CHAPTER X. 



THE BAKK. 



1. PHILOLOGISTS are continually collecting instances, like 

 our friend the French critic of Virgil, of the beauty of 

 finished language, or the origin of unfinished, in the imi- 

 tation of natural sounds. But such collections give an 

 entirely false idea of the real power of language, unless 

 they are balanced by an opponent list of the words which 

 signally fail of any such imitative virtue, and whose 

 sound, if one dwelt upon it, is destructive of their 

 meaning. 



2. For instance. Few sounds are more distinct in their 

 kind, or one would think more likely to be vocally repro- 

 duced in the word which signified them, than that of a 

 swift rent in strongly woven cloth ; and the English 

 wordr ' rag * and ragged, with the Greek p^w^ do in- 

 deed in a measure recall the tormenting effect upon the 

 ear. But it is curious that the verb which is meant to 

 express the actual origination of rags, should rhyme with 

 two words entirely musical and peaceful words, indeed, 

 which I always reserve for final resource in passages 

 which I want to be soothing as well as pretty, ' fair/ and 



