sagacity and erudition of Hemsterhuys, who supposed that the primary verbs consisted of two or three letters, from which all the other forms and inflections were derived.

"This theory, the first intimation of which had been given long before by Scaliger and Is. Vossius, &c.

"One obvious and unanswerable objection to its universality, is the undoubted fact, that much of the Greek language, together with its written characters, was borrowed from some Asiatic nation.

"It was generally received by that tribe of eminent scholars, of whom the most distinguished were Valckenaer, Ruhnken, Lennep; and it was applied to the Hebrew language by the celebrated Albert Schultens.

"He (Lennep, who had prosecuted the notions of Hemsterhuys in certain works) is, however, far outdone by his editor, Everard Scheide, &c.

"The plausibility of this theory has also misled the present learned and excellent Bishop of St. David's, &c.

"A philosophical view of Greek Grammar was taken by the celebrated Godfrey Hermann, in his treatise De emendanda ratione Græcæ Grammaticæ, yc.

hints thrown out by Scaliger and Vossius, and probably influenced by considerations drawn from the peculiar structure of the Oriental tongues, he was led to conclude that the primary verb consisted of two or three letters, from which all the other forms and inflexions were derived, &c.

"It seems to us, we confess, to be radically unsound. Much of the Greek language is of Asiatic origin, &c.

"This etymological theory, which was received as a great discovery by Valknaer, Rhunken, Lennep, Albert Scheide, the Bishop of St. David's, and others, &c.

"In Hermann's celebrated treatise De Emendanda ratione Græcæ Grammaticæ, there is much to gratify the lovers of philosophical discussion, as applied to the subject of Greek Grammar, &c.

THERE are few persons, however incurious, who have not felt the want of information respecting districts through which they have travelled, and of the features of which, from the absence of some association of the mind, they quickly lose all distinct recollection. The peculiarities of a country, to witness which is the usual reason for travel, are best observed and remembered by those who have cultivated some branch of natural science or history,-some liberal art, -or who have learned to employ their pencil. The general survey or vague recollection of beautiful scenery, rich foliage, picturesque ruins, or a foreign tongue, affords no present or future enjoyment equal with that of the traveller whom Botany or Geology, Drawing, Architecture, or the science of language, provide at every step with matter for inquiry, and who returns home with his inquisitive functions in healthy vigour, seeking a fuller knowledge upon the many subjects which an entire novelty has offered to him, and tasting the sound and lasting satisfaction given to the acquisition of

truth without any reference to its utility.

The best way to enable a traveller to profit to any extent by his travel, would probably be to give him a manual or hand-book of those branches of knowledge, instances in which were likely to come within his reach, and so to point out their peculiar features, as not only to satisfy a transient curiosity, but to excite a desire for information upon matters of permanent interest. Such a book should point out what is best to be observed and committed to memory upon the spot, and in what quarter more diffuse information may be obtained, if required, afterwards at home.

It would occupy more space than can be spared to explain even the leading feature of the plan above men tioned; we shall, therefore, as more in accordance with the tenour of this Journal, confine our remarks at present to the subject of Gothic Architecture, and more particularly to the best method of examining ancient ruins with exactness and rapidity.

An antiquary is generally a person

who has some other and more important pursuit, from which he is now and then able for a short time to escape. He is of course anxious to make the most of his time, and should therefore be prepared to observe as many things as possible. Let him remember Miss Aikin's admirable tale of "Eyes and No Eyes."

In his capacity of Dryasdust, he has of course acquainted himself with the general archæology of his own country, and has gained, by an attentive perusal of Rickman, and by turning over the accurate plates of Britton, a competent knowledge of the styles and dates of English Architecture, the heads of which information may easily be written in a fly-leaf of his notebook. He is also a herald, or at least he has read enough of Edmondson to be able to note down any coat of arms that he may observe. He should also be a fair draughtsman, and much time will be saved if he be expert at the use of the camera-lucida. Some smooth thin paper, and a ball of washleather, slightly oiled, with some powdered black-lead, will enable him to take accurate rubbings of the sepulchral brasses, or even to trace some of the architectural mouldings, &c. Our traveller will have ample opportunities of profiting by a knowledge of geology, botany, and ornithology, with which branches of science we shall suppose him to be more or less acquainted; and if he wishes to appreciate the skill and ingenuity of ancient carpenters and architects, he must have made some proficiency in geometry, and know something of the strength of materials. In truth, the more universal his acquirements the better; for there is scarcely any kind of knowledge that does not come into play during a ramble through an English county. He must, however, beware lest the words of the father of poetry concerning a distinguished pantologist of antiquity be applied to him : • Πολλ ̓ ἡπιστάτο ἔργα, κακῶς δ ̓ ἡπι

στάτο πάντα.”

