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PART II.

Credunt homines rationem suam verbis imperare, sed fit etiam, ut verba vim suam super rationem retorqueant.- Bacon.

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NOTES,

Written on Perusal of The Diversions of Purley.

I. BUT (as distinguished from Bot) and "WITHOUT have both exactly the same meaning, "that is, in modern English, neither more nor less "than-Be-out."- Vol. i. page 215.

It is not improbable that SED the corresponding conjunction in Latin had a similar origin; and is the imperative of an obsolete compound of Do, sed-ere, (se dare) to put aside, to separate, in the imperative sede, contracted sed.

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II. "HEAD,—is heaved, heav'd, the past participle of the verb to heave: meaning that part (of the body or any thing else) which is heaved "raised or lifted up above the rest. In Edward the Third's time it was written Heved."-Vol. ii. page 39.

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Similar to this is the Anglosaxon Breard summum, the top, qu. berear'd from to rear: and perhaps it is still used in the primary sense in the Scotch word BREARD OF BRAIRD, which signifies corn of any kind, or any thing else, that had been

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sown or planted, and is berear'd or sprung up through the ground.

III. According to H. Tooke's system, THREAD may be supposed to be the past participle Thre-ed of the Anglosaxon verb thre-an, thraw-an, crispare, torquere, circumrotare, vexare, to twist or twine and the subaudition' is flax, wool, &c. Thraw-an (to thraw) is not obsolete in Scotland; and the rustic instrument for twining straw ropes is there called a thraw-crook.

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In like manner TEAT may be supposed to be the past participle of the Anglosaxon Tiht-an trahere, ducere, solicitare, provocare, To draw, tug (dug), pull, solicit, &c.

IV." OLD, ELD. By the change of the cha“racteristic I or Y, is the past tense and past

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participle of the Anglosaxon verb Ild-an, Yld-an, "to remain, to stay, to continue, to last, to endure, "to delay, morari, cunctari, tardare, differre.

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And this verb (though now lost to the language) was commonly used in the Anglosaxon with that meaning, without any denotation of long antiquity, as we now say—a week old, two days "old, but a minute old."- Vol. ii. page 198.

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He might have made YOUNG, Anglosaxon ge-ong, also a past participle from ean-ian, geean-ian parturire, to yean, to bring forth

My feeble goats

With pains I drive from their forsaken cotes;
And this, you see, I scarcely drag along,

Who, yeaning, on the rocks has left her YOUNG.

Dryden's Virgil.

V. "SALE, HANDSEL, is the past participle "of sylan dare, tradere, to sell. In our modern "use of the word a condition is understood. "Handsel is something given in hand."-Vol. ii. page 273.

This etymology of Handsel (adopted from Bailey) might be received, if the word meant earnest ; but as it signifies the first money got in selling, or the first act of using any thing, the etymology is not satisfactory.

I shall offer another conjecture, suggested by a way of using the word, perhaps obsolete in some places, but common in the North of Scotland. I have there heard it urged by a purchaser cheapening the first of any commodity for sale" Many a one has been the better for my handsel,'

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many have owned that they have thriven on my handsel-that my handsel has lucked with them," &c.

Qu. Hand's seile or hand's luck? The luck or seile of the hand giving the first money,-similar perhaps to the notion which gave rise to Luckpenny. As great stress was laid on the first foot, i. e. the first person met in setting out on a journey, some being regarded as more fortunate to meet than others*, so in bargain-making it was natural to

* "I pede fausto,"-" adsis pede secundo." The superstition of a happy foot is not yet obsolete.

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