sea. One derived from the Icelandic grund, | is. It is nothing but the Northumbrian "á planities, terra, which we will call "dry laun" or "á lön," both of which would be ground;" ;" the other, which shall be "wet pronounced very nearly as our" alone." Now, ground," derived from grunn, vada, brevia, to do a thing "á laun" or "á lön," is to do a in which sense the word can scarcely be said thing by one's self, apart, privately, secretly; to be obsolete, as it is of frequent occurrence "mæla á laun" is to talk aside; "hylja hræ in English literature, and still lingers iná laun" is clam occultare cadaver, "to bury a "aground," that is to say, fast on the shallows or grounds at the bottom of the sca, and also in "ground-swell," that is, the sea swell which rolls in over the shallows." We also speak of coffee-" grounds," that is, the sediment at the bottom of the liquid. Both "dry ground" and "wet ground" have their equivalents in Icelandic, "a grundi" would be on dry land; “á grunni" would be on a shoal at the bottom of the sea. When the Northumbrian dialect was shattered, both were rolled into one word in sound, with two meanings as distant as black and white. The Icelandic equivalents of "ground-sea" or "ground-swell," are "grunnföll" and "grunnsæfi," both of which the readers, will find in Egilsson's Dictionary.

corpse by one's-self." A base-born child is said to be "laun-getinn," that is, "lone-begotten;""launkrá" is a hiding-place in a corner; "launping" is conventus clandestinus, what we should now call "a hole-and-corner meeting;" from "laun," the feminine substantive, comes the verb "leyna," to conceal, pronounced "laina" as in "alane," and "leynigata," a lonely path. Hence come too our English "lane," a bypath, and many others. To be "alone" then, is to be by one's-self, whether for a good or bad purpose, but as the life of the freeman in early times was open and above-board, as the difference between murder and homicide lay in the one case in the concealment, in the other in the open avowal of the deed, any one who shunWe hasten on with our adverbs in "a-": ned the company of his equals was looked ALONE. Here too Dr. Latham drops his upon with an evil eye. But as the word [on lone], and merely calls it an adverb waxed older, the spirit of that free and open meaning "only" but not content with let-life died away with the freeman himself and ting alone" alone, he goes on to make it an adjective. This is what he says:Alone. adj. [The exact details of the form of this word are obscure; and they belong to minute philology, rather than to lexicography. The al-, in the first instance, looks like all. In lone, however, we have it without the a: a syllable which, viewed merely with respect to its form, may represent the initial of all, the French a, or Anglo-Saxon on.

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The second element, however, is one; the construction of which is peculiar.]

He then treats the reader with some logical transcendentalism, which, even if Dr. Latham be right in asserting Dr. Guest to be of his opinion, certainly only shows how much two philologists of very different ability may agree in a mistake. The "one" and "ane" on which these learned men rely in certain passages, seem to us to be much more like forms of "own" than of "one;" and even if they are forms of "one," they would not prove either that "alone" is to be dissected into "all one," or that it is an adjective. So far from this latter proposition having been proved, every one of Dr. Latham's quotations seems to show that "alone" is neither more nor less than an adverb. We believe it to be an adverb, and we believe it to be made up of "a" and "lone," not of "all" and "one." What then is "lone," which we may remark exists in "lone," "lonesome," and "lovely" and loneliness," a fact in itself enough to show what the formation of the word really

his rights. It became no longer a disgrace, though it might be misery to live alone and work and think alone, and so the old “á laun" with its uncanny feeling passed into our "lone" and "lonely" and "alone." Our "alone," therefore, now merely expresses "solitude," with no notion of evil. It is a misfortune not a fault.

ALONG reminds us of ABROAD, and we take them both together. The first Dr. Latham tells us is derived from the AngloSaxon "andlang," which, if it be genuine Saxon, can only contain the ideas of length and opposition; the Saxon and Scandinavian inseparable particle "and-," German "ant-," being the remnant of a primeval separable particle or preposition. Its equivalents are the prepositions "and" in Gothic, the Greek "avrí," and the Latin "ante." We use this inseparable particle every day in "answer," and even in "end," which is the point of an object opposed to anything else; the Germans use it in "antwort," and "antlitz," and many other words beginning with "ant-" and "ent." It is more than likely that it is the original of our conjunct "an," if, and that the true form of the word is "and;" nay, that our everyday "and" itself is this very word. But this "and" of opposition, doubt, and suggestion, has in our opinion nothing to do with "álong," which is merely our old friend the preposition "á" or "a" governing the adjective "long" from " lángr, löng," and some substantive which has disappeared;

