184 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2»d S. N" 88., Sept. 6. '57. 



tlon : it may be of some importance to give a 

 hint to future biographers. Bolton Corney. 



Fontaiuebleau. 



ETTMOLOGIES. 



Set. — This, like sept, seems to be merely a 

 form of sect. " This falls into different divisions 

 and sets of nations connected under particular re- 

 ligions," &c. (Ward, Law of Nations, ap. Web- 

 ster.) 



Tittle-tattle. — I have shown that tittle is merely 

 little, and tattle is plainly talk/e ; so that tittle-tattle 

 is simply, small talk. Tittle, by the way, reminds 

 me that when I was on the subject of titmouse I 

 should have observed that mouse is a sort of cor- 

 ruption of mdse (Germ, meise), the Anglo-Saxon 

 name of this bird. 



Inkle. — This term, formerly used for tape, may 

 be nothing more than the Anglo-Saxon diminu- 

 tive incel, and the entire word from which it came 

 by aphffiresis may have been rdpincel, a little rope 

 or cord. I would further ask, May not inkling be 

 inkle-line (like Tom Bowling from boioline), and 

 have an inkling be like have a clew ? 



Wig. — Here again we have an instance of 

 aphseresis — - a figure so dear to our countrymen, 

 especially of the lower order, as witness van, buss, 

 etc. — for it comes from periwig, the form given 

 in English to the French perruque. Here etymo- 

 logists stop ; but perruque, and the Italian par- 

 ruca, and Spanish peluca, are the Greek irriviKr] or 

 mivriKri, which is evidently connected with ir^vv, 

 woof. 



Frig. — In this word we have perhaps an in- 

 stance of another favourite figure, apocope (ex. 

 gr. cab, cad, &c.) ; for it seems to come from bri- 

 gand, as its original sense was robber, thief. It is 

 curious to remark its altered signification. 



Rascal. — This Somner gives as an Anglo- 

 Saxon word, signifying " a lean, worthless deer." 

 I think him in error, both as to its sense and its 

 origin; and if he really found it in any A.-S. 

 MS., it must have been a very late one, into 

 which it had been adopted from the vernacular of 

 the time ; for it appears to me to be a compound 

 term. The following passage in Ben Jonson's 

 Staple of News (iii. 1,) seems to give the true 

 sense : 



** A new park is a-making there to sever 

 Cuckolds of antler from the rascals. Such 

 Whose wives are dead and have since cast their heads 

 Shall remain cuckolds pollard," 



The rascals, then, are not the " lean, worthless 

 deer," but those young males who had not yet got 

 antlers, the common herd as it were ; in which 

 sense we find the word used in " Ptolemy, whom 



Alexander had promoted ...... from a raskal 



souldiour." (Golding's Justin, ap. Richardson.) 

 May not, then, the rascals of the herd have been 

 the raw-skulls ; those whose heads were not yet 

 furnished with their branching honours ? I take 

 raw in its proper sense of immature, as it was used 

 by our ancestors, in which sense we still say raw 

 youths, raw recruits, &c. 



Danger. — This of course is the French danger, 

 which is said to come from damnum. But anyone 

 who reads the Roman de la Rose, tlie Poesies de 

 Charles dH Orleans, and other compositions, in 

 which Danger appears as a person (ex. gr. D' Or- 

 leans, p. 53., edit. Guichard), will find that the 

 modern sense of tha term does not by any means 

 accord with his acts and character. He appears 

 there as a persevering, insidious, and even malig- 

 nant opponent, who throws every obstacle in the 

 way of the lover ; and he is styled rebelle, vilain, 

 faux, orgueilleux, &c. I would therefore derive 

 danger from the German zank, zanken, ziinker, 

 strife, contention, &c. 



Dinner. — Here again I feel inclined to have 

 recourse to the German. It is the French disner, 

 diner, the Italian desinare, infinitives we may ob- 

 serve. The Italians derive their verb from the 

 Latin decenare ; but there is no such compound, 

 and c before e and i in Latin was never pro- 

 nounced 5 by the Italians, and, except in dir, the 

 Latin e never became i in French. I would 

 then hazard the conjecture (and it is but a 

 conjecture) that the original may have been the 

 German "dem Tische nahern," to come to the 

 table, or to the meat on it. From Tisch, by the 

 way, the Italians made their desco, table, whence 

 our desk, possibly introduced, like bankrupt, along 

 with Italian book-keeping. 



Piece. — This word is used for looman by our 

 old dramatists, and, as the critics assure us, al- 

 ways in a bad sense. Of this I have my doubts. 

 Mammon, for example, in The Alchemist (Act II. 

 Sc. 1.) has not the shadow of a doubt of the purity 

 of Doll Common when he exclaims — 



" 'Fore God, a Bradamante, a brave piece ! " 



And Richardson quotes from the Mirrour for 

 Magistrates, p. 208. : 



" I had a wife, a passing princely jDcece, 

 That far did pass that gallant girl of Greece." 



So also — 



" Thy mother was a piece of virtue." — Temji. Act I. Sc. 2. 



as we say, " a woman of virtue." Piece was pro- 

 bably originally " a piece of womankind." 



Laced Mutton. — The critics take this expression 

 likewise in a bad sense; and here again I have the 

 misfortune to be sceptical. In the Two Gentlemen 

 of Vei'ona (Act. I. Sc. 1.), Speed uses it of Julia, 

 against whose virtue he would not have dared to 



