"FEAST" AND "FAST."
I am not going to take part in the game of hockey, started by LORD BRAYBROOKE, and carried on with so much spirit by several of your correspondents in No. 28.; but I have a word to say to one of the hockey-players, C.B., who, per fas et nefas, has mixed up "feast and fast" with the game.
C.B. asks, "Is not the derivation of 'feast' and 'fast' originally the same? that which is appointed connected with 'fas,' and that from 'fari?'" I should say no; and let me cite the familiar lines from the beginning of Ovid's Fasti:—
"Ne tamen ignores variorum jura dierum
Non habet officii Lucifer omnis idem.
Ille Nefastus erit per quem tria verba silentur:
Fastus, erit per quem lege licebit agi.
Neu toto perstare die sua jura putâris;
Qui jam Fastus erit, manè Nefastus erat.