quite literally sun-burned (brennan), while an 'ALBUM' is quite as plainly a white tablet. A 'RESTORATEUR' offers to restore, or refresh us; while an 'OMNIBUS' invitingly affirms that it is to or for all; and a 'PORTMANTEAU' jogs our memory in regard to its ability to carry our mantle for us! Then, again, 'PURGATORY' informs us that it is the place where we may purge out our trespasses; while 'ROSARY' proffers to conduct us through a very bed of roses (rosarium).

'PAPER,' again, claims an intimate kinship with the old Egyptian papyrus; a 'MANGER' truly tells us that it is that whereout cattle may manger-eat; 'LIEUTENANT' avers that he is merely one who holds the place, who stands in lieu, of his superior; and a 'CRAVEN' basely confesses that he has craved or craven his life at his enemy's hand. 'JAUNDICE' truthfully affirms that it turns its victim yellowjaune; and we cannot mention 'ELECTRICITY' without being reminded of electron or amber-a substance which so plentifully secretes the fluid. 'AFFABLE' encouragingly assures us that it may readily be spoken to (affabilis); as for 'INFANT,' if it could speak, it would tell us that (etymologically) it cannot speak (in-fans).

'RECIPE' simply says, 'do thou take' (so and so); 'RENDEZ-VOUS' says, 'betake yourselves' (to such and such a place; and this place is the 'rendez-vous'); and the waiter when he calls, 'Anon, sir,' means to say, 'In one (minute), sir.' So 'BISCUIT' tells us that it is originally an article which is bis-cuit, bis-coctustwice-cooked; 'SURLOIN' just informs us that it is sur (le) loigne above the loin, although a fantastic etymology would give it the honor of knighthood and make it Sir Loin! A 'MINISTER' offers to minister to, or serve us; a 'TUTOR' offers to look after us (tueor) and a 'PRISON' offers to take or hold one (prendre, pris). 'SHABBY' affirms that it is at present déshabillé; while 'DANDELION' seems to claim some strange alliance with a lion's tooth-dent de lion, and a 'PRIVILEGE' avers that it has its own privy, or private law (lex-legis). Again, an 'AUTHOR,' if verily such, ought to be in every sense an auctor;* that is, not merely one who produces something, but qui auctat -who positively increases our stock of knowledge and happiness. Tried by this standard of etymology, how many of "the mob of gentlemen who write with ease," will be found wanting!

'SHROVE-TIDE' we cannot help perceiving to be the time when people were shrived, or shriven; SO 'DEBONAIRE' is just as evidently de. bon air a word which has unhappily fallen into disuse, for it is both

beautiful and expressive enough to have been retained. So 'CORONER' and so on through ten thousand other cases. But enough, enough!

The historical significance of Words springs from the fact of their being born of spontaneity. Words thus formed unwittingly, and on which the national mind, making and moulding, has wrought, must be the very expression of the national life. They are the sanctuary of the intuitions. Here we should find a people daguerreotyped in the very lineaments of life.* Nay even our common, every-day words and phrases will many a time furnish keen hints of ethnic peculiarities. Thus what is 'on the carpet' (sur le tapis) to the Frenchman, for the Englishman gets 'on the anvil; nor are the 'ESPRIT' and 'CAUSERIES' of the one any more characteristic than the 'SPLEEN' and 'HUMOR' of the other; and yet the Englishman possesses a 'HOME,' while the Frenchman has only a 'CHEZ NOUS' (at our place). And so the Parisian's joli (pretty), to the Cockney-who is apt to cluster most of his ideas of a 'pretty fellow' around mirth and enjoyment-becomes

* "Il est certain que la langue d'un peuple contient, s'il m'est permis de m'exprimer de la sorte, les véritables dimensions de son esprit. Il est la mesure de l'étendue de sa logique et de ses connaissances." - M. le President de Brosses. Traité de la Formation Méchanique de Langues, etc. Tome I. 74.

quite 'JOLLY.' And this disposition leaks out through his very amusements, so that even with his 'cards' in his hand, he will brawl and babble of 'clubs' and 'spades' (pique et trêfle). There is said to be no equivalent for the Italian 'CONCETTI;' while nothing could prove more mournfully the degeneracy of that once heroic people than the fact that a villain or an assassin is to them a 'BRAVO' (a brave man).

The coincidence of 'TRAVEL' and 'TRAVAIL' rests on a piece of history worth exploring. "Long after the Frank had achieved the conquest, he well remembered the vast amount of labor and blood it had cost him to get over the immense walls with which the Roman tried to protect his fortified encampments and towers. To scale them, to get 'trans vallum' was the most difficult part of his military labor; so he soon came, by analogy, to call every uncommon effort a 'TRAVAIL' and what the Frenchman still ascribes to the labors in childbed and the report of the Minister of Finances-apparently his hardest works as they are both called 'travail' by eminence, the Englishman of the Middle Ages applied to his labor in travelling through foreign countries."*

It is curious, also, to note in connection with this that we always designate a literary production as a * Prof. De Vere: Comparative Philology.

'work' what the Roman termed his opus (plural opera)-what the Italian terms his opera, only that he, dilettante-like, applies the word exclusively to musical compositions.

In connection with 'travel' I might have noticed that what was to the Frenchman merely a day through, or a day's work (journée) became to the Englishman his 'JOURNEY '-the application of which it will not be difficult to trace.

I have spoken of our forms of greeting and parting, as 'GOOD-BYE,' which is just God be wi' you, 'ADIEU,' I commend you (à dieu) to God, 'FAREWELL' which is may you fare or go, well. Perhaps there is to be read in these national good wishes a deep enough lesson: perhaps it is that that these spontaneous utterances may embody the very spirit of the people. Thus the warlike Roman concentrated his best wishes in his 'SALVE!' - which is just 'May you be safe;' or into his 'VALE' - which, also, is naught other than 'May you be well-following his departed friends even to the tomb with his last sad requiem, "Vale, vale, in eternum, vale!"

The gay symmetrical Greek summed up his 'congratulations' in his 'χαῖρε!'-'May you be joyful;' while the profounder repose of the Oriental is manifested in his 'SALAAM!'-peace!