396 English Etymology-Locust-Giant, &c. son seeins rather to have launched this small balloon experimentally, before he commits himself to an ascent in the large one. He has given us a desultory display of his powers,-demonstrating his capacity for the proposed labour, by his knowledge of languages, by his acuteness of research, by his chastised soundness of judgment, and by his various and comprehensive intelligence. If we may form an opinion from the sample, we will predict that the forthcoming work will leave us nothing to regret that Horne Tooke never completed his undertaking and will be in itself an extraordinary performance, at once honourable to its author, delightful to the public, and eminently useful to the Etymologist, Antiquarian, and Scholar. [VOL. 4 piad, or pibeth; the Gothic bua, hy, huad ; Saxon hwa, hwe, hwat; Danish hwo, hwilk, hwad; Belgic wie, wilk. wat. And in our ancient quho, quhich,quilk, quhat, together with the modern who, which, what, seem to be included both the Celtic and Gothic pro- Similar mutations have nunciations. - crept into French, as escume for spuma ; while in English cod, a husk, is pod; and our term peep in all the Northern dialects is keek, from the Gothic ge auga, to eye. The Gothic or Saxon name for a grasshopper is lopust, the leaper, from which the Latins seem to have formed locusta; and our lobster is their sea-locust. This perversion extended to other remote nations; for the Christians of Abyssinia, or more properly Habish, say Ketros for St. Peter. Some races of men discover unaccountable aversion to particular letters, and predilection for others: of which R and L are examples. The former is entirely excluded in favour of the latter by the Chinese, who say Fu lan sy, and vulgarly Plance, for France. The Portuguese say milagre for miracle; the Italians rosignuolo for the Latin luscin iola, a nightingale; and the French orme is the Latin ulmus. The Celtic language, including the Hellenic Greek, and Latin or Eolian dialects, is supposed to have been general throughout Europe, prior to the irruptions of those hordes named Pelasgi, Пry, the neighbouring country, or Pelasgeotæ, perhaps Having mentioned that this specimen is of a desultory nature, it will follow that our review of it will partake of the same character. We might indeed systematize, but the opposite mode will convey a more just idea of the original, and we (consulting as well our own, the Gothic tribe, who were called ease) adopt it. The English language is derived from the Gothic and Celtic, chiefly through the AngloSaxon and French dialects: and the object proposed is to trace the probable origin of British words, to mark their adventitious changes, and indicate their principal analogies.* The Gallic Celts were more remarkable for their variable pronunciation and mutation of letters (great causes of obscurity in etymological inquiries) than even the Welsh and Irish. The Latin barba, the beard, was with them barf, varef, barv, parw, warf': the Gascons were Vascons, Wassones, Bascons, and Biscayans. H, g, and c, when initial letters, were generally confounded among the Celts, by indistinct guttural sounds to produce energy; but k has frequently taken their place in modern days, since they became objectionable for their harshness. The intermutations of p, q, c, b, and k, are very extraordinary. P, reversed, appears to have formed q, which probably was introduced into the alphabet at a later date. Allowing for such singularities, the affinity of European language is observable in the qui, quæ, quod, of the Latin, which takes cui in the dative case; the Irish ci, ce, ciod; the Greek T, Ton, Tov; the Eolian xores, MON, Nov; the Armoric and Welsh, Pi, pa, It is singular that at this very time M. Von Wo!ker, Private Secretary to Prince Esterhazy, at Vienna, is preparing for the press an Etymological Die. tionary, upon a most extensive plan, in which he has been engaged more than twelve years. Von Wolker is said to be an accomplished scholar, and per fectly conversant with all the dialects of Germany, as well as the Anglo-Saxon and Sclavonian tongues, Editor. by the Asiatics the red-haired people; and its affinity to the Arabic, Hebrew, and Phoenician, like that of the Gothic to the Sanscrit and the ancient Persian, has been generally admitted. The first establishment of those invaders was said to have been Argos, the white, or town of fair men, and the name afterwards extended to the whole of Greece. That particular race may still be distinguished in Sweden, Saxony, Hanover, and some smaller districts, such as Darmstadt, whose lofty stature and flaxen hair indicate a different descent from the cross made, swarthy inhabitants of Hesse Cassel, Bavaria, and Suabia; while an evident mixture is observable among the English, Belgians, Danes, and Prussians. On the other hand, the Goths denominated themselves Gaut or Gautr, Got, Jotor Jotun, which they consider as a mere difference in pronunciation, meaning, like riess or russ, powerful men, giants, or warriors. The formation of their name may be traced with some probability from the Gothic A, to have or possess, which produced, aud, aut, Swedish od, Saxon ead, Teutonic od