The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1

by Thomas De Quincey

'Such as we greet modern friends withal;'

i.e., such as we bestow, at welcoming or at parting, upon the slightest acquaintances. The whole stress of the logic lies upon the epithet modern—for simply as friends, had they been substantial friends, they might have levied any amount from the royal lady's bounty; kingdoms would have been slight gifts in her eyes, and that would soon have been objected to by her conqueror. But her argument is, that the people to whom such gifts would be commensurate are mere modish friends, persons known to us on terms of bare civility, people with whom we exchange salutations in the street, or occasional calls, what now we call acquaintances, for whom in Shakespeare's time there was no distinguishing expression.

Another case we remember at this moment in 'All's Well that Ends Well.' It occurs in Act II., at the very opening of scene iii.; the particular edition, the only one we can command at the moment, is an obscure one published by Scott, Webster and Geary, Charterhouse Square, 1840, and we mention it thus circumstantially because the passage is falsely punctuated; and we have little doubt that in all other editions, whether with or without the false punctuation, the syntax is generally misapprehended. In reality, the false punctuation has itself grown out of the false apprehension of the syntax, and not vice versâ. Thus the words stand literatim et punctuatim: 'They say, miracles are past: and we have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar things, supernatural and causeless.' The comma ought to have been placed after 'familiar,' the sense being this—and we have amongst us sceptical and irreligious people to represent as trivial and of daily occurrence things which in reality are supernatural and causeless (that is, not lying amongst the succession of physical causes and effects, but sent as miracles by the immediate agency of God). According to the true sense, things supernatural and causeless must be understood as the subject, of which modern and familiar is the predicate.

Mr. Grindon fancies that frog is derived from the syllable τραχ of βατραχος. This will cause some people to smile, and recall Menage's pleasantry about Alfana, the man of Orlando; It is true that frog at first sight seems to have no letter in common except the snarling letter (litera canina). But this is not so; the a and the o, the s and the k, are perhaps essentially the same. And even in the case where, positively and literally, not a single letter is identical, it is odd, but undeniable, that the two words may be nearly allied as mother and child. One instance is notorious, but it is worth citing for a purpose of instructive inference. 'Journal,' as a French word, or, if you please, as an English word—whence came that? Unquestionably and demonstrably from the Latin word dies, in which, however, visibly there is not one letter the same as any one of the seven that are in journal. Yet mark the rapidity of the transition. Dies (a day) has for its derivative adjective daily the word diurnus. Now, the old Roman pronunciation of diu was exactly the same as gio, both being pronounced as our English jorn. Here, in a moment, we see the whole—giorno, a day, was not derived directly from dies, but secondarily through diurnus. Then followed giornal, for a diary, or register of a day, and from that to French, as also, of course, the English journal. But the moral is, that when to the eye no letter is the same, may it not be so to the ear? Already the di of dies anticipates and enfolds the giorno.

Mr. Grindon justly remarks upon the tendency, in many instances, of the German ss to reappear in English forms as t. Thus heiss (hot), fuss (foot), etc. These are Mr. Grindon's own examples, and a striking confirmation occurs in the old English hight, used for he was called, and again for the participle called, and again, in the 'Met. Romanus,' for I was called: 'Lorde, he saide, I highth Segramour.' Now, the German is heissen (to be called). And this is a tendency hidden in many long ages: as, for instance, in Greek, every person must remember the transition of ττ and σσ as in θαττω, θασσω.

On Pronunciation and Spelling.—If we are to surrender the old vernacular sound of the e in certain situations to a ridiculous criticism of the eye, and in defiance of the protests rising up clamorously from every quarter of old English scholarship, let us at least know to what we surrender. What letter is to usurp the vacant seat? What letter? retorts the purist—why, an e, to be sure. An e? And do you call that an e? Do you pronounce 'ten' as if it were written 'tun', or 'men' as if written 'mun'? The 'Der' in Derby, supposing it tolerable at all to alter its present legitimate sound, ought, then, to be pronounced as the 'Der' in the Irish name Derry, not as 'Dur'; and the 'Ber' in Berkeley not as 'Bur,' but as the 'Ber' in Beryl. But the whole conceit has its origin in pure ignorance of English archæology, and in the windiest of all vanities, viz., the attempt to harmonize the spelling and the pronunciation of languages.

Naturally, it fills one with contempt for these 'Derby' purists to find that their own object, the very purpose they are blindly and unconsciously aiming at, has been so little studied or steadily contemplated by them in anything approaching to its whole extent. Why, upon the principle which they silently and virtually set up, though carrying it out so contradictorily (driving out an a on the plea that it is not an e, only to end by substituting, and without being aware, the still remoter letter u), the consequence must be that the whole language would go to wreck. Nine names out of every ten would need tinkering. 'London,' for instance, no more receives the normal sound of the o in either of its syllables than does the e in 'Derby.' The normal sound of the o is that heard in 'song,' 'romp,' 'homage,' 'drop.' Nevertheless, the sound given to the o in 'London,' 'Cromwell,' etc., which strictly is the short sound of u in 'lubber,' 'butter,' etc., is a secondary sound of o in particular combinations, though not emphatically its proper sound. The very same defence applies to the e in 'Berkeley,' etc. It is the legitimate sound of the English e in that particular combination, viz., when preceding an r, though not its normal sound. But think of the wild havoc that would be made of other more complex anomalies, if these purists looked an inch in advance. Glocester or Gloucester, Worcester, Cirencester, Pontefract, etc. What elaborate and monstrous pronunciations would they affix to these names? The whole land would cease to recognise itself. And that the purists should never have contemplated these veritable results, this it is which seals and rivets one's contempt for them.

Now, if such harmony were at all desirable (whereas, on the contrary, we should thus be carrying ruin into the traditions and obliteration into the ethnological links of languages, industriously, in fact, throwing up insuperable obstacles in the path of historical researches), it would be far better, instead of adjusting the pronunciation to the imaginary value of the spelling, inversely to adjust the spelling to the known and established pronunciation, as a certain class of lunatics amongst ourselves, viz., the phonetic gang, have for some time been doing systematically.

Here, therefore, I hope is one fixed point. Here there is anchorage. The usage is the rule, at any rate; and the law of analogy takes effect only where that cannot be decisively ascertained.

The Latin Word 'Felix.'—The Romans appear to me to have had no term for happy, which argues that they had not the idea. Felix is tainted with the idea of success, and is thus palpably referred to life as a competition, which for Romans every distinguished life was. In fact, apart from his city the Roman was nothing. Too poor to have a villa or any mode of retirement, it is clear that the very idea of Roman life supposes for the vast majority a necessity of thick crowded intercourse, without the possibility of solitude. I, for my peculiar constitution of mind, to whom solitude has in all periods of life been more of a necessity almost than air, view with special horror the life of a Roman or Athenian. All the morning he had to attend a factious hustings or a court—assemblies deliberative or judicial. Here only he was somebody, and yet, however, somebody through others. Combining with one leader and many underlings like himself, he also became a power; but in himself and for himself, after all, he was consciously nothing. When Cicero speaks of his nunquam minus Solus quam cum solus, he is announcing what he feels to be, and knows will be, accepted as a very extraordinary fact. For even in rure it is evident that friends made it a duty of friendship to seek out and relieve their rusticating friends.