and not the Englandish of our days, which, however, I call English as freely as do other Englishmen. A man who sent me words of anger against my little book of 'Speech-craft,' but withheld his name, has given me a definition. Taking English to be the speech of Englishmen, he defines an Englishman as a 'denizen ' of the country now called England. But by Blackstone's Commentaries, b. i. cap. 10, 'A denizen is an alien born, and who has obtained, ex donatione Regis, letters patent to make him an English subject,' or a man who is now mostly called a naturalised foreigner; and I am not willing to take his definition of an Englishman or English, until I know why homeborn men of England are not Englishmen as much as are aliens naturalised. Some readers may think that I have given words of shapes unlawful in Teutonic English, and that for -some in such words as 'barksome,' and 'breathesome' I should have taken -ing, as in 'barking,' for barksome. I cannot allow it. -Some under the shapes som, sam, some or others, was, at first, a thing-name, meaning a body of matter, and then a set or body of things of one kind. Barksome' as said of dogs, means of a set or kind that bark, but for 'All dogs are barksome' I am not willing to say 'All dogs are barking.' It may be said, Ah! but you could say, 'All dogs are barking animals,' which shows the unfitness of the word that wants another to give it (and it cannot truly give it) the meaning that it should bear. 'John may be quarrelsome, though not “quarrelling." -Some is a word most useful for a word-ending, and already in English, and we are as free to give it in a fitting place as were our Saxon fore-fathers, or as are the Germans to make words with it in the shape -sam. I have also used freely the word-heading for, German ver-, Latin per-, meaning off, away, asunder, or thorough, and with this wordling English might become even with the Latin in its use of per, as- Percipio, fortake, from per-capio, to take off with the hand, sight, or mind, or memory. 'Percipere memoriâ,'-Cicero. To take off with the memory. 'Fructum ex arbore percipere,' -Plin. To take off the fruit from a tree. Percolo, forstrain, as liquor. Percudo, forsmite, forpound. Percutio, forslay, forslean. (A. Saxon.) Peredo, forfret. a Perhibeo, forhold. Permitto, forlet, forleatan. (A. Saxon.) Perjuro, forswear. Permano, forflow. Perpello, fordrive. Perpendo, forspend. Perseco, forcut, forcarve. As far as this little book follows the pattern of any other, it is that of 'Logica Artis Compendium, a Rob. Sanderson, Oxoniæ, 1631.' W. BARNES. |