The Tale of the Cobbler and the Vicar of Bray, ascribed erroneously to “Hudibras " Butler, is the phrase nappy ale: "A dozen of your nappy ale Will set 'em right again." Halliwell and Wright in their ed. of Nares' Glossary quote from Harry White's Humour, 1659: An old Borough' proverb runs : "M.P. wisheth happy Successe and ale nappy, "The nappy strong ale of Southwark Keeps many a gossip frae the kirk." But commonly the ale is understood; comp. Lat. merum, mulsum, Gr. åкpatos, and especially Eng. Stout. Halliwell and Wright apparently (see 1. c.) derive nappy from nap, as = nap inspiring, sleepy-making. Johnson makes it = spumy, frothy, from nap down, &c. Lye, quoted by Johnson, refers it to A. S. nappe, a cup. 122. ferlie wonder. The word occurs in Old English, and in Northumberland now. Fer-lie is the Ancient Eng. faer-lic = fear-like. 123. [When is Hallowmas? Derive, and illustrate the name.] 126. [How can the singular verb be defended here?] 127. blinks = glances. Comp. "ae blink o' the bonie burdies" in Tam o' Shanter. So in common English twinkle, as in Dryden's Don Sebastian: "I come, I come; the least twinkle had brought me to thee." How different Burns' blinker (=a bright-glancing girl) from the Eng. blinkard. siaps, as hits in Love's L. L. IV. i. 109-141. 131. ream = cream. The A. S. is ream. Perhaps the prefixed c is due to the weakening of sound in Eng.—is, in fact, a compensation, some ringent sound being felt to be onomatopeically necessary. Hence in Lowland Scotch, where the r has not suffered such debilitation, the c has not been required. reeks smokes. Comp. Germ. rauchan. 133. luntin smoke-emitting. Jamieson refers the subst. lunt to "Teut. lonte, fomes igniarius" fuel, or "kindling," or "eldin." mill="a snuff-box, properly of a cylindrical form." So Jamieson, who connects with "Isl. mel-ia contundere, the box being formerly used in the country as a mill for grinding the dried tobacco leaves." But it is not necessary to go to Islandic for the root. "Miln" is found in Ancient English. Comp. Germ. mühle. 134. [To which subject does the predicate strictly apply? Quote other instances of such a zeugma]. 135. cantie cheerful. A word of Gaelic extraction, according to Jamieson. crackin = chattering, gossiping. So in Norfolk (Halliwell). Often talking boast fully; see note to Cotter's S. N. 67. = crouse = "merry, brisk, lively, bumptious." So Halliwell, who connects with crus wrathful-as in Havelek, 1966, where it has much the sense of cross. 136. rantin. See 1. 24. 142. fawsont 121. 147. ablins. thrang. a = on. "seemly." Gloss. Burns, Globe Ed. See note to sidelong, Des. V. 29. For the derivation, comp. Gk. Suvarŵs. See note to L Alleg. 20. 148. indenting selling; strictly, bargaining-as in 1 Hẹn. IV. I. iii. 86: "Shall we buy treasure? and indent with fears, When they have lost and forfeited themselves?" The word is now not used except in its literal sense. The secondary sense arose from some custom of notching the edges of the parchment or paper on which contracts were drawn up. "The term indenture implies that the deed is of two parts, that is, two parts or copies exactly alike, and that the two parts were divided by the line to afford additional means of authentication." (Standard Libr. Cycl. of Pol. Knowledge.) = 149. haith faith, as in the following line. There is no class of words more liable to corruption than those containing oaths. With them affectation and caprice have their fullest A perpetual tendency prevails to disguise the oath, as it were-to make the mere form of it nonsense. Observe such strange shapes as 'slud, zounds, oons, &c., &c. Even so little outrageous an expression as "in faith" becomes faith, faith, faix, &c. sway. 151. [gaun. What part of the verb is gaun?] 155. daft. See note, 1. 43. 162. guitar is ultimately derived from the Gk. Kapa. nowt = cattle; here bulls. Other Scotch forms are nout and nolt (used for black cattle); see Jamieson. Comp. Eng. neat, Isl. naut. 163. See The Traveller, 152. 165. bouses. See "bouzing can" in Faerie Q. I. iv. 22, "quaff and bowze" in Harington's Epigrams (quoted in Nare's Gloss., ed. Halliwell and Wright), bousy poet" apud Dryden, "sup and bowse from horn and can" in Keats' lines on The Mermaid Tavern Johnson quotes Dutch buysen. drumly muddy. The word is used in Northumb. (Halliwell) as a verb-in Highland Mary: "Ye banks and braes and streams around The Castle o' Montgomery, Green be your woods, and fair your flowers, Your waters never drumlie." 169. hech. Comp. heigh-ho, as in Amiens' song in As you like it, II. vii. Dear sirs is a sort of wondering appeal to the world in general, just as Ye gods, Great Heavens, &c. to Heaven. The plural sirs occurs in Author. Version of the Acts of the Apostles, xiv. 15, &c., &c. In the Elizabethan poets it is sometimes used in addressing ladies. There is no etymological reason why it should not be so. = 173. aback on back backward. Chaucer has this form. 178. Fient.. See above, 1. 