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Sometimes a word will emerge anew from the undercurrent of society, not indeed new, but yet to most seeming as new, its very existence having been altogether forgotten by the greater number of those speaking the language; although it must have somewhere lived on upon the lips of men. Thus, for instance, since the Californian and Australian discoveries of gold we hear often of a 'nugget' of gold; a lump, that is, of the pure metal; and there has been some discussion whether the word had been born for the present necessity, or whether it be a recent malformation of 'ingot." am inclined to think that it is neither one nor the other. I would not indeed affirm that it may not be a popular recasting of 'ingot;' but only that it is not a recent one; for 'nugget' very nearly in its present form, occurs in our elder writers, being spelt 'niggot' by them.* There can be little doubt that this is the same word; all the consonants, which are generally the stamina of a word, being the same; while this early form 'niggot' makes more plausible their suggestion that 'nugget' is only 'ingot' disguised, seeing that there wants nothing but the very common metathesis of the two first letters to bring that out of this.

New words are often formed from the names of persons, actual or mythical. Some one has observed how interesting would be a complete collection, or a collection approaching to completeness, in any language of

*Thus in North's Plutarch, p. 499: "After the fire was quenched, they found in niggots of gold and silver mingled together, about a thousand talents ;" and again, p. 323: "There was brought a marvellous great mass of treasure in niggots of gold.”

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the names of persons which have afterwards become names of things, from nomina appellativa have become nomina realia. Let me without confining myself to those of more recent introduction endeavour to enumerate as many as I can remember of the words which have by this method been introduced into our language. To begin with mythical antiquity-the Chimæra has given us 'chimerical,' Hermes 'hermetic,' Tantalus 'to tantalize,' Hercules 'herculean,' and Daedalus 'dedal,' if this word may on Spenser's and Shelley's authority be allowed. Gordius, a Phrygian king who tied that famous 'gordian' knot which Alexander cut, will supply a natural transition from mythical to historical. Here Mausolus, a king of Caria, has left us 'mausoleum,' Academus 'academy,' Epicurus 'epicure,' Philip of Macedon a 'philippic,' being such a discourse as Demosthenes once hurled against him, the enemy of Greece, and Cicero 'cicerone;' Mithridates, who had made himself poison-proof, gave us the now forgotten word, 'mithridate,' for antidote; as from Hippocrates we derived 'hipocras,' a word often occurring in our early poets, being a wine supposed to be mingled according to his receipt. A grammar used to be called a 'donat' or 'donet' (Chaucer) from Donatus, a famous grammarian. Lazarus, perhaps an actual person, has given us 'lazar' and 'lazaretto;' and Simon Magus simony;' Mahomet a 'maumet' or 'mammet,' that is, an idol; and 'dunce' is from Duns Scotus. To come to more modern times, and not pausing at Ben Jonson's 'Chaucerisms,' Bishop Hall's 'Scoganisms' from Scogan, Edward the Fourth's Jester, or his 'aretinisms,'

from an infamous Italian named Aretine, these being probably not intended even by their authors to endure, a Roman cobbler named Pasquin has given us the 'pasquil' or 'pasquinade; Colonel Negus in Queen Anne's time first mixed the beverage which goes by his name; Lord Orrery was the first for whom an 'orrery' was made; and Lord Spencer first wore, or at least first brought into fashion, a 'spencer.' Dahl, a Swede, introduced the cultivation of the dahlia.' The 'tontine' was conceived by an Italian, Tonti; and another Italian, Galvani, first noted the phenomena of galvanism. Martinet,' 'mackintosh,' 'doyly,' 'to macadamize,' 'to burke,' are all names of persons or formed from persons, and then transferred to things, on the score of some connexion existing between the one and other.*

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Again the names of popular characters in literature, such as have taken strong hold on the national mind, give birth to a number of new words. Thus from Homer we have 'mentor' for a monitor; 'stentorian'

* Several of these we have in common with the French; of their own they have 'sardanapalisme,' any piece of profuse luxury, from Sardanapalus; while for lambiner,' to dally or loiter over a task, they are indebted to Denis Lambin, a worthy Greek scholar of the sixteenth century, whom his adversaries accused of sluggish movement, and wearisome diffuseness in style. The name of an unpopular French minister of finance, M. de Silhouette, unpopular because he sought to cut down unnecessary expences in the state, was applied to whatever was cheap and, as was implied, unduly economical. It has survived in the black outline portrait which is now called a 'silhouette.' (Sismondi, Histoire des Français, t. 19, p. 94, 95.) I need hardly add' guillotine.'

PROPER NAMES BECOME WORDS.

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for loud-voiced; and inasmuch as with all of Hector's nobleness there is a certain amount of big talking about him, 'to hector' from him;* while the medieval romances about the siege of Troy ascribe to Pandarus that shameful ministry out of which his name has past into the words 'to pandar' and 'pandarism.' 'Rodomontade' is from Rodomont, a blustering and boasting hero of Boiardo, and adopted by Ariosto; 'thrasonical' from Thraso, the braggart in the Latin comedies, Cervantes has given us 'quixotic;' Swift, liliputian;' to Moliere the French language owes tartuffe,' and tartufferie.''Reynard,' too, which with us is a duplicate for fox, while in the French 'renard' has quite excluded the older 'volpils,' was originally not the name of a kind, but the proper name of the fox hero, the vulpine Ulysses, in that famous beast-epic of the middle ages, Reineke Fuchs; the immense popularity of which we gather from many evidences, from none more clearly than from this. Chanticleer' and 'Bruin' are in like manner the proper names of the cock and bear in the same poem; these have not made fortune to the same extent of actually putting out in any language the names which before existed, but still have become quite familiar to us all.

We must not count as new words properly so called, although they may delay us for a minute, those comic words, most often comic combinations formed at will, and sometimes of enormous length, in which, as plays

* See Mure's Language and Literature of Ancient Greece, vol. i. p. 350.

and displays of power, great writers ancient and modern have delighted. These for the most part are meant to do service for the moment, and then to pass away. The inventors of them had themselves no intention of fastening them permanently on the language. Thus among the Greeks Aristophanes coined μελλονιkɩáw, to loiter like Nicias, with allusion to the delays with which this prudent commander sought to put off the disastrous Sicilian expedition, with not a few other familiar to every scholar. The humour of them sometimes consists in their enormous length, as in the dupinτολεμοπηδησίστρατος of Eupolis; sometimes in their mingled observance and transgression of the laws of the language, as in the 'oculissimus' of Plautus, a comic superlative of 'oculus;' as in the 'dosones," dabones,' which in Greek and in medieval Latin were names given to those who were ever promising, ever saying, "I will give," but never performing their promise. Plautus with his exuberant wit, and out of his mastery and command of the Latin language, will compose four or five lines consisting entirely of comic combinations thrown off for the occasion.* Of the same character is Butler's 'cynarctomachy,' or battle of a dog and bear. Nor do I suppose that Fuller, when he used 'to avunculize,' to imitate or follow in the steps of one's uncle, or Cowper, when he suggested 'extraforaneous' for 'out of doors,' in the least intended them as lasting additions to the language,

Sometimes a word springs up in a very curious way;

* Persa, 4, 6, 20-23,