_Berefellarii_ (Vol. vii., p. 207.).--JOHN WEBB mentions the
_berefellarii_ as a distinct kind of mongrel dependents or
half-ecclesiastics of the Middle Ages, dirty, shabby, ill-washed
attendants, whose ragged clothes were a shame to the better sort of
functionaries. He gave excellent and just reasons for his opinion, and a
very probable construction of the sense of the word. But the etymon he
proposes is rather unsatisfactory. Anglo-Saxonism is a very good thing;
simplicity and common sense are very good things too. May not {421}
_berefellarius_, the dirty raggamuffin with tattered clothes, be good
monkish Latin for _bare-fell_ (i.e. _bare-skin_), or rather
_bare-fellow_? the most natural metamorphosis imaginable. _Bere_ is the
old orthoepy of _bare_; and every one knows that in London (east) a
fell_ow_ naturally becomes a fell_ar_.
P.S.--Excuse my French-English.
PHILARÈTE CHASLES, Mazarinæus.
Paris, Palais de l'Institut.
_"To know ourselves diseased," &c._ (Vol. viii., p. 219.).--
"To know ourselves diseased is half our cure."
This line is from Young's _Night Thoughts_, Night 9th, line 38.