i. c. He committed himself to the Holy Spirit, calling on St. John as their pledge. V. ibid. v. 452. The way we tuk the tyme I tald to forowe, King's Quair, ii. 4. "Saint John be your protector, or cautioner. Borowe signifies a pledge. It appears to have been an ordinary benediction." Tytler, N. It is evident, indeed, from these passages, as well as from Wallace, ix. 45, that it was customary in those times, when friends were parting, to invoke some saint as their surety that they should afterwards have a happy meeting. V. BONALAIS. This language seems evidently borrowed from our old laws, according to which," gif ony man becummis ane furth-cummand borgh for ane vther, to make him farth-cummand as ane baill man, it is sufficient, gif he produce him personallie, baill and sounde before the judge, in lauchful time and place." Skene, Verb. Sign. vo. Borgh. 2. A pledge; any thing laid in pawn. The King thoucht he wes traist inewch, The term occurs in both senses in O. E. get, Barbour, i. 628. MS. He that biddeth borroweth, & bringeth himself in det, P. Ploughman, Fol. 37, b. i. e. to repay with interest those who give. Yet seems to signify obtain. But if he line in the life, that longeth to do wel, For I dare be his bold borow, that do bet wil he neuer, All ye need is soon sped, Both withouten borgh or wed, Spec. E. P. i. 268. • Mr. Ellis, however, mistakes the sense, rendering it, borrowing; whereas borgh means pledge or pawn, as explained by the synon. wed, • Pl. borrowis. 66 --- Quhair a borgh is foundin in a court vpon a weir of law, that the partie defendar, as to that borgh, sall haue fredome to be auisit, and ask leif thairto, and sall haue leif, and quhether he will be auisit within Court, findand borrowis of his entrie, and his answer within the houre of cause. Acts Ja. i. 1429, c.130. Edit. 1566. c. 115. Murray. Hence the phrase Lawborrows, q. v. A. S. borgh, bor, fide-jussor; also, foenus; Germ. burge, a pledge. Su. G. borgen, suretyship; Isl. aabyrgd, a pledge, according to G. Andr. p. 4, from aa debet, and borg-a praestare, solvere. Hence, at at aabyrg-iast, praestare, in periculo esse de re praestanda aut conservanda, veluti fidejussores; and aabyrgdar madr, a surety. Ihre derives Su. G. and Isl. borg-a, to become surety, from berg-a, a periculo tueri, to protect from danger. The idea is certainly most natural. For what is suretyship, but warranting the safety of any person or thing? A. S. beorg-an, defendere; part. p. ge-borg-en, tutus The definition given of aabyrgd, by Olaus, exactly corresponds. Tutelae commendatio, ubi quid alteri commissum est, ut is solvat pretium si res perierit; Lex. Run. This word, he says, often occurs in the Code of Laws; by which he seems to refer to those of Iceland, V. BORROW.' This is the common and (little better than) trifling style of etymology, which consists in giving a word in one language equivalent to one in another. The parentage and family of the word are visible at once from the skilful disquisition of Horne Tooke. The instances are tolerably numerous in which Mr. H. Tooke, especially in his second volume, (which we suspect that Dr. Jamieson, in the supposed consciousness of superior strength, had not taken the trouble of reading,) has afforded a satisfactory explanation of words which have remained mysterious to the lexicographer. The reader may take, as specimens, the words Beild and Dwyn, and may compare the account which is rendered of them in the Dictionary with that which may be extracted at pp. 128, and 206, vol. ii. from the Grammarian. After errors, we should naturally proceed to mention omissions, and they are not few: but we are inclined to treat them with much more indulgence. In a first attempt of this sort, it was impossible to avoid numerous deficiencies. The wonder is that they are not more; and the patient attention and industry of Dr. Jamieson deserve a very high measure of praise. Future editions, we hope, will enable the author to supply many of these defects; which his own continued observations, or those of his friends, may enable him to discover. It would be desirable that he could prevail on many of them to peruse his Dictionary with attention, and then point out to him all the words which they perceive to be wanting. Every one, indeed, who is curious enough to explore the book, should take a note of any circumstance which strikes him