a

but this we know, that as "bedr" is very good | on false analogies in English, but bedrid and Icelandic for " bed," so bedridi or bedrida | bedridden are not of them. Nor do we think would be quite legitimately formed on the that Dr, Latham is always very happy in his analogy of the words already quoted, the one attempts to explain phrases or idioms by what "bedrid" meaning a "bed- he calls a "catachresis." Take, for example, the other man, rid" woman. That is, a man or woman who the following under "all." "I think that in rests on a bed and is borne by it. some cases, especially in such phrases as lose one's all,' this sense may be a Latinism, catachrestic for naulum passage-money, as in furor est post omnia perdere naulum." One would have thought that to lose " one's all" was sufficiently plain English to require no explanation at all, least of all such a farfetched one as that just given.

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"Apple-pie," under one of its idioms, is a catachresis, but is that any reason why the word should be altogether left out of the Dictionary, though the obsolete "applemos" is inserted? Under APPLE, too, why are we apple" not told that in early English an was used of the fruit of any tree?"Impe on an ellere

In the same way we may form, and not only form, but understand, "bedridden" from the masculine participle bedridinn, in Icelandic, a word formed on the analogy of "rammridinn," and many others. But, as we have already proved, the meaning of this "bedridinn" does not bear our passive sense of "ridden," as when we say a horse is "ridden," using the participle of the intransitive verb, al! action ceases and rest takes its place. In other words, we regard the rider, him who sits or is borne on the horse, and not the horse. We say, therefore, in Icelandic, that a man "ridr," "rides." We also speak of him as ridandi, "riding," and as ridinn, "carried or borne on a horse." And if thine appul be swete, Much wonder meseemeth," In modern English we generally use the transitive sense of the verb to ride as regards says Piers Plowman of an elder-tree, refera horse; but yet we often use the intransi- ring to the popular belief against that tree, tive in an expression sometimes thought vul- which was supposed to be the kind of tree on gar, when we talk of "riding" in a coach; which Judas went and hanged himself. We 66 apthough it is just as good English to use "ride" still talk of the fruit of the potato as as an intransitive as a transitive verb. We ples;" and we speak of "gall-apples" and say "bedridden," and no one smiles, though oak-apples," on the oak; we call fir-cones few can explain it, but if we said coachridden" fir-apples," so that even yet the practice has or horseridden, every one would laugh. We not quite gone out. Other nations, too, call use the participle of the transitive "to ride" the pupil the apple of the eye" as well as when we say a country is priestridden, where we: thus, in Iceland, “ sjónepli," " the sightwe regard the country in the light of a horse apple," for the pupil, and just as we used who has got a rider on his back. Ridden," apple" for any fruit, they used oak, eik, for what is ridden the country; who rides the any tree. country? a priest. Here the action is carried

on.

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The word "apple," of which Dr. Latham When, on the other hand, we say "bed- does not even give the Anglo-Saxon equiva ridden," we use the participle intransitively. lent, æppel, plural, apple, is one of the It is not the bed which rides the man, but most widely spread and interesting words in the man who is borne by the bed. Bedrid" English. It stands with its cognates in the and "bedridden" are therefore two equally Celtic, Sclavonic, German, and Lithuanian good but distinct forms, the one is a termina- tongues well defined against the malum and tion meaning rest on some object, whether pomum of the Greeks and Romans, and it in motion or not, the other is a past parti- means any round, full-hanging fruit in geneciple of an intransitive verb, from which the ral, though it is commonly limited to the It holds its own termination also comes, meaning also rest on fruit of the apple-tree. some animate or inanimate object. This is against the classical tongues, in the same the true history of these forms. Of "bed-way as "ape," Germanaffe," Old Norse, ridden" Dr. Latham tells us that it is "cata-"api," stood up for their own against simius chrestic for bedrid,' which is not a participle." In his temporary preface he tells

us:

"In a genuine catachresis, there must be not only an original error in language, but an error that is adopted, and held to be no error at all. Nor is this all. It must simulate a true form; in other words it must follow an analogy, though a wrong one."

No doubt there are many such forms based

and simia, French singe. "Ape" probably means the "gaping," "wide-mouthed beast," just as simius, from the Greek dipos, means the "snub-nosed beast." Much more comparative philology, and of the most interesting kind, might be spent on these two words, but of one Dr. Latham, who spends so much powder on a flash in the pan on Both, gives no derivation at all; of the other, he merely tells us it comes from the Anglo-Saxon apa.

