We have given enough to show that in discussing Mr. Fisher we are dealing with two different men. The field is now clear for the great political contest of 1860. Mr. Fisher may have allied himself before this with the Republicans, or may look to have his anticipations fulfilled by that third party who are as unconscious of wrong as powerless to rectify it, "the world-forgetting, by the world forgot." We wish him well through his troubles.
A Dictionary of English Etymology. By HENSLEIGH WEDGWOOD, M. A. Late Fellow of Chr. Coll. Cam. Vol. I. (A-D.) London: Trübner and Co., 60 Paternoster Row. 1859. pp. xxiv., 507.
There is nothing more dangerously fascinating than etymologies. To the uninitiated the victim seems to have eaten of "insane roots that take the reason prisoner"; while the illuminate too often looks upon the stems and flowers of language, the highest achievements of thought and poesy, as mere handles by which to pull up the grimy tubers that lie at the base of articulate expression, shapeless knobs of speech, sacred to him as the potato to the Irishman.
The sarcasms of Swift were not without justification; for crazier analogies than that between Andromache and Andrew Mackay have been gravely insisted on by persons who, like the author of "Amilec," believed that the true secret of philosophizing est celui de rêver heureusement. It is only within a few years that etymological investigations have been limited by anything; like scientific precision, or that profound study, patient thought, and severity of method have asserted in this, as in other departments of knowledge, their superiority to point-blank guessing and the bewitching generalization conjured out of a couple or so of assumed facts, which, even if they turn out to be singly true, are no more nearly related than Hecate and green cheese.
We do not object to that milder form of philology of which the works of Dean Trench offer the readiest and most pleasing example, and which confines itself to the mere study of words, to the changes of form and meaning they have undergone and the forgotten moral that lurks in them. But the interest of Dr. Trench and others like him sticks fast in words, it is almost wholly an aesthetic interest, and does not pretend to concern itself with the deeper problems of language, its origin, its comparative anatomy, its bearing upon the prehistoric condition of mankind and the relations of races, and its claim to a place among the natural sciences as an essential element in any attempt to reconstruct the broken and scattered annals of our planet. It would not be just to find fault with Dr. Trench's books for lacking a scientific treatment to which they make no pretension, but they may fairly be charged with smelling a little too much of the shop. There is a faint odor of the sermon-case about every page, and we learn to dread, sometimes to skip, the inevitable homily, as we do the moral at the end of an Æsopic fable. We enter our protest, not against Dr. Trench in particular, for his books have other and higher claims to our regard, but because we find that his example is catching, the more so as verbal morality is much cheaper than linguistic science. If there be anything which the study of words should teach, it is their value.
There are two theories as to the origin of language, which, for shortness, may be defined as the poetic and the matter-of-fact. The former (of which M. Ernest Renan is one of the most eloquent advocates) supposes a primitive race or races endowed with faculties of cognition and expression so perfect and so intimately responsive one to the other, that the name of a thing came into being coincidently with the perception of it. Verbal inflections and other grammatical forms came into use gradually to meet the necessities of social commerce between man and man, and were at some later epoch reduced to logical system by constructive minds. If we understand him rightly, while not excluding the influence of onomatopeia, (or physical imitation,) he would attach a far greater importance to metaphysical causes. He says admirably well, "La liaison du sens et du mot n'est jamais nécessaire, jamais arbitraire; toujours elle est motivée." His theory amounts to this: that the fresh perfection of the senses and the mental faculties made the primitive man a poet.
The other theory seeks the origin of language in certain imitative radicals out of which it has analogically and metaphorically developed itself. This system has at least the merits of clearness and simplicity, and of being to a certain extent capable of demonstration. Its limitation in this last respect will depend upon that mental constitution which divides men naturally into Platonists and Aristotelians. It has never before received so thorough an exposition or been tested by so wide a range of application as in Mr. Wedgwood's volume, nor could it well be more fortunate in its advocate. Mr. Wedgwood is thorough, scrupulous, and fair-minded.
It will be observed that neither theory brings any aid to the attempt of Professor Max Müller and others to demonstrate etymologically the original unity of the human race. Mr. Wedgwood leaves this question aside, as irrelevant to his purpose. M. Renan combats it at considerable length. The logical consequence of admitting either theory would be that the problem was simply indemonstrable.
