watch it as it first emerges, timid, and doubtful of the reception it
will meet with; and the interest is much enhanced if it has thus come
forth on some memorable occasion, or from some memorable man. Both
these interests meet in the word 'essay.' Were we asked what is the
most remarkable volume of essays which the world has seen, few, capable
of replying, would fail to answer, Lord Bacon's. But they were also the
first collection of these, which bore that name; for we gather from the
following passage in the (intended) dedication of the volume to Prince
Henry, that 'essay' was itself a recent word in the language, and, in
the use to which he put it, perfectly novel: he says--'To write just
treatises requireth leisure in the writer, and leisure in the
reader; ... which is the cause which hath made me choose to write
certain brief notes set down rather significantly than curiously, which
I have called _Essays_. The word is late, but the thing is ancient.'
From this dedication we gather that, little as 'essays' now can be
considered a word of modesty, deprecating too large expectations on the
part of the reader, it had, as 'sketches' perhaps would have now, as
'commentary' had in the Latin, that intention in its earliest use. In
this deprecation of higher pretensions it resembled the 'philosopher'
of Pythagoras. Others had styled themselves, or had been willing to be
styled, 'wise men.' 'Lover of wisdom' a name at once so modest arid so
beautiful, was of his devising. [Footnote: Diogenes Laërtius, Prooem.
Section 12.] But while thus some words surprise us that they are so new,
others surprise us that they are so old. Few, I should imagine, are
aware that 'rationalist,' and this in a theological, and not merely a
philosophical sense, is of such early date as it is; or that we have
not imported quite in these later times both the name and the thing
from Germany. Yet this is very far from the case. There were
'rationalists' in the time of the Commonwealth; and these challenging
the name exactly on the same grounds as those who in later times have
claimed it for their own. Thus, the author of a newsletter from London,
of date October 14, 1646, among other things mentions: 'There is a new
sect sprung up among them [the Presbyterians and Independents], and
these are the _Rationalists_, and what their reason dictates them in
Church or State stands for good, until they be convinced with better;'
[Footnote: _Clarendon State Papers_, vol. ii. p. 40 of the _Appendix._]
with more to the same effect. 'Christology' has been lately
characterized as a monstrous importation from Germany. I am quite of
the remonstrant's mind that English theology does not need, and can do
excellently well without it; yet this novelty it is not; for in the
_Preface_ to the works of that illustrious Arminian divine of the
seventeenth century, Thomas Jackson, written by Benjamin Oley, his
friend and pupil, the following passage occurs: 'The reader will find
in this author an eminent excellence in that part of divinity which I
make bold to call _Christology_, in displaying the great mystery of
godliness, God the Son manifested in human flesh.' [Footnote: _Preface
to Dr. Jackson's Works_, vol. i. p. xxvii. A work of Fleming's,
published in 1700, bears the title, _Christology_.] In their power of
taking up foreign words into healthy circulation and making them truly
their own, languages differ much from one another, and the same
language from itself at different periods of its life. There are
languages of which the appetite and digestive power, the assimilative
energy, is at some periods almost unlimited. Nothing is too hard for
them; everything turns to good with them; they will shape and mould to
their own uses and habits almost any material offered to them. This,
however, is in their youth; as age advances, the assimilative energy
diminishes. Words are still adopted; for this process of adoption can
never wholly cease; but a chemical amalgamation of the new with the old
does not any longer find place; or only in some instances, and very
partially even in them. The new comers lie upon the surface of the
language; their sharp corners are not worn or rounded off; they remain
foreign still in their aspect and outline, and, having missed their
opportunity of becoming otherwise, will remain so to the end. Those who
adopt, as with an inward misgiving about their own gift and power of
stamping them afresh, make a conscience of keeping them in exactly the
same form in which they have received them; instead of conforming them
to the laws of that new community into which they are now received.
Nothing will illustrate this so well as a comparison of different words
of the same family, which have at different periods been introduced
into our language. We shall find that those of an earlier introduction
have become English through and through, while the later introduced,
belonging to the same group, have been very far from undergoing the
same transforming process. Thus 'bishop' [A.S. biscop], a word as old
as the introduction of Christianity into England, though derived from
'episcopus,' is thoroughly English; while 'episcopal,' which has
supplanted 'bishoply,' is only a Latin word in an English dress.
