Hong Kong.
_On the Word "delighted" in "Measure for Measure," &c._ (Vol. viii., p.
241.).--Inasmuch as the controversy respecting this word seems to be over,
and no one of the critics and commentators on Shakspeare's text appears to
have the slightest clue to the real meaning and derivation, I will
enlighten them. But, first, I must say, I am surprised that DR. KENNEDY
should (though he has certainly hit on the right meaning) be unable to give
a better account of the word than that in Vol. ii., pp. 139. 250. And as to
the passage quoted (Vol. ii., p. 200) by MR. SINGER from Sidney's
_Arcadia_, I beg to inform him that the word _delight_, which occurs
therein, is a misprint for _daylight_!
We find, in the Latin, the substantive _deliciae_, delight, pleasure,
enjoyment; and the adjective (derived from the same root, and _guiding us
to the original meaning of the substantive_) _delicatus_, which amongst
other meanings, has that of tender, soft, gentle, delicate, dainty.
As the early English scholars were not very particular about the _form_ of
the words they introduced from the Latin, or indeed of those which were
purely English, for they changed them at their pleasure,--and that this is
the case, I presume no one at all versed in the literature of the time of
Henry VIII. will dispute,--it requires no great exertion of fancy to
believe, that, finding {289} the substantive _deliciae_ Englished _delight_,
they rendered the adjective _delicatus_ delighted. The _fact_ that they
_did_ use the words _delight_ and _delicate_ as synonymous, is proved by a
passage in "a boke named the _Gouernour_ deuised by Syr Thomas Elyot,
Knyght, Londini, 1557;" in which, at folio 203., p. 1., we find Titus, the
son of Vespasian, who was ordinarily termed "the delight of mankind,"
called "the delicate of the world."
We are therefore to conclude that the words _delicate_ and _delighted_ were
used indifferently by writers of the age of Shakspeare, as well as by those
previous to him, to express the same thing; and that by the phrase
"delighted spirit" in _Measure for Measure_, "delighted beauty" in
_Othello_, "delighted gifts" in _Cymbeline_, we are to understand,
exquisitely tender, delicate, or precious.
I cannot agree with DR. KENNEDY that _deliciae_, _delicatus_ come from
_deligere_ rather than _delicere_; since, if my memory does not deceive me,
the former is as often, if not oftener, used by good writers to express to
drive away, to upset, to remove from, or detach--as to select or
choose--which is the only meaning the word has akin to _deliciae_; whereas
_delicere_ is actually used by one of the earlier Latin poets for to
delight.
The word _dainty_, I may inform DR. KENNEDY, is from the obsolete French
_dein_ or _dain_, delicate; which probably came from the still older Teut.
_deinin_, _minuta_ (vid. Schilter).