In your learned Dissertation on St. Æthelwold's Benedictional, (Archaeologia, vol. XXIV. p. 1,) you have adopted the traditional derivation of the word Mass, in the ritual of the Roman Catholic Church, from the formula missa est of the ritual. This induces me to address myself to you on the subject of English Etymology, though I cannot expect you to take an active interest in the argument I mean to lay before you in opposition to that derivation, or be more than the obliging medium through which I may address the learned Society, of which you are so distinguished a support. You have, I believe, not yet directed your attention to the German or other Northern languages; and as far therefore as you can have any opinion upon a subject of controversy to which you have not yet particularly attended, that opinion must of necessity be in conformity with that which has generally prevailed among European scholars for the last three centuries. I am aware of the disadvantage of opposing myself to such a mass of authority; but I own that this rather impels me to, than deters me from, the investigation. The concurrence of all the authorities in favour of any doctrine may be a sufficient inducement for assuming it to be true without further inquiry, but it is a still better reason for exposing an error, if there be one: and more especially if it should appear that the shrewd remark of the German Göthe is here peculiarly applicable, “In this world, there are so few voices and so many echoes.”