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a similar instance the facility and probability of the corrup

tion.

When the cowherd's wife upbraids King Alfred in Speed, for letting the cake at the fire burn, the author observes, she little suspected him "to be the man that had been served with far more delicate cates," Speed's Hist. p. 386. here it signifies a cake, but in general it means any dainty or delicacy, as in the example following, and as Dr. Littleton well notes when he Latinizes it in his Dictionary cibi delicati. In the Moresco feast called Ashorah, Dr. Lanc. Addison tells us, the Moors eat nothing but "dates, figs, parched corn, and all such natural cates as their substance can procure," Addison's account of West Barbary, p. 214. In Taylor's Play, the hog hath lost his pearl; Lightfoot says of King Cræsus in the shades below, that he is there,

Feasting with Pluto and his Proserpine
Night after night with all delicious cates.

Dodsley's Old Plays, Vol. iii. p. 227.

So in Heywood's Woman Killed with Kindness, Anne

says,

for from this sad hour

I never will, nor eat, nor drink, nor taste
Of any cates that may preserve my life.
Ibid. Vol. iv. p. 139.

In Lylie's Euphues, Euphues says, "be not dainty mouthed,
a fine taste noteth the fond appetites that Venus said her
Adonis to have, who seeing him to take his chief delight in
costly cates, &c." Lylie's Euphues, p. 242.
Here it appa-
rently signifies delicacies, and indeed I take the word to be
no other but the last syllable of the word delicate, for the
last cited author, p. 356, uses the word delicate in the very
same sense, when he says of the English ladies, "drinking
of wine, yet moderately eating of delicates, yet but their
ears full," and perhaps from this word cater and a caterer,
which are both of them English and not French terms.

Now that this is the true original of this saying is very clear from a similar corruption in the word salt-cat. A saltcat is a cake well impregnated with brine, and laid in a pigeon house, in order to tempt and entice the birds, who are exceeding fond of it; and cat is here used for cate, in the sense of a cake just as it is in this proverbial saying which we are now explaining.

I am, Sir, yours, &c.

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MR. URBAN,

I REMEMBER to have said in Feb. Magazine, "perhaps from this word cate comes to cater, and a caterer, which are both of them English, and not French terms." At the same time I deduced the word cate from the last syllable of the word delicate, but since the writing of that paper, I find that whereas Chaucer, p. 5. line 569. of Mr. Urry's edition, writes,

A manciple there was of the temple,
Of which all catours might take ensample,
For to ben wise in buying of vitaile;
For whether he payid or toke by taile,
Algate he waitid so in his ashate,

That he was ay before in gode estate;

The first of the Harleian MSS. has Achators for all catours; and the word ashate in the glossary is explained, "buying, dealing, acate, MS. ch. from the French, achat, acheter; whence catour, caterer. French, acheteur; a buyer, anciently written acatour. Gl. Lob." These etymologies are certainly very plausible, and it is submitted to the learned to decide, whether they are not preferable to those offered by me, if so, the word cate comes from the French acate or achat, and the word cater from the French acheter. I am, Sir, yours, &c.

1754, Feb. May.

PAUL GEMSEGE.

XIII. The Proverb-At Latter-Lammas-explained.

MR. URBAN,

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THE late Mr. Ray, in his English Proverbs, very well explains the sense and meaning of the proverbial phrase at latter Lammas, "ad Græcas calendas, says he, i.e. never, SEXY μÍOVOL TEXEŃ, cum muli pariant, Herodot." But the question still recurs, how came latter Lammas to signify never? I answer, The first of August had a great variety of names amongst our ancestors: It was called Festum Sancti Petri ad vincula, Gula Augusti, Peter-mass, and amongst the rest, Lammas. The two former of these names depend upon an old legend, which in Durantus runs thus: "One Quirinus, a tribune, having a daughter that had a disease in her throat, she, by the order of Alexander, then Pope of

Rome, and the sixth from St. Peter, sought for the chains, with which St. Peter was bound at Rome, under Nero; and having found them, she kissed them, and was healed; and Quirinus and his family were baptized. Tunc dictus Alexander Papa hoc festum in calendis Augusti celebrandum instituit, et in honorem beati Petri ecclesiam in urbe fabricavit, ubi ipsa vincula reposuit, et ad vincula nominavit, et calendis Augusti dedicavit. In qua festivitate populus illic conveniens ipsa vincula hodie osculatur." Durant. Rationale divin. Offic. lib. vii. p. 240. The festival was instituted on occasion of finding the chains, and of the miracle wrought by them, and so was intitled Festum Sancti Petri ad vincula; and because the part upon which it was performed was the gula or throat, in process of time, it came to be called Gula Augusti. It took the name of Peter-mass partly from the apostle, and party, as I think, from its being the day, when the Rome-scot or Peter-pence, in ancient time, (when that tribute was paid in this kingdom) was levied. The Confessor's law is very express, "The peter-penny ought to be demanded at the feast of the apostles Peter and Paul*, and to. be levied at the feast called ad vincula+." Eccles. Laws of Edward the Confessor, A. D. MLXIV. c. 11.

