have translated by volutari; and, again, this verb wallow is identical with the German walg-en, "to roll," for it is a well-known law between the two languages that where we have a suffix ow, the Germans present a g, witness our follow, borrow, sorrow, morrow, gallows, corresponding to the German folg-en, borg-en, sorge, morgen, galgen. The Latin also exhibits a g as a substitute for the v in several derivatives from volv-. This was to be expected; first, because the Italians have volgere, "to turn;" and, secondly, because the letter v or u of the Latin has a general tendency to interchange with gutturals. Examples are conniveo, foveo, niv-is, compared with connixi, focus, nix and ninguit. Now the neuter substantive volg-us has a suffix which appears to attach itself to verbs alone. Thus Greek scholars commonly admit that the appearance of a neuter noun in os is a guarantee for the existence of a verb (obsolete or not) whence such substantive is formed. By referring volg-us to the verb volv-ere we get a highly satisfactory explanation of its meaning. The process of stirring a liquid &c., so as thoroughly to mix the ingredients is an act of circular motion, and the idea of promiscuous is precisely what the substantive volgus expresses. Thus, in Terence, quod volgus servorum solet, "what the general mass of slaves taken promiscuously are wont to do." again volgare is "to make promiscuous," a sense which will meet all its uses, and especially that which Forcellini defines by prostituere, permiscere (observe this word), and supports by a quotation from Livy, IV. 2," Quam enim aliam vim connubia promiscua habere, nisi ut ferarum prope ritu vulgentur concubitus plebis patrumque ?" and a little below he gives from the same writer: "Sunt qui Laurentiam vulgato corpore lupam inter pastores vocatam putent." In the same sense Ovid and Suetonius have vulgares puellæ; Terence, victum volgo quærere, and the legal writers vulgo concepti.

So

In the English wallow and the German walgen, an a supersedes the legitimate vowel of the root. To these we may add the German walz-en, 66 to roll," a word now familiarized with us. Whence the z of walzen one does not clearly see, but we know it is not radical, because to the Latin sal corresponds a German salz, and this again is with us salt. Hence too we may safely assume that our welt-er, in its first syllable, corresponds to walz of the German walz-en. This verb welter is so confined to the one usage of weltering in blood, that one does not at first readily assent to the idea of its signifying nothing but to roll. But the Germans use their verb walzen precisely in the same way, walzen sich in seinem Blute.

as

The Latin root also has at times a vowel a, as we have already seen in varo- and vario. We might also have pointed attention to our adverbs in wards, for these of course represent those of the Latin language which end in versus. So also an a is seen in valvae, which, as our lexicons truly tell us, are so called quia in aperiendo volvuntur. This word valvae is probably an adjective, not formed from volv-ere, however tempting it may seem, but rather from a simple form val or vol with the common adjectival suffix uo-. This suffix is seen in assid-uo-, perspic-uocaed-u -uo, pasc-uo-, &c. When for the u av happens to be written, we are apt at times not to recognize it. Thus it is not always perceived that protervo- is no more than proter-uo-, and so an adjective

from the verb proter-ere; and again arva, " ploughed fields," is only a neuter plural of an adjective ar-uo- from ara-re, corresponding precisely to pascua from pasc-ere. Valvolo-, however, "the pod of a bean," that is, its involucrum, seems to come directly from volv-ere. We must also include in our family the adjective valgo-, " distorted." The g in this word again corresponds to ow of our English tongue, for this suffix ow is seen in adjectives as well as verbs and substantives. Examples are yellow, sallow, hollow. The power is probably diminutival as it certainly is in substantives which so end (see No. 3, p. 255). Thus varo- and valgo- will clearly be related words in which the chief idea is that of distortion. It was probably a mere accident that the first came to denote one who is bandy legged with the feet turned inward, and the other knock-kneed with the feet outward. Those who hold the difference to be inherent will find it difficult to explain how the adjective var-ico- in Ovid, and the verb varicare or varicari in Quintilian, are applied to people who stand with their feet wide apart.

The adjective varo-, "crooked," is probably identical with the German quer, 66 cross, oblique," which we also possess with some modification of meaning in our queer. Thus we are brought to the consideration of many Latin words which in the essential syllable have an initial guttural with an r for the next consonant, as cur-vo-, circo-, chor-o-, gyr-o-, in all of which we have a bend, and in most a complete bend or circle. Our own tongue claims kin with the same for the first part of the words, curl, crook, crooked, crumpled, and

cross.

