pression a sirloin of beef; and meaning the upper portion of a side of the animal which affords the meat called beef. Sie'r leyne ; q. e, see there a leaning part; this is a leaning piece; a portion on which the animal rests for support; and, in fact, the part in question is the upper portion of one of the legs of one of the sides of the ox to which it had belonged, Sie'r leyne sounds sirloin. JOHNSON tells you the syllable sir in the term is as the title given to a loin of beef, which one of the Kings knighted in a fit of merriment. As fitly might he have said that the sir, in a sir reverence, is a royal title! If any king was fool enough to do such a thing, as to knight a piece of beef, and that's the only probable part of the story, it must have been the already existing sir, as a syllable in the term, that put the thought into his head. Leyne, lene, a leaning, a lean to, a support, a prop. Sie'r, sie er, see there, behold there, and sounds as we pronounce The i as in fir, stirr, and not as in fire, tire, sir. sire. COMPORT, In the well-known import. A term which has not precisely corresponding equivalent in any other language, and is, in fact, the travesty of a sentence, Kume voort; q. e. sighing away! hence with groaning [pining, trouble, lamentation, care, painful sensation, difficulty; let there be no more disagreeable feeling] and sounds cumfort, as we pronounce comfort. Kumen [anciently eumen], kuymen, to lament, to sigh, to groan, to pine, to whine. Voord, voort, further off, away, hence, out with, Kume, kum, the participle present of kumen, And what is comfort but the ridding of painful or distressing feelings ?-and what a greater or more cheering pleasure than relief from them? JOHNSON says the word is from the verb to comfort, and that from the low [dog] Latin comforto, while, in truth, he ought to have seen the Latin term has been made out of the English word. That a scholar, such as JOHNSON, should be led to suppose a sound English term could have been derived from dog Latin, to the genuine type of which language the term in question bears not even the remotest analogy! To what other term is comforto related in Latin? Besides, is not the very book he quotes a quiz upon that language? Salvia comfortat nervos, says the SCHOLA SALERNITANA; but who would think of taking such a source as an authority for the origin of any word in any language! As well might an Italian cite the maccaronick poem of MERLINUS COCCAJUS, for the origin of some Italian word, The Dutch have the adverb kume, kuyme, difhculty, hardly, with pain, à peine, ayre; and evidently of this family, To comfort, comfortable, comfortableness, &c., are all formations from the substantive comfort, as accounted for in this article, Our to cumber, to incumber, and the French encombrer, in the sense of to impede, to make troublesome [difficult], to embarrass, belong to the same kumen, cumen, but without the word court, which reverses, or takes away its direct or positive import. "I will keep her ignorant of her good, To make her heavenly COMFORTS of despair, When it is least expected," "Her soul, heaven's queen, whose name she hears, Has placed among her virgin train,” A THIEF IN THE CANDLE, BEN JOHNSON, In the common and well-known acceptation of that expression, Er sie hef in de kant; tille! q, e, see there a sticking out on one side; remove it! See there's something projecting on one side (of the wick]; take it away! Thus a prosopo{MEVS of some one of the company to the one conveniently near to the candle in question, and sounds precisely as we pronounce the travesty. Hef, heve, elevation, rising, projecting, heaving. Tille, the imperative tillen, to take up or away, tollere. NERVES. In the sense explained at p. 240, Vol. 1., of this essay, where the first member of the term is taken to be as the travesty of naer, in the import there given; instead of which naer, I suspect ner to be as the Dutch nar, narre, foolish, absurd, distortedly endowed in mind, unwise, stupid, narrowed [weakened] in intellect; and the term nerves, as used in the expression, his is a disease of the nerves, to be as, nar-wees; q.e. absurd distresses, foolish woes, evils arising from an undue state of the mind, sorrows caused by a distorted or unnatural affection of the intellect; and thus as unreal [fictitious] woes, distress arising from a weakened mind; and is not this what is meant by our term when