Concealed the persecuted boy."
3. Parliament.—FRANCISCUS's etymology of Parliament (Vol. ii., p. 85.) is, I think, fit companion for MR. HICKSON's derivations of news and noise. I take FRANCISCUS for a wag: but lest others of your readers may think him serious, and be seduced into a foolish explanation of the word Parliament by his joke, I hope you will allow me to mention that palam mente, literally translated, means before the mind, and that, if FRANCISCUS or any one else tries to get "freedom of thought or deliberation" out of this, or to get Parliament out of it, or even to get sense out of it, he will only follow the fortune which FRANCISCUS says has befallen all his predecessors, and stumble in limine. The presence of r, and the turning of mens into mentum, are minor difficulties. If FRANCISCUS be not a wag, he is perhaps an anti-ballot man, bent on finding an argument against the ballot in the etymology of Parliament: but whatever he be, I trust your readers generally will remain content with the old though humble explanation of parliament, that it is a modern Latinisation of the French word parlement, and that it literally means a talk-shop, and has nothing to do with open or secret voting, though it be doubtless true that Roman judges voted clam vel palam, and that palam and mens are two Latin words.
C.H.
SHAKSPEARE'S USE OF THE WORD "DELIGHTED."
"Delighted" (Vol. ii., p. 113.).—I incline to think that the word delighted in Shakspeare represents the Latin participle delectus (from deligere), "select, choice, exquisite, refined." This sense will suit all the passages cited by MR. HICKSON, and particularly the last. If this be so, the suggested derivations from the adjective light, and from the substantive light, fall to the ground: but MR. HICKSON will have been right in distinguishing Shakspeare's delighted from the participle of the usual verb to delight, delectare=gratify. The roots of the two are distinct: that of the former being leg-ere "to choose;" of the latter, lac-ere "to tice."
B.H. KENNEDY.
Meaning of the Word "Delighted."—I am not the only one of your readers who have read with deep interest the important contributions of MR. HICKSON, and who hope for further remarks on Shakspearian difficulties from the same pen. His papers on the Taming of the Shrew were of special value; and although I do not quite agree with all he has said on the subject, there can be no doubt of the great utility of permitting the discussion of questions of the kind in such able hands.
Perhaps you would kindly allow me to say thus much; for the remembrance of the papers just alluded to renders a necessary protest against that gentleman's observations on the meaning of the word delighted somewhat gentler. I happen to be one of the unfortunates (a circumstance unknown to MR. HICKSON, for the work in which my remarks on the passage are contained is not yet published) who have indulged in what he terms the "cool impertinence" of explaining delighted, in the celebrated passage in Measure for Measure, by "delightful, sweet, pleasant;" and the explanation appears to me to be so obviously correct, that I am surprised beyond measure at the terms he applies to those who have adopted it.
But MR. HICKSON says,—