_Blackguard_ (Vol. vii., p. 77.).--It may, in some degree, support the
first portion of the argument so interestingly stated by SIR J. EMERSON
TENNENT respecting the derivation of this term, to record that, in my
youth, when at school at the New Academy in Edinburgh, some five or
six-and-twenty years ago, I used frequently to be engaged, with my
schoolfellows, in regular pitched battles, technically called by us
_bickers_, with the town boys, consisting chiefly of butchers' and bakers'
boys, whom we were accustomed to designate as _the blackguards_, without, I
am sure, ever attaching to that word the more opprobrious meaning which it
now generally bears; but only indicating by it those of a lower rank in
life than ourselves, _the gentlemen_.
May I venture to add, that whilst the former portion of SIR J. E. TENNENT'S
Note seems to me to be fully satisfactory in proof that the term
_blackguard_ is originally derived from the ancient appellation of menials
employed in the lowest and most dirty offices of a great household, and
that it is thus purely English,--the last two paragraphs, on the other
hand, appear to advocate an unnecessary and far-fetched derivation of the
word from the French, and which, I humbly conceive, the true sense of the
alleged roots, _blague_, _blaguer_, _blagueur_, by no means justifies; it
being impossible to admit that these are, in any sort, "corresponding
terms" with _blackguard_.