"To COMMIT.—This word was first used in Junius's letters in a sense unknown to our former English writers, namely, to expose, to venture, to hazard; this sense is borrowed from the French, and has been generally adopted by subsequent writers."
Can any of your readers produce an instance of the use of this word in the sense here applied to it, prior to the appearance of Junius? Such a parallel would carry more weight with it than the countless examples of verbal singularities with which almost every discoverer of Junius has encumbered his essay.
D. J.
Junius' letters to Wilkes.
—Would MR. HALLAM kindly inform your readers whether the Junius Letters, to which he refers in "N. & Q." Vol. iii., p. 241., were inserted in books or not? And in the former case, whether they were in a separate collection, or mixed with the other correspondence of Mr. Wilkes?
I. J. M.
WHAT IS THE DERIVATION OF "GARSECG?"
This Anglo-Saxon word is used in the poetry of Beowulf and Cædmon, and in the prose of Orosius and Bede, &c. The â in gâr is twice accented in Cædmon; and Mr. Kemble has always accented it in Beowulf. In the Lauderdale MS. of Orosius it is written garsæcg and garsecg; and in the Cotton MS. garsegc and garsecg, without any accent. Grimm, Kemble, and Ettmüller make the first past of the word to be gâr, a spear, javelin, the Goth., gairu; Ohd., kér; O. Sax., gér; O. Nor., geir: and the latter, secg, a soldier, man. Thus gârsecg would be literally "a spear-man," homo jaculo armatus. Mr. Kemble adds, it is "a name for the ocean, which is probably derived from some ancient myth, and is now quite unintelligible." Ettmüller gives it, "Gârsecg, es, m. Carex jaculorum, vel vir hastatus, i.e. oceanus.—Grymn's Mythol., p. xxvii."
Dahlmann, in his Forschungen der Geschichte, p. 414., divides the word thus: Gars-ecg, and says, gar is very expressive, and denotes "what is enclosed," and is allied to the Ger. garten, a garden, like the A.-S. geard, a garden, region, earth. Ecg, Icl. egg; Ger. egge, ecke, a border, an outward part; that is, what borders or encircles the earth, the ocean. What authority is there for dividing the word into gars-ecg, and for the meaning he gives to gar?
Barrington, in his edition of Orosius, p. xxiii., gives "M. H. The Patton MS." among the transcripts. I cannot find any Hatton MS. of Orosius. Can he refer to the transcript of Junius?