appears to be the two Greek letters ε and τ connected, and spelling the Latin word et, meaning and.
Uneda.
Philadelphia.
Misapplication of Terms (Vol. viii., p. 537.).—The apparent lapsus noticed by your correspondent J. W. Thomas, while it reminds one that—
"Learned men,
Now and then," &c.,
is not so indefensible as many instances that are to be met with.
I have been accustomed to teach my boys that legend (à lego, to read) is not strictly to be confined to the ordinary translation of its derivative, since the Latin admits of several readings, and among them, by the usage of Plautus, to hearken; whence our English substantive takes equal license to admit of a relation = a narrative, viz. "a thing to be heard;" and in this sense by custom has referred to many a gossip's tale.
Having thus ventured to defend the use of legend by your correspondent (Vol. v., p. 196.), I submit to the illuminating power of your pages the following novel use of a word I have met with in the course of reading this morning, and shall be gratified if some of your correspondents (better Grecians than myself) can turn their critical bull's-eye on it with equal advantage to its employer.
In the poems of Bishop Corbet, edited by Octavius Gilchrist, F.S.A., 4th edition, 1807, an editorial note at p. 195. informs us that John Bust, living in 1611, "seems to have been a worthy prototype of the Nattus of Antiquity." (Persius, iii. 31.)