72 MANNERS AND FASHION. 



and tlie sole religion the awe of his supposed supernatural- 

 ness. Originally, ceremonies were modes of behaviour to 

 the god-king. Our commonest titles have been derived 

 from his names. And all salutations were primarily wor- 

 ship paid to him. Let us trace out these truths in detail, 

 beginning with titles. 



The fact already noticed, that the names of early kings 

 among divers races are formed by the addition of certain 

 syllables to the names of their gods — which certain sylla- 

 bles, like our Mae and Fltz^ probably mean *' son of," or 

 "descended from" — at once gives meaning to the term 

 Father as a divine title. And when we read, in Selden, 

 that " the composition out of these names of Deities was 

 not only proper to Kings : their Grandes and more honora- 

 ble Subjects" (no doubt members of the royal race) " had 

 sometimes the like ; " we see how the term Father ^ prop- 

 erly used by these also, and by their multiplying descend- 

 ants, came to be a title used by the people in general. And 

 it is significant as bearing on this point, that among the 

 most barbarous nation in Europe, where belief in the di- 

 vine nature of the ruler still lingers, Father in this higher 

 sense is still a regal distinction. When, again, we remem- 

 ber how the divinity at first ascribed to kings was not a 

 complimentary fiction but a supposed fact ; and how, fur- 

 ther, under the Fetish philosophy the celestial bodies are 

 believed to be personages who once lived among men ; we 

 see that the appellations of oriental rulers, " Brother to the 

 Sun," &c., were probably once expressive of a genuine be- 

 lief; and have simply, like many other things, continued in 

 use after all meaning has gone out of them. "We may 

 infer, too, that the titles God, Lord, Divinity, were given 

 to primitive rulers literally — that the nostra divinitas ap- 

 plied to the Roman emperors, and the various sacred des 

 ignations that have been borne by monarchs, down to the 

 Btill extant phrase, '* Our Lord the King," are the dead and 