At first sight, so imaginative a scheme as that of M. Renan is singularly alluring; for, even when qualified by the sentence we have quoted, we may attach such a meaning to the word motivée as to find in words the natural bodies of which the Platonic ideas are the soul and spirit. We find in it a correlative illustration of that notion not uncommon among primitive poets, and revived by the Cabalists, that whoever knew the Word of a thing was master of the thing itself, and an easy way of accounting for the innate fitness and necessity, the fore ordination, which stamps the phrases of real poets. If, on the other hand, we accept Mr. Wedgwood's system, we must consider speech, as the theologians of the Middle Ages assumed of matter, to be only potentiated with life and soul, and shall find the phenomenon of poetry as wonderful, if less mysterious, when we regard the fineness of organization requisite to a perception of the remote analogies of sense and thought, and the power, as of Solomon's seal, which can compel the unwilling genius back into the leaden void which language becomes when used as most men use it.
There is a large class of words which every body admits to be imitative of sounds,—such, for example, as bang, splash, crack,—and Mr. Wedgwood undertakes to show that their number and that of their derivative applications is much larger than is ordinarily supposed. He confines himself almost wholly to European languages, but not always to the particular class of etymologies which it is his main object to trace out. Some of his explanations of words, not based upon any real or assumed radical, but showing their gradual passage toward their present forms and meanings, are among the most valuable parts of the book. As striking proofs of this, we refer our readers to Mr. Wedgwood's treatment of the words abide, abie, allow, danger, and denizen. When he differs from other authorities, it is never inconsiderately or without examination. Now and then we think his derivations are far-fetched, when simpler ones were lying near his hand. He makes the Italian balcone come from the Persian båia khaneh, an upper chamber. An upper chamber over a gate in the Persian caravanserais is still called by that name, according to Rich. (p. 97.) Yet under the word balk we find, "A hayloft is provincially termed the balks, (Halliwell,) because situated among the rafters. Hence also, probably, the Ital. balco, or pulcoy a scaffold; a loftlike erection supported upon beams." As a balcone is not an upper chamber, nor a chamber over a gate, but is precisely "a loftlike erection supported upon beams," it seems more reasonable to suppose it an augmentative formed in the usual way from balco. Mr. Wedgwood's derivation of barbican from bala khaneh seems to us more happy. (Ducange refers the word to an Eastern source.) He would also derive the Fr. ébaucher from balk, though we have a correlative form, sbozzare, in Italian, (old Sp. esbozar, Port, esboyar, Diez,) with precisely the same meaning, and from a root bozzo, which is related to a very different class of words from balk. So bewitched is Mr. Wedgwood with this word balk, that he prefers to derive the Ital. valicam, varcare, from it rather than from the Latin varicare. We should think a deduction from the latter to the English walk altogether as probable. Mr. Wedgwood also inclines to seek the origin of acquaint in the Germ, kund, though we have all the intermediate steps between it and the Mid. Lat. adcognitare. Again, under daunt he says, "Probably not directly from Lat. domare, but from the Teutonic form damp, which is essentially the same word." It may be plain that the Fr. dompter (whence daunt) is not directly from domare, but not so plain, as it seems to us, that it is not directly from the frequentative form domitare.—"Decoy. Properly duck-coy, as pronounced by those who are familiar with the thing itself. 'Decoys, vulgarly duck-coys.'—Sketch of the Fens, in Gardener's Chron. 1849. Du. koye, cavea, septum, locus in quo greges stabulantur.—Kil. Kooi, konw, kevi, a cage; vogel-kooi, a bird-cage, decoy, apparatus for entrapping waterfowl. Prov. E. Coy, a decoy for ducks, a coop for lobsters.—Forby. The name was probably imported with the thing itself from Holland to the fens." (p. 447.) Duck-coy, we cannot help thinking, is an instance of a corruption like bag o' nails from bacchanals, for the sake of giving meaning to a word not understood. Decoys were and are used for other birds as well as ducks, and vogel-kooi in Dutch applies to all birds, (answering to our trap-cage,) the special apparatus for ducks being an eende-kooi. The French coi adverbialized by the prefix de, and meaning quietly, slyly, as a hunter who uses decoys must demean himself, would seem a more likely original.