Our

In many parts of England, Scotland, Ireland or Wales, an etymological knowledge of Celtic is useful. antiquary must also be a tolerably active climber, possess a good pair of

eyes, and be not afraid of standing in wet feet.

Before setting out on a tour, the outline of the history of the district should be gained, with as much information as possible respecting the ancient buildings that it contains. This may be sought in the county history, or, in its absence, in the county collections usually to be found in the British Museum, in Camden's Britannia, King's Munimenta, Grose, Lysons, and the Appendix to Rickman. He will take short notes of sieges, of the erection or destruction of buildings, and of such events as are likely to have left physical traces behind them; but it will be better to postpone a research into the general history until his return. He may also, if he can afford it, purchase at the print shops Buck's Views, or any engravings relating to the topography of

the district he is to visit.

These general notes, forming a sort of epitome of the memorabilia of the district, should be entered in a quarto or octavo memorandum-book, to be referred to before or after a day's work. Detailed notes are to be entered on the spot in a portable clasped fieldbook, carrying a pencil in a tight sheath, and upon the ass's skin flyleaf of which are entered various memoranda, such as the dates of different styles from Rickman, sketches of charasteristic mouldings or ornaments, abbreviations, forms of arches, and other symbols; of the form and expediency of which the individual is himself a sufficiently good judge.

The ordnance sheet for any district may be purchased for a very moderate price, and is a very important addition. It informs you of the principal antiquities, and points out the shortest road to them, and upon it lines of trackway, geological observations, or the locality of particular plants, may be marked down. The map should be mounted, with open joints, to a least, if not in smaller divisions, so portable size, and in single sheets at

that no more need be carried than is absolutely required.

With the camera-lucida it will be convenient to have a light iron frame, 13 inches by 9, covered with tin-plate, and provided with an open flap of tin

plate-being, in fact, a drawing-book of metal. Upon this frame the camera may be screwed, and the whole will then rest steadily almost any where.

Much depends upon a proper selection of dress or appointments. A frock coat with outside and inside pockets will hold much, and is not so singular as a shooting coat; into the pockets of the coat should go a small but strong geological hammer, a 30 feet tape, a folding foot-rule, a Schmalkalder compass, a clinometer, one of Dollond's small telescopes, and a sheet of ass's skin folded into four.

The shoes should be strong and worn with stout gaiters, permitting you to stand in a moat, or some such place, up to the middle in nettles, to draw.

Besides these, an india-rubber cape should accompany the baggage, together with an umbrella, under the shade of which you may draw in wet weather.

It is important to adopt a good method of description. First a general plan of the building should be sketched; and to this the subsequent description of details will be conveniently referred. The forms of the arches, mouldings, and other particulars from which a date may be inferred, should next be noted, together with the leading particulars of any tombs of founders or others likely to throw light on the age of the building. Next may be drawn general elevations of the different faces of the building, on which may be noted any observations not referable to the plan. These need be but sketches; a few leading dimensions may be taken with the tape; but for the rest it will be sufficient to trust to the eye. After having made a general survey of the building, corrections in the plan may often be made by ascending some of the towers. The bearings of walls, &c. should be taken with the compass.

When your examination is completed, it will be well to look round into the neighbouring cottages and farm-houses for fragments of carved oak, stained glass, enamelled tiles, &c. The houses near a ruin are frequently constructed from its materials. Old shafts, broken mullions, &c. are generally in such cases to be discovered, GENT, MAG, VOL. X.

with the font, or perhaps a stone coffin or two, in the gardens or farmyards.

In examining a military remain, the features of castellated architecture in different ages should be borne in mind, since it is by those rather than by ornaments that the date of such buildings is to be inferred. The Norman castles, for example, are known at a glance by their keeps, the Edwardian by their concentric defences and their larger windows, and so on. Sometimes the earthworks round the castle are of barbarian date, and therefore older than the building itself. times they are of the same date; and sometimes they have been thrown up to render the building tenable since the introduction of gunpowder.