or

the notion throughout all the passages quoted | tive or a positive. Precisely as "along" is is one of lengthened progression in the same formed from "a" and "long," so "alongst" direction, of going along with the object in is formed from the superlative of "lángr, short, instead of opposition or motion to- löng, lángt." This is "löngst' or "lengst," wards or against it. If this first meaning of and out of this an adverb "álengst the word be kept steadily in view there will "álöngst" has been formed, which means be no need for word-splitting in the case of not "along," but "alongest," it being as is "along," and for making it, as Dr. Latham common enough in old Norse a superlative does, a preposition as well as an adverb. To adverb, meaning not longe but longissime in prove his point he quotes the vulgar expres- Latin. The meaning of "alongst" is there sion, "it's all along on you," and "who is fore not merely " along," but along and much this 'long of?" the last from Stubbes' Anato- more; as is plain by Dr. Latham's quotation, my of Abuses, ii.; and to strengthen his opi- which he seems not to understand :nion, as he brought up Dr. Guest as his backer in "alone," he brings up Mr. Wedg wood as his armour-bearer in "along," this being only one out of numberless occasions in which he falls back on that writer. We give the extract at length :

[We must distinguish along, through the length of, from along, in the sense of causation, when some consequence is said to be along of or long of a certain agent or efficient principle. In the former sense long is originally an adjective agreeing with the object now governed by the preposition along. In the latter it is the O. S. and A. S. gelang, owing to, in consequence of; from gelingen, to happen, to succeed. 'Hii sohton on hwom that gelang wære:''they inquired along of whom that was,' whose fault it was, from whom it happened that it was.--Wedgwood, Dictionary of English Etymology.]

We here observe with pleasure that Mr. Wedgwood confirms our assertion that "long" was originally an adjective agreeing with some object, but we differ with him when he calls "along" a preposition, it being invariably an adverb. With the last part of his statement we altogether disagree. The true rendering of the Anglo-Saxon, or rather of the Northumbrian, passage is, "they asked of whom or to whom that belonged." That we believe to be the meaning of the sentence, and we think that the Northumbrian "a löng," and not the participial form "gelang," from "gelingen," is the original of along."

After splitting "along" into two parts of speech, the fact being that where it can be twisted into a prepositional force, it must always have a real preposition, such as "with' or "of" to help it out and govern the substantive which it is supposed to govern, Dr. Latham passes on to ALONGST, which he calls an adverb meaning "along." But in this obsolete word we hail one of the strongest confirmations of our theory as to the origin of all these adverbs. "Alongst" is an adverb, but it means much more than "along," just as a superlative is a much better and stronger thing than either a compara

Hard by grew the true lover's primrose, whose kind savour wisheth men to be faithful and women courteous. Alongst, in a border, grew maidenhair.-Greene, Quip for an upstart Courtier, p. 6.

The Turks did keep straight watch and ward in all their ports alongst the sea-coast. -Knolles, History of the Turks.

In the first of these the word means "farthest on," "at the very end," "after one had gone along as far as one could." In the second the Turks kept watch and ward all along their coast, from the very end on one side to the very end on the other, as far as ever they could.

Returning to "answer" for a moment, we may add that though Dr. Latham derives it from the "weak" Anglo-Saxon "andsvarian," it is more probably derived from the "strong" Norse form "andsvara," and that the word is a reduplication like "lukewarm," "loupgarou," and others, as it contains the idea of opposition twice over. "Svara," akin to but not the same as "sverja" to swear, is in itself to "answer," as we see not only from the old Norse "svara," but from the modern Swedish and Danish "svara" and "svare;" so that "answer" contains the notion of a reply repeated, first in the particle "an," and then in the verb "svara" itself.

AGEN, AGAIN, and AGAINST. These are separate though kindred forms, and "again" and "against" stand in the same relation the one to the other, as "along" and "alongst." First, of "agen." This adverb, Dr. Latham says, "is used chiefly by the poets in cases where the spelling with 'ai' might lead to false pronunciation, and spoil the rhyme.” He thus treats it as identical with "again," except in poetry. But in truth it is a distinct form, and comes from a separate word, as we shall soon see. Again" Dr. Latham derives from the Anglo-Saxon "ongeanes" without knowing how much nearer the word lies to the Scandinavian than to the Saxon element in English. The truth is that there are two parallel forms in Icelandic, "gegn," from

