"They sometimes, I see, use the word captivate thus: 'Five or six ships captivated,' 'Five or six ships captivated.'"
Originally, the words to captivate were synonymous with to capture, and the expression was used with reference to warlike operations. To captivate the affections was a secondary use of the phrase. The word is used in the original sense in many old English books. It is not used so now in the United States.
Uneda.
Philadelphia.
Bohn's Edition of Matthew of Westminster.—Under the year A.D. 782, the translator informs us that "Hirenes and his son Constantine became emperors." Such an emperor is not to be found
in the annals of Constantinople. If Mr. Yonge, who shows elsewhere that he has read Gibbon, had referred to him on this occasion, he would probably have found that the Empress Irene, a name dear to the reverencers of images, was the person meant. The original Latin probably gives no clue to the sex; but still this empress, who is considered as a saint by her church, notwithstanding the deposition and blinding of her own son, was not a personage to be so easily forgotten.
J. S. Warden.
French Season Rhymes and Weather Rhymes.—
"A la Saint-Antoine (17th January)
Les jours croissent le repas d'un moine."