I hasten to repudiate a title to which I have no claim; a compliment
towards the close of the letter of your correspondent "CH." (Vol. i.,
p. 487.) being evidently intended for a gentleman whose _christian_
name, only, _differs_ from mine. The compliment in his case is
well-deserved; and it will not lower him in your correspondent's
opinion, to know that he is not answerable for the sins laid to my
charge. And now for a word in my own behalf.
Indeed, CH. is rather hard upon me, I must confess. In using the
simple form of assertion as more convenient,--although I intended
thereby merely to express that such was my opinion, and not dreaming
of myself as an authority,--I have undoubtedly erred. In the single
instance in which I used it, instead of saying "it is," I should have
said "I think it is." Throughout the rest of my argument I think the
terms made use of are perfectly allowable as expressions of opinion.
Your correspondent has been good enough to give "the whole" of my
"argument" in recapitulating my "assertions." Singular dogmatism that
in laying down the law should condescend to give reasons for it! On
the other hand, when I turn to the letter of my friendly censor, I
find assertion without argument, which, to my simple apprehension,
is of much nearer kin to dogmatism than is the sin with which I am
charged.
I cannot help thinking that your correspondent, from his dislike "to
be puzzled on so plain a subject," has a misapprehension as to the
uses of etymology. I, too, am no etymologist; I am a simple inquirer,
anxious for information; frequently, without doubt, "most ignorant"
of what I am "most assured;" yet I feel that to treat the subject
scientifically it is not enough to guess at the origin of a word, not
enough even to know it; that it is important to know not only whence
it came, but how it came, what were its relations, by what road it
travelled; and treated thus, etymology is of importance, as a branch
of a larger science, to the history of the progress of the human race.
Descending now to particulars, let your correspondent show me how
"news" was made out of "new." I have shown him how _I think_ it was
made; but I am open to conviction.
I repeat my opinion that "news is a noun singular, and as such must
have been adopted bodily into the language;" and if it were a "noun
of plural form and plural meaning," I still think that the singular
form must have preceded it. The two instances CH. gives, "goods" and
"riches," are more in point than he appears to suppose, although in
support of my argument, and not his. The first is from the Gothic,
and is substantially a word implying "possessions," older than the
oldest European living languages. "Riches" is most unquestionably
in its original acceptation in our language a noun singular, being
identically the French "richesse," in which manner it is spelt in our
early writers. From the form coinciding with that of our plural, it
has acquired also a plural signification. But both words "have been
adopted bodily into the language," and thus strengthen my argument
that the process of manufacture is with us unknown.
Your correspondent is not quite correct in describing me as putting
forward as instances of the early communication between the English
and the German languages the derivation of "news" from "Neues," and
the similarity between two poems. The first I adduced as an instance
of the importance of the inquiry: with regard to the second, I
admitted all that your correspondent now says; but with the remark,
that the mode of treatment and the measure approaching so near to each
other in England and Germany within one half century (and, I may add,
at no other period in either of the two nations is the same mode or
measure to be found), there was reasonable ground for suspicion
of direct or indirect communication. On this subject I asked for
information.
In conclusion, I think I observe something of a sarcastic tone in
reference to my "novelty." I shall advocate nothing that I do not
believe to be true, "whether it be old or new;" but I have found that
our authorities are sometimes careless, sometimes unfaithful, and
are so given to run in a groove, that when I am in quest of truth I
generally discard them altogether, and explore, however laboriously,
by myself.