42 



Degraded Words. 



any evil implication. Ash, 1V75, mentions among his definitions of 

 the verb, " to claim, to demand as right," and gives " a claim " as the 

 first equivalent of the noun pretension. Johnson informs us that a 

 pretender is " one who lays claim to anything " — that, and nothing 

 more. A claimant, whether justly or unjustly, was in his view a 

 pretender, and the butcher Orton, had he lived in England a cen- 

 tury earlier, might have been spoken of as " pretending to be Sir 

 Roger Tichborne " without the slightest intimation on the part of the 

 speaker that the story was not believed. In the third part of King 

 Henry Sixth, published 1623, Shakspeare makes Sir John Mont- 

 gomery demand of King Edward at the gates of York, " why shall 

 we fight, if you pretend no title ? " and in the same breath, " if you'll 

 not here proclaim yourself our king, I'll leave you to your fortune " — 

 using />re?enc? almost interchangeably with proclaim. Milton indeed, 

 forty years later, wrote, "this let him know, lest, wilfully trans- 

 gressing, \\Qpretend surprisal " {Paradise Lost, v, 244), and elsewhere 

 uses the word in the same manner; but the innocent meaning has 

 lingered in literature for nearly two centuries longer. As historically 

 applied for instance to the son and grandson of James II. of Eng- 

 land, it can hardly have been originally intended to signify much 

 more than claimant; for the unfortunate princes made no attempt 

 at representing themselves to be anything bat what they were, though 

 they unquestionably laid claim to a kingly dignity that the nation 

 was not anxious to concede to them. In the deuoument of Lord 

 Lytton's masterpiece, "My Xovel," to take an instance within thirty 

 years of the present time, it may be remembered that Peschiera, 

 in his scathing exposure of the villainy of Randal Leslie, speaks of 

 him as "pretending" to the hand of Yiolante; and though there 

 was certainly no love lost between the two worthies at that juncture, 

 yet the context makes it clearly evident that this particular word is 

 intended in no reproachful sense — the dashing count meant only to 

 represent the minor scoundrel as his rival, seeking what he himself 

 sought, and by much the same means, and pretend in his mouth is 

 the exact equivalent of aspire. Yet who does not feel, now-a-days, 

 the more than suggestion of a charge of fraud that is conveyed when 

 we speak of and one as "pretending," or as a pretender? — and 

 indeed AYebster, reversing the earlier order of definitions, renders 

 the noun as meaning, first, " one who simulates or feigns," and only 

 secondarily, " one who lays claim," in which he doubtless interprets 

 correctly our modern usage. What deduction can we draw from 