It being a peculiarity of the Scandinavian tongues to make the definite article a suffix, thus-madr, man, madrinn, the man, ey, island, eyit, the island, eyit, eyt, and then ait, which again is pronounced just as the Icelandic original. We daresay Dr. Latham will deny this Scandinavian origin, and assert that "eyot" is only a little "ey," the of being a diminutive termination, but he will have hard work to make "ait" out of the AngloSaxon ea, or when he has so derived it to give a more plausible account of the "t" than that just given.

Having put forward the claims of APPLEPIE, we should like to ask what "apple-pie order" is? Does it mean in order or in disorder? We rather incline to the latter, and think it means, or meant originally, in a muddle. We think, too, it is a "catachresis," to use a favourite term of Dr. Latham's, and that it has nothing to do with "apple" or 66 pie" in the common sense of the words. We believe it to be a typographical term, and that it was originally Chapel pie." A printing-house was and is to this day called a Chapel-perhaps from the Chapel at Westminster Abbey, in which Caxton's earliest ADVENTURE, another very interesting word, works are said to have been printed, and " pie" is dismissed most dryly by Dr. Latham. is type after it is "distributed" or broken up, He tells us it comes from the French and before it has been re-sorted. "Pie" in aventure, that its first meaning is "accident, this sense came from the confused and per- chance, hazard," and its second "haphazard,” plexing rules of the "Pie," that is, the order or when it is preceded by "at all," the for finding the lessons in Catholic times, which combination at all adventures. Here, again, those who have real or care to read the Pre- we have the first meaning of the word face to the "Book of Common Prayer," will entirely missed. Before "adventure" came find there expressed and denounced. Here to mean "chance," "accident," or "hazard," is the passage:" Moreover the number and it meant the setting out on some search of a hardness of the rules called the Pie, and the doubtful and dangerous result, on a daring manifold changings of the service, was the "quest" of strange and uncertain event; on cause that to turn the book only was so hard a deed of daring, whether in religion, love, and intricate a matter, that many times there or war. Such searches, quests, and deeds, was more business to find out what should be formed the pastime of Arthur, "the blameread than to read it when it was found out." less king," and the great champions of his To leave your type in "pie" is to leave it un- Table Round. An "adventure" in this sense sorted and in confusion, and "apple-pie or- was a plunge from the dull routine of every der," which we take to be " chapel-pic order," day life into the unknown realms of chivalry is to leave anything in a thorough mess. and romance. Around it hung the charm Those who like to take the other side and of novelty and mystery. It might be fol assert that "apple-pie order" means in per- lowed by risk; those who went out on it fect order, may still find their derivation in might be the playthings of blind chance, and "Chapel-pie" for the ordering and sorting it might end in accident or death; but these of the "pie" or type is enforced in every were only the consequences of an "adventure," "chapel" or printing-house by severe fines, not the adventure itself, which belonged altoand so "chapel-pie order" would be such or-gether to a higher and nobler nature than that der of the type as the best friends of the Chapel would wish to see.

Why too when the ALMUG trees that Hiram brought from Ophir for the Temple are mentioned, are the unhappy ALGUM trees in the parallel passage in the Book of Chronicles not given? One has as much right to a place in the Dictionary as the other; perhaps "Algum" rather than "Almug," which we think were decidedly not "almond" trees, amygdala, as Dr. Latham suggests, for no almond-tree is of value for timber.

Why too when inserting Arr as a small island in a river, and referring us to eyot for further information, does he not tell us that the "t" in this little word is one of the remains of Scandinavian forms in English The original of the word is "ey" an island not necessarily a small island, but any island. But ait is something more than "isl and" or an island, it is the island, "ey-it."

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Sir

which makes danger or accident, or death itself, the first consideration of a man. Galahad's search for the "Holy Graal,” the hallowed cup of the sacrament, was an "adventure" in this its first sense. The "Aunters of Arthur," that is, the Adventures of Arthur, published by the Camden Society, are a series of such quests, and Dr. Latham under the letter A, might have given, Aunter for Adventure, as well as Anchor for Anchoret.

