tablishing the title of the book as a truism. Ev-dents. All questions on musical subjects, as to

History, Object Lessons, Travels, Physical Ge- Religious Monthlies for the family. The April

The R. J. Schoolmaster.

VOL. IV.

For the Schoolmaster.

MAY, 1858.

Studies in English Etymology.---No. 2.

-

NO. 3.

it an intrinsic or an associated value. The new, well-cut, and polished jewel will attract any eye, but the familiar, and hitherto unnoIn a former number of THE SCHOOLMASTER, ticed stone, when its real worth is once dis(January, 1858,) we gave some results of ety-covered, will more gladden and better repay mological study, in an examination of a few him who has the skill to discover it, and the lines from Shakspeare's "Julius Cæsar." We wisdom to improve it. An unusual, newly propose to give, in this paper, some imported or invented word cannot fail to be illustrations of the same sort, in an etymolog-striking; but the old, and oft-recurring words ical criticism of two of the opening stanzas of our every day speech may be shown to have of Gray's "Elegy." equal, if not greater, impressiveness.

further

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds." There is an advantage in selecting for study We need to be a passage so familiar as this. reminded that in well-known words there lies concealed an unsuspected wealth of meaning. The common pebble by the way-side which we carelessly pass in our daily walks may enclose, or may itself be, an unwrought gem; it may, during its unrecorded history, have been washed down from a distant mine, side by side with the golden sands of some precìous river; and it may have still clinging to it or united with it, something which shall give

In our former paper we had occasion to notice many of the words of most frequent occurrence in our language,-the articles, the pronouns, and prepositions; the etymology of such as have been already traced to their source we shall not again refer to.

"Curfew" is one of the words which embody facts in national history. Our AngloSaxon ancestors had originally no such term in their vocabulary, even as they had in their social and domestic economy no such custom Saxon lord and Saxon as it designated. churl in the days of their independence piled high the logs in the blazing chimney, and trimmed their lights at as late an evening hour But Norman rule brought as they chose. with it from the continent a wise precaution against fires, and required alike of baron and of vassal that at the ringing of a bell at eight

o'clock in the evening both fires and lights be "knoll," "knowls in the ear of the world," put out. Wise as the precaution was, it was (Beaum. and Fletch.) have the broader meanan innovation upon Saxon habits, and being ing. But as a language so long as it lives is enforced by the Conqueror's power it was re-ever striving after greater precision by distingarded as an oppressive burden. The very guishing differences of ideas by correspondname of "curfew," "couvre feu," "cover ing differences of expression, it was natural fire," was offensive. We all remember the that our later English should use this word out-burst of passion which its unwitting men- to designate the "passing bell," the bell tion called forth from Cedric in "Ivanhoe." which at first announced a death, and afterThe hated law was repealed by a successor of wards was sounded at funerals. It was once William, Henry I.; but the name of the bell the custom for the passing bell" to strike, had already become part of the English after a pause just before stopping, a number tongue; and for hundreds of years in many of strokes corresponding to the age of the perof the villages of England, the "curfew," son deceased. In many places the "curfew" though no longer an unwelcome sound, has sounded, in like manner, the number of the been rung at the close of every day. The day of the month. It might then be most nine o'clock bell which still sounds from the fitly called "the knell of parting day. " steeples of so many of our New England Parting" comes to us through the French towns and villages is one of the customs which "partir" from the Latin "partiri," and that our Puritan ancestors brought with them from from "pars," "a part." It may be well for their father-land. The hour for the "curfew," us to remember that the "day" which dies after it ceased to be required by law, varied at night, is but the matured "dawn, "—both in different places, and with the seasons of the being derived from a Saxon verb meaning “to year. Indeed there is a passage in Shakspeare begin to shine." which implies that industry or revelry turning night into day caused it to be rung as late as the early hours of the morning. Thus lady Capulet says to Juliet's nurse,

"The second cock hath crowed, The curfew bell hath rung, 't is three o'clock." The antiquated diction of one of Bishop Hall's satires gives us the term with its original spelling, most clearly showing its derivation :

66

The instinct which prompts children to imitate natural sounds prompts nations in their childhood to coin words of an imitative character. Hence the Saxon, like most other tongues, has a class of terms at once describing and reproducing the cries of animals. To this class belongs the original of "to low," found in the passage before us in its participial form. A "herd" is something kept or guarded. The primitive form is " heorde," "A new rope to ring the couvre feu bell." from the verb "hyrdan," "to keep." Among The bell which is tolled is lifted. A Saxon a pastoral people, cattle would naturally be verb, "tilian," "to lift up," unquestionably the kind of possession most highly prized and a relative of the Latin 64 tollo," "I raise,' most carefully kept. It is not strange, thereprobably survives in our verb, "toll." Therefore, that they should have applied the name is room, however, for the supposition that this of the guarded possession exclusively to this word is onomatopoetic. "Knell" was not sort of property. When, however, the cattle originally limited to the funeral bell. Its are exchanged for some marketable commodiSaxon root" cnyllan" meant merely to sound ty, and especially for money, the "herd" bea bell. Old English forms of the word, e. g., ' comes a "hoard"; the two derivatives hav

ing this in common that the things they de- Saxon origin, is related to the verb "werian," signate are jealously kept. It is to be noticed" to wear." That which is "weary" is worn,

that in accordance with the usual economy of and that which is "worn" is not only used, language, "herd" pays a double debt; it but according to a secondary meaning of the may designate either the keeper or the charge. word, has been injured by wear. We must "Hurdles," i. e. osier fences, aid the "herd" not fail to observe the two-fold alliteration in in keeping his "herd." “Winds,” a word this line, in “ploughman” and “plods,” “weawisely chosen for its speciality, denotes the ry" and "way." English poetry lawfully indevious motion which our Saxon ancestors herits this ornament from its Anglo-Saxdesignated by the verb "wendan." "Slow-on parent; and in its earliest forms lavishly ly," with its final syllable perpetuating the employs it. When moderately and skilfully Anglo-Saxon adverbial ending "lice," bears used, as in the present instance, it adds a real unmistakable marks of its parentage. In some beauty to the expresssion. of the older writers "lea" will be found spelled "lay." This spelling points distinctly to the derivation of the word. A "lea" is a meadow, a piece of land which lies uncultivated. Thus Beaumont and Fletcher say,

"Let wife and land, Lie lay till I return."

