Cancellæ are lattice-work, by which the chancels being formerly parted from the body of the church, they took their names from thence. Hence, too, the court of chancery and the lord chancellor borrowed their names, that court being enclosed with open work of that kind. And, so, to cancel a writing is to cross it out with the pen, which naturally makes something like the figure of a lattice.
Diligence and Delight.
It is a common observation, that unless a man takes a delight in a thing, he will never pursue it with pleasure or assiduity. Diligentia, diligence, is from diligo, to love.
Pamphlet, Palm, Palmistry.
Pamphlet.—This word is ancient, see Lilye’s Euphnes, p. 5; Lambarde’s Perambulation of Kent, p. 188; Hearne’s Cur. Disc. p. 130; Hall’s Chronicle, in Edward V. f. 2; Richard III. f. 32; Skelton, p. 47; Caxton’s Preface to his Virgil, where it is written paunflethis; Oldys’s British Librarian, p. 128; Nash, p. 3, 64; and also his preface, wherein he has the phrase, “to pamphlet on a person” and pampheleter, p. 30.
The French have not the word pamphlet, and yet it seems to be of French extraction, and no other than palm-feuillet, a leaf to be held in the hand, a book being a thing of a greater weight. So the French call it now feuille volante, retaining one part of the compound.
Palm is the old French word for hand, from whence we have palmistry, the palm of the hand, a palm or span, and to palm a card, and from thence the metaphor of palming any thing upon a person.
Cambridge Wit.
A gentleman of St. John’s College, Cambridge, having a clubbed foot, which occasioned him to wear a shoe upon it of a particular make, and with a high heel, one of the college wits called him Bildad the shuhite.