which agen comes; and " gagn," from

which "again" comes. The primary mean

ing of both is that of opposition and motion | taken himself off, had gone away;" but as towards, and that is the primary notion of ways lead out of the land, a man who had "again," which is formed like all these gone away often left the country, or went, adverbs in "a-" out of "á" and " gagn;" as we now say, "abroad," that is, quitted his what happens "again" is something which native land. All the other meanings of the meets you twice, which throws itself in your word spring from this; as "out of doors" in way. This primary meaning shows itself in the well-known line of Dr. Watts, gainsay" and "gainstand," which are earlier forms than "againstand" and "againsay," and have their Icelandic representatives in 66 gagnstanda" and and "gagnsegja." Wycliffe we have " We hopeden that he should have agenbought' Israel" (Luke xxiv. 21), that is, bought over again, redeemed, and also Romans i. 4, "agenrising for "resurrection.". From " "the Ice

gagn

In

"Whene'er I take my walks abroad;" that is, Whenever I go out of my house, and walk on any road, in any direction; or,

"

Again the lonely fox roams far abroad," where Reynard tries many paths in the pursuit of prey.

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The old Norse" braut" has many children, as "brautíngi," a vagabond or beggar; and hence the proverb, "Brád eru brautíngja erindi," " Beggar's business brooks no delay," which answers perhaps to our must not be choosers." Here to-day, and 'Beggars they must take what they can get, and take gone to-morrow, ever tramping on the road, it at once, or not at all.

landers made a substantive "gagn" meaning victory, "gain," because what opposes or thwarts one is fought and conquered, and so out of strife comes "gain." What opposes is often broken through, and so "gagn" in Icelandic means "through," as well as "opposed to." As for " gegn it is almost in every respect a parallel form to "gagn." After "Abroad" we may as well take As for " against," which out of a superlative AWAY, the last of our adverbs in "a" in adverb has almost entirely passed into a alphabetical order, though not the last of preposition, we think that it originally came from "a gegn," because there is in Icelandic of this word, Dr. Latham returns to his [on which we shall have to speak. In the case a superlative of "gegn" which is an adjec-way]. Its first meaning, he says, is "in a tive as well as an adverb, "gegnst; thus, state of absence," but he omits either to ex"hit gegnsta "the shortest way, the way plain how "away" means in a state of abwhich leads to some place most directly op- sence, or to let it explain itself. It is the posite to you, or, as they still say in the Northumbrian preposition "á,” with “ north, as well as in other parts of England, from "vegr" in the accusative; whence an veg," the "gainest" But gainest" way. agen and adverb "áveg," pronounced "away," has again," though cognate, are distinct forma- been formed precisely in the same manner tions, and Dr. Latham has no right to conas all the rest; á götu or á gata, and á braut found and roll them into one. If he had or á bröt are its exact counterparts, and as in sought for some prose quotations of an eartheir case, all the meanings of " away" sping lier date he would have seen that as 66 gegn from the one primary sense of motion on a and gagn are kindred collaterals in Icelandic, path or road. so are "again" and "agen" in English.

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And now for ABROAD, which Dr. Latham merely calls an adverb, giving no etymological hint about it. This word is in no sense a correlative of "along," as "broad" is the opposite of "long." It has nothing to do with breadth, while "along" has everything to do with length, and exists only in that idea. The first meaning of "abroad," whence all the rest naturally follow, is like "agate" of which we have already spoken, and "away" of which we shall have to speak, one of travel or progression on a path or road. It is derived not at all from "broad," but from the old Norse feminine substantive "braut," or "bröd," a way, a path, or road. This word itself is derived from "brjota," to break or open a path. Thence we have "á brautu" on a path or road,-in via; and thence an adverb "ábraut" or "ábröt :" so Reginn var ábraut horfinn," "Regin had N-12

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VOL. XLI.

adverbs in "a," but we have only space for We have not nearly exhausted all these two or three more.

Aloft. adv. [A.-S., on loyfte in the lift or air.. On high, above, in the air. This explanation as to the meaning of the word is no doubt right, but in all our reading we have not met the Anglo-Saxon form on loyfte, though we have heard of on lyfte; but here again it is not to the Anglo-Saxon but to the Scandinavian element of our language that we owe the word. Lopt or loft is the old Norse form, from which we get both our word "loft" as an upper chamber, which has now sunk into a room over a stable, though of old it had a nobler use (see Acts xx. 8, 9), where the slumbrous Eutychus, wearied with St. Paul's long sermon, sitting in a window, "fell down from the third loft"-or as we should now sa

which are the counterparts of the Danish "banke" and "bank," and of our "bench" and "bank." But the meaning of "skakkr" or "skankr" is not that of shortness and haste as shown in "scant," " scanty," and "scamp" from "skammr," but of motion "sidelong" or "aside;" it is the Latin obliquus, and the Icelandic "at lita á skakkt," or “á skankt" would exactly answer to our 66 look ascance" both in form and sense.