used as above stated? Nervous, as in the expression a nervous person, is as narwoes, woes being in the form of our dialect, as shewn in the above cited article. A nervous person may be, with the exception of this partial affliction, a man of genius, and nothing more derogatory to general talent is implied by the epithet, than is when we say a gouty person or a blind or lame person. Nar, narre, foolish, weak-minded, and naer, near, narrow, straitened, stinted, diminished, are evidently of a same stock; a narrow mind is an imperfect weak, stinted mind, one of less compass than what it ought duly to be. OFF-HAND. At once, readily, without trouble. Af hyend, q. e. without labour, without pain [fatigue, trouble], Af, off, from, without, set aside. Hyend, as the participle present of hyen, hijen, to labour, to pant, to pain, to vex; and sounds as we pronounce hand. BROUGHT to bed. As when we say, she is brought to bed of a girl [or boy]. Beraeckt toe bede; q. e. reached that which she prayed for; arrived at the summit of her desire; obtained the object of her prayer; and in the sense of, she has been delivered by the course of nature from the trouble and pangs incident to child-bearing, and attained a state of comparative ease and happinesss. A phrase in literal form sheer nonsense, and an evident travesty of some original one which was not so. Raecken, gheraecken, beraecken, to touch, to reach, to arrive at, to attain. Bede, prayer, petition, request; whence the term beads, used for the numbering of prayers said by the Catholic devotees. Beraeckt toe bede sounds brought to bed. SPIRIT. In the direct import of that term; and which, in that form of spelling, is as the Latin spiritus, but groundedly the same word with our sprite, spright, sprit [formerly spelt spryte and also sprete] and the French esprit. Spreyde; q. e. spreading throughout, pervading, extending in all directions, circulating, going about, and the t and d being interchanging letters, sounds as we pronounce sprite. The word is the participle present of the Dutch spreyden, spreeden, to spread, to extend; so that spirit is as quality or effect extending throughout; the pervading essence belonging to the substance or system in question; the pervader of the system received from nature. A man of spirit, is one duly supplied with this inscrutable, but essential, quality by the hand of nature. To act with spirit, is to et by the inspiration [or at the instigation] of a due nature, as duly affected by the quality implied by the term; one to human sense unknown, except by the effect produced. The spirit moves me, is as 1 am moved by that indefinite essence [quality] which pervades and excites me to do or say (as may follow]. A spirit, as the imaginary or undefinable appearance of a person in question, is as his bodiless existence; himself without that which makes him visible to his fellow men. For spirit, in its true sense, can apply only to the human being. We cannot say the spirit of a horse or cow, in the sense of the ghost of a horse or cow. In the expression a horse of spirit, the phrase of spirit, is simply the travesty of, of apier-bitte; que, of a warm conatitution [frame, muscular composition]: one with a due warmth [fire, heat] of constitution. Spier, muscle, muscular system; marrow, pith. Hitte, heat, warmth. Af spier-hitte, sounds of spirit. Spirits in the phrases, animal spirits, good or bad spirits, out of spirits, is no plural of the word spirit, but evidently the travesty of spier-hitse : q.e. muscular excitement, the exciting or warmth [fire, heat] of the muscular system, and sounds sporota. Hitze, the participle present of hitsen, hizzchen, to heat, to excite, to mstigate, to provoke, to set on, to put into action, to inflame; whenes hitte, heat, as the pervading quality which excites, makes warm, fires [heats, inflames] wherever it reaches. Spirits of wine, is the essence of wine the warming, exciting quality of wine, divested of its combined body or matter; in literal form, sheer nonsense. Animal spirits, is as muscular, bodily, [physical] excitement, opposed to that of mind or moral [essential] excitement. To spirit away, in the sense of to take or carry suddenly off, to make to go abruptly, unaccountably away, is as t'a spier hist er wee; q.e, your senses [bodily faculties, pere ceptions] tell you there is misfortune where you are; your senses warn you of an existing or |