16. hait "the least thing.' (Gloss. Burns, Globe Ed.) whit, aught, A. S. aht, awhit. Fient haet devil a bit. In 1. 206 there is deil haet. 179. timmer. The b in the common form timber is merely auxiliary; see note on l. 63. Tymmer-man carpenter, &c. Here perhaps timmer = fences. 180. limmer = mistress. This word, used generally in a disparaging sense, is seemingly connected by Jamieson with limm limb, i.e., a limb of Satan, a devil's limb. Comp. imp. But such a derivation seems much to be doubted. Ben Jonson uses limmer, Sad Shepherd, II. ii. 182. Ne'er a bit. See note to Alex. Feast, 70. 122. 185. steer common Eng. stir. 188. [The gentles. Mention other adjectives that are treated so completely as substantives as to receive a plural inflection.] 189. [What is meant by starve here ?] 194. for a'. See note to Hymn Nat. 73. 197. sturt start, startle, and so trouble, vex. See Halloween, of the bold Jamie Fleck : as 204. ev'n down = downright. With the use of even comp. that of flat in such phrases 'a flat contradiction." 205. lank languid. A. S. hlanc = lean, meagre. Germ. Schlank. 206. deil haet. See above, 1. 178. 209. Horse Races have been our great national sport since the time of the Restoration at least. 213. Cast out quarrel. Outcast, a quarrel (Jamieson). Wyntown uses to "cast words in this sense; comp. Swedish ord kastas. In "cast out," as used in the text, the object of the verb is omitted; the "out" gives intensity. With this use of "cast" jacere in such phrases as "in feminas inlustres probra jecerat." (Tac. Ann, xi. 13.) 214. sowther solder (lit. make solid). = comp. Lat. jads. Wedgwood connects jade with the Lat. ilia through the Span. ijada, and so makes the radical meaning a panting broken-winded horse, one that "ilia ducit." (Hor. Ep. I. i. 9.) 221. Comp. Rape of the Lock, 297–306. 123. 223. lee-lang = livelong. See note to sidelong, Des. V., and Phil. Soc. Transactions for 1862-3. 227. [Is there anything noticeable in the language of this line?] 230. gloamin, A. S. glomung. 235. See Cotter's S. N. 154. WILLIAM COWPER. 1731-1749. WILLIAM COWPER was born at Great Berkhamstead, Hertfordshire, Nov. 26, 1731. His father, the rector of that place, was a descendant of Sir William Cowper, the friend of Hooker. His mother, whose maiden name was Anne Donne, could trace her pedigree back to a royal house (see On the Receipt of My Mother's Picture, l. 108). For the pronunciation of his surname, up to the beginning of the 17th century, says his latest biographer, 'the name had been spelt Cooper, and it has never been pronounced otherwise by the family.' John Cowper of James I.'s time altered it probably in affectation of the Norman spelling "Cupere" or "Coupre," as the names appear in the roll of Battle Abbey. Many of the family, however, retained the old spelling for some time after. In Lord Campbell's Life of Chancellor Cowper, we have one or two letters signed "Wm. Cooper."' (Globe Ed. of Cowper's Works, xxi. note). It was the future poet's misfortune to lose his mother when he was but six years old; but he never lost the fondest memory of her. He was presently sent to a school at Market Street, and then to Westminster. Amongst his Westminster schoolfellows were Thornton, Lloyd, Colman and Churchill. His experience of public school life seems to have been bitter; see his Tirocinium. His bodily frame was not robust; he was of a highly sensitive disposition. Such a boy was ill fitted for the public school life of that time, perhaps for the public school life of any time. 2. 1749-1763. After leaving school, he was articled to an attorney for three years, but he preferred 'giggling and making giggle' with certain lady cousins to law studies. Then he took chambers in the Temple with the design of continuing, or really beginning those studies. Here some twelve years drifted away. At last his friends procured him an appointment in the Civil Service; this from nervousness he resigned; they procured him another—that of clerk of the journals to the House of Lords. A parliamentary dispute made it necessary for him to appear at the bar of the House of Lords to entitle him to the office. Before this necessity his strangely nervous nature succumbed. Towards the end of 1763, his reason giving way, it became advisable to commit him to complete medical care and supervision. At 3. 