But besides these "adventures" of religion and knight-errantry, there were those of love. Lancelot's dealings with Guinivere were adventures, and so were the tender passages between Tristan and Isolde. So far was this spirit of adventure carried by the German poets, that they personified the notion, and called her "Lady Adventure," Frau Aventiure, as Grimm has well shown in bis little essay, "Frau Aventiure klöpft an Beneke's Thür." We too still talk of "adventures"

from this family of words, and not from "ablisian," that we get our "blush," which contains the notion of red, while "blaze" is the very word for "white flame."

in love and in war, and though we use perad- | and "blazottr." The notion of whiteness is venture as equivalent to "perhaps" and so therefore fixed, but "blesta" is also "iron at rather regard the chance and accident, which a white heat," where we have the notion of are the secondary meanings of the word, we whiteness and fire combined. But what is have not yet altogether lost our feeling for fire at a red heat, it may be asked, if "blaze" its original sense. So we talked, too, of is fire at a white heat? We have the word, "adventurers," as when Sir John Davis says though in English we only use it in a secondin the passage quoted by Dr. Latham, that ary sense. It is BLUSH, which Dr. Latham Ireland was conquered by "adventurers and says comes from the Saxon ablisian; its other voluntaries who came to seek their for- meaning, he says, is "to betray shame or contune." Now, we rather use the word as one fusion by a red colour." But why do we who has nothing to lose, and therefore is call this red colour a "blush?" Because ready to run all risks; but adventurous is "blossi" is the Icelandic or Northumbrian for still synonymous with courage and daring, "red flame," and we know that it was also and Macaulay talks of "men of steady and applied to what we should now call a blush. 'adventurous' courage," in the highest sense. When old Egil Skallagrim's son, the famous To treat a word so full of poetry, and with Icelander who stood so stoutly by Athelstane ¡ such a history, in this dull prosaic way, is not at the battle of Brunanburgh, was dying of only to rob a dictionary of one of its greatest extreme old age, and his feet were icy cold, charms, but also to treat the word itself with he said, as he tried to warm his heels the greatest injustice. at the fire, "These widows have need to Under BLUSTEROUS, Dr. Latham, again led blush." But "hæl," the Icelandic for "heel," away by Mr. Wedgwood and the bow-wow is also a poetic word for a "widow," and so, theory, labours to show that in the combina- by a play of words, he meant "these heels tion "bl" we have a number of words formed have need of the fire." From "blossi" we on the onomatopoeic" or "imitative" princi- have "blossa," to flame, to burn red; and ple. We have no desire to ignore the bow-"blys," pronounced "blus," a torch. It is wow theory altogether, but a theory, like a horse or a donkey, may be ridden or driven to death. In other words, we believe that other principles than the "imitative" lie under language. So therefore though one may admit that "blow" and "blast" and "bluster" may be formed on the imitative principle, we should be inclined to deny that "blaze" or "blush" are formed on the same principle as "blow" and "blast." Dr. Latham says that BLAZE is “a rush of flame," as if the first notion in the word was the draught of air which sends up a blaze of flame. But this draught of air or rush of flame appears in none of his quotations. He then brings forward another substantive "blaze," with the sense "mask, blazon," and quotes Cowley's Account of the Plagues of Egypt, in which he says that the sacred ox had "a square 'blaze' on his forehead." This "blaze" on the forehead of Apis ought to have opened Dr. Latham's eyes as to the true meaning of both bis substantives, for as he sometimes rolls two words into one, he has here cut one into two. A "blaze" on the forehead of any animal is a white stripe down the face. Blair Athole, the winner of the Derby this year, had such a "blaze," and the "blaze" of a fire is only white flame, as opposed to red flame. We turn to our Icelandic, and there we find that blesi" is the name for a horse with a "blaze," and blesa" the name for a mare with such a mark. We also find an adjective "blesóttr," for a blazed horse. These words would be pronounced as if spelled "blazi," "blaza,"

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Here we must stop, not certainly because we have no more fault to find, but because we have found enough to prove our point. Johnson's Dictionary was a wonderful work, and so no doubt was Noah's Ark; both answered their end well when they were first made, but neither would suit the wants of our time. In Johnson, the etymology was almost invariably wrong, the quotations insufficient and often ill-chosen, and the explanations absurd; that is to say, "wrong," insufficient," "illchosen," and "absurd" for our age. A hundred years ago, when men knew no better, they passed muster, nay, they were beyond the knowledge of the world. But the world goes on, science spreads, we are wiser than our forefathers, we know more about ourselves and our language. Regions of thought and learning, of which they never dreamt, liè stretched before us; our old guides no longer stand us in good stead; they must be mended, or we shall have to hurl them behind us to the moles and bats. Here too the words of warning ring in our ears, "let the dead bury their dead." Something might have been made of Johnson's Dictionary, if the etymology had been wholly re-written, the quotations multiplied and arranged in order of time, and the definitions rendered more reasonable. Whether the work so handled would have been Johnson's Dictionary or not, is quite another question.

ART. III.-LITURGICAL REFORM IN THE Church, who openly avowed the incompati