320 ON ERRATA RECEPTA. 



canna, the cane or bamboo, one species of which {bambus arundi- 

 nacea) grows to the height of sixty feet. So long ago as the time of 

 Herodotus it was reported that on the Indus, the nations caught fish 

 in boats made of reeds, each formed out of a single joint. (Herod, 

 iii. 98.) 



In saying Engineer, how unwittingly we drop out of the word 

 almost all its nobleness ! By it we transfer to the English mind but 

 poorly the grand hint given in Ingenieur, that here is a man whose 

 speciality is ingenium — brain ! 



This suggests to us that Artillery is to be interpreted in a similar 

 manner, as denoting all Engines of war — the mechanical results of the 

 application of the highest art and skill. It may here be not inappro- 

 priately added that atelier, H;he workshop, is thought, on good autho- 

 rity, to be also connected with ars, astillaria, i.e., artillaria, denoting, 

 in late Latin, implements for every purpose, of peace as well as war. 



Our word redoubt, to denote a certain part of a fortification, ex- 

 hibits a b. We either seem to have supposed that the French redout 

 -was from redouter (redubitare), and not from ridotto (Lat, reductus) 

 a retired place ; or some of our gallant soldiers, on being received 

 rather too sharply before such an outwork, and deciding to take 

 second thoughts about the mode of attack, have good humouredly 

 taken the name of the impediment to express their own hesitancy on 

 the occasion ; just as their impetuous Australian brethren have named 

 for an obvious reason, a troublesome thorn in their woods a wait-a-bit. 



This ridotto or reductus lies concealed also in rout, when it signifies 

 a grand " party :" this is properly reduite, a hall for public amuse- 

 ments ; whilst rout, a flight, and rout, in such an expression as rabble- 

 rout, is rw/^^a— whence also route, a road. In this last acceptation, 

 rupta is a graphic term to us, who are familiar with the processes by 

 which roads are first made, and at length perfected, in a new country. 



The French form of the name of our James the First — only h CAn- 

 glaise corrupted — is concealed in the title of one of our national flags 

 — the "Union Jack." It is as difficult to say why we have made 

 Jac/cthe familiar sobriquet of John, as to explain how we have formed 

 James out of Jacobus. From its pronunciation, I-a-cob, we see how 

 the Spanish lago and Diego have arisen. — ^We are not responsible for 

 the conversion of St. Macarius's name into Macaber, in the popular 

 mediaeval pageant of the Banse-Macabre. Some etymologist in the 

 court of James might have been suspected of the act. 