'Alms,' too, is thoroughly English, and English which has descended to
us from far; the very shape in which we have the word, one syllable for
'eleëmosyna' of six, sufficiently testifying this; 'letters,' as Horne
Tooke observes,' like soldiers, being apt to desert and drop off in a
long march.' The seven-syllabled and awkward 'eleëmosynary' is of far
more recent date. Or sometimes this comparison is still more striking,
when it is not merely words of the same family, but the very same word
which has been twice adopted, at an earlier period and a later--the
earlier form will be thoroughly English, as 'palsy'; the later will be
only a Greek or Latin word spelt with English letters, as 'paralysis.'
'Dropsy,' 'quinsy,' 'megrim,' 'squirrel,' 'rickets,' 'surgeon,'
'tansy,' 'dittany,' 'daffodil,' and many more words that one might name,
have nothing of strangers or foreigners about them, have made
themselves quite at home in English. So entirely is their physiognomy
native, that it would be difficult even to suspect them to be of Greek
descent, as they all are. Nor has 'kickshaws' anything about it now
which would compel us at once to recognize in it the French 'quelques
choses' [Footnote: 'These cooks have persuaded us their coarse fare is
the best, and all other but what they dress to be mere _quelques
choses_, made dishes of no nourishing' (Whitlock, _Zootomia_, p.
147).]--'French _kickshose_,' as with allusion to the quarter from
which it came, and while the memory of that was yet fresh in men's
minds, it was often called by our early writers. A very notable fact
about new words, and a very signal testimony of their popular origin,
of their birth from the bosom of the people, is the difficulty so often
found in tracing their pedigree. When the _causae vocum_ are sought, as
they very fitly are, and out of much better than mere curiosity, for
the _causae rerum_ are very often wrapt up in them, those continually
elude our research. Nor does it fare thus merely with words to which
attention was called, and interest about their etymology awakened, only
after they had been long in popular use--for that such should often
give scope to idle guesses, should altogether refuse to give up their
secret, is nothing strange--but words will not seldom perplex and
baffle the inquirer even where an investigation of their origin has
been undertaken almost as soon as they have come into existence. Their
rise is mysterious; like almost all acts of _becoming_, it veils itself
in deepest obscurity. They emerge, they are in everybody's mouth; but
when it is inquired from whence they are, nobody can tell. They are but
of yesterday, and yet with inexplicable rapidity they have already lost
all traces of the precise circumstances under which they were born.
The rapidity with which this comes to pass is nowhere more striking
than in the names of political or religious parties, and above all in
names of slight or of contempt. Thus Baxter tells us that when he wrote
there already existed two explanations of 'Roundhead,' [Footnote:
_Narrative of my Life and Times_, p. 34; 'The original of which name is
not certainly known. Some say it was because the Puritans then commonly
wore short hair, and the King's party long hair; some say, it was
because the Queen at Stafford's trial asked who that _round-headed_ man
was, meaning Mr. Pym, because he spake so strongly.'] a word not nearly
so old as himself. How much has been written about the origin of the
German 'ketzer' (= our 'heretic'), though there can scarcely be a doubt
that the Cathari make their presence felt in this word. [Footnote: See
on this word Kluge's _Etym. Dict_.] Hardly less has been disputed about
the French 'cagot.' [Footnote: The word meant in old times 'a leper';
see Cotgrave's _Dictionary_, also _Athenceum_, No. 2726.] Is 'Lollard,'
or 'Loller' as we read it in Chaucer, from 'lollen,' to chaunt? that is,
does it mean the chaunting or canting people? or had the Lollards their
title from a principal person among them of this name, who suffered at
the stake?--to say nothing of 'lolium,' found by some in the name,
these men being as _tares_ among the wholesome wheat. [Footnote: Hahn,
_Ketzer im Mittelalter_ vol. ii. p. 534.] The origin of 'Huguenot' as
applied to the French Protestants, was already a matter of doubt and
discussion in the lifetime of those who first bore it. A distinguished
German scholar has lately enumerated fifteen explanations which have
been offered of the word. [Footnote: Mahn, _Etymol. Untersuch_. p. 92.
Littré, who has found the word in use as a Christian name two centuries
before the Reformation, has no doubt that here is the explanation of it.
