriateness of the name. Holland, in his transla- tion of Pliny, always spells the word lectuce. He says, in book xix. ch. viii., " There is another distinct kind of the blacke lectuce which, for the plenty that it yieldeth of a milky white juice, procuring drowsi- ness, is tearmed meconis, although all of them are thought to cause sleep. In old time our ancestors knew no other lectuce in Italy but this alone, and thereupon it took the name in Latin of lactuca ^ The French, in their word for this vegetable, laitue, have kept somewhat nearer to the original Latin name. Again, in our words linen, linseed, linsei/-woo\sej, having kept to the original spelling, we perceive at first sight the derivation of them from linum, flax ; but although the word linnet comes from the same source (the seed of the linum being the favourite food of that bird), yet the origin of the name does not at once occur to us, because we have doubled the letter n; but the French, in this instance also, have, in their word linotte, adhered closer to the parent word. 62 EOOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. IV. Our verb to wither is derived by Johnson and Richardson from a Saxon word, ge-wyther-ed, but it seems to me that it is simply a corruption of winder (by the change of d into t}i\ expressive of the action of wind on vegetation. Thus in Holland's Pliny, book xviii. ch. xvii., speaking of the disasters incident to corn, he says, " When the grain, being formed, before that it is firm and hard, is smitten with a noisome blast, it decay eth and winder eth away ;" and again, in the 19th book, ch, iii. (speaking of a plant called by him laserpitium, which grew in wild dis- tricts), he says, " that it cannot abide culture ; but if one should go about to tend and cherish it, it would rather chuse to be gone into the desert, or else winder away and die." The transition from wi/ider to wiJer, and then to wither is simple enough. The passage at the 21st chapter of St Matthew, v. 20, " How soon is the fig-tree withered away,'' is ren- dered, in Tyndale's Bible, 1534, and in Cranmer's, 1539, " How soon is the fig-tree wyddered away." A like change has taken place in other words ; thus leather was anciently written ledder, and father fader. Quinsy, inflammation of the throat, was formerly written squinancy, and then squincey, and then, by dropping the letter s, quincey, and at last we get quinsy, the present spelling. In Jeremy Taylor's work — * Holy Living and Dying' — the word fre- quently occurs as originally spelt, squinaney ; thus Chap. IV. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 63 he says, " Without revelation we cannot tell whether we shall eat to-morrow, or whether a squinancy shall choke ' us;" and again, speaking of Senecio Cor- nelius, he says, "he went away, supped merrily, went to bed cheerfully, and on a sudden, being sur- prised by a squinancy, scarce drew his breath until the morning, but by that time he died." Holland, in his translation of Pliny, book x. ch. xxxiii., uses the word as originally written : " The young birds of these martins, if they be burnt into ashes, are a sin- gular and sovereign remedie for the deadly squin- ancie" This word in fact comes from the Latin word aynanche, a drawing together, which Latin word came from the Greek auMayoj, sunago (to collect or gather together), being the same Greek word from which is derived synagogue, a congrega- tion, or gathering together of persons. Richardson is of opinion that the word meyiial is from the same source as many, but I think this is a mistake, and that the original spelling of the word must have been mcenial, though I have not met with the word so spelt. If I am correct in this supposition, the derivation of the word would seem to be from the Latin word moenia, the walls of a castle or house, and then we get an intelligible signification of menials, as being domestic or house- hold servants, living within the walls of their master's house, as distinguished from agricultural labourers or out- door servants. The term meing is used in 64 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. IV. the statute 1 Richard II., c. 4, 1377, to denote the king's household. Again, in Acts x. 2, the passage rendered in our translation, " a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house," is in Wiclif's translation, 1388, "a religious man, and dredinge the Lord with all his meyner The word menials, spelt in the Norman French meignals, occurs also in the statute 2 Hen. IV. c. 21, 1400 ; and in Littleton's English and Latin Dictionary, 1684, he renders the English word meny with the Latin word familia, a family, and the word meny is marked with a star, as being of " immediate descent from the Latin," as explained in the preface to the reader. It is clear therefore that he con- sidered it of Latin origin. I think the French word for household, manage, and the Spanish word menage (the moveable furniture of a house) have the same origin. We do not at once see the derivation of the word ridings (being the three great districts into which Yorkshire is divided), but when we go back and see that the word was in Magna Charta and in the statute of 21 Hen. HI., c. 10, 1260, formerly spelt trithing, we see at a glance the derivation from the Latin tres, three, and that trithing became corrupted into triding, and triding into riding. The origin of our word farthing is similai. In the statute 9 Hen. V., stat. 2, c. 7, 1421, it is enacted "that the king do to be ordained good Chap. IV. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 65 and just weight of the noble, half-noble, and far- thing oj gold^'' showing that the coin then known as the farthing was the fourth thing, or fourth part of the noble ; so our farthing is the fourth part of a penny. In the same way the quadrans, with the Romans, was the fourth part of an as. Before the reign of Edward I. the penny was the smallest coin, and was marked or indented with a cross, by the guidance of which it might be cut into halves for halfpennies, or into quarters for farthings ; but to avoid the frauds occasioned by unequal cutting, Edward I. caused halfpence and farthings to be coined in round distinct pieces. Instances of pennies neatly and accurately cut into halves and quarters occur almost wherever Saxon coins have been dis- covered. The Saxon word penny first occurs in the laws of Ina, king of the West Saxons, whose reign commenced in 688. It was equal in weight to three pence with us, and four of these made a Saxon scilling, from whence comes our word shil- ling ; the Saxon word scilling being derived from schildy a shield, because this coin was anciently stamped with the representation of a shield. Edward I. reduced the weight of the penny to a standard, ordering that it should weigh 32 grains of wheat taken out of the middle of the ear. Twenty of these pence were to weigh an ounce, and thus the penny became a weight as well as a coin, and was afterwards known only as a weight until subse- 6Q ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. IV. quently re-introduced into the British coinage. The pennyweight seems afterwards to have been reduced to 24 grains, each grain weighing a grain of wheat gathered out of the middle of the ear, and well dried ; and it is supposed that when the reduction took place the improvement in agriculture had ren- dered 24 grains of wheat equivalent to 32 grains of the more early harvests. In the Saxon times no silver coin bigger than a penny was struck in England, nor after the Con- quest till the reign of Edward III., who about the year 1361 coined grosses, or great pieces, which went for fourpence each, and were so called from the French word gros, great, and which name we subsequently corrupted into groat. From the same word we get our word grogran, meaning a stuff woven with large woof and a rough pile — the word literally signifying large-grained or coarsely woven. Admiral Vernon, who in 1739 was appointed com- mander-in-chief on the West Indian station, was in the habit of walking the deck in bad weather wrapped in a rough grogran coat, and thus acquired with the sailors the name of Old G-rog. He intro- duced the use of rum and water by the ship's com- pany, which speedily became very popular, and from the admiral's nickname acquired the name of grog. Burly was anciently written hoorley, and then there was a clue to its origin from boor; thus a Chap. IV. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 67 hurly man is a boorlike man. Sir Thomas More says, " how be it in his latter dayes, with over liberall dyet, somewhat corpulent and hooreleyJ^ So neigh- bour was anciently neizhore^ i. e. one boor nigh an- other. In the passage Romans xiii. 9, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," in Wiclif s Bible, 1380, we find ''Thou schalt love thy neizbore as the silf." In like manner nigh at hand was for- merly neyhand—Yfo, meet with the word in the * Coventry Mysteries,' p. 172. In the way in which we now spell the word butcher we lose sight of its origin, but if we restore it to its ancient spelling, bocher, we see that we have adopted the word from the French boucher. Stowe, vol. ii. p. 445, giving the ancient assize of the butcher, says, " A bocher that selleth swyne's flesh that is anywise mesell, corrupt, or in the morayne, or if he by flesh of Jewes, and sell it unto Chrystus men, and thereof the same bocher be convicte, first he shall grievously be amercyed," &c. The passage at 1 Cor. x. 25, " Whatsoever is sold in the shambles that eat," is in Wiclif 's Bible, " Al thing that is seeld in the bocheri ete ye." In like manner the word currier, as now spelt, conveys to us no clue as to its ety- mology, but restore it to its ancient spelling, coryour or coriour, and we see at once its derivation from the Latin corium, a skin. Stowe, vol. ii. p. 446, says, " Also the assize of a coryour is that he cory no maner of ledder, but if it be thurgh tanned, and 68 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. IV. that it be thurgh coried with suffiseant stuff." The passage translated in our version of Acts x. 6, ''he lodgeth with one Simon a tanner, whose house is by the sea side," is in Wiclif s Bible, " this is herboride at a man symount couriour^ whos hous is biside the sea." The spelling and pronunciation of our word squirrel discloses to us nothing of the meaning of the name, but if we trace it back to the Latin sciurus, of which our word is a bad corruption, we at once get a clue to its meaning, and see that it is derived from the Greek words a^ix, skia, shade, and ovqoc, oura, a tail ; and thus we discover that the meaning of our word squirrel is shady-tail, and that this little creature, so familiar to us, derives its name from the fact of its tail serving it as an umbrella, for protection against heat and cold. Linnaeus, however, tells us that it makes a further use of this appendage, for he says that when a squirrel crosses a river, a piece of bark is its boat, and its tail the sail. When furmety was spelt frumente its derivation was seen at a glance, from the Latin frumentum, corn. Holland, in his translation of Pliny, book xviii. ch. vii., after reprobating the custom of working and kneading dough with sea-water to save the charge of salt, says, "In France and Spaine, when the brewers have steeped their wheat or frument in water and masht it for their drinke of divers sorts." Chap. lY. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 69 So again when furnace was written fornace, its derivation from the Latin fornax, a chimney or oven, was apparent. The word which we use to denote the juice of the apple when expressed and fermented, and which we now spell cider, gives us, when so spelt, no clue whatever to its derivation. The word formerly had a more extended meaning than at present, and sig- nified any strong drink other than wine, and was written sicer. The passage at 1 St. Luke, v. 15, translated in our Bibles " and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink," is in the Rheims Bible, 1582, " and wine and sicer he shall not drink." In the statute (12 Chas. II. c. 9) the word is spelt sider ; the ancient spelling leads us to discover that the word came from the Greek word aiyceqa, sikera, translated into Latin sicera, and by us turned first into sicer, then sider, now cider. The word seems to be of Hebrew origin, for St. Jerome, who went to Jerusalem about the year 369 to study the Hebrew language, in order to acquire a more perfect know- ledge of the Holy Scriptures, in his letter to Nepo- tianus (a son of a sister of the Emperor Constantine) concerning the lives of the clergy, informs us that in Hebrew any inebriating liquor is called sicera, whether made of corn, the juice of apples, honey, dates, or any other fruit. Mr. Southey, in his ' Omniana,' or * Horae Otio- siores,' vol. i. p. 283, suggests that the old Leonese 70 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. IV. word merino is a mongrel derivative from the Arabic or Moorish title Umir, likely enough to have been formed when the two languages were, as it were, running into each other. In vol. ii. p. 105, he says that Merino is the old Leonese title still preserved in Portugal, though long since obsolete in the other kingdoms of Spain. He says that the old laws of Spain define it thus : " He is a man who has autho- rity to administer justice within a certain district." The first mention of this office is in the reign of Bermudo II. (982). The Merinos then commanded the troops of their respective provinces in war, but before the time of Enrique II. (1369) it was become wholly a civil office. Mr. Southey adds that most probably the judge of the shepherds was called the merino, and hence the appellation extended to the flocks under his care. I think there can be no doubt but that Mr. Southey's suggestion is the true one, for in Connelly's Spanish Dictionary, published at Madrid, 1798, the word merino is rendered into English, first as '* the chief judge of a sheep-walk, invested with an ample power," and then as "he who superintends the sheep and pastures :" the terra afterwards became transferred to the sheep themselves, and since the introduction of the sheep into England by George III. (1788) the word has been of common use with us, and was applied to designate the wool of the Spanish sheep, in the spin- ning of which the French, until recently, far ex- Chap. IV. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. IX celled our manufacturers; but in 1833, Captain Charles Stuart Cochrane, of the Royal Navy, esta- blished in Glasgow a manufacture for spinning merino yarn on the French principle, and the term merinos has for some years been applied to the soft and beautiful fabrics made from this yarn. Thus has this word been degraded from the title of a military commander to denote the office of a civil magistrate, then a kind of master-shepherd, after- wards the sheep themselves, and finally the articles manufactured from the wool. Again, the word shot was formerly much used as synonymous with reckoning, and is still so used by the lower orders. Shakspeare so used this word when he said, " A man is never welcome to a place till some certain shot be paid and the hostess says welcome." The word, when so spelt, leads us on a wrong scent after its origin, since our ideas naturally turn to the verb " to shoot," with which it has nothing to do. The word is a corruption or mis-spelling of scot, which we retain in our words scot and lot, the payment of which in many boroughs, before the passing of the Reform Act, constituted the qualifica- tion of the voters, and which word we also retain in our expression scot free. The meetings formerly held in England for drinking ale, the expense of which was paid by contribution, were called scotales. The tenants of the Archbishop of Canterbury at South Mailing, in Sussex, were bound by the custom 72 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. IV. of the manor to entertain the lord or his bailiff with a drinking, and the rule of contribution to- wards the expenses was, that a man should pay threepence halfpenny for himself and his wife, and a widow and a cottager a penny halfpenny. The French have a similar word, ioot, to denote the quota of a tavern bill. Again, the Peter Pence, formerly collected in this country and remitted to Rome was called Momescot, and the rate collected to defray the charge of candles in churches was called waxshot or waxscot. When we find camomile spelt without an h, as it commonly is, its origin is concealed, but restore the original spelling of chamomile, and we readily see its origin, from the Greek %(x.txot,i^ chamai, " of the ground," and fxnXov, melon, "an apple." Pliny (book xxi ) gives us the different names by which this plant was known, and says, " others again name it chamcemelon, for the scent or savour that it hath of an apple." Again, the word soder, to join to- gether, when so spelt, does not disclose its etymo- logy, but restored to its ancient spelling soMer, and we see its derivation from the Latin word solido, to make firm. Chap. V. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 73 CHAPTEK V. Of the Interchange of Lettees in Languages. Letters which are called labial and mute, being those that are chiefly pronounced by means of the lips, and which are incapable of pronunciation with- out the aid of a vowel, such as 5, p, v, and cvmv, Jcuon, genitive ycwo^, Jcunos (of a dog). We should hardly imagine that the name of the Qanary bird is trace- able to the same origin, but such is the case. The bird immediately derives its name from the Canary Islands, which are the most frequented haunts of the species ; and we learn from Pliny, following the description of Juba, the Mauritanian Prince, that one of these islands was called Canaria, from the number of dogs of a large size which were found there. A dance common in these islands was in- troduced into this country, under the name of the " Canary dance," to which Shakspeare alludes in y2 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. VI. * Love's Labour Lost,' Act iii. sc. 1, in the following passage : — " Moth. — Master, will you win Your love with a French brawl ? " Armado. — How meanest thou, brawling in French ? " Moth. — No, my complete Master ; but to gig off a tune at the tongue's end, ' canary ' to it with your feet, humour it with turning up your eyelids." So, also, the wine made in these islands was called Canary., to which Shakspeare also alludes — " I will to my honest knight Falstaff, And drink canary with him." In like manner, Jcindle, the corruption of candle, is from the Latin word candeo (to burn), derived from the Greek xato;, kaio (to burn). So canal and channel (anciently amongst us written Jcennell), coming direct to us from the Latin canalis (a gutter), are derived from the Greek xxvoj, cJiano (to gape), which is also the origin of our word chaos. Again, carriage is, I think, incorrectly derived by our etymologists from car, and that from a Saxon word cyranto, turn. It seems to me to come from the Latin carruca (a chariot), the origin of which is clearly the Greek word ytapovxm, carouchion (a coach). Stowe tells us, " that coaches were not known in this island of old time, but chariots, or whirlicotes, then so called, and then only used of Princes, or men of great estates, such as had their footmen about Chap. VI. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 93 them. And for example to note, I read that Ri- chard II., being threatened by the rebels of Kent, rode from the Tower of London to the Mile's End, and with him his mother (because she was sick and weak) in a whirlicote, divers Lords attending on horseback. But in the year next following, the said Richard, who took to wife Anne, daughter to the King of Bohemia, that first brought hither the riding upon side saddles ; and so was the riding in those whirlicotes and chariots forsaken, except at coronations, and such like spectacles ; but now, of late years, the use of coaches, brought out of Ger- many, is taken up and made so common, as there is neither distinction of time, nor difference of persons observed ; for the world runs on wheels, with many whose parents were glad to go on foot." He adds that " the number of coaches in London must needs be dangerous," and that, " although there were good laws and customs in the City for their government, such as, that the forehorse of every carriage should be led by the hand, &c., yet these good orders are not observed." Coaches seem to have been in- troduced into England about the year 1570, but were used only by a few distinguished individuals. Hume, in his ' History of England,' says, '* About 1580 the use of coaches was introduced by the Earl of Arundel ; before that time the Queen, on public occasions, rode behind her Chamberlain." In 1625, however, they were let for hire ; and in 1689 a 94 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. VI. Company of Coachmakers was incorporated in Lon- don, and bore for their arms a coach, which is so similar to the family-coach of the present day, as to convince us that little change in the form has taken place since that time. But though coaches, that is, covered vehicles for travelling, are but of com- paratively modern use in England, wheeled car- riages are of very great antiquity. About 1500 years before the Christian era they were in common use among the Egyptians ; and carriages were also well known to the Greeks and Romans, and seem to have been used not only for purposes of war, but also for domestic purposes. Homer describes the chariot of Juno, with wheels having eight brazen spokes and tires of brass, and the seat fastened with cords of gold and silver. And again, in the 24th book of the Iliad, line 266, when describing Priam's visit to the Grecian camp to ransom the body of Hector, he says that he had xaXriv Trqcoro- TTxyx apta^av, which is well translated in a treatise on ' Draught,' published by the Society for the Dif- fusion of Useful Knowledge, by the words " a beau- tiful, new-built travelling carriage." The Greek word x.'Kifxx, clima, from kXi^m (to incline or decline), technically signified spaces upon the surface of the globe, measured from the equator to the polar circles, in each of which spaces the longest day is half an hour longer than in that nearer to the equator — these spaces were called xKi- Chap. VI. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 95 /ooara, cUmata, because in numbering them they de- clined from the equator, and inchned towards the pole. From this technical signification the word clima was by the Romans applied to denote parts of country, without regard to the length of the days ; and from cUma we get our word climate, which with us has lost both its technical and subsequent mean- ing, and now popularly denotes the temperature of the atmosphere in regard to heat and moisture in any district or country. From the same Greek word the Romans obtained their word climax (a ladder, or ascending by degrees), and hence we have obtained our word climax, a figure in rhetoric, by which the sentence rises gradually as if ascending a ladder. Our word crystal, again, is of Greek descent, and literally signifies ice, being derived from the Greek xpuos, cruos (cold), and o-teXXco, stello (to contract). The word was applied to designate the rock-crystals, which the ancients, according to Pliny, believed to be water congealed by the action of cold. He says in book xxxvii. ch. ii. : " As touching crystal, it pro- ceedeth of cold, for a liquor it is, congealed by extreme frost in the manner of ice ; and for proof hereof you shall find crystal in no place else but where the winter snow is frozen hard ; so, as we may boldly say, it is very ice and nothing else, whereupon the Greeks have given it the right name, crystallus " (ice). At Job vL 16, the Greek word is used and translated in our Bibles by the word 96 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. VI. ice^ and so again in tbe 148th Psalm, v. 8, where it is translated hail. From the Greek word the Ro- mans obtained their word crystallum, whence we have got crystal. So our word cemetery, and the French word cimetiere, derived from the Latin coemeterium, springs from the Greek y.oiixnrYiQioy, Jcoimeterion (a dormitory), from Koifxxco, koimao (to lie down to sleep) ; and cemetery is thus a beautiful and ex- pressive word on the Jips of Christians, who, being assured of a resurrection, use the words falling asleep, as synonymous with dying. The Saxons had a somewhat similar expression for a sepulchre, which they called a slapgrave, a sleepgrave. It is somewhat curious to note that the heathens univer- sally allowed the natural resemblance between death and sleep ; but, knowing nothing of the resurrection, never described death as sleep, without prefixing an epithet of endurance, precluding the idea of waking. Thus Homer, describing the death of Iphidamus, when slain by Agamemnon, says " he slept a brazen sleep." Virgil in the 10th book of the ' iEneid,' describing a hero's death, says, — " An iron sleep o'erwhelms his swimming sight, And his eyes close in everlasting night." Catullus, contrasting the setting and rising of the sun with death, says — " The sun that sets with light refined Returns to gild the plains ; When man's short day hath once declined Perpetual night remains." Chap. VI. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 97 Moschus, a Greek poet, after observing that some plants died, and revived in a succeeding year, pro- ceeds to say — " But we, or great, or wise, or brave, Once dead, and silent in the grave, Senseless remain ; one rest we keep, One long, eternal, unawaken'd sleep." Horace, in his Ode to Virgil, lamenting the early death of his friend Quintilianus, complains — " That an eternal sleep had seized him." From the fi'agments of the Twelve Tables which have come down to us we learn that these laws pro- hibited the burying of the Roman dead in cities.. The Romans consequently used cemeteries, which were without the walls of the towns ; and when the Christian religion was established under the Em- peror Constantine, the Christians selected these cemeteries as sites for churches, because the bodies of martyrs had been buried there. Cuthbert, arch- bishop of Canterbury, was the first (as we learn from Dugdale's ' Monasticon,' vol. i. p. 2) who ob- tained from the Pope, about the year 742, the liberty of having burial-places within cities in Eng- land—a custom which, though condemned by all, it has taken upwards of 1100 years to change. When the practice of burning the dead was introduced amongst the Romans, the ashes were collected in sepulchral urns, which were placed in small arched holes in their villas. The place appropriated to 98 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. VI. receive these urns was called columharium^ from columba, a dove, from the fancied resemblance which these arched holes bore to the recesses in a dove- cote. The small room V. in the British Museum (Townley Marbles) represents a columbarium on a large scale. Mr. Trench, in his book ' On the Study of Words,' has given us the derivation of the word churchy from the Greek xt/§ios-, kurios, The Lord, but he has referred only to one of the senses in which we use the word church, viz. as a building devoted to holy purposes ; but as the word is frequently used in another sense, when we speak of the church, it will be well to consider its proper meaning when so used. The word is thus used Acts ii. 47, "The Lord added daily to the church ;" St. Matthew xvi. 18, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church f' St. Matthew xviii. 17, "And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church;'''* and in many other places in the New Testament. Now in all these passages above quoted, and I believe in every passage where the word church is found in the English translation of the New Testament, the word sy-ycXnaix, ehMesia, is found in the Greek version, which word is carried without change into the Latin language, and also into the English, for in the Latin we find ecclesia, and in the English ecclesiastic. To understand therefore the proper meaning of this word the church, Chap. VI. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 99 we must trace out the meaning of the Greek word £XKXy3(7ta, ehklesia. The word comes from sx, ek, out, and xaXscy, haleo, to call, and means therefore those who are called out, that is, called out of the world to be the servants of God, or, as we find it in St. John XV. 19, " I have chosen you out of the world." The whole community of Christians there- fore constitute the church; but though we may be members of the community professing Christianity, it does not follow that we are members of Christ, as we learn from the parable of the tares, and from the comparison with vessels of gold and silver, of wood and earth, and of vessels of honour and dis- honour, mentioned by St. Paul, 2 Tim. ii. 20. To confine the meaning of this word, as is too often done, to the officers of the church, or to the clergy, in contradistinction to the laity, is an improper and unwarranted use of the word. It is not only an attempt to appropriate to a class the rights which belong to the whole community of Christians, and which all who value belonging to that community will resist ; but it is the human creation of an inter- vening power between the soul and its Maker, to which homage is required to be paid which is due to Deity alone. As the church therefore is the community evoked or called out of the world, so the churches of Ephesus, Sardis, &c., consisted of the whole community of Christians at those places ; and the Protestant Church of England is the whole body F 2 100 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. VI. of Protestant Christians in England ; and the Ro- man Catholic Church in England is the whole body of Roman Catholics in England. The word chancel, used by us to designate that part of the church in which the communion-table is placed, obtains its name from the Latin word can- celli, derived from the Greek xiyxXK, kigJclis, from xXeico, hleio, to shut as a door. The cancelli were cross bars anciently used to separate this part of the church from the nave, by lattice -work, as it now is by railings. The word chancel is in many churches applied to chantries or chapels within the church, set apart for particular families, which are so called from their being separated from the body of the church by lattice-work. From the same Latin word we obtain our word to cancel, meaning to cross out or deface. So the word chancellor, in Latin cancellarius, in its primary meaning denoted one who was placed at the lattice- work of a window or doorway to introduce visitors, and was literally no more than a doorkeeper. We are told by Flavins Vopiscus that the Roman Em- peror Carinus, who succeeded jointly with his bro- ther to the throne a.d. 284, made one of his can- cellarii prefect of the city, which caused great dissatisfaction. Lord Coke, in his fourth Institute, says that the chancellor was a notary or scribe under the Emperor, and derived his name from sitting within the cancelli, to avoid being crowded Chap. VI. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 101 by the people ; and Judge Blackstone says that the office passed from the Roman Empire to the Roman Church, ever emulous of imperial state, and that hence every bishop has to this day his chancellor; and when the modern kingdoms of Europe were established upon the ruins of the Empire, almost every state preserved its chancellor, with different jurisdictions and dignities. Polydore Virgil, in his * History of England,' book ix., states that the office was introduced into this country at the Conquest; but Lord Coke, in his fourth Institute, shows that this was an error, and enumerates several Saxon kings who had chancellors. The words critich, criterion, critical, and crisis, though having diffcKent significations with us, all come from the Latin, crisis (judgment), formed from the Greek word x^ivo;, crino (to judge). A critic should be an impartial judge ; criterion is the standard whereby anything is judged ; a critical point is a point requiring nice judgment ; and crisisy though, in its original meaning, signifying judg- ment, and afterwards, the anxious moment when judgment was given, is now more generally used to denote the period of conflict between nature and disease, or some other important period requiring judicious treatment, or the point of time at which decision becomes necessary. The word discriminate, and its compounds, are from the same origin, signifying to separate or dis- 102 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. VI. tinguish by the exercise of sound judgment ; and crime also springs from the same source, signifying an act committed in violation of the law, for which the offender is subject to be judged. The word hypocrite unquestionably comes from the same origin, being compounded of the two Greek words, vwo^ under ^ and K^ivcy, hrino (to judge). Suetonius uses the word hypocrite, to denote one who stood by an actor in a play to prompt him, and the word may have signified one who passed judg- ment on a play. I cannot say that it ever had this signification, since I can find no authority for say- ing so ; but however this may be, the word came to signify the actor himself, and Demosthenes uses the word vTroK^ytpirui, hupokekritaiy when he says that *' Aristodemus often acted, or personated the Anti- gone of Sophocles,'^ and other Greek writers use the word in the same sense. From thus denoting an actor, the word came to signify a dissembler, or one who acted a feigned character, and so now is generally applied to those who assume the appearance of virtue or religion without in reality having anything of either. From the same Greek word y.ciMOj, hrino (to judge), and the Greek prefix ^ta, dia, is derived our word to discern, and the Greek word is so trans- lated in our Bibles. St. Matt. xvi. 3, "Oh ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky," &c. ; the word, however, comes to us direct from the Latin Chap. VI. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 103 cemere, anciently pronounced hernere. The same Greek word, signifying to discern, again occurs 1 Cor. xi. 29, and is similarly translated, — " For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body." The word also, in this passage trans- lated damnation, is in the Greek xptpta, Izrima^ from the same source, x§«v&;, hrino (to judge). I find this word x/)i/xa, krima, at sixteen other places in the New Testament, — viz. Acts xxiv. 25 ; Heb. vi. 2 ; Rom. ii. 2, 3 ; Matt. vii. 2 ; Gal. v. 10 ; 1 Peter iv. 17 ; 2 Peter il 3 ; 1 Tim. iii. 6 ; Luke xxiii. 40 ; Luke xxiv. 20 ; Jas. iii. 1 ; Matt, xxiii. 14 ; Mark xii. 40 ; Luke XX. 47 ; Rom. iii. 8 ; and Rom. xiii. 2. In the first seven of these passages the word is in our Bible translated judgment, in the four next condemnation, and in the five last, damnation. The three first of these five last are the same, being simply different records of the same passage by three of the Evangelists, but each of them contains the adjective greater preceding the word damnation. " The same shall receive the greater damnation.^^ It is obvious therefore from this circumstance, that the word damnation in the sense in which it is used in these three passages, does not mean the sentence of eternal punishment, or exclusion from Divine mercy ; for if so, the adjective greater would have no meaning. It is plain that the word is simply equivalent to condemnation or judgment. So in the 104 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. YI. next of the five passages referred to, where the word is in our translation rendered damnation, that at Romans iii. 8, '* whose damnation is just ;" and in the remaining passage, Rom. xiii. 2, " and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation" — it is quite impossible to suppose that St. Paul meant to say, that those who resisted the civil au- thority should suffer eternal punishment, and be excluded from Divine mercy ; it is clear that his meaning was, that resistance to authority was an offence for which the offender would be called to account or be judged, — so it is equally clear that the word damnation used at 1 Cor. xi. 29, *' eateth and drinketh damnation to himself," does not mean eternal punishment; and as this is too often sup- posed, it is much to be regretted that the Greek word should have received so harsh a translation, unless indeed, as I suspect was the case, the word was then in common use, and synonymous with condemnation. The Apostle, rebuking those who made no discrimination between the religious ordi- nance of which ^e was speaking and a common meal, enforces the duty of previous self-examination, adding, that the neglect of this duty would call down the righteous judgment of the Almighty. That this is the correct sense of the word here used, is confirmed by reference to a passage where eternal punishment is clearly spoken of. At 2 Pet. ii. 3, the Apostle, speaking of teachers of false doc- Chap. VI. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 105 trines, who denied our Saviour, adds, " whose judg- ment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not." Now in this passage we fortunately meet with both the words judgment and damnation, and in the Greek we find very different words used to express them, the former word being expressed by the word x^i/xa, Jcrima, of which I have been treating, whereas the damnation, or eternal punishment to follov/ the judgment and condemnation, is represented by a very different word, the word octtmXsix, apoleia (destruction), from whence is derived the name Apollyon, given Rev. ix. 11, to the angel of the bottomless pit. We must bear in mind also, that the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not solemnised among the early Christians in the same manner as with us, but was administered at the aya^rTj, agape^ or love- feasts, in use among the primitive Christians, called by St. Jude 12, in our translation, " feasts of cha- rity," and referred to in Pliny's celebrated Epistle to Trajan, written about the year 112, wherein, speaking of the Christians in Bithynia, of which place he was governor, he says, " that they were wont on a stated day to meet together before it was light, and to sing a hymn to Christ as a God, alter- nately, and to oblige themselves by a sacrament or oath not to do anything that was ill, after which it was their custom to depart, and to meet again at a common but innocent meal." St Chrysostom, who F 3 106 KOOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. VI. was born at Antioch about the year 344, gives the following account of these feasts, which he derives from the Apostolical practice : he says, " The first Christians had all things in common, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, but when that equality of possessions ceased (as it did even in the Apostles' time), the love -feast was substituted in the room of it. Upon certain days, after partaking of the Lord's Supper, they met at a common feast, the rich bring- ing provisions, and the poor, who had nothing, being invited." These feasts were always attended with receiving the Holy Sacrament ; but a diiference of opinion exists as to the time of receiving, whether before or after the feast, and probably the practice varied at different places. During the first three centuries these feasts were held in the churches, or in the same building in which the Christians assem- bled for divine worship. In process of time they were much abused, and the abuses committed at them became so notorious, that the holding of them (in churches at least) was solemnly condemned at the Council of Carthage in the year 307, and again at the Council of Laodicea, in the year 364. In imitation of these " Love-feasts" our "wakes" were instituted. They were established in England by Pope Gregory the Great, who was elected Pope in 590, and died 604. In an epistle to Melitus, the British abbot, he gave instructions to be delivered to Austin, whom he sent to Britain to convert the Chap. VI. