^{page 244 note a} Tomo ii. parte 1, p. 173.

^{page 244 note b} Schifare, Schivare, Vitare, Declinare, Abhorrere; Muratori derives from the German Scheu, aversion, fear, whence scheuen, fuggire. And he connects with this the French Esquiver, and the English to eschew. This latter word he had found in our Bible, but had he had any acquaintance with our every-day language, he would not have failed to remark how widely the word had spread. The shying of a horse and the shyness of a girl, are plainly derivable from the same origin.

Ranch di un volto, di un arco, also used for the rim of a wheel, is by Menage derived from Ramus; but Muratori supposes it to be from the German Rand, in the several senses of Giro, Cerchio, Orlo, Margine. I notice this for the sake of relating an anecdote which shews how words linger in remote provinces when in other places they have died away. At an Assizes at Norwich, many years ago, I heard a trial involving the right to the reeds growing on the borders of a little river. Old witnesses were called to prove who had the right to cut the rands, which a they pronounced just as the Germans now do. The witnesses meant by the rands, the rushes on the borders or edges of the land, which were claimed by the owners of the land—which word, by the bye, still survives (the a being changed into i) in the rind of cheese, orange, and bacon.

Schuma—Spuma, is by Menage derived from that Latin word, but Muratori makes it identical with the German schaum, the Danish shum, the Icelandish scuum, the English scum, and the French ecume. It may be here remarked, that a very large proportion indeed of the Italian words which commence in sch, are from the German.

Muratori warns his readers against being misled by mere identity of sound, which would occasionally lead to false conclusions. Thus he remarks on our cold, while the Italian caldo means hot; our women, while the Italian uomini means men. By the bye, I would observe here on the anomalous diversity of pronunciation in the singular and plural of woman, that the plural is the more correct pronunciation of the word according to its origin. Women (say wi'men) is but a softening down of wyv, or wif, or weibmen.

Among the words which look alike and are the opposite, is schiudere, which means to open, and not to shut. This Italian word is evidently derived from the Latin claudere. The l being turned into an i, as in so many instances, Flos, fiore; Flumen, fiume, &c. Now this same claudere is in German schliessen, which word has ramifications so beautifully analogical, that I am glad of availing myself of it to shew how the German language is formed. From the verb schliessen comes entschluss, a resolution or determination of the mind which shuts up all doubt. A decree of a court of justice is for the same reason called a beschluss. A schloss is a castle, i. e. a fortified or shut-up building. The same schloss also means a bolt, as schlússel means a key. Schleusse is our sluice. Hence it follows, that sluice is a contrivance rather to shut than to open: though of course it cannot do one without the other. The worth of a language lies, in a great measure, in the richness of its analogous formations.

A more interesting illustration of this richness of the German in vernacular formations, contrasted with our recourse to foreign languages for words which from fastidiousness we have rejected in our native tongue, is found in geist, which answers a multitude of purposes which we have refused to effect by our own corresponding word. Ein Geistlicher is a clergyman; ein geistliches lied, a spiritual song; Geistige getránhe, spirituous drinks or liquors; a geistreiche person is an ingenious lady or gentleman, while geistvoll is more seriously intellectual; and geist, in its simple form, is spirit, in all its variety of applications. How this Latin spirit came to supersede our Teutonic ghost, I cannot pretend to say. It may be thought that our proper term has been withdrawn from common use, reverentiœ causa, having one solemn application. Yet it is at the same time used in another sense, in which it is not used in German—ghost, in the sense of a departed spirit making itself visible, being in German gespenst from spinnen (as if spun out by the fancy). It is worthy of remark that the Teutonic word has come to us a second time under the varied form of Gas. This word is said to have been introduced by Van Helmont He had not far to go in search of it. Geest seems to be as much in use as the allied Geist is in German. The chemical Geestdryver (for such is the Dutch word for Enthusiast, and such Van Helmont was) adopted the novel variety of geest, gas, to designate spirit or vapour. And in so doing, he reversed the process which had taken place in the Latin. Spiritus meant first a material substance, though the finest, breath; and then became opposed to all matter: while geist, otherwise immaterial, becomes in gas a bodily substance.

I will conclude these extracts with a word of far less importance, but one which has given pleasure to the English readers of Italian poetry, accompanied by regret that we want a corresponding word. In Ariosto the word guizzare frequently occurs, which is used to express that brilliant flash which a fish (trout especially) makes by its motion in the water; and yet, if Muratori be correct, we have the word in English. He asserts that Guizzare, motus piscium per aquam, is not from fluitare, Latin, as Ferrari affirms, but from the German wischen, or witschen; he remarks that the Italian Gu denotes a passage through the German, though the word in its origin may be Latin. Guastare comes not directly from the Latin vastare, but from the German wast. He supposes wischen to have become guiscare, and then guizzare. If this be so, then we have also the word in our whisk:

But our whisk simply expresses the rapidity of the motion in the subject, guizzare is used to indicate the effect on the beholder of the object; a delicacy of discrimination which is seldom noticed by grammarians, which is found in good writers, but too often lost in the heedlessness and inaccuracy of common conversation.

^{page 246 note c} See an excellent article in the Foreign Quarterly Review for October 1832.