as an omission, and send it to the author. The period of attaining at least a complete collection of Scottish words would thus be greatly accelerated; and the assistance which would be procured from Dr. Jamieson, in rendering an account of them, ought not to be regarded as of slender importance. Of the words which are common to both Scotch and English, the greater part are omitted; the principal motive for which, we doubt not, was the fear of rendering the book too large and expensive. We trust that the Doctor will receive encouragement enough to be exempted from such apprehension with regard to a future edition: for an entire dictionary of the Scottish language is the valuable present required, but it is evident that it must be a very imperfect dictionary of any language which contains not one half of the words that belong to it. This sort of omission has involved in it another of a different character. A considerable number of words, the same in spelling, or sound, in both languages, have lost the identity of meaning: of which Bake may serve as a specimen. Dr. Jamieson has omitted it, probably as being the same in both languages: but in English it has one signification, and in Scotch another. In English, it relates solely to the application of heat, in an oven, to bread, or other articles of food: while in Scotch it applies to the whole process of making the bread, and to the kneading more particularly than to the firing part. If a Scotch woman, when kneading or fashioning the dough for her cakes, be asked what she is doing, she will certainly answer, baking; if she be only putting them into the heat, after the other operation is over, she will not say that she is baking. Bake, in this sense, is a word peculiarly Scotch, and ought to have been explained. Compared with the original signification, which is to heat, in general, both nations have made alteration in the use of the word: but the English have made less than the Scotch. In one important particular, the merit of the author ought not to be mentioned without applause. To perceive the use and application of not a few among the words or phrases of the Scottish dialect, an explanation of antient customs and manners was demanded. This part of his task Dr. Jamieson has often very happily performed; and he has added many important elucidations to the information which we already possessed, respecting the manners of our early ancestors, and those nationa who are derived from the same stock. We quote the subsequent article, as exhibiting some remarkable coincidences between very distant nations, and containing curious though not altogether satisfactory information: BAYLE-FYRE, s. A bonfire. Than thai gart tak that woman brycht and scheyne, Feyll syiss scho suour, that scho knew nocht Wallas. And bot thou tell, in bayle fayre sall thou de. Wallace, iv. 718. MS. This is the very phrase in Su. G., used to denote capital punish ment by burning. I baale brenna, supplicii genus est in nostris legibus Occurrens; quo noxii ultricibus flammis comburendi dedebantur ; Ihre. • Hence, Hence, by a change of the letters of the same organs, our banefire and E. bonfire, which Skinner wildly derives from Lat. bonus, or Fr. bon, q.d. bonus, vel bene ominatus, ignis; Fr. bon feu, A. S. bael-fyre originally denoted the fire with which the dead were burnt; hence it gradually came to signify any great fire or blaze. As Moes G. balwjan signifies to torment, Luke xvi. 23.; the Scriptures still exhibiting the sufferings of the eternal state under the idea of fire; Junius conjectures, with great probability, that there had been some word in Moes G. corresponding to A. S. bael, rogus, incendium. Bael fyre is the very word used by Caedmon, in expressing the command of God to Abraham to present his son as a burnt offering. The same writer says, that Nebuchadnezzar cast the three children in bael-blyse. It is evident that the custom of burning the dead anciently prevailed among the Northern nations, as well as the Greeks and Romans, The author of Ynglinga Saga, published by Snorro Sturleson in his history of the kings of Norway, ascribes the introduction of this prac tice to Odin, after his settlement in the North. But he views it as borrowed from the Asiatics, "Odin," he says, "enforced these laws in his own dominions, which were formerly observed among the inhabitants of Asia. He enjoined that