ESOCIDiE OR PIKES. 297 



Unknown at friendsliip's hospitable board, 

 Smokes 'midst the smoky tayern's coarsest food.* 



The word ' lucius ' (whence the illustrious O'Trigger, 

 after the precedent of a Roman emperor,t took his first 

 ' nom de guerre ') has been interpreted by some as a 

 derivative from Xvkoi, in consequence of the wolf-like 

 rapacity of the pike ; by others from ' luceo/ to shine, 

 in allusion to certain phosphorescent properties he is 

 said to display in the dark. Which of these two deriva- 

 tions be the worse it would be difficult to say, and we 

 accordingly leave both to the judgment of adept etymo- 

 logists for decision. The origin of that ' verbum usita- 

 tissimum,' pike, is equally obscure j Skinner and Tooke 

 would derive it from the French word ' pique,' on ac- 

 count, say they, of the sharpness of its snout, but to 

 give point to this etymology it should be pointed too 

 {' I'epingle, I'abeille, I'eperon piquent') ; but a sword, al- 

 though equally sharp, unless it be a small sword, ' ne 

 pique point, mais blesse :' and so our adjective piked, 

 from the same verb, means ' pointed.' Shakspeare calls 

 a man with a pointed beard, a piked man. ' Why then 

 I suck my teeth, and catechize my piked man of coun- 

 tries ;' and in Camden we read of ' shoes and patterns 

 snouted and piked more than a finger long.' The French 



* Lucius obsourus ulva lacunas 



Obsidet. His nullos mensarum lectus ad usus, 

 Fumat fumosis oHdo nidore popinis. 

 t Lucius VeruB — i. e. the original Lucius, as he first adopted 

 it. There was also long after him a Pope Lucius, whose character 

 was in accordance with that of his water namesake : 



Lucius est pisois, rex atque tyrannus aquarum, 

 A quo discordat Lucius iste parum. 



Li English heraldry no fish was so early borne as the pike ; it 

 occurs in the arms of the family Lucy, seu Lucie, as far back as 

 the reign of Henry the Second. 



o 3 



