82 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 36. 



pears to be that a cliaracteristic adjective, in con- 

 stant conjunction with a noun in common use, may 

 be used alone, the noun being understood. Cus- 

 tom has limited in some measure the use of these 

 abridged titles to classes or collective bodies, and 

 the adjective takes the same form that the noun 

 itself would have had ; but, in point of fact, it 

 would be just as good English to say " a heavy" 

 as "the heavies;" and they all become unintelli- 

 gible when we lose sight of the noun to Avhich they 

 belong. If A. E. B. should assert that a glass (if 

 "cold without," becmise, by those accustomed to 

 indulge in such potations, it was understood to 

 mean "brandy and cold water, tcithout sugar," was 

 really a draught from some "well of purest English 

 undefil'd," the confusion of idt-as could no^ be 

 more complete. 



Indeed, I very much doubt whether our word 

 "News" contains the idea of "new" at all. It is 

 used with us to mean "intelligence;" and the 

 phrases, "Is there any thing new ?" and "Is there 

 any news?" present, in my opinion, two totally 

 distinct ideas to the English mind in its ordinary 

 mechanical action. " Intelligence" is not neces- 

 sarily " new," nor indeed is " News :" in the oldest 

 dictionary I possess, Baret's Alvearie, 1573, I find 

 " Olde newes or stale newes." A. E. B. is very posi- 

 tive that " news" is plural, and he cites the " Car- 

 dinal of York" to prove it. All that I can say is, 

 that I think the Cardinal of York was wrong : and 

 A. E. B. thought so too, when his object was not 

 to confound me, as may be seen by his own prac- 

 tice in the concluding paragraph of his communi- 

 cation : — "The neices was of the victory," &c. 

 The word "means," on the other hand, is beyond 

 all dispute plural. What says Shakspeare? 



" Yet nature is made better by no mean, 

 But nature makes that mean." 



The plural was formed by the addition of "«:" 

 yet, from the infrequent use of the word except in 

 the plural, the singular form has become obsolete, 

 and the same form applies now to both numbers! 

 Those who would apply this reasoning to "News," 

 forget that there is the slight difficufty of the ab- 

 sence of the noun "new" to start from. 



I do not feel bound to furnish proof of so obvious 

 a fact, that many of the most striking similaritiis 

 in language are mere coincidences. Words de- 

 rived from the same root, and retaining the same 

 meaning, frequently present the most'' dissimilar 

 appearance, as "eveque" and "bishop;" and the 

 most distant roots frequently meet in the same 

 word. When your correspoiidents, therefore, re- 

 mind me that thereis a French word, noise, I must 

 remind them that it contains not one element of 

 our English word. Richardson gives the French 

 word, but evidently discards it, preferring the im- 

 mediate derivation from "noi/, that which noies or 

 annoys." I confess I do not understand his argu- 



ment ; but it was referring to this that I said that 

 our only known process would make a plural noun 

 of it. I have an impi-ession that I have met with 

 "annoys" used by poetical license for "annoyances." 

 "Noise" has never been used in the sense of 

 the French word in this country. If derived im- 

 mediately from the Fiench, it is hardly probable 

 that it sliould so entirely have lost every particle 

 of its original meaning. With us it is either a 

 loud sound, or fame, report, rumour, being in this 

 sense rendered in the Latin by the same two words, 

 fama, rumor, as " News." The former sense is 

 strictly consequential to the latter, which I believe 

 to be the original signification, as shown in its use 

 in the following passages : — 



" At tlie same time it was noised abroad in the realme." 



Holinshed. 



" Cleopatra, catching but the least noise of this, dies 

 instantly." Ant. and Cleo., Act i. Sc. 2. 



" Cre. What was his cause of anger ? 

 " Ser. The noise goes, this." 



Troil. and Cres., Act. 1. Se. 2. 



Whether I or your correspondents be right, 

 will remain perhaps for ever doubtful ; but the 

 flight that can discover a relationship between this 

 word and another pronounced* as nearly the same 

 as the two languages will admit of, and which 

 gives at all events one sense, if not, as I think, the 

 primary one, is scarcely so eccentric as that which 

 finds the origin of a word signifying a loud sound, 

 and fame, or rumour, in "nisus"; not even a 

 struggle, in the sense of contention, an endeavour, 

 an eti'ort, a strain. Samuel Hickson. 



St. John's Wood, June 15. 1850. 



MOKE BOKROWED THOUGHTS. 



" O many are the poets that are sown 



By nature ; men endowed with highest gifts, 



The vision and tlie faculty divine, 



Yet wanting the acconiplishment of verse. 



Nor having e'er, as life advanced, been led 



By circumstance to take the height, 



The measure of themselves," &c. 



Wordsworth's Excursion, B. i. 



This admired passage has its prototype in the 

 following from the Lettere di 13atiista Guurini, who 

 points to a thought of similar kind in Dante : — 



" O qnante nobili ingei^ni si perdono che riuscerebbe 

 mirabili [in poesia] se dal seguir le inchinazione loro 

 non fossero, o da loro appetiti 6 da i Padri loro sviati." 



Coleridge, in his Biographia Literaria, 1st ed., 

 vol. i. p. 28., relates a story of some one who de- 



* 1 do not think it necessary, here, to defend my pro- 

 nunciation of German ; the expressions I now use 

 being sufficient for tlie purpose of my argument. I 

 passt'd over CII.'s observation on this subject, because 

 it did not appear to me to touch tlie question. 