and ot; all of them signifying wealth, power, happiness, riches, beatitude; and hence were apparently derived our words God and good: the Latin bonus signifies good, rich; dives, divus, opulence and divinity. The Greek Пaros, also, was wealth and Pluto, known to the Goths as Audin or Odin, the Persian Ayun, Hebrew Adoni, the Almighty, whom the The chief who Syrians called Mammon. Conducted the Goths into Scandinavia, appears by bis Gothic names Odin, Wodan, and Godan, to have been confounded with the Deity, because his name, like the Perstan Udu, the Gothic Aud, denoted power; as the arabic Akbar is applied to designate E' VOL. 4.] Etymology-Flanders-Wearing the Breeches.' God or a mighty prince in the sense of our word Lord. The Bodh, Voda, or Vogd, of the Indians, Tartars, and Russians, the But, Bud, Wud, of the Persians and idolatrous Arabs, the Qud or Khoda of all the tribes from Turkey throughout Tartary, the Godami of the Malays and Ceylonese, appear to be merely different pronunciations of Wodan, especially as bodh or boodh in Sanscrit and the common dialects of Hindoostan is used for our Wednesday or Odin's day. 397 The Gothic Flalander, Flat-lander, is Flanders; and its inhabitants Flamen, or Flamensk, men of the flat or plain, Flemmings. The Gothic gauw or gow, properly a meadow, although sometimes used, like the Persian gaw, for a vale, was converted into the Latin govia, in the names of many places bordering on streams of water, whence Brisgaw, Turgaw, in Germany; and Glasgow, Linlithgow, in Scotland. From Brik, Brok, bracche (gothic,) the The Goths not merely in name, but from break, breech, division, or fork of the body, speech, manners, country, and their own and brek or bragd, also signifying to stripe the clothing called breeches, are derived; tradition, were the Getæ of ancient authors, better known to us with the article prefixed, or variegate, the probable distinction of these as Sgetæ, Scacæ, or Scythians. Scandinavia, ancient warriors in their dress, we can trace the Skanisk or Scaniza of Jornandes, the the now common phrase "of wearing the Skagan of the Goths, signifying a shelving breeches," to the wear of that party-coloured shore, is applied to the extremity of Jutland garment which was an emblem of superior at the entrance into the Baltic sea; and the rank and authority. modern Scania, the southernmost coast of Sweden, may have been Skagen idun, to which the Latin termination was annexed, There they distinguished themselves after their relative positions, as Normen, Suddermen, Austrgautr, Westrgautr, Danen, and Saxon, which in our language would be northmen, southmen, east-Goths, west-Goths, islanders, and sea-borderers. The Goths used Sun as well as Sud for the south, and called the Swedes, Suens, or Soenski, the Latin Sueones. The Gothic eyna, on, Danish oen, islands, with the article de, our the, would be de on, the islands, and denote the aquatic territory of the Danes, called Dænmark in Saxon; the Gothic mark, marz in Persian, being our marchi, a boundary. Ton, the island, is Jona; and mi on, the middle island, Mona. The inhabitants of Germany were in speech Goths, particularly the Teutons, whose proper name was Thiuden, from the Gothic thiod or tiod, folk, subjects, people; and thus Suithioden, the south nation or Sudermannia, was Sweden. The Thiodans or Tentons seem therefore to have been colonists from the Goths in general; and Thiodsk, now pronounced Teudsh or Teutch throughout Germany, Tudeschi in Italy, and by us Dutch, means strictly belonging to the nation. The Vandals apparently were not known till a later date. Their name originated in the Gothic vanda, from which we have our verbs to wend and to wander, converted by the Teutons into Vandel; a name which designated some hordes of emigrants, compelled by over population to leave their native soil in quest of new possessions. Our court of Hustings is the Gothic hus thing, the aulic forum; and the Yorkshire riding, rett or ried thing, a justiciary meeting. Thing corrupted into hing, and ing by the Saxons, may be traced in the names of many places,* such as Reading, Lansing, for landsthing: and our lath, a district, is merely the Saxon leth contracted from Lathing, a law court with the portion of territory within its jurisdiction. The Gothic Lud-wig, renowned warrior, was Hludivig, or Hluwig in Saxon, and formed the low Latin Chlodovicus or Ludo vicus, which became successively Cloud, Clovis, and Louis, with the French. Britain without any advertence to the word Various etymons have been assigned for bro, so universal among the Celts of our nounced bru or broed; which, like the Syislands and of Gaul, where it is also proriac baro, Gothic byr, signifies a populated bro saos, the land of the Saxons; and the country. The Armoricans now call England Welsh and Irish have the term in common brogue; brûaidh, a compatriot; and broed use, saying bro aeg, a country accent, or dyn, a countryman or Briton; tan, in both Irish and Welsh, is an extended or flat territory; so that broed tan, like Gaul, might have served to distinguish the plain from the mountainous country, until time had rendered the name general to the whole Island. Gothic