—Andiron Mr. Wedgwood derives from Flem. wend-ijser, turn-irons, because the spit rested upon them. But the original meaning seems to have no reference to the spit. The French landier is plainly a corruption of the Mid. Lat. anderia, by the absorption of the article (l'andier). This gives us an earlier form andier, and the augmentative andieron would be our word.—Baggage. We cannot think Mr. Wedgwood's derivation of this word from bague an improvement on that of Ducange from baga, area.—Coarse Mr. Wedgwood considers identical with course,—that is, of course, ordinary. He finds a confirmation of this in the old spelling. Old spelling is seldom a safe guide, though we wonder that the archaic form boorly did not seem to him a sufficient authority for the common derivation of burly. If coarse be not another form of gross, (Fr. gros, grosse,) then there is no connection between corn and granum, or horse and ross.—"Cullion. It. Coglione, a cullion, a fool, a scoundrel, properly a dupe. See Cully. It. cogionare, to deceive, to make a dupe of…. In the Venet. coglionare becomes cogionare, as vogia for voglia…. Hence E. to cozen, as It. fregio, frieze; cugino, cousin; prigione, prison." (p. 387.) Under cully, to which Mr. Wedgwood refers, he gives another etymology of coglione, and, we think, a wrong one. Coglionare is itself a derivative form from coglione, and the radical meaning is to be sought in cogliere, to gather, to take in, to pluck. Hence a coglione is a sharper, one who takes in, plucks. Cully and gull (one who is taken in) must be referred to the same source. Mr. Wedgwood's derivation of cozen is ingenious, and perhaps accounts for the doubtful Germ, kosen, unless that word itself be the original.—"To chaff, in vulgar language to rally one, to chatter or talk lightly. From a representation of the inarticulate sounds made by different kinds of animals uttering rapidly repeated cries. Du. keffen, to yap, to bark, also to prattle, chatter, tattle. Halma," etc. We think it demonstrable that chaff is only a variety of chafe, from Fr. écauffer, retaining the broader sound of the a from the older form chaufe. So gaby, which Mr. Wedgwood (p. 84) would connect with gäwisch, (Fr. gauche,) is derived immediately from O. Fr. gabé, (a laughing-stock, a butt,) the participial form of gaber, to make fun of, which would lead us to a very different root. (See the Fabliaux, passim.)—Cress. "Perhaps," says Mr. Wedgwood, (p. 398,) "from the crunching sound of eating the crisp, green herb." This is one of the instances in which he is lured from the plain path by the Nixy Onomatopoeia. The analogy between cress and grass flies in one's eyes; and, perhaps, the more probable derivation of the latter is from the root meaning to grow, rather than from that meaning to eat, unless, indeed, the two be originally identical. The A. S. forms coers and goers are almost identical. The Fr. cresson, from It. crescione, which Mr. Wedgwood cites, points in the direction of crescere; and the O. Fr. cressonage, implying a verb cressoner, means the right of grazing.—Under dock Mr. Wedgwood would seem (he does not make himself quite clear) to refer It. doccia to a root analogous with dyke and ditch. He cites Prov. doga, which he translates by bank. Raynouard has only "dogua, douve, creux, cavité," and refers to It. doga. The primary meaning seems rather the hollow than the bank, though this would matter little, as the same transference of meaning may have taken place as in dyke and ditch, But when Mr. Wedgwood gives mill-dam as the first meaning of the word doccia, his wish seems to have stood godfather. Diez establishes the derivation of doccia from ductus; and certainly the sense of a channel to lead (ducere) water in any desired direction is satisfactory. The derivative signification of doccia (a gouge, a tool to make channels with) coincides. Moreover, we have the masculine form doccio, answering exactly to the Sp. ducho in aguaducho, the o for u, as in doge for duce, from the same root ducere. Another instance of Mr. Wedgwood's preferring the bird in the bush is to be found in his refusing to consider dout, to extinguish, (do out,) as analogous to _don, doff, and dup. He would rather connect it with tödten, tuer. He cites as allied words Bohemian dusyti, to choke, to extinguish; Polish dusic, to choke, stifle, quell; and so arrives at the English slang phrase, "dowse the glim." As we find several other German words in thieves' English, we have little doubt that dowse is nothing more than thu' aus, do (thou) out, which would bring us back to our starting-point.