all the dead should be burnt, and that their goods should be brought to the funeral pile with them; promising that all the goods, thus burnt with them, should accompany them, to Walhalla, and that there they should enjoy what belonged to them on earth. He ordered that the ashes should be thrown into the sea, or be buried in the earth; but that men, remarkable for their dignity and virtue, should have monuments erected in memory of them; and that those, who were distinguished by any great action, should have gravestones, called Baulasteina." Yngl. Sag. c. 8. • Sturleson speaks of two distinct ages. "The first," he says, “ was called Bruna-aulla (the age of funeral piles), in which it was customary to burn all the dead, and to erect monuments over them, called Bautasteina. But after Freyus was buried at Upsal, many of the great men had graves as well as monuments. From the time, however, that Danus Mikillati, the great king of the Danes, caused a tomb to be made for him, and gave orders that he should be buried with all the ensigns of royalty, with all his arms, and with a great part of his riches, many of his posterity followed his example. Hence, the age of Graves (Haugs-olld) had its origin in Denmark. But the age of funeral piles continued long among the Swedes and Normans.” Pref. to Hist. p. z. According to the chronology prefixed to Sturleson's history, Freyus was born A. 65 before Christ. He is said to have been one of those appointed by Odin to preside over the sacrifices, and in latter times accounted a God. Ynglinga Sag. c. 4. Danus Mikillati was born A. D. 170. The same distinction seems to have been common among the Norwegians in ancient times. Hence we find one Atbiorn, in an address to Hacon the Good, on occasion of a general convention of the people, dividing the time past into the age of Funeral Piles, and that of Graves, Saga Hakonar, c. 17. Of Nanna, the wife of Balder, it is said, Var hon borin a balit ok slegit i elldi; Edda Saemund. "She was borne to the funeral pile, and cast into the fire." It is a fact not generally known, that the inhuman custom, which prevails in Hindostan, of burning wives with their husbands, was common among the Northern nations. Not only did it exist among the Thracians, the Heruli, among the inhabitants of Poland and of Prussia, during their heathen state, but also among the Scandinavians. Sigrida was unwilling to live with Eric, King of Sweden, because the law of that country required, that if a wife sur vived her husband, she should be entombed with him. Now she knew that he could not live ten years longer; because, in his combat with Styrbiorn. he had vowed that he would not ask to live more than ten years from that time, if he gained the victory; Oddo, Vit. Olai Trygguason. It appears, however, that widows were not burnt alive : but that, according to the custom of the country, they previously put themselves to death. The following reason is assigned for the introduction of this horrid law. It was believed, that their nuptial felicity would thus be continued after death in Walhalla, which was their heaven. V. Bartholin, de Causis Contempt. Mortis. 506–510.’ For elucidations of a similar description, the articles, Halloween, Hogmanay, Pays eggs, Beltane, Abbot of Vnressoun, Eyteyn, Botwand, &c. may be consulted. The succeeding quotation will no doubt interest some of our readers, from the coincidence which it exhibits between the name of one of the most antient streets of London, and a term of peculiar application : • WATLING STRETE, VATLANT STREIT, a term used to denote the milky way. Of euery sterne the twynkling notis he, That in the stil heuin moue cours we se, Arthurys hufe, and Hyades bataiknyng rane, Syne Watling strete, the Horne, and the Charle wane. Doug. Virgil, 85. 43. Henrysone uses it in the same sense, in his account of the journeys of Orpheus, first to heaven, and then to hell, in quest of his wife Euridice. Quhen eudit was the sangis lamentable, He tuke his harp, and on his brest can hyng, Traitie of Orpheus, Edin. 1508. "It aperis oft in the quhyt circle callit Circulus Lacteus, the quhilk the marynalis callis Vatlant Streit." Compl. S. p. 95. It has received this designation, in the same manner as it was called by the Romans Via Lactea, from its fancied resemblance to a broad street or causeway, being as it were paved with stars. The 8 street |