400 ERRATA RECEPTA. 



that the title, major domus, in the courts of the Merovingian Kings,. 

 is a Latin vernacularism for the native mord-dom, 'judge in capital 

 cases.' The historic * Charlemagne,' itself, is declared, by the same 

 investigators, to be a disguised form of the Teutonic Karl-mann, 

 * strong man.' Such readings of received terms meet with little favour, 

 and lamas ubhal, according to Foster's Perennial Calendar, an old 

 Saxon terra, equivalent to le ?nesse des pommes, i.e. le Toussaint, All 

 Saints' day, November 1, became lambs' wool in later times, a bever- 

 age used on the festival, concocted of bruised apples, ale, wine, &c., 

 was once ' the carles' wain,' the wagon of the churl, or husband-man. 

 Without doubt, however, ' Charles' wain,' the group of stars so-called j 

 Adopting a course the reverse of that supposed in the cases of mord' 

 dam and Karl-mann, our Netherlandish kinsmen have constructed a 

 vernacularism out of an undoubted Latin title. They have trans- 

 formed comes stabuli, ' the count of the stable,' the original of 'con- 

 stable,' into the Dntch canine stavel, fulcrum reffis, 'king's support.*^ 

 Once more: from a Celtic word, bach=zsma\\, the Late-Latin adjec- 

 tive, bacalarius, was formed, expressive of the condition of a minor 

 — of one not yet advanced to the dignity of master in an art or sci- 

 ence. An ingenious vernacularizer improved this into a word blend- 

 ing the ideas of the ivy-berry and the bay — laccalaureus. Like 

 Dom Diniz, at Coimbra : — 



" Here, ivy-wreaths, with gold, he interweaves, 

 And the coy Daphne's never-fading leaves." 



— Lusiad, 3, '75. 



Hence has arisen ' bachelor,' in all its senses. As to its application, 

 in the technical language of chivalry, that has been vainly assigned 

 to the French bas chevalier. 



Some further French vernacularisms, for which I have not hitherto 

 found a place, together with a few similar or connected misunderstand- 

 ings in English, may here be subjoined. Boulevard is now almost 

 English. It is the French transformation of the Low German bol- 

 werke, a bastion, or a portion of the fortifications jutting out in a cir- 

 cular form. We make bulwark and bulworTc ouc of it. 'Boulevards,' 

 in the Parisian sense, are now remarkable for the absence of that from 

 which the word has descended. They are the open spaces left by the 

 removal of the ancient city-walls. — The common impression is that 

 faubourg is the fauxbourg, the quasi-city, the parts arrived at before 

 entering within the walls. The sense of the word is this ; but, reached 



