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case the country people will break down the hedges, rather than pass by an unhallowed way.

To LUMPER. To stumble, as a horse. Sedgemoor.

To MOOCH. To play truant, to stay from school. Bristol. MAZED. Deranged in mind. Cornwall. Mazed Bet Parkin, a woman well known in Padstow some 30 years since.Perhaps some of your correspondents may have made the same observation as myself, that there were a surprising number of persons of that description along the North coast of Devon and Cornwall.

MOILED. Troubled, fatigued. Sedgemoor.

NAN? A vulgar expression in the West of England, particularly in Gloucestershire, which means what do you say? Ha, or Hai, is commonly used for the same. In the neighbourhood of Sedgemoor, say ma'am-say sir, is very

common.

NESH. Soft, tender. It is applied to the health, and means delicate. Somerset.

A PEEL. A pillow. Somerset and Devon.
PILLUM, Dirt. Devon.

A PICKSEY. A fairy. Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall. Picksey-led, bewildered, led astray, particularly in the night, by a Jack-a-lantern, which is believed to be the work of the Picksies.

A PLOUGH. A waggon, or cart, or plough, together with the team which draws it, is called by no other name in several parts of Somersetshire.

TO DRIVE THE PRAY. To drive the cattle from the moor. Sedgemoor. French, près, a meadow.

RETCHUP, SO pronounced, though the original is probably Rightship. Truth, Somersetshire. As, there is no retchup in that child.

A RAIL. A revel, a country wake. Devon.

A SLICE. A fire shovel. Bristol.

STIVE. Dust. Pembrokeshire. Dust is there only used to signify sawdust.

To SAR, To earn. Sedgemoor. As, To sar seven Shillings a week. The same word is also used as a corruption of serve; as, To sar the pigs.

A SCUTE. A reward. North of Devon.

TO SLOTTER. To slop, to mess, to dirt. Devon.

STURE. Dust. Devon.

TO SLOCK. To pilfer, or give privately; and a Slockster, a pilferer. Devon and Somerset.

To for AT. All over Devon.

TH for S in the third person singular of verbs. Devon. As, It rainth-He livth to Parracomb-Whene he jumpth, all shakth.

TIDY. Neat, decent. West of England.

To TINE. To light, &c. As, Tine the candle. Somerset. Pronounced, in Devon, Tin.

TO TINE is likewise used in the neighbourhood of Sedgemoor for to shut. As, Tine the door-He has not tined his eyes to sleep these three nights.

A TUTTY. Pronounced also, in other places, a Titty. A nosegay. Somerset.

TWILY. Restless. Somerset. Perhaps a corruption of Toily.

TUTT-WORK. Job-work, as distinguished from work by the day. Somerset and Devon; and in the Cornish and Derbyshire mines. Probably derived from the French tout. UNKID, or UNCUT, Dull, melancholy. Somerset.

VITTY. Neat, decent, suitable. Cornwall. Perhaps a corruption of Fit, or Fetive.

To VANG. To give, reach, hand. Devon. As, Vang me the bread.

VORTHY, Forward, assuming. Somerset and Dorset.The original is, perhaps, forthy, derived from the adverb forth,

WISHT. Dull, gloomy. Cornwall.

Some of your correspondents will perhaps be able to inform you, that the use of most of these words is more extensive than is here set down. What is now sent is from the actual observation of one who is no great traveller.

1793, Dec.

MR. URBAN,

THE following illustrations of some of the local expressions, may not, perhaps, be unacceptable; and the instances, which I have subjoined of their usage by our great poets of elder days, may serve to evince the utility of such collections in critical inquiries, if, indeed, the thing requires any proof. To the authenticity of your correspondent's list, as far as it relates to Somerset, I can, and gladly do, bear testimony.

DON and DOFF are well known to be contracted from do on, and do off. From don is also formed the substantive donnings. Doff occurs frequently in Shakespeare and Spenser, and twice in Milton.

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"I praise thy resolution: doff these links."

"Nature in awe to him
Had dofft her gawdy trim."

Samps. Agon.

Ode on the Nativity.

JEMMIES. Ilinges. Grose, in his Provincial Glossary, gives Jimmers, and a North-country word, in the same In Somerset, I believe, the more common pronunciation to be jimmels, perhaps from the French jumelle, a twin, gemellus..

sense.

To MOOCH, to play truant. Otherwise mich, or meech, Somers. Shall the blessed son of heaven prove a micher, and eat black-berries." Shakespeare, Hen. IV. Part I. Act 2. Grose has "michers, thieves, pilferers, Norf."

