FOOTNOTES

The Genitival Inflexion ‘-s’

There is one example of this, familiar to us all; probably so familiar that it would not be worth while adverting to it, if it did not illustrate, as no other word could, this forgetfulness which may overtake a whole people, of the true meaning of a grammatical form which they have never ceased to employ. I refer to the mistaken assumption that the ‘s’ of the genitive, as ‘the king’s countenance’, was merely a more rapid way of pronouncing ‘the kinghiscountenance’, and that the final ‘s’ in ‘king’s’ was in fact an elided ‘his’. This explanation for a long time prevailed almost universally; I believe there are many who accept it still. It was in vain that here and there a deeper knower of our tongue protested against this “monstrous syntax”,as Ben Jonson in hisGrammarjustly calls it[183]. It was in vain that Wallis, another English scholar of the seventeenth century, pointed out inhisGrammar that the slightest examination of the facts revealed the untenable character of this explanation, seeing that we do not merely say “theking’scountenance”, but “thequeen’scountenance”; and in this case the final ‘s’ cannot stand for ‘his’, for “the queenhiscountenance” cannot be intended[184]; we do not say merely “thechild’sbread”, but “thechildren’sbread”, where it is no less impossible to resolve the phrase into “the childrenhisbread”[185]. Despite of these protests the error held its ground. This much indeed of a plea it could make for itself, that such an actual employment of ‘his’hadfound its way into the language, as early as the fourteenth century, and had been in occasional, though rare use, from that time downward[186]. Yet this, which has only been elicited by the researches of recent scholars, does not in the least justify those who assumed that in the habitual ‘s’ of the genitive were to be found the remains of ‘his’—an error from which the books of scholars in the seventeenth, and in the early decades of the eighteenth, century are not a whit clearer than those of others. Spenser, Donne, Fuller, Jeremy Taylor, all fall into it; I cannot say confidently whether Milton does. Dryden more than once helps out his verse with an additional syllable gained by its aid. It has even forced its way into our Prayer Book itself, where in the “Prayer for all sorts and conditions of men”, added by Bishop Sanderson at the last revision of the Liturgy in 1661, we are bidden to say, “And this we beg for Jesus Christhissake”[187]. I need hardly tell you that this ‘s’ is in fact the one remnant of flexion surviving in the singular number of our Englishnoun substantives; it is in all the Indo-Germanic languages the original sign of the genitive, or at any rate the earliest of which we can take cognizance; and just as in Latin ‘lapis’ makes ‘lapidis’ in the genitive, so ‘king’, ‘queen’, ‘child’, make severally ‘kings’, ‘queens’, ‘childs’, the comma, an apparent note of elision, being a mere modern expedient, “a late refinement”, as Ash calls it[188], to distinguish the genitive singular from the plural cases[189].

Adjectives in ‘-en’

Notice another example of this willingness to dispense with inflection, of this endeavour on the part of the speakers of a language to reduce its forms to the fewest possible, consistent with the accurate communication of thought. Of our adjectives in ‘en’, formed on substantives, and expressing the material or substance of a thing, some have gone, others are going, out of use; while we content ourselves with the bare juxtaposition of the substantive itself, as sufficiently expressing our meaning. Thus instead of “goldenpin” we say “goldpin”; instead of “earthenworks” we say “earthworks”. ‘Golden’ and ‘earthen’, it is true, still belong to our living speech, though mainly as part of our poetic diction, or of the solemn and thus stereotyped language of Scripture; but a whole company of such words have nearly or quite disappeared; some lately, some long ago. ‘Steelen’ and ‘flowren’ belong only to the earliest period of the language; ‘rosen’ also went early. Chauceris my latest authority for it (“rosenchapelet”). ‘Hairen’ is in Wiclif and in Chaucer; ‘stonen’ in the former (John iii. 6)[190]. ‘Silvern’ stood originally in Wiclif’s Bible (“silvernehousis to Diane”, Acts xix. 24); but already in the second recension of this was exchanged for ‘silver’; ‘hornen’, still in provincial use, he also employs, and ‘clayen’ (Job iv. 19) no less. ‘Tinnen’ occurs in Sylvester’sDu Bartas; where also we meet with “Jove’smilkenalley”, as a name for theVia Lactea, in Bacon also not “theMilky”, but “theMilkenWay”. In the coarse polemics of the Reformation the phrase, “breadengod”, provoked by the Romish doctrine of transubstantiation, was of frequent employment, and occurs as late as in Oldham. “Mothenparchments” is in Fulke; “twiggenbottle” in Shakespeare; ‘yewen’, or, according to earlier spelling, “ewghenbow”, in Spenser; “cedarnalley”, and “azurnsheen” are both in Milton; “boxenleaves” in Dryden; “atreencup” in Jeremy Taylor; “eldernpopguns” in Sir Thomas Overbury; “aglassenbreast”, in Whitlock; “areedenhat” in Coryat; ‘yarnen’ occurs in Turberville; ‘furzen’ in Holland; ‘threaden’ in Shakespeare; and ‘bricken’, ‘papern’ appear in our provincial glossaries as still in use.