prydd, beautiful, adorned, was only The Welsh Prydan, for Britain, from the used poetically. bouno, and Celtic pen, signify a mountaiu The Hebrew pinnah, ßv, modern Greek or cliff; and the Latin pinna, in some cases, pinna is more particularly applied to a has the same meaning: while the Portuguese serrated ridge or hill. Albion may thereunless confounded with Albany, which, as it fore have been the albæ pinnæ or white chills: Having, with the powerful aid of etymology, defined the countries and boundaries of the Gothic tribes, our author proceeds to illustrate, by many would seem, denoted exclusively the highremarkable examples, the influence which their gradual progress over the South and West had upon the Celtic language. to a great length, were we to indulge ourselves as much as we wish in transcribing these examples :-we must be lands of Scotland. The Welsh al pen and pinna, high mountains, Alpennines, Alps. Irish al ben correspond with the Latin altæ Breadalbane, from the foregoing etymons, It would swell this notice is therefore the Irish bruaidh al ben, the have been Hispena, a corrupt pronunciation region of lofty hills; and Hispania may thus of Cispinna by the Latin colonists on that side of the Pyrennees. Cale was the ancient name of Oporto; and the surrounding dis* Worthing seems to preserve the original. content with abridging a few of them. 398 "Brutus," a new Tragedy, by John Howard Payne. [VOL.4 trict being formed into a sovereignty was LONDON, in both Welsh and Armoric, is called Porto Cale, corrupted into Portugal. lyn din,the lake or pool city. The word din The Scots and Picts were no doubt ori- or dínas, in this composition, is the Hebrew ginally the same people: but a considerable dun, Goth tan, Irish dun, a town: and linn change in their language and manners was nearly all the Gothic and Celtic dialects, s afterwards effected by fortuitous circumstan- a pool. EDINBURGH is idan (gothic,) a ces and different pursuits. It is well known mountain or precipice, and burgh a city. that, ever since the earliest ages of our his- DUBLIN, the Irish Dubh linne, or black tory, adventurers from the shores of Scan- pool, corresponds exactly with its Welsh dinavia made annual excursions into Ireland name of Du lyn, from dubh, or du, Hebrew and Scotland, to plunder cattle for their deio, Gothic dauk, Teutonic duh, black, and winter subsistence. On such predatory lin, as in the formation of London, a pool. warfare were founded the poems ascribed to Ossian or O'sian; a word which, in Irish and Gothic, is the man of song. Homer also signifies the hymner, poet, or psalmist, and both, apparently were imaginary persons,to whom the genuine poetry of the times was ascribed by traditionary consent. These Gothic We could further enrich our pages freebooters, called Scouts or Scots, from the nature of their visits, gave occasion to the Irish, who still understand Scuite as a wanderer or pillager, to extend the name to adventurers from Spain or whatever other country. Their boats were also known in or skuta, Belgic schuit, Saxon skyte, a scout boat; and the Welsh evidently considered the Scots and Picts as the same race, for with them Peithas (Pictish) signified also a scout Gothic as skiota, Islandic skuta, Swedish skiut We did not guess before that the first syllable of the English, and the last of the Irish capital, were the same! with what we deem very interesting matter from this publication; but it is so much within the reach of all readers, and opens so wide a field for research and speculation-besides being the promise of a larger and more important work-that we have the less regret in taking leave of it, in the confident expectation that our quotations, however There are some further very curious unconnected, will excite a strong desire inquiries concerning Scotland and Ire- in the public to peruse the original. It land, but we must refer to Mr. Thom- will not disappoint expectation. son's Essay for them, and hasten to boat. draw these remarks to a conclusion. THE DRAMA. From the Literary Gazette. semblance which the want of reason gives him to a Brute. The first act closes with a scene between the Princess Tarquinia, and O of the Titus, the son of in the pen of Mr. John H. Payne, was produced at this Theatre. As far as can be gathered from a first representation, it was successful; as scarcely a token of disapprobation was heard during the performance, and some particular scenes were rewarded with "the most rapturous applause." The story of Brutus has been frequently dramatized, and the Author of the present Tragedy has so liberally availed himself of the labours of his predecessors, as to render his work in several parts rather a Cento than an original production. He has, however, considerable merit in adapting the whole for the stage, as well as in the higher character of a Poet, where his own composition appears. that Titus has gained great favour at the court, and has formed an attachment for Tarquinia which is favourably returned. In the second act, the young Princes and Collatinus, are discovered in the tent of Sextus. They converse on their opinions of the fe male character, and being thence led into the famous