The proverb, Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones, dates back to the Union of England and Scotland, at which time London was inundated with Scotchmen. This did not please the Duke of Buckingham, who organised a movement against them, and parties formed, who went about nightly to break their windows. In retaliation, a party of Scotchmen smashed the windows of the Duke’s mansion, which stood in St Martin’s Fields, and had so many windows that it went by the name of the Glass House. The Duke appealed to the king, who replied: ‘Steenie, Steenie, those wha live in glass houses should be carefu’ how they fling stanes.’
First catch your hare is the result of a mistake. It was supposed to be in a cookery-book written by a certain Mrs Glasse, and was evidently caught hold of by some wag, who read it for, ‘First scatch or scradge your hare;’ that is, skin and trim it—an East Anglian word; or else, ‘First scotch your hare before you jug it;’ that is, cut it into small pieces, as the sentence as it is now quoted is nowhere in the book. But the wag was a clever one who gave it the precautionary turn, as the phrase has done good service in warning many to secure their prize before they arrange how to dispose of it.
When people talk of having nothing but ‘common-sense,’ they very often mean that they have good sense only; while the real meaning of the word lies in having the sense common to all five senses, or the point where the five senses meet, supposed to be the seat of the soul, where it judges what is presented to the senses, and decides the mode of action. Another common expression is, I was scared out of my seven senses. The origin of this goes very far back. According to ancient teaching, the soul of man or his ‘inward holy body’ was compounded of the seven properties which were under the influence of the seven planets. Fire, animated; earth gave the sense of feeling; water, speech; air, taste; mist gave sight; flowers, hearing; and the south wind, smelling. Hence the seven senses were—animation, feeling, speech, taste, sight, hearing, smelling.
It is interesting to notice how by the progress of time words become convertible; thus baron has for long years been held as a title of honour, while that of slave applies to the lowest of menials. Now the real meaning of baron is dolt, and is derived from the Latin word baro, a thorough fool. It was a term applied to a serving-soldier in the first instance; gradually it rose in estimation, and military chiefs were styled barons; finally, lords appropriated the title, which is now one of high distinction. On the other hand, the word slave is derived from a Slavonic word slav, meaning illustrious, noble. But when the Slavs were conquered by the Romans, they were reduced by them to become ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water.’ Idiot is another word that originally had a much more respectable meaning than the one it now bears. It was used to distinguish private people from those who held office, or courted publicity in any form. Thus Jeremy Taylor says: ‘Humility is a duty in great ones as well as in idiots’ (or private persons). The term became corrupted at last into a synonym for incompetency, owing to the inability of idiots or private persons to take office.
A cub is an ill-mannered lout that needs licking into shape. The simile was taken from the cub of a bear, that is said to have no shape until it has been licked into form by its dam. The only difference lies in the process of licking being so much pleasanter for the animal than for the human cub, who finds nothing maternal about the cane that beats him into shape.
Before lead-pencils were common, chalk served the purpose of marking. Thus I beat him by long chalks refers to the ancient custom of scoring merit-marks in chalk. Walk your chalks, or get out of the way, is the corruption of an expression: ‘Walk; you’re chalked.’ When lodgings were wanted in any town for the retinue of any royal personage, they were arbitrarily seized by the marshal and sergeant chamberlain; and the inhabitants were turned out and told to go, as their houses had been selected and were chalked. Hence the appropriateness of the peremptory dismissal: ‘Walk; you’re chalked.’
A ‘bull’ or blunder is a native of Ireland, and is derived from one Obadiah Bull, an Irish lawyer of London, in the reign of Henry VII., whose blunders were proverbial. ‘The pope’s bulls take their name from the capsule of the seal appended to the document. Subsequently, the seal was called the bolla, and then the document itself was given the name.’
And now we come to a very pet word; what ladies would do without it, is hard to say, it is such a safety-valve to the feelings in moments of irritation. We have heard some gentlemen declare it was the ladies’ way of swearing; but then there is nothing profane in the word Bother! It is a wholesome blessed word, however it is used, as it allows of women being irritable without being very sinful! One looks out for its etymology with interest, and finds it is of Hibernian origin, capable of a soothing inflection, as when bother becomes botheration, which is a magnified form of bother, and suggests an ebullition of feeling that might be serious but for the relieving expletive. ‘Grose,’ we are told, ‘suggests both-ears as the derivation of the word, and defends his guess by the remark, that when two persons are talking at the same time, one on one side and one on the other, the person talked to is perplexed and annoyed.’ We quite believe him, and feel inclined from experience to adopt his view of the derivation.
We all know what blarney is—that soft sweet speech in which the sons and daughters of Erin excel; those sugared words that are so pleasant to the ear, though false to the heart. Such speech is well named blarney, and carries us back to the hero that made it a household word. He was one ‘Cormuck Macarthy, who held the castle of Blarney in 1602, and concluded an armistice with Carew, the Lord President, on condition of surrendering the fort to the English garrison. Day after day his lordship looked for the fulfilment of the terms, but received nothing except protocols and soft speeches, till he became the laughing-stock of Elizabeth’s ministers and the dupe of the lord of Blarney.’ The Blarney Stone is a triangular stone lowered from the castle about twenty feet from the top, containing on it the inscription: ‘Cormuck Macarthy fortis me fieri fecit, A.D. 1446.’ Whoever kisses this stone is supposed to be endowed with irresistible powers of persuasion.
We began this paper by likening ourselves to the ass among the bundles of hay, not knowing where to begin; so we have nibbled a little everywhere, and have had sufficient for to-day’s meal, although we are greedy enough to regret many tit-bits left untasted from sheer incapacity to consume any more at one sitting.