Curiosities of Literature Volume Iii Part 3

Half the French words used affectedly by Melantha, in Dryden's _Marriage a-la-Mode_, as innovations in our language, are now in common use, _navete_, _foible_, _chagrin_, _grimace_, _embarras_, _double entendre_, _equivoque_, _eclairciss.e.m.e.nt_, _ridicule_, all these words, which she learns by heart to use occasionally, are now in common use. A Dr. Russel called Psalm-singers _Ballad-singers_, having found the Song of Solomon in an old translation, the _Ballad of Ballads_, for which he is reproached by his antagonist for not knowing that the signification of words alters with time; should I call him _knave_, he ought not to be concerned at it, for the Apostle Paul is also called a _knave of Jesus Christ_.[23]

Unquestionably, NEOLOGY opens a wide door to innovation; scarcely has a century pa.s.sed since our language was patched up with Gallic idioms, as in the preceding century it was piebald with Spanish, and with Italian, and even with Dutch. The political intercourse of islanders with their neighbours has ever influenced their language. In Elizabeth's reign Italian phrases[24] and Netherland words were imported; in James and Charles the Spanish framed the style of courtesy; in Charles the Second the nation and the language were equally Frenchified. Yet such are the sources from whence we have often derived some of the wealth of our language!

There are three foul corruptors of a language: caprice, affectation, and ignorance! Such fas.h.i.+onable cant terms as "theatricals," and "musicals,"

invented by the flippant Topham, still survive among his confraternity of frivolity. A lady eminent for the elegance of her taste, and of whom one of the best judges, the celebrated Miss Edgeworth, observed to me, that she spoke the purest and most idiomatic English she had ever heard, threw out an observation which might be extended to a great deal of our present fas.h.i.+onable vocabulary. She is now old enough, she said, to have lived to hear the vulgarisms of her youth adopted in drawing-room circles.[25] To _lunch_, now so familiar from the fairest lips, in her youth was only known in the servants' hall. An expression very rife of late among our young ladies, _a nice man_, whatever it may mean, whether that the man resemble a pudding or something more nice, conveys the offensive notion that they are ready to eat him up! When I was a boy, it was an age of _bon ton_; this _good tone_ mysteriously conveyed a sublime idea of fas.h.i.+on; the term, imported late in the eighteenth century, closed with it. _Twaddle_ for a while succeeded _bore_; but _bore_ has recovered the supremacy. We want another Swift to give a new edition of his "Polite Conversation." A dictionary of barbarisms too might be collected from some wretched neologists, whose pens are now at work! Lord Chesterfield, in his exhortations to conform to Johnson's Dictionary, was desirous, however, that the great lexicographer should add as an appendix, "_A neological dictionary_, containing those polite, though perhaps not strictly grammatical, words and phrases commonly used, and sometimes understood by the _beau-monde_."[26] This last phrase was doubtless a contribution! Such a dictionary had already appeared in the French language, drawn up by two caustic critics, who in the _Dictionnaire neologique a l'usage des beaux Esprits du Siecle_ collected together the numerous unlucky inventions of affectation, with their modern authorities! A collection of the fine words and phrases, culled from some very modern poetry, might show the real amount of the favours bestowed on us.

The attempts of neologists are, however, not necessarily to be condemned; and we may join with the commentators of Aulus Gellius, who have lamented the loss of a chapter of which the t.i.tle only has descended to us. That chapter would have demonstrated what happens to all languages, that some neologisms, which at first are considered forced or inelegant, become sanctioned by use, and in time are quoted as authority in the very language which, in their early stage, they were imagined to have debased.

The true history of men's minds is found in their actions; their wants are indicated by their contrivances; and certain it is that in highly cultivated ages we discover the most refined intellects attempting NEOLOGISMS.[27] It would be a subject of great curiosity to trace the origin of many happy expressions, when, and by whom created. Plato subst.i.tuted the term _Providence_ for _fate_; and a new system of human affairs arose from a single word. Cicero invented several; to this philosopher we owe the term of _moral_ philosophy, which before his time was called the philosophy of _manners_. But on this subject we are perhaps more interested by the modern than by the ancient languages.

Richardson, the painter of the human heart, has coined some expressions to indicate its little secret movements, which are admirable: that great genius merited a higher education and more literary leisure than the life of a printer could afford. Montaigne created some bold expressions, many of which have not survived him; his _incuriosite_, so opposite to curiosity, well describes that state of negligence where we will not learn that of which we are ignorant. With us the word _incurious_ was described by Heylin, 1656, as an unusual word; it has been appropriately adopted by our best writers, although we still want _incuriosity_.

