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 “_golden_ pin” we say “_gold_
pin”; instead of “_earthen_ works” we say “_earth_ works”. ‘Golden’ and
‘earthen’, it is true, still belong to our living speech, though mainly
as part of our poetic diction, or of the solemn and thus 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. Chaucer is my latest authority for it (“_rosen_ chapelet”).
‘Hairen’ is in Wiclif and in Chaucer; ‘stonen’ in the former (John iii.
6){190}. ‘Silvern’ stood originally in Wiclif’s Bible (“_silverne_
housis 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’s _Du Bartas_; where also we meet with “Jove’s _milken_
alley”, as a name for the _Via Lactea_, in Bacon also not “the _Milky_”,
but “the _Milken_ Way”. In the coarse polemics of the Reformation the
phrase, “_breaden_ god”, provoked by the Romish doctrine of
transubstantiation, was of frequent employment, and occurs as late as in
Oldham. “_Mothen_ parchments” is in Fulke; “_twiggen_ bottle” in
Shakespeare; ‘_yewen_’, or, according to earlier spelling, “_ewghen_
bow”, in Spenser; “_cedarn_ alley”, and “_azurn_ sheen” are both in
Milton; “_boxen_ leaves” in Dryden; “a _treen_ cup” in Jeremy Taylor;
“_eldern_ popguns” in Sir Thomas Overbury; “a _glassen_ breast”, in
Whitlock; “a _reeden_ hat” 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 still hold 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 ‘a _brazen_ face’; or if in
a literal, in poetic diction or in the consecrated language of
Scripture, as ‘the _brazen_ serpent’; otherwise we say ‘a _brass_
farthing’, ‘a _brass_ candlestick’. 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.
{Sidenote: _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
strong præterites, 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 ‘to _drive_’ 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 ‘lift_ed_’, not by any internal change, but by the
addition of ‘ed’; ‘grieve’ in like manner has ‘griev_ed_’. 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}.
{Sidenote: _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
to the 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}.
{Sidenote: _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’, ‘bright_er_’, ‘bright_est_’, the other
supplementary to this, by prefixing 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’ (see p. 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, “When _man’s son_ shall come” (Wiclif), but
“When _the Son of man_ shall come”, nor yet, “_The hypocrite’s hope_
shall perish” (Job viii. 13, Authorized Version), but, “_The hope of the
hypocrite_ shall perish”; not with Barrow, “No man can be ignorant _of
human life’s brevity and uncertainty_”, but “No man can be ignorant _of
the brevity and uncertainty of human life_”. The consummation which I
anticipate may be centuries off, but will assuredly arrive{194}.
{Sidenote: _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 a _small_ poke, nor a
‘latchet’ a _small_ lace, nor a ‘trumpet’ a small _trump_, as once they
were.
{Sidenote: _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 of the 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 at _thy_ instigation, _thou_ viper, for I _thou_
thee, _thou_ traitor”. And when Sir Toby Belch in _Twelfth Night_ is
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 thou _thou’st_ him some thrice, it shall not be amiss”. To keep this
in mind will throw much light on one peculiarity of the Quakers, and
give a certain dignity to it, as once maintained, which at present it is
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 it indeed is, a gratuitous
departure from the ordinary usage of society. Right or wrong, it meant
something, and had an ethical motive: being indeed a testimony upon
their parts, however 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.
{Sidenote: _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 and failing 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. Natural _sex_ of course remains, being
inherent in all language; but grammatical _gender_, 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 is _feminine_, but the person indicated who is _female_. So too
‘daughter’, ‘queen’, are in English not _feminine_ nouns, but nouns
designating _female_ persons. Take on the contrary ‘filia’ or ‘regina’,
‘fille’ or ‘reine’; there you have _feminine_ nouns as well as _female_
persons. 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, that is, in all which are the signs of
_inanimate_ objects, 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.
{FOOTNOTES}
{128} [Apparently a slip for ‘ebb’]
{129} It is still used in prose as late as the age of Henry VIII; see
the _State 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 German
_wahn-sinn_, insanity, and _wahn-witz_.]
{130} We must not suppose that this still survives in ‘_gir_falcon’;
which wholly belongs to the Latin element of the language; being
the later Latin ‘gyrofalco’, and that, “a _gyrando_, quia diu
_gyrando_ acriter 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} “Some _hot-spurs_ there were that gave counsel to go against them
with all their forces, and to fright and terrify them, if they
made slow haste”. (Holland’s _Livy_, p. 922.)
{133} _State Papers_, vol. vi. p. 534.
{134} [‘Malinger’, French _malingre_ (mistakenly derived above), stands
for old French _mal-heingre_ (maliciously or falsely ill, feigning
sickness), which is from Latin _male aeger_, with an intrusive
_n_--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’s
_Dictionary_. [‘Bawn’ stands for the Irish _ba-dhun_ (not
_bábhun_, as in N.E.D.), or _bo-dhun_, literally ‘cow-fortress’, a
cattle enclosure (Irish _bo_, 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 word _renege_ (Latin _renegare_), to deny
(_Lear_ ii, 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. “The _persons_ plural” he says
(_English Grammar_, c. 17), “keep the termination of the first
_person_ singular. In former times, till about the reign of King
Henry VIII, they were wont to be formed by adding _en_; thus,
_loven_, _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
seeing _time_ and _person_ be as it were the right and left hand
of a verb, what can the maiming bring else, but a lameness to the
whole body”?
{140} [The two words are often popularly confounded. When a good woman
said “I’m _afeerd_”, Mr. Pickwick exclaimed “_Afraid_”! (_Pickwick
Papers_, ch. v.). Chaucer, instructively, uses both in the one
sentence, “This wyf was not _affered_ ne _affrayed_” (_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 so _contráry_ run”.--_Shakespeare._
“Ne let _mischiévous_ witches with their charms”.--_Spenser._
“O argument _blasphémous_, 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, that _we_ have made a
confusion between two originally different words, from which they
have kept clear. Thus in Howell’s _Vocabulary_, 1659, and in
Cotgrave’s _French and English Dictionary_ both words occur:
“nuncion or nuncheon, the afternoon’s repast”, (cf. _Hudibras_, i.
1, 346: “They took their breakfasts or their _nuncheons_”), 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 the _luncheon_ from the barley loaf”;
and Miss Baker in her _Northamptonshire Glossary_ explains ‘lunch’
as “a large lump of bread, or other edible; ‘He helped himself to
a good _lunch_ of 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’s _Pastorals_, 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 the _shunning_ of the heat of the middle _noon_:
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
English _none-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 “magnificent _luncheon_”, 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.