in the Composition of Nouns and Adjectives. 79 
Should my theory be correct, and I firmly believe such to be the 
case, the trifling particle ve, in conjunction with history and tra- 
dition, may enable us to form a probable conjecture as to the pe- 
riod of time during which the fires of Vesuvius hushed them- 
selves in “ grim repose.” 
Vesica*, a purse, a bladder, literally a small sack, a “ wee 
sackie”’ As the vowel a in simple Latin words is changed into 
i in composition, as manus, facies, caput, form eminus, superficies, 
occiput, so the a of saccus became i in vesica. The absence of 
the second ¢ only proves the antiquity of the composition ; be- 
cause, as Festus informs us, “ the ancient Latins never doubled 
a letter. It is to Enntus that the change of this custom is 
ascribed ; for he being a Greek, followed the custom of his 
countrymen, who, both in writing and speaking, doubled mutes, 
semivowels, and liquids +.” Vesica (apparently because its origin 
was unknown) seems to have escaped remodelling, when saccus 
and its derivatives admitted the double mute. The difference 
of termination between saccus and vesica is of no consequence, 
as such is frequently the case even with the same noun, both in 
Greek and Latin. The learned Varro uses vesica in its origi- 
nal sense for sacellus (our satchel) or sacculus. “ Such fish-ponds 
of the nobility are more for prospect than profit,” “ magis ad ocu- 
los pertinent quam vesicam,” “ and rather exhaust than fill the 
owner’s purse” (marsupium)t}. It is from such passages that the 
* Saxxecs, saccus, said to be the most general of all names. The Anglo-Saxon 
saec comes nearest in sound and form to the sica of vesica. The Greek cuxxos ori- 
ginally a hide or skin, took a secondary form, with one sigma, to denote an inflated 
hide or bladder, Acxos. 
+ “ Nomen antique consuetudinis per unum ¢c enunciari, non est mirum, quia 
nulla tune geminabatur litera in scribendo; quam consuetudinem Ennivus mutavisse 
fertur utpote Gracus. Graeco more usus, quod illi zque scribentes ac legentes du- 
plicabant mutas semivocales et liquidas.”——Frstus, under Solitaurilia, p. 878. 
t “Tlle autem piscine nobilium magis ad oculos pertinent quam ad vesicam 
