_Bacon_ (Vol. iii., p. 41.).--The explanation given in a former number from
old Verstegan, of the original meaning of the family name of Bacon, and the
application of the word to the unclean beast, with the corroboration from
the pages of Collins's _Baronetage_, is very interesting. The word, as
applied to the salted flesh of the _dead_ animal, is another instance of
the introduction of a foreign term for a _dead_ animal, in opposition to
the Anglo-Saxon name of the living animal. It was used in this sense in
France at a very early period; and Ampere, in his _Histoire Litteraire de
la France avant le 12ieme Siecle_, iii. 482., mentions the word among other
instances of Gallicisms in the Latin of the Carolingian diplomas and
capitularies, and quotes the capitularies of Charles the Fat. _Bacco, porc
sale,_ from the _vulgar_ word _bacon_, _jambon_. The word was in use as
late as the seventeenth century in Dauphine, and the bordering cantons of
Switzerland, and is cited in the _Moyen de Parvenir_, ch. 38. The passage
is curious, as it would seem to intimate that Lord Bacon was one of the
personages introduced in that very extraordinary production of the
Rabelaisian school.
I have frequently heard the word employed by the country people in the
markets of Geneva.