ON THE EXPRESSION "RICHLY DESERVED."
I was a few days ago induced to consider whence the common expression "richly deserved" could be derived. It is used by Addison and his contemporaries, but I have not been able to find it in writers of an earlier period. Possibly the reading of some of your contributors may supply instances of its occurrence which may prove more precisely its origin and history.
The phrase, in its literal sense, is anomalous and unmeaning. We may properly say that a reward or punishment has been "fully deserved" or, by a common mode of exaggeration, we may say that a thing has been "abundantly deserved:" but "richly deserved" seems a false figure of speech, and presents to the mind an obvious incongruity of ideas. Dr. Johnson cites a passage from Addison, in which chastisement is said to have been "richly deserved," and says that it is used ironically to signify "truly" or "abundantly."
Of the meaning of the expression—now by usage become trivial—there can, of course, be no doubt; but how came so inappropriate a thought as wealth to be applied to desert? The inaptitude of the expression suggests the presumption that it is a corruption of some more correct phrase; and I venture to throw out a conjecture, for confirmation or refutation by the more extensive reading of some of your philological contributors, that it is corrupted through the medium of oral pronunciation from "righteously deserved."
In one of the prayers of the Litany, in our Book of Common Prayer, is the expression, "Turn from us all those evils which we most righteously have deserved." "Righteously" is itself a barbarous corruption of an excellent English word, "rightwisely," which is used by Bishop Fisher and other old writers. Our ancient kings were said to be "rightwise" kings of England, and to hold their prerogatives and titles "rightwisely;" and in the Liturgies of Edward VI. the word "rightwisely" is found, instead of "righteously," in the prayer of the Litany above-mentioned. Now "rightwisely deserved" is an expression as strictly logical and correct, as "richly deserved" is the contrary; and as "righteously" is clearly a corruption of "rightwisely," may not "richly," when applied to desert, be corrupted immediately from "righteously," and ultimately from "rightwisely?"
D. JARDINE.
THE CAXTON COFFER.
If I were to print the explanation which follows without also producing evidence that it had escaped the notice of those to whose works all students in early English bibliography have recourse, it would seem like advancing a claim to discovery on very slight grounds. I must therefore quote Ames, Herbert, and Dibdin.
"The history of Lombardy, translated from the Latin [by William Caxton], is mentioned by Pitts."—J. AMES, 1749.
"I take this History of Lombardy to be no other than 'the gestis of the Lombardes and of Machomet wyth other cronycles,' added to the life of St. Pelagyen in the Golden legend, and printed separately for the use of the commonality [sic], who could not purchase so large a folio."—W. HERBERT, 1785; T. F. DIBDIN, 1810.