thus a justification of the sense assigned to rego. Even those who contend for the translation "to rule are in fact with us, as "to rule " in the sense of governing is but a metaphor from keeping in a straight line; and indeed the very word rule, originally a substantive, is from the Latin regula, 66 a rule." There has been unfortunately a disposition to draw regere away from its true meaning, in the feeling that it is derived from rex, regis. Now, if the words be really connected, the verb is the parent. But in fact there is some reason for thinking that rex is a vocable of oriental growth and the representative of the term Rajah. The simple verb perg-ere also tells us by its meaning that it is connected with the preposition por or pro and not with per. In Mr. Riddle's dictionary the explanations of this verb are given under four heads. In no less than three of these occurs the translation, to proceed, a word which far more aptly defines the power of the verb than that which he has placed first, viz., the vague verb to go. A more correct explanation would have been "to go straight forward" or "straight on;" nor can we see any reason for the divisions and subdivisions of meaning which are given in Lünemann and his translator, as the translation we contend for would have been sufficient. We say this however with one limitation: the verb porgo might have been included under one head with pergo, and the active or rather transitive sense, as seen in porge manum, "stretch out or push forward your hand," should then have preceded the use of pergo for pergo me, as an intransitive verb. We cannot conceive how Lünemann (Riddle again copies him) was led to add to his article on pergo the remark that it is also used for perago, which he is pleased to translate, we know not on what authority, "to undertake" (unternehmen). We should have thought that this word perago, by virtue of the very preposition per would have signified" to bring to a conclusion rather than "to begin." Besides, in the one passage which is quoted from Tacitus in support of the new doctrineprospere cessura quae pergerent "-the meaning "to proceed with," "to push on," is all that is needed. 66 The substantive pergula is, as the German writer correctly states, formed from perg-ere, precisely as teg-ula from teg-ere. Now the various meanings in which this word pergula is used are at once explained if we consider it to have signified that which stretches out or projects (from a building, &c.). Mr. Rich, in his excellent work called the "Illustrated Companion," translates it under his second head, by the term "balcony." This we believe to have been its true meaning, and the view is confirmed by what he has written and drawn under his sixth head, where he speaks of the vine being trained first vertically, and then after a certain height horizontally, some feet above the ground, and adds that this mode of training is still called pergola by the Italians. The idea of a balcony is sufficient for all the other passages quoted in the lexicons; neither need we, with Rich and others, suppose it to signify the room of which the balcony or projection is the roof. When signifying a room, it is rather that to which the balcony serves as a floor. In Pliny, Fulvius cum corona interdiu e pergula sua in forum prospexisse dictus, the idea of a balcony is clearly put forward; yet this, the leading sense, is unnoticed by Lünemann and Riddle. In the substantive perfuga we have probably another example of the preposition pro simulating the form of per. In military practice, a man is a deserter who without authority leaves his post or cantonment, even though he does not go over to the enemy. Thus perfuga for profuga would be "one who runs off." 66 The verb perhibere, by the very fact that the lexicographers, Forcellini for example, give as synonyms for it, exhibere, præbere, is proved to have no connection with the little word per. Whether we regard it as deduced from por-hibeo or from pre-hibeo is of no great moment, as the prepositions præ and pro are little more than varieties of the same word. 66 To hold forward," and "to hold before one," are expressions for the same act; by holding a thing forward, we show or exhibit" it; and a word that signifies" to show" readily acquires the closelyrelated meaning 66 to say," as is seen in the root dɛk- or dɛik-, whence in Greek dɛik-vvu, and in Latin dic-o. Whether in the verb percellere and the substantive perpendiculum, per or pro be the real preposition, we will leave for others to consider. That the notion of pro is well suited to explain the two words is tolerably clear. This preposition often means "down," as in projicere, procumbere, provolvi, and pronus, opposed to supinus. Thus perpendiculum might well signify that which hangs down," "a plummet," and the verb percellere," to knock down." Yet as per in perpend- merely denotes accuracy or thoroughness, the notion of minute care may well pass to perpendiculum. But in the case of percellere, it