MOILED, troubled, fatigued. Most likely from moile, or mayle, the ancient mode of writing; and the present West Country mode of pronouncing the name of that laborious animal, the mule.

NESH is used by Chaucer, I think, though I cannot now point out the particular passage; but I am certain that I have met with it in some old author of note.

PLOUGH, for a waggon and horses, comes probably from plaustrum, or rather from the Italian, plaustro; the diphthong au being sounded by the Italians like the English ou.

SCUTE, a reward. Bp. Fleetwood mentions a French gold coin, named a scute, of the value of 3s. 4d. current in England in 1427. See Chronicon Preciosum.

TIDY, neat, decent. Dol Tear-sheet calls Falstaff, "thou whoreson little tydie Bartholomew Boar-pig." Hen. IV. P. ii. Act 2.

TINE, to light. As, tine the candle. Thus Milton,

as late the clouds

Justling, or push'd with winds, rude in their shock,
Tine the slant lightning.”-

Par. L. B. X. l. 1073.

TINE, to shut. Verstegan gives, "betined, hedged about," in his list of old English words; and adds, "We use yet in some parts of England to say tyning for hedging." Antiquities, Ed. 4to. 1634, p. 210. In Somerset an inclosed field is frequently called à tining, in opposition to a down or

open common.

TWILY. Perhaps a corruption of toily.-Certainly; for toil is always pronounced by the Western rustics twile; spoil, spwile, &c.

TUTT-WORK. From the French tout. This is, probably, the true etymology; at least, it coincides with the notion which I have always entertained of its derivation; and it may be remarked, that such of our old provincial words as are not Saxon come for the most part from the French. There are very few among them, I believe, which are mere barbarous inventions, devoid of any signification; as some authors are fond of representing them. Many, doubtless, are so corrupted, that it is difficult, if not impossible, to trace them to their genuine original; but, to say that such an original does not, or did not, exist, is not only to draw an undue inference, but also to make an assertion in itself extremely improbable.

1794, Feb.

Yours, &c.

R. P.

MR. URBAN,

CIX. Critique on Virgil.

AT the conclusion of that Stoical system of philosophy, concerning the origin and rotation of mankind (a sort of metempsychosis different from the Pythagorean and Indian), delivered by the good Anchises, we have these lines:

Has omnes, ubi mille rotam volvêre per annos,
Lethæum ad fluvium deus evocat agmine magno :
Scilicet immemores supera ut convexa revisant,
Rursus et incipiant in corpora velle reverti.

En. VI. 748.

But, in my opinion, the two last lines have, by some means, been transposed, and the ut and et have consequently changed places; and the forgetfulness, induced by the River Lethe, should extend as well to the torments they had seen and suffered in the shades below, as to their being reborn with any innate notions or ideas of what they had known in their former state of existence here. Their desire of renascence should therefore take place before we are told of their being to be born without any remembrance. And so I would read,

Has omnes, ubi mille rotam volvêre per annos,
Lethæum ad fluvium deus evocat agmine magno:
Rursus ut incipiant in corpora velle reverti,

Scilicet immemores supera et convexa revisant.

A similar transposition has, I think, also happened in v. 367 of this same book, where of that sovereign judge Rhadamanthus, it is said,

Castigatque auditque dolos; subigitque fateri, &c.

but, stern and severe as this judge is supposed to be, he must nevertheless have been just, to entitle him to his office; and yet it would be highly absurd and cruel in him, and extremely unjust, to punish a person before he had heard the cause, as Servius notes, and therefore would read it thus:

Audit, castigatque dolos; subigitque fateri, &c.

for then, indeed, if after the conviction, the criminal should be made by torture, or any other means, to confess his guilt, there would be nothing much to be blamed, in respect to injustice, or wantonness of cruelty. However, it must be owned at last, that the common order of the words is ancient, as appears from Servius.

1794, Jan.

L. E.

CX. Solecisms in the Works of English Authors.

MR. URBAN,

IT is well known that the ancient Greeks and Romans took infinite pains to improve their respective languages. We have many remarkable instances of their labours to this effect in the writings of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the author who passes under the name of Demetrius Phalereus, Cicero, Quinctilian, Aulus Gellius, and others. The English reader will be surprised to see with what exactness they measured their periods, analyzed their phrases, arranged their words, determined the length of their syllables, and avoided all harsh elementary sounds, in order to give grace and harmony to their compositions. To this refinement we may, in a great measure, ascribe that inexpressible charm,

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