wager concerning their wives, they post away and find Lucretia surrounded by servants, employed in household duties at Collatia. Sextus is indamed by her beauty. He determines to return privately at the first opportunity. He does so; and in a scene of tempest and lightning, where Brutus is discovered, Sextus enters muffled, having accomplished bis infamy, and laughThe play commences with the assumed ingly makes it known to Brutus, who then idiotism of Lucius Junius, who, on the throws off the mask, bursts forth in his real murder of his father and his elder brother by character, and rushes to Collatia, where he Tarquin, counterfeits the fool, and is re- arrives just after Lucretia's death, which he ceived into the family of the King, to make swears to avenge. The body is borne to the mirth for the young princes. Tullia, the Forum. Brutus addresses the people. They Queen, is left by Tarquin the Proud, (then revolt. The palace is stormed, and its walls absent with his army before Ardea) Regent of Rome. Alarmed by dreams and portents, she sends for Lucius Junius from the camp, that a watchful eye may be kept over him, but when he arrives, she is disarmed of her terrors by his grotesque answers, and orders that he shall be called Brutus, from the re• A native of Boston, New-England. + shattered. Brutus condemns Tullia to be taken to Rhea's Temple, where the body of her murdered father is deposited. She is horror-struck at the idea, and swears, if dragged thither, to starve herself to death. She appears in the temple, mad. She fancies she hears groans from the portal of the Tomb, which she forces open, and there dis VOL. 4.] Nature's Diary for February-Spitzbergen. covering the monumental figure of Servius Tullius, recoils, fancying in her frenzy that it is his Spectre, and dies. In the meantime, Tarquinia reminds Titus of his pledge. Titus is induced to join a party for the liberation of Tarquinia, and attempts to escape with her to the camp, at Ardea. They are detected, intercepted, Titus is condeinned by his father as a traitor, and the play terminates with the death of Titus. Tous it appears that the minor plot is of equal interest and force to the major; and as they are not skilfully interwoven, the blemish is the more tiresome to the spectator. Premising that the scenery was very effective, we proceed to notice the acting. Kean seemed to conceive the part allotted for him very justly; but he proved miserably deficient in his voice, particularly in his oration over the dead body of Lucretia. His best acting was when (in the secoud act) he meets with Tarquin, who recounts his infamous adventure---his passionate exclamations, and the curses he bestows on him, were given in a fine style, and quite electrified the house; the scenes also between Brutus and his son Titus, were given with a good deal of nature,---but according to the historical character of Brutus, he ought to have continued to the last the inflexible patriot that would not suffer the ties of nature to have the least effect on him, whereas, according to the Actor or Author, Brutus possessed the finest feelings of a father, and was overwhelmed with grief in parting from his son before he pronounced judgment against him. There was also too much time taken up in this interview. The destruction of Tarquin's palace is well managed. It is so constructed that the large stones and fragments of the building are literally strewed 399 all over the stage, and it falls with a tremendous crash, while the burning buildings in the distance produce a grand effect, as their flames reflected on the glittering spears and banners of the army of Brutus. Of the literary character of this play we shall probably say more in a future Number. TUMBLING. On Monday, Harlequin Culliver was revived, in order to afford an opportunity for a celebrated French tumbler to exhibit feats "which have delighted and astonished all the courts of Europe"!! The audience at Covent Garden seemed to have some objec tion to be delighted and astonished, and there was a good deal of disapprobation expressed against the conversion of the National Theatre into a Mountebank's Booth. This objection however is not, as a painter would say, in keeping. Too much spectacle, pantomime, and buffoonery, is connived at, to make it at all reasonable to oppose any one member of the general system; and if we are to have such entertainments for grownup people, without waiting for the excuse of Christmas, we may just as well have tumblers as posture-masters. Monsieur Mahier's jumps and gambols finally triumphed, and the applause he very generally received, shewed that "all the courts of Europe" had not been so silly as might have been thought from the terms in the play-bill. This person has been a great favourite among the French minor and provincial theatres, and we observe that the Paris Journals announce that he and Monsieur Chalon do not intend returning "till Christmas, laden with guineas"! Having delighted all the Sovereigns of Europe, it is but a reciprocity that these meritorious men should be delighted with our sovereigns. THE NATURALIST'S DIARY, From the London Time's Telescope, 1819. IN the course of this month God, as