ON ERRATA RECEPTA. 231 



coloured leather used for the purpose. — The low Americanism loafer 

 ia a curtailed form of the German herum-laufer, one who vagabon- 

 dizes about (Jierum, circura, and laufen, to run.) Some such word 

 existed in the English of former days. In the Play of "Sir John 

 Oldeastle," attributed occasionally to Shakespeare, the term leufter 

 occurs. (See Act v., Sc. 2.) The annotators cannot with certainty 

 explain it. They suggest that it may be for leuterer, i.e. loiterer. 

 It is put in the mouth of an Irish character. In Spanish there is a 

 term equivalent in sense, and somewhat similar in sound — gaglioffo. 

 It denotes, first, a strolling Prench pilgrim to the shrine of St. lago, 

 where, for such persons was provided a dole called Galli offula ; and, 

 secondly, any vagrant character. Gaglioffo may have crept into Ire- 

 land and England from Spain. 



The ecclesiastical expression ember-day unexpectedly proves to be 

 Anglicised German. It is thus deduced. Latin Quatuor tempora, 

 (i.e., since A.D. 1095, the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after 1st 

 Sund. in Lent, "Whitsunday, Sept. 14th and Dec. 13th, respectively), 

 corrupted into Quatember. This then in L. G. passes successively 

 into Kottemper, Tamper, Tamper-dag, Tmber-dag, transformed by us, 

 under the influence probably of dies cineris, ash-wednesday, into 

 ember-day. — By steps somewhat similar an attempt has been mad© 

 to shew that Whitsun in JVhitsun-day is a descendant of the H. G. 

 barbarism for pentecosf, viz., pfingsten. Corruption, however, as 

 Whitsun probably is, it is not proposed to be thus derived. Its 

 orthography in the days of Wycliffe and the early translators, waa 

 Witson ©r Wytson. Up to about the twelfth century the name of 

 the festival was the same in England as on the Continent ; but the 

 technical Pentecost then began to be displaced by the vernacular 

 Witson — a term understood to be indicative of the season when the 

 first Christian disciples became, in the highest sense, " sons of wit," 

 children of wisdom ; some such text as this being glanced at — " vos^ 

 docebit omnia ;" or this, " sapientia est justificata ab omnibus filiis 

 suis." — The conversion of toit into white, and the attributing of the 

 name to the white vestments of neophytes were later popular mis- 

 apprehensions. 



Finally, the word country, though not an Anglicised German 

 term, had nevertheless its origin in a transformed Teutonic idiom. 

 Its history is said to be this. — Gegend, country or region, is literally 

 that which is gegen, over against you. An early Teuton, attempting 