Again, as the initial digamma is apt altogether to disappear, we may expect derivatives commencing with a vowel. Thus er-uca, "a caterpillar," so remarkable for its curling propensity, belongs to this family; and we say this with the more certainty because this word is also written ur-ica, where the digamma is supplanted by its near relative the vowel u. Moreover, not merely is an initial v or w apt to disappear, but it often takes its vowel with it, as has been shown at length in No. 49, p.2. It was there seen that rota and rotundo- are only modifications of vorta and vortundo-, precisely as roll is of our whirl.* And thus again the English substantive ring, as well as the verb wring, is probably derived from the English root whirr. The subject is far from exhausted, but our limited space compels us to stop.

CLAUDIUS.

* Intermediate between the verbs whirl and roll stands hurl, which in Scotland, we are told, is used only in those cases where the thing hurled has a rolling motion, for example, a stone rolled violently along the ground.

as,

A LETTER ON THE BIBLE, TO A SCHOOLMASTER.

BY A LAYMAN.

(Continued from p. 84.)

Now

THE mind then must be cultivated for the sake of the heart; let us inquire how, and why best by the Bible. When we polish shells, stones, or other substances, we merely remove, by some suitable process, their rough outside; the new surface is as much a part of the real thing as the old one was, only it is smoother, and so reflects more light. this may illustrate the process which takes place when the facts relating to man or nature, or the thoughts and feelings of men about both, are recorded in books. They are the real facts, thoughts, or feelings, but they are polished-they reflect more light than before. Hence, when presented in this form to the eye of the mind, they are at once more pleasing and more distinctly intelligible; and the mind is excited to greater desire for knowledge, and finds a corresponding gratification. Out of this desire and gratification, when habitual and duly regulated, springs intellectual culture. Books, as I have said, are the means of carrying it on, and they are effectual means in proportion to the truth that is really in them; but no truth ought to stop short in the mind, but should through the mind penetrate to the heart, and quicken that also. The importance of maintaining this connection between light and life, has been felt in all ages, not barbarous nor refined into mere selfishness; and consequently the history, and philosophy (or hidden principles and meaning) of the growth of the institutions and relationships by which the heart is trained, as also the histories of men living in these, and the records of their thoughts and feelings (under which head I, of course, include poetry) have ever been the most interesting, as they are the most ennobling studies of the mind.

Such histories and records we call the literature of a country. Observe the expression, for it is a remarkable one. When we speak of the literature of England, we are not merely using a compendious phrase for "all the books written in the English language; we imply that there is a real though hidden relation of each of these books to all the rest, and that all are the productions of the one national mind of England. As we say of the writings of Dr. Johnson, from his school-exercises before he was fifteen, up to his Lives of the Poets' written sixty years afterwards, that they are the works of one man, and the fruits of one mind in all stages of its growth from boyhood to mature age—just so we recognise the fact of a personality in the nation, and a unity in the national mind, whether we trace the gradual and vigorous development of this mind in the writings of our Chaucers, Shakspeares, Hookers, and Miltons; its symptoms of unhealthy action in our Drydens, Humes, and Paleys; or the promise and earnest of its return to new life in our Johnsons, Burkes, Coleridges, and Wordsworths. This is the meaning of a literature: you will not question it if you meditate upon the facts themselves; for it has never been denied or doubted, except by men who have habituated themselves to see nothing and to believe nothing which is not first adequately expressed in words. But

how did we discover that we have a national mind and literature, and not merely a great collection of books? I believe it is not too much to reply, that we discovered it through our having a Bible,-that one Book wherein for several thousands of years the spirit of man has found light, and nourishment, and an interpreting response to whatever is deepest in him; wherein still, to this day, for the eye that will look well, the mystery of existence reflects itself, if not resolved, yet revealed, and prophetically emblemed; if not to the satisfying of the outward sense, yet to the opening of the inward sense, which is the far grander result.

