A Good Servant.

Obsolete Words in Bible and Prayer-book.

BY T. LEWIS O. DAVIES, M.A., VICAR OF ST. MARY EXTRA, SOUTHAMPTON. E often find that words which once existed in more than one of the parts of speech, e. g. as verb and noun, or substantive and adjective, now survive in but one of these сараcities. They joy before Thee according to the joy in harvest' (Isa. ix. 3). In this text 'joy' appears both as verb and noun, but the former of these is obsolete, except in poetry. Bacon, is his Essay of Friendship, writes, 'There is no man that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more.' War' has been only too common a word in our mouths as a substantive, but such phrases as 'Joshua warred against Libnah' are antiquated. We do, however, retain the verb in the expression 'go to war.'

We speak now of a physician's skill, but we should not say that he could skill to cure diseases; but it is recorded of the Sidonians that they could' skill to hew timber' better than the Jews (1 Kings, v. 6); and in 2 Chron. xxxiv. 12, we read of all that could skill of instruments of music.' It is common enough to speak of an enterprise, but the Prayer-book warns us that matrimony is not to be enterprised nor taken in hand unadvisedly.' We may talk of others being in our company, but these men which have companied with us' (Acts, i. 21) is a sentence not in accordance with modern usage. The pipe and tabor are still familiar words, and are constantly joined together. 'Now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe.' Much Ado about Nothing, ii. 3.

But the verb to pipe,' at least in the sense of playing on the pipe (1 Cor. xiv. 7), is but little used, and 'to tabor' (Nah. ii. 7) is yet more obsolete. In our translation the instrument itself is always called tabret. We might promise a pleasure to another, but we should not now promise 'to pleasure' him (2 Macc. xii. 11). 'Summer' remains as a substantive though not as a verb; the fowls shall summer upon them' (Isa. xviii. 6). On the other hand we often speak of wintering at such and such a place (Acts, xxvii. 12). 'Wit' as a substantive is in constant use, though with a more restricted sense than formerly; but it was once common as a verb also, meaning to know, to ascertain. The man held his peace, to wit whether the Lord had made his journey prosperous' (Gen. xxiv. 21); and again, Moses' sister stood afar off to wit what would be done to him' (Exod. ii. 4). We do you to wit' (2 Cor. viii. 1); i.e. we would have you to know. 'Wot' is the perfect of 'wit,' but used as a present. 'I wot that through ignorance ye did it' (Acts, iii. 17). 'Wist' also is the perfect of wit' or 'wis.' 'He wist not what to say' (St. Mark, ix. 6).

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In all these cases the verb has succumbed and the noun survived; in several instances, however, the reverse has happened. A fisherman angles for fish, but we no longer call his rod and line an angle, as in Isa. xix. 8: All they that cast angle in the brooks shall lament.' Fuller, in the Holy Warre, writes, In these western parts heresies, like an angle, caught single persons; which in Asia, like a drag-net, took whole provinces.' We have 'drag' in Hab. i. 15. One of the Proverbs (xxv. 18) runs, A man that beareth false witness against his neighbour is a maul, and a sword, and a sharp arrow.' A maul is a

Obsolete Words in Bible and Prayer-book.

mace or hammer. So in the Faerie Queene (iv. 5, 42), when Sir Scudamour attempts to sleep in the House of Care, who is represented as a blacksmith with several workmen, we are told,—

And if by fortune any little nap

Upon his heavie eyelids chaunst to fall,
Eftsoons one of those villeins him did rap
Upon his headpiece with his yron mall.'

We have no longer 'maul' as a substantive, though we have 'mallet;' but it is still possible for us to maul, or be mauled. Bruit' is an Anglicised French word, meaning rumour or report; we might say, 'It is bruited abroad:' the use of the noun, as in Nah. iii. 19, 'All that hear the bruit of thee shall clap the hands over thee,' is obsolete. Bacon and also Fuller, quoting a proverb from the French, answering to our Great cry and little wool,' translate it, Much bruit, little fruit.' Latimer, complaining of some prelates who were backward in the duties of their office, especially in preaching, expresses a fear that their object was to reintroduce Popery, and that this report would reach the Pope's ears, and he shall send forth his thunderbolts upon these bruits; where it might be thought, if the sentence were only heard and not read, that the preacher was calling these bishops very hard names. 'Shine' has passed out of use as a noun, but in the Prayerbook version of Ps. xcvii. 4 we find, 'His lightnings gave shine unto the world.' So in Milton's Ode on the Nativity :—

And mooned Ashtaroth,

Heaven's Queen and Mother both,

Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine.'

'Ancients'

There are a few adjectives which once were substantives also. 'Abject,' for instance, is often used, especially with such words as poverty, fear, misery, &c. ; but in Ps. xxxv. 15 we have, The abjects gathered themselves together against me;' so George Herbert, Servants and abjects flout me.' 'Delicates '-' delicacies' (Jer. li. 34). Latimer compares wealthy persons who flow, i. e. abound, in delicates, with poor men who lack necessary meat and drink. with us is only employed as a substantive in the one phrase, 'the ancients,' by which we usually mean the Greeks and Romans; but in Isa. iii. 14, and in other passages, the word signifies old people, and I have heard a poor person call one advanced in years an ancient.' But many words and phrases linger among the peasantry after they have ceased to fall from the lips or pens of the educated, and much of what is called bad English is only old-fashioned English. Thus some one once said to me, I worship the dead,' using the term as in that clause in the Marriage Service to which I referred in my first paper.