We should be induced to refer "askew" with Mr. Wedgwood to the Icelandic "skeifr," which is the German "schief," not "scheef," and the Dane "skiev," were it not for "skewbald," of which we wish to say something under "Bald."

up 'skalli,'" the children afterwards eaten by the bears would have said to Elisha, had they spoken Icelandic. From this Norse root we have many words, as "skull" or "scull," the bones of the human head stripped of hair, skin, and flesh; and again we have "scalp," the skin of the head without the hair; and again we have "scald head," for the baldness caused by ringworm; and "scalding water" is water so hot that it will take the hair off, unless it comes from "skella," and means water that boils so fiercely that it makes a shrill, ringing sound.

As we have said something about "skewbald," let us go back to "askew," and say why we think that the Icelandic word from What then is BALD? All Dr. Latham which "skew" is formed is not "skeifr." The tells us about it is, that it is an adjective, and reason is this, the modern Icelandic word for the first sense he gives of it is "wanting hair," a skewbald is " skjóttr," and a horse skjóttr despoiled of hair by time or sickness. His is called "skjóni," and a mare of the same second is, "without natural or usual cover-piebald colour, "skjóna." Perhaps the diffiing," and then he gives this quotation from As You Like It, iv. 3.

“Under an oak, whose boughs were mossed with

age,

culty may be solved by supposing skjóttr to be itself a compound of skeif and the termi-' nation -óttr, so that the meaning would be the skew-coloured pied sort of horse! But in favour of skjóttr as an independent word, is the fact of the accent over the óttr, as well as the fact that it may be derived from

from one colour of a skewbald horse to the other-in which sense we also use the word in English when we talk of a "shot silk," meaning by the term, a silk in which various colours are so blended that the eye cannot tell what the true hue of the dress really is, so rapidly does it pass from one tint to another.

And high top bald with dry antiquity." This quotation might have suggested to him the first meaning of the word, which is "glis-"skjóta," to shoot-pass rapidly with the eye tening," "white," or "bright;" it is the white scalp stripped of its hair, like the withered hoary top of an old oak, which raises its head to heaven stripped of leaves and bark. But besides this suggestive passage, we have "the bald-faced" stag, a common sign; that is, the stag with a white blaze down his face; and we have "skew-bald" of a horse, where "skew" denotes the variety of colour; and "bald" the white, which is always one of the colours of a skewbald. Then we have "piebald," where "pie," from magpie, denotes the variety of coat, and "bald" is again white. But why is "bald" white? We think there can be no doubt that the notion of white ness and brightness in "bald" comes from the glorious whiteness of the God Baldr's face, who was so white that the great oxlip, the Anthemis cotula was called "Baldrsbrá," Balder's brow, because the whiteness of its beaming petals was likened to the shining, glistening face of the Sun-God. The word does not seem to mean stripped of hair, in Icelandic. The higher attributes of the god have clung to the word, and it means, "divine," "glorious," "mighty;" but perhaps its sense of whiteness still lingers in the "Baldjokul" in Iceland, which raises its hoary pate not far from Kálmanstunga. For our "bald" the Icelanders used "sköllóttr," of which -óttr is only the adjectival ending. Their word for baldness was 'skalli," and the same word was used personally for "bald pate." "Go

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From "bald" we go on to BALDERDASH, which Dr. Latham says is Welsh, "Balldorddus imperfect utterance." As its first meaning he gives "lax and mixed language." Its derivation is not Welsh, but the Norse "baldrask," which makes in the past tenses "baldradisk" and "baldradask," from "baldur," noise, clamour, and the meaning of the verb is "to pour out noisy nonsense. Hence it came not only to talk nonsense, but it was used metaphorically for any vile mixture with which better liquor was adulterated, and so the scandalous Geneva ballad of 1674, quoted by Dr. Latham, can talk of the time

"When Thames was 'balderdashed' with

Tweed."

And Mandeville on Hypochondria can speak of wine or brandy being "balderdashed" by' simple water. First of all, the word meant to pour out nonsense noisily, and then it came to be used of pouring vile liquors, or even simple water, into generous wine, and" so spoiling it.

On very many occasions Dr. Latham, by.