Falourdin, m. A lusk, lowt, lurden, a lubberly sloven, heavy sot, lumpish hoydon.—Cotgrave, A French and English Dictionary.
Badault, m. A fool, dolt, sot, fop, ass, coxcomb, gaping hoydon.—Id. ib.
A rude hoidon; Grue, badault, falourdin, becjaune; Balordo, babionetto, rustico; Bouaron.—Howell, Lexicon Tetraglotton.
| Humour, | } |
| Humourous, | |
| Humourist. |
The four ‘humours’ in man, according to the old physicians, were blood, choler, phlegm, and melancholy. So long as these were duly tempered, all would be well. But so soon as any of them unduly preponderated, the man became ‘humourous,’ one ‘humour’ or another bearing too great a sway in him. As such, his conduct would not be according to the received rule of other men, but have something peculiar, whimsical, self-willed in it. In this the self-asserting character of the ‘humourous’ man lay the point of contact, the middle term, between the modern use of ‘humour’ and the ancient. It was his ‘humour’ which would lead a man to take an original view and aspect of things, a ‘humourous’ aspect, first in the old sense, which in some of our provincial dialects still lives on, and then in that which we now employ. The classical passage in English literature on ‘humour’ and its history is the Prologue, or ‘Stage,’ as it is called, to Ben Jonson’s Every Man out of his Humour; it is, however, too long to cite; an earlier occurs in Gower’s Confessio Amantis, lib. 7, in init. See ‘Temper.’ ‘Humourous’ has been sometimes used in quite another sense, as simply equivalent to moist; so in the passage from Chapman’s Homer, quoted below.
In which [kingdom of heaven] neither such high-flown enthusiasts, nor any dry churlish reasoners and disputers, shall have either part or portion, till they lay down those gigantic humours, and become (as our Saviour Christ, who is that unerring Truth, has prescribed) like little children.—H. More, Grand Mystery of Godliness, b. viii. c. 15.
Good Humour is not only the best security against enthusiasm, but the best foundation of piety and true religion. For if right thoughts and worthy apprehensions of the Supreme Being are fundamental to all true worship and adoration, ’tis more than probable we shall never miscarry in this respect except through Ill Humour only.—Shaftesbury, Works, 1727, vol. i. p. 22.
Yet such is now the duke’s condition,
That he misconstrues all that you have done;
The duke is humourous.