I have constructed the following sentence, which is apparently full of solecisms, but each of them is more or less in use among the poor, and may be justified by good authority; the Bible and Prayer-book in many cases offering examples of them: 'We thought to have axed that party for to learn us how to get the nest-es of them birds; but the trees would clean ruinate our clothes-at leastwise that is what we be afeard on-and cloth costs a lot of brass, for his price ris wonderful a month agone.'

'Thought to'-'intended to.' I thought to promote thee unto great honour' (Num, xxiv. 11).

Obsolete Words in Bible and Prayer-book.

'Axed' is the old form of 'ask,' of frequent occurrence in Wicliff's translation, and even in Tyndale's, put forth in 1534. Chaucer has,

'Axe not why; for though thou axe me

I will not tellen Goddes privitee.'

Party' applied to a single person has, except in legal phraseology, an air of slang or vulgarity; it occurs, however, in Tobit, vi. 7: We must make a smoke thereof before the man or the woman, and the party shall be no more vexed.'

'For to'-'to,' is common in the Authorised Version, e. g. Exod. ix. 16. St. Luke, iv. 16. Acts, iv. 28.

'Learn' does not occur in the English Bible in the sense of 'teach,' but is found several times in the Prayer-book version of the Psalms: Lead me forth in Thy truth and learn me' (xxv. 4); ‘O learn me true understanding' (cxix. 66). Shakespeare also uses the word sometimes in this meaning.

'Nest-es.' The uneducated often make two syllables of such words as nests, posts, fists; they are, in reality, clinging to the old form. Foxis han dennes, and briddis of the eir han nestis' (St. Luke, ix. 58. Wicliff's translation).

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Them'-' those.' Spare Thou them which confess their faults; restore Thou them that are penitent' (General Confession). In these and all similar cases the American Prayer-book substitutes 'those.' 'Clean '-'quite.' Is His mercy clean gone for ever?' (Ps. lxxvii. 8.) It is of frequent occurrence in the Homilies: 'God's word being clean laid aside;' The children of unbelief be of two sorts, far diverse, yea, almost clean contrary.'

Ruinate ruin,' will be found in its past participle in the heading to Jer. xxxix. So Shakespeare, 'I will not ruinate my father's house' (3 K. Hen. VI. v. 1).

'At leastwise'-'at least.' In the Authorised Version at the least' is the form in which this expression always appears, but at the leastwise,' and at leastwise,' are very common in writings of the time. The vulgar, perhaps, more usually say 'leastwise' simply. I have not met with this in any good author.

'We be-we are. We be twelve brethren' (Gen. xlii. 32). 'The Philistines be upon thee', (Judg. xvi. 19). We be tied and bound with the chain of our sins' (Occasional Collect in Prayer-book). 'Afeard'' afraid.' The form does not occur in the Bible. Lady Macbeth says, 'Fie, my lord! fie! a soldier and afeard ?' and Spenser has the wo constantly.

'On'-'of.' In 1 Sam. xxvii. 11 it is found in a phrase that is still current; Lest they should tell on us,' i. e. 'of us.' In Macbeth we have, I tell you yet again Banquo's buried; he cannot come out

on's grave.'

A power of '—'a great many,' and so a 'great deal.' 'A power also of Syria and of the land of the Philistines joined themselves unto them' (1 Macc. iii. 41). He (Robert Bruce) sent over his brother Edward with a power of Scottes and Redd-shankes into Ireland' (Spenser's State of Ireland).

'Brass'-'money;' now a slang term or a provincialism. In St. Matt. x. 9, and similar passages, it stands for copper money, but Mr. Wright,

The Message of the Bells.

in his Bible Word-book, quotes from Piers Ploughman's Vision an example of the word being used for money generally.

His''its.' 'Its' is a comparatively modern word, and does not once occur in the version of 1611; in all modern Bibles the printers, or other irresponsible correctors, have inserted its' in one place (Lev. XXV. 5), where the original reading is it,' which was sometimes used where we should now put 'its.' In the Geneva Version (1557) of Acts, xii. 10, it is said that the iron gate' opened to them by its owne accorde.' Generally 'his, her, of it,' or 'thereof, take the place of this useful word, which was not then invented.

'Ris'' rose.' Cowley, who wrote in the middle of the seventeenth century, has,

'Only He spoke, and everything that is
Out of the fruitful womb of nothing ris.'

And Ben Jonson before him uses the word several times.

'Wonderful '-' wonderfully.' Dean Alford, in his book on the Queen's English, observes, that though adjectives are frequently put in the place of adverbs, e. g. 'Breathe soft, ye winds,' such adjectives are always monosyllables. In this, however, he was mistaken. 'The house which I am about to build shall be wonderful great' (2 Chron. ii. 9). Bacon writes, 'Wonderful like is the case of boldness.' Latimer's Sermons supply the following similar instances: Which works be of themselves marvellous good;' 'it becometh us to stand unto it so far forth as it is not manifest wicked.'

'Agone'-'ago.' 'My master left me, because three days agone I fell sick' (1 Sam. xxx. 13).