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 107 Saxons ; and in these instructions, he directs that the solemn anniversary of dedication should be cele- brated in those churches which were made out of heathen temples, with religious feasts kept in sheds or arbories, made up with branches, or boughs of trees round the church ; and in the laws of Edward the Confessor, peace and protection are given to all parishes during the solemnity of the day of dedica- tion, and the same privilege to all who were going or returning from such solemnity. In the Saxon times, the Church method of reckoning the day was from sunset to sunset, so that Sunday commenced from the sunset of Saturday, and any festival or fast-day commenced from the sunset of the pre- ceding day. The evening, therefore, was the com- mencement of the sacred day, when the people were accustomed to repair to the church and join in the religious exercises. We preserve evidence of this mode of reckoning time, in our words se^nnight, the seventh night — twelfth night — and fortnight, the fourteenth night. The wake (or customary festival of the dedication of churches) signified therefore the same as vigil or eve. Dugdale, in his ' Antiquities of Warwick- shire,' quoting an old manuscript legend, says, "And ye shall understand and know how the evyns were first found in old time. In the beginning of holi chirche it was so, that the pepull came to the chirche with candellys brennynge, and would wake 108 EOOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chop. VI. and coome with light towards night to the chirche in their devotions ;" and after enumerating the bad practices that ensued among the people in conse- quence, he adds, " wherefore holy faders ordained the pepull to leve that waking and to fast the evyn. But it is called vigilia^ that is, ivaking^ in English, and it is called the evyn, for at evyn they were wont to come to chirche." In a council held at Oxford, anno 1222, it was ordained that among other festivals should be observed the day of dedi- cation of every church within the proper parish, and in a synod under Archbishop Islip (who was promoted to the see of Canterbury, 1349), the dedi- cation feast is mentioned with particular respect. This solemnity was at first celebrated on the very day of dedication as it annually returned, but the bishops sometimes changed the day to some other day, and especially to Sunday, whereon the people could best attend the devotions and rites intended in the ceremony, and at last this convenience of Sunday above the week days was the reason of attempting an univerj^al change ; and Henry VIII., in 1536, ordered that the dedication of churches should in all places be celebrated on the first Sunday of the month of October, but the order was not strictly enforced nor obeyed. It is said, however, that there were two festivals observed in all parishes, the dedication day and the festival of the patron saint, and that the order in convocation of Henry Chap. VI. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 109 VIII. not only changed the day of celebration of the feast of dedication, but attempted to abolish also the festival of the saint, but this being the favourite festival of the people, they gradually ceased to attend the festival of dedication, which has now been entirely discontinued, whilst the saint's day festival still subsists in the altered form of the country wake, whilst the wakes were converted into fasts, preserving the name of vigils or eves. The wake or feast of dedication, however, con- tinued to prevail for many years, until the Puritans began to exclaim against them as a remnant of popery, and at the summer assizes held at Exeter in 1627 the judges made an order for the suppres- sion of all wakes in the county of Devon, and a like order was made in 1631 for the county of Somerset by Judge Richardson ; but on Bishop Laud's complaint of this innovating humour, the king commanded the last order to be revoked, which Judge Richardson refusing to do, an account was required from the Bishop of Bath and Wells how the said feast days, church ales, wakes, and revels were for the most part celebrated and observed in his diocese. On receipt of these instructions the Bishop advised with seventy-two of the most orthodox of his clergy, who certified under their hands that on these feast-days (which generally fell on a Sun- day) the service was more solemnly performed and the church much better frequented, both in the fore- 110 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. VI. noon and afternoon, than on any other Sunday in the year; that the people very much desired the continuance of them ; that the ministers did in most places do the like for these reasons, viz., for pre- serving the memorial of the dedication of their several churches, &c. &c. On the return of this certificate, Judge Richardson was again cited to the council -table, and peremptorily commanded to re- verse the former order. In Holland the dedication of a church is called Icerh misse, that is, church mass, or the solemn service on the day of the church's consecration. Their fairs also are called by the same name, herh masses, clearly indicating that the latter arose out of the former. The case was the same in England — the resort of the people to the churches to celebrate these wakes was the origin of our fairs (so called from the Latin word feria, a holiday), which were gene- rally held in the churchyard, or even in the church, on the same day as the wake, until the indecency and scandal occasioned thereby were so great as to require reformation. In the year 1230 the arch- deacons within the diocese of Lincoln were directed to inquire into and regulate this abuse ; and Henry III., by express mandate, prohibited the keeping of Northampton fair in the church or churchyard of All Saints in that town, and the Bishop of Lincoln (Robert Grosthead), following the king's example, sent positive instructions through his whole diocese Chap. VI. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Ill prohibiting all fairs to be kept in such sacred places. A little later, in 1285, we find that a general Act of Parliament was passed, " forbidding fairs or markets to be held in churchyards ;" and again in 1448 another statute was passed " that all fairs or markets on Ascension Day, Corpus Christi Day, Whitsunday, Trinity Sunday, or any other Sunday (except the four Sundays in harvest), the Assump- tion of Our Lady, All Saints, and Good Friday, should cease to exhibit all goods or merchandise, necessary victual only excepted." Notwithstanding these mandates and statutes the practice long pre- vailed, for in a comment on the Ten Command- ments, by way of dialogue between Dives and Pauper, printed at London in the year 1493, we find the following : — " Dives. What sayest thou of them that hold Markets and feirs in holy church And in sanctuary ? " Pauper. Both the byer, and the seller, and Men of holy church, that Maintain them, or suffer them, when They might let it — be accursed." , 112 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. VII. CHAPTER VII. The Consideration of Words in daily Use with us. The subject of the last two chapters — the inter- change of letters in languages — might be continued almost to an unlimited extent. I do not, however, propose to weary the reader, and pursue the subject further, but will consider some words, the origin of which is not duly regarded by us, although the words themselves are in general use. How frequently, for instance, do we use the word purlieu, without at all discovering its original mean- ing. In Manwood's ' Forest Laws,' ch. xx., a purlieu is described to be '' a certain territory of ground adjoining unto a forest, meered and bounded with unmoveable marks, meers, and boundaries, known by matter of record only, which territory of ground w^as also once forest, and afterwards dis- afforested again by the perambulators made for the severing of the new forests from the old." From this description we obtain a clue to the derivation of the word from the French words jtmr and lieu (a free place), being those lands which were once subject to the rigour of the forest laws, but, being taken from the forest, became pure or free from those laws. Manwood tells us that Henry II., not contented Chap. VII. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Il3 with the forests as they existed at the time of his succeeding to the throne in 1154, enlarged them by taking in the lands adjoining, which example was followed by his son Richard I., and afterwards by King John ; so that " the forrests in every place were so much enlarged, that the greatest part of this realm was forrest, to the great grief and sorrow of all the best sort of the inhabitants of this land." The barons, in consequence, petitioned King John to disafforest the lands so added to the ancient forests, and these lands so disafforested were those that became purlieus. Again, the word pulpit, when duly considered, carries our thoughts back to the Roman theatre, in which the higher part of the stage, where the actors recited and performed their parts, was called pul- pitum, as distinguished from the lower part, orches- trum, where they danced. The word chapel is, by Littleton, in his Latin Dictionary, derived from capella (a goat), because formerly the tabernacle was covered with the skins of goats, a derivation which seems to me preferable to that of Sir Henry Spelman, who imagined that it came from capsa (a chest), in which the relics of martyrs were preserved. The word gazette is of daily use amongst us, and we rest satisfied with the knowledge that it means a newspaper, without inquiring how it happened to acquire that name. The gazetta, the origin of 114 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. VII. gazette, was a Venetian coin of the value of a half- penny, but now no longer current. The war which the Republic of Venice waged against the Turks in Dalmatia in 1563 gave rise to the custom of com- municating military news in written sheets, which were read in a particular place to those who were desirous to hear them, and who paid for this privilege a gazetta, a name which by degrees was transferred to the paper itself in Italy and France, and passed over into England. The first ' Court Gazette' in England was pub- lished in 1665 at Oxford whilst the Court resided there, on account of the plague in London ; but on the removal of the Court to London, the title was changed to the * London Gazette.' Before the intro- duction of printed newspapers in England, great families, however, had a sort of gazetteer in London, who transmitted to them the news of the day in written letters, and the word was in use early in the reign of King James I., as appears from John Donne's verses upon T. Coryat's Crudities, pub- lished in 1661 — " As deep a Statesman as a OazeteerJ^ In using the word artillery we have a clear know- ledge of the meaning the word is now intended to convey, but we do not see its derivation ; and indeed our etymologists have so differed about its origin, that I proceed with great diffidence to trace it. Chap. VII. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 115 The earliest record of the word that I have met with is in Sir Henry Spelman, voce ' Bomhard,' where, quoting the tables of the civil and military expenses of Edward III. in 1344, he mentions — Mariners 60 Armourers 7 Artillers 6 Gunners 6 Now, it seems clear that artillers, being named as distinct from gunners, they did not at this time belong to the latter class of warriors, and I think that, as we proceed, we shall see that they were then simply archers. It is said in Stowe's ' London' ** that in the 13th year of the reign of Henry VII., 1496, all the gardens which had continued, time out of mind, without Moorgate, to wit, about and beyond the lordship of Fensbury (Finsbury) were destroyed, and of them was made a plain field for archers to shoot in. The land was enclosed, and called the Artillery Ground.'" In 1541 a statute was passed, intitled " A Bill for the maintaining of Artillery, and the debarring of unlawful games." This statute was passed on the petition of the bowyers, fletchers (arrow-makers), stringers, and arrow-head makers, who complained " that divers subtil, inventative, and crafty persons, daily find many new and crafty games, as loggetting in the fields, slidethrift, otherwise called shovegroat, by reason whereof archery was sore decayed, and 116 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. VIJ. like to be more miiiished, and divers bowyers and fletchers, for lack of work, gone to Scotland, and other places." The statute enacts, that every man, under sixty years of age, shall have bows and arrows continually in his house, and instruct his children to shoot ; and enacts, that butts be made in every city and town, and that the inhabitants shall exercise themselves with long bows in shooting at the same. The statute then prohibits any artificer or servant from playing the games of bowling, coyting, cloysh- cayls, half-bowl tennis, dicing-table, or cards, except at Christmas, in their master's houses or presence, but enables the master to license his servants to play at cards, dice, or tables, with their master, or with any other gentleman repairing to their master. It then repeals all other statutes made for the restraint of unlawful games, or for the maintenance of artillery. We find that in the same session another Act was passed " concerning crosbowes and handguns," which recites former statutes relating to these weapons, and adds, " that, since the passing of them, divers malicious and evil-disposed persons have wilfully and shamefully perpetrated and done divers detestable and shameful murders, robberies, felonies, riots and routs with crosbowes, little short handguns, and little haquebuts, and that divers gentlemen, yeomen, and serving men, have laid aside the good and laudable exercise of the longbow, and that the said evil-disposed persons have used. Chap. VII. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 117 and do daily use, to ride and go on the King's high- way, and elsewhere, having with them crossbowes and little handguns, ready furnished with quarrells, gunpowder, fire, and touch." The statute then prohibits all persons, except such as had a hundred a year in land, annuities, or offices, from using or keeping in their houses or elsewhere any "cross- bowe, handgun, haquebut, or demyhake ;" and, after regulating the length of the stock and gun, authorises the use of these weapons in time of war, and also, by way of practice, against butts or banks, whereby to be better able to assist in the defence of the realm, in case of need. Persons inhabiting within five miles of the coasts, or within twelve miles of the borders of Scotland, and the inhabitants of the Isles of Wight, Man, Jersey, Guernsey, and Anglesea, were exempted from the operation of the Act, and allowed to use handguns, haquebuts, and demi- hakes, *' so that it be at no manner of deere, hearne, shovelard, fezant, partridge, wild swan, or wild elke." There is no doubt but that this statute being in the same year as the one before mentioned, " for maintaining of artillery and the debarring of un- lawful games," was passed at the instigation of the bowyers and fletchers, and to enforce the continuance of the use of the longbow ; and it is clear from these statutes that, down to this period, 1541, the word artillery was applied to the longbow, and not to the crossbow or handgun. 118 ROOTS AND RAMlFICATlOx^^S Chap. Vlf. Notwithstanding these statutes, the longbow con- tinued to give way to other weapons, and these worthy bowyers, fletchers, stringers, and arrowhead- makers, continued to "minish," for, about the year 1570, they petitioned Queen Ehzabeth concerning their decayed condition, by reason of the discon- tinuance of the use of archery, and toleration of unlawful games and exercises ; and the Queen, in consequence, appointed commissioners in each county for the reformation of unlawful games, and for the maintenance and exercise of shooting, and in the following year a statute was passed directing the im- portation of bow- staves. We also find that in Sep- tember, 1583, a general meeting of 3000 London archers was held in Smithfield, where, having per- formed their several evolutions, they shot at the Target for Glory ^ and we find that Charles I., as late as 1633, issued a commission ''to prevent the inclosure of the fields near London, so as to interrupt the necessary and profitable exercise of shooting." Fairfax, in his translation of Tasso's " Godfrey of Boulogne, or the Recovery of Jerusalem," which was published in 1600 (book xvii. section 49), uses the word artillery to denote archery in the following passage : — " While thus the Princesse said, his hungrie eine Adrastus fed on her sweet beauties light. The Gods forbid (quoth he) one shaft of thine Should be discharg'd 'gainst that discourteous knight ; His heart unworthy is (shootresse divine) Of thine * artillerie ' to feel the might." Chap. VII. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 119 The present Authorised Version of the Bible was published in 1611, and at that period it would seem that the word artillerie was considered the proper word to designate bows and arrows, for at 1 Sam. ch. XX. ver. 40, it is said, '' And Jonathan gave his artillery unto his lad, and said unto him. Go carry them to the city" — the word referring to the bow and arrows which Jonathan had just before been using. In Cotgrave's French and English Dictionary, published as late as 1650, we find the words artilUer, a bowyer, and artilier du Roy^ the King's bowman. I think, therefore, we may assume that, down to this latter date, the word denoted archery, and was ac- quired by us from France, and that it is only of comparatively late years that it has been applied to cannon and great ordnance. As to the derivation of the French word, from which our word appears to be undoubtedly derived, after premising that Johnson says " the word artillery is always used of missive weapons," I would suggest the . possibility of the word being a compound of the Latin word aer (air), and telum (a weapon). The word in our language which most nearly approaches it is artery, used to denote the vessels which convey the blood from the heart to all parts of the body, but to which our ancestors gave the name of arteries, because, finding them always empty after death, they supposed them to be air-vessels. Attainted, from the Latin word attinctus (stained). 