Philadelphia.
_Misapplication of Terms_ (Vol. viii., p. 537.).--The apparent _lapsus_
noticed by your correspondent J. W. THOMAS, while it reminds one that--
"Learned men,
Now and then," &c.,
is not so indefensible as many instances that are to be met with.
I have been accustomed to teach my boys that _legend_ (à _lego_, to read)
is not strictly to be confined to the ordinary translation of its
derivative, since the Latin admits of several readings, and among them, by
the usage of Plautus, _to hearken_; whence our English substantive takes
equal license to admit of _a relation_ = _a narrative_, viz. "a thing to be
heard;" and in this sense by custom has referred to many a gossip's tale.
Having thus ventured to defend the use of _legend_ by your correspondent
(Vol. v., p. 196.), I submit to the illuminating power of your pages the
following novel use of a word I have met with in the course of reading this
morning, and shall be gratified if some of your correspondents (better
Grecians than myself) can turn their critical bull's-eye on it with equal
advantage to its employer.
In the poems of Bishop Corbet, edited by Octavius Gilchrist, F.S.A., 4th
edition, 1807, an editorial note at p. 195. informs us that John Bust,
living in 1611, "seems to have been a worthy _prototype_ of the Nattus of
Antiquity." (_Persius_, iii. 31.)
Our humorous friend in the farce, who was "'prentice and predecessor" to
his coadjutor the 'pothecary whom he succeeded, is the only solecism at all
parallel, that immediately occurs to