Bry, turbare vel vexare, far lefs with the Saxon Brynia, Enfis; which by the way, rather fignifies Galea. Whatever the primitive may be, the Brounie, from his occupation and habits, may be identified with the Portuni of Gervafe of Tilbury. Otia Imperialia, p. 960.-Benfie, a kind of fpirit, is derived from Benz Teutonic, Diabolus, and ultimately from Bann, excommunicatus; whereas this being, who is still reverenced as the tutelar dæmon of ancient Irish families, is of pure Celtic origin, and owes her title to two Gaelic words, Ben and fighean, fignifying the head or chief of the faeries. Farifolk, or faery folk, is derived in the gloffary from Teut. bieren, feriari vel feftos dies agere. The French faerie is a much more obvious root; which may, perhaps, be ultimately traced to the peri of the Perfians, or feri of the Saracens.-With the fame anxiety to find a Teutonic cognate, fode is derived from Swed. fogde, Teut. voght, voghde, præfectus. But this difagrees with the epithet of frely fede, which occurs fo frequently in metrical romance, and which proves that the word is a participle or adjective. It is ufed in many cafes where Sibbald's derivation is inapplicable; as, in the romance of Ywain and Gawain, it is introduced as a contumelious expreffion :

Sertainly fo fals a fode

Was never cuinen of kingis blode.'

By Winton and many other rhimers, it is applied to a woman,
Syne Saxon and the Scotis blude
Togyder is in you frely fude. '

(Queen Maud.)

In the ancient romance of Hornchilde, a knight calls his fon (a youth, not a commander),

Mi childe my oune fode.'

In Sir Triftrem, we have it thus fpelt:

Nas never non fairer fedde

Than Maiden Blanchflowe.'

We believe it fignifies nothing more than fed,' or nurtured:" Frely fode, will thus mean, well nurtured.'-Mulde-mete, the laft meat before death, is explained from multen, Swedish, rotten; whereas, it is fimply mold-meat, or food previous to being laid in mold.-A few other inftances might be pointed out, in which Mr Sibbald's attachment to a Gothic, and efpecially a German derivation, has led him to neglect nearer cognates in the Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, and French; but enow of derivations will remain undifputed, to afford no fmall matter of triumph to the adherents of Pinkerton.

As a fpecimen of Mr Sibbald's ftyle, of his zeal for the Gothic system, and of the candour with which he states arguments

contrary

contrary to his own opinion, we shall tranfcribe his obfervations on the letters quh, used in ancient Scotifh for wh, and which is known to be one of the few peculiarities which diftinguish the manuscripts of our country from the old English, and, of course, favour the fyftem of those who derive our dialect from a different modification of the Teutonic fuppofed to have been spoken by the Picts.

The ufe of qub, inftead of wh or hw, is a curious circumftance in Scotifh orthography, and feems to be borrowed immediately, or at firft hand, from the Gothic, as written by Ulphilas in the fourth century. In his Gothic Gofpels, commonly called the Silver Book, we find about thirty words beginning with a character (o, with a point in the centre), the power of which has never been exactly afcertained. Junius, in his gloffary to thefe Gofpels, affigned to it the power and place of qu. Stiernheim and others have confidered it as equivalent to the German, Scandinavian, and Anglo-Saxon bw. And, laftly, the learned Ihre, in his Suio-Gothic Gloffary, conjectures, that this character did not agree in found with either of thefe; but fonum inter hu et qu medium habuiffe videtur. Unluckily, he pursues the subject no farther; otherwife, he could scarcely have failed to fuggeft the Scotifh qub; particularly as a great proportion of thefe thirty Gothie words can be tranflated into Scotifh by no other words but fuch as begin with these three letters, ex. gr. Goth. qua or hwa, Scot. quha, Goth. quis or bwis, Scot. quhais, Goth. quazub or hwazuh, Scot. qubafo, qubafoever. Goth. qubathro or hwhatbro (unde), Scot. quhar. frae or qubair-thrae, Goth. quan or hwan, Scot, quhan, Goth. quar or hwar, Scot. quhar or quhair, Goth. qudar, quathar, Scot. quheder, qubether, Goth. quila or heweila, Scot. quhil or qubyle, Goth. quileiks or bwileiks, Scot. quhilk, Goth. qubait or brait, Scot. qubeat, Goth. queit or hweit, Scot. qubite. When thefe Gothic words, therefore, come to be again mentioned, it will be no great innovation upon the authority of Ihre, to adopt fome middle found between the qu and bw. But, notwithstanding of its ftriking coincidence with the Scotish qub, to avoid any charge of hypothetical partiality, a different element or combination of letters fhall be here affumed, viz. gw; a found which appears to furnish an apology for Ulphilas having coined a letter unknown in the Greek and Roman alphabets; a found, too, which occurs not unfrequently in the ancient language of Germany, ex. gr. gwaire, verus; gwallichi, potentia, gloria (this word ferves in fome degree to direct us to the found, it being alfo written cuolichi); gwallichon, glorificare; gwerf, fymbolum, conjectio; gwiurtero, ignitorum. When this harsh found gave way everywhere to the bw, (and, at leaft in one inftance, to qu), the character which Ulphilas had invented to exprefs it fell of course to be laid afide. In Scotland alone, the found was preferved, and appears to this day under the form of Quh.'GLOSSARY, Qu.

Mr

Mr Sibbald adds the conjecture of a learned friend, who feems inclined to think that the Gothic character under confideration appears to be the ancient Eolic digamma afpirated in pronunciation,' and probably thinking that derivation of a pure Gothic letter ftill too modern, questions whether it may not be derived from the Hebrew ain, the pronunciation of which is a matter of great difpute.' If Mr Sibbald had confulted Hickes, with whofe labours he feems to have been little acquainted, he would have had the fatisfaction of feeing his first conjecture buckler'd by that mighty authority. He fays exprefsly of this Mæfo-Gothic letter, fonat ut bw Anglo-Saxonum, wh Anglorum, vel qub Scotorum, in quhite, quhether, qubat, qubuy, qubilk;' and, in the rules for applying the letters, Hickes obferves, that Ulphilas was not the inventor, but the collector and applier of this fixteenth letter of the Gothic alphabet, which has the power of an afpirated o, as, ho or hoo. We cannot help thinking, that this afpirated, or rather guttural found of qub Scot. is equivalent to the gu of the old English and modern Spanish; as, guild, in the former, is indifferently spelt whelde; and aguilar, in the latter, is pronounced awhuilar. The difference in form betwixt the written g and q, is very trifling, although the Scots do feem to have been fingular in adopting the latter fhape. Whether this can, in the penury of early manufcripts, be traced to fuch antiquity as to authorife the conclufion, that it was derived from a tribe of Goths unconnected with the Saxons, we cannot stop to inquire. The controverfy has been maintained. with great warmth; we leave it, with the prudent refolution of Dame Quickly- We will not burn our fingers, and need not, indeed la!'

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In the general explanations of Mr Sibbald, a very few inaccuracies occur. Bole is explained, a little armory or closet.' This is not accurate : it means a deep window or recefs formed in the wall. Three different explanations are given of the word boun: bowdin, bodin, bowyn, boun, furnished, provided, &c.: boun, going, moving; and bounit, tended, went. The first of these only is correct. Boun means, equipped for war or travel; and boun or bebounit to a place, means to be prepared to go thither. It is retained in the maritime phrase whither bound,' which does not precifely mean, whither are you failing, but for what port have you been fitted out. Obliquely, no doubt, the phrafe may imply the immediate progreffive motion; but this is not its primitive or proper fenfe. Cleugh is not accurately defined,' oppofite rugged banks :' it means, the hollow betwixt fuch banks; and implies, that fuch hollow is very narrow. Swengeour does not fignify, unless by implication, a ftout wencher, or one who

roams

roams about after the girls;' far lefs is it derived from Teut. fwente, virgo, from fwentzen, vagare; from Danish, frangrer, gignere; from Old English, fwinker, labourer; or finally, from Saxon, fwancan, labourer. It means only a ftrong man, or, as the vulgar till fay, a fwingeing fellow, from Mæfo-Goth. fwintheius, potentia, or fainths, validus, robuftus, as in Ulphilas gatayida fwinthein, fecit potentiam. Buttock mail is too generally explained fome kind of rent paid to the church, fince it means, the fum paid to ranfom a fornicator from doing penance on the ftool of repentance. If lycame or likam fignifies exclufively a human body while in life,' (which we greatly doubt), it differs ftrangely from its cognate leichnam, Germ. which means a corpfe. Efchelle is explained, generally, as a particular manner in which the divifions of an army or regiments were difpofed.' The word is retained in tactics, and means the oblique movement of a number of divifions. Mr Sibbald, however, knew more about it than the French General of cavalry, who, when defired to march in eschellon, answered-' Sacre! c'est bien pour l'enfanterie, mais comment faire monter mes chevaux par une efchelle!' Bumbard certainly fignifies a cannon, as explained by Mr Sibbald; but he fhould have added, that it occafionally fignifies a black leather tankard, otherwife called a black jack. Trinculo compares a black cloud to a huge bumbard about to fpill its liquor. Indeed, the artillery of the field and table often exchanged epithets, and furnished analogies, perhaps because the leather cannon, at one time in ufe, refembled the tankard. In Monfieur Thomas, when Lancelot brags of having broken the butler's head, Sebaftian anfwers,

No, bafe palliard,

I do remember yet that onflaught; thou waft beaten
And fledit before the butler, a black jack
Playing upon thee furiously: I faw it;

I faw thee fcattered, rogue '

Some inconfiftencies have alfo crept into this valuable gloffary. Thus, knapfcha' is, in the Chronicle, confounded with knapfack; but, in the gloffary, is rightly explained as a diftinct word, fignifying a steel cap or morion. Some words of difficult interpretation are altogether omitted, as, yrle, a dwarf ; wobat, a hairy caterpillar; curle-doddy, a fort of clover; cum paucis aliis. Ả pretty large clafs of omiffions might be made up from the Adventure of Sir Gawayne;' but the editor probably thought with us, that, in fuch alliterative poems, many words are used rythmi gratia, in a very constrained and oblique fenfe, and fome are probably forged for the nonce. Upon fome future occafion, we may give the public our fentiments on this head.

In one instance, at least, Mr Sibbald appears. to have beet a little misled by national partiality. Thir, which is only a contraction of the cockney phrafe, thefe here, is faid to have no correfponding English word; as, thir fhillings (which I hold concealed in my hand) are better than thefe upon the table.' The meaning would be perfectly expreffed in Englith, by faying, These fhillings are better than thefe."

Far-itrained etymologies of the names of perfons and places, afford moft amulement to the corners, and are heedfully to be avoided in this branch of literature. Mr Sibbald, whofe judgement feems greatly to have counterbalanced his imagination, affords few openings for mirth, at the expence of his derivations. Nevertheless, as if it were destined that no glotlarift, how foberminded foever, fhould abfolutely refift the temptation which most cafily befets them, the editor of the Scotifh Chronicle has fuccumbed in one remarkable inftance.

• Sneddon, Sneddon Caffle, Snowdon, an old name of Stirling Castle, and fo called by the people in its neighbourhood at this day; as Edinburgh is called Old Redie. William of Worcester, an ancient English hiftorian (about 1440), mentions Striveling, alias Snowden-Weft-Caf tle; and, in later times, Sir David Lindfay gives it the fame appella❤ tion (fee vol. II. p. 95.) The name of Sneddon, or Sneddoun, was probably affumed from the appearance of the rock on which the caftle is fituated, viz. a fnedilen, or fuodden rock. See Sned, to hew down, or lop off. Sax. Snidan, fecare, refecare, dolare. Otfrid. Snide, abfcindere, which correfponds exactly with the appearance of the precipice. In the Saxon Chronicle, under the years 922 and 924, the city of Nottingham is called Snottingham, originally perhaps Snodingham, which, according to the defeription of the place, feems to be derived from the fame kind of origin. This leads to a new etymology of Edinburgh. If Stirling was Sneden, or Snedin-Wf-Caftle, we may fafely prefume there was alfo an E-Snedin-Caftle, i. e. a caftle of fimilar appearance to the caftward of Stirling. And fince Nottingham was formerly Snottingham, it is not impoffible that Edinburgh, in early times, was Sredinberg. After undergoing, like Saottingham, the difion of S, it might for fome time be Nedinbergh; and, at this period, the Gaelic name Dun-Aidan may have been formed. In the process of time, Nedenburgh (gallicè Dun-Aidan, or Dun-Neden) may have given way to Edinburgh, the initial N being omitted, as in the word adder, or ferpent. Sax. neider. Evis, from nieren, renes.' Gloffary, voce SNEDDON.

This is the true language of fanciful etymology. It is, in the first place, affumed, that Snadoun must mean the Snodden, or Snedded-Down Caftle: 2dly, Becaufe one English hiftorian cafually deferibes Stirling by its fituation, as Snadoun-We: there muft have been a Snadoun-Eaft, which is mentioned by no hifto

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