Dewsbury.
_"Hurrah!"_ (Vol. viii., pp. 20, 277, 323.).--It would almost deem that
we are never to hear the last of "Hurrah! and other war-cries." Your
correspondents T. F. and SIR J. EMERSON TENNENT appear to me to have
made the nearest approach to a satisfactory solution of the difficulty;
a step farther and the goal is won--the object of inquiry is found. I
suppose it will be admitted that the language which supplies the
_meaning_ of a word has the fairest claim to be considered its _parent_
language. What, then, is the meaning of "Hurrah," and in whet language?
As a reply to this Query, allow me to quote a writer in _Blackwood's
Magazine_, April 1843, p. 477.
"'Hurrah!' means _strike_ in the Tartar language."--Note to art.
"Amulet Bek."
So then, according to this respectable authority, the end of our shouts
and war-cries is, that we have "caught a Tartar!"
Again, in _Blackwood_, 1849, vol. i. p.673., we read:
"He opened a window and cried 'Hourra!' At the signal, a hundred
soldiers crowded into the house. Mastering his fury, the Czar
ordered the young officer to be taken to prison."--Art. "Romance of
Russian History."
Thus, in describing the "awful pause" on the night preceding the Russian
attack on Ismail, then in possession of the Turks, Lord Byron says:
"A moment--and all will be life again!
The march! the charge! the shouts of either faith!
Hurra! and Allah! and--one instant more--
The death-cry drowning in the battle's roar."
_Works_, p. 684. col. 2.