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We come now to Lammas, of which there are two etymo logies. The first is in Cowel, "Lammas-day," says he, is the first of August, so called, quasi Lamb-mas, on which day the tenants that held lands of the cathedral church of York, which is dedicated to St. Peter ad vincula‡, were bound, by that tenure, to bring a living lamb into the church at high mass." Cowel's Interpreter. But this custom may seem too local, to give occasion to so general a name, and therefore the etymon given us by Mr. Wheatly from Somner, I would chuse to prefer. These gentlemen derive it from the A. Saxon hlafmasse, that is, Loaf-mass, it having been the custom of the Saxons to offer that day, universally throughout the whole kingdom, an oblation of loaves, made of new wheat, as the first fruits of their new corn. pears from many passages in the Saxon chronicle, that this name is of great antiquity in some of them there is the h prefixed, which shews it has no relation to the lamb, agñus ;

It ap

* June 29.

+ Mr. Johnson says, King Offa chose this time for the payment of the Peter pence, because on this day the relicts of St. Alban the martyr were first discovered to him.

This is not true; it is dedicated to St. Peter, but not to St. Peter ad vincula The feast of the dedication is Oct. 1. See Mr. Drake's Eboracum.

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and in others, as anno 913, 918, 921, and 1101, it is expressly written hlafmasse and the learned editor and translator of the Saxon annals renders it every where very justly, by Festum primitiarum.

Now as to the point in hand, Lammas-day was always a great day of accounts; for in the payment of rents, &c. our ancestors distributed the year into four quarters, ending at Candlemas, Whitsuntide, Lammas, and Martinmas, and this was every whit as common as the present division of Ladyday, Midsummer, Michaelmas, and Christmas. In regard to Lammas, besides its being one of the usual days of reckoning, it appears from the quotation taken above from the Confessor's laws, that it was the specific day whereon the Peter pence, a tax very rigorously exacted, and the punctual payment of which was enforced under a penalty, by the law of St. Edward, was paid. In this view, then, Lammas stands as a day of accounts, and latter Lammas will consequently signify the last day of accounts, or the day of doom, which, in effect, as to all payments of money, and in general, as to all worldly transactions whatever, is never. Latter here is used for last, the comparative for the superlative, just as it is in a like case in the book of Job, xix. 25. "I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day, upon the earth," meaning the last day. That the last day, or the latter Lammas, as to all temporal affairs, is indeed never, may be illustrated by the following story. A man at confession owned to his having stolen a sow and pigs. The father confessor exhorted him to restitution. The man said, some were sold, and some were killed; but the priest not satisfied with that, told him, they would follow him to the day of judgment, if he did not make restitution: upon which the man replies quickly, I'll restore 'em THEN, as much as to say, never.

1754, Sept.

Yours, &c.

G. P.

XIV. On the Propriety of language in the Lord's Prayer..

MR. URBAN,

A Certain old Clergyman, in my neighbourhood, having formerly read the petition of Who and Which, in the Spectator, No. 78, has at last taken it into his head, to the great scandal of many honest and well-meaning people, when he

repeats the Lord's Prayer, to say, Our father who art in heaven, instead of Our father which art in heaven, according to the form prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer, which he has solemnly obliged himself to observe. He puts me in mind of a nice gentleman, now dead, who, when Lady W. was to return thanks in the church, after childbirth, thought it too familiar, and even bordering upon rudeness, to say, O Lord save this woman thy servant, and therefore he altered it to O Lord save this Lady thy servant, and instructed the clerk to reply; Who putteth her Ladyship's trust in thee; but to the point; that paper in the Spectator was not written by so great a judge of language as to induce one greatly to regard it; on the contrary, the observation there made is drawn merely from modern use, and betrays, in my opinion, great ignorance as to the ancient state of our language, and therefore one would wish that such innovations as these, taken up without sufficient grounds, might be entirely discouraged.

The Lord's Prayer, as it stands in the liturgy, is not taken from our present translation of the New Testament, and yet in this it is, which art in heaven, both in Matthew vi. and Luke xi. Neither is it taken from an older translation in use in Queen Elizabeth's time, where the address is in like manner expressed in both those texts. Nor, lastly, is it copied from Archbishop Craumer's Bible, where again you will find it represented no otherwise. From whence one may reasonably conclude, that the use of which for who in this case, cannot but be true English, these several translations being made by different authors, and who all of them, as must be presumed, had a competent knowledge of our laŭguage.

I observe next, that in this very service of ours, which is in other places used for who; as in that case cited by the Spectator, Spare thou them O God, which confess their faults; and this other in the visitation of the sick, O Lord save thy servant which putteth his trust in thee. Prayer for Ember weeks, those which shall be ordained. So in the gospel for Thursday before Easter we read, And one of the malefactors which were hanged, railed on him, &c. Psalm. xvii. 7, we have Thou that art the saviour of them which put their trust in thee; and verse 13, Deliver my soul from the ungodly, which is a sword of thine. Again, Ps. xviii. 2. I will call upon the Lord which is worthy to be praised; and verse 17, them which hate me. But what is most remarkable is that pas sage in the communion office, Glorify your father which is in heaven, it is so exactly corresponding to this in question.

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