It is true that many of these adjectives stillhold their ground; but it is curious to note how the roots which sustain even these are being gradually cut away from beneath them. Thus ‘brazen’ might at first sight seem as strongly established in the language as ever; it is far from so being; its supports are being cut from beneath it. Even now it only lives in a tropical and secondary sense, as ‘abrazenface’; or if in a literal, in poetic diction or in the consecrated language of Scripture, as ‘thebrazenserpent’; otherwise we say ‘abrassfarthing’, ‘abrasscandlestick’. It is the same with ‘oaten’, ‘birchen’, ‘beechen’, ‘strawen’, and many more, whereof some are obsolescent, some obsolete, the language manifestly tending now, as it has tended for a long time past, to the getting quit of these, and to the satisfying of itself with an adjectival apposition of the substantive in their stead.

Weak and Strong Præterites

Let me illustrate by another example the way in which a language, as it travels onward, simplifies itself, approaches more and more to a grammatical and logical uniformity, seeks to do the same thing always in the same manner; where it has two or three ways of conducting a single operation, lets all of them go but one; and thus becomes, no doubt, easier to be mastered, more handy, more manageable; for its very riches were to many an embarrassment and a perplexity; but at the same time imposes limits and restraints on its own freedom of action, and is in danger of forfeiting elements of strength, variety and beauty, which it once possessed. I refer to the tendency of our verbs to let go their strongpræterites, and to substitute weak ones in their room; or, where they have two or three præterites, to retain only one of them, and that invariably the weak one. Though many of us no doubt are familiar with the terms ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ præterites, which in all our better grammars have put out of use the wholly misleading terms, ‘irregular’ and ‘regular’, I may perhaps as well remind you of the exact meaning of the terms. A strong præterite is one formed by an internal vowel change; for instance the verb ‘todrive’ forms the præterite ‘drove’ by an internal change of the vowel ‘i’ into ‘o’. But why, it may be asked, called ‘strong’? In respect of the vigour and indwelling energy in the word, enabling it to form its past tense from its own resources, and with no calling in of help from without. On the other hand ‘lift’ forms its præterite ‘lifted’, not by any internal change, but by the addition of ‘ed’; ‘grieve’ in like manner has ‘grieved’. Here are weak tenses; as strength was ascribed to the other verbs, so weakness to these, which can form their præterites only by external aid and addition. You will see at once that these strong præterites, while they witness to a vital energy in the words which are able to put them forth, do also, as must be allowed by all, contribute much to the variety and charm of a language[191].

The point, however, which I am urging now is this,—that these are becoming fewer every day; multitudes of them having disappeared, while others are in the act of disappearing. Nor is the balance redressed and compensation found in any new creations of the kind. The power of forming strong præterites is long ago extinct; probably no verb which has come into the language since the Conquest has asserted this power, while a whole legion have let it go. For example, ‘shape’ has now a weak præterite, ‘shaped’, it had once a strong one, ‘shope’; ‘bake’ has now a weak præterite, ‘baked’, it had once a strong one, ‘boke’; the præterite of ‘glide’ is now ‘glided’, it was once ‘glode’ or ‘glid’; ‘help’ makes now ‘helped’, it made once ‘halp’ and ‘holp’. ‘Creep’ made ‘crope’, still current in the north of England; ‘weep’ ‘wope’; ‘yell’ ‘yoll’ (both in Chaucer); ‘seethe’ ‘soth’ or ‘sod’ (Gen. xxv. 29); ‘sheer’ in like manner once made ‘shore’; as ‘leap’ made ‘lope’; ‘wash’ ‘wishe’ (Chaucer); ‘snow’ ‘snew’; ‘sow’ ‘sew’; ‘delve’ ‘dalf’ and ‘dolve’; ‘sweat’ ‘swat’; ‘yield’ ‘yold’ (both in Spenser); ‘mete’ ‘mat’ (Wiclif); ‘stretch’ ‘straught’; ‘melt’ ‘molt’; ‘wax’ ‘wex’ and ‘wox’; ‘laugh’ ‘leugh’; with others more than can be enumerated here[192].

