(Vol. viii., p. 411.)
My attention was directed to the consideration of this expression some
years ago when reading in John Dymmoks' _Treatise of Ireland_, written
about the year 1600, and published among the _Tracts relating to Ireland,
printed for the Irish Archaeological Society_, vol. ii., the following
paragraph:
"Before the vant-guard marched the _forelorn hope_, consisting of forty
shott and twenty shorte weapons, with order that they should not
discharge untill they presented theire pieces to the rebells' breasts
in their trenches, and that sooddenly the short weapons should enter
the trenches pell mell: vpon eyther syde of the vant-guarde (which was
observed in the batle and reare-guarde) marched wings of shott
enterlyned with pikes, to which were sent secondes with as much care
and diligence as occasion required. The baggage, and a parte of the
horse, marched before the battell; the rest of the horse troopes fell
in before the _rearewarde_ except thirty, which, in the head of the
_rearelorne hope_, conducted by Sir Hen. Danvers, made the retreit of
the whole army."--P.32.
The terms _rearelorne hope_ and _forlorne hope_ occur constantly in the
same work, and bear the same signification as in the foregoing.
Remarking upon this circumstance to my friend the late Dr. Graves, he wrote
the following notice of the word in the _Dublin Quarterly Journal of
Medical Science_, of which I was then the editor, in Feb. 1849:
"Military and civil writers of the present day seem quite ignorant of
the true meaning of the words {570} _forlorn hope_. The adjective has
nothing to do with despair, nor the substantive with the 'charmer which
lingers still behind;' there was no such poetical depth in the words as
originally used. Every corps marching in any enemy's country had a
small body of men at the head (_haupt_ or _hope_) of the advanced
guard; and which was termed the _forlorne hope_ (_lorn_ being here but
a termination similar to _ward_ in _forward_), while another small body
at the head of the rere guard was called the _rear-lorn hope_ (xx.). A
reference to Johnson's _Dictionary_ proves that civilians were misled
as early as the time of Dryden by the mere sound of a technical
military phrase; and, in process of time, even military men forgot the
true meaning of the words. It grieves me to sap the foundations of an
error to which we are indebted for Byron's beautiful line:
'The full of hope, misnamed _forlorn_.'"