Charron invented _etrangete_ unsuccessfully, but which, says a French critic, would be the true substantive of the word _etrange_; our Locke is the solitary instance produced for "foreignness" for "remoteness or want of relation to something." Malherbe borrowed from the Latin, _insidieux_, _securite_, which have been received; but a bolder word, _devouloir_, by which he proposed to express _cesser de vouloir_, has not. A term, however, expressive and precise. Corneille happily introduced _invaincu_ in a verse in the Cid,

Vous etes _invaincu_, mais non pas _invincible_.

Yet this created word by their great poet has not sanctioned this fine distinction among the French, for we are told that it is almost a solitary instance. Balzac was a great inventor of neologisms. _Urbanite_ and _feliciter_ were struck in his mint. "Si le mot _feliciter_ n'est pas francaise, il le sera l'annee qui vient;" so confidently proud was the neologist, and it prospered as well as _urbanite_, of which he says, "Quand l'usage aura muri parmi nous un mot de si mauvais gout, et corrige _l'amertume de la nouveaute_ qui s'y peut trouver, nous nous y accoutumerons comme aux autres que nous avons emprunte de la meme langue." Balzac was, however, too sanguine in some other words; for his _delecter_, his _seriosite_, &c. still retain their "bitterness of novelty."

Menage invented a term of which an equivalent is wanting in our language; "J'ai fait _prosateur_ a l'imitation de l'italien _prosatore_, pour dire un homme qui ecrit en prose." To distinguish a prose from a verse writer, we _once_ had "a proser." Drayton uses it; but this useful distinction has unluckily degenerated, and the current sense is so daily urgent, that the purer sense is irrecoverable.

When D'Albancourt was translating Lucian, he invented in French the words _indolence_ and _indolent_, to describe a momentary languor, rather than that habitual indolence in which sense they are now accepted; and in translating Tacitus, he created the word _turbulemment_; but it did not prosper any more than that of _temporis.e.m.e.nt_. Segrais invented the word _impardonnable_, which, after having been rejected, was revived, and is equivalent to our expressive _unpardonable_. Moliere ridiculed some neologisms of the _Precieuses_ of his day; but we are too apt to ridicule that which is new, and which we often adopt when it becomes old. Moliere laughed at the term _s'encanailler_, to describe one who a.s.sumed the manners of a blackguard; the expressive word has remained in the language. The meaning is disputed as well as the origin is lost of some novel terms.

This has happened to a word in daily use--_Fudge_! It is a cant term not in Grose, and only traced by Todd not higher than to Goldsmith. It is, however, no invention of his. In a pamphlet, ent.i.tled "Remarks upon the Navy," 1700, the term is declared to have been the name of a certain nautical personage who had lived in the lifetime of the writer. "There was, sir, in our time, one _Captain Fudge_, commander of a merchantman, who upon his return from a voyage, how ill-fraught soever his s.h.i.+p was, always brought home his owners a good cargo of lies; so much that now, aboard s.h.i.+p, the sailors, when they hear a great lie told, cry out, 'You _fudge_ it!'" It is singular that such an obscure byword among sailors should have become one of the most popular in our familiar style; and not less, that recently at the bar, in a court of law, its precise meaning perplexed plaintiff and defendant and their counsel. I think it does not signify mere lies, but bouncing lies, or rhodomontades.

There are two remarkable French words created by the Abbe de Saint Pierre, who pa.s.sed his meritorious life in the contemplation of political morality and universal benevolence--_bienfaisance_ and _gloriole_. He invented _gloriole_ as a contemptuous diminutive of _glorie_; to describe that vanity of some egotists, so proud of the small talents which they may have received from nature or from accident.

_Bienfaisance_ first appeared in this sentence: "L'Esprit de la vraie religion et le princ.i.p.al but de l'evangile c'est _la bienfaisance_, c'est-a-dire la pratique de la charite envers le prochain." This word was so new, that in the moment of its creation this good man explained its necessity and origin. Complaining that "the word 'charity' is abused by all sorts of Christians in the persecution of their enemies, and even heretics affirm that they are practising Christian charity in persecuting other heretics, I have sought for a term which might convey to us a precise idea of doing good to our neighbours, and I can form none more proper to make myself understood than the term of _bienfaisance_, good-doing. Let those who like, use it; I would only be understood, and it is not equivocal." The happy word was at first criticised, but at length every kind heart found it responded to its own feeling. Some verses from Voltaire, alluding to the political reveries of the good abbe, notice the critical opposition; yet the new word answered to the great rule of Horace.