Strong Præterites

Observe further that where verbs have not actually renounced their strong præterites, and contented themselves with weak in their room, yet, once possessing two, or, it might be three of these strong, they now retain only one. The others, on the principle of dismissing whatever can be dismissed, they have let go. Thus ‘chide’ had once ‘chid’ and ‘chode’, but though ‘chode’ is in our Bible (Gen. xxxi. 36), it has not maintained itself in our speech; ‘sling’ had ‘slung’ and ‘slang’ (1 Sam. xvii. 49); only ‘slung’ remains; ‘fling’ had once ‘flung’ and ‘flang’; ‘strive’ had ‘strove’ and ‘strave’; ‘stick’ had ‘stuck’ and ‘stack’; ‘hang’ had ‘hung’ and ‘hing’ (Golding); ‘tread’ had ‘trod’ and ‘trad’; ‘choose’ had ‘chose’ and ‘chase’; ‘give’ had ‘gave’ and ‘gove’; ‘lead’ had ‘led’ ‘lad’ and ‘lode’; ‘write’ had ‘wrote’ ‘writ’ and ‘wrate’. In all these cases, and more might easily be cited, only [of] the præterites which I have named the first remains in use.

Observe too that in every instance where a conflict is now going on between weak and strong forms, which shall continue, the battle is not tothe strong; on the contrary the weak is carrying the day, is getting the better of its stronger competitor. Thus ‘climbed’ is gaining the upper hand of ‘clomb’, ‘swelled’ of ‘swoll’, ‘hanged’ of ‘hung’. It is not too much to anticipate that a time will come, although it may be still far off, when all English verbs will form their præterites weakly; not without serious damage to the fulness and force which in this respect the language even now displays, and once far more eminently displayed[193].

Comparatives and Superlatives

Take another proof of this tendency in our own language to drop its forms and renounce its own inherent powers; though here also the renunciation, threatening one day to be complete, is only partial at the present. I refer to the formation of our comparatives and superlatives; and I will ask you again to observe here that curious law of language, namely, that wherever there are two or more ways of attaining the same result, there is always a disposition to drop and dismiss all of these but one, so that the alternative or choice of ways once existing, shall not exist any more. If only it can attain a greater simplicity, it seems to grudge no self-impoverishment by which this result may be brought about. We have two ways of forming our comparatives and superlatives, one dwelling in the word itself, which we have inherited from our old Gothic stock, as ‘bright’, ‘brighter’, ‘brightest’, the other supplementary to this, byprefixing the auxiliaries ‘more’ and ‘most’. The first, organic we might call it, the indwelling power of the word to mark its own degrees, must needs be esteemed the more excellent way; which yet, already disallowed in almost all adjectives of more than two syllables in length, is daily becoming of narrower and more restrained application. Compare in this matter our present with our past. Wiclif for example forms such comparatives as ‘grievouser’, ‘gloriouser’, ‘patienter’, ‘profitabler’, such superlatives as ‘grievousest’, ‘famousest’; this last occurring also in Bacon. We meet in Tyndale, ‘excellenter’, ‘miserablest’; in Shakespeare, ‘violentest’; in Gabriel Harvey, ‘vendiblest’, ‘substantialest’, ‘insolentest’; in Rogers, ‘insufficienter’, ‘goldener’; in Beaumont and Fletcher, ‘valiantest’. Milton uses ‘virtuosest’, and in prose ‘vitiosest’, ‘elegantest’, ‘artificialest’, ‘servilest’, ‘sheepishest’, ‘resolutest’, ‘sensualest’; Fuller has ‘fertilest’; Baxter ‘tediousest’; Butler ‘preciousest’, ‘intolerablest’; Burnet ‘copiousest’, Gray ‘impudentest’. Of these forms, and it would be easy to adduce almost any number, we should hardly employ any now. In participles and adverbs in ‘ly’, these organic comparatives and superlatives hardly survive at all. We do not say ‘willinger’ or ‘lovinger’, and still less ‘flourishingest’, or ‘shiningest’, or ‘surmountingest’, all which Gabriel Harvey, a foremost master of the English of his time, employs; ‘plenteouslyer’, ‘fulliest’ (Wiclif), ‘easiliest’ (Fuller), ‘plainliest’ (Dryden), would be all inadmissible at present.