In the last line of this stanza, "world" may be traced to the Anglo-Saxon verb "waerlan," "to go round"; not that the Angles had a true view of the solar system, and knew of the two-fold revolution of the earth, but that they recognised the return of the season, the succession of the years, the

By an obvious metaphor the unfruitful sea is, whirling of the spheres, and borrowed thence

by Spenser called "the watery lea.”

"Ploughman illustrates one of the most frequent forms of composition in our tongue and in that of our ancestors. "Plough," the first of its constituents, is connected with an Anglo-Saxon verb, "pleggan," which describes the act by which the implement it designates is to be used. Tooke says it means

"to lean upon," "to press.” The ruder

a name for the planet with which they were personally connected, and with whose welfare they associated these natural changes. The rhetorical figure is not unlike that used by the apostle James where he speaks of "the course of nature," literally, the "wheel of nature.”

66 Fades," of the second stanza, comes from the French "fade," "impotent," "spiritless;" though both the meaning and the occasional forms of plough in use among barbarous naold spelling of the word "vade" suggest a tions fully justify this etymological associa-relationship with the Latin "vado,” “I go.” tion. Thus the crew of the "Beagle" saw in «Glimmering" is the present participle of a the island of Chiloe men ploughing who diminutive of the verb "gleam," the English thrust the pointed ends of long poles into the ground by leaning against their other and broader ends, and then turned up the soil by pressing down the broad end like the arm of a lever. "Plods," in the same line with “ploughman,” and descriptive of his gait, is a word of kindred origin, for the laborious motion or sluggish action which it designates

is a "leaning upon." "Weary," a word of

form of the Anglo-Saxon "hlioman," " to
lighten." "Landscape" is the land's shape,—
scipe," being
the termination, in the Saxon, “
expressive of form. Two early modes of
spelling it more clearly display its origin, e. g.
"Landskip" and " landschape." Our fre-
quent ending “ ship," as in fellowship, &c.,
has the same source.

"Solemn" is from the Latin "sollennis,"

a word which from its derivation, "sollus," sheep-bells, "distant" from the Latin "di"whole," and "annus, "year," denotes stare," "to stand apart," and "folds" from primarily that which takes place every year, the Saxon fealdan," "to enclose," we have and hence fitly designates a rare and sacred time to notice only the verb, "lull." It is a observance. From indicating the frequency word of childish memories, and tells us of with which such service was paid it came to many a time when we, with weary heads and describe its nature, and was then employed to tired limbs, have "lolling," fallen asleep to describe anything possessed of a similar char- that measured but inarticulate song of mothacter. "Stillness," a term of Saxon origin, ers and nurses, which because thus indistinctretaining a frequent Saxon termination, is re-ly chanted,-"lolled," or "lulled," (from the lated to "stilan," a word like the German Dutch "lollen" or "lullen," "to sing in"stellen," "to place." That which is placed articulately,") we call a lullaby." The is still. The preposition or conjunction "save" soporific, liquid sound of this first syllable is the imperative of the verb of the same form, repeated in manifold combinations, and with from the French "sauver." 66 Except" with recurring cadences, produces an effect which the same meaning is similarly related to the may be well designated by the name of the verb "except." That which is saved is ex-act which causes it. This word with which cepted. This connexion between the prepo- we close our paper, in one of its derivatives, sition "save" and the verb "to save" al- like that with which we began, has a story to lowed Chaucer's somprour to offer the equivo- tell. The first English Protestants, the folcal prayer for his companion, the friar: lowers of John Wiclif, like the early Christians, sung hymns of praise to God. This practice won for them, from those who despised them, the name of "Lollards," the men who sung or "lolled." Their faith and constancy endured the test of persecution and imprisonment. The stone-walls of "the Lollards' tower" heard their nightly song-a Christian "lullaby."

"God save you all, save this cursed frere," Any one who on a summer evening has felt the clumsy insect mentioned in the third line of this stanza, strike against his person, or heard it dash blindly against the windowpane, appreciates the fitness of its name of "beetle." Though of almost airy lightness when compared with the ponderous mallet of the same name, it sustains by its decided blows its claim to be derived from the verb "to beat." Its lazy, humming flight is aptly called "droning." This word primarily denotes motion. It is from "dran," past participle of the Anglo-Saxon drygan," "to drive." The droves are driven by the bees. Secondarily it denotes the humming notes of these lazy out-casts. The epithet used here may have both meanings.

66

Where Does Wood Come From?

Ir we were to take up a handful of soil and examine it under the microscope, we should probably find it to contain a number of fragments of wood, small broken pieces of the branches, or leaves, or other parts of the tree. If we could examine it mechanically, we should find yet more strikingly that it was nearly the same as wood in its composit

Merely noticing by the way "drowsy," ion. Perhaps, then, it may be said, the from the Saxon verb "dreosan," "to droop," young plant obtains its wood from the earth sc. the head, a precursor of slumber, "tink-in which it grows?

lings," an onomatopoetic word, suggestive of The following experiment will show wheth