Certain legislateur, dont la plume feconde Fit tant de vains projets pour le bien du monde, Et qui depuis trente ans ecrit pour des ingrats, Vient de creer un mot qui manque a Vaugelas: Ce mot est BIENFAISANCE; il me plait, il ra.s.semble Si le coeur en est cru, bien des vertus ensemble.

Pet.i.ts grammairiens, grands precepteurs de sots, Qui pesez la parole et mesurez les mots, Pareille expression vous semble hazardee, Mais l'univers entier doit en cherir l'idee!

The French revolutionists, in their rage for innovation, almost barbarised the pure French of the Augustan age of their literature, as they did many things which never before occurred; and sometimes experienced feelings as transitory as they were strange. Their nomenclature was copious; but the revolutionary jargon often shows the danger and the necessity of neologisms. They form an appendix to the Academy Dictionary. Our plain English has served to enrich this odd mixture of philology and politics: _Club_, _clubiste_, _comite_, _jure_, _juge de paix_, blend with their _terrorisme_, _lanterner_, a verb active, _levee en ma.s.se_, _noyades_, and the other verb active, _septembriser_, &c. The barbarous term _demoralisation_ is said to have been the invention of the horrid capuchin Chabot; and the remarkable expression of _arriere pensee_ belonged exclusively in its birth to the jesuitic astuteness of the Abbe Sieyes, that political actor, who, in changing sides, never required prompting in his new part!

A new word, the result of much consideration with its author, or a term which, though unknown to the language, conveys a collective a.s.semblage of ideas by a fortunate designation, is a precious contribution of genius; new words should convey new ideas. Swift, living amidst a civil war of pamphlets, when certain writers were regularly employed by one party to draw up replies to the other, created a term not to be found in our dictionaries, but which, by a single stroke, characterises these hirelings; he called them _answer-jobbers_. We have not dropped the fortunate expression from any want of its use, but of perception in our lexicographers. The celebrated Marquis of Lansdowne introduced a useful word, which has of late been warmly adopted in France as well as in England--_to liberalise_; the noun has been drawn out of the verb--for in the marquis's time that was only an abstract conception which is now a sect; and to _liberalise_ was theoretically introduced before the _liberals_ arose.[28] It is curious to observe that as an adjective it had formerly in our language a very opposite meaning to its recent one.

It was synonymous with "libertine or licentious;" we have "a _liberal_ villain" and "a most profane and _liberal_ counsellor;" we find one declaring "I have spoken _too liberally_." This is unlucky for the _liberals_, who will not--

Give allowance to our _liberal_ jests Upon their persons--

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

Dr. Priestley employed a forcible, but not an elegant term, to mark the general information which had begun in his day; this he frequently calls "the _spread_ of knowledge." Burke attempted to brand with a new name that set of pert, petulant, sophistical sciolists, whose philosophy the French, since their revolutionary period, have distinguished as _philosophism_, and the philosophers themselves as _philosophistes_. He would have designated them as _literators_, but few exotic words will circulate; new words must be the coinage of our own language to blend with the vernacular idiom. Many new words are still wanted. We have no word by which we could translate the _otium_ of the Latins, the _dillettante_ of the Italians, the _alembique_ of the French, as an epithet to describe that sublimated ingenuity which exhausts the mind, till, like the fusion of the diamond, the intellect itself disappears. A philosopher, in an extensive view of a subject in all its bearings, may convey to us the result of his last considerations by the coinage of a novel and significant expression, as this of Professor Dugald Stewart--_political religionism_. Let me claim the honour of one pure neologism. I ventured to introduce the term of FATHER-LAND to describe our _natale solum_; I have lived to see it adopted by Lord Byron and by Mr. Southey, and the word is now common. A lady has even composed both the words and the air of a song on "Father-land." This energetic expression may therefore be considered as authenticated; and patriotism may stamp it with its glory and its affection. FATHER-LAND is congenial with the language in which we find that other fine expression MOTHER-TONGUE. The patriotic neologism originated with me in Holland, when, in early life, it was my daily pursuit to turn over the glorious history of its independence under the t.i.tle of _Vaderlandsche Historie_--the history of FATHER-LAND!

