_Etymology of Apricot_ (Vol. ii., p. 420.).--I cannot agree in the opinion
expressed by your correspondent E.C.H., that this word is derived from the
Latin _præcox_, signifying "early-ripening,"--that the words [Greek:
prokokkia] and [Greek: prekokkia] are {76} Græcised Latin,--and that the
Arabs themselves, adopting the word with a slight variation, made it
_al-bercoy_.
The fact of the fruit itself being of Asiatic origin, renders it in the
highest degree improbable that the Orientals would borrow a name for it
from the Latin.
My own opinion is, that the reverse is the case--that the Latin is merely a
corruption of the Arabic; and that the Latins, in adopting the word,
naturally gave it the slight alteration which rendered the Arabic word, to
them unmeaning, appropriately significant of the nature of the fruit.
I find that in various languages the word strolls thus in the Latin of the
middle age, _avercoccius_--in the modern Greek, [Greek: berykokkion]--in
the Italian, _albercocco_, _albicocca_--in the Spanish, _albaricoque_--and
all these various words, undeducible from the Latin _præcox_, are readily
derivable from the Arabic word, the prefix _al_, which is merely the
article, being in some cases dropped, and in others retained.
I may add, as a curious fact, that, in the south of Italy, of which I am a
native, the common people call the apricot _verricocca_, and _the peach_
_precucco_, although the former ripen _earlier_ than the latter.
A.P. DI PIO, Italo-Græcos.
Carlisle.
_"Plurima gemma latet cæcâ tellure sepulta"_ (Vol. ii., p.133.).--In the
course of my reading, some time back, I met with a passage which was given
as quotation from Bishop Hall. I transcribe it, as it appears to me to
approach nearer to the above hexameter than even Gray's lines:
"There is many a rich stone laid up, in the bowels of the earth; many a
fair pearl in the bosom of the sea, that never was seen, nor ever shall
be."
_Time when Herodotus wrote_ (Vol. ii., p. 405.).--The passage in Herodotus
which shows that he was still employed on his history when he was
seventy-five, is in his first book. But A.W.H. thinks, that, as it is a
general introduction, showing why he mentioned all places, small or great,
it must have been written at the beginning. I should infer the contrary;
that he would give an account why he had done so after he had done it, and
not while it rested merely in intention.
But perhaps it may be said, that [Greek: ên] is in the former part of the
sentence, and therefore might have been repeated in the latter part, which
is the converse of it, though it might not be exactly the proper tense.
However, F. Clinton puts down his birth B.C. 484; 452 or 456 as the years
in which he read his history at the Olympic Games; and 408 as a year in
which he was still adding to it.
However, if he wrote the passage when he was thirty, that would justify the
past tense, which perhaps, too, we have a right to construe _have been_,
for that verb has no perfect preterite.