At any rate there is here what explodes a large number of the proposed
explanations, as for instance that Huguenot is another and popular
shape of 'Eidgenossen.'] [How did the lay sisters in the Low Countries,
the 'Beguines' get their name? Many derivations have been suggested,
but the most probable account is that given in Ducange, that the
appellative was derived from 'le Bègue' the Stammerer, the nickname of
Lambert, a priest of Liège in the twelfth century, the founder of the
order. (See the document quoted in Ducange, and the 'New English
Dictionary' (s. v.).)] Were the 'Waldenses' so called from one Waldus,
to whom these 'Poor Men of Lyons' as they were at first called, owed
their origin? [Footnote: [It is not doubted now that the Waldenses got
their name from Peter Waldez or Valdo, a native of Lyons in the twelfth
century. Waldez was a rich merchant who sold his goods and devoted his
wealth to furthering translations of the Bible, and to the support of a
set of poor preachers. For an interesting account of the Waldenses see
in the _Guardian_, Aug. 18, 1886, a learned review by W. A. B. C. of
_Histoire Littéraire des Vaudois_, par E. Montet.]] As little can any
one tell us with any certainty why the 'Paulicians' and the 'Paterines'
were severally named as they are; or, to go much further back, why the
'Essenes' were so called. [Footnote: Lightfoot, _On the Colossians_, p.
114 sqq.] From whence had Johannes Scotus, who anticipated so much of
the profoundest thinking of later times, his title of 'Erigena,' and
did that title mean Irish-born, or what? [Footnote: [There is no doubt
whatever that _Erigena_ in this case means 'Irish-born.']] 'Prester
John' was a name given in the Middle Ages to a priest-king, real or
imaginary, of wide dominion in Central Asia. But whether there was ever
actually such a person, and what was intended by his name, is all
involved in the deepest obscurity. How perplexing are many of the
Church's most familiar terms, and terms the oftenest in the mouth of
her children; thus her 'Ember' days; her 'Collects'; [Footnote: Freeman,
_Principles of Divine Service_, vol. i. p. 145.] her 'Breviary'; her
'Whitsunday'; [Footnote: See Skeat, s. v.] the derivation of 'Mass'
itself not being lifted above all question. [Footnote: Two at least of
the ecclesiastical terms above mentioned are no longer perplexing, and
are quite lifted above dispute: _ember_ in 'Ember Days' represents
Anglo-Saxon _ymb-ryne_, literally 'a running round, circuit, revolution,
anniversary'; see Skeat (s. v.); and _Whitsunday_ means simply 'White
Sunday,' Anglo-Saxon _hwita Sunnan-daeg_.] As little can any one inform
us why the Roman military standard on which Constantine inscribed the
symbols of the Christian faith should have been called 'Labarum.' And
yet the inquiry began early. A father of the Greek Church, almost a
contemporary of Constantine, can do no better than suggest that
'labarum' is equivalent to 'laborum,' and that it was so called because
in that victorious standard was the end of _labour_ and toil (finis
laborum)! [Footnote: Mahn, _Elym. Untersuch_. p. 65; cf. Kurtz,
_Kirchen-geschichte_, 3rd edit. p. 115.] The 'ciborium' of the early
Church is an equal perplexity; [Footnote: The word is first met in
Chrysostom, who calls the silver models of the temple at Ephesus (Acts
xix, 24) [Greek: mikra kiboria]. [A primary meaning of the Greek
[Greek: kiborion] was the cup-like seed-vessel of the Egyptian water-
lily, see _Dict. of Christian Antiquities_, p. 65.]] and 'chapel'
(capella) not less. All later investigations have failed effectually to
dissipate the mystery of the 'Sangraal.' So too, after all that has
been written upon it, the true etymology of 'mosaic' remains a question
still.
And not in Church matters only, but everywhere, we meet with the same
oblivion resting on the origin of words. The Romans, one might
beforehand have assumed, must have known very well why they called
themselves 'Quirites,' but it is manifest that this knowledge was not
theirs. Why they were addressed as Patres Conscripti is a matter
unsettled still. They could have given, one would think, an explanation
of their naming an outlying conquered region a 'province.'
Unfortunately they offer half a dozen explanations, among which we may
make our choice. 'German' and 'Germany' were names comparatively recent
when Tacitus wrote; but he owns that he has nothing trustworthy to say
of their history; [Footnote: _Germania_, 2.] later inquirers have not
mended the matter, [Footnote: Pott, _Etymol. Forsch._ vol. ii. pt. 2,
pp. 860-872.]
