104 



ETTENHEIM ET YMOLOG Y. 



considered by many to be of an age when Greece was 

 still in a state of semi-barbarism, many ornaments of 

 gold, with engraved gems, and a superb fawn, con- 

 sidered by Thorwaldsen as a most perfect piece of 

 art, liave been dug up. If it is true that Greece 

 received the fine arts from Etruria, it is an interest- 

 ing question how Egyptian civilization was first 

 brought to the Etruscans. See Tuscany. 



By the peace of Liuieville, 1801, the name Etru- 

 ria was restored, and the territory was constituted a 

 kingdom, under the hereditary prince of Parma, 

 Louis, Infant of Spain, only son of Ferdinand I., 

 duke of Parma. After the death of Louis (1803), 

 his widow Maria Louisa, daughter of Charles IV., 

 king of Spain, administered the government as 

 guardian of her son, Charles Louis ; but she resigned 

 her authority, December 10, 1807, in consequence 

 of a treaty between France and Spain. Etruria 

 now became a French province ; and a decree of the 

 senate of May 30, 1808, declared the states of Tus- 

 cany, under the title of the departments of the Arno, 

 the Mediterranean, and the Ombrone, a part of the 

 French empire (the grand empire). In 1809, this 

 territory was given to Eliza, sister of Napoleon, with 

 the title of grand-duchess of Tuscany. In 1814, 

 Tuscany again received its former rulers. 



ETTENHEIM ; a small town in the grand-duchy 

 of Baden, nineteen miles S. S. E. Strasburg, with 2680 

 inhabitants. The duke of Enghien was arrested here. 



ETTRICK, a mountainous parish of Scotland, in 

 Selkirkshire, extending about ten miles in every 

 direction. It is almost entirely a pastoral district. 

 The river Ettrick takes its rise in the parish, and 

 after a winding course of thirty miles, falls into the 

 Tweed, three miles above Melrose. It receives the 

 Yarrow stream near Philiphaugh, one and a half 

 mile above Selkirk. There are two lochs, partly 

 in this parish, and partly in the parish of Yarrow, 

 the Loch of the Lows, and St Mary's Loch, both 

 abounding with pike and tench perch. Anciently 

 the district was covered with wood, and though now 

 denuded of trees, it is still called Ettrick Forest. 

 Population of the parish in 1831, 530. 



ETYMOLOGY (from the Greek irv/te^ayia, from 

 Irufttf, true, real, and xyy, word); that branch of 

 philology which teaches the origin of words, traces 

 the laws by which the changes in languages take 

 place, and discovers the true meanings of" words by 

 examining their roots and composition. It is at once 

 the dellcice philologicae, and a safeguard against the 

 corruption of words by a careless application of 

 them. Etymology becomes particularly interesting 

 when applied to those languages which are not so 

 much the product of accident as of settled laws, 

 which continue to operate as long as the language 

 exists. Etymology has not unfrequently led to impor- 

 tant historical conjectures, because the language of 

 a tribe is often the only record of its descent, the 

 individuals composing it having lost all tradition of 

 their origin. Who can doubt the importance of 

 etymology, taking it in its widest sense, as treating 

 of the origin and nature of words, and of the connex- 

 ions of different languages; in short, as occupied 

 with the laws which regulate the formation of 

 languages, which stand pre-eminent among the most 

 interesting, important, and noble productions of the 

 human mind? To be a sound etymologist, requires 

 many rare qualifications, among which are a thorough 

 knowledge of many and very different languages ; 

 great caution, which will not be easily led astray by 

 appearances; a philosophical mind, which easily 

 conceives the associations of ideas, and traces the 

 different, yet connected notions which the same root 

 expresses in different languages; in one language 

 representing, perhaps, the most concrete, and in 



another the most abstract idea ; a perfect knowledge 

 of phonology, or the science of human sounds, and 

 the organs which produce them, and a natural taste 

 and adaptation for the study, which, like every gift 

 of nature, may be much developed, but cannot be 

 produced by labour. Etymology has been cultivated 

 with much zeal and success in our day, as illustrative 

 both of single languages (how much, for instance, 

 has Buttmann done for Greek etymology), and of the 

 relations between whole families of languages. 

 Modern scholars have been assisted in their researches 

 in this department, not merely by the materials which 

 former ages have accumulated, but by the great 

 advancement which has been made in the knowledge 

 of languages before unknown, owing to the more 

 frequent and rapid communication between the most 

 distant parts of the globe, to materials collected by 

 missionaries, &c. In general, it may be said that 

 the Germans have done more for etymology than any 

 other nation ; while, comparatively speaking, very 

 little has been done by the English, whom almost 

 every word in their language conducts into a foreign 

 country, and with whom it might be supposed 

 etymology would be much more generally cultivated 

 than with a nation like the Germans, whose language 

 forms a whole in itself, the words of which explain 

 each other as far as common use requires. 



Etymology might be divided into the higher and 

 lower, as we have the higher and lower mathematics, 

 and it might, perhaps, be correct to say, that higher 

 etymology examines the origin of the root of a certain 

 word, its connexions with corresponding words in 

 other languages, &c., and that it treats only of the 

 higher laws of the formation of languages ; but, of 

 course, the line of distinction between these two 

 divisions cannot be very accurately drawn. As an 

 instance of our meaning, let us trace the origin of 

 disagreeableness ; ness is an affix frequent in substan- 

 tives, corresponding to the German niss, and indica- 

 ting a state, effect, or abstraction ; a syllable which 

 is to be found in some shape or other in all Teutonic 

 dialects ; dig (the Latin dis, asunder), a prefix often 

 of the same meaning as the English tin, conveying 

 the idea of negation ; agreeable, from the French 

 agreable, of which able is an adjective affix from the 

 Latin ; a, a preposition often indicating at, as u 

 plaisir, at pleasure ; gre, at last, is the root of the 

 word, analogous to grat, the root of the Latin gratus, 

 and having the same meaning. Higher etymology 

 now continues to trace the root of grains in several 

 languages, or endeavours to do so. It is not impro- 

 bable that it would be found that g is an augment 

 which, in several other languages, is left out. (See 

 the article F). To find the root of a word is always 

 the first object of etymology, but often difficult, 

 because several different syllables may sometimes 

 present themselves as probable roots. Euphony 

 must be always taken into the account, and 

 letters which are added merely for the sake of im- 

 proving the sound must be thrown aside. As 

 another instance, we may take the word lawless ; 

 this consists of a substantive, law, and a syllable, 

 less, corresponding to the German syllable, los, 

 which is also used as an adverb, and has then the 

 meaning of off"; it is the root of losen, to loosen, to 

 separate, connected, probably, with the Latin laxare 

 and lucre, the Greek Xw<r;, XI/|E., Xw< ; and the 

 same with the Swedish losa, the Icelandic leisa, and 

 the Anglo-Saxon lezan and lysan. Law is a root 

 which we recognise in the corresponding word, or 

 connected ones, of a great many languages, Teuto- 

 nic, Latin, and Greek, and probably Asiatic ones, 

 and is, besides, connected with the German legen, 

 to lay, to lay down, which corresponds to the lagjan 

 of Ulphilas in the Gothic translation of the Bible, tlie 