It pleased God to choose the people of the Jews as an example for all ages, that in them he might show, once for all, how he would have society regulated, and what were the only perfectly wise principles on which to regulate it. The Jews were a race of real flesh and blood men, like the Greeks or Romans; but there was this difference, that while these and all other heathen nations were left to "seek the Lord if haply they might feel after Him and find Him," He did actually and formally reveal himself to the Jews as Him in whom they lived, and moved, and had their being. God himself organized their domestic, political, and ecclesiastical institutions; and by the mouth of inspired lawgivers, kings, and prophets, gave them direct and methodical information as to the meaning and purpose of these institutions, and the right manner of their development to meet the internal progress, and the ever-varying circumstances, of each successive age. The heathen poets and philosophers desired earnestly to find the source and explain the workings of life and light, of righteousness, goodness, and truth; but were fain to satisfy their longings with their own profound speculations or beautiful imaginations: to the Jew alone did the "Word of the Lord" come to reply to all these deep questionings of the human mind, that he might know certainly-in fact and not merely in idea what the answers were, and might in due season be the channel of communicating them to the rest of the world. This Revelation, or unveiling of God's design and will in the moral and spiritual education of man was gradual, and so connected with the successive events of Jewish history as that these should always be the practical illustrations of that revelation; and thus, while the Bible remains really and properly one-the one divine Book, it does in its human character exactly correspond with what we have seen to be meant by the literature' of our own or any other nation. If the Jews were not the less real men because the Lord God manifested himself to them, and even in the fulness of time came to dwell among them; so neither are their books the less real because the writers of them spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost: and on the other hand, just as we realize the high privileges to which God has called us and all mankind, by seeing how He took the Jews into covenant and fellowship with Himself; so do we understand the worth of our own or any other literature in discerning the divine characteristics of the Jewish Scriptures. During the two thousand years that God was speaking to the race of Abraham, "at sundry times and in divers manners," by the prophets, the apostles, and His Son, there must have been a national mind in that race which was capable of being addressed, or the Scriptures extending over so long a period could never have been fit vehicles of a divine Revelation, conti

6

nuous, and ever growing fuller and fuller. Thus, as I said before, our having a Bible enables us to recognise the fact of a real unity in the mind and the literature of our own, and of every other nation. In this, though not in this only, we see fulfilled the promise to Abraham, In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.'

I have endeavoured to show you that the education of an Englishman is carried on by means of institutions; that the operation of these is not effectual unless they are understood, and that therefore books become necessary; that the proper worth of books can only be known by the help of the Bible; and that the Bible is the divinely provided key of that very knowledge for which all other books are valuable. Our Greek and Latin books-nay, even our English ones—have never been able to do more than help us to educate our gentlemen and our men of letters, while it is, and ever has been, by means of the Bible, that we make men. A liberal, as well as able member of parliament, in a speech against the Conservative scheme of education for the manufacturing towns, of which he was one of the chief opponents, argued that the study of the Bible ought always to be made an essential part of a national education, because it was an historical fact that it had always been the book most read at every period in which the spirit of liberty was most stirring in the people, and the chief means by which that spirit had been fostered. And the observation will hold equally true if extended from the times of excitement to those of peace, and from the region of politics to that of every other kind of intellectual activity. The quiet scenes of the " Odyssey" do not soothe and elevate the heart of even the scholar (if he have a heart, and not merely a head for metres and verbal criticism), as do the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and, while the former have little interest for any man who has not had something of a scholar's training, the latter are, and will be, heard with delight by the peasant and the child, in every land or age that is, or shall be, so instantly do they appeal to, and awaken, the deepest sympathies of our common kind. The influence of the great names of Hector or Scipio, of Socrates or Cato, fades into a dream, when you contrast the subjects of its small and shadowy sphere with the countless men and women who have acted-nay, what is more, who have suffered-in the strength which they felt when they thought on Joshua or David, on Moses or Solomon, on Isaiah or Daniel, and familiarized their minds with the national songs, and histories, and sage aphorisms, in which the mighty deeds, and the deep wisdom, or the humble and holy prayers and praises of these are recorded. Milton, who certainly did not overrate the Hebrew from any lack of knowledge of Greek and Latin, (in the preface to his second book on the "Reasons of Church Government,") after speaking of "those magnific odes wherein Pindarus and Callimachus are in most things worthy," adds,—"but those frequent songs throughout the law and the prophets beyond all these, not in their divine argument alone, but in the very critical art of composition, may be easily made to appear, over all the kinds of lyric poetry, to be incomparable." And, in the " Paradise Regained," he maintains the same principle, with a more general application of it, where the Saviour says: