place in inference. In applying the terms genus and species here, instead of in the former enumeration, I consider them as having become vernacular, and as having taken a purely relative sense. When Aristotle mentions the genus, it is not so much with relation to species, as in connexion with property and accident. I could not, in the preceding list, have used the word genus instead of attribute, merely because the word genus, in common language, is no more than a correlative of species, and is not usually thought of in opposition to accident or excludent. I signify the four universals as follows: Every x is y Every y is x No x is y.. Everything is either x or y or both ""} x is a species of y. x is a genus of y. x is an external of y (and y of x). x is a complement of y (and y of x). The species, then, is either the specific accident or the specific attribute. The genus is either the specific or generic attribute. The complement is either the specific excludent or the generic accident. The external is either the specific or generic excludent. The name of the particular proposition which denies one of the preceding universals, can in no case be a familiar term, so far as I can find. Not a species, is partly (at least) external, and may be called exient. Not a genus, that is, not entirely filling up, may be called subtotal. Not external, and therefore partly, at least, internal, may be called partient. Not a complement, and therefore not filling up the whole contrary, may be called a subremainder, or subremnant (the word , subcontrary being already appropriated). Thus we have Some as are not ys ther as nor ys .. -} x is an exient of y. x is a partient of y (and y of x). x is a subremainder of y (and y of x). With little practice, any one will be enabled to reduce a compound relation to a simple one, when it can be done. That a species of a species is a species is self-evident at once, from our familiarity with this one word. That the complement of a subtotal is partient will perhaps give a few seconds' thought, at first. It is the axiom on which the inference of the following syllogism depends :-Everything is either or y, some zs are not ys; therefore some zs are rs,in which a is the complement of y, the subtotal of z. All that precedes has been admitted into logic, so far as it can be done without direct admission of the contrary, or privative term. The cases I have brought forward are exhaustive of all the modes of predication which can be applied to one term by means of another, when the logical quantities employed are either none, some (not all), and all, or none, some (it may be all), and all. The question I raise is one of language entirely; can we propose any words instead of those I have given, which combine with sufficient system such an amount of ordinary meaning as will enable those who use them to do it with facility in a short time? VOL. VI. PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY. FEBRUARY 25, 1853. No. 130. HENSLEIGH WEDGWOOD, Esq., in the Chair. O. Ferris, Esq. was elected a Member of the Society. A paper was read— On the Etymology of the word Stonehenge." By Edwin Guest, Esq. That hackneyed subject, the origin of Stonehenge, bids fair once more to engage, if it does not reward, the attention of our antiquaries. The hypotheses which have been lately started to account for it, are as various and as inconsistent with each other, as those which exercised the ingenuity and the learning of the last century. It is not the intention of the writer to examine these hypotheses, or to determine whether Stonehenge be a portion of a gigantic planetarium; or a druidical temple built by the renegade Britons, after the departure of the Romans; or merely the " locus consecratus," where the Southern Belge held their national gatherings, whether for judicial or other purposes. These are inquiries, which, however interesting they may be to the antiquary or historian, would clearly be out of place in a paper read before this Society. But some of the writers who have followed these investigations have partly based their conclusions on etymological grounds; and it may not be an unsuitable inquiry, nor one altogether without interest to the professed philologist, to examine how far these grounds are tenable, and in what manner Englishmen, whose general attainments he may respect, will sometimes approach the discussion of questions which he has been accustomed to consider as falling more directly within his own province. He will probably think that a more familiar acquaintance with his favourite science would have led them to greater caution. Among the writers to whom we have referred, one of the foremost places must be assigned to the author of the Cyclops Christianus.' His favourite hypothesis is framed in accordance with the legend, which makes Stonehenge the scene where the Welsh nobles fell beneath the daggers of Hengist's followers. He considers this story to derive some corroboration from the name of the locality. Stonehenge, in the more ancient authorities, is often called Stonehenges, and a monkish writer of the fifteenth century, Simon of Abingdon, in one place writes the word Stonhengest. Mr. Herbert would have us consider Stonehenge and Stonehenges as corruptions of Stone hengest; and maintains that this latter word signifies the stone of Hengest. A scholar-and the author of the 'Cyclops Christianus' is a ripe and good one-could hardly overlook the difficulties which lie in the way of this hypothesis. He examines the question at great length, and with an ingenuity which may possibly have deceived him. I VOL. VI. F speak rather doubtingly, for he occasionally exhibits a spirit of banter which cannot but awaken the suspicion that he is playing with his reader. His arguments may be ranged under two heads :1st. He maintains it as a law of our language, that in those compounds in which one element bears to the other the same relation as an adjective to its substantive, the adjectival or qualifying member takes the first place. Hence he argues, that the commonly received opinion, which makes Stonehenge to signify the hanging stones (the pierres pendues of Wace) must be erroneous, inasmuch as, in this case, the qualifying element stands last. 2ndly. He considers this rule open to one exception, and that when the qualifying word is a proper name, it may take the last place; e. g. Port-Patrick, Fort-William, Mount-St. Michael, &c. From this he infers, that though it would be contrary to analogy to interpret Stonehenge as signifying the hanging stones, yet, considered as a corruption of Stone hengest, it may very well signify the stone of Hengest. It is presumed that no member of this Society will be disposed to quarrel with Mr. Herbert's first position. With respect to his second, we may observe, that such compound terms as Port-Patrick, &c., are instances of a Norman idiom, which has partially affected our language from the fourteenth century downwards, but which has never succeeded in establishing itself as a portion of our vernacular dialect. Stonehenge is clearly an English compound; its elements are English; and it may be traced to the twelfth century, when the Norman idiom referred to was unknown to our language. Such idiom therefore can hardly justify us in giving to Stonehenge or Stonehengest, the meaning which Mr. Herbert would assign to it. Mr. Herbert's speculations with respect to the origin of Stonehenge, and also as to the etymology of the name, are reviewed in an article which appeared in the Quarterly Review for last September. In considering the first of these questions, the reviewer adopts, though with very scanty acknowledgement, all the conclusions and most of the arguments which the present writer laid before the Archæological Institute some two years back, and which were published in the Archæological Journal, No. 30. It may seem therefore somewhat ungracious to quarrel with him on a point of philology. But his criticism affords us an instructive example of the manner in which these subjects are ordinarily treated; and as he appears to be a reader of our Transactions,' he will probably have an opportunity of seeing these remarks, and if he thinks fit, of replying to them. To the following passage, which appears in his text "Mr. Herbert seriously thinks that Stonehenge means Hengist's stone, which is after all not more improbable than the derivation of Hanging stones."-Quart. Rev. Sept. 1852, p. 305. he appends the note "We conceive that henge is a mere termination of the genitive or adjective kind, such as Mr. Kemble has given a list of in one of his papers for the Philological Society." May we not ask, what possible good can come from laying before the public crude and undigested notions like these? It is clear, if the reviewer were asked for his philological objections to Mr. Herbert's etymology, that he has none to give. What then is the value of his judgment upon it? It is just as clear, if he were asked to explain the meaning of Stonehenge according to Mr. Kemble's theory, that he would be equally at a loss. What then is the value of the conception" with which he favours us? The etymology which tradition has handed down to us, he dismisses very summarily; but the writer hopes to advance reasons sufficiently strong to convince the reader, that it is an explanation of the term which will satisfy both good sense and philological criticism. We find in many of the Gothic languages words closely resembling henge, and signifying something suspended, as a shelf, a curtain, an ear-ring, the overhanging side of a valley, &c. These words enter freely into composition. brot-hange, Germ.—shelves to hang bread on; brot, bread. qvark-hänge, Germ.—a frame to dry curds and cheese upon; quark, curds. thal-hänge, Germ.—the steep side of a valley; thal, a dale. òr-hange, Swed.-an ear-ring; òr-a, an ear. Have we in our own language any word that seems to answer to the element which occupies the final place in these compounds? Any person who enters a butcher's shop in the south or west of England may hear the phrase "head and hinge," by which the worthy tradesman designates the heads of certain animals, with the portions of the animal thence dependent. The word, it would seem, is sometimes pronounced hange or hanje; and in the Glossary to the Exmoor Scolding is thus defined :: Hanje or hanje. The purtenance of any creature, joined by the gullet to the head, and hanging together, viz. the lights, heart, and liver. The writer believes this to be only another application of the word, which appears as the final element of the compound Stonehenge ; and that in such compound henge signifies the impost, which is suspended on the two uprights. According to these views, Stonehenge might be used in any case in which one stone was suspended on two or more others; and in this sense we find it not unfrequently used in our literature. Stukely appears to have had some obscure notion, that the word might be used with this general meaning, for he tells us, he had been informed that in some locality in Yorkshire, certain natural rocks were called Stonehenge. Mr. Herbert makes short work with "a dishonest writer, the forger of the Dracontium;" and will only admit that "some place may have been so surnamed in modern times by knowing persons, and by way of comparison, but perhaps not even that." Stukely, however, might have easily accumulated authorities to rest his surmise upon, had he known where to look for them. "herein they imitated or rather emulated the Israelites, who being delivered from the Egyptians, and having trampled the Red Sea and Jordan (opposing them) under their feet, did by God's command erect a stonage* of 12 stones," &c.-Gibbons, A fool's bolt soon shot at Stonehenge. It should be observed, that Stonehenge is always called Stonage by the peasantry of the neighbourhood. "Would not every body say to him, we know the stonage at Gilgal?"—Leslie. "as who with skill And knowingly his journey manage will, Or with some subtle artist to conferre." G. Tooke's Belides, p. 11*. Hence we may understand how it comes to pass that Huntingdon and our older authorities generally write the name Stonehenges. Each of the trilithons was, strictly speaking, a stonage; and the entire monument might either be called the Stonages, or, if the word were used in its collective sense, the Stonage. Stonehengest, which Mr. Herbert discovered in one of the authorities quoted by Usher, can only be a clerical blunder for Stonehenges. Besides the word hang-e, there seems to have been, both in our own and in the other Gothic dialects, a related word which did not take the final vowel. From this the Germans got their vor-hang, a curtain; and ourselves, it would seem, the word Stonheng. "Arst was the kyng y buryed, er he myghte come there The word hang, which we thus wish to distinguish from hange or henge, is used in Norfolk, to signify, first, a crop of fruit i. e. that which is pendent from the boughs; and secondly, a declivity: Vid. Forby. It enters into the West-of-England compound, stake-hang. Stake-hang, s. sometimes called only a hang. A kind of circular hedge made of stakes, forced into the sea-shore and standing about six feet above it, for the purpose of catching salmon and other fish.-Jennings's Western Dialect. In East Sussex, it appears that the stage on which herrings are dried, is called a herring-hang: Dees, Herring-dees, a place in which herrings are dried, now more generally called a herring-hang, from the fish being hanged on sticks to dry. - Holloway's Provincialisms. During the fifteenth century, the trilithons at Stonehenge-or perhaps we might more correctly say their imposts-were, it would seem, known as the Stone hengles :— "The kyng then made a worthy sepulture With the stone hengles [wythyn Stonehenge] by Merlyns whole aduise For all the lordes Britons," &c.-Hardyng's Chron. p. 116. "Where he had woorde of his brother's enterrement Within the Giauntes carole that so then hight, The stone hengles [stonehenges] that now so named been," &c. *The last two examples are quoted by Nares. |