[162] [This stands for ‘peak-goose’ (peek goos in Ascham, Scholemaster, 1570, p. 54, ed. Arber), a goose that peaks or pines, used for a sickly, delicate person, and a simpleton. In Chapman, Cotgrave and others it appears as ‘pea-goose’.]
[163] The mistake is far earlier; long before Cowper wrote the sound suggested first this sense, and then this spelling. Thus Stanihurst, Description of Ireland, p. 28: “They are taken for no better than rakehels, or the devil’s black guard”; and often elsewhere.
[164] [i.e. in Joshua Sylvester’s translation of “Du Bartas, his Diuine Weekes and Workes”, 1621.]
[165] As not, however, turning on a very coarse matter, and illustrating the subject with infinite wit and humour, I might refer the Spanish scholar to the discussion between Don Quixote and his squire on the dismissal of ‘regoldar’, from the language of good society, and the substitution of ‘erutar’ in its room (Don Quixote, 4. 7. 43). In a letter of Cicero to Pætus (Fam. ix. 22) there is a subtle and interesting disquisition on forbidden words, and their philosophy.
[166] Literature of Greece, p. 5.
[167] [Notwithstanding the analogous instance of ‘abbess’ for ‘abbatess’ this account of ‘lass’ must be abandoned. It is the old English lasce (akin to Swedish lösk), meaning (1) one free or disengaged, (2) an unmarried girl (N.E.D.)]
[168] In Cotgrave’s Dictionary I find ‘praiseress’, ‘commendress’, ‘fluteress’, ‘possesseress’, ‘loveress’, but have never met them in use.
[169] On this termination see J. Grimm, Deutsche Gramm., vol. ii. p. 134; vol. iii. p. 339.
[170] [The Knightes Tale, ed. Skeat, l. 2017.]
[171] [Yes; so in N.E.D.]