should be recollected that procellere occurs in Plautus and probably in Propertius (iii. 8, 3). In the latter author it has the very meaning which commonly belongs to percellere and perculsus, viz. "knock down 66 or upset." Servius moreover deduces procella from the verb procello, a derivation which seems to be satisfactory. We say seems, because we are not fully contented with any derivation of procella, which leaves out of view the two Greek equivalents αελλα and θυελλα. If the little adverb perperam be regarded as a corruption of properam, it might well signify "hastily," and this word is often used as á euphemism for what is wrong. Forcellini himself translates the Latin adverb by TрonεTws, a word which Messrs. Liddell and Scott again translate by " hastily,' rashly." But once more we stop from a scruple suggested by the form of pravus, for prav- and perp are syllables very like to each other, and the notion of pravus is at once what we want for perperam. 66 In Lastly, the adverb perinde is one which we have no hesitation in claiming as deduced from pro. In the first place, the best MSS. of Cicero, and other good writers, are actually in the habit of giving us proinde where our editors perversely adhere to the other form. the next place, perinde ut is in sense a precise equivalent for pro eo ut, or without the pronoun prout. Thirdly, the two pronominal adverbs which signify motion from a place, hinc (from hic) and inde (from is ea id), are, as might have been expected, never attached to other prepositions than those which govern an ablative. Thus we have deinde or dein, exinde or exin, subinde, proinde or proin, abhinc, and dehinc. The form posthinc would have been a violation of this canon; but the word is supported only by the one passage in Virg. Æn. viii. 546 ; and the reading which even here is now preferred, as by Wagner, is: Post hinc ad navis graditur, sociosque revisit. We have purposely been brief on the present occasion, as our last paper ran to an undue length, and so, to our regret, was the means of excluding other more valuable matter.* CLAUDIUS. ON THE PERVERSION AND CORRUPTION OF WORDS. (Concluded from page 160.) THE notion of what does, and what does not constitute pedantry of diction seems in many minds to be very indistinct. After what has been remarked in our last paper, we trust our readers will not confuse our desire for the accurate usage of words of classic origin with a vain preference for such terms where they are wholly unnecessary. Take an instance from Milton, which goes beyond the limits of mere dignity. He speaks of the heavenly bodies, and "Their swift return, Diurnal, merely to officiate light Par. Lost, b. viii. Or again, from a writer generally pre-eminent for simplicity of diction "Yet, because of the apostles' frequent and seasonable digressions, proleptic and exegetic, divers many handle the analysis after divers manners. To take, then, the discourse as it lies here together abstract from precedent and consequent."-Archbishop Leighton, Sermon preached to the Clergy. There is surely a great difference between this apparently wilful verbiage and the unusual, though correct application, by the writer last quoted, of a word which even scholars have of late used with popular laxity. "He that gives rules of life, without first fixing principles of faith, offers preposterously at building a house without laying a foundation."-Leighton, Lecture on Romans xii. 3-12. The idea of "putting the cart before the horse" is one which we often want to express, and which is fully expressed by the word preposterous, as shown in the above passage. This is evidently a word of which the vulgar, from ignorance, and scholars, from want of thought, have lost the fine and distinctive sense; using it, as they do, to signify ab * Mr. Talbot, among the many original and valuable suggestions in his "English Etymologies," has truly observed that the word perspective in our own language is a corruption of prospective. The reasons given by Mr. Talbot outweigh all that his Reviewer in the Quarterly has advanced in objection. + How much more correct than the following usage of Barrow, who is generally accurate! "How regligent in our services we have been, yea, how preposterously; instead of our dus homage and tribute, we have repaid him affronts and injuries.