(Vol. vii., p. 285.)
W. W. is desirous of interpreting _windfall_, as necessarily from its
origin denoting a gain. He is, perhaps, expecting a handsome bequest; I
wish he may get it; but he may rely on it that the _windfall_ of the
bequest will be accompanied by the _windfall_ of the "Succession Act." Let
us hear what our great Doctor says; his first explanation is, "Fruit blown
down from the tree."
W. W.'s little boys and girls would deem a _windfall_ of unripe apples, at
this time of the year, a good; they will make a pie for dinner. W. W.
himself would call it an evil; the ripe crop is ruined.
But let us see how Johnson illustrates his explanation:
"Their _boughs_ were too great for their stem, they became a _windfall_
upon the sudden."--_Bacon_, Essay 29.
Webster copies this for his first explanation, as he does also our Dr's.
second for his second; but as it is not his plan to illustrate by examples,
he is saved from the _eccentricity_ of his original.
If we refer to Bacon we shall be reminded of Johnson's warning, that by
"hasty detruncation the general tendency of a sentence may be changed." The
sentence here so hastily detruncated, stands thus in the Essay:
"The Spartans were a nice people in point of naturalisation, whereby
while they kept their compasse, they stood firme. But when _they_ did
spread, and _their boughes_ were becommen too great for their stemme,
they became a _windfall_ upon the suddaine. 'Potentia eorum subito
corruit.'"
_They_, in Johnson's mutilated sentence, refers to the _boughs_; in Bacon,
to the Spartans; so that, in {15} the first place, the Spartans are
transformed into boughs, and, in the next place, the boughs into fruit.
Detruncation, however, had nothing to do with this latter metamorphosis;
and I am afraid this is not a solitary instance of lexicographical
incongruity.
W. W. may assure himself that a windfall is "whatever _falls_ by the wind,
or with similar suddenness or unexpectedness, whether bringing good or
ill."
And if he will take the trouble to refer to "The Case of Impeachment of
Waste," quoted by MR. ARROWSMITH, Vol. vii., p. 375., he will find, only a
few lines before that gentleman's quotation begins, a legal question at
issue as to the right of property in _windfalls_.