English Past and Present | Page 8

but it was 'peuple' first, while 'popular' is a direct transfer of a
Latin vocable into our English glossary. So too 'enemy' is 'inimicus',
but it was first softened in the French, and had its Latin physiognomy
to a great degree obliterated, while 'inimical' is Latin throughout;
'parish' is 'paroisse', but 'parochial' is 'parochialis'; 'chapter' is 'chapitre',
but 'capitular' is 'capitularis'.
{Sidenote: Doublets}
Sometimes you will find in English what I may call the double
adoption of a Latin word; which now makes part of our vocabulary in
two shapes; 'doppelgängers' the Germans would call such words{21}.
There is first the elder word, which the French has given us; but which,
before it gave, it had fashioned and moulded, cutting it short, it may be,
by a syllable or more, for the French devours letters and syllables; and
there is the later word which we borrowed immediately from the Latin.
I will mention a few examples; 'secure' and 'sure', both from 'securus',
but one directly, the other through the French; 'fidelity' and 'fealty', both
from 'fidelitas', but one directly, the other at second-hand; 'species' and
'spice', both from 'species', spices being properly only kinds of aromatic
drugs; 'blaspheme' and 'blame', both from 'blasphemare'{22}, but

'blame' immediately from 'blâmer'. Add to these 'granary' and 'garner';
'captain' (capitaneus) and 'chieftain'; 'tradition' and 'treason'; 'abyss' and
'abysm'; 'regal' and 'royal'; 'legal' and 'loyal'; 'cadence' and 'chance';
'balsam' and 'balm'; 'hospital' and 'hotel'; 'digit' and 'doit'{23}; 'pagan'
and 'paynim'; 'captive' and 'caitiff'; 'persecute' and 'pursue'; 'superficies'
and 'surface'; 'faction' and 'fashion'; 'particle' and 'parcel'; 'redemption'
and 'ransom'; 'probe' and 'prove'; 'abbreviate' and 'abridge'; 'dormitory'
and 'dortoir' or 'dorter' (this last now obsolete, but not uncommon in
Jeremy Taylor); 'desiderate' and 'desire'; 'fact' and 'feat'; 'major' and
'mayor'; 'radius' and 'ray'; 'pauper' and 'poor'; 'potion' and 'poison';
'ration' and 'reason'; 'oration' and 'orison'{24}. I have, in the instancing
of these named always the Latin form before the French; but the
reverse I suppose in every instance is the order in which the words were
adopted by us; we had 'pursue' before 'persecute', 'spice' before 'species',
'royalty' before 'regality', and so with the others{25}.
The explanation of this greater change which the earlier form of the
word has undergone, is not far to seek. Words which have been
introduced into a language at an early period, when as yet writing is
rare, and books are few or none, when therefore orthography is unfixed,
or being purely phonetic, cannot properly be said to exist at all, such
words for a long while live orally on the lips of men, before they are set
down in writing; and out of this fact it is that we shall for the most part
find them reshaped and remoulded by the people who have adopted
them, entirely assimilated to their language in form and termination, so
as in a little while to be almost or quite indistinguishable from natives.
On the other hand a most effectual check to this process, a process
sometimes barbarizing and defacing, however it may be the only one
which will make the newly brought in entirely homogeneous with the
old and already existing, is imposed by the existence of a much written
language and a full formed literature. The foreign word, being once
adopted into these, can no longer undergo a thorough transformation.
For the most part the utmost which use and familiarity can do with it
now, is to cause the gradual dropping of the foreign termination. Yet
this too is not unimportant; it often goes far to making a home for a
word, and hindering it from wearing the appearance of a foreigner and
stranger{26}.

{Sidenote: Analysis of English}
But to return from this digression--I said just now that you would learn
very much from observing and calculating the proportions in which the
words of one descent and those of another occur in any passage which
you analyse. Thus examine the Lord's Prayer. It consists of exactly
seventy words. You will find that only the following six claim the
rights of Latin citizenship--'trespasses', 'trespass', 'temptation', 'deliver',
'power', 'glory'. Nor would it be very difficult to substitute for any one
of these a Saxon word. Thus for 'trespasses' might be substituted 'sins';
for 'deliver' 'free'; for 'power' 'might'; for 'glory' 'brightness'; which
would only leave 'temptation', about which there could be the slightest
difficulty, and 'trials', though we now ascribe to the word a somewhat
different sense, would in fact exactly correspond to it. This is but a
small percentage, six words in seventy, or less than ten in the hundred;
and we often light upon a still smaller proportion. Thus take the first
three verses of the 23rd Psalm:--"The Lord is my Shepherd; therefore
can I lack nothing; He shall feed me in a green pasture,