In the manifest tendency of English at the present moment to reduce the number of words in which this more vigorous scheme of expressing degrees is allowed, we must recognize an evidence that the energy which the language had in its youth is in some measure abating, and the stiffness of age overtaking it. Still it is with us here only as it is with all languages, in which at a certain time of their life auxiliary words, leaving the main word unaltered, are preferred to inflections of this last. Such preference makes itself ever more strongly felt; and, judging from analogy, I cannot doubt that a day, however distant now, will arrive, when the only way of forming comparatives and superlatives in the English language will be by prefixing ‘more’ and ‘most’; or, if the other survive, it will be in poetry alone.

It will fare not otherwise, as I am bold to predict, with the flexional genitive, formed in ‘s’ or ‘es’ (seep. 161). This too will finally disappear altogether from the language, or will survive only in poetry, and as much an archaic form there as the ‘pictaï’ of Virgil. A time will come when it will not any longer be free to say, as now, either, “the king’s sons”, or “the sons of the king”, but when the latter will be the only admissible form. Tokens of this are already evident. The region in which the alternative forms are equally good is narrowing. We should not now any more write, “Whenman’s sonshall come” (Wiclif), but “Whenthe Son of manshall come”, nor yet, “The hypocrite’s hopeshall perish” (Job viii. 13, Authorized Version), but, “The hope of the hypocriteshall perish”; not with Barrow, “No man can be ignorantof human life’s brevity and uncertainty”, but “No man can be ignorantof the brevity and uncertainty of human life”. The consummation which I anticipate may be centuries off, but will assuredly arrive[194].

Lost Diminutives

Then too diminutives are fast disappearing from the language. If we desire to express smallness, we prefer to do it by an auxiliary word; thus a little fist, and not a ‘fistock’ (Golding), a little lad, and not a ‘ladkin’, a little worm, rather than a ‘wormling’ (Sylvester). It is true that of diminutives very many still survive, in all our four terminations of such, as ‘hillock’, ‘streamlet’, ‘lambkin’, ‘gosling’; but those which have perished are many more. Where now is ‘kingling’ (Holland), ‘whimling’ (Beaumont and Fletcher), ‘godling’, ‘loveling’, ‘dwarfling’, ‘shepherdling’ (all in Sylvester), ‘chasteling’ (Bacon), ‘niceling’ (Stubbs), ‘fosterling’ (Ben Johnson), and ‘masterling’? Where now ‘porelet’ (= paupercula, Isai. x. 30, Vulg.), ‘bundelet’, (both in Wiclif); ‘cushionet’ (Henry More), ‘havenet’, or little ‘haven’, ‘pistolet’, ‘bulkin’ (Holland), and a hundred more? Even of those which remain many are putting off, or have long since put off, their diminutive sense; a ‘pocket’ being no longer asmallpoke, nor a ‘latchet’ asmalllace, nor a ‘trumpet’ a smalltrump, as once they were.

