"Furth of his thrott, ane wounderous thing to tell, "That sone the sicht vanyst, or ony wist, "And REKY nycht within an litil thraw "Gan thikkin ouir al the cauerne and ouer blaw, "The hie curage of Hercules lordlie sire Douglas, booke 8, pag. 250. "You common cry of curs, whose breath I hate "AS REEKE a th' rotten fennes: whose loues I prize "That do corrupt my ayre." Coriolanus, act 3, pag. 19. "A RECK, with us (says Mr. Ray, in his pre"face to North Country Words, page viii.) signifies, "not a smoak, but a steam, arising from any liquor or moist thing heated," RACK means merely.....That which is reeked. And, whether written RAK, WRAICH, RECK, REIK, ROIK OF REEKE, is the same word differently pronounced and spelled. It is merely the past tense and therefore past participle, peac, or pec, of the Anglo-Saxon verb pecan, exhalare, to reek. And is surely the most appropriate term that could be employed by Shakespear in this passage of the Tempest to represent to us, that the dissolution and annihilation of the globe, and all which it inherit, should be so total and compleat;.....they should so "melt into ayre, into thin ayre;"....as not to leave behind them even a vapour, a steam, or an exhalation, to give the slightest notice that such things had ever been. Since you seem to be in no haste to reply upon me, I conclude that the explanation is satisfactory. And on this subject of subaudition I will, at present, exercise your patience no farther; for my own begins to flag. You have now instances of my doctrine in, I suppose, about a thousand words. Their number may be easily increased. But, I trust, these are sufficient to discard that imagined operation of the mind, which has been termed abstraction and to prove, that what we call by that name, is merely one of the contrivances of language, for the purpose of more speedy commu nication. F. You have at least amused me, and furnished me with matter for reflection: Conviction and satisfaction are plants of slower growth. But to convince you that you have not tired me, I beg leave to remind you, that you some time since asserted that the winds, as well as colours, must have their denomination from some circumstances attending them; and that there must be a meaning in each of their denominations. L'Orient and L'Occident, for instance, are intelligible enough; but how is it with the other names which all our northern languages give to these same winds? The EAST, the WEST, the NORTH, the SOUTH. The German Ost, West, Nord, Sud. The Swedish Oster, Wester, Norr, Söder. The Spanish language, besides Oriente, Levante, Poniente, Occidente, Aquilon, Septentrion, and Medio dia, has likewise Este, Oeste, Nord, Sur. What do these mean? For when the English etymologist merely refers me to the Anglo-Saxon Eart, Fert, Noɲd, Sud, he only changes the written characters, and calls the same language by a different name; but he gives me no information whatever concerning their meaning: and, for any rational purpose, might as well have left me with the same words in the modern English character. H. Certainly: It is a trifling etymology that barely refers us to some word in another language, either the same or similar: unless the meaning of the word and cause of its imposition can be discovered by such reference. And permit me to add, that, having once obtained clearly that satisfaction, all etymological pursuit beyond it, is as trifling. It is a childish curiosity, in which the understanding takes no part, and from which it can derive no advantage. Our winds are named by their distinguishing qualities. And, for that purpose, our ancestors (who, unlike their learned descendants, knew the meaning of the words they employed in discourse) applied to them the past participles of four of their common words in their own language: viz. Yɲrian, eran, Nýɲpan, and Scodan. Irasci, Macerare, Coarctare, Coquere. EAST The past participle of yprian or WEST Ieprian, irasci, is yɲreb, yɲrd, ynst; NORTH dropping the ɲ (which many cannot SOUTH articulate) it becomes yst; and so it is much used in the Anglo-Saxon. They who cannot pronounce R, usually supply its place by a: hence, I suppose, EAST, which means angry, enraged. "The wynd Tiffonyk, that is cleped North Eest, "or wynd of tempest." Dedis, chap. 27. In the modern version, "A tempestuous wind, called Euroclydon," Macbeth says, Acts, chap. xxvii. v. 14. "Though you untye the windes, and let them fight "Against the churches: though the YESTY waues "Confound and swallow nauigation up: “Though bladed corne be lodg'd, and trees blown downe, "Though castles topple on their warders heads: "Though pallaces and pyramids do slope "Their heads to their foundations: though the treasure "Of nature's germaine tumble altogether Act 4, pag. 144. "YESTY waves (says S. Johnson) that is foam"ing or frothy." A little matter always makes the waves frothy. But Johnson knew what the YEAST of beer was; (which comes indeed from the same verb) and the epithet Yesty conveyed to him no stronger idea than that of fermentation. But YESTY here is the Anglo-Saxon yrtiz, Iertig, procellosus, stormy, enraged which much better accords with Shake pear's high-charged description than the wretched allusion to fermenting beer. Pereo, Per'd, Pert, or wEST, is the past participle of Feran, macerare, to wet. NORTH, i. e. Nýppeð, Nýppð, the third person singular of Nyɲpan: coarctare, constringere. NORD and NORR (as it is in the other European languages) is the same participle of the same verb. "Frosts that constrain the ground, and birth deny "To flowers that in its womb expecting lie." Dryden, Astræa redux. In the Anglo-Saxon Nippo or Nyppð is also a name for a prison, or any place which narroweth or closely confines a person. SOUTH is the past tense and past participle of Seo dan, coquere, to seethe. "Peter fyshed for his foode, and hyes fellowe Andrewe, "Some they sold and some they soтH, and so they liued both." Vision of Pierce Ploughman, passus 16, fol. 81, pag. 2. "Nero gouerned all the peoples that the violent "wyne Nothus skorcyth and baketh the brennyng "sandes by hys dry heate, that is to say, al the "peoples in the Southe." Boecius, fol. 230, pag. 1, col. 1. Dryden, whose practical knowledge of English was (beyond all others) exquisite and wonderful, says, in his Don Sebastian, "Here the warm planet ripens and sublimes "The well-backed beauties of the southern climes." Act 2, sce. 2. |