1763-1780. After remaining some seven months in the house of Dr Cotton, at St Albans, his mind in some degree recovered its balance; but he was a changed man. He had undergone a great reaction. He had discovered with shame and remorse the frivolousness of his London life, and altogether shrunk from renewing it. Not unnaturally, he ran now into an opposite extreme, and was for a life devoted to religious exercises. Huntingdon he became acquainted with the Unwins-a clergyman, his wife, and a son. In 1765 he became an inmate of their house. Mr Unwin being thrown from his horse and killed the following year, in 1767 Cowper and Mrs Unwin removed to Olney, a village on the Ouse in Buckinghamshire, well known by the poet's subsequent descriptions, that they might enjoy there the ghostly ministrations and counsel of the Rev. John Newton. There can be little doubt that Newton's society was harmful for Cowper. Newton was a man of a vigorous mind, of sincere piety, of genuine kindliness; he was certainly attached to Cowper; but, as compared with Cowper, it must be allowed that he was of a hard and unsensitive nature. In his earlier life he had been a slave-dealer. Such a man was ill-fitted to deal with so delicate a temperament as that of his new parishioner. He might know how to train trees, but his hands were too robust and rude for flowers. Cowper's old disorder soon began to threaten him with a second attack. In 1773 the threat was fulfilled. 'Calvinistic doctrine and religious excitements threw an already trembling mind off its balance, and aggravated a malady which but for them might probably have been cured' (see 'Introductory Memoir' to Globe Cowper, p. xlii). Some six years passed before Cowper was himself again. In 1779 he was delivered from his well-meaning but injudicious director and friend, by that gentleman's presentation to the living of St Mary Woolnoth, London. It was after his Newton's departure, that Cowper, finding much leisure at his disposal, commenced writer. 4. 1780-1800. The decad beginning with the year 1780 was the great productive period of Cowper's life. In 1780 he wrote The Progress of Error; in the winter, 1780-1, Truth, Table-Talk, Expostulation. His first volume of Poems was published in 1782. It was when he was in the midst of these literary labours that Lady Austen first visited Olney. Their acquaintance ripened into the warmest friendship. In 1782 her ladyship came to reside in the village, and for some two years made Cowper's life bright with her gay sprightly presence. Would that that good angel had come to him sooner, and abode with him longer! The evil spirits that haunted Cowper were banished for the time. There was no hour for them, when Lady Austen played her harpsichord and sang, or enlivened the very air with her pleasant converse and sympathetic humour. It was she who told him the story of John Gilpin; and gave him the Sofa for a theme. Unhappily, this cheerful intimacy was abruptly ended in 1784. It would seem that there arose some jealousy between Lady Austen and Mrs Unwin; and Cowper, having to choose between his old friend and the new, did his duty firmly, with whatever sorrow. The Task was published in 1785, along with the Tirocinium. His next great work was his translation of Homer; this was published in 1791. Meanwhile, Mrs Unwin and he had removed to Weston, about two miles from Olney. Presently his old malady began to return. During the last six years of his life it pre. vailed almost without intermission. In 1796 Mrs Unwin died, but he seemed almost un. moved; indeed his gloom could not be made deeper. In March, 1779, he wrote that most forlorn and unhoping poem, The Castaway. On April the 25th, 1800, his troubles ceased for ever. Cowper was distinguished not only as a poet but as a letter-writer; indeed, in the epistolary literature of England he deserves and occupies the first place. His only rival is Horace Walpole; and when we consider first how different their lives were, how much fuller of suggestion and material Walpole's was, how seemingly dull and uninspiriting Cowper's, and, secondly, what license Walpole allows himself in his remarks and criticisms, how to be piquant he spares nothing and nobody, how, on the other hand, Cowper will not let an ill-natured word escape his pen, one cannot but claim for Cowper the praise of superior originality. He has succeeded in making the most eventless and unsuggestive life interesting, and this by no meretricious means-by no false colouring or extravagant orna ment. In his poems as in his letters truthfulness is one great characteristic charm of Cowper. The service he did to English literature by this thorough sincerity can scarcely be exaggerated. Perhaps his place in the history of our literature is higher than that he holds in that literature itself. In an age of poetic conventionality, of shallow theories, of soul-less practice, it was Cowper that inspired our poetry with a higher and nobler tone. Cowper began the needed reformation, which Wordsworth and Coleridge and Scott achieved. In this work he had one great coadjutor-Burns. The Ayrshire ploughman and the Buckinghamshire recluse, differing widely in character and genius, were in fact great allies. Their lives are alike in nothing but sadness. As poets they lived and worshipped the same sovereign mistress L |