54 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2»d s. No 65., Jan. 17. '57. 



I am glad, however, to observe there is a revival 

 of the controversy in Professor Masson's lectures, 

 and in Chatterton, an Essay, by the Rev. Dr. 

 Maitland, of Gloucester, just published by the 

 Rivingtons. The Bristolians also were fully alive 

 to the subject, both in lectures and communica- 

 tions to their newspapers. The professor is a 

 Chattertonian, Dr. Maitland a decided Rowleian. 

 In the hands of two such able disputants some 

 truths may be elicited. I shall watch the con- 

 troversy with much anxiety. My age precludes 

 me from entering into it, but if it proceeds I may 

 be induced to make public the contents of some 

 MSS. in my possession, written by cotemporaries 

 of Chatterton. In conclusion, I will with Dr. Mait- 

 land " entreat archaeologists, not only at Bristol, 

 but also, and perhaps still more particularly, in 

 the northern part of England, not to allow the 

 notion of forgery to prevent their keeping a look 

 out for 'Old Rowley,' and just acquainting them- 

 selves with the painted portrait (disfigured though 

 it be), which has come down to us, so that they 

 may know him, if they meet him." J. M. G. 



Worcester. 



(2°* S. iii. 12.) 



In Todd's edition of Johnson's Dictionary, that 

 editor cites Halhed as saying that in Sanscrit the 

 word gent means animal, and in a more confined 

 sense manMnd; and that the Portuguese hearing the 

 word used by the natives, in the last sense, may 

 have supposed it to be the name for the nation. 

 He adds, " Perhaps also their bigotry might force 

 from the word Gentoo a fanciful allusion to Gen- 

 tile, a Pagan." — Pref. to Code of Gentoo Laws. 



It is possible that Halhed may have hit upon the 

 common source of the Latin gens, genus, and kin- 

 dred Greek words, which, if it be so, has led through 

 this channel to the formation of the word Gentile, 

 in Portuguese Gentio. I need not tell your 

 readers that heathen is formed out of the Greek 

 for nations, and Gentile out of the corresponding 

 Latin word, and that neither of these terms was 

 reproachful in its origin. It was simply because 

 all the nations except that of Israel were left for 

 a time without the knowledge of the true God, 

 that whatever term was equivalent to nations be- 

 came equivalent in a Jewish hearer's mind to 

 worshippers of false gods ; and whereas after the 

 nations of the Roman world had become united 

 with the Jews in acknowledging one God, the wor- 

 ship of their false gods lingered in villages, where 

 ministers of religion were not generally placed, 

 till rulers acknowledged the duty of providing re- 

 ligious instruction for all their subjects, the word 

 Pog-ans, previously meaning villagers, took the 

 place of heathens and Gentiles, though it did not 



entirely supersede those older terms. With us, 

 contrary to the general habit of our language, 

 the words of Greek origin have become much more 

 popular, in this instance, than the Latin word, 

 though Gentile occurs so frequently in our Bibles ; 

 where, I suspect, that the uneducated classes re- 

 gard it as a national appellation. Their Shem 

 forefathers used the word theoda, i. e. nations ; 

 and our German kinsmen use heiden, from the 

 same Greek source as our heathen. The French 

 say Payens from Pagan. The Portuguese keep to 

 the word of Latin source, Gentio ; and use that 

 word f(3r worshippers of idols, to distinguish them 

 from the Mahometans, who acknowledge one God. 

 That the word Gentio, or Gentoo, was employed by 

 their early writers on Indian discoveries, to denote 

 a religious, and not a national distinction, is evident 

 from De Barros' history of the progress of their 

 discoveries along the western coast of Africa, 

 where, cap. vii., he tells how a chieftain was de- 

 scribed by an African narrator as being neither a 

 Moor (i. e. a Mahometan) nor a Gentoo, but one 

 whose customs were in many things like those 

 of Christians. Whilst when Vasco da Gama had 

 passed round the Cape as far as Melinda, his ves- 

 sels were visited by Mahometans who had come 

 from the kingdom of Cambaia, and had with them 

 certain "Banyans of the Gentoos of Cambaia," 

 who seeing an image of Our Lady, says De Bar- 

 ros, made offerings to it of cloves and other 

 spicery, with which the Portuguese were much 

 pleased, as thinking this indicated that they were 

 Christians. Henry Walter. 



In the absence of any means of ascertaining 

 what Hindoostanee characters this word is in- 

 tended to represent, I would nevertheless suggest 

 that it and Hindoo are but two attempts atren- 

 dering the same Asiatic word into European cha- 

 racters : the gutturals being more strongly enun- 

 ciated in one case than in the other. Every book 

 almost, of Eastern travel, spells certain words 

 differently to its predecessor : thus we have 

 Genie and djin ; vizir and wuzeer ; durweesh 

 (Crescent and Cross), dervich (Vathek), and der- 

 vish ; pacha and bashaw ; Mahomet and Moham- 

 med; soldan and sultan, Sfc. So also in Scripture 

 names, the Hebrew words are rendered very 

 differently in the authorised version and in the 

 LXX. Thus we have in the former, Ai, Zoar, 

 Nun, &c., where the latter has, 'A77al, 'Zin^p, 

 'Navij, &c. J. Eastwood. 



Gilchrist, in preface (p. xviii.) to his Dictionai-y 

 {Hind. Diet., Calcutta, 1787), says : 



" From Hindoo I have traced Gentoo in the Grammar 

 (p. 28. q. v.), with more reason I believe than deducinj^ 

 it from Gentile, a word that neither we, nor the Portu- 

 guese, could well corrupt to Gentoo, which not being 