Thou and Thee

Once more—in the entire dropping among the higher classes of ‘thou’, except in poetry or in addresses to the Deity, and as a necessary consequence, the dropping also of the second singular ofthe verb with its strongly marked flexion, as ‘lovest’, ‘lovedst’, we have another example of a force once existing in the language, which has been, or is being, allowed to expire. In the seventeenth century ‘thou’ in English, as at the present ‘du’ in German, ‘tu’ in French, was the sign of familiarity, whether that familiarity was of love, or of contempt and scorn[195]. It was not unfrequently the latter. Thus at Sir Walter Raleigh’s trial (1603), Coke, when argument and evidence failed him, insulted the defendant by applying to him the term ‘thou’:—“All that Lord Cobham did was atthyinstigation,thouviper, for Ithouthee,thoutraitor”. And when Sir Toby Belch inTwelfth Nightis urging Sir Andrew Aguecheek to send a sufficiently provocative challenge to Viola, he suggests to him that he “taunt him with the licence of ink; if thouthou’sthim some thrice, it shall not be amiss”. To keep this in mind will throw much light on one peculiarity of the Quakers, and give a certain dignity to it, as once maintained, which at present it is very far from possessing. However needless and unwise their determination to ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ the whole world was, yet this had a significance. It was not, as now to us it seems, and, through the silent changes which language has undergone, as now itindeed is, a gratuitous departure from the ordinary usage of society. Right or wrong, it meant something, and had an ethical motive: being indeed a testimony upon their parts, however misplaced, that they would not have high or great or rich men’s persons in admiration; nor give the observance to some which they withheld from others. It was a testimony too which cost them something; at present we can very little understand the amount of courage which this ‘thou-ing’ and ‘thee-ing’ of all men must have demanded on their parts, nor yet the amount of indignation and offence which it stirred up in them who were not aware of, or would not allow for, the scruples which obliged them to it[196]. It is, however, in its other aspect that we must chiefly regret the dying out of the use of ‘thou’—that is, as the pledge of peculiar intimacy and special affection, as between husband and wife, parents and children, and such other as might be knit together by bands of more than common affection.

Gender Words

I have preferred during this lecture to find my theme in changes which are now going forward in English, but I cannot finish it without drawing one illustration from its remoter periods, and bidding you to note a force not now waning andfailing from it, but extinct long ago. I cannot well pass it by; being as it is by far the boldest step which in this direction of simplification the English language has at any time taken. I refer to the renouncing of the distribution of its nouns into masculine, feminine, and neuter, as in German, or even into masculine and feminine, as in French; and with this, and as a necessary consequence of this, the dropping of any flexional modification in the adjectives connected with them. Naturalsexof course remains, being inherent in all language; but grammaticalgender, with the exception of ‘he’, ‘she’, and ‘it’, and perhaps one or two other fragmentary instances, the language has altogether forgone. An example will make clear the distinction between these. Thus it is not the word ‘poetess’ which isfeminine, but the person indicated who isfemale. So too ‘daughter’, ‘queen’, are in English notfemininenouns, but nouns designatingfemalepersons. Take on the contrary ‘filia’ or ‘regina’, ‘fille’ or ‘reine’; there you havefemininenouns as well asfemalepersons. I need hardly say to you that we did not inherit this simplicity from others, but, like the Danes, in so far as they have done the like, have made it for ourselves. Whether we turn to the Latin, or, which is for us more important, to the old Gothic, we find gender; and in all daughter languages which have descended from the Latin, in most of those which have descended from the ancient Gothic stock, it is fully established to this day. The practical, business-like character of the English mind asserted itself in the rejection of a distinction, which in a vast proportion of words, thatis, in all which are the signs ofinanimateobjects, and as such incapable of sex, rested upon a fiction, and had no ground in the real nature of things. It is only by an act and effort of the imagination that sex, and thus gender, can be attributed to a table, a ship, or a tree; and there are aspects, this being one, in which the English is among the least imaginative of all languages even while it has been employed in some of the mightiest works of imagination which the world has ever seen[197].

What, it may be asked, is the meaning and explanation of all this? It is that at certain earlier periods of a nation’s life its genius is synthetic, and at later becomes analytic. At earlier periods all is by synthesis; and men love to contemplate the thing, and the mode of the thing, together, as a single idea, bound up in one. But a time arrives when the intellectual obtains the upper hand of the imaginative, when the tendency of those that speak the language is to analyse, to distinguish between these two, and not only to distinguish but to divide, to have one word for the thing itself, and another for the quality of the thing; and this, as it would appear, is true not of some languages only, but of all.