Some

However mutilated a castle may be, it is generally possible with some attention to discover traces of ornament; the style of the battlement may be be known from an examination of the wall upon which it terminated, the stumps of the door or window mouldings are often to be found overgrown with grass or covered with the top soil; and the tablets and strings, though elsewhere defaced, are usually found perfect in the re-entering angles of the buildings.

In examining ecclesiastical structures, there is the less difficulty, that the relative positions and uses of the different buildings are generally known; but this guide does not exist in castles: still the great hall, the kitchen, the stables and guard-rooms, and the gatehouse, are apartments that must have existed, and may therefore be sought for.

In examining a religious house, we should expect to find at least three styles of buildings; those of the origi nal structure, those introduced at a subsequent period by the monks, and those added by the grantee at the Reformation to make the place suitable for a private residence.

The antiquary will not always be suffered to conduct his researches in peace; nor indeed is it desirable to neglect the information of the Cicerone of the place. If possible, however, let him make his own examination unmolested, and then compare his own deductions with the local traditions.

The Cicerone should be paid properly; from sixpence to a shilling is

3 C

about the mark; and care should be taken in trampling over gardens, entering houses, &c. which you will sometimes find it advisable to do, by the help either of money or civility, or both, to avoid hurting the feelings of the people, and thereby doing wrong yourself and injuring the next visitor also. Do as you would be done by, is not less applicable to ruin-hunting than to matters of higher importance. An intelligent man who is employed upon the antiquities of a county, is generally a welcome guest at the tables of the country gentlemen. In such a case do not ride your hobby against your host; he probably will turn the conversation upon your subjects, but you should not bore him; give what information you can, but modestly; not shewing that you hold his theories or notions on the subject to be erroneous, but stating your own views quietly, by way of query, and with the deference due to his superior local knowledge.

Mr. URBAN, Cork, July 10. THE line in Hamlet, (act iii. sc. 2,)

Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief;"

In

has always sounded strangely, and almost un-English, to my ears. deed, the expression mallecho or malicho, which Mr. Henley, in his commentary on the passage, (Steevens' Shakspeare, 1793, vol. xv. p. 188), erroneously remarks, should be malheco, the proper word being malhecho, is wholly foreign-a Spanish compound, sufficiently indicative of its meaning and origin, and, I believe, not discoverable in any other English author. But the accompanying adjective, miching, was of old and frequent use. Its sense too is of easy intelligence, and has been amply defined by the commentators and lexicographers; while its etymology has been in general overlooked or abandoned; at least I only know of one attempt, which I cannot hesitate to pronounce a failure.

I therefore claim your indulgence in proposing one more likely, I should hope, to meet acceptance.

In Johnson's Dictionary the word appears without an etymon; and in

"

Todd's edition, it is stated to be of great age in our language, but of uncertain derivation. Webster alone offers a conjecture: it is," he says, "perhaps allied to the Swedish maka (to withdraw), or to the Saxon mugan (to creep);" but these roots are evidently too remote and far-fetched, both in sound and sense, to be satisfactory. Many years since, on finding the verb mucher or musser in Montaigne and other early French writers, with precisely the same meaning as that affixed to the English to miche, in our dictionaries and annotators,namely, to hide, to be secret, to lie hid, &c. it struck me as the probable source of our antiquated expression. The philosophic Gascon, whose book was termed by Cardinal Duperron, "le bréviaire des honnêtes gens,' says (livre ii. ch. 10) that, in order to deceive his critics, he occasionally introduced a borrowed, though unacknowledged, fact or thought, from the great writers of antiquity, on whom thus unwittingly fell the censure aimed at himself. "A escient," he observes, in his quaint and expressive idiom, "j'en cache l'auteur: je veulx qu'ils donnent une nazarde à Plutarque, et qu'ils s'échaudent à injurier Sénéque. Il faut musser ma foiblesse sous ces grands crédits.' In the more recent editions of his Essays, the word musser (or mucer) is always accompanied with its modern interpretation cacher-to hide; and similarly, in the "Glossaire du 14e Siècle," prefixed to M. Buchon's late edition of Froissard (1835), mucer, mucier or mussier, is explained by cacher. "Maintenant," says the old chronicler, mussier" (or mucer), &c. And by a contemporaneous poet it is employed with the same construction.

me faut

"Ce néanmoins sa robe elle muçoit

Sous un manteau, qui humble paroissoit."