The derivation of words which are the very key to the understanding of
the Middle Ages, is often itself wrapt in obscurity. On 'fief' and
'feudal' how much has been disputed. [Footnote: Stubbs, _Constitutional
History of England_, vol. i. p. 251.] 'Morganatic' marriages are
recognized by the public law of Germany, but why called 'morganatic' is
unsettled still. [Footnote: [There is no mystery about this word; see a
good account of the term in Skeat's _Diet_. (s. v.).]] Gypsies in
German are 'zigeuner'; but when this is resolved into 'zichgauner,' or
roaming thieves, the explanation has about as much scientific value as
the not less ingenious explanation of 'Saturnus' as satur annis,
[Footnote: Cicero, _Nat. Deor._ ii. 25.] of 'severitas' as saeva
veritas (Augustine); of 'cadaver' as composed of the first syllables of
_ca_ro _da_ta, _ver_mibus. [Footnote: Dwight, _Modern Philology_, lst
series, p. 288.] Littré has evidently little confidence in the
explanation commonly offered of the 'Salic' law, namely, that it was
the law which prevailed on the banks of the Saal. [Footnote: For a full
and learned treatment of the various derivations of 'Mephistopheles'
which have been proposed, and for the first appearance of the name in
books, see Ward's _Marlowe's Doctor Faustus_, p. 117.]
And the modern world has unsolved riddles innumerable of like kind. Why
was 'Canada' so named? And whence is 'Yankee' a title little more than
a century old? having made its first appearance in a book printed at
Boston, U.S., 1765. Is 'Hottentot' an African word, or, more probably,
a Dutch or Low Frisian; and which, if any, of the current explanations
of it should be accepted? [Footnote: See _Transactions of the
Philological Society_, 1866, pp. 6-25.] Shall we allow Humboldt's
derivation of 'cannibal,' and find 'Carib' in it? [Footnote: See Skeat,
s. v.] Whence did the 'Chouans,' the insurgent royalists of Brittany,
obtain their title? When did California obtain its name, and why?
Questions such as these, to which we can give no answer or a very
doubtful one, might be multiplied without end. Littré somewhere in his
great Dictionary expresses the misgiving with which what he calls
'anecdotal etymology' fills him; while yet it is to this that we are
continually tempted here to have recourse.
But consider now one or two words which have _not_ lost the secret of
their origin, and note how easily they might have done this, and having
once lost, how unlikely it is that any searching would have recovered
it. The traveller Burton tells us that the coarse cloth which is the
medium of exchange, in fact the money of Eastern Africa, is called
'merkani.' The word is a native corruption of 'American,' the cloth
being manufactured in America and sold under this name. But suppose a
change should take place in the country from which this cloth was
brought, men little by little forgetting that it ever had been imported
from America, who then would divine the secret of the word? So too, if
the tradition of the derivation of 'paraffin' were once let go and lost,
it would, I imagine, scarcely be recovered. Mere ingenuity would
scarcely divine the fact that a certain oil was so named because 'parum
affinis,' having little affinity which chemistry could detect, with any
other substance.
So, too, it is not very probable that the derivation of 'licorice,'
once lost, would again be recovered. It would exist, at the best, but
as one guess among many. There can be no difficulty about it when we
find it spelt, as we do in Fuller, 'glycyrize or liquoris.'
Those which I cite are but a handful of examples of the way in which
words forget, or under predisposing conditions might forget, the
circumstances of their birth. Now if we could believe in any merely
_arbitrary_ words, standing in connexion with nothing but the mere
lawless caprice of some inventor, the impossibility of tracing their
derivation would be nothing strange. Indeed it would be lost labour to
seek for the parentage of all words, when many probably had none. But
there is no such thing; there is no word which is not, as the Spanish
gentleman loves to call himself, an 'hidalgo,' or son of something.