the Psalmist expresses it, renews the face of the earth;' and animate and inanimate nature seems to vie with each other in opening the way to spring. The woodlark (atauda arborea), one of our earliest and sweetest songsters, renews his note. pears till about the 10th of February. A glimmering, indeed, continues some weeks after the setting of the Sun : then succeed clouds and thick darkness, broken by the light of the Moon, which is as luminous as in England, and, during this long night, shines with unfailing lustre. The cold strengthens with the new year; and the Sun is ushered The few fine days towards the latter in with an unusual severity of frost. By end of this month afford many oppor- the middle of March, the cheerful light tunities of cultivating our knowledge of grows strong; the arctic foxes leave Nature, even in her minutest works. their holes and the sea-fowl resort, in Some particulars of the severity of great multitudes, to their breeding the winter in Russia, Sweden, &c. have The sun sets no more after the already been related in our former volumes: we shall now give a short account of this season in Spitzbergen. The single night of this dreadful country begins about the 30th of October; the Sun then sets, and never ap places. In the height of summer, the Sun has heat enough to melt the tar on decks of ships; but from August its power declines: it sets fast. After the middle 400 Nature's Diary-Spitzbergen-Early Flowers. of September,day is hardly distinguish able, and, by the end of October, takes a long farewel of this country: the days now become frozen, and winter reigns triumphant. [VOL 4 their better proportioned neighbours. Their stature is from four to four feet and a half, and their skins are swarthy. From use, they run up rocks like goats, and up trees like squirrels. They are Earth and soil are denied to the fro- so strong in the arm, that they can draw zen region of Spitzbergen: at least the a bow which a stout Norwegian can only thing which resembles soil is the hardly bend; yet lazy even to torpidigrit worn from the mountains by the ty, when not incited by necessity; and power of the winds, or the attrition of pusillanimous and nervous to a hystericataracts of melted snow: this, indeed, cal degree. These are the natives of is assisted by the putrefied lichens of Finmark and Lapland. The coasts the rocks, and the dung of birds, east of Archangel, as far as the river brought down by the same means. The Oby, are inhabited by the Samoeids; composition of these islands is stone, a race as short as the Laplanders, but formed by the sublime hand of omni- much uglier, and more brutalized; potent Power; not fritted into seg- their food being the carcasses of horses, ments, tranverse or perpendicular, but or any other animals. They use the east, at once, into one immense and sol- reindeer to draw their sledges, but are id mass. A mountain, throughout, is not civilized enough to make it a subbut a single stone, destitute of fissures, stitute for the cow. except in places cracked by the irresistible power of frost, which often causes lapses, attended by a noise like thunder, and scattering over their bases rude and extensive ruins. Hard by these shores, where scarce his freezing stream Rolls the wild Oby, live the last of men ; Deep from the piercing season sunk in caves, And calls the quivered savage to the chase. The vallies, or rather glens of this country, are filled with eternal ice or snow. They are totally inaccessible, and known only by the divided course of the mountains, or where they terminate in the ice-bergs or glaciers. No streams water their dreary bottoms; and even springs are denied. The mariners are indebted for fresh water The flowers of the crocus (crocus solely to the periodical cataracts of vernus) appear this month, before the melted snow in the short season of sum- leaves are grown to their full length. mer, or to the pools in the middle of The vernal and autumnal crocus have the vast fields of ice. such an affinity, that the best botanists Yet even here, Flora deigns to make only make them varieties of the same a short visit, and to scatter a scanty genus. Yet the vernal crocus expands stock over the bases of the hills: her its flowers by March at farthest, often efforts never rise beyond a few humble in very rigorous weather, and cannot herbs, which shoot, flower, and seed, in be retarded but by some violence offerthe short warmth of June and July, ed: while the autumnal crocus, or safand then wither into rest until the suc- fron, alike defies the influence of the ceeding year. Among these, however, spring and summer, and will not blow the salubrious scurvy grass, the resource till most plants begin to fade, and run of distempered frames, is providentially to seed. most abundant. Say, what impels, amid surrounding snow, Where the countries have been long inhabited, in all the arctic coasts of Europe, Asia, and America, the natives, with very few variations and exceptions, seem to be a distinct species both in body and mind, and not to be derived Or to each lingering bloom enjoius delay. from the adjacent nations, or any of He bids each flower his quickening word obey; WHITE |