120 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. VI I. means one found guilty, and whose character is thus tainted. Persons attainted or found guilty of high treason forfeited their estates to the crown : the word forfeit^ being derived from the French word forfait, wickedness, signified that by reason of guilt the estates of such persons reverted to the crown, the condition of good behaviour annexed to the grant of the estates, either directly or impliedly, having been broken. The same consequence fol- lowed a crime against the king under the Jewish dispensation, as we learn from the narrative of Ahab and Naboth. The charge against Naboth was, not that he blasphemed God only, but that he " blas- phemed God and the king," and witnesses having been found to establish both charges, Naboth was stoned to death for blaspheming God and for blas- pheming the king — the vineyard was forfeited to Ahab. If the charge had been blasphemy against the Almighty alone, the consequence of forfeiture of the vineyard would not have occurred, but Naboth would have been put to death and his vineyard would have descended to his heir ; for we learn by the 24th chap, of Leviticus, v. 16, that death, not forfeiture, was the punishment of blaspheming the name of the Lord. Among the Romans there ex- isted a practice of expunging a person's name from the public list of accused, hung up in the treasury, which was termed abolitio, derived from the two words ab (from) and oleo (to smell), that is, to do Chap. Yll. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 121 away with the taint. The act of abolition cleared the stain from the character of the accused, and hence we get our word abolish, to annul or put an end to. The common use of our words abbot and abbe?/ leads us to fancy them native words, whereas they, as well as the French word abbe, spring from a much earlier source, having their origin in the He- brew word ab, signifying a father, the root of the name Abraham, "for a father of many nations have I made thee." From ab the Syrians formed abba, used by St. Mark, ch. xiv., and by St. Paul in his epistle to the Romans, ch. viii. The Greeks retained the word in their a/S/Sar, abbas, and the Romans in abbas, and we have continued it in our word abbot, anciently written " abbat," to denote the father or head of a monastery. The application of the name to per- sons presiding over monasteries was resisted by St. Jerome as an infringement of the Divine command to " call no man Father upon earth." As the abbot was the head, so were the friars the brethren of the establishment, in the same way as the master and brethren of an hospital with us constitute the mem- bers of such a foundation ; the word friar being a corruption of the French word " frere," derived from the Latin f rater, a brother. Innumerable instances might be found of the word " frere " being used by our early writers ; but one, and that a short G 122 ROOTS A^D RAMIFICATIONS Chap. VIT. one, shall suffice from Chaucer, ' The Prologue,' v. 208 :— " A frere there was, a wanton and a mery." In our word freemason, descriptive of the brethren belonging to the fraternity of masons, we preserve the original word, the prefix free referring not to the immunities of that body, but to their brother- hood, the word freemason being a corruption of the French frere (a brother), and maqon (a mason). We find that in monastic times many charitable establishments called hedehouses existed, and which, though not now so called, except in a few instances, are to be distinctly traced. At Stamford there is still a bedehouse, founded in 1493 by William Brown, and the statistical account of Scotland, de- scribing the parish of Ruthven in BanflPshire, says, " There is a bedehouse still in being, though in bad repair, and six bedesmen in the establishment, but none of them live in the house. Again we trace the word in the college of Vicars Choral belonging to York Cathedral, called the Bedern. The word is derived from the Saxon word bidden or beden (to pray), from whence came bedesman or beedman, signifying one who prayed for another, the inha- bitants of these almshouses praying for the souls of the founders or benefactors of them. The word bedesman was a common conclusion to letters in the time of Henry VIII., in the same way as a peti- Chap. VII. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 123 tioner to the crown now concludes with the words " and your petitioner will for ever pray." Sir Thomas More, in his letters to Cardinal Wolsey, concludes them with the words, " Your humble orator and most bounden heedman Thomas More ;" and Margaret Bryan, the governess of Lady Elizabeth, in writing to Lord Cromwell, signs herself " your daily bedewoman ;" and Shakspeare, in ' The Two Gentlemen of Verona,' Act i. Scene 1, uses the word and explains its meaning when Proteus says — *' Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers, For 1 will be thy ' headsman,,' Valentine." To which Valentine replies — " And on a love-book pray for my success." Sir Henry Lee, champion to Queen Elizabeth in the year 1590, when old age and infirmities had come upon him, gave a masque at his seat at Qua- rendon in Bucks on his retirement from the office of champion, on which occasion a copy of verses alluding to his retirement was read before her Majesty, con- cluding with these words — " Goddess, vouchsafe this aged man his right To be your headsman now, that was your knight." To bid beads was to say prayers, and before the invention of printing, when poor persons could not defray the expenses of a manuscript book, small balls of glass strung upon a thread were invented (and are still used by the Bemanists) to assist their G 2 124 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. VII. memories in counting their prayers, and hence the word, which primarily denoted the prayer itself, afterwards signified the instrument used to assist the memory of the person praying. These beads, pro- fessedly hallowed by the Pope's consecration, were in former days imported into England, but such importation v/as prohibited by statute in the year 1570. Gower, our old English writer, uses the words hid thy hede in the following passage : — " Beware, therefore, and bid thy bede, And do nothing in holy cliurch But that thou might by reason worthe." With us, to this day, the prayer before the sermon is still known by the name of the bidding prayer, and still we say to bid or hvbid the banns. Our word beadle is also of the same origin, such person having originally been the officer of the forest, who bid or summoned the people to attend the Court of the Forest ; and in after times, the officer who summoned the clergy and church officers to visitations ; and in later times, the officer of any Court whose duty it was to summon the people. The passage in our Bible, Dan. iii. 3 and 4: — " And they stood before the image that Nebuchad- nezzar had set up, then an herald cried aloud, &c." is, in one of the editions of the Bible published in 1551, thus rendered: — "Now when they stood before the image which Nebuchadnezzar set up, the Beadle cried out with all his might, &c/' In early Chap. VII. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 125 times the tenants of many manors were bound by the customs of the manors to perform at the will or bidding of the Lords certain days' work, in order to gather in the Lord's harvest ; these days were called hidden days, or hindays, and the work performed was called Bederepe, from the Saxon hidden, to hid, and repe, to reap com. The tenants who performed this service for the Lord of the manor, besides their ordinary daily meals, were rewarded with a more substantial entertainment at the end of the harvest, and this is the origin of our harvest home supper. In the customs of the manor of Cheltenham headrepe money is mentioned, which I conceive was a money payment in substitution for the feast, or in lieu of the daily meals. These bidden days, or rather the work performed on them, were afterwards rendered in Latin precarice, from the Latin word preco^ to pray or bid, and as the days were selected at the will of the Lord, and therefore uncertain, precarious came to have that signification. Our word to hid comes from the same source, and in its early use had the sense of praying, which it has not entirely lost with us. Thus in the 2nd Epistle of St. John, v. 10 : " If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your houses, neither hid him God speed," and again. Acts xviii. 20, 21 : *' When they desired him to tarry longer with them, he consented not, but hade them farewell." The words so used were in fact a prayer commending the 126 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. VII. parties to the Divine care, and were equivalent to the French d Dieu, the Spanish a Dios, and the Italian Addio, the parting benediction, committing a friend to the care of the Almighty. The foregoing expression " bade them farewell " is pure Saxon, for this word fare is also a Saxon word, signifying to go, to travel, to pass, and is very commonly used in early English. Hence we have the phrases a thoroughfare, a wayfaring, and a seafaring man ; so the price paid for travelling by land or water is called a, fare; d, ferry is a passage by water ; and a ford is that part of a river which is passed or fared on foot. The Vicar preaches his farewell sermon, and in return his auditors, anxious for his future happiness, express their wishes for his welfare. In the neigh- bourhood of London we find this word in use as descriptive of the passage, in the spring, of the young eels up the river Thames. This takes place from the neighbourhood of Blackfriars bridge to Chertsey in immense quantities, and this passage is called the eelfare. Rudder, in his history of Gloucestershire, treating of the parish of St. Briavels, says, *' There is a great plenty of elvers taken in it (the river Wye) by means of hair sieves, every spring ;" and Collinson, in his history of Somerset- shire, treating of the parish of Keynsham, says, " The tide from Bristol comes up the Avon to this parish, and in the spring sometimes brings up large quantities of that small fish, called elvers, which are Chap. VII. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 127 noted by Camden as a curiosity, but now reckoned common. It is evident, I think, that the word elvers used to denote the young eels, is simply the corruption of the beforementioned word eelfare. We may here mention that the parish of Keynsham before referred to, is celebrated for that well known fossil shell, the Ammonite, which is found in immense quantities in the quarries in the parish, varying in size from a quarter of an inch to upwards of two feet in diameter. This shell is the Hammonis Cornu of Pliny, still called by us the Cornua Ammonis, and by the French Comes d'Ammon, which name it received from its resemblance to the horns with which the head of Jupiter Ammon was sculptured. Pliny, in his 31st book, ch. 7, tells us that the word Ammonia comes from the Greek word x(/,[a.os ; ammos (sand), ammonia being a salt found below the sand in Cyrenaica in Africa. The Greeks and Romans became acquainted with the worship of Jupiter Ammon ihrough the Cyrenians, and so in heathen mythology the addition of Ammon was given to Jupiter in allusion to the sandy desert of Sahara, where a temple to Jupiter was built. But to return from our digression : eels are not the only fish which at certain seasons ascend the rivers, for we know that the salmon quits the sea at certain seasons for the purpose of depositing its spawn in security, and for this purpose ascends rivers for hundreds of miles, forcing its way against the most rapid currents, and 128 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. VII. leaping with attiazing agility over cataracts or impediments eight or even ten feet in height. It is from this habit, indeed, that it derives its name from the Latin word salio^ to leap. The manner of leap- ing is effected by the fish bending its tail towards its mouth, and then suddenly, like a bow let loose, forcing itself from this circular fonm, it springs with great force from the bottom to the top of the rock, or other obstacle impeding its progress. In this manner the salmon finds its way up the whole course of the Rhine as far as Basle, and somewhat higher, but here the falls of Schaffhausen oppose a formidable barrier to its advance, and stop its further progress, and this fish is consequently not found in Lake Constance. The word progress, just made use of, as well as digress, egress, regress, and transgress are compounds of the old English word for steps, or a flight of stairs, grces being derived from the Latin word gressus (a step). We meet with this old word in the 'Itinerary of William of Wyrcestre,' who died about 1484. The first gryse called a slypp, going to the water, called Avyn water, to wash clothes, and to enter into the vessels and shippes that comen to the bak." We meet with it also in the * Coventry Mysteries ' : — " If the fyfteen Agrees ' thou may ascend" — and again : " A Babe of thre yer age so zynge (young) To come up these *■ (jrees ' so up right." Chap. VII. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 129 Shakspeare also uses the word in * Timon of Athens,' Act iv. Scene 3 : — " For every ^grize' of fortune is smoothed by that below." So again in ' Twelfth Night,' Act iii. Scene 1 : — " Viola. — I pity you. Olivia. — That 's a degree of love. Viola. — No, not a * grize^ for 't is a vulgar proof That very oft we pity enemies." It is very evident from this last quotation that Shakspeare well knew the derivation of degree from grees. By degrees, is by steps ; the highest or lowest degree is the highest or lowest step ; and to take a degree at one of our Universities is to take a step. Again, the word pedigree, a tabular statement con- taining the descent of a family step by step, is a compound of this word and the Latin per, and means by steps. In Yorkshire and Lancashire, and other northern counties, the word gradeley or greadly, is in common use, and signifies orderly, and is apparently derived from the same source, and means step by step, by degrees, orderly. Pennant, in his 'British Zoology,' vol. i. p. 74, quoting Dr. Caius, informs us that the word greyhound is from the same source, giving as his reason that it is the first in rank or steps amongst dogs, ' ' quod praecipui gradus sit inter canes." Richardson very justly terms this derivation fanciful, and states that the word is of unsettled etymology. The word greyhound is of G 3 130 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. Vlf. great antiquity with us, for in the 21st Canon of the Laws of Canute, quoted in Man wood's ' Forest Laws,' we find it enacted, " quod nullus mediocris habebit nee custodiet canes quos Angli greyhound appellant," that is, " that no mean man shall have or keep those dogs which the English call grey- hounds." We now only know the greyhound as a dog used in coursing the hare, but this use is of comparatively recent date (the first coursing club in England having been established at Swaft'ham, in Norfolk, only so late as 1776), and the dog we now use under this name has become (by what is termed improving the breed) a totally distinct animal from the greyhound mentioned in our early writers, which was endowed with the faculty of smell, and was the dog used in coursing deer. It seems to me that this even was not the earliest use to which this hound was applied, but that its primary use was in hunting the badger, the old name for which was the gray, and that thus it acquired the name of greyhound. No doubt the badger acquired the name of the gray from its colour, since the phrase " as grey as a badger," has become one of our pro- verbial expressions. The use of the word gray, to denote a badger, has not been discontinued by us for any great length of time ; for Holland, in his translation of Pliny, book viii. ch. 38, says, " The grayes, polcats, or brocks, have a cast by them- selves, where they be afraid of hunters : for they Chap. VII. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 131 will draw in their breath so hard, that their skin being stretched and puffed up withall, they will avoid the biting of the hound's tooth," and eighty years later we meet with the term in Littleton. In the Latin-English part of his dictionary he renders the word taxus into English by the words " a badger, grey, or brock," and in the English-Latin part of it, he renders, a gray, badger, or brock into Latin by the word taxus. Why the Romans gave the badger the name of taxus, which also with them signified a yew-tree, I have not been able to dis- cover. The yew-tree acquired its name of taxus from the Greek to^ov, toxon (a bow), since in all ages the wood of this tree has been used in the making of bows. The tree was supposed to possess poisonous qualities. Pliny, in his 16th book, ch. 10, says, that "in Arcadia the yew-tree is so venemous, that whosoever take either repose or re- past under it are sure to die presently. And here- upon it Cometh that those poysons wherewith arrow- heads be envenomed after some were called in times past Taxica, which we now name Toxical Intoxicate, derived from this word, seems therefore in its literal sense to be, to deprive a person of reason by means of poison ; and hence came to signify to take away the senses by drink. The word yew was anciently with us spelt yugh and eugh, and is probably an old British word. That our present mode of spelling the word is not the original one, may be collected 132 ROOTS AND RAMIFICATIONS Chap. VII. from the name of the parish of Uwhurst, near Ba- singstoke, on the summit of a hill, in which parish are some yew-trees of great antiquity, from which, or their predecessors no doubt, the parish took its name of Ewhurst, meaning the yew wood ; and the same occurs again in Wiltshire, in the parish of Colerne, in which parish there is a hamlet called ^wridge, no doubt signifying the ridge of ^/ew trees. Chap. VIII. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 133 CHAPTEK VIII. Of Words derived from the Greek Language. In many instances we find words purely Greek in common use amongst us. Cholera is simply the Greek word for disease, and the parent of our word choler. Mustache is the Greek word for the upper lip, ixvGToi.%y mustax, Horizon is the Greek o§/^wv, orizon, signifying bounding or terminating the sight. Lichen is the Greek word for tree- moss. Cataract is Greek for rushing down, and in that lan- guage signified not only a waterfall, but was the name given to a sea-bird from its rushing down upon its prey. Pliny (book x. ch. 43) describes this bird in such a manner, as to leave no doubt but that it was the Solan goose. Our word catarrh, a defluxion, is from the same source. Paradox is pure Greek, for anything contrary to received opi- nion; and par all/sis is Greek for loosening of the nerves. Our word garret is by our etymologists derived from the French garite, the tower of a citadel ; but it seems to me to be the corruption of the Greek xa§a, kara, the head or top of anything. Canopy is the corruption of the Greek xa;vft;9r8