[Footnote: The Spanish _hijo dalgo_, a gentleman, means a son of wealth,
or an estate; see Stevens' _Dict_. (s. v.)] All are embodiments, more
or less successful, of a sensation, a thought, or a fact; or if of more
fortuitous birth, still they attach themselves somewhere to the already
subsisting world of words and things, [Footnote: J. Grimm, in an
interesting review of a little volume dealing with what the Spaniards
call 'Germanía' with no reference to Germany, the French 'argot,' and
we 'Thieves' Language,' finds in this language the most decisive
evidence of this fact (_Kleine Schrift_. vol. iv. p. 165): Der
nothwendige Zusammenhang aller Sprache mit Ueberlieferung zeigt sich
auch hier; kaum ein Wort dieser Gaunermundart scheint leer erfunden,
und Menschen eines Gelichters, das sich sonst kein Gewissen aus Lügen
macht, beschämen manchen Sprachphilosophen, der von Erdichtung einer
allgemeinen Sprache geträumt hat. Van Helmont indeed, a sort of modern
Paracelsus, is said to have _invented_ the word 'gas'; but it is
difficult to think that there was not a feeling here after 'geest' or
'geist,' whether he was conscious of this or not.] and have their point
of contact with it and departure from it, not always discoverable, as
we see, but yet always existing. [Footnote: Some will remember here the
old dispute--Greek I was tempted to call it, but in one shape or
another it emerges everywhere--whether words were imposed on things
[Greek: thesei] or [Greek: physei], by arbitrary arrangement or by
nature. We may boldly say with Bacon, Vestigia certe rationis verba
sunt, and decide in favour of nature. If only they knew their own
history, they could always explain, and in most cases justify, their
existence. See some excellent remarks on this subject by Renan, _De
l'Origine du Langage_, pp. 146-149; and an admirable article on 'Slang'
in the _Times_, Oct. 18, 1864.] And thus, when a word entirely refuses
to tell us anything about itself, it must be regarded as a riddle which
no one has succeeded in solving, a lock of which no man has found the
key--but still a riddle which has a solution, a lock for which there is
a key, though now, it may be, irrecoverably lost. And this difficulty--
it is oftentimes an impossibility--of tracing the genealogy even of
words of a very recent formation, is, as I observed, a strong argument
for the birth of the most notable of these out of the heart and from
the lips of the people. Had they first appeared in books, something in
the context would most probably explain them. Had they issued from the
schools of the learned, these would not have failed to leave a
recognizable stamp and mark upon them.
There is, indeed, another way in which obscurity may rest on a new word,
or a word employed in a new sense. It may tell the story of its birth,
of the word or words which compose it, may so bear these on its front,
that there can be no question here, while yet its purpose and intention
may be hopelessly hidden from our eyes. The secret once lost, is not
again to be recovered. Thus no one has called, or could call, in
question the derivation of 'apocryphal' that it means 'hidden away.'
When, however, we begin to inquire why certain books which the Church
either set below the canonical Scriptures, or rejected altogether, were
called 'apocryphal' then a long and doubtful discussion commences. Was
it because their origin was _hidden_ to the early Fathers of the Church,
and thus reasonable suspicions of their authenticity entertained?
[Footnote: Augustine (_De Civ. Dei_, xv. 23): Apocrypha nuncupantur eo
quod eorum occulta origo non claruit Patribus. Cf. _Con. Faust_, xi.
2.] Or was it because they were mysteriously kept out of sight and
_hidden_ by the heretical sects which boasted themselves in their
exclusive possession? Or was it that they were books not laid up in the
Church chest, but _hidden away_ in obscure corners? Or were they books
_worthier to be hidden_ than to be brought forward and read to the
faithful? [Footnote: For still another reason for the epithet
'apocryphal' see Skeat's _Etym. Dict_.]--for all these explanations
have been offered, and none with such superiority of proof on its side
as to have deprived others of all right to be heard. In the same way
there is no question that 'tragedy' is the song of the goat; but why
this, whether because a goat was the prize for the best performers of
that song in which the germs of Greek tragedy lay, or because the first
actors were dressed like satyrs in goatskins, is a question which will
now remain unsettled to the end. [Footnote: See Bentley, _Works_, vol.
i. p. 337.] You know what 'leonine' verses are; or, if you do not, it
is very easy to explain. They are Latin hexameters into which an
internal rhyme has forced its way. The following, for example, are all
'leonine':
Qui pingit _florem_ non pingit floris _odorem_:
Si quis det _mannos_, ne quaere in dentibus _annos_.
Una avis in _dextra_ melior quam quattuor _extra_.