An extract, however, from, as is supposed, the first book printed by Caxton, probably at Cologne before he settled in Westminster, "Le Recueyl des Histoires de Troyes," given in the Bibliotheca Spenceriana, (see also Dr. Dibdin's Typographical Antiquities, vol. i. p. 2), enables me to place in direct apposition the French and English words; our venerable pa→

triarch of the press having "translated and drawn out the said book into englisshe." In the original (folio 283, verso) a combat is graphically narrated between Hercules and the robber Cacus, whom the hero thus addresses,-"Tu troubles les Italyes par tyrannies mussées," &c. which Caxton renders-"Thou troublest the Italyens by tyrannies hid," &c.; and to hide, as I have observed, is the first definition of the verb to miche in all our dictionaries.

This English version of Raoul Lefévre's history, under the title of "Recuyel of the Historyes of Troye," was the first book printed in our language; it was executed at Colen (Cologne) in 1471, before Caxton, the printer and translator, introduced the great art into England; and its rarity may be inferred from the fact, that, at the Roxburghe sale, a copy was bought by the Duke of Devonshire at the extraordinary price of 1060l. the highest ever paid for a single printed volume, with the exception of the far-famed Boccacio, which produced more than double that sum at the same sale.

In Spenser's View of the State of Ireland, page 251 (ed. 1809) Irenæus, one of the interlocutors of his dialogue, is made to recommend the appointment of a Provost Marshal in every shire of Ireland, in order to arrest the wanderings of the rebellious and papistical Irish, "lest any of them should straggle up and downe the countrey, or miche in corners amongst their friends, as Carrowes, Bardes, Jesters, and such like." Mr. Todd subjoins to this paragraph a note, with various references to Chaucer, the Romance of the Rose, &c. whence, as well as from the authorities adduced in his dictionary, (Gower, Stanyhurst, and others,) it would appear that, to miche also signified to pilfer, steal, &c.; but, in this passage of Spenser, as in my text from Shakspeare, it evidently imports to hide, the equivalent of mucer. Both verbs are now obsolete in their respective languages; though in Ireland, to miche is still used by schoolboys, as in the West of England, in the sense of to play the truant. The French term, even in Montaigne's age, was rather antiquated; but he was fond of re-producing old terms, and sometimes not unhappy in framing

new ones, such as enjoué -- enjouement, incurieux-incuriosité, with a few others which are still preserved. Many more, however, of pungent and forcible expression, "ces braves formes si vifves, et si profondes..ce parler succulent et nerveux," to borrow his own language, (liv. ii. ch. 25,) have long been discarded, as more vigorous than harmonious. No one was more fastidious in this respect than Voltaire, of whom it is said, in the preface of the last edition of the Dictionary of the French Academy, (1835)—“ il émonda parfois le jet vigoureux de la langue, et n'en retint pas toutes les richesses." Yet, he was conscious that it wanted an infusion of strength; for he pithily remarked of his native tongue" que c'était une gueuse fière, à qui il faut faire l'aumâne malgré elle." But this union of pride and poverty has ceased to be a ground of reproach; and I believe that no language in Europe has more willingly, or more abundantly, received foreign contributions, within these last fifty years, than the French. Many, many thousands of words have enriched it in this interval; and some of these are re-vivified from old Montaigne.

This very shrewd and original writer was, in general, most open and ingenuous in the avowal of his obligations; and even when in his arch humour, he would veil, (mucer,) as he modestly says, his own weakness under the high authorities, whom his critics reproved and nibbled at, while they supposed they were attacking himself, he seldom failed to impress with the stamp of his own genius what he thus appropriated to his use. "Les abeilles pillottent de çà, de là les fleurs," (1 adopt his imaginative diction ;) "mais elles en font après le miel, qui est tout leur." It has been remarked that J. J. Rousseau, his great admirer, has scarcely ever quoted an author of antiquity, (unless, perhaps, it be Plutarch in the old version of Amyot,) except through the medium of Montaigne, to whom he does not always profess the debt, and to whom he equally owed many of the most striking thoughts of his Emile and Discours sur l'Inégalité. In the year 1795 I visited what remained of the old chateau de Montaigne; but M. Du Querlon had previously exhausted a