English Past and Present

Past and Present, by Richard
Chevenix Trench

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Title: English Past and Present
Author: Richard Chevenix Trench
Editor: A. Smythe Palmer
Release Date: March 25, 2007 [EBook #20900]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH
PAST AND PRESENT ***

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{TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

All square brackets [] are from the original text. Braces {} ("curly
brackets") are supplied by the transcriber. Characters that could not be
displayed directly in Latin-1 are transcribed as follows:
{-e} e with macron above {)e} e with breve above {+} obelus (dagger)
symbol
In addition, a short passage on page 222 uses unusual phonetic symbols,
which are transcribed with Latin-1 characters where possible and with
letters in {braces} otherwise. The html version contains images of the
original book's symbols.
In the original book, the odd-numbered pages have unique headers,
marked here as sidenotes.
Obvious printing errors involving punctuation (such as missing single
quotes), as well as alphabetization errors in the index, have been
corrected without notes. Other corrections of printing errors, as well as
notes regarding spelling variations, are listed at the end of this file.}

* * * * *

ENGLISH PAST AND PRESENT
BY
RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, D.D.
Edited with Emendations
BY
A. SMYTHE PALMER, D.D.
Author of 'The Folk and their Word-lore,' 'Folk-Etymology,'
'Babylonian Influence on the Bible,' etc.

{Illustration: Printer's Mark}
LONDON
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LIMITED
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
1905

EDITOR'S PREFACE
In editing the present volume I have thought it well to follow the same
rule which I laid down for myself in editing The Study of Words, and
have made no alteration in the text of Dr. Trench's work (the fifth
edition). Any corrections or additions that seemed to be demanded
owing to the progress of lexicographical knowledge have been reserved
for the foot-notes, and these can always be distinguished from those in
the original by the square brackets [thus] within which they are placed.
On the whole more corrections have been required in English Past and
Present than in The Study of Words owing to the sweeping statements
which involve universal negatives--statements, e.g. that certain words
either first came into use, or ceased to be employed, at a specific date.
Nothing short of the combined researches of an army of co-operative
workers, such as the New English Dictionary commanded, could
warrant the correctness of assertions of this kind, which imply an
exhaustive acquaintance with a subject so immense as the entire range
of English literature.
Even the mistakes of a learned man are instructive to those who essay
to follow in his steps, and it is not without use to point them out instead
of ignoring or expunging them. Thus, when the Archbishop falls into
the error (venial when he wrote) of assuming an etymological
connexion between certain words which have a specious air of
kinship--such as 'care' and 'cura,' 'bloom' and 'blossom,' 'ghastly' and
'ghostly,' 'brat' and 'brood,' 'slow' and 'slough'--he makes just the

mistakes which we would be tempted to make ourselves had not
Professor Skeat and Dr. Murray and the great German School of
philologists taught us to know better. Our plan, therefore, has been to
leave such errors in the text and point out the better way in the notes. In
other words, we have treated the Archbishop's work as a classic, and
the occasional emendations in the notes serve to mark the progress of
half a century of etymological investigation. It is hardly necessary to
point out that the chronological landmarks occurring here and there
need an obvious equation of time to make them correct for the present
year of grace, e.g. 'lately,' when it occurs, must be understood to mean
at least fifty years ago, and a similar addition must be made to other
time-points when they present themselves.
A. SMYTHE PALMER.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
A series of four lectures which I delivered last spring to the pupils of
the King's College School, London, supplied the foundation to this
present volume. These lectures, which I was obliged to prepare in haste,
on a brief invitation, and under the pressure of other engagements,
being subsequently enlarged and recast, were delivered in the autumn
somewhat more nearly in their present shape to the pupils of the
Training School, Winchester; with only those alterations, omissions
and additions, which the difference in my