Introduction. xxix 



unscrupulous fictions to which but too many incline, as if the 

 cause of truth could ever be helped forward by means of 

 deliberate invention. But there is no such word as peniise, 

 nor any French perviser. Fitzherbert is one of the earliest 

 authorities for peruse, though it also occurs in Skelton, Philip 

 Sparrow, 1. 814. Investigation will show that, at the com- 

 mencement of the sixteenth centur}?-, there was a fashion of 

 using words compounded with per-, a number of which I have 

 given in my Dictionary, s. v. pertise. The old sense was ' to 

 use up, to go through thoroughly, to attend to one by one ;' 

 and the word was sometimes spelt with a v, because vse (use) 

 was generally so spelt. Examples are : — 



" Let hym [i.e. the husbandman who wants to reckon the 

 tithe of his corn] goo to the ende of his lande, and beg}-nne 

 and tell [i.e. count] .ix. sheues, and let hym caste out the .x. 

 shefe in the name of god, and so \.o pervse from lande to lande, 

 tyll he have trewely tythed all his come ;" sect. 30, 1. 4. 



" And thus [let the shepherd] peruse them all tyll he haue 

 doone ;" sect, 40, 1. 23. 



" Than [let the sur\'eyor who is surveying propertj'^ go] to 

 the second howse on the same east side in lyke maner, and so 

 to peruse from house to house tyll he come to St. Magnus 

 churche;" Book of Surveying (1767), chap. xix. 



" Beg}m to plowe a forowe in the middes of the side of 

 the land, and cast it downe as yf thou shulde falowe it, and 

 so peruse both sydes tyl the rygge be cast down," etc. ; Book 

 of Surveying (1767) ; chap. xxiv. 



The sp>ecial application to a book may be seen in Baret's 

 Alvearie : " To ouerlooke and peruse a booke againe, Re- 

 traciare libru7n." And accordingly it need not surprise us 

 that Levins, in 1570, translated to peruse hy peruti. 



There is just one more suggestion which I venture to make, 

 though I fear, like most conjectures which are made with 