If we acknowledge that the creation of some neologisms may sometimes produce the beautiful, the revival of the dead is the more authentic miracle; for a new word must long remain doubtful, but an ancient word happily recovered rests on a basis of permanent strength; it has both novelty and authority. A collection of _picturesque words_, found among our ancient writers, would const.i.tute a precious supplement to the history of our language. Far more expressive than our term of _executioner_ is their solemn one of the _deathsman_; than our _vagabond_, their _scatterling_; than our _idiot_ or _lunatic_, their _moonling_,--a word which, Mr. Gifford observes, should not have been suffered to grow obsolete. Herrick finely describes by the term _pittering_ the peculiar shrill and short cry of the gra.s.shopper: the cry of the gra.s.shopper is pit! pit! pit! quickly repeated. Envy "_dusking_ the l.u.s.tre" of genius is a verb lost for us, but which gives a more precise expression to the feeling than any other words which we could use.

The late Dr. Boucher, in the prospectus of his proposed Dictionary, did me the honour, then a young writer, to quote an opinion I had formed early in life of the purest source of neology, which is in the _revival of old words_.

Words that wise Bacon or brave Rawleigh spake!

We have lost many exquisite and picturesque expressions through the dulness of our lexicographers, or by the deficiency in that profounder study of our writers which their labours require far more than they themselves know. The natural graces of our language have been impoverished. The genius that throws its prophetic eye over the language, and the taste that must come from Heaven, no lexicographer imagines are required to accompany him amidst a library of old books!

FOOTNOTES:

[19] Aulus Gellius, lib. i. c. 10.

[20] Inst.i.t. lib. i. c. 5.

[21] This verse was corrected by Bentley _procudere nummum_, instead of _producere nomen_, which the critics agree is one of his happy conjectures.

[22] Henry c.o.c.keram's curious little "English Dictionarie, or an Interpretation of hard English words", 12mo, 1631, professes to give in its first book "the choicest words themselves now in use, wherewith our language is inriched and become so copious." Many have not survived, such as the following:--

Acyrologicall An improper speech.

Adacted Driven in by force.

Blandiloquy Flattering speech.

Compaginate To set together that which is broken.

Concessation Loytering.

Delitigate To scold, or chide vehemently.

Depalmate To give one a box on the ear.

Esuriate To hunger.

Strenuitie Activity.

Curiously enough, this author notes some words as those "now out of use, and onely used of some ancient writers," but which we now commonly use. Such are the following:--

Abandon To forsake or cast off.

Abate To make lesse, diminish, or take from.

[23] A most striking instance of the change of meaning in a word is in the old law-term _let_--"without _let_ or hindrance;" meaning void of all opposition. Hence, "I will _let_ you," meant "I will hinder you;" and not as we should now think, "I will give you free leave."

[24] Shakspeare makes "Ancient Pistol" use a new-coined Italian word, when he speaks of being "better accommodated;" to the great delight of Justice Shallow, who exclaims, "It comes from _accommodo_--a good phrase!" And Ben Jonson, in his "Tale of a Tub,"

ridicules Inigo Jones's love of two words he often used:--

----If it _conduce_ To the design, whate'er is _feasible_, I can express.

[25] The term _pluck_, once only known to the prize-ring, has now got into use in general conversation, and also into literature, as a term indicative of ready courage.

[26] Such terms as "_patent_ to the public"--"_normal_ condition"--"_cra.s.s_ behaviour," are the inventions of the last few years.

[27] Shakspeare has a powerfully-composed line in the speech of the Duke of Burgundy, (_Henry V._ Act v. Sc. 2), when, describing the fields overgrown with weeds, he exclaims--

----The coulter rusts, That should _deracinate_ such _savagery_.

[28] The "Quarterly Review" recently marked the word _liberalise_ in italics as a strange word, undoubtedly not aware of its origin. It has been lately used by Mr. Dugald Stewart, "to _liberalise_ the views."--Dissert. 2nd part, p. 138.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF PROVERBS.

In antique furniture we sometimes discover a convenience which long disuse had made us unacquainted with, and are surprised by the aptness which we did not suspect was concealed in its solid forms. We have found the labour of the workmen to have been as admirable as the material itself, which is still resisting the mouldering touch of time among those modern inventions, elegant and unsubstantial, which, often put together with unseasoned wood, are apt to warp and fly into pieces when brought into use. We have found how strength consists in the selection of materials, and that, whenever the subst.i.tute is not better than the original, we are losing something in that test of experience, which all things derive from duration.

Be this as it may! I shall not unreasonably await for the artists of our novelties to retrograde into ma.s.sive greatness, although I cannot avoid reminding them how often they revive the forgotten things of past times!

It is well known that many of our novelties were in use by our ancestors! In the history of the human mind there is, indeed, a sort of antique furniture which I collect, not merely for their antiquity, but for the sound condition in which I still find them, and the compactness which they still show. Centuries have not worm-eaten their solidity! and the utility and delightfulness which they still afford make them look as fresh and as ingenious as any of our patent inventions.