[128][Apparently a slip for ‘ebb’]

[129]It is still used in prose as late as the age of Henry VIII; see theState Papers, vol. viii. p. 247. It was the latest survivor of a whole group or family of words which continued much longer in Scotland than with us; of which some perhaps continue there still; these are but a few of them; ‘wanthrift’ for extravagance; ‘wanluck’, misfortune; ‘wanlust’, languor; ‘wanwit’, folly; ‘wangrace’, wickedness; ‘wantrust’ (Chaucer), distrust, [Also ‘wan-ton’, devoid of breeding (towen). Compare Germanwahn-sinn, insanity, andwahn-witz.]

[130]We must not suppose that this still survives in ‘girfalcon’; which wholly belongs to the Latin element of the language; being the later Latin ‘gyrofalco’, and that, “agyrando, quia diugyrandoacriter prædam insequitur”.

[131][‘Heft’, from ‘heave’ (Winter’s Tale, ii. 1, 45), is widely diffused in the Three Kingdoms and in America. See E.D.D.s.v.]

[132]“Somehot-spursthere were that gave counsel to go against them with all their forces, and to fright and terrify them, if they made slow haste”. (Holland’sLivy, p. 922.)

[133]State Papers, vol. vi. p. 534.

[134][‘Malinger’, Frenchmalingre(mistakenly derived above), stands for old Frenchmal-heingre(maliciously or falsely ill, feigning sickness), which is from Latinmale aeger, with an intrusiven—Scheler.]

[135][To which the late Boer War contributed many more, such as ‘kopje’, ‘trek’, ‘slim’, ‘veldt’, etc.]

[136]The only two writers of whom I am aware as subsequently using this word are, both writing in Ireland and of Irish matters, Spenser and Swift. The passages are both quoted in Richardson’sDictionary. [‘Bawn’ stands for the Irishba-dhun(notbábhun, as in N.E.D.), orbo-dhun, literally ‘cow-fortress’, a cattle enclosure (Irishbo, a cow). See P. W. Joyce,Irish Names of Places, 1st ser. p. 297.]

[137]There is an excellent account of this “refugee French” in Weiss’History of the Protestant Refugees of France.

[138][Thus the Shakespearian wordrenege(Latinrenegare), to deny (Learii, 2) still lives in the mouths of the Irish peasantry. I have heard a farmer’s wife denounce those who “renege[renaig] their religion”.]

[139]With all its severity, there is some truth in Ben Johnson’s observation: “Spenser, in affecting the ancients, writ no language”. In this matter, however, Ben Jonson was at one with him; for he does not hesitate to express his strong regret that this form has not been retained. “Thepersonsplural” he says (English Grammar, c. 17), “keep the termination of the firstpersonsingular. In former times, till about the reign of King Henry VIII, they were wont to be formed by addingen; thus,loven,sayen,complainen. But now (whatsoever is the cause) it hath quite grown out of use, and that other so generally prevailed, that I dare not presume to set this afoot again; albeit (to tell you my opinion) I am persuaded that the lack hereof, well considered, will be found a great blemish to our tongue. For seeingtimeandpersonbe as it were the right and left hand of a verb, what can the maiming bring else, but a lameness to the whole body”?

[140][The two words are often popularly confounded. When a good woman said “I’mafeerd”, Mr. Pickwick exclaimed “Afraid”! (Pickwick Papers, ch. v.). Chaucer, instructively, uses both in the one sentence, “This wyf was notafferedneaffrayed” (Shipman’s Tale, l. 400).]

[141]Génin (Récréations Philologiques, vol. i. p. 71) says to the same effect: “Il n’y a guères de faute de Français, je dis faute générale, accréditée, qui n’ait sa raison d’être, et ne pût au besoin produire ses lettres de noblesse; et souvent mieux en règle que celles des locutions qui ont usurpé leur place au soleil”.

[142]A single proof may in each case suffice:“Our wills and fates do socontráryrun”.—Shakespeare.“Ne letmischiévouswitches with their charms”.—Spenser.“O argumentblasphémous, false and proud”.—Milton.[These archaisms are still current in Ireland.]

[142]A single proof may in each case suffice:

“Our wills and fates do socontráryrun”.—Shakespeare.

“Ne letmischiévouswitches with their charms”.—Spenser.