-Sermon on "Maker of Heaven and Earth." surdity or extravagance of any kind. It would perhaps be difficult to find a better illustration of some of our previous remarks. The use of technical language out of place (and even in place), has given much occasion to ridicule and complaint. "It is common with men," says Bacon, that if they have gotten a pretty expression by a word of art, that expression goeth current "though it be empty of matter." Or, as he quotes elsewhere, when speaking of a person's language, "hic ab arte suâ non recessit." To the same effect another great writer says that the fates of empires, &c. " sink into questions of grammar, when grammarians discuss them." "How often," observes Locke," may we meet with religion and morality treated of in the terms of the laboratory, and thought to be improved by the methods and notions of chemistry." Indeed both thought and language are coloured by our own particular pursuit. Thus, Donne : "In the Bible some can find out alchemy." How differently do the very same words speak to a man's mind according to his trade or profession! Every language is liable to this accidental indistinctness: "Quis numerabit pulverem Jacobi," which to the divine is, "Who shall count the dust of Jacob?" would signify to the physician "Who will apportion the James's powder ?" The "divide et impera," which says to the general or politician "Divide your enemies, and then command them, for then it will be in your power," would to the travelling musician (if our readers will for the nonce allow him Latin, and us rhyme) run as follows: "Divide a crown between myself and these, My mates, and then command what tune you please." Of the ridicule cast upon the technicalities of trades and professions, the following instance, out of many, may suffice: "They dressed all their discourse in the language of the faculty; at meals they distributed their wine with a little lymph, dissected a widgeon, coholated their peas porridge, and amalgamated a custard. . . . eating was mastication and deglutition. In dress, a suit of clothes was a system, a loophole a valve, and a surtout an integument; cloth was a texture of fibres spread into a drab or kersey; a small rent in it was cutaneous; a thread was a filament, and the waistband of the breeches the peritoneum.”—Arbuthnot's Essay upon an Apothecary. Though in the present day the number of words of classical origin rendered necessary by new discoveries, and introduced for scientific purposes, has undoubtedly greatly increased, we think that the improvement of public taste has done much towards preventing an ostentatious use of them; that this kind of pedantry prevailed far more formerly than it does at present. But where the sole object is accuracy, which we believe to be the case with many of cur scientific writers now, still the ignorant or uninitiated will always ind amusement in ridiculing what they do not understand, and, in the case of the professions, what they have to pay for. Scientific men, no doubt, often use a long train of words of art to prevent an incongruous mixture of popular and professional terms. An intelligent surgeon might prefer speaking simply of a bruise in the back of the head to calling it a contusion of the occiput; but if for any special purpose it should be necessary for him to pursue the description beyond the reach of popular phraseology, or general acquaintance with the subject, a consistent use of one style of language is better than an absurd medley; indeed where a description or an enumeration professing to be scientific breaks down for want of a regularly-formed word of art, the descent is ludicrous. Thus, to take the first instance that occurs to us, in climbing the mountain : "The argyroxyphium began to disappear as the botanists ascended, but they found the Edwardsia."-Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition. The fluctuations, and, if we may so speak, the mistakes of science in its earlier progress have operated widely in rendering language dull and equivocal. Very often the true etymological meaning of a word and its present usage are diametrically opposite. This appears to be the case with the word "phlegm." We are not sufficiently acquainted with the early history of medicine to be able to explain how a word properly signifying "flame," came to express a state of mind and body cold, heavy, and inanimate. Mark the use of the word in these lines of Dryden : Again. "They only think you animate your theme With too much fire, who are themselves all phlegm." "They judge with fury though they write with phlegm." In Shakespeare we find the word used in precisely the true sense to which Dryden opposes it. "I beseech you hear the truth of it, be not so phlegmatic." Nor is this by any means the only case in which the uncertainty of science seems to have produced an uncertainty of general usage. It is thus, too, with the word melancholy in the same play, which is found in two different senses in the very same scene. "I am glad he is so quiet, if he had been thoroughly moved, you should have heard him so loud and so melancholy.” Again. "But indeed she is given too much to allicholy and musing." By a strange inadvertancy, Mrs. Quickly has both the wrongly and the rightly spelt word put into her mouth. When, in the "Midsummer Night's Dream," Shakespeare says, "The moon, the governess of floods, Pale in her anger, washes all the air, he no doubt uses it in its correct and original sense, the same in which, to the best of our recollection, he uses rheum." 66 In Milton's time the word seems to have acquired its present signification. "Dropsies and asthmas and joint-racking rheums." |