“O argumentblasphémous, false and proud”.—Milton.

[These archaisms are still current in Ireland.]

[143]I cannot doubt that this form which our country people in Hampshire, as in many other parts, always employ, either retains the original pronunciation, our received one being a modern corruption; or else, as is more probable, thatwehave made a confusion between two originally different words, from which they have kept clear. Thus in Howell’sVocabulary, 1659, and in Cotgrave’sFrench and English Dictionaryboth words occur: “nuncion or nuncheon, the afternoon’s repast”, (cf.Hudibras, i. 1, 346: “They took their breakfasts or theirnuncheons”), and “lunchion, a big piece” i.e. of bread; for both give the old French ‘caribot’, which has this meaning, as the equivalent of ‘luncheon’. It is clear that in this sense of lump or ‘big piece’ Gay uses ‘luncheon’:“When hungry thou stood’st staring like an oaf,I sliced theluncheonfrom the barley loaf”;and Miss Baker in herNorthamptonshire Glossaryexplains ‘lunch’ as “a large lump of bread, or other edible; ‘He helped himself to a goodlunchof cake’”. We may note further that this ‘nuntion’ may possibly put us on the right track for arriving at the etymology of the word. Richardson has called attention to the fact that it is spelt “noon-shun” in Browne’sPastorals, which must at least suggest as possible and plausible that the ‘nuntion’ was originally applied to the labourer’s slight meal, to which he withdrew for theshunningof the heat of the middlenoon: especially when in Lancashire we find a word of similar formation, ‘noon-scape’, and in Norfolk ‘noon-miss’, for the time when labourers rest after dinner. [It really stands for the older Englishnone-schenche, i.e. ‘noon-skink’ or noon-drink (see Skeat,Etym. Dict.,s.v.), correlative to ‘noon-meat’ or ‘nam-met’.] It is at any rate certain that the dignity to which ‘lunch’ or ‘luncheon’ has now arrived, as when we read in the newspapers of a “magnificentluncheon”, is altogether modern; the word belonged a century ago to rustic life, and in literature had not travelled beyond the “hobnailed pastorals” which professed to describe that life.

“When hungry thou stood’st staring like an oaf,I sliced theluncheonfrom the barley loaf”;

and Miss Baker in herNorthamptonshire Glossaryexplains ‘lunch’ as “a large lump of bread, or other edible; ‘He helped himself to a goodlunchof cake’”. We may note further that this ‘nuntion’ may possibly put us on the right track for arriving at the etymology of the word. Richardson has called attention to the fact that it is spelt “noon-shun” in Browne’sPastorals, which must at least suggest as possible and plausible that the ‘nuntion’ was originally applied to the labourer’s slight meal, to which he withdrew for theshunningof the heat of the middlenoon: especially when in Lancashire we find a word of similar formation, ‘noon-scape’, and in Norfolk ‘noon-miss’, for the time when labourers rest after dinner. [It really stands for the older Englishnone-schenche, i.e. ‘noon-skink’ or noon-drink (see Skeat,Etym. Dict.,s.v.), correlative to ‘noon-meat’ or ‘nam-met’.] It is at any rate certain that the dignity to which ‘lunch’ or ‘luncheon’ has now arrived, as when we read in the newspapers of a “magnificentluncheon”, is altogether modern; the word belonged a century ago to rustic life, and in literature had not travelled beyond the “hobnailed pastorals” which professed to describe that life.

[144]See it so written, Holland’sPliny, vol. ii. p. 428, and often.

[145]As a proof of the excellent service which an accurate acquaintance with provincial usages may render in the investigation of the innumerable perplexing phenomena of the English language, I would refer to the admirable articleOn English Pronouns PersonalinTransactions of the Philological Society, vol. i. p. 277.

[146][We now have the good fortune to possess a complete collection of this valuable class of words in the splendid “English Dialect Dictionary”, edited by Professor Joseph Wright of Oxford, which is an essential supplement to all existing dictionaries of our language.]

[147]This last very curious usage, which served as a kind of stepping-stone to ‘its’, and of which another example occurs in the Geneva Version (Acts xii. 10), and three or four in Shakespeare, has been abundantly illustrated by those who have lately written on the early history of the word ‘its’; thus see Craik,On the English of Shakespeare, p. 91; Marsh,Manual of the English Language(Eng. Edit.), p. 278;Transactions of the Philological Society, vol. 1. p. 280; and my bookOn the Authorized Version of the New Testament, p. 59.

[148]Thus Fuller (Pisgah Sight of Palestine, vol. ii. p. 190): “Sure I am this city [the New Jerusalem] as presented by the prophet, was fairer, finer,slicker, smoother, more exact, than any fabric the earth afforded”.

[149][In the United States ‘plunder’ is used for personal effects, baggage and luggage (Webster). This is not noticed in the E.D.D.]

[150][But we have acquired, in some quarters, the abomination ‘an invite’.]

[151]How many words modern French has lost which are most vigorous and admirable, the absence of which can only now be supplied by a circumlocution or by some less excellent word—‘Oseur’, ‘affranchisseur’ (Amyot), ‘mépriseur’, ‘murmurateur’, ‘blandisseur’ (Bossuet), ‘abuseur’ (Rabelais), ‘désabusement’, ‘rancœur’, are all obsolete at the present. So ‘désaimer’, to cease to love (‘disamare’ in Italian), ‘guirlander’, ‘stériliser’, ‘blandissant’, ‘ordonnément’ (Montaigne), with innumerable others.

[152][It has now attained a fair currency.]

[153][‘Gainly’ is still used by nineteenth century writers, 1855-86; see N.E.D.]

[154][‘Dehort’ has been used in modern times by Southey (Letters, 1825, iii, 462), and Cheyne (Isaiah, introd.1882, xx.)—N.E.D.]

[155][Tennyson has endeavoured to resuscitate the word—“Ratheshe rose”—Lancelot and Elaine—but with no great success.]

[156]For other passages in which ‘rathest’ occurs, see theState Papers, vol. ii. pp. 92, 170.

[157][‘Buxom’ for old Englishbuc-sumorbuch-sum, i.e. ‘bow-some’, yielding, compliant, obedient. “Sara wasbuxomto Abraham”, 1 Pet. iii, 6 (xiv. Cent. Version, ed. Pawes, p. 216).]

[158][‘Lissome’ forlithe-some, like Wessexblissomforblithe-some. Tennyson has “aslissomeas a hazel wand”—The Brook, l. 70.]

[159]Jamieson’sDictionarygives a large number of words with this termination which I should suppose were always peculiar to Scotland, as ‘bangsome’, i.e. quarrelsome, ‘freaksome’, ‘drysome’, ‘grousome’ (the German ‘grausam’) [Now in common use as ‘gruesome’.]

[160][A list of some of these reduplicated words was given by Dr. Booth in his “Analytical Dictionary of the English Language”, 1835; but a full collection of nearly six hundred was published by Mr. H. B. Wheatley in theTransactions of the Philological Societyfor 1865.]

[161]Many languages have groups of words formed upon the same scheme, although, singularly enough, they are altogether absent from the Anglo-Saxon. (J. Grimm,Deutsche Gramm., vol. ii. p. 976). The Spaniards have a great many very expressive words of this formation. Thus with allusion to the great struggle in which Christian Spain was engaged for so many centuries, a vaunting braggart is a ‘matamoros’, a ‘slaymoor’; he is a ‘matasiete’, a ‘slayseven’; a ‘perdonavidas’, a ‘sparelives’. Others may be added to these, as ‘azotacalles’, ‘picapleytos’, ‘saltaparedes’, ‘rompeesquinas’, ‘ganapan’, ‘cascatreguas’.

[162][This stands for ‘peak-goose’ (peek goosin Ascham,Scholemaster, 1570, p. 54, ed. Arber), agoosethatpeaksor pines, used for a sickly, delicate person, and a simpleton. In Chapman, Cotgrave and others it appears as ‘pea-goose’.]

[163]The mistake is far earlier; long before Cowper wrote the sound suggested first this sense, and then this spelling. Thus Stanihurst,Description of Ireland, p. 28: “They are taken for no better thanrakehels, orthe devil’s black guard”; and often elsewhere.

[164][i.e. in Joshua Sylvester’s translation of “Du Bartas